Cain's Courage

By Andrew McCoy

CAIN’S COURAGE
Andrew McCoy
Stop the terrorists — dead!

When three busloads of kibbutz children are blown up, one evil man is behind the outrage: diehard Nazi fanatic Max Spitz, alive and well, fabulously rich, and living in South America. Part-time kibbutznik Mark Bern resolves to fight fire with fire, but the Israelis don’t want to know. The days of the snatch squads are over.

But Bern goes ahead anyway, kidnapping Spitz’s sex-mad teenage granddaughter for a ransom of gold. His aim: to attack the Germans’ heavily defended main gold vault and take the terrorists’ wealth away for good.

Against him and his handful of hardened allies: not only ruthlessly bloodthirsty Nazis and the local secret police and army, but even, incredibly, Israeli Intelligence assassins...

CAIN’S COURAGE is the shattering story of a thirst for vengeance that literally knows no limits — the brutally violent saga of the struggle to wipe out the most dangerous nest of criminals and terrorists the world has ever known.

A famous bestseller comes to e-books for the first time!

Jacket blurb by Nick Austin, from the Grafton/Collins print edition

Publishers' Note: Lance Weber does not appear in CAIN'S COURAGE, but this novel sets the stage for a forthcoming Lance Weber novel, SMALL WAR, FAR AWAY.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew McCoy
• Release date: Dec 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310800986

Andrew McCoy

BOSS, the security police of the apartheid regime in South Africa, twice sent assassins after Andrew McCoy on publication of Atrocity Week and The Insurrectionist. South American Nazis hunted him for Cain's Courage.See Rave Reviews from the International Press for Andrew McCoyNovels by Andrew McCoyAtrocity WeekThe InsurrectionistAfrican RevengeBlood IvoryLance of GodThe Meyersco HelixCain’s CourageLiterary CriticismSTIEG LARSSON Man, Myth & Mistress (with André Jute)International Press Reviews of Andrew McCoy’s novels“Mr McCoy gets on with the job of telling us exactly what it is like in the Heart of Darkness. He has the soldier's eye for terrain and the soldier's eye for character. This has the ring of truth.”John Braine Sunday Telegraph“Very rough, exciting, filmic, and redolent of a nostalgie de boue d'Afrique...experienced only by the genuine old Africa hand.”Alastair Phillips Glasgow Herald“Like the unblinking eye of a cobra, it is fascinating and hard to look away from, powerful and unique.”Edwin Corley Good Books“I found this work excellent. I recommend it as a book to read on several planes, whether of politics, history or just as thriller -- every episode is firmly etched on my memory. It is certainly a most impressive work of fiction.”“H.P.” BBC External Service“Like a steam hammer on full bore.”Jack Adrian Literary Review“Something else again. The author has plenty of first-hand experience of the conditions he describes so vividly.”Marese Murphy Irish Times“Totally convincing fiction.”Colonel Jonathan AlfordDirector, Institute for Strategic StudiesBBC World at One“The reader is in good hands.”Kirkus Reviews“Even in an entertaining thriller he makes us see ourselves anew.”La Prensa“Graphic adult Boys Own Adventure.”The Irish Press

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CONTENTS

Dustjacket

Title Page

Start Reading CAIN’S COURAGE

Why Cain’s Courage is included in the Lance Weber Series

Dedication & Copyright

More books by Andrew McCoy & friends

CAIN’S COURAGE

Andrew McCoy

Stop the terrorists — dead!

When three busloads of kibbutz children are blown up, one evil man is behind the outrage: diehard Nazi fanatic Max Spitz, alive and well, fabulously rich, and living in South America. Part-time kibbutznik Mark Bern resolves to fight fire with fire, but the Israelis don’t want to know. The days of the snatch squads are over.

But Bern goes ahead anyway, kidnapping Spitz’s sex-mad teenage granddaughter for a ransom of gold. His aim: to attack the Germans’ heavily defended main gold vault and take the terrorists’ wealth away for good.

Against him and his handful of hardened allies: not only ruthlessly bloodthirsty Nazis and the local secret police and army, but even, incredibly, Israeli Intelligence assassins…

CAIN’S COURAGE is the shattering story of a thirst for vengeance that literally knows no limits — the brutally violent saga of the struggle to wipe out the most dangerous nest of criminals and terrorists the world has ever known.

A famous bestseller in e-books for the first time!

Jacket blurb by Nick Austin, from the Grafton/Collins print edition

CAIN’S COURAGE

*

Andrew McCoy

*

CoolMain Press

www.coolmainpress.com

If thine eye offend thee

The attack came just as the party started swinging.

Mark Bern stood in the cool air to one side of the door to the recreation hall, a glass in his hand, looking casually towards the group of brawny, tanned young men barbecuing a couple of suckling pigs over split forty-four gallon drums. Forty feet away another group of equally brawny and tanned young men were barbecuing several lambs over similar split drums. In between stood the women over two tables of implements, salads and buttered rolls. Between the tables, the rabbi guarded the no-man’s land between the kashrut food and implements and the rest: a fork that had ever touched pork could never again be used to convey food to the mouth of an orthodox Jew. Mark was too familiar with the division between those who considered the State of Israel a symbol of their religion and those who saw the possession of the land and its fruits as sufficient unto itself to remark on it now. His mind was not quite blank: he was thinking how peaceful Israel had become. Those at the barbecues, at the tables or inside the recreation hall would not agree, of course; they lived here and he only came for his holiday every year to reconstitute office-slack muscles with the heavy manual work the kibbutz invariably allocated him. He had been coming here every year since 1967, when he was still at school, and thought some of the more gradual changes might have escaped the others since they lived too close to them. In 1967 there were no parties…The party flowed past him. It was his only in the sense that he paid for it; that was perfectly all right with him.

He saw the first flare out of the corner of his eye and the second one when he turned. There was something happening halfway up the Golan Heights but then there was always something happening up on the Golan Heights. He saw the flashing lights of a helicopter but was too far away to distinguish the chop of the rotor. Nobody else paid the activity over towards the Syrian border much attention: there were soldiers to take care of these things and each of them would get his or her stint of soldiering in due course. Mark thought ruefully of how pleased he was with his own heroism in 1967 and again in 1973 (wars against Israel seemed then to be organized specifically so that he could be a hero without rearranging his schedule) — until he discovered that Israel had devalued the currency of heroism. Desperation threw up so much bravery and heroic initiative that even the Congressional Medal of Honor — if Israel possessed such a thing — would soon have become dirt-common.

Now…The kibbutz was on the wrong side of the Jordan but the last excitement had been a couple of months ago when a Palestinian terrorist blew himself up while trying to booby-trap a school bus. It happened before Mark arrived and he found out about it by accident because Rodzoventsky, the kibbutz intellectual, told him the dead Palestinian carried a wad of Swiss francs in his pocket: an oddity. Nobody doubted that the PLO owned Swiss bank accounts but the usual currency for disbursement to the terrorists was the American dollar they all professed to hate and despise. Rodzoventsky had taught economics at the Sorbonne before retiring to the kibbutz. In his days he drove a tractor and did some bookkeeping, in his evenings he studied the finances of the terrorists. Swiss francs in terrorist hands were new to him and Mark could not help him: Swiss francs, like their makers, were strictly anonymous.

Mark, his glass empty, found Rodzoventsky at the table where the gallon flagons of wine were sinking fast and the fruit punch was hardly touched. The old man smiled at him. He, with a few of the older people, understood Mark and his relationship to the other, outer world as the sabras did not. To say that the sabras, the native-born Israelis, were insular was not to detract from their rude vitality: their energies were simply directed inwards. Mark was fond of the old man with his flamboyant white hair and extravagant gestures and every year brought his whole duty-free spirits allowance as malt Scotch for Rodzoventsky who would make the bottle last all year.

Why are you looking so pensive? Rodzoventsky asked.

Sometimes, Rodzo, I don’t feel Jewish.

You’re not, you’re American.

That’s not what I mean.

I know. You paid for this magnificent party and everybody else is having it and you’re watching.

Out there a rabbi with a black beard is standing between the tables to see no pork fat gets on the spoons from the special drawer.

Rodzoventsky threw his head back to laugh heartily.

Mark did not laugh with him. While up in the hills a battle is being fought.

So? Do you ever go to New York?

Only when I have to.

Right. Who would live by choice in that hell of filth and noise? But people do. Here at least you breathe clean air. Instead of muggers, we have Palestinians. Instead of corrupt cops, we have Lebanese Christians. Instead of the Mafia, we have the Syrians. What makes you think your problems are worth bothering about?

Gee, thanks, Rodzo, you’re a real boost.

Have another drink. Get pissed. Have a woman. Tomorrow you’ll feel better. Hey, Sarah, come here! When she was near enough, he grabbed her arm. Sarah Grzync, I charge you, take this man and cheer him up with what you carry between your legs.

She looked down at him. God, you’re a vulgar little man. The only reason I tolerate you is because you can pronounce my surname.

She was a tall, slim woman in her middle twenties. A passionate nose saved her face from classicism and made her beautiful and desirable. Mark had not spoken to her much but he noticed that she did not partake of the musical beds the younger kibbutzniks indulged in. She wore a certain distance about her, emphasized by the absence of make-up and parting her hair in the middle to hang straight down to her shoulders, where it curled upwards; she also favored shirts of a militarily severe cut and men’s khaki trousers. Gossip was that she was a lesbian but no proof was ever offered or she would not be allowed to teach kindergarten or even to stay on the kibbutz.

There’s bound to be a Hebrew equivalent, Rodzoventsky said. Then everybody will be able to pronounce it.

Except me, Mark said. His Hebrew, despite all his summers in Israel, grew shakier with the passage of time. The problem was that everybody spoke English to him, even the sabras being so used to him that they admitted speaking the language and practiced on him — Rodzoventsky said it was an honor as the sabras were normally shy of their bad command of the nation’s second language, or proud of speaking only Hebrew, which came to the same thing in the end. But then I can’t pronounce your present surname either.

Not that it matters, she said, taking their glasses and turning to the table to fill them. People on the kibbutz were almost all called by their first names with the exception of the mavericks like Rodzoventsky and the Rabbi.

Fine haunches on that girl, Rodzoventsky said. If only I were twenty years younger—

She turned to them with full glasses. —you'd run like somebody stuck a turpentine rag up your ass, she said.

Mark laughed. This one was certainly a match for Rodzo.

He took the glass. Thanks.

Thank you for throwing the party. What are you celebrating?

Before he could answer her, they heard the explosion.

The shock-wave seemed to rock the building but Mark knew it was an illusion: the building was solid; what they felt was a compression of air. Somebody, cut by glass from the windows, screamed. Somebody else hit the light switches. Mark grabbed for Rodzoventsky and Sarah but they were already on the floor. Her body was warm against his hand as he dropped to the floor.

Rocket attack, somebody said near them.

I have to go to the children, Sarah said and started crawling for the door. People cursed.

Not the door. Mark grabbed at her arm. The window. They could be waiting at the door.

That rocket came from a long way off, a voice said scornfully.

Better safe than sorry, Rodzoventsky reprimanded the doubter.

Mark and Rodzoventsky followed Sarah through a window at the back of the building. Men and a few of the women were climbing through the other windows and running to the living accommodation to bring arms.

Sarah ran off into the darkness. Mark stood indecisively: he had never been any good with children and there was no firearm in his room.

You can drive for me, Rodzoventsky said, pulling his elbow in the dark.

Already armed men were crossing the open spaces in the crouched run of soldiers under attack. Rodzoventsky found a jeep and Mark started it. He swung it in behind another jeep carrying a grizzled crewcut type he recognized as a reserve captain: it was as good a lead to follow as any other. Two men carrying automatic rifles jumped up on their jeep as they gathered speed.

There’s going to be hell to pay tomorrow about unauthorized interference, Mark shouted at the old man.

Not for Rodzo and not for you, my friend. I’m an official interrogator and you’re interpreting for me. Mark drove without lights, following the jeep in front.

Behind him there were more vehicles but they were driving without lights too. If the moon disappears behind cloud, there will be a nasty accident, Mark thought.

There was a flash of light ahead and the leading jeep left the road to the right. Mark spun the wheel of his own jeep to the left. He trod on the footbrake and jerked the handbrake full on. He cursed as he fought the jeep; it was spinning in the loose gravel used as fill on the shoulder. The suspension thumped in a shallow ditch. Before rolling over the side of the jeep to join the others behind it, he released the handbrake just in case they wanted to leave in a hurry. There was an angry exchange in Hebrew. After it went on for a while, Rodzoventsky told Mark, Lucky we didn’t get shot by one of our own roadblocks. He started shouting in Hebrew and, after a while, rose to walk forward through the dark. Mark followed him but the two soldiers stayed with the jeep.

So much for the bloody buffer zone of the UN and the Christians, the old man said, looking down into the youthful dead faces in the light of a torch held by a soldier in uniform. There’s no need of interrogation here, he added with a chuckle.

Another soldier brought a weapon and a haversack.

Rodzoventsky inspected the weapon perfunctorily and cast it aside. The haversack held nothing of interest for him either. Not my specialty, he mumbled. The arms experts came while he was still searching the pockets of the two dead Palestinians; they did not find the weapons or the explosives in the haversack particularly interesting either.

A young colonel came and cast the experts interrogative glances. One shrugged, the other spread his hands. They had nothing to report that the colonel had not heard before.

What’s new, Rodzo? the young colonel demanded.

Swiss francs. The old man pointed to the money lying in the dust with the other pathetic contents of the pockets of the two dead Palestinians. There was remarkably little blood and Mark thought the two terrorists looked like children, not barbarians or mindless killers. I told you it was significant. I heard of another case on the West Bank ten, twelve days ago.

Sure. Significant. But how? You and Tel Aviv don’t know why.

The white hair flew from side to side. Rodzo doesn’t know. Yet. Time will tell. He waited until the colonel turned away before he spoke again. One more little mystery for you, my young friend.

It’s answers we want from you. We have enough mysteries of our own.

This one will keep you awake nights. Rodzoventsky hauled the head of a dead terrorist up by the hair. With the other hand he turned the grubby shirt collar over. They were very sure of themselves. They didn’t even cut the labels from their clothes.

So? It’s not news that the Palestinians lack discipline.

But it is news when one wears a shirt made in South America. I don’t know about the name of this shop but Asunción is the capital of Paraguay which is—

Shit, said the young colonel. He grabbed the collar and brought his eyes close. Fabricado. Made in. Now he sounded quite cheerful. That’s a turn-up for the books, eh, Rodzo? He punched the older man playfully in the upper arm. Rodzoventsky staggered and rubbed his shoulder. Well, what does it mean?

It means you’ll get disciplined, well-trained terrorists fighting you.

From somewhere in South America I never heard of?

From a country where Germans — Nazi war criminals, trained the army and police security forces. If they can instill discipline in South American peasants, why not in Arab terrorists?

It also explains the Swiss money, Mark said. The Nazis keep their money in Swiss banks.

The young colonel turned to look at Mark.

Rodzoventsky said, Mark Bern. He’s an American tycoon who spends a month every year with us. He was in the Six Day War. Helped to take Kuneitra up there— Rodzoventsky pointed in the wrong direction but they all knew where he meant, and the Yom Kippur War as well.

The colonel nodded. Make a report. I tell you, I just don’t believe it. Nazis! He turned on his heel and left.

He wasn’t even born when the World War ended, Rodzoventsky said. Now he’s an expert.

I wasn’t born when the war ended either.

Yeah. Okay. I was thirty-eight years old and a lot of top Nazis were younger. If I’m alive, so are they. Only thing, they’re richer and their age is respected by younger men.

Come on, Rodzo. I can understand why the colonel doubts your conclusion. The army nearly breaks this country. You'd need a great deal of money to train even a few platoons of Palestinians.

You’re a rich man, right?

I’m comfortable. What’s that—?

How many platoons could your total wealth train?

A few. But what—

And if you were Rockefeller?

Several more. Perhaps a whole division.

These Nazis are collectively — and some of them individually — richer than Rockefeller.

If you gathered enough Chinese with one dollar each, they'd collectively be richer than Rockefeller. Save the disingenuous shit for the rabbi, Rodzo. You know as well as I do that it’s disposable income that counts, what’s left over after you've paid for food and rent.

Rodzoventsky had the grace to blush in the dark.

The stuttering up the road would, almost anywhere else in the world, be taken for the sound of a teenager’s two-stroke. Here nobody made the mistake. They were running for the jeeps before the second burst started its reply to the first. Rodzoventsky laid his hand on Mark’s wrist. His shouted words were carried away in the roar of engines around them and the spray of gravel on metal but Mark understood: Rodzo wanted him to let the others go first. Mark followed the other jeeps. The two men who arrived with them had found another ride.

Mark saw the moonlight flash on Mount Hermon and realized there was near-solid cloud cover. That accounted for the pitch darkness. He had lost the jeep in front. He pulled up their own jeep. What now? he said to Rodzoventsky. In the dark he could hear Rodzoventsky’s clothes rustle as he shrugged. He also heard the gravel crunching as somebody approached the jeep in the dark. Mark pushed in the dark but the old man was already gone. Mark followed him over the low side of the jeep. He nearly struck out at the hand on his sleeve. Rodzoventsky tugged him slowly to one side. The footsteps were gaining on them. Mark wanted to call out, Who’s there? but the sound would mark them for the Palestinian or, worse, one of their own side, as frightened as they in the dark and probably trigger-happy with it.

The pressure on his sleeve reversed. Rodzoventsky wanted him to stop. They were only ten feet from the jeep but could not see it in the pitch dark. The other footsteps stopped crunching gravel. There was a long silence. Mark held his breath. When he could no longer hold it, he tried to breathe quietly through his mouth. In his own ears his breath sounded stentorian. He could not hear Rodzoventsky at all. He put out his hand carefully and slowly but the old man had melted away into the darkness. Mark crouched down. Whatever Rodzo did was likely to be met with a hail of fire and he did not want to be caught in it.

A stone crunched. It was a minuscule sound. It was answered by the stutter of an assault rifle on full automatic. In the flash from the barrel, Mark saw a young face distorted with fear and rage. Blond hair.

Rodzoventsky must have seen too. He called something in Hebrew.

Juden!

There was the click of another clip rammed home. The bullets spun out. Now the muzzle-flash lit a contemptuous smile. Mark was no more than four feet away, to the left and below the man behind the gun. He rose explosively and kept rising right through the man's forearm, up and up until his shoulder hit the man's chin. He heard the crack and still he was rising. Jonathan Livingston Seagull soars again, he thought. You stupid bastard, you killed a good man because you were frightened of the dark. I hope your jaw is broken.

Then Mark remembered the contempt in the voice and the smile. This was not one of theirs, frightened by the dark. The assault rifle went to one side, the man to the other. I hope you're dead, Mark said aloud. He leaned into the jeep to switch the lights on. He walked over to Rodzoventsky's body.

Rodzoventsky took one of his arms from over his head and peered at Mark with one eye. Then, satisfied, he took the other arm away from his head too. I thought I was dead, he said. He jumped up nimbly and ran to where the other man lay.

Better make sure be doesn't have a knife or a pistol or a grenade still on him, Mark said.

Rodzoventsky dropped the blond stranger's wrist. No need. You killed him. He jerked the head aside by the blond hair and pulled at the shirt collar. He put his head close in the bad light. Now we’ll never know.

What’s the label say?

Oliver’s, Bond Street.

London? The talk was displacement activity. Killing is not something you ever get used to. But Rodzoventsky scrambled frantically through the pockets on the corpse. A roll of Swiss francs as thick as your wrist. He threw them to Mark.

A jeep came and the young colonel jumped out. Shit! he said. You killed one of ours.

Nobody answered him.

What the fuck happened? he shouted.

Rodzoventsky looked up at him. Those Nazis you don’t believe in, this is one of them, my young friend.

You’re out of your mind, Rodzo. Lots of blond kids have been emigrating to Israel for over fifty years. Some old-timer will be waiting for his grandson and you killed him.

He called us ‘Jews’ in German, with contempt, Mark said. And I didn’t mean to kill him, only to knock him out.

Amateurs! Of course he'd identify himself as a Jew. People who don’t know how to handle themselves shouldn’t come out into the dark.

Get stuffed, Mark said. He shot at us after Rodzo told him who we were. Two full Goddamn clips. After two full clips, maybe we should tell him not to be nervous so he can get us with the third clip. Mark picked up the used clip from the ground and threw it at the young colonel. He jerked the other clip from the Kalishnikov and threw that too at the soldier. The officer fielded the first clip but was too slow for the second. It struck him in the chest.

Ouch! The colonel rubbed his chest. Okay. Don’t get hysterical. So you panicked. Even the best men panic sometimes.

No, Rodzo said firmly. We didn’t panic. He isn’t one of ours. This belt was bought at the same store in Asunción that the Palestinian’s shirt came from. The old economist rose with the belt. If you want to know whose grandson this is, I can tell you. It’s the grandson of the same man who sent your grandfather into a gas oven and later raked the bones for gold tooth-fillings.

The young colonel took two steps forward and bent over the corpse. He raised one dead, limp hand and immediately flung it from him in disgust. But his voice was level enough when he spoke. No calluses on his hands. Not a manual worker. He rubbed his chest some more. That doesn’t prove anything.

Rodzoventsky took a torch from a soldier and bent over the corpse to turn the hand over and shine the light on it. How many Israeli do you know with manicured fingernails?

The colonel took the torch and shone it on the contents of the dead man’s pockets lying on the ground beside the body. Was that all?

Mark threw the roll of Swiss francs down in the circle of light.

Swiss francs, said the colonel. Where are the rest of his papers?

Nobody said anything. Israel is a bureaucratic country. Everybody has identification. The dead man carried only a roll of Swiss francs.

Kalashnikov, said the colonel, hefting the dead man’s firearm. Now what the fuck do the grandchildren of some forgotten Paraguayan Germans want with us after all this time?

*

There was surprisingly little property damage. The rocket blew a corner from the recreation hall: the hole was about a foot square. Nobody was hurt at the point of impact; those who needed first aid were all cut by flying glass. Cleaning up did not take long but the party was dead. Mark stood with Rodzoventsky, eating salad and slices off the lambs. The sucking pigs, untended, barbecued themselves to an evil-smelling charcoal frizzle.

That’s what burning human flesh smells like, Rodzoventsky said, pointing with his thumb towards the source of the odor. Nobody who’s been in the camps can ever forget it.

Thanks for the memory, Mark said, but I’m trying to eat my food.

It’s one reason the older Jews, even if they don’t keep the Dietary Law, don’t eat pork.

Do you mind, Rodzo!

History lessons are always more palatable over food.

Jesus!

Him too. Always turning water into wine and feeding the masses and having farewell dinners. A tradition that’s gone down in goyim literature.

More to show his stomach could not be turned than because he was hungry, Mark helped himself to more food. What’s on your mind, Rodzo? You don’t usually rabbit on about nothing.

Rodzoventsky stared up into the younger man’s face but could not find the insinuation that his talk was a nervous after-reaction. I’ll tell you. An unease.

Of what?

It was too easy. We find the Palestinians. We kill them. The German boy stumbles across us. You, an unarmed civilian, kill him easy as standing up. The Germans I remember were a tougher, more efficient.

Efficient but not infallible. Maybe the younger generation has lost the touch.

Yes. But…

But what?

I don’t know.

The Rabbi came up. Pity about your party, Mark. He had been educated in England and it was in his voice.

We’ll have another one next year.

What were you celebrating?

Hitler’s birthday.

What!? The Rabbi’s voice was thin with outrage.

You know, I’ve been doing it for eight years now, every year and nobody ever asked, Mark said, putting his plate down. A few congratulated me on my birthday and I never put them straight.

You're joking of course, Rodzoventsky said stiffly.

Mark shook his head. He was a man the Jews have much to learn from.

Please Mark, just keep quiet until you sober up, Rodzoventsky said urgently.

You of all people should see the sense in it, Rodzo! Mark was shocked at his friend's attitude. Hundreds of thousands of Jews walking meekly, obediently to their graves. Then millions. There were enough of them to say, ‘So far and no further’. They didn't need guns. Just numbers.

You don't know what it was like!

No. I grant you that. But today, we should still be able to learn from Hitler. And more than just striking back at our enemies. To strike first.

We blow up their atom bombs before they can finish making them, Rodzoventsky said.

No! No! No! That's armies against armies. I'm talking about Hitler's terrorism. First he stripped a man and his family naked judicially. No more rights. Then he stripped him naked financially. No more property or money. Then he stripped him naked psychologically by breaking up his family. No more solidarity. Then he killed him. If we attacked our enemies with Hitler's methods, third generation Nazis wouldn't be arriving at our door and bombing us.

The Rabbi finally sputtered into coherence. He snapped something in Hebrew and stared at Mark. Mark stared back blankly. The words sounded familiar but he couldn't place them. Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord, the Rabbi snapped in English.

Tell that to Mivtzan Elohim, Mark snapped back. The Wrath of God is a squad that assassinates Palestinian terrorists or kidnaps them for questioning. Turn them against the neo-Nazis.

We don't need outsiders to tell us how to run our affairs, the Rabbi said and turned his back to walk briskly away.

An outsider, Mark said bitterly.

You go too far, Rodzoventsky said. Every schoolboy knows we gave up acting against the Nazis because we want the money frozen in Swiss accounts by long-dead Jews and Nazis alike.

And now you don’t have the money and it’s being used against you.

You must see things in the perspective of history. Hundreds, thousands of years. One blond boy up the road, dead with one stroke as you rose mightily to smite him, is not an invasion.

Never mind the flattery, Rodzo. Mark turned. Good night.

Rodzoventsky grabbed a flagon with one hand and the younger man’s elbow with the other. Let’s have another drink in my room, eh? Let’s not go to sleep with a bitter taste in our mouths.

Halfway through the flagon, Mark said, You keep mentioning money. Tell me about these alleged Nazi fortunes.

I’ll be talking for a week.

Let’s skip the sensational journalism and stick to the facts you would accept as a scholar.

That’s what would take a week. I’ll give you some high spots instead. Okay?

Rodzoventsky filled his glass and Mark’s, then launched without pausing for thought into a description of the organization and financing of the NASDAP, Hitler’s Nazi Party. He was brief, concise and to the point. After eight minutes he was able to summarize. Two points of importance. Martin Bormann and Hjalmar Schacht swung industry morally and financially behind the Nazis: that was worth a lot of money. Secondly, Hitler’s preferred management style — in today’s jargon so even you can understand me — was opportunistic improvization on the basis of the competing plans his subordinates brought him. None of the subordinates had his responsibilities clearly defined and each was trying to build a larger empire at the expense of all the others.

That must have led to the kind of confusion where a lot of money stuck to certain fingers.

No, no money stuck. The Nazis were incredibly honest with their own money. It was other people’s money and property and lives they were spendthrift with. But remember the confusion. It will become more and more important as the tale unfolds.

Mark nodded.

Nobody knows how much money the Nazis took from the Jews they killed. I don’t want to speculate on it or the wine will turn sour in my stomach. I’ll give you one item and you can imagine the magnitude for yourself.

Mark nodded again, fascinated. He could understand now why Rodzo earned a worldwide reputation as an outstanding teacher.

And don’t nod ‘sincerely’ like some Japanese Prime Minister. Just listen. Treblinka. Even that colonel up the road has heard of it. There was a man there, Franz Stangl. During the time he was in charge, 700,000 Jews passed through Treblinka. After the war, out of those 700,000 people, fewer than a hundred were still alive. Rodzoventsky drank deeply. What do you conclude?

He was a monster.

Save the pap for the Rabbi. As a businessman, what do you conclude?

Uh…it depends on his instructions, objectives—

He fulfilled them. He made Poland ‘officially Judenfrei’ and was decorated with the Cross of Merit, a very high award indeed, for ‘Secret Reichs Matter involving psychological discomfort’. What do you say now?

I'd say your Franz Stangl was a very efficient man.

Exactly! He also kept very efficient books. From a part of those accounts still in existence— why are you choking, my friend. Here, let me.

Rodzoventsky slapped Mark on the back until the coughing stopped. Mark drank some more wine.

What was all that about? Rodzoventsky asked.

You mean ‘books’ and ‘accounts’ like in double entry, debit and credit, the work done by accountants?

Sure. You said it yourself. Franz Stangl was a very efficient man. So were all the Nazis. They were an elite. What makes a businessman efficient?

Control. Facts. Information. Like you said, good books.

Okay. Now I’m going to give you some figures from a perfectly straight set of books, audited and certified by several German ministries as well as the Allied War Crimes Commission. Ready? Without waiting