“You were tracking them?”
“Why are you so surprised? We do watch out for Nazis, young or old. Some still owe debts from their participation in the Shoa. Others must be stopped before history can repeat itself.”
Bolan had no quarrel with eliminating fascists, but he asked her, “What’s the Shoa?”
“You, perhaps, call it the Holocaust. In Israel, we say Shoa. It is Hebrew for ‘catastrophe.’ In Yiddish, it is Churb’n. Yom ha-Shoa is our Holocaust Remembrance Day, in April. We do not forget.”
“Nobody should,” Bolan replied.
“Our interest in Colombia, therefore, is not mysterious. The Nazis here, including very old ones from the Reich, are well established and protected. They grow richer by the day from sale of drugs and push the enemies of Israel toward extremist action that results in loss of life.”
“Especially in the last few days?” Bolan asked, playing out a hunch.
No smile this time as Cohen quickly glanced at him, then pulled her eyes back to the road in front of them. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she answered rather stiffly.
Bolan showed another card. “Acid in New York City. Murder in Miami Beach and Mexico. Somebody with an antique typewriter who wants the credit for his work but doesn’t have the guts to sign his name. Ring any bells?”
They covered two blocks before Cohen spoke again. “Those aren’t the only cases,” she replied, checking her rearview mirror as if someone might be crouching at her shoulder, eavesdropping.
“Where else?” Bolan asked.
“In Madrid and Athens. Two murders, a week apart. One victim was a secretary from our consulate, stabbed in a marketplace with people all around. Of course, no one saw anything. The other was a diplomat’s young daughter. An apparent hit-and-run, the rental car abandoned. Greek police considered it an accident until—”
“The note arrived?”
“Yes.”
“Same typewriter and postmark?”
“Erika Naumann Model 6,” she said, with small chips on the A and W. They also need to clean the O and Q. And, yes, the letters both were mailed from Bogotá.”
“Somebody showing off, but still feeling secure,” Bolan observed.
“Someone who may be legally untouchable,” Cohen said, “but not by other means.”
It was unusual to hear the aim stated so plainly, by a foreign agent whom he’d barely met. Still, Israel made no bones about the fact that it reached out around the world to punish terrorists and those who murdered Jews. From Adolf Eichmann to the architects of Munich’s cruel Olympic massacre, Mossad had kidnapped or eliminated mortal enemies of Israel. One unit, active during the seventies, had been nicknamed the Wrath of God. And it had lived up to its name.
“I’ve shocked you now,” she said.
“Surprised,” Bolan corrected her. “And by your candor, not the thought.”
“Then may I ask what brings you to Colombia, and why the Nazis want you dead before you have a chance to change clothes from your flight?”
He took another leap of faith. “I’d say we’re in the same line, coming at it from a slightly different angle.”
“You, of course, desire to keep such nasty business out of the United States.”
“Of course, there’s that,” he granted.
“And what else?”
“I won’t pretend to know all that your people suffered,” Bolan said, “although, I’ve seen enough man-made catastrophes to have at least a general idea. Israelis aren’t the only ones who’d like to nip these bastards in the bud.”
“Too late for that,” she said. “The old men I referred to have been living here, and living well, for fifty years.”
“I found that out for the first time, this week,” Bolan replied. “Your people must’ve known it—what? For years?”
“Decades,” she said. “It shames me to admit it, but we fight the battles that demand immediate attention. Eichmann was a symbol. Everybody knew his name and what he’d done. As for the rest, we had our Arab neighbors to contend with. No one gave much thought to aging Germans squatting in a jungle, halfway around the world.”
“One of your agents took a shot in 1995,” Bolan replied.
“You’re well informed. Then you must know what happened afterward.”
“The bombing and retaliation, right.”
“Of course. But I’m referring to the cover-up by leaders of the DAS, perhaps Colombia’s own president, himself. Who do you trust here, Mr. Cooper?”
He had given her the cover name, and now said, “Make it ‘Matt.’ And trust is earned where I come from.”
“You’ve met this one before?” she asked, nodding toward Guzman, huddled in the rear.
“I checked his references,” Bolan replied. “He hasn’t let me down, so far.”
“How did Herr Krieger and his men know you were coming to Colombia?”
“Who’s Krieger?” Bolan asked, buying some time to think about her question.
“Krieger, Horst Andreas,” she replied, as if reading the label on a file. “Until this evening, he was one of old man Dietrich’s young elite. But now you’ve killed him, I believe. At least, I didn’t, and he would have shot us both if he was still alive.”
“Blond guy, midtwenties, maybe six feet tall?”
“The classic Aryan,” Cohen said.
“You’ve seen the last of him.”
“Good riddance. I am satisfied to have eliminated Arne Rauschman and at least two of their mercenaries. It’s amazing, isn’t it? How people they despise as less than human still work for the Nazis, seek to curry favor with them? Truly, wonders never cease.”
“About this house of yours…”
She turned into a quiet residential street and then into a driveway two doors from the corner.
“As you say,” she said. “We’re here.”
GUZMAN WAS SILENT, for the most part, while she cleaned his wound with alcohol. It had to have burned like fury, but he clenched his teeth and swallowed any sounds of pain that tried to struggle free. Granted, there was a little moan when she applied the iodine, but nothing that should shame a man concerned about his macho image.
“That’s the worst of it,” she said. “I’ll stitch it now. Unfortunately, I have nothing for a local anesthetic.”
“Any whiskey? Rum? Tequila?” Guzman asked.
“Sorry. I have some wine.”
The wounded man looked glum. He shook his head. “No wine.”
The tall American watched as Cohen removed a curved needle from her first-aid kit and began to thread it. She had used it on herself once, closing up a razor slash in Paris, and she never traveled far without the means to clean and patch most wounds that did not call for major surgery.
“You’ve done this kind of thing before,” Bolan observed.
“It’s good to be prepared for an emergency,” she said.
“And use a Jericho sidearm. It sounded like the .40 caliber.”
“The .41 Action Express, in fact.”