Death's Door (27 page)

“The first two, yes. Monsignor Bruzzone was not recruited. He has kept a low profile since Genoa, where I hear he was almost trapped by the Gestapo.” Score one for Bruzzone; he hadn’t lied to me about Rudder.

“Even Bishop Zlatko?”

“No, not the good bishop. He is working with us, trying to curry favor with the high command. He reported on activities within the Vatican while he tried to ferret out information about Tito and his Partisans, but he is of little use to me. He has peddled the same information to the Gestapo, who have him on their payroll. That has become inconvenient for him, of course. The last I heard, he was trying to convince an American diplomat that he was a double agent, and on the side of the Allies. I think he is planning for the future.”

“I doubt the Allies will take him seriously.”

“Or the Wehrmacht. The violence of the Ustashi left even the SS stunned, which is a remarkable achievement.” His eyes avoided mine, and I wondered at the atrocities he’d seen to make that judgment.

“I’m sure that kept you up nights. Now what is this all about? You could have picked us up on the way here. Why bring me all the way to Diana’s cell?” As I spoke, I remembered the situation in Algiers, when Remke found Colonel Harding and me in that Vichy jail cell. He let us live for his own purposes, to help free one of his agents also being held by the Vichy police.

“Because I have a task for you, Lieutenant Boyle. One that is especially suited to the nephew of General Eisenhower.”

“How did you know …?” I’d never let that slip, and I didn’t believe Diana would have told him. I also knew the OSS hadn’t included that tidbit in any of their transmissions.

“After our encounter in Sicily, I began to build a file on you, Lieutenant William Boyle, late of the Boston Police Department. A distant but trusted relative and confidant of General Eisenhower.”

“Very distant, and as you point out, still a lowly lieutenant, so don’t count on me being worth much in a trade.” I figured Remke wanted to swap me for one of his agents, and if Diana wasn’t enough of a bargaining chip, maybe he thought I was.

“No, Lieutenant Boyle. I do not want to exchange you. I want you to help me end the war.”

That was the last thing I’d expected to hear. Looking at Diana, I could tell she wasn’t surprised. Remke had filled her in, and from the way she held herself, I knew she believed it. There was no fear, no hesitation in her eyes, more of an eagerness to draw me in. I wanted to trust her instincts, but this was happening too quickly.

“Perhaps you should have thought of that sooner,” I said. It’s always easier to fall back on a wisecrack when you don’t know what else to do.

“We did,” Remke said, leaning back in his chair. “Allow me a brief history lesson. In 1939, Admiral Canaris of the Abwehr began to recruit intelligence agents with links to the Vatican. Canaris sent Josef Müeller to Rome to meet with the Pope. The message was that an anti-Nazi circle existed and that plans for the assassination of Hitler and a coup d’état were in place.”

“You’re telling me that the top ranks of the German Intelligence service are all anti-Nazi? That’s hard to believe.”

“I am telling you nothing that is not known to the highest ranks of your own intelligence services. Now, in late 1939, Müeller met with the Pope’s private secretary, Father Leiber. He laid out the plans for him and asked that the Pope contact the British and help determine if they would support the coup and not attack Germany while the anti-Nazi forces were struggling for control.”

“The SS probably wouldn’t give up easily,” I said. “Even with Hitler dead.”

“Exactly. We needed to be assured that England would not strike in the midst of a German civil war. That would only turn the nation against us.”

“So what did the Pope do?”

“He agreed to help. He met with the British ambassador, Sir D’Arcy Osborne.”

“I know him,” I said, trying to take in the enormity of what I was hearing.

“Yes, I know,” Remke said. “You dined with him the day you arrived.”

“How do you know that?”

“Through an Italian boy who works in his kitchen. Sir D’Arcy is well aware he is an informant. The trick in Rome is to know who is informing on whom, and to tailor your comments accordingly. In any case, Pius told D’Arcy of the plot, and the ambassador forwarded the information to the British Foreign Office. Cables were exchanged, and for a while it seemed as if the English took us seriously.”

“But they didn’t?”

“Not in the end. In February 1940, they were given the plans for the invasion of France and the Low Countries. They reacted by demanding a list of all the conspirators, their ranks, roles in the new government, and so on.”

“Wait a minute. You’re saying that the British had the plans for your invasion of France in 1940?”

“Yes. They were passed through the Pope’s offices to Sir D’Arcy, and then on to the Foreign Office. They are probably buried deep in a locked room somewhere in London, if they have not been destroyed. Quite embarrassing, if the truth came out. Admiral Canaris also informed the Dutch directly about the invasion plans, but they thought it a trick and ignored him.”

“There was no coup in 1940,” I said, trying to get back on track.

“No. As you can imagine, no one thought it wise to hand a list of the top opponents of the regime to the British. They could easily have used it in an attempt to destabilize Germany, which would have only cost the lives of many good men.”

“And then Hitler defeats France and the British hightail it out of Dunkirk, and he’s in the catbird seat.”

“The British depart in a great hurry, and Hitler is left in an enviable position,” Diana translated, noticing Remke’s confused expression.

“Ah, American idioms. Wonderful use of language, I must admit,” Remke said. “Yes, without a guarantee of cooperation, and given Hitler’s victories, nothing could happen in 1940. His success
in France was our greatest undoing. With the non-aggression pact with the Russians, our eastern border was secure. In the West, France was ours and England stood alone. Some thought it would end with a negotiated peace, and others believed Hitler was the genius he insisted he was. Instead, that little Austrian fool decided to attack Russia when he became bored with sacrificing his Luftwaffe over England. Since then, there have been several attempts on his life, but nothing even close to success.”

“You’ve got something in the works,” I said. I was beginning to see a glimmer of hope. Remke was naming names, and that meant either he was gambling for big odds or he didn’t plan on either of us ever repeating any of them.

“I am only a courier. Admiral Canaris put this plan together. I reported to him when I uncovered your relationship to Eisenhower. Then, when we heard you were coming to Rome, things began to fall into place.”

“Is that why you grabbed Diana? Sister Justina?”

“No, Billy,” Diana said. “I was picked up in a routine identity check. I was carrying food for some of our guests, and the police arrested me for trading on the black market.”

“But you knew who she was,” I said to Remke. “And you used her as bait to get your hands on me.”

“Yes. What better place to meet than the Regina Coeli? The Gestapo would never guess we were using the prison for our rendezvous. And I wanted a certain leverage, to guarantee you play your part. This place is quite suitable for that purpose.”

“To blackmail me, you mean.”

“If you should prove recalcitrant, this visit should serve to remind you of what could happen to both of you. Many are left to their fate in the Regina Coeli every day. Two more would not be noticed.”

“I haven’t been mistreated, Billy,” Diana said. I knew what she meant. Diana had been tortured and raped in Algeria by a psychotic Vichy officer, and it had been a long road back for her. And us. Since the war began, Diana had seen more action than many men. Serving with the British Expeditionary Force in 1940, as a switchboard
operator in Lord Gort’s headquarters, she was one of the lucky ones who made it out of Dunkirk, just ahead of the Germans, only to have her destroyer blown out of the water courtesy of the Luftwaffe. She’d watched wounded soldiers on stretchers slide off the decks into the cold Channel waters as the ship went down, and barely survived herself. Since then, Diana had constantly flirted with death, perhaps to test herself to see if she deserved to live while so many around her had died. I looked into her eyes, and nodded. It was very good to know.

“If you should fail me, I can promise Miss Seaton will never leave this prison alive,” Remke said. “Nor your comrades.”

“That doesn’t leave me with much of a choice,” I said.

“Good,” Remke said, his attitude softening. “I was quite glad to hear that you had rescued Miss Seaton in Algeria.”

“And your agent as well,” I said. In the group that had been taken hostage by the renegade Vichy, at least one had been a German agent. We never knew which one, and I hadn’t really cared, since I got Diana back.

“Yes. I was also pleased that the situation was resolved. I would have done so myself, but we were ‘hightailing’ it for Tunisia at the time.” Remke smiled as he used his new Americanism. I had resolved the situation with a knife, and while it helped, there was too much hurt for revenge alone to heal.

We sat in silence for a minute, the small cell thick with the past. Maybe Remke knew the details, or maybe he felt them in the air.

“So basically, you’re going to hold Diana and the men who came with me as hostages, to insure I take some crazy message to the Pope, which you hope will end the war. The same message that the British disregarded four years ago, before Germany burned, looted, and murdered all across the map of Europe.”

Remke glowered at me. He wasn’t the sort of officer who liked being talked back to by a lieutenant, even one related to Ike. A lot like another colonel I knew. “It is all the more important now,” Remke said, slamming his fist on the table. “How many more will die as you crawl your way up the Italian mountains? How many more
when you invade France? How many civilians will die in the terror bombings? How many more tens of thousands of soldiers will die on the Eastern Front? How many Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, and others will die in the camps in the east? And how far will the Soviets go when all is said and done?”

“How do I know you care about all those lives?” I said, moving closer to Remke to match his anger. “Maybe all you want is to protect Germany from the Russians. There’s going to be one helluva butcher’s bill to pay when they cross your border.” Maybe this was why they wanted to approach the Vatican. With their well-known desire to keep the godless Soviets away from Eastern Europe, Pius and his advisors would probably see eyeball to eyeball with the Germans on this one.

“I must admit, personally, to some truth in what you say. My family is from East Prussia. They will be the first to encounter the Russians if they get that far.”

“When they get that far,” I said. “Not if. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“None of us would be here if the English had dealt with us seriously in 1940,” Remke said. “Remember that. Ask your own Colonel Samuel Harding. If he doesn’t have access to that information, he can certainly obtain it.”

“Stop it,” Diana said. “Both of you. If there’s a chance, Billy, you should take it. And Colonel Remke, tell Billy what you have to offer.” We both stared at her. “Now.”

“What are you offering? Besides our freedom?”

“Your freedom will come, for all of you, once you deliver the message and I have confirmation. There is nothing to this that is injurious to the Allied armies. Quite the opposite, I hope.”

“So what’s the offer?”

“This,” Remke said, withdrawing a folded stack of papers from his jacket pocket and tossing them on the table. “The Auschwitz Protocol.”

“It’s the proof we’ve been looking for, Billy. Of what is happening in the camps,” Diana said, casting a glance at Remke, who had leaned
back in his chair as if to put distance between himself and the document. “I’ve read it, and it is damning.”

“Two Slovakian Jews, Alfred Wetzler and Rudolph Vrba, were transported to Auschwitz in 1942,” Remke said, as if reciting from a report he’d read many times. “They witnessed everything that went on in Auschwitz and the nearby work camp, Birkenau. Selections for gassing. Random murders, starvation, brutality. They escaped quite recently and made their way to Slovakia, where an underground Jewish organization interviewed them and wrote up this report. The first version was in Slovak, and has been translated into German.”

I picked up the typewritten sheets. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the German, but there were hand-drawn diagrams showing the layout of a giant camp complex. “What is this?” I asked, pointing to an oddly shaped building.

“Gas chambers and a crematorium for disposing of the bodies,” Diana said. “On a massive scale.”

“Can you read any of this?” I asked her.

“A little. This passage, for instance, from February 1943. It speaks of two large transports coming into the camp.” She traced her finger along the text, translating slowly. “‘Polish, French, and Dutch Jews, who in the main, were sent to the gas chambers. The number gassed during this month is estimated at ninety thousand. Two thousand Aryan Poles, mostly intellectuals.’ It goes on and on.”

“Now, Lieutenant Boyle, are you satisfied?” Remke asked, his eyes glancing away from the document, away from me and Diana. He seemed to find no place to rest his gaze. “The shame of my nation is laid before you. The fruits of our inaction. We have tried to stop this madness and failed. We have warned our own enemies of invasion and betrayed our oaths, only to see Hitler and his Nazis win at every turn. All I ask is for you to simply deliver a document to the Vatican.”

I was overwhelmed. Finding Diana, listening to the unbelievable numbers in the report, trying to figure out Remke’s real motives—it was all too much. I was just a dime-a-dozen lieutenant, an ex-cop who happened to be on a general’s family tree.

“Do you know Milton, Colonel Remke?” Diana asked, giving me time to think.

“Fairly well,” he said. “My English professor at Heidelberg had us read it in the original. Why?”