“You both go in,” he said and pushed the door open.
As Kelly and Manteufel entered, the man, sitting behind a desk opposite the door, started to rise and seemed to continue to do so forever. He must have stood six and a half feet tall and was broad shouldered. His dark hair was brushed back from his forehead which, slightly protruding, shrouded his blue-grey eyes in semi-darkness. The nose was large, but not excessively so, and below it, a pencil-line moustache sat over his cruel lips. The most remarkable feature was an ugly duelling scar which disfigured his left cheek.
Skorzeny!
After giving the Nazi salute, which Kelly and Manteufel dutifully returned, he held out his large hand and shook hands with each in turn, beaming all the time.
“Herr Novak?” he asked, looking from one to the other.
“I am Dragan Novak,” confirmed Kelly, nodding as he did so.
The big man turned to Manteufel. “Then you must be Stabsfeldwebel Horst Manteufel. It is an honour for me to shake the hand of one of our elite ‘Green Devils’,” he said, matching the action to the words and shaking Manteufel’s hand a second time.
Although much surprised, Manteufel played his part well and, suppressing any personal feeling he may have felt, said, “The honour is entirely mine, Obersturmbannführer. The exploits of yourself and your commandos are legendary and were always being talked about by my fellow Fallschirmjäger.”
Kelly breathed a silent sigh of relief. He just hoped that Skorzeny didn’t detect the irony in Manteufel’s little speech. If he did, he didn’t show it, his smile becoming even broader.
Skorzeny shrugged his shoulders, raising his hands slightly as he did so. “I have to say at this point that I have no idea why Thule insist that everyone must go through my organisation. They call it ‘filtering’. In reality it’s all quite simple. If you are German and an ex-member of the party wanting to make a new life elsewhere, then Spider—my people—will deal with you. If you are Ustase, then it’s a matter for the Church. Why Thule wish to complicate the matter beyond that, I have no idea. But they do, and they have.
“So …” he said, screwing his face up, “All that remains for me to do is wish you well, Herr Novak, and direct you to Father Vilim.”
“Is Father Vilim also in Salzburg? Is it very far?” asked Kelly.
Skorzeny roared with laughter. “No, Herr Novak, it isn’t very far. This is Father Vilim’s house. I only come here to filter. My office is in Vienna. Father Vilim’s office is a good, oh, let me see … five paces from here. Mind you, that’s only an approximation,” he roared, laughing again. After composing himself and wiping his eyes, he said, “I apologise for that, it’s just that it struck me as funny. Father Vilim is waiting for you in his office. Lorenzo and Mattia will escort you. Good luck with the rest of your journey.”
Saluting then shaking hands, he ushered them out of his temporary office and into the corridor where the two Italians, Lorenzo and Mattia, were waiting.
“This way please,” said one of them, escorting them further down the corridor. They passed two doors then stopped at the third, on which the Italian leading the way knocked and opened simultaneously, waving them inside. The room was clearly an antechamber with a further door leading into the main room, presumably Father Vilim’s office.
Kelly’s stomach had sunk into his boots. They were already in the house of Father Vilim Cecelja, the very person McFarlane had warned him to avoid. He had assumed—wrongly—that they would be visiting Skorzeny in his own offices then driving on to Cecelja’s house later. His plan had been to create some sort of diversion to enable Manteufel and himself to extricate themselves and make their escape back to Germany. They were now utterly trapped!
Father Vilim Cecelja
The Italian who appeared to be the senior of the two motioned them to sit, while he approached the door and tapped gently on it. Opening it he went inside, closing the door behind him. It was several minutes before he emerged again and motioned Kelly forward. Manteufel also rose, but the other Italian grabbed his arm and signalled to him to remain seated.
Kelly walked into a spacious, airy room. The floor, like the corridor, was expensively carpeted, the walls hung with religious oil paintings. Three or four paces in front of him, situated in front of a large double window, was a huge mahogany desk, the top inlaid with leather. Behind it, head down and scribbling something on a writing pad, was the man Kelly assumed was Father Vilim Cecelja, a Croatian priest who had once been chaplain to the Ustase, and who, it was believed, had instigated a number of war crimes carried out by the Ustase militia on Serbian civilians, participating in some of them himself.
Kelly approached the desk to within a couple of paces and stood and waited. The priest ignored him and carried on writing.
Ignorant bastard! thought Kelly.
Eventually, Cecelja deigned to notice his guest and sat back in his chair. There was no welcoming smile. No word of introduction. He just sat and stared, his face blank.
It was hard to judge his height, sitting as he was, but Kelly sensed he was tall. He was very slender, bordering on skinny, with a sharp angular face and a long thin nose. The non-descript brown hair, brushed back from his brow, emphasised a receding hairline. He was dressed in a simple black suit and wore his clerical collar.
At length, Kelly, now angry and trying hard to contain it, speaking in Croatian, said, “Shall I come back tomorrow?”
His remark, if nothing else, elicited a response from the priest, who at first
