‘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?”
“Deluded with a shew of the forbidden Tree springing up before them, they greedily reaching to take of the Fruit, chew dust and bitter ashes. The proceedings of Sin and Death,” she recited.
“Paradise lost, indeed,” Remke said. They both looked at me.
I knew Milton was some sort of poet, but I didn’t understand what they were getting at. I only knew I didn’t want to regret what I did next and remember nothing but dust and bitter ashes in my mouth.
“Yes, I’ll do it,” I said. “But I want something else.”
“What?” Remke asked, sounding weary, impatient, and angry at the same time.
“Severino Rossi.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Remke didn’t have time to ask who Severino Rossi was or why I wanted him. One of his men stepped into the cell and hurriedly whispered in his ear, glancing nervously in my direction. Remke nodded, then stood and gathered up the Auschwitz Protocol. “Follow me,” he said. “We must leave immediately. The Gestapo knows about Miss Seaton.”
He barked orders to his men and within seconds we were descending the stairs to the main floor. Rino and Abe, their hands bound, cast startled glances at us as Remke hurried Diana and me past them, our hands noticeably free. “Don’t worry,” I said as I went by, but I doubted that gave them much comfort or answered the questions forming on their lips.
“Ruhe,” said one of the Germans, which I knew meant quiet. Rino and Abe took the hint.
We were out the door in under a minute and Remke hustled us into the rear of an idling staff car. He took the front seat and the driver sped off before his door was closed. Behind us I saw Abe and Rino getting the same treatment. Their handlers were pros, laying hands on the crowns of their heads, pushing them into the automobile as cops back home did. It made me wonder what the hell an honest cop would do under the Nazis, and glad that I didn’t have to make that kind of choice.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Your friends are going to an Abwehr safe house,” Remke said. “They will stay there until you have completed your assignment. Then we will return them to Vatican territory.”
“And where are you taking us?” Diana asked, clasping my hand in hers.
“To dinner, of course,” Remke said, as the church bells of Rome began to ring in the midday hour. “At the Excelsior Hotel.” He had to be joking, playing with us while he figured out how to sidestep the Gestapo. I held onto Diana’s hand, her touch my only truth. Even here, in uncertain captivity, it was enough.
We crossed the Tiber and wound through narrow side streets, empty of traffic. On the main thoroughfare, the only vehicles were German. Trucks, staff cars, and motorcycles, most heading south to the front at Anzio. We turned off onto the Via Veneto, and I had a feeling we were entering one of the ritzier sections of town. Like Beacon Hill back home, the Via Veneto was on the high ground, and the buildings had a well-kept look, matched by the few pedestrians out for a stroll. A couple of cafes were open, and even with a chill in the air, these elegant Romans were enjoying their espressos outdoors.
