We zipped up the Via della Conciliazione, the wide stretch of road Mussolini put in to connect the city with Saint Peter’s Square. It was supposed to be about conciliation between Rome and the Vatican, but it seemed to me tailor-made for armored vehicles.
We pulled up close to the white border line, a stone’s throw from the great granite obelisk at the center of the piazza. I got out, taking note of a thin figure in a black cassock walking nervously back and forth a few yards from the line. It was Kaz, but he hadn’t spotted me yet, probably not taking into account that I’d hitch a ride with a German colonel.
“Remember, Lieutenant Boyle,” Remke said, stepping out onto the curb. “Two days, no more.”
“And you remember, Colonel Remke, I want Severino Rossi. I hope we can both walk away winners.”
“As do I. I will find Rossi, if he is alive to be found,” Remke said, then pointed to the piazza. “Is that not your friend Lieutenant Kazimierz, dressed as a cleric as well? Baron Piotr Augustus Kazimierz?”
“Yes,” I said, figuring Remke knew for certain anyway. “Your people wiped out his family, so he probably wouldn’t be offended if I didn’t introduce you.”
“You Americans can be quite hypocritical, but I do not believe you have the self-awareness to realize it,” Remke said, his lips pressed into a thin, angry line. He moved to get into the car but halted, his face red with fury. “Does it come from the superiority you imagine you possess, secure on your continent, surrounded by oceans instead of rivals, competitors, and enemies in every direction? You Americans and your English allies, who have shown nothing but disdain for all our efforts to dispose of a madman, you do not hesitate to lump me and other honorable men in with Gestapo and SS thugs. With the Nazis. ‘Your people,’ you say. Was it not your people who wiped out the Indians and enslaved the Africans? Is that not how you built your sanctuary from the wars and cruelties of old Europe?”
Remke turned away and the car sped off, leaving anger and suspicion in the air. I tried to think of what I would’ve said if he’d given me half a chance, but I had nothing, so I stepped across the white line in case he changed his mind and came back.
“Billy!” Kaz ran to me, a look of confusion on his face. “What happened? What were you doing with that Nazi? Where are Rino and Abe? Did you see Diana?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, deciding not to correct Kaz on Remke’s party membership. “Let’s find O’Flaherty and I’ll explain everything.”
“Is it good news or bad?” Kaz asked as we walked to the German College.
“Diana is alive and well, that’s the good news. As for the rest, we’ve been had.”
“Tell me now,” he insisted.
“They knew our every move. They meaning the Abwehr. Diana and I spent the afternoon having lunch with a German colonel at the Excelsior. He wants us to help him end the war, but he’s keeping Diana, Abe, and Rino hostage in case I don’t go along with it.”
“If you don’t want to tell me, Billy, just say so.”
“Holy Mother of God,” O’Flaherty said minutes later. “Slow down and start over. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such an incredible story.” We were in O’Flaherty’s room, seated around the table where I’d laid out the documents Remke had given me.
“There is no Rudder,” I said. “The Abwehr nabbed the OSS team a while ago, and have been recruiting agents under that name and radioing in phony reports, probably salted with enough real information to make them credible. Brackett thinks he’s reporting to an Allied agent, but he’s been feeding dope to the Jerries. Corrigan too, I’m sure.”
“It would be a kindness not to tell Brackett,” O’Flaherty said. “It probably gave some meaning to his life here. But this means Rudder, or rather Colonel Remke, knew all about your arrival.”
“Yes. When he came across my name, he started putting the plan together. He’d found Diana in prison, where she was being held under her alias as Sister Justina. He may have known about Rino and his connection with you, Monsignor. He’s aware of your work, and that warning about the Gestapo was certainly in good faith. In any case, he was waiting for us.”
“This document is unbelievable,” Kaz said, reading through the Auschwitz Protocol. “It details the inner workings of an extermination camp. We’ve had word of atrocities, terrible mass murders, but this is- inconceivable.”
“I think he may have given us that to help change attitudes among the high command,” I said. “Perhaps Remke thinks Roosevelt and Churchill will deal with the anti-Nazi conspirators if it will help put a stop to these mass murders. It’s the other document we have to deal with first.”
“I should be able to see Monsignor Montini easily enough,” O’Flaherty said. “Giovanni and I have worked well together before. He’s channeled money and resources to many refugee organizations. But a written acknowledgment.” He paused to consider that requirement. “That will be more difficult.”
“Why?” I asked. “It’s only a receipt.”
“Yes, but a receipt that could be used against the Holy See. Plotting with traitors to the Third Reich, working as a conduit to the British secret service. It would be enough to send a regiment of SS troops into the Vatican. Oh no, me boy. This is a dangerous piece of paper. Very dangerous.”
“If I don’t deliver in two days, he takes Diana with him to Germany. And Rino and Abe rot in the Regina Coeli.”
“Do you trust the man?” O’Flaherty said. “To do what he says, whichever way it goes?”
“I do,” I said. Remke didn’t impress me as a liar. Too spit and polish for that, even if he worked for the Abwehr. “But he’s walking a tightrope. This plan, the plot against Hitler, it means everything to him. If we don’t get what he wants from Montini, he’ll take Diana.”
“You’ve got his number, I think,” O’Flaherty said. “There’s no going back for a man like Remke, if you’re right about him.”
“Then we must find a way,” Kaz said. “We must get that letter.”
“There’s one other thing,” I said. “I asked him to find Severino Rossi, if he’s still alive.”
“Admirable, Billy,” O’Flaherty said, a tinge of exasperation in his voice. “Here we are discussing the deaths of millions, the killing of a dictator, and a possible end to the war, and you’re still itching to find the murderer of a single man.”
“Two men,” I reminded him. “Two men the war wouldn’t have gotten, at least not yet.”
“Fair enough,” O’Flaherty said. “A soul is a soul. What do you think Severino Rossi will tell you?”
“Something I may already know,” I said. It had to do with hope. Rossi and Remke were from different worlds, but I was beginning to see a similarity. Both had come to Rome out of hope. Hope for themselves, for the world that they used to inhabit, now upside-down with violence and death. Rossi had come to Rome for something specific, I was sure of it. He’d made it out of France and to Genoa. Why not stay there? What drove him to journey to Rome, without identity papers, and hide in Saint Peter’s?
“He wanted to see Corrigan?” Kaz guessed.
“No,” I said, and then something else clicked. Another favor I should have asked Remke. Now I’d have to wait until noon tomorrow. “Kaz, we need to see Zlatko now. Monsignor, I’d like to leave these documents with you, for safekeeping. We’ll check with you soon about Montini.”
“I’ll take them, boy, but it’s a heavy burden we must share. I thought it was hard enough to care for dozens, then hundreds of poor souls. But this, how many thousands of lives stand in the balance?” He stared out the window, as if trying to keep his eyes from the papers on the table. There was no need to answer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“You are certain Diana is in good health?” Kaz said for the tenth time.
“Kaz, she’s at the Excelsior. Even in a locked and guarded room, how bad can it be? Remke had her on ice at the Regina Coeli, but she was well-treated. All we have to worry about is getting that letter from Montini.”
“Is that why we are looking for Bishop Zlatko?”
“No. I figure we have a little time before things heat up over Remke’s documents. So I want to try something with Zlatko.”
