[ONE]
44-46 Beerenstrasse
Zehlendorf, Berlin, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1614 21 April 1946
When they had left for the OMGUS Compound, the street had been jammed with German police vehicles. Now the only Germans in sight were two policemen standing in the street, keeping people away from the safe house.
Beerenstrasse was half jammed with American vehicles, many of them olive drab with military markings, others were Fords and Chevrolets bearing Army of Occupation civilian license plates.
“Ivan, why do I suspect the presence of the Counterintelligence Corps?” Cronley quipped.
They entered the building and found Colonel Mortimer Cohen, Colonel Louis Switzer, and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Williams sitting side by side on a couch that had obviously been moved to the foyer from elsewhere in the damaged house.
Switzer stood and looked from Serov to Janice Johansen to Waldron. He stopped on Cronley and immediately moved into CIC mode.
“Captain, we’re in the middle of an investigation here, and while I’m unsure if you’re authorized to be in here—”
“That’s bullshit, Colonel, sir.”
“—I know unequivocally that it’s off-limits to the press and the NKGB and probably to this officer. Who are you, Colonel?”
“Is that working?” Waldron asked, pointing to a telephone on a small table to one side of the sofa. “May I use it?”
“I asked who you are, Colonel.”
“And I asked to use the phone. You grant my request and I will grant yours.”
Cronley sighed. “Give him the goddamn phone.”
Switzer locked eyes, then impatiently gestured toward the phone. Waldron picked up the receiver and dialed.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” Waldron then said, “but your CIC chief doesn’t want me in the safe house.”
There was a reply, and then Waldron extended the phone to Switzer.
“He wishes to speak with you, Colonel.”
“Who is that?” Switzer demanded.
Waldron didn’t answer.
Switzer took the extended phone and snarled into it, “This is Colonel Switzer. Who am I talking to?”
The man on the phone told him, and the rest of the conversation consisted of Colonel Switzer saying “Yes, sir” at least ten times.
Cohen laughed after the fifth one, and when Switzer had hung up, Cohen said, “In law school, Lou, they teach you never to ask a question unless you’re sure of what the answer is going to be.”
Switzer glared at Waldron, and said, “You sandbagged me, Colonel.”
“Regretfully, Colonel, you left me no choice.”
“The general and Janice stay, too,” Cronley said, then turned to Cohen. “Colonel, have we heard from the cardinal?”
“Somebody called and left a number,” Cohen said. “I called the hospital and was told you were on your way here. I’ve been waiting for you and General Serov, especially since you have the briefcase.”
Cohen consulted his notebook and dialed a number. Cronley went to him and put his head close to the handset.
After the second ring, a male voice recited the number in German.
“My name is Cohen,” Cohen announced.
The voice, changing to accentless English, then said, “You, the Russian, and one other—no more than one other—may find it interesting to be at Platform 12 of the Am Zoo Bahnhof at twenty-thirty hours. Be in civilian clothing and unarmed.”
Cohen replied, “Platform 12—”
“I say again,” the voice interrupted, then repeated his original message verbatim.
The line went dead.
“He was reading that,” Cohen said as he replaced the receiver.
“And he spoke with authority,” Serov said. “A senior officer carefully following the orders of someone even more senior.”
“I don’t have any civvies,” Cohen said. “But I suspect that civvies order was to show us who’s boss. Fuck him. He called us first. We’re in charge.”
“I vote for playing nice,” Cronley said. “I have—or I used to have—civvies upstairs in my room.”
“You still do,” Ostrowski said as he came from the staircase into the foyer.
“I vote with Cronley,” Serov said.
“I wondered where you were, Max,” Cronley said.
“Packing up the stuff of the guys we lost. And on that subject, what do I do with it?”
“Send it to the Mansion. Maybe somebody can use it. We can’t send it to family in Poland, even if we had an address.” He gestured toward Serov and Cohen. “But first, Max, anything that’ll fit these gentlemen?”
“I have no intention of wearing a dead man’s clothing,” Serov said.
Cronley raised his eyebrows. “Well okay, then, Ivan, but I thought you just voted for making nice. When Colonel Cohen and I get back, we’ll tell you what happened at the Bahnhof.” Cronley turned to Ostrowski. “Let’s show Colonel Cohen where this stuff is.”
Cronley started up the stairs. The others followed.
Upstairs, Cronley walked into the two-room suite that he had briefly shared with Ginger and the baby.
“Shit,” he said.
Ostrowski took his meaning.
“The CIC packed what little of her stuff was here and in the Duchess Suite. They got Father McGrath’s, too.”
“I would have liked something of hers,” he said, then seemed somewhat surprised he’d said it aloud.
“Sweetie,” Janice said, “that would only make things worse.”
“Former love of my life, nothing could possibly make things worse.”
“Why don’t you have Max pack up your stuff and move it to the Press Club? It’s right across the park.”
“Except that would be moving into the Press Club with you.”
“I’m available, Janice,” Ostrowski said.
Janice gave both of them the finger.
“If you should happen to see me at the Zoo Bahnhof, pretend not to recognize me,” she said, and walked out of the room.
[TWO]
Platform 12
Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten
Berlin, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2035 21 April 1946
As they walked toward the platform beside the cardinal’s train, Cronley did not see Janice but knew she was in the station watching.
What he did see was the locomotive of the cardinal’s train. Papal flags flapped on either side of the front of the engine’s boiler. There was something wrong with the picture, and it took him a moment to figure it out.
The locomotive usually was detached from the railroad cars that it had brought into the station and the cars were backed in next to the platform, usually by a special locomotive.
There was some reason Cardinal von Hassburger did not want the locomotive detached from his train. And then Cronley saw the first car behind the locomotive was customized, its paint glossy and bearing the papal crest on its sides.
That’s probably the cardinal’s personal car. Or maybe the Pope’s?
There’s obviously things inside—maybe a radio or a teletype—that required power from the locomotive.
Or maybe water from the engine’s supply to flush a toilet or even provide hot water for the cardinal’s shower.
Do cardinals take showers or do they take baths?
Does a cardinal remove that little red hat before stepping into his shower or bath?
Cronley was brought out of his reverie when a very large, very good-looking man in a business suit and clerical collar stepped into their path.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said in what sounded like American English. “I’m Father Kent. Would you be good enough to follow me?”
The gate to Platform 12 was guarded by two large American MPs and two smaller German policemen.
“These gentlemen are with me,” Father Kent announced, first in English to the MPs and then in German to the others.
“Relax, Ivan,” Cronley said. “Despite what Morty said, I think you look splendid in your borrowed civvies.”
Serov looked pained and shook his head in resignation.
They were passed onto the platform. The MPs eyed them, but without much curiosity.
You should pay better attention, Sergeant, Cronley thought.
You’re looking at a Russian general and an American colonel in hand-me-down clothes. Plus, a natty captain in a snazzy Argentine tweed jacket and gray flannel trousers.
Father Kent waved them onto the forward observation platform of the papal car, where a second muscular young priest opened the door to the car, and said, also in American English, this one with a distinctive Bostonian accent, “Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen. His Grace will be with you momentarily.”
When he stepped into the wood-paneled compartment, Cronley sensed there was something fishy about it.
It was obviously a private reception room, a place the cardinal could receive visitors he didn’t want to meet in public. It was furnished with a low table, a three-seater leather couch, and a half dozen matching armchairs. The only decoration in the compartment was a large crucifix on the wood-paneled wall separating the compartment from the rest of what Cronley guessed was the other two-thirds of the car.
There were three panels, on each of which were three vents six inches long and two inches wide, equally spaced from top to bottom. He didn’t pay much attention to them until he thought he saw a light on the other side of the center vent of the center panel.
Cronley studied it more closely. Then the light was gone—and another came on inside the lower vent on the right panel.
Cronley touched Cohen’s arm and discreetly pointed out the panels and the vents. Cohen looked, then nodded but didn’t say anything.
As Cronley looked at the paneled wall, the door to the left of the wall opened, and the archbishop he had last seen in the Hotel Majestic stepped into the compartment.
He was wearing a black, ankle-length garment that Cronley remembered was called a cassock.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “Please be seated.”
He settled into one of the armchairs.
“I suppose it is too much to hope that you’ve come to return the stolen property. Yet, as it’s said, ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast.’”
“I didn’t catch your name, Your Grace, the last time we met,” Serov said.
“Dietl, Franz Dietl . . . No comment about the stolen property?”
“I can only hope,” Cronley said, “that you weren’t holding your breath in anticipation of getting Odessa’s money returned.”
The archbishop chuckled.
“So, what did you want to talk about?”
“We wanted to talk to the cardinal,” Serov said.
“His Eminence, sadly, is not available at this time.”
“Pity,” Cohen said. “I was hoping to put his mind at rest. But since he’s occupied, there’s no point in this meeting. We’ve already talked to you. You have our number if His Eminence can ever find a few minutes for us.”
“Enough!” Serov snapped. “Hassburger, if you don’t come out from behind those panels right now and stop this bullshit, I will be forced to conclude that you’re not interested at all in solving our mutual problem.”
“You can’t talk to . . . His Emin—” the archbishop began and then cut himself off.
There was no response from behind the panels.
“Let’s go,” Cronley said, and stood up.
Serov and Cohen rose and followed him to the door through which they had entered the room. They had almost reached it when there was a fresh voice.
“I’m willing to listen to what you have to say.”
Cronley had seen Cardinal von Hassburger only once before and then only at a distance. He had not been favorably impressed. And now that he saw him up close, he was even less impressed.
The cardinal was, with the exception of his red skullcap, dressed in a cassock identical to Archbishop Dietl’s. He was not quite as tall as Dietl, and nowhere near as heavy, but his eyes were something else. They were large and clear and piercing.
The cardinal, Cronley quickly decided, was no dummy.
“I warned Dietl,” the cardinal began, “that you had no intention of returning our money.”
“You mean Odessa’s money?” Cohen challenged.
“The money in question,” the cardinal said.
“And you were right,” Cohen said. “Snatched from the hands of the evil and now in the hands of the righteous.”
“Actually, you snatched it from our hand.”
“If the glove fits, wear it,” Serov said.
“You must be Serov,” the cardinal said.
“General Ivan Serov at your service, Cardinal.”
“I suppose I’m expected to say something like this,” the cardinal said, “but it is true: I have a busy schedule. Can we get to the point?”
Cohen said, “We have come, Your Eminence, to enlist the Holy Mother Church in a righteous war against some very evil sons of bitches.”
“And who would they be?”
“If this wasn’t so important,” Cohen said, “I’d tell you to go fuck yourself and walk out of here—”
“You cannot speak that way!” Dietl snapped.
Cohen held his palm out toward Dietl while not breaking eye contact with von Hassburger.
“I’m going to ask you this only once, Cardinal. Are you willing to both listen and talk or are you going to continue to hide under that red yarmulke?”
“You’re talking about Odessa?”
“There’s more to it than Odessa. For lack of a more precise term, I think of them as the people who worship in the Church of Saint Heinrich the Divine.”
“I gather you’re one of those who pays credence to this Nazi church fantasy?”
“You are testing my patience, Cardinal,” Cohen said, his tone icy. “You damn well know it is no fantasy. What I’m going to try to do is convince you it is more of a threat to the Holy Mother Church than the communists and the Muslims combined.”
“To what end?”
“To help us wipe the bastards off the face of the earth.”
“Would you be offended, Colonel, if I told you I’m rather surprised at the depth of your vehemence?”
“Meaning what?”
“I was led to believe that you were what every intelligence officer aspired to be. That is to say, logical, analytical, rational, and, above all, emotionless.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“What is it about these—how did you put it?—these disciples of Saint Heinrich the Divine that so bothers you? That angers you?”
“Cardinal, what’s your Christian name?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
Cohen made a Let’s have it gesture with both hands, which caused the cardinal to sigh.
“I was christened Helmut.”
“So that makes you Helmut Cardinal von Hassburger?” Cohen looked at the others, then said, “Okay, from now on you’re Helmut. You can call me Mortimer or Morty. If you can’t stand that blow to your dignity and prestige, meeting’s over. Agreed, Helmut?”
Von Hassburger held up his hands in a gesture of resignation.
“Good, Helmut. So let’s start with mass murder. Mass murder of the Jews. My take on that is, Hitler didn’t go down that path just because he didn’t like Jews. He needed someone to blame for Germany getting its ass kicked in World War One, and the Jews were a convenient scapegoat.
“I think he was even a little surprised at how easy it was to get the German people to go along with him. What I’m saying here is, the death factories came later, after Saint Heinrich came up with the idea—probably from one or more of the classic German philosophers who’d been pushing the idea for centuries—of exterminating the Untermenschen, the people they decided were not as good as Aryans.”
Cohen paused as he glanced at the others in the room, then turned back to von Hassburger and continued. “You will recall, I’m sure, that when Hitler started the mass murder business—long before the Final Solution—it was with retarded children. These Untermenschen obviously had no future, thus feeding and housing them was an unacceptable drain on the economy. It then advanced, with the same justification, to include retarded adults. Some argued that Hitler was doing them a favor by ending their miserable existences.”
He stared at the cardinal, then asked, “You ever think of it that way, Helmut?”
“I’ve heard that theory.”
“I thought you might have. Anyway, before that happened—and about the time Saint Heinrich fell in love with this obscure Austro-German politician named Hitler and joined what was then the German Workers’ Party—Himmler began to reason that if there were Untermenschen, it followed that there had to be Übermenschen. But who would they be? Obviously, the German race—not to be confused with the German population as a whole. Hell, there were millions of Jews who believed themselves to be part of the German people.
“The pure Germans were blond and blue-eyed. And, of course, above the Untermenschen.
“When Himmler formed a personal bodyguard for Hitler—who now referred to himself as Der Führer—he accepted into what he had grandly called the Schutzstaffel only those Germans who could prove their forebearers had been ethnically pure for three or more generations. Thus, no Poles, no Austrians, et cetera.
“The members of this new organization, which quickly became known simply as the SS, swore allegiance not to Germany but instead to Adolf Hitler personally.
“Once Saint Heinrich had decked out members in snazzy black uniforms, featuring lightning-bolt SS insignias and with the skull and crossbones—the Totenkopf—on their caps, Hitler immediately grew fond of them. And he authorized Himmler to enlarge the SS ‘perhaps to five thousand, or even ten thousand, men.’
“Himmler was swamped with volunteers, a great many of whom, he came to realize, were not exactly enamored of Der Führer—few understood even a fraction of what Hitler said in his hours-long tirades. They instead volunteered because there was a certain appeal to wearing a snazzy black uniform and being officially recognized as a member of the Übermenschen and thus superior to common folk.
“When that recruiting drive was over, forty thousand men filled the SS ranks, and that number quickly rose to one hundred thousand and then to two hundred thousand, where it stabilized for a while.
“Still with me, Helmut?”
“More or less, but it would be helpful if I knew where you’re headed with this narrative.”
“Kindly bear with me. Now, the next thing that happened, our first serious mistake, was when Adolf started to call himself Der Führer. We mocked him: The ‘leader’ of what? A small, unimportant political party in Munich whose few members were social misfits and disgruntled ex-soldiers, with a sprinkling of lunatics thrown in? Ridiculous!
“And then it got worse. They renamed their party the National Socialist German Workers’ Party—NSDAP—and started referring to themselves as Nazis and came up with the swastika as their emblem. They also stopped referring to Germany as Germany, or even as the Fatherland, and started calling it the Thousand-Year Reich.
“And we thought that was funny, as absurd as Der Führer’s mustache. What delusions of grandeur! What nonsense!
“That was our mistake. Our grievous mistake. Hitler and Himmler were dead serious.”
“Define ‘our,’” the cardinal said.
“We Jews, of course. But also the Western democracies.”
“But not the Catholic Church?”
“I have unkind thoughts about what Holy Mother Church was up to during this period. And later.”
“Which you are going to share?”
“Helmut, there are many facets of the Church of Rome for which I have profound—both personal and professional—respect. With the possible exception of Mossad, which I am sure you know is the Zionist intelligence organization, Holy Mother Church has—is—the best intelligence organization the world has ever seen.”
“How kind of you to say so,” von Hassburger said, clearly sarcastic despite his smile. “And what unkind thoughts did you have about us during this period?”
“I was disgusted by, but not surprised at, Pacelli’s—Pius XII’s—behavior when Hitler started after the Jews. We Jews.”
“He did what he could, Mortimer.”
“That’s absolute bullshit, and you know it!” Cohen snapped. He glanced again at the others, then went on. “Unless you mean, Helmut, that he did what he could to benefit Holy Mother Church, in which case we agree. That’s what disgusted me.”
The cardinal’s face whitened. Veins on his temples grew and pulsed. Cronley thought von Hassburger was about to blurt out something in anger, but he didn’t.
Cohen wasn’t through.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Helmut, but doesn’t Pius XII think that communism—at least the Soviet version of it—poses a greater threat to Holy Mother Church than anything else?”
“The Church faces many threats.”
“But which does Pius XII think is the greatest?”
“I really have no idea, but I’m certainly willing to agree that Soviet—communist—atheism is a threat.”
“And how much of a threat would you say the Church of Saint Heinrich the Divine poses to Rome?”
“We’re back to that nonsense, are we?”
“That’s the reason we’re having this little chat. Did you ever wonder, Helmut, why I kept you out of Wewelsburg Castle?”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Helmut. Didn’t your mother try to teach you that honesty is always the best policy?”
“Sometimes, Mortimer, that’s not true.”
Cronley thought, Odd. The cardinal really is starting to enjoy this exchange.
Cohen said, “My mother lied to me. She said that unless I brushed my teeth twice a day, my teeth would fall out. So for years I brushed them twice a day, sometimes three times. But then, about the time I turned forty, my teeth started to fall out anyway.”
The cardinal laughed out loud.
Cohen was quiet, then went on, his tone serious. “I’ve kept you—your minions—out of Wewelsburg for several reasons. There was no question in my mind that you had heard of Heinrich’s new religion, but I didn’t know (a) how extensive your knowledge was or (b) what you thought of what you had. In other words, how seriously you were taking it.
“If, in fact, you were taking it very seriously, then the last thing I wanted was for you to search the castle thoroughly before I had a chance to. If, on the other hand, you had already decided—or, after a quick inspection of Wewelsburg, decided—that the Church of Saint Heinrich was just one more nutty—and, thus, nonthreatening—Nazi idea, I thought it entirely likely that, to put the problem behind you once and for all, you would blow up the castle. Reduce it to rubble. I didn’t want that to happen, either, and not only because I think there’s a half ton of gold hidden there.”
The cardinal, clearly in deep thought, looked at Cohen.
“Now, that’s interesting,” von Hassburger said. “It would lend credence to your and—frankly, if you must know—my theory that something serious was going on in that castle. Mortimer, I really would like my people to examine the castle.”
“Ready to deal, Helmut?”
The cardinal made a Let’s hear it gesture.
“Presuming they will share with us what they develop, including what they think, I’ll let your people in the castle. And tell them everything we’ve learned.”
“And then, Mortimer?”
“One step at a time, Helmut.”
Von Hassburger shrugged. “My thoughts exactly. What sort of a time frame are we talking about?”
“The sooner, the better.”
“With that in mind, did you happen to notice the very large, very young priest who showed you in here? That’s Father Francis McKenna. He’s a Jesuit, very bright, and I’ve asked him to familiarize himself with Wewelsburg and all that it represents. How would you feel about him going with you as sort of liaison?”
“Fine.”
The cardinal stood up and offered his right hand.
“Unless you have something else, Mortimer?”
Cohen shook his head, and then they shook hands.
After the cardinal left the room, Father Francis X. McKenna, S.J., came in a moment later.
“Colonel,” he said, with his Bostonian inflection, “I just spoke with Cardinal von Hassburger. I’ll need three minutes to get my bag and then I’m yours.”