And he just knew they were about to get into the thick of it again.
Situation.
Not a project, a discovery, or anything benign sounding that still usually turned to pot, but a situation.
That never sounded good.
“Situation?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“There was a shooting today at the Vatican.”
“Really? I haven’t turned on the news all day and I’ve been out of the office,” said Reading, Acton knew mentally cursing himself for being unaware. “What happened?”
“It looks like it was targeted. Two men ran down a civilian just outside the gates, then shot the man and his companion. Our guards shot the perpetrators—”
“On Vatican soil?”
“Yes! I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who was concerned about that.”
“Shitload of paperwork if it wasn’t.”
“Agreed, though my men would have shot them either way, I’m sure. I’ve already told the Commandant that the instructions are to protect civilian life, even if off our territory.”
“Of course.”
Acton decided to steer the conversation back to how they might be about to become involved. “Why are you calling us?”
“Well, I’m actually calling you at the behest of Father Rinaldi. Do you know him?”
“Yes, of course,” replied Laura. “We worked with him a couple of times in the past. He’s the curator of the Vatican Secret Archives.”
“Exactly. We made a curious discovery.”
Acton leaned forward.
“The man who was hit by the vehicle had a satchel, and inside was a small crate.”
“What was it?”
“A drawing. A drawing he shouldn’t have had.”
Laura’s forehead furled. “Why shouldn’t he have it? Was it stolen?”
“No, that’s what we thought at first, but Father Rinaldi made some phone calls and confirmed that it hasn’t been stolen.”
“A forgery?”
“That’s just it. It must be, but the Father’s preliminary examination suggests it isn’t.”
“Why call us?” asked Acton. “Surely there’re experts there who can confirm its authenticity.”
“Two reasons.” Giasson hesitated. “Do you remember what happened when his holiness was kidnapped?”
“Of course,” they all echoed.
“The two men that were assassinated—for lack of a better word—both had the same tattoo we found on the bodies of his holiness’ kidnappers.”
Acton felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as a shiver rushed through his body. The Keepers of the One Truth had kidnapped him and the Pope, and by some miracle, they had managed to survive. And it had been his sincere hope he’d never hear from or see them again.
It appeared as if his luck, as usual, had run out.
“And the second reason?”
“Because, Professor Palmer, you were on the team that authenticated the original.”
Testaccio, Rome, Italy
July 7th, 1941
“Oh, Zia, this is incredible!”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full!” scolded his aunt with a wagged finger.
Nicola covered his mouth, mumbling an apology as he swallowed his mouthful of homemade spaghetti with olive oil. “I’ve missed your cooking.”
“It looks like you’ve been missing eating! You’re all skin and bones! Is your mother not feeding you?”
Nicola immediately leapt to his mother’s defense. “Yes she is, lots, but I’m always out working so I burn it off. Besides, I have to look good for the ladies.”
His aunt grunted from the other end of the table. “Do you have a special girl?”
He shook his head, flushing slightly as he twirled his fork against his spoon. “No, I, umm, like to keep my options open.”
“Uh huh. I think your father needs to sit you down and explain what is what.”
Nicola felt his ears burn, shoving a ball of spaghetti into his mouth, providing an excuse to not reply.
“You kids nowadays, always trying to have fun instead of thinking of your future. In my day, you’d have been married by now, already working on your second child. But today? No! You all want to run around kissing different girls and dancing and riding around on your bicycles.” She jabbed the air with a slice of the loaf given to him at the bakery before he left. One, not seven. “You need to settle down, get married and have babies before I die.”
“You’re not dying, Zia.”
“Not today, but I won’t be around forever.”
“With this war, none of us might be.”
“Oh, don’t get me started on this war. We should have left for America, your father and I, when we had the chance. But he loved this country too much to leave it.” She harrumphed. “I bet he’s regretting that decision now.”
Nicola shrugged. “If he had left he wouldn’t have met Mom, and then I wouldn’t have been born.”
His aunt reached across the table, patting his hand. “I guess there are always good things to come from bad decisions.”
He wasn’t sure how to take that.
Someone hammered at the door.
And he nearly threw up his pasta, he immediately flashing back to the museum.
They found me!
He rose from his chair as his aunt threw her napkin on the table, anger on her face. “Who would dare knock in such a way, especially at dinner time!”
He placed himself between the door and his aunt, not sure what to do, wishing he hadn’t handed the gun over when he had refueled. Suddenly the door burst off its hinges, two men in leather trench coats stepping inside, an SS officer behind them along with two Italian police officers.
“Are you Nicola Santini?”
He stood, frozen, not saying anything.
“How dare you break into my home!” shouted his aunt, pushing him aside as she rushed toward them, waving her fork at them. “You’re going to fix that if I have anything to say about it!”
One of the men backhanded her in the face, hard, sending her spinning into the wall. Nicola cried out as he rushed to her side, cradling the now sobbing woman as blood trickled from her nose.
He turned toward them to find a gun pointed at his face.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
He hugged his aunt as he glared at the man, his shoulders finally slumping.
“Yes.”
OVRA Headquarters, Rome, Italy
July 7th, 1941
Nicola hadn’t lasted long. In fact, if it had been an hour he’d be surprised. He had never experienced pain before, not real pain. But it was when they threatened to do the same to his parents that he had given in. He couldn’t imagine his mother or father being punched repeatedly, shouted at, smacked, threatened and insulted for hours on end.
And as the words poured from his mouth, he wondered if his confession would actually condemn those he was trying to protect. Would admitting his involvement condemn his family, or save them?
But it was too late, he had already sobbed out the admission.
“I took the portrait.”
“Why?”
“I-I wasn’t thinking. I heard you pounding on the door and I panicked. I took the drawing and ran.”
“Why that drawing?”
“It was the only one I could carry. Everything else was framed.”
He was impressed with how well he was lying, and he hoped that his interrogators would be as well. After all, even if what he was saying was a lie, it ultimately, at its most basic level, was the truth. He had panicked. He had taken the drawing. Denying it was of no use.
“You removed it from a packing crate and then removed it from its frame.”
It was another voice this time, from the shadows behind him. He had known someone was standing there all along, though he hadn’t seen a face. Whoever he was, he was a chain smoker, the only evidence he had been standing there the flare of matches and the scuffs of the toe of his
shoe as he stamped out a spent cigarette.
Yet now he had revealed himself.
And his voice was chilling, his Italian excellent though thick with a German accent. Two clicks of leather boots on the stone floor and he was in sight, his crisp black uniform immediately sending a shiver up Nicola’s spine.
SS!
He only knew them by reputation, and that reputation left little doubt they were the most vicious of soldiers. According to his friends—and how they would know was beyond him, everyone seeming to preface their statements with “I heard that…”—the SS hated everyone who wasn’t SS themselves. And those who weren’t SS gave them a wide berth lest they incur their wrath. He had never seen one this close, and never wanted to see one again.
He had a feeling that wasn’t going to be a problem.
He nodded. “L-like I said, it was the smallest thing I thought I could save.”
“Save from who? Aren’t you a loyal Italian?”
“Of course.”
“And isn’t Italy an ally of Germany and the Führer?”
He nodded, not trusting his brain to deliver a firm enough answer.
“Then why would you try to save it from your ally?”
His mind raced for a reasonable reply, but came up with only one thing that he regretted before he had finished saying it.
“It belongs to Italy. If Germany wants it, she should ask politely.”
He was rewarded with the back of a gloved hand, his left cheek stinging, his ears ringing as his mouth filled with a metallic taste.
“Insolence will not be tolerated.”
He said nothing.
“Your motivation for taking it is no longer of any concern. Your employer, Mr. Donati, has given us a full confession.”
Nicola’s shoulders sagged as he thought of the man who had given him a job outside of the fields his allergies tortured him in. It wasn’t much of a job, simply manual labor in and around the small museum, but it was work that paid enough to hire a hand at the farm with a little left over.
It was enough that he felt he was contributing.
Until he would be forced into the army.
“All I need to know from you is where you took the portrait.”
Nicola looked up at the man, deciding whether or not to reassert his manhood, to reclaim his soul from his cowardly act of admission.
The man smiled at him. A smile devoid of any sense of pleasure or joy or friendliness. It was the opposite of what a smile should be. It was evil. “I sense defiance in you, boy.” He pointed at the door. “Let me remind you, we have your aunt in the next room, and your parents back home, and your cousin, and his friend. All their lives depend on your next words. Do you understand me?”
Nicola nodded, closing his eyes.
“Where did you take the portrait?”
Tears burned his cheeks as he revealed the truth, condemning even more lives.
Via Dello Statuto, Rome, Italy
July 7th, 1941
Sturmbannführer Bernard Heidrich removed his hat as he entered the bakery, his nostrils filled with the aromas of fresh baked goods he missed so. He longed to return to the streets of his beloved Munich, yet it wasn’t to be, not for some time at least. He had been tasked to collect a set of artifacts in Italy that Dr. Mengele himself had compiled. What the purpose for this was, he wasn’t privy to, all he did know was that he had been given tremendous latitude in fulfilling his mission, the orders in his breast pocket impressively signed by the Führer himself.
It was a license to do anything.
Anything.
Including torturing Italian farm boys who got in his way.
But he wasn’t a monster. Far from it. He had parents whom he loved dearly, an older brother in the Wehrmacht that he was immensely proud of, a sister who was a file clerk in Berlin, and several nieces and nephews, all in the Hitler Youth and Young Girls’ League. They were all proud Nazis, and loyal Germans. It didn’t mean they were vicious animals without hearts. If you cooperated, you were left alone. If you didn’t, then the law would be applied without mercy.
The young man had cooperated quite quickly.
And if he had told the truth, he just might survive the day.
But if he lied and wasted his time?
He would be shown no quarter.
“Are you the owner?” he asked, stepping ahead of the line of patrons, none daring to protest.
The man jerked out a quick nod, it clear he was terrified.
Good.
“Y-yes. Unless you ask my wife, then she’s in charge.”
Heidrich smiled slightly. This one was quick on his feet, even when scared. He held up a photo of the boy before he had been beaten. “Do you recognize this young man?”
The baker leaned over the counter and nodded. “Yeah, he was here earlier. Asked me for some expired offer and I sent him in the back to talk to my wife.”
So he didn’t lie.
“How long did he stay?”
“Maybe five minutes. He came back out and I gave him his bread.”
“Did he pay?”
“Damn right he did.” The man frowned. “But at the lower price.” He shrugged. “My wife is a soft one with anyone but me.”
“Where is she?”
“In the back.” He turned toward a door and shouted. “Greta! A German officer here to see you!”
“Send him in!”
The man motioned with his chin and Heidrich bowed slightly, snapping his heels together with an impressive click, before walking toward the bead-covered opening. An Italian police officer with him sped ahead, holding the beads aside and Heidrich ducked slightly as he entered, his eyes adjusting to the dimly lit room. A woman sat at a desk covered in what appeared to be receipts.
She eyed him suspiciously, though with little fear.
He doubted any man actually scared her, and felt a moment of pity for the hard working baker outside.
He held out the photo. “I am led to believe you met with this man earlier today?”
She took a quick glance at the photo then shook her head. “No.”
“No?” Heidrich frowned. “Your husband says you did.”
“He’s an idiot.” She shouted an insult in Italian through the beads, it was greeted with a shouted, “Yes, dear, I know.” She looked at Heidrich then shook her head. “He was here, but he didn’t meet with me. There were two police officers here that were expecting him. I don’t know their business, just that when the police ask me to do something, I’m smart enough to do it.”
Heidrich had to admit this was a surprising development, and a quick glance at the two officers accompanying him suggested they felt the same, along with a bit of fear at how he might react. “Police officers?”
She nodded. “I’ve never seen them before, but then again I don’t really pay the police any mind. They came here in the morning with another man, asked if they could wait here, said that a young man would be coming later asking for a deal on a ridiculous amount of some bread and I was to have my husband send him back here.” She glared at the door and raised her voice. “I’m amazed the idiot didn’t screw that up and send him away.”
“I heard that!”
“Of course you heard that, you were meant to, you inbred alcoholic!”
A curse was returned that even Heidrich’s excellent Italian couldn’t fully comprehend. “Who was the other man?”
She shrugged. “No idea. He wasn’t in uniform. Never seen him before.”
“And what was said when he arrived?”
“Not much. He handed over a drawing of some sort, then was told to go to his aunt’s. Then they all left.”
“And that’s all.”
“Yes.”
Heidrich frowned. “If you’re lying to me—”
“Then you can shoot me.” She waved a hand at the pile of receipts. “The way my husband gives away food, we’ll be bankrupt and begging on the streets ourselves before long. Shoot me now and you’ll save me that disgrace
.” She pointed out the door. “Shoot him and you’ll be doing me a favor.”
Heidrich stifled a chuckle. “Is there anything you can tell me about the three men that might help identify them?”
She shook her head. “Two were in uniform, like I said. I didn’t see much beyond their guns. The third was dressed like a laborer, maybe your age.” Her eyes widened and she raised a finger. “And he had a tattoo. It seemed to be of some significance. He showed some of it to the young man and it seemed to calm him down quite a bit, as if he were expecting it.”
Heidrich’s eyes narrowed. There was no doubt the woman was telling the truth and wasn’t involved. Mentioning the tattoo could serve no purpose. She had helped these people out of a sense of duty or fear, which, it didn’t matter. That in itself was enough to have her put in prison if he wanted, though he saw no need for it. He got the sense however that she had been told to cooperate fully, any information she might have of no use.
These three men were shadows, at least to people like her.
She’d never see them again.
“Could you draw the tattoo?”
“No need. It was the cross of Saint Peter.”
His eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”
“Upside down cross with two keys? The cross of Saint Peter?” She frowned. “You’re not religious, are you?”
He didn’t answer, he the one asking the questions. He glanced over at his liaison officer, Captain Luzzatto, and noticed he seemed nervous.
Interesting.
Heidrich bowed, clicking his heels. “Thank you for your time, signora.”
He quickly exited the room, shoving the beads out of his way as he marched outside and into the early evening sunshine. Climbing into the back seat of his car, he turned to Luzzatto.
“Tell me everything you know.”
Beads of sweat covered the man’s brow and he wiped them away with a handkerchief. “A-about what?”
“That tattoo.”
Luzzatto looked about then lowered his voice. “When I first started on the force, oh, almost twenty years ago, I worked on a case where we found the body of a man, badly beaten. He had a tattoo exactly as she described on his chest.” He mapped it out with his finger, the tattoo large, stretching from the top of the ribcage to the solar plexus. “It was very detailed, very unusual, unlike anything I had ever seen before.”
Saint Peter's Soldiers (A James Acton Thriller, Book #14) Page 5