“One of them I can stash in the Mansion—DCI headquarters—downtown. I don’t know about the other. Maybe put him in Strasbourg with my friend Colonel Jean-Paul Fortin.”
“Cronley, I’ve spent a lot of time in prisons.”
“I’m shocked! What did they get you for?”
“As a chaplain,” McKenna said, tiredly.
“And?”
“Cronley, if I offer an observation and then a suggestion, will you think about it before you immediately issue a withering opinion of it?”
“Have at it.”
“Prisoners have nothing to do all day and all night but think. As a result, they are usually able to outwit their guards. I’m not talking about escaping, obviously, but communicating with other prisoners, for example.”
“I’ve heard that, but so what?”
“Another thing I noticed is that prisoners don’t trust each other and are thus prone to suspect that prisoner A is a snitch, that prisoner B is getting special treatment for some nefarious reason, et cetera. Still with me?”
Cronley nodded.
“You don’t think you’re going to get anywhere with these two today because you didn’t get very far with them the last time you tried. Correct?”
“Go on. You have my attention.”
McKenna patted the back of the front seat.
“If either one of them was seen riding through the streets of Nuremberg in the backseat of your Nazimobile, it would be all over the prison within hours.”
“I see where you’re going. You are a devious sonofabitch, Father McKenna—I say that with admiration.”
“There are a number of other possibilities that I see.”
“Such as?”
McKenna told him.
[THREE]
Palace of Justice
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1135 26 April 1946
“You sure you know what to do?” Max Ostrowski, standing next to the Horch, asked of DCI Agent Cyril Kochanski, who was in the front passenger seat, the car’s roof still folded down. DCI Agent Basil Frankowski was behind the wheel.
Kochanski nodded. “First, I load the Nazi bastard—”
“SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Heimstadter,” Ostrowski furnished.
“SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Heimstadter,” Kochanski dutifully repeated. “First, I load him in the backseat of the Nazimobile, then get in beside him, and we take off. Then, as soon as we’re out of sight of the Tribunal, I get out of the backseat and climb up front.”
“After telling the general what?”
“That if he even looks like he’s thinking of running off, I’m going to shoot him in the knees.”
“And then?”
“And then Basil takes us on a fifteen-minute tour of Nuremberg, finally ending up at the Mansion.”
“Correct.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” Ostrowski said, smiling.
Cyril Kochanski gave Max Ostrowski the finger and then signaled Basil Frankowski to get moving.
* * *
—
Forty-five minutes later, the Horch turned off Offenbach Platz and stopped before the twelve-foot-tall gate in the Compound wall. Frankowski tapped the horn to get inside.
Kochanski turned in his seat so that he could keep an eye on SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Heimstadter. He grunted. Heimstadter, riding alone in back, looked much like a Nazi big shot en route to a rally that Kochanski had heard Captain Cronley mention.
The gate opened inward, and the Horch drove through and up to the front of the large, luxurious house. Kochanski gestured with his fist for Heimstadter to get out. His massive hand almost completely hid the full-size Colt .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol it held.
Then Kochanski got out of the Horch and gestured for Heimstadter to enter the Mansion.
Once inside, he led the German to closed double doors off the foyer.
Kochanski knocked and was told to enter.
Beyond the double doors was the library, a large room with rich, dark leather furniture and book-lined walls. In the center was a heavy wooden table. Seated at it were four men: Colonel Mortimer Cohen, Captain James D. Cronley Jr., Captain Chauncy Dunwiddie, and Father Francis X. McKenna, S.J.
Facing the table were two wooden chairs with arms, and, nearby, four others without arms. Colonel Cohen saw that Heimstadter was trying to survey the luxurious room unnoticed. Then he tried not to stare at Dunwiddie.
“Herr SS-Brigadeführer,” Cohen announced, gesturing at one of the armchairs facing the table. “Please, have a seat.”
Then he pointed to Kochanski and directed him to post himself as guard outside the double doors. The big Pole nodded once, turned on his heels, and marched out.
“You’re lucky, Herr SS-Brigadeführer,” Cohen then said, pushing back his chair. “My august presence and commanding authority are required elsewhere. I had hoped to be part of this interview, as I consider the subject matter of great importance . . . You’ve got it, Cronley.”
Cohen then stood up, as did Cronley and Dunwiddie. Cohen then marched out of the room. Cronley sat back down. Dunwiddie then went to the armless wooden chairs, picked one up using only one hand, then placed it, backward, near Heimstadter. He sat in it, crossing his massive forearms across the top of the chairback.
This bit of theater had been at the suggestion of Father McKenna. He had announced that because Tiny Dunwiddie was not only enormous but also very black, the Germans, not accustomed to such, would be nervous in his presence.
“It therefore follows,” McKenna had added, “that they will be even more nervous being in very close proximity of a strange enormous black man with muscular arms crossed and a cold stare.”
“That’s a very good point,” Dunwiddie had replied, and looked at Cronley. “You’d think someone would have thought of that before now.”
Cronley, who had made the same observation many times at the Pullach Compound near Munich and here at the Mansion, had chosen to ignore the comment. He noted, however, that the priest now looked rather pleased with his announcement.
* * *
—
“And good morning to you, Herr SS-Brigadeführer,” Cronley now began, in fluent German. “How’s every little thing in your life?”
“I have reminded you several times, Captain Cronley, that my rank is generalmajor.”
“Then we have already agreed to disagree. I’ve always believed that once an SS-Brigadeführer, always an SS-Brigadeführer.”
Heimstadter gave him a look of exasperation.
Cronley, intentionally not introducing Dunwiddie, then said, “Herr SS-Brigadeführer, this gentleman is Father Francis Xavier McKenna, of the Society of Jesus. Somehow, a rumor that we were mistreating former senior Nazi officials, such as yourself, reached the Vatican. Cardinal von Hassburger sent Father McKenna to look into it. So please tell him, Herr SS-Brigadeführer, how we’ve been abusing you.”
“I would prefer, Captain, to have that conversation with the SS-Brigadeführer alone,” McKenna said.
“Certainly, Father. Anything to please the Pope’s representative.”
“That’s the purpose of this meeting?” Heimstadter asked. “To hear my complaints about my treatment?”
“That’s one of them,” Cronley said. “But the major one is to give you a chance to save your sorry ass—specifically, your neck—from the hangman’s noose.”
“You might want to consider, Captain,” McKenna said, “that my report will include a section regarding what I observed about the prison staff’s attitude toward its prisoners.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to watch myself. The last thing I need is to have the Pope pissed off at me.”
“I find your attitude toward me approach
es intentional discourtesy.”
“I’m crushed,” Cronley said. “You got any more complaints or can I tell Willi here what this meeting is all about?”
“Do whatever you think you should,” McKenna said.
“Okay. So, Willi, the powers that be propose a deal. You tell us either where we can find von Dietelburg and Burgdorf or where Odessa is hiding the money and, quote, other valuables, unquote, it didn’t put in the Vatican Bank. For that information, you (a) won’t be hanged, (b) will get a new identity, and (c) will be safely transported to Argentina.”
“I’ve already told you, many times, that (a) I have no idea where Burgdorf or von Dietelburg might be and (b) that if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“You realize, Willi, that I’ve been ordered to offer the same deal to your pal Müller?”
“If I were a betting man, Captain Cronley, I’d wager that Standartenführer Müller’s reply will be much the same as mine.”
“Probably, but not certainly. He’s always looking on the bright side. He may decide that the sun shining on him and his family in Argentina is a more attractive prospect than it shining on an unmarked grave here.”
“I don’t think or expect you will understand this, Captain Cronley, but it’s a matter of honor.”
“Well, you heard the offer, Willi, and rejected it. I suppose you can change your mind at any time before they drop you through that hole in the gallows. I’m out of here. Father McKenna, when you’re through with Willi, raise your voice and call for the guard.”
Cronley then raised his voice, called, “Guard,” and the door opened. He looked at Dunwiddie. “Let’s go.”
As Dunwiddie stood, Cronley noticed that it caused Heimstadter discomfort.
Good, you miserable sonofabitch.
* * *
—
McKenna sat quietly for a minute before reaching in his pocket and removing a packet of Chesterfields. He offered it to Heimstadter, who motioned no with his hand, and said, “Danke. I gave up smoking.”
“I never took it up,” the priest said, putting the pack back in his pocket. “Well, Herr Heimstadter, how have they been treating you? Any complaints?”
“I don’t know if this qualifies as a complaint, but I was thinking there is something quite perverse in their concern for my health, mental and physical.”
“How so perverse?”
“They want to be absolutely sure that when they drop me through that hole in the gallows Cronley was talking about, I’m in perfect health and quite sane.”
Heimstadter looked at McKenna as if to determine his reaction to the comment.
“I suppose that could be considered ‘gallows humor,’ but frankly, Herr Heimstadter, I’ve never seen much to laugh about in such humor. Actually, I’m just about convinced that what you and others like you and Müller intend to do—bravely face the hangman’s noose—is a mortal sin.”
“How do you figure that?” Heimstadter flared. “We swore an oath before God! What we are doing is what we swore to do.”
“I’d prefer not getting into a philosophical argument with you. I shouldn’t have said that. I apologize.”
“My experience has been that people apologize only when they know they’re wrong,” Heimstadter said, smugly.
“You do want to argue, don’t you? My experience is that people want to argue only when they’re not at all sure of the validity of their position.”
“I’m absolutely sure of the validity of mine.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but this oath you took was to follow Adolf Hitler, right? Everybody in the SS took that oath?”
“Follow the Führer’s orders unto death, specifically.”
“But he’s dead, isn’t he? By suicide?”
“So?”
“How can you follow the orders of a dead man?”
“His orders, his plans for a Thousand-Year Reich, did not die with him.”
“Then this is about this heretical religion he was trying to start?”
“It is not a heretical religion. It is about the Thousand-Year Reich that Adolf Hitler started.”
“And you feel your oath to follow Hitler’s orders requires you to support the notion of a Thousand-Year Reich?”
“Absolutely.”
“Forgive me, but I can’t see how your committing suicide by hangman’s noose is going to help anything.”
“Our deaths on the gallows will serve as an inspiration to those following in our footsteps!”
McKenna was silent for thirty-odd seconds.
The fury was still evident in Heimstadter’s facial expression, and McKenna sought to calm it with rational discussion.
“This is what will happen on the day of your execution,” he began, in the practiced tone of one who had counseled thousands through the screen of a confessional window. “The date of the execution will not be made public. You will be awakened at the usual hour. If you normally go to mass, you will do so.
“Then, without prior notice and at a random hour, you will be led from your prison cell to the gallows. Your feet and hands will be tied. The sentence of the Tribunal will be read. The hangman will place a black bag over your head, then the noose around your neck. You may well wish to request a cigarette at that point.”
Heimstadter, wordless, stared at McKenna.
“Then without warning,” the priest went on, “the door in the floor beneath your feet will fall away, and you will be dropped through the opening. The knot in the noose may—or may not—break your neck and cause instant death.
“Your lifeless body will be taken from the noose and laid on the ground. Your hands will be folded across your chest holding a placard bearing your name, and a photograph taken.
“Your corpse will then be placed in the back of an Army truck. No casket. This procedure will be followed for the next four to six men scheduled for execution that day.
“All of the bodies will be covered by a tarpaulin. The truck will then drive to a crematorium, where the corpses will all be burned.
“At this point, just as soon as the ashes are cool enough to handle, a senior officer whose identity will never be made public will supervise the placement of your ashes into a fifty-five-gallon steel drum along with the ashes of the others executed.
The drum with these comingled ashes will be loaded on a truck carrying other drums holding the ashes of other Nazis, those killed after the liberation of the concentration camps.
“The truck will then be driven to any of the five rivers within a hundred miles of the Tribunal. The senior officer will give the driver directions. A jeep full of MPs will follow the truck.
“Once on a bridge over the river, the truck will stop, and the contents of six of the drums will be dumped onto the bridge. The MPs will then first shovel all the ashes into one pile, which will serve to comingle them, and then shovel the ashes off the bridge into the river. Finally, they will puncture the bottoms of the drums and throw them into the river.
“The point of all this is to make sure that the final resting place, so to speak, of those executed will never be known.”
Heimstadter cleared his throat.
“Nice try, Father. But it didn’t work.”
“Excuse me?”
“Go fuck yourself, papist!”
McKenna nodded slightly and sighed.
“I’ll talk with you again when you’ve regained your composure.”
McKenna stood up and went to the door.
“Guard!”
This time, Cyril Kochanski and Basil Frankowski appeared at the double doors, both armed.
* * *
—
“I thought I was getting to him,” McKenna said to Cronley five minutes later. “I was wrong.”
“You want to try Müller?”
“I will if you insist, but,
frankly, my ego isn’t up to it.”
“Well, then, I think what we should do is send ol’ Willi back to his cell at the Tribunal, after another tour of the city, and then when the Horch finally comes back, we head back to Castle Wewelsburg.”
[FOUR]
Wewelsburg Castle
Near Paderborn, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1830 26 April 1946
Cronley found Lieutenant Colonel David P. Dickinson and Major Donald G. Lomax in what he thought of as King Arthur Hall, but designated as his Court Room, with twelve doors and an enormous, circular wooden table large enough for King Arthur and his twelve Knights of the Round Table.
They went over a stack of huge sheets of parchmentlike paper, making notations on them, after consulting their notebooks.
“What did you find out about our humble home?” Cronley asked.
“It’s riddled with secret rooms, passageways, et cetera,” Dickinson replied. “What Lomax and I are trying to decide is, when were they added to the castle? In the old days or when the modifications were made ten, twenty years ago?”
“Revealing my ignorance, why does that matter?”
“We don’t want a ceiling to fall because we took out a wall. The rule of thumb is, when knocking something down, reverse the steps taken to build the building to take it down.”
“How do you know what steps somebody else followed, and in what order, building something ten years—or a hundred years—ago?”
“That’s the fun part, Captain Cronley,” Colonel Dickinson said. “But not to worry, Lomax and Dickinson, engineers extraordinary, are working on it.”
“And when do you think you’ll be finished?”
“Some time in this century, if we’re lucky,” Lomax said, and then saw the look on Cronley’s face and felt sorry for him.
“I think we can start to go through a small wall in the big round room tomorrow. One of the possibilities is different from the other eleven. It looks like that might be the place where the project was finished—ergo sum, the place to start our reverse construction.”
The Enemy of My Enemy Page 24