“First things first, Mr. Justice,” White replied. “Father McKenna needs to contact the Jesuit community in Nuremberg and doesn’t know the most expeditious manner to find it. I’ve assured him if anyone knows, you do.”
“I don’t have a clue,” Jackson said as he walked to the window and opened it. He took in a deep breath of the outdoor air.
“That won’t work,” White said. “The stench clings to you.”
Jackson acted as if he hadn’t heard.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Father?” he asked. “Aside from having my clerk locate the Jesuits for you?”
“The odor to which you refer,” White then said, “is that of the putrefying of what I estimate to be between one hundred and three hundred corpses we have found in a hitherto secret room in Castle Wewelsburg.”
“Say that again, I.D.?” Jackson said.
White repeated himself verbatim. He added, “It is not unlike the mass graves I uncovered of slave laborers massacred by the Nazis at Peenemünde.”
Jackson walked behind his desk, slumped in his chair, and with both hands gestured Let’s have it.
White told him what had transpired at Castle Wewelsburg, concluding, “We won’t know how many bodies, or who they were, until we can get down there. And we don’t know when we can do that. Certainly not until tomorrow.”
Jackson wanted an explanation of that, too.
Cronley had just finished providing it when Kenneth Brewster came into the office.
“My God! What smells in here?”
He went to open the window wider.
“I don’t smell anything,” Cronley said. “Can you, General?”
“The faint smell of roses, perhaps,” White replied. “How about you, Father?”
The priest shook his head in disbelief and disapproval but did not reply.
“Ken,” Jackson said, “this is Father McKenna, who needs your assistance.”
“That Father McKenna?”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” the priest said.
“Does the name Heimstadter mean anything to you, Father?”
“We’ve met.”
“Where?”
“In the Tribunal Prison.”
“Then that raises the question, what were you doing with Heimstadter?”
“I took him to see Heimstadter,” Cronley said, sharply. “Okay, Brewster?”
“And you had Justice Jackson’s permission to do that?”
“Because I had his permission to take Heimstadter out of the prison, I damn sure didn’t think I needed it.”
Jackson said, “Where is your interrogatory taking us, Ken?”
“Sir, there was an incident at lunch. Party or parties unknown poured boiling water down Heimstadter’s back. He’s now in the infirmary rather badly burned.”
“It wasn’t accidental, I gather?” Jackson asked.
“No, sir. And from the moment he got to the infirmary, he’s been asking—demanding—to see Father McKenna.”
Jackson looked at Cronley. “Jim?”
“How’d you hear about this, Brewster?” Cronley demanded.
“What do mean?”
“Who told you somebody poured boiling water on Heimstadter? What the hell were you doing, Brewster, hoping to catch me with my hand in the cookie jar?”
“Enough!” Jackson said, softly but angrily. He let that sink in and then turned to Cronley. “Okay, Jim, what were you up to with Heimstadter?”
“I offered him a deal. He gives us Burgdorf, von Dietelburg, and/or the Odessa money and he gets to go to Argentina.”
“You had no right to propose such a thing! They’re to be properly tried here in court,” Brewster said, righteously indignant. Then, realizing he had overstepped his authority, he looked at Jackson and said, “Am I right, sir?”
“Ken,” Jackson said, evenly, smiling at his aide who had been top of his class at Yale and who he considered a brilliant lawyer. “Jim was simply following the Hotshot Billy Principle.”
Jackson and White exchanged smiles.
“Excuse me, sir?” Brewster asked, confused.
Jackson said, “‘If you need permission to do something that you’re absolutely sure is right, and know your superior is going to tell you no, do it anyway. Success earns forgiveness.’ Or words to that effect.”
“I gather Heimstadter rejected your offer?” White said.
“Yes, sir. Cold. But I gave Father McKenna another shot at it.”
“And?”
“Cold. Frighteningly cold,” McKenna said.
White nodded. “That was, of course, before somebody poured boiling water on him. But if he turned down your offer, Cronley, why would anyone be angry?”
“When we returned him from the Mansion to the prison, we put him alone in the backseat of the Nazimobile and took him on a tour of Nuremberg. Somebody with access to boiling water must have seen him.”
“Isn’t that dirty pool?” Jackson asked.
“On the contrary, I think it was a fine idea,” White said. “I thought so at the time, and now that he’s asked for Father McKenna, I believe it a brilliant idea.”
White turned to McKenna.
“Father, if your message to the cardinal can wait, how about going to see why Heimstadter wants to talk to you?”
[FOUR]
Prison Dispensary
International Tribunal Compound
Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1935 27 April 1946
A prison guard sat uncomfortably in a folding metal chair in a corner of the room, holding his nightstick in both hands. SS-Brigadeführer Ulrich Heimstadter was lying naked on his stomach in a hospital bed. He was swathed in greasy-looking bandages from just below his neck to his upper buttocks.
“I heard what happened,” Father McKenna said as he walked into the room. “How are you? How are they treating you?”
“I’m in agony,” Heimstadter said.
“Are they giving you anything for the pain?”
“I refused the injection. I wanted my mind clear when I talked to you.”
“What’s on your mind, Ulrich?”
“You know why those bastards poured the boiling water on me.”
“I gather it wasn’t an accident.”
“When they heard I was riding around Nuremberg in the backseat of that Horch, they concluded that I had betrayed my oath. As that son of a bitch Cronley hoped they would.”
“You don’t know that, Ulrich.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit. What I’m wondering now is whether you can be trusted.”
“About what?”
“Are you here as a priest? For that matter, are you really a priest? Or are you a DCI agent in a priest’s collar?”
“I am not a DCI agent. I am a Jesuit priest assigned to the Vatican.”
“Swear to that—swear to God that you’re a priest and not an agent of Cronley, or any American!”
“Normally, I wouldn’t do that, but these are extraordinary circumstances, aren’t they?” He raised his right hand to the level of his shoulder, and said, “I so swear.”
“Before God!”
“I so swear before God.”
“The first thing I have to do is get out of here alive. If I stay here, the Nazis will kill me as a traitor.”
“You don’t know that.”
“In their shoes, I would regard killing me as a duty.”
“What are you asking, Ulrich?”
“If Cronley agreed to have me transferred elsewhere, could I trust him? Would you trust him?”
“You could. I would. But why would he get you transferred out of here?”
“In exchange for information.”
“What information? The location of von Dietelburg and Bur
gdorf?”
“I don’t know where they are. But I know where they might be.”
“Then why should he trust you?”
“Because, at the very least, the information I have would permit him to arrest three or four—maybe more—of the Odessa people he’s looking for. And allow him to recover—steal—some Odessa money.”
“And you’d give him all this just to be taken from the prison?”
“I’d give him all that to save my life and to open further conversation about me going to Argentina. Once he learned to trust me. Understand?”
“Ulrich, it is not my business to be your agent in any sort of a discussion. But what I will do, if you like, is tell Cronley what you told me and that you want to talk to him.”
“Make that I am willing to talk to him.”
[FIVE]
Cronley, when Father McKenna had passed Heimstadter’s message, marked the time on his wristwatch in order to wait thirty minutes before entering the prison dispensary.
“Herr Brigadeführer,” Cronley said as he and the priest approached Heimstadter’s bed, “I hate to tell you this, but you look like a beached whale.”
When it looked as if McKenna was going to leave the room, Heimstadter called, “Please stay, Father.”
“What did you do,” Cronley pursued, moving to the head of the bed in order to meet Heimstadter’s eyes, “jump into the shower before testing the water?”
“You know very well what happened.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“If I stay in the prison, I’m going to be killed.”
Cronley nodded. “Quite probably.”
“If you agree, with Father McKenna as my witness, that you will transfer me some place I’ll be safe, I’ll give you information you will find valuable.”
“First, I get you transferred and then you give me that valuable information? As in the sun will rise tomorrow?”
“The information I will provide will allow you to arrest four—possibly more—Odessa officers, each of whom almost certainly has far more information regarding the location of von Dietelburg and Burgdorf than you do. You will also be able to seize a considerable amount of Odessa’s assets.”
“I’m having trouble believing my good fortune,” Cronley said. “And believing you.”
“Once we get through stage one—once, in other words, that you will be forced to accept that I’m telling the truth—I’d like to go to stage two, revisiting our conversation about Argentina.”
Cronley was silent, then said, “Getting you moved to some other place will take at least two or three days. What I will do immediately is post a couple of MPs in here. Okay?”
Heimstadter considered that for a minute, then the whole of his body seemed to go limp, his head dropping to the pillow. He sighed as he nodded.
“Approximately six kilometers to the north of Castle Wewelsburg,” he said, “there is a small complex of buildings surrounded by several hundred acres of farmland. It was formerly the Experimental Farm of the Ministry of Agriculture. The complex is currently being run as a farm under the supervision of your military government.”
He raised his head, and went on. “Somewhere on that farmland is a building built in secrecy by the SS when the castle was being renovated. The building today appears deserted, damaged in the war. But under it is the complex of rooms originally designed to work with the castle.”
This sounds like pure bullshit, Cronley thought, his eyes locked on Heimstadter’s.
So why am I believing it?
He said, “And . . . ?”
“And there are at least four—and possibly, probably, as many as six—Odessa officers living there.”
“And nobody has seen them? Come on, Heimstadter!”
“They are hiding in plain sight, as the expression goes, working on the farm. Driving tractors, trucks, et cetera. One of your warrant officers—his name is Wynne—is glad to have them. The remote location of the farm makes it difficult to hire the local farmworkers, and these men are good workers.”
“Warrant Officer Wynne?”
“He’s the American in charge. There are half a dozen other American soldiers on the place.”
“How do you know all this?” Cronley said.
Stupid question. He’s not going to tell me how he learned.
They pass messages—and other contraband, like cyanide—in and out of this Compound like it’s a post office. Even Morty Cohen can’t stop it, and God knows he tries hard.
The look on Heimstadter’s face showed that he, too, thought it was a stupid question.
He said, “What the farm is, Captain Cronley, is a splendid example of what can happen when the victorious Americans and the defeated Germans put the war behind them and cooperate.”
I’d like to kick that flabby white ass of yours from here to Berlin.
“Come on, Father,” Cronley said. “Let’s go get Ulrich some MPs to protect him. Don’t go anywhere, Ulrich. I’ll be back.”
“I rather thought you would.”
[SIX]
Farber Palast
Stein, near Nuremberg, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
2225 27 April 1946
Jim Cronley entered the dining room and saw that General White was at a table pouring champagne into a crystal stem.
“I was about to give up on you and have my dinner,” White said as Cronley approached, “but then Billy Wilson called from the airfield to announce his and Miss Johansen’s arrival. They should be here any minute. What happened with Heimstadter?”
“We got lucky, General,” Cronley said. “Possibly very lucky, depending on how much we can trust the bastard.”
White made one of his Let’s have it gestures with both hands, and Cronley started to tell him what had gone on in the prison dispensary.
He had just about finished when Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson and Miss Janice Johansen of the Associated Press walked up to the table.
“Ah, there you are,” White said, getting to his feet. “We were just about to order dinner. How was your flight?”
Janice stopped at the table, hands on her hips. “You have to the count of ten to tell me about this big story you’ve got for me, General, before I start throwing things. One . . . two . . .”
“You should know, Miss Johansen, that no one intimidates me. That said, Captain Cronley will explain it all to you. May I offer you a glass of champagne?”
“Only if it comes in a bottle that I can throw at Super Spook if he tries any of his bovine excreta on me.”
Cronley grunted. “Calm down, Janice. Sometime after first light tomorrow, Colonel Wilson will take you flying again . . .”
“Over my dead body,” she replied. “Better yet, over ol’ I.D.’s dead body.”
Cronley pretended not to hear her.
“. . . This time in a L-19, not in the general’s Gooney Bird, so it will be easier for you to take photographs,” he went on. “You will fly over a farm complex about six kilometers from Wewelsburg. The farmlands constitute seven hundred hectares. It is currently under the control of the military government. You will first locate the main complex of buildings—”
“What’s the sudden interest in a damn farm?” she interrupted.
He ignored her again.
“—And then a second building somewhere on the farm. This will look to the casual observer to be deserted and abandoned because of damage suffered in the recent conflict. To a sharp-eyed observer such as yourself, Janice, there should be obvious evidence of activity. I’m sure Colonel Wilson here will be happy to help, pointing out, say, tire tracks from trucks or tractors, perhaps smoke from a cooking fire—”
“Somewhat repeating myself: What’s your interest in this building in the middle of nowhere, Jimmy?”
“Well, Janice, I’m pretty sure it houses fiv
e or six Odessa officers, a quantity of Odessa money, and, I dare to hope, von Dietelburg and Burgdorf as well.” He paused, then added, “When you return from your flight—and only after we secure the buildings—there may be room in an M8 for you to go with us to find out.”
Janice stared at him, then glanced at White, before turning back to Cronley. “And this is my story, Jimmy? No one else knows anything about it?”
“It’s yours and yours alone.”
Janice’s eyebrows went up, and, after some thought, said, “Okay, what’s the catch, Super Spook?”
“But only if we still have our understanding.”
“Of course we do. Why the hell would we not?”
XV
[ONE]
Wewelsburg Castle
Near Paderborn, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1325 28 April 1946
A Constabulary staff sergeant came into King Arthur’s/King Heinrich’s Court, walked up to General White, saluted crisply, and announced, “Sir, there’s a Russian general at the gate who wants to see Father McKenna.”
“I was about to ask who’s been running off at the mouth to that goddamn Red,” White said, “but I don’t have to, do I, Father?”
“He has kept his word, General, and I am now keeping mine,” the priest replied, unabashed.
White turned to his aide, who stood next to Colonel Cohen.
“My compliments to General Serov, Russell. Inform him I would be pleased if he would join us.”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Russell said, then left the room, followed by the staff sergeant.
Cronley, standing by the opening of an access in the floor, held a length of quarter-inch rope that snaked down into the darkness.
“Wonder if we should go after them?” he said.
“It’s been seventeen minutes,” Father McKenna furnished. “Any action on the rope?”
Cronley shook his head.
“We’ll give them twenty minutes,” White ordered. “And then, Cronley, you and the good Father can go down looking for them.”
Almost immediately, there was action on Cronley’s rope.
“That’s three jerks,” he announced. “Meaning, reel in the rope!”
The Enemy of My Enemy Page 26