Mark of the Devil

by William Kerr

  The morning fog had refused to lift over the Rhine. Even though she could not see them through the large, insulated window, Hannah could hear the ships’ whistles signaling their presence. Each whistle had a different pitch, a different volume, some identifiable as ships underway with one long whistle every minute, others underway and towing or pushing barges with one long and two short whistles each minute. She’d learned their varying sounds and pitches: tugs with barges; long, low-slung tour boats; larger ships plowing the river with locally produced goods; huge merchant ships on their way to or from the storm-ridden Baltic.

  “Only a little information, but some quite interesting. As for the papers Colonel Krueger spoke about, you may be aware the German government concluded a concordat in July nineteen thirty-three with the Vatican.”

  “Not that familiar with the particulars,” Matt replied, “but, yes, I am aware of it.”

  “Much has been made of this agreement, and many historians say Pius the Twelfth allowed millions of Jews to die because of his refusal to confront Hitler during the war.”

  “You believe that?” Matt asked.

  “Nein. That I cannot accept.”

  “Nor I, not according to accounts I’ve read.”

  “The concordat made certain guarantees to both church and government. In the beginning it is said the German bishops supported Hitler and national socialism, so the concordat seemed the right thing to do.”

  Wanting to know exactly what Hannah was getting at, Matt asked, “Even so, what does the nineteen thirty-three concordat have to do with our Colonel Krueger and documents he was to pick up in Berlin?”

  “A moment. I will read to you.” As she searched through papers scattered on the tiny desk, she said, “I made a copy from the Stadtbibliothek, the city library where Eduard did much of his research. Ah, here.”

  Unfolding the sheaf of papers, Hannah fingered her way down the first page, then the second and third pages, until she reached article 16. “While the government knew it would break most if not all of its promises to the Church…I will read what it says:

  “’Before bishops take possession of their dioceses they are to take an oath of fealty either to the Reich Representative of the State concerned, or to the President of the Reich, according to the following formula: Before God and on the Holy Gospels, I swear and promise as becomes a bishop, loyalty to the German Reich and to the State of…’

  “This part was left blank depending which diocese in the Reich the bishop was to serve. Then it says,

  “’I swear and promise to honor the legally constituted Government and to cause the clergy of my diocese to honor it. In the performance of my spiritual office and in my solicitude for the welfare and the interests of the German Reich, I will endeavor to avoid all detrimental acts which might endanger it.’”

  There was a moment of silence before Hannah said, “You Americans have a saying, I think?”

  “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,” Matt answered.

  “Ja, it required bishops and all others to swear allegiance to the Third Reich, Matthew. See, hear, and speak no evil of the evil Hitler was to commit.”

  “I still don’t see how that helps us.”

  “The nineteen thirty-three concordat was signed by Franz von Papen for the German Government and Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, papal secretary of state, on behalf of Pope Pius the Eleventh.”

  “So?”

  “You’re not Catholic, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you wouldn’t know. Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, full name, Eugenio Maria Guiseppe Giovanni Pacelli. He was Pope from nineteen thirty-nine to nineteen fifty-eight. He was Pope Pius the Twelfth.”

  Matt almost dropped the cell phone. A second concordat in May 1942. Holding his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece, all he could say was, “Damn!” Uncupping the phone and placing it to his mouth, he said, “I think I know what you’re going to say, Hannah, but tell me anyway.”

  “Eduard’s friend at the Archives says it is rumored there was a second concordat with the Vatican, concluded between nineteen forty and nineteen forty-two or forty-three. He has never seen either the original or a copy. He thinks it may have been destroyed in the Führer’s bunker in Berlin, and of course, if the Vatican had a copy, it would never admit such a thing.”

  Matt thought for a moment. “I’m gonna be honest with you, Hannah, and, for the time being, please keep this to yourself. It looks like a second concordat is no longer just a rumor. As for the Vatican, they’d never admit it unless they were blackmailed with the actual document and refused to pay up, whatever the price might be. At that point, if they didn’t, whoever had it would make it public. Did Eddy’s friend say who signed this so-called second concordat?”

  “No one is certain, but it is thought to have been signed by Heinrich Himmler and Pope Pius the Twelfth, himself.”

  The glare of headlights lit up the parking lot. The ambulance with the markings Mayport Branch Clinic on it and two Navy petty officers in the front seat pulled to a stop next to Matt as Roland Davis hobbled his way through the building’s exit.

  “With you in a minute,” Matt said to Davis, walking away from the lights of the ambulance and pacing back and forth through the spread of lights. Should he tell her the second concordat actually did exist? That he had held it in his hands, if only for a few minutes? To be honest, Catholic Popes had never meant a helluva lot to him, but this was different. This could be a stain on the entire Christian world, a stain against humanity.

  “Matthew, are you there?”

  “Sorry, Hannah, guess I was wandering aimlessly about, both mentally and physically.”

  “There is something else,” she said.

  A sour chuckle rose from his throat. “There’s more?”

  “The man Henry Shoemaker you told me about?”

  “Yes?”

  “His real name is, or was, Heinrich Schumacher. His father was one of the top managers with the Krupp armaments people during the war. So high, he and Alfried Krupp von Bohlen were convicted at the Nuremberg trials for the use of forced labor in the manufacture of tanks, artillery, and various munitions for the Nazis.”

  “My God! How do you know this?”

  “Germans are like us Poles. Family records, as Eduard would say…I suppose he learned this when studying in America…all i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Very exact. But there’s more.”

  “I should’ve guessed.”

  “His wife, her name Starla? She was born Hedda Krueger von Papen. She and her brother, Eric Wilhelm von Papen—”

  “Eric? Eric Bruder?”

  “Perhaps. You should know, Bruder is German for brother. They are part of the famous von Papen family. Franz Joseph von Papen, you remember? A signer of the nineteen thirty-three concordat.”

  “What about the name Krueger?”

  “They are the granddaughter and grandson on their mother’s side of SS-Standartenführer Colonel Jürgen Krueger, the man whose thumbprint is the very mark of the devil.”

  CHAPTER 48

  The clock on the wall of Steve Park’s office read a few minutes past two in the afternoon. Matt complained, “Damn it, Steve, I’m tired, yes, and I haven’t had any sleep, but I’m still lucid enough to know that if we don’t do it, nobody will.”

  Swiveling the desk chair around to face Matt, Park shot back, “No! We tell the law, for chrissake! That’s what they’re for. We are not the law.”

  “Tell who? Who can we trust?”

  The jingle of the doorbell announced customers entering the dive shop. “Gotta go out front,” Steve said, getting up from the desk. “Tell Terri Good. I’ve known her for years. She’ll know who to trust.”

  “Yeah, right, uh-huh, like that Hammersmith guy. The way he takes up for Shoemaker and company, he’s probably on Shoemaker’s payroll.” Matt shook his head. “You won’t do it, I will. They killed my Ashley, tried to kill me at least three times, four if you count the Tallahassee rumble, and that d
oesn’t even account for you and Roland Davis. I’m gonna take ‘em out, Steve, with or without you.”

  Matt grabbed the edge of the doorframe and swung from the office into the shop ahead of Park, only to come face to face with Detective Sergeant Terri Good and Detective Mike Hammersmith.

  “Take who out, Mr. Berkeley?” Good asked.

  Matt looked at the woman, then at Hammersmith. “I’m gonna put Alliance Industries, Antiquity Finders, and anybody else connected with Henry Shoemaker and that wife of his out of business—that’s who.”

  “Not today, you’re not,” Hammersmith said. “Face the wall, hands behind you.”

  “What the hell for?” Matt asked, ignoring Hammersmith’s order.

  Hammersmith pushed past Terri Good. His left hand reached under and behind his jacket for handcuffs; the other hand grabbed Matt and shoved him face-first against the wall. “The wall, Berkeley. Hands behind your back. You too, Park. Now!”

  With his chest and face flat against the wall, Matt placed his arms behind his back. He felt his arms jerked roughly together before feeling and hearing the click of cuffs around his wrist.

  “Terri?” Park pleaded.

  “Sorry, Steve,” Good said as she placed cuffs on Park’s wrists. “The submarine out there. The people at the state’s Bureau of Archaeological Research told you to stay away but, no, you’ve both been on board.” Turning Park around, she continued, “Word I got from the state—”

  “Bruder!” Matt spat out. “He got to Brandy.”

  “They’re charging you with removal of at least one gold ingot, some of the crew’s personal items, and Lord knows what else.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Park asked.

  “I’ve been ordered to take you downtown,” Good responded.

  Yanking Matt around by the arm and pointing him toward the shop’s front door, Hammersmith’s words rang loud and clear. “You’ve been a real pain in the ass, Berkeley, but this time, you drew the card that says, ‘Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.’ In other words, you’ve just been royally screwed.”

  Three stories below Starla Shoemaker’s penthouse apartment, the Antiquity Finders’ conference room sat on the twenty-third floor of the Alliance Industries Building. Its broad double-paned windows overlooked the sunlit St. Johns River, the river’s several different colored bridges, and the line of hotels, restaurants, museums, and hospitals on its south bank.

  The inside walls of the room were an eye-soothing, neutral tone of patterned, soundproof acoustical tile, punctuated by two severalinch-thick, ornately carved doors and, at one end, an elevator door. Framed, enlarged color photographs of the Sea Rover and various archaeological sites around the world vied for attention on the remaining wall space. A clock encircled by a ship’s wheel with eight spokes registered 2:30. Even the ceiling’s recessed lighting, extending the length of the twenty-foot mahogany conference table and its army of leather-bound chairs, was directed such that eyestrain would not be a problem. Sideboards of rich mahogany providing coffee services as well as a range of liquors welcomed the individual taste of everyone who entered. Everything in the room was designed for its inhabitants’ comfort except, at that moment, the conversation.

  Seated at the middle of the conference table with the wide expanse of windows and river at her back, Starla nodded in the direction of Eric Bruder, seated immediately to her left, and said, “Quite honestly, gentlemen, my brother and I are extremely disappointed that a representative of each parish in the diocese could not be here today.”

  Sitting on the opposite side of the table were seven men wearing identical black suits and black shirts, each shirt topped by an immediately recognizable white clerical collar. There were two distinguishing characteristics about the apparel of the oldest of the seven—the tall, almost too-thin, balding man centered across the table from Starla. In addition to the gold chain around his neck and the large, gold filigreed pectoral cross suspended from it, he wore what she knew was a ring of great authority on his right ring finger. He was the Most Reverend Giovanni Vincenzo Pastorelli, John Vincent Pastorelli, Bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine.

  Flanked by three parish priests on either side, the bishop said, “I…we still do not understand the significance of this meeting, Mrs. Shoemaker. Certainly, Mr. Shoemaker has been most generous in sharing his wealth with the diocese, but your invitation was rather abrupt, to say the least.”

  “Why so, Bishop Pastorelli?”

  “An archeological finding of severe and damaging impact to the Catholic Church? Please explain.”

  Henry Shoemaker, standing unnoticed in a doorway at the far end of the room, spoke for the first time. “Yes, Starla, please explain. What has any of this to do with the church?” Shoemaker moved slowly but deliberately to a vacant chair at the end of the table and took a seat. Nodding in the bishop’s direction, he said, “Your Excellency, Fathers…” followed by, “And now Starla, what have you and Eric been plotting this time?”

  Starla’s face gave the impression of a deer caught in the headlights, but she quickly regained her composure and answered, “Because of your admitted sensitivities toward the Church, you were purposely not invited to our little tea party, Henry dear, but since you’re here…” She turned to Bruder and ordered, “Eric, pass out the folders.”

  At the same time, Starla fingered a button on the underside of the conference table. To everyone’s surprise, a rectangular section of the table’s surface immediately in front of her tilted upward before slipping beneath the table’s surface, revealing a computer keyboard as well as an ivory colored telephone.

  Shoemaker gave a short, unappreciative laugh. To the clerics, he said, “My wife does like her gadgets, gentlemen.”

  Ignoring her husband, Starla made several keystrokes, causing a set of heavy curtains to close across the expanse of windows, which cut off the view of the river and shut out the daylight. With another keystroke, she caused a motion picture screen to lower soundlessly from the ceiling, hovering only feet in front of the elevator door.

  Starla’s eyes wandered from one priest to the next, finally centering on the bishop before she said, “I’m sure each of you is familiar with the nineteen thirty-three concordat between the German government, the Third Reich as it was more commonly known, and the Vatican. It was signed by Franz von Papen, who during those and later years was considered the patriarch of my family, our family…” she nodded at Bruder, “and Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli on behalf of Pope Pius the Eleventh. And, yes, the rather vicious rumors about Pacelli, later Pope Pius the Twelfth, and his supposed indifference to the Holocaust.”

  The reaction across the table was immediate. Pastorelli glared at Starla, his hands suddenly tightened into fists. “Mrs. Shoemaker, we have not come here to debate the Holocaust. It is well known that His Holiness, Pope Pius the Twelfth, was instrumental in saving over eight hundred and sixty thousand Jews from the death camps. Had he spoken out, there would have been—”

  “Be quiet and listen,” Starla ordered.

  The bishop’s mouth dropped at Starla’s lack of respect.

  “You don’t speak to the bishop like that, Starla,” Shoemaker corrected with a sternness that seemed to surprise even himself.

  “You, too, Henry. Be quiet, or get out!” Turning back to the bishop, Starla took a deep breath and went on. “For the record, the Pope’s true concern or lack thereof for the Jews was not, nor is it now, my concern.

  “A German U-boat disappeared while on its way to Buenos Aires at the end of the Second World War. It has been found. On this submarine, we discovered a document, its whereabouts hitherto unknown. It will, I’m certain, prove to be of great value, both within and outside the Church, but for vastly different reasons. Reasons that will be inflammatory to many. You may open the folders Eric gave you.”

  Shoemaker said, “I don’t have a folder.”

  “Just sit and listen, Henry.”

  Opening his folder and
seeing the title page, one of the priests protested, “This can’t be.”

  “But it is,” Starla said matter-of-factly. “A second concordat.”

  Bruder opened a similar folder in front of him. “What you have in your folders, gentlemen, are copies. There are three versions. One in German, one in Italian, both versions showing the signatures of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and Pio PP, followed by the Roman numeral twelve. Pope Pius the Twelfth. The third copy is in English and, naturally, lacks the signatures.”

  Starla carried on, “For the purpose of this meeting, Eric translated the German version earlier today.”

  “I assure you, mein Herren,” Bruder said, a smirk of superiority on his face, “the translation is accurate. I am fluent in German.”

  “Gentlemen,” Starla said, thumping her knuckles on the table to get their attention. “You will have time to study the documents and verify the signatures at your leisure. For now, only a sample is necessary to demonstrate the seriousness of our venture.”

  “Your venture?” Pastorelli asked, pushing himself up from the table. “This is nothing more than a charade. It’s preposterous!”

  “Sit down, Bishop,” Starla demanded. At the same time, she fingered still another set of keys on the keyboard and loud clicks sounded from the room’s doors as well as the elevator. “The doors are locked. You may not leave until we are finished.”

  The priest immediately to the bishop’s left placed a restraining hand on the bishop’s arm. “Bishop, please, let us hear what she has to say. I’m sure it will only make our determination to thwart whatever she wants that much stronger.”

  Pastorelli lowered himself back into the chair, his jaw drawn in anger. “Continue.”

  Starla commanded the computer first to dim the lights, and second to reveal a projector on the far wall. The projector’s light and soft whirr of the lens, focusing a grid-like design on the distant screen, drew everyone’s attention. “If you will look this way, gentlemen, our little presentation. Eric, if you will be so kind.”