by Mick Hare
O’Shea was content for the Vatican to support these Catholics and help them to escape retribution, but he found their presence tiresome. They had compromised the peaceful atmosphere of the Vatican and diluted the sense of piety he usually felt when living there in normal times. Pretty much the way the Jews had when some of them had been allowed to find refuge within the holy walls. He sought forgiveness from God as soon as he thought it, but he could not prevent a fleeting feeling of pleasure to know that they had gone. Not that he was an anti-Semite. Not in the German sense. Nor after the fashion of dear old Brian Hagan back in Dublin.
O’Shea had other reasons for the discomfort he felt. The brutal assassination of the Blessed Holy Father had plunged him into fear and depression. The fear was gradually receding but the depression was more persistent. The most unthinkable action in the history of the world; and performed by an Irishman no less. He knew a major slab of his black depression was caused by the knowledge that his own past sins may have contributed to the actions of the assassin. He was also sure that the assassin had unfinished business and that he was the object of that business.
He reached his desk in the Papal suite of offices and sat down to work on the Pope’s diary of meetings and events. He worked conscientiously although he knew any itinerary he worked out was a fiction. Each day, as diary secretary, he re-allocated dates that had been missed and re-arranged appointments for future dates that he knew the Pope would never complete.
The frantic comings and goings of the bishops, cardinals and officials of the Swiss Guard filled the offices with an intensity of activity he had never known before. Baron Ernst von Weizsacker, Hitler’s ambassador to the Holy See, was a regular visitor. This very morning he marched in as the Brazilian Ambassador Pinto Accioly was coming out of the Papal chamber. Ambassador Accioly’s face clearly showed the outrage he was feeling. He stepped in front of Weizsacker, halting his progress.
“If you are responsible for denying access to the Holy Father, you will be held responsible.”
A flicker of rage flashed across Weizsacker’s face but he controlled himself and spoke calmly, “The Vatican remains an independent state and I have as much influence here as you.”
“Don’t think I am a fool, Herr Weizsacker. I want you to know that I am here to petition His Holiness to issue an unequivocal denunciation of German atrocities with respect to European Jews. The time for Papal neutrality is gone. Catholic opinion around the world is outraged.”
“You are entitled to petition His Holiness on whatever issue you choose.”
“Don’t patronise me. The world knows you Germans administer Rome. Perhaps you are controlling the Vatican too. Why can I not have a Papal audience? Why is the ambassador of a Catholic country ushered into the presence of his companion, Sister Pasquelina? Mark my words Herr Weizsacker, the world will not forgive you.” With that Accioly turned from Weizsacker and approached O’Shea at his desk.
“Sister Pasquelina instructed me to leave this petition with you. I trust you will ensure His Holiness receives this with the utmost urgency.” With that he turned on his heel and left without further comment.
Ambassador Weizsacker entered the Papal chambers without announcement or introduction. During the three and a half hours that Weizsacker remained within the Papal chambers, O’Shea became bored enough to prise open the lightly sealed envelope and to extract the petition from inside.
The petition was a strongly worded denouncement of German atrocities in Europe. The accompanying letter claimed that the world now had sufficient evidence to prove that the allegations of mass murder were true. Eye witness accounts had reached Britain and the USA. The Vatican could no longer hide behind German denials. The petition demanded that the Pope issue a statement unequivocally condemning German practices of slave labour and mass murder. The statement the Pope should issue was presented in draft form. An appendix confirmed that all Allied and many neutral countries, including several significant Catholic countries, had agreed the draft. The world was waiting on the Pope. O’Shea filled his time making notes countering the arguments in the draft.
1. Eye-witness accounts unreliable.
2. German denials had ring of sincerity.
3. What about Russian atrocities?
4. If a Papal statement destabilised Germany, how would the spread of Bolshevism be prevented?
5. The Pope could never abandon the Catholics in Germany who had remained true to the faith.
6. Abandoning position of strict neutrality would necessitate relinquishing an invaluable position to hold in the event of a negotiated peace.
He attempted a separate list noting the dangers of refusing to issue the statement.
1. Alienating millions of Catholics in countries like Brazil.
2. Being seen to be sympathetic to Nazism – particularly dangerous if Germany were to lose the war.
He got no further with this list, not just because his heart was not in it, but because Weizsacker emerged from the inner sanctum and shocked him with the following statement.
“Pope Pius has asked for you!”
Before O’Shea could gather his senses Weizsacker had strode across the office and disappeared through the outer door. O’Shea sat wondering whether or not he had misheard. After all, they all knew there was no Pope Pius. Not any more.
Convinced that when he entered the Papal chamber he would be told to leave again he, nevertheless, could not prevent himself acting upon the words he thought Weizsacker had spoken.
He turned the great handle and pushed the door. It slid smoothly open. Mind numbed with expectation he slipped silently into the room. There were no lights on but a rack of candles flickered in the far corner. To the right and beyond the candles he could dimly make out a figure. The figure was dressed in Papal robes, as if ready to say mass. As he stepped closer, O’Shea gasped silently. He felt his breath catch in his throat. In front of him, in the gloom, stood his beloved Pope Pius XII. O’Shea fell to his knees. He was burdened down with thoughts that sprang from the deepest regions of his religious mind. One word echoed around his bludgeoned brain.
“Resurrection.”
He began to experience a feeling of dizziness and disorientation. He believed he was experiencing a sacred religious episode. His thighs and calves trembled, even though he was already on his knees. His head was too heavy for his neck muscles to hold. He crumpled to the floor, forehead pressing upon the carpet. And then the Pope spoke.
A shaft of cold steel shot through O’Shea’s being. It was the Pope; but it wasn’t the Pope. The voice was close but there was enough difference in the pitch and the emphasis for O’Shea to know. A new word entered his brain.
“Reincarnation.”
Not part of the Catholic canon, but if God willed it, O’Shea would accept it. If the Cardinals had decided on this path with God’s good guidance, then O’Shea would accept it.
The figure rose and came towards him. Pope Pius spoke again, “Father O’Shea. You must get to your feet. The Cardinals say we have work to do. You will attend me in saying mass.”
O’Shea rose and stood before the figure approaching him. He observed the gait and heard the tones of the Pope’s simpleton brother who had, until now, lived an isolated life in a Sicilian monastery. O’Shea had once accompanied the Pope on a visit to the monastery. He had not been introduced to the papal sibling but he had caught a good glimpse from across a quadrangle. His existence was not known to the world at large, although rumours had survived from the days of their childhood. O’Shea bowed, took the hand offered to him and kissed the Papal ring. Together they walked through the Vatican to the room with the balcony over St Peter’s square, where they said mass together to the congregation below.
When the Pope had delivered the final blessing and bid the congregation go in peace, the crowd applauded and cheered, so relieved were they to see His Holiness once more.
Sixty-five
Down below, at the edge of the square, Robert and Lily watched in d
isbelief as the Pope said mass. They looked at each other, silently expressing a mutual ‘how can this be?’
“It’s not him!” whispered Robert.
Although he had whispered, a nun standing alongside them immediately turned and stared at him. She then moved swiftly away and Robert watched her approach a Swiss Guard. It dawned on him at that moment that the crowd contained an unusual number of nuns and Swiss Guards. Before she could turn and point him out he took Lily by the arm and pulled her behind a column. Telling her to stoop, they scuttled away from the square.
Later, as they sipped an ersatz coffee at a pavement café they saw several men and women being escorted away from the square by Swiss Guards.
“That’s what nearly happened to us,” he said to Lily nodding at those being dragged away. “The good old Catholic Church never changes. It knows what it is good at and it plays to its strengths. Forcing its own view of the truth upon others has always worked in the past. Why not now?”
Lily watched Robert, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I’m thinking that that was O’Shea with him up there on the balcony. And if it was, I know that he will eventually be bound to come out of the walled city, and when he does I have a good idea which exit he will be likely to use.”
“And what do you propose to do?”
Robert finished his coffee and put down his cup.
“I intend to go and wait for him and then I’m going to kill him.”
“In that case,” said Lily, finishing her own coffee, “I’m coming with you.”
Robert could see from the set of her face that it was pointless arguing with her, so he simply nodded.
“What are you smiling at?” he asked her.
“Nothing much,” she replied. “It’s just that I noticed a light in your eye that I haven’t seen for some time.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” said Lily, “That you’ve stopped planning and you’re ready to act.”
Robert smiled at that and they left the pavement café together.
Sixty-six
Haupsturmfuhrer Schirach extinguished his cigarette beneath the heel of his shoe and followed after Robert and Lily. In a grey suit and trilby he looked less formidable than in his uniform. Nonetheless he was a determined and relentless pursuer and now his prey was within sight.
Schirach followed at a safe distance and only when Robert and Lily were established in their position opposite the staff entrance to the Papal apartments did he peel away to a public telephone box to make a call.
When he returned to his observation position he spotted his subjects and then checked his watch. In approximately ten minutes, a snatch squad would be in place and these two British agents would be history. Assassination had been an option, but he had decided against it. Arrest and interrogation before execution; that was his preference – especially for the traitor Lily Brecht. It was important to have them dead rather than allow word of their mission to get out, but he was confident that he could organise their removal from the world into the limbo of his custody before eliminating them permanently. Schirach was one of the few people on the planet who knew that Pope Pius XII was dead. Despite that knowledge he was quite content to be told that Pope Pius was now alive and had never been dead. What are facts when you are dealing with Christ’s representative on Earth? He had a simple, methodical mind. He was no philosopher-scientist and had no desire to be one.
Just then a door opened at the base of the Vatican walls and out stepped O’Shea. O’Shea moved swiftly. Just as swiftly Robert and Lily got to their feet and hurried after him. Schirach found himself hurrying after them. He was annoyed! His support team had not arrived and he was pursuing them on his own. He could assassinate them but he was not totally confident that he would be able to arrest them on his own.
Robert and Lily hurried after O’Shea through the streets, which were now subject to a fine drizzle of rain. As pursuers they had little thought of being followed themselves. As they gradually gained on O’Shea, Schirach was gaining on them. He had his pistol in his palm inside his jacket pocket.
Turning into a cobbled lane which ran down towards the river, Robert decided that this was to be the scene of his final revenge on O’Shea. O’Shea, hair and robes flapping in the wind, was halfway down the lane when Robert spurted ahead of Lily and moved up on him. Before he could catch him O’Shea surprised them by stepping into a doorway and disappearing inside a building. Robert stopped, cursed and looked up at the sign above the door.
Red Cross? What the hell did O’Shea want with the Red Cross? Lily came to Robert’s side and said, “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I was so close.”
“Shall we go in?” Lily asked.
Prompted by the question and the need to make a decision they looked up and down the lane. Halfway down the slope, walking swiftly towards them was a man in a grey suit and trilby hat. As they turned to look the other way a group of schoolchildren in black uniforms turned at the bottom of the slope and swarmed around them as they proceeded up the bank.
The man in the grey suit stopped suddenly. Robert did not recognise the man but some kind of indecision showed on his face. Robert recognised a potential danger and was appalled at his carelessness in his blinkered pursuit of O’Shea. Pushing Lily by the waist he hissed, “Quick, this way.” And using the schoolchildren as a shield they slipped away to the bottom of the lane and fled around the corner.
Schirach made a brave attempt to push his way through the children, but by the time he made it to the corner Lily and Robert were long gone.
“All right my good doctor. We will have to make more careful plans to get our hands on you. Perhaps I will speak to this cleric you seem to be so interested in.”
Sixty-seven
Hours spent in the apartment were heavy and slow. Lily had been unable to speak to Robert for several days. She knew something must have happened, but whenever she approached the matter with him he warned her off with a look.
“I know what keeps taking O’Shea into the Red Cross office.” It was Friedrich who just dropped this into the silence that had pervaded the room.
Robert and Lily looked at him. He was sitting in a thin grey overcoat and his face was unshaven. Lily thought he looked unwell. Realising they were waiting for him to explain Friedrich continued, “It’s a front for Nazis wanting to get to Argentina. Bishop Alois Hudal is a Nazi sympathiser. He is running an organisation that is releasing hundreds of Nazis. They are escaping to Argentina and various other South American countries.”
Lily was aghast.
“How is he doing that?” she queried. “Are you serious?”
“He provides hiding places and false passports. He then provides tickets on liners going to South America. Mainly Argentina.”
“Is this official Vatican policy?”
“It’s not official. But they sure as hell know what’s going on. The Vatican sponsors an institution known as the College of San Girolamo degli Illirici. It started out as a theological college for Croatian priests. But now it is a refuge for fleeing Croatian war criminals. The Vatican is struggling to find anything wrong with Pavelic’s attempt to create a completely Catholic Croatia by murdering all non-Catholics in the country. Unfortunately for them Tito is proving rather more successful as a leader than Pavelic. So Croatian butchers are turning up in their droves at the college. They come with lots of plundered gold so they can pay handsomely for the hospitality they receive. Hudal’s partner in this enterprise is a theological professor known as Father Krunoslav Dragonovic. He and his minions do all of the administration. I believe the Vatican is projecting the end for Catholic Croatia and wants to deploy the wealth and personnel to Argentina, for which Pope Pius XII has such an affection. For him it has the perfect regime. Catholic, military, pseudo republican. Very much like Spain. Ostensibly Dragonovic devotes much of his time to the Red Cross. But his offi
ce is a pure front. It is a base to which fugitives can flock. They probably believe they are saving the world from Bolshevism by releasing the Nazi virus into the future. They also believe they are saving good Catholics. Anyway, the good news is I may be able to get us a passage on the next ship embarking. It’s a Uruguayan liner called The Montevideo.”