‘One moment, sir.’
He turned away. Morgan stood, staring at the man’s back. It was unreal. The next few moments decided it all. And then, suddenly, he felt almost calm. He had done it. Done his best. If all was lost, so be it. The clerk was bent over a pile of cards. He pored over one, and the passport and the form.
He straightened up. He said something in German to the clerk at the next desk. He walked back to Morgan.
He reached below the counter and pressed a button.
The iron grille slid open, and Morgan jerked. A dapper man in a suit was striding officiously towards him.
The clerk ripped the form from the counterfoil. He handed it to the dapper man and said:
‘Take Mr Constantine to his box, please.’
He was walking on air. He felt laughy with relief. He followed the dapper man through the grille. He had to work at it to keep a grin off his face. He wanted to do a little skip. Through a vault with red carpet, the walls gleaming with the tiers of silvery boxes from floor to ceiling. Through an arch into another big room. More vaults led off. Red carpet all the way, the walls gleaming with boxes. Into another vault. A spiral staircase leading down to more vaults.
The dapper man stopped at box 7224. He inserted his own key and turned it. ‘Now your key, please, sir.’
Morgan pulled out the bunch of keys. ‘I forget which one it is.’
‘It will be this one, sir.’
Morgan inserted it shakily, and turned it. The man opened the little door. Inside was a metal box about two inches in depth. He handed it to Morgan. ‘This way, sir.’
Morgan clutched it. He could hardly believe he had it. The man led the way into another room. There were rows of tables, divided by partitions.
Morgan said huskily: ‘Haven’t you got private rooms?’
‘Cabins? Yes, sir. Follow me.’
He led into a corridor. It had doors down each side. Above each shone a light, some green, some red. He went to the nearest door showing a green light, and opened it. The cabin had a desk and a chair.
‘When you are finished, press the bell, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ Morgan closed the door behind him. And locked it. He leant against it, and closed his eyes. He was trembling with relief.
‘Thank You, God …’ he whispered.
He pulled out the chair, and sat down at the desk. He lit a trembly cigarette.
He lifted the lid off the box.
He was looking at a small metal cylinder, a tape-recorder cassette, and an envelope.
He picked up the cylinder slowly. He unscrewed the cap. He looked inside. Then he tipped the contents out, into his hand.
So this was it. This was what everybody was after, the British, the KGB.
It looked like a small roll of camera film. He felt helpless. How do you develop microfilm? Who could he trust to do the job? Could you do it in an ordinary darkroom, with the ordinary equipment?
He picked up the envelope, and opened it.
Inside were some papers, and some film negatives. He glanced at the papers. One was a photocopy of a banker’s letter. The other document was an airline waybill. He held the strips of film negatives up to the light. Black-and-white negatives. Indistinct, of people, not documents.
He picked up the cassette.
Handwritten on the label was: Klaus Barbie, 1982.
Morgan stared. Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons!
On that tape, he was sure, was a verbal explanation of what was on the microfilm …
Of course it was! What would you do if you were Klaus Barbie? – what does any blackmailer do? He tells his victim what he’s got against him – he doesn’t show the original, he shows a copy! But Barbie could not make a copy of the microfilm so he summarizes his evidence verbally, on this tape!
Morgan felt feverish. If he could play that tape, he would know what this whole business was about. Know what they were up against, what to do about it. And he was not going to leave the security of this building until he had listened to that tape … He rang the bell.
A few moments later there was a knock on the door. He opened it. ‘Yes, sir?’ the dapper clerk said.
‘I want to dictate some notes onto a tape. You haven’t a portable tape-recorder, have you?’
‘No sir. But we could hire you a stenographer.’
‘Where’s the nearest shop I could buy a tape-recorder?’
‘Jemboli, sir. A department store, a few blocks away.’
‘Jemboli. Thank you. May I use your telephone?’
The man led him back to the room which contained the desks. Morgan was clutching the deposit box. ‘The telephone directory, sir.’ The man pointed, and walked away.
‘Thank you.’ Morgan pulled out Danziger’s note of the public telephone in the Carlton Pub. He dialled it feverishly.
It rang twice: ‘Hullo!’ Makepeace said breathlessly.
Morgan said carefully: ‘I’m not ready to leave yet. Now listen. A few blocks away is a store called Jemboli. Go there, and buy a portable tape-recorder. The type that can play one tape and record it onto another cassette. Get a couple of blank tapes. Plus good batteries. And it must have an earpiece, so I can listen without anybody else hearing. Got that?’
A stunned silence. ‘A tape-recorder? What kind?’
‘Any goddam kind! And then bring it into the bank. Down to the safety-deposit department. They’ll be expecting you. Tell them it’s for Mr Constantine.’
‘Constantine?’ Makepeace whispered.
‘Correct. And then you have to stay in the bank in case the Comrades jump you. Sit upstairs in the foyer. Danziger must take your place by the telephone.’
Makepeace said worriedly, ‘He’s not going to like this.’
‘Fuck Danziger! Do as you’re told!’
He hung up. The dapper man strutted back to him. Morgan said, ‘My assistant will come shortly with a tape-recorder. Would you bring it to my cabin?’
‘Certainly, sir.’
At that moment another clerk walked into the room. He was leading another client to the corridor of cabins. The client was Sergei Suslov.
Morgan paid no attention to him. He was trying to think what to do with the microfilm after he had listened to the tape. Then suddenly he knew. At least it was the first step. He said to the clerk: ‘I think I need to rent a new box – a bigger one.’
‘You have to go to the front desk for that, sir.’
The man led him through the vaults, back into the front room. The clerk behind the counter came forward. Morgan said huskily, ‘I’ve decided my box is too small. I’d like to rent a bigger one, please. In fact, I’d like to make it a numbered account. Is that possible?’
‘Yes, sir. It is more expensive. But it means that henceforth you will be known to us only by your number. Your signature will be your number, written in words. Instead of your name, you write out your number, in words, and we compare your writing with the word-numbers on your original application form – and that is your signature. It means that nobody could forge your normal signature and get to the box.’
‘I see. Yes, I’ll have one of those, please.’
Fifteen minutes later he was back in his cabin. With his new, bigger box, and his new keys.
Now he was the only person in the world who knew where the microfilm was.
He picked up the banker’s letter and read it hurriedly.
It was a photocopy of a letter from the Vatican Bank, signed by two officers with Italian names. Dated September 1st, 1981. It was addressed to Banco Ambrosiana, Andino, Peru, and to Ambrosiana Group Banco Commercial, Nicaragua. Morgan’s pulse fluttered. Banco Ambrosiana? God’s Banker’s bank. The letter read:
Gentlemen:
This is to confirm that we directly or indirectly control the following companies:
Manic SA Luxembourg
Astolfine SA Panama
Nordeurop Establishment, Liechtenstein
UTC United Trading Corporation, Panama
&nbs
p; Erin SA Panama
Bellatrix SA Panama
Belrosa SA Panama
Starfield SA Panama
We also confirm our awareness of their indebtedness towards yourself as of June 10, 1981, as per attached statement of accounts.
The attached statements showed an indebtedness by the Vatican Bank to the South American banks of 907 million dollars.
Morgan frowned. So? God’s Banker owned Banco Ambrosiana, and his bank evidently had partnerships in other banks in Peru and Nicaragua. So, the companies listed in the letter had borrowed money from the Peruvian and Nicaraguan banks, and as the Vatican Bank owned or controlled the companies, it owed the money to those banks. So? On the face of it, nothing remarkable about that. 907 million was an awful lot of money, but not to the Vatican Bank. Anna had told him that God’s Banker and the Vatican Bank did some business together, and this simply confirmed it.
But what was this letter doing in Max Hapsburg’s deposit box?
Morgan snatched up the airline waybill, and speed-read it.
It was a carbon copy. It was simply a contract note specifying that this airline, called Meteor Air, was going to deliver sixteen crates of bulldozer hydraulic lifts from Malta to Bellatrix SA, in Panama. The delivery date was June 17th, 1982.
Morgan tried to concentrate. Bellatrix was one of the companies mentioned in the letter, owned by the Vatican Bank. So? So, okay, Bellatrix dealt in bulldozer parts, and it had bought sixteen pieces in Malta, and Meteor Air was going to deliver them to Panama. So what? The only thing that was possibly significant was the delivery date, three days before Anna’s, birthday last year, the day before God’s Banker was murdered.
Then he realized something else. This was a carbon copy of the waybill, which is given to the consignee: when his goods arrive at their destination, he presents this copy to identify himself and his goods, takes delivery and the waybill is receipted. But there was no receipt on this. It appeared, therefore, that these sixteen crates of bulldozer parts had never been delivered.
So?
But, again, what was this doing in Max Hapsburg’s box?
He feverishly picked up the first strip of film negatives, and held it up to the light again.
People. Groups standing, looking at the camera. Male and female, but he could not identify faces. A tractor in this one. This one looked like a picnic, a bottle of something being flourished. More party scenes … He snatched up the second strip. And frowned.
These were more indistinct. Taken indoors. A window – a bedroom. Two people lying on the bed? Embracing? In this one, they were sitting up. One person was definitely female. Breasts. She appeared to be naked. Clothes on the floor? He glanced at the other frames hurriedly. All he could make out was bodies. Pornographic pictures? Blackmail? …
There was a knock on the door. ‘Your tape-recorder has arrived, sir.’
Morgan scrambled up and unlocked the door. ‘Thank you!’
He relocked the door. Sat down and examined the machine.
He inserted the Klaus Barbie cassette. He put a blank tape into the other side. The earpiece in his ear. He took a piece of paper from the rack. He switched the recorder on, and listened intently.
There was a hissing noise: then a guttural voice began, in French:
‘My name is Klaus Barbie.
‘I was an officer in the SS during the Third Reich. At the end of the war I returned to Germany openly and despite spurious allegations that I was wanted by the French and American governments as a so-called war criminal, I was employed by the CIC, a department of the American occupying army which hunted down communist spies in post-war Germany. In 1951, this employment ended, and the Americans arranged and paid for the passage of myself and my family to South America, providing me with all travel documents. This surely proves that the allegations that I am a war criminal are groundless.
‘During my employment by the American army authorities in Germany, I came into possession of certain evidence which is most important to the Western world. It was a file compiled by the KGB, as it is now called, and it was stolen from them during the Second World War by a German spy within the KGB, and brought to Berlin. I took this file with me to South America and subsequently had a microfilm made of it, because it was so bulky, and destroyed the file itself. When the film is developed it will reproduce, in actual size, photographs of all the original KGB documents. How I came into possession of this file is not important, as the film proves its own authenticity.
‘I am now about to summarize, on this tape-recorder, the evidence contained in that film, because it’s too lengthy for me to write.’
Morgan was exultant. He was right! … He heard the rustle of notes. Then the voice continued:
‘The story begins in the year 1931, in Moscow, under Joseph Stalin …’
34
It was the depths of winter in Russia. The wind had encased the trees with ice, so it looked as though they were made of glass. Deep in the white forest outside Moscow was a dacha, a holiday house. Smoke curled out of the chimney and lights twinkled in the windows. It looked cosy. But it was surrounded by a high security fence, and inside it was little more than a classroom.
One wall was a blackboard, at which stood the teacher. He was dressed as a Jesuit priest. There was only one pupil, a youth of sixteen. He was being intensively tutored in the advanced tenets of Catholicism. He was being taught in the English language, and his accent was American. He answered to the name of Pieter Gunter.
The lesson ends, and another instructor enters, also in Jesuit robes. He tutors Pieter in advanced Marxist theory. When that lesson ends, other priests take over. They are all experts in their subjects: Latin, modern European languages, the science of espionage. They work long hours with the boy. Each tutor leaves the house dressed as a civilian, and drives to another isolated house.
There are half a dozen such houses in the countryside around Moscow. In each there is only one student. None of these students knows of the others. Each is characterized by his very high intelligence, they are being tutored in the same subjects, but each in a different European language. They are fluent and their accents perfect.
They are all doing exceptionally well in their studies. They are almost ready to be sent out into the Western world, to join Catholic seminaries.
Klaus Barbie paused. He forgot to switch the machine off. He muttered to himself, then shuffled some papers. Morgan waited, pent, staggered by the enormity of the idea. Barbie gave a cough, then continued:
‘It had been, and was to continue to be, a long process, and it would be decades before the Kremlin’s investment began to pay dividend. But it was worth it … For the Roman Catholic Church is the biggest, richest, most powerful and influential institution in the world, with more adherents than the entire population of Europe and America combined: and one day the Kremlin may have the prize of archbishops and cardinals as their agents, and, one day, the Vatican itself in their pocket. One day one of their protégés may be Pope . . ’
Barbie paused, then added: ‘I repeat, not one of the students knew of the existence of the others.’
Morgan snapped the machine off. And held his head.
What was he going to do about this? …
He could not think straight. But thank God he had taken this out of Anna’s hands! But what was he going to do with it? If this was true, if the Pope was a communist agent, he had to be got rid of! And the rest of his kind in the Church. But by whom? By Jack Morgan? How? By shooting him in Saint Peter’s Square again? …
Morgan held his fingertips to his eyelids.
God’s Banker hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London.
Murdered because he knew about the Barbie microfilm?
Oh, this was too big for Jack Morgan. This needed the might of Great Britain to handle. The expertise, the manpower.
‘I’d rather die like God’s Banker.’
Yes, and if he handed this over to the British he would lose Anna Hapsburg forever. She woul
d never trust him again. He would have cheated her, broken solemn oaths. Destroyed her love, destroyed himself over something she would rather die for than divulge. Yes, and that’s what would happen to her, if he didn’t – she would die like God’s Banker too. And that’s what would happen to him, also …
He dragged his hands through his hair.
And who were ‘They’?
Who killed God’s Banker?
How could he trust the British after they had tried to kidnap Anna Hapsburg?
He pressed his fingertips hard to his eyelids and tried to put fear out of his mind and concentrate.
Klaus Barbie’s gravelly voice continued:
‘I proceed now to list the assumed names of the youths who were infiltrated into the Catholic Church over the years. Thereafter I will list the coded passwords assigned to each.’
Morgan waited impatiently. There was a rustle of papers, then Barbie read out:
‘1931. Antonio Perrelli, joined the seminary in Rome.
‘Juan Santiago, joined in Madrid.
‘Clive James Watson, joined the seminary in London.
‘PieterGunter, joined the seminary in Portland, Oregon …’
Morgan listened, eyes closed. The voice rasped on. And on. The names meant nothing to Morgan.
‘The class of 1934:
‘Angelo José Hevilla, to Barcelona; Roger Benjamin Whitfield to Plymouth …’
He could hardly bear to listen. He pressed the forward button and advanced the tape. He hit the play button again.
‘Michael Otto Oetz, to Switzerland …’
He hit the advance button again, then pressed play again. Barbie said:
‘… because the Allied forces were advancing on Germany and our agent within the KGB was unable to continue his work. But what we know for a fact is that between 1931 and 1945 a total of eighteen young Russian agents were planted in the Catholic Church.’
Barbie paused, but left the tape running. Morgan waited, numbed. Eighteen. Desperately trying to think what to do, trying not to think about what was going to happen outside this bank … Barbie began again, but in a new tone now, that of a man delivering a prepared speech:
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