by James Lepore
The sergeant remained silent.
“My mountain lions have eaten dogs, Sergeant,” said Goering. “They’ve developed a taste for them.”
Silence.
“You see what I’m driving at, don’t you? You are an intelligent man, a veteran non-commissioned officer of the German Wehrmacht.”
“Yes, Generalfeldmarschall.”
“Good. I know then that you will not fail.”
29.
Metten Abbey
October 8, 1938, 6:00 a.m.
“This part of the abbey was consecrated in 766,” Father Wilfrid, the abbot of Metten Abbey, said.
“I have been respectful, my good priest,” Kurt Bauer replied, “but my patience is not limitless. You insist on believing that I am interested in the history of your abbey. I am not.”
“There are no tunnels here,” said the priest, “as I have said. But it appears you do not believe me.”
Father Wilfrid, a man in his early sixties, sat at his desk in his very simple study-cum-office in Metten Abbey’s central tower. These words he had just spoken, and the ones last night, were, combined, far more than all those he had uttered in the last ten years. On the day he was chosen as abbot in 1928, he said mass in the abbey’s twelve-hundred-year-old chapel, gave communion to the community of monks and oblates who had selected him, then said a word of humble thanks to each of them. Since then his speech was limited to “good morning,” “good afternoon,” and “good evening,” to those few monks he encountered in his daily routine. Across from him in an upright wooden chair sat SS Lieutenant Kurt Bauer, his young, ruddy face clean-shaven, his blond hair combed and severely parted, his blue eyes pitiless. Though a dedicated monastic, Father Wilfrid was not unaware of the events transpiring in his country. This, he said to himself, is the face of the new Germany.
“Do you know that the German government is holding two of your fellow monks on suspicion of treason?” Bauer asked. “They were captured distributing seditious material in Munich.”
“Naturally word of these men has reached me.” The abbot fingered the wooden crucifix he wore around his waist, thinking, as he did, of the manuscript under glass in the abbey’s library, the one from which the ancient Vedo Retro Satana formula had been discovered in 1415, the same canto that was imprinted on the Saint Benedict medal he wore around his neck. Step back Satan. Step back Lieutenant Bauer. Step back Adolph Hitler.
“They may be hanged.”
This was not the first time Father Wilfrid had heard the young Nazi use the word hanged. Traitors are hanged, he had said last night. I have the authority to execute you on the spot if you do not cooperate. This was only moments after his men had nearly broken down the abbey’s six-hundred-year-old front door, the loud thud, thud, thud of rifle butts against solid oak having roused him just in time from the rope cot he slept on in a small room behind his ground floor office.
“In know of no tunnels in the abbey.”
“You know of no tunnels in the abbey,” Bauer said. “I see. Who is your oldest priest? The one here the longest.”
“Father William. He is ninety-five.”
“My grandfather was a student here.”
“Yes, as you’ve said.”
“He told me there were catacombs under the abbey and a tunnel leading into the forest, so that the monks could escape if necessary.”
“Catacombs, yes, but no tunnel. You may look again if you wish. Your men were down there for hours.”
Forty or so German soldiers had searched every room in the abbey overnight, as well as the catacombs, with no results that Father Wilfrid was aware of. Every one of the abbey’s fifty monks was roused from his bed, his person searched, and his room ransacked. Three or four locations on the stone walls of the catacombs were pierced by soldiers wielding pick axes. How these areas were chosen, Father Wilfrid did not know. He only knew that after hours of attacking the wall only more stone was to be seen. He had tried to tell Bauer that the abbey’s foundations were said to be thirty feet thick, but to no avail. Bauer’s soldiers were now lounging, some obviously exhausted, in the large rotunda that served as an entry hall for the abbey. During the night, the sounds of trucks on the abbey grounds and the muffled clanging of soldiers setting up camp had occasionally reached the abbot’s ears.
I am looking for three men. Rather, two men and a dwarf, Bauer had barked last night. Do you have any guests?
No, we do not.
I also understand there is a tunnel here, an escape tunnel. Where is it?
There is no such tunnel here.
Where is your office?
There.
These two men will guard you.
“When did Father William come to the abbey?” Bauer asked now.
“When he was seventeen, in 1872.”
“My grandfather mentioned a novitiate named William who knew about the tunnel.”
“That must be Father William.”
“Where is he now? I would like to speak to him.”
“Morning prayers will be starting soon. And then we have a simple breakfast. Can you wait? Father William is old and not well, and probably already in a shocked state from the search last night. His routine will settle him down.”
Bauer did not answer immediately. Father Wilfrid, who was himself exhausted, leapt into the breach.
“Lieutenant, my dear sir, the abbey is occupied and surrounded. Father William is ninety-five and frail. We have neither weapons nor means of travel. We are German citizens. We want to help the Reich. Just give him an hour to recover from last night. Shall I have him here for you in my office at, say, seven?”
“Very well,” Bauer said. “But not here. You will take me to his room at seven. And until then you will stay here under guard. You know too much already.”
30.
The Schorfeide Forest
October 8, 1938, 6:00 a.m.
“How far are they, do you estimate?”
“A kilometer, two at the most.”
Professor Tolkien, who had stayed at the rear of the single file of trekkers throughout the long night, had moved to the front to be near Trygg Korumak.
“We have to stop,” Tolkien said. “We can’t outrun them.”
“I agree,” said Korumak, who the next instant was standing on a five-foot-high boulder gesturing to the rest of the party, who had all stopped at the crest of a low ridge to listen to the frenetic howling and yelping of the pack of bloodhounds at their heels. How did he move so quickly? Tolkien asked himself, not for the first time since their journey began. Did I actually see him leap onto that boulder?
“Goering has sent out hounds,” Korumak said to the group once they had gathered at the foot of the boulder. When he first heard the howling an hour ago, very much in the distance, Tolkien hoped it was a pack of wolves surrounding a wounded stag, and had said as much to Professor Shroeder. But the sounds had followed them until there was no other conclusion to be drawn. Wolves did not bark. Wolves did not hunt men.
“How far are they?” asked Professor Shroeder.
“A kilometer or two.”
They had marched in single file all night, stopping once for fifteen minutes in a dry streambed to rest their legs and eat some of Dagna’s bread. The terrain was gentle at first as they passed through Goering’s hunting park, but had gotten rougher as, led by Korumak, they made their way due east. The last ten kilometers had been rocky, a glacial spill, Korumak had called it. Boulders large and small were interspersed among the tall pine and oak trees that covered the forest. The bread—it must have been the bread, Tolkien said to himself—had not only sustained them, but given them energy they could never have dreamed of having after eating normal food. Even Shroeder, seventy-eight years old, had not complained as they walked rapidly, staying within inches of each other, along deer paths,
under dense foliage, and over bramble-covered ridges, through the black, moonless night. Over the last couple of kilometers the false dawn had dimly lit their way and now they could see a thin line of red at the horizon.
“How many, do you think?” Tolkien asked.
“A dozen hounds, a half-dozen men,” Korumak replied.
“How much time?”
“Ten minutes for the dogs, twenty for the men.”
“I have an idea,” Tolkien said. He had been scanning their surroundings, picking features out of the murky light that spread like fog when night is on the precipice of day. Behind them was another rock formation, boulders piled on boulders. One group formed a triangular opening the size of a small man.
“Gylfi, Dagna, everyone, can I have your scarves?” said Tolkien.
“Yes,” five voices replied at once, as all began unwrapping their thick, brown woolen scarves.
“Franz,” Tolkien said. “Where is the amulet?”
“In a pouch around my neck.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, the group was huddled behind the boulder that Korumak had been standing on. Dawn had not yet broken, but the red line at the horizon behind them had thickened. The men on their feet, the dwarfs on piles of rocks, they peered carefully over the boulder, eyeing the ridge, perhaps thirty yards away across the forest floor, the ridge they had climbed up and over and down to get to this spot. Suddenly the first dog, a huge black and brown hound appeared at the top of the ridge and began howling at the highest decibel she could reach, the sign to her handlers that she had cornered or treed her prey. Then the others appeared, and the shepherds and the hounds together began to viciously tear at the scarves that lay at the top of the ridge. Salivating and snarling they fought each other for the shredded pieces of wool.
“Now, Franz,” Tolkien said.
Professor Shroeder reached inside his tunic, pulled out the amulet with his right hand, stood, and raised it above his head. The hounds stopped in unison and turned to look at it. The group could see the dogs’ eyes glowing in the semi-darkness as they whimpered and stared up at the small black beast in the hand of the white-haired old man. After perhaps two seconds, the dogs, all howling a much different howl than had been heard before—these were howls of terror—turned and fled. As Professor Shroeder, his hand trembling, returned the amulet to its leather pouch, Tolkien saw it for a split second. Its ruby eyes were aglow. Shroeder slumped to the ground. Before anyone could tend to him, the sounds of heavy trampling and crashing through bramble could be heard and in the next instant five tall men, giants it seemed in their long black coats, the hoods up against the cold, were standing in a row at the crest of the ridge.
“Wait,” Tolkien whispered, his hand up.
Turning, Tolkien watched the first sliver of the sun breach the horizon. He waited until its bright rays shone through the triangle behind them, directly into the faces of the five German soldiers opposite. They all shielded their eyes with their hands. This was the last human gesture they would ever make. Tolkien said, “Now,” and Korumak, Gylfi, and Dagna leaped out from behind the boulder and with blinding speed hurled their axes at the men. Gylfi and Korumak each flung a second ax. All of this took no more than one second. Tolkien, watching over the boulder, never saw the axes fly, but the result was plain to see. Five tall, black-clad men, each with an ax buried in his chest.
31.
The Bavarian Forest, Near Deggendorf
October 8, 1938, 8:00 a.m.
From the second floor window of the abandoned mill, Ian Fleming had an unobstructed view of the old but still sturdy plank bridge that Dowling and whatever help he could muster would be crossing to reach him. Fleming had stumbled upon the bridge and the mill last night while looking for a decent rendezvous spot. He had been hoping for a sheltered rock shelf or an enclosed meadow, and was gleeful at his luck in finding the mill, which, by the looks of it, had not been in use for decades if not longer. He had arrived before dawn, and with the first light began training his small field binoculars on the bridge and the overgrown dirt road that led to it, listening all the while for out-of-place sounds in the thick surrounding forest. The small tributary of the nearby Danube that powered the mill flowed gently below his de-glazed window, unimpeded by a paddle wheel, which he surmised had been removed by the owner or more likely stolen years ago. Behind him on the stone grist cap he had laid out a topographical map of the area, with likely routes to Metten Abbey, which was some three kilometers away to the west. Following the unnamed tributary seemed like the most direct route.
A movement on the opposite bank of the stream drew his eye. He raised the glasses and immediately saw three men on the far side of the bridge: Dowling and the Kaufmann brothers, Hans and Jonas. All three had submachine guns slung over their shoulders. Fleming pulled from his jacket pocket the white handkerchief that was the prearranged all-safe signal and hung it from a crevice in the crumbling brickwork just below the window. Looking again, he saw Dowling look up at him through his own field glasses, then put them away and cross the bridge with his companions.
32.
Metten Abbey
October 8, 1938, 8:00 a.m.
When he first dismissed the annoying and too-clever abbot and entered Father William’s damp and bare monk’s cell, Kurt Bauer wished he were not in his Gestapo uniform, which he felt would be frightening to the old priest, cause him to stammer or go mute. He had seen these reactions before, and in much younger men. He had brought along Waffen SS gray field fatigues, but there was no time to change. It turned out, however, that his black officer’s regulars, as Heydrich and Himmler had styled them, had had the opposite effect. The wrinkled, wafer-thin, bald as a cue-ball old monk could not stop talking.
Yes, I remember the two boys, he had said, Franz and Ernst. Your grandfather Ernst, how marvelous. They fed the kitchen dog, Bridget, that’s how I met them. Tunnel from the abbey? No. Just catacombs. We were not allowed down there. Father Adelbert? Yes, of course. He was as silent as stone, always shirking his duties, always in the library. His eyes . . . his eyes were a startling gray. He never looked at you. A tunnel you say? No, not here, and I’ve been here seventy-seven years. I’ve been in the catacombs many times now. No, no tunnel there. But there was a tunnel in the forest. Young Franz said he saw Father Adelbert disappear into it one day. Disappear, he said, a strange choice . . .”
“Stop,” Bauer said.
“Stop? Of course. But there is no tunnel here, I’m sure . . .”
“Where was the tunnel in the woods?”
“I, I don’t know?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Where did Franz tell you the tunnel entrance was?”
“He didn’t tell me. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know where it is, or he didn’t tell you?” The priest was frightened now, but that was good. He was too addle-brained to formulate a proper lie, to even think of deception, but in case he did, well, it was not for nothing that Heydrich’s black-uniformed elite had spread terror among the German people.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Is it far?”
“I don’t think so. The boys were not allowed to go into the forest.”
“But Franz went.”
“Yes.”
“And young Ernst, my grandfather.”
“Yes.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. What . . . ? Why do you want to know? They were good boys.”
“Father William, you are a Catholic priest. You have been taught that the end never justifies the means, that morality is not relative.”
“Yes, yes I have.”
“So you know that if you are lying to me for some higher good, you will surely have a stain on your soul.”
“Yes, I know.”
&n
bsp; “There is also an earthly punishment in store for you if you are lying to me. I see you have some teeth left.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I will break them off with a hammer and feed them to you. After that the torture will start. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, I do.”
33.
The Bavarian Forest, Near Deggendorf
October 8, 1938, 9:00 a.m.
“That’s a hell of a story,” said Rex Dowling. “Raising the dead. It’s a joke of course. You’re running some kind of double reverse.”
“Double reverse?” said Fleming
Ian Fleming, Rex Dowling, and the Kauffman brothers were sitting cross-legged in a circle on the mill platform with Fleming’s map on the floor between them. Dusty rays of morning sunlight were slanting down on them through jagged gaps in the pitched roof where planking had once been. The Englishman had drawn a circle in red ink around the location of the abandoned mill and another around Metten Abbey, which was symbolized on the map with an armored angel slaying a dragon at his feet. One of the streams of sunlight fell directly on this symbol.
“It’s a football term,” Dowling said. “American football.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You believe it’s true?”
“Shroeder says he saw it work twice and did it himself years later.”
“Like Lazarus?”
“No, animals. A lynx, a dog, and a cat.”
“Well, the Nazis are animals, I’ll give you that.”
“They do seem to be lacking souls.”
“Does Shroeder have all his marbles?”