The meat course was Limousin rack of lamb and hay cooked in a sealed casserole, Zucchini flower filled with nicoise vegetables, lemon puree, jus perlé with olive oil spit roasted chicken from bresse stir-fried broad beans and artichokes, jus enhanced with savory. Dessert was left to the choice of the maître d.’ It was a gastronomic extravaganza: hot and creamy pure Venezuelan chocolate biscuit, with Tahaa vanilla ice cream, and “Arlette” caramelized puff pastry with red berries, lemon thyme jus and torrified pistachio ice cream.
The appetites of every man after years and years of want were fully surfeited, and the resulting abdominal pain was soothed with appropriate wines with each course: for l’entrée,—the fish and chicken required Neuchâtelois; and the lamb required Rosé Champagne. The dessert was topped off with sweet Domaine Le Grand Clos, empreinte Passerillé, and the fine Cuban cigars were served with the Michelin-starred restaurant’s best Merlet C2 Cassis and crackers daubed with soft bris.
It was sheer gluttony and a beginning and partial payback for the past decade of deprivation.
§§§§§§
Despite Antoine’s lingering doubts about Caussidière, the man came through for the Gebirgsjägers again during the week they waited for the bank to complete its exacting work.
He took Antoine and Michaele aside as soon as they were settled into their suites at the hotel and said, “I mentioned earlier that your identity documents issued by the Commissione Pontificia d’Assistenza [Vatican Refugee Organization] are not sufficient in and of themselves. They were, rather, the first stop in a paper trail to pass muster for permanent and genuine passports, travel overseas, birth certificates, union membership, and the like. However, I have taken standard measures to take care of that minor glitch in the system. I have invited Archbishop Carlo Romani, C.S.Sp. of the Vatican’s liaison office with the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] to meet us at the hotel today to explain the ICRC and the Vatican’s role in the final process.
“As he makes his way to us, let me tell you that I and the ODESSA have often sought Archbishop Romani out; and his role in assisting escapes is very well known on the Nazi grapevine. He is hardly the only Catholic priest who helps our cause. We sometimes use Father Jason Gallent-Dupres who is very effective in funneling our people through his Vatican-approved Hungarian Refugee Charity. He has experts in the preparation of what appear to be authentic ICRC documents.”
Archbishop Romani got up from an adjacent table and walked briskly across the room to the table where Antoine, Michaele, and Antoine were sitting. As he approached, Caussidière explained the importance of the man.
“He is what is known as a Spiritan here in Continental Europe. The English and Americans call them Holy Ghost Fathers. Their order is the Congregatio Sancti Spiritus sub tutela Immaculati Cordis Beatissimae Virginis Mariae or Congregation of the Holy Spirit under the Protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. His name or title includes the initials C.S.Sp. after his name. What that means for you is that his word is believed without question and his influence is boundless among Catholics, including governmental officials. He is our friend … one of our best friends.”
He was a tall, elderly stick thin man with piercing dark eyes, aquiline nose, full lips, and high cheek bones. His slightly olive-tinted skin coloration made it difficult to guess his ethnic origins. He was dressed simply—a black cassock with amaranth trim and purple fascia, along with a pectoral cross and episcopal ring—making no attempt to disguise his prominent position in the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy. The general effect gave him the appearance of the Keeper of the Crypt.
“May I?” the high-ranking Vatican prelate asked politely.
“Of course, Your Grace,” Caussidière said deferentially.
“I understand that you men are in need of the intercession of the Vatican in an important matter. Am I correct?”
“You are,” Caussidière responded quickly.
“I thank God that He and the Holy See have granted me permission to visit and comfort many victims in their prisons and concentration camps and to help them escape with false identity papers. The so-called ‘Allies’’ war against Germany was not a crusade for the right as they would have the world believe, but the rivalry of rich Western economies for whose victory they fought. Make no mistake, this was business; and it depended on crass advertisement. They used catchphrases like democracy, race, religious liberty, and Christianity as a bait for the ignorant masses. Because of what I have seen myself, I have felt duty-bound since 1945 to devote my whole rather extensive charitable work to aid former National Socialists and Fascists, especially the so-called ‘war criminals.’ We help with logistical support and money. We have agents who find and maintain escape routes, and more importantly we can provide false papers including identity documents issued by the Vatican Refugee Organisation (Commissione Pontificia d’Assistenza) which are unassailable.
“These Vatican papers are technically not full passports, and not in themselves enough to gain passage overseas. They are–instead–the first and most important stop in the paper trail required by the so-called ‘Allies.’ We can–for example–provide a displaced person passport from the ICRC, which in turn could be used to apply for visas. In theory, the ICRC performs background checks on passport applicants; but in real-world practice the word of a priest or particularly a bishop such as me is good enough and is accepted at face value. I can also use my position as an archbishop to request papers from the ICRC made out according to my exact specifications.
“How may I be of service to you unfortunate displaced persons?” he asked without a hint of guile on his priestly face.
“These gentlemen are newly arrived in Switzerland and have been able to come here through the kind ministrations of the Vatican already. They have papers from Konstanz.”
“Ah, I understand,” the prelate said. “You are displaced persons in need of formal documentation, including visas and passports. Because you are displaced persons who have suffered greatly, your own papers have been taken from you. This would make you men without a country, which is a cruel unkindness that the Holy Church feels is uncivilized and unchristian. It is something I can remedy. Without being boastful, it is true that I have a certain degree of influence. Despite the current spate of illegal, stolen, and forged ICRC papers, my signature will remove any darkness of doubt about the authenticity of your documentations. Would you like me to do that for you?”
Antoine and Michaele answered in unison, “We would be most obliged, Your Grace.”
Antoine added, “How could we repay you for this great service?”
“No such payment is necessary or needed. My fellow clerics and I consider it our duty to help pilgrims such as yourselves who have suffered from the ungodly communists. Perhaps it would not be asking too much for you to continue to further the struggle against the atheists.”
“Certainly not. We have every desire to serve the Church in that end. Thank you, Your Grace.”
Archbishop Romani C.S.Sp. asked no further questions and wrote a letter to his personal contact in the International Red Cross—a man who owed his position to the archbishop—who then issued the genuine visas, passports, and necessary foundational identification documents. Two days later, they were in the hands of the Gebirgsjägers.
Eight days later, a call came through from UBS, Geneva, to Caussidière Enterprises International. The caller insisted upon talking only to Antoine or Michaele and would not leave a message. He was willing to wait while one of the two men was found.
It took ten minutes to locate Michaele.
“Yes,” he said into the receiver.
“Liert Beili Amstutz from UBS. Our experts have finished the appraisal and the accounting. With your approval, we are ready to move the assets into the bank’s vault. Would two o’clock fit your schedule?”
“I will make it fit. Thank you for calling, Herr Amstutz.”
Antoine was still in the hotel sitting down to Frühstück [breakfast] with W
illibald Movius, Rolf Kohns, Jérôme Christophe Mailhot, Hugues Beauchamp, Serge Alain Rounsavall, and Heinz Rudolph Grüber who had succeeded to the head of the ODESSA unit that had traveled to Brienne le Chateâu, POW camp 63, to extract the Gebirgsjägers. His superior officer had died in the battle at Konstanz, Baden-Wurttemberg. They were finishing a heavy German meal of porridge, cold meats, sausages, pickles, cheeses, a variety of breads smeared with sweet butter, jam, marmalade, and honey, soft-boiled eggs, and a bowl of fresh-cut fruit in orange juice. Michaele strode into the breakfast and whispered to Antoine.
Antoine said, “We’ll all go. We are now partners.”
Michaele looked briefly askance at Antoine who stood up, faced him, and mouthed, “Only real members of the 33rd will still be standing in the end.”
He led the men back to the Caussidière compound to take their turns watching the treasure trucks. Everyone was as anxious as children until one-thirty finally arrived. The stroke of the half hour was heralded by the arrival of a heavily armed Swiss army unit and six armored vehicles from the bank that joined the Gebirgsjägers and ODESSA partisans. Needless to say the two-mile trip was uneventful. Swiss people are conditioned not to pay attention to the business of other people; and no one seemed to notice the convoy of army, bank, and civilian security forces driving into the basement of the bank.
Herr Liert Beili Amstutz met the Germans and Caussidière in the basement and had them escorted to his office.
He was not a man for idle chatting. A servant poured a glass of water for each man, then Amstutz spoke.
“There are only two planned items on the agenda for this gathering. First, I will hand out copies of the appraisal and accounting sheets; then, we will determine the disposition of the assets. I presume that only generals Duvalier and Dupont have the password code.”
Antoine nodded.
“And, further, that is your preference for the future?”
Both Antoine and Michaele nodded in response to that question.
“Do you wish all men gathered here to see the appraisal and accounting, generals?”
“We have no secrets from these, our brethren,” said Antoine.
“Good. We will proceed.”
He handed out a copy to each man. None of them could keep a placid expression. They began to smile, to laugh, and to salute each other.
What the men saw was an accounting sheet with the UBS letterhead which gave subtotals and totals of value in US dollars (USD), Great Britain pound sterling (GBP), Swiss francs (CHF), and Deutschemarks (DEM) at the day’s exchange rates. The accounting was for cash only with the amounts for tangible items to follow. The cash tally read:
1100 hours, September 28, 1953 exchange rates: USD 1.0, GBP .36, CHF 4.37, DEM 4.2
SUBTOTALS
(current deposit)
TOTALS
(including assets from 1943)
USD $582,000,000 & $1,700,000,000
GBP £295,598,970 & £612,000,000
CHF SFr 2,543,340,000 & SFr 7,429,000,000
DEM DM 2,444,400,000 & DM 7,140,000,000
None of the men had ever seen any one man’s name or small group of men’s names linked to such staggering numbers. They had never known a man or a family with seven billion marks, and now they were to share equally in this colossal windfall. It almost made their time of suffering in the camps worth it. But not quite. Each man—in his own heart of hearts—intended to see that the Allies and the traitors pay every farthing the Gebirgsjägers were owed before satisfaction would be achieved, even if it required battle.
Herr Amstutz summed it up for the Germans: “This is a magnificent treasury to start the Fourth Reich, but that great accomplishment will wait for another day and will likely require Shakespeare’s pound of flesh—as he said in The Merchant of Venice and a great deal of blood.”
He adroitly left out the fact that the character who uttered that bit of quotation that would likely stand the test of time for as long as civilization persisted … was Shylock, the Jew. There was not a Christian or a Hebrew among the Germans; but they all agreed with the JudeoChristian Bible where it required eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.
Amstutz took Antoine aside and asked what he wanted done with the physical assets other than the great masses of cash money.
“I will work with Herr Caussidière to convert those physical assets into bank account values. We will need to take a year or two to melt down the loose gold.”
He was referring to the wedding rings and other jewelry and the gold teeth contributed by the Jews at the Konzentrationslagers [concentration camps] such as Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Treblinka, Dachau, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen, and the scores of lesser known camps—and to the plan to sell off the resulting gold ingots and to make wise investments outside the low-yield prospects of banks. It was about numbers and wise investments. None of the men had even a passing nag from his conscience about the human cost.
Swiss French Recipes
Ile-d’Yeu Fillet of Sole Cooked with Mushrooms Crust—for 16
Ingredients
• For the sole—7.2 kg sole (900g/piece), 40 g black truffles, pinch of French sea salt “Fleur de sel,” 160 g slightly salted butter, 160 g truffle perfume crust.
• For the truffle crouton (400g)—g butter, 160 g bread crumbs, 64 g minced truffle, 40 g puree of truffles (see below), 2 g garlic.
• For the truffle puree (600 g)—720 g truffle, 2.0 cl truffle oil.
• For the truffle-scented spinach (880 g)—180 g spinach, 120 g truffles diced small, 200 g heavy cream, 40 g butter, 40 g truffle oil, 180 g shallots, chopped, salt and pepper to taste.
• For the champagne sauce (5.2 l)—440 g butter, 800 g mushroom of Paris, sliced, 20 g coarse-ground black pepper, 400 g shallots, sliced, 200 g celery, 40 g lovage, sliced, 300 dl champagne, 800 g lobster claws, 8 dl champagne, 200g lobster claws, 8 dl shellfish jus, 20 dl heavy cream, 160 g lemon.
• For the clarified consommé (2.4 l)—200 g green part of leek, 600 g sole trimmings, 4 matured tomato, about 240 g, 320 g egg white, French sea salt “Fleur de sel” to taste.
• For the consommé of sole (1.0 l)—Sole bones, 160 g butter, 200 g shallots, 200 g onions, 400 g mushrooms, 4 pieces tip of thyme, 2.0 pieces laurel leaf, 240 cl water, 160 cl champagne, 1.0 cac chili, parsley stems, French sea salt “Fleur de sel” to taste.
• For the crawfish (6.0 kg)—20 kg large ‘red-legged’ crawfish, 2.0 kg concentrated fumet of crawfish (see below), 20 l court bouillon (nage écrevisse, see below), 4 g ascorbic acid.
• For the nage ecrevisse (20 l.)—20 cl white vinegar, 400 g coarse grained salt, 20 g white pepper in grain, 20 g coriander in grain, 45 g dry fennel, 300 g lemon, 32 g garlic
• For the fumet of crawfish (2.8 kg)—16 pieces big ‘red-legged’ crawfish, 320 pieces crawfish heads, 24 cl olive oil, 240 g butter, 320 g butter of fennel, 80 g garlic, 480 g very matured tomato, 200 g tomato paste, 40 cl dry white wine, 40 cl cognac, 200 cl fumet of lobster (see below) 120 cl water, 4 pcs scent bouquet (tails of parsley, thyme, 2 laurel leaves), 20 g dry fennel, 2 bunches basil, 8 g black pepper.
• For the lobster fumet (2.8 kg)—24 heads lobster without shell, 400 g fresh fennel, 400 g white onions, 48 g garlic, 2.0 kg tomato, 210 g tomato concentrate, 16 cl fine champagne, 40 cl extra virgin olive oil, 320 g butter, 4 bunches fresh basil, black pepper grains, wild fennel.
• To finish (per serving)—4 pc sole, 200 g truffle-scented spinach, 120 g champagne sauce, 200 g consommé of sole, 80 g mushroom of Paris, 20 g truffles, 180 g crawfish.
Preparation:
• For the lobster fumet:
-Cut the entire lobster bisque and the lobster heads into large round slices. Cook in a cast-iron casserole with some olive oil. Add butter and caramelize. Add onions, fresh fennel, and garlic with skin. Sweat without browning, then add the tomato paste and fresh tomatoes and let stew to remove the acidity.
-Deglaze with some brandy, reduce the liquid. Moisten with concentrated fumet,
add the dry fennel, and cook for 40 minutes over low heat. While cooking, skim off the impurities without removing the grease. Add the crushed pepper grains and the basil bouquet and leave simmering for 20 min. on the corner of the heat source.
-Drain the stock of carcasses, and then crush them in a fat-masher and filter.
• For the crawfish fumet:
-Cut the crayfish into small regular cubes, heat the olive oil in a cast-iron casserole, and sauté quickly with the crayfish heads. Add the garlic cloves and the precut aromatic garnish. Sweat for 3 minutes, then add the tomato paste and caramelize everything in butter.
-Deglaze with the cognac and the white wine. Let the alcohol evaporate and add the fumet of lobster and some water so that the crayfish is completely covered. Add the bouquet of aromatic herbs and the dry fennel and cook for 30 minutes. At the end of the cooking, add a half-bunch of basil and the grains of black pepper and leave to infuse for 15 minutes.
-Pass all ingredients through a fat-masher to extract the maximum flavor and filter through a sieve.
• To make the concentrated fumet, cook to reduce to 520 ml.
• For the court bouillon of crawfish (Nage écrevisse):
-Cook all ingredients together with 20 l of water.
• For the crawfish:
-Bring 16 l of court bouillon to boil. Kill and clean the crayfish. Boil in the court bouillon, normally around 2 minutes to reach boiling point. Shell immediately. Keep the crayfish tails in 1 l of cold bouillon with 4 g of ascorbic acid. Reserve in a vacuum bag, on ice. When needed, roll the crayfish in the concentrated fumet of crayfish.
• For the sole consommé:
-Drain the fish bones over a sieve. Wash, drain, and sieve the mushroom trimmings. Peel, wash, and chop the onions and the shallots in a regular size. Make an aromatic bouquet with parsley stems, the thyme, and the laurel-leaves. Melt the butter in a casserole, add the aromatic bouquet, and sweat without coloring.
-Add the fish bones and cook gently for 5 mins. without coloring.
-Moisten with cold water and the champagne; add the bouquet, the sliced mushrooms, and some salt. Bring to boil, then simmer gently for 20 mins. and skim as often as possible. As soon as the cooking time is over, remove the pan from the heat, add pepper, and let the consommé settle for 10 mins.
The Charlemagne Murders Page 28