The Double Agent, page 27
The princess tossed a glance toward one of her servants standing in the far doorway, awaiting her. A man with more loyalty than sense, unlike Paolo.
To keep up the act Alexsi drew his pistol. “Take me to the cellars! At once!” He grabbed the man by the collar and quite literally ran him to the back of the house. Through the kitchen that was bigger than the house he grew up in, then a drab door and stairway down. “Get out of here,” Alexsi ordered the loyal fool, and headed down himself.
On the stairs he kept his Walther ready. If anyone was going to be shot by a priest under vows, it was him after this year he had had.
No lights. Just some vague illumination from a few narrow windows above the foundation. With a start Alexsi was reminded of the British embassy in Teheran. It was enough—he wasn’t about to turn any electric switch on. He crept along, listening for noises. There was no time for this. “Father!” he said in English, in the loudest possible whisper he could manage. “Father O’Flaherty! Are you here?”
A rustle from a corner, then a faint gleam on light in eyeglasses as the priest stepped out. “Who is it?” he whispered.
Alexsi realized that his German uniform couldn’t be seen in the darkness. That would be all he needed, for the priest to start shooting as soon as he came into view.
“I am a German soldier,” Alexsi said in English. “But I will not arrest you.”
“God bless you, my son.”
At least that was what Alexsi thought he said. The Irish accent was nearly as bad as the Scots one. Alexsi holstered his pistol. The priest was very tall, nearly two meters, with a nose like a potato and wire-framed eyeglasses. Alexsi couldn’t imagine anyone less distinctive in Rome. How Kappler hadn’t caught this fellow was beyond him. “Are you armed?”
“Of course not.”
Of course not. “The SS will be in the house at any moment. We have to find you a hiding place.” There was no way he was going to get out of the house, not with it surrounded by an SS cordon.
“I’ve been looking for that myself,” the priest said.
There was an incredibly loud bang, and an only slightly less loud rumbling.
Alexsi and the priest both nearly jumped out of their skins. “Shit!” Alexsi yelped.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” The priest crossed himself, though Alexsi didn’t think it was on account of his profanity. The bang was metal, not like a gunshot. The rumbling was something not metal hitting metal, but like an earthquake.
There was a short stone hall between two sections of cellar. Alexsi drew his pistol again and dashed down it to see what the noise was.
They were delivering coal, for the kitchen stoves. Shoveling it down the chute to the bin in the cellar.
The priest had followed him.
Alexsi said, “God is definitely with you, Father.”
“Of course he is, my son.”
Alexsi wished he had that amount of confidence. “Look, take off your…” At the moment he couldn’t think of the word in English. “Uniform. Take off your eyeglasses. Rub coal all over yourself. Crawl up the chute and leave with the coal men. I’m sure you can persuade them if you tell them you’re a priest.”
“We are thinking exactly alike, my son.”
“Good. Good luck. And good-bye.”
The priest insisted on shaking his hand. “God bless you for your humanity, my son.” Then he made the sign of the cross over him. “May God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bless you and keep you. May his blessings remain forever with you.”
“Thank you.” It was all Alexsi could think to say.
He ran back up the stairs and into the kitchen. Two of the SS were just coming through. “Anything?” one of them asked.
Alexsi shook his head.
Kappler was in the sitting room, or one of them at least, with the princess. “Where the devil have you been, Bauer?”
“I thought I saw someone running through the house, Colonel. But I searched and could find no one.”
“The princess is adamant that no one was here except she and her servants,” Kappler said. “We shall see.”
Alexsi holstered his pistol and made to leave.
“Wait here, Bauer,” Kappler ordered.
Alexsi stood at rest.
“Colonel, why will you not believe me?” the princess said.
“I don’t know,” Kappler replied. “There is just something about you I don’t find trustworthy.”
Alexsi wished she would keep her mouth shut. But he had never known a woman to give up the last word.
Priebke strutted into the room. The body language was unmistakable. “How many fish did we net?” Kappler inquired.
“Five,” Priebke said with a satisfied smile. “All on our list.”
“Wonderful,” Kappler exlaimed. “The Irish priest?”
Priebke shook his head.
“Shit!” Kappler said. “Well, you can’t have everything. We’ll still turn the house upside down and give it a good shake.”
“You’ll enjoy this,” said Priebke. He snapped his fingers and in came Francesco, the princess’s son. With a burly SS man gripping each arm.
Alexsi had to give her credit—she kept her composure.
One of the SS handed Priebke a cloth sack. He emptied it onto the table with a clatter of metal.
Alexsi winced. It was an exquisite table.
Half a dozen handguns. A smaller sack of bullets for them. And banded stacks of lira notes. Quite a sum, from the looks.
The young fool, Alexsi thought. Should have hidden it in the house.
“What do you know,” Kappler said, clearly delighted. He nodded to the two SS. “Put him in the truck.”
“Nazi bastard!” Francesco shouted. Then turned his head to Alexsi. “All of you!”
All it took was a look from Kappler and one of the guards silenced him with a hard punch to the solar plexus. Francesco bent over, still in their grasp, and vomited onto the floor.
The princess, looking stricken as a mother would, was biting her knuckle to stay silent. But she did stay silent.
“Oh, dear, my feelings are hurt,” Kappler said facetiously. “What about you, Bauer?”
Alexsi did not say anything.
“Get him out,” Kappler ordered.
Going out the door, Francesco got his wind back and shouted, “Salve Italia!”
There was a scream, and Alexsi would have bet that they had thrown him down the stairs. He hoped the brief satisfaction had been worth it.
“Ah, the spirit of youth,” Kappler said.
He turned to her. “Princess, you are also under arrest. We shall take you to Regina Coeli.” Kappler turned to Alexsi and smiled. “We would not want anyone at Via Tasso to feel softhearted about you and do something foolish. Your son will assist Captain Priebke in his investigations. If he is not helpful, then we shall call you in to fill any gaps in his information.”
He nodded to Priebke, who crossed the room and yanked her up roughly by the arm.
Kappler pointed to Alexsi. “Princess, before you leave I want you to know that this man was working for me all along. My agent. I sent him to you, and I sent him to your bed.”
Stone-faced, Alexsi sagged inwardly as he watched her eyes flash at him for just an instant before Priebke dragged her out. An Italian conspiracist offered a conspiracy. That was unfortunate. But he had done the very best he could for her.
“I think I shall take a stroll around this lovely house,” Kappler said. “And see if anything strikes my fancy.”
46
1944
ROME, ITALY
Alexsi didn’t need to read the message traffic to know what was happening. All he had to do was look out the window. The German Army was streaming through Rome. But not in the direction of the front. Retreating away from it.
They were retreating in Mark IV tanks and armored half-tracks, army and civilian trucks, stolen automobiles and farm carts pulled by tired horses. They were not stopping, and Alexsi knew the reason they were not stopping was that someone was right behind them. The message traffic said that the Americans had cracked the Caesar Line and taken Velletri on the first of June. Now it was Saturday the third and their way to the city was open except for a few desperate rear guards who could only hope to delay, not stop.
Of course the Via Tasso had made no preparations for an orderly evacuation. That would be defeatism, and defeatism was punished by sentencing to a penal battalion.
Alexsi had no intention of being the last German to leave Rome, and in his nightshirt at that. Kappler was locked to his telephone seeking orders that would no doubt come too late. So Alexsi had issued his own to pack up all the signals equipment and load it onto trucks. The wireless was still operating because he was running it from a truck in the courtyard, and except for one ten-line telephone switchboard and an operator on duty everyone and everything was ready to move on a moment’s notice.
Now there was nothing to do but drop by the switchboard to get the latest gossip. Which telephone operators were always good for. General Mälzer, the military commandant of Rome, was drunk as usual and raging like King Lear. The diplomats had run either north or into the Vatican for sanctuary. Captain Priebke had packed off his German wife and children to Verona, then jumped into a confiscated Fiat two-door to say good-bye to his Italian Fascist mistresses.
Alexsi had thought long and hard about what to do next. And decided to remain with the German Army. Once he was free of Rome and these SS animals he would find his way back to Kesselring’s headquarters. Once there he would hold Captain Lang to his promise to return him to that nice safe headquarters signals company. That way he could retreat north through Italy until the war was over. If he went over to the British now he would only be making himself a sitting duck for every Russian spy in their ranks. The Soviets were unforgiving and relentless. Sooner or later one of them would put an end to him. Whereas if he stayed with the Germans he could radio the British regular reports to keep them happy. Then, when the war was over, collect his British passport for services rendered and vanish. It was the only solution.
After lunch he and his submachine gun took a cautious stroll around the neighborhood to see what was happening. The military traffic through the city was tapering off, though there were still traffic jams, and it was making him nervous. The streets were otherwise empty. The Romans, including it seemed the partisans, were remaining indoors until the situation became clear. Alexsi approved of their sense. That was what he would have been doing.
Returning to Via Tasso, he waited patiently all afternoon. Then into evening. By then it wasn’t a matter of reading messages for situation reports. He now could hear the rumble of artillery to the south. And then the more isolated crack of heavy-caliber tank guns. That was enough. Kesselring had two of his best divisions as rear guard to delay the Allied advance into Rome. The Fourth Parachute and Hermann Göring Panzer. They weren’t going to break and run, but if you could hear the fighting then the hour was already late. Time to take matters into his own hands. If these SS were going to fiddle while Rome burned, he needed to give them a nudge.
In the now-empty signals room he wrote out his own message, as if it had come from Kesselring’s headquarters. Ordering all units in Rome to evacuate the city and ensure that none of their signals equipment fell into the hands of the enemy.
The adjutant looked like a man about to shit a cobblestone. Kappler’s door was open, and he was sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. Alexsi handed him the message.
“So that’s it,” Kappler said. “Bauer, how soon can you have all your equipment packed?”
“It is already on the trucks, Colonel.”
Kappler’s eyes narrowed. “Then where did this message come from?”
“We are using the wireless truck in the courtyard, Colonel. Tied into the antenna on the roof.”
Kappler’s face relaxed, along with his paranoia. “I should have guessed. Efficient as always. All right, if that’s the case then you and your people may leave.”
“Yes, Colonel.” Alexsi turned to go.
“Wait!” Kappler blurted out, immediately transitioning into a panic. “My papers! I cannot leave them here. We have to burn them.”
Alexsi did not say: Now you’re thinking of that, you fucking idiot? What he said was: “I will send some men up to you, Colonel. They can burn them in drums in the courtyard.”
“Yes, yes, good,” Kappler said, calming himself slightly.
Alexsi relayed that order to the first SS lieutenant he ran into, who just shook his head and stomped off to find some soldiers.
Time to go. Alexsi turned the corner and nearly bumped into a line of prisoners filing out of the building. Their hands were tied behind their backs and their heads were hanging down.
“Where are you taking them?” Alexsi asked the SS corporal bringing up the rear of the formation.
“North,” the corporal said.
“Why are we evacuating prisoners instead of Germans?” Alexsi demanded.
“Don’t worry,” the corporal said. “We’re getting rid of them along the way.”
That stopped Alexsi in his tracks. “What about the rest?”
“Thirty more for the big truck,” the corporal said. “That will get all of these rats out of our hair. We won’t have to listen to their sniveling day and night. They’re getting rid of the ones in Regina Coeli, too. No sense letting the Americans have them back to do more mischief.”
“I see,” said Alexsi. He followed them to the door. Yes, they were loading these fourteen onto one of the smaller trucks, while a large meat wagon they had used at the caves was standing by.
Shaken, Alexsi went to the toilet and splashed some water onto his face. Son of a bitch! He kicked the wall so hard his boot went right through. He furiously shook himself free, and cleaned off his boot with a towel. Then he grasped both sides of a sink, leaned forward, and looked at himself in the mirror.
After Priebke made him talk, which hadn’t taken much, Abrianna’s son Francesco had been sent off. Alexsi presumed to Regina Coeli. So both of them were there.
Snarling his frustration, he shook the sink so hard the plumbing nearly came loose. He looked up again into the mirror. Well, what are you going to do, Alexsi Ivanovich? The man who had his future so carefully planned out?
You know, he told himself, they would never have been caught if their tradecraft had been even halfway competent. The only people who had ever done anything for him out of kindness were dead, and he owed nothing to anyone.
It was no good. His own gaze would not even release him. That foolish Irish priest and his blessing for humanity. Where was God when all the others went to the wall?
Alexsi drew in a lungful of air and blew it out hard. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. It was probably too late anyway.
He kicked the door to the toilet open and charged down the hallway. Sticking his head into the switchboard room, he told the operator, “Leave all the lines open and get out to the courtyard.”
His tone set the private to flight, as if the enemy was right at the door. Dashing down the hallway in front of him.
Alexsi stepped out into the courtyard. Pitch black, with the occasional flash of a hooded torch as someone went by. A mild roar, though, as all the SS troops gathered together were gossiping hard. Knowing soldiers, Alexsi could only imagine what outlandish rumors were flying about.
His troops were huddled around the signals trucks. “Corporals to me!” Alexsi shouted, shutting off all the conversation.
They all came running up. A lot of the other SS, too, hovering within earshot in the background. Trying to hear what was going on.
“Get everyone loaded and get out of here,” Alexsi ordered. “Head north and attach yourselves to the strongest column you see. When the sun comes up keep a sharp eye for air attack.”
“Aren’t you coming, Sergeant Bauer?” one of them asked a bit plaintively.
The others laughed at him.
“I’ll catch up to you later,” Alexsi said. “Get moving at once.”
As they turned, he said, “Wait. Who has pliers?”
Of course one of the repair technicians did.
“Thanks,” Alexsi said. “Now get going, and good luck.”
He stood and watched them leave, the signalers in the back waving to him.
He could hear the other SS muttering, wondering why the devil they hadn’t gotten orders yet.
When the last truck turned onto the street, Alexsi walked up to the meat truck and quickly rolled underneath. He flicked on the cigarette lighter he always carried but never used, and clipped the ignition wires near the dashboard. Leaving a gap that was too great to be twisted back together. He rolled back out, and if anyone had seen him in the darkness it hadn’t caused any alarm.
That was the best he could do for the remaining prisoners.
Back in the building, the offices were largely deserted. Alexsi poked through them until he found what he was looking for. One of the SD lieutenants had an extra uniform hanging up, that was close enough to his size. Alexsi took the tunic, trousers, and cap. He would use his own boots and pistol belt, thank you very much. Tucking the clothing under his arm, he brought it back to his office and hid it in his desk.
Next stop was his quarters, where he had a cheap set of Italian civilian clothing tucked away in a paper sack. Suit, shirt, tie, trousers, stockings, and shoes. All of his available Italian lira and German Army marks went into the bag as well.
He checked his watch. Two o’clock in the morning now. That was both good and bad.
Down the hall, troops were moving in and out of Kappler’s office, straining under armloads of paper. The adjutant was gone, and no one took any notice of Alexsi sweeping up a handful of SD Headquarters Rome orders papers, the rack full of official stamps, and the ink pad. Back to his office with the loot, and then off again for a typewriter. He had sent his off with the signals trucks, which was a firm rebuke to his German efficiency.
At his desk, Alexsi typed out an official order for the release of prisoners Abrianna and Francesco Santangelo. A careful proofreading to check for any format errors that would catch someone’s attention. It looked good. Uncapping a fountain pen, he finished it with the cramped gothic signature of Herbert Kappler, Lieutenant Colonel, SS. The typewriter of course had an SS lightning-bolt key. Alexsi had seen a few of these real orders, and for something like this the signature was just “Kappler.” He imagined that “Herbert” wasn’t martial enough.
