Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy

by Patrick Trese

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Later that night, Brother Krause prowled the Provincial’s office bookshelves and pulled out Latin Grammar for High Schools by Robert J. Henle, S.J. The book was only 244 pages long. If he could master a page a day, he could finish it in about eight months. Well, why not? He took Henle’s grammar upstairs to his room.

  He glanced at the small organization chart he had drawn when he first arrived at the Provincial’s office. It was pinned to a bulletin board on the bedroom wall along with some notes to himself, a calendar and a poem about St. Alphonse Rodriguez, S.J., which Father Beck had given him on his patron saint’s feast day.

  At the bottom of his handmade organization chart, Brother Krause had printed Secretary, drawn a line up to Father Provincial, another line up to Father General, another up to Holy Father and a final line up to God. This chain-of-command diagram accurately depicted how Brother Alphonse Krause, S.J., viewed his Jesuit vow of obedience. God’s will for him was revealed to him through the orders of his superiors.

  It was true that he had not been given a direct order to learn Latin. But behind Father Beck’s off-hand remark, Brother Krause had detected the will of his superior, which, he believed, his vow of obedience obliged him to ascertain and follow.

  So, with complete willingness and an open mind, Brother Krause turned to the first page of Henle’s grammar and learned that the Latin alphabet has no “w” or “y.” Otherwise, it is the same as the English alphabet. That was something he had not known before. A new fact, with more to come. Maybe teaching himself Latin wouldn’t be too tough a job after all.

  C H A P T E R • 6

  The first classes of the morning were starting at Saint Ignatius High School where Father Beck had spent the night. Briefcase in hand, he stepped down the cloister’s wooden staircase, stopped, checked his watch, and saw that he had some time to spare. So he turned and climbed all the way up to the fourth floor.

  Through the doors which separated the Jesuit living quarters from the high school classrooms, he could hear the freshmen chanting: “Lau-DO, lau-DAS, lau-DAT! Lau-DAMUS, lau-DATIS, lau-DANT!”

  He took a deep breath and started back down the worn steps, savoring the sounds from the classrooms: Caesar and Homer, Cicero and Virgil, the words of the ancients and the voices of male adolescents growing deeper as he descended past the sophomores to the juniors and the seniors.

  He had spent the three years of his Regency teaching here. He was Mister Beck then, one of a dozen scholastics assigned to Ignatius, none of them much older than the lads they taught. During this break from their studies for the priesthood, the scholastics wore cassocks and Roman collars just like the priests on the faculty. But the boys knew the difference. When he returned to teach here several years after ordination, he learned firsthand that teenaged boys were less comfortable with “Father” than they had been with “Mister” Beck.

  Times change, he thought. People change and buildings change, too. Heraclitus was right about that. No teacher walks through the same high school twice. The Rector had given him a tour of the building the night before and Father Beck politely noted all the changes since his departure six years before. He didn’t mention that some changes made him sad. But the Rector was right, of course. The building was structurally sound, but it did need substantial renovation. The nighttime tour had convinced him of that.

  Still, he wished the old school could remain as it always had been. How much tradition, he wondered, would survive the trauma of modernization? Not much, he feared. But the matter was out of his hands. The new Provincial would make the final decisions about the renovation of Saint Ignatius High School. Not John Beck, thank God.

  Later that night, before retiring, he had returned by himself to the main hall on the first floor. So far, progress had yet to reach this windowless, high-ceilinged, wainscoted corridor. Without looking, he found the switch on the wall and turned on the overhead lights. They still did little to brighten the hallway, but they cast enough light to see the graduating class photographs on the walls, dating back to the 1890s. He stopped when he reached Mister Beck’s classes, recalling all of his boys by name. In most cases, he knew what they had become as men.

  He stood for a while regarding the youngster in the middle of the second row of graduates: Herbert Coogan, the first boy in his freshman class to attempt a moustache.

  “You‘d better shave it off, Herbert,” he remembered telling him. “Makes you look like Pancho Villa’s kid brother.” Young Coogan did get rid of his moustache, but his nickname stuck thanks to a classmate who heard Mister Beck’s remark and passed it on to his pals.

  The boy in the picture was the man he’d be seeing in the morning. God willing, Pancho Coogan might help him bring Alex Samozvanyetz home from Russia. Father Beck switched off the main hall lights and returned to his room.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The sky was clear the next day when Father Beck left the high school, walked a block to Bridge Avenue and caught one of the buses that had replaced the old streetcars. It was a short ride across the High Level Bridge to Public Square and then just a brisk walk to his destination.

  Twenty-two people, none of whom he recognized, greeted him along the way. “Good morning, Father.” “Morning, Father.” He picked up two more as he spun through the revolving door of the Federal Building and walked across the lobby. The elevator operator, who stood staring off into space, said: “Good morning, Father.” That made it twenty-five.

  It took a moment for Father Beck to realize that the man was blind. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he said as the car ascended, “how did you know that I’m a priest?”

  “I have ears, Father,” said the blind man. “I can always tell if it’s a priest walking up to my elevator.”

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” said Father Beck. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll keep you in my prayers.”

  He walked, a bit self-consciously along the corridor to the translucent glass door of the Cleveland office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He opened it and walked in.

  “Good morning, Father,” the receptionist said brightly. Father Beck chuckled. Twenty-six broke his Going-Downtown record. But, before he could introduce himself, the young woman picked up her phone, buzzed an extension and said, “He’s here, Agent Coogan.”

  She smiled at Father Beck. “He’ll be here in just a moment, Father. He’s really eager to see you.”

  Special Agent in Charge Herbert Coogan appeared, beaming with pleasure, and paraded his high schoolteacher through a large general office.

  “So, you’re the boss of all this, are you?” said Father Beck after he nodded and smiled his way through the desks. “I’ve never seen real G-men in their headquarters before. Not like the movies, is it? More like an accounting firm and your men remind me of the fellows who show up at our class reunions.”

  “A lot of them do,” said Coogan.

  After introducing his old teacher to his secretary, he ushered Father Beck into his private office and closed the door which displayed his old student’s name and title on it.

  “No nickname, I see,” said Father Beck. “So how do you like being the man in charge, Herb?”

  “About as much as you like being Provincial, Father Beck.”

  “Actually, I’m just about done with it, thank goodness. I’ll be going on to Milford in a few months. If your son stays on course, I’ll be his Master of Novices.”

  “That’s great, Father.”

  “You don’t look overjoyed about it.”

  “Well, it makes me feel better to know that you’ll be there. But, honestly, I don’t feel right about Charley’s decision. I think he’s making a mistake. I could be wrong about that, I guess.”

  “No, you may be right. But we won’t keep him if he’s not supposed to be there. That’s what the novitiate is all about, Herb. It gives young men two years to decide if it’s the life for them or not before they commit to it.”

  “I know,” said Coogan. “Anyhow, I’ve
been keeping my thoughts to myself. If he wants to give it a try, I’m not going to do anything to stop him.”

  “That’s a wise decision, Herb. I’ll make sure no harm comes to him.” Father Beck paused. “Herb,” he said, “I had better tell you this straight off that I’m not here to discuss your son’s vocation, important though that may be. I’m here because I need your help.”

  “Well, sure, Father. I’ll do anything I can for you. You know that.”

  “Careful, Herb. This isn’t your old pal Mister Beck sitting here. I’m a Jesuit Provincial and I’m here on official business, authorized by the Jesuit Father General in Rome himself.”

  Herb Coogan said nothing as he studied Father Beck’s face for a long moment. He picked up his telephone and buzzed his secretary.

  “Give all my calls to Agent Webster,” he said. “And tell him I don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s a real emergency.”

  He cradled the phone. “She probably thinks you’re hearing my confession.”

  “It’s just as serious.”

  “So I gather,” said Coogan. “Does this involve a crime, Father? Or national security?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t know? Or you’re not sure?”

  “I’m not a lawyer, Herb. I believe it doesn’t involve a crime. I’m not sure about national security. It may cause problems for our government, maybe. Should I continue?”

  Coogan nodded.

  “We have learned that one of our men, an American Jesuit priest, is being held in the Soviet Union. We want to get him out.”

  Herb Coogan drummed his fingers on his desktop and took a deep breath. “I guess he wasn’t snatched off a tourist bus or anything simple like that,” he said. “So, how long has he been there?”

  “Since some time in 1939, I think. Right around the start of the war in Europe.”

  “Do you know what he was doing there?”

  “Yes, I do. But the Father General would rather I not say too much about that.”

  “But you want to get him out of the Soviet Union? That’s hostile territory, Father. Can’t the Vatican get him out?”

  “It’s hostile territory for the Vatican, too, Herb. I’ve been tasked to find out, informally, what our government might be able do for him.”

  Coogan looked up at the portrait of J. Edgar Hoover on his office wall.

  “The government will want to know everything there is to know. Holding back facts would be a waste of time and energy, Father. Besides, the Russians probably know everything there is to know about your man by now. They can hang his dirty laundry out on the line anytime it suits their purposes.”

  “I suppose you’re right about all that,” said Father Beck. “The best we can hope for, I guess, is a little discretion.”

  He opened his briefcase and took out a manila file folder.

  “I’ll give you these copies of everything I’ve found in our files. There wasn’t much about him and nothing has been added since he left the country to study in Rome before the war. You’ll find a handwritten letter from Rome he sent me in 1939. It was the last letter I ever received from him. I didn’t get many before that and I’m sorry I didn’t save any of the others.”

  Coogan pushed the folder aside.

  “Just tell me what you can, Father. Informally.”

  “Don’t you want to bring in a stenographer?”

  “Right now, this is just between the two of us.”

  “Off the record?” said Father Beck. “That certainly makes it a lot easier. Well, what this is all about, really, is the Russian Mission. Have you ever heard of it, Herb? I didn’t think so. Not many people have, not even a lot of Jesuits.

  “I first heard about it when I was a novice, just starting out. But before I get into that, let me tell you what I know about our man in Russia.

  “Father Alex Samozvanyetz was a classmate of mine. His parents were born in Russia. Their families came here before the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Alex’s parents met in Detroit and were married rather late in life.

  “I met them when they came to visit the novitiate. They were older than the other parents and they didn’t speak English very well. Alex had two sisters, both deceased now. One was married with no children; the other was a Poor Clare nun. The family was quite religious, tightly knit, and spoke Russian at home while Alex was growing up, so Russian was his first language. He wasn’t much influenced by secular America. Culturally, he was pretty darn Russian when I met him.”

  “So he has no living relatives,” said Coogan.

  “Not that I know of. Maybe some distant ones, but I don’t recall him mentioning any uncles or cousins.”

  “Okay,” said Coogan. “Tell me what you know about this Russian Mission and how your friend got involved in it.”

  “I was sitting right next to Alex when I first heard about the Russian Mission. Our Master of Novices was talking to our class about obedience and self-sacrifice. To make a point, he read a letter from the late Pope Pius XI, a call for volunteers the Pope had sent out before any of us entered the Society. I remember that it began: ‘To all seminarians, especially our Jesuit sons.’

  “The Holy Father described all the religious persecution going on in Russia during the Communist Revolution and said that, one day, the Church would need priests to go to Russia to take the place of those who had been martyred. He was calling for volunteers to enter a special seminary in Rome to prepare for that day.

  “I glanced at Alex and I saw a young man transfixed. He seemed unaware of anything else. I wasn’t able to speak to him until after the evening meal during the recreation period. All the novices were chattering about the Russian Mission. You know how young men get stirred up at a football rally? It was something like that.

  “But Alex wasn’t caught up in the excitement. He was quiet, restrained. Serenely self-confident, I’d say. He took me aside and told me that he was determined to volunteer to go to Russia, if such a thing were still possible. He had the cultural background, he said; spoke the language, looked Russian. It all fit.

  “That’s what he thought and, as it turned out, that’s what our superiors thought. But they made sure he was being led by God, not following some romantic vision. His most severe test was the waiting. He had to go through the early years of training just like the rest of us. We took our vows at the end of the novitiate and spent two years in the juniorate working for our college degrees and three more years studying philosophy and completing the requirements for our degrees.

  “Only then was Alex allowed to go to Rome to begin his special studies, about the time the rest of us went off to the high schools. While I was teaching you Latin at Ignatius, Herb, Alex was studying at the Russicum, the Jesuits’ Russian College in Rome.

  “From his letters, it seemed he was getting regular seminary training at the Russicum, but he must have been learning how to live and work underground. That’s my guess. He never said anything that smacked of the clandestine. He sent me one final letter in 1939, after he’d been ordained. You have it there in the file. It would be his last letter, he said, ‘for a long while. Don’t try to reply until I send you my new address. It might cause embarrassment here in Rome or elsewhere.’ I found that alarming, Herb.

  “I never really believed that Alex would actually be sent into the Soviet Union. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could get out of Russia in those days, much less sneak in. But I inferred from his letter that he was about to try.

  “Not too long after I received Alex’s letter, Hitler invaded Poland from the West, Stalin moved in from the East, and then World War II broke out in earnest.

  “I didn’t expect to hear from Alex during all that chaos, and I didn’t. I thought, certainly, I would hear from him after the war ended. But there wasn’t a single word from him or about him. Just silence. The years rolled on. I became convinced that he was dead. But I was wrong, thank God.

  “A couple of weeks ago, a man from Iowa brought m
e a letter and two photographs he’d smuggled out of western Siberia. Here, let me show you. The cellophane envelopes are my secretary’s idea. Brother Krause thought there might be some fingerprints you could check.”

  “Were there any fingerprints in your old files?”

  “Alex’s fingerprints? No. Brother Krause wondered about that, too. He looked but didn’t find anything. We never went in for that sort of thing. I don’t recall ever being fingerprinted myself, as a matter of fact. Is that a problem?”

  “Well, it would have made life easier. So tell me what this man from Iowa had to say.”

  Father Beck pulled another file from his briefcase. “Here’s a copy of Brother Krause’s memorandum. He took notes during our meeting and his summary is quite accurate. Verbatim, as far as I can see. He has a remarkable memory.”

  “I’ll look at it later,” said Coogan. “First, I want to hear it from you.”

  Herb Coogan sat back and listened. From time to time, he jotted a note. When Father Beck finished telling him about Harold Hoffmann’s visit, he asked: “Do you believe Hoffmann was telling you the truth?”

  “The man was badly shaken, Herb, but I think he was trying hard to tell us everything that happened to him. I believe his story.”

  “How about this Brother Krause? What did he think of Hoffmann and his story?’

  “He agrees that Hoffmann had a frightening experience. He thinks his story was, well, ‘credible’ is the word he used. He was a police detective before becoming a Jesuit.”

  Coogan smiled. “Once a cop, always a cop,” he said. “Now, how about these pictures? You’re sure this man is your Father What’s-his-name?”

  “Samozvanyetz,” said Father Beck. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “It’s been a long time, Father. It’s been about 30 years since you’ve seen him.”

  “Yes, I know. But look at the eyes, the set of the jaw, the way he stands. The years have taken their toll, but it’s Alex. You don’t forget someone like Alex Samozvanyetz.”

  Coogan studied the man in the photographs.