The Vatican's Last Secret

by Francis Joseph Smith

  Heber forced himself to close his eyes and breathe deeply. He was only minutes from escaping the clutches of the American Army. But they had to hurry.

  Heber now turned his attention away from the camp, ordering the placement of a soldier to sit atop each rail car, facing forward. From there they could guard the trains’ contents but even more importantly, Heber could view each soldier’s whereabouts from his position at the end of the train, in the train’s caboose. He also chose to surround himself with five of his most trustworthy soldiers in the caboose. The remainder of his contingent of guards would sit comfortably in the third car behind the train’s engine and its coal car, just far enough away to allow Heber his freedom to implement the second phase of his plan when he deemed fit.

  A slight wave to the train’s engineer signaled the last of his troops were safely loaded aboard.

  Well, all but one. Where was he? Heber said to himself.

  A blast from the train’s whistle shrilled loudly as the train suddenly lurched forward, its wheels finding traction. Thick, black smoke now belched from its stack as it struggled from the Gunskirchen Lager Concentration camp station; a sprawling eyesore and den of misery that up until five hours earlier, Colonel Heber’s SS guards patrolled its perimeter, waiting to shoot dead any prisoner who dared to cross the warning wire that ran a few meters inside the fencing.

  Of all the camps ghastly horrors, the odor that hung in the morning air was the most startling. It was a stench that defied description; human excreta, body odors, rancid food, and smoldering trash pit fires. This all mixed together in a heavy dank atmosphere where the camp grounds were pulpy, churned to a consistency of warm putty by the milling of thousands of feet, mud mixed with feces and urine.

  But Heber managed a slight smile as the rail cars slowly escaped into the morning’s early light. From his perch on the wrought iron steps of the caboose, Heber eyed the remains of his posting. He told himself to relax and enjoy the ride. He had endured his position for three long months but nothing could prepare him for what was to befall him on this wondrous day.

  Heber had originally joined the SS as a lowly police officer in 1935, but with the help of a friend was commissioned into the Allgemeine-SS, a unit that dealt mainly with internal security and racial matters. He was then asked to join the Waffen-SS, rising quickly through its ranks. Along the way, he bribed the right people to help him succeed when needed. Now he was in a place to know the right people and hence the letter from Bormann detailing him to secure their riches. He had certainly come a long way over the course of the past ten years. The only thing that could betray him now was his solid Germanic looks: blond hair, blue eyes, tall build, at one time making him the ideal SS recruiting poster. Now they were his downfall. Easily recognizable to those who would be the new conquerors.

  Off to his left, he observed ten of the camps wooden buildings still ablaze, victims of a previous evening’s air raid by British Mosquito’s. Most of the camps buildings were simple, wooden, two-story buildings comprised of inexpensive plywood that were built to accommodate 100 inmate’s but crammed in 250 in utterly deplorable conditions.

  Heber was determined to leave little evidence behind; buildings nor those who occupied them. But there were many buildings to burn and too little time. With only five hours’ notice, Heber’s men could not possibly guard the train, the prisoners, and burn the camp. With less than 100 guards left of the normal contingent of 450, the rest having deserted during the past few days, and with over 15,000 prisoners to guard, something had to give. Heber still chose to send in 20 men to destroy what they could. Anything that could possibly be used against him in the courts would also be destroyed. Soon, the buildings thick black smoke mixed with the scents of the surrounding forest producing the sickly sweet fragrance of death. A fine residue of soot and ash now rained down, powdering the ground in some places as if snow.

  The smoke will no doubt draw in the Americans, thought Heber, smiling. And they will find nothing left to convict him. Heber eyed his watch, anxiety starting to set in, worrying about his aide, S/S Captain Peter Lenz. Before long he caught a glimpse of him emerging from the camp’s sole brick building, the camp’s Headquarters. His pulse quickened as he watched Lenz drop an empty gasoline can on the ground, lit a gasoline soaked rag before tossing it back into the building he had just exited. An instant later, smoke soon followed, then flame’s as they licked the doorframe and the offices that lay inside. Lenz, satisfied with his work, picked up a black leather briefcase that was his sole intention for returning to the building. Between the camps evacuation and the British raid, Colonel Heber had overlooked the camp’s safe and had sent Lenz to retrieve its contents. Lenz being the only person Heber trusted to deliver intact what lay inside.

  Lenz waved to Heber, pointing to the briefcase.

  Heber nodded in acknowledgment before beckoning him to the train. “Hurry, Peter!” he yelled not wanting to stop the train’s already agonizingly slow pace to pick up Lenz.

  For a moment it actually looked like that Lenz was experiencing second thoughts, looking to run the other way. Lenz seemed to pause as he looked first to the case, than Heber. After several long moments, Lenz had made his decision, walking out of sight behind the brick building.

  Heber’s eyes went wide at what seemed to be Lenz’s betrayal. “That son of a bitch would never do this to me,” he said aloud. He waited for 30 seconds or so before panic started to set in, the single engine still struggling to pull the heavily laden railcars. Heber looked back inside the caboose ready to call on one of his soldiers in order to chase down Lenz before turning back to see Lenz as he now jogged towards the train, him struggling with the weight of the case.

  Heber removed his hat before wiping the sweat from his brow. That was too close he thought to himself. He required the contents of the safe now more than ever. Up until two weeks before he had hoped to share its contents with his wife and live a life of quiet luxury. But with the gut wrenching news of her death in a bombing raid his instincts moved in another direction: survival mode. Heber had hoped to use the diamonds to escape with his wife and make their way to South America or the Middle East. Anywhere but Europe. He had too many enemies in Europe. He looked up to the morning sky and whispered her name, “Laura,” before closing his eyes. He wiped a tear from his eye. He would seek his justice for her death but at a time of his choosing.

  With his own plan now changed, Heber knew he had to act according to his mentor in Berlin’s wishes; the bastard Bormann, Hitler’s Nazi Party Secretary. He had to adhere to Bormann’s plan and save his diamonds for some possible type of emergency fund for their escape. Heber knew he couldn’t double cross Bormann or his people. Bormann was known to be ruthless, even with his so-called friends. And now with Hitler’s death and the war only days away from ending, the former Nazi’s would still yield vast amounts of power in a post-war Europe. Even with the Allies liberating vast amounts of territory and forming new governments, former Nazi’s and their sympathizers had already infiltrated new positions from top-to-bottom. From small posts such as police officers all the way up to mayors. Heber had little doubt as to the reach of the “old guard” Nazis. They could easily send people to deal with him. There would be no place too small to hide. No, he had to stick with the plan and meet with Bormann. That was if Bormann were lucky enough to make it out of Berlin. Heber had heard from radio broadcasts that the Russian Army now surrounded the city.

  Heber cupped his hands over his mouth. “Peter, hurry or you will be left behind,” he shouted as the train began ever so slowly to pick up speed, Lenz now only 100 meters away.

  Lenz struggled under the weight of the contents of the briefcase, gripping it with both hands as he ran to catch up to the caboose where Heber stood on its iron platform. Luckily for him the single engine powering the train also struggled under its heavy load, having moved barely 150 meters from the station.

  Heber extended his arm to Lenz as he approached, dust rising behind him. “G
ive me the case first,” he shouted through cupped hands. “It will make it easier for you to jump on board.”

  Lenz nodded before heaving the leather attaché case to Heber.

  Heber caught the case and quickly laid it on the wrought iron decking behind him, opening the case to ensure its contents. Satisfied, he watched Lenz as he struggled to grab the railcars iron railing, slipping on his first try before safely pulling himself aboard.

  Heber smiled at Lenz. “That was a close one,” he said coolly.

  “Yes, sir,” Lenz replied slightly out of breath, using the sleeve of his tunic to wipe the sweat from his face. “I didn’t think I was going to make it.”

  Heber nodded. “Neither did I,” he replied before dropping to one knee, peering into the case, appreciatively eying six gold bars before extracting a metal box the size of a small tin of tobacco, one of four in the case. He popped open its metal lid, his eyes appearing to sparkle as much its contents. He reached in to remove one of his prized possessions.

  “And to think, my diamonds might have been left behind and pocketed by some American or Russian soldier,” said Heber as he rose with the tin.

  “Your diamonds and gold are still there,” Lenz said confidently, as the train slowly pushed past the camp’s perimeter and the cargo’s rightful owners—prosperous Hungarian Jew’s who were rounded up and murdered only days before. They could raise no objection from their shallow graves as the train gained speed.

  Lenz stood at Heber’s side, Heber tilting the tin so Lenz could clearly view its contents. Lenz gawked in at what he expected to be shared with him by Heber.

  “Yes, diamonds and gold,” Heber said in a cold calculating voice, balancing what must have been a five-carat stone between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the suns light as he tried to gauge its quality. “After the war I will require my creature comforts. This is my insurance that I live a long a fruitful life. And you never know, I might need a few of these stones to barter for my escape to somewhere warm.”

  Lenz looked on, puzzled. Heber had put him in charge of collecting the valuables, including diamonds, from the prisoners as they entered the camp. Heber also ordered Lenz to routinely “shake down” the guards to make sure they weren’t stealing anything of value. “Don’t you mean our escape, Sir?” he inquired. “I thought we were in this together? I thought we were partners?”

  Heber silently withdrew his service Lugar in one swift motion but chose not to point the weapon at Lenz for the time being, keeping it at his side. “Partners? Me with you? I don’t think so,” he mocked. “My only partner is escaping from Berlin at this very moment.”

  “But we, we….,” Lenz stammered, “have a deal!”

  Heber laughed aloud before responding. “Oh yes, you thought I was going to share my little treasures with the likes of you,” Heber spat. “Were you really that naive to think I would actually provide you a cut of my goods?”

  Lenz shook his head, the anger in him slowly building. “You are a bastard. I trusted you. All of this time, I thought you would take care of me in the end. But not like this.”

  “A bad decision on your part — but we all make them,” said a grinning Heber. He now pointed to the remains of the camp and then to the graves of the prisoners. “Do you think they also trusted me?” He said mockingly to Lenz. “Another bad choice some people made.”

  “Have no fear, Colonel,” replied Lenz, now resigning himself to his fate. “I was the only one who had placed some form of trust in you. The men under your command, well, they all thought you were just another Nazi bastard.”

  Heber nodded, smiling before raising his weapon, aiming it at Lenz. “Any last words you would like to say for prosperity?”

  Lenz looked over his shoulder at the beauty of what would be his last sunrise, and then smiled. “I hope the sons and daughters of these Jews catch up with you. At least I despised the work I had to do here. You relished it. I can only hope that one day, preferably sooner rather than later, you will be in my very position, standing with a gun in your face. And one more thing — I only gave you half of the diamonds from the little tins. When I disappeared behind the building, I emptied some of the contents of each container into a hole I had quickly dug and covered up. I thought maybe, someday soon, I could come back and recover them for myself. And one more thing, when I confiscated the diamonds from the prisoners, I only provided you with half my haul. The other half I buried in various spots on the camps perimeter.”

  Heber’s face turned red with rage. “You betraying bastard,” he screamed at him.

  Lenz continued. “It was to be my insurance policy for after the war,” he said nonchalantly.

  Heber was furious. “So all of this time you were stealing from me?” he raged.

  Lenz smiled, knowing he would have the last laugh.

  “Well, one thing is for sure,” Heber said as he continued to tirade. “You will never profit from, nor see, any of the diamonds you stole.”

  “And when you kill me, neither will you,” Lenz said, still smiling at Heber. “Remember, I also hid the map that listed the locations of the treasure hidden around the camp.”

  “You cheating bastard,” Heber screamed at him.

  Lenz continued to smile at him.

  Heber cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure. “I guess you have necessitated my return to the camp once I’m done with this,” he said, pointing back to the train.

  “I guess I have,” Lenz replied as he nodded. “And I hope somebody catches you when you do.”

  Heber was tired of the game he himself had started. “Goodbye, Lenz,” Heber said nonchalantly, firing a single bullet that tore into Lenz’s forehead, his body dropping from the train as if it were a sack of potatoes, rolling end-over-end towards the graves of the camps former occupants.

  Heber‘s lips parted in a sinister grin as he took careful aim and placed one last shot into Lenz’s torso as it lay on the ground. Satisfied he was dead, he mockingly saluted his former aide as the train kept rolling into the shadows unnoticed.

  The bastard screwed me, Heber thought as looked to Lenz’s lifeless body. And I’m the one who thought he was getting away with all of the treasure.

  IN THE FRANTIC DAYS that would follow, the train managed to stay just out of reach of the advancing Russian armies from the east and American armies from the west, between them crushing the last remnants of the Nazi war machine. Ultimately the train would never reach its final destination, Germany. When found, abandon, 25 kilometers southeast of Salzburg, Austria, by forward elements of General George S. Patton’s US Third army, the train’s engineer had left its engine still bellowing steam, and unbelievably, all of its railcar doors still padlocked. Upon a routine search by American soldiers they found the Germans, ever diligent in their paperwork, had left behind the train’s complete manifest for whoever was to stumble across its location. When compared to the railcars contents, the soldiers noticed that two rail cars had managed to vanish somewhere along its mountainous, serpentine route.

  Further scrutiny of the paperwork revealed the missing rail cars contained silver and gold bullion worth an estimated $350 million dollars. At the bottom of the document, a penciled marking indicated a late addition to the missing car’s cargo; Uranium 235.

  One American soldier, an enlisted man from Philadelphia couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched the MP’s inventory the goods from the rail cars. He just shook his head in awe as he looked to his fellow soldier. “Are you kidding me? If this was in Philly the whole friggan train would have disappeared, railroad tracks and all,” he boasted.

  Upon the war’s conclusion, many commissions were convened to determine the rightful owners of the riches discovered on the railroad tracks outside of Salzburg and many more dispatched investigators to locate the missing gold. After many years and despite numerous, half-hearted government investigations, no trace of the missing cargo’s existence would be found.

  Until now.

  CHAPTER
47

  GUNSKIRCHEN LAGER CONCENTRATION CAMP

  From inside his squalid quarters eight-year old Solomon Nubelman dared to peer through a crack in the doorway of his imprisonment and away from the death that resided within. The interior, designed to originally hold horses, were partitioned into stalls. The stalls contained three-tier wooden bunks. Eighty prisoners were assigned to each barracks originally designed to hold forty-two. The constant dampness, leaky roof, and the fouling of straw mattresses by prisoners suffering from diarrhea made difficult living conditions even more wretched. This Solomon could handle. It was the dead bodies that still lay in their bunks from the Typhus that had decimated the camp and the swarms of vermin and rats that swiftly moved in that he had a hard time dealing with. At night he would hear them gnawing on the flesh of the dead. Sometimes he would have to shoo them away as they would sniff around him, thinking he was already dead. Now, as the sole person still alive in his barracks, with his father having died in his arms sometime during the night, he just felt lucky to have survived.

  Strangely, looking out, he was no longer frightened of being alone. Now it was his mission to just stay alive. In the preceding two weeks, Solomon had watched in horror as first his mother died, quickly followed by his two sisters, a brother and finally, his father, all succumbing to Typhus. In his final moments his father had beseeched him, implored him to do whatever he had to in order to survive. But most of all, he was to seek revenge on the people who were responsible for their deaths. He was to seek an eye for an eye.

  Solomon promised his father he would survive. More than this, he would make him proud. He would start a new family so their name would live on. But most of all, he promised to seek revenge for their deaths. If it took him the rest of his life, he would find and kill every last one involved.

  Solomon would always remember his father smiling at him, lovingly patting him on the cheek before he died.