by James R Benn
“Most are orphans,” I said. “If either of their parents are alive, they were probably taken by the Germans as forced labor. It’s a hard life for a kid, all alone, home destroyed, no one to look after them. Hard to blame them for snitching K rations when they can.”
“Bunch of them tried to steal a truckload of liquor,” he said. “The kid driving had blocks of wood strapped to his feet so he could reach the pedals. They’re thieves, plain and simple.”
“What did you do with him? Break his legs?”
“Shut up before I get that rag out, Lieutenant. We’re almost there.” He tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed to the access road for the airfield. He showed his orders to the Royal Air Force guard at the gate and was waved through. We drove past Halifax four-engine bombers, painted flat black, with the RAF roundel on the fuselage and not much else in the way of markings. Same with the Lysanders, the rugged single-engine craft used for quick landings behind enemy lines. These were the aircraft of 148 Squadron, assigned to the SOE for the work of delivering arms, agents, and saboteurs behind the lines. It was all night work, which was why the aircraft were on the ground, under camouflage netting, waiting for the sky to become as dark as their airframes.
We passed the warehouse where SOE had a packing station for parachute containers, and drove on to the edge of the airfield, where a dirt road led to a villa, perched on a small hilltop overlooking an inlet. It was surrounded by cypress and palm trees, the breeze off the Adriatic Sea producing a calm rustling sound at odds with the grimness of the enterprise.
I was puzzled as to why we were here. I’d expected to be taken to the nearest provost marshal’s office, or at least to a US Army facility. But a British outfit? The same SOE station I’d been haunting for the past week? It didn’t add up. If there were news about Diana, they wouldn’t send American MPs out to find me; they knew I was bound to show up sooner rather than later. Which of my friends in high places did the grumpy sergeant mean? For the first time, I felt uneasy. I figured I could talk my way out of the desertion charge; although that was perhaps technically correct, it was an overstatement. I was still in uniform, out in the open at the last place my orders had sent me. Not counting the orders to London, that is. But being delivered by American MPs to a British SOE unit got my hackles up. It meant somebody wanted me, and the last time the Brits wanted me, I got shot, along with a few other people. None of us enjoyed it.
“Wait here,” the sergeant said as he got out and spoke to a guard at the door. British Army uniform, no markings.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” I asked the driver. He was a young kid, a private, nineteen years old at most.
“Not a clue, Lieutenant. But I know one thing for sure. Sarge ain’t as tough as he makes out. He gave that kid a spanking, then sent him on his way with Hershey’s bars and Spam.”
“That qualifies as both cruel and unusual punishment. So why bring me here? Don’t you guys have your own hoosegow?”
“Yeah. We use an old carabinieri station. Kinda bombed out, but the cells still lock.”
“How come we didn’t go there?”
“Because Sarge said to go here. That’s how things work in the army. You should stop talking now.”
“Hey, I’m a fellow cop, don’t sweat it. At least back home I was. Detective, Boston PD. You looking to get into police work after the war?”
“Maybe. Can you beat prisoners who won’t shut up in Boston?”
I was beginning to irritate the kid, but I didn’t have much time. Sarge was signing some paperwork with an officer who’d appeared in the doorway.
“Senseless. But we frown on turning our collars over to the feds, and we’d never give up one of ours to foreigners.”
“These guys are our allies.”
“You Irish by any chance?” I asked, going for the long shot.
“One quarter, on my grandpappy’s side. The other three quarters are glad to get rid of you. Good luck, Lieutenant. I truly have no idea why we’re here.”
Sarge walked up and motioned me out of the jeep, his jaw clenched. My detective skills told me he was steamed, at me, at the Brits, at whoever ordered him to deliver a shavetail to a secret headquarters, no questions asked. They sped off, spitting gravel, before I had a chance to say, “Call me Billy. Everyone does.”
CHAPTER THREE
“ANDREW CROFT,” SAID a British captain, grinning and shaking my hand as if I were a welcome houseguest. “Follow me, Lieutenant Boyle,” he said, pronouncing it left-tenant in the odd British way.
Croft was tall, with a strong, dimpled jaw, thick blond hair, and a weathered look to his face. A guy used to the hard life, not a paper-pusher. His uniform was bleached-out khaki, as nondescript as the guard’s had been. But his had the look of being worn in the salt air and hot sun, and I wondered if I were being shanghaied for some against-all-odds mission. At the end of the hall, French doors opened to a balcony overlooking the Adriatic. It was impressive. Clear blue water to the horizon, waves throwing foam at the rocks below. Maybe it was going to be tea and crumpets, not death-defying odds.
“Not the worst digs possible,” Croft said with a sly smile. “You know what the regular army chaps call SOE? ‘Stately ’Omes of England,’ since we seem to find the choicest estates to bed down in. Coffee is on its way. You do want coffee, don’t you?”
“Sure I do. And that quip is hilarious. But what I really want is for you to tell me what the hell I’m doing here. Then we’ll have some joe and swap jokes.”
“Don’t we all?” Croft said. “I haven’t a clue myself. Orders came from the top to wait for you and a Yank courier from Naples. All will be made clear, one hopes. Ah, coffee.”
A silver coffee service was set down between two chairs on the veranda by a corporal wearing a revolver and a long knife on his belt, and a scar across his forehead.
“What unit is this?” I asked. It felt more like a pirate’s lair than a British Army headquarters.
“They call us Force 226,” Croft said as he poured. A breeze came up off the water, blowing his thick blond hair back. “We do a bit of business everywhere, from Corsica to Crete and points in between.”
“Just how high up did those orders come from?” I asked.
“The very top.” Croft sipped his coffee and leaned back in the chair, letting the sun wash his face.
“As in Kim Philby?”
Croft raised one eyebrow at the mention of Philby. “Best not to name names, even among friends,” he said. “There’s no reason to let on you are that close to those in exalted circles. Could get you killed if some bloke repeats it.”
“Almost has,” I said. Kim Philby was with the British Secret Intelligence Service, head of MI6’s Mediterranean Section. We’d worked together before, done each other a favor or two, and I thought we were even. Maybe I was wrong. “When is the courier due in?”
“He’s here now, finishing breakfast in the kitchen. I thought it would be good for us to chat first, get to know each other.”
“Why? Are we going on a trip together? Someplace exotic, with explosives?”
“I’ve no idea, Lieutenant Boyle. But if we are, I’d like to know the sort of man I’m traveling with.”
“I’m an unhappy man, Captain Croft. I’d rather be somewhere else right now, with someone else. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can go back to being miserable.” I drank my coffee and inhaled the sea air. I felt guilty, with Diana in a Gestapo cell while I sat in the sun, powerless to help her. Or too late.
“You do have the look of a man who needs to do something,” Croft said, turning his blue eyes on me. “Anything but sit here far from the shooting war, I’d dare say. Restless. Haunted, perhaps. Why?”
“Everyone’s got a story,” I said. “Mine is too complicated to tell.”
“Ah, a woman,” Croft said, smiling.
I felt like taking a swing at him, but he couldn’t know it wasn’t a laughing matter. It wasn’t that the course of t
rue love never did run smoothly; it was more like its path was marked by torture, death, and finality. Croft was sharp, and likable, but I saw no percentage in giving anything more away. So I drank his coffee and let him think he had me figured out.
“Here’s our man now,” Croft said, as the sound of heavy footsteps echoed in the tiled hallway. “Not the highest-ranking confidential courier I’ve ever seen, but certainly the largest.”
It couldn’t be, I thought, as I put together the visit to the kitchen, the heavy footsteps, and the comment about rank and size. But damned if it wasn’t Staff Sergeant Mike Miecznikowski himself. Or Big Mike, as everyone from privates to generals called him.
“Hey, Billy,” Big Mike said, raising his hand in the least possible semblance of a salute.
“When did they let you out?” I asked, ignoring the salute and giving him a slap on the back. No mean feat when you took into account Big Mike’s shoulders. He looked like a cross between a linebacker and a lumberjack, stuffed into the largest olive-drab getup Uncle Sam had in stock.
“Couple of days ago,” Big Mike said, puffing out his cheeks as if he’d run up a dozen flights. He sat down heavily, beads of sweat on his forehead. The last time I’d seen him was more than a week ago, in a military hospital in Naples, his head swathed in bandages, coming out of a deep sleep after a nasty blow to the head.
“Do you need help, Sergeant?” Croft said, a look of confusion on his face.
“Naw, I’m fine, thanks.” Big Mike had a way with officers. Most guys couldn’t pull it off, but he had the knack. Unless he sized up one of the brass as a real twit, he treated him like one of the guys. He knew when an actual salute was called for, and he could toss off a nice one when he had to. Otherwise, it was like old pals chewing the fat. And who didn’t mind a likable strongman as a pal?
“You don’t look fine,” I said. I wanted to find out what was going on, but I was more concerned at that moment about Big Mike. He was pale, and his face looked thin and drawn—and thin was a word I’d never applied to him before. “Are you sure you shouldn’t still be in the hospital? Or on your way back home?”
“I’m okay, Billy, only a bit winded,” Big Mike said. “I was in bed for a week, that was enough hospital for me.”
“Were you wounded?” Croft asked, giving Big Mike the once-over, looking for telltale signs. Big Mike took off his garrison cap, revealing a crescent-shaped incision on his skull, above the right ear. His hair was shaved down to a crew cut, and the red, angry scar still showed where the stitches had recently been removed.
“Subdural hematoma?” Croft said, peering closely at the scar. Big Mike nodded, his eyes closing as he did, trying to shut out the pain. “Acute?”
“No,” Big Mike said. “The doctors called it subacute, or something like that. Are you a medical man, Captain?”
“Not exactly, but everyone in Force 226 is trained in emergency medicine to one degree or another. It helps to assess the effectiveness of men in the field. I’d guess you should still be on bed rest at least. Discharged from the service at worst, although perhaps you wouldn’t think of that as the worst outcome.”
“No need to discharge me yet, I’m fine,” Big Mike said. I watched him take a deep breath, like an old man in a rocking chair. Then I understood.
“Big Mike is a career policeman,” I said to Croft. “I’ll bet he talked his way out of a medical discharge because the Detroit Police wouldn’t hire him back with a certified head injury. Am I right, Big Mike?”
“Can’t say I’d mind going home,” Big Mike admitted, shaking his head wistfully. “But I can’t risk losing my spot on the Force, or my pension. So I told Sam to keep me in Naples as long as it took to rest up and get back in shape.”
“Sam?” Croft said.
“Colonel Samuel Harding,” I explained. “He works for General Eisenhower, and we work for him in the Office of Special Investigations.”
“Exalted circles, indeed,” Croft said, raising an eyebrow. “The air you breathe is positively rarified. Sergeant, we are both restraining our curiosity about what comes next. If you are able, please get on with it.”
“Sure, sure,” Big Mike said, resting his hand on a manila envelope marked Confidential and sealed with red tape. “I’ve got a pile of paperwork here, orders, briefing information, memos from MI6 to SHAEF with copies to Captain Croft. But maybe you want the long story short?”
“Paperwork gives me a headache,” Croft said. “Please, in your own words.” I was beginning to think this guy was okay.
“There’s been a murder,” Big Mike said. So far, no surprise. Murders that get in the way of the war effort are our stock and trade. “A priest named Edward Corrigan took a shiv between the ribs. A monsignor, actually.”
“Corrigan? Was he Irish?” I wondered if this were leading to another trip back to the old country.
“Nope. American. Now comes the tricky part. He was murdered in Rome. At the Vatican.”
“Rome,” I whispered. Diana. I felt my heart race, and hoped God would forgive me for how glad I was that someone knifed Monsignor Corrigan. In Rome.
“A pity, to be sure,” Croft said. “But what does it have to do with SOE, or Lieutenant Boyle, for that matter? Vatican City is neutral territory. Surrounded by German-occupied Rome, another problem altogether.”
“I’ll answer the one about Billy first,” Big Mike said. He spoke slowly, each word a struggle, and I worried about the toll this trip had taken on him. But I wanted to know more about Rome and getting closer to Diana, and I willed him to get on with it. “Monsignor Corrigan is, or was, an American. But he held Vatican citizenship, and had lived and worked there for years.”
“Corrigan worked for the Pope,” Croft said.
“For the Holy Office, to be precise,” Big Mike said. “He was a lawyer, and drafted statements on church doctrine for the cardinals to review, that kind of thing.”
“What does this have to do with me?” I asked, impatient for the other shoe to drop. The death of a priest in a city of priests was hardly earthshaking news.
“What it’s got to do with you is that Monsignor Corrigan is a cousin of Bishop John Murphy Finch, of New York. Him and FDR are childhood buddies. From what I hear, when Bishop Finch got the news that cousin Edward was murdered, he gave FDR an earful. FDR passed it on to General Marshall, who passed it onto Ike, who handed it over to Sam. Sam got the news before he left Naples for London, and told me to bring the details to you once plans were in place. It helped keep me from getting sent home, since I was under orders from Ike himself.”
“Forgive me, Sergeant,” Croft said, “but in the British Army, noncommissioned officers are not usually privy to the thoughts of the general staff.”
“I got a few pals at SHAEF,” Big Mike said. Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in London was where we were based, and where Big Mike rubbed elbows with General Eisenhower, not to mention his chief of staff at SHAEF, General “Beetle” Smith, who knew everything about everybody. Nobody got along with Beetle on a regular basis, except Big Mike. “We stay in touch.”
“So President Roosevelt wants me to find out who murdered Monsignor Edward Corrigan, so he can tell Bishop Finch justice has been served,” I said, getting the conversation back on track, and trying to understand what was being said—and what wasn’t.
“You got it. I hear the bishop and all the other Catholic voters in New York state will be very happy to receive the news,” Big Mike said, giving Croft a sidelong glance and a shrug. “But then I’m just a noncom, what do I know?”
“Forgive me, Sergeant, I am obviously in the presence of a born politician. And let me guess, my role in all this is to find a way to bring Lieutenant Boyle into Vatican City.”
“Exactly. Billy and Kaz, that is.”
“Lieutenant Kazimierz will be dining with us tonight,” Croft said. “Orders from on high, received last night. Now I see why.”
“Sam wants you and Kaz here until you leave,” Big Mike s
aid, handing me the file. “Top secret on this one. Why don’t you read through this stuff and we’ll talk some more later.”
“I’ll organize a place for you to rest, Sergeant,” Croft said.
“Thanks, Captain. Feel free to call me Big Mike.”
Croft smiled, as if he’d been asked to join the most exclusive club in London.
“Whatever you say, Big Mike.”
Croft left us alone on the veranda, the sun warming the tiles at our feet. I was enticed by the possibility of getting closer to Diana, but I had to calm down and focus. We sat in silence, and I let the wheels turn. I thought about all the deaths in Rome, in Italy, and all throughout Europe. I thought about what I knew of politics and the Roman Catholic Church, and revenge. The wheels turned some more and I didn’t like where they ended up.
“Tell me why you’re really here,” I finally said.
“To give you a direct order from Sam,” Big Mike said. “He didn’t want to give you this assignment, but Ike insisted, I guess because he had no choice.” I could tell he was stalling.
“What’s the order?”
“Stay away from Diana Seaton,” Big Mike said, sitting up and looking straight at me. “You are not to attempt to contact her or free her from prison. You are to take no action which would jeopardize the successful conclusion to this assignment, and make no contact with any other agents.”
“Why?”
“Sam said that would be the first thing you’d say, so here goes.” He cleared his throat, and closed his eyes, reciting from memory. “Any interference in the affairs of Vatican City, as a neutral state, would have a detrimental effect on our relations with the Italian government and the Papal State, and endanger the neutrality of the Vatican. Your assignment is to assist in the apprehension of a murderer within the Vatican, while avoiding any clandestine operations or situations that would imperil the neutral status of the Vatican.” He opened his eyes. “Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
“No, Billy, I mean do you really get it? This isn’t like all the other orders you’ve ignored, like not returning to London. Sam said he can’t protect you if you disobey. There’s a lot of pressure on this one, and it goes all the way back to Washington. That’s one heavy load of bricks ready to come down on your head if you go off the reservation.”
