 
The Vatican Caper

Zach Neal

This Smashwords edition copyright 2014 Zach Neal and Long Cool One Books

Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-0-9918999-1-3

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. The author's moral right has been asserted.

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Chapter One

Know Your Wagner.

"Whoever wishes to understand National Socialism must know Wagner."

Ludwig, his shooting partner, looked sideways at him. Ullrich couldn't think of anything to say, but they'd been carrying on in whispers for a while now, and this vein of amusement was a good, rich ore. Ah! He had one after all.

"The Germans, Nietzsche wrote in Ecce Homo, have no idea of how vile they are."

His companion grunted in disdain. The young man thought his was better. Ullrich kept quiet. Perhaps that was best. A jaded eye surveyed the diorama-scale scene laid out like a farmer's breakfast.

The scope was cold up against Ullrich's eyebrow. Stationed at the end of the square, nicely overlooking the balconies of the target area, the courtyard and surrounding edifices, they were as high up as they could get and still have any hope of quick escape. He fiddled with the adjustment screw. A man's face leapt out into clear focus. Schneider. Sheer luck, for there was no way to anticipate which side of the vehicle he would get out of. It was terribly bad luck for the other.

Just a matter of perspective.

"Still not time." They were completely silent, although at this range, low down behind the parapet, they could have probably had a long conversation in a fairly normal voice without tipping off the quarry.

They were getting out and forming up, each of them already a dead man, if only they knew it. But of course they did know it. They were fanatics every one. His trigger finger almost itched. He'd heard the saying, but never would have believed it before this.

To pull down on a brother officer was necessary, but no one said he had to like it. A professional soldier's oath of service was deeply ingrained, and very hard to contradict. The finger gently squeezed, taking up the initial tension. The next thirty seconds dragged on. He let his heart settle.

"I've got number one."

"Danke." The tip of the other's weapon moved slightly to the right and he grinned. "Sorry. I mean grazie."

The youngster was trained well enough, and by all accounts, he could shoot. That was all that mattered, that and to listen well and follow instructions. They would be lucky to get about five minutes here and then they must be off.

He knew the face of Schneider, having studied photos of it intently. What had brought them to this time and place in exactly these circumstances was the result of a very long chain of causality. Changing any one factor might have brought a different outcome. It was a deterministic world, as Ullrich saw it.

"That's strange." Ludwig's hoarse whisper was a shock.

"What is?"

"I don't see any guards. But they were out there when we got here."

Startled, Ullrich swung his scope over and through the scene, first to one door and then another. He was right. Shift change wasn't for a while yet, and they would have to be relieved before they could go. There was something ominous in it, but they were too committed. There was no way to go back or shut this thing off now. It would mean fewer innocent casualties. He prayed they weren't forming up for their famed pike charge of the sixteenth century.

"Will wonders never cease?" Ludwig glanced over and grinned at his own joke.

Ullrich grunted in acknowledgement, studying the scene, especially the windows and doors now. It would have to do.

"Just remember your escape plan." He gave the lad's shoulder a squeeze.

He leveled his own weapon and took the proper grip. Ullrich took another look at the range.

"Yes, sir."

"Call me Rolf."

The youngster grunted.

The enemy looked ready to move. All accounted for. The other posts were waiting for him to take the first shot. It was a privilege of rank, but also a point of planning in order to prevent mistakes. There would be no doubts and no questions on their part. Only he had the right to hesitate. It only took so much time for thirty men to dismount from the lorries.

"But for the Teuton, everlasting night would have settled upon the world..." He wasn't sure if Ludwig had ever heard that one.

He pulled the trigger and the figure in his sights crumpled.

***

A little red MG sped through the night, a thoughtful Dan Thornton at the wheel. Fred's FB-5 was an impressive car. It was also a couple of years out of date when compared to the best European machines. There was no substitute for cubic inches, but you could only do so much with an aging chassis. While he knew his chances of winning races were not too good, he had to try and make the best of the opportunities available. It was a strong chassis, which offered its own kind of confidence. The motor was more power than he'd ever had before, especially in terms of pure torque, which took some mastering.

It was a chorus of banshees.

He fell in love the moment he heard that chorus, all those long years ago, standing at the gate of the county fair with his Uncle Phil, long since departed now.

The howl of a high-compression engine at top revs pushing hot gas through a set of finely-tuned headers and out of a free-flow exhaust system was a reward in itself, and one of the reasons why he was here.

The sounds of the crowd, the jostling of strangers, it all faded into nothing and he was alone with the sound, even as Phil dragged the bewitched youngster by the shoulder to see his first race, a dirt-track affair that was as eventful as any before or since. With cars spinning, crashing, flying through the air and coming to rest upside down against the guardrail, the announcer shouting and men running in a haze of smoke and steam, orange tongues of flame licking up from exposed car-guts, young Danny as he was called then would never forget it. The fact that they couldn't even get near the winner's circle, where a fellow called Manny Oravic was basking in the adulation and being sun-tanned by photo-flash added to the overall impression, which was a lasting one. Boys look for heroes and they were automotive gladiators—it said so right on the front page of the Otumwa Gazette come first thing Monday morning.

"His eyes were as wide as sausages." Phil was always saying things like that.

The little MG-PB was a different matter. When he let off on the throttle, the engine burbled and popped, with the high-octane gas and the spark fairly well advanced. He'd had thirty thousandths milled off the head and he had hand-ground the ports, intake and exhaust, and made numerous other modifications which took only labour, and not a lot of expensive parts or special tools. The car was running all right, and that really meant something when Dan Thornton said it.

They called him the Master of Darkness, or Dunkelheit-Meister in the German-language papers, not exactly his favourite moniker. It was dark and raining now. They said the next couple of seasons would show whether he would become a driver worthy of contending for the World Championship, where races were few and the number of seats limited. If he didn't kill himself first. Some said he was a talented amateur, and that almost any driver could win races in a superior machine. They said it was a fluke of luck on his part to get a semi-permanent ride last year, with a team that was very much an also-ran, and yet somehow Barrett's development program over the winter had wrought a miracle.

If Barrett was a joke at first, his drivers were the ultimate non-persons. That was nothing new to Dan. He just let it slide right off of him, and ignored that slight burning sensation in the guts.

American circle-track racing wasn't all that impressive to the European automotive journalists, and they didn't take much interest in such crudity. If, in the beginning, they had seriously underrated him, it was hard to say if it had any effect on getting rides. At first, he bought the seats using his life savings, or rather the money his grandmother had left him. He was her only heir, and the farm worth a lot of money. After the depths of the depression, things back home were looking up. Even then, the price had been maybe a bit low, but luckily the farm was a going concern with no big debts. Twenty thousand dollars was a lot of money in anyone's book, but he was shocked by just how easy it was to spend it, too.

His first season was a mess and he really only started learning his way around the major circuits in his second season. This season, his third, was different so far. They knew his name now.

Builder Fred Barrett showed up for his first season with a supercharged Fuller V-8 in the FB-5 chassis, and when Harry Oliver got sick late in the season, the first driver to come calling was Thornton. He could speak English and several other languages. He had some experience, and he seemed to understand the machine. Fred was looking to replace second driver Tony Work as he was unhappy and wanted to go back to the States and see what he could pick up there. Harry Oliver decided to go back home to recuperate. All the crew was jumping ship and that's when Thornton signed on. Barrett dropped plans for a second car when the cost of running over here came home to him.

Barrett knew his name, but then old Fred never forgot a name. Thornton had seen him around, but at the time he was just another team owner. They had no great reputation at the time, and they didn't have much going for them now. The same could be said about him.

The unknown from Otumwa, quite a mouthful in English, let alone French or Italian, had become something of a sensation by winning his first race, a small, misbegotten little racing club's hill-climb in the Ardennes, the first season, and then placing in the top three in the next couple of attempts. These were all small hill-climbs and sports car races for the one and a half litre voiturettes. He bought the rides, but Barrett and a few others must have been impressed. Maybe they were reading more into it than was really there, but it was welcome at the time. The prize-money was nothing, but the experience was precious, or so Barrett said.

They were pretty forgettable races in some ways. The Ardennes Classic was typical. The circuit was unsuitable for the big Grand Prix cars, as it was short, bumpy and full of tight turns. There was no appearance money or major sponsors, so even the big-name privateers stayed away.

The accommodation was abysmal, the people rude and uncaring, out to root for the local boys and see the tall Yanks and their surprisingly numerous Brit counterparts pay the price of folly. For the winner, there was some grudging respect, and at least they got out of the place intact. There were no poor-loser quibbles about payment, or taking the trophy with them or anything. As far as they knew, the hotel-bill had been paid by Barrett's tire sponsor and that was all they cared about.

It made him a little cautious about how he defined himself, after reading what other people thought. He had learned that much. He was, at least temporarily, a bare eighth in the European hill-climbing points-race, and consequently disliked by the fans of more than one nation.

It was too early in the season and all of that could change. As he drove, he changed gears carefully and kept both hands on the wheel as much as practicable. Dan always wore the belt, but knew a few so-called professional drivers who didn't, not on the track or on a public highway. It was too easy to get lost in your thoughts and sort of lose sight of the road.

That was where the pressure came from. Success brought its own set of unique challenges. He was still an outsider, although he had picked up many acquaintances and even a few friends over the last three years. His innate ability to learn a smattering of the languages, in a fairly short time, had something to do with that. It was something he had never expected. He had surprised himself with his ability. The racing community was cosmopolitan to begin with, and there were quite a few other Americans around of course. But it was clearly a gift.

It was very dark once he was away from cities and towns, in the hinterland where the cold and the night ruled. The warm light in the occasional farmhouse windows were pleasant reminders of home, and food, and comfort. Home is where the heart is. He shook his head with a rueful grimace. Glancing at the mirror, shifting his head slightly for a moment, there was the bare suggestion of an intelligent brow and a pair of sardonic brown eyes, with crinkles of humour at the corners reflected back at him.

That's me, all right. At least he wasn't repulsively ugly. It was just his way of thinking sometimes. The fellow in the mirror seemed awfully calm, and that was a good thing. He looked like a confident man, even to himself and when he really ought to have known better.

Dan Thornton was shifting at about 3,500 revs, and not stomping the throttle or the brake too much, but the car was competent and in this weather there were few other drivers out there. Dan's left-hand drive MG, high on the miles and bought for a hundred and fifty dollars from a Swiss bus company owner, ready to retire from business and tiring of sponsoring the sport, was old but serviceable. It was better than one or two other cars he had driven. It was after midnight, and outside of village or town limits, as a general rule folks in this part of the world went to bed pretty early. Mutt, a slightly-overweight English Bull Terrier, slept soundly on the floorboards to his right, oblivious to the thud of the tires over the railroad crossings and the squeal of the back ones when they warmed up from wheel-spin, a persistent problem he had learned to deal with on wet surfaces. There was a time for caution, as the car didn't have a whole lot of ground clearance on the back end, and he tried to hit railway tracks and things in a reasonable manner. The way things were going, sooner or later he would have to get rid of the dog, but he knew he would hate himself too much, and so he was putting it off. There were times when it felt like the dog was his only real friend in the world.

There was a world of difference between the FB-5 and the MG. None of that mattered right then. What mattered was the way the road dropped over a rise, with a pale outline of a barn on the left and a lot of trees on the right. There was some suggestion, however tenuous and peripheral, that the road went left. What mattered was that he had a date with Teddy, and he was running short of funds. The hiss of the tires was a reminder of mortality. Life was such a fleeting thing, and Dan Thornton had never wasted a moment of it.

It was coming up fast, with the low stone wall on his right stark in his headlamps, and then the speck of a reflective marker tended to confirm his intuitive analysis as he let off the gas, touched the brakes, and dropping her down a gear, crunching them just a bit, he let out the clutch again at low revs to bring her out and around on the slick surface. He thought he saw the white form of a goat, leaping up and going nowhere in his peripheral vision and then there were definite forms moving in the farmyard. So far the night was unseasonably warm, even at this altitude, and there was no sign of snow.

People said he was good, but he wondered sometimes. They knew something he didn't, maybe, but then he also knew the fear that comes in the night, not so much when he was driving as when he wasn't. This was his element. He was one with the road.

His windshield wipers whispered back and forth, and there was a faint, intermittent creak from the cranks up under the bulkhead. A vehicle coming the other way overwhelmed him with spray for a moment. The only thing to do was to back off and wait to regain visibility again.

The rain glistened under a dim illumination up ahead, and the car steadied up after a sinuous but perfectly balanced skid through the turn. He was making good time, and there was no need to take unnecessary risks when he wasn't being paid to do so. A weekend in Monte would do him some good, and while he wasn't much of a gambler himself—he always told people that he preferred to rely on skill—the fact was that he enjoyed the company of those who did. The next race wasn't for a couple of weeks. It was good to get away from Barrett and the boys from time to time as well.

Another crossroads went past under the bonnet, and he noted the name. Not much longer now and the road would widen out a bit and get better. This really was the boondocks, with the oasis of light and colour that was Monte just over the next set of hills. It was actually easier to get there from Italy.

Monte represented the sybaritic indulgence of every whim, in the most trivial of pursuits. It was the ruthless pursuit of pleasure, a world where there were no winners, only big-time losers who just shrugged and ordered more champagne. It was what he needed to take him away from the competitive and pressured world he had once hoped to dominate, not all that long ago. Now he knew it would take a little more time. He also knew that if it didn't happen this year or the next, it would probably never happen. His most secret fear was that he was going blind, although several doctors had so far denied it. It was like somehow he knew better than they did.

He backed off on the throttle and leveled her out at seventy miles per hour on a straight stretch with the lights of what looked like a small village just around a curve of the looming hillside up on the right. He didn't think she would go much faster anyhow. Dan knew something they didn't, which was that there were times in the night when he wondered why he couldn't see better, for he seemed to remember it otherwise just a couple of short years ago, and he wondered if maybe luck had sort of played him foul, in the sense that he had gotten into the game rather late in life. He would have done it sooner if he could, but cars run on money, and racing cars run on bags and bags of it. Most races were short, and were run in the daytime, but the endurance races had more challenge, more glamour, and more recognition or he might have simply ignored them. They also ran into the night, or at Le Mans, all night. Then he had a serious advantage.

He wondered if someone somewhere was whispering that he drove like an old man. There were times when he wished they could make the headlights a little brighter, or even the windshield a little cleaner, or that maybe his glasses, which he wore when he was all alone and no one was looking, a little stronger.

He had never discussed these fears or even valid concerns with anybody, not even Barrett, and had no plans to do that anytime soon. He squeezed the throttle a little harder underfoot, a natural reaction to his mood.

The biological clock would always be ticking in the background. It was something he just had to accept. He would talk about it when he was ready. It wasn't like he had a long-term contract or anything.

***

"I want you to get something for me." Teddy was a pompous ass, but he paid well and had the nucleus of a good operation.

"Some Prince fancies himself a racing driver?" Dan watched the croupier, sure that this was it.

"Another card." Teddy was not very drunk tonight.

Maybe later.

"You always want something." Thornton was holding at eighteen, with the Ace of Hearts and the Seven of Clubs, which as any fool knows is a pretty good hand.

The game was Blackjack, good old twenty-one.

Teddy nodded in simple justice. Dan Thornton was one of his newest operatives, one with a lot of potential. The problem was in getting him to take it seriously.

"Hit me." Teddy looked at the card and grimaced, but held comment.

Dan simply didn't care for politics, and he had no great ideological concerns. If only he wasn't so caught up in the dream. A more cynical outlook might have been helpful. The man didn't have a political bone in his body. It wasn't even greed that motivated him, he just needed lots of money for more important things.

Teddy suppressed a giggle, which wouldn't be seemly. Theodore Swainson, Lord Rokeby, was on his best behaviour, and speaking in his posh accent. He had a few of them, as Dan knew. His working class and Cockney accents would have done him good service if he went into vaudeville, or what passed for it over here, the British music hall circuit. Dan supposed in its own way, it was a bit like the racing circuit, and a hand-to-mouth existence for the actual performers of that fine art. As a spy, it came in handy. Dan had seen him in action, and he was good. He had one of those pale, shapelessly ovoid faces that with a bit of a mustache, the hair dyed and combed differently, could be almost anyone of a certain height and weight. Without the mustache, he could pass for a lady, with sufficient makeup and an appropriate wig.

The game went on, quietly and professionally.

It was time, and they showed their cards. The house had drawn a respectable sixteen. Teddy had held at fifteen.

The croupier grunted and lugubriously shoved a stack of money at Thornton. The impression he gave was one of sheer boredom, but the repressed glitter of humour was there in his eyes. The game was rigged, for a modest fee. A close observer would have seen that what Dan won corresponded pretty nearly to what Teddy lost, and then the house got their percentage as well. This was a good way to pay agents, and Dan had an appointment in town anyway. He had left a suit for alterations, and it was on the way to Italy, where he had another appointment. If anyone asked, he could at least account for the money. He had paid taxes on it and everything.

The casino was a watering hole for big predators and small fish. Which Thornton turned out to be was entirely up to him. Working on the assumption that all governments are corrupt in all kinds of little ways, and Monte was no different than other places, meant that Dan had to show up if he wanted to get paid, and it was perfect cover for a professional driver. They tended to live large and die in spectacular fashion. It was not unheard of for them to leave a good-looking corpse, although it was kind of rare. Teddy wasn't lackadaisical or irrational. It was sheer random arbitrariness, of a kind that must have made it hard for any foreign counterintelligence service to keep up with his movements, at least not without blowing their own cover. The secret was to keep moving.

Dan always looked forward to the game, but to him, the enjoyment was in the winning, or rather the illusion of winning. Maybe it was just the illusion that he could win. For part-time work, it paid very well and he needed the money to continue with racing in Europe.

"What is it this time?"

"A friend needs to see you."

"You don't have any friends."

"True."

They waited while cards were dealt.

"I want you to see a man."

"And?"

"Listen to what he has to say."

"And then?"

"He'll give you a package."

"What? That's it? What if something goes wrong? Presumably this is something, ah, interesting." Dan wasn't all that curious, but he needed to know the risks.

"Yes, it's valuable and important." He held Dan's eye for a second to drive home the point.

Teddy smiled. He was here to gamble, and he had a big pile of chips.

"You'll know what to do." His eyes swiveled back to the table.

"It's not so much the judgment, although yours is considerable. It's the speed...even the aggression. We'd like to avoid complications." Teddy pulled out a slip of paper and gave it to Dan.

Aggression? What the hell did he mean by that?

It was the usual sort of a place.

"You'll recognize the person who comes. The pickup is in Geneva."

Teddy had his own little branch working out of the basement of Whitehall and he knew all sorts of people. He never made the mistake of believing any of them were his friends.

Dan debated whether or not to put something down on another hand, but he doubted if the croupier, who had just shuffled up with a fresh set of cards, would be so generous now that Teddy had tipped him a microscopic nod. Teddy's eyes widened at something or someone and a scent washed over his left shoulder.

"Well, well, well. Dan Thornton." The throaty, husky voice, smooth in its timbre, was enough to make any man sit up and take notice.

It took a moment for it to sink in. A chill went over him and the hair on his neck prickled in shock. He turned, and froze when he met those eyes and comprehended the meaning in the lady's sardonic grin. She had her chin up. Dan Thornton had always been a sucker for a lady with a good chin, and she had dark blue eyes too.

It was her, all right, and after all these years, she was as beautiful as ever.

It was like a trap door opening up under him all over again.

***

Dan stood awkwardly trying to hang onto a couple of handfuls of chips while trying to think of something cool and sophisticated to say.

"Hi. How are you?" Resisting the urge to kick himself, he stared at her with a flash of something in his guts.

Was that fear? Hope? Longing? Surely it wasn't rejoicing, although he had thought he would never see her again. It might have been best that way...but no, now he knew better.

"I'm fine, Dan. How are you?" She smiled, enjoying his discomfort for a moment while he tried to regroup.

"How is Al? I hope you guys are all healthy, and happy, and all of that."

"He's fine, the last I saw him." She stood there looking at Dan, clutching an impossibly small purse with both hands and looking very well indeed in a knitted black evening dress that clung to her slender yet well-rounded form as if custom made—which it probably was, he conceded.

One of the benefits of marrying a rich man. His heart ached to see her, and just when he had thought the memories were fading.

"What's it been—three years?" Dimples formed at the corners of her mouth and she nodded. "Three or four?"

"Yes, it's been a while."

"Can I buy you a drink?" He lifted the chips a little higher in silent explanation. "I may be unlucky in love, but being lucky in cards makes up for a lot—"

It was a good time to shut up and so that's what he did. He looked around, sure that Al, with that boisterous voice and a certainty that he would always be the centre of attention, must show up at any moment. Al had a big shiny skull and an inexhaustible supply of fat Cuban cigars. She watched his eyes go around the room, saying nothing.

Perhaps it would be for the best, Dan thought, for he had many questions, and the last thing he ever wanted to do was to ask any of them.

What possible good would it do?

Colleen raised an eyebrow.

"That suit fits you well."

"Yeah. Fred bought it. It's in the contract. Sure beats that old blue thing I used to take you dancing in." He looked as good as anyone, objectively speaking.

"You look very nice."

"Thank you. You must be doing well." She lifted a shoulder at their surroundings, still clutching her bag and looking as fresh and clean and wholesome as could be.

It wasn't innocence, exactly. Maybe it was just good lines, if you accepted that form followed function. She was the only woman he had ever really loved. Everyone he'd met since her had been non-starters, having fallen short of expectations in some way. They suffered by comparison.

"Not really." He inclined his head in the direction he wanted to go and she turned to tag along.

It had always been a little spooky, the way they could communicate without the use of words.

"It's just that I have a short break, and then a little job nearby. I wasn't even going to play at all. Basically, I just got there at the right time, which is unusual for me." He smiled.

There was some element of truth in it.

"I know a place where the orchestra isn't bad." He had no idea of what he was saying until it came out.

She looked at him appraisingly.

"Would you like a dance or two?" It wasn't the worst idea he'd ever had, although his heart thudded at the implicit danger.

She was, after all, married to Al, and he must be about someplace.

"I would love a dance, Dan." She wasn't quite looking at him when she said it.

"Let me just cash in, and I do need to make a phone call before it gets too, too late." There they were, and he pushed the piles through the wicket and waited for the cashier momentarily.

Half a dozen other people came and went. It was unfashionably early in the evening. The place would pick up in the next hour or two. Even so, the place always had that quiet, restrained air about it. For an unsophisticated schoolboy from Ohio, the décor always seemed a bit overblown, but the people had to get something for their money.

"I'd like it all in cash, please." They would hold money for patrons, but Dan wasn't that much of a regular here and had no idea when he'd be back.

The man pushed a ticket at him and he signed it without reading it too closely. The fellow shoved the money though and Dan quickly counted it up. He accepted the receipt stub and that was carefully stowed in his wallet along with the cash, about fifty-five hundred francs.

"Thank you." He turned to Colleen. "Let's go."

***

"So are we on for Le Mans or not?" Thornton couldn't afford to be impatient with Fred Barrett, but it would be so helpful to know.

It was coming up in June. It was still months away, but they needed prep time, practice time, and a reconnaissance of the roads around Le Mans would be valuable. Trying to get into official championship points-earning races, and trying to do as many other Grands-Prix as possible, running the odd sports-car race, hill-climbs when they had a weekend off, was a logistical nightmare.

"I'm still trying to get the tire sponsorship and the brake people onside. It's an expensive proposition, but you know I want to do it." Fred sighed on the other end of the line, which like many phones in Europe crackled a bit when you got away from the major cities. The French phone system was nothing like the English or especially the German, noted for its supreme efficiency and good service.

"Dan?"

"I'm just thinking."

"Look, we've still got some time to get this together, and of course we're all lined up for a couple of other real biggies..." He was referring to the Mille Miglia and the Tripoli Grand Prix, and yet Dan had his doubts about those too. "The hill-climb in Austria next week and a couple of regional classics...also, I'm asking the sponsors for a few more things...I'm thinking they'll probably go for it, considering you're on board with the team now."

"Yeah."

"Dan, if you can get a good ride for Le Mans, I won't stand in your way."

He'd already mentioned that, but the problem was that Dan didn't have too many prospects. Everyone wanted to do Le Mans, and rides were at a premium.

"I've got a couple more short blocks for the Fuller, and the new blower parts. I've got the gearbox rebuilt." It was like Barrett was looking for approval. "I want to try the aluminum pistons. How much do you know about them?"

A company in England was experimenting with them, trying to make it work. The theory was good.

"It's not unheard of for people to try it. The question is can we make them work properly. I haven't picked up a whole lot of talk about them either way. Different metals heat up and distort at different rates, and steel holds its shape better." He hoped Fred knew what that meant.

Dan understood machinery very well, but the problem sometimes lay in explaining it to other people. Fred was extremely gifted, mechanically adept, but his lack of formal education meant that he was lacking in theory in some areas. Nevertheless, he worked miracles with the limited machine tools he had brought over with him, presently at their base in England along with the car and transport lorry. It was a small outfit with never more than a half-dozen paid employees. Even Dan spun a wrench at race meetings, when time was short and they were in a pinch-hit situation.

"What else was there?" The car would be prepped by the time he arrived, and Fred worked from a written list so as not to overlook even the most minor point.

"The oil pressure should be hanging at about fifty pounds per square inch at idle, and close to seventy at higher revs. As soon as I let out the clutch and give it some power." Fred could take the car around the block and see if things checked out. "Make sure you warm the engine up to its proper operating temperature. Fire it up and then just let it idle for fifteen minutes or so."

A newly-rebuilt motor lasted longer if properly run-in, a process which they mostly didn't have time for.

"Right."

Dan had dropped out of a race the previous autumn, due to a radiator hose clamp not being tight enough. They lost the coolant, then the engine temperature started to climb and he shut the thing down rather than have it grenade on him at a hundred and seventy miles per hour heading down to La Source, the famous hairpin at a twelve-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. He was fourteenth at the time, and might have finished higher, based upon subsequent crashes and retirements by other teams.

Fred saw all his drivers as friends first and foremost. It wasn't the most professional attitude, but it was one they had to live with. It had its uses, though. Most team owners would have kept him hanging on, especially as they had a contract. Fred said more than once that it wasn't worth getting killed over...

"We need more gear ratios, if we're going to keep jumping back and forth from road races to hill-climbs and the odd Grand Prix on all these different tracks." Dan had been a race mechanic stateside, when he didn't have a seat, and there were times when he wondered at Barrett's actual racing experience, which Fred himself had admitted wasn't that considerable.

"I know, I know. It's just that our budget is only so big, and I want to allocate funds, ah, thoughtfully." Fred thought in terms of a whole season, whereas Dan focused on each specific race as it came up.

"I'm serious, Fred. Having only one spare gearbox is one problem, not enough ratios is a bigger problem. We talked about this before. If it's going to take that long, you should have ordered them a long time ago."

Fred sighed. Dan imagined the lanky, middle-aged engineer going over it in his head. He could see the man standing by the phone hanging on the shop wall, working late on the car again. He was over here on a shoestring and for all the same reasons as Dan. The only difference was that he wasn't running away from anything. Or anyone, for although he had a wife and family back home, Dan had the impression they got along fine with the situation, and that Fred wasn't just faithful to his wife, he was also fairly abstemious in other regards.

"Okay, okay."

There was a long silence.

"I'm spending a day or two with Antonio, and I'll see you on Thursday."

"All right, Dan."

They rang off. Dan hadn't mentioned that he had someone waiting on him. Otherwise he might have gone on a bit longer.

From where he was standing, Colleen was a very beautiful woman, sitting alone in a club in Monte. She was from back home. They had parted amicably enough, since he didn't cut up big over it or anything, and it was high time he got back there.

Another man's wife or not, there were worse places to be.

***

He dropped back into his seat.

"Right at ringside." It was a joke, and she nodded, pleased with the place.

"I like it."

"Thanks, they're not bad, as I said. Anyhow, the waiter will be here in a second."

"Sure, Dan." She opened her purse and took out an elegant case, and he snapped a light for her cigarette.

She chuckled when she saw the name in neon high up on the marble façade. He had decided upon La Grille Americain. He only knew two or three places in town and this was the classiest. When they stepped in, the orchestra was in full swing, the lights were dimmed just on the other side of a series of arches, and they paused to check their coats to the sounds of Music, Maestro Please, although Tommy Dorsey might not have approved of the slightly off-beat cadence of the drums. Vaguely on the other side, where darkness and music reigned, the sounds of any number of swishing gowns and slipping feet could be made out. With the orchestra at the other end of the big room, and the momentary pause in conversation that it imposed, it was a decidedly eerie kind of a noise. There was the aroma of tobacco, alcohol, and fresh perspiration common to all such evenings.

It seemed the band was doing its best.

"I love it." The lights came up.

Patrons were packed in, possibly as many as two or three hundred, in a low-ceiling grotto with the band on a raised platform ahead of curvaceous drapes and illuminated by coloured spotlights.

A waiter came and Dan asked for champagne.

"Are you hungry?"

She shook her head.

"No. I want to dance." She looked at him.

"Let me wet my whistle first." He was feeling better about things.

He had already dealt with it a long time, ago. It's just that of all people, he never would have expected to see her in Monte. They sat looking at the band as they sparked up into Heart and Soul. The lights gradually dimmed again.

She smiled impishly.

"It's like old times."

"Yeah, it sure is. Good times." The admission was wrung out of him.

Talkingt was harder to deal with than he had supposed, but the champagne arrived quickly and the sommelier poured in an unhurried but efficient manner.

"Merci." Dan tipped him a dollar and the fellow retreated well satisfied, cheerful and yet humble, as only a professional server can be.

"Skoal." He raised his glass.

"Prosit." She raised hers.

It was an old joke, just between the two of them. It was a reminder of better times.

"Well?"

"All right." Dan drained his glass just as the conductor tapped his stick on the top of the music stand and the band entered into a tight rendition of Duke Ellington's I let a song go out of my heart.

He was grateful that it was nothing more controversial than that. He led Colleen out onto the dance floor. Dan Thornton was at least competent as a dancer, and she knew him well enough that it was enjoyable rather than being an ordeal to be borne.

With the lights down low and her scent upon him and her warm body close in his arms, Dan Thornton wondered just how he had gotten into this state of denial and desire.

One thing no one would ever dispute. Colleen Bryant, educated, rich and very, very sure of herself, was about as much woman any thinking man could ever ask for.

Why in the hell then, did he ever run away?

For surely that was what he had done.

Chapter Two

Speed Was Everything.

Aye, it was the speed that was everything. It was what brought him here, more a kind of pilgrimage at first, until he talked to the wrong guy and someone suggested he might get a ride in Europe. It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, and a handful of hundred-dollar bills made all the difference. Five hundred bought a seat in an old Bugatti Type 35 for a hill-climb, the name of which he couldn't even recall now, as it was in Wales and the event was so obscure he didn't bother putting it in the old c.v. The fact he came fourth in class was food for thought. He coughed up another couple of hundred dollars for repairs afterwards—he'd stuffed it into a wall of hay-bales rather spectacularly, three turns before the top, but managed to get going again. He finished eleventh in the overall standings, the highest placing in the machine's recent history. It was seen as an adventure, a kind of generosity. The contribution to the repairs was the act of a sporting gentleman, which he most certainly wasn't. It was good public relations. If people thought he was the rich American, willing and able to pay his own way, it made it easier to get other rides when so many teams were scrambling for sponsorship of any kind. The theory was only good so long as you won races.

With enough money for repairs, mostly to the ancient and battered bodywork, and some new parts including a rebuilt transmission for the old thing, the owner was relatively pleased with their transaction, and Dan had a much better idea of how to go about things after that. All it took was money, and his skill wasn't even really an issue. For a certain kind of customer, it wasn't so much about the winning, as it was about being there, continuing on in the sport, rather than to admit defeat and try to get over what was genuine love for most of them. Dan was a pro, and there were times when he felt kind of badly for taking the ride, considering the thrashing he had to give their cars for a shot at some obscure silver cup and maybe a few hundred francs. That was what most of the events paid, and that only for the top spots. No such thing as appearance money here, and with an unknown name like his.

Dan knew a few things they didn't. It was written all over him.

Dan projected confidence, a gift he was aware of and appreciated.

He was a professional driver. He'd won some races. The truth was that Dan drove for free much of the time. He was lucky to get a ride in some races. It was better to make the arrangements well ahead of time, for attending a race meeting involved costs for travel and accommodation. He'd sat there any number of times, hoping an ill team driver, struck with influenza or the measles or something, would see sense and stay in bed and let Thornton have the seat. Money didn't trump contractual obligations, and so he took his chances. He got some brief practice in their car, if he was lucky. Stubborn as the average driver was, it didn't happen very often and he became all too accustomed to seeing men who shouldn't be behind the wheel of an economy saloon on a trip to the barber's, let alone a high-performance machine, and their team owners, throw away races that by all rights the car at least was capable of winning.

Working for Teddy was just a bit different, but it all started off innocently enough.

***

"In slow and out fast." Dan tried to keep his body calm and relaxed, there was no clutching at the safety handles or edges of the seat when he was teaching. "Drop 'er down another gear."

With a sick squawk the rear tires broke loose and they were spinning.

"Clutch! Clutch!" Antonio ignored it or simply didn't react in time, and the tachometer needle died on the peg.

Antonio said a few things in Italian, which Dan couldn't have spelled or even pronounced properly, but he got the gist of it all right.

The car came to rest with the back end pointing in the direction they had originally been going. A small cloud of dust caught up with them, settling in around the cockpit, enclosed in this model. There was nothing but vegetation in the mirror on Dan's side. Still in gear, there was no danger of rolling back down the hill. Somewhere back there among all the weeds and tall grass was a stone wall, but they must have missed it.

"It's all right." He tried not to show impatience. "You just let it out a little too fast. You need to open up the throttle a bit and try and match the revs..."

Antonio didn't appear to be listening, as he was still busily engaged in beating his fists against his forehead and moaning about his performance.

Dan could only show them so many times, and then it was up to the student. Antonio had the family name to uphold, and being the son of a coachbuilder, hadn't been taking it seriously enough. He was used to money trumping all cards. While Dan didn't condemn them for it, he'd run into the type once or twice. There was no bullshit in racing, although a kind of bravery did play a role. You either did it or you didn't. Guts had the most minor role, but it was there. Dan didn't think Antonio was scared of hurting himself. More than anything, it was like he was afraid of breaking the car, or even just making a fool of himself, and that made him hesitant when he should have simply reacted. He was ham-handed and lacked finesse, but then the machine itself meant nothing to him. You had to understand the machine and its limitations. Antonio wasn't wearing the car like Dan did. Antonio had never paid attention to the theories, and had never read a book on driving. Dan had the impression he was the first racing driver Antonio had ever spoken to.

He was there to win races and become famous, and to be in all the local papers. He was rich, his father owned the company and it was expected of him. Dan tried not to despair. People took lessons for all sorts of reasons and it was part of the job. Antonio had never been bitten by the bug. He wasn't there for the love of it all, or better yet to prove something, and that was the nub of the problem. Dan understood his own motives well enough.

Tony would never push himself or anyone else more than was comfortable. He would always stay within his limits, and Dan could see the benefit. He could see the other guy's point of view. It just wasn't worth it to Antonio. It wasn't worth getting killed over. The world was full of pretty women and all of the good things in life.

The birds chirped and the wind puffed up in a warm touch through the side windows and Dan was getting paid for it either way. Unfortunately, a small portion of his reputation was also riding along on this one.

"All right, fire it up."

Antonio nodded grimly.

"Si, there is nothing else for it." His elegantly stitched driving gloves moved and the grip on the wheel changed.

His finger hit the starter button and the big V-12 burst into life. Dan grinned in spite of himself. One of the compensations of life.

Their car, the Gryphon, was totally unsuited to hill-climbs, but then Antonio was totally unsuited to any form of sport that involved equipment or machinery. The fact that Dan had helped him shave five seconds off his lap time at their home track, and poor old Antonio was driving with much more confidence now, sort of doomed them both to continue.

The vehicle growled along in second gear and Antonio glanced over at Dan, approaching a tight switchback. They were going uphill, which was quite a blessing in Dan's view, as going downhill fast was a very special challenge to even the most seasoned driver. This one would never be ready for it. Even so, the young man was learning.

Each time he shifted and let out the clutch, the car leapt forward under all that torque, and the roar of the engine made talk unwelcome as it involved a lot of shouting. Dan watched everything he did for later critique.

Antonio was doing a lot better now, partly because going uphill was just plain easier. The extra load on the engine meant acceleration was less, top end was lower, and braking was not only easier but more effective. The tight, switch-back nature of the turns made strong-arm wheel-handling, in those turns where you cork-screwed up at forty-five degrees, more important than sheer finesse.

They rounded the top of the mountain and Antonio gasped in relief, the concentration and focus being almost more than he could bear a moment longer.

"Not bad." Dan was fibbing to a certain extent, but the opposition at the local, county-level climbs Antonio was slated for in his first season might actually give the man a fighting chance.

"Dan, take us back down." He pulled over and switched off the motor, carefully putting up the hand-brake with fingers still shaking from adrenalin. "It's not like I've haven't had enough terror for one day."

The happy grin and light tone belied the words. The funny thing was, Antonio loved it when Dan drove, but then he wasn't responsible for what happened. Maybe that was the problem, moral courage. To live with the mistake.

Their ears rang still in the deafening silence.

There was nothing wrong with his physical courage, but the Gryphon was a big, heavy car for an Italian machine. His father Giuseppe was determined to succeed in the motor business just as he had succeeded in the tractor and implement business. Winning races was seen as synonymous with a good car in the eyes of the typical Sunday driver, although this was not always the case. With the rival Germans and their massive budgets, the Italians wanted to make a good showing, a case of little brother trying to impress big brother. It was chilly up there, with wisps of cloud breaking across the peak, with its tall cluster of log and stone buildings and the emergency gates for when snow conditions were too bad to allow vehicles through the pass and down the other side.

They exchanged seats.

Dan moved the seat back three clicks and raised the angle of it up to a more vertical position. Like all Italians, Antonio drove in that long-arms-short-legs driving style which Dan frankly detested and couldn't understand for the life of him. Along with its big, deep-dish steering wheel, one of the few redeeming features of the car was the fact that he could let his left leg at least lay out to full length when he didn't need it for clutching. This was surprisingly important in the longer races. With some cars your left upper leg just ached from the effort of a thousand shifts with a heavy clutch after a long race.

The Gryphon had a big motor, it was fairly stiff and the brakes were fair. Although the doors rattled considerably, Antonio had assured him that this had been cured in the most recent production models. By day, he was assistant plant manager, and familiar with that side of the operation, where Dan figured his real future lay anyway. A dozen trophies on the shelf and he'd be all set to go. It wasn't even a particularly cynical thought.

Dan hit the button and the engine roared into life.

"Any famous last words?"

Antonio shook his head and pulled hard on his lap and shoulder belts just to make sure. Sinking a little lower into his seat, he looked over at Dan and grinned.

"See if you can make me piss myself."

"Ha! Well, it's your car."

After its hard run the motor sent the temperature gauge up a little over the normal because of sitting there. Stepping it up to about 2,200 revs, he cranked the wheel to the left and checked his mirrors.

Nothing coming from in front or behind, so he let his left foot slide off the clutch and she let out with a bang, A half-spin on gravel and the narrow paving, then they were off and plummeting back down over the brow of the hill with the motor singing in anticipation.

Dan kept it within rational limits, although to a roadside spectator it must have seemed madness.

With this sort of road, he began downshifting and engine braking about a hundred yards from the next switchback, lightly riding the brakes and always with one eye on even the most insanely-impossible run-off area. He'd rather tumble down the mountain from twenty or thirty miles per hour, it was better than flying off at eighty... he dropped from fourth to third, and in short order put it in second.

"Watch." Dan gripped the central handbrake and gave it one good pull, then let go, as he cranked in full left lock and stomped the pedal.

The car slewed around in a heartbeat, the sky and mountainside careening in a bizarre angle. There was an impression of green, sunlit conifers both up above and down below, and then he had to focus totally again.

"Nice!" Antonio had no problems with Dan's driving.

Dan had the impression he was afraid to give in to the emotions. Dan was so cool most of the time, but sometimes anger took over in a race. That was undeniable. He didn't have any quick advice to offer on that one, teaching more by example than anything. He was already setting up for the next turn, although it was out of sight with a couple of sinuous bends coming up. The key thing was not to get all bent out of shape and over-commit to the road.

The engine burbled and hopefully Antonio could interpret the signs of using the engine and gearbox not just to slow the car, but to maintain positive control at all times. He gave a little shot on the throttle just to show that he could go faster, but the low gear immediately began slowing them when he let off.

"The car goes exactly where you point it, Antonio." He had to make his voice fairly loud, just to be overheard in all the din, what with motor pounding out its song and the thud of the pavement, with all the dips, bumps and irregularities one might expect on a secondary road in the sun-baked hills of Umbria. "Don't be afraid to make it do what you want."

The exhaust was sublime at this speed in second gear.

The Gryphon was a physical car, heavy on the brakes, with a solid gearbox derived from one of Giuseppe's scuderia of tractors. The motor was a different story, built up under license from a major competitor's castings and a number of Giuseppe Falconi's bolt-on components. Ultimately destined for a genteel market in the gran turismo category, the car had to be strong but fun to drive, and if it scared the driver with noise, smoke and a little bit of the mirror effect, so much the better from Giuseppe's standpoint.

His much-vaunted 'mirror effect,' a theory of automotive marketing, was the question of whether a person could actually see themselves driving one. For that reason, the canny old man, born salesman that he was, always brought the machines around to the front of the showroom, where the customers stood waiting in front of the tall glass fronting the building. Placing the car between them and the windows, they were forced to watch themselves get in while he came around and stood like an admirer as he explained all the switches and gadgets.

"You know you've got them right where you want them, when you see them sneak a second look at themselves in the shop window." The fellow was incorrigible in his own way, and Dan had always been made to feel like family when he was there.

He took the turns at a more relaxed pace, making shift points obvious, setting up with precision for each turn, and yet still going remarkably fast, with the speedometer hovering much of the time between eighty and a hundred miles per hour. Dan wondered if he could go much faster anyway, thinking that to lose it in the slightest would carry big consequences. They thundered down into the valley.

The road now tightened up, with several right-angle intersections coming in quick succession. With more buildings about this close to the outlying villages, slowly merging into the town itself, he brought them in at a more civilized pace.

Finally he put on his signal and pulled left into the courtyard of Falconi's factory, where Mutt lay basking in the sun in front of the gleaming pair of showroom doors. He didn't even look up, but kept his head on his paws and his eyes closed. It was only when the motor shut down that his head popped up and then he took a look, assessing the situation. He knew his man and they might be a while yet.

Dan and Antonio sat in the car for a few minutes while Dan de-briefed him and explained the finer points of going fast up and downhill. Finally, the student had had enough.

"Okay, that's it for today."

The reddening sun, reflected back off the west-facing windows, blinded him momentarily as Antonio sat up rather sleepily.

Once again the contrast between noise and silence was profound. Someone nearby was baking a cake, he thought, and Dan Thornton had some hopes that Antonio would offer him a beer or something as he had a powerful thirst and an urge for some peace and quiet.

***

Black leather dispatch case in hand, Colonel Eugen von Brauchitsch stalked the rococo corridors of 76/78 Tirpitzufer in Berlin, headquarters of the Abwehr. He had a headache, the annoying, fuzzy kind of headache that borders on the alcoholic hangover, only he hadn't been drinking at all in recent days and therefore couldn't account for it other than to think that maybe he hadn't been getting his vitamins. The tension, the suspense of this meeting had been gnawing at him the whole way, first by plane from Rome, the Eternal City, and by official car from Gatow aerodrome.

Coming to the door he sought, he opened it up and stood before the secretary, who was wearing the uniform of a full captain of the Wehrmacht. It was a military agency, a spy service, he thought, but security was very tight and they could wear anything they wanted when you got right down to it.

"Ah, yes, Colonel von Brauchitsch. The Admiral is very busy. If you wouldn't mind waiting a few minutes?"

"But of course." Von Brauchitsch turned and strolled over in an unhurried fashion, looking for the most comfortable option.

Some of the chairs were valuable antiques. He was in for a wait. Setting his small case down, he sank into a chair. While inviting at first, it had an uncomfortable hard curve to the bolster, one which did nothing to alleviate his sense of unease. He wondered if all of their offices were like this. A spy agency should have something better than violet and beige floral patterns on the furniture. Black leather and chrome tubing would have been more modern. Perhaps they were trying to convey an impression. The Reich was famous for conveying impressions.

He had no idea why he might have been called. Considering the power behind that door, it couldn't possibly be good news. Ostensibly, it was a simple call for information, from the department best disposed to obtain it. Nothing was ever simple these days.

His role as an assistant undersecretary to the Reich's Vatican diplomatic legation had hardly prepared him for this sort of thing. They had asked for him by name. It could only be bad news. No matter what they wanted.

Hot sweat dripped down his ribcage on both sides. He wondered if it was always so deadly quiet in the place. The mental picture of Canaris in a towering rage, clenching his fists in some absurd parody of der Furher, spittle flying from his lips, falling on the carpet and foaming at the mouth, was only momentarily amusing. He tried to imagine them all naked, like some bashful public speaker, and that didn't really work either.

The captain looked up from his desk.

"You may smoke, if you wish."

"Ah, yes. Thank you." Von Brauchitsch looked around for an ashtray.

He had just pulled out his silver case with the initials 'D.v.B.' on it, a gift from a former mistress, and lit up a Gaulois, which he affected when they were available, when the door opened with a sense of ominous finality and he was suddenly on the spot.

Another young man, this one dressed in civilian clothes, beckoned at him with a bright and reassuring nod.

"Wilcommen, Colonel von Brauchitsch."

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, he thought, and hastily stubbed out the cigarette. Grabbing his case, he re-buttoned the top of his tunic and confidently strode into the dangerous presence, trying to look just as pleased as one could possibly be.

***

He stood ramrod straight in front of the desk and gave his best Nazi salute, which the admiral returned in a sketchy wave, looking up from a desk covered with maps, documents, and folders.

Canaris was a small man, perhaps a hundred sixty centimetres at most, but his rugged face and penetrating grey eyes belonged to someone much more physically potent. He had a magnetism that von Brauchitsch found undeniable.

"And how is Diego?" Von Brauchitsch didn't know he and the ambassador were acquainted, but nothing would surprise him these days.

Canaris nodded.

"We've known each other a while." Von Brauchitsch had the inane urge to laugh aloud at the absurdity of exchanging such small talk, but formalities did convey some important information.

He wasn't in trouble, at least not yet.

"Oh, he is very well, thank you. I'll mention that you asked." They were interrupted almost immediately.

There was a cautious knock at the door behind him, and it opened again.

"Please forgive me, sir. Colonel von Brauchitsch left his case." The captain came in as von Brauchitsch flushed deep red, unable to meet anyone's eyes for the moment.

A cough escaped Admiral Canaris but von Brauchitsch had the impression that it was unrelated to his momentary discomfiture.

The captain put in on the corner of the desk and scooted out again. The door clicked decisively and there was silence. He had no choice but to meet those cold eyes.

"I'm sorry—" He began to apologize but Canaris waved it off.

"It's all right, a little nervousness is understandable. I don't know what you've heard about us here, but we're really not that bad. This is my assistant. You may call him Colonel Berthold." He smiled thinly. "So tell us about yourself."

His assistant stared at him through a set of thick round glasses with silvery wire frames, looking decidedly un-Aryan with his brown eyes and brown hair.

"I am Assistant Military Undersecretary to the Papal Legation, and I have the information requested. This is all that is known about the daily routine of the Holy Father, and the interior of the Papal apartments, both official and residential. There are photos of many of the Vatican's chambers, most quite recent, and a floor plan. I cannot vouch for its accuracy as we have no way of checking it, without penetration by one of our own people. As the Admiral knows, that's not really in our province, which is entirely diplomatic, er, converse."

The assistant spoke up.

"Naturally, you understand that you are not to mention or discuss this meeting with anyone, and that includes those in your own circle." He didn't look unfriendly, but he was decidedly serious. "Forget anything that you might have seen or heard in this office, for example."

"Of course." His guts felt a little gassy at this statement.

"Go on. I'd like to know how you see yourself."

Canaris had a friendly twinkle in his eye as they talked. Von Brauchitsch opened up a little and just let it flow, a handy gift for the present work as well as his more usual duties. He told them as much.

Colonel von Brauchitsch was most comfortable with the diplomatic duties, which to be fair included low-level information-gathering, everything from monitoring the Vatican radio station to cultivating friendships with officials in both the Vatican and in Italy itself. He'd never really thought of himself as a spy. It was the farthest thing from his mind. It struck von Brauchitsch that they all loved their jobs, perverse at it might seem to a rational and objective outsider. Canaris and Berthold grinned when he said that. Eugen had worked very hard and suck-holed even harder to get the posting. At the time, it was like the perfect job if one had no choice but to be a German, a Nazi, and he took a deep breath before saying it, if only to perform lip service to it. Survival was one consideration, he knew that on being accepted into the service. But people wanted to get on as well. They needed work in a field of occupation that suited their abilities. More than anything, von Brauchitsch was a scholar in a cruel world. He was also an aristocrat, and that had helped immensely in getting to where he wanted to be. Canaris twisted his lips in a thoughtful manner and nodded in comprehension. The impression had been made, for better or worse.

"Proceed." Canaris looked at the case and von Brauchitsch picked it up hastily and opened it up.

"Generally, my duties involve the interpretation of military matters so that my opposite numbers may better understand our policies." It was also a thin cover for other activities, none of which were innocuous. His work was anything but glamorous or dangerous.

He kept his eyes open, listened well and tried to figure out motivations as well as people's next moves, in the sense that it related to German relations to other countries, which included the Vatican. The Holy See had a lot of influence around the world, including Germany, and Nazism was unfriendly to rival powers within the state.

It was a lot of talk, mostly, and of course it wasn't so much what one said as how one said it.

If war was an extension of politics by other means, then the opposite must also be true—diplomacy as an extension of war was very much a part of the Nazi repertoire. Diplomacy was part and parcel of international terror-politics.

Taking out three full sets of papers, he passed one first to the Admiral and then Berthold. They opened up theirs and began reading the first page, the manifest page, which was a record of all of the documents enclosed.

"Please relax. Be seated." Colonel Berthold, the man who had originally come to see him in Rome, also not in uniform on that occasion, beckoned at a chair set slightly off to one corner of the front of the desk. "Let's go over these one at a time, please."

Colonel von Brauchitsch settled gratefully down, noting that Canaris had an ashtray on his desk.

The fellow was sharp, all right, he gave von Brauchitsch a nod, and the colonel picked up one of several phones, all different colours, although several in the row were black. Colonel von Brauchitsch reached in gratitude for his cigarettes. He hoped his hand didn't shake when he lit one, and was happy to see that it didn't, not much anyway.

"Coffee. And brandy." Colonel Berthold set the phone down again without waiting for acknowledgement.

As a demonstration of pure, raw power, it was as impressive as anything von Brauchitsch had ever seen.

"How did you obtain some of these documents? I'm particularly referring to the floor plan, the morning ablutions, breakfast...who is the source?" The colonel asked the question, while Canaris riffled through papers quickly, pausing from time to time when he identified one of special interest to study it more thoroughly.

Colonel von Brauchitsch had the impression he was being carefully assessed in the Admiral's peripheral vision. All of this data was available to these men in the most routine fashion. This was leading somewhere, it had to be.

"Father Ricardo Firenze. He and I are becoming quite good friends. The floor plan is copied from an old book, quite frankly." It was best to be frank, and open, and perhaps his innocence would shield him from whatever they were planning. "He likes chess, and I like wine. I have lent him one or two rare finds, manuscripts you understand, and I am ostensibly cultivating him on the personal level, because he knows I would like to rummage around in their basement for a while. I'm convinced he has an original edition of Herodotus down there, if only he would take the time to look..." He chuckled to let them know this was an example of the humour he employed in the relationship.

Charm had its uses.

Admiral Canaris had the grace to grin at this, and the colonel, constantly engaged in making what must have been the neatest looking set of handwritten notes von Brauchitsch had ever seen, nodded appreciatively without looking up. His pen scratched away, and then he sat up straight in the silence. He looked at von Brauchitsch and then at the Admiral. He looked at the wall clock. Then he put the pen down and loosened his tie.

The knock came at the door again.

"Ah! That'll be the coffee." Berthold sang out, 'Kommen zie!' and the captain came in, now supervising two liveried waiters with a cart bearing refreshments.

There was no shortage of manpower around here, thought von Brauchitsch. He was sick with the thought of endangering Ricardo. Diplomacy was the art of never saying what you really meant but somehow communicating the point, getting the point across to your...enemy was too strong a word in the case of Pius XI. Of course, he wasn't a diehard. They were. But if any of this should get out, Ricardo would be in hot water, and these people were up to something. There were all sorts of rumblings in the wind, and rumours to suit any taste. The most frightening thing was that he was already attached to the Foreign Office. Which they should know, but damned if he could figure whether to bring it up himself...he thought not. What would they say?

"Forget all that, now you work for us." His guts churned.

The sovereign status of the Vatican had been accepted by Italy in the Lateran Treaty of 1928, but der Fuhrer's attitude wasn't hard to guess, and war was coming. No one knew what role the Papacy might play, with Il Duce's Italy an ally, and with millions of Catholics scattered all over the world. France was Catholic, and war with them was a certainty. Colonel von Brauchitsch was enough of a military man to know that. Certainly der Fuhrer understood the value of propaganda, he couldn't have gotten where he was without it, but Eugen couldn't imagine himself how it would ultimately be used.

As for war, the only question was when Hitler would open the festivities.

"As a professional officer, and in light of your special knowledge and experience, we need to ask you some important questions." Colonel Berthold seemed firmer now.

A little colder. Again came that sinking, gassy feeling in the midriff.

"Yes?"

"I must caution you again not to mention any of this outside of these walls pending further instructions." Canaris and Berthold stared at him as if willing him into compliance. "Especially not through your normal chain of command. There is great risk...and great reward at stake."

"Absolutely. Of course." His heart had picked up and his voice felt tight, like he wasn't getting enough air.

"What would happen if the Pope was kidnapped, from the standpoint of the political, military and diplomatic perspective?" Berthold's eyes glistened behind their thin lenses. "How would the Italian people react? The French? Catholics in the U.S. or even Ireland? The Republic of Eire? Take your time and think about it."

There was never any question of him blurting, 'you're mad,' for the undeniable fact was that they weren't. What they were was extremely dangerous, and if he hadn't known it before, then it surely had been driven home now.

Chapter Three

Eugen von Brauchitsch

Von Brauchitsch entered the apartment of his friend with a heavy heart and deep sense of betrayal. Orders were orders, and he was expected to do his duty. With luck, nothing might come of it.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, he thought.

"Come in, come in. How was your trip? That bad, eh?" His friend was the picture of solicitude.

"Ah, Father. It's so good to be home." He uttered a deep sigh, in close keeping with his thoughts and his mood.

Eugen extended his offering, and Father Ricardo's eyes lit up in anticipation.

"For me? But what is this?"

The heavy brown paper and white twine binding the package belied the contents, which by some might be considered precious. He busied himself in taking off his long coat, glad to be in mufti again after Berlin. Father Ricardo set the thing down on the ornate side table with a glimpse of his pallid features reflected back in the mirror, etched in flowers and cherubs as was the way around here. He went to hang up Eugen's coat.

Eugen's former Berlin rooms were in the more modern Art Deco, and all of this decorative overkill took some getting used to. He was afraid to touch anything sometimes.

He picked it up and advanced towards the couch and seating area, where he saw with a kind of forlorn regret, Ricardo had snacks laid out for them.

"Yes, it's a wonderful find. It was my mother's." He cut the string with a businesslike pocket knife, and quickly un-wrapped it as Ricardo poured brandy into crystal goblets.

Like everything else in this room, the sideboard was a priceless antique, and beautifully made with inlaid ormolu in patterns reminiscent of Chinese cabinets of a bygone age. Von Eugen had seen one with lacquered pictorial panels on the lower doors, but this one was wood, ivory and probably ebony. They had discussed it at length more than once. At home, his parish Lutheran minister had lived an austere life with his family, and of course Eugen barely knew them except for the fact that he had played in the streets with the boys on rare occasions. They didn't run in the same set, and so he didn't know anything about their style of life. It was so many years ago. Back then he had no training and no reason to look more closely. He supposed they must have had furniture.

"Thank you, my friend." Handing Eugen his drink, the Father accepted the gift with eyes glistening with the faintest hint of tears.

His friendship was genuine. Eugen was sure of him, but Eugen wished he hadn't seen that. The priest handled it reverently.

The lies came easily.

"It was in the possession of her family for many years. It was in the bottom of a drawer, wrapped in silk. I think she held onto it for several reasons. One, it's very old and she must have seen some value in it. By that I mean monetary value. She got it from distant aunt, willed to her upon her decease. She used to go there in the summers for a few weeks when she was just a young girl."

"Ah." Ricardo examined the book under the light. "Who?"

"My aunt."

He moved over to his desk, set in front of a magnificent bay window, heavily leaded with a frieze of coloured panels along the top in a wide band, and switched on a shaded desk lamp. Opening it up, be began to go through the pages.

"Beautiful."

"I think it's Catholic, anyhow it's not politically expedient to have such things around right now. I felt sure you would enjoy it more than I ever could."

"It's lovely. This must have been made within the early part of the sixteenth century. I think it was ordered specifically for the owner."

"Really?" Von Brauchitsch's eyebrows rose. "You can tell all that?"

The thing had been provided by the foresight of the Abwehr, and he wondered just where exactly they had gotten it. Father Ricardo was an internationally-renowned expert on late Byzantine manuscripts.

"Yes. For one thing, it's very small, so it's probably for household, even bedroom use." Ricardo nodded, unable to take his eyes off of it.

He finally looked up.

"Thank you, thank you so much."

"Not at all, Father." Von Brauchitsch sipped his brandy and moved over to the couch.

Putting the glass down, he selected some grapes. They had been doing this every Thursday evening for six months or so, since shortly after being posted here. Father Ricardo was on the list to be cultivated, for whatever mysterious reasons higher authority had when writing such guidelines, but this part of the job was a business mixed with real pleasure.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" After the long journey back, he was positively famished.

He finished the grapes. He picked up a small silver knife and began putting potted cheese on a cracker, as he remembered it from a previous visit. A tiny drop of saliva squirted from his mouth, but the Father was completely oblivious.

"I'll say one thing. You clerics certainly know how to live."

Ricardo reluctantly put the book down and went over to the gramophone.

"What will it be tonight, my friend?" He had an extensive collection of opera, as well as classical music. "Wagner?"

He kept looking back at the book.

Von Brauchitsch was much more relaxed now. He could get through this, although he was sure, that at least in his own heart, this friendship could never be quite the same again.

"I'll bet you have some wild gypsy music in there somewhere." He eyed the decanter and the level in his glass. "You know what? I had a very grim time in Berlin. Play something crazy."

The stuff always affected him very quickly, although over the evening he might consume a considerable amount.

"No, I don't think so..." Father Ricardo's voice trailed off.

Then his face cleared.

"Maybe."

Von Brauchitsch threw his head back in an unfeigned laugh. Perhaps if he drank enough this miserable process would get easier as it went along.

If he played him right, Father Ricardo would give him anything he asked for.

***

They were well into La Traviata, when there was a commotion at the door and Ricardo's servant passed through to assist someone in the hall. Von Brauchitsch heard the door slam and then voices. A woman came into the room, and the servant's shadow moved around in the foyer behind her in the dim amber light.

She was still taking off her black lace gloves and looking over in anticipation with eyebrows raised as Ricardo jumped up from the couch and scurried to greet her.

"Clara!" He turned to Eugen, who had also arisen, stepping forward for an introduction.

This was a surprise. The young lady was tall, slender and well-formed, with that classic olivine beauty of a southern heritage. On her high cheekbones and wide, sensual mouth were stamped an imprint of Arab, Greek, and Norman ancestors, and with all of the hot blood of the Latin. Her retrousse nose and startling pale eyes caused butterflies to walk around on his inner parts, and a squirt of something, perhaps even desire, darted up the inside of his lower backbone.

She extended a hand to von Brauchitsch, after a long and heartfelt embrace from Father Ricardo. It was an interesting thing to see a priest hug someone like that. Beaming and holding the lady by the back of her right arm, the Father maneuvered her closer.

"Eugen von Brauchitsch, this is my sister, Clara Firenze."

"Charmed." Von Brauchitsch made a stiff little bow.

He twirled his monocle, oh, how he regretted that habitual affectation right at this moment, around on the end of its silken cord and thought of using the cord and strangling himself later.

Sweinehund! He was such a dolt. He knew Ricardo had family. There was something about it in his file. But never had he envisioned anyone so beautiful. In his cloistered existence, it was easy to forget, even to accept his barren loneliness. But the girl made him realize just how starved he was for female company, and that it hadn't always been this way. Certain thoughts and memories sprang to mind, and there was that definite tang of alertness deep in the guts. It was almost like being in Admiral Canaris' office again.

As she sat on the couch, and his spot was still warm so to speak, they found themselves eyeing each other up in that way that happens at garden parties and such. There was no way he could politely push himself back to the other end of the couch.

"So." Father Ricardo had gone to the kitchen to arrange for some chianti, which she preferred. "I understand you're with the Legation. Rickie says you're a fiendishly clever man, and he also said that you're devilishly handsome, which I find is not an exaggeration."

Eugen blushed beet red and then burst out laughing. He'd already had a couple of drinks, but he wondered just how quirky families could be, with one sibling staid, sober and industrious, like Ricardo, and another one perhaps flighty, or, or...he could think of nothing to say. He kept smiling at her and nodded in contemplation.

He took a quick sip of brandy.

"Ricardo told me he had a sister—apparently he thinks quite highly of you, but mere words could not convey your beauty or your refreshing vivacity." Von Brauchitsch had no idea exactly where that came from, but it seemed to do the trick, and perhaps in dealing with a strange woman, diplomacy and compliments were key.

He couldn't help but admire the form even as he met the eyes. Emboldened by her smile, complete with a humble bob of the head in acknowledgement, he went on.

"The dress is perfect."

Her jaw opened ever so slightly, and then she turned and called in the direction of the kitchen cubicle where Ricardo and the servant Sylvio wrestled still with a recalcitrant cork.

"I'm impressed. Finally, a man who knows something about women." Ricardo's muffled voice came back with some sort of cheerful rejoinder.

Eugen couldn't quite catch it.

Von Brauchitsch saw himself in some sort of internal mirror, throwing his head back and looking at himself in triumph, in what could only be relief, and a cautious sense of the possible.

***

Dan grinned at the thought that he might be racing against the Falconis at some point in time, as they lived not too far from Pescara and the Coppa Acerbo circuit. He had decided upon the Little Saint Bernard Pass. When going from Italy to Switzerland there was more than one way to get there, but there was no reason to go through Austria. That might be asking for trouble with customs, as the Anschluss with Germany had taken what had once been pretty laid-back officials to new levels of efficiency. If their ritual inspections were mostly to impress their indispensability on their new Nazi bosses, he couldn't afford to lose time needlessly.

The MG was pinging a bit. The last batch of Italian gasoline he had put in was of such a poor grade that it was causing pre-ignition at this spark-advance setting. The engine tended to overheat at the beginning of the climb, but the needle had stopped its inexorable rise, and held steady. It wouldn't do to boil over.

Erratic snowflakes swirled past the headlights but only left small droplets in isolated splotches on the windscreen. With a little luck he wouldn't have to scrape ice off the inside of the windshield, but you never knew. At these elevations, there might be a snowstorm at the top, even in the middle of summer, and they weren't quite there yet. It was barely spring up here this time of year, and only in sunny daylight, if the clouds didn't come down in a billowing grey mass and kill the daytime heating effect completely.

He came to the next switchback and geared down. Mutt gave a short, gruff little bark of discontent. When he got to a better place, he'd let the poor fellow out for a short walk. With a little luck, he might get a cup of coffee and a hot meal fifty or a hundred miles down the other side.

The small exaggeration spoke volumes about his state of mind. For a glamorous race-car driver, he spent an awful lot of time alone, in crappy cars without heaters, in empty hotel rooms and anonymous towns and villages where no one knew his name and no one cared what happened to him, let alone if he succeeded or failed. There was little arrogance in Dan Thornton these days, if there ever had been. The reality of his life and occupation were too humbling. People saw him in the car, they had certain notions. They didn't know what it took to get that seat. Life was a series of compromises. If one worked out once in a while you were doing okay.

After drawing his pay in Monte and giving Antonio Falconi a few days of driving lessons in northern Italy, Dan Thornton had a long drive ahead of him if he wanted to make the Grand Prix des Frontieres in Chimay. That was in Belgium on June fifth. It would be nice to get there and have a little time to drive the circuit and get to know it. He had never been there before. The small town had been holding a non-championship race for Grand Prix types since before the Great War, and the prizes were all right. It was seen by many professional teams as a valid proving ground for the championship races coming up in the next month. The more sporting types, the amateurs and the privateers, saw it as a chance to win a prestigious race where with a little luck the factory teams, the Auto-Unions and Mercedes teams especially, might not be out in full force or with cars still unproven and therefore a little more prone to breakdown.

With the drive over the Alps and a very long night ahead of him, Dan had enough on his mind without the constant distraction of thinking about Colleen. Human nature being what it was, he thought about her anyway.

Chapter Four

Deep in the Basement.

Deep in the basement of the Ministry of Aviation Building in central Berlin, white-smocked technicians male and female went about routine chores. Virtually silent wearing their rubber-soled deck shoes, they sat at desks wearing headphones for the most part. They made notes in verbatim of telephone conversations from a thousand sources. Other phone calls were recorded electronically, with facilities for making copies and rapid distribution to departments.

Hundreds of thousands of calls each month were monitored on a random basis, simply to see if anyone said anything of interest. Technicians were trained to listen for key words and phrases, anything that might be politically suspicious. They were trained to spot phony conversation. Ones that might be considered gibberish or nonsense attracted special attention, for the true raving lunatics could be quickly identified and ruled out, whereas most simple verbal codes gave themselves away by their very obscurity, like true criminal cant or jargons in certain trades.

One of the technicians, taking a white card out of one of a series of battered brown wooden boxes, read the inscription, which was simply a number and letter sequence. In that sense, the subjects had the privacy of anonymity, for the names and addresses of those under surveillance were known only upstairs.

The odds of a technician recognizing a voice were incredibly slim statistically, and the most politically sensitive subjects were monitored in an even more secure environment. Taking the card, the technician, a slender young fellow of about nineteen years of age and wearing the daily working uniform of the Luftwaffe, left the bright lights of their office and went out and down a corridor. There were doors every ten feet, all numbered, on each side of the hallway. Entering number sixteen, he went over to the far wall of the long, narrow concrete block room and looked for the numbered device he sought. Changing the reel, threading in the new leader and making sure the thing didn't jam or break the fragile tape, he inserted the jack of his ever-present headphones into its receptacle and ensured that he could hear the signal. While there was no one talking, the meter flickered and the green light above the receptacle came on. There was also provision to jack in a microphone, speaking directly to the parties, but in his experience it had never been used.

Putting the reel into a clearly labeled cardboard box, he looked at his watch and made one last notation, putting the time into the requisite square on the sticky label.

The technician went back to the office and checked off the item request on another form. He walked over to a phone on the inner wall, right next to the door.

He gave the crank a spin and he heard the operator pick up on the other end, in fact they were located at the other end of this level of the basement, just under the mostly for public consumption ground floor.

"Yes?"

"Courier, priority one. Department Eleven."

"Five minutes."

"Thank you."

The technician nodded at the response and hung up.

To talk about his job was to risk his losing his employment, and imprisonment, possibly even his life. He had trained himself not to speculate, or even hardly think about what went on here, what he actually did there.

But the notion that Fat Herman himself had an interest in Account #GU65BY360 was deeply disturbing.

There were others coming and going, and the technician put the kettle on as he waited. Tea time was tea time. No matter how bad or how expensive it was becoming, and it was becoming very expensive indeed these days, with all the contributions one was expected to make to the national polity, it was better than nothing. It looked like they were in for a long shift.

***

Oberst Eckbert Bauer, a colonel in the Luftwaffe's political intelligence unit, the Forschaungsamt, very much hush-hush but pivotal in the paranoid world that was Nazi Germany, put on the latest taped recording of Himmler's daily phone conversations, and made sure it was cued up to the very beginning so as not to miss anything. With a deep sigh, he opened up a fresh page in the case narrative, and put the day's date at the top, along with his name, rank and serial number. The father of two had a heart condition which made flying out of the question, or he wouldn't have been here.

He leaned back in his swivel chair, swung his left arm up and back, and gave the door a decisive push. It clicked into position and the sounds of the outer office, with its voices and teletype machines always nattering away, were silenced.

He hit the button and began to listen and transcribe as he had been trained to do.

Nuances, inflections, every single word was important when Heinrich Himmler, head of the S.S. and a distinctly hostile rival for the second spot in the Nazi hierarchy, was speaking on a line that he must trust implicitly, judging by some of the things that were said on occasion. Enough of what he said had been checked, and it was truthful to some extent.

What Colonel Bauer knew from analyzing and just plain listening to the tapes was enough to get him killed. It would be an unofficial killing, an assassination. He preferred to avoid that. The Reichsmarshall himself might not be safe, for no one was safe anymore. That much had become clear over the last few years. He could only hope that they never caught on. There would be hell to pay, and even the pudgy Reichsmarshall would be hard pressed to avoid summary, on the spot execution.

To say that it was interesting work didn't cover the half of it. But thanks to their knowledge, the Abwehr had been induced to interfere with Himmler's sick little plan. Canaris was less of an immediate threat to the Reichsmarshall's dominant position among the lieutenants of der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, but if either agency should shoot themselves in the foot on this one, in the Reichsmarshall's opinion and thus in Eckbert's too it would be no great loss. Let one, or the other, or both destroy themselves with this operation. In that sense he hoped they would do it. As far as their actual plan, he had few thoughts on that other than that it could possibly succeed.

With what they had so far, it wasn't immediately clear whether the S.S. would go ahead or not, and the Abwehr was demanding confirmation from their planted source. Presumably that involved a domestic double agent, for nothing was unheard of in this shadowy world where everyone of importance was a powerful shark and they all had a lot to gain—and to lose. Domestic double-agents were the rule rather than the exception these days. They were so busy spying on each other, that he sometimes wondered how they managed to keep up with anything else. The drain on manpower was considerable, not that he had ever been asked his opinion.

It was the wee hours of the morning, when all is still and the human heart knows coldness and loneliness. As the voices rang inside of his head, and his pencil scratched notes on the paper, it made for some interesting listening, although he would have preferred almost anything else. It was a shaky thing, to wonder what would happen if the cat got out of the bag. At some point you knew too much to survive a change of masters.

The notion that he was just following orders and had no choice was cold comfort in his present state of mind.

***

Dan had been living on excitement for as long as he could remember. As he dropped lower down the mountainside heading towards La Rosiere, in French Savoie, the bulk of the pines loomed in his headlights, with scattered pin-pricks of white and amber lights off in the distance. He had to clear his ears by pinching his nose and bumping up the pressure in the tubes of his inner ear. Small boys are obsessed with heroes, and therefore battles. History was a record of battles. Either that or betrayals. It was said Hannibal had used this pass, and that people had crossed the Alps over the saddle, which, according to the signs, was 2188 metres above sea level, since the late Iron Age. Probably even before that, he thought.

Once through a bank of misty cloud that hung in the valley, a pillow of white that obscured the lights of the valley below, he could see again, and then a few miles further on and a couple of thousand feet lower down the mountain, it seemed to get a little warmer. The landscape was bathed in moonlight, giving some body to the black pits under the pines where small houses and buildings lay. Bending low, he tried to find the moon through the side window, disappointed to find it was just a small brilliant disc in the southwestern sky. It was only when he looked away, and out and around at the valley, when he saw that the tops of the mountains were backlit by the illumination. On the opposite side, in the direction where he was going, the snow-covered peaks of the Mont Blanc Massif were saw-toothed against the blackness, pierced by stars and backed up by lowering masses of purple clouds. Val d'Isere lay not far off.

It wasn't just the racing that brought him to Europe, and it wasn't just the need to escape. It was the desire for something bigger, something greater than he could achieve back home. He grinned at the thought that he might have been looking for sophistication, although he had found some of that. He wanted to look at something other than the flatlands, the farmhands and villagers with their fascination with crashes and shabby dirt ovals with planks cut into the hillsides for grandstands and tracks that ranged from a measly eighth of a mile to the more usual half-mile and five-eighths miles.

One day Dan figured it out. He was a hero, and it was his job to live a life that so many others could only dream of, from lack of opportunity, lack of drive, or an unwillingness to sacrifice. He had to swallow his own problems and be what they wanted, and in the end, he didn't want to do it. For him, the money was one thing but he didn't want to be famous for its own sake. He was looking for the perfect machine. For Dan, it was about the driving, and the competition. It made him a fierce competitor, because he was aggressive and in a hurry for recognition. He'd won races that better drivers, better men even, had pulled out of. That's when he got the name, at a little circle track in Ohio, driving the Sunday special at the county fair. The announcer in the tower called him The Master of Darkness on a fifty-buck win under the lights of a county fair horse-track, and for whatever reason, it stuck. He supposed it was true and everything. He came to Europe looking to drive against the best, the idols, all of the ones he read about, and devoured, and wanted to be like someday. He knew their faces from newspapers and magazines, but to be accepted among them was all. It was everything.

He wanted it all, and you couldn't have it all. And so, he had sacrificed her—Colleen.

What a fool.

He was looking for some bigger roads to drive—roads that took a man somewhere, some place that looked distinctly different from the last place you had been. While he had done things he never thought he would, and driven cars and tracks the boys back home could only dream about, it still wasn't satisfying because he had always failed to place or even finish in the really big name races, the internationally known races like Monaco, or the Italian Grand Prix, or the Mille Miglia. If nothing else, they got some newspaper space back home, where a hill-climb in Wales with a hundred-pound prize just didn't. It didn't matter if an American boy won or not, and ultimately, that kind of money didn't go very far to advancing the career or the team's campaign, if you were lucky enough to even be part of a team.

There was a disorienting moment of vertigo, when it felt like he was flying in a black void. The lights up ahead could have been ten miles away down a straight and level road. The trouble was he knew they were three of four thousand feet below and yet it could have been infinity. It was like looking at stars hanging in space. There was quivering nausea in the pit of his stomach. Finally the switchback came, and as he swung the wheel, the lights on his right side wheeled and bumped around until they reappeared on his left. There was no guardrail along this stretch. The hillside bounded down and away in humps and shoulders clad in wet green turf and not much else but the odd white stone looming up in the headlights. He shifted up into third and gave it throttle, as the threat of icing on the road was gone now. The unmistakable glint of dew on the roadside weeds confirmed that. There was a small half-ton lorry parked in front of what might once have been a small inn, lights all out this time of night, and there was no sign of frost on the roof of the vehicle.

His little M.G. PB, battered and dented even when he took it from the first owner, still gleamed its defiant red, and he had enjoyed the shape and sight of the hood and lamps from the moment he first drove it. She was three years old. With a single overhead cam engine and a cross-flow cylinder head, in stock form she produced 43 BHP at a noisy 5,500 rpm. With twin carburetors, the power was adequate for a small vehicle, and that was what the gearbox was for anyway, especially in this sort of country. Dan had originally thought of heavily modifying the little car, maybe even racing it, but then quickly ruled it out as just keeping the thing fueled up and on the road was challenging enough and the one thing a driver needed most money. It was better in his pocket or going towards first-class rides that might stand a better chance of winning a race.

In the meantime, that's not to say he didn't enjoy driving the car. It had become a home away from home. Dan pulled off at a likely spot, where there was some ground that didn't pitch too steeply. Going around and opening up the other door, Mutt looked up and then struggled to his feet.

"Come on, boy." Dan went a few yards from the vehicle to relieve himself.

Behind came the sounds of Mutt's long claws scratching along as he looked for a suitable rock, bush, or other distinctive outcropping, dogs being what they were.

Secure on the handbrake, the car putted quietly in neutral and over to the east, there was a hint of salmon deep in the notches of the mountains. Birds were well into their pre-dawn chorus and the chill in the air was a reminder of the fragility of life in the outdoors. Mutt snuffled and grumped, and then he started walking around again. It was time to keep going. With a little luck, he could catch a few hours sleep in the car, down in the warmer air of the valley floor.

He had learned much, yet he might have learned pretty much the same things back home over the course of time. Dan also knew that he was the only one that even stood a chance of doing this, for to be here was to be alone and on your own. Maybe that was his gift. He was built in a way that few other men were. It wasn't so much about being a loner—although there was isolation, and yes, loneliness. It was about being self-sufficient, and that included psychologically. He had a mental toughness and a willingness to get his hands dirty to make things happen. Dan could survive failure only by going on to the next stunt, and the next one, and the one after that. Life was a series of stunts, and he had survived all of them where a few other guys, guys he knew well enough, had crashed and burned.

Dan paid attention to the details, checking over his own car before each race, and didn't let his life ride in the hands of someone else unless they were eminently trustworthy. That usually meant his fate was in his own hands. Fred was a good builder, but the incident with the radiator hose, and a few other similar incidents—a gas cap not put on correctly once, and a brake line that broke once. That one should have been replaced ages ago, but Fred was on a tight budget and he'd overlooked the necessity for brakes when you were doing a hundred and seventy miles per hour and there was a turn backed up by stone buildings coming up.

His own M.G. was meticulously maintained, its little motor clean as a whistle and predictably tuned up so it ran like a top. That didn't mean that something couldn't break, and the mountain was unforgiving at the best of times. He'd managed to pull a few extra horses out of it and that just made it more fun to drive. The road underneath felt very slick. Black ice would be treacherous. Dan geared down, let the revs drop, and eased out the clutch. There was solid road under him, but it was wise to slow up a little and take nothing for granted. If he broke his damned fool neck out here in the middle of the night, it was no one's fault but his own. No one would come along before morning.

He had been to places that he had only read about as a boy, seen things that other people could only dream of seeing after a lifetime of hard work and a considerable amount of good fortune. Not everyone achieved a dream, or even had one.

The physicality, the feeling of being pushed from side to side in a smooth S-turn, the acceleration, the braking, the feeling that you were wearing the machine only took you so far. But he liked being strapped into almost any decent car. Lately he had wondered if he could make money by giving lessons. The fluke that led to teaching Antonio might not be an isolated thing. All sorts of people got bit by the racing bug.

Not all of them were poor people. Life just didn't work that way.

Another village slid by in the night, with Dan rumbling through in third gear and about forty-five miles per hour. There was no sense in waking up the whole place, and he had a mellow feeling as he looked at the lit windows up above the shop fronts and farther back in their narrow walled yards. Someone else was having a warm and cozy life in there.

The hillside was so steep in this section that where the front of a house might have three floors, the back only had one, with a veranda that you could literally step off of onto the side of the mountain.

Dan was having trouble reconciling what had just happened between him and Colleen. It's not that he didn't understand women. He understood them well enough. The trouble with taking her out for drinks and dancing was that it had to end. If he was a rogue, then so be it, and he should have been happy. But he had dreams of another kind for Colleen Bryant, dreams that were impossible. In a sense he knew it was impossible because his demands were impossible. No sane and self-respecting woman would be able to make the sort of sacrifices demanded of her. No sane and self-respecting woman should be asked or expected to make those sacrifices. If the life of a racing driver was uncertain and very much day-to-day, surely their wives had it so much worse.

Of course he wanted Colleen again. There was no way to ignore that situation, and no way to get over her. He had to admit that. She was the best he had ever seen, and somehow he knew that she was the sort that comes along once in a lifetime, and that she would never pass this way again. That's what he had walked out on four years ago, and he had never really reconciled himself to the truth. What a damned fool. It all made a weird kind of sense.

A coward dies a thousand deaths, but it's only a thousand. The wives of racing drivers died a little bit every time their men-folk went out the door, with no exaggeration.

He didn't see why anyone would expect them to do it, and so he had never asked. Now that she was a married woman, she, and he, really ought to have known better. Dan hadn't asked a single question, not even where her husband was at that exact moment in time.

It was sort of forgotten in the moment.

When they stood in the moonlight in the soft warm breeze of four a.m. in Monte, her eyes glistening up at him, there was nothing for it but to try and kiss her.

What did she expect, anyway? She should have slapped him, but she didn't.

There was some sort of message in all of this confusion. What frightened him about himself was that it all didn't make one damned bit of difference, because he was here for a reason and there was no way in hell that he was going to quit while he still had it in him to be great.

***

The M.G. was parked a few blocks away. Dan was in a sidewalk café, deeply shadowed by umbrellas and adjacent buildings. The street ran north-south and he had the sun behind him. He sat watching the traffic and the pedestrians in a relaxed manner, and enjoyed the air and the rest. Dan Thornton had driven like a bandit to get here on time and the contrast was strong. The sensory bombardment of exhaust noise, bumpy roads and a thousand gear-changes, the sheer amount of country covered meant it all passed by in a blur. Foot traffic was light but steady, men and women of all ages and walks of life going about their business in the downtown core. It was near the docks as far as he could tell by the occasional blast of what must be a lake ferry, perhaps a tour boat. There was a hint of fish in the air. One figure caught his eye. Without locking gaze or anything, Dan studied the man and the people around him, especially anyone following along. If he spotted anything that looked suspiciously like a tail, or anyone who might be a pro, assuming he did it before they saw him, he could signal the contact to keep going and then they could try another rendezvous somewhere else. There really didn't seem to be anyone. His pulse subsided a little now. The man, who looked familiar, was aware of Dan. This had to be him. Dan nodded pleasantly, and stood up as if the fellow was his brother in law or something. What was interesting about the spy game was the acting. Dan had never thought of it before, but that was definitely one element.

It was a matter of taking the physical courage it took to drive at speed and putting it down on a different stage.

"It's a lovely day." Dan sat at a table twenty feet out from the building front, where in spite of his words a chill breeze raised dust from the gutter and the patrons were keeping their jackets on.

A cold oxygen-blue sky overhead held unusual clarity and depth. It was at least five or six degrees below seasonal. Anton had longish blonde hair, fine and straight, combed over sideways. He wore round horn-rimmed glasses and more than anything gave the impression of athletic scholasticism, dressed in a white shirt, open at the neck, grey trousers, brown brogues and a long black wool greatcoat. First impressions were everything.

"Ah, but a nasty wind can come in off the lake." The gentleman nodded, and sat down as if he owned the place.

He had a kind of physical confidence that Dan recognized. Very few people had it, few men and even fewer women. Colleen had it. He saw that for the very first time. It was a revelation he could deal with later.

If nothing more, Dan instinctively liked the guy. It wasn't trust, exactly.

"There's something in the paper you should see."

The man reached for it.

"It's on page four."

The fellow nodded at the warning.

"My name is Anton." His eyes flicked up to Dan's.

"Yeah, I'm Dan." It took a little discipline not to open up too much.

Sometimes less is more. That's what Teddy said.

Carefully unfolding the Tribune de Geneve, his sensitive fingertips detected the small section that seemed harder and thicker somehow.

He put the envelope full of bills into his coat and his hand stayed there a minute.

"It's all there. Two thousand pounds." Dan watched as the fellow folded the paper open to page four and read something outlined in a narrow blue line of ink down low on the left hand side.

Chosen completely at random, it bought them a little time and the man used it well. It was for effect.

He nodded thoughtfully, and looked up at Dan.

"Much food for thought there. Well, you know what people will say."

Dan just grinned.

"There is something really big happening." Anton folded the paper again and placed it back on the centre of the table.

A waiter came and Anton ordered schnapps and coffee. Dan waved him off, content with savoring a tall glass of lager in very small sips as he didn't know how long this meeting might take and he had a lot of driving to do afterwards.

Dan took the paper and put it into his coat pocket.

"What's it this time?" There was something in there to take the place of the money, probably a long buff envelope stuffed with drawings, going by past experience.

U-boats, and shaped charges, and the latest aircraft superchargers. Small stuff, but valuable enough in its own way. It might not be particularly useful to the British in terms of weapons development, but it told them how advanced the enemy was, if it was being accepted at face value.

What was important with intelligence was to keep the channels open and the information flowing for when the channels were really needed. It was a form of cultivation.

"Something, ah, more in the way of human resources." The man regarded him in a neutral fashion. "Right now, all we have are hints."

Dan had met half a dozen couriers for Teddy, but as Teddy said, this was a special network, and he had high hopes of being able to work with them. They were independent, at least that was their story. Teddy never mentioned exactly how he got onto them. Perhaps they had contacted the Brits first. All the signs were for war, and sooner rather than later. Teddy would check almost anyone out, see how they did. It might take some time to evaluate them. Dan assumed the information was good so far or Teddy wouldn't have risked such a valuable pawn to get more. Two valuable pawns, if you considered Anton an asset. So far, Dan was an unknown, and not being watched by anybody that they had detected.

"Such as?" Dan had a good memory and had reconstructed some fairly long conversations for Teddy in the past.

There was a pause as they waited for a bus to accelerate up to speed and get away from the immediate vicinity. The normal traffic was enough that their conversation was relatively secure, and almost impossible to record electronically from any distance. The waiter returned with Anton's order. It was a fairly wide boulevard, with small trees along the sides in geometric tubs raised up from the sidewalks. It seemed relatively secure, having been chosen at the last moment. Dan picked it out of a phone book when he made the call from a roadside booth, and the meet was fifteen minutes later.

He put enough money down on the table to include a reasonable tip and thanked the waiter who showed no hesitation in picking up the money and taking away a dirty ashtray. He came back and wordlessly put down a clean one, heading off to polish another table fifty feet away. They weren't there for small talk with the help, his actions implied.

Dan watched north and Anton watched south. When people came along, subtle signals with facial cues drew a silence while they waited for them to pass. They watched each other's eyes carefully, seeing where they went and how long they stayed there. A quick stare was enough.

"A small unit of the S.S. They have been reassigned to training duties. They have essentially disappeared from the order of battle, as if they never really existed."

"What sort of unit?"

"Very small, very specialized. They're into penetration—I'm not sure if you know what I mean."

English was not even a second language for Anton, Dan guessed. He spoke it with the minimal accent of someone who had been well-taught, though. Possibly a foreign university of some sort or another. Not American. Probably English, he thought. All of his observations were relevant.

"Someplace where they're not supposed to be?"

"Yes. That's what I think." Anton nodded thoughtfully. "The man in charge is ruthless, and yet charismatic. Fanatically loyal to the S.S and Himmler, yet he remains unattached. He's not political. He's a professional soldier, an adventurer. But I think he is immune to money."

"All that Aryan stuff?" Dan grimaced in appreciation of what that particularly psychology entailed.

"No. This one is a professional." Anton nodded in the general direction of Dan's voluminous pocket. "Read that very carefully. I'll see if I can get more."

Anton knocked back his schnapps and sipped at the steaming black coffee.

"Thank you, Anton." Dan spun his glass on its base, examining the circles of moisture left behind on the table. "Any idea of who or what they're going after?"

Anton shook his head regretfully.

"Something big." He thought for a moment. "Or somebody...big."

Dan lifted the glass and drained it in a long, satisfying pull. Wiping his lips with a napkin, he gave Anton a curt nod.

"See you later." Dan rose, and like the other man, having already paid up, picked up his ball-cap.

"Have a good day." Anton would sit a while and watch and see if anyone took any particular interest in Dan Thornton as he turned to go.

Anton nodded in agreement, eyeing the street, the people walking past, and the fluffy clouds in the sky overhead as if he didn't have a care in the world. It was a beautiful day in Geneva.

***

When she caught up with Dan, her heart had stopped cold. She knew he was in Europe, but the unexpectedness of it was stunning.

She really didn't know what to think. At first, she thought him distracted, and surely he must have a lot on his mind. She recognized the hint of something else. Dan was acting mysteriously, and some of the things he said hinted much but said maddeningly little.

Dan was hiding something, and there were other layers. She knew him better than he knew himself, or at least she had at one time. There were the years in between, but she thought it was more than that.

Dan was harder somehow, no longer the dreamer, the boy-racer who would take on the world. He seemed quieter, more in tune with some inner voice that only he could hear. He'd always had guts, but this was different. This was self-worth. He seemed much tougher now, and that was disturbing. Dan Thornton had been such nice guy when they met. He was still a good person, she could see that, but maybe now he was capable of some things that he hadn't been capable of before. Some of them might be a little dark, she saw, but then there was hope that it could go another way.

Dan had always known what he wanted. He would be surprised to find out what she was really after. Dan was a very stubborn man, which was one of the reasons she loved him so much.

Chapter Five

Behind the Scenes.

Behind the scenes, where only the insiders know anything, Berlin was enjoying a quiet weekend. For everyone else, normal life pretty much went on as before.

The populace, intent upon their football games and more domestic pursuits, had no idea that many of the bigwigs, a term the irreverent and easy-going Berliners had invented, were out of town for the weekend. A year ago, unknown to them, Adolf had set a deadline for war: 1938, or by 1943-44 at the latest.

It was a long pilgrimage to the Fuhrer's mountain retreat, and for most, an irritation that they dared not show. Wilhelm Canaris had to be there, if only to guard his back. The temptation to let it all out subsided.

Der Fuhrer was blathering on and on, repeating himself as usual, for surely every one of them here had heard it a thousand times. But when it came time for planning, der Fuhrer was a shrewd and calculating man. There were times when Canaris could have laughed out loud. What he had originally taken for hyperbole and bad rhetoric had turned out to be the man's serious beliefs. Hitler would be the first politician in history to say exactly what the people wanted to hear, and then keep his promises, something no one had ever seriously expected. At the time, he was just another politician, more amusing than most, as long as you were a side-liner, which most people were in political terms. They didn't go out to party meetings, to listen to speeches, and so they didn't see the S.A. thugs breaking up the opposition parties' perfectly legal meetings and shouting down hecklers.

"...the strong men, the masters, regain the pure conscience of a beast of prey; monsters filled with joy, they can return from a fearful succession of murder, arson, rape and torture with the same joy in their hearts, the same contentment in their souls as if they had indulged in some student's prank...when a man is capable of commanding, when he is by nature a master, when he is violent in act and gesture, of what importance are treaties to him? To judge morality properly, it must be replaced by two concepts borrowed from zoology: the taming of the beast and the breeding of the superman..." It was a quick rip-off of a philosopher that Canaris for one had always found very tiresome in his ignorance and naivety.

Someone should have knifed that one in an alley, and pissed all over the corpse. Ribbentrop and he exchanged some meaningless glance, and he had the impression the usually fawning and incompetent minister was fighting off a yawn.

Der Fuhrer could, and would, go on like this for hours if someone didn't get the meeting on track, still, it justified much. It justified their concerns. To Hitler, what mattered were results, which always justified the means.

The heads of departments had a lot of independence, which was useful. In the second floor study, they sat around a dark table, looking out at the fine view over the Obsersalzberg as der Fuhrer paced back and forth in front of the tall windows. Berchtesgaden was a sprawling, complex villa with all of the amenities and security features one might expect in the home of a political figure who had clawed his way to the top using psychological and moral terror. The support of major and very conservative institutions and a lot of cash from the industrialists helped as well.

Always entertaining, sometimes infuriating and often intimidating, today Adolf was in a bit of a mood. Goering sat on the far side of the table from Wilhelm Canaris, his back to der Fuhrer.

He rolled his eyes in comic fashion whenever Hitler made some anomalous point. Goebbels, who disapproved of such levity and took their philosophy very seriously indeed, glared at Hermann and looked around for support from Heydrich, head of the S.D., the Schutzstaffel's information-gathering service, and number two in the S.S. He was standing in for Himmler this fine weekend.

It was a long-term political planning session, yet their rearmament program was barely underway and their armed forces wouldn't be up to full effectiveness until 1944.

Der Fuhrer was resolved on war with France, first and foremost, and then with lebensraum, elbow room, in the East. Having always been lucky, he could conceive of no other state of being, and would be relying on captured arms, satellite armaments factories, impressed labour, and the raising of numerous divisions among dependent nations. They would be relying on luck and speed, two of the most uncertain elements in any war.

Canaris endured it. He was the only long-term professional in the room. At first, in the interest of national stability, the need for strong government, Hitler's nationalizing of all culture, plus the taming of unions and other economic reforms, had impressed him with its potential effectiveness. At that time, the nation was in social, political and economic disarray. A strong hand was needed. He had assumed it was just a kind of conservatism, with some rational basis of ideology.

One day he asked himself if der Fuhrer was mad. In a state of denial, he kept putting off his conclusion, watching in a kind of detachment, and a real fascination as the man wove his web of thralldom over cooler, wiser heads, all of whom saw themselves as going somewhere by using the demagoguery of Adolf Hitler. There was no question he was gifted.

One day he concluded that Hitler was mad—and that was a disturbing conclusion indeed. The conclusion that all of the men around him were delusional didn't follow too far behind, and that might have included Canaris himself.

Canaris was not surprised that Heydrich, whom he always thought of as 'Heinie' in its most pejorative sense, never mentioned the S.D. plot to kidnap the Pope during his briefing on the political landscape over the next six months to a year. That one was strictly off the books, even with Hitler, in case something went wrong. Neither did Goering bring up his little project of eavesdropping on each and every one of them, his own Abwehr included.

Did Goering think he wouldn't suspect? He had the nerve to share tips with the Abwehr, the intelligence service of OKW, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, claiming 'human intelligence.' Unbelievable. His stupidity was legendary. The man must be blind.

Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the Interior, the guiding genius behind the Reich's new gun control law, an anti-Jewish law, for surely it did nothing to curb rowdy right-wing elements the state tacitly encouraged, was there, and then there was Baldur von Schirach, head of the Hitler Youth. They sat and contemplated their note-pads, as yet unsullied by any profound thoughts or observations. It was looking like one of those days, another long and windy political lecture. This was his fate. To sit and to listen, and to marvel.

"...the folkish state...must set race as the center of all life. It must take care to keep it pure. I must see to it that only the healthy beget children. There is only one disgrace, despite one's own sickness and deficiencies, to bring children into the world, and one's highest honour, to renounce doing so. It must be considered reprehensible to withhold healthy children from the nation. This is one reason why I will not have children. Even I, one whose mission is truly sacred, am not of pure enough Aryan blood. I know it, deep in my own heart. I would never lie to you gentlemen. We must act as guardians of a millennial future in the face of which the wishes and the selfishness of the individual must appear as nothing and submit...A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of continuous defilement of the race and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape...Jesus Christ was not a Jew."

Not unusual in gatherings of this sort, a wave of laughter swept through the men, with Goring slapping a fat thigh, and looking around in genuine enjoyment. It was a kind of release after the tension of all those words, the endless stream of words. Ribbentrop tittered like a schoolgirl, which made it easier for Canaris to feign a smile of sorts. All of this merely encouraged the man.

The slavish Rudolf Hess, whose calm, forthright manner obscured his somewhat limited political insight, nodded vehemently with every point der Fuhrer made. Men like that were easily fooled by their desires. He was the third most powerful figure in Germany as der Fuhrer's Deputy, right behind Goering and Hitler himself. His brief included taking merciless action against transgressors whom he felt had gotten off too lightly in the courts. The office seemed rather superfluous these days in Canaris' opinion, and of course there was the silent, ever-present, brooding dark figure of Martin Borman. Der Fuhrer's secretary lurked in the farthest corner of the room, away from the brightness of the windows, taking extensive notes as if all of this would be of the slightest interest to historians a hundred years in the future.

Considering that the winners got to write the history books, and considering that Nazi Germany had no hope of winning a long war against a coalition of powers, one which would certainly arise if they continued on their present course, and Hitler theoretically should know that, it didn't seem too likely that they would ever be needed.

Wilhelm had the hysterical notion that Borman probably took them out back and burned them as soon as the sessions were over.

It was that kind of world. If he could have taken them all out, he would have, unfortunately there was nothing left to replace them with. They had been that thorough. The nation had been thoroughly gelded, intimidated, and made worthless. The only thing left was the drunken madness of untrammeled power, in the hands of angry children who had never been denied anything in their lives.

***

Hoarse voices shouted bitter instructions and the snap of blank practice rounds made a staccato chorus under the brooding black pines. Shapes slipped past windows that were just holes in the exterior and footsteps rang hollow as they raced from point to point, up stairs, slamming in and out of flimsy doors.

Deep in the remote lakes district of East Prussia, a remarkable construction stood in the forest. Framed up of pale timbers, faced with slightly redder plywood, the open-topped structure of braced walls was laid out in a complex maze of hallways, doors, rooms and larger chambers. The whole thing was several stories tall, linked by rough staircases that corresponded to the actual floor plan. Surrounding the main building were false fronts designed to represent surrounding buildings at accurate distances. Built in about a week by volunteer labour from a nearby Hitler Youth camp, they had orders to burn it upon the completion of training. Only the two of them knew the actual target, the time and the place, the personage.

Without the elaborate fascia and marble columns, the building was unidentifiable to a casual observer. This was admittedly rare with the local villagers warned off by signs and familiar with the comings and goings of odd groups of men in heavily-laden covered trucks and bearing no military markings. The locals weren't stupid and stayed away.

Hauptman Walther Schneider watched as his teams, each of ten men, assaulted the Vatican, clearing rooms and corridors. While it was difficult to simulate the Swiss Guard with their antique 16th century pikes and multi-striped tunics, the mission was planned to evade them as much as possible. There were other worries, but the real problem was bluffing their way in and then maintaining stealth. Both doubted they could do it. Silenced pistols would only do so much, and the Schmeissers tended to jam if used that way in anything other than short burst. This was not very effective in certain situations.

If something went wrong, if the Pope were killed, however accidentally, perhaps struggling not to be taken, his body must be removed at that point. It was in the orders, which they had read carefully, memorized as best they could, and then destroyed.

"All right, let's do it again." He waved at his adjutant, Leutnant Horst Drescher. "Let's do it with live ammo this time, and we'll assume we're blown right from the start. It's a loud, wet operation where everything goes wrong. We'll need our friend Dmitri—"

Here the assembled team laughed, as the dead body was a heavy, loosely stuffed figure made out of rubber with a surprised round 'O' of a mouth that had only one contextual meaning to these fellows.

"All right. You fellows will be dragging Pius out with you. Let's see if we can shave off some time on this one, as all-out speed is vital in this kind of scenario." The experienced Kompaniechef had trained men for highly-specialized missions before, and Schneider approved of his methods.

Schneider and Drescher looked at their watches.

"Places, everybody." It was as if Sergeant Traugott was directing a theatrical production, which it was, for a kind of physical theatre was useful in training for such a tight operation.

A pair of additional corporals added moral muscle to his commands, hustling their sections along with acid comments and a kind of relentless good cheer. Every one spoke Italian like a native, albeit mostly from the Tyrol, which was part of their basic cover story.

"We have to be in and out in ten or at the most, fifteen minutes, and it's a big building."

Leutnant Drescher nodded in agreement.

"Yes. That may not be as much of a problem as doing it quietly."

The right corner of Schneider's mouth came up in a sardonic scowl that nevertheless had some element of humourous appreciation.

"The combat boots clunk something bad, and the tennis shoes squeak on the tile floors. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other. " Drescher shared his senior's concerns. "Our equipment can be taped down. All the usual night-combat tricks, of course. We can do this."

If knives exclusively were used, or if they could get in without violence at all, that would be the best way. Now that the men were familiar with the structure, the next step would be to attempt it at night, using live guards with real pikes.

Perhaps they could find some condemned convicts to play the role, but that involved a lot of external, inter-service bureaucratic complications that neither man wanted to deal with, and on short notice at that.

Their lives were riding on getting it right, not so much in Italy, where no one really knew how Mussolini would react to a botched operation—they would be bargaining chips at the least—but back home as well, where their survival in the event of failure would be an embarrassment to their superiors. Either way, a quick execution was the most likely outcome, although Drescher wondered if the men would have time to draw that conclusion once fully briefed. Probably, he decided. If the thought bothered them, they shouldn't have signed up in the first place.

With only a few more days to prepare, Sergeant Traugott looked anxiously at the officers and gave an inquiring twitch of the shoulder. Schneider waved and nodded cheerfully, apparently brimming with confidence in the men and the mission.

The sound of the MP-40 Schmeisser bullets ripping through plywood shattered the stillness of the humid forest as the pair drew back into the shelter of the concrete and earthwork observation revetment. While there was essentially nothing to be seen from here, they peered out through the armoured glass panels of what was the only permanent building on this particular top-secret military establishment.

"They've done it in thirteen minutes, in and out, more than once." Drescher watched as they sprinted up to the first position. "We're almost ready, mein Kapitan."

Hopefully the teams got it right this time.

***

It took real balls to drive at speed. Barrett's chassis was stronger than most, but it took biceps and neck and shoulder muscles to handle that steering. Braking forces were high with the hard shoes on the car. Fred was almost hopeless with the gearbox, and Dan had taken to using a slide-rule and a note-pad full of scrawled figures trying to figure out the best combinations. The circuit at Chimay was fairly short at six and a half miles. It was tough starting out thirteenth on the grid. Even that was a bit of a miracle, considering their limited practice.

It was a no-holds barred dash to the finish on the narrow track, this one with the minimum of terrain, unlike some of the hill-climbs of which Belgium had a few. Chimay was known for long straights and a picturesque setting where it felt like you were going somewhere, albeit only for twelve laps.

He stood on the brakes, setting himself up in the best position, which was crucial. The heavy low-speed steering of the FB-5 was more of a help than a hindrance. It forced concentration and planning the turn before you got anywhere near it. You simply couldn't go in too fast and then saw away at the wheel. She responded well to power. In that sense, the geometry was just right. Maneuvering at low speed was a pain, at anything over ten or fifteen miles per hour she had a logic all her own.

Dan clutched once for up-shifts and then double-clutched for down-shifts. She whined something fierce at low speeds, due to the straight-cut gears and the fact that the tranny was right there beside his legs. At higher speeds the engine roar and wind buffeting drowned it out. With a small field for this race, he was aggressively pushing, pushing, but he'd gotten a bad start, baulked by a stalled car in front, and there was a lot of time to make up. Other entries found themselves in the same position, and there was someone coming up from behind fairly fast.

The Port du Mons was the tightest turn on the track, very technical and important to a good lap. This one was about eighty degrees, a right-hander, and then he was thundering up through the gears towards Virage Frere, another right hand turn of about a hundred and ten degrees. In fourth gear he held it at five thousand revs as he couldn't win today anyway, and there was no sense in blowing her up.

He had to concentrate going down the straights, but he had time to look at the instruments, with the oil pressure good and the coolant still holding in the middle of the range. He found a second to glance at the pretty girls waving their handkerchiefs and programs but when he began setting up for the next corner he refocused. Setting up and going through it, the FB-5 was happy enough going sideways. This was how Dan had earned his pay at a hundred county fairs stateside.

The FB-5 was loud and obnoxious and always a crowd pleaser, although he saw Trintignant's Bugatti 51 disappearing up the road ahead of him, pursued by a pack of wild dogs in motorcars, all of whom had a better chance of winning than Dan did. In the heat of the moment and the haze of exhaust smoke the only one he had a clear picture of was Rene Mazaud in the Delahaye, Catching up to the rear of the pack, he had his own running battle with Mandirola in a Maserati 8CM, with the obscenely lucid thought coming to him that Barrett really should have gone for red rather than white for his cars.

It was like poetry, like doing the foxtrot or a rumba at a hundred and eighty miles per hour. The wind buffeted the back of his neck and the slipstream tugged at his helmet on the long straights, knocking his head around when he came up behind one of the slower two-litre class cars. Mazaud's car was very loud. The heat of the other car's exhaust splashed on the side of his face and neck where they were unprotected by the goggles and helmet. They came upon more traffic, the leaders having long since disappeared.

He ducked by a badly-handled one in a pretty French blue colour and then bucketed into the next straight. He could only assume the fellow was having problems, with a smudge of oil on his goggles to show for the pass. He knew better than to try and wipe it off under any circumstances, and Dan cursed with heartfelt words. Mazaud was still right there on his left. It was just racing luck. Jean Tremoulet was up ahead in another Delahaye and he tried to close the distance. The acceleration of the cars must have been very similar, as it pulled ahead on the straights, but Tremoulet never really got more than fifty yards ahead, and then they were braking again. This was the sort of thing Fred asked about after a race, and Dan tried to oblige him with observations, 'objective' observations, when he could. Finally Mazaud drew out and Dan knew he couldn't catch either one of them unless something significant happened to their cars.

Sweat poured down his ribs from exertion, and his lips were cracked and dry as he kept licking them in an effort to find some relief for the thirst. The race was barely eighty miles long. It took a kind of resolution to keep going sometimes when you knew had lost.

The most important thing was to put on a good show. People remembered that sort of thing for a long time. There were trees and spectators within inches of the road, and the sputtering roar of the car at low speed and low revs in the hairpin was nothing compared to the blast at top revs when it was reflected back from stone walls and the clump of trees in the last turn. There was a smell of pig shit, once again under heavy braking into Mons, from a cluster of barns that were right there.

The windshield, low as it was, was plastered with smashed bugs, and the smell of burnt oil and coolant was strong in the air. There were only four laps to go and then he could rest. Right about then there was a 'twang' from up front and something started to thump and he backed off immediately on checking his mirrors for smoke. Oddly enough, there wasn't any...

Pulling it off the road at a wider spot, out in bright sunlight beyond the dark shadows of a few huddled maples, he climbed out and gratefully accepted a swig of a hearty red from someone more persistent than most, standing in a crowd of enthusiastic well-wishers and motor racing fans. Nearly room temperature, it was at least wet. There were no fluids under the car. He wondered what might have gone on her this time.

"Vive les Americains!" The man shouted and danced around like a kid again, his seamy face cracked wide open in a gap-toothed grin, displaying a love for life that Dan frankly envied right at that moment.

Perhaps it was the wine tugging at his cheeks, but Dan's smiled in spite of himself. What the hell, he thought, at least somebody's happy.

Chapter Six

A Sick Bastard.

People in the know called Henry Cutliffe a sick bastard, and Colleen Bryant was beginning to see why. He opened up his gym bag, kept on the chair beside him where he could keep an eye on it, and pulled out a thick buff envelope of about fourteen by seventeen inches. Her eyes were drawn to it as if by magnet. If he knew her, and he was pretty sure that he did, she was already trying to guess what was in it.

"All right. You can see him again in a couple of weeks. In the meantime study these files and let me know what you think." The pair sat on the veranda of a very expensive hotel overlooking the yacht basin in Monte Carlo. "I'd like to figure a way to turn this to our advantage."

After a moment he went on.

"We've got a real mixed bag here. We're not even sure who's talking to us, not really." He mouthed silent words at her to avoid the possibility of being bugged and her face stiffened.

"My God! The insanity of it." Colleen was stunned, but it wasn't out of character for the Nazis to contemplate the most illogical of missions.

"I was thinking, sheer, unmitigated gall, but I prefer your term, now that I think about it." Cutliffe pursed up his lips and his eyes went all funny. "Herman's game isn't hard to guess—he doesn't like Heinrich that much, and he's just as bad as Adolf at setting the cat amongst the pigeons. It makes him feel more secure. It hardly advances their cause when they're at each other's throats like that all the time. Our good fortune, really."

Goering, bloated with success and arbitrary power, was the supreme un-professional. Henry liked to try and look at things from the other side's perspective, it made his guesswork a little easier.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that maybe he's trying to prod Canaris to do it first, or even just to blow the operation to Adolf. Yet that might not actually put a stop to it, or I'd do it myself. There are ways, hell. A good old fashioned anonymous letter sent to a prominent Berlin newspaper...but like I said, there's no sure way to predict what a true megalomaniac will do." He thought for a moment. "They're driven by irrational fears and some deep-rooted sexual insecurity."

She nodded. He would have liked to have seen a smile.

"Yes, but what are we supposed to do?" She had a good point.

"Our available resources are limited." It was his only possible response without more to go on. "And it's perfectly likely that the information is a plant. Teddy has been fooled before. And so have we—by Teddy himself, even. They don't have much of a budget over there either. If he gets Uncle Sam to pull a few hot chestnuts out of the fire, then it's so much the better for him."

She sighed, picking up the envelope and looking around for the waiter. She stood up, that often worked.

"So he's getting the same stuff?" Someone must be desperate to be broadcasting like that.

Henry nodded. He had a few sources of his own. Inquiries would be made.

A fellow appeared within moments.

"Yes, Madame Bryant?"

"Can you have some soup and crackers sent up to my room?" She rose as he jotted down the details, mushroom soup, coffee, something sweet to go after.

"But of course, and straight away." He backed off and she turned without hesitation and made her way to the doors.

Cutliffe sat out there for a while, enjoying the fiery heat of the sun and the exotic scenery, both inanimate and on two legs.

Colleen was a good girl, and he was sure she would think of something. She'd been recruited right out of Vasser, and in her swishing pastel tennis skirt, just above the knee, and her creamy short-sleeved, stretchy envelope blouse, she couldn't be taken for anything other than what she appeared to be. That little ring on her finger indicated a wealthy young lady with an absentee husband and fresh, wholesome looks that just reeked of gentle innocence. It was easy to underestimate her. One or two folks had done just that and lived to regret it. One or two others were dead.

Colleen had an original mind, that rarest of animals. Until now, the problems had been mostly academic, almost theoretical at the time. But she had a good brain and he liked the way she used it. Only some of that came from the training, the rest was all her.

Her best trick was something she called 'inversion,' which she hadn't invented, but latched onto in a way that others might have neglected. They didn't even have confirmation yet, but if there was a way to turn the tables on the S.S., or the Abwehr for that matter, for damage was damage, they needed to find it, and quickly. More than anything, it would be nice to know what Canaris was planning to do about it. The wily old bastard might just sit back and do nothing, knowing that a bungled operation would be messy for his inter-service rivals. While he had no empathy for the enemy, he could understand their reasoning to some degree. The Pope would be a valuable hostage, a bargaining chip with much of the world, and in some strange way, might keep Mussolini from straying too far from the fold. If nothing else, it was mayhem—terror for terror's sake, and the Nazis had certainly demonstrated their taste for violence and disruption.

Canaris, at least, needed some further purpose for his operations, tending to try to weave a tortuous path through the maze of contradictions put up by the interests of the German people whom he allegedly owed his allegiance to; and the Nazis whom he probably despised. Unfortunately they had gained power and held all the cards.

The only thing that was sacred to a Nazi was Fascism—and power.

Cutliffe was capable of doing a little scheming of his own. If the Nazis were convinced their operation was compromised before it happened, they might call it off. The trouble was, they might also simply postpone it, or they might very well initiate the thing in haste and hope for the best.

The Nazis also subscribed to the notion that damage was damage. Taking a few casualties wasn't a problem for them. Ultimately, it all led back to what Adolf thought of it, success or no success. It was as much of a wild card to the Nazis as it was to him.

***

After a quiet luncheon on the terrace, Cutliffe returned to his room and had a hot shower after their tennis and sun-bathing of the morning. He laid on the bed, completely naked on top of the covers and was asleep in an instant.

When the buzzer went on the house phone, he woke instantly and quickly checked his watch.

He picked up the handset, with little trace of sleep in his response.

"Yes, my dear?"

"I have a game all laid out in my head." Her voice was low and terse.

He smiled up at the ceiling. There was a kind of grim confidence in her voice. She didn't go on, which indicated tension—strong tension in her feelings.

"That's my girl. Give me five minutes, and then I'll come over." They hung up as if they had one mind.

***

He'd seen her like this before. Her face was etched in grey lines and she had aged fifteen years.

"Are you going to be okay?"

She nodded.

He sat in a comfortable armchair, clad in clogs, Bermuda blue tennis shorts, and a loose, open white shirt with an odd kind of oriental collar. It had two big, deep pockets on the breast, and she wondered where he got it, it was so unusual.

"Okay, so take me through it."

"Hitler has essentially destroyed all the churches in Germany. Now they're state-controlled, and preach the Nazi theology."

If they didn't the pastor or bishop was packed off to a camp somewhere.

"Yes."

And the Pope was on the record, having denounced racial science as un-Christian. Surely this was Hitler's motive. The man had always looked for sufficient provocation to capture at least a segment of world public opinion. This much rang true.

"Ah. Right." She was bang-on about the churches in Germany, too. "So what does that mean?"

She looked at some scribbled notes, all spidery and wavering along the page.

"Mussolini made an agreement with the Vatican, and the situation is much different in Italy. But I'm thinking Hitler must resent the Vatican, which he has no control over, and they do have a fair degree of power. People all over Europe listen to the Vatican's radio broadcasts. They contradict him all the time. A man like that must hate it. He hates everything else after all. The speeches are reprinted in the papers. Hitler would like to shut that down, wouldn't he? They have the hearts and minds of Catholics the world over. It's not that far-fetched, is it?"

He nodded in agreement.

"So you think they will try it?"

Her eyes were lost somewhere.

"I had some crazy ideas. But for now, let's imagine Hitler initiating this idea."

"And everyone wants to please Hitler. But what about Mussolini? Wouldn't he be hopping mad?"

She smiled an evil grin.

"Of course—except that Pius is a thorn in the side of Il Duce as well, and this is where it gets good. Whichever agency does it, it really wouldn't matter from the point of view of conventional thinking. Hitler may hope that the S.D. fails, or he may alternately hope that they succeed. It could be a win-win for him. Or, maybe, just maybe, Mussolini has asked him for a little favour."

"Why do you say that?" Cutliffe had been following along just fine up until then. "We're not sure this stems from Adolf himself, I gathered that much."

"No, but the thinking holds true no matter who sponsored it."

Now he was completely mystified.

"If they succeed or fail, no matter who does it, Mussolini will be hopping mad, officially. And Hitler will sacrifice the chief...probably the whole service, to appease his posturing pal. He'll liquidate ten, twenty, thirty thousand of his own people, to keep Il Duce in the fold. Think of how manipulative he is. They're both manipulative bastards. Right, Boss? Hitler makes written agreements promising peace and cooperation, even while planning coups and over-throws...shaking your hand and promising the moon while stabbing you in the back. He might want to get rid of Canaris and the Abwehr, closely connected to OKW, and independent-minded to boot. He's not such an ideologue either. But then again, at some point Himmler might get ambitions. He has his own loyal followers. Hitler might see a need to ditch him, either as a threat to his own position, or for whatever reason."

They might be planning to fail, hence the stream of information leaks from their double agents...it bore some consideration. The great Roehm blood purge had been predicated on less.

"There is also the fact that two missions may be twice as likely to succeed." Her idea there was that Himmler or even the Fuhrer would authorize the one that seemed the best laid-out, the one that had the most chance of success, and put a stop to the other one. "The second one might be a legitimate backup plan. Using two separate agencies is a kind of internal security fail-safe. Unfortunately for them, one of our alleged contacts knows about both."

"Ha. Interesting. But we have no way of checking this out, these motivations."

"It gets even better."

"I fail to see how that's possible." Cutliffe groaned at all the permutations.

She might be right, though. If you could smell a rat, you're often half-right, as his old man used to say.

"One team tries to snatch Pius in his sleep, and another team wipes them—and possibly the Pope, out at the same time."

"Wow."

She shoved a file full of photos and personnel dossiers across the coffee table to Cutliffe.

"Notice anything funny about these men?" She referred to the S.S. detachments in East Prussia.

They had dozens of photos of that installation to examine. Their source up there was taking some big chances. So far, they couldn't determine if the Abwehr was acting on the matter, either. There was a lot they didn't know. Canaris was probably the brightest, most logical, and theoretically, the easiest of the lot in terms of predicting what he might do next. Clearly Goering was in it up to his eyeballs, playing some sort of double game. But would Goering have to nerve to leak it to western agencies? It was bizarre.

He flipped through a number of photos, all hard, capable-looking men. They were all of similar ages, with similar backgrounds, and with a fairly uniform set of qualifications. They were professional soldiers with an emphasis on close combat and small-unit tactics.

"Um...not really."

"They don't look the Aryan type, do they?"

"What are you getting at?"

"They get in, grab the Pope. Under their coveralls, they're wearing Italian army uniforms. They're told its part of the escape plan. It's all nice and logical." She thought again. "All they really have to do is look like Italians. Shout back and forth at each other in Italian and leave some survivors."

"Whoa. Huh. Yes, maybe—" He stumbled into a profound silence while he schemed that one out.

"They have dark hair, brown eyes, quite large in some cases. Quite a few with hooked noses—like Roman, not Jewish I mean." She flushed a little at this, but it was necessary to be clear on that point.

"Oh, wait a minute." She gazed off into space for a while.

Then she shook her head.

"They could pass for Jewish...right?" Her eyes went funny, all tight and mean. "The Jews crucified Jesus...right?"

"Oh, boy." He stared at her in astonishment. "And then the second team whacks them? Oh, wow."

He thought it through some more.

"And most likely the Pope." She had sort of resolved on that option.

"The man who shoots the Pope switches guns with a victim..." She shook her head again.

There would be fewer complications if the Pope was killed. There would be no demands for his release or return, although there might be certain benefits to having the Pope under their control. It might be useful in terms of propaganda purposes. It wasn't just France, Spain, and the minorities in the U.S. and Britain. Mexico was Catholic, and all of South America. It was a tough call either way, as Cutliffe saw it.

What if Mussolini had a new prospect for Pope, all ready and waiting for the proper tone of fear and intimidation—psychological and moral terror, as promulgated by the Nazis, to be ushered in. Mussolini might have someone in mind, in fact he probably had plenty of candidates, all more amenable to suggestion than Pius.

"And then Hitler declares a protectorate over the Italian people and moves right in?"

She threw up her hands and shook her head.

"I don't know. There's just no way to know what they're really up to. I guess that's what I'm saying, Boss. Whatever it is, it's bad. I mean...really sick."

Cutliffe sat in his chair and chewed on his lip for a while as he pondered the possibilities, for surely there were other possibilities.

"We might have to act very quickly indeed. On the spur of the moment." He looked at her. "One of our sources is saying that the plan to enter Austria was dusted off, and then Hitler blew hot and cold for a while, and the generals were positively scrambling to keep up with him. He has an agile brain, and not much sympathy for those who don't act quickly enough for his liking."

She was probably way ahead of him on that one. The reports were that the much-vaunted war machine had a few problems with broken-down tanks and vehicles on the road to Vienna. They'd pulled it off by sheer force of nerve on Hitler's part. Yet they had pulled it off.

"Then we'd better get some help around here, and darned quick."

Cutliffe couldn't argue with that. The trouble was, who.

A tear welled up in one eye, and then the other. In unison, they rolled down her cheeks.

"That poor old man!"

He nodded, not quite knowing who she meant, but then it clicked in.

"He's not that old, actually." Pius was in his eighties, but he needed to comfort her, to reassure her. "Some of them guys are a lot tougher than they look. I remember this one old priest back in the Bronx..."

Her face twisted in a mask of anger.

"You know what I mean."

The growl in her voice told him she'd had enough for one day.

"You're such a good girl."

Her face clouded, and she sniffled, and then looked around for a handkerchief. She needed some acknowledgement of her distress. He hastily proffered his own, which she accepted gratefully. These emotional leaps and bounds were nothing new, and he was always surprised by her quick recovery. The present problem could be rough on her emotional state. Her intuition must be very strong, and it backed up his own impressions. So they were going to do it then.

"I'm really proud of you."

She nodded lugubriously.

"We're going to nail these bastards. I promise you that much." How the hell he knew that was one of the great mysteries, but he said it with a confident authority.

Colleen was hard to handle, but she had some kind of a gift. She'd been washed out of training because the instructors were convinced that she was cheating. The only inspiration he'd had in his entire life was to ask a silly question.

What if she wasn't?

What if she just knew what they were thinking?

She wasn't cheating, exactly, she just saw relationships where other people looked for facts. While he was convinced there must be others like her in the world, understandably they kept out of the limelight. There might be a few who understood the gift, and had the knack of showmanship. Those ones would be hiding in plain sight, working as freaks in circuses and carnivals. They would be doing card tricks and guessing people's weight.

She was the first one the service had ever run across. There was no telling what she was ultimately capable of.

"Okay, well, uh. Let's sleep on it for a day or two. Anyways, we need to get some people into Rome and we'll start looking at that end of things. Capiche?" He was wondering how one might go about penetrating Vatican security, which must be pretty good by international peacetime standards.

He left her sitting in the middle of the bed, staring off through the window, with a pot of tea and some biscuits from room service. It was all he could think of on short notice.

The odds were she wouldn't starve to death, and he had a few coded cables to send off right pronto.

Chapter Seven

Colonel Hans Oster.

Colonel Hans Oster was Canaris' right-hand man and the Admiral trusted him implicitly.

He had selected the commander for the operation but had allowed him to name his second in command, subject to vetting and approval. What was needed was a professional soldier, with experience in these kinds of operations, and at the same time he couldn't be a fanatical Nazi.

He had to have some human perspective and be trustworthy. He had to be unmarried, and hopefully an orphan, with few of what were called 'friends of record.'

Colonel Rolf Ullrich was the best candidate, although the choice was a hurried one.

Oster thought he had his man, but in any case, the choice was made. Now the prime consideration was to provide him with as much information as possible.

"The Papal apartments are clustered on the third floor, on three sides of the courtyard of Sixtus the Fifth." He and Ullrich went over the floor plan. "For some reason, there hasn't been a sixth."

Ullrich chuckled in spite of himself.

As far as anyone knew, the Pope hadn't relocated his digs. Clearly he felt safe enough in Mussolini's Italy. The love of the people for their spiritual leader ensured that Mussolini didn't push his luck too hard. Il Duce pretended to understand the lessons of history, and was building a new and more vigorous Roman Empire in the modern world. Historically, Caesars who messed with the Pope often got a lot more than they bargained for, in spite of the maneuverings and intrigues of courts. The rabble, fickle and mercurial as they were, was always an incalculable political force.

"It's hard to believe that Adolf didn't come up with this one on his own." Ullrich had gone right to the heart of the matter.

"We're not so sure he didn't."

Ullrich grimaced upon hearing it.

"In which case, I'd be more than happy in giving him a black eye." He looked up from the building's blueprints to engage in a long and speculative look around the room.

"Don't worry, we sweep every day, three times." The technician had just left, in fact.

Ullrich nodded. It was standard operating procedure to think and to act as if you were always under surveillance. At one time he had been engaged to a Jewish girl from his home town of Dresden. Oster was from Dresden as well, purely a coincidence as such criteria for picking a commander was extremely unlikely.

Under pressure from senior officers, he had been forced to break off the engagement, but that emotional wrench was what woke him up, when he really started to think for himself. The conclusions he had drawn had been kept private for the most part, but somehow Oster knew of him—Ullrich had the oddest feeling that he had been kept on the back burner for just such an eventuality.

Ullrich was on extended leave for a skin condition. It was some kind of rash, mostly healed now. He would be reassigned sooner rather than later, but at the moment, he had no unit to inquire after him or miss his homely presence.

"So you want us to snatch the Pope?"

"Well, ah, yes. And no." Oster took a deep breath.

"Yes...and no?"

Oster nodded shortly.

"Yes. We want to prevent them from doing it. So. That may require that we grab him, and then return him safely, complicated as that may be. Exchange him somewhere. If we can eliminate the other team..." He left the next bit unsaid. "This gets very messy indeed. The real problem is and always will be the extraction of the team, any team, ours or theirs, post-mission."

Ullrich nodded. It was a question he was intimately familiar with.

"In which case, it's better if we take them out long beforehand." But it was never as simple as that. "Whack them right now."

"Unfortunately, the Admiral would like them to be found, or caught, in place. They'll embarrass the hell out of our lovely Heinrich, and Adolf, Goering and all of that stripe, and with a little luck, perhaps that will sour relations with Il Duce. It might wake up the French and the British. God, how could they be so stupid."

"They don't know him like we do." He was referring to Adolf.

"No, they don't."

"So we ambush them."

"If we can do it. We need to get in minutes before them. We really can't hang about waiting. It's split-second timing, as I see it. We get in undetected, possibly secure the personage, and then make sure that some of them are caught alive for interrogation purposes." Oster didn't much like it, as the men involved were unfortunate individuals, although they would all be hand picked, and rabid Fascists.

You live like that, you die like that. The part about grabbing Pius was difficult. Ullrich wondered if that was really necessary.

In a sense, they were all Germans and just as much victims of a perverse psychology as anything else. The trouble was what to do about it. If they had grown up somewhere else, they would have become someone else. Someone was going to die here, and there was just no way around it.

Oster's thoughts were along similar lines.

People were delusional these days, and yet he had some sympathy. Neither Canaris nor Oster were Jew-lovers, but the plan to literally exterminate them was sickening, and after the events of the last four or five years...he had no doubt they meant to carry it out. Canaris once told Oster, that if a Jew was born to a Lutheran then they would grow up as a Lutheran and no one would be the wiser. It was the most enlightened thing Oster had ever heard on the subject, certainly in this country in recent years.

"How many men do think you will need?"

"How many men do they have?"

"About thirty, several non-commissioned and two officers, all armed with MP-40s and the usual grenades, pistols, knives. A heavy machine gun can't be ruled out. They'll be equipped with all the proper explosives in case they have to go through a few walls. While security has been strengthened, both the Swiss Guard and the Vatican Police, the fact is that they can do this, and I'm pretty certain they will. They will attempt it. Our fearless leadership has nothing to lose, and arguably something useful to gain."

"I see." He was thinking, deeply.

His eyes strayed to the building blueprints.

"We'll want to get out afterwards."

"So?" Oster got up abruptly and moved stiffly about the room.

"The fewer the better. Give me six men, and Sergeant Karl Schoenfeld. Let me think about our equipment for a while."

"What are you thinking?" Oster reached out and put a hand on the other's shoulder.

"I'm thinking." Ullrich held his eye for a long look.

Ullrich grinned.

"Just—thinking."

Oster pulled back to give him some breathing room. He was convinced Ullrich was the right man for the job, now he must let him the space, the materiel and authority, to do it properly.

"All right, but we probably don't have much time. The one thing we don't know is their schedule. Our opinion is that it's unrelated to events in Austria, or Hitler's next obvious target, Czechoslovakia. I suppose it could be a diversion! They may wait to see how that operation turns out. That may buy us a little time. In my opinion, they would wait until the last minute to organize it, and then keep it on a tight schedule. But, if it was happening tonight, I, and perhaps my secretary, would be your only backup."

Ullrich nodded soberly at this news. The Abwehr took it seriously. That much was clear.

"It would have to be something like that, wouldn't it. The men won't need much special training for an ambush in a building or courtyard. Almost any competent troops would do. Although, some time to study the floor plan and the target area is essential." The simpler the plan, the better, in Ullrich's thinking.

Colonel Oster reached for the phone.

"Can you get me a file? A Sergeant Schoenfeld of the Wehrmacht." He caught Ullrich's eye. "Middle initial?"

"Karl Victor Schoenfeld." Ullrich gave details of his regiment and present assignment.

Oster relayed it and then hung up. He pulled a file from under the maps and documents spread on the desk. A female sergeant came in without knocking and put a file on the desk. Oster opened that one up. Just the ticket, Schoenfeld was multi-lingual.

"We'll reassign him as an interpreter."

Ullrich nodded.

"Well, we've got a good bunch here." Oster opened up a thicker sheaf and began looking at personnel dossiers, sliding them over to Ullrich as soon as he had read each one.

Every so often he rejected one out of hand, and Ullrich did the same, and soon that pile on the corner of the desk had grown taller than the good prospects.

Ullrich slid another rejection onto the pile.

Catching a glimpse of the name, Oster raised an eyebrow.

"What's wrong with him? I thought he was one of the better candidates."

"Yes, he's very good. But unfortunately I know him. We were on a demolitions course a couple of years ago."

"Ah."

Further explanation was unnecessary. After this operation, Ullrich would have to disappear right off the face of the Earth, possibly for a very long time, and it was better if no one knew your name or your face.

If they were successful and the miracle was performed, there were going to be a lot of questions asked in all the wrong places. No matter what they did, a lot of innocent people were going to die. He could only hope, and believe, and maybe even pray, that they were doing the right thing.

Someone had to stand up to them. He knew that much. There were moral considerations. As a senior officer in a military intelligence establishment, he could see some small irony in it.

***

Eugen von Brauchitsch, gripped gently by the elbow by Father Firenze, walked past the office of the Captain of the Swiss Guard, which was confirmed by the name on the door.

"Good morning, Ricardo." The gentleman behind the desk, clad in the traditional garb, was a blue-eyed blonde-haired man in his early thirties. Father Firenze worked clear on the other side of the Holy City from his apartment. Eugen had enjoyed the walk in the wan spring sun. Berlin would still be freezing this time of year, which put the cool gusty breeze in its proper perspective. The walk gave him time to calm himself.

The conquistador helmet perched uneasily on the front corner of the desk lent an air of ridicule to the scene, but with his sleeves rolled up and a desk full of paperwork, Alphonso Muzzi clearly suffered the same burden of administrative paperwork as any other executive.

He had expected something different, perhaps a marble staircase lit with flaming sconces, and was almost a little disappointed by the roomy, modern elevator which nevertheless had a couple of burnt-out bulbs concealed behind the valence encircling the top.

"My apologies, I shall have to call maintenance." Father Firenze pushed the button for the bottom of a three-level basement, taking what seemed like an inordinate amount of time to get there.

Eugen's heart sped up a little in anticipation. There was just the whiff of fear there as well, he conceded. Showing him his place of work implied much confidence in the friendship on the part of Father Firenze. Eugen had never hunted, unlike many of his class. But this must be what it felt like to stalk the big game.

Finally the door slid back on its bearings and he saw a high-ceilinged room with rows of hooded electric lights hanging on chains, revealing a sight that might be described but could not adequately be pictured in the imagination, row upon row of open, metal warehouse shelves stuffed with boxes in every possible size.

"Welcome to the jungle." Father Firenze extended an arm and politely ushered his guest into this particular section of the Vatican Archives.

The open area in front of the elevator wasn't very large, perhaps thirty metres right and left and about ten along the front. There were stacks of boxes even here. Narrow corridors led off into distant vanishing points, lost in the blue haze up near the ceiling. The smell had to be experienced to be believed, and while he was sure it wasn't a sterile environment, the books and papers would be kept relatively stable in terms of heat, humidity, and other pestilence such as insects, mice...

"What about mice?" Eugen blurted it out unthinkingly.

As a diplomat it was breaking all of the rules, but Ricardo just smiled engagingly.

"We make use of certain, ah, well-known sacred animals, namely and to wit, the cat."

Eugen gaped.

"What?" Smiling and shaking his head at the mockery of it, he let out a great guffaw of relief.

"We're surprisingly pragmatic around here." Ricardo smiled again. "When things get really bad, we put out a poison for them, although I have to admit it goes a little against the grain. But the cats act as a deterrent, I guess that's one way of putting it."

"Hmn." Eugen nodded in comprehension. "Yes, a home with a cat seldom has any mice. Old proverb."

"There is much wisdom there. Please, come in and meet my colleagues, if one of them should turn up. They're a scruffy-looking bunch for the most part, as the public has no access here, and many a man who turned out to be unsuitable for other duties elsewhere has found himself quite a happy little home down here in the, ah, catacombs." Ricardo grinned hugely.

Then he became more serious as Eugen stood slightly open-mouthed in sheer awe at the bibliographic challenges that must present themselves in a place like this. Too many things had been dumped here thoughtlessly, with no thought to future reference or posterity.

"A librarian's worst nightmare."

Ricardo's eyes lit up.

"Exactly." He had a thought. "Or a curator."

Eugen shook his head at the scale of it. And this was just one room! According to other sources, cellars and sub-cellars all over the Vatican City were jammed with documents going back almost as long as the Church itself, many of them priceless artifacts, but the vast bulk of it was relatively unimportant and of interest to only the most dedicated of scholars and historians. It was a mess, really.

"Honestly, we could use all kinds of help in digging through this stuff. Much of it really is garbage—minutes of committee meetings on routine household matters, ah, from eleven eighty-six, just for example." He led Eugen down a long passage between shelving nine or ten feet tall, on top of which were more boxes, some of them leaning dangerously and giving the impression that to be caught in there during an earthquake could be fatal. "Your Latin's good. We might put you to work."

Eugen chuckled.

Some of the boxes were wooden, with lids nailed on, and others were metal, with hinged lids and snap-locks, those ones had yellowing paper cards inserted into holders on the end. Mostly they were unreadable, and with a few visibly missing, he wondered how anyone could ever find anything at all in there. The paste-board boxes were in the worst shape, crushed down by the weight of numbers.

Ricardo answered his unspoken question.

"You know, in our central accounts office, they actually do have a filing system. Once every few years, they box it all up, and we store all that in a more organized space under another wing of the building. But you clearly understand the challenge, now."

"Yes!" Eugen shook his head decisively. "And this is just the tip of the iceberg, isn't it?"

Bureaucracies spawned paperwork. This went back more than a thousand years...

Ricardo gestured for him to follow, and he and Eugen came after some walking to another, smaller open space where the overhead light was brighter, not being constrained by tall shelving, There was a bit of carpet on the floor, a few desks, more doors on the back wall, and another lateral passage along the rear of the vast space corresponding to the one along the front.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" On Eugen's nod, the priest picked up a kettle sitting with cups and saucers and a few small containers on a utilitarian bench between two doors, and went off down the hall to the left.

Eugen sat down at a chair in front of one desk and waited for his friend to return. When he had mentioned a quick rummage through the Vatican's basement, he had distinctly been joking.

Only now did he understand just how funny, even ludicrous that statement was. After a cup of tea, Ricardo had promised to show him around a few other, more interesting chambers.

His friend returned with a bright look.

"You know, we have boxes and boxes of unverified relics, denounced memorabilia, and even some prohibited manuscripts, artifacts and objects. There's even the occasional dried-up body parts, unfortunately unlabeled or unidentified. There are all kinds of stories about what people have found down here."

Ricardo put the kettle on a single gas ring and lit it with a noisy wooden match struck off the end of the bench.

Ricardo's job basically entailed going methodically down the rows, taking out everything, identifying it, assessing it for historical or artistic value, even intrinsic value, for valuable objects had been discovered from time to time. He had done several rows of this chamber in the years he had been here...unbelievable. They put a few bins out to the garbage from time to time, or burned it in the Vatican incinerator.

He had no idea of what they might discover. Quite frankly, by what he had seen here, it could be anything. Literally anything.

"If you have the Holy lance down here, I know someone who will pay a million Reichsmarks for it." The audacity, the sheer impertinence of it took his breath away.

Himmler would love that. Ricardo grinned.

"That's very good." He gave Eugen a frank look. "We'll keep that in mind."

Chapter Eight

Lying in Seventh.

Dan was lying in seventh place, two hundred yards behind the next fastest competitor. He was just picking out his braking points and preparing to downshift for the big turn at the end of the back straight, when a puff of white dust or vapour flew up and obstructed his view ahead.

Cursing, he had no choice but to slow down. Considering who was up front, this was pretty much it. They were too close to the end to have a reasonable chance of catching them.

When he hit the wall of white, there was nothing but the smell of dust, and then he saw black tendrils and the sudden flash of orange. The acrid smell of burning rubber and raw gasoline told its own story. He came upon it. The back end of a small red car was barely visible, sticking up on an oblique angle from the depths of a weedy ditch, the twirling skid marks showing its path and where the brakes had locked up.

The form hunched over the wheel sent a shock of comprehension through him and he popped it out of gear, checking his mirrors, knowing that someone would be coming up fast. Standing on the pedal, the tires shrieked in protest as he brought her down, and stuffed it as far as he could into the bushes on the inner radius of the turn where it would be safest. Dan leapt out of the car, and reaching in pushed the kill button. The relative quiet sang with the noise of cars a hundred yards away, but he thought they were still a ways back. The engine notes sounded like they were slowing down in good time as he sprinted through the pall, with the dust thinning and settling but the black smoke increasing ominously. He didn't have much time.

It was Philipe Sossi. The inert form was covered in blood, and Dan saw the broken fence boards. He'd gone right through it. The man's hands scrabbled in futility on his knees, clutching and twitching.

Retching continuously, Dan grabbed him under the shoulders as the crackling of a petrol fire became louder. The heat, coming from the flames mostly on the far side and around the back, was intense and he quickly looked for a safety belt, and then yanked the fellow out. What he saw was sheer horror, but he still had to get the man out of there.

Loud motors were right on him, and one or two cars picked their way around the mess of car parts, shredded vegetation and bits of fresh sod. A car pulled in ahead of the wreck, while a stout figure in a white driving suit brushed up against his shoulder.

Dan shifted grip as Paul Wilson, the English driver, took the right shoulder and they pulled Philipe well back from the wreck, now burning fiercely with pops and crackles of tortured metal. In the background were shouts from spectators, running up alongside the road, and again came the roar of engines as the rest of the field thundered up, slowed abruptly, and then carefully wove their way through the smoke.

As each one passed, inscrutable eyes behind goggles took a quick look in sympathy.

They put Philipe, hands still twitching, feet twitching on the end of his legs, on the raised bank of turf by the roadside, as the white clouds strolled past in the peaceful blue sky. Wilson beat out the small flames on Sossi's lower legs as Dan looked around to see what other cars might be coming up on them.

He yelled in French at a couple of younger men to run up the track and flag down anything coming this way. French wasn't his best language. They stared at the scene, and in a state of shock it took a moment for them to get it, and then they turned and sprinted back up into the sun and life and safety.

Philipe made quacking noises as the first of the spectators skidded to a halt ten feet away, looking on with eyes like saucers.

Wilson pulled Dan away.

"Tell these people to stay back." He gave Dan a shove, as he stared mesmerized at the young man, lying there with the top two inches of his skull and helmet sheered off.

He turned and vomited into the ditch.

"Tell then to stay back!"

Dan nodded, but hurled his guts out some more, and then, getting a grip on himself, he took over crowd control as Wilson sort of collapsed into himself, his posture slumped and forlorn as he stared into space, and the car burned, and the people chattered and gabbled, and just for one brief moment of time Dan Thornton wondered if it all was really worth it.

Wilson turned knelt beside Philipe, clutching his hand, as tears washed down his face unheeded.

"It's okay, Philipe. Everything is going to be all right." The legs and feet thrashed around, then subsided. "It's going to be all right."

Philipe still made noises, but quieter now. The crowd went very quiet. Birds chirped in the trees directly overhead as an awful silence settled over the track when the last engine was switched off. In the distance, came the sound of one lonely siren.

More people were arriving with every passing moment. The crowd grew and grew. Small boys went to find the beginning and re-trace the skid marks. People were all over the place. A small group stood by the car, gaping at the damage as it burned merrily, pointing at the fence, the splash of dirt on the road surface, and gesticulating and jabbering wildly amongst themselves. Two gendarmes came on bicycles.

"Controle de cette foule. Rapidement! Fais le!" He barked orders at them and they straightened up instantly.

"Oui, Monsieur." The first one spoke cheerfully enough, risking a quick glance at the still smoldering vehicle.

The pair turned reluctantly and began speaking sharply to anyone who would listen, mostly small boys and young men with open mouths and excited looks on their faces, although there were plenty of women and girls in their brightly coloured Sunday best as well.

A black car came the wrong way down the track from the pit and starting area and lurched to a halt thirty yards from the smoke. A man got out and opened up the trunk. He bent in and grabbed something.

The man, now holding a black bag, rushed on over, eyes screwed up against the smoke and then he just stopped on seeing the body.

Dan had the worst feeling in the world, a kind of sick knot in his guts right about then.

Philipe was a nice young fellow whom Dan had seen a little earlier that day about the paddock, enjoying life with a pretty young wife and a little boy about four years old. It really didn't take a doctor to see that he was dead.

Or as good as.

He watched as the doctor filled a large hypodermic with clear fluid from a small glass bottle.

He knew what that was. It was more merciful in the end, and no one would question it.

He prayed that someone at the paddock would figure out who was missing and grab her and not let her see this. She, and especially the kid, shouldn't be allowed to see this.

More cars arrived, and more people streamed along the side of the road. Dan was sick to his stomach. Mutt jumped out the side door of one and came pelting up to Dan, who bent down on one knee and scratched him behind the ears, tempted to hang on tight and bury his face in the old dog's neck.

Barrett came rushing up. Dan rose, the dog calm at his side, tongue hanging out at the spectacle around them.

"Where's the car?" He looked wildly around, at the smoking wreck and the small cluster around the dying Philipe Sossi.

Dan pointed at the opposite side of the road. Barrett sagged in relief.

"Is there any damage?"

Dan shook his head.

"I stopped to pull him out."

Fred turned to Johnny and Stan, their race mechanics.

"All right, let's get her out of there."

Dan stared in contempt as a fellow, hovering by the wreck with another group, bent down into the ditch, pulled out something with the tips of his fingers, and then realizing it was the top of Philipe's head when it plopped out of the shallow leather bowl that had once been part of a driving helmet, flung it aside in shock.

Dan shook his head and grimaced in disgust. He never could understand the fascination.

If you had seen one wreck, you had seen them all.

***

Their plan was simple. Three lorries were enough for the men and equipment, and three small cars of different description would be dispersed at strategic points for the actual removal of the target. This redundancy was to confuse and divide any pursuit. The trucks would remove the remaining men and any casualties including the dead. If everything went well they would be in and out in fifteen minutes, twenty at the most. After that, the odds of success were dismal. If something went wrong the place would be a hornet's nest of security forces, including the Swiss Guard, the Vatican Police, the Italian police, the Italian Army, and other agencies.

It was planned down to the finest detail. He had no doubt they could pull it off. All they needed was the time, a date and the approval. They needed to confirm the Papal presence in the actual apartment, but by their information he did have an established routine. All plans had holes and weak points, but with consultation, these could often be worked out. Chewing on his lip as he read, he tilted his head back and forth as he went through it all, point by point.

"You are a man after my own heart." He looked at the Hauptman. "Water trucks. Six wheel drive, greasy coveralls. The weapons are adequate. It's not what you're familiar with, of course."

Hauptman Schneider nodded.

"The trucks to go by train to Rome, all painted in company colours." The Hauptman went on. "The supplies, equipment and weapons will be inside the water tanks. The men , three squads, Italian weapons and uniforms, traveling inside the water tanks. Not particularly original, but it may suffice."

He pored over the plan.

"Climb out, get in, grab Pius, and drive away. Interesting."

He read some more.

"I like this part." The fellow had it all laid out.

If the first truck was challenged or denied entry, it would simply crash the gate. Much of Vatican City was open to vehicular movements and foot and bicycle traffic as well. There had to be deliveries of fruits and vegetables, meat, coal, oil for stoves, and anything else required by the population of the enclave. The denizens of that strange environment must come and go.

"If the first one makes it through, and then the second one is challenged, then it simply crashes the gate, et cetera." He looked up. "I like it. Simple and direct."

The logic was that if any of the vehicles drew suspicion, the insertion was already compromised, and all bets were off on a quick and silent grab. That still left the wet and noisy option. They had enough explosives to blow their way out if cornered...an interesting plan. There were enough explosives to blow a truck-sized hole in the perimeter wall.

"Yes." The other cleared his throat. "Assuming we are not challenged, we might get out the same way, but we will have the cars stashed at various points, all around the enclave's perimeter. We'll stick him in the boot and try to bluff our way out of Rome. We can lower the package on a rope from the balcony if we must. But we must have alternate escape routes. As many as possible."

Reading the documents closely, which included floor plans of the major buildings and a street map of the Papal enclave, they had several alternate routes, including hoofing it on foot to the nearest wall. Climbing that, they were back in Italy proper again, with agents-in-place waiting with yet more vehicles in case they were needed for emergency escape.

"This part seems a bit complex."

"We'd never be able to walk out of an aroused city with a hostage and sufficient arms. Small groups are better, but the odds are that someone gets caught. And where would we go? We must have transport, no matter what happens, whether it goes wrong or right."

The odds of a successful, stealthy penetration were very slim. It might be done, but probably not. Hopefully the emergency options would not be needed. The plan called for them to drive to a point north of Ostia and rendezvous with a U-Boat. Even this had options. They could also separate and use cover identities, rent hotel rooms, or even sleep outdoors, and wait to be contacted at an agreed location, individually. The plan seemed relatively complete.

They would have to call in some big favours to pull this off.

"From this perspective, the plan has my approval. You've done very good work. I will kick this back upstairs and see what they say." He read through the last few pages. "This big radio. Do you really need it?"

"We must let you know that we are in place and about to proceed. If possible, we will inform you that we have the package, and are proceeding according to plan to the rendezvous. We must make contact with the submarine." The Hauptman seemed firm on that point.

His superior considered that.

"If we have to walk out, any sort of identifiable equipment is a liability."

"All right. I concede the point—and making use of the native phone system is problematical. It's problematical here too." He had one more question. "And how do you intend to get in?"

"Tourism. Civilian identities. Only two, Drescher and I."

That was easy enough to arrange. They would be available to help the men at the railway yard, keep watch and be ready to head off any curious railway police. For this part of the plan a couple of sets of coveralls and some bolt-cutters would suffice.

He sat in silence, gazing off into space over the Hauptman's head while he thought it all through. Ten men crammed into each water tank, with sufficient holes drilled in the floor to avoid suffocation. The odds of being discovered by customs inspection were low. It was better than thirty-two single males going in as tourists, all within a short period of time and at a limited number of border crossings.

Then his eyes refocused. Putting all the papers into his briefcase, he rose. The Hauptman stood up and in an unusual gesture, his superior proffered a hand across the desk.

"Congratulations. You are about to make history." Snapping the lid shut, he nodded in dismissal.

The Hauptman stepped back and gave a professional Nazi salute, mouth set in determination, and with a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He put his hat back on, turned, and exited the room.

His superior sat down again and thought for a moment about what he was going to say. Then he got up and grabbed his own hat off the rack. Picking up the briefcase, he headed for the door.

He had an important appointment, and it was best not to keep them waiting.

***

Colleen Bryant and Henry Cutliffe paid a small fortune for a taxi to drive them into Nice. The travel arrangements were all made by phone ahead of time, and the concierge assured them it was a good little airline.

Colleen was a bit disturbed to see they were going by flying boat, and due to the rather exclusive nature of air travel, was shocked at the cost of it. Then they had to get from the seaport, on the west coast of Italy where the plane landed, into Rome itself, although this time the fare seemed much more reasonable. It was only about half the plane fare.

Leaving the hotel in Monte Carlo early in the morning, they were in Rome eight hours later, exhausted and worn from the noisy engines and claustrophobic passenger cabin of the aircraft. She was delighted to see the bathroom between their adjoining rooms. The one on the plane was smaller than the typical broom closet.

Being on the coast, Monaco was generally warm, with a cooling breeze at night, but Rome was sweltering today. For reasons of anonymity, they had chosen one of the more obscure tourist hotels, of which the city had hundreds. They would blend in with people visiting from a hundred countries. Neither one of them really stood out in a crowd in their slightly-bourgeois casual clothes, carefully chosen for a carefree if slightly slovenly look, more especially on the part of Henry.

After a change of clothes and a refreshing shower, they met by prearrangement in the hotel bar, a dark and soothing oasis of blue tobacco smoke and a cheerful beery smell heavily laden with the small of something fried in the back room. It had a yeasty aroma, with the suggestion of seafood, perhaps clams or scallops in a light batter. Her stomach rumbled, but they were going elsewhere. This was to draw any followers out into the open so they could be spotted and hopefully identified at least as to country of origin, although actual agency or affiliation was often doubtful

It had never occurred to her, but even the Italians must eat something fried once in a while.

They had a quick Martini and then went out into the darkening street to catch a cab. There were two sitting right there, but with a quick look at each other, they decided to walk.

A couple of blocks further along, they saw a taxi stand in front of a larger, better known hotel, and Henry went up and stuck his head in as the fellow inside read the paper.

"Si! Si!" He hastily folded it up, and shoved it under the passenger side front seat.

He came around to open up the back door on the opposite side for them.

Colleen sat on the driver's side, slightly toward the middle, where she would be able to watch the mirrors for any sign of a tail.

Henry gave the name of the restaurant, chosen from a telephone directory and a handy map of Rome bought in the lobby. It wasn't too far, and it wasn't too near, and a quick phone conversation was enough to determine the basic menu offerings and make a reservation.

Henry sat right at her side, engaging the driver in conversation, speaking Italian with a distinct French accent, which might be an unnecessary refinement, but it was these little things that kept agents alive in the field. An inexperienced tracker might go around asking about two Americans, and of course this could not be them, for they were French.

They spoke of inconsequential things, the weather, the sights, and the city, with the driver focusing on the traffic and seemingly uninterested in them.

Colleen had four good languages plus a smidgeon of Latin and Greek, which was not likely to be of much benefit in the work, but one never knew. She had no idea how many languages Henry spoke. She'd heard him converse in a dozen languages, and he never ceased to surprise her when in a pinch he whipped out another one. He was an extraordinary man, and surprisingly well-balanced in spite of the odd nature and danger of their work.

Finally they were there. The maitre' d brought them to an intimate table near a front window, where they could look out over a small piazza and the evening foot traffic. This was an all-ages affair, with obviously long-married couples, young lovers, and single men and women in small groups, some strolling along and others hanging about in earnest conversation.

Henry ordered wine.

"Hopefully we're having something hearty tonight."

She nodded.

"I'm famished." She looked at the menu. "Something with a lot of meat and cheese, I'm thinking."

"Red meat?" Henry had ordered a demi-sec Lambrusco frizzante, a frothy, sparkling red wine. "I've ordered a peasant vino with some real gusto."

"Sure." She smiled.

It felt like the first time that day, although it hadn't been quite that bad. They studied the menu, chatting in low tones.

"So what are your thoughts?" She'd been fairly quiet all day, and that usually presaged something.

She folded the menu.

"I was wondering, what if papa knew?"

"What do you mean?" The code was obvious, but there were different interpretations, different aspects of the question. "What if papa knew he was having company?"

"I mean, he could make other arrangements." She gave him a direct look, with an ironic downturn to the corners of her mouth, accentuating the dimples there and giving the impression of gentle distaste.

"And then just wash our hands of it?" It was certainly one option. "Just fade into the background? Interesting, but what if they, ah, papa, doesn't take it seriously? Or if it doesn't happen right away."

She nodded as the waiter approached, pen and pad at the ready.

If the warning came too soon, laxity and complacency might set in. There was always the possibility that their warning would simply be ignored, no matter how credible the information or their own credentials. Although they had considerable authority, going forward with this entailed the one cardinal sin of secret agents, properly identifying themselves as employees of a federal intelligence agency.

"There's no other way for them to buy it." One of the theories they had discussed over the years was about meeting the needs of the adversary.

While the Vatican was not an enemy, convincing them would take substance. She shook her head slightly, and then ordered the braciola, tender beef stuffed with Parmesan and hard boiled eggs. Henry ordered the bistecca alla Fiorentina with rice. The waiter took the menus and headed for the kitchen.

They were a bit early to dine by Roman standards, although there were a half dozen other couples, widely spaced as the maitre' d had the tables and the night was still young. A slender young woman in a yellow chiffon party dress came in and sat at the piano, warming up with a few rills and riffs.

"It's something to think about." Henry was willing to concede that much, taking a sip of wine and swishing it about in his mouth before swallowing.

He always thought better on a full stomach.

Chapter Nine

Ullrich

The Colonel stood looking over the long table and the eager faces.

"I would very much like to express my appreciation to you men. You have been selected for skills, languages, past experience, and sheer professionalism. But more than anything, because you were foolish enough to fill out a questionnaire, in which you indicated a willingness to volunteer for certain dangerous assignments. Take a look around you. These are the men you will be working with. If anyone has any reason why they would like to rethink their status, you may go now if you wish."

No one budged. Some were even smiling at his little jest. He didn't have time to give the men such a choice but the offer had been made.

"All right. We are going to proceed, in pairs, and in civilian clothes, with civilian identities, which you must learn as a quickly as possible. Gentlemen, we are going to Rome to perform a brilliant service to the Fatherland."

A quick buzz of hushed whispers and hissed remarks went through them.

"Don't get the wrong idea. This is not a vacation, nor is it a cake-walk. This may well be the most dangerous assignment you men will ever receive. Are you still with me?" He watched the faces carefully, but they were all young, and foolish, and very, very brave.

Of that he had no doubt.

"Sergeant?"

The sergeant stepped off to one side of the long table against the back wall, a monstrosity of ten feet wide and twenty long, so far covered by a set of thin Army-issue khaki bed sheets, sewn together to make it large enough. The sergeant carefully lifted it off, as the model underneath was delicate and the points and crosses on top of the churches and buildings might snag and break. All around the room were map panels suitably draped in black cotton. The men were very quiet. They stared. There was a collective gasp of understanding.

"That's right, gentlemen. We're going to visit the Vatican."

He nodded and indicated they could rise and take a look. He followed them over and stood at the end of the table. A trooper and the sergeant pulled the covers off the maps.

Picking up a pointer, he waited a moment longer. They were short of time, as the first of them would depart by train at dawn for their rendezvous in a Roman safe-house.

"Pay attention, we have a lot to go over. Your individual map has your train route and connections marked. This map—" He pointed at one on the wall. "Shows our first rendezvous. Again, take a close look at the men around you."

They looked at each other, and then they looked at him, and then the maps again.

He had their full attention. They were taking a chance revealing so much and then allowing the men to travel on their own, but it was a necessary risk. They must not be too easily identified as to origin. For that reason, he was holding back most of the mission details until they were all on the scene, whereupon they would be advised, for the safety of all, to watch each other like a hawk and to do their jobs well.

Otherwise there was a very good chance none of them, he and the sergeant included, would ever see their homes again.

***

When there was a bond of trust between men, it was a beautiful thing to see. It was with some sense of relief to be assembled in the large salon of his hotel room. Their trip, by various and circuitous routes, had been long and tiring for all of them. Since they had trickled into town over the last day and a half, they had to get settled in and properly briefed with no delay. They were all professionals, and soldiers shake down pretty quickly.

To Rolf, it was a simple mission. It was the political ramifications that were complex, but essentially that wasn't their concern.

There had been some unspoken question as to whether they would all turn up on time and in good array, after traveling individually for days to get here. Perhaps simple curiousity had something to do with it, notwithstanding their oaths of service, both to the Wehrmacht and to der Fuhrer. But there was the bond that existed between men and officers. Some officers never learned properly what that was, but these men certainly knew it. He could see it in their eyes. What was fascinating was how little time it actually took. The sergeant looked positively feral, seated informally in a deep chair by an open window, white curtains only half pulled back and with sunshine and a mischievous breeze coming and going. The others were on couches, love-seats, high-backed chairs from the dining room, sipping at beers or schnapps and waiting patiently.

What was really humbling, of course, was that they trusted him, and after such short acquaintance. He supposed it was their discipline, and training, and more than anything, a kind of bad habit.

The room was hot, the windows provided relief, and the sergeant kept an eye on the comings and goings at an adjacent street corner, five stories below and a block and a half a away. There was some anonymous statue down there, and a fountain. Because of the layout of the building and surrounding blocks, this was the most likely avenue of approach to the hotel.

So far, nothing out of the routine had happened. It was a quiet little place ten kilometres from the target.

"Well, we're all here."

"Thank you, Gunther." Ullrich took a breath and then set right in, standing at the head of the table.

All those pairs of eyes were locked on him.

"From now on, it is a first-name basis only. We will be speaking exclusively in Italian, or as a fall-back, English. My name is Rolf. Please avoid speaking German under any circumstances including capture."

There was a silence.

"My name is Karl." Schoenfeld nodded pleasantly from the far end.

Rolf pointed at the first man on his left.

"Erich."

The next one spoke up.

"Willhelm—Willi."

"Gerhard."

"Gunther."

"Bernd."

"Ludwig."

"Thank you, gentlemen. You may call me Rolf."

He glanced at Schoenfeld. The sergeant stood up as Rolf sank into his seat.

"This operation relies on split-second timing for us to achieve our objective and to successfully escape. Our job is to prevent the enemy from kidnapping Pope Pius the Eleventh. We will ambush the enemy, consisting of American and British secret agents. They have a plan to kidnap the Pope. It must be prevented."

They gasped and muttered, exchanging quick glances.

"We have a plan to get in. We have a plan to get out. We will likely receive one phone call. We must be ready to leave with two minutes notice, and yet we may be waiting for weeks. This is a tough assignment, gentlemen. Trust me when I say that, and the stakes have never been higher."

He opened up an envelope with a number of copies of a street map of Rome, or rather one section of it, enlarged to show the area of interest, including the Papal enclave.

There were little red numbers written on them in ink, and lines in blue and red with arrow tips pointing in the direction of intended travel. The Papal Apartments were clearly marked in a red circle. He handed them out around the table.

"All of this must be memorized and destroyed before departure. This is why our present security is so essential. We will be confined to this hotel until we get the call and perform our mission, are stood down and successfully get out of Italy, or until we are arrested and shot."

There was a deadly still air in the room as they considered this, with not a man able to tear his eyes off of Karl.

"And how do we get in?" The first question, a good sign, came from Erich.

"Ah. I was hoping someone would ask that question." Karl's eyes moved to Rolf. "You are going to love this part."

Rolf got up and went into the other room. He dragged a big cardboard box secured with stout twine through the archway and it scraped to a halt in the middle of the floor. A couple of them got out of their chairs.

Another man, Gunther, got up and followed him back into the bedroom, personal initiative being another good sign. He helped Rolf drag out a dozen black equipment bags, such as skiers or other sportsmen used to lug their paraphernalia around in. There were a couple of other boxes in there, but they left them for the moment on Rolf's headshake. Gunther on his instructions went back in and came out with an armful of field hockey sticks, which brought a few chuckles of recognition.

Finding a switchblade knife in his right back pocket, Rolf cut the cord, and stepping back, nodded at Gunther as the others looked on in interest.

Gunther lifted the flaps of the box and reached in, unsure of what he might find at first. He didn't get it until he held up one of the garments by the back of the collar and it unfolded into a black priest's cassock.

"Well, well, well." Gunther grinned and held the ankle-length, plain black cassock up in front of him like a girl in a dress-shop mirror. "What in the Hell do we have here?"

"There are shoes, socks, trousers, hats, underclothes, and other things. Unpack them, gentlemen, while Willi and I have a dig for the tools of our unholy trade."

Another young trooper helped him with that box. The chuckles and appreciative whistle he got from someone was another good sign. So far, no one showed any signs of baulking at what was one hell of a revelation. The risk of sending them on their own—with no knowledge of what was to come, an unusual state of affairs in mission planning, had paid off.

He hoped this was a trend and that things would stay that way.

"All right, sir, presumably these are all according to size." Rolf nodded as Gunther eyed the equipment bags.

"Call me Rolf." Picking one up, he placed it on the coffee table in front of the largest couch. "To call me sir is to give information away to the enemy."

"Of course." Gunther nodded.

Rolf started on his own equipment bag.

Unzipping it, he began to pull out various objects, each of which seemed to be in its own flat, wide box, or bagged in heavy cloth or even wrapped in field grey Wehrmacht towels to keep them from rattling as well as damage.

Brought in by one and twos as diplomatic baggage, exempt from customs, they were quite heavy. Someone on that end of the operation had done good work.

"Who's got long legs?" Gunther sought out Gerhard, who accepted the garments with a rueful look.

"My mother would be so proud to see this!" Then he turned to look for the bathroom, the first of the men to try on the costume. "She wanted me to go into the seminary."

"Wait!" Gunther piled a hat and a couple of other accessories on top of the pile in Gerhard's arms.

"Oh, wow." Gerhard looked at Rolf. "What the heck is that?"

He meant the hat.

"It's called a biretta. Any priest can wear one, and the colours indicate rank."

Gerhard looked at the black thing and gave a sardonic grin. He looked up at Rolf.

"I think I would be a private in any man's army." With that, accompanied by hoots of derision, and went off to try it on.

"Shouldn't we have beads?" Ludwig was the quiet one.

"You mean like a rosary? Take a look. If it's part of the costume, it's in there someplace."

"I want one of them Holy Water dispensers." Rolf didn't catch who said it, but went back to work with a grin.

Rolf took his knife and began cutting the glued seams of the packages in his bag. As the others dispersed into other rooms to see if their disguises fit, he began to assemble the first of the Karabiner-98s.

For sniper work, examples that had been identified as exceptionally accurate during factory testing were provided. It didn't take an experienced man but a minute to assemble the thing, but he took a little more time as Schoenfeld sorted through the clothing box.

"This must be yours. I'll put it on your bed."

"Thank you." Rolf fitted the ZF-39 telescopic sight and carefully examined the alignment.

It had to be right as they wouldn't be getting a chance to try them out ahead of time. He took it off again and put it back into its distinctive box for safe-keeping.

Gunther stepped into the room from the far passageway as voices came from down there.

"Well?" He grinned, lifted his arms, and rotated the full three hundred sixty degrees.

"I love the hat." Rolf nodded in approval.

The ammo weighed a ton, and there were small individual crates with rifle-propelled grenades. Karl was sweating as he dragged them in.

"The clothes make the man. Now, come and help us with these packages." Schoenfeld looked at Rolf inquiringly. "Wait."

"Actually, it's the other way around." Gunther was more serious now.

Standing, Karl fiddled with the wool hangings around his neck.

"Like this, boy." He stood back and nodded in satisfaction.

Gunther's cheeks reddened at all the attention. Rolf stood up and put the gun down on the couch, safe enough as it was unloaded. He waited a couple of minutes for the rest to change as Gunther settled in with an equipment bag and began to unpack the goodies. Finally they were all back and he was the only one not changed.

"Okay, gentlemen. We're going to assemble everything. Check every single thing. Look after your personal bag. It's yours exclusively, so if you want an extra box of cartridges, or a couple of chocolate bars in there, that's fine. Then we're going to disassemble it all again, change back to civilian clothes, and then we'll discuss the plan."

"Find some water bottles." The ever-practical sergeant was the total professional. "Make sure your have two or three, full of fresh water in there. You won't believe just how thirsty a man can get out there."

Erich was pulling out boxes of cartridges, binoculars, a bayonet, a silenced pistol, a box clearly labeled MP-40, and still more equipment. He chewed his lip thoughtfully, but didn't say a word.

The Schmeisser machine-pistols were in smaller boxes than the rifles, but each man had two weapons. They were competent enough with either type. While the individual load was heavy, they were riding all the way to the target.

Rolf picked up the outfit assigned to him, based on his size and weight and oddly enough, as he contemplated the charcoal-grey hat, his rank, and headed for the now-empty bedroom to make sure his own disguise fit properly. Schoenfeld's biretta was grey as well.

"Forgive me Father, for I am about to sin."

Rolf didn't quite catch who said that as quiet chuckles rebounded around the salon and birds chirped, voices called, and horns sounded through the sunlit open windows.

He was back in five minutes. It was the most surreal gathering he'd ever witnessed. The room was full of priests and guns, with telescopic sights, boxes of bullets and empty clips on the table still shiny from the maker's grease.

"All right, gentlemen, let's have a look at our maps." It took a moment or two for them to get them all out.

"The entrances to Vatican City are, the Arch of the Bells, to the left of the entrance to the Vatican Basilica, under the bells, then the Bronze Door, which is the official entrance to the Apostolic Palace, and is situated at the end of the right hand Bernini colonnade; Saint Ann, the usual entrance to the Vatican, named for the parish church, on Via di Porta Angelica, one hundred metres to the right of St. Peter's Square; the Petrine or Sant' Uffizio entrance, by which one enters the Paul VI Hall; the Perugino entrance, to the south of the Vatican; and the entrance to the Vatican Museums, on the north side." He paused and they looking up at him one by one. "These are our most convenient escape routes so I suggest you memorize them."

"Which one are we using to go in?" Even Karl didn't know.

"I really haven't decided yet." He thought for a moment. "But if I was them, I'd be tempted to try and bluff my way in through the Arch of the Bells. The Barracks of the Swiss Guard are right there. If they are challenged, they might storm the barracks with one squad while the other squads race to the target."

It made sense for them to go in through the same gate for similar reasons. If anything was to go wrong, this was where the biggest trouble might be expected, right at the guardhouse. Conversely, once they were in, no one would question their right to be there. Their cover story was unusual, but fairly brilliant taking human psychology into account.

His problem was to get there firstest with the mostest, as the old saying went.

Chapter Ten

The Mille Miglia.

The Mille Miglia was held on the first weekend of April, and there were already over a hundred entries, including all the major factory teams. This number was sure to go higher. What set the race apart was the fact that anyone could enter for a minimal fee. What that meant, was that there were people in the race who shouldn't be there at all, in cars that were clearly unsuitable. Some would be not so much slow and unsafe as too stupid to look in the mirror, but this was the way it was done and the spectacle alone ensured that the race was well-publicized. The prize money was impressive.

There was always going to be a certain element in the crowd who showed up for the crashes, and that was okay too.

Someone might very well die out there this weekend, under the hot sun or the dirty grey clouds, which was what he had today. He just wanted to make sure it wasn't him. The key to success in this game was to live to race another day. You tried to keep luck out of it, in the final analysis.

If you couldn't win, you wanted to make sure that losing didn't cost too much. He growled at this thought as he drove, but then he was known to talk to himself, or yell at other drivers, as if anyone would ever hear it, and cuss and swear as necessary. Today, his lips were clamped shut.

The team had arrived in Italy well prepared. Not like last time. They planned on three days of testing, practice and reconnaissance runs prior to the race. But it didn't look like that was going to happen. The Mille Miglia, a thousand mile race centered on Rome and looping around northern Italy, was imminent. The press was full of it, the cafes were full of talk of it, there were radio shows about it, and there were even newsreel films in the theatres. He'd seen a poster splashed up for it just this morning on his way to a little place around the corner for breakfast.

Dan's nerves were ground raw by the thumping of a front tire with separated belts and the knocking of what was either a burnt bearing or a piston, or maybe just a bent pushrod. The hell of it was he was a hundred miles away from their base and he had to nurse it home. Ranging from twenty to forty miles per hour, the vibration through the seat unmistakable and with the sour note of the motor in his ears, it was all he could do to hold his temper. Ranting and raving had never done anyone any good.

It was a simple practice run, and precious enough. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. He wasn't entirely sure the car would hold together, but walking back or waiting for Barrett and the boys to cruise around looking for him was out of the question.

Another vehicle loomed up close. Every private car in the world seemed to be on the roads this week, but of course they had to lay in the groceries and a few bottles of vino for race weekend. The driver kept hard to the right, but the driver was also clearly intimidated by the sight of oncoming traffic half a kilometre up the road and the low racer in his mirrors. Dan passed him anyway.

Bad as it was, the last five or ten miles was the worst, as he needed to relieve his bladder. There were a lot of people around the course and the area became more built-up as he got closer.

When he finally got to their rented garage, he was just in time to see Fred throw a wrench in a disgusted fashion back into the top on his big red box and reach for a rag to begin cleanup.

The hood was up on Fred's light flatbed truck and it looked like the other boys weren't around.

Already in a fine mood to begin with, Fred scowled when he saw Dan turning in, with steam and smoke pouring out the back, and stopping in front of the open doorway. As if to underline the point, Fred checked his watch, realizing that Dan had been long overdue. Because of an overheating motor on the truck, he'd gotten lost in time someplace.

"Shit."

Dan climbed out, grateful for the quiet after the grueling couple of hours nursing the thing home. His back was stiff and his shoulders were all tied up in knots. It wasn't so much the physical effort of driving it—there was nothing wrong with the steering or the brakes or the shifting. It was the tension, the sheer willing himself to take it further than a broken machine should be pushed. It was willing the machine to continue when it didn't want to any longer. The day put the old notion of man and machine to proper shame. It was a man against himself on a day like that. He'd pushed it as fast as it could safely go, but it took a nervous toll out of him.

Time was a precious commodity and they couldn't just go out and buy some more.

"What went?" Fred stood there looking at the thing, unwilling to open the hood yet as the machine ticked from the cool-down process as parts contracted and resumed the normal shape.

"I don't know for sure. That right front tire is shot." He pulled off his goggles and unstrapped his helmet.

As always, his neck was sore from the buffeting of the wind, and the hair where exposed felt a bit like steel wool, all stiff from dust and dirt. He pulled a clean handkerchief out and began to take some of the grit and oil off of his forehead and lower cheeks and neck. Great dark patches appeared on the handkerchief as he worked, completely unconscious of the outside world. And another thing, as impolite as it might be, but his nostrils needed a good cleaning. There was sticky dampness under his arms and in between his butt cheeks, and if the average motor racing aficionado knew what he was thinking some of the glamour, some of the blush, would definitely rub off the proverbial rose. This would not be good for the sport, he thought with a sardonic little snort of exhaustion.

Barrett nodded in appreciation. Dan was a good guy, and there was much here that was being left unsaid. But if they hoped to win...Fred started opening up the engine bay to have a look. He wanted to ask more questions, but Dan just shrugged him off.

"I have to pee, and I sure as hell hope you guys left me a cold Coke in there somewheres." He headed for the back room and the rather primitive amenities offered there.

"Yep. I made sure."

He chocked the wheels, set the handbrake, made sure she was in neutral, wiggling the stick in determined fashion so as to make sure, and then he fired it up to see what the trouble might be.

He had an engine mostly built already, and sometimes you were better off to just go with it. The knocking might not be terminal, but it was definitely serious.

"Shit." He shut it off again.

***

Karl and Gunther went out to buy papers and a dozen cartons of cigarettes as they had no idea of when the call would come. With their purchases in bright linen shopping bags, they blended right in to the surroundings and drew little attention from anyone, and this included other clerics, who at most gave them the once-over and a quick nod.

Karl supposed a group of people who were identically dressed would tend to look at the faces, but Gunther seemed cool enough as they walked down a narrow street with lines hung with wet laundry overhead and no windows at street level. The doors, separated by a few metres, were stout-looking timber constructions with small peepholes.

"There is much history here." Gunther hadn't been speaking much along the way, although his Italian sounded fine to Karl.

"Yes. It's just along here."

They came to an intersection with a street that was two or three times wider, and they turned right down it. Marked on their map, they were looking for a pale blue door big enough for vehicles.

"Huh. This must be it." Karl searched in his pockets and came up with a key ring.

"It's bigger than I expected."

"Hmn." To his immediate relief, the key fit a big brass padlock, and with a quick motion, he dropped it into his pocket.

He'd helped write the final plan, and yet there was nothing in there for a key which didn't fit.

"There should be some lights in here." Gunther found the switch and snapped them on. "Oh."

"Ah, yes, now you see it." Sergeant Schoenfeld closed the doors back up, with just a small gap to let a little more light in.

The space was barely large enough to hold a short bus, painted a bright white with a thin red stripe horizontally along it. The roof of the vehicle must have cleared the door coming in by two inches.

"Hmn, hmn, hmn." Karl opened up the door and they went inside.

About three seats back there was a wide, flat package. He tore it open as Gunther looked on.

"Nice." Gunther bent and looked out the windows to the open door, but there was little foot traffic and it was dark inside there in spite of the overheads.

They were looking at a selection of signs, all of them in pairs.

"They're magnetic." Karl held one up. "What do you think?"

"It sure beats stealing the intramural field hockey van out of a parking lot somewhere."

"Human psychology, Gunther. Human psychology." Karl shoved them under the seat and put the wrapping paper over them.

"All right. Let's see if the engine runs, otherwise we might have to steal one after all."

"And make sure there's a full tank of gas. I'll check the oil."

"Thank you." Karl set about finding the other little toys that had been left for them, including some large and powerful satchel charges in the last seat of the bus.

That was satisfactory. Outside, he could hear Gunther cussing as he tried to find how to unlatch the bonnet.

"I think there's a lever by the driver's seat."

Just then, there was a noise and the thing opened up.

"It's all right. I've got it."

***

Dan came out of the bathroom in time to see the mechanics arrive in Fred's battered old car. Neither of them had a vehicle, although one had a few tools of his own. It was a sign of their slim resources that Fred would consider employing them at all. But more than anything, there were times when they needed a certain number of warm bodies, as Barrett called them. Dan laughed when he first heard it, but it was an old Navy term for spark-watcher. It took warm bodies to change tires, fill up fuel and oil, do quick brake jobs, and the guys were certainly competent to do all of those chores. When taking a motor or a tranny out, the things were heavy and awkward, and it was better if a helper understood English and had done it before once or twice.

Apparently spark-watching was a big thing in the service, where Fred's mechanical training stemmed from, as the big battlewagons were always being refitted, and of course they were all steel and iron. Doing work on one side of a bulkhead often meant the other side got red-hot, as everything was welded or hot-riveted in place.

Fred's engine installation in the FB-5 was simple and elegant, and in the few minutes Dan was in the bathroom, he had the thing mostly ready to come out. There were just a couple of fittings on the fuel system, but Fred was looking for a juice can or something, hopefully a clean one, so he could drain the lines.

"Lunch!" Johnny and Stan had the trunk open, and they lugged in some box lunches, a bottle of cheap local vino, and a couple of crates of beer.

Fred pulled out a rag and began wiping his hands in disgusted fashion. There was always a dark line under his fingernails. He didn't know it, but Fred was the sort of guy who always smelled like hot grease, burned coolant and petroleum. He probably didn't even notice it anymore.

Dan stood looking at the front end of the FB-5 for a moment as the others cleared a patch on one end of the workbench. They laid out all the food. It smelled all right from here. Outside the door, a pair of young fellows stood looking in. When they caught his eye, they waved a bit self-consciously at him, and he grinned and waved back.

One of them was holding a pen and a piece of paper, but they knew from the number Dan was an American. Wandering over as if it was the most natural thing in the world, Dan accepted the pen and signed on the front of the fellow's program. He chatted with them in their own language, which delighted them. Grinning hugely, Dan insisted on shaking each of their hands, and then patting one on the back, he turned to go.

"It's too bad we never have any decent chairs around here." Fred would somehow manage to cope, judging by the heap of spaghetti and crusty garlic bread on his plate. "Argh."

"Well, don't sit in my car."

Fred gave him a look.

"I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Yeah, well, in a half an hour or so I get to try out my new motor."

Fred glared. Dan compounded the injury by emptying a box of meaningless stuff, rags and oddly shaped tools and things abruptly on the floor and then sitting down at the end of the bench so he could eat like a human being. Stan squawked in exaggeration. It wasn't like he actually cared. This looked like being a fun day. Fred stood there looking around for another box, but he owned all the tools, for one thing, and for another his hands were full. He couldn't quite bring himself to kick over a box.

Finally he put something down and found his own orange-crate. Giving it a yank, it spilled out and he finally got it upended.

Dan grinned.

"Privilege of rank."

Fred just shook his head at that, digging in immediately. A thought hit him.

"Did you hear that?" The boys on the far end, already into the wine by the looks of it, laughed. "Half an hour, he says."

"Oh, I don't know." Stan winked at Dan. "Shouldn't take you more than four or five minutes to get all that down."

Fred, long strings of spaghetti hanging down his chin, didn't say a word but the expression was priceless. Johnny brought over a tall glass of red for the boss.

"Don't worry sir. I still love you."

The peals of laughter this aroused were contagious enough that the few passersby turned and smiled in mystified empathy.

Chapter Eleven

Stan Gave a Funny Cough.

They were just polishing off the last of the garlic bread when Stan gave a funny cough. His eyes were lifted from the plate to the doorway and Dan turned to see what was up. He stood up as if hit by an electric shock, throwing down a napkin.

"Well, hello." He couldn't think of a darned thing to say. "Ah...Colleen, this is Fred, and this is Stan, and this is Johnny."

"Hello." She stood just inside the entrance, hand on one hip, with that perfect posture.

She took in the place in a sweeping examination before coming around to Dan again.

"So this is where it all happens."

"I'm afraid so." They really were on a shoestring.

Fred coughed and Dan looked over at him.

"You can take couple of hours off, Dan." Fred surveyed the debris of their late lunch. "We need to try a test at night, in cooler air, and see how she does. Besides, this may take some time."

While the short blocks were complete, Fred had a favourite pair of cylinder heads, and there were two sets of intakes and exhausts. He would build it up slowly and carefully with his best parts, hopefully not missing a thing.

She smirked as his heart thudded and his brain raced. His PB was just out back.

"Let me wash up, and we can go for a drive, or something."

She nodded.

"Sounds good."

She turned and went to the open door and waved at someone who must have been a couple of doors down, and Fred and the boys saw a small black saloon car accelerate past the open door, the driver crunching her into second as it went. A small light of enlightenment went off in Fred's head as the boys played dumb, studying her as politely as they could but with unfeigned interest.

"Yes, ma'am." Johnny spoke up. "This is where it all happens."

She smiled, while Stan, studying the bottle for a moment, pushed it away reluctantly and put his hands on his knees to get up. Fred looked at his watch and looked at the car.

"All right, we have an engine change to do, although I have to admit a nap would do me some good right about now." He got up and Johnny began to clear up and dispose of the waste.

Stan piled up the plates, with the knives and forks on top and took them into the back room where Colleen could hear water running and the sounds of Dan splashing water on his face. The water shut off but then came on again as the men in there exchanged words in a low tone.

Dan came out wearing a fresh shirt and with his hair combed.

Fred grimaced at the thought of Dan having garlic breath real bad, but if she didn't mind, then it was none of his concern.

***

They came to a halt on a slightly wider part of the road, overlooking a small bridge outside of town that looked as if it might have dated back to Roman times. He switched off the motor and the sounds of the country came to them, a few birds and a lot of crickets foremost among them.

"This is lovely." She looked out over the valley.

"Yes. We hardly have time to appreciate it, sometimes."

She wasn't here to talk about racing. Dan had told her that he loved her once. It was such a long time ago, but his own thoughts and feelings were jumbled. He wondered why she had come.

"Dan, there's something that I've wanted to tell you for a long time. I'm afraid I wasn't being completely honest with you before."

"Ah. You can tell me anything. Anything, Colleen."

Her face turned to him and she regarded him soberly.

"I have permission to tell you this, otherwise I couldn't do it."

"Permission? Couldn't do what?" He had no idea of what to expect, in fact her appearance today was quite mystifying.

Although she had taken in races in the past, it was always along with Dan. She was no race fan—it's just that they were spending a lot of time together.

"I work for the federal government, Dan."

"What?" He had no idea where this was going, but it was her and he was definitely interested in anything she had to say.

"God, this is shitty." She couldn't quite look at him.

He had told her that he loved her, and very shortly after that, things went wrong, and she hooked up with...

"You're going to have a baby? You're getting a divorce? You're going into a convent. That must be it."

She grinned and bit her lip. There came a hint of moisture at the corners of her eyes.

"Why not just spit it out?"

With her face lowered, she finally did.

"I was never married to Alan." She choked up as he gaped.

She turned and met his eyes as he stared.

"What?" It came out flat, and hard, and doubtful.

"I was never married to Alan. It was a cover. It was a horrible thing to do, and I'm sorry I hurt you so."

His jaw dropped and his heart almost stopped.

"It was all just an act?" Anger burst into flame and simmered inside of him.

He got a hold on himself. She was here for a reason.

"Dan, it was a cover. I work for the federal government. I had to go down on my hands and knees and beg permission to tell you this much." The fact that she was allowed to do so showed two things, first how much they valued her, and second, that Henry Cutliffe was a decent human being insofar as field agent controls went. "I don't have permission to tell you much more."

"Whoa, what?" He stopped and thought as best he could. "What about this Alain Costan? The guy you married?"

"It's not his real name."

There was a long silence as some insect buzzed and rattled from a thicket of trees nearby, it might have been a cicada, or something like that although Dan didn't know if they had them in Italy.

"Is he—is he also a federal employee?" The rising note of his voice said it all.

"No comment." She looked away, and down at her hands, and her purse.

There was another long silence.

"Then...then why are you here?" Dan had a far-off quality in his voice, as if he was disoriented or talking in his sleep or something.

"I'm so sorry I hurt you, Dan. My darling Dan." Tears welled up in her eyes and she began to sniffle.

Without a thought, he reached out and put an arm behind her, and pulled her in close.

"All right, all right. It's okay." He held on tight as she shuddered in grief and shame, and a kind of long-overdue release. "It's all right. Everything is going to be all right."

"Dan, Dan, Dan." She wept as a man on a bicycle rode past, taking it all in with a glance, a look deep into Dan Thornton's eyes and a quick nod.

He smiled, but not too much, and then he was gone. It was all true, and she had come back to him. He hadn't been able to run away—she had come after him. Or something like that.

Just exactly how he could know a thing like that was one of the great mysteries of life.

It must be true.

***

She sniffled, sat up straight again, and blew her nose on a handkerchief pulled from her purse. The purse was so small, it might have been the only thing in there.

"It gets worse."

"It's okay, Colleen. I don't need to know."

She shook her head decisively.

"No, I mean it. It gets worse." Her fingers plucked and pulled at her hair in confusion. "A lot worse."

And she met his eyes with a wild, torn look that stabbed right to the heart of him.

And he wondered what she had done, or what they had asked her to do, or what she had gotten involved in, and that's when Dan Thornton began to get very angry indeed.

With her head again buried in his chest, Dan cleared his throat a little bit.

"Okay, just so we know how things stand here..."

She was wracked fresh sobs on hearing it.

"From my point of view, things didn't just get worse—they just got a whole lot better. For one thing, you're not married to Al—" Again fresh spasms of emotion went through her. "And for another, you're here, with me. And for another, I meant what I told you. I love you. Nothing will change that. So, I mean..."

Dan didn't know what he meant other than that, and maybe she should stop crying. She struggled to sit up a little straighter.

"No, and I know that. But it really does get worse." She wiped her eyes again. "Ah. Dan, we also have Teddy's permission. To talk to you. And I really wouldn't blame you if you end up hating me for it."

Leaning over, Dan gave her a little kiss on the forehead.

"Teddy." His jaw worked lightly as he chewed on the information. "So what does old Teddy have to do with all of this?"

"Teddy and my boss have worked together in the past. And you're an asset—just like I am."

"Oh, I don't know about that. Nobody owns me, I just drive and take a few risks...the people I'm dealing with might be dangerous, but so far nothing really interesting has happened."

"You have no idea. Dan, did you ever actually look inside one of those envelopes—don't worry, hardly anyone ever does. But people like Henry and your precious Teddy play rough and they play for keeps. They're pros at this game, Dan. And they have the sanction of their government—something you don't."

He opened this mouth to speak but just ended up sucking in a little more air.

"All right."

He waited. She would tell him about it when she scraped up a little more nerve. Something in her stiffened. It looked like Dan was catching on to the program.

"I'm sorry Dan—and naturally I would understand if you never trusted me again."

He inclined his head as if to examine it in a neutral and objective fashion.

"Yeah. I see your point."

Chapter Twelve

Is This a Good Idea?

"And you're sure this is a good idea?" Teddy and Cutliffe strolled through a busy piazza, speaking Italian so as not to draw unnecessary attention.

By keeping twenty or thirty feet of space between them and others as much as possible, there was no way they could be recorded, or eavesdropped by any known electronic means. So far no one was paying them any attention and they were taking pains not to be overheard by casual passers-by.

"A promise that must be kept. She wrung it out of me before she would go for the, ah, other mission I was telling you about." Cutliffe hadn't actually said anything specific about it, but Teddy knew what he meant.

"A promise? To a field agent?" Teddy's eyebrows rose.

It was common enough to make them, of course, but a little rarer to actually carry them out.

"Otherwise I think she would be lost to the service, or become useless. Agents need to be suggestible, which implies liking or trusting their control."

"Yes, of course." It fit in with Teddy's plans well enough, but Cutliffe had come to him first.

Their source was an insider in the Kremlin, but ultimately Teddy thought the Rote Kapelle, the 'Red Orchestra,' as the network had been dubbed, got their information from someone very close to Himmler. Apparently, OKW's orders were being read in Moscow, sometimes even before the German unit commanders they were addressed to got them. It was a simple process. Coded messages were sent to a German national living in Switzerland and then beamed directly to Moscow. Henry had a source very close to Stalin. Incredible as it was, it was supported by the Minister's neurotic fascination with what passed for superstitious nonsense, everything from astrology, which was taken quite seriously by old Heinrich. It was mostly Templar nonsense, and the usual magic spells, seances and other claptrap of an occult nature.

Teddy's source was involved with a network only known as 'Lucy,' and while he didn't think it was exactly the same people, much of what they were saying sounded familiar. It was likely that in an amateur network, or possibly more than one network, there might be some crossover. People active in one group might be contacted by another group, if they were known to be fellow-travelers. To know what the enemy is going to do is priceless in warfare, and in Teddy's opinion this was a kind of warfare. Certainly the Nazis saw it that way. The name Schellenberg was being bandied about in the Kremlin, but what was their basis for saying that?

In some ways he was a natural, being aristocratic, conservative, a member of the previously ruling class, and probably not happy with the unsavoury nature of National Socialism and its progeny. The notion of opposition to Hitler was welcome enough. The problem was how seriously to take it. Of course it must be encouraged.

It was troubling when he heard about it from his own sources, for the mission profiles described, and the attribution didn't jive—Henry's people were saying it was sponsored by the S.S., or rather some new little department within that organization, called the S.D., and Teddy's own people were theoretically talking to someone in the Abwehr, or so they thought. This was the military intelligence branch of OKW, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Himmler and Canaris were rivals, and long-term predictions were that sooner or later one or the other had to fall. Canaris was the professional with a good record and useful skills, Heinrich was the amateur with the ideological followers and much political clout. The possibilities were endless, but either one source was wrong, or they were both right, or maybe they could both be wrong. It was an application of reductive logic. So what was up? The notion that the Abwehr mission was meant to prevent the S.S. mission was hard to swallow. That entailed too many risks of a nature that was incalculable. There was no way to safely predict any outcomes, knowing what Adolf was like, even on a good day. The planners of the second mission must have been counting on getting sufficient and timely warning in order to pull it off...it was deep, wasn't it? So now they were relying on an enemy source, which oddly enough were sometimes accurate enough in their own way for their own logical reasons. The motivation was there if you accepted assessments of Nazi political relationships at the top end of the feeding chain. It was a chain of cynical back-stabbers.

"Quite frankly, we need to know the time and date of this thing, or we're out of luck." Teddy looked at Cutliffe. "What's your take on that?"

"My gut instinct tells me that we will be notified in proper order." He gave a quizzical, lop-sided grin. "Hopefully the Vatican will listen and be open to suggestion. They may go for it in a pinch, as we will no doubt be pressed for time."

"Wow." Teddy strolled along with his hands loosely at his sides while Cutliffe smoked his acrid-smelling cigarillo. "Wow."

"I tend to agree, my friend."

They both had sources within the Vatican, and while they were being taken fairly seriously, intelligence exchanged that way tended to be of limited utility because of the nature of the company they kept. Teddy wondered how effective they would be in action, under deadly threat and with little time to think it through.

***

From its point of origin at Frankfurt, the slow freight train passed across the heart of the Fatherland, making a long stop in the buzzing yards of Stuttgart. An evening thunderstorm rumbled overhead, soaking everything down and slowing the routine procedures of building up a heavy train scheduled for an international destination. A small string of flatcars loaded with several brand-new tanker lorries went unremarked in the hustle of loading, hooking and un-hooking, as cars and strings were shunted back and forth. The lorries were chocked and chained securely, and covered with pale green tarpaulins tightly lashed down. They were painted in the orange and white colours of an Italian transport company, lettered in big black characters. Some cars, whether box-cars, tankers or flatbed, had arrived at their end destination, some were going on, and some were added in before departure. When an additional powerful engine backed onto the front for the long climb into the Alps, the concussive impact was like a large-calibre naval gun going off.

It was here that the ordeal of the soldiers really began. Locked inside the empty water trucks, the air thick although breathable due to the underside vents, it was an uncomfortable wait before the train got going again. The noise was incredible. While it was intermittent, the unexpectedness of big thumps was nerve-wracking. Every shock came as a surprise. It was like being under artillery bombardment, as the glands and senses of the organism took precedence over the logic of the brains inside the skulls.

Conversation was not a good idea, as they heard shouts and cursing from a man outside, interrupted by more thuds, as he spoke to someone nearby in graphic gutter talk, and other engines moved about in the background. There was a series of clunks, and then forward motion was detected. The thing lurched and shook, and began to sway alarmingly back and forth.

There was one more indistinct shout from out there, and then he faded away.

Everyone let out their breath at once. A corporal pulled out his ear-pugs.

"Finally."

The men opened up their packs and began to put shelter-halves and ponchos down on the floor in order to have something to lie on.

Their corporal, a certain Klaus Johanmeyer, snapped on a small light, for the dim light coming up from the floor vents was quickly snuffed by their bodies.

He spoke up in command mode.

"All right, gentlemen. No unnecessary singing, no humming, and most especially, ah, no whistling please." They all laughed from the sudden release of tension, it was like there was suddenly more air in there for some reason. "The crap bucket goes at the back end, and hopefully that will help to suck out the stink. Who's got the tape?"

A trooper, pack open, held it up.

"Grab a raincoat or something and make a partition back there." The fellow hastened to comply. They were going to be in there for a while.

"Who gets to be first?" The trooper tried out a joke but Klaus ignored it.

A couple of them grinned sheepishly. It was a sign of good spirit.

Men pulled out vacuum flasks of still steaming coffee, unscrewed the small tin cups on top and began to settle in, some slumped back against the left, and some on the right, patiently waiting for the time to sleep. All of their duffel bags were jammed in the front end. The food and water was in the first row, and as long as anyone didn't go mad from claustrophobia or the noise, which was frankly a disturbing surprise, they would get to the yards in Rome in three or four days. They looked at the walls, struggling with the need to smoke. They had agreed on one per hour, and the smart ones were putting it off as long as possible. The corporal put his earplugs back in, but they didn't do much for him. They didn't work for the lower frequencies, which was what the train mostly generated, although they did damp out the squeal of the brakes and the ringing of bells. The horn at the front of the train was muted by distance and thick layers of steel.

The corporal studied the map in the glow of a flashlight and looked at his watch. From Stuttgart they would go through eastern Switzerland, then on through northern Italy, first to Lugano and then into Milan. The schedule called for a long wait there, not so much because of the mission as again changing the train engines, and then it was on to Genoa, adding and subtracting more cars most likely, and then on to Rome.

"Very well, then." The corporal snapped off the light after carefully folding the map.

One of the tricks of the trade was to never put pen or pencil marks on a map, and he took care to fold it up exactly like it came when new. Available in any travel agency in about half of Europe, this sort of detail would not come back to haunt them.

Their speed was building. He had a brief thought of the other squads in their own respective water tanks. There was no communication, nothing they could do to help each other, and no way for them to bother each other. That was one way of looking at it.

Corporal Johanmeyer climbed up on top of the pile of gear at the front, surveying the surreal sight revealed by a look down the oval-shaped compartment.

"Hey! How come you get a bed?" Predictably enough, it was Private Schmidt again.

"Privilege of rank, young fellow." The S.D. corporal pulled a thin wool blanket out of his own bag and draped it over himself, with a large duffel bag of loose equipment under his head for a pillow. "Good night!"

With that, he firmly closed his eyes and hoped the rest of the crew could take a hint. After the last few weeks of training, then the dash across most of Germany to their initial insertion point, it would be nice to catch up on a little sleep.

The train rumbled on, with more than one trooper privately wondering if the corporal was really asleep after all, and if so, how in the hell did he do that?

His mouth fell open and he began to snore lightly. Some men had it and some men didn't.

***

After dropping Colleen at her hotel, Dan took the rebuilt FB-5 to Rome and back on roads that were very dark but also thankfully dry. The car was performing well. They were down on power compared to the Mercedes and Auto Union teams, but the French and Italian entries were impressive as well. Some of them were averaging over eighty miles per hour, even ninety and a hundred in pure broad daylight. He tried to keep his average speed in practice over eighty, and he could do it, but he wasn't going flat out. Night would be the true test. Those other teams and other drivers were very good indeed.

Fred Barrett had the thoughtful look of a man who had to a certain extent taken himself in. The fact the race had such a nominal fee and they allowed purely amateur entries wasn't the whole story. Sure it was about the glamour, for some of the drivers. The pros still wanted to win and the manufacturers still wanted the headlines. It cost money just to get them here.

They were having a bull session, Fred noticing that Dan's head seemed very far away. He concluded that Colleen, was the source of his troubles. Thornton had never mentioned her before. With sense enough not to joke or especially prod, he hoped the mechanics would keep their mouths shut.

It was a forlorn hope, one quickly dismissed by Stan.

"Whoo-whee." He grinned at Thornton. "Who was that fine filly?"

"Yeah, where have you been keeping her stashed?" Johnny was right on it. "Wise move, though."

Dan coloured slightly, and muscles worked at the back of his jaw.

"All right, let's move on. We're down to our last motor-crankshaft assembly. After that, we're out of the running. So I have to keep this motor in good shape. Any other thoughts? Have we decided who's running with me? Or am I going solo?" Dan looked inquiringly at Barrett.

This had been discussed endlessly and yet still no firm decision had been made.

Fred pursed his lips and his brow tightened up in thought.

"Ah, well, one of the boys could go..."

Johnny shook his head.

"Stan doesn't speak any Italian at all. His reading glasses are broken. My Wop's all right, but it's strictly limited to, to, ah, cafes, and buying a loaf of bread sort of thing. You know?"

Barrett sighed, as if he hadn't seen this coming. His mind was always tied up in the engineering, and the managing of the team often took the rumble seat.

"Dan's almost better off on his own. It's two hundred pounds less weight on the car, maybe not that much, but help with pace notes and navigation is priceless..." Stan trailed off.

While the pair were hired as mechanics, as team members of course they wanted a win as much as anybody. Wins led to great things, like more money, more press, and more sponsorship.

"Oh, golly." While a riding mechanic as such wasn't necessarily crucial, Dan didn't relish the thought of going a thousand miles on memory alone, clutching a map one-handed and trying to read it was another thing altogether.

If something minor happened, Dan could take care of most things himself. If something major happened, a mechanic was useless due to the small numbers of tools and spares they could carry. He'd driven the full course only once before. He finished it in practice, mostly in daylight. In the race, the motor on the old Talbot he was driving for a rich and foolish pharmaceuticals manufacturer blew up after three hundred and fifty or so miles and that was it for another year. The year before that, he practiced some but the owner withdrew and Dan didn't even get five hundred miles of practice.

Dan was very quiet for a moment, and the others kept silent.

It had to be the girl. There was no other rational explanation.

"So, what else?" Fred prodded, but gently.

"Ah, she feels good, very smooth, at a hundred and ten, and yet it still has the vibration, at about eighty or ninety."

"I've balanced those tires a dozen times." Stan protested, frustrated by their inability to find a solution.

"I've been thinking about that." Johnny was an engine-builder in his own right, until he went broke like a lot of them. "I'm thinking it's a problem of harmonics. Dan mentioned that some of the bearing failures and the broken crank happened when he wasn't even really pushing it."

"Yeah. It's like I was just cruising at medium revs in a lower gear, and when I needed power, maybe I might have stomped a little hard, but it really shouldn't go like that." Dan thought about it.

Most people agreed that crank and bearing failure happened at high revs, although if there was lubrication failure it could happen at any speed.

It just took a little longer at low revs. They were pretty sure that wasn't the problem. When the boost kicked in, that was the problem. It was a weak and unbalanced crank, and you really couldn't baby a race car. Fred was a mite sensitive on the subject. Again, they moved on.

"How are the brakes working out?" Fred took pride in their major sponsors.

"Our drums are nowhere near the diameter of the Mercedes, and our finning is nowhere near as deep or as comprehensive." Dan had taken the opportunity to study them when chatting to Rudolf Caracciola and Herman Lang. "I'll try to manage any brake fade as best I can."

The poor bastards were giving the Nazi salute whenever they won or placed, and he was sorely tempted to ask them just what they thought of it all. Racing drivers were a kind of non-political fraternity. Dan could go where Fred couldn't, sometimes. It's not like they all didn't spy on each other, and sometimes it wasn't all that good-natured.

"I'm saying they work fine, but ours are probably not as good as theirs." He was paid for his opinion. It was part of the bond of trust he established with team owners in general, that the opinion would be objective and therefore all the more useful, rather than just telling them what they wanted to hear all the time.

Dan Thorton pandered to no one. It was part of his charm.

Chapter Thirteen

A Tense Atmosphere.

It was a tense atmosphere.

Henry and Colleen were visiting Teddy in a large and airy but somewhat grubby apartment in a safe-house overlooking of all things the statue of Giordano Bruno. It was fitting counterpoint to the world's political situation, not just in Europe, but in the Far East as well. The world was a war of lies these days, and enlightenment was not even a particularly sought after commodity.

"It's a question of whether we can pull it off." Teddy had gone right to the crux of the matter.

"That's why we need your help." Henry Cutliffe patiently explained the problem. "With our combined credibility, they may be more likely to listen to us. Even with our limited manpower, and most likely the Vatican's limited experience, we may be able to help out."

"It's not so much a problem of stopping it." Colleen paused.

"Listen to her, Teddy." Henry had hinted at her powers before.

"Oh?" Teddy raised an eyebrow. "What are you getting at? There's just no way in Hell that I will trust the Abwehr, in spite of their stated intentions of stopping the S.D."

"All we have to do is to make sure the mission is going ahead at a given time." She looked at Henry for support, and he nodded reassuringly. "Then we just have to make sure the Holy Father isn't at home to receive them."

Her reasoning was that once committed, their plans, as far as they knew them or could guess at them, left little scope for withdrawal. There was no fall-back and try again—they meant for their plans to succeed or fail with a single attempt, but she was now convinced Himmler or Adolf expected them to succeed.

"What we're suggesting is that both of our governments get in touch with them at the soonest possible moment. We need an answer this afternoon, or we're going ahead without you in any case." Henry was firm on that point. "But if His Majesty's government could have a word with them it would be very helpful."

"All right. This implies pooling knowledge as well as resources. I'll let you two do the talking to the Vatican. It involves some loss of cover."

Henry nodded at this. With Great Britain clearly a combatant sooner or later in what was coming, and the present air of isolationism back home politically, perhaps it wouldn't be so serious for them. Also, with frequent reassignments on a global scale, the risk for Colleen and him was fairly small. They would just have to be discreet and trust the Holy See to do the same.

Colleen seemed relieved, but she was also biting her lip. Clearly she had been doing some assessments of a nature involving Dan Thornton, who was the obvious candidate in the next part of his nefarious little plan.

"Colleen has some ideas of when they might try to pull this off."

Nodding, Teddy reached to the chair beside him and opened up a briefcase. He handed over some documents to back up this opinion.

"The S.D. team is on the move. They will arrive very shortly. The Abwehr is already on scene, according to our friends...and they don't move until the other ones go." Teddy didn't say if he knew their location.

Presumably, if he did, he would have mentioned it.

Henry gave Colleen a significant look.

"Didn't I say?" She nodded in serious fashion.

It seemed as if Teddy, Lord Swainson, might have seen them coming a mile away. Oddly enough, this boded well for the relationship as he had good sources and a lot of European experience under his belt. Colleen spoke up more strongly.

"The second team. The Abwehr. The training of the men would be the same either way. What I mean is, if the S.D. fails, only one of the Abwehr men has to shoot the Pope—either using the sniper weapons or getting in close somehow. He can abandon his men, leaving the sort of rearguard action that would snarl up everything in the Holy City for hours or even days."

The obvious candidate here would be a senior officer, probably the commander.

Henry and Teddy agreed with this part of the scenario. There was just no way to trust anyone or any statement made under these circumstances, and when dealing with Nazis especially. They lied to themselves on general principles. Yet they had to be able to predict a few things or they had nothing to act upon. Minimal manpower meant minimal options. They were going to need all the help they could get on this one.

"Why now?" Teddy gave the impression of one aggrieved.

She blurted it out thoughtlessly, ludicrous as it sounded on first examination.

"All of Italy is nuts for the Mille Miglia. And it's on right now."

Teddy's chin came up and a look passed over his face.

"Of course." He latched onto it. "It comes right through Rome too, doesn't it?"

Every policeman, and every person that could possibly manage it, would be lining the route, and nocturnal movements through the city wouldn't attract a whole lot of attention.

He eyed up Henry Cutliffe with new respect, aware of Colleen nevertheless out of the corner of his eye.

"Then we really don't have time to waste."

"That's right, my friend." So they were going to do it then.

For Cutliffe, this was good news.

He was still studying the documents.

"So we're looking for three trucks with water tanks on the back?"

Teddy nodded.

"That's what I am being told. They can't go until they get here, although there must be at least one front man in town already."

Henry nodded thoughtfully.

"Storyboard this for us."

Colleen's eyes went up and back a bit as she sought the proper order, for logic had a sequence of events, and it would either work or it wouldn't.

"Let's assume they arrive in the daytime. How long can those troops sit in those tanks?"

"Uh, huh." The men waited.

"Presumably, not more than about forty-eight hours. They have to get those trucks off somehow, they would either have legitimate means or do it at night by stealth. While a paper trail in Germany can be faked or even non-existent, in Italy, someone would have to show up or provide documents to get those trucks off the train and into the city at large. Legally, I mean. There must be some paper there."

"Right." Teddy nodded. "There are dozens of firms here in Rome that could be the consignee of the vehicles, and we would need a ton of time and manpower to check with all of them, in order to see who's expecting some new lorries, et cetera. I have a couple of stringers in town here. They are in fact watching the major yards in the north end of the city, but we just can't watch all the railway tracks entering or approaching Rome. Also, those vehicles might be unloaded and driven into town from any stop up the line once they are safely in Italy."

"So we are as dependent on that warning signal as the Abwehr." Henry didn't like it.

"No." Colleen was convinced of her own logic. "It makes sense to get as close as possible before unloading by whatever means. It makes sense to use those troops as soon as possible. It makes sense to simply unchain the vehicles and drive them off on a convenient siding."

She thought some more.

"It makes sense to do it as soon as they arrive—assuming they arrive in the middle of the night. And the biggest diversion, and the most convincing one, is the one they didn't create, but was provided for them. Everything seems to be leading up to this point. The Pope has no known engagements this weekend."

Henry and Teddy exchanged a glance. There was only one thing that would fit her description.

"The Mille Miglia." Teddy's eyes opened up a little wider upon the realization that she must be right. "The timing is impeccable."

"And it goes right through the heart of Rome." Henry studied the documents some more. "You know, it really only takes one man with a key to unlock the padlocks on those inspection hatches."

"We're thinking multiple redundancy on that aspect of their plan." They would have more than one option in her opinion.

After that, the troops would take care of everything. It was a nice, simple little plan, and Henry Cutliffe knew that unless they figured out just how and when to intervene, they stood a pretty good chance of pulling it off, or causing one hell of a disruption to the status quo.

The phone rang and Teddy picked it up.

He listened intently for a moment.

He slammed the phone down, and with tight mouth, gave them a significant look.

"Shit!" It was all he said.

"Lucy?"

Teddy shook his head no in her direction.

"My boys."

"Sounds to me like we just ran out of time." Henry's face began to darken and tighten up.

Colleen expelled her breath in a rush, because they were under the gun now and the only ideas she could come up with were just plain nuts.

"There's a consignment just as you described on a siding in the northeast section of the industrial belt."

He gave them a look.

"It matches. Three water trucks."

Teddy reached for the phone again.

"Who are we calling?" Henry would like to know beforehand what was going to be said.

"I'm making an appointment. We have to get him out of there, and we can't afford to waste any more time."

***

Clara Firenze was a wonderful woman, so full of life and vitality, fun-loving and easy going, yet with that ineffable whiff of real class. She came from a good family of course, of the wealthy and propertied upper crust of Naples.

She was all grown up now, as she told Eugen more than once, and she was woman enough to know her own mind. Her flat in the heart of Rome was airy, gracious and very modern, at least in terms of the foyer, the living room, and the spacious veranda outside tall glass panels that gave an impressive view of the city's red-tiled roof-scape.

It was a word they had coined together.

While the kitchen was more traditional and very functional, for she cooked well, and the bathroom oddly formal with small chandeliers hanging on chains above each end of the long vanity table, he was cautiously curious about her bedroom—whether it was done in 'Persian Hareem,' as she claimed, or was it more likely, in his opinion, that staid bourgeois comfort ruled supreme in her inner haven? It wouldn't be the first time that the public rooms of a household were in stark contrast to the more private chambers.

"To us." She raised her glass and he took a token sip to please her. "Oh, but you're not drinking, darling."

He sighed.

"Yes, my dear, but duty calls, and I really must keep a clear head." He was reluctant to push too hard, and yet the temptation to offer to return later was strong.

So far, all they had achieved was mild flirting and spending time together—every moment that he could get away, in truth. Every minute that she was available, although like many women of her type she had her mysterious morning routine, and spent certain afternoons at one or another spa, salon, or other establishment of personal maintenance.

He didn't mind, he had his daytime job to do, but the evenings were no longer long, boring and lonely. They had become something to look forward to and he believed that it might have turned into a real relationship, if only it had been given a real chance.

"No, seriously, darling."

She'd taken to calling him that lately. He was overdue for an attempt to kiss her, if he was any judge of such things, and the whole thing was troubling somewhere deep in the guts.

If only she had been almost anyone else. If only they had met under other circumstances. She smirked as if reading his thoughts. If only she was fat and had bad skin. That might have helped...

It was just his bad luck, really, to have met someone he really liked and then have to betray her trust and then toss her away like a broken doll when he was done. With a full belly and a warm glow from the wine, he looked at her with real affection and genuine regret.

"When the car gets here, I'll have to go. Otherwise I would be in deep trouble." If only she would give him a clear signal, even though sitting opposite him with her knees drawn up, exposing trim ankles and just the suggestion of a frilly hem underneath her skirt was a kind of signal.

Just then the door buzzer sounded and he jerked spasmodically.

"Ah." He put his glass down firmly and put his hands on his knees as a first step in propelling himself up from the deep lounge chair that was his favourite in this room. "Perhaps later this week?"

He was wondering just what to offer or to say, knowing it was all to no good. The odds of him being around in a day or two were very slim. Eugen cringed to think of running for his life. Where would he go?

She was right there, her scent washing over him in a wave of femininity.

"Do you have to?" Suddenly she was clinging close, face buried in his lapel, and he was looking down on the top of her head, and the heat was right there in his loins.

He put his arms around her.

"That's all right, mein liebchik. You'll see me soon enough, and maybe then we can straighten one or two things out..." He hadn't meant to say it like that, but it came out just perfectly, to his surprise at least.

"You're so strong."

He practically had to peel her off, and he wished her servant was right there to get him his hat and coat.

Inspired by necessity, he reluctantly stepped in close again and put his arms around her. Seeking the right words, he was stunned when she wrapped her arms around his neck and planted her mouth on his. His eyes bugged open and yet he obviously couldn't push her away in disgust. He was surprised by her passion.

She squirmed and with eyes closed opened her mouth and shoved her tongue into his. Eugen relaxed and tried to go with it, feeling miserably like he had failed. They clung like that for a long minute, and then to his shame and relief the buzzer came again.

"I really have to go."

"Make sure you come back." Her promise was unspoken, but it was there.

Clara Firenze was a wonderful woman, and they could have had a lot together, a wonderful life in fact, if only the world wasn't what it was these days.

He grabbed his hat and coat from the servant, here at last, and bolted through the door with a sense of total futility and a kind of self-revulsion. He'd never, ever felt that way about himself before.

It wasn't the nicest revelation he'd ever had, but Eugen von Brauchitsch felt like the meanest, most miserable son of a bitch in the world. It was because he was a victim—he'd finally become a victim, just like all the rest. Eugen wasn't very happy with life right then. He had no choice but to try and survive whatever was coming and hopefully make the best of it.

Chapter Fourteen

Clara Waited.

Clara waited, standing off to one side of the front window of the guest bedroom. The car door closed firmly and the long black Mercedes moved off up the street. Wordlessly, she went to the front hall and took the proffered coat and headgear from her servant Anna.

"I won't be gone long." With her keys deep in the right pocket and a few coins clutched in her left hand, she left the apartment, waiting with some impatience for the slow old wrought-iron cage elevator, open and visible to the world through arabesque curlicues and the un-curtained front windows of the building.

It was still early, and Clara Firenze knew the neighbourhood well. She was known here and no one accosted her or tried to pinch her behind, although the streets were thronged with people.

Entering a small family emporium of a general nature, mostly groceries but other things as well, Clara nodded pleasantly at the squat old lady in charge. Leaning on the counter with her elbows planted, the proprietor, or rather his mother, grunted in acknowledgement, and perhaps some anticipation of further conversation.

She went straight to the phone on the back wall, fifteen metres from the street, and putting in some coins, she spoke to the operator.

It took but a moment for him to answer.

"Hello."

"Ricardo?"

"Yes! Clara. I was just thinking about you."

Their entire conversation must be in the most innocuous and plausible terms, and if it ran true to form, it must also take a certain amount of time. It had to be about something.

"Yes, I'm sorry, I should call more often." Clara had a message to impart, and it was important, which her brother well knew.

She sighed audibly over the phone.

"I'm at a loose end tonight, rather disappointingly. But I suppose Eugen must work sometimes."

The vivacity of his sister's voice belied the seriousness of the message. Von Brauchitsch was very much a person of interest.

"Oh, I thought you were seeing him tonight." He was the dutiful brother, making conversation but bored with his sister's amorous melodrama and not really caring either way.

"No, we had dinner, but he had to go off. I would imagine he's taking notes at some interminably dreary conference with the Ambassador and the Foreign Minister. It must be very exciting." His apolitical sister managed to convey a shrug by her tone and inflection.

He chuckled.

"We'll have to get together sometime."

"We could have dinner, just you and I. Somewhere out on the town."

It sounded like fun and he hoped it would happen some day.

"Sure, whenever you wish." He didn't suggest a time or date and neither did Clara.

"Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing." There was nothing more to say, just two adult siblings who didn't have a lot in common but there was the familial bond, and they tried to keep in touch. Father Ricardo was almost sure everything said on a telephone these days was recorded or monitored. It was a working assumption in a fascist state.

The pair rang off awkwardly. Clara bought a newspaper and then went home.

Father Ricardo stood a long moment, and then thoughtfully put the phone on the cradle.

Turning to the man on the end of the couch, he nodded decisively.

"So. It begins."

***

A small black car with two occupants picked them up a few blocks away. The Mercedes was unmistakable, and while there weren't that many around here, von Brauchitsch's was waxed and polished to a near-perfection visible even in the dim light of evening. His was modified to give a turbine-like whine at low speeds, but a definitive growl under acceleration. Fast as it was, they had other radio cars stationed at likely intervals, and after a time the first follower dropped off by turning a corner. The tail was picked up by a bright yellow Fiat that tail-gated aggressively for a while then dropped off in its own turn.

The Mercedes couldn't go anywhere in the city without its every movement being known. The question was whether Eugen von Brauchitsch was sophisticated enough to know or suspect.

***

"His driver is the one who does most of the legwork." Father Firenze was impressed as always by the intelligence network maintained by the Holy See.

With almost two millennia of history behind the institution, they had plenty of experience in real-world power politics. The men who wielded power very often made enemies, and anticipating the next move of your enemy was crucial. Popes had been held hostage, carried away, lured away, and beaten or killed right in the streets of this city.

"All of our pursuit cars are equipped with two-way VHF radio—that's very high frequency."

Ricardo nodded.

"Herr von Brauchitsch seems to have taken the trouble to verify that the package has indeed arrived. The trucks are in a bonded impound yard awaiting sign-over to the mythical Savelli Industrial Services, an entity created solely to justify shipping documents."

Quick checking by field operatives revealed little. There was a sign stuck in a window in an industrial street on the east side of the city. The place had been rented for one month by a Signor Savelli, who, oddly enough, had given a false address and paid in cold, hard cash. The place was normally one of those perpetually-vacant properties that nevertheless manage to eke out a grim profit for their equally grim owners. A property agent had handled the transaction, asking few if any questions.

Alphonso Muzzi, the youthful Captain of the Swiss Guard and the Chief of the Vatican Police, Silvio Moretti, a tall balding man in his mid-forties, were cooperating with him so far.

"Yes, he would do that. He must have at least one of the keys for the padlocks." The father studied the wire-photo, one which had just come in on what they all had believed a secure line.

"How did the Americans get onto this so quick?" The British Ambassador was vouching for them as well.

It looked all very impressive.

"I'm thinking they just drove out to the rail marshalling areas like anybody else and had a look, which implies that they saw it coming."

The father thought about that.

"They wanted to make sure, in other words. And they want to come in?" He thought about that as well. "It seems they are in a hurry."

Muzzi clarified for him.

"We are in a hurry—if it's credible."

Firenze nodded. He had been praying for them to take it seriously.

"I'm thinking we might as well listen to what they have to say. Hopefully, they have more information." Information that they might not have felt comfortable putting in a telegram, no matter how securely sent, the father thought the chief was implying.

"Yes, I see." There was a pause. "I wonder what they want?"

They would take all the necessary precautions for the Holy Father's safety, but those precautions might have been compromised. In fact they had to assume they were already, for the Germans, it seemed, were awfully well informed.

"How much manpower can they muster?" The father was unsure of how to ask the question.

"The Germans? Maybe a couple of dozen local operatives. Those are mostly stringers, selling tips and possibly sensitive documents, things like that. There are at least a half a dozen men and women working out of the embassy. Herr von Brauchitsch is more of a figurehead. He's clumsy as an ox, as you yourself have observed. A man of wood, rather unusual in this business, but he gives the place a certain tone. They can get a bogus passport, that sort of thing, locally for sure. But if they're getting cooperation from OVRA, then their manpower could be considerable." The Chief of the Vatican police answered in a sober fashion.

Mussolini's Organization for Vigilance and the Repression of Anti-Fascism was well-funded and pervasive. At this point, his gut instinct was against it. That didn't rule out individual actions, as many of them could be bought. He'd done it himself a time or two.

"So in other words they can watch us, all of us, and if we make any sudden moves, of a sort that are out of character for us—" The priest halted in mid-thought.

"Yes." Muzzi nodded in appreciation. "We owe the Americans for this much, anyways."

His finger tapped the picture of the three trucks, safe behind the compound wire. The knowledge that there were thirty highly-trained men in there waiting to kill or kidnap the Pope was almost unthinkable.

Yet they could hardly ignore the possibilities.

"All right. Let's get them in here, then." Father Firenze had made up his mind.

***

A pair of well-dressed men had circled the block twice that they knew of, and then disappeared into a nearby slum area. They didn't try to follow. Colleen and Henry were working with the utmost caution. Safe behind the tinted windows of a big black Rolls Royce town car, registered to a factual Persian oil company, located in a building right behind them, they studied the compound in the darkening light. Finally overhead floodlights on big towers came on.

She wondered if it was a coincidence, but a couple of the lights were burnt out. One corner of the yard was almost invisible in the gloom. That was where the three vehicles were parked.

Their radio-teletype machine began to buzz and whir. Henry watched closely as the narrow tape began to click-click-click out of the slot.

"That's their prefix!" He looked triumphantly at Colleen.

He supported the paper stream in his hands, impatient for transmission to end in order to feed it into another machine, one cleverly disguised as a soft-drink dispenser. Henry called it the 'fruit machine,' and it was an apt description. This would decode it into Italian, which both read with ease.

They were completely in character, with Henry wearing a white burnoose and head-gear with red and white scarf patterned in something that oddly reminded her of calico, of the sort western bandannas were made of. Her own attire, all in black from head to toe and with the veil covering up everything but her eyes, suitably made up with heavy mascara, in this cultural entrepot they wouldn't draw too much attention. In the event of casual questioning, all they had to do was babble in guttural fashion and wave their arms around, and no doubt the questioner would go away.

"We'd better let Teddy know."

Henry nodded emphatically in agreement. With Henry's healthy tan, his hawkish Drake-type beard transformed him into a marauder of the desert. Her own impression in the mirror was of a sultry sexuality, with her smoky eyes burning back at her gaze, hinting at some strongly-repressed desires.

"Look." She pointed, unwilling to lower the window without confirmation from him.

Someone was in the compound, walking around, swinging a lantern and moving towards the corner of interest. He had a little peaked cap on, with a short, shiny brim. Henry pulled away from the message from his contact at the Vatican, and stared at the sight with his mouth slightly open. The man put his lantern down and climbed up the ladder on the rear end of the vehicle in the darkest corner.

Silhouetted by the other lights behind him, they watched him move along a catwalk on the top of the water tank. He knelt down and did something at the rim of the big main hatch, which according to their sources was meant for maintenance rather than filling, washing out the interior and making inspections. The tanks were actually filled by pumping through a manifold of valves on the back end.

"There were two of them." Her voice was low and tense.

"One to open the trucks, another to watch and provide cover." That made sense.

They couldn't locate the second man in the darkness.

"Uh, oh. What are we up to there, boyo?"

At times like this Colleen wondered if Henry was actually Irish underneath all those layers, all the identities and acts he affected.

The man got a secure grip and lifted the hatch up to a near vertical position. The man did something. He lowered the hatch again, but this time it seemed to be on a slight angle. Then, quickly straightening up, the man made a quick trip to the back end and went down the ladder into the small pool of light where his lantern rested on the ground.

With a quick look around, he picked it up and moved off again.

"Colleen?"

"I'm thinking. No, I'm not. He unlocked one tank—all he really had time for. He dropped in the key—so as to make sure they could open up the other trucks. He doesn't need it any more. Then he propped up the hatch on a wooden block. Now he'll retreat and watch over them." She swung to meet his eyes.

Simple, really, the look seemed to imply.

"So it's on, probably for tonight."

Henry reached over and pulled a briefcase off the open jump seat facing him. Unsnapping it, he opened it up to reveal a devious device. He pulled out a thin electrical cord, unraveled it, and then plugged it in. One end went into a jack on the corner of the console, and another plugged in through a set of terminals into the car's transmitter.

Their driver's eyes gleamed in the mirror.

Henry's hands were poised over the keys of a portable coding machine.

"All right. What are going to tell them?"

"How soon can we meet them?"

He typed in his own prefix, the destination tag, and then his brief message. With a little thought, he added what he and Colleen had just witnessed. They conferred, but could think of nothing that need be added. Henry sent the message. Hopefully it wouldn't be long. They were waiting for a response, when they caught sight of a small black Fiat, battered and nondescript, with a driver wearing a fedora and another man with a beard, and a striped toque of all things, in the passenger side. It pulled into a pool of darkness some ways up the road. The lights went out, and the brake lights flashed, and the distant thump of doors came. Their friends were taking the threat seriously to that extent, and would keep a tight watch on the place.

"We're clear." Henry tapped on the driver's shoulder, an embassy man on loan. "Let's go."

He was acting on the assumption that a meeting would happen within the next half hour, which was about as quick as they could get there anyway.

Henry bent over the coding machine again to get in touch with Teddy.

Chapter Fifteen

Final Practice.

When Dan took the car for its final practice and shakedown session, Johnny and Stan were at loose ends for the rest of the day. The plan was to sleep as much as possible in the evening, and have the car ready to go by the cut-off hour, although they wouldn't be dispatched until after two in the morning because of their registration number and engine displacement. Once the car was ready, they would jump in the pickup and head for their refueling stop in Rome.

While the Mercedes and Auto-Union cars were always strong favourites, the Italian contingent this year was very strong, with Alpha dumping Enzo Ferrari for an in-house effort. Enzo had his own team now, but it was said to be a shoestring budget. The Corse looked like sure-fire winners, with immaculately-prepared machines and good drivers who nevertheless had some personal rivalry.

Stan eyed up the leftovers from lunch speculatively, but opted for a nap on a cot in the back room. Johnny figured he couldn't sleep without getting a drink and some fresh air into him, as the afternoon was hot and fine and he was kind of getting sick of the place. Grabbing a battered ball cap, he headed for the door.

He moseyed along the streets of Brescia in the area where they and most of the major contingents were quartered. There had to be a bar somewhere, and not just any little pocket-bistro but one that would be clearly recognizable to an American a long ways from home.

Within fifteen minutes he was huddled up to the gleaming black top of an ancient sort of place with massive stone piers, low arches and columns. Potted palms, neon lights and mirrors were strategically placed. While the drinks might cost twice as much as a more humble establishment, it was just what he was looking for.

"Birra."

The bartender snapped open a cold one for him and placed a clean glass on a napkin.

Johnny pulled out a small crumpled roll of bills and selected something appropriate.

"Grazie." The man went back to polishing glasses and wiping down surfaces that already shone.

Johnny let the small change rest on the bar. A radio set up high on a blackened wooden mantel muttered softly and Johnny figured it was a soccer game. The barman had one ear cocked as he worked. Johnny wondered if someone scored a goal, if he would make a big fuss about it. Probably not, he thought, looking around at the place again.

There were a few people in the place, with a hum of conversation going on in the background of his consciousness. He picked up a word or a phrase here and there but it meant little to him. Gossip was only interesting when you knew who they were talking about and didn't like someone.

He grinned at himself in the mirror, savouring the beer a little. It was thin, light and with a bit of sweet tartness, if that made any sense, in the aftertaste. Beer was beer.

One table had five or six young men and four young women, another booth had a few people. There were couples having appetizers or bar food of some sort, seated at small tables with wine or beer bottles evident. Not a lot of mixed drinks in the place, but then he spotted one so that was no good.

He was dead tired, but Johnny's nerves were jangled by the urgent need to get the car fixed and prepared, and the burden of traveling such long distances between races. Always a different town, a different hotel room, and some of those left a little something to be desired. Any adventure involved some sacrifice, some suffering. His old man said that once and he believed it at the time just as he believed it now. It could be a lonely life, punctuated with sharp relationships and camaraderie. You either bonded or you didn't, essentially.

Something smelled real good back there. Johnny had a hankering for a real cheeseburger, fried on a flat stainless steel grille along with a handful of onions, right in front of you. That special moment when the burger jockey pulled out a piece of cheese and laid it on—he could almost smell that. It's not like he made the wages to indulge himself, or he might have tried ordering one. He wondered if they made French Fries in Italy. One of these days he would have to ask.

"Oh, I recognize you. You're with one of the racing teams."

"Huh?" His reverie broken, Johnny turned to his right where a tall, slender man in dark clothing stood at the bar between two bar stools, with an engaging look on his face as the barman came over.

"Yeah, you're just up the road."

"Oh, right." Johnny nodded and snapped off half his beer while the bartender was close.

He indicated he wanted another with that unspoken kind of gesture and look so familiar to wait staff the world over.

"Yes, sir?"

"Scotch on the rocks." The man turned to Johnny. "Not long to wait now."

"No." Johnny finished his first beer. "The thing is to get some sleep for the start."

"Ah, yes. And who are you with? I know I've seen you in a garage up there, you were out front working on the white car." The man undid his long overcoat, revealing the dog-collar of a priest.

"Barrett Racing, Father. Dan Thornton's our driver."

The man's eyes lit up.

"Ah, yes. What do they call him?"

Johnny shrugged in some embarrassment, although it was all the same to him.

"Il gufo—the owl." It wasn't so complimentary in the American sense.

"Ha! Yes." The fellow grinned in remembrance. "But they also say, ah, egli possiede la notte. Padrone delle tenebre."

"What does that mean?"

"He owns the night. Master of darkness."

"Hmn." Johnny sipped and thought about it for a while.

His neighbour settled into a seat with his scotch and busied himself with cigaretes and lighter.

Johnny waved off the offer of a smoke.

"So what are you doing here?" Johnny had never really thought of a priest drinking and smoking and sitting around in bars...not even in the early Saturday afternoon.

"God's work, my son."

Johnny laughed out loud at that one.

"Where are you from, anyway?"

"I'm from Oakland, but I've been over here about nine years." The man stuck out his hand. "Rick Jenkins."

It wasn't long before they were telling each other, in a kind of converstional shorthand, their life stories.

Not long after that and a couple of more beers, Johnny was pouring his heart out to the Father, who had a sympathetic ear and apparently, a little time to spare to watch the Mille Miglia, or at least the start of it.

Tomorrow he had to get back to more regular duties.

***

The watchers in the Fiat were in a position to closely observe the impound yard. As the moon went behind a cloud and night fell, the pools of light from the floods were more pronounced, but the obscure neighbourhood and lack of nearby residential housing meant it was a lonely spot. One was dozing in the car, the other found a clump of bushes and a sagging sign board to loiter behind.

He noted the hatch on the unlocked tank begin to rise, slowly and without a creak. It came up and towards him, from this angle, and it was then that he saw the head and torso of a man. He appeared to move and then he disappeared again. The observer saw him reappear, this time in a jerky motion that implied he was coming up a ladder on the second vehicle. He went to the centre hatch and bent down again. Against the sound of trains and engines going by in the nearby freight yards, the fellow thought he heard the snap of something. Perhaps a bolt or catch being undone. Then the man up there lifted the hatch, and it looked like he simply got up and walked away again.

Momentarily disappearing, he appeared to climb up on the third truck and repeat the procedure. Then he quickly got off the top of the truck, and disappeared into the shadows. The observer thought he heard a hoarse whisper, and then he studied them, two men, through a small pair of field glasses. There was movement in the darkness at ground level, but he couldn't quite make it out.

All three hatches were up, and he imagined three pairs of beady little eyes peering out, looking to see if the coast was clear. There was no way they could see him from there. They must be aware that at least half the perimeter was out of vision behind the open hatches. That accounted for the party or parties skulking around in the dark—it would be wise to bear it in mind. The men inside must be listening with all their might for a signal, a sound, or the warning crunch of gravel from some insomniac night-watchman doing his rounds.

He put the glasses down, uncomfortably aware of the fact that they might give off a flash of reflected light and blow his position. Knives were so silent in the night.

Those other fellows had to be out there somewhere. To his relief, he saw one go up on top of the first truck again. The hatch lifted and something was handed out. He took a quick look through the glasses. A bucket! He pondered the significance of that for a moment.

Ah, yes, they had been in there a while. They would want to get rid of the honey-buckets.

They must also feel pretty confident in the remoteness of discovery to take that sort of risk. The corner they were in was dark, but not that dark. He realized they must be planning to kill, and most likely silently, anyone, civilian or carabinieri who stumbled across them. The thrill that went through his guts was not entirely unfamiliar, but it didn't come very often. It was not the most welcome feeling.

Now he did hear the crunch of gravel, and a low, soft whistle. It was his partner, looming beside him in the soft night air. The thrum of an engine in the yards made a brief whispered consultation possible and he reported what he had seen.

"Keep an eye on them." He glanced at his watch.

Then he went back to the car and its two-way radio so he could report that the subjects had unbuttoned and appeared to be active.

***

Inside the tanks, the non-commissioned officers, Traugott and the corporals gave their terse instructions now that they had opened up. They were similar in all cases. Every little fine detail had been written into the plan. Its very exactitude brought safety—for surely any missed timing points foreshadowed trouble ahead.

"Get that roll of tape. Put up a couple of blankets right here. No talking please, gentlemen." It took a while, as without communication between them, each had to make his own mental calculations. "Use your light sparingly if you go into the other end. Keep it pointed at the side of the tank, no the bottom, when you get your gear."

The men were seated on their bedrolls in a dim light thrown by one flashlight at the end, where the bucket had been previously. As usual in the small space, it was one on the left, then one on the right, all the way back. Two troopers fiddled with tape and blankets. They could take their places up front when they were done.

He surveyed his men and spoke to them in a low tone.

"Weapons check, and time to change into our new outfits."

The men nodded, some grimly and some with actual smiles on their faces. Each man knew his part in this amazing mission was vital and they were honoured to be asked to lay down their lives for the Fatherland.

Their new uniforms were Italian Army issue, some of which even had a few individual campaign decorations as well as the unit markings. Their weapons, which they had spent a few days familiarizing themselves with in East Prussia, were a mixed bag of Beretta M1934 .380 automatic pistols, small and compact, as well as the Beretta submachine gun recently updated and issued to the troops. This had a wooden stock, and while inferior to their beloved Schmeissers in every way, did have a good rate of fire. They were light and accurate to a somewhat greater range than the MP-40. Each squad had three men equipped with Breda 6.5 mm machine guns, the one true masterpiece of Italian military industry. These would be used to put up a hail of fire in the event of a serious armed intervention during the operation. This seemed unlikely as the Vatican Police were armed with pistols, mostly Berettas, although they might have one or two shotguns in a locked case somewhere. From the point of view of the planners, resistance on the part of the Swiss Guard would be futile at best. Some sort of suicidal resistance could not be ruled out.

The world would be convinced that the Italian Army, acting against Mussolini and the true wishes of the Italian people, had either kidnapped or assassinated Pope Pius the Eleventh. This would bind him to the Fuhrer, brothers in arms as they were. If they were to succeed in kidnapping the Pope, then that would be so much the better. He would be held in protective custody for his own safety.

"All right, gentlemen. We roll in about five hours, so if you can sleep, I suggest you do it."

Chapter Sixteen

I Like the Outfits.

"I like the outfits." He said it politely.

Father Firenze sat looking at them from his desk. It was a consultation, perhaps even a council of war. The realization struck him as absurd...but it was unfortunately not. Teddy nodded in genial fashion as Colleen blushed and Henry tipped his head from side to side.

"Let's get down to brass tacks." The priest had agreed to meet with them in a purely diplomatic role—the British ambassador had vouched for them as representatives of the U.S. and United Kingdom governments and he was prepared to listen, nothing more. "You say there is a threat to His Holiness?"

His tone was neutral, non-committal. Muzzi and Morelli were listening in via hidden microphones from a room not far away. Father Firenze was a junior member of the diplomatic corps. Ostensibly, he was the only one available to meet with them at short notice.

"The key thing is to ensure the safety of His Holiness." Teddy's dry and cultured voice was calm and measured.

"Naturally we will take precautions." Father Firenze waited.

"As your friends have verified, the gentlemen in the Fiat—presumably you know the hatches have been opened. Von Brauchitsch went by there a little earlier, didn't he?" This was a stab on the part of Henry.

Ricardo contemplated the inevitable.

"So. We have no confirmation of any more than one or two men, admittedly one man who came out of a water tank. All right, let's say we cooperate. What does that entail?" Father Firenze couldn't see the government of the U.S. or Great Britain being too devious where the Holy Father was concerned, they were very much on the same side. "Very well. We are watching the tank trucks. We have a small team. They will be relieved at some point."

"We think it would be best if we could get the Pope right out of town. Perhaps for as short a period as six to twelve hours. Maybe longer, eighteen to twenty-four hours would be great." Henry didn't have time to mince words. "Look, you might as well bring out your buddies. Colleen?"

She stood, and opened a portfolio case and began pulling out thin files.

She handed a file folder over to the father. He glanced inside as Teddy and Henry sat patiently.

"I've provided copies, one for each of you and Signors Muzzi and Moretti."

At this the priest's face took on a speculative look.

"Won't you please come in, gentlemen?" His voice had the hint of a smile in it.

A moment later, they all had their files in their laps as a door on the end of the room opened up and the men in question came in. Muzzi gave Teddy a nod. He stood up along with Henry and they shook hands. The introductions were quick and professional.

Muzzi sat with an ankle across one knee, while Moretti sank into a deep armchair and took out a pair of reading glasses from a case kept in an inner pocket. There were a few moments of silence as they skimmed the files.

"Alphonso?" Moretti's question brought a shrug from the other, who was deeper into the reading. "My initial impression is that we don't have much hard evidence to back this up."

Henry sagged a little in his seat. Teddy sat up a little straighter and made a gentle throat clearing sound.

"And what is worse...if we brought this to the attention of the Holy Father..." Firenze had a lost look as he thought of the man, or rather, his personal qualities.

Colleen nodded in comprehension.

"That's exactly right. He would rather stand his ground on behalf of his flock, for all of Christianity. He would gladly risk martyrdom or captivity, rather than run away from the Nazis." Her mouth was a firm line of confidence and resolution.

Firenze's eyes lit up in recognition. She had nailed it, as the saying went. Nothing they hadn't discussed already, but it was the nub of the problem. Pius wouldn't go because wild horses couldn't drag him away. His colleagues came to the same conclusion rapidly enough. They looked at each other, coming to some unspoken agreement. Firenze raised an eyebrow. Moretti nodded and shrugged.

Muzzi looked at the girl from under lowered eyelids. He reached into an inner pocket for his cigarettes. Then he spoke.

"Please tell us what you have in mind, Signorina." According to the British Ambassador, this one was the real brains of the operation anyway.

At an encouraging nod from Henry, backed up by the friendly but piercing eyes of Father Firenze, Colleen sat up a little straighter, took a deep breath and began to speak.

***

Johnny began to have second thoughts by the time he was halfway home. Maybe he shouldn't have given the man such positive assurances. It would solve the problem of race mechanic though. Apparently Father Jenkins knew a funny little fellow who knew all about American race machines, which would be unusual if true. But more importantly, he might be willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of going along as riding mechanic and more importantly to read the map and notes they had put together. The fellow had better read English and not just speak it. Johnny liked his job, but more importantly, he didn't have any other immediate prospects.

Johnny's enthusiasm was waning rapidly as he rounded the last corner to see the garage door, actually a series of three doors on the front of what a few years before had been a stable, open to the cooling night air. Light came from within but it seemed quiet at the moment.

He went in, blinking a little at the lights and the haze that always seemed to come up out of the decaying concrete floor. It was a worldwide phenomenon in auto shops of whatever nature.

Fred was half asleep, nodding off by the end of the workbench where leftover food still predominated. Stan was nowhere about. Fred's eyes popped open, and swam into focus, finally settling up on Johnny.

"Shh." He pointed at the back room.

Johnny looked around.

"Where's Stan?"

"Gone to get some brake fluid. She needs topping up."

The pair spoke in whispers. Johnny screwed up his courage before Father Jenkins and this Signor Agnelli showed up all hot to trot.

A deep, ratcheting snore from the back room underlined the urgency. The worst that could happen was Fred would say no.

He beckoned the boss to come to the front door. When Fred seemed reluctant, he waved his arm again and resolutely went and stood ten feet out from the door and turned to stare at a Fred who was still engaged in getting up out of his seat.

"What's up?"

Johnny didn't know exactly how to tell him, but it was important news, so he started at the beginning and worked his up way from there.

***

Eugen von Brauchitsch waited nervously as the ringing kept on at the other end. He had followed procedure...call, let it ring once and hang up. Call back immediately and let it ring...it went on for twenty rings before they picked it up.

"Talon."

"Raptor." The voice was low, calm and professional.

He doubted whether he could ever recognize it again, even if he should want to. It was the proper recognition signal and that's all he knew.

"It's on for tonight. The package has been opened. The other package has been confirmed in residence. You must be in place by five a.m. The first cars will be in Rome by five-thirty or six a.m. and that is when it will begin. Acknowledge."

There was little hesitation.

"Acknowledged. Thank you."

Von Brauchitsch heard the fellow hang up with gratitude.

The sweat pouring down his armpits didn't stem from exertion. It was the knowledge of what would happen to him if the S.S. ever figured things out. The Abwehr was bad enough.

If he was reassigned to duties back to Germany any time soon, he had every intention of dropping out of sight and getting the hell out of Europe.

***

Karl Shoenfeld put the phone down to survey a semi-circle of pale faces through the accumulated smoke of the last several days.

Ullrich met his look.

"It's on for tonight. We must be in place before they arrive."

There was a very long silence. Then a rumble of irrepressible talk went about the men, mostly questions and comments that were useless and unnecessary. They needed to focus on the job rather than the emotions it raised.

Ullrich stood and put his hands up palm outwards.

"One at a time, gentlemen. One at a time, please."

Oddly, no one had any questions. Their first job was to get back into the priest's garb, and make one last quick check of the bags. There was no sign of weapons as they had all been disassembled for transit. Schoenfeld set a pair of men to sanitizing the place, ensuring that no small pieces of equipment were left behind, nor any of the few personal belongings that they had been permitted. It was all to go in the bus. They went through with a spray-bottle and rags, wiping everything down including the phone, taps and things like the bedroom door handles. The cups and saucers were rinsed. Garbage they bagged up in pillow cases to take with them.

"Do the window latches, the sashes, and any place anybody might have touched." Schoenfeld oversaw the job.

"Absolutely, Karl."

He grinned a little sourly at that, but the men deserved some recognition and he'd been in charge of worse prospects. The piles of bags and hockey sticks grew by the front hall archway.

Finally he pulled them off. The spray bottles went into a pillowcase as well. He had a place all picked out to dump them, a block or two away on the way to the bus.

"All right. We go in ones and twos to the address you all have memorized. It's to the right, down two blocks, then another right, and then in the middle of the third block. It's a blue door." Ullrich would go first, and Schoenfeld could bring up the rear and round up any stragglers.

It seemed unlikely that anyone would get lost on such a short walk, but nothing could be left to chance. If one man went missing, the whole mission must be considered to be blown.

***

The guard on duty at the drop-bar gate, which was normally open by day but closed by night, and guarded at all hours, stepped out of the small guardhouse and stood by the barricade. The short bus gasped to a halt with a lurch and the driver snapped open the side window for communication.

Lorenzo Ajello had been with the Guard for a year and a half and enjoyed his role hugely when the tourists were present, posing happily for pictures and even signing souvenir photos and other things when asked.

The bus rocked as he stepped forward, noting the field hockey sticks leaning up against the side windows and a wicker-wrapped bottle of Chianti hastily dropping out of sight from a guilty-looking young priest.

The sign on the door read Society of Jesus Collegiate Athletics.

There was a buzz of talk inside and then a burst of laughter.

"Yay!" One priest held up a big trophy, and just for a second he thought a second one was going to moon him out the window behind the driver, but his fellows dragged him off to the rear of the bus on the far side amidst gales of laughter.

So they had that much sense then!

Nodding and grinning hugely, Lorenzo gave the long-suffering driver, an intelligent-looking older priest with a wisp of grey moustache, a big thumbs-up. The man grinned and gave a small wave of his left hand, until now resting comfortably on the ledge.

Lorenzo turned and went over and raised the barricade.

"Yay!"

"Yay!" He could not help but agree with them, as the young priests in the back waved hockey sticks, the bottle of wine, the trophy and stamped their feet and sang their victory song.

With a wry grin, he made a motion and the driver put it into gear and let out the clutch. For a joke, he put his hands over his ears and shook his head in mock disgust. The driver gave him a smile and a nod, rolling his eyes in humour.

With a roar and a bit of blue smoke from the back end, the bus lumbered off up the road, the sound of lusty male voices singing some awful and rather profane drinking song finally fading off into the darkness.

***

Their relief came at 2:45 a.m.

Other than the fact that they were still inside the water tanks, there wasn't much to report.

The new watchers took their positions. One way or another, it wouldn't be a long wait. At this time of the year, dawn came late but it would come. Their subjects would have to move or risk another day in the tank, with the possibility of discovery, and no matter what they might do, escape in broad daylight was a far different prospect than under cover of night.

As before, one watcher took the surveillance and the other stayed with the car and the communications gear. What they didn't know, although they might have assumed, was that they were also under surveillance.

Knowing and understanding the threat that the Nazi teams represented, a reconnaissance of the immediate vicinity might be a matter of necessity to the enemy, and that had been taken into account. The watchers were being watched by their own side, in case they were taken out by stealth. This was a distinct possibility, but a more serious possibility was that the enemy had watchers of their own, keeping an eye over the proceedings from safe location and distance.

If that were true, then the watchers would be revealed by their own comings and goings. They would be revealed by their inactivity. The parked vehicle would be suspicious.

However, as far as anyone knew, the men in the trucks had no way of communication with the outside world.

It was near on four a.m. when the hatch on each truck finally opened and four dark figures began to clamber up and out and down to the ground again after putting the hatches down in the closed position as quietly as possible, for they were nervous men in the silence of the night.

The watcher pelted to the car, which was parked in front of a decrepit house that had once been used as a union hall for rail workers. He spoke briefly to his partner, and then pelted back to see what happened next.

Chapter Seventeen

An Unsettling Feeling.

She wasn't quite sure if she was a hostage. There was an unsettling feeling when she realized just how long the Church had been dealing with such threats. The sheer professionalism of the men she had just met was impressive.

"I didn't think there were any catacombs within the city limits." That was in the tourist brochures, scattered on side tables and set up in racks in almost every hotel of note.

"No, you're right, these aren't catacombs." It was the first time he had spoken directly to her.

Her guts took a quick lurch, and she was a Lutheran by birth. Yet the Pope symbolized something she acknowledged as special to hundreds of millions of people around the world. It was hard to believe the reverence, the tradition, the faith—such a difficult thing in uncertain times—invested in the slight and rather unimpressive figure of Pius XI.

"These are the old Roman sewers, perhaps their greatest gift to posterity." Father Firenze grinned in philosophical fashion, lifting the lantern high to illuminate the marks left for the initiated. "They've come in handy once or twice."

It was more than that, she reckoned, but this was no time for history lessons. There were still secrets under this old city. They must have explored and improved the sewers. It made strong sense going on past history.

Dressed in nondescript working man's clothes, the man known in his previous life as Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, came across as educated, sophisticated, urbane and very calm. Perhaps that came from wielding such spiritual powers over his flock. A little time in office and a person might gain a lot of confidence. The inanity of such observations didn't occur to Colleen. It was such a novel experience to travel underground in borrowed boots, water splashing across their toes from time to time as the trio crossed intersecting watercourses.

The smell was perhaps not as bad as she had anticipated, but the warmth, the fetid breath of the air did catch at the back of the throat at first.

The Pope insisted that she precede him, and Father Firenze had to lead. She wasn't sure if he had ever been this way before, or simply knew what to look for, but they came to another intersection, and another set of obscure marks.

"To the right." He glanced back significantly. "The difficulty is to get to the exact place where we want to be."

They would have to go aboveground at some point and use the city streets just like anyone else.

Their precious charge was a man of medium build, short by American standards, and Colleen found herself looking down on his thin hair when she stopped for a rest and he came up alongside her.

Father Firenze stopped and looked back.

"Smoke them if you got them." The Pope winked at her.

Colleen choked on a laugh as the man at her elbow grinned in sheer mischief. She realized the fellow was sort of trapped in his own aura, and probably didn't get out much. His life might be stressful but constrained by the dignity of the office. At times it must be excruciatingly boring. A bit of adventure might do him some good.

He was morally courageous in his stance against Fascism and other social issues. What a serious life he led, and she for one did not envy it. For someone of her own background, it was something of a revelation, a completely different way of looking at her own assumptions. In her experience, people said all kinds of things about Catholics.

She would never think of Catholics in quite the same way again. The Pope was an old man, yet he seemed surprisingly eager, even fit in some ways. The novelty was such that a man like that would rise to the occasion.

The fact they had put one over on him, so that he believed a secret and long-held fantasy was about to come true, was a bit of a miracle in anyone's book and she was very grateful that they had managed to convince him. She understood better now that if he had understood the true threat, he never would have backed down or fled.

That impressed her deeply. Maybe there really was some magic in the office, for surely this unimpressive little fellow with the bright eyes, the black gumboots and a long leather coat carried the woes of the world on his shoulders.

"All right, off we go." Pius put his hand on her elbow. "After you, young lady."

She smiled in spite of their dismal surroundings as Father Firenze straightened up and led them deeper into the darkness. His lantern held high, and her strong flashlight finding tripping hazards at ground level, they proceeded.

But it wasn't very long before the old fellow was lagging again, showing his true age at last. She supported him, her height making it awkward, and before too long, painful.

"Father! Father!"

Ricardo turned back to see what the problem was.

Then he came back to help her.

"It's not much further now." At least one of them knew where they were.

She would hate like Hell to get lost down there.

***

When the first truck pulled up to the gate, the guard was inside his kiosk, with his back to the door. He appeared to hang up a phone.

The driver's heart quickened, but the fellow, dressed in his ridiculous outfit, picked up a clipboard and something else, probably a pen, and came out and around the front of the vehicle. He left the pike right where it was, leaning against the wall beside the door, and the driver suppressed a smile at the sight of it.

The man seemed to be writing down their license plate number, and that was it.

He waved them through and the next truck simply followed along with a hitch. The guard stood there with his clipboard, noting the plate numbers. In the mirror, the driver saw a third headlight appear beside the following truck, and it looked like they had all gotten through. With a final glance, the guard went back into his shelter.

Schneider crouched on the floor of the passenger side, with his machine-pistol at the ready.

He painfully pulled himself up and out of there, and climbed into the seat with a groan.

"Well, that was just too easy."

"Unbelievable." His companion put the safety on for the moment, although they were less than four minutes from deployment.

The passenger rolled down the window. Sticking his head out, he took a long look back.

"They're all with us."

It was all they needed to know.

Turning the last corner, the Apostolic Palace loomed large through the windscreen. The faint pale light of dawn showed where east lay, and the place was deserted. Bathed in the few lights here and there, there was an air of unreality in their success, their presence here today.

"All right, here we go."

He took off the safety and made sure the weapon was cocked.

"Pull up nice and slow, as close as you can get and still be legal."

They had rehearsed this part as well.

"This is uncanny!" There wasn't a soul about, and the young trooper doing the driving could hardly believe their luck.

There was a little too much white about his eyes.

"Don't worry. We're going to teach the Church not to mess with National Socialism."

Schneider opened the door and dropped to the ground with his machine pistol at the ready.

Already the men inside were carefully lifting the hatches on their heavily-greased hinges and following the catwalks and ladders to the ground as he watched for signs of alert.

The silence was deafening as the first team, arms stiff at their sides and without obvious weapons in sight, made a small compact group and headed for the door.

***

Rolf Ullrich studied the scene below from their vantage point and then put his hand on the young trooper's shoulder.

"Take the shot when I do."

"Yes, sir." The fellow's concentration was palpable.

His thoughts were known only to himself as he centred up on the first target.

His body tensed, as he held a breath and then he let it out with a long, drawn-out effort at relaxation. Ullrich had chosen Ludwig, quiet and studious, because of his application to learning the plan and the terrain, which included churches and housing as well as more official buildings.

Their vantage point was perfect. He swept the scope and counted heads. There were only two so far, the driver and passenger from the first one. The glare of the scattered lights around the massive courtyard made it impossible to see more.

Gently, he squeezed the trigger rather than jerked it, as he had been taught.

Through the scope, it looked like he had missed, and he centred up on another form for another try, although his primary target had disappeared. Ludwig's shot came immediately after his, and the two reports blended into the echoes rolling off and bouncing back from all the hard surfaces.

The sound of a light machine gun opening up was shocking in its fury as a flurry of tracer rounds lit up the low early-morning fog hanging in the sky. The bullets flew a few yards above their heads. Up until this very moment, nothing had been irrevocable. Spackles of fire lit up underneath the water trucks and from inside the cab as well. There was a man by the front of the second machine, peering through the scope of a rifle, trying to locate a target.

Ullrich took him out, rewarded by the sight of a small puff of vapour, possibly dust or more likely blood and the man spun away.

The battle was joined. Within thirty seconds or a minute at best, they would do two things. They would think of a counterattack, of somehow flanking their tormentors...and they would rush the door of the Apostolic Palace with everything they had.

***

The FB-5 thundered down out of the hills and into the valley. They were treated to the sight of the headlight of a train, a kilometre to their right but running parallel, as it lit up a forested hillside, dark and forbidding in the west. Dan shifted into top gear and pressed the throttle firmly.

The roads were rutted, and had a lateral washboard effect, but thankfully this stretch wasn't pure cobbles. Holding his speed at about seventy, he entered a long, increasing radius left-hand turn. At the exact psychological moment, the car slid, all four wheels going at once. She caught again almost immediately, but the lurch of adrenalin in the guts couldn't be denied. As the road straightened, he stepped on the throttle.

To the east, the sky held a faint promise of dawn, but it was dark yet. Their riding mechanic, Johnny's prize catch, Signor Agnelli, sat tense, muffled up in a ridiculous scarf with the route notes on his knees and belting out instructions in a barbaric accent.

The next turn looked like a right-hander where it disappeared over a brow and into a hollow.

"Left."

Dan wondered if he was right, and slowed dramatically, nosing her into what was indeed a left turn, taking up the shocks and bumps through a set of strong forearms and those big shoulders. The fellow beside him had paid well for a shot, however slim, at the history books, but Dan had wondered if the weight penalty was worth it when the fellow had trouble with the notes at first.

"Two kilometres, then another left, a shallow, oblique one into the village square..."

Agnelli, who claimed he had some training, and a box of effective-looking tools when he arrived with some American priest Johnny had met, would hopefully be able to help with punctures and wheel-changes in an emergency.

Without working with someone for a while, Dan had no idea of whether he was any good or not, but a hundred thousand lire in small, unmarked bills had a certain logic all its own and Fred Barrett for one had been totally impressed, especially as there was the unspoken promise of more in the future.

Fred took a rather unenthusiastic Dan Thornton aside before mounting up for the start.

"Whatever happens, make sure you finish the race. Other than that, try and have a good time out there."

Wrought up with pre-race jitters, and absolutely lacking in humour, partly due to the lack of sleep in the last few nights, in no mood for jokes, Dan grimaced and tried very hard to listen to what the man had to say.

"Sure."

"No, I mean it, Dan." Fred regarded him solemnly for a moment. "It's not worth getting killed over. It never is."

Dan had inclined his head politely.

"I'm inclined to agree."

Then he joined Signor Agnelli, already stolidly in place and reading the first pages while there was still good light under the streetlamps. Johnny chucked in a spare flashlight. Their start time was three seventeen a.m. and they had to present to the officials at least fifteen minutes in advance.

...the village came up and the fellow was right again. Another left turn, on an oblique angle, and he took it at a hundred and ten miles per hour. His companion, a brave man indeed, took it in stride and with no comment or visible reaction as walls raced past inches from his door handle.

Dan braked down so as not to leave the ground, and crossed the bridge before hitting it again in second gear.

This year the winning overall speed was expected to be in the high eighties.

Dan didn't spend a whole lot of time staring at the speedometer or the big clock mounted above the dash, trying to guess what their average speed might be, although Agnelli had an impressive-looking wristwatch and he made notes and calculations from time to time.

The thunder of the blown V-8 rapped out into the night as Dan accelerated up the hill and out into the hinterland again, looking for the dim glow on the horizon that would be Rome if the sun didn't beat them to it.

***

Colleen and Father Firenze struggled with the old man for the last half-kilometre but then relief beckoned from above.

They were confronted by a short ladder which led to another landing. Visible up there was a steel door swung on massive iron hinges, painted red and with a dim light thrown from a bulb in a glass dome protected by a metal cage.

She was pleasantly surprised, but they had really only seen two rats, and her calm was unvanquished. They were just rats, when you got right down to it. They were more afraid of her than she was of them. She kept telling herself that.

Pius tottered from the exertion. She steadied him up by the elbow as Father Firenze counted the rungs.

"Nine rungs." He looked at her. "Perhaps you should go up first, and I will push from behind..."

She nodded and Father Firenze took over the Pope.

Up she went, and then the Holy Father crossed himself and said a quick and silent prayer with eyes closed.

She grinned ruefully at the sight. It was just that it was so unexpected, so humble, so human. He was a tired old man but he still wanted a ride in a genuine racing car before he died.

Pius' eyes opened and he took a firm grip on the ladder and began climbing steadily if slowly. She thought he was probably strong enough to make it, but unfortunately ungainly on the rungs. He likely hadn't done anything like this since he was a very small boy. Father Firenze cautiously guided his uplifted foot, one after the other, uttering quiet encouragement as Colleen bent over and took hold of the man's thick, bony wrists with those big peasant hands on the ends.

Panting and gasping with the effort, Father Firenze followed closely, enveloping the other man so as to prevent him from falling if he slipped. A couple more rungs and then he was up. The Father climbed over the rim and then went to the door that appeared to justify the small concrete landing. Withdrawing the bolt with a screech and a clang, he yanked firmly on the bar and it popped open. A faint light came in and along with it the welcome smell of fresh air.

The Father pressed his face to the small gap and took a long look out. Colleen was still supporting Pius and catching her breath after the long trek.

"Good. I had some worries." He turned and waved them forward. "The coast is clear. It's not far now."

Pius was grinning like a schoolboy in spite of it all.

"This is so great."

***

Hauptman Schneider was the first to be taken out. Shot through the shoulder, his mind still glazed from the shock and pain, nevertheless he kept his head. Like any good officer, he analyzed the situation in a heartbeat, in one awful frozen moment of clarity.

This had the look of a well-laid ambush. Sporadic fire broke out back and forth as his own men, well trained as they were, conserved ammo and fought from the best cover they could find. The central square was dominated by the three big trucks, but they were taking fire from three sides.

"First team! To the door!" He gave the order in a firm tone, although now the Leutnant would have to lead it. "Second team!"

"Here, sir." He heard a voice nearby and turned to look.

He nodded.

"Divide up into two sections. Heavy weapons with each section." He gasped for breath, then went on. "Use two trucks to counterattack at each end of the square. Do you understand me?"

The corporal's eyes lit up in hope and excitement.

"Ya, ya." He looked stricken. "I mean, si."

Schneider grinned in spite of the pain.

"That's the spirit. Now, go!" He waited for the fellow to explain to his crew what was required.

The Team Three leader Werner was now at his commander's elbow, having crawled under from the far side of the lorry. A trooper with a first-aid pack began opening up his supplies and taking a look at the colonel's shoulder.

"You, I want you to dispose your men. You will give covering fire to the entry team, and maintain this position as a rally point for withdrawal."

"Understood." The man thought better of a salute, although his arm and shoulder visibly twitched.

He scurried around on hands and knees, making contact with his men and shifting one or two the ends of the first lorry.

As the first team broke from cover and ran for the front door, renewed firing began with a combination of small arms, rifles and light automatic weapons. The square reverberated with the crack of the shots.

One man fell flat on his face and skidded to a stop, remaining motionless, and another trooper must have been hit, but he staggered on and then made it to the door. The soldiers spread out with weapons pointed in every direction including back from where they came from. A man went to work with a satchel, and in some bizarre comment on the human condition nailed it by its canvas strap to the middle of the door with a good old fashioned claw hammer.

The troops fanned out, spread-eagled on the ground, diving over marble balustrades in some cases, and the door blew in with a loud krump. The two leaves, still partially intact, spun inwards, tumbled together and then came to rest in the opening. Before the smoke had cleared two grenades were thrown in. Their detonations added to the smoke and chaos.

"There are no bodies."

"Yes, I see that." The Leutnant's tone was jaunty, non-committal.

No guards. That was unexpected.

He inclined his head and raised his eyebrows in a sardonic fashion. Such were the vagaries of life, his expression seemed to imply.

Two young men were all set to go next, sort of high-stepping in on the unbalanced mess of the doors. The sound of their guns raking the corridors in all directions came next. Two more men went in, calling out loudly to alert their comrades inside. The Leutnant and two more men went next. That left a couple outside, and then two more to secure this exit from the inside.

With his gun at the ready, he nodded at a pair of men, ironically based on the old Roman heavy infantry system, and then pointed at another pair as they quickly reloaded their weapons.

"Up we go." He headed for the stairs, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

At this point, all they were really looking for was confirmation of their betrayal. That and to do as much damage as possible.

Mein ehre heisst treue. My honour is loyalty.

Chapter Eighteen

Brescia to Verona.

From Brescia to Verona, the way had been mostly clear sailing. Within the hour they came upon the first struggling back markers. From Treviso to Verona to Padua seemed to flash by in another hour, although it was in fact longer. Then it was the long stretches from Ferrara to Bologna, and then on to Florence or Firenze, and then westwards on to the coast. From there, the road led down to Rome.

It was here that the attrition of the race began to become apparent, with another parked, stalled or crashed car every few miles. From Livorno south to Rome, with the sea sometimes visible on the right, but as often as not leaping over the peaks of big hills and down into tight, twisting valleys, the road led on. Hours went by with nothing but the monotonous rising and falling of the engine note, and the lurch and squeal of the tires under braking and acceleration.

Signor Agnelli was doing his best with the race notes. So far they hadn't missed any turns or any checkpoints. They were on a broad, modern thoroughfare, quite a contrast to some of the route further up country, although the hills above Rome on the way back were not so good.

Cutting in from the coast again, they headed east to Viterbo, picking their way through as Dan hadn't made it this far on reconnaissance drives and last year he had failed to finish at all.

Finally they plunged down into Rome from the north, entering the city via a wide boulevard that Dan thought might be an old Roman road. They would stop soon for fuel.

The boys had left Brescia before the beginning of the race, to set up a quick stop for service on the outskirts of Rome. Hopefully they would have a kid with a sign up the road so they would know exactly where...they had agreed on a place, same one as last year, but the crowds in town were phenomenal and the location was chancy at best. Dan necessarily drove slower than he normally would have, but still sliding it in grand fashion through the easier and slower turns. He didn't try any four-wheel drifts at a hundred and fifty, for the city streets were different combinations of pavement, grease, oil, coolant from a thousand spills and a long winter of intermittent rain and consequent mud. It was dawn now. The only reason the sun wasn't fully up was that the buildings and hills of Rome blocked it out.

Signor Agnelli pointed dramatically.

"There!"

Dan saw the fellow with the sign which read 'Barrett Racing,' now all he had to do was to pick out a gap where the boys would be.

Johnny jumped out into the street ahead of him, waving frantically at the sight of the white car and the familiar profile of a tall Dan Thornton behind the wheel.

"I have to go."

"What?"

"I have to go to the bathroom."

"Sure, sure." Dan slid to a halt as the boys converged on the machine.

He recognized Danny, a man hired for one day, and another fellow whose name he had forgotten but he had seen him around before. Stan and Johnny pointed and shouted and the fellows raced around with jerry-cans of gasoline, as he unlatched the hood and flipped it back for them so they could check the oil and hydraulic fluid.

After the hours in the car, his back was stiff and cramped, with a hint of soreness that would only get worse as the day wore on. Signor Agnelli managed to get out, he was suffering even more than Dan by the looks of it. He bolted for the alley off to their left as another competitor blasted past, doing over a hundred and forty by the sounds of it, and Dan wondered who it was.

He needed to relieve himself just as much as Agnelli, but he wanted to talk to these guys first.

***

"I think our usefulness here has ended." Ludwig looked over at Ullrich.

"I tend to agree." He put the rifle down with little fanfare, checking his pockets for un-needed ammo clips and the like.

The men grabbed their hockey bags, much lighter now that they could do without the K-98s and much of the other equipment. Ullrich had his pistol and while Ludwig had a small one as well, the Schmeissers inside the bags loomed large in his thoughts.

They made their way over to the cupola, tucked in behind a major façade, built to facilitate routine maintenance on the roof and higher windows. The door led to a small landing, and then several flights of stairs.

On the ground floor, Ludwig stuck his head into a small kitchen area. Two priests, bound and gagged and tied in stout wooden chairs glared at his wave.

"Just to let you know. Your own people will probably have you out of there in fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour or so." An indistinct murmur escaped the one on the left, who as Ludwig recalled was the more uncooperative of the two. "I wish I could say what a pleasure it has been working with you."

Ullrich gave him a light cuff on the left arm and the pair of them followed the corridor to the end, cracked open the door, and then stepped out into the dawn. With a little luck, there would be a small black car, empty and with the motor running less than a hundred metres away.

There was no one about, at least not outside, although they could still hear the crackle of gunfire on the other side of the block. There could have been any number of eyes peering out of windows and through cracks in curtains.

Ludwig listened in appreciation to the sounds of the night.

"It sounds like our boys have packed up."

The only guns firing over there were foreign-sounding, probably Italian-made. There was a lot of distant shouting now.

"What do you want to bet?"

That was just what his commanding officer was thinking. What do you want to bet the Pope wasn't home? The unspoken thought hung on the air as they strode purposefully along.

"Uncanny."

There was no other way to describe it, thought Ullrich.

***

Colleen was stunned by how light it was when they finally came out into the open, or relatively open court. A small fountain played in one corner.

The roar of voices and the wail of a very small engine at full revs going by not far away drowned out her thoughts for a second.

Father Firenze made sure the door behind him was latched, although he didn't re-lock it. This was their avenue of retreat.

He was just turning to lead them on. Colleen was standing close to Pius, who was patiently waiting to see what came next, and apparently recovered from the underground ordeal.

A man stepped out from the other end of the alley as they exited the house or building or whatever they had been in.

Firenze stopped dead.

"Eugen!" He seemed frozen in disbelief.

Colleen had a bad feeling, perhaps it was the defiance, the mocking posture, or the look of triumphant glee on the face of the tall and distinguished man who confronted them.

"Father Ricardo. And Pius the Eleventh. How charming." He tipped his hat with his left hand, smiling and winking to Colleen in particular, as he pulled a small pistol out of the deep and voluminous side-pocket of his chocolate brown trench-coat.

He brought up the pistol and everyone was caught flat-footed, although the Pope straightened up. Colleen scrabbled at the fastener of her purse and Ricardo stepped hastily in front of His Holiness.

He had a hand out front as if that could deflect a bullet which was no doubt coming right between the eyes.

"No! Wait! Listen!"

Von Brauchitsch's face stiffened and his mouth went taut and his finger must have been on the brink of twitching when a slender young woman in long black boots and a scandalously short skirt stepped around the corner and bashed him over the head with a half-metre length of heavy cast-iron piping.

He dropped like a sack, neither falling forwards nor backwards, but crumpling up in a heap where he stood. She kicked the weapon away with an elegantly-shod foot.

"I never liked him anyway." Clara Firenze gave her brother a meaningful look. "You were right. A nasty little man."

Then she fully focused on their charge. Her mouth dropped open as she comprehended the reality of it. Stepping forward, she dropped on a knee and kissed the Pope's ring as he extended his hand reflexively.

Colleen finally had her gun out. As the young lady rose, her brother turned.

"I'd like to introduce you all to my baby sister Clara."

With a wry grin, Colleen beckoned in the general direction of the sounds of the crowd.

"We'd better get going or you'll miss your ride." She wondered about the ring, but as a Protestant of course she'd never even thought of it.

With all four of them, there was a short silence. The narrow passage was overhung with laundry on ropes from one apartment to the next.

"What in the name of Heaven just happened here?" Pius stared wide-eyed at the blood-pool coming from the figure on the ground, sidling past at the urgency in Ricardo's voice. "Is this really worth it?"

"He's just a common street-corner thug." Father Firenze thought a moment. "We'll call the police as soon as we get you safe and secure. Oh, oh, yes. And, and, an ambulance, a doctor."

"He knew your name! A street-corner thug you say?"

"Yes, well, I've seen him around. And I'm in the papers once in a while."

"He followed me here." She didn't mention that von Brauchitsch had received an anonymous tip by telephone.

A friend made that call. She also forgot to mention that a burly young priest named Dominic, who suffered an innocent kind of puppy love for her, was in on it. By now, he probably had the driver all tied up and properly gagged a block or two away in another alley. The important thing was that it worked. The Pope shook his head in astonishment but had to give it up as they kept hustling him along.

There was a right turn and then a left turn. She doubted the distance was much more than a hundred and fifty feet from their exit hole. The sound of an engine nearby was very loud, and with a quick glance down the alley, she saw a man in a helmet, goggles, a long duster and heavy leather shoes. He was attempting to relieve himself up against the wall by a row of garbage cans.

His eyes turned and he saw her. Hastily abandoning his effort, he zipped up and then came running.

"Emilio!" Firenze was relieved.

The man was a good four inches taller than Pius. With the addition of the helmet and goggles, it would have to do. Firenze escorted Pius the rest of the way as the poor fellow Emilio looked around in an embarrassed fashion.

He really did have to go.

"Wait!" He turned with a stricken look

"What?" Colleen wondered what now?

He pulled out a crumpled set of papers and a small flashlight from his coat pocket.

"He must have these!" Colleen grabbed the bundle and sprinted off down the alley.

***

"Oh, Lord." Dan sat in the car blipping the throttle to keep the plugs from fouling.

The temperature was climbing, While it was possible the gauge was faulty, the fact was they'd just had a hard fun and she was overheating.

"Where in the hell is that man?" Johnny shook his head, attempting to polish the guck off the low windscreen as long as there was still time.

"Twenty-seven minutes and thirty seconds." Stan waved hand in Dan's face.

That's how far he was behind on time compared to the leaders. He grimaced and pushed Stan's hand away.

"Yeah, yeah." He craned his neck and looked at the mouth of the alley twenty yards away.

"Argh." The temptation to curse and swear was overwhelming.

The frustration ate at him. They were all fueled up and Johnny had even changed both front wheels and tires. Fresh grip on the hilly, twisty sections ahead of them might help to make up a little time, as the problem with the FB-5 was that under heavy braking she tended to drift out a bit and Dan was sawing at the wheel in under-steer mode. It had a way of wearing tires out before their natural life.

Stan put a bottle of water in the car and then turned to go and call Signor Agnelli.

Biting back his frustration, Dan was relieved to see the man shuffling out, long coattails dragging and a clump of white paper clutched in outstretched hand.

"Get in. Get in." Stan helped steady him as he settled in, as the car was narrow and he had to put a foot on the seat on entry.

Dan's hand was on the shift lever and the throttle climbed. Finally Agnelli dropped the last little way and turned to look at Dan with a beatific smile on his face at the achievement.

"Put your goggles down!"

The echo in the narrow streets amidst the tall buildings as another high-powered machine blasted past had to be experienced to be believed. Dan honked the horn, an indispensible piece of racing equipment pretty much anywhere in Europe, and the throng of people lining the road parted reluctantly, and only insofar as the FB-5 promised more excitement.

Dan revved her to three grand and dropped the clutch. With the back end snaking alarmingly to the right, she squealed out and onto the road, tires squawking again when he shifted to second and then third. The burbling exhaust note faded quickly as he navigated the first turn and disappeared from sight.

***

In the Holy See's impressive underground command centre, Henry Cutliffe and Teddy Swainson sat in their respective shiny leather armchairs, watching the activity as Muzzi and Morelli supervised the festivities.

A young priest wearing a headset used a long croupier's stick to move a wooden plaque into position.

A quietly confident voice came over the loudspeakers.

"That's the last exit blocked."

The next step was to establish contact with the S.D. detachment. The plan was to use megaphones and invite surrender.

Muzzi had explained that their lorries were bigger than the German's lorries, and the water tanks were full to the brim. By locking the brakes and leaving them in a high gear, they were almost unmovable by pushing or ramming with another vehicle. The Germans would be reluctant to get out and engage at close quarters in order to move them. The doors were locked and the keys missing, although this would only hold them up for a few minutes. The enemy must assume armed intervention at some point.

"What about the others?" Henry was mystified about the lack of concern regarding the Abwehr contingent.

Apparently they were escaping by separate routes, in ones and twos, according to phone reports and the information coming in over the public address speaker system overhead.

"Are you just going to let them get away?"

Teddy grinned but kept quiet, wondering what they would say. Clearly this had all been foreseen, and every eventuality must have been taken into consideration.

"We will intercept them a little farther away." Muzzi looked up from his phone and note-pad. "Apparently your information was correct. They really were there to prevent the assassination or kidnapping...rather than carry out a similar plan, or as a backup."

Henry's eyes glazed over. His mouth pursed up, and he bit his lip, but he couldn't think of anything to say. His eyes slid over to Teddy.

Teddy shrugged.

"It's their country, my friend."

Muzzi and Morelli smiled, the former giving Teddy an appreciative look.

"They face a different fate."

Revelation struck them at one and the same time.

Of course. They would be captured, but held separately from the other group. They probably could expect a far different fate from the S.D. troops.

"What's going to happen to the others?" Henry meant the S.D., and Muzzi answered the question as best he could.

"We're thinking of turning them over to Mussolini with a recommendation to send them back to Adolf."

Henry thought about that for a moment.

"They'd be shot."

Morelli agreed.

"Yes, but it's not our hand doing it."

That was pretty cold-blooded, and yet no one around here seemed angry. What they seemed was...what they seemed was very experienced and very confident.

"Okay." Henry shook his head.

"And the others?"

There was a long silence.

Finally someone broke it.

"We might be able to find some use for them."

Henry's jaw dropped and Teddy slapped his thigh in good humour.

Henry closed his mouth and thought again about the anti-Hitler movement in Germany, and how there was a war coming, which everybody knew was only a matter of time. He knew exactly what Teddy at least was thinking: why not return the compliment?

He kept his mouth shut and just nodded as Teddy chuckled at his visible discomfort. But assassination wasn't really in his mandate.

***

Signor Agnelli kept waving to the spectators lining the road into Brescia and Dan wished he would stop.

The feeling of humiliation went away as soon as he comprehended the meaning of the waves, the shouts, the faces laughing and screaming and yelling as he negotiated the last few miles of the course. The course was barely recognizable for all of the people, half of them right on the street, narrowing the visible line of the road and making actual speed impossible.

They didn't care. They didn't care if he wasn't winning the race, and with the rhythmic thudding of the crankshaft hard their backsides, both men knew it was over.

The difference was that Signor Agnelli was still enjoying himself.

Dan wondered if it was finally time to hang it up, but this was just a run of bad luck, or more likely a case of bad design. It was no reflection on him.

He sat up a little straighter, easing stiff back muscles. He pushed the goggles up and was surprised to see how bright it was, but trying to see through the smear of oil, dust and everything else under the sun was getting damned irritating. The sense of relief was immediate.

The thing still had a few miles to go, but the Fuller was fundamentally strong, and he had no doubt he could bring it into the finish.

His first finish in the Mille Miglia. That was how he should look at it. He came in last place, but he finished. Blinking back tears of frustration, he could only keep going.

It was a triumph of perseverance rather than a failure of any kind.

Agnelli turned to him.

"Wonderful. Thank you so much, my friend."

Dan just nodded glumly and watched the faces going past at the roadside.

"Any time."

There was no other way to look at it.

Chapter Nineteen

They Arrived to Take the Flag.

When they finally arrived to take the flag from a tired official, Fred or anyone from Barrett Racing were conspicuous by their absence. They turned up the road and headed for the garage area. Familiar faces greeted them from the doorway. Here the mood was more somber, although no doubt not far away someone was having a one hell of a party.

"Who won?" Dan wasn't even out of the car yet.

"Biondetti."

Alfa was running the latest version of the 8C2900B with a Touring body. Driving one of the four 2900Bs, Pintacuda was leading at Rome, ahead of Biondetti in the other Touring 2900B. At Terni, Pintacuda had to stop for forty minutes due to brake problems in his Alfa. Biondetti had won his first Mille Miglia. Fred mentioned a few more names and places, but Dan's thoughts were wandering. It didn't matter, not really. Not now. Without crankshafts, the rest of the season was completely in doubt. Fred's summary was concise and emotionless.

"Ah." He looked around at the long faces and almost laughed outright.

There was this look of disappointment. They didn't have to drive the thing.

"So?"

"I guess you guys don't know. There was a terrible accident. Bologna...."

Getting out of the car was quite difficult due to the stiffness in his legs and back. Signor Agnelli wasn't even paying attention. Dan nodded. A kind of vertigo almost overtook him, as he slowly exhaled and sucked in another lungful of air. His feet were buzzing and his knees felt weak. Thornton was wobbly all over, now that the stress and focus were gone. He mopped his face with a clean rag, pausing from time to time to look down at it, and then having another go.

"What happened?" He looked around the shop.

It was a big letdown after the long night and a full day of driving.

"A couple of amateurs in a Lancia Aprilia, did an ender into a crowd of civilians." Fred's face was grim. "Ten killed. A few of them were kids."

"Shit."

"Johnny's looking for some food. Hopefully he'll be back soon." Stan was just being practical.

Signor Agnelli was shaking hands with the American priest and another stranger whom Dan hadn't seen before. The new fellow pulled out an envelope and gave it to Fred.

"Thank you again." Without further fanfare, they turned to go, but Agnelli came back, impulsively shaking Dan's hand.

The man hugged him passionately...

"Thank you ever so much." The fellow beamed at him in pure joy. "Bless you for everything!"

Then the three departed without a backward glance, talking excitedly amongst themselves.

"Here."

"What's that?" Fred handed him the envelope.

"It's a bonus for finishing the race. Not a bad day's work for you, actually."

Thornton took the envelope and had a look. There looked to be a thousand bucks, a big stack of lire in there.

"Holy, crap."

Stan had a funny look on his face.

He could have sworn Signor Agnelli was a taller man, a slightly heavier, possibly even a younger man, but he could have been mistaken. He must be. It was probably just that the fellow was tired and slouching a bit after his long ordeal in the FB-5. What with the dark stains from oil and dirt on his face, and the bulky clothes, it was easy enough to get a mistaken impression.

***

Mutt gave a short bark from the rug in front of the bathroom. Dan was oblivious, passed out in the sleep of the damned when someone started rapping on the door. Something about the tone and cadence suggested they weren't taking no for an answer. His head rose and he stared at it.

"Aw, for crying out loud." Holding his head and sitting on the edge of the bed, he wondered at life's unfairness as the knocking came again.

"All right, all right." Padding to the door he opened it up.

Colleen Bryant was standing at his hotel room door.

"Colleen?" Gaping, he swung the door wide and stepped back.

"Hi, Dan." She came in and stood in the centre of the room, looking around at the disheveled hair, the screwed-up blankets and the driving suit crumpled in the corner where the bathroom door stood ajar.

Mutt stared at her with a happy look on his face and his tongue hanging out.

"Well. Hi, Mutt." She had an impish look that took him aback.

"Yes. Well." Dan Thornton stood there like a tailor's manikin, marveling at the sight of her.

He had no idea of how to proceed. She, on the other hand did.

"What, no hug? No kiss? No, 'Colleen, how good to see you?'"

The look on his face was priceless. Leaving her pert little cap in place, as she took off her long coat and came closer, Colleen was wearing nothing but high-heel shoes and a garter belt to go with the stockings. She came and stood within inches of him. He stared down at the glory of her nakedness.

"Oh, my God—"

His arms wrapped themselves around her of their own reflex rather than any conscious decision on his part. It didn't take a fool to see what was going on around here.

"Shush."

He had no further questions. Dan Thornton shut up as it might be better to listen.

She seemed to have everything under control.

Chapter Twenty

A Dry, Musty Smell.

Father Ricardo Firenze opened up the elevator door, and snapped on the main light switches just as he had almost every working day for some years.

The dry, musty smell of the place greeted him as he went to the back. He took off his hat and hung it on a peg. He put the paper down on his desk and picked up the kettle. He went to the utility room and filled it with cold, clear water. Ricardo put it on to boil, just as he had been doing virtually every day since he started. Going over to a high, wooden board shelf on an end partition, built there mostly to have something to pin things on, he snapped on a small radio set, an attractive unit in walnut veneered Art Deco style, and turned up the volume.

He sat at his desk reading the front page of the paper while waiting for the tea water to boil and only half listening to some obscure church music from almost century ago. No, more like seventy or eighty years, he thought. There was a big stack of document requests in front of him.

After the long and morally ambiguous cultivation of Herr von Brauchitsch, he was back on more normal duties again, and gratefully so. The only sound came from the radio.

Lead on, O King eternal,

the day of march has come;

henceforth in fields of conquest

thy tents shall be our home.

Through days of preparation

thy grace has made us strong;

and now, O King eternal,

we lift our battle song.

Lead on, O King eternal,

till sin's fierce war shall cease,

and holiness shall whisper

the sweet amen of peace.

For not with swords loud clashing,

nor roll of stirring drums;

with deeds of love and mercy

the heavenly kingdom comes.

Lead on, O King eternal,

we follow, not with fears,

for gladness breaks like morning

where'er thy face appears.

Thy cross is lifted o'er us,

we journey in its light;

the crown awaits the conquest;

lead on, O God of might.

He looked at his watch, and the kettle was just beginning to whistle when they struck the hour and the last little bit of music was cut short. Usually they were a little better at hitting the post, as the radio boys called it.

"Thank you ladies and gentlemen for listening to the morning show on Vatican Radio. We've been listening to 'Lead on, O Lord Eternal,' by Earnest W. Shurtleff. It's actually a Presbyterian hymn, but we won't let that stand in the way of our enjoyment. And now, the Nine O'Clock News with Father Pietro Bocanfusca."

"Il Duce, Benito Mussolini has banned the Mille Miglia and all racing on public roads in response to last night's tragic accident in Bologna, in which ten spectators including several children were killed. According to the statement released early this morning, Il Duce extends his condolences to the grieving families and hopes that his action will be of some small consolation. He also adds that motorcars are dangerous and should not be operated in an irresponsible manner..."

The broadcast went on like this for a couple more minutes.

"In other news, and in an interesting coincidence, there was vehicular accident within the Holy City in the early morning hours. Despite fire and a small explosion caused by ruptured fuel tanks, there were no injuries reported and the blaze was quickly brought under control. Property damage was minimal. Although some callers to police reported loud noises like gunfire, there was never any danger and the wrecks were quickly cleaned up."

Father Firenze's feet dropped to the floor. He turned the volume down low, well satisfied with his role in the affair. He had forgotten to pour the water and the tea bag was lying there dry in the cup. Shrugging, he poured.

Another fellow came in from one of the long aisles fronting onto this space. He had a package the size of a shoebox in his hands.

"What have you got there?"

Brother Eustache had studied at the Sorbonne but couldn't preach his way out of a wet paper bag, and by his own admission wasn't all that interested in ministering to a flock. He pulled off the lid and showed him.

"What?" At first, Father Firenze thought it was a half a turd, or something.

It lay there on stained purple silk, a kind of semi-oblong in ruddy reddish brown.

"Oh, my God. Is that a toenail?"

"There's a little notation that says it's the big toe of Saint John..." The look on Ricardo's face was hard to read. "Do we have any ideas on what to do with it?"

Wordlessly, Father Firenze took the box from Brother Eustache and walked to the wastebasket. He dropped it in, and then dusted off his hands.

"Any other questions?"

Eustache shook his head.

"Nope."

"How about a nice cup of tea?"

Eustache nodded wordlessly, unable to tear his eyes off the wastebasket. Then his shoulders visibly relaxed. He shrugged and smiled. Ricardo always did have a way of cutting through the bullshit.

End

Zachary Neal has been writing ever since he can remember. A forestry management professional, he prefers the outdoors to the office. He works for the provincial government, and lives in the Halton Hills overlooking the Greater Toronto Area. He studied at the University of Toronto. Zach's a single father of two healthy and energetic children. Writing began as an escape for Zach, who now admits to getting up very early in the morning in order to squeeze in a little time at the computer. Zach loves a good mystery and admits his own life isn't much like the exciting world of his books and stories. Zach's boys mean everything to him.

