For God and Country. Mark Bowlin

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СКАЧАТЬ understand, sir. Does this have something to do with Father Riley?”

      Ackernly raised his hand as if to indicate he wanted to tell the story. He took a sip of tea first, and in a quiet voice he said, “Yes and no, young man. Riley is involved, but it goes much farther than a low-level priest. Have you ever heard of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty?”

      “No, sir.”

      “O’Flaherty is one of Riley’s fellow Irishmen in the Vatican. Another Jesuit. Whereas Riley was in the Jesuit Curia before being stranded in southern Italy, O’Flaherty is assigned to the Vatican Curia. If you’re not familiar with how they run things in God’s little acre, the Roman Curia are the administrative offices of the Church. They help develop, promulgate, and administer Church policy, and O’Flaherty is considered a fast-track chap. Brilliant, overly Irish, and a scratch golfer of all things.”

      “Overly Irish?” Perkin asked.

      “Well, yes, despite his good deeds which I’ll detail momentarily, he’s not a fan of the British Empire. He is, what one could say, that truly rare beast—a good, devout, fearless man. But a man who grew up in the shadow of the Irish Civil War and partition, and the Black and Tans. I don’t think he’d cross the street to help King George.”

      “So, what’s his connection to Grossmann?”

      “I’ll get to that . . . O’Flaherty was arrested by British forces in Southern Ireland in ’21, but was released without any further action. It appears to have been a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He graduated from Mungret College in Limerick and was ordained in ’25. Most of his time as a priest has been spent at the Vatican, although he has traveled extensively and he was assigned to what was essentially a diplomatic mission for a year in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He also completed a mission in Palestine and, significantly, spent two years, ’36 to ’38, in Czechoslovakia.”

      “So he’s had the opportunity to view the jackboots firsthand.”

      “Exactly. Beginning during the North Africa campaigns, O’Flaherty began to visit the prisoner of war camps here in Italy, serving as an English interpreter to another Vatican official. He was always friendly to all the lads, including the English ones, and he would bring back names of the fellows he met and broadcast them over the Vatican radio. It was a great help to many families whose boys were reported as missing in action, when in fact they were prisoners of the Italians. When some of them later escaped in the confusion following your landing in September, they made it to Rome and sought out O’Flaherty. He put some of them up in his apartment—in the German College no less—and others were sent into sympathetic Italian homes. It appears that his sympathies were not just to the Allied boys but to anti-fascist Italians, Jews, and, well, anyone needing protection from the Germans.”

      “How did he come to your attention?” Perkin was intrigued by the story of the Irish monsignor and was wondering how this would affect him.

      “A couple of different ways, actually. Believe it or not, both of our countries still maintain a diplomatic mission to the Holy See. Although O’Flaherty is not working with us by any means, he lets our chap at the Vatican know who he’s got under his wing, and they pass him funds to help finance the operation. Also, we’ve had a handful of men trickle back to our lines from Rome, and they’ve told us of the help that they’ve received from the monsignor. That’s how we know—”

      Hill, the American official, interrupted, “There may have been just a trickle back to us, but we think O’Flaherty has more than a thousand of our boys—of every flavor imaginable—tucked away in the Vatican or helpful Italian households. And when I say every flavor, that’s what I mean: Yanks, Brits, Diggers, Kiwis, Canucks, Yarpies, Rhodies—and soldiers from a hundred points in the British Empire that you and I never heard of before. Think of the footprint of a thousand Allied soldiers. So . . .”

      “So,” Perkin said, finishing Hill’s thought, “if there are that many looking to get out, and they’re using the Church as a conduit, they’ve now come to the German’s attention.”

      “Yes!” said Ackernly. “Therein lies the rub. O’Flaherty’s come not only to our attention, but that of Jerry as well, and I imagine the SS and the Gestapo are preparing to bugger him like a choirboy. I can’t tell you how much I admire this man whom I’ve never met, so I would feel dreadful were that to occur.”

      Perkin thought for a moment. “Are you positive that he’s come to the Germans’ attention?”

      Colonel Scrope looked at the others, and when Ackernly nodded, Scrope answered, “Yes. Can’t discuss sources, but we’re sure.”

      “Do you have a feel for when the Gestapo might move against him?” Perkin felt his excitement mount, and he wondered, What’s my role in this?

      Scrope answered again. “No. We’re getting a sense that there may be a power struggle among German intelligence agencies on this issue—specifically the Abwehr and the Gestapo. We’re not sure. We believe that the SS is conducting this train, and we have further reason to believe that they have prepared contingency plans to depose the Pope and occupy the Papal territory. We’ve even heard of plans to establish an Anti-Pope in Lichtenstein. But . . . we also have indications that a move against the Vatican is being held in abeyance.”

      Ackernly nodded and said, “If that’s the case, what would you suppose that they are waiting for, young man?

      Perkin considered the question. “Well, it may be that the cost of doing it would be too severe, that it’d cause too many perturbations, specifically among the Austro-German Catholic population, or in, say, Vichy France or Hungary or Croatia or neutral Ireland—that the plan’s not postponed, but in fact shelved indefinitely. No sense inflaming all of Catholicism over a thousand POWs. Or perhaps they’re waiting to see if there is a change in the fortunes of war—a turnabout on the Eastern Front. A postponement of the channel crossing. Maybe a stalemate or even a victory here in Italy. Maybe if the war shifts back in their favor, who cares what the world of Catholicism thinks?” Perkin saw Ackernly lift his eyebrows and shrug. Perkin thought he knew what Ackernly was thinking and he continued, “On the other hand, when’s Hitler ever given two hoots about what anybody thinks of him? Maybe he just wants an airtight case against the Vatican before he moves first?”

      “I think that’s a triple twenty, Captain Berger.” Scrope had a pleased yet serious look about him.

      Ackernly asked another question of Perkin. “Do you see how this comes together now?”

      “Yes, sir, I think so . . . The Germans will use Grossmann to penetrate O’Flaherty’s network—posing as an American or British soldier. He can spend time in the Vatican halls learning O’Flaherty’s mysteries, and that information will then be used to build Hitler’s case against the Pope.”

      “Indeed,” Scrope said. “Grossmann will use his unique capabilities to infiltrate O’Flaherty’s network. The information that he gathers may be used to either construct a false case positing a relationship between the Pope and Allied Intelligence, or be used as a justification for abandoning the Concordat. Remember that this is a man who we believe burned the Reichstag in order to declare emergency powers, and who certainly staged a flimsy pretext for war against Poland. This is not beyond Hitler. Regardless, the best case is that the Pope is hopelessly compromised, and the worst case is that Pius XII’s reign ends in a concentration camp, and Hitler loots Vatican City three ways to Sunday!”

      Perkin nodded seriously. It was plausible. “OK. We’re in agreement about this, so what does this have СКАЧАТЬ