Saint Peter's Soldiers (A James Acton Thriller, Book #14) (13 page)

Leaving Rome, Italy

Obersturmbannführer Franz Hofmeister sipped his schnapps as he
waited for the call to connect, he now occupying the rear seat of the Audi A8,
their guest dropped off earlier. Yesterday’s operation had been an unmitigated
disaster, yet today’s had gone off perfectly.

“Hold
for the Doctor.”

Hofmeister
put his drink in a cup holder and straightened himself out of habit.

“Obersturmbannführer,
report.”

The
man’s voice was curt, rather high pitched, and terrifying. It was a voice he
had been hearing since he was a boy, since he had begun his indoctrination. He
was the third generation, the Doctor the second, the adopted son of the great
Mengele himself.

A man
who attacked his work with the same zeal as one of Nazi Germany’s greatest
gifts to medical science.

If
only we had had more time!

He often
chuckled at the debate over killing civilians in war. Tens of millions had died
in World War II, and to the Allies’ credit, there was no shortage of victims at
their hands. What people conveniently forgot so many years later was that this
war was a race against time. The Allies couldn’t wage a slow war, protecting every
civilian. If they had taken just another six months to win, Germany’s
scientists would have won the ultimate race.

The race
for the atomic bomb.

And the
war would have ended just as quickly as it had in the Pacific.

The
Allies couldn’t risk losing the race, so innocent people had to die in order
that the majority could live.

He
respected them for that.

As did
Mengele.

He had
been privileged enough to have dinner with the man, and he outlined how he
would deal with a modern threat like ISIS.

“Carpet
bomb the entire area, killing every last man woman and child. The innocents
that live there are dying anyway, the women are being raped, the children sold
into slavery, the men forced to fight or die. These people would rather be dead
than to live another day under that black flag. Kill them all, put them out of
their misery, and in the process, eliminate the threat.” Mengele had sliced off
a particularly rare piece of his steak, blood dripping onto his plate as he
stabbed the air with his fork. “And it will have the added benefit of warning
anyone in the future how they will be dealt with should they defy us.”

It had
been an exceedingly enjoyable dinner. His excitement at being there had meant
he barely appreciated the delicacies served. It wasn’t the food that was the
draw. It was the company. Mengele rarely granted audiences, he now quite old.
It was his son that directed most of the day-to-day activities, he having
followed his father into the biomedical field and was, by all accounts, a
genius.

If
only we had won, the world would be such a better place.

Men and
women would be living in space, on the moon, on Mars even. The world would be
at peace, Germania ruling it all.

“Sir, I
have the portrait.”

“Were
there any complications?”

“No, we
got away clean.”

“Very
well. Report to me when you arrive.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Heil
Hitler.”

“Heil
Hitler!”

The call
ended and he dropped back into his seat, not realizing he was sitting upright,
as close to being at attention as one could be in the back of a car. His heart
pounded in his chest as he replayed the conversation in his head.

He
wants to see me. Me!

It was
more than he could have ever hoped for, and would be the greatest honor of his
life. He imagined it would be much like when his grandfather had met the Führer
himself when he was younger, when the Congress had been established.

Sturmbannführer
Bernard Heidrich.  

He
didn’t share his name. None of them did. Everyone in the Congress had new
identities, and their offspring shared them. As far as history was concerned,
his grandfather had been executed in 1945 for failing to retrieve the very
portrait that now sat beside him, not dead from a heart attack twenty years
ago.  

He
would be so proud at how close we are to accomplishing Operation Raven’s Claw.

He picked
up his drink, taking another sip, closing his eyes. The carnage in the world
today was heartbreaking, especially when the solutions were so simple. The
problem was a complete lack of political will. When leaders are obsessed with
reelection, they too often fail to do the right thing. Sometimes the right
thing was bloody, sometimes it was unpopular, sometimes it was dirty.

Like
Mengele’s solution to the Middle East.

Eliminate
it.

It was
an elegant, clean solution. Conventional weapons could wipe out the population
without having to go nuclear. If necessary, chemical or biological weapons
could be used to ensure complete victory.

It
would probably be cheaper too.

The
world was crying out for order, order only a Führer could provide. The world
needed a man who was answerable to no one, who wasn’t concerned with voters or
polls, who wasn’t concerned with what the press thought of him.

Russian
aggression, Chinese expansion, Japanese pacifism, Islamic fundamentalism, a
black in the White House, Jews controlling the banks. The world needed order, and
the Congress was the solution. Once they were successful in fulfilling the
dream, the work would begin to reestablish what had been lost, and in time, the
world would demand a leader capable of protecting them from themselves.

The Führer
himself.

Leaving Rome, Italy

Acton rushed into the hotel room, pointing at his laptop computer
sitting on the table. “Login, now!”

Laura
nodded, immediately grabbing it and sitting down, flipping open the lid, the
screen flashing to life. Acton and Reading quickly swept the two-bedroom suite,
making sure they were alone. They had all given statements at the police
station, and they all had told the complete truth, except for the mention of
the Führer. Even Father Rinaldi had omitted that point apparently, Reading
getting him aside and out of earshot of Chief Inspector Riva before they had
been taken to the police station.

They
hadn’t been alone for hours, this the first opportunity the three of them had
to talk since the arrival of the police.

Reading
grabbed three bottles of water and handed them out, Laura passing the laptop
over to Acton as he sat beside her. “What’s going on?” asked Reading.

Acton
quickly logged into the tracking website. “I dropped my phone in the crate. We
should be able to track where they went.”

Reading’s
eyebrows popped as he took a seat. “Are you kidding me?”

Acton
shook his head. “No.”

“You’ve
got a pair, that’s for sure.”

Acton
grunted. “I acted on instinct. It was stupid. Dangerous.”

Reading
took a long swig from his bottle before responding. “Correct on all accounts.
If you had been caught, they might have killed you.”

Acton
twisted the cap off his bottle as the map drew itself on the screen, a red dot
finally appearing as he took a sip. “There! They’re heading north!”

Reading
climbed from his seat and rounded the table, examining the path the phone had
taken over the past several hours. “Good. Now who do we tell?”

Acton
frowned, leaning back on the couch, putting his arm around his exhausted wife.
“We can’t trust the police.”

“No,”
said Reading, shaking his head emphatically as he returned to his seat. “Before
they took Mario away he said to trust no one. Clearly he had concerns about Chief
Inspector Riva.”

“That
much was pretty obvious,” agreed Laura, holding her bottle to her cheek.

Acton
watched the map update, the dot moving a little bit farther north on the
highway. He looked at Reading. “If we can’t trust the police, can we trust
Mario’s men?”

Reading
shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t the police at all.”

“But we
saw them—”

Reading
held up a finger. “No, we saw two men in uniform. We don’t know if they were
actually police.”

Acton
blasted a breath out his nose.

“So what
you’re saying is we can’t trust anybody.”

Giasson Residence, Via Nicolò III, Rome, Italy

Mario Giasson closed his eyes, enjoying the sound of his children
pounding through the house, the aromas of last night’s leftovers being reheated
in the kitchen reaching the bedroom in which he now rested. He had missed the
special dinner last night, four people dying on the sovereign territory where
you were responsible for security sometimes a reasonable excuse.

Marie-Claude
didn’t mind. She was more concerned about what had happened and whether or not
he and their friends were safe. He had an amazing job. He was responsible for
security in a state that had less than 500 citizens, where the most common
crimes were pickpocketing and purse snatching.

And that
was never done by his citizens.

Tens of
thousands of people visited every day.

Including
criminals.

His job
was predictable, in that he would rarely not be home on schedule unless it was
known well ahead of time. The Pope was an important man, with millions who
wanted him dead for the mere fact he was Christian. They were constantly
vigilant, and when there were special events, he would quite often work late
hours.

But on
what were supposed to be normal days like yesterday and today? His arrival home
was usually like clockwork.

His
shoulder throbbed then a shot of pain pierced his body.

He
gasped, it quickly receding.

It was
just a flesh wound, tearing away part of his arm. It would need to be packed
for a few weeks until the skin grew back in. That meant no stitches, no heavy
bleeding, and hopefully, no scar.

And it
also meant he wasn’t about to be cooped up in a hospital room when there was a
perfectly comfortable bed at home with his name on it.

One of
the advantages of his senior position at the Vatican was that he had access to
all the city-state had to offer, including its medical staff. He had already
had his second-in-command, Gerard Boileau, arrange for a visit every two hours
to assuage the concerns of the doctors at the hospital, and he had been
officially transferred to their care.

Two of
his men were stationed outside his home, and the State Police had a car on the
street out front. He didn’t know who he could trust, so at the moment, having
both parties guarding his house he felt was the most prudent move.

They
would keep a wary eye on each other.

The
doorbell rang and the race was on as his daughters rushed to see who could
answer it first. His wife yelled, halting them in their tracks as she ordered
them back to their bedroom. He heard the alarm chime as the front door opened
and he checked himself to make sure he was decent, as the real reason he had
insisted on being taken home, arrived. He could hear the mumbled voices out
front as pleasantries were exchanged, two of his guests having met his wife
once before during even more unpleasant circumstances.

“Sweetheart,
your guests are here!” Footsteps on the hardwood floors foretold their approach
and moments later his wife entered the bedroom, the Actons and Reading
entering.

“How are
you doing?” asked Laura, stepping forward and taking his hand. “Shouldn’t you
be in the hospital?”

“That’s
what
I
said.” Marie-Claude raised her hands, palms upward. “But will he
listen to me? No!”

Acton
and Reading shook his hand then he motioned for them to sit in the three chairs
his wife had brought in earlier. “There was no way I was going to sit in a
hospital when there’s work to be done.”