We trailed the procession of nuns out onto the street. They walked up the Corso San Gottardo, each clutching a small black suitcase, dodging the pedestrians strolling along the thoroughfare. Wind whipped at their cloaks and veils, the black fabric snapping like flags in a parade. Passing restaurants and shops with unaccustomed light spilling out into the street, the nuns made a beeline for the Chiesa di Santa Maria, a bronze-roofed church in a small, parklike setting. Trees surrounded two buildings to the rear, and I guessed this was where they’d be staying. As they entered the church, Philby guided me down a narrow side street, where a gray sedan sat idling. We got in the backseat and the driver took off without a word, circling around to the rear of the church. The car stopped and Philby got out, holding the car door open. A church door opened, the light from inside briefly framing the silhouette of a nun, who dashed to the car and slid into the backseat. Philby slammed the door and got in the front, a split second before the driver accelerated and sped along the gravel drive and out onto the road.
“Billy,” Diana said, glancing toward Philby, her eyes showing a curious mix of surprise, joy, and fear. “Why are you here? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing wrong, my dear,” said Philby. “I simply owed Lieutenant Boyle a favor and brought him along to see the sights.”
“Then you have been busy since I last saw you,” Diana said to me, her face relaxing. We’d last seen each other in Naples, a month ago, before an assignment from Uncle Ike cut our time together short.
“Yes. I asked if I could tag along when your mission was finished. I never thought you’d be brought out so soon.”
“It was… sudden,” she said. Her voice wavered, and I thought tears welled up in her eyes, but she regained her composure in an instant, running the rosary beads she wore through her fingers. “What’s the connection?” Diana asked in a low voice, nodding toward Philby.
“It’s a long story.”
“They all are,” Diana said, as she took my hand in hers and gazed out the window. She rubbed the moisture away and stared at the traffic, the streetlights, the glow from windows-all the signs of normalcy that had become so abnormal in these years of war. She blinked rapidly as the tears returned, and one dropped onto the back of my hand.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Long and sad,” she said. “Every story is so long and so sad.” She gripped my hand until her knuckles turned white. We drove on through the peaceful streets in silence broken only by the sound of muffled sobs.
CHAPTER TWO
The Hotel Turconi was located just north of Chiasso. It sat atop a hill at the start of a wave of foothills and high ridges cresting the Alps themselves. It was a small place, perfect for knowing who your fellow guests were, and for watching the winding road that led up from the border town. When we’d first checked in, the owner nodded to Philby like a long-time customer, the kind who liked to be left alone. He didn’t blink at our passports, both Irish, and reserved a table in an alcove for our meals, set apart from the other diners. Our papers and our names were phony, but the money Philby handed over wasn’t. I hoped he wasn’t stingy with the king’s pound notes, since I didn’t like the idea of German agents paying us a visit while we slept.
The owner himself served us. Wild mushroom soup and roasted duck breast with apples, washed down with a couple of bottles of Merlot Bianco-from his cousin’s vineyard, he was proud to tell us. It beat dining in London, with all the rationing restrictions, even though Diana was still dressed as a nun.
“Why don’t you change?” I asked as our host cleared the dishes and Philby fired up his pipe. “Do you need clothes?”
“Kim,” Diana said. “Didn’t you tell him?”
“Tell me what?” I wanted to know.
“The mission isn’t over,” she said, lowering her voice. “I needed to report something in person, so I asked to come out. I’ll go back as soon as I can.”
“I will be the one to make that decision, my dear,” Philby said in his best professorial tone. “That’s why I didn’t tell Boyle. I’m not sure myself if you should go back. First, I need to hear what was so important, and how you came to learn of it. The Germans are great ones for playing games, and it could be false intelligence designed to draw out an agent, forcing you to take the sort of intemperate action you did.”
“This is not the sort of intelligence they would plant,” Diana said. “And I am not intemperate.” She drank her wine and set the glass down hard, punctuating her statement.
“Very well,” Philby said, shrugging his acceptance. “We can discuss the matter later, in private.”
“No,” Diana said. “This is not something to be hidden away and kept secret. Billy does work for General Eisenhower, after all.” She made it sound like Philby was an idiot, not her spymaster boss.
“And I am in the business of managing secrets,” Philby said. “Not broadcasting them before their usefulness can be determined.”
“I saw a report from the bishop of Berlin, Konrad von Preysing,” Diana said, ignoring Philby, who refilled his wine glass and eyed her with faint amusement, as if she were a precocious child on the verge of misbehavior. “It was sent directly to the pope, and one of his secretaries typed a copy…”
“If you insist on proceeding, move on to the facts,” Philby said. “There is no need to detail your sources for Lieutenant Boyle.” It was a way for him to assert his authority while allowing her to continue.
Diana waited for a heartbeat, then nodded. “Kurt Gerstein is an Obersturmfuhrer in the SS. A lieutenant. He joined the Nazis in 1933, but quickly became disillusioned and spoke out against their antireligious policies. For his involvement with various Christian youth groups, he was thrown out of the party, severely beaten, and briefly imprisoned for anti-Nazi activities.”
“So how did he end up in the SS?” Philby asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.
“In early 1941, his sister-in-law died in a mental institution.”
“Nazi euthanasia?” Philby asked.
“Yes. At that point, Gerstein became committed to acting against the regime. He apparently decided the best way to do that was from within. A few months after her death, he joined the SS. Either they didn’t check his records, or his technical skills made them willing to overlook them. He had an engineering degree, and had completed his first year of medical school. So they brought him into the Technical Disinfection Department of the SS.”
“What, do they clean garbage cans?” I asked, wondering where all this was leading.
“No. They are in charge of disinfecting the clothes of all the Jews they kill. Jews, Gypsies, Communists, opponents of the regime, anyone who is sent to the extermination camps.”
I’d read about the concentration camps, where enemies of the Nazis were sent, and I knew the SS and the Gestapo had no qualms about shooting whomever they wanted. But this felt different. A whole structure dedicated to extermination? It was bigger than wanton slaughter, beyond evil, beyond believing. Everything I’d read or seen in newsreels about the Nazis made me angry. This made me sick.
“We know the Nazis have treated the Jews terribly,” Philby said. “As they have many others. We know many die in the camps in the east, but extermination? Surely they use them for labor, and many die, but you can’t mean wholesale slaughter?” Philby’s normally suave demeanor faltered for a moment as he took in what Diana was describing.
“The Technical Disinfection Department also provides a gas called Zyklon B. It is used in gas chambers, in large quantities,” Diana said, her lips compressed, as if the words were too terrible to let loose into the world. “Kurt Gerstein is in charge of the delivery of Zyklon B. He delivered large quantities to a number of camps in Poland, including a huge complex of camps at a place called Auschwitz.”