“And you’ll see in a moment whether those in Milan weren’t right... Not everyone, however, held the same view: among the members of the Liberation Committee, General Cadorna was in favor of satisfying the Allies, but he was in the minority, and the committee decided to send a mission to Como to execute Mussolini. The patrol — once again, according to the commonly accepted account — was led by a diehard Communist known as Colonel Valerio and by the political commissar, Aldo Lampredi.
“I’ll save you all the alternative versions; for example, that it wasn’t Valerio who went to carry it out but someone more important than him. It’s even rumored that the real executioner was Matteotti’s son, there to avenge his father’s assassination, or that the one who pulled the trigger was Lampredi, the mastermind behind the mission. And so on. But let’s accept what was disclosed in 1947, that Valerio was the nom de guerre of Walter Audisio, the man who would later become a Communist parliamentary hero. As far as I’m concerned, whether it was Valerio or someone else makes little difference, so let’s continue calling him Valerio. Valerio and a group of his men head for Dongo. Pedro, in the meantime, unaware of the imminent arrival of Valerio, decides to hide the Duce, because he fears that Fascist units roaming the area might try to free him. To make sure the prisoner’s refuge remains secret, he decides to move him discreetly, of course, but assuming that the news would be passed on, internally, to the customs officials at Germasino. The Duce would have to be taken at night and moved to another place, known only to a handful, toward Como.”
At Germasino, Pedro has an opportunity to exchange a few words with the person under arrest, who asks him to send his greetings to a lady who was in the Spanish consul’s car, and with some hesitation he admits that she is Claretta Petacci. Pedro would then meet Claretta Petacci, who at first pretends she is someone else, then relents and unburdens herself, talking about her life with the Duce and asking as a last request to be reunited with the man she loves. Pedro is now unsure what to do, but having consulted his companions, he is moved by the story and agrees. This is why Claretta Petacci is there during Mussolini’s nighttime transfer to the next place, which in fact they never reach, because news arrives that the Allies have reached Como and are wiping out the last pockets of Fascist opposition; the small convoy of two vehicles therefore heads north once again. The cars stop at Azzano, and after a short distance on foot the fugitives reach the home of the De Maria family — people who can be trusted — and Mussolini and Claretta Petacci are given a small room with a double bed.
Unbeknown to Pedro, this is the last time he will see Mussolini. He returns to Dongo. A truck arrives in the main piazza, full of soldiers wearing brand-new uniforms, quite different from the torn and shabby dress of his partisans. The soldiers line up in front of the town hall. Their leader presents himself as Colonel Valerio, an officer sent with full authority from the general command of the Volunteer Freedom Corps. He produces impeccable credentials and states he has been sent to shoot the prisoners, all of them. Pedro tries to argue, requesting that the prisoners be handed over to those who can carry out a proper trial, but Valerio pulls rank, calls for the list of those arrested, and marks a black cross beside each name. Pedro sees that Claretta Petacci is also to be sentenced to death, and he objects. He says she is only the dictator’s lover, but Valerio replies that his orders come from headquarters in Milan.
“And note this point, which emerges clearly from Pedro’s account, because in other versions Valerio would say that Claretta Petacci clung to her man, that he had told her to move away, that she had refused and was therefore killed by mistake, so to speak, or through excessive zeal. The thing is that she had already been condemned, but this isn’t the point. The truth is, Valerio tells different stories and we can’t rely on him.”
Various confusing incidents follow. Having been told of the alleged presence of the Spanish consul, Valerio wants to see him, talks to him in Spanish, but the man can’t answer, calling into question his Spanish credentials. Valerio gives him a violent slap, identifies him as Vittorio Mussolini, and orders Bill to take him down to the lake and shoot him. But on their way to the lake, someone recognizes him as Marcello Petacci, Claretta’s brother, and Bill retrieves him. To no avail. As Marcello jabbers about the services he has done for the fatherland, about secret arms he had found and hidden from Hitler, Valerio adds his name to the list of those condemned to die.
Valerio and his men go straight to the house of the De Maria family, take Mussolini and Petacci, drive them to a lane in Giulino di Mezzegra, where he orders them out. It seems that Mussolini first imagines Valerio has come to free him, and only then does he realize what awaits him. Valerio pushes him against the railings and reads the sentence, trying (he would later say) to separate Mussolini from Claretta, who remains desperately clinging to her lover. Valerio tries to shoot, the machine gun jams, he asks Lampredi for another, and fires five bursts. He would later say that Petacci suddenly moved into the line of fire and was killed by mistake. It’s the twenty-eighth of April.
“We know all this from Valerio’s account. Mussolini, according to him, ended up as a husk of humanity, though legend would subsequently claim he pulled open his greatcoat shouting, ‘Aim for the heart!’ No one really knows what happened in that lane apart from the executioners, who would later be manipulated by the Communist Party.”
Valerio returns to Dongo and organizes the shooting of all the other Fascist leaders. Barracu asks not to be shot in the back but is shoved into the group. Valerio also puts Marcello Petacci among them, but the other condemned men protest, they regard him as a traitor, and it’s anyone’s guess what that individual had really been up to. It is then decided to shoot him separately. Once the others have been shot, Petacci breaks free and runs off toward the lake. He’s caught but manages to free himself once again, dives into the water, swimming desperately, and is finished off by machine-gun fire and rifle shots. Later Pedro, who refused to let his men take part in the execution, arranges for the corpse to be fished out and put onto the same truck as the others. The truck is dispatched to Giulino to pick up the bodies of the Duce and Claretta. Then off to Milan, where on April 29 they are all dumped in Piazzale Loreto, the same place where the corpses of partisans shot almost a year before had been dumped — the Fascist militia had left them out in the sun for a whole day, preventing the families from collecting the remains.
At this point Braggadocio took my arm, grasping it so firmly that I had to pull away. “Sorry,” he said, “but I’m about to reach the core of my problem. Listen carefully. The last time Mussolini was seen in public by people who knew him was the afternoon at the Archbishop’s Palace in Milan. From that point on, he traveled only with his closest followers. And from the moment he was picked up by the Germans, then arrested by the partisans, none of those who had dealings with him had known him personally. They had seen him only in photographs or in propaganda films, and the photographs of the last two years showed him so thin and worn that it was rumored he was no longer himself. I told you about the last interview with Cabella, on April 20, which Mussolini checked and signed on the twenty-second, you remember? Well, Cabella notes in his memoirs: ‘I immediately observed that Mussolini was in excellent health, contrary to rumors circulating. He was in far better health than the last time I’d seen him. That was in December 1944, on the occasion of his speech at Lirico. On the previous occasions he had received me — in February, in March, and in August of ’44 — he had never appeared as fit. His complexion was healthy and tanned, his eyes alert, swift in their movements. He had also gained some weight. Or at least he no longer had that leanness that had so struck me in February of the previous year and which gave his face a gaunt, almost emaciated look.’