[Brag]

Chapter 27

"Arrest me, I threatened the pilots. The Contessa had nothing to do with this."
Shapquine nodded. "Now that you have been arrested, we can inform the Brits. We don't need to tell them you are released on parole. We'll provide you with an aircraft tomorrow."
Relief made Val's hands shake.
"Contessa," Shapquine said, "Do you have a couple of spare rooms at your residence?"
"Yes, why?"
"I plan to accompany you to Italy and there is a lady who wants to talk with our dear count."
Claudia gave Val a sharp look. "Another lady?"
"Academician Lydia Stuart," Shapquine said.
"Colonel, I don't run a hotel."
"Of course we could stay somewhere else, but providing security will be more difficult. And then there's the risk of Italian authorities acting on the British warrant."
"With the funeral, the airplane to fix, business obligations, the professor wanting perusal of documents; now you throw Italian authorities into the basket of problems. And then, to boots, you propel another woman into my house."
Val stopped eating. "This lady is quite fun. You can think of her as my mother checking on her errant son."
"Madre mia," Claudia said to the ceiling. "This lunatic wakes me up at four in the morning, now he wants to bring his mother."
Val chuckled. "The trouble with the Contessa, she doesn't like how other people fly."
Shapquine said. "I'm informed that Academician Stuart has found a lead to uncover Captain Jack's identity."

#

Rain and wind swept across Grosseto Airport's concrete apron. The French Falcon Jet taxied to a remote corner of the airport where a black Mercedes hearse and an old green Range Rover waited.
Two men in black hats and raincoats took D'Albano's body, placed him inside the hearse and drove off.
"From here on he will be treated with dignity," Claudia said, opening a red umbrella outside the airplane door. Getting drenched, Val followed her to the Range Rover wishing he had a hat.
Shapquine, wearing a trench coat festooned with D rings, flaps and straps caught up with Val. "Perfect weather for a good Italian bean soup."
"The way she likes cops, the Contessa will pour it on top of your head."
"No, she'll be too angry at Boikin who's been camping at her Palazzo since last night."
"You could have told me yesterday."
"He didn't tell me 'til a few minutes ago on the cell."
Val imagined the little Russian ransacking through the D'Albano papers.
"You two climb to the back seat." Claudia said after greeting the driver.
Water ran down flooded ditches on the side of the road. In the fields along the narrow country road, miserable looking Cattle stood their backs to the wind. Because of the clouds dragging wet bellies along the tops of hills, Val had no way of telling in which direction they were going. Soon the terrain became flat and the driver pulled off the paved road onto a muddy track.
Four kilometers later, they entered San Albano, a one street village Val remembered as sun drenched. The car turned into a square where in the summer people sat on benches eating ice cream. There was something extra melancholic about Italy on a rainy day. They stopped in front of the modest village church.
Claudia said, "I have to see the priest." She jumped out and hurried into the church. A wind gust shook the car. Val's bones absorbed the chill of his wet clothes. So much for warming under the famed Tuscan sun.
"Our friend Boikin would have commented how suitable the weather is for a funeral," Shapquine said in Russian.
"Are you his stand in?" Val wiped his fogging window with the back of the hand.
"Have you considered that the young wife might have murdered her aging husband?"
"What for?"
"The obvious reasons. And she could be using the situation to commit the perfect crime."
Indignation rose up Val's chest. "I find the suggestion preposterous if not offensive."
The French policeman, or whatever he was, shrugged.
"The next thing you'll say I offed the old boy."
"In France you'd be a suspect, at least as an accomplice."
Val wondered if Shapquine's words were a threat. He was going to tell him to watch what he said when Claudia ran out of the house next to the church.
"Andiamo." She climbed back into the car.
Shortly after leaving the village, the driver slowed, turned into an open gate with cattle guards. A herd of fallow deer, hoof-deep in water, watched the car drive by.
"Our plot borders the Uccellina Nature Reserve. And those cattle you see are wild," Claudia told Shapquine.
"A splendid location, Contessa."
Among scattered umbrella-like Mediterranean pines several white cows with large horns grassed sticking their snouts into water covering the tableland.
The place looked completely different from the summer he had spent here.
They passed a group of houses and sheds built on slightly elevated ground. The Range Rover stopped in front of the white, three storied main house that was the D'Albano ancestral home. Without blooming flower boxes on the iron balconies installed in the late 1800s, the house had the architectural merit of a stone box with small windows.
Inside, the temperature was colder than in the open. Rosalia, a chunky middle aged woman in a black dress and wrapped in a black shawl, gave orders to the driver and a thin young man, who took luggage up a wooden staircase.
Val thought that originally the ground floor was used to shelter animals. He scrutinized statuary lining up the foyer walls and once again had the feeling of entering a museum. Incongruously, a row of parkas hung from pegs next to the door.
Claudia removed her scarlet raincoat, took a parka off a peg and handed it to Val. "Before you die." She then took another and put it on. Turning to Shapquine, she said, "This house was built in the medieval time. In the twelfth century. Franco believed if we put heat to it, the house would crumble. The cold keeps the mosquitoes away in the summer."
Rosalia whispered something into Claudia's ear.
Claudia's eyes quickly shifted between Val and Shapquine as she nodded.
Her expression became stern and she said to Shapquine. "You follow Luciano to your room." She then studied Val. "Yes, you have similar size to Franco. He won't mind if you wear his clothes."
The second floor had a corridor girding the building. Potted palms and benches alternated between interior doors. Claudia led into a dark bedroom and switched on the light. A small chandelier illuminated a military cot, a folding field desk with chair, and a well worn, overstuffed arm chair. "This is the room where Franco really lived."
She opened an armoire. "Use whatever you need, but not his uniforms."
"Thank you," Val said, trying not to show his reluctance of ransacking a dead man's wardrobe.
"I will show you your room, it's the same one you had before. Then I will go to Grosetto for shopping. You have freedom of the house. But the top floor is closed."

#

In the guest room Claudia assigned to him, Val got into dry clothes. D'Albano's trousers were too long. Val rolled the cuffs up. Chilled to the bones, he put on two pair of wool socks. The ancient house made him think how history influenced the thinking of people. Here, even an ignorant peasant was exposed to the monuments and architectural art of the past and became aware of the human greatness of mind. In the States only the East Coast offered anything resembling a historical tradition and the American lower classes had less cultural development than isolated African tribes. Maybe he should write a paper on the subject. He cringed at the outrage such thoughts would cause if made public.
His musings were shattered as the door flew open.
"Valentin Georgevich," Boikin said.
Val restrained himself before answering. "Don't you believe in knocking on doors?"
"I was hoping to catch you and the Contessa in bed."
"You're too late. She's gone shopping."
Boikin shook his head as he sat on a rococo armchair. "Shopping? You let her go shopping by herself?"
Embarrassment and anger at his own stupidity mixed in Val's mind.
Boikin waved his arm in dismissal. "Never mind, it will take your friends some time to discover where you and she are. Lunch will be served in twenty minutes."
"Did you have a productive night searching the house?"
"Didn't find a thing," Boikin probably lied.

#

The room was small, heated by a portable kerosene stove. Stuart rubbed her palms together as she sat at the round table. "Ah, wonderful, zakuski."
"Antipasti in Italy," Val said.
"I found a piano for you."
Boikin took a bottle of vodka out of an overcoat pocket. "This converts Italian antipasti into good Russian zakuski."
"The magic of vodka," Shapquine added.
Val studied the different dishes on the table. There were the obligatory pickles, salami, mushrooms, some fish.
Boikin poured vodka into wine glasses. "To your two extraordinary escapes. May you not run out of miracles."
After downing the vodka and chewing some salami, Val said, "I understand you made some meaningful discoveries."
Stuart waved a mushroom impaled on a fork. "A new call-sign appears after a week's hiatus. We have been unable to decipher it. But Colonel Shapquine says French intercepts indicate the new station communicating with DSXV was located in Alexandria."
The British occupied Egypt at the time. "It would have been impossible for Germans to transmit from Alexandria. Maybe some lost patrol of the Africa Corps, holed up in the desert. But they never got east of El Alamein."
Shapquine said, "French intercepts in Bizerte and Beirut were in excellent position to triangulate precisely."
"For 23 days this station communicates with DSXV almost daily. Then stops for a week. This station also communicates with U-3503. The next transmission . . . Colonel drop your bomb."
Shapquine grinned. "Count, brace yourself."
The vodka, kerosene heater and the two pairs of socks, gave Val a feeling of wellbeing. He laughed and poured vodka. "The next transmission was made from the top of the pyramid of Giza by space aliens."
Shapquine's grin disappeared. "Wadi Haifa, eight-hundred kilometers south of Cairo."
Val thought for a moment. "Interesting. Moving toward U-3503, which by now has run out of fuel."
"From then on, our Beirut station intercepts only one more transmission the following day. So there is no triangulation but the line goes over Khartoum."

Chapter 28

July 1945
From the narrow cockpit window of the war surplus PBY Catalina amphibian Capella had bought in Naples, Captain Jack watched the heel of the boot of Italy slowly slide underneath. Ahead lay nothing but blue Mediterranean with the horizon blurred by summer haze.
It felt good to sit in the copilot's seat. Jack had not been in an airplane cockpit since that bitter day he got washed out from flight training in San Antonio. The Army Air Corps was unfair and brutal. If the stupid instructor said a cadet was not ready to solo in ten hours, that was it. There was no appeal, no recourse. Despite his later success in the OSS, Jack never forgave his instructor nor the Army for shattering his dream of becoming a pilot.
The dream was born in Berlin, where Jack's father was second secretary at the embassy. A humble job he had stoically taken after losing the family fortune during the depression. While visiting the Third Reich, Charles Lindbergh, the great aviator came to dinner. His enthusiasm for the future of aviation got Jack fired up with a burning desire to become a pilot.
At 110 knots, it would take them 11 hours to reach Alexandria. Jack glanced at Capella who still wore his military khakis and smoked a cheap cigar.
"Do you mind if I fly for a bit?"
Capella nodded. "Just keep this heifer on course and altitude."
Jack pulled his seat forward and took the controls.
"Easy," Capella said, and pushed the yoke forward with his index fingers.
The airplane had climbed 50 feet.
Jack pulled the yoke back just a touch and then brought it forward, nailing the altimeter on the twelve o'clock position.
"Use the trim wheel when those *******s in the back move around."
Having his men called *******s, rankled. "Hey, they might not smell too good, but they aren't *******s."
Capella chuckled. "I guess I should be more respectful of this airline's first passengers."
"Now you understand the business aspect of this airline." Jack's gaze swept the sea below. Three white wakes drew his attention. Ships no longer sailed in convoys. Jack chuckled to himself, wondering what Capella's reaction was going to be when they landed next to a German U-boat.

#

Capella's loud snores weren't helping Jack's drowsiness. Showing they were making progress, the red ADF needle pointed toward Tobruk, eighty degrees off the nose. Capella sprawled like a Dali masterpiece with one foot on the glare shield, the other resting between the rudder pedals. His head hung to one side, and his headset had dropped to the floor.
Jack reached for the thermos with coffee
Though lukewarm, the coffee soothed Jack's dry throat. He was pleased to see the airplane stayed nailed on its altitude without him touching the yoke. The Croats riding in the back were probably asleep and weren't moving about screwing up the trim.
The drone of he engines broke into loud, banging belches. Jack spilled coffee on his lap and dropped his cup.
Capella's foot got caught in the yoke as he attempted to sit up. The nose of the PBY lifted. Jack fought to regain control.
A strident bell rang.
"What the ****?" Capella said, as he disentangled his foot.
Jack looked out of his window. "****, the engine is on fire."
Capella sang, "Happy days are here again . . ." He punched the right feathering button, as he took over the yoke. "Look outside, tell me when the prop has stopped."
Jack watched the propeller come to a halt, its blades turned to offer least resistance to the slipstream. "Rotation stopped."
"Do you see flames?"
"****ing A."
"Turn that ****ing bell off."
Capella pulled the right CO2 discharge handle.
It took Jack several seconds to find the alarm mute switch.
"Is the fire out?"
"I think so."
"Okay, panic's over. Read me the checklist."
Jack glanced at the dropping airspeed, as Capella pushed the throttle of the good engine to climb power. Trying to keep his voice even, Captain Jack read off the Engine Failure Checklist.

#

7° 48' S
39° 32' E
With the war over, lighthouses functioned again. Teicher was fascinated by the periodic sweep of Kilindoni Light-beam on Mafia island. Below the horizon, the lighthouse itself couldn't provide the precise bearing Teicher needed. His gaze returned toward the bow, and he peered through his glasses. In the moonlight, the mangrove coast looked like an ancient army of pikemen walking on water.
Shortly after dark he had surfaced and dropped off Charlie and Franco in an inflatable life raft one mile upwind of his present position. According to Charlie, the Southeast Monsoon wind would carry him to the Komboni mouth of the Rufiji Delta. Now Teicher searched for the beacon the two lunatics were supposed to light.
Four hours had gone by. Still nothing. "Ten degrees port rudder," Teicher commanded more out of instinct than observation. The mangrove mess ahead didn't allow precise navigation.
A grunt from the port lookout made Teicher swing his glasses left.
"Light off the port bow," the lookout called out.
"Thirty degrees port rudder. Engines one third ahead, together."
The whine of the electric motors increased. Teicher wasn't taking chances of someone ashore hearing the thump of diesels.
"New heading zero seven three," Krabbe said as he took a bearing with the UZO.
"A bit stronger current than we anticipated."
"Jawohl, I hope those two landed in the right place."
"Depth fifteen meters, fluctuating to thirteen."
Teicher studied the steepening swell. "Danke."
"I hope our friend is right about coral not growing in muddy water," Krabbe said.
Teicher chuckled. "He is right out of a Salgari novel."
"A modern day Sandokan."
They were less than a mile from the coast. "Dead slow ahead." Teicher searched for the opening. He could see spume, and hear thunder of breaking waves. "Hard to port, ahead full." Teicher winced. His commands were like those of a raw junior officer caught with his pants down.
The boat accelerated as it turned beam to the seas.
Like a rearing monster a wave rose and broke on deck. Teicher slammed against the rail as the boat rolled. "Engines stop. Hard starboard."
The boat turned toward the inlet.
As if crossing a magic barrier, they entered calm water.
The boat started to drift back to sea, Teicher understood what formed the freak waves. "Engines ahead one third."
The most primitive navigation beacon on earth, a fire built on a raft Illuminated surrounding mangrove trees. Teicher watched Charlie and Franco pull themselves from tree to tree, working their way upstream against an ebbing current. "What's the depth?"
"Depth twenty four meters."
"The tide turned early on us, Herr Krabbe." Teicher couldn't resist in saying.
"I did my best with what we have, Herr Kaleun."
That had been an unfair comment. All Krabbe had to work with was the tide information given by a commercial radio station in Mombasa. "I've meant it as a compliment."
The sub was doing five knots against the current and stood still maintaining station. Teicher hoped Charlie and Franco moved sufficiently well upstream to be able to paddle up to the ship. "I want four men with lines on the forward deck and four by the stern. If those people get swept to sea, I'll have someone's neck." He then turned to Krabbe. "You have the con."
Teicher sat at the bottom of the cockpit and lit a cigarette. With envy, he thought of his men who soon would enjoy a break under the sun.
"Here they come," Krabbe said.
Teicher sprung to his feet.
With naked eyes, he noticed the disturbance on the water. His heartbeat accelerated as he focused his glasses on the two men furiously paddling the life raft. It didn't take a genius to see they'd never make the sub. The current swept them down four meters for every meter of progress.
Teicher glanced back where the outpouring current met the ocean waves in a maelstrom of white water.
The life raft was clearly visible to the naked eye. Charlie had overestimated their capability of propelling the clumsy craft. Or misjudged the current. It didn't matter. Throughout the war Teicher had not lost a single man. He wasn't about to start now.
"Engines astern, full." Teicher wondered what damage he would do to screws and rudders if he hit something.
The wine of electric motors rose, the sub began moving backward. The life raft was almost abeam the bow, still a good thirty meters away from U-3503.
One of the men on deck tossed a line. The wind blowing above the treetops sheered its course. The monkey fist splashed into water behind the raft.
As the sub's forward speed dropped, the raft's relative position stabilized. The second line flew neatly over the raft and one of the occupants grabbed it.
"Both engines ahead one third together." Teicher looked back as the stern headed for the huge breakers.
"Man overboard."
In all his time at sea, Teicher had never heard the dreaded call except in drills. He leaned over the port rail to see the head of the line-handler reappear on the surface.
"Stern crew toss your lines."
Teicher was going to yell more instructions. But that would add to the confusion.
Someone threw a line, wrapped the bitter end around a cleat. The life raft swung as the line tightened.
The idiot in the water had let go of the line to the raft and swam for it.
U-3503 slowly pulled away from the surf.
"Ahead one half." Now he had to prevent the raft from entering the surf. With relief, Teicher saw the swimmer reach the raft and someone grab him.
Relieved, his attention returned to maneuvering his boat deeper into Africa. Above the soft hum of the electric motors, he thought he heard the trumpeting of elephant in the distance.
Five minutes later, all his charges were back aboard.
Charlie came up to the bridge. "Yes, Herr Kaleun?"
An odd holiday feeling, generally absent in war engulfed Teicher. He patted Charlie on the shoulder and chuckled. "Now you'll act as pilot, show me your famous beach with palm trees."

#

Alexandria, Wadi Haifa, Khartoum. The route Imperial Airways used. It took four days with overnight stops for this airline's plush flying boats to reach Lake Naivasha in Kenya. "Moving up the Nile," Val said. "And it wasn't at the speed of a boat."
Boikin who had been sitting looking pensive, leaned forward. "Time for a perikur, a smoking break." He lit a cigarette. We have the route and the dates of an airplane heading toward East Africa."
"Absolutely brilliant," Val almost chuckled. "All you need to do is have some of your bright young men working in Cairo and Khartoum, dig through the records and we get the names, aircraft registration, everything."
Boikin ran a hand over his head. An exaggerated scowl appeared on his face. "In Cairo we can't sneeze without Tel Aviv getting a report. Mossad has that part of the world under the closest surveillance. They have thoroughly penetrated the Egyptian security services and the police."
"What do the Israelis have to do with this?"
Stuart, with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, said, "Without Israeli intelligence, the US is blind in the Middle East. So the plethora of American intelligence organizations keep in close touch with Mossad."
Boikin added. "If we start investigating, Washington will know immediately. Mister X will make his conclusions and you will have to spend the rest of your life hiding in some remote shack in Siberia."
"The way Mossad has North and Eastern Africa covered is simply Amazing," Shapquine said. "Aid programs, hotels, transport, import-export and trading companies, provide an excellent network where it is difficult to move without them knowing."
Rosalia entered the room carrying a large steaming tureen and placed it on the table. "Signori mangia niente."
While Rosalia ladled soup, Val shifted uncomfortably in his seat. There was little doubt in his mind the Russian and French spooks would propose he go to Egypt.
With MI-6 already after him, all he needed was to another intelligence organization joining the hunt.
"We'll give you an Austrian passport and you'll go as a tourist," Boikin said.
"I just learned to say buenos dias."
"Tourists outnumber security operatives," Shapquine added. "You'll get lost in the hordes."
"They all go to the pyramids, bazaars and the museum. They don't dig into airport archives. Nowadays airports are high security zones," Val objected.
"There's another high security zone you may want to avoid," Shapquine said, "Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London."
"I see, and you would deliver me there?"
"The trial would be rather sensational. The sort of thing British tabloids love."
"The Italian press is quite colorful, too," Boikin added."
The fury rising inside Val was hard to contain. For a moment he visualized pulling the pistol now comfortably lodged under his arm and shooting all three spooks. The image of the massacre brought out the icy calm he was beginning to learn how to summon in critical moments. He smiled at his lunch partners. "You make interesting suggestions. Of course I'd love to go to Egypt."

#

The rain had stopped and the overcast lifted higher than the steep, rock-strewn hills bordering the alluvial plain. The ruins of a yellow sandstone tower atop one of the hills fascinated Val. Several other towers sprouted here and there. Nowhere else in the world were there so many reminders of the past as in Italy. He was about to go back into his dark room when he saw the Range Rover drive up to the house.
He had to talk to Claudia alone. Stuart's idea made a lot of sense. But unlike the spooks accustomed to using people, Val was loath of involving Claudia.
Val went downstairs and helped the driver and houseboy unload groceries, which they took to an enormous kitchen with a large brick oven.
After the two men left, Claudia said, "Coffee?"
"Yes, thank you." Val sat on a stool by a huge, ancient table that must have been built inside the kitchen and watched Claudia manipulate a complex espresso machine.
In a few minutes, she placed two cups of aromatic coffee on the table and sat across from Val. "This is beginning to look like the United Nations. You really need to do some explanations. Who are all these people?"
Val took a deep breath. "I'm still trying to figure it out. It all goes back to Hermann. I thought I knew the man. He was like a benign uncle who taught me in College, helped me defend my dissertation and eased my career. Obviously I held him in the highest esteem and had an idealized picture of him. But now I came to realize my picture of him was incorrect."
"Incorrect? He was the most correct man I have known."
"What I mean is I had a wrong picture of him. Maybe an idealized one. How did you see him?"
"See him?"
"Yes, paint me a portrait. He and your husband were well acquainted."
"Acquainted?" Claudia inclined her head to one side. I would say they were more like partners. Now that both are dead, I can tell you. They worked together tracking down, is that the correct word, tracking?"
Val nodded.
"They tracked down stolen art work. David Hermann was mostly interested in searching for art looted by the German Nazis and then sold illegally. When David spent his summers here he and Franco traveled a lot. Franco told me, David was obsessed with what he called the silent tower."
"What is the silent tower?"
"Franco took me there once before we were married." Claudia chuckled. "I think he wanted to demonstrate in what an excellent physical condition he was. We climbed to a beautiful place in the Alps next to Switzerland."
"What does it have to do with art, or stolen art?"
Claudia shrugged. "There was an old radio antenna there. Franco called it the Silent Tower. He always laughed at David who often said, 'If only I could make that tower talk."
Hermann probably did make that tower talk, Val thought, and that was what got him killed. "Did Franco ever mention a submarine?"
"You ask the craziest questions and don't answer any of mine. What are all these people doing here?"
"They also want to make the silent tower talk."
"You are riddling me." Claudia slid her coffee cup to the side.
"If we can look at Franco's real dairy, I think we will find most of the answers to your questions."
A frown made Claudia look as if she couldn't make her mind. "I don't think we can do that until I see his will. I have an appointment with the lawyer day after tomorrow."
Exasperated, Val grasped the edge of the table. "A lawyer? Two people got killed already and someone tried to kills us. Once they realize they have a phony diary they will come here and take the real one."
"They won't find it."
"They'll make you talk."
"I am safe here. The Butteri protect me."
"They're just cowboys. Maybe ok against some Mafiosi. But not against the people who have been hunting me down."
"Ah, you don't trust your French and Russian friends."
"The only reason they've been protecting me is because they need me. Or maybe I have already outlived my usefulness and all they need now is the diary."
"So while the Butteri look for people who try to come in, like a Trojan horse, you bring your friends into the house so they can rob the diary."
Val sighed. "We didn't have much of a choice."