Thomas Greanias - The 34th Degree

Before Buzzini knew what he was doing, he had torn open the envelope and found himself staring at gibberish. They’ve coded it, he realized with horror. He would need von Berg’s personal key to decipher it. He got on the phone. “Sergeant Racini, come here immediately.”

The sergeant from Palermo appeared instantly and could see the panic in his superior’s eyes. “What is it, Commandant?”

“This cable for the Baron. I’ve opened it by mistake.”

Sergeant Racini’s eyes widened. “You have opened the Baron’s mail?”

“Yes. From Berlin.”

“Mother of God!” cried Racini.

“Fortunately, it is encoded, so I have not comprehended its contents.”

Sergeant Racini sighed in relief.

Buzzini asked, “Can we reseal it somehow?”

Racini looked at it and shook his head. “The risk is too great that he would know it had been opened and resealed.”

Buzzini paced the floor nervously. “Then I want you to deliver it to him personally. With my apologies.”

“Surely you cannot ask me-”

“Go, Racini. He is at the Achillion.” Sensing the sergeant’s hesitation, Buzzini barked, “Now, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Racini picked up the cable with trembling fingers and left the office. Buzzini looked out the window and watched Racini’s staff car drive off toward the Achillion. Then he sat down at his desk and wiped his brow.

I n his underground laboratory hundreds of feet beneath the Achillion, von Berg was talking with his chief physicist when Franz came in with word that a Sergeant Racini was outside with a signal from Berlin.

Von Berg frowned. “Why didn’t you take it?”

“He insists he deliver it to you personally.”

“I see.” Von Berg looked around the cavernous facility. A thousand centrifuges whirled while scientists and engineers in white jackets monitored their controls. With Hitler’s weapons conference only one week away, time was running out. “I wonder what Berlin wants now.” He turned to his physicist. “Dr. Reinholt, you may proceed,” he instructed, and left with Franz.

They entered a maze of underground corridors. As they passed, Waffen SS guards posted at key intersections smacked their leather boots together and gave von Berg stiff-armed salutes. They were yet another precaution of von Berg’s to protect this vast research and development complex he had constructed beneath what to the British, the Greeks, and even the Germans appeared to be an ordinary residential estate on an island naval installation manned by an Italian garrison.

It was here in these secret laboratories that Germany’s best scientists, plucked from their respective industries by von Berg, worked around the clock. Not to develop new and better chemical weapons for use on the Russian front, nor to produce the rocket fuel for von Braun’s A-4 rockets that Hitler had been demanding. Nor to chase Hitler’s Greek Fire. No, a project as important as the Flammenschwert -Germany’s first atomic bomb-required single-minded devotion and zero interference from Berlin. Here his scientists could proceed unencumbered by the uncertain whims of the Fuhrer that so often impeded any real progress in weapons development.

Raw materials and supplies for his atomic program were easy to come by. Von Berg simply performed the same maneuvers for himself that he did for the German navy and, later, for Himmler in breaking the Versailles Treaty: They came into Piraeus on Andros ships in crates marked as grain and food. From there he slipped them onto Corfu via submarine and assembled them here in this underground facility.

They emerged into the cavernous loading bay where von Berg’s submarine, the Nausicaa, was being serviced by her crew. Rounding the horseshoe quay, they passed a pile of crates and stepped into an elevator. The doors closed, and they ascended through hundreds of feet of rock to his study in the Achillion.

A few minutes later, von Berg walked down the front steps of the Achillion and saw the rat Racini. “Yes, Sergeant,” he said in a manner that made his irritation plain to the Italian. “What is it that is so urgent?”

“This cable came for you from Berlin, General von Berg.” The sergeant held out the envelope with an unsteady hand.

Franz took the envelope, examined it, and passed it to von Berg. “It’s been opened.”

“So it has.” Von Berg looked at the cable inside. “Franz, please take this inside and translate it while I dismiss the sergeant here.” Franz left, and von Berg looked at Racini. “The commandant’s negligence I’ve long suspected, but treason? What do you have to say about that, Sergeant?”

“It was an accident, General. An accident. I swear to God.” Racini’s voice was shaking. “The commandant, he thought it was for him.”

Von Berg held up the envelope. “But of course, Sergeant. Seeing as how the outside clearly has my name in German, I understand how the good commandant could make such a silly mistake.”

“He is terribly sorry, General. Terribly sorry. I am terribly sorry, too.”

“Yes, I am sure you are. Now go back and tell Buzzini he is lucky this time that the dispatch is ciphered.”

“And why is that, General, sir, if I may ask?”

“Because he can now live a little longer.”

With that, von Berg walked up the steps into the Achillion, took an immediate right past the chapel, and walked back down the hallway to his study, where Franz sat with the Sonlar decoding machine, translating the cipher.

It was from Bern. The Barracuda reported that she had searched Andros’s belongings, slept with him, and come to the conclusion that he was a genuine dupe. A full report was forthcoming, complete with photographs.

“So, Andros wants to do business,” mused von Berg as he read the signal, “and wants one hundred thousand American dollars for it. Not quite the saintly icon Aphrodite paints of him, Franz.”

“No, Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer.”

Von Berg walked over to his wall safe behind the portrait of King Ludwig II and turned the dial several times to unlock the thick steel door. “Indeed, for a man who has pledged his love to one woman only, Herr Andros seems quite willing to accommodate the Barracuda’s advances. Unless the Barracuda has once again overestimated her charms.”

Von Berg opened the door to reveal several stacks of papers along with his leather briefcase. He placed the signal inside his file marked ANDROS. He then pulled out a red folder labeled FLAMMENSCHWERT , looked at it for a moment thoughtfully, and put it back, shutting the safe and sliding the portrait over the door.

Franz asked, “So you think he’s a spy?”

“Let’s just say I’m wary of Greeks bearing gifts,” von Berg replied. “This Red Cross ruse is obviously an excuse for something else, and not just to see Aphrodite. Greek channels in the Middle East probably tipped him off that she was helping to distribute food supplies in Athens. Why else would such a worthless individual make this sort of noble gesture?”

Franz shrugged.

Von Berg sat down behind his desk and drummed his fingers on the leather top. Hitler’s weapons conference and von Berg’s fortieth birthday were only a week away. Now that the fulfillment of his destiny finally was within his grasp, he suddenly felt vulnerable. Things were proceeding smoothly in the labs, but his timetable had been designed to tick away like a fine Swiss watch in the final days, and the unexpected arrival of Chris Andros was throwing off the second hand.

“Still,” he mused, “this proposal deserves a response.”

“Do you want him killed?”

“Oh, no. Not yet.” Von Berg shook his head. “That would be terrible. Make him a martyr in Aphrodite’s eyes, and he’d be immortal. No, Franz. She can never love me fully as long as she loves this distorted conception of Andros; he is more myth than man. We must destroy this image first, expose him for the fraud he truly is.”