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He then heard the sound of a deep snore. It had come from the next room, which Canidy remembered being a smaller office. He carefully pushed open its door, looked around the room, then slipped inside.

The room held a single desk with a wooden chair behind it. Against the far wall was a couch with a massive human form on top.

Ah, one of the Brothers Buda.

Canidy approached and could see that he was lying on his back, with one hand holding a wine bottle by the neck to his chest. He had pulled down his coppola just enough so that the traditional Sicilian tweed flat cap covered his eyes.

Canidy knocked the coppola to the ground.

Okay, which one are you?

I think Tweedle Dumb . . .

He aimed his .45 at the puffy chest, then sharply nudged him in the ribs with his knee.

The fat man snorted loudly, then cracked open his right eye. Both eyes then popped wide open. They were bloodshot.

No, maybe it’s Tweedle Dee.

“Remember me?” Canidy said, and smiled.

VIII

[ONE]

Chemische Fabrik

Frankfurt, Germany

1445 31 May 1943

In addition to his luxurious office that filled the entire top floor of the Berlin headquarters of Kappler Industrie GmbH, Wolfgang Augustus Kappler, as befitting a company’s chief officer, kept a private office at each of his subsidiary companies. None, however, was as well appointed as that in his headquarters building. They were purposefully Spartan by design, meant to give the visiting chief executive a highly efficient space from which to conduct what more times than not could be a brutally cold business. Kappler believed that a chief executive of a multinational corporation belittled certainly himself, if not his subordinates, by working out of a common area such as a conference room.

As Wolfgang Kappler entered what he still considered to be his personal office, despite Chemische Fabrik having recently been nationalized, he thought, Battles are always best fought on home turf. And I have many, many battles yet to fight. . . .

Early that morning, Kappler, traveling on papers of highest priority issued by the Office of the Reichs Leader and signed by Reichsleiter Martin Bormann himself, had secured at the last moment a very small but private compartment on the first Frankurt-bound train out of Bern. Watching the springtime beauty of the Switzerland countryside go past had allowed him to consider without interruption all that he very well might have to do in short order. Then, at the German border, having that quiet time turned upside down by the arrogance of a Gestapo officer as he scrutinized Kappler’s documents only served to put a point on it.

After finally arriving at the dreary Frankfurt Main Hauptbahnhof, he then came directly to his Chemische Fabrik office.

He wore a perfectly tailored dark gray woolen suit with an almost crisp white dress shirt, and matching burgundy necktie and pocket square. He had just put his black leather briefcase on the massive wooden desk when a plump fifty-five-year-old woman appeared at his office door. She had a very round face and wore her thin graying hair braided and rolled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She had on, over a basic white linen long-sleeved blouse, a plain brown woolen jumper dress, its hem falling almost to her leather flats.

Kappler knew that Bruna Baur was, like him, a devout Roman Catholic and, quite possibly, also an anti-Nazi. Especially after her only son, Otto Baur, fighting in vain with the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, had been killed in January. Bruna at first appearance seemed very simple. But Kappler knew that she was much brighter than most gave her credit for. She long had worked for him through Klaus Schwartz, and with Schwartz’s departure she had more or less begun working directly for him.

“As you asked, I have Frau Kappler on the line for you,” she announced. “I have placed a call to Herr Krupp’s Berlin office. And Herr Höss said he is on his way.”

&nb

sp; “Danke, Bruna,” he said, taking his seat behind the desk.

“Herr Kappler?”

He looked up. “Yes?”

“It is good to have you back,” she said in a genuine tone that showed she appreciated the gracious gentleman that he was.

He smiled.

“Danke,” he repeated, then he lied: “It is good to be back.”