“You know why those bastards poured the boiling water on me.”
“I gather it wasn’t an accident.”
“When they heard I was riding around Nuremberg in the backseat of that Horch, they concluded that I had betrayed my oath. As that son of a bitch Cronley hoped they would.”
“You don’t know that, Ulrich.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit. What I’m wondering now is whether you can be trusted.”
“About what?”
“Are you here as a priest? For that matter, are you really a priest? Or are you a DCI agent in a priest’s collar?”
“I am not a DCI agent. I am a Jesuit priest assigned to the Vatican.”
“Swear to that—swear to God that you’re a priest and not an agent of Cronley, or any American!”
“Normally, I wouldn’t do that, but these are extraordinary circumstances, aren’t they?” He raised his right hand to the level of his shoulder, and said, “I so swear.”
“Before God!”
“I so swear before God.”
“The first thing I have to do is get out of here alive. If I stay here, the Nazis will kill me as a traitor.”
“You don’t know that.”
“In their shoes, I would regard killing me as a duty.”
“What are you asking, Ulrich?”
“If Cronley agreed to have me transferred elsewhere, could I trust him? Would you trust him?”
“You could. I would. But why would he get you transferred out of here?”
“In exchange for information.”
“What information? The location of von Dietelburg and Bur
gdorf?”
“I don’t know where they are. But I know where they might be.”
“Then why should he trust you?”
“Because, at the very least, the information I have would permit him to arrest three or four—maybe more—of the Odessa people he’s looking for. And allow him to recover—steal—some Odessa money.”
“And you’d give him all this just to be taken from the prison?”
“I’d give him all that to save my life and to open further conversation about me going to Argentina. Once he learned to trust me. Understand?”
“Ulrich, it is not my business to be your agent in any sort of a discussion. But what I will do, if you like, is tell Cronley what you told me and that you want to talk to him.”
“Make that I am willing to talk to him.”
[FIVE]
Cronley, when Father McKenna had passed Heimstadter’s message, marked the time on his wristwatch in order to wait thirty minutes before entering the prison dispensary.