“‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’” Cohen quoted.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Ziegler replied. “When I was a beat cop, I had to shoot a lot of rabid dogs. In the ear, if I could get close enough, so that they couldn’t bite somebody, or some other dog, and spread the rabies.”
“Why in the ear?” Cronley asked.
“You know they’re dead right then, and aren’t going to take anybody with them on their trip to piss on the pearly gates.”
“You’re a very interesting man, Mr. Ziegler,” Cohen said.
Yes, you are. And I damned sure did the right thing when I recruited you for DCI.
“Are you planning on seeing Justice Jackson this morning?” Cohen asked. “And if so, when?”
“When I get there, if that’s before noon. He told me ‘anytime this morning’ when I telephoned.”
“So you have time for me to conclude my lecture on Kaltenbrunner, Ernst?”
“I’d like that, Colonel.”
“Then I suggest we walk over to the 26th Officers’ Mess. They charge ten cents for coffee and doughnuts. I’ll buy.”
[THREE]
“One of the nice things about being a senior officer,” Cohen began, just as soon as they found seats in a corner of the officers’ mess and ordered coffee and doughnuts, “is that junior officers really try to distance themselves from you. That means there will be no ears cocked this way while I finish my lecture.”
Cronley and Ziegler chuckled.
Cohen waited until a waiter had delivered their coffee and doughnuts before resuming his lecture.
“After Colonel Count von Stauffenberg’s bomb failed to take out Hitler in July of 1944, Hitler put Kaltenbrunner in charge of dealing with the miscreants, including the kangaroo trials, which after an unfair trial saw about five thousand officers executed, most often by strangulation as they were hung by piano wire from butchers’ hooks. This procedure was filmed so that Hitler could watch, again and again.”
“Nice guy,” Ziegler said.
“This of course placed him even closer to the Führer than he had been,” Cohen went on. “In December of 1944, many, perhaps most, senior SS officers were given commissions in the Wa
ffen-SS.”
“Why?” Cronley asked.
“I presume so they would have prisoner-of-war status when they were captured,” Cohen explained. “Kaltenbrunner became the equivalent of a four-star general in the Waffen-SS. And thereafter usually wore that uniform. You noticed the red-striped breeches?”
Both Ziegler and Cronley nodded.
“In April of 1945, Himmler named Kaltenbrunner commander in chief of what Waffen-SS forces were left in southern Europe. He divided that command in two. He put Otto Skorzeny in charge of blowing things up—”
“Skorzeny? The guy that rescued Mussolini from that mountaintop?” Cronley interrupted.
“One and the same,” Cohen said.
“I’m missing something here,” Ziegler confessed.
“Then let me fill you in,” Cohen said. “When the Italians surrendered, Mussolini was arrested—by the Italians—and taken to an Italian ski resort . . .”
Cohen paused, obviously searching his memory, and then went on: “The Campo Imperatore Hotel, which was on top of Gran Sasso Mountain in the Apennines . . .”
Jesus, Cohen’s just like Freddy Hessinger—a walking encyclopedia!
“. . . Hitler didn’t know this, where Mussolini was, only that he was being held prisoner, but he decided to try to free him. He personally chose Skorzeny, then a captain in the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and a protégé of Kaltenbrunner, to find him.