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The program used live humans as hosts, injecting Sicilian prisoners with extract from mosquito mucous glands to develop strains of yellow fever. When the sickened hosts eventually died of malaria, new hosts—often members of the Mafia brought in from the penal colonies off Sicily—were injected.
It had been no secret to the SS that everyone approached at the University of Palermo to contribute to the experiment had been shocked and disgusted that the Nazis had come in and inflicted such a horrible program upon Sicilians in their own country—and, pouring salt in the wound, had done so in a villa named for Archimedes, who was widely considered the greatest of all Sicilians.
And so Müller had gone directly to Dr. Carlo Modica, the brilliant seventy-year-old mathematician who had served as the head of the university for a decade. He explained to the gentle Modica that, if one in such a prestigious position participated as the figurehead of the experiment, it would send a positive message to others at the school and elsewhere.
Modica of course balked, but Müller coerced him. Then Modica, while injecting prisoners with the extract, managed to infect himself—and died.
Müller planned to replace him with two of Modica’s colleagues—Dr. Giuseppe Napoli, also in his seventies, and Professor Arturo Rossi, a metallurgist who was fifty-five. He wound up shooting Napoli—and did so in front of Rossi. Rossi disappeared—the SS still hunted him—and shortly thereafter the villa exploded.
Müller blamed Mafia sabotage for the explosion. Kappler didn’t care what the cause. Privately, he was very glad it was gone. He believed—and felt sick to his stomach for having had any connection with it—that what had occurred at the villa was equal to the atrocities he heard were being committed at the Auschwitz concentration camps. Word was that Josef Mengele was conducting dispassionate experiments, treating humans, many of them mere children, as if they were laboratory rats. Worse than rats, in fact, because he was dissecting KL prisoners while they were alive—and without use of anesthesia. It was so barbaric and disturbing that in order to get German soldiers to serve at the KL required bribing them with bonuses of cigarettes and salamis and schnapps.
* * *
Kappler saw that Palasota had more or less ignored the praise from Müller.
“Again, Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Palasota said, “it is an honor to meet you and have you here. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“We’re about to have dinner,” Müller interrupted. “You must join us.”
“Thank you, but I can’t,” Palasota said, then looked at the young women and then at Kappler, and said, “I hope you all enjoy yourself.”
As Kappler watched Palasota saunter across the lounge then disappear through the doorway behind the long wooden bar—greeting the two professors drinking there as he passed—Kappler wondered even more about the man.
He must have something on Müller. Something good . . .
“Well, then,” Müller said, “shall we buy our ladies dinner?”
“Is that a good idea?” Kappler said.
“What harm is it if the ladies join us for dinner? Is life not better when in the company of lovely women?”
Damn it, Kappler thought. The reality is that I cannot talk business with him in his condition. And we sure as hell will not discuss anything important in front of these hookers.
As the Romans themselves slurred here so long ago—“In vino veritas.” Maybe a drunken Müller will run off at the mouth and reveal something the bastard otherwise wouldn’t.
And I’d sure like to know what the hell is going on here.
Kappler nodded, then said, “Yes, what harm indeed? And then I am going to retire immediately afterward. We have a big day tomorrow.”
Müller grinned broadly. “Yes, of course.”
* * *
Two hours later, Kappler was walking alone up the stairs, holding the railing for balance while waving down at Müller. He stood in the lobby with Maria and Lucia on either side of him.
“It is your choice, my friend,” Müller called after him, barely able to speak. “But not one I would take.”
Kappler ignored him, then made the turn for the next flight of steps, and thought, Except for Lucia playing footsie and rubbing the balls of her feet in my crotch, that was a rather uneventful meal.
I got damn-near nothing out of Müller. He just got drunker.
All I know is that he said he’s squeezing Palasota, just as the Mafia has forever squeezed others for its money.
What was it the bastard said? “Ah, the irony. We take our percentage in cash and sometimes in trade.” Then he goosed Maria, who squealed, to Müller’s delight.
What he’s doing at “our hotel” is no different than what he’s been doing at the docks, taking cash and “accepting as a personal courtesy” the occasional skim of what passes through the dock warehouses—from fresh food to cases of wine. Which was how the bastard came across those Tabun rounds in the warehouse. . . .
And that was it. Then I drank far more than I should, trying to drown him out while trying not to dwell again on Father’s letter.
