The Saint Peter’s Plot
A classic World War II novel from the bestselling thriller writer Derek Lambert.As the Russians and the Western Allies race towards Berlin, the Nazi hierarchy plots to escape the inevitable retribution facing them at the end of World War II.Kurt Wolff is a handsome, blond SS Captain and a member of Hitler’s personal elitist bodyguard. Yet he still has to know the greatest honour of all. He has been chosen to implement Grey Fox – The Saint Peter’s Plot – the most daring and secret mission of the War.As Germany stands on the edge of an abyss, the fate of this once great nation is in his hands.‘A fine thriller … very hard to put down’ Irish Press‘Mr Lambert is of the Wilbur Smith school of modern adventure writers – colourfully imaginative, totally convincing’ Manchester Evening News‘A thrilling novel … written with great sensitivity’ Derby Evening Telegraph
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THE SAINT PETER’S PLOT
Derek Lambert
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Collins Crime Club
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Arlington Books (Publishers) Ltd 1978
Copyright © Derek Lambert 1978
Design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Derek Lambert asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008268374
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2018 ISBN: 9780008268374
Version: 2018-03-14
CONTENTS
The Commanding Officer of Adolf Hitler’s crack SS regiment took his leave of the Pope at 11.33 am on July 29th, 1943, unaware that he was closer to death than at any time during the bloody campaigns he had fought in Europe and Russia.
By 11.40 am Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich was walking briskly — a marching step almost — across St. Peter’s Square towards the line of white travertine stones that links the embracing arms of Bernini’s colonnade and marks the boundary of Vatican territory inside the city of Rome.
Behind Dietrich, former butcher and Munich bully-boy, a young man with the face of a saint and a 9 mm Walther pistol concealed beneath his jacket signalled to an older man stationed on the boundary line.
The older man, his bald patch as neat as a skull-cap, signalled back with the current edition of L’Osservatore Romano, The Vatican newspaper.
As Dietrich passed the Egyptian obelisk a sudden gust of wind disturbed the sultry day blowing plumes of spray from the two fountains, dislodging a prelate’s hat and startling a flock of pigeons into flight.
Dietrich, pugnaciously built, big-eared and cold-eyed, noticed none of this: he was too preoccupied with the speed of recent events. The Allied Invasion of Sicily; the withdrawal of his own regiment, Die Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, from the Russian front to Italy; the dismissal and arrest on July 25 of Benito Mussolini by his own people.
The next event, Dietrich brooded, would be the capitulation of Italy to the Allies. So? Germany would be better off without them!
By the time Dietrich reached the black Mercedes-Benz waiting for him near the boundary line, the man with the bald patch had climbed into the driving seat of a Fiat 500 fuelled earlier that morning with Black Market petrol.
Dietrich paused beside the Mercedes, drumming his fingers on the bonnet. Beside him stood a plain-clothes driver, rigidly to attention waiting to dive for the door-handle.
But perhaps a walk. It had been a long time since Dietrich, founder in the early ’30s of a unit of shock troops that were the forerunners of the SS, had walked for pleasure. You didn’t walk for pleasure in Russia; you didn’t do anything for pleasure in Russia — except kill Russians.
He turned to the driver. “I’m going to walk back.” The driver displayed no surprise. “Follow me at a discreet distance.”
Dietrich set off towards the Tiber, sweating inside the double-breasted grey suit that he had last worn at a meeting with Hitler at the Eagle’s Nest in the Bavarian mountains.
The suit hung loosely on him. Small wonder after the deprivations of Russia; the battle for Rostov — the Leibstandarte’s first defeat — the Arctic winter of ’42-’43, the Pyrrhic victory at Kharkov.
But in any case, Dietrich felt uneasy in civilian clothes. He was born for uniforms, swaggering uniforms with a silver death’s head badge on the cap, the double runic ‘S’ on a steel helmet, leather belts with
