Chapter 22

Room 32

His schedule, really, would have been different.

He had been approached by a head of the SD - SS counter-espionage - charged by the High Commando with negotiating the surrender of the German troops in Italy. To corroborate the proposal, he had revealed the location of some important defense works of the Adriatic coast. Gianfranco, in order not to run the risk of having to swallow more paper, having learned by heart the notes he had taken following the interview, had burned them.

Now it was a question of joining the Allied High Command in Rome. It was decided that the best way, even if not the shortest, was to go to Lugano where the American consul would get him a US passport to go to France; from France he would have continued for Rome with an airplane placed at his disposal by the Allies.

First stage: the CLN Committee, which would have supplied him with the false documents necessary to pass into Switzerland. To get to Milan Gianfranco took two days and various means of transport. A van that, after a couple of failures due to age and a bombing, had finally run aground in Verona. A German military truck, bound for Brescia, on which he had managed to gain acceptance thanks to his knowledge of the language and hints of his African past at the time of the Afrika Korps and...