The War Heist

by Ralph Dennis

  “Where?”

  “The garage on Tenth.”

  It was a long drive. Vic waited until Harry got his breath evened out before he asked, “What’d you get?”

  “Everything.” Harry sucked on a cigarette and stared at the dark passing streets. “I got everything but Daisy air rifles and heavy artillery.”

  Talking about money—how you could spend it, a catalog of what you could buy and own—turned on some secret tap in Lila Whitman. Johnny knew women, and it hadn’t taken him long to pinpoint that aspect of her during his brief and expensive courtship. A lavish dinner in the theater restaurant of the month, the charade of knowledged talk with the wine steward, the crepes flamed next to the table, and the offhand way he settled the check, as if he were buying a newspaper or a package of cigarettes—all these brought the warm sexual oils flowing to the surface in Lila. As did the feel of fur, the sparkle of gems.

  And because she didn’t know a precious stone from a chunk of quartz, green glass unglued her the way an emerald should have.

  It was a joke he stored in his mind. What he’d do to her one night before he was done with her. He’d be ass deep in Lila and he’d chant the list to her.

  “Emeralds, black opals, and pearls.”

  Wham, wham, wham.

  “Ermine, mink, and sable.”

  Grunt, grunt, grunt.

  “Cords, Rolls-Royces, and Bentleys.”

  Hump, hump, hump.

  And right at the end, when she was on the edge, and he was about two lunges away, he would lean over and whisper in her ear, “Hundred-dollar bills.”

  Then, as he was pulling out, he’d say, “Nickels, dimes, and quarters.”

  Lord, it would chill her. It might even make her frigid the rest of her life.

  If she understood what he’d done to her. There was always the chance that she wouldn’t.

  After the planning meeting was over at the garage on Tenth he’d returned to the hotel where Lila was waiting. He showered and changed into a dark suit. He took her for a late supper to Emilio’s, the restaurant in the theater district that had been the in place when he’d done his whirlwind courtship. Now he didn’t know any of the waiters or the maître d’, and Lila didn’t see one friend from her days in the theater. In fact, the few customers in the restaurant seemed to be tourists from somewhere in the South or the Midwest.

  They returned to the hotel a little before midnight. On the way through the lobby, Johnny asked room service to send up a bottle of chilled champagne.

  So far it was going well. Why not splurge?

  They drank the champagne in bed.

  “A hundred million,” he said, “and if we split that eight ways …”

  “No,” Lila said, “you’re being too generous.” She reached over him and lifted the champagne bottle from the ice bucket. The icy water dripped across his bare chest as she passed it over him and had a swallow from the mouth of it. “At least one-fourth of it is ours. You’re planning it, honey. It’s your idea.”

  “Maybe.” He let himself sound disinterested.

  They’d had no talk of the split at the meeting. Perhaps they’d all assumed that it would be a straight eight-way division. Anyway, that could come later. If they got the gold, if they got it across the border, if they found a buyer for it. And also, after they’d counted heads to see how many survivors were left from the original eight.

  “You know it, too,” she said. “Brains have to count for something.”

  It was almost dark in the hotel room. A dim light near the door to the hall, shielded by the foyer wall, lit only the bottom part of the bed.

  “When it’s done, I’ll put in my bill,” he said.

  “Think of all the places in the world we can go.”

  He did. Already half of the world was closed off by the war. In the Far East that door was slamming as well. It was only a matter of time. It didn’t leave much. But he didn’t tell Lila that. There was no reason to spoil her fun.

  She took the last swallow from the champagne bottle. When she leaned across him to drop the bottle back in the bucket he lowered his hand and placed it on her thigh. Her leg jerked as if he’d touched a match to it. He moved his hand upward and her legs opened.

  Yes, all that money talk. It worked with her. It felt like warm oil flowed up his hand to his wrist.

  Nickels, dimes, and quarters.

  It didn’t take long for MacTaggart to become a familiar figure on the ship. The crew stopped smiling at his soggy raincoat and his heavy street shoes that squeaked with water.

  He really made his reputation the first time he showed up for the day’s rum ration. That was at 1100 hours, the second day at sea. The routine called for a representative from each division to bring a container. He got a measure of rum from the demijohn for each man on the rolls. At the end of the count a measure of water for each tot of rum was mixed in. The mixture was the precaution the Navy took so the ratings couldn’t hoard their ration for a couple of weeks and then go on a drunk aboard ship.

  The officers got their rum neat. The Navy trusted them.

  MacTaggart figured that if he could be trusted with about £125 million of the assets of the British Empire, he could be allowed his rum neat.

  The rating with the demijohn didn’t agree.

  MacTaggart argued, he cursed, and he held up the whole line until the word came back from the Executive Officer. “Mr. MacTaggart can have his ration in any manner he likes it.”

  He drank it on the spot. One long swallow, and the raw burn clawed at his throat as he walked away.

  At supper that night he watched the old sailors. They stayed with the hot tea, and he did the same. The sea was rough and the Emerald pitched and rolled in it.

  Around dark, after a final check of the magazines, he returned to his compartment. He stripped down to his underwear and got into his bunk. A nip from the bottle of Irish and he could sleep, no matter what the gale-force winds did to the ship.

  He awoke to stillness. The heavy darkness, the oppressive air told him where he was. He dressed and made his way to the head.

  Two ratings were there before him. They were either going off watch or about to go on. They were having a smoke, rolling their own. One rating, an older man with a pocked face and a Yorkshire accent, nodded at MacTaggart and passed him the makings. MacTaggart fumbled for a time and produced a poor twist of a cigarette.

  “How’s it out tonight?”

  The rating with the pocked face took the sack of makings and stuffed them in his waistband. “It’s not getting any better.”

  “Any more talk about U-boats?”

  “In this weather?” The younger man shook his head.

  The older rating lit MacTaggart’s cigarette. He blew out that match and struck another to light his smoke and the other man’s. No three on a match, even if the bad weather did protect them from submarines. “The big news is that we’re to go it alone from here in to Halifax.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Captain Flynn and the captain of the escort decided it. The destroyers couldn’t keep up in this gale. It’s holding us back.” He looked at the younger rating. “What are we doing now, Fred?”

  “Twenty knots.”

  The older man nodded at MacTaggart, the nod meaning that what he’d said was confirmed. “We’ve been held to fourteen or fifteen so we wouldn’t outrun the escort.”

  “When does it happen?” MacTaggart puffed carefully on his cigarette. It was beginning to fall apart on him.

  “It already has.”

  “The escort turned back at twenty-three-fifty hours,” the young rating said.

  MacTaggart tugged out his hunter’s-case watch. He opened it. It was 12:14.

  The older rating leaned over and looked at the watch. “Twenty-four minutes back,” he said.

  He wasn’t sure the bank official was talking to him. Not at first. MacTaggart was bent over, fussing with a knot in his wet shoelaces. It was early the next morning and he was thi
nking about breakfast even though he knew he’d settle for tea again.

  “We’re in it by ourselves now,” the bank official said.

  MacTaggart lifted his head. He looked around the compartment. He was the only one left in the room with the bank official.

  “Pardon?”

  “Did you hear?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” MacTaggart said.

  “France surrendered. The wireless operator got the message last night. The surrender took effect at one-thirty-five the morning of the twenty-fifth.”

  About two days ago. “Bloody awful” was all he could say. He freed the knot in his laces and got them tied. He struggled into his raincoat. A nod at the bank official, and he left for his round of the magazines. Breakfast could wait that long.

  Yes, he thought. Yes. Now he understood it. Churchill and the War Cabinet had expected it. They’d known it was going to happen.

  A gamble. A roll of the dice.

  There’d been three players. One had dropped out. Now it was between the final two.

  And here he was, Duncan MacTaggart, right in the middle of the first desperate roll in the new game.

  The storm they’d encountered when they’d rounded the northern coast of Ireland remained with them, ahead of them, as H.M.S. Emerald headed west.

  MacTaggart moved about the ship now with more assurance. He had, he thought, his sea legs. He found he didn’t bounce from passageway wall to passageway wall below decks, and topside, he could almost walk a chalk line on the deck. If there had been a chalk line there.

  He was on his way to getting his sea stomach as well. He’d had to take the risk. He tired of the constant rumble of his stomach. For a man who loved his food, there was nothing exciting about cups of hot tea or the chocolate bars he bought during the hours the ship’s canteen was open.

  So he crept up on his stomach. He allowed himself a child’s portion the first time, and when that stayed with him, he increased it slightly the next meal. Still, he knew it would take time. He went to sleep with his stomach growling at him and awoke to the same sound. It made him wonder how many feet of intestine were still empty after the early fasting.

  Even though the wind and the high seas pounded at the Emerald the routine business continued. It appeared, every time he found a comfortable spot and settled in for a rest, there was a call for emergency stations or the abandon-ship drill.

  The ship was making good time. He heard that from all the seamen around him—the ones he talked to on deck and the ones he shared mess with. MacTaggart could notice the difference himself, now that the escort had turned back toward the Clyde. They were averaging about twenty knots an hour.

  It didn’t matter that the Emerald carried precious cargo. It had its wartime purposes as well and didn’t neglect them. On the second day out of Greenock, the twenty-sixth, a little after nine in the evening, H.M.S. Emerald had left its course to identify a ship that was sighted on the horizon. It had turned out to be a Latvian freighter, Everalda. The ships exchanged greetings, and the cruiser wished the freighter well before it turned back to its established course.

  It bothered MacTaggart. There was, however, nothing he could do about it. If the ship had to play traffic warden, that was the Navy’s business. He had his doubts that Captain Flynn, up there on the ship’s bridge, would want his landsman’s opinion.

  On the morning of the third day the wind weakened some. It was from the south. All that morning MacTaggart felt himself adapting to the softer rhythms of the sea. But by noon the wind was stronger, this time out of the southwest. There was another shift later in the day. The sea was rough again by evening and the wind was gale force from the northwest.

  By nine that evening the ship’s speed was cut to eighteen knots.

  About this same time MacTaggart was seated on his bunk. He was hunched over, thinking of pints of beer and slices of roast beef as thick as the plates that held them. He heard the compartment door open. He didn’t look up. He assumed it was one of the bank officials. It wasn’t as if he had much to say to them.

  The door closed. He heard a cough and, after a few seconds, another cough.

  A young naval officer stood with his back to the doorway. He was so young he didn’t look like he shaved yet. “Mr. MacTaggart?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re the gentleman in charge of the cargo?”

  “I am.”

  “I’ve got something to show you, sir.”

  At least he was well brought up and polite. MacTaggart looked at the face of his hunter’s-case. “Now?”

  “Now, if you don’t mind, sir.”

  “And if I do?”

  “It’s important, sir,” the young man said.

  He put on his damp shoes and his raincoat. He followed the young man to the passageway. “What is it?”

  “I’d rather show you, sir.”

  They reached the ladder at the end of the passageway. MacTaggart grabbed the rails and started up. The young officer called to him, “This way, sir.” MacTaggart backed down the ladder and followed the thin shape down a dim walkway and down another ladder. At the base of the ladder there was another passage. In the distance, low and muffled, he could hear engine sounds.

  He was lost. That was the truth of it. He’d learned his way to the deck and to every other location he found from the deck and downward. Now it looked like the young man was taking him on a snipe hunt.

  The officer stopped in front of a closed hatch, a doorway. He raised a flashlight and touched the switch.

  “Where are we?” MacTaggart said.

  “You’ve been here.”

  “Pardon?”

  “This is the forward magazine.”

  “Which one is that?” MacTaggart said.

  “The one where the two thousand crates of heavy cargo are stored.”

  That one. The gold bullion. He closed his eyes and made the walk in his mind. Very well, he had the forward magazine placed. “What is it you want …?”

  “This.” The young officer opened the doorway and stepped inside. MacTaggart followed him. The flashlight beam swept over the stacked cases. The stacks reached as far as MacTaggart could see. Piled on top of the crates were the shells, the projectiles, that usually filled the magazine.

  The officer walked to the edge of the front stack of cases and squatted. MacTaggart did the same. “See this?” The young officer reached into a jacket pocket and brought out a steel bearing about the size of a child’s marble. He placed the bearing on the metal plate flooring and watched it roll away until it touched a bullion case. He scooped up the bearing, and, reaching to his right a couple of feet, he did the same again. MacTaggart picked up the bearing and looked at it.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “The weight of the cargo …” the officer sputtered.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s bending the bloody angle irons under the magazine.”

  “Let me have your flashlight.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed the flashlight and carried out his own check. He took his time with it. He wanted to be certain that he understood. It wasn’t easy to spot. They were probably hairline bends. Not that obvious yet.

  MacTaggart stood and stretched his legs. He switched off the flashlight and returned it. “What’s your name?”

  “Sub-Lieutenant Carr, sir.”

  MacTaggart stepped out of the magazine. The officer followed and closed the doorway behind him.

  “Well, what do you think we ought to do?”

  “We’ve got to shift the cargo, sir.”

  “The floor likely to collapse in the next four days?”

  “I doubt it, Mr. MacTaggart, but …”

  “The cargo stays where it is.”

  “It’s damaging the structure of the …”

  “You report this to Captain Flynn yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then you tell him.” MacTaggart started down the passageway. He stopped and turned. “And then
you let me know what he thinks we ought to do … first thing in the morning.”

  In the end, lost again, he allowed Carr to lead him until he recognized his ladder at the end of the walkway. He waved at Carr and took a left and headed for his compartment. When he reached the doorway he looked over his shoulder. Young Carr was still there, staring at him in bewilderment. MacTaggart grinned at him and the young officer swung around and trotted up the ladder and out of sight.

  My God, he thought. If it was that young sub-lieutenant’s decision to make he’d dump £30 million worth of bullion over the side of the ship to save a few angle irons.

  It was like those bloody American films where the airplane is flying on one engine and they throw everything out of the cargo hatch to lighten the load.

  He closed the compartment door. He sat on the edge of his bunk and unzipped his bag. He tugged the half-empty bottle of Irish from the mass of clothing. He allowed himself a long swallow. The truth was he needed it.

  He didn’t see young Carr the next morning. He heard nothing more about shifting the cargo. He did notice, however, that there were regular inspections of the plate flooring in both magazines.

  That was after he began to make his own daily checks as well.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Around the turn of the century Renssler, New York, wanted to style itself the “Newport of the North.” The Renssler family was there first; it was the town’s society, and they built their summer home on the south end of Lake Buckner. It was an Italian villa constructed from white marble and native stone. It had wide terraces and walks, a formal garden, and about four acres of sloping blue-green lawn that ran down to the lake.

  The Renssler villa was an example of what the family expected the other summer places along the lake to be. When it was completed, the Rensslers sat back and waited confidently for equally wealthy and prominent families to move north and join them.

  Only one other summer mansion was built. It was erected on the north side of the lake, facing the Renssler villa. The owner was a rich Irish-American politician from New York City. He’d made most of his money in sewer construction. He was the new money, and the older Irish-American families, the ones that had been in the country fifty or sixty years longer than he had, didn’t receive him or his family socially.