Kolchak's Gold

by Brian Garfield

  As in the Kolchak segment, material supplied by the editors appears in brackets, while the Tippelskirch statements appear set off in quotation marks. But it must be understood that this section is a re-creation of Bristow’s notes rather than an edited version of an existing manuscript. The words are mainly Bristow’s but the connectives are the editors’. To mark all of them would be to create pages so cluttered with ellipses and brackets that they would be unreadable. In all cases, any fact or event which is not from Bristow’s material is clearly marked as such, by appearing in brackets or in a footnote. But we repeat that Bristow did not actually “write” this section as it now appears.—Ed.

  * Evidently this carefully typed paragraph was to have been the opening passage of Bristow’s history.—Ed.

  * This paragraph was written longhand on a sheet of Army & Navy Club (Washington, D.C.) stationery; the evidence suggests it was written by Bristow in 1972 during the period which he characterizes as “argumentative” and “opinionated”—the summer when he became briefly notorious after his appearances on television interviews. Probably he would have toned down, or eliminated, this passage in his full draft of the work. But it serves here to emphasize his state of mind at the time; that is why we have elected to include it.—Ed.

  † This information comes from notes Bristow made in London in 1972. The British Official Secrets Act specifies that official records may be made public after thirty years. Bristow was among the first historians to have access to these reports from the British ambassador to Poland, confirming the role of Russian executioners in the Katyn massacre.—Ed.

  * The clause is underlined in Bristow’s notes.—Ed.

  * In October 1941, for example, Stalin cabled Churchill an urgent request for thirty divisions of combat troops. (From Bristow’s notes.)

  † Transcribed from the Haim Tippelskirch tapes.—Ed.

  * The great bulk of Bristow’s material is devoted to Sebastopol, but much of it has no bearing on the central thrust of this book. The extremely brief summary here is sufficient to lay the groundwork for the narrative which follows, concerning the German attempt to bring the Czarist bullion out through the Crimea in 1944. In the meantime we shall have to hope that someday Harris Bristow is able to complete his definitive work on the siege of Sebastopol.—Ed.

  * By apparently meaningless coincidence, according to Bristow’s notes, von Geyr had married a woman who in turn was related vaguely to Krausser (Frau von Geyr being the aunt of the husband of Krausser’s older sister). “The correspondence” (between Krausser and von Geyr), Bristow observes on a note card, “shows no visible affection between the two men.” Apparently Krausser’s insensate brutality dismayed von Geyr, while Krausser in turn thought of the elder officer as an old-fashioned militarist with outmoded notions of morality and a lack of proper devotion to the Führer. It appears both men were correct in their appraisals.—Ed.

  * Krausser never realized this ambition, although in 1944 his name was among those singled out by Hitler for posthumous recognition: into the file stamped “Deceased” was inserted a commendation by the Führer and a citation for the Iron Cross. (From Bristow’s notes.)

  * Elsewhere in the interviews Haim Tippelskirch makes it fairly clear that he volunteered for the assignment, but only because he felt that his background made him a good choice for it. Tippelskirch here does not take credit for the initiative, but apparently the idea to attempt these evidence-gathering missions was largely his own.—Ed.

  * Tippelskirch and his fellow agents brought stolen documents and photographs out of the Soviet Union on at least five occasions during the war. These were copied en masse and distributed to government officials and organs of the press in many nations, including the important neutrals; the Zionists also tried to persuade the British and Americans to drop leaflets over Germany in order to reveal to the German people the monstrous proportions of the Nazi atrocities. But almost all the governments and newspapers who were approached by the Zionists with these materials paid little heed to it. They “considered the source”; they were not altogether convinced that the photos were not fakes, the documents forgeries. Indeed, the press generally refrained from printing the photos not only because their origin was suspect but also because they were “too gruesome.” This evidence was only exposed to full public view after 1945, during the war-crimes trials.—Ed.

  * Haim Tippelskirch’s estimate of probabilities was remarkably accurate. Bristow’s files show that this correspondence began with Krausser’s dispatch to von Geyr, 12 Sept. 42, and that it followed very much the pattern suggested above. According to passages we have deleted from the foregoing portion of Bristow’s manuscript, Bristow found several documents in the USSR which added details—nothing extraordinary—to the manner in which the German High Command slowly became convinced of the possibility that Kolchak’s gold was still buried in the Sayan Mountains and that Krausser’s reports were more valid than had first been assumed. Krausser was commended for his initiative in the Maxim Tippelskirch case.—Ed.

  * Nowhere in Bristow’s manuscript or materials does such a letter appear, but apparently Bristow was willing to believe Haim Tippelskirch’s hypothesis. It does fit the facts, whether or not it is accurate in every detail.—Ed.

  * Bristow made a note to inquire of the Japan Defense Agency whether they had any record of the landing of the bomber in China on December 3 or 4, but he hadn’t done so before his trip to Russia. The spoor left by Krausser’s commando in German and Russian records was cryptic at best. This portion of the narrative is mainly an editorial extension of Bristow’s notes and the conclusions he reports having drawn from his study of Russian documents in Moscow, Kiev, and Sebastopol.—Ed.

  † Kolchak’s train had numbered twenty-eight goods wagons, but those had been armored. The newer Russian rolling stock was more capacious and sturdy than that of Kolchak’s time. German engineers had made a careful study and come up with the figure of seventeen wagons. It may be worth mentioning that the Russian railway system has always had a much wider gauge than the railroads of Western Europe.—Ed.

  * This notation, on a 4 × 6 file card in Bristow’s files, seems a fitting conclusion to his account of the war.—Ed.

  * The narrative resumes where it was interrupted. Perhaps it should be repeated that the section and chapter divisions herein are the editors’.

  Within the next few pages the manuscript becomes a sort of montage of brief chapters held together with paper clips and written on papers of different kinds. The section which follows this one, for example, is written in pencil on stationery of the Hotel Schloss Hohensalzburg, a small hotel near the Makartplatz in Salzburg, Austria. Evidently the present section was written at the beginning of May 1973, but there are indications that Bristow did not write this final part of his manuscript in the order in which he later assembled it (by numbering the pages). He added some interior sections after writing some of the final ones. This accounts for the fragmentation of certain passages.—Ed.

  I could hardly go out into the mountains, dig around and find out if the gold was hidden where I thought it was.

  And if I had done so, and found it—what could I have done about it?

  The three yard-records which I destroyed were evidence that Train #S-1428-CB was en route from point X to point Y to point Z. It left X and arrived at Y; it left Y but never showed up at Z. There was no rail junction between the two points; the train could only proceed to Z, or reverse and return to Y. It did neither. Therefore the train must have been unloaded at some point between Y and Z, and the train then broken into two trains (it had two locomotives, one at either end); the two half-trains then went in opposite directions, each bearing a new designation number—forgeries provided by Berlin, again. These two empty trains were dispersed from points Y and Z, their rolling stock used in the assembly of new trains.*

  By destroying the documents I made it impossible for anyone else to discover where the gold train had been unloaded.

  It wa
s a hazardous act; I knew that. It was also crucial; I only inferred that.

  Self-evident: I destroyed the evidence to guarantee the secret would remain my own. Why? Perhaps sheer egoism, megalomania. I can’t account for all my motives, particularly in my recent actions; I’ve been too pummeled to retain much insight.

  The act was an impulse. A Freudian would insist I had prepared for it by doing a great deal of unconscious reasoning. After all I had expected to find the gold, or at least hoped to; the solution was a sort of emotional triumph but not altogether a surprise. Destroying the evidence did surprise me in a way; I hadn’t premeditated it. But when I actually found those documents I knew I couldn’t leave them there. Couldn’t let anyone else find them. I had followed a chain of reasoning; anyone else could follow it too.

  I gave myself several reasons to justify the act. I remember most of them. They were voiced in the encounters that took place during the next weeks; there’s no point in spelling them out twice. Basically my reasoning wasn’t all that different from the reason why Haim or his brother hadn’t ever revealed the location of the Sayan cache. What decided me was the same question that had decided the Tippelskirch brothers: to whom could I reveal what I knew? And why should I, and what purpose would it serve, and whom would it benefit; and so on.

  The day after I destroyed the stolen documents I returned to the archives as usual and went to work. To do otherwise might have raised suspicion; I didn’t want to attract attention to the files I had requisitioned yesterday.

  I told myself I’d solved the mystery of Kolchak’s gold; I told myself it freed me to focus on what was still the real job—reconstructing the story of Sebastopol.

  But it wasn’t possible to keep from thinking about it. Working out schemes. Fantasies about going in search of the gold with a spade, a pick, hiking boots and a knapsack. I excused them by thinking of them as exercises.

  I tried to throw myself into the work with renewed concentration. I divided the next several days between industrious file-riffling in the museum’s reading room and conversations with Zandor’s hand-picked interviewees. Three of them gave me surprisingly useful information. Timoshenko chaperoned me to the meetings with his customary good cheer, and continued my informal introduction to the city’s night life, such as it was.

  Then a Thursday,* a day that remains as clear in my mind as the day of a marriage or birth or death.

  I left the museum at noon to walk off tension and look for a tavern for a midday drink. It was a balmy day. The street was busy with lunch-hour pedestrians. They walk stolidly because they have to, they’re not strolling for exercise. There is never a great deal of motor traffic in Russian cities but the street was noisy with trucks and coaches and the poorly muffled growlings of Russian-built cars.

  A man stood on the opposite sidewalk and his eyes flicked across me. Anywhere else I’d have thought nothing of it—a meaningless glance in a street. But it alarmed me. I sensed his eyes on my back when I turned to go down the street.

  A block distant I looked back; he was no longer at his post.

  I went fretfully on. I knew the neighborhood now; I carried my lunch into a small tavern on a side street and ordered the local wine. People milled in and out; I recognized none of them.

  I examined my observational abilities: I set myself the task of reconstructing his appearance.

  Unextraordinary. A large man but not huge. No hat, no topcoat. A blue suit cut to reduce a paunch. A somewhat rubbery face, dark hair combed straight back without a part. Round features. Nothing about his eyes; I hadn’t been close enough; I had the impression however that he had hairy hands. Not a Slavic appearance; neither square nor swarthy. Western European, then—or more likely a Russian from the White country to the northwest. But I came back to the suit: not Moscow serge. A little baggy but that was from lack of pressing; it had been a well-cut suit, probably a fairly decent fabric. Something German about it; something distinctly un-Russian.

  Or was it one of Zandor’s people? I remembered his fastidious dress.

  Then I remembered Vassily Bukov: the indulgently tailored slacks.

  I finished the carafe of wine and left the place. The traffic was noisy. I didn’t hear his approach and I was startled when he spoke.

  “Please don’t look at me, Bristow. Study that radio in the window.”

  I saw his reflection ripple across the shop window as he moved past my shoulder and bent to try his key in the door lock of a parked Moskvitch. He seemed to have trouble getting the key in. He had too much of a belly on him to be able to bend down comfortably.

  In the racket I could barely hear him. “I’m an American. You’re in trouble, Bristow. We’ve got to meet tonight. Half-past six, leave your hotel and turn right—north. Keep walking up the street until we pick you up. If you’re being followed we’ll spot it and you won’t be contacted. In that case stop and wait by the phone kiosk at the corner by the postal exchange—we’ll call you there with further instructions. Got it?”

  “Yes. But what danger——”

  “Shut up. Beat it.”

  He got the door open and slid into the car. It pulled out into the traffic and I took my eyes off the display of radios and cheap clocks in the shop window.

  Central Intelligence Agency, obviously. Their penchant for trench-coated melodrama is infamous.

  But he’d scared me. I kept my fears buttoned down tight because if I let my imagination go I knew I could go to pieces.

  The breeze blew the smell of diesel exhaust across my face. A block distant, smoke spurted from the tailpipe of the blue-suited man’s ramshackle Russian car. I remembered him stooping there, fiddling with the key and very carefully not looking in my direction; probably talking out of the side of his mouth like a ventriloquist. Something comical about it: the television absurdity of it.

  I went back to the museum but my nerves were in a bad state.

  The street meeting he’d proposed was one of the standard ploys to reveal shadows and make safe contact. Abwehr and MI-6 agents had used it in Madrid and Lisbon and Istanbul. It didn’t prove my blue-suited man had any imagination; it only proved he’d read the book. Mine or his agency’s manual.

  I dismissed Timoshenko for the evening and at half-past six I left the hotel and went up the street as instructed. The postal exchange was nine blocks distant. The sky was heavy with clouds; it was cool and a bit steamy. Caution had led me to carry the most important of my notes in the pockets of my suit; they made bulges here and there but my coat concealed them.

  A woman like a bosomy Druid waited patiently by a cable pole for her dachshund to finish. I went past her trying to gauge the light automobile traffic in the street beside me. I did not detect any sound or reflection of a car moving along behind me at walking pace, but then they wouldn’t have handled it that way. They’d be hanging back a few blocks watching me—watching what happened behind me.

  I made no effort to disclose a tail. It was up to my contact to discover him. Those are the rules of that game.

  I did not know what to expect. There were too many possibilities; guessing was pointless. Danger, he’d said.…

  I reached the postal exchange without contact.

  Suddenly I realized what a poor scheme it was. They disclose a tail on me.* So I’m under surveillance. Now I’m supposed to answer that telephone? They’re idiots. The minute it rings and I answer it, whoever’s watching me knows I’m making a contact.

  If my erstwhile friends were watching me from a car—he had implied they were—it would take them a bit of time to get to a telephone. I turned abruptly and walked back the way I had come; I wanted to be away from that kiosk before the telephone in it began to ring.

  Half a block ahead of me a man turned into the entrance of a building. When I passed it he was not there; he’d gone inside. He’d been vaguely familiar; I’d seen him before—possibly at the museum. One of Zandor’s? My backtracking had caught him off guard; I wasn’t supposed to have seen him.

&n
bsp; A block farther I made a right turn and strolled down a side street. I didn’t check to see whether Zandor’s man was behind me; there was little doubt of it. I didn’t want to return directly to the hotel because he would have been puzzled by my direct hike to and from the corner where the postal exchange stood. This way I might still persuade him I was simply out walking, limbering up the joints, with no particular destination in mind. I took a circuitous and unhurried route back to the hotel.

  I insert these details because it illustrates Ritter’s* clumsiness and helps to show why I later resisted his approaches. “Intelligence” is a poor word for the operations of most espionage and counterespionage organizations. An unpleasant number of their actions tend to serve as self-fulfillment of gloomy prophecy. On the way back to my hotel I had ample time to reflect angrily that even if I had not been in “danger” before, Ritter’s stupid plan would have guaranteed it in the end, if I’d obeyed his instructions.

  By nature the operation of intelligence activities is supposed to be passive. All too often it fails in that objective because in the course of gathering intelligence the operative brings attention upon himself and his illegal behavior. This in turn creates exactly the kind of international “incident” which Intelligence, ideally, is supposed to prevent. If I had more time and felt more level-headed I could turn all this into an amusingly comic sequence; essentially that’s what it is, once you remove to a certain objective distance. But I was not, and am not, in that luxurious condition. I was afraid.

  I was on my way out of the hotel to wait for Timoshenko’s arrival.* A familiar man was coming up the sidewalk toward me. I almost suffered cardiac arrest when he reached inside the lapel of his coat but what he produced was an envelope; he approached with the envelope extended toward me.