“And this has something to do with that treasure?” the captain asked.
“I’m coming to that,” the sergeant said in a slightly chiding tone. “As I was saying, prior to the time of Homer, history, or legends, or stories, or poems, were handed down from generation to generation, from father to son, or by professional storytellers, all by word of mouth. Homer, in his Iliad and the Odyssey, was relating events that took place five or six centuries earlier, and the history of which could only have come down by word of mouth. Many people, therefore, believed the stories to be pure fiction, products of Homer’s admittedly brilliant imagination, and that while there probably was a city in the Troad that had had a war with a city in what is now Greece, the facts of that war, or the personalities, were not facts, but merely legend.”
“Interesting,” the captain said, because to him it was interesting. He always learned something in these conversations with his sergeant quartermaster, and he wondered briefly if, after he was finally released from the army, he might be too old to apply to the university. But he knew it was a dream; the work necessary at home would be even more demanding than the work in Berlin. He brought his attention back to the sergeant.
“Yes. Very interesting,” the sergeant said, and puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. “However, there was one man who believed completely in Homer, who believed that Homer, while undoubtedly a man with a great imagination, was still basing his poems on hard fact, even though that fact had undoubtedly suffered somewhat in being repeated as it was being handed down all those hundreds of years by word of mouth. That man was named Heinrich Schliemann, and he dedicated the last quarter-century of his life, and a considerable fortune, to prove that Homer’s tales were historical, and not fictional.”
“And?” the captain asked, pleased that at last the name Schliemann had come into the story.
“And Schliemann proved it.” From the sergeant’s triumphant tone one would have thought it was Professor Kolenko who had made the discovery. “He not only discovered the site of the ancient city of Troy, but he found weapons conforming to Homer’s description, found the city walls where Homer had said they were, and in general proved—at least to his own satisfaction, as well as to the satisfaction of many others, while others still doubted—that Homer had been writing fact.”
“And the treasure?” the captain asked.
“Ah, yes. He also discovered the treasure—Priam’s treasure—the part that was left after Priam had ransomed the body of Hector and brought it back to Troy for proper burial.”
“He found a treasure, eh?” the captain said. “And when did he do all this?”
“In 1873, over seventy years ago.”
“And what happened to it?” The captain’s initial enthusiasm for the story was waning a bit. He thought the conversation, while certainly educational and interesting to a point, was going no place. It wasn’t like the philosophical or even practical discussions he had had in the past with his quartermaster, nor did it seem like a conversation to delay thoughts of future distasteful duties for very long. His mind began to wander to thoughts of burial details and other unpleasant subjects.
“What happened to it was that Schliemann donated it to a German museum,” the sergeant said, and now he was beginning to feel pleased at how neatly he had worked the story up to this point. “The museum was here in Berlin. And when the bombing began to destroy museums as well as other government—not to mention private—buildings, it was apparently decided it would be safer hidden under good, strong concrete. In a bunker.”
The captain’s eyes widened, his attention now fully caught. The sergeant continued, a faint smile on his lips.
“Under the zoo …”
Now the full import of what he had been hearing suddenly struck the captain. “What! No—!”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, and grinned widely. “It’s outside your quarters right now.”
“I can’t believe it.” The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Is this some sort of a joke, Sergeant?”
“No, sir! I don’t joke about—”
“Well, if it isn’t, bring it in and let’s have a look at it!”
“Yes, sir!” The sergeant went out and returned dragging the trunk easily by one handle. The door was closed, the lid thrown back. Captain Sudikoff stared as the sergeant carefully, almost reverently, unwrapped each bundle, placing their contents on the tissue paper along the bench. The captain frowned.
“That’s gold?”
“Yes, and almost pure, too. To make the fine wire they had to work it very soft. They didn’t have the tools or the techniques for doing delicate work in metals in those days unless they were very soft. They could work metals like bronze—copper and tin—for larger and harder pieces—spears, shields, weapons—but for the fine wire used in some of the delicate gold ornaments, they had to work it almost pure.”
The captain was still staring at the bench, loaded with bracelets, beads, masks, buttons, ornamental singlets. He seemed dazed by the enormity of the discovery. He also looked as if he hadn’t heard a word of the sergeant’s explanation, as indeed he hadn’t. He looked up, staring at his quartermaster.
“What do we do with it?”
“Captain?”
“I said, what do we do with this—this—this stuff, now that we’ve found it? Incidentally, who did find it?”
“Two of our troops. I had them looking for food, and they came up with this trunk.”
“Do they know what’s in it?”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant suddenly understood the possible import of the question. “But they have no idea of what it is. They were going to destroy it, or hand it out for souvenirs to the others. They won’t think anything about it.”
“So what do we do with it?” The captain thought a moment and then shrugged. His first reaction at seeing the treasure was abating. “Maybe the two had a good idea. Handing it out to the troops for souvenirs, I mean.”
Sergeant Kolenko was shocked. He looked at the captain, aghast.
“Captain! You can’t be serious! You can’t do that! It’s a world-famous collection, one of the most valuable that exists! Break it up? Hand it out piece by piece like—like—” Comparisons failed him. He was rescued by a remembered fact. “In any event, it’s not ours to hand out or to do anything else with. We have instructions to turn it over.”
The captain frowned. “Turn it over? To whom?”
“To the Allied Art Commission. You remember the order. All recovered art treasures are supposed to be reported and turned over to the Commission for final disposition after the war.”
Captain Sudikoff snorted. “Nonsense!”
“But our government agreed to it,” the sergeant said, and now that he was at least in what could be construed as partial disagreement with his superior, he added, “sir!”
“Nonsense!” The captain shook his head in cold determination. “Turn something this valuable over to who? To the Americans? Who held up helping us in the war until we had almost bled to death? Who pushed Germany into the war against us in the first place? And now give them the spoils? Because, you know, this Allied Commission of yours will never give it back to Germany. No, sir!”
“But—what will we do with it then, sir?”
“I don’t know …” The captain thought a moment and then suddenly smiled. “Or, rather, I do know. I’ll do what every good army man would do in the same circumstances,” he said. “I’ll pass the decision up the line …”
BERLIN—May
Hitler was dead, the peace had finally been signed. Those Germans in uniforms, or those whose papers looked too recent to be true, or those recognized by former camp inmates, were on their way to prison camps. The others had been commandeered into clearing the rubble from the shattered streets of Berlin. Even some restaurants and bars had been permitted to open, bringing from their dungeon cellars hidden foods and bottles. The war was over.
But for some the war could never be over, and among them was Hans Gruber. H
ans Gruber was an old man, but he was a dedicated German and devoted to Adolph Hitler and his cause, dead or alive. Gruber was uneducated and he knew nothing of politics, but he did know that only under the Nazis had he known a feeling of self-fulfillment, of being part of something he sensed was important.
Before the beginning of the bombings, when the zoological station in the Tiergarten was still in normal operation, Gruber had been a porter there. When the need for bunkers beneath important buildings was evidenced by the increased death and destruction that were beginning to rain upon the city despite the promises of Reichmarshal Goering, Gruber willingly helped in the construction of the one that had been constructed in the area of the elephant cages, poking its bulk in the air. And when the Schliemann treasure had been brought to the bunker and stored in its little niche for safekeeping, Hans Gruber had helped, and had even been the one to cover the hole in the wall with plaster to hide any evidence of its location. And when the final hour had come before fleeing with the others before the Russian advance, it was Gruber who had hastily piled rubbish against the niche. The bombardment had shaken the walls and brought down the thin shell of plaster that had protected the cavelike opening. It was a poor attempt and Gruber was aware of it, but one could scarcely go running down the rubble-strewn streets with a trunk in one’s arms. Carrying one’s life down those dangerous streets was task enough.
Now, as one of the workers pressed into the gargantuan job of clearing some of that rubble, Gruber was aware that the treasure, while it had been discovered, still remained in the quarters of the Russian captain. Each day, as he lined up with the others to receive his shovel, he would peer past the issuing quartermaster and see the trunk still in the corner of the captain’s room. Its hasp had been repaired and rope had been wrapped around it in profusion, but there it was. Gruber did not understand why the trunk remained, why it had not been removed to a safer place. Still, it never occurred to him that he might do something about it.
Until one day, while piling broken building stone into a truck, he noticed that a new member of the work crew was Major Schurz. Gruber walked over, amazed to find the other man alive, and not only alive, but free, not in prison as a war criminal. Still, Gruber knew when he stopped to think about it that hundreds, no, thousands of SS had simply changed clothes and were now utilizing identity cards they had prepared long before.
“Major!” he said, but before he could say more, the other man had glared him to silence. He dropped his voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Don’t you remember me? Hans Gruber. I was a porter at the zoo. I was there in the bunker, when you brought that trunk. Don’t you remember? I was the one who plastered over the hole.”
“I remember,” Schurz said shortly, and began to turn away. He didn’t remember at all, nor did he want to. Idiots who called out his former rank in the SS with Russians all over the place, were people he could do without.
“Maj—I mean, what do I call you?”
Schurz was on the point of telling the old man he would rather not be called anything at all by the old fool, but one of the Russian troops overseeing that portion of the clean-up operation was staring at them. It would not do to start a discussion or an argument at this moment.
“My name is Kurt. Now, leave me alone.”
“But, Kurt—”
“Later!” Schurz said savagely, and walked away.
Gruber looked after him, sighed and went back to his job. But after work, when they had turned in their equipment and been given chits for their labor, he followed the major down the street and caught up with him a short distance away.
“You said, later—”
Schurz shook his head in irritation. Was he going to be plagued by this maniac leech all his life? He looked around. At least if he had to talk to this incredible cretin, they were alone and unobserved.
“What do you want?”
“The trunk, you remember? The one you brought to the bunker for hiding? The one I helped hide?”
“What about it?”
“It’s still there. Oh, they found where it was hidden, I don’t know how, but it’s still there. In the captain’s quarters. It’s all tied up with rope.”
“So?”
Gruber looked around and then wet his lips. “I thought maybe—” He paused, realizing how absurd his thought had been.
“You thought what?”
“I thought—maybe you could figure a way to get it away from them.” Even as he said it he knew he sounded ridiculous and tried to give the main reason he had attempted such a foolish comment. “It’s valuable, isn’t it?”
Schurz laughed, a short, humorless laugh.
“It’s more than valuable. It’s invaluable. What do you suggest, old man? That I just go in and ask for it? Say it’s an old trunk that has sentimental value for me? Or ask for it instead of a work chit? Say I could use it to keep my extensive wardrobe of old uniforms in?” He shook his head in disgust. “You’re a fool, old man. Go home.”
“I just thought—”
“Don’t think,” Schurz said harshly. “Go home.” He turned and walked away. Gruber looked after him a moment, sighed, and also started slowly walking toward his room.
But while he had admonished the old man for thinking, ex-Major Kurt Schurz could not help but think, himself. It would be a great coup to get the treasure from under the noses of the Russian pigs! Was it possible they didn’t know the value of what they had in their possession? And if they knew it, why was it still sitting in the bunker? Why hadn’t it been shipped east with all the other things, captured arms, the factories that were being dismantled and piled on freight cars for Russia, the tons of other goods that left the city for the east each day? One thing was sure; the treasure wouldn’t remain in the bunker forever. The Russian troops were being rotated. It was only a matter of time, and probably very little time, before the crew in the bunker would be relieved and sent home, and it was almost positive that when that day came, the trunk would go with them. If it didn’t go sooner.
And it was pointless, and even stupid, to think the Russians might not know the value of what was in the trunk. Otherwise why would it be in the captain’s personal quarters, all bound up with rope? Certainly not for the trunk itself—it wouldn’t serve as a portmanteau to carry anything very heavy, the bottom would fall out. No, the trunk still contained the treasure, and the Russians were waiting—for what? Orders, probably, Schurz thought with a grim smile, remembering his own army days. Which could come any day. Would it be possible to take it by force, to hijack it, say on the way from the bunker to the train when those orders finally came through? Schurz smiled sourly at the thought of himself, possibly aided by Gruber and others of the shovel brigade, attacking a troop-carrier full of armed soldiers. Ridiculous. No, the only way to get the trunk would be by guile, not by force.
Assuming the Russians were merely waiting for orders to move the trunk, when would those orders come? If they should come—Schurz stopped dead in his tracks. If they should come from us! If the orders should come from us! But then the euphoria occasioned by the daring idea began to fade as the practicality of the situation took hold. First there was the matter of locating the man he needed before the real orders came through. He put aside all thoughts of supper and hurried toward the small bar where he and others of his friends met for an occasional drink, and to speak—softly—of plans, or, rather, hopes for the future.
The bar was fairly busy. It was one of the few permitted to operate by the occupation forces as a means of reducing the pressures of the horrendous task facing the remaining residents of the battered city. It was a place where food chits could be traded for whiskey or beer or vodka or even cigarettes, although these were never smoked, being more valuable for their barter worth than for the remembered pleasure of tobacco. It was a place where the spoils of barter could be exchanged for articles which the Allied troops held dear; German helmets, bayonets, even pistols, even though pistols were not supposed to be in the hands of any German exc
ept the police; anything that might serve as a true souvenir of the city and its fall. Schurz pushed through to a corner, leaning over the occupants, and then slid in beside them as being less noticeable. He spoke in a low tone.
“Petterssen,” he said. “Is he still around?”
“I think so,” someone said, and shrugged. “It’s almost impossible to leave.”
“And getting worse,” another voice said gloomily.
Someone else laughed. “You’d think Petterssen would have no trouble. That Swede could write his own exit permit with his eyes closed, using a nail and piss for ink, and the border guards would pass him through like royalty. Why do you want him?”
“Important business,” Schurz said, and wondered with a sudden touch of panic if possibly Petterssen had already left the city. But there was no point in thinking of that. If Petterssen was gone, or could not be located, the entire scheme was up the chimney in any event. He waved aside the offer of a drink from one of the men. “How do I get in touch with him?”
“You mean, if he’s still here. I haven’t seen him.” The man shrugged. “Well, we can pass the word, that’s about all we can do. Where are you living?”
“I have a room in the Goeringstrasse”—Schurz smiled grimly—“what was the Goeringstrasse. It’s probably the Trumanstrasse, or the Stalinstrasse by now. Number 18, first floor in the back on the right. Make it fast, can you? It’s very important.”
“Important for you? Or for the party?”
“For both,” Schurz said, and started to stand up. He thought a moment and then sat down again. There was also the question of money. The people who had formed ODESSA, the organization dedicated to helping keep the party alive, were all big industrialists and had plenty of it, but it might be difficult to contact them. And there would be need to contact someone trustworthy in Wismar, or Barth, or any one of the Baltic ports—but he could be doing all this while waiting for Petterssen. He stood again, this time to stay on his feet. “Very much for both,” he repeated, almost to himself, and walked from the bar.
The Gold of Troy Page 6