The Gold of Troy

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  It was three nights later, when Schurz had about abandoned hope and was cursing Gruber for ever having put the idea in his head, that Jan Petterssen appeared at Schurz’s room. He was a very thin, extremely tall man with a horselike, long, sad face, and a shock of bright yellow hair that needed cutting badly, tucked out of sight under a ragged stocking cap. Schurz could hardly conceal his relief at sight of the man; by now he had been sure that Petterssen was either dead or long gone from the country. He sat his guest down, brought out a bottle of vodka traded for a genuine Nazi officer’s peaked cap, lightning insignia and all—his own, but the drunken Russian soldier had had no idea of that, of course—and asked Petterssen why he was still around. Petterssen shrugged sadly.

  “My face,” he said wearily. “My height. My hair. They must be looking for me. It is easy enough to forge papers”—Petterssen had forged all the pound notes and the dollar bills printed in Germany, he spoke five languages fluently in addition to his native Swedish, and could handle any one of them on a bit of paper so that one would swear it was authentic—“but at every border crossing they are looking for me. They must be looking for me! They will want me for a war criminal, can you imagine? Me? An artist?” He shook his head at the patent unfairness of it all and took a healthy drink from the bottle. “I almost didn’t come here. I go out very little. But it’s only a question of time before I’m caught, I suppose. Very unfair … anyway, they told me it was important, so I came. Bent over to look like an old man to look short. It hurt my back.” He shrugged again and took another drink from the bottle.

  Schurz was quite sure the occupying forces had more important people to search for than Jan Petterssen, but he could see no advantage in telling the Swede that. At least it had kept the forger in Berlin.

  “It is important, very important,” he said and leaned forward, gently removing the bottle from Petterssen’s fingers. He wanted the man sober, at least until they had discussed the matter thoroughly. “I can get you out of the country with me. We’ll have to take a small case with us—”

  “A small case? What will be inside it?”

  “A treasure in gold.” Schurz did not feel it necessary to explain that it was not bullion, not something readily transferable into cash. “All you have to do is to forge some papers. In Russian. Can you do it?”

  The vodka had taken a bit of the lugubrious expression from the narrow equine face. The sadness there was replaced with the pride of the artisan.

  “Of course.”

  “You still have your pens?”

  “Not on me, for God’s sake! They’d shoot me on the spot if they ever caught me with those in my possession.”

  “But they’re safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “And paper?”

  “I have enough if you don’t want a book written.”

  “Good!” Schurz took a deep breath and then thought a moment. He had long since thought of the possibility that Petterssen might also be useful in the matter of the financing of the project. “Do you also still have some of that counterfeit money—pounds or dollars, or whatever?”

  Petterssen shook his head. “No. Not even samples.” Schurz bit back his disappointment. It would mean trying to locate one of the industrial members of ODESSA, and that would take valuable time. He should have been doing that before, but his time had been taken up with the matter of the boat, and besides, he hadn’t really believed in the true possibility of the project. Damn!

  Petterssen reached over and took the bottle of vodka from Schurz’s hand, drinking deeply.

  “But I’ve got plenty of good money, real money,” he went on. The vodka had relaxed him completely, made him expansive. He grinned. “I insisted upon payment in American dollars before I forged the foreign currency. Otherwise I would have been working for myself, if you see what I mean.” The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced by a thoughtful frown. His eyes narrowed as he studied Schurz. “But if you’ve got gold—bullion—”

  “We need a boat,” Schurz said flatly. “It’s the only way to go and take the gold with us. I have someone who can travel from here to the Baltic without suspicion. He arranges the purchase of fish for the commissaries. He can arrange a boat for us for when we need it. But he says he knows the fishermen up there. They won’t rent or sell a boat for gold. Most of them have no way to tell if the gold is genuine or not. They’ve never seen any in their lives. They want American dollars or English pounds. I thought—”

  “You thought they might be taken in by my counterfeit. They would have, too, with my stuff,” Petterssen said with pride, but then his face fell. “Only I have none.”

  “You have dollars,” Schurz said and his voice was cold. “I want enough of them to arrange the boat. You’ll be paid. With interest.”

  Petterssen looked at him. “How can I be sure?”

  “Because I say so.” Schurz was beginning to get irritated. “Besides, you want to get out of Germany, don’t you? As you say, it’s only a question of time before they pick you up, and then—” He made a gesture, his hand across his throat and then swiftly raised in the air. Petterssen winced. There was a profound tone of truth in Schurz’s tone of voice, as there should have been since the threat was true for himself whether or not it was for the tall Swede.

  “I know,” Petterssen said. The sadness had returned to his face. He raised the bottle; Schurz made no attempt to stop him. The tall Swede drank, put the bottle down and pushed it to one side, ready to properly discuss the matter. “Where will we be going?”

  “Sweden,” Schurz said with assurance. “Your home.” In the past few days he had done a good deal of planning, even if most of it was ephemeral, depending as it did on locating Petterssen. “ODESSA has members there, and there is still sympathy for us and our cause among many influential people there. We can both be safe there.”

  Petterssen wet his lips. “And rich.” He made it a statement, not a question.

  “And very rich,” Schurz said, agreeing, and wondered that a man as clever with his hands as Jan Petterssen could possibly not realize he would never get off the boat in his country. “And very rich,” Schurz repeated.

  The tall Swede nodded and leaned back, narrowing his eyes, concentrating on the paper he was about to begin forging in his mind’s eye.

  “All right,” he said, once again the artisan. “What papers will you need, and what do you want them to say?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Russian soldier-messenger was on the verge of descending the few bunker steps when he turned at a tap upon his shoulder, one hand automatically falling to the butt of his service revolver, staring suspiciously at the ragged, cringing figure who had stopped him.

  “What is it?”

  The man smiled an obsequious smile that clearly indicated he did not understand the other, and held out a small bundle of official-looking papers, neatly tied with ribbon. “You dropped this.” He pointed to the dispatch bag and then to the ground.

  “Oh.” The soldier understood the gesture if not the language. He shoved the papers into the dispatch bag. “Thanks.” Without another word he turned and trotted down the bunker steps. Behind him Schurz watched him turn a corner and disappear, then with a shrug he returned to his shovel. Now all he could do was to wait. And hope the real papers for the disposition of the treasure did not come through in the next two days. A sudden chilling thought came—if the real papers did come through before then, he hoped the soldier-messenger would not be able to remember who had given him the bundle of dropped papers. Possibly they should have included in the instructions an order to disregard any other directives … but that, too, could have been risky, inviting suspicion. Ah, well, Schurz thought with a rueful smile, stealing something this important could scarcely fail to involve risk of some sort.

  “And about bloody time!” Sudikoff said aloud with a combination of relief and irritation. “My God, how did we ever manage to win this war, anyway? With all the bureaucracy? Three weeks to get a s
imple answer to a simple question!” He studied the orders again. They were written in a crabbed longhand, and signed with a scrawl that was impossible to decipher, although the neatly printed title of Colonel General L. Schvicheva was easily seen below, as well as the title and command printed on top of the sheet. Fortunately the instructions themselves were clear and understandable. The captain nodded and called out to the sergeant in the outer office. Sergeant Kolenko hurried in.

  “Close the door,” the captain said. He leaned back, smiling broadly. “We’ve finally gotten our orders to ship out that treasure of yours, Sergeant. Thank God! I was getting nervous about having the stuff here.”

  “Oh,” the sergeant said, interested. “To the Allied Art Commission, I suppose?”

  “You suppose wrong,” the captain said, and laughed. “To Russia.”

  “But—”

  The captain’s smile faded, replaced by a frown. “Would you care to go against the orders of General Schvicheva? Who apparently agrees with me about who the treasure should belong to? And who is going to get it? Eh?”

  “No, sir!”

  “I thought not,” the captain said dryly. He tapped the instructions. “Now, the orders are clear enough. And will require a little hustle on your part. They want the treasure handled with extreme care, to be protected against any contingency. They want it placed in a case made of thin welded sheets of steel. This case is then to be fitted inside a wooden box of approximately the same size, and in addition to being securely nailed shut, they want it banded about with steel bands for shipping. Is that all clear?”

  “… bands for shipping …” the sergeant said, and busily scribbled the instructions on a bit of paper he had taken from his pocket.

  “And tear up that paper!” the captain said testily. He had already decided to destroy the instructions themselves once they had been carried out. While such orders had not been included in the General’s crabbed handwriting, Captain Sudikoff imagined he could read between the lines. He looked at the sergeant with authority. “This matter is to be kept completely secret, no notes, nothing in writing. There’s been too much loose talk among our men and the other Allied troops as it is. Camaraderie is all well and good, but it’s no way to keep secrets. Which means that all information about the treasure and the shipment is to be kept from our troops and our officers, as well. There are to be no telephone calls regarding the matter, and no telegraphed inquiries or questions. Nothing! Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” The sergeant had been tearing the paper he had been writing on into shreds; he dropped those into an ashtray and lit it with a match, watching the flames. He then tucked his pencil into his sleeve pocket. “But I’ll have to get one of the men to make up the steel case—”

  “You get the steel sheets cut to the right size, and get the welding equipment from the engineers,” the captain said, “and I’ll make the case. We do learn something in technical school,” he added with a smile, “even if we don’t learn when Homer was born.”

  “Yes, sir.” The sergeant paused. “And when the crate is ready for shipment?”

  The captain referred to the instructions again, and nodded.

  “The case is to be marked ‘Captured Medical Equipment’ and is to be shipped out on the train that leaves around six tomorrow afternoon from the Stuttgartbahnhof for Leningrad. It is to be placed in the guard’s van—not in any of the regular freight cars—and it is to be released only to a Colonel Major Boris Golobev or his representatives, on written identification, at whatever point the major cares to take delivery. Those instructions are to be given to the train officials verbally, understand? But impressed upon them.”

  “Yes, sir. Impressed upon them. Verbally. Golobev or his representatives.”

  “Colonel Major Golobev,” the captain said reprovingly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And now,” the captain said, pleased to be nearing the end of his custodianship of the treasure, and happy that it was not being sent to the Allied Art Commission, “get a move on having the proper steel sheets cut to size, and getting the welding equipment in here. And start looking for wood for the crate.”

  “Yes, sir!” said Sergeant Kolenko, and left the room to get on with it, secretly pleased, despite his previous objections and also despite the Allied agreements, that the treasure was actually going to his country.

  To Kurt Schurz, the scene at the Stuttgartbahnhof with its appearance of total confusion, was very reassuring. Lorries of all sizes had violated the once-privileged platforms where only passengers had been allowed, and were drawn up before the gaping doors of freight cars discharging into them every imaginable type of matériel; men and women were busy on the different platforms hoisting smaller bundles into similar cars; soldiers being recycled were milling about before the trains roughly marked in chalk as being destined for Moscow, for Kiev, for Leningrad, trying to locate their units; officers with lists were frantically attempting to keep track of the various items being crammed into the cars. Above, the sun’s final rays crept in through the open spaces where the glass cover of the station had long since been blasted to bits. On the platform for the six o’clock train for Leningrad, Kurt Schurz walked slowly along, hoping that in that atmosphere of kinetic anarchy, he and his tall companion might pass relatively unnoticed.

  At his side Petterssen shuffled along resignedly, almost as if he were walking into assured capture and execution. Had the Russians really been actively looking for the man, Schurz thought dourly, that look of guilt on the horselike idiot face would almost be enough to guarantee capture. The stocky ex-major also thought how happy he would be when his association with the tall Swede was finally ended—and the tall Swede ended as well. While forging the necessary letters, releases, passes, and other papers Petterssen had been fine, but once that work had been completed, the big man’s nervous fears had come close to driving Schurz to distraction. Well, Schurz thought as he approached the train, one way or another it will soon be over. He didn’t know if that was a comforting thought or not.

  Both men were dressed in neat dark suits, black polished shoes, white shirts and dark neckties, and each wore upon his head a black homburg. The outfits, purchased on the black market and tailored by an ex-corporal in the SS, had cost nearly as much as the boat Schurz had arranged in Warnemünde on the Baltic coast, almost as much as the car he had gone to so much trouble to arrange to meet them in Bad Freienwalde; the members of ODESSA, while dedicated, still wanted as much as they could get for taking chances. Still, Schurz was certain, the clothing was vitally necessary; the men they wanted to look like wore just such identifying clothes. And if the ploy failed, what difference did it really make what the clothes cost, or the boat, or the use of the car? In the first place the money had been Petterssen’s; and in the second they would not require money in the place where they would end up. The dead spent little.

  Freight doors were being slammed; troops were hurrying into the nearest cars. An official was standing looking at a pocket watch, almost as if the trains ever departed on time. Schurz frowned. Where was the crate? Had it been loaded into the guard’s van before his arrival? But he had been there for some time, walking about looking very official himself, and had not seen it. He swallowed. His appearance with the abnormally tall and tragic-looking Petterssen on the rapidly-emptying platform was beginning to become noticeable. Should they board the train in the hope that the crate was already in the guard’s van? And if it wasn’t? Then everything would have been lost; the crate would leave on a train while they were being carried to a different place. Plus the fact that their masquerade could well be discovered when they came to the guard’s van to collect a crate that was not there. Damn! Where the devil was the verdamnt crate?

  The official was looking rather pointedly in their direction; he made a gesture clearly indicating that the train was about to leave and that they should board. Schurz put one foot on the lower step of the car and then paused. The official began walking purposefully in their d
irection. And then, at last, a lorry came charging through the makeshift entrance of the Bahnhof with a roar, blasting its horn. The official paused and turned in the direction of the disturbance. The horn blasted again, echoing in the huge domed hall, directing him to pay attention. He moved toward the large truck. There was a conference at its side, and then Schurz saw three men descend from the cab. Two of them began to drag a heavy crate from the tailgate of the lorry, while the third, a sergeant with a pipe, spoke to the official. A few minutes of conversation and the official nodded. The crate was shoved into the guard’s van and the door closed. Schurz tried not to show his relief. He tugged at Petterssen’s sleeve and the two men climbed aboard.

  It was almost unnecessary to show their identity cards; the soldier-guard easily recognized the black suits and homburgs for what they were supposed to be, and glanced at the cards perfunctorily. He led them without words to a crowded compartment. The sight of the two men was enough. The soldiers within knew authority, and dangerous authority, when they saw it. They got up, wearily dragging their gear from the overhead racks and filed out to search for other accommodations elsewhere on the crowded train.

  If the guard thought it strange that the two men had no luggage, he said nothing but was about to leave when Schurz cleared his throat loudly and pinched Petterssen painfully through his sleeve. The tall man looked surprised for a moment, and then remembered his instructions.

  “Bad Freienwalde,” he said, trying to keep his voice from breaking. “Advise us when we’re near.”

  “Right,” the guard said, and backed out, sliding the compartment door shut. Shurz waited tensely for an outcry, for some action from the officials who would have been advised by the guard that the two men were fakes, probably spies, but nothing happened. He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and sat down at the window. Petterssen sat across from him for a brief moment, and then got up to sit beside him as being more conducive to quiet conversation.