The Gold of Troy

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  He smiled genially, looked at his cigarette, decided it was short enough, and crushed it out. He held out his hand. Gregor shook it firmly. Ulanov gave him a friendly wink and moved in the direction of his own room. He paused, his hand on the knob of the connecting door. “I’ll close this, if you don’t mind. I think I’ll do some shopping and probably eat in my own room. I’m tired. Getting old, you know. And if I’m asleep when you leave in the morning, have a good trip.”

  “You, too. And good-bye, Serge.”

  Kovpak watched the older man close the door behind him and lock it, and then heaved a sigh of relief. He had thought it would have been much tougher to shake the old boy. The last thing he wanted was to be wet-nursed, or under constant surveillance while traveling with Ruth McVeigh, but apparently that wasn’t going to be a problem, thank heavens! He put such unpleasant thoughts from him and began unwrapping the packages of clothing which he hoped would make him, at least in the eyes of Ruth McVeigh, look less like a peasant and more like a man of the world. He also hoped, of course, that the salesman who had helped him select those springlike colors had been correct when he had assured him the new clothing made him look years younger …

  Major Serge Ulanov made his telephone calls from the office of the military attaché at the Russian Embassy, even as he was sure that James Newkirk made his calls to Langley from the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. The major did not know or care whether Newkirk or one of his minions had followed him there or not. Another day and Newkirk would be a thing of the past. Actually, he rather hoped that Newkirk had followed him, for a heavy rain had begun to fall, with ominous mutterings from a bank of even blacker clouds in the west, and it somehow made Ulanov feel better to think of the other man somewhere out in the rain, keeping a sharp eye on the heavy doors of the embassy.

  The major’s first call was to an old acquaintance, the manager of Aeroflot Airlines, in London. He spoke in Russian.

  “Two people, Alexis,” the major said quietly. “And all of this completely confidential, of course. A Dr. Gregor Kovpak, a Russian national, and a Dr. Ruth McVeigh, carrying an American passport. Of course, they may not be traveling by Aeroflot, but I think it possible since Kovpak already has his return on your line. But in any event, I’m sure your computer can find them. What? Going possibly to East Berlin, but not necessarily. Yes, traveling together. For sometime tomorrow morning, I’m fairly sure. What? Yes, I’ll wait.”

  He leaned back and looked at the heavy drapes and ornate furniture of the room the military attaché had given him to use, with the inevitable pictures of heroes of the Revolution on the walls. And he undoubtedly thought he was showing me courtesy, giving me this mausoleum to use, Ulanov thought, and smiled. A little of Playboy art would do wonders in sprucing up the place, he thought, and then brought his attention back to the telephone, frowning in amazement.

  “What? What do you mean, Aeroflot doesn’t fly to East Berlin? Why not, for heaven’s sake? You fly to Boston, you fly to Bangkok, you fly to Belfast, and you don’t fly to East Berlin?” Good God! he thought, we let all that nice hard capitalist currency go to other airlines? Typical. “What? But you found the two of them on the computer, anyway? Well, that’s better; you had me frightened there for a moment. What line? Lod? I see. Leaving Heathrow at 11:50 tomorrow, arriving at Schönefeld Airport in East Berlin at 13:25 … Flight 286, nonstop … and with a car rental waiting for them at the airport.… Wait a minute, Alexis, let me think.”

  Ulanov frowned at the ceiling of the room while he sorted things out in his mind; then he smiled, a broad smile. He straightened his face as he spoke into the instrument.

  “All right, Alexis, this is what I want you to do. The Lod flight was booked through your office, wasn’t it? I thought so. Good. I want you to call Dr. Kovpak and Dr. McVeigh at their hotel—you have it? Good. Call them and inform them that, unfortunately, Flight 286 has been overbooked, but that you, in your infinite wisdom and skill, have managed to book them on a slightly later flight. How much later? Oh, an hour should do, I suppose. Pick out a flight like that and let me know. Oh, and also, of course, make sure there is space on the flight for them. I’ll wait.”

  He leaned back again, wishing desperately that the Ambassador didn’t have asthma, and wasn’t so maniacally set against the smoking of tobacco in any form in the embassy rooms. He couldn’t imagine how the others in the place could tolerate such a restriction. Probably spend 90 percent of their time in the toilets, he thought, and smiled at the picture, wondering what would happen to anyone who might want to use the rest rooms for a more legitimate purpose. Probably have to go to the pub around the corner, he thought, and then paid attention as the telephone spoke.

  “What? But that leaves only fifteen minutes later! Ah! A connection in Amsterdam, eh? How long? Excellent. What line is it? KLM, and then who? Interflug? Never heard of them, but so long as their planes don’t fall down. And there is space for both of them on the flight? Good! Alexis, you are a genius. What? Well, the computer is a genius, then. No, that’s about it. And thanks for your trouble.” Ulanov was about to hang up and go on to his next call when he suddenly remembered something; he mentally struck himself on the forehead for almost forgetting. “Alexis? Thank heaven I caught you before you hung up and went and sold those two seats to East Berlin on Lod! What? Oh, you can sell one of them, but hold the other one for me. Well, of course. What do you think this whole charade was all about, anyway?”

  He hung up, thought a moment, and then placed his second call, a call to a special number in Berlin which he read from a small notebook. Knowing the bureaucracy that exists in all government departments, he hoped not everyone had already gone home. It was almost six o’clock in the evening, and not everyone, he knew, was as dedicated to their job as Serge Ulanov. The thought made him smile as he waited, but his smile disappeared when his call finally went through and he realized his fear had been well-founded, for the man who answered the telephone seemed suspicious of the call and was not inclined to accept it. Ulanov made himself heard above the voice of the international operator, who sensibly retired from the battle, leaving Ulanov on the line.

  “This is Major Ulanov,” he said, speaking German and putting all the authority he could muster into his voice. “I’m calling from London. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Who do you want to speak to?”

  Ulanov bit back his temper. “I placed this call to Colonel Franz Müeller. Is he there?”

  “No.” There was a click followed by a dial tone; the man at the other end had obviously disconnected.

  Ulanov clenched his jaw and called for the international operator again, repeating the number. After what seemed to the impatient Ulanov to be an unconscionable wait, the telephone rang. The same voice came on the line. “Hello?”

  “This is Major Ulanov again,” the major said, making no attempt to disguise the fury in his voice. “Did you hang up on me?”

  “You said you wanted Colonel Müeller,” the voice said, attempting to appease this irascible stranger with pure logic. “He isn’t here.”

  “Well, you listen to me! And if you hang up again, I promise you you’ll be the sorriest man in all Germany, East or West! I am Major Serge Ulanov of the KGB, and when I call someone in your organization I don’t expect him to hang up on me! And please don’t tell me I wasn’t calling you! And please don’t tell me who is or isn’t there! Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Good! Now, who am I speaking to?”

  “This is Corporal Burkhardt, sir.” The tone was much more respectful.

  “All right, Corporal,” Ulanov said coldly, “listen and listen very carefully! I am arriving at Schönefeld Airport tomorrow early afternoon. Have you got that?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll tell Colonel—”

  “Be quiet! I’m not through. Now, I want to be met with a car—” Ulanov thought a moment and then frowned. “No, make that two cars. I want them to be—”

  “Sir?”<
br />
  “Wait until I finish. I want them both to be—”

  “Sir?”

  “If you interrupt me once again—!” Ulanov said savagely, and then resigned himself to the fact he was dealing with an idiot. “Well, what is it?”

  “Sir, I can’t arrange any cars. That would be the responsibility of the motor pool section, sir. Sir, I don’t even have a car myself. I come to the barracks on a bicycle—”

  Ulanov took a deep breath. Obviously speaking with this moron was wasting time. “Where is Colonel Müeller?”

  “He’s probably at the club, sir. The Officers’ Club. He often stops there on the way home.” The corporal’s voice became confidential. “Sometimes he stays there quite late, sir. Trouble at home, I think—”

  Ulanov gritted his teeth, trying to remember that just moments before he had been in the very best of humor. “Do you have the telephone number of the colonel’s club?”

  “Oh, I can connect you directly, sir. It’s in the same building, on the top floor. It used to be in the basement, but there wasn’t any view, so they moved it to the—”

  “Corporal!”

  “Yes, sir. I thought you wanted to talk, sir,” the corporal said in a properly aggrieved tone. “I’ll connect you right away, sir.”

  There was the sound of mingled voices accompanied with static, the usual cacophony when telephone calls are transferred, then a bit of silence—welcome to Ulanov after the corporal—after which a familiar voice came on the line.

  “Colonel Müeller here.”

  “Colonel? This is Major Serge Ulanov.”

  “Major!” Colonel Müeller sounded delighted. “When did you get in?”

  “I didn’t get in. I’m in London, but I’ll be in Berlin tomorrow. Listen, I need your help. I get to Schönefeld at 13:25 on Lod flight 286. I want to be met with two cars. I—”

  “Two cars?” The colonel chuckled; it was obvious he had been at the club some time. “Have you gotten that fat since I saw you last?”

  Ulanov did not smile. “No, I’m quite the same. But I want two cars because I want to be very sure we do not lose the people we will be trailing, and if one car has to be left to trail them on foot, I want another car handy. I want both cars completely nondescript. Nothing official-looking about them, understand? And I’ll want a good driver with each car, and a good man with the driver in the second car.” He thought a moment. “Is it possible to get cars with some sort of telephonic communication between them?”

  “Of course. How would I do for the man with the driver in the second car? I assume you’ll be with the driver in the first, and getting away from my desk would be a welcome change.”

  “Excellent! Oh, one more thing. The man we will be trailing—at a distance, by the way; we don’t want to pick him up—is named Gregor Kovpak. He’s a Russian. He’s arranged for a car at the airport, a rental. Is it possible—well, to put some sort of a bug on that car?”

  “A homing pigeon? Certainly.” The colonel paused and cleared his throat. “Major, this Kovpak—a criminal of some sort? Is he dangerous? Will we be requiring arms of any sort?”

  Ulanov laughed. “No, he’s not dangerous; just to secrets buried in the earth for a few thousand years. What you might bring along, though, is a cooler in each car with some bottles of beer and some sandwiches. We may have a long drive.”

  “Oh? Where to?”

  “All I have is a silly hunch I’d be ashamed to tell you about,” Ulanov said. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and he hung up.

  Sonia sipped her vodka and made a face. “The bottle,” she said disdainfully, “says ‘Finlandia’ on it, but the vodka says ‘Made in Great Britain,’ and in somebody’s bathroom, in my opinion.” She pushed the glass away from her with a distasteful grimace. “Get me a plain whiskey, please.”

  “Right,” Newkirk said, and made his way through the evening crush to the bar. With a good deal of effort he managed to get the barmaid’s attention and in a burst of genius ordered a triple, with a half-pint of lager for himself. If he had to spend most of the evening running back and forth to the bar, he was never going to get any useful information from Sonia.

  He came back and placed the drink before her. If she thought it rather larger than the normal drink she received when buying her own, she made no sign of it. Probably never bought her own in her life, Newkirk thought sourly. Probably thinks a triple whiskey is the normal size.

  “Now,” he said, trying not to raise his voice, although otherwise it was almost impossible to be heard. Due to Britain’s licensing law there was less than an hour in which the pub’s customers could build up a glow that had to last until eleven o’clock the next morning, and the calls to the barmaid, plus the exuberant conversation in general, made communication difficult. “What have you been able to learn?”

  “You mean, about your friends?” Newkirk nodded, hoping Sonia would come up with something before her triple disappeared; in fact, came up with enough to even justify the expense of the triple. She frowned, and then her face cleared. “Oh, yes. You know? You’re lucky I worked late tonight.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Yes. They just changed his schedule a little while ago. He’s not going to Leningrad. He’s to leave on the Lod plane for Berlin tomorrow—”

  “Berlin? Who’s going to Berlin?”

  “This Gregor Kovpak. You wanted to know about him, didn’t you?”

  “Berlin?” Newkirk frowned. “Not Leningrad?”

  “What did I say? Did I say Leningrad? I said Berlin. Do you have trouble with your ears?”

  Newkirk overlooked the obvious effect of the triple on Sonia. His mind was on other things. “What do you mean, was scheduled?”

  Sonia glared at him. “Please don’t interrupt! I said he was scheduled to go on that plane, but he was put on another, one that connects in Amsterdam.” She sipped her drink, hiccuped gently, and put her glass down. “I don’t know why, so don’t ask me.”

  “Ulanov, too?”

  Sonia shook her head. “No, he’s taken one of the seats in the Lod plane.”

  Newkirk wrinkled his forehead, trying to digest this odd information. “They aren’t traveling together?”

  “I said—!”

  “I heard what you said. It was a rhetorical question.” He hurried on before he could be asked to define the term. “They are both—or each, I suppose—traveling alone?”

  Sonia giggled. The triple was definitely getting to her. “This Dr. Gregor Kovpak, he must be some sort of a man, huh? He’s traveling with a woman, a Dr. Ruth McVeigh. Or maybe she’s really a doctor, huh? If he doesn’t feel so good, she puts him to bed, huh?” She grinned and then yawned deeply.

  Newkirk took a deep breath. He had no idea how much alcohol Sonia had consumed since their lunch, but it must have been a fair amount, because despite her admittedly large capacity, she was beginning to look very sleepy, and he wanted to be sure he had all the information from her, and correct and proper information, before she put her head on the table and dropped off to sleep. Or simply disregarded his questions altogether and screamed at him like a fishwife, which he was also sure she could do.

  “Sonia, listen,” he said, hoping the urgency in his voice would keep her awake a few moments longer. “I want to be absolutely certain I’ve understood you correctly. Ulanov goes to Schönefeld in East Berlin on the Lod flight first. Then Kovpak and McVeigh go to the same place, but leave later. Is that right?”

  “Not later.” Sonia shook her head and then caught her balance as she almost fell over. Newkirk kicked himself mentally for not having limited her drink to a double, or even a single. “They leave at almost the same time, only the two doctors have to change in Amsterdam, so they’ll arrive in Berlin later. Don’t you understand English?”

  Newkirk considered this information. Ulanov had obviously arranged the change in Kovpak’s flight. This had to mean he had arranged it in order to get to Schönefeld earlier. Had he wished to travel with the other two there wo
uld have been no problem of having some other passenger bumped to make room for him. Which, in turn, meant he wanted to get there first in order to follow Kovpak and McVeigh when they arrived. Which was certainly interesting! A surveillance by the KGB on one of Russia’s top scientists? Why? Fear that he might defect? But who went to East Germany to defect from Russia? And where did the American, McVeigh, come into the picture? The only reason she would be involved had to mean the entire affair was concerned with the Schliemann treasure. Possibly, when he had been unable to keep an eye on them, they had run into some information—? And Ulanov suspected what it might be, and therefore planned to keep an eye on them without their knowing it. That had to be the answer, and if that was of such interest to the KGB, it had to be of equal interest to the CIA. A thought came.

  “Sonia—Sonia! Did Kovpak arrange for a car to rent at Schönefeld?”

  “Yes.” She yawned deeply and blinked her eyes, not wanting to fall asleep with part of her drink unconsumed. You never knew what types you were next to in a pub, and many would not be above drinking her drink if she were asleep.

  Which simply meant that he, Newkirk, had to get to Schönefeld Airport before any of the others, and with a car. And when Ulanov took off after the two archaeologists, he, James Newkirk, would fall in line—but without being seen—and find out what there was to find out. So the case was far from finished. It looked as if it might just be beginning. Which was a most interesting state of affairs, or at least might prove to be.

  “Sonia! Sonia!” He shook her slightly; her eyes popped open, trying to focus. “What time does that Lod flight get into Schönefeld?”

  She screwed her eyes shut, trying to recall the schedule. She opened them, smiling brightly, pleased with her extraordinary memory. “Sometime in the afternoon.”