The Gold of Troy

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  Newkirk sighed. “Is there a flight that could get me there in the morning?”

  “No. It’s the earliest.”

  Which meant he had to get to West Berlin, to Tegel Airport, in time to get a car and go through Checkpoint Charlie and get down to Schönefeld in time to be waiting when Ulanov’s car passed. He was sure he would not miss that head of white hair.

  “Sonia … Sonia! What planes are there to Tegel Airport in West Berlin that would get me there sometime tomorrow morning? Or even late tonight?”

  She smiled at him and then frowned as he kept wavering before her. “What did you say?”

  “I said, what planes—” He knew he was wasting time. Better to get on the phone to the airlines, or better yet, simply catch a cab to Heathrow and check out there, and take the first plane out, whenever it left. There had to be a lot of flights; it was a popular corridor. And that way he would have an excuse for not calling Langley; they might not think his trailing Ulanov and the two scientists to be as important as he knew it to be. And he had no intention of dropping the case just when it looked as if it were breaking open. He reached out, touching Sonia’s arm. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  She frowned at him as if he had made the most vile suggestion she had heard. “Take your hands off me! And leave this early? The pub doesn’t close for almost an hour.” She was slurring her words, and clutching her glass as if he might try to remove it from her hand. She put her other hand out to hold his untouched lager. “I’m staying right here. You can go wherever you want to go!”

  “Look, Sonia—” Newkirk sighed and gave up. After all, he had gotten the information he needed, even if it had been like pulling teeth. He leaned over and spoke into her ear. “I’ll see to it your money is mailed to you at your home. All right?”

  “Right …” She leaned back, her eyes closing, her head resting against the cushion that ran along the back of the long bench that covered the pub’s wall. “Right …” Her eyes opened momentarily. “You going to buy me a drink?” Her eyes closed, a faint snore came from her partially opened mouth.

  Newkirk shook his head and came to his feet, walking quickly from the pub before someone might notice he had left a sleeping woman behind. It was a pity, he thought a bit savagely, that Langley didn’t appreciate the sacrifices one made in this job, or the people one was forced to deal with, whether one was a regular agent or a lowly stringer …

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DENMARK—June

  From the small balcony that jutted a bit from the sheer walls of Lindgren Castle, the view was spectacular, and Professor Arne Nordberg, luxuriating in it, fully appreciated it; it was his artist’s soul, he knew, that delighted in beauty, and made him proud to be himself. In the distance the sparkling spires and glistening rooftops of Ringsted could be seen through the leafy boughs, with the land between taken with bucolic meadows in varying shades of light greens and yellows, while the intermittent stands of pine and birch punctuated the landscape with their darker shades. The winding road leading from the castle to the huge gates of the estate could be seen twisting its way like a delicate ribbon through stands of juniper and neatly trimmed hedges foreshortened by the height. Almost beneath the professor, as he looked down over the low balustrade, was his ten-year-old car, parked in the parking lot, the only blot, he told himself, on the entire scene and one he intended to erase as soon as possible. He stepped back a bit, since looking directly down from heights always affected him, and then turned and walked into the living room of Count Lindgren’s private quarters.

  Count Lindgren had been watching him, amused, reading the other man’s mind step by step, including the grimace on Nordberg’s fat face as he had looked down. Obviously he had noted that wreck of an automobile, the count thought, and mentally smiled. Don’t worry, my friend, the count silently advised his companion; you won’t have to suffer that car much longer. He poured a glass of brandy for his guest and indicated with a generous wave of his hand that Nordberg should take a seat at the table across from him. The professor accepted with an eager smile, glancing over his shoulder at the balcony as he sipped.

  “Wonderful!” he said, still amazed at having been invited to this sacred aerie for the fourth or fifth time. “And what a marvelous view! It never wearies, Count!”

  Count Lindgren looked at the professor with sorrow, but the sorrow was directed at himself for having apparently failed to make himself understood in his role as a host. “After the time we’ve spent together,” he said, his tone a bit chiding, “and after being partners in a most audacious scheme—my involvement being, I’ll admit, but for the sport of it—you still call me Count? If I may call you Arne—and I may, may I not—?”

  “Of course! Of course! Certainly! Absolutely!”

  “Then you should at least call me Axel,” Lindgren said, and smiled in his usual warm friendly way.

  “If you wish—Axel,” Nordberg said, and thought his heart would burst, it seemed to be swelling so in his breast. He was on a first-name basis with Count Axel Lindgren! Who would have believed it? Certainly not those cretins at the university, who would no more be invited into Count Lindgren’s private rooms, than they would be asked to have tea at the Palace with the Queen! Still, why shouldn’t Axel be his friend? After all, the count was obviously a bored man. With all his millions he had undoubtedly tasted all of life’s pleasures many times, surely until they sated. Now he, Arne Nordberg, had brought the count—Axel—a most interesting proposition, one to challenge any man’s ingenuity, his sporting blood, his spirit of adventure. And while the count would be deriving his satisfaction from resolving the problem, he, Professor Arne Nordberg, would be getting the money! Fifteen million dollars at the very least! It was hard to believe. He wriggled in his chair, and looked across the table. “Axel—”

  “Yes?”

  “Speaking of our—audacious scheme—how is it going?”

  “Very well,” Count Lindgren said, and decided to take his old friend Arne into his confidence. After all, his confidences would go no further. “You recall the letters that went out to the various museums?”

  “Of course. But you merely said in them that further instructions for bidding would be furnished before September first. Why the delay? That’s a little over two whole months away.” In his petulant whine one could read his dissatisfaction with his present life, his aged automobile, as well as with the postponement of his planned increased love life, all necessitated by that delay.

  Lindgren looked at him evenly. “To begin with, I wished to give ample time for the matter to be thoroughly publicized. You see, the newspapers are already calling it the ‘Auction of the Century.’ The meeting in London that ended in such discord, did a good deal for our cause. It brought the question of legal ownership—or lack of ownership—to the fore. That should result in even more bidders. And not only that”—he leaned forward and flicked ash from his thin cigar; in the increased intimacy of their relationship the professor had finally worked up enough nerve to confess he did not like cigars. The count leaned back, pointing with his panatela for emphasis—“but there is also the question of the time needed for the various museums to raise the money to bid against each other. They have to approach potential donors, twist arms, call up old debts, sometimes use blackmail—it all takes time.” He shrugged humorously. “I’ve been approached, myself. By the Glyptotek Museum.”

  Nordberg stared at him. “What did you do?”

  Lindgren laughed. “I said they could count on me for two million kroner, if they were the successful bidder.” His laughter disappeared as quickly as it had come. “I’m afraid they won’t be the successful bidder.” He looked at Nordberg with a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t mind spending a few kroner on this, just for the fun of it, but I scarcely intend to spend two million kroner for the privilege.”

  “Of course not!” Nordberg said, shocked at the very idea. He looked at Lindgren with even greater respect, doubly in awe of a man who could mention such huge s
ums without seemingly being impressed by them. “So—how do you expect to conduct the auction—well, without being identified with it? Without, in fact, being identified?”

  Lindgren crushed out his cigar and leaned forward. “That was the most pleasant part of the game,” he said. He was speaking now for his own benefit as much as for that of his guest. He was speaking, using the recitation to review the plan for the slightest flaw, even permitting a fool like Nordberg to listen in on the offhand chance that he might perceive an error in the scheme, much as a child might see through legerdemain whereas an adult usually would not. And with whom else could he review his plan? “As you must have been able to discern when I sent those letters to the various museums, I have contact with a reliable messenger service that asks no questions, and would not want any answers in any case. All they want is to be paid for their services, and this I do.”

  “I—I see no reason why the expenses to which you are being put, should not be taken from the proceeds,” Nordberg said, trying to sound businesslike, and then wondered if perhaps he was being too generous. Messenger service of this type, in eight or more cities, had to run to a fair amount of money. Still, he could do no less than make the offer. Otherwise, with that much money in the offing, he might look to be miserly, or even greedy.

  Count Lindgren waved the suggestion away as being of no matter.

  “It’s worth it to me for the pleasure I’m getting from all this,” he said with his usual friendly smile, and then went on with his plan. “On the twenty-fifth of August, an advertisement will be delivered and paid for to the personal columns of the major newspapers in the major cities of the world. I am sure the word will get to every museum and interested party everywhere within hours. This advertisement will advise that a telephone conference call has been arranged for twelve noon, Greenwich time, to which any interested museum or individual can join upon request to the international telephone company, and to which the major news services of the world may also connect without cost. The conference call will last for one hour each day for three consecutive days, at the same time each day—”

  “Without cost to them?” Nordberg had paled. “A worldwide conference call to which anyone can connect? For an hour each day for three days? That will cost a fortune!”

  Lindgren shrugged lightly. “Fifty or sixty thousand dollars, is all. I should judge that no more than fifteen or twenty really serious bidders will enter the auction, and no more than six or seven major news services. Any lesser ones will simply be disconnected, as will anyone who does not bid. But what if it should even run to a hundred thousand dollars? Surely that is no great sum in these inflationary times, is it? For the fun of seeing an auction like this conducted? Or listening to it, rather? Believe me, it will be worth it!”

  “But—if you conduct the auction, won’t you be—identified? Unless,” Nordberg said, thinking about it, pleased to offer a slight change in the scheme that might actually enhance it, “you pretend to be the representative of a museum—possibly raise the bidding every now and then to induce the others to—”

  “And possibly end up the high bidder?” Lindgren asked dryly. “No, I shall merely be a listener—”

  “But you would be cut off!”

  “A listener,” Lindgren repeated firmly. “The auction will be conducted by someone from Switzerland, from an unlisted number. Actually, an apartment I maintain there. That someone, I assure you, will not be me. He will be a person of confidence whose voice is unknown.” The unknown, of course, would be Wilten, but there was no reason for Nordberg to know that. “I shall be listening in on an extension to that telephone from an adjoining room. And at the final hour of the conference calls—if all but one bidder has not dropped out before then—the auction will be ended. Whoever is the high bidder at one o’clock on September third, will be declared the winner.”

  He glanced at Nordberg, to see if the other man had seen any fault in the scheme, but the professor could only bob his balding head in profound admiration. He looks like one of those idiot dolls on a string, Lindgren thought, and then paused as a frown crossed the professor’s face, indicating thought, or at least concern.

  “But—what about the delivery of the treasure? And the payment, of course?”

  “The height of simplicity,” Lindgren said, again reviewing his plan aloud for the slightest possibility of failure. “The winner of the auction will be directed to place the proper funds in escrow to a numbered account in Switzerland. The money—”

  “In escrow?”

  “It means the money stays there until the treasure is delivered, after which it is turned over to the numbered account. The money is to be released from escrow to the account only when the treasure is received, or, rather, when either the museum or the high bidder—assuming it’s an individual—admit that delivery has taken place, or when the delivery is reliably reported in the press, or when the collection actually goes on exhibit.” He shook his head. “I do not believe that one, let alone all three of those conditions can be kept secret.”

  Nordberg was staring at him with stricken eyes. “But—but—”

  “But, what?”

  “But suppose that the high bidder never reports delivery? Suppose it never comes out in the newspapers? Suppose they never exhibit it? Or not for many, many years?” The thought of an even greater ageing car, together with an even more ageing and loveless Arne Nordberg—and with millions of dollars in escrow to his account in a bank someplace—was too horrible to contemplate. It was also evident in his voice. “What then? The money could stay in escrow forever!”

  At least, Lindgren thought, the dolt was listening and looking for faults. He smiled, a humorless smile, almost a contemptuous smile.

  “To begin with, it will serve no purpose for the successful bidder to have his money tied up in escrow, of no use to him, and also have a collection he has paid for, but which he does not exhibit. He has the worst of two possible worlds. Nobody would be that foolish.” Except a fool like you, he thought uncharitably, and continued. “In the second place, the newspapers will not only be informed as to where and when delivery is to take place, but they will be there with photographers and reporters and television and radio and everything else mankind has invented to disallow peace. We haven’t planned everything else and left that matter to chance, believe me!”

  “Oh!” Nordberg felt a bit foolish. This marvelous man was doing everything in his power to make him rich, and all he was doing was finding fault! He only hoped the count—Axel, that is—hadn’t been irked by the question, “But—the delivery, itself?”

  “The treasure will be discovered in a suitcase in the baggage-claim area of a flight that will be divulged to the winning museum, together with the fictitious passenger’s name that will be on the suitcase, as well as the proper claim check. The newspapers in that city will be told—by international telex; they pay more attention to those than to anonymous calls from ‘a friend’—that the denouement of the ‘Auction of the Century’ can be witnessed by them if they are smart enough to appear at Kennedy, or Orly, or Tegel, or wherever, at the baggage area of such-and-such terminal, for flight such-and-such on such-and-such a date at such-and-such a time.” He shook his head. “No, the money will be released into the account from escrow very quickly. Within a few weeks at the most, I should judge.”

  Professor Arne Nordberg sipped his brandy and set the half-filled glass down. He could see no flaw in the scheme. It was brilliant! He leaned back in his comfortable leather chair, his tiny hands clasped across the bulge of his belly, and tried to picture what it would actually be like to have fifteen million dollars in his possession! Fifteen? If that was merely the minimum bid in the auction, and if the auction went on for three consecutive days for an hour a day, giving ample time for museums to raise additional funds for bidding higher the following day—that was pure genius on Axel’s part!—then the ultimate sum had to be higher, much higher!

  But suppose nobody bid?

  Nordber
g felt a cold hand grip his stomach. No, that was not possible. Count Axel Lindgren would not have spent the time or the money on any scheme regarding the treasure that would not result in profit to his friend, the professor. It would be no game, no sport, to the count if nobody bid. But—

  Suppose nobody bid?

  Count Lindgren had been watching the emotions flicker across the pudgy face like indistinct images from a slide projector onto a wrinkled screen. The final expression was of unalloyed misery. Lindgren frowned in non-understanding. He did not like to be unable to fathom idiots like Nordberg.

  “What now?”

  Nordberg looked up in agony. “Suppose—suppose nobody bids?”

  Lindgren stared at him a moment in astonishment, and then broke into laughter of true enjoyment. “Of all the problems connected with this—what shall I call it? This sport, this game? This diversion, this amusement? This entertainment, let us say—that is the one thing I guarantee neither of us need to worry about. They will bid. They will stand in line to bid, and would have bought tickets to stand in line had I decided that was the way to go. They will step on each other’s shoulders to bid. They will stay up all night and the next day to bid. They will lie, steal, cheat, and betray if necessary, in order to bid. Believe me. They are Collectors!”

  Nordberg believed him. He leaned back, relieved. Where had he been in his thoughts? Oh, yes—he had been trying to picture what it would be like to be that rich. It was difficult to even imagine. Millions and millions of dollars—over fifty million kroner! His mind boggled at the thought. He would have to show Count Lindgren his appreciation. He would have to get him a nice gift. Not something for the castle, which seemed to have everything, but something personal. Man to man. Friend to friend. A gold cigar lighter, possibly; or a brandy flask, silver-plated and engraved with the count’s name, for when the count was traveling … He became aware he was being addressed and looked up, brought from his reverie with a start.