“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 simple 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.