Chasing Mona Lisa (26 page)

“In exchange for the girl,” Gabi demanded, stepping forward.

“It seems you are as stupid as you are beautiful,” Heller fumed. “I could just kill you and take it.”

“Killing me to get this book won’t end your problems.”

Gabi waved the black journal at Heller. “Göring knows all about the way you’ve diverted millions into your Swiss bank accounts here, or he will very shortly.”

Gabi saw a slight sheen of sweat form on Heller’s lip.

“Do you expect me to believe that you picked up the phone and spoke to the Reichsmarschall about your discovery?”

“Of course not,” Gabi replied. “But the German consulate to Switzerland, Rudolf Baumgartner, listened to what we had to say a few hours ago. He said he couldn’t approach Himmler without proof, but we weren’t about to give him this black book until the
Mona Lisa
and the girl were back in our hands. Ask Wessner if I’m telling the truth.” Gabi motioned with her head toward the banker standing with the
Mona Lisa
tucked under his arm and a Colt in his other hand.

“Do you know anything about this, Wessner?”

Wessner remained silent.

“Anton?” Heller yelled.

Startled, the banker responded, “I’m afraid the woman is telling the truth . . . I received a call from the Consulate General’s attaché before you arrived.”

Gabi swallowed hard and then straightened her shoulders. “I can only imagine the ‘reception’ that the Gestapo is planning for you. We told Baumgartner that if we don’t return, then you’ll have the black book. But if you give us the girl and let us go, we can make this all go away. And you get to keep the painting.”

Instead of a conciliatory gesture, Gabi saw the colonel’s face redden with rage.

“You will pay for this with your life, but first, you will watch Kristina die because of your stupid ploy.”

He pushed the girl to her knees and pressed the Luger to the back of her head.

“No . . . stop!” Gabi screamed.

The gunshot was deafening . . . Gabi saw Heller release his grip, and Kristina tumbled to the floor.

Transfixed, Wessner watched Heller slowly turn, eyes glazed with rage and hatred. Color drained from the colonel’s pasty face. His lips parted to form a word, then quivered slightly as blood filled his mouth and spilled down his chin.

Anton Wessner looked down at his hand trembling in part from shock and in part from the powerful recoil of the Colt .45. He regarded the smoke curling from the barrel, then toward his feet, where Heller had crumpled to the floor.

In desperate need of air, Wessner inhaled deeply. He had never killed a man before, but he couldn’t stand by and watch the senseless execution of an innocent girl.

With a quick look to his left, he saw the armored truck park alongside the house. In what seemed like slow motion, the young Swiss woman moved to Kristina’s side. She sat on the floor and held her in her arms while the other two men gathered around the sobbing girl.

As the shock began to pass, his mind refocused. It was clear what he should do. Training his pistol on Gabi and the girl with the
Mona Lisa
in his free arm, he stumbled backward toward the deck, keeping his attention and pistol aimed in the interlopers’ direction. His shoulder jostled the doorjamb that supported the shattered window, where Schaffner’s still body lay.

The impact caused a large triangular shard of glass to swing like a pendulum, free from its wooden bond. Gravity took control and pulled the heavy fragment to its final destination. The heavy quarter-inch plate passed across Wessner’s extended right forearm, scything through skin and muscle. The surgical blow was initially painless but caused Wessner to lose strength in his hand.

With a grimace, he looked at the pulsating rivulet of blood that soaked his tenuous grip on the heavy semiautomatic, now dangling from his bloody fingertips. With an intense, aching pain building in the mangled limb, Wessner knew he had to hurry. The banker rushed across the deck and down the stairs to the idling armored vehicle parked in his driveway.

Thoughts of a hefty reward from the French government for saving the
Mona Lisa
fueled his steps. Better yet, he would be acclaimed as an international hero, and now only he had access to Heller’s fortune. As he approached the rear of the armored truck, the back door swung open and a uniformed guard offered a hand and relieved Wessner of the painting.

“The Dolder Bank in Zurich, Herr Wessner?” the driver asked.

“No, the branch office at the Limmatplatz.” Wessner squinted up at the guard and into the blinding sunlight. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Who are you?”

“Ernst Mueller. And this is my colleague, Allen Dulles.”

As Wessner’s eyes adjusted, he saw the double barrels of the shotgun pointing at his head.

Visions of his hero status as rescuer of the
Mona Lisa
evaporated into the pale blue Swiss sky.

 27

“I apologize that this is taking so long, sir. Your escort should be here any second.”

Eric noticed the MP admiring the classic Rolls Royce. “Not a problem. The plane won’t leave without us.”

A white bar across the entrance to the Dübendorf military airfield outside of Zurich blocked their path. Eric turned in the driver’s seat to address Kristina, who sat between Gabi and her father in the back. “You’ll be going home in no time, honey. Gabi’s dad will pick up his wife and before you know it, you’ll be driving through the gates of your home.”

Kristina beamed as Gabi gave her a reassuring squeeze.

Three minutes later, the crossbar was raised, and the polished sedan was waved through the checkpoint of Switzerland’s largest military airfield. Eric was quite familiar with the home of the Swiss Air Force, charged with defending Swiss airspace from intrusions by Luftwaffe planes as well as Allied bombers and fighters. When battle-damaged RAF and United States planes approached Switzerland, however, they were escorted and allowed to land at Dübendorf instead of crashing in Nazi Germany.

A lead car guided them past more than a half-dozen rows of Flying Fortresses, B-24 Liberators, and British Lancasters parked wingtip-to-wingtip in orderly precision. They continued past the control tower and terminus building toward a section of the quadrilateral-shaped airfield where a row of Swiss Me-109 fighters were lined up. Eric’s eyes followed the lead car, which led them past the attack aircraft to a bulky tri-motor with a low cantilever wing. Stamped on the corrugated duralumin metal skin was a white cross painted over a square red background.

“Recognize the plane?” Eric looked in the mirror at Gabi, sitting behind him.

A look of surprise swept her face. “That’s a Ju-52.”

“Dulles must have called in another favor from General Guisan.” Eric was referring to the head of the Swiss Army. When Gabi had flown into Germany three weeks earlier as the Swiss courier, General Guisan had put his personal aircraft at her disposal.

“It looks like the same plane.”

“And the same pilot.”

Standing in front of the fuselage door at the rear of the passenger plane was Captain Bill Palmer of the United States Army Eighth Air Force, a warm smile creasing his lips.

“What are you talking about?” Bernard asked.

Eric spoke up. “The American pilot is Captain Palmer. Back in January, his bomber limped into Swiss air space and landed in Dübendorf. He was interned in Davos with other Allied pilots and would still be up in the mountains, but he volunteered to fly Gabi on a top-secret mission a few weeks ago. Trust me, he’s a great pilot.”

Eric eased the Rolls Royce to a stop. Palmer walked across the grassy tarmac toward them, and Gabi hustled out of the back door to give him a warm hug. Introductions were made all around.

As Ernst moved Kristina to the front seat, Eric opened the trunk. He and Bernard carefully lifted the wooden crate containing the
Mona Lisa
out of the back of the car.

“We got her!” Eric called out.

Ernst shot him a thumbs-up and hugged Gabi. “See you soon, and God go with you,” he said, letting go of his daughter. Then he hopped in the driver’s seat of the Rolls and drove off with Kristina.

“Looks like you’ve come up in the world.” Palmer nodded toward the stunning luxury car leaving the airfield.

“The
Mona Lisa
travels in style, Bill. Must be why they asked you to fly her,” Eric said with a chuckle. “Let’s get her on board.”

He and Bernard slowly shuffled toward the fuselage door. The American pilot bounded up the four steps and held out his arms.

“Let me give you a hand,” Palmer said.

Eric positioned his side of the crate into Palmer’s arms and then helped Bernard up the steps and into the passenger plane.

“Where do you think we should put her?” Eric deferred to the Frenchman on board.

Bernard looked up the relatively steep fuselage of the passenger plane, outfitted with seven rows of leather seats, one on each side of the center aisle.

After a long moment, Eric understood the delay in a decision. Bernard had never seen the inside of an airplane before.

Eric turned to Palmer. “What do you think, Bill? Where would you put the
Mona Lisa
?”

The American pilot, dressed in khakis and wearing a beige United States Eighth cap, rubbed his face. “I’d put the crate on the floor between the front seat and the bulkhead. I think we can wedge it in there so that it won’t budge on takeoff or landing.”

Palmer was right. There was just enough room to lay the wooden crate on the floor.

“She’ll sleep like a baby all the way to Paris,” Eric enthused.

“Not me.” Bernard wiped his brow from the exertion. “I won’t rest until we’re on French soil and the
Mona Lisa
is back in the Louvre.”

“Are you going to need any help with these engine controls?” Gabi dropped into the copilot’s chair and looked at the center console, where three sets of levers controlled the throttles, mixture, and fuel cocks. “They’re still in German, you know.”

Palmer’s eyes scanned the instrument panel. He touched several electrical switches and set his feet on the rudder pedals. “I’ll be okay. Like riding a bike, right?”

“If you say so.” Gabi regarded the clusters of dials, indicators, knobs, levers, and switches crammed into the cockpit area. “I have no idea how you get this ship off the ground.”

“Don’t let a hair on that pretty head of yours worry about a thing. Looks like a milk run to me. Plenty of daylight left, no anti-aircraft guns to worry about, and a full tank of gas to get there.”

Palmer smiled. “You’re an amazing young woman, Gabi. I’m proud of what you’ve done for our country, especially helping the French get back the
Mona Lisa
. Your father briefed me on the phone about what happened in Lucerne. I’ll want to hear the full story.”

Palmer turned toward Gabi and set his right hand on the center console.

“I’ve gone through the preflight and haven’t forgotten how to fire up this puppy, so you can go back and visit with Eric and your French guest. Maybe you can practice being a stewardess. I hear that civilian aviation is going to take off after the war.”

“Stewardess? I think I’ll have better things to do than serving highballs to boorish businessmen on expense accounts.”

Gabi settled into the first seat on the right side of the aircraft, while Eric and Bernard took places in the second row. Bernard said he felt more comfortable sitting right behind the
Mona Lisa
so he could keep an eye on the wooden crate.

Sitting on the right side afforded Gabi a direct look at Captain Palmer through the open cockpit door. He tripped a couple of levers, and then she heard an electrical whine. The number one engine on the left side of the aircraft caught lustily, and a robust vibration shook the plane. Palmer then turned his attention toward engines two and three, which kicked into gear. The decibel level rose dramatically inside the fuselage.

Palmer lifted the leather helmet hanging from a hook next to the captain’s seat. He turned on the radio and set the frequency to ground control. A voice in English crackled through the earpiece, clearing him to taxi short of the active runway, and gave him the tower frequency to call when ready for takeoff. The American military pilot reached over to the center console and pushed forward on the throttles.

The plane lurched forward, and the butterflies in Gabi’s stomach jumped. To distract herself, she looked outside her window as the plane lightly bounced along the tarmac. They passed hangars, parked planes, and personnel riding in jeeps when Palmer made a broad, sweeping turn, pivoting the plane toward the west. He ran up his engines, checked his pressure gauges, and completed his preflight checklist. After resetting his radio frequency, he called the tower and received clearance to take off.

“Everyone got their seatbelts on?” he yelled over the din.

She held up a finger. “Wait a second.”

Bernard wasn’t looking outside his passenger window. His eyes were transfixed straight ahead, as if he was gazing at something in the distance. Gabi reached over and tapped him on the shoulder.

“You need to use your seatbelt.”

“A what?”

“Your seatbelt.” Gabi lifted hers, which was wrapped around her lap.

He searched his seat and found the two straps. He didn’t know how the two ends went together . . . but then figured it out.

Palmer looked back toward Gabi and gave her a thumbs-up. “You’re halfway to being a stewardess,” he shouted over the propellers’ roar.

The RPMs of the plane’s engines increased rapidly, and the plane began its takeoff roll. The noise level drowned out any chance for communication.

The plane lifted in the air, and Gabi looked down on the village of Dübendorf, off to the right.

The Junkers continued to climb as Palmer set a westerly course that would take them over the Swiss lowlands before angling northwest into France and on to Paris. The view from the air was exciting. She enjoyed seeing her homeland from an entirely new dimension. The farmlands resembled a green-and-gold checkerboard, and pastoral villages dotted the verdant landscape like shimmering jewels. Flying was an act of boldness, and only a few were given this new view of the world.

She glanced behind at Eric, whose mouth was agape. He thoroughly enjoyed the view of Switzerland from the eyes of an eagle.

“Having fun on your first plane flight?”

Eric looked away from the window with a huge grin.

He leaned over and gave her a kiss. When Gabi pulled away, she looked in Bernard’s direction to see if he had been watching them—or sightseeing.

The answer was neither. This time, he was leaning on the seat in front of him, eyes locked on the wooden crate containing the
Mona Lisa
.

The hum of the engines and steady progress lulled Gabi into closing her eyes. A sudden dip jostled her.

She looked at her watch. They had been in the air for nearly two hours. She unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped into the cockpit.

Bill Palmer looked up from the controls. “You’re probably wondering when we’re going to arrive.”