Ratlines (35 page)

The gate opened outward. Hussein eased the van through the archway and parked by the plain single storey building that stood at the centre of the compound. He checked his reflection in the rear view mirror, buttoned his collar, straightened his tie. He took a comb from his pocket and smoothed the wild curls of his hair.

“Come,” he said, returning the comb to his pocket, and climbed out of the van.

Ryan followed.

A thin, smartly dressed man waited at the building’s entrance. He extended his hand as the Arab approached.

Hussein shook it. “Monsieur Borringer, please forgive the lateness of the hour.”

“Monsieur Hussein, it is a pleasure to see you at any time.” He glanced at Ryan, but did not greet him. “I feared I might not be able to source sufficient gold in time, but I called on some colleagues in other institutions for assistance. The Heidegger family is held in high regard in our industry, so my colleagues were glad to help.”

Borringer turned and lead Hussein and Ryan inside the building, Habib and Munir following behind. The foyer was modern but tasteful, with a large reception desk facing the entrance. Doors led to offices beyond, two guards barring entry. Portraits of grey-haired men lined the walls, all of them carrying the same stern expressions, long noses and pale blue eyes. Eight in total, the mode of dress going back from twentieth to eighteenth century.

Ryan could make out small brass plates beneath each of them, all bearing the name Heidegger.

“Please follow me,” Borringer said.

“Wait here,” Hussein said to his bodyguards. He turned back to Borringer. “Mr. Ryan will join us.”

Borringer looked first to Ryan’s shoes, then his watch, before settling on his face. Ryan saw the measures and valuations working behind his eyes.

“As you wish,” Borringer said, making no effort to hide his distaste, and walked towards a gated elevator. He pushed the gate aside and waved Hussein and Ryan in before following after and pulling the gate closed.

Borringer pulled a silver chain from around his neck and selected one of the keys that were attached to it. He inserted the key into the elevator’s control panel, turned it, and pressed the single button.

The elevator lurched downward, brickwork sliding past its cage, before coming to a halt below ground. Borringer removed the key and placed the chain around his neck once more before opening the gate.

A guard sat at a small desk in the centre of the room. He stood, his hands rigid at his sides, and stared straight ahead. Nine steel doors, three to a wall, each bearing a combination lock and a heavy handle.

Borringer walked to the centre door on the wall facing the elevator. He stood with his body between the lock and the visitors as he worked. Ryan listened to the clicks and ticks as the dial turned, the solid clank as tumblers aligned. Borringer stood back to allow the guard to haul the door open.

“Gentlemen, your cargo.”

Countless numbered drawers lined the vault, all with pairs of locks, many with wax seals across them. On the floor stood a flatbed trolley laden with wooden crates. Dozens of them, each no more than a six or seven inch cube.

Borringer cleared his throat before he spoke. “Eighty nine crates, each containing fifteen gold kilobars, a value of sixteen thousand, nine hundred and twenty two dollars per crate, making a total of one million, five hundred and six thousand, and fifty eight dollars.”

His voice thinned as he ran out of breath. He took a deep inhalation before speaking again.

“Monsieur Hussein, please inspect the crates before the remaining few are sealed.”

Hussein and Ryan stepped forward. Ryan caught sight of the glistening within the five open boxes on top of the stack, saw the words
Credit Suisse
stamped in the metal. His heart quickened.

Borringer held a hand up. “Monsieur Hussein only, if you please.”

“Wait there,” Hussein said at the vault’s threshold.

Ryan obeyed.

The skin beneath Hussein’s chin glowed yellow with reflected light. He must like butter, Ryan thought, the foolish memory of a fairytale flitting through his mind before he chased it out. Hussein examined each of the open crates in turn while Ryan listened to the low insistent thrum of air vents. A draught cooled his neck.

“They’re good,” Hussein said. “You may seal them.”

Borringer nodded, and the guard lifted the hammer that sat next to the stacked wooden lids. He set about nailing them in place, three firm taps for each nail, six nails for every crate.

Ryan couldn’t help but feel he was witnessing a ceremony, some obscene communion in a church of concrete and steel, the blood of Christ turned gold.

H
ABIB AND
M
UNIR
loaded the crates onto the van while Borringer stood with his hands folded at the small of his back. Ryan stood alongside him, stifling yawns.

Hussein conferred with the driver of the first escort car, tracing a route on the map with a pencil. Two cars, one ahead, one following, would accompany them to the French border. Once there, the armoured van and its load would travel on guarded mostly by Hussein’s men. Two more cars would occasionally pass them on the French roads, Hussein explained, just to ensure no one followed.

When the crates were aboard, Habib and Munir climbed in and closed the rear doors behind them.

Borringer shook Hussein’s hand before the Arab climbed into the driver’s seat. Ryan took the passenger seat with no farewell.

Stars glittered above the walls of the compound, and before Hussein fired the van’s engine, Ryan shivered at the silence that lay across the world. He checked his watch. Approaching two in the morning.

The convoy left the walls of the Heidegger bank behind in the darkness. Ryan watched the lead car’s lights wavering ahead as the Citroën’s engine droned. His eyelids dropped and his head nodded forward before jerking up.

Hussein blew cigarette smoke from his nostrils. “Get some sleep, Mr. Ryan. We have a long journey ahead.”

Ryan leaned back into the corner formed by the passenger seat and the door, allowed the engine’s drone to soothe his mind. He dreamed of gold stolen from skeletal corpses and pulled from dead men’s teeth, and how heavy it weighed in his hand.

T
HE SOUND OF
the driver’s door slamming shut pulled him from his unsettled sleep. The sky had lightened from black to deep blue, but the sun remained hidden beyond the horizon.

The van stood at the side of a narrow road, one of the escort cars parked some yards ahead. Ryan could barely make out the driver leaning against its roof. He guessed the second car had parked behind the van. Trees surrounded them, stretching into the distance as far as Ryan could see.

Hussein’s guards joined him at the roadside, each of the three men carrying rolled rugs. Habib or Munir, Ryan couldn’t be sure which was which, set a plastic gallon drum on the verge. They kicked off their shoes and socks, rolled up their sleeves, put woollen caps on their heads. They doused their hands with water from the drum, rinsed their faces, their heads, their arms up to their elbows, and finally their feet.

Ryan watched as they unrolled their rugs on the ground, stood with their hands lifted to heaven, and chanted. He had seen the ritual in Egypt as a young soldier. There, he had observed some perform the ritual ablutions with sand when no water was available.

He listened to the drone of their prayers and watched the orange glow on the horizon burn away the darkness.

T
HE AIR HAD
developed an icy chill by the time the lead car had pulled over and stopped. Its driver waved as the Citröen van passed. Hussein raised his hand in return before turning onto a path so slender and overgrown it could barely have been described as a track, let alone a road. Ryan braced his hands against the dashboard as the van juddered and lurched over the rough ground. By the time the wheels found good footing on a decent surface, they had crossed into France.

The mountains rose up beyond Ryan’s vision, mist veiling the slopes. He had not seen another car since the last village they had passed through, a loose gathering of chalets and farm buildings. Goats and horned cattle had watched them drive by. Now a vehicle appeared up ahead, travelling slow enough for Hussein to catch it up.

When the car was close enough, Hussein raised a forefinger from the steering wheel, a small gesture, but enough to tell the driver of the car to accelerate away.

Ryan felt pressure in his ears as they climbed. Hussein had not spoken since they left the bank’s compound, but now he took a breath.

“Soon, you will drive. We will stop and eat, then you will take us to Crozon.”

“All right,” Ryan said.

Eighteen years since he’d been in France, and like today, he’d mostly seen it from the inside of a vehicle. He thought of Celia, and the time she had spent in Paris, and the smoky look of her eyes when she talked about it.

Perhaps they would return here, when it was all over. Part of Ryan rejoiced at the idea, while another told him it was a foolish notion. He could not think beyond the rendezvous, handing over the crates to Weiss and the others.

In his mind, Ryan’s life ended at that point, though he did not imagine his own death. He simply could not conceive of an existence that stretched further, a time after the act.

Fear would be the proper emotion. But he did not feel fear, or excitement, only the cold that leaked through the seals of the Citroën’s doors.

He pulled his coat tight around himself, folded his arms across his chest, and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE

T
HEY REACHED
C
AMARET-SUR
-M
ER
at dusk. That afternoon, they had pulled in at a village cafe and taken it in turns to leave the van to eat. Ryan had chosen a rabbit stew with chunks of coarse bread. The meat had been dry and bland, the stew watery, but hunger had made him devour it all the same. Now his stomach grumbled, eager for food once again.

Habib and Munir passed some form of flatbread back and forth, cutting chunks with a vicious-looking knife. They offered none to Ryan. Hussein seemed able to exist purely on tobacco and prayer.

Despite the evening chill, Ryan had rolled down the window to release the pent odours of men and cigarettes. As he pulled up to the small harbour, he smelled salt and heard the tide pushing against its walls, gulls calling as they scavenged the last of the day. Fishing vessels and pleasure boats swayed on the dark water.

“There,” Hussein said, pointing to the aged fishing boat moored closest to a set of steps that descended into the water. Weathered blue paint flaked on its wooden hull. A heavyset man with wiry grey hair and florid cheeks watched from its bow, one hand leaning on a rusted winch. He touched a finger to his brow in a casual salute.

“His name is Vandenberg,” Hussein said. “He is not a friendly man.”

Given how little the Arab had spoken on the journey, Ryan wondered what his idea of friendly was.

They climbed out of the van. Ryan stretched his back and arms.

“Who is the passenger?” Vandenberg asked, his sing-song accent sounding to Ryan like Dutch or Flemish, possibly Danish.

“This man,” Hussein said, indicating Ryan. “Come help us. The cargo is heavy.”

Vandenberg shook his head. “No. I am paid to sail the boat, not to lift things. You lift things.”

Hussein grumbled and spat. He tugged Ryan’s sleeve, guided him to the back of the vehicle. Soon, they had established a chain, Habib bringing each crate from the van to Ryan’s hands, Ryan passing it to Munir, who then descended the steps and handed it to Hussein, who stood on the boat, stacking each box as it arrived.

Ryan’s hands were raw and bloody by the time it was done, his back aching, sweat slicking the skin beneath his clothes. He considered crying off, telling them of the injuries he’d received only a few days ago, but his pride would not allow it.

As the sun kissed the horizon, Hussein pulled a fat envelope from his pocket and tossed it to Vandenberg. He opened the envelope and thumbed through its contents. Satisfied, he stashed it inside his coat and nodded to Hussein.

Without a word to Ryan as he passed, Hussein returned to the van’s driver’s seat while Habib and Munir climbed into the back. The Citroën’s engine barked as it caught, then pulled away from the harbour.

Ryan watched its taillights fade.

“Come,” Vandenberg called from the boat. “Is time for going.”

R
YAN HUDDLED ON
the cabin’s single bunk, wishing he had brought warmer clothes as Vandenberg navigated the channels and sandbanks from Camaret-sur-Mer, away from the Crozon peninsula, towards the open sea.

The crates had been covered in a canvas tarpaulin and lashed in place with ropes and hooks. The tarpaulin’s corners fluttered in the breeze.

Soon, the boat gathered speed as it moved into open water, rising and falling with the waves.

Ryan had never minded travelling by boat. Back in the war, he had found the movement soothing, even while many among his comrades hung retching over the sides. The boat creaked and groaned as its wooden hull cut through the waves.

Above, visible through the cabin’s grimy windows, the sky cleared, a sheet of deepest black, a hint of orange and blue on the far horizon. Stars emerged, hard bright points beyond number, made clear away from the haze and the lights of mankind. Ryan picked out constellations, searching his memory for their names.

A brilliant streak shot across the black, and he wished for the warmth of Celia’s body next to his.

H
E AWOKE WITH
the sensation of drifting. The boat rose and fell, but there was no sense of speed, no forward movement. Ryan opened his eyes, saw the deck outside the cabin doused in blue moonlight.

There, Vandenberg pulling back the tarpaulin to expose a crate. He tried its lid with his thick fingers, found it solid. He harrumphed and opened a long box on the deck. He rummaged through its contents until he found a short crowbar. Ryan watched as Vandenberg began prising the crate open.