The Balkan Assignment (5 page)

when you hear that someone you had spoken to recently had died. After a moment, Ley told me the rest of the story. Mistako had gone home for lunch—so damned mundane that it almost hurt—and driving back to the office, a car driven by two men had forced him to the curb and in the middle of Belgrade, hauled him out of his car and shot him to death. They then got calmly back into their car and disappeared. Just like that.

At the moment, the whole city was in a subterranean uproar. The murder of a policeman in any country brings swift and heavy-handed pursuit. But the killing of a Federal Police executive in a still-totalitarian society is the quickest way to reopen the interrogation cellars, constitutional guarantees or no, because the killing is not a civil but a political crime. So, every suspicious character in the city was being picked up for questioning. Ley was about the only one left in the office. Mistako's secretary had collapsed and been sent home. I told Ley about the cop who had paid a visit to my room earlier, and before I could finish, he brusquely ordered me to stay put and slammed the phone down. Ten minutes later, he was sitting on the couch regarding me with that polite, inquisitive look of a professional cop.

"Who was this man?"

I shrugged. "How the hell should I know? I thought he belonged to Mistako. You tell me

. . . and tell me everything, damn it. You sure as the devil know more about what's going on than you let on this morning."

"I really don't know any more than you do," he said shrugging. "The Yugoslays aren't in the habit of taking Germans, West or East, into their confidence." I snorted. "And with good reason."

Ley stretched out on the couch and toed his loafers off, sighing. "All right. Insults will not help the situation. Maybe you do have pieces of information that I need . . ."

"Or vice versa," I muttered. Ley glanced up sharply, but said nothing for a moment. Finally, he sat up straight, grimacing at the effort, and in a flat voice, as if giving a report said:

"Yesterday evening, I was told by my superiors to leave immediately for Belgrade. I was given a dossier that I was to read on the aircraft. Mistako was waiting for me at the airfield, and we went directly to the police offices. There I was briefed—learning nothing more than what I had read in the dossier—and sent to a hotel for the night. The next morning—this morning—I talked to you."

"That's not a hell of a lot."

Ley nodded. "I agree, but that is all I know."

I got up and paced for a moment. If, and it was a big if, I could believe anything Ley said, he was sent especially to talk to me. If he left last night, there was a good chance that it was because Vishailly had reported me securely aboard the mail boat and headed for Belgrade. Disgruntled and at a loss for the moment, I picked up the phone and dialed room service to order a bottle of gin and some ice. We waited silently, staring at each other until it was delivered. When the knock on the door came Ley bounced off the couch like a shot, reached into his jacket for a pistol, concealed it behind his trouser leg, and was across the room and had the door open before I could move. He took the order without a word to the bellboy, slammed the door shut with his foot, almost catching the man's hand, and relocked the door.

"Jumpy aren't you?"

Ley didn't reply but set the tray down on the dresser and poured out two stiff drinks and added ice.

"The dossier," he continued, handing me my drink a moment later, "described a network of Neo-Nazi party members extending throughout Europe. Our people have been keeping them under close watch for the past several years; ever since they began to make gains in the West German Government. We are especially interested in where their money comes from. As you may know, the original Nazi party in the 1930s was heavily financed by the industrialists who were promised sizable military contracts in return for their help. These same people today—and others like them—are in no position to donate money to the Neo-Nazi party, even if they were so inclined. We watch the party carefully for any " front" movements they might organize to collect donations. These businessmen know they have more to gain by supporting the present government and maintaining NATO

commitments. The party claims that their funds come primarily through membership fees and party member donations. But checks, which go on continually, indicate that the membership is not large enough to sustain their present, or past for that matter, volume of spending. We want very much to find

out where this money is coming from. And we think we know." Ley paused to sip at his drink thoughtfully before going on. The room was very still. Snow had begun to fall as twilight descended over the city, and the feeling of unreality that I experienced two nights ago on the island was with me again.

"Where," I prompted.

"As you are well aware, SS units, which, by the way, operated independently of the Wehrmacht, were not composed of the best people; especially during the latter days of the war. You may also know that as German Army units were withdrawing from the conquered territories of Europe, SS units were always the last to leave, usually remaining behind to loot; to remove everything that might possibly aid Germany's war effort. It is not something we are proud of today, but you must recognize that war brings out the worst in every man and every people.

"In late 1944 we believe that orders were given from Berlin that directed this looting—

such as that which took place in the Balkans and the proceeds of which were subsequently lost on Kornat Island. Much of this loot, mostly the gold, jewels, paintings, national treasures and so on, which could either be broken up or could not easily be traced after the war, was secreted throughout Europe. We estimate that it amounts to well over a half a billion U.S. dollars."

I whistled. "That would make quite a tidy reserve fund for any political movement." Ley nodded. "Yes. And if we can locate these sources and cut the party off from them, we are well on the way to toppling them before they become powerful enough to cause major damage."

"So you believe that the gold we are after on Kornat is part of this hidden cache?" Ley nodded again. "Two years ago, West German police files of the Neo-Nazi party were opened to Interpol. We conducted our own investigations, very discreetly, and came to the same conclusion. Interpol has since been in the process of informing certain members of various police establishments throughout the world. The Fascist mentality is still with us, and, as leftist-promoted unrest grows throughout the world, there are certain types of people that find it attractive. If you will recall, it was a similar unrest that provided fascism's tremendous acceptance in the 1930s—the fear of the anarchy and resulting repression that came with the work of the Comintern. Today, it is the radical left organizations in your country and similar organizations throughout Europe. They are not organized or integrated as the Comintern was in the thirties, but many people feel they are, and to them, reactionary solutions become attractive. That is why we find it imperative to move wherever we see the slightest hint of Neo-Nazi activities on the continent. Unfortunately, Mistako was one of the few people in the Yugoslav police aware of Interpol's and our own conclusions, and the only one who knew the reason for my visit."

"And now he's dead. So where does that leave you?" Ley shook his head. "I wish I knew. I have no instruc tions from my superiors, and I do not believe the Yugo-slays will be happy to see me remain in the country."

"Why the hell do you need instructions," I said, making it sound like a dirty word. Ley sighed. "You have no idea' the troubles that I could cause between Yugoslavia and West Germany if I decided to act on my own. It sounds very easy to say, but it would be extremely difficult to live with the consequences. I have my wife and two children to support and that is very hard to do in Germany if you do not have a job." He had a point, I knew. It was easy to go off and do whatever you wanted to if you were alone with nobody depending on you.

"Let's go over your story once more;" Ley said quietly. "This time make it complete. Everything, what these men are like, who are they, what they've done . . . everything you can recall . . . and in a great deal more detail than you gave me this morning," he finished dryly.

"Why the hell should I do that?"

Ley shrugged. "I just thought you might rather deal with me than with the Yugoslays. If I go back and report no success, Interpol will officially withdraw from the case —Mistako'

s murder has seen to that. You, however, could become a prime suspect." Ley sat back and waited for my answer.

"All right, if you think you can sit through another rendition without falling asleep . . ." I snagged the bottle off the table and refilled both glasses, angry because he had me in a trap. His statement left no doubt that if I did not talk, he would turn me in immediately.

The only light in the room now was the westering sun banked securely behind thick snow clouds. It was becoming harder to see in the dimness filtering through the window, but I didn't turn on the lamp; somehow the semidarkness was comforting.

The flight from Brindisi, Italy, to Kornat Island off the Yugoslavian coast covers 320

miles. When we had taxied out onto the apron at Brindisi two mornings ago, the muttering of the starboard engine on my ancient PBY Catalina wasn't any choppier than it had ever been. Twenty years and more of flying with overhauls few and far between, and she was pretty worn out. My partner, Pete Schenk, and I had managed for the last few months to keep her going, but the fuel pump was about ready to pack in. New fuel pumps cost money . . . money that we did not have. The old Catalina therefore, was reserved for short hauls where there were plenty of airfields handy for quick landings. We had finally managed to scrape up the cash, but pumps that old took a long time to find and even longer to deliver. Normally, we used our DC-3, equally old but much better preserved, for the longer and heavier flights.

But on this junket I needed the amphibious capability of the PBY, and so we had taken a chance. I had overhauled the pump and was fairly confident that it would hold together . .

. it hadn't.

We were still a good twenty minutes out when the starboard engine missed its first beat. Klaus Maher, occupying the copilot's seat leaned across with a questioning look and shouted something that was lost in the roar of engine and slipstream coming through the open vents.

I throttled back as far as I dared and leaned the mixture out, then rammed the throttle forward. A plume of white exhaust showed for an instant before being whipped to tatters in the slipstream and the RPMs continued to drop as the muttering became choppier. I glanced over at Maher. His face was no longer

quizzical; it was pale. I felt the same way—and I'm sure I looked it. For the past half hour, we had been chasing a fast-moving rain squall below at about six thousand feet. We were just about over the trailing edge when the port engine started to miss under the overload. Beneath us, the cloud cover had lost all semblance of fleecy whiteness. From a relative altitude of a few hundred feet it was a twisted, wispy mass of angry gray, as cold and stark as the depths of the Arctic ice pack. Deep inside could be seen the opaline glow of lightning blinking fitfully. Because there was an even deeper layer of ice cloud above us filtering the afternoon sunlight, the effect was a funereal gray, underscored by the ululating whine of the wind against the aircraft. Altogether, it was not a pleasant feeling knowing that any moment one of the engines might quit and we would vanish into that embattled mass of cloud.

I leveled the PBY off a few hundred feet above the fringes of the cloud layer and increased the revs only enough to maintain altitude. Added to the fuel pump problem was the severe air turbulence along the top of the storm. The framework of the aircraft was groaning in every joint but the extra lift provided by the turbulence made it that much easier on the straining portside engine.

"How are the engines holding up now?" Maher asked suddenly. I waved at the instruments. The air was too rough to read them accurately. The needles were bouncing back and forth across the dials in a kind of St. Vitus dance. He nodded and turned back to the window. I was about to say something further when the edge of the storm began to show on the horizon. I reached across and shook his arm. As we cleared the last of the squall, I eased the nose down and ahead, nearly to the horizon was the humped rock of Kornat Island . . . the pivotal point of a minor and almost forgotten economic blow to Nazi Germany in late 1944. While the Nazis were being pushed out of the Balkans in 1944, the High Command in Berlin, some say Himmler himself, struck on the idea of raiding local bank vaults along the line of retreat to improve ebbing Nazi finances. Within days, flying squads of SS

special detachments were moving from city to city in Greece, Albania and southern Yugoslavia and the treasure they amassed in less than six weeks was estimated by the Allies at the end of the war to be more than 30 million dollars. Initial plans called for the SS detachments to complete sweeps through their assigned territories and rendezvous at Mostar, the only port city on the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia still securely held by the Germans. The loot was to be loaded aboard an armored train and sent up the coast to Trieste from where it would be transhipped to Berlin. But Allied bombing strikes had been accelerated sharply along the coast in November of that year to support increased partisan activity. The High Command decided that it was too risky to move by train. Instead, the gold was taken to the submarine base at Kornat where it was stored in ammunition boxes and stacked on the quay to be loaded and sent off by submarine.

As senior submarine commander, the actual transport of the gold to Trieste was Klaus's responsibility. Klaus, knowing that the end of the war was only a matter of months away and that all of the money in the world could no longer prop up the Nazi war machine, diverted one million U.S. dollars worth of the gold, 1785 pounds to be exact, in four ammunition crates, from the quayside warehouse to the deserted food-store areas deep in the series of tunnels that honeycombed the base of the mountain. Enter Mikhail Korstlov, the third member of our intrepid trio of treasure hunters. Mikhail Korstlov came from the Bosnian village of Glasnic, high on the eastern slopes of the Dinaric Alps. A long-time member of the Communist party, he had fought the Nazis for six years, first in Spain and now in the mountains of Yugoslavia. In November 1944 Mikhail was in command of a partisan brigade operating in the Mostar region of Herzceovina. There were several military targets within two days'