Роберт Фиш - The Gold of Troy

Now, as one of the workers pressed into the gargantuan job of clearing some of that rubble, Gruber was aware that the treasure, while it had been discovered, still remained in the quarters of the Russian captain. Each day, as he lined up with the others to receive his shovel, he would peer past the issuing quartermaster and see the trunk still in the corner of the captain’s room. Its hasp had been repaired and rope had been wrapped around it in profusion, but there it was. Gruber did not understand why the trunk remained, why it had not been removed to a safer place. Still, it never occurred to him that he might do something about it.

Until one day, while piling broken building stone into a truck, he noticed that a new member of the work crew was Major Schurz. Gruber walked over, amazed to find the other man alive, and not only alive, but free, not in prison as a war criminal. Still, Gruber knew when he stopped to think about it that hundreds, no, thousands of SS had simply changed clothes and were now utilizing identity cards they had prepared long before.

“Major!” he said, but before he could say more, the other man had glared him to silence. He dropped his voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Don’t you remember me? Hans Gruber. I was a porter at the zoo. I was there in the bunker, when you brought that trunk. Don’t you remember? I was the one who plastered over the hole.”

“I remember,” Schurz said shortly, and began to turn away. He didn’t remember at all, nor did he want to. Idiots who called out his former rank in the SS with Russians all over the place, were people he could do without.

“Maj — I mean, what do I call you?”

Schurz was on the point of telling the old man he would rather not be called anything at all by the old fool, but one of the Russian troops overseeing that portion of the clean-up operation was staring at them. It would not do to start a discussion or an argument at this moment.

“My name is Kurt. Now, leave me alone.”

“But, Kurt—”

“Later!” Schurz said savagely, and walked away.

Gruber looked after him, sighed and went back to his job. But after work, when they had turned in their equipment and been given chits for their labor, he followed the major down the street and caught up with him a short distance away.

“You said, later—”

Schurz shook his head in irritation. Was he going to be plagued by this maniac leech all his life? He looked around. At least if he had to talk to this incredible cretin, they were alone and unobserved.

“What do you want?”

“The trunk, you remember? The one you brought to the bunker for hiding? The one I helped hide?”

“What about it?”

“It’s still there. Oh, they found where it was hidden, I don’t know how, but it’s still there. In the captain’s quarters. It’s all tied up with rope.”

“So?”

Gruber looked around and then wet his lips. “I thought maybe—” He paused, realizing how absurd his thought had been.

“You thought what?”

“I thought — maybe you could figure a way to get it away from them.” Even as he said it he knew he sounded ridiculous and tried to give the main reason he had attempted such a foolish comment. “It’s valuable, isn’t it?”

Schurz laughed, a short, humorless laugh.

“It’s more than valuable. It’s invaluable. What do you suggest, old man? That I just go in and ask for it? Say it’s an old trunk that has sentimental value for me? Or ask for it instead of a work chit? Say I could use it to keep my extensive wardrobe of old uniforms in?” He shook his head in disgust. “You’re a fool, old man. Go home.”

“I just thought—”

“Don’t think,” Schurz said harshly. “Go home.” He turned and walked away. Gruber looked after him a moment, sighed, and also started slowly walking toward his room.

But while he had admonished the old man for thinking, ex-Major Kurt Schurz could not help but think, himself. It would be a great coup to get the treasure from under the noses of the Russian pigs! Was it possible they didn’t know the value of what they had in their possession? And if they knew it, why was it still sitting in the bunker? Why hadn’t it been shipped east with all the other things, captured arms, the factories that were being dismantled and piled on freight cars for Russia, the tons of other goods that left the city for the east each day? One thing was sure; the treasure wouldn’t remain in the bunker forever. The Russian troops were being rotated. It was only a matter of time, and probably very little time, before the crew in the bunker would be relieved and sent home, and it was almost positive that when that day came, the trunk would go with them. If it didn’t go sooner.

And it was pointless, and even stupid, to think the Russians might not know the value of what was in the trunk. Otherwise why would it be in the captain’s personal quarters, all bound up with rope? Certainly not for the trunk itself — it wouldn’t serve as a portmanteau to carry anything very heavy, the bottom would fall out. No, the trunk still contained the treasure, and the Russians were waiting — for what? Orders, probably, Schurz thought with a grim smile, remembering his own army days. Which could come any day. Would it be possible to take it by force, to hijack it, say on the way from the bunker to the train when those orders finally came through? Schurz smiled sourly at the thought of himself, possibly aided by Gruber and others of the shovel brigade, attacking a troop-carrier full of armed soldiers. Ridiculous. No, the only way to get the trunk would be by guile, not by force.

Assuming the Russians were merely waiting for orders to move the trunk, when would those orders come? If they should come — Schurz stopped dead in his tracks. If they should come from us! If the orders should come from us ! But then the euphoria occasioned by the daring idea began to fade as the practicality of the situation took hold. First there was the matter of locating the man he needed before the real orders came through. He put aside all thoughts of supper and hurried toward the small bar where he and others of his friends met for an occasional drink, and to speak — softly — of plans, or, rather, hopes for the future.

The bar was fairly busy. It was one of the few permitted to operate by the occupation forces as a means of reducing the pressures of the horrendous task facing the remaining residents of the battered city. It was a place where food chits could be traded for whiskey or beer or vodka or even cigarettes, although these were never smoked, being more valuable for their barter worth than for the remembered pleasure of tobacco. It was a place where the spoils of barter could be exchanged for articles which the Allied troops held dear; German helmets, bayonets, even pistols, even though pistols were not supposed to be in the hands of any German except the police; anything that might serve as a true souvenir of the city and its fall. Schurz pushed through to a corner, leaning over the occupants, and then slid in beside them as being less noticeable. He spoke in a low tone.

“Petterssen,” he said. “Is he still around?”

“I think so,” someone said, and shrugged. “It’s almost impossible to leave.”

“And getting worse,” another voice said gloomily.

Someone else laughed. “You’d think Petterssen would have no trouble. That Swede could write his own exit permit with his eyes closed, using a nail and piss for ink, and the border guards would pass him through like royalty. Why do you want him?”

“Important business,” Schurz said, and wondered with a sudden touch of panic if possibly Petterssen had already left the city. But there was no point in thinking of that. If Petterssen was gone, or could not be located, the entire scheme was up the chimney in any event. He waved aside the offer of a drink from one of the men. “How do I get in touch with him?”