David Gibbins - The Mask of Troy

The man in front of the chair, expensively dressed in a dark coat, stroked his neatly trimmed beard and looked pensively at the bound man, then clicked his fingers at the two other men standing in the room, against the wall behind the chair. One of them came forward, an ugly, heavy-jowled man of Slavic appearance, the sleeves of his leather jacket rolled up to reveal a smudged tattoo with the word Spetsnaz above his left wrist. He stood behind the chair, reached down and lifted the man’s right forearm, bending the hand back and holding it there. The man struggled, bouncing the chair legs on the floor, and then went wide-eyed and breathed hard through his nose as the thug put pressure on. The man in front nodded, and in one movement the thug pressed his hands together like a vice, snapping the man’s fingers. The man made a terrible noise and slumped forward, sobbing, jerking the chair again, mucus dripping from his nose.

The man in the corner shut his eyes, feeling faint. It was not supposed to be like this. He opened them again, and saw the man in front of the chair gesturing for him. He walked over and spoke urgently. ‘Saumerre. We need to talk.’

‘Not now, Raitz.’

He could smell the sweat, the stench of fear. Saumerre looked thoughtfully at the man in the chair, and then clicked his fingers at the thug again, gesturing at the man’s mouth. The thug reached over and ripped the tape from the man’s face. The man gasped, breathing loud and fast, wheezing and groaning, then looked up, sniffing away the mucus that was dripping off his face, trying to rub it on his shoulders. His cheeks were streaked with sweat. ‘What do you want with me?’ he said hoarsely, his accent slightly European. ‘Who are you? Why did you do this?’ He lifted his left forearm, looking at it, the fingers hideously splayed, hanging like the hand of a rag doll. ‘I’m an artist. An artist. What have you done to me? My God.’

‘It will be right hand next,’ the thug growled, his English heavily accented. Saumerre signalled him, and the thug stepped back against the wall between the other two, men evidently from the same mould. Saumerre sank down on one knee in front of the chair. ‘You are Marcus Brandeis, yes? Jewish, I think. Yes, I think you are Jewish, Sephardic with that name, in Amsterdam. My ancestors were in Spain too, you know, Moors, of course, but we have something of a common heritage, you and I. We have common interests.’ He shook his head, as if sadly. ‘If only you would share yours with me.’

‘Share what?’ the man in the chair sobbed. ‘You haven’t asked me anything yet. What do you want?’

Saumerre suddenly changed his manner and stood up abruptly, stared at him icily. ‘Don’t play the fool with me, Brandeis. You’ve been expecting this for months. You’ve been a marked man since you turned police informant. London was hardly a good place to hide, was it? A pavement artist on the South Bank. Hiding in the crowd. It must be demeaning. You must miss the big time.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. I’m just an artist. A street artist. That’s how I make my living. I draw people. Tourists.’

Saumerre took an iPhone out of his pocket and flipped it open, reading from it. ‘Marcus Brandeis, formerly of Brandeis Gallery, Prinzegracht 3, Amsterdam.’ He snapped shut the phone. ‘Until recently regarded as Europe’s premier broker for black-market antiquities. Special interest in art and antiquities stolen by the Nazis. Not, I might add, in returning art to its rightful owners, even fellow Jews. But a particular interest in finding art still hidden away, then selling it to the underworld. Art used to lubricate deals, drugs, arms, you name it. The Russian Mafia. Big names, your clients.’ Saumerre tapped the phone. ‘A very exclusive list. Names like the one who lent us those two gentlemen standing behind you. Names who like to see deals finished. Names who like to remain anonymous. Names who no longer appreciate your services, my friend.’

The man slumped, then gave a shuddering sigh. He looked up, deathly pale, his face wet but his eyes now defiant. ‘Which one is it?’ he said quietly. ‘Ivankov? Labazanov? Which one do you work for? Just tell me. I can give you what you want. Anything. We can still do business. I know far more than I’ve told the police. I know where Nazi art is still buried. In bunkers, in mines. Fantastic treasures. We can find it together.’

‘Now we are getting somewhere,’ Saumerre said.

Brandeis peered at him, narrowing his eyes. ‘I know that face. Politician, diplomat. French, I think? Algerian? Who are you?’

‘It is of no consequence to you.’ Saumerre gestured at the man standing beside him. ‘But you know Professor Raitz?’

Brandeis stared, his face strained. ‘Professor Raitz? This is Raitz? We never met. But yes. Of course. From the pictures. Professor Raitz, of the Courtauld Institute. What are you doing here?’ He raised his limp hand, flinching with pain. ‘Why, Professor? I gave you so much. Why? ’

‘Professor Raitz has been so kind as to show us several Nazi documents that were once in your possession. Documents you passed directly on to him when you turned informant, when the police used the professor as an expert appraiser. Documents he insisted on having direct from you, for immediate conservation treatment, of course. Professor Raitz is a man of great influence. Documents the police never saw. Documents they will never see.’

The man looked back and forth between them, his eyes clouded with pain, but suddenly wily, calculating, the eyes of an underworld dealer once again. ‘I know nothing about documents,’ he said. ‘But look at him,’ he added, nodding at the professor. ‘He’s nervous. He’s in almost as bad a way as I am. It’s him you should be questioning, not me. He’s the one who’s concealing things.’

Saumerre leaned forward, hands on one knee, staring into the man’s eyes. He sniffed, and crinkled his nose. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said quietly. ‘I really don’t think so.’ He snapped his fingers again, and the Russian came forward.

‘No,’ Brandeis said. ‘ No.’ The Russian lifted the man’s right forearm, then bent the hand back. ‘Please God, no,’ he pleaded. ‘I’m an artist now. This is my livelihood. Not that hand. Please. Not that hand too.’ The Russian took the little finger, and abruptly jerked it backwards. Brandeis howled in pain. Raitz turned away.

Saumerre put up his own hand, as if inspecting it, glancing at the Russian. ‘Well, one can still draw without a little finger, no? And why this paltry way of making a living when you have secret knowledge of art stashed away in bunkers and mines around Europe, your very words, as I recall?’

‘All right,’ the man mumbled, wincing in pain. ‘ All right. Which document?’

‘What do you know,’ Saumerre asked, ‘about Das Agamemnon-Code? ’

‘The Agamemnon Code.’ Brandeis tensed, his hand shaking, then slumped. ‘That one,’ he said. ‘Of course. It had to be.’ He paused, grimacing again. ‘You will spare my hand?’

‘Tell us what we want, and I give you my word. Your hand will be spared.’

The man took a deep breath. ‘Das Agamemnon-Code. That was my best discovery. And my most frustrating. For years my private passion was to collect any information about Heinrich Schliemann’s lost treasures, the gold he took from Troy and Mycenae. I always believed there must have been more hidden away by the Nazis, not only the known treasures, but other objects Schliemann himself may have sent back to hide in Germany. I always believed this. I made a special study of Schliemann’s psychology. If you want to be a treasure-hunter, you must know the mind of the man who has hidden the treasure, yes? Archaeologists know this. Everyone thought I was a bit mad, you know, an enthusiast, my obsession. But then, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, those objects from Priam’s treasure surfaced in Moscow, where the Russians had taken them from Berlin. People began to take me seriously. It was as if some clue to El Dorado had suddenly been revealed. Little red lights lit up on the art underworld map all over Europe, treasure-hunters, dealers, enthusiasts, each believing they had some small clue, something overlooked, something misinterpreted. But it all came to nothing. It was like looking at those faked grainy photos of UFOs. Every single clue could be discounted. But I still believed, as I always had. And then it happened. An old Jewish man who had once worked for me showed up at my apartment in Amsterdam one evening. He was down on his luck, needed money desperately. He was an uneducated man, knew nothing about Homer, about Agamemnon. So he hadn’t made the connection between what he had and Schliemann until he saw the news reports of the St Petersburg finds, and realized what he’d been sitting on all those years.’