Trophies of War Read online

  “Ask him to confirm that this is the correct tunnel,” Veselovsky said. “It looks like this hole in the ground hasn’t been used in a thousand years. Look, the entrance is overgrown with vines. He’s lying.”

  Zharova doubted that Veselovsky knew how to fire the weapon he was threatening Voss with, but she decided to use the fear in the German’s eyes to her advantage.

  “This is where the priceless treasures of the Dresden Gallery are stored?” she asked in French. “It does not seem possible.”

  “Yes!” Voss replied. “I supervised their removal myself.”

  Zharova noticed that something didn’t seem right about the tunnel entrance. It was the vines—the ones covering the entrance were dead, unlike the green ones trailing down the face of the outcropping. She also noticed that the moss-covered wooden door had new steel hinges and a shiny brass lock. The entrance was camouflaged. Her heart began pounding. Voss might be telling the truth.

  “What did he say?” Veselovsky added. “If the paintings are not here, where are they?”

  Zharova didn’t answer. She looked again at the entrance. This time she saw a black wire coming out of a bottom corner of the tunnel entrance and running along the ground, into the trees. It looked new.

  That has to be an electrical wire. A tunnel with a camouflaged entrance with electricity. This is it.

  Zharova relished Veselovsky’s doubt for another moment and then ordered Voss to open the door.

  The German looked down at Veselovsky’s gun and walked backwards, away from him. Zharova followed him and looked over his shoulder as Voss pulled the vines aside and moved some brush leaning against the door. Veselovsky still hadn’t realized that the tunnel had been recently sealed. He stood watching Voss, shaking his head in disgust.

  Idiot, Zharova thought.

  Voss produced a key from his pants pocket and unlocked the door. Zharova pushed him aside and pulled on the wooden door handle. The door swung open smoothly on its hinges, revealing a new steel doorframe bolted into the rock. Beyond the doorway there was only darkness. If that black wire was indeed an electrical wire, the power was no longer flowing to the lightbulbs strung from the tunnel ceiling. Now, even Veselovsky realized this was no abandoned tunnel.

  “Move aside! Move aside!” Veselovsky yelled as he ran to the tunnel entrance. He squeezed past Zharova and switched on his flashlight.

  The floor of the tunnel had narrow gauge railway track leading off into the darkness. Veselovsky’s flashlight cast a beam down the length of the track until it turned to the right as the tunnel went deeper into the rock.

  Zharova followed him as he walked in. Rumors of the German Werewolf units, guerrilla forces left behind enemy lines with explosives and weapons, came to her mind but she forced them down. Still, she let Veselovsky get a few paces ahead of her.

  At the bend in the tunnel, they came to a mining cart on the tracks, blocking the way. It contained a single wooden crate with a thermometer attached to the side. As Veselovsky shined his flashlight on the crate, Zharova noticed that the top was unusual. Rather than simple boards nailed to the top, it was made of a frame that held two sections inside—like the sliding top of an extendable table. In the dim light, Zharova could see Veselovsky’s eyes grow wider.

  “Help me with this, Natalia,” he said, pulling the cart down the track toward the entrance.

  They dragged the metal cart, rusty wheels squeaking, and stopped at the end of the tracks. Several dour SMERSH men stood at the doorway, waiting with their Pepeshas slung over their shoulders. Another two held Voss under guard in a truck.

  Veselovsky ordered the men to lift the crate out of the cart and place it on the ground. They did it easily—the crate was large and unwieldily, but not heavy.

  Zharova removed her combat knife from its sheath and inserted the tip between the two halves of the crate lid.

  “Gently, gently,” Veselovsky pleaded.

  Zharova slowly levered the knife until the two boards slid apart enough that they could be grasped on either end of the frame. She pulled on the edge of one board and Veselovsky took the other. They slid apart without much effort.

  At the first sight of gold leaf sparkling in the sunlight, Veselovsky let out a yell.

  “I’ve found it! The Dresden Gallery is here!”

  He ordered the SMERSH men and the other soldiers into the tunnels and told them to load every object they could find onto the trucks.

  Zharova ignored him and examined the gold museum frame. Paper was stuck to the face of the frame so she couldn’t see the painting it held, but the unique design of the crate, its large size and special position in the tunnel made Zharova suspect it was something special.

  Could it be her? she wondered. Was she waiting for me right out front?

  There were four holes drilled into the frame across the top. The wood inside the holes looked bright, so they were probably fresh, likely drilled just prior to packing.

  “Look … pegs,” Veselovsky said, startling Zharova. She hadn’t realized he was still standing next to her.

  A strip of canvas was nailed to the inside of the crate with four loops, each holding a wooden dowel. Zharova took one and inserted it into a hole. It fit. She called two soldiers over and put all four pegs into the frame. She, Veselovsky and the two soldiers each grabbed a peg and lifted the painting out of the crate. As they lowered it to the ground, Zharova took a corner of parchment paper and carefully peeled it from the frame.

  As soon as she saw the green paint of the curtains at the top of the canvas, she knew.

  “It’s her,” she whispered. Removing the paper, the rest of the painting came into view. The Virgin standing on clouds, the Christ Child in her arms, with Saint Barbara and Saint Sixtus on either side. The two winged cherubs at the bottom of the canvas, painted as if they were leaning on the frame. Here in this clearing, a short distance from the devastation of Dresden, produced from a hole in the sandstone, she held in her hands the four-hundred-year-old masterpiece by Raphael.

  “Quick!” Veselovsky yelled. “Who has a radio? Send a message to Marshal Konev himself! Tell him I have found the Sistine Madonna!”

  Zharova knew better than to touch the canvas, but she couldn’t help herself. She ran her thumb lightly across the very edge of the canvas, feeling the minute brushstrokes preserved on the surface. She felt connected through time to Raphael, who once also held this canvas, brush in hand. The Sistine Madonna, commissioned by Pope Julius II in the 16th century, was an icon of realism to Zharova and many other Russians.

  While Zharova had only ever seen photographs and reproductions—having never visited Dresden until now—it was a major influence on her own painting. She thought of it often when she painted in the officially-sanctioned Socialist Realism style, for which she had recently been awarded the honorific ‘People’s Artist of the Soviet Union.’ For her, it was always the concerned look on Mary’s face, as if she anticipated the Crucifixion, that inspired. To paint the human form so perfectly was one thing, to capture such delicate emotion with the brush was quite another.

  The large crew of SMERSH and regular Trophy Brigade troops made quick work of the quarry tunnels. Over four hundred paintings were found, including Rembrandt’s Ganymede, Watteau and Canaletto landscapes, Titian’s Young Woman in White, and Ruben’s Diana. Zharova gave up trying to take an inventory on-site—there were too many workers, trucks and crates to keep track of. An inventory would have to wait until the works were all at the collecting point they had established at Pillnitz Castle in anticipation of this day. She could only imagine how insufferable Veselovsky was going to be at Pillnitz.

  It’s going to be like the Hermitage all over again, she mused. Maybe he’ll be too busy to bother me—he’ll be off telling the generals how he saved the Dresden Gallery and the Sistine Madonna.

  For now, she took a green bound book from her map case. It was blank—she had been waiting for her first discovery to start keeping a record of her time in Germany. Openi
ng it up on the hood of a ZIS-5, she began to write.

  After a few minutes, she sensed someone standing next to her. It was Veselovsky.

  “Keeping a diary, eh?” he asked with a smirk. Zharova didn’t answer. “That’s the last of it. Thanks to Comrade Stalin we have more than enough men and materiel to save these works from the German-fascist barbarians. He has already declared this find as being of state importance. Soon these paintings will be on a train to Moscow!”

  “But first we will want an inventory, won’t we?” Zharova asked. “As soon as we get to Pillnitz, I can get right to work on it.”

  She felt like she was asking permission and hated it. Veselovsky shook his head.

  “No need. I’ll select the best works to be sent back to the Pushkin and the Hermitage. The rest can be crated up and they can deal with it in Moscow. I have a special job for you, Natalia.”

  Zharova could feel what was coming, and it wasn’t good.

  “The Americans found a mine west of here in a place called Merkers, in Thuringia,” Veselovsky said. “It is in our zone, but the Americans stole all the gold along with some few pieces of art. It is a very large complex and I think it’s unlikely the Americans found everything—certainly the capitalists stopped looking after they found the gold. You are to go to Merkers and find what the Americans could not.”

  You mean I am to go to Merkers to get out of your way. You want to avoid having me around to complicate your story to Moscow, she thought.

  “You may take this truck after it has been unloaded at Pillnitz,” Veselovsky said, waving his hand like an aristocrat dispensing favors. “I should think two SMERSH men and one of our regular Red Army soldiers should suffice.”

  “Yes, Comrade Colonel,” she replied, forcing an even tone.

  Zharova tried to remind herself that she didn’t care about the politics— all she cared about was finding art and sending it safely back to Moscow. It wasn’t so much losing this battle that irked her, it was that she hated seeing Veselovsky win.

  15

  Moscow, Russia

  Lyon kept his promise to go first class. At the Ritz Carlton on Tverskaya Street, around the corner from Red Square and the Kremlin, he got a suite for each of them. Beth’s room was next to his, but the desk clerk wasn’t able to get Sasha a room on the same floor. At least, that’s what Lyon told them. Now, they were in Lyon’s suite, preparing for the break-in at the St. Sergius monastery. Lyon sat at the desk mixing himself another bourbon and Coke from the minibar while Beth and Sasha looked over a map of the monastery on the coffee table.

  “Stop calling it a break-in, please,” Sasha told Lyon. “This is not a movie. We are not breaking anything. Think of it as visiting a museum after hours.”

  “Okay, okay,” Lyon replied, laughing inwardly.

  “Have I mentioned lately that I think this is a bad idea?” Beth asked.

  “Not in the last few hours, so thanks for reminding us,” Lyon replied. Swiveling the chair to face the window, he enjoyed the view of St. Basil’s brightly colored onion domes, lit by spotlights. Lyon checked his watch—it was nearly 10 p.m. They should be leaving soon.

  “Everyone is clear on our plan?” Sasha asked.

  “Yep,” Lyon replied, taking a sip of his drink while still enjoying the view.

  “You seem a little too nonchalant about this, David,” Beth pointed out.

  Lyon turned to face them.

  “We’ve been staring at that hand drawn map of Sasha’s for three days now,” he replied. “We’re only going into one building—the Beer Tower—and one room of one building, at that. If we find what we need in the records room and still have time, we can go looking for paintings in storage, but I’m okay if all we get is the records and I know you are, too, Beth. That archive is your ticket to a big time story, and I want you to have it. If the records don’t pan out for me, then I’m back to the plan of having Sasha check periodically for my mother’s painting. If that’s the case—I’m on the next flight out of here.”

  Beth gave him a long look before shrugging.

  Sasha checked his watch. “Time to go,” he said, getting up and grabbing his backpack.

  Beth pointed to Lyon’s drink.

  “How many of those have you had?” she asked.

  Lyon didn’t like being questioned.

  “More than enough, less than too much,” he answered. “Besides, Sasha’s my designated driver.”

  Sasha drove northeast out of Moscow, barreling down the four lane highway to Sergiyev Posad. It was a harrowing hour in the BMW M3 as they rocketed through the dark Russian countryside, fir and birch trees speeding by in a blur. Sasha had a dashboard camera, as did most Russians, and after only a few minutes on the road, Lyon understood why. With the aggressive driving of nearly everyone, Lyon guessed that car insurance must cost a fortune here.

  The main road into the town of Sergiyev Posad was dark and deserted, but the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra was well lit as they approached it on the left. Sasha had prepared them to expect that, after seven hundred years, the St. Sergius complex was still the central institution of Russian Orthodoxy and was staffed and busy at all times. This was good and bad. There would be priests and monks walking around, even close to midnight, so they would probably be spotted. However, because it was a busy religious site and a museum, laypeople walking around wouldn’t attract undue attention.

  Sasha pulled off the road and parked less than a hundred yards from the outer wall of St. Sergius. Lyon got out of the car and looked at their destination. It was like a white Kremlin, its outer walls like a fortification surrounding a few small buildings with bell towers and staggered onion domes. Several of the domes were gold, others were sky blue with gold stars painted on them. Like a medieval fortress, it had twelve white towers here and there along the all-white stone wall. Some of them were as high as four or five stories and all had narrow windows like arrow-slits.

  The three of them, each with a backpack containing a folded duffle bag, walked to the Beer Tower, a short, square structure on the west side of the wall. To enter the monastery, they had to walk across a field and around the edge of a small pond to get to the Water Gate at the southwest corner. Inside, it was quiet and full of shadows, but there were the sounds of activity. Muffled singing came from one of the churches and they could hear footsteps on the stone walkways. Following Sasha’s instructions, Lyon and Beth did their best to look as if they belonged there. Lyon wished he’d had one more drink before leaving—his adrenaline was flowing now.

  Sasha led them to the Beer Tower, off to the left. Lyon guessed that its name was literal—a place to store beer—given its plain appearance compared to the soaring, gilt structures of the monastery’s cathedral and rectories. The tower door was heavy and wooden with iron strap hinges. Sasha knocked on the door, whistling like a worker showing up for his shift.

  What the hell is he knocking for? Lyon wondered. I thought we were supposed to be keeping this quiet.

  He heard the loud clank of a key in an ancient lock before the door opened, revealing a uniformed guard standing there.

  “Oh shit,” Lyon exclaimed and was about to turn and run when he heard the guard laugh.

  The guard embraced Sasha. The two men spoke quietly in Russian and then Sasha took off his backpack, producing a bottle of Russkiy Standart vodka and a six pack of Belgian ale. He handed them to the guard and then motioned for Lyon and Beth to follow him.

  Inside, a white plastered hallway was lit by bare fluorescent bars on the ceiling. Lyon held the door open for Beth and she followed Sasha inside. As they passed the guard, he smiled at them and nodded. Lyon noticed that, though he was a young man, he was missing several teeth. The guard locked the door behind them and Lyon saw that he wore a holster on his belt. It was empty.

  “I don’t appreciate the surprise,” Lyon said in a stage whisper.

  “Everything is fine,” Sasha replied, and they walked on.

  Lyon tapped Beth on the shoulder a
nd gave her a what the hell look.

  Sasha pointed to rooms off the hallway.

  “First floor is furniture, arms and armor. Third floor is textiles, tapestries and porcelain. We are going to second floor—paintings and Trophy Brigades archive. Stairs are here, follow me.”

  The stairwell at the end of the hallway was in darkness, as was the rest of the Beer Tower. They each produced a small LED flashlight from their backpacks and climbed the steps.

  Walking out onto the second floor, Lyon could tell they were in a building that was at least three hundred years old. Heavy wooden beams crossed the ceilings, with rough-hewn boards making up the floor and the ceiling above. In the beam of his flashlight, the outer stone walls gleamed white.

  “Keep your light pointed down!” Sasha hissed. “It will be seen in the windows!”

  Lyon doubted that—the windows were hardly more than arrow slits.

  “I thought this wasn’t a break-in, just an after-hours visit?” he asked. “What are you worried about?”

  “I think this is where I’m supposed to say ‘I have a bad feeling about this’,” Beth muttered.

  Sasha shook his head.

  “Everything is fine, everything is fine,” he replied, sweeping his flashlight in an arc across the floor. Lyon could see wooden crates and cardboard boxes stacked in perfect piles all around the square room.

  “There,” Sasha said, his light shining on two wooden filing cabinets against the stone wall.

  Lyon and Beth each took the folded duffle bag from their backpacks and prepared to go to work. Beth opened the top drawer of the first cabinet and began flipping through the papers and folders.

  “I’ll be back shortly,” Sasha said as he headed back to the stairwell.

  “What? No!” Beth exclaimed. “You’re supposed to stand here, read over my shoulder and translate! I don’t know what I’m looking at—it’s all in Russian!”