Trophies of War Page 20

  DeLuca helped him bring G46 out into the storage room. Clark pried the dirty window open to let more light into the room and examined the crate.

  At one point, the top had been nailed on, but it looked like the nails had been removed. Clark took the silver cake server and slid it under the edge of the wood. The top opened with no resistance.

  DeLuca stood with his arms folded.

  “What is so special about this crate that it had to be hidden?” he asked. “And how did you know about it?”

  “Paris. Rose Valland,” Clark said, looking up at DeLuca with a broad smile. “You studied art history. Would you like to make some?”

  Clark removed the top, revealing three canvases inside, each wrapped in brown paper. He slid the first one out of its slot and carefully peeled the paper away from the frame.

  It was beautiful. It was a priceless object. It wasn’t what he was looking for.

  “Pissarro,” he said after a moment, holding it up so DeLuca could see. The painting was an Impressionist work—a picture of a winter street scene done in white, browns and grays.

  Clark put it back in the crate and took out the next paper-wrapped canvas. His hands shook as he pulled at the edge of the paper.

  Again, he held in his hands a work any museum would be thrilled to have. Again, he was disappointed.

  “Cézanne,” he said, showing it to DeLuca. It was a picture of a bowl of apples on a table. The canvas glowed with reds and oranges set against the brown table. He put it back in its slot.

  Clark stared at the third canvas—the last one in the crate—almost afraid to take it out.

  “This has to be it, this has to be it,” he muttered. “Has to be.”

  Taking the final frame out of the crate, he tore the paper at the corner.

  DeLuca grabbed his arm. “Stop,” he whispered. “Someone’s here.”

  Clark heard it, too.

  Footsteps.

  Zharova drew her Nagant revolver and held it out in front of her, using two hands to steady the heavy gun as she walked down the hallway. The floor and walls were made of the same gray stone as the wine cellar. Further down the corridor was a kitchen with dirty dishes piled everywhere. Beyond the kitchen were several closed doors. Zharova opened one—it was a bedroom.

  Who lives here? she wondered. Who would go to such lengths to have a secret entrance to their home?

  Whoever she had heard a moment ago was silent now. Zharova knew she should get Chuzhoi and the other SMERSH men, but if there was someone important in this house, she didn’t want them getting away. Especially if there was another secret escape route.

  She also didn’t want to stumble upon SS troops or Werewolf guerrillas.

  Ahead, she could see a great room nearly 50 meters long.

  This isn’t a home—it’s another damned castle. How these people must have lived! What the hell did they want in Russia that they didn’t have here?

  Zharova paused at the doorway of the great room. She could see the front door across the room. Though she doubted her ability to hit a moving target heading toward that door, she hoped a few well-placed shots would stop anyone trying to run out.

  “I know you are there!” she shouted in German, hoping it was loud enough for Chuzhoi to hear. “Come out!”

  Nothing.

  She heard the sound of boots on stairs behind her as the SMERSH men came up from the wine cellar. She shouted in German again.

  Still no answer. Still no sign of movement.

  With visions of a Waffen SS platoon waiting for her, Schmeissers at the ready, Zharova stuck her head around the doorway and quickly drew it back.

  It took her a moment to accept that what she had seen was real. What looked like two dead Germans were in formal dress, seated by a fireplace.

  Standing next to them were two American soldiers, pistols in hand.

  Until he had seen the woman’s face, even for just the brief moment it was visible in the doorway, Clark was sure he and DeLuca were going to have to shoot it out with some lone Nazi fanatic. But the woman looked like she was wearing a military uniform, and definitely not German.

  Then it dawned on him.

  Of course … that explains why her German didn’t sound quite right.

  Russians.

  With all he had been hearing about the Red Army lately, Clark wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than a Nazi dead-ender.

  How the hell did they sneak up on us? Clark wondered.

  “Amerikaner!” he shouted back to her. No answer.

  Then he heard the running footsteps of several men.

  Five Russian soldiers burst into the great room, rifles raised. Their peaked caps were bright blue, something Clark had never seen before. For a few tense seconds, he and DeLuca trained their pistols, with eight rounds apiece, on five men with drum-fed submachine guns.

  The woman reappeared. She wore an officer’s uniform, her black hair tucked up under the big cap so emblematic of the Red Army. She looked older, with a grim face and hard gray eyes. It looked like she was in charge, which seemed odd considering how tiny she was.

  Clark held up his hands and slowly put his pistol back in its holster. He signaled for DeLuca to do the same.

  “Do you speak English?” he asked her.

  She said something that sounded like Russian.

  “Alright, I’ll take that as a no,” Clark replied. “Français?”

  “Oui,” she answered, and began firing questions at him in French.

  Clark held up his hands in mock surrender and smiled.

  “Sorry, I think your French is better than mine,” he said in that language. “My name is Captain Clark and this is Private DeLuca. We were sent here to question Jürgen von Weiding over there about possible Nazi connections. As you can see, we are a little late.”

  The Russian woman didn’t respond—she just stared at Clark for a moment. Then she said something to the soldiers, who lowered their rifles.

  “I am Major Natalia Zharova,” she said. “I am with the Soviet military government of Austria.”

  Clark waited for further explanation, but none came.

  “Were you … looking for von Weiding also?” he asked.

  “No,” Zharova answered. “We are looking for suitable headquarters for a regional government office.”

  Clark knew she was lying. He thought back to his conversation with Lieutenant Commander Hammett at Altaussee—this woman was probably part of the Red Army Monuments Men, but sent to loot, not to preserve.

  Clark’s heart sank as he realized that everything in this castle would soon be on a train back to Moscow.

  “You have been searching this place?” Zharova asked.

  Clark tried to appear relaxed.

  “No, just poking around a bit,” he answered. “Looking for souvenirs. Maybe some coins or a Luger.”

  Her cold stare made Clark think she knew he was lying, too.

  “And you?” she asked, looking at DeLuca. “You are very quiet. Did you find any souvenirs?”

  Clark translated for him. DeLuca shook his head a little too forcefully.

  Dammit, Paul. Act natural.

  “Where is your vehicle?” Zharova asked. Clark pointed to the front door. She said something in Russian to one of the soldiers. “Captain Chuzhoi and his men will walk you out.”

  She gave a friendly wave. Her face was anything but.

  23

  Altmünster, Austria

  “That’s the building,” Lyon said, reading from Beth’s phone. Her friend Michael had sent them the description from Zharova’s diary. “This is where the coded map led the Russians.”

  Just like Zharova had seen in 1945, a single story building faced the blue Traunsee, but the four shops and the false door were gone. A sushi restaurant now occupied the entire space.

  Beth pulled the Mercedes to the side of the road they could get a closer look.

  “Up there—check out the corners,” she said.

  There were two large e
agles on either end of the building, Reichsadlers, each clutching a wreath in its talons.

  “They chiseled the swastikas out,” Lyon noted.

  “And the tunnel is probably gone, too. Or, at least closed up,” Beth added.

  Her phone beeped in Lyon’s hands. He winced as he tapped the screen and opened the incoming text message—ibuprofen had smoothed the jagged edges of the pain in his hands, but it was still there. They hadn’t spoken of the Beer Tower killer, but Lyon knew that he had surprised Beth.

  Hell, I surprised myself.

  “It’s Michael,” he said, reading the phone’s screen. “He said the tunnel led to a castle—a Schloss Grasberg.”

  Beth shook her head in amazement.

  “It’s like a movie.”

  “And … ” he continued. “The owner was a Jürgen von Weiding, who was connected to the Linz project—Hitler’s museum. Zharova found over a hundred works of art stored in his castle, most of them destined for the Führermuseum. But … he also had connections to Hermann Goering!”

  “Alright,” Beth replied, nodding. “In the Trophy Brigade archives from St. Sergius, we saw ‘G46’ on one of their reports from Goering’s collection, the one that had the coded map drawn on it. If Zharova picked it up when she caught up with von Weiding, maybe he had G46.”

  “But she didn’t end up with my mother’s painting, so I’m not sure where that leaves us,” Lyon said. The phone beeped again. “Hold on, there’s more. Zharova said von Weiding was dead when she got there but there were two American soldiers in the castle! She said they were obviously there to loot the castle, but she and her men sent them on their way. They followed the Americans out to their car and verified that they hadn’t taken anything with them.”

  “That’s probably good for us,” Beth replied. “Who knows who those Americans were. If they had taken your mother’s Manet, it could be hanging in a house in St. Louis for all we know.”

  Lyon continued reading Michael’s message.

  “She wrote that the American soldiers were tearing down a false wall that von Weiding had built to hide some of his loot, but that the Russians must have surprised them when they were busy opening one of the wooden crates they found in there. She found it with the lid off and two paintings still inside—a Pissarro and a Cézanne. And … the crate was marked ‘G46’! In red!”

  Lyon pumped his swollen fist and ignored the pain.

  “We’re getting close!” he exclaimed.

  “Then what?” Beth asked impatiently. “The Manet wasn’t in there—where was it?”

  “He says that’s all he’s translated so far. I sent him a photo of every page in Zharova’s diary, so whatever she knew should be in there, we just need Michael to find it. In the meantime, let’s figure out how to get to Schloss Grasberg and take a look for ourselves.”

  Beth guided the Mercedes to a stop in front of Schloss Grasberg, parking in the shadow of a towering spire.

  “Doesn’t look like it’s open to the public,” Lyon said as they got out to look around.

  There were two exotic-looking sports cars that Lyon couldn’t identify parked in front. The grounds were so perfect Lyon thought they transcended landscaping and had become art. A long, rectangular garden stretched out from the front of the castle with paths bounding a putting green-like lawn. A stone pond full of flowering lily pads showed the orange flash of koi in the sunlight.

  “Knock on the door?” Beth asked.

  Lyon shrugged. “Guess so. ‘Hi, can I search your castle for a long-lost painting that may or may not be real?’ ”

  No one answered. Lyon knocked again, gritting his teeth against the pain.

  I could use some bourbon for these hands.

  Beth was reading email on her phone. Michael had sent her the full translations of Zharova’s diary pages.

  “Michael says the French paintings were found in a storage room at the opposite end,” she said. “On the north side. Come on, let’s see if we can find it and peek in the window, at least.”

  Lyon followed her past a row of topiary swans lined up along the driveway.

  Passing the towering stained glass windows of what must be the castle’s great room, they came to the smaller leaded-glass windows of the living quarters.

  Stupid … careless … idiot!

  The Anvil reproached himself, unable to believe that he had let an unarmed civilian get the better of him.

  As they tailed the white Mercedes, the FSB agent behind the wheel had tried to sneak glances at his battered face in the mirror.

  “Eyes front, govniuk,” The Anvil had growled at him.

  That’s it, he realized. It’s too late. They have seen me beaten. Word of this must not get back to Moscow or the bosses.

  He would have to kill both the agents. But, without his knives or even a gun, how?

  Up ahead, they could see the Americans pulling onto a narrow road that led up a hill toward a large stone building. “We will be exposed if we follow any further,” said the agent in the passenger seat. He pointed to a stand of trees by a curve in the road. “There. Pull over by the woods. If they look back, they will not be able to see us. We will follow on foot.”

  “Agreed,” The Anvil replied, though no one had asked him.

  “Slowly,” Clark said to DeLuca in an undertone as the Russians walked them to their car. “We’re just a couple of GIs following an order and now we’re leaving.”

  They got into the black Mercedes, which the Russians eyed with suspicion. They looked in the back seat and opened the trunk. Without so much as a nod, they turned and went back into the castle.

  DeLuca brought the big cabriolet’s engine to life and reached down to put it in gear. Clark turned to see the Russians watching from a window.

  “Easy,” he said. “Pull out real slow like we’re not in a hurry. We’re happy to be on our way.”

  He gave the Russians a wave that was not returned and DeLuca gave the convertible some gas. They pulled out of the gravel drive and onto the road.

  “Search this place,” Zharova ordered. “They came here for a reason, perhaps the same reason we did.”

  Chuzhoi directed his men to spread out and search the castle. They didn’t make it very far before he heard them give shouts of discovery.

  “See how the road bends to the left there?” Clark said, pointing with his hand held low so the Russians couldn’t see if they were looking.

  “Yeah,” DeLuca replied.

  “Once we turn, those trees will block the Russians’ view of the road. Stop the car there and we can get out and double back.”

  After sending one of Chuzhoi’s men back through the tunnel to get the truck, Zharova took stock of Schloss Grasberg.

  At least a hundred objects were in the study, perhaps another hundred in the storage room.

  Finally, I have beaten the Americans. This is nothing compared to Cotta, Merkers or Altaussee, but at least I have a repository of my own. No one else can claim it. Not even Veselovsky, who would take credit for the sunset.

  But the storage room nagged at her.

  Was it the Americans who had taken down the false wall?

  And what was the significance of this opened crate with its red numbering? Two paintings, but three slots. Was one missing? It couldn’t have been those two Americans.

  If there had been something taken, why would they leave these two priceless Impressionist works to take whatever it was?

  Even with the piles of treasures around her, soon to be loaded onto her truck and written into her reports, Zharova had the sinking feeling that she was losing again.

  The hill that sloped down from Schloss Grasberg was thick with beech and fir trees, enough to give Clark and DeLuca cover as they walked back up to the castle.

  “OK, Jim … now are you going to tell me what we’re doing?” DeLuca asked. “Can’t say I’m too keen on having submachine guns pointed at my head again.”

  “Don’t worry,” Clark replied as he stepped over a stream.
“They’ll never know we were there.”

  They came to the end of the woods, a short ten yards or so from the eastern end of the castle. It was open ground across the unkempt lawn that surrounded the building. They stopped, watching and listening.

  There was no sign of the Russians outside, but they could hear them talking.

  Clark sprinted across the lawn, and pressed himself against the outer stone wall, under a window. No one looking out would be able to see him. He waved DeLuca across.

  Sliding along the wall, they turned a corner and continued until they were under the window of the storage room. It was open as they had left it. The Russians were in there.

  The woman’s voice came loud and clear, barking orders to the other soldiers.

  DeLuca caught Clark’s eye and mouthed Let’s get out of here.

  Clark winked.

  He crouched low, took a step away from the wall and began feeling around in the tall clumps of grass.

  Should be … there!

  He carefully slid a paper-wrapped frame out of the grass and put it under his arm. He signaled to DeLuca to go back around the other side of the castle.

  When they were in the woods and far enough from Schloss Grasberg, Clark couldn’t help himself. He broke out in laughter.

  “You are a crazy bastard,” DeLuca said with an exasperated look.

  “Oh, come on,” Clark replied. “They weren’t going to shoot us.”

  “Next time, you make that bet with your own ass, not mine.”

  Clark laughed harder.

  “I never saw you throw that canvas out the window,” DeLuca said. “Is it the last painting from that crate? What is it?”

  “It is the third canvas, and I don’t know for sure what it is,” Clark replied. “Let’s get back to the car and find out.”

  Without his weapons, The Anvil was going to have to improvise to kill the FSB agents. Without cocaine, he was going to have to endure the pain. His face throbbed and every step through the woods was accompanied by stabs of pain in his ribs.