1945. The gallery had discovered it was a painting stolen – or should I say borrowed – by Reichsmarschall Goring, from a museum in Mainz. I have a reputation for facilitating the return of stolen works of art to the former Reich, and Miss Howard had come to me representing the gallery for that reason. Naturally, those wishing to return works to Jewish owners are politely told to go elsewhere. I do not deal with private ownership claims, only public museums and galleries.’
‘Of course. We know your reputation. That’s why I am here. You have open-door access to the back rooms of museums and galleries across Europe. And we know about Rebecca Howard.’ He took out an iPod and a photograph appeared, showing a vivacious-looking girl with long dark hair, wearing jeans and a T-shirt with the letters USMC on the front. ‘Seventeen years old, born in Naples to Elizabeth d’Agostino, an archaeologist with the Italian superintendency. She and Jack Howard ended their affair nine months previously, when d’Agostino returned from her studies at Cambridge to Naples at the insistence of her family, who are Mafia. She told Howard nothing of their daughter and arranged for her to be brought up by friends in New York State, where Rebecca is still at school. Howard first met his daughter less than two years ago, shortly after her mother had been murdered. Since then he’s involved Rebecca in an archaeological project in India and central Asia, where she acquired that shirt from a US Marine dive team in Kyrgyzstan. She and her father are very close. In fact, she’s become close to the whole team.’
‘Impressive surveillance.’
The man checked his watch. ‘Right now she’s at Troy. But she’s due back for a school trip to Paris in two days. She touches down at Heathrow from Istanbul at eleven thirty-five tomorrow morning.’
‘But what about now?’ Raitz said urgently. ‘You have brought what you promised?’
Saumerre opened the flap of his coat and pulled out a document bag. He unzipped the top, and raised the contents enough for the other man to see the slightly foxed cover and the faded red capital letters along the top, in Gothic script.
Raitz stared at it. He was shaking with excitement, his voice hoarse. ‘You are certain this is genuine?’
Saumerre paused for a moment, then stared at Raitz. He spoke urgently, barely audible against the background noise of the museum. ‘I will let you in on a secret. A deadly secret. What you are about to embark on would destroy your career if it came out. What I am about to tell you would do more than destroy mine. It would put a bullet in the back of my neck.’
‘I understand,’ Raitz murmured, looking around, seeing that the gallery was empty. ‘You have my absolute word.’
‘You know my background from the media. Our embassy is in the news every day now. Officially I’m of North African descent, Algerian. But what you didn’t know is that one of my grandfathers was French, from Marseille. He was a small-time gangster, ran a petty crime ring, drugs, prostitution, protection rackets. He was arrested by the Vichy police in late 1940 and ended up in a concentration camp in Germany. His lifeline was that he’d trained originally as a chef, and they put him to work in a small labour camp near Belsen. In the final weeks of the war the camp was flooded with Jews force-marched there from Auschwitz, and in the chaos he escaped. But he knew what had been going on in the camp. What it had been built for. What was stored there.’
‘Is that it?’ Raitz whispered, his heart pounding with excitement. ‘What we’re after? Stolen works of art?’
‘There’s more.’ Saumerre paused, and steered Raitz over to the case containing the Troy artefacts, staring studiously at them as a class of schoolchildren streamed by. He waited until they had disappeared into the Egyptian gallery, then spoke again. ‘There is another secret. Our secret.’ He paused again, checking carefully around, then moved close to Raitz. ‘When my grandfather returned to Marseille, he picked up where he’d left off. There were rich opportunities in the years after the war. He already had an Algerian wife, and he extended his interests to French North Africa. It was the time of the French-Algerian war, and he profiteered. It became a multi-million-dollar business. When my father came of age, he inherited it.’
Raitz stared at him. ‘And now you?’
‘Keep your voice down. Please.’ Saumerre took out a handkerchief, and dabbed his forehead. ‘Perhaps I have said enough.’
‘I swear never to tell.’
Saumerre took a deep breath, then nodded. ‘You’re right. There’s no going back now. But you must understand. I have always kept my political career and my business interests strictly separate.’
‘What was your grandfather’s secret? What had he seen? What did he know? ’
‘He told my father, and my father told me. As a boy, I was fascinated by the stories of lost Nazi loot, hidden away in lakes and bunkers and mines. I became determined to chase up any leads, to find what was left. We all know there’s more to be discovered. There’s a long list of works of art that have never been found. A huge fortune to be made.’
‘Stop there.’ Raitz stood back, suddenly wary. ‘We may be at cross-purposes. I thought you were behind my dream. I am not doing this for money.’
Saumerre put up his hand. ‘Relax. All of the paintings are yours. But this is a business arrangement. You have the paintings, we have the rest.’
‘What do you mean, the rest?’
Saumerre gestured at the cabinet. ‘What do you know about Schliemann’s lost treasure?’
Raitz stared at the pots. ‘You asked me to research it when we first made contact two weeks ago. Some of the gold from Troy went missing for years, then showed up in Moscow. That’s common knowledge. But there’s always been a question over whether Schliemann found more at Mycenae. Nothing’s ever been proven.’
‘We know,’ Saumerre said. ‘ We know. And that’s our cut. We want gold, antiquities, unique items that have huge cachet as collateral in arms deals, pipeline deals, multi-million-dollar enterprises that can rest on a single handshake, a single gesture of goodwill. Yet you and I have much in common. I am an educated man too, a lover of the arts. One day we should come here and talk more about these marvels.’ He swept his hand about the room. ‘We may regret that some of the great cultural treasures might never end up in museums. But some have been lost for so long, stolen so long ago and never found, that their very loss has become part of our culture. Schliemann’s treasure, for example. And look around us here. Already there are too many wonders to comprehend. And for you, my friend, it is our price. There is no compromise.’
Raitz looked at him, and then remembered the huge step he had taken to come here, the risk, his mounting excitement. His heart was pounding. He nodded. ‘Agreed.’
‘We will provide you with security. They call themselves Totenkopfe, after the Nazi death’s-head units. But they are mainly Russians. Ex-military. Mercenaries. Thugs for hire.’
‘They will do any dirty work.’
‘You need have no worry. That is out of your hands.’
‘There will be no killing?’ Raitz asked anxiously.
Saumerre peered at him, his eyebrows raised. ‘My friend. You forget your heritage. Your legacy. Why you are here.’ He paused, then put a hand on his arm. ‘As I said. You need have no worry.’
‘These Totenkopfe. They can be controlled?’
‘The ones you will see will be mere employees. Their leaders are united by their common allegiance to your cause. They swear to uphold the Nero Decree, Hitler’s order to destroy Germany, to have the thousand-year Reich or nothing. But this of course is fantasy. We have used them before in our business dealings in eastern Europe, and have found them more than willing to forgo ideology if the stack of gold bars is high enough. And this time it will be higher than any they have ever seen.’
‘And what if we don’t find it? Who do they blame?’
‘Business is about risks. You modify your plans. But that will not be necessary.’
‘Will there be anyone else?’
‘I believe you will be assisted by a colleague. By several colleagues.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The place you will be going may require technical expertise. Skills that few have to the level required.’
‘These are your people too?’
Saumerre looked at his watch. ‘Exactly twenty-four hours from now, you will know.’ He paused, looked round, listened, then opened his coat and withdrew the document case. ‘And now for what you want. On the twenty-ninth of April 1945, Adolf Hitler issued his final will and testament from his bunker in Berlin. We know you have often
