‘They didn’t have oil — or nothing to speak of.’
‘They had technology — the best in the world. Anyway, they lost, didn’t they?’
‘It took them a damned long time to lose.’
‘They had Rumania, the Russian fields, and the rest they manufactured themselves — from shale and coal.’
‘Can you run a tank or heavy armoured vehicle on synthetic fuel? And the Russian fields were lost by 1943, and after that the Rumanian ones were being bombed flat, until they were taken in 1944. But the Germans kept going.’ Robak said calmly, with a thin layer of contempt: ‘As I said, the Germans were very advanced in their techniques. I mean scientific techniques. With respect, Mr Hawn, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.’
Logan broke in: ‘The whole of Nazi Germany was bristling with synthetic fuel plants. They were up to every trick. We don’t begin to equal them for ingenuity. They even built a car that ran on wood!’
The fat Frenchman, Pol, now spoke in a high cooing voice: ‘They did better than that, messieurs. They constructed a train that ran on the gases from old corpses. And corpses were about the only thing they weren’t short of!’ He took a deep drink, then shook his head: ‘But I regret, my dear Monsieur Logan, when you talk of synthetic fuel, you mean the hydrogenation process. It is one I am familiar with. It yields a very low-grade petrol, and the Germans were only able to use it in aircraft or light vehicles. They fitted their Messerschmitts with a specially adapted engine that used water-injection — the first of its kind. Very ingenious, but with a synthetic fuel it only lasted twenty minutes before it burnt out. However, that was just enough, since their production lines could produce a new engine every fifteen minutes.’
There was a pause. Logan looked momentarily confused. But Hawn’s blood was up, and when he spoke again, he had Anna’s full attention: ‘Speer was building a thousand of those Tiger Tanks a month — in a factory under a mountain, to protect them from Allied attacks. He kept them rolling against us and the Russians right up to zero hour — when the Fuhrer blew his head off, and the whole pack of cards came tumbling down. Hitler maintained a mobilized army that could match both us and the Russians, and could fight us all right up to the touchline. How did he do it? Where did he get his fuel from?’
Hamish Logan sat forward and snapped his fingers; his face was very red. ‘I know, you’ve been talking to that ridiculous little Prince Grotti Savoia! He’s been making a perishing nuisance of himself here in Venice in these last few days. Things haven’t been easy for any of us, without having that wretch poking up at odd times and spouting all his nonsense about the oil companies — by which he means ABCO, of course. And he doesn’t do you journalists any more good than he does us. Stories like that simply lower the tone. Somebody should shut him up.’
‘Perhaps somebody will. He’s jittery enough. He even got all upset when somebody took an American’s photograph in the bar. He sees spies everywhere.’
‘Simple case of paranoia. Probably got the DTs too. He’s beyond the slippery slope, is Grotti Savoia.’ Logan lit a cigar and looked at Hawn, casually, conversationally. ‘I suppose he just gave you his old spiel? The Nazis didn’t have any obvious sources of oil, except Rumania, so where did they get it from?’
‘You tell me, Hamish. Forget about the Principe. Where did they get it from?’
Logan sighed. ‘Reserves. Everyone has reserves. At the time of the 1973 oil crisis, it was given out that the Pentagon had reserves for five years — hidden in underground lakes.’ He handed his empty glass to the waiter. ‘Don’t tell me that old Adolf wasn’t prepared. He’d had six bloody years to prepare.’
Pol popped an olive into his mouth and said nothing.
Ham Logan seemed to have recovered his professional calm. ‘I don’t want to sound patronizing, my dear Tom. But I do think you’ve been out in the wilds too long. Too much time to think. A bit of sanction-busting in Southern Africa is one thing — but insinuating that our major Western oil company may have connived at helping the Nazis is really carrying things too far.’
‘Too far for you, maybe, Ham,’ Anna said, ‘particularly if it’s true.’
‘Now, don’t you start being silly too, Anna. You must excuse our two young friends,’ he said, turning to Robak and Pol, ‘but journalists — particularly those who have been out of action for some time — tend to get a little excited. They fantasize.’
‘Au contraire,’ said Pol: ‘I find your friend’s theories most stimulating. The war still holds many secrets. We must not simply close our ears to the possibility of them, just because the idea is inconvenient, even repugnant to our interests.’
‘I’d like to make one thing quite clear,’ Hawn said. ‘I never once insinuated that ABCO, or any other Western oil company, traded with the Nazis. Those were your words, Ham, not mine.’
‘And Anna’s.’
‘Leave Anna out of this.’
Robak spoke, bland, his dry grey eyes fixed unblinking on Hawn. ‘It’s certainly a dramatic theory, I’ll grant you that, Mr Hawn. And an original one. But I don’t recall — did you say you got it off that Prince fellow, Grotti-something?’
Hawn did not believe that the Prince really needed his protection: yet there was something that worried him about Robak — apart from his being sure that he had seen the man before. He and Logan and the grotesque Frenchman made an incongruous, even sinister trio. He said: ‘I got it off the top of my head — stuck in a traffic jam this afternoon.’
‘Huh-huh. Don’t laugh, Ham — some of
