The Gold of Troy

Prologue

Berlin — April 1945

The fighting had reached the western edge of the city; the shattered buildings, the burning trees of the Gruenwald, the tilted telephone poles, dangling wires, all testified to the ferocity of the battle, now approaching the Elbe. The troops under the command of Captain Mikhail Sudikoff had borne their share of the attack, and the captain heard with relief from his radio-man that his battered company had been detached from the fighting and were to retire to the larger of the two bunkers at the Berlin zoo, now firmly in the control of Russian troops, for rest and what little recreation they could find.

The bunker lay like a huge obscene blister on the crater-filled area of the zoo; the last of the many paintings that had been stored there by the Nazis — depriving residents of the city precious space during the air-raids — were in the process of being removed. The young Russian lieutenant in charge of the operation smiled at Sudikoff and made a welcoming gesture.

“It’s all yours,” he said, and climbed on the truck bearing the paintings away.

The organization of the bunker fell to the quartermaster, Sergeant Fedor Kolenko. Sergeant Kolenko had been a university professor in the days before the war, but now he was satisfied to serve a younger and more military-minded captain as quartermaster. Under his direction a first-aid station was set up as being the first priority, followed quickly by the establishment of the field kitchen near the huge ventilation ducts that fed air to the half-buried bunker. Then the troops were distributed the bedding that had been abandoned by the fleeing former occupants. A hammock, which was discovered, was taken by the sergeant and hung in the room selected by the captain for his headquarters.

These essentials to normal military operation completed, the sergeant moved on to the next task. He assigned Corporal Leon Sokolov and Private Dmitry Boldin to go through the many rooms and warrens of the huge bunker and make some sort of inventory of anything they might find. Not, the sergeant had to admit, that there was apt to be anything of much value left either by the retreating population, or the troops under the young lieutenant who had liberated the paintings. And also, of course, anything left over would have been instantly commandeered by their own troops before any meaningful inventory could be taken. Still, if there were any food supplies, they would have to be turned over to the quartermaster for equal distribution, and it was not unknown for important personages to see to it that proper food supplies, and even liquor supplies, were available to them in their enforced incarceration while enemy bombers made life on the surface untenable. Both the corporal and the private were more than willing to undertake the important survey, even though Sergeant Kolenko added ominously, “And anything you find, you bring back here!” Soldiers, after all, he felt, were not all that different from students. They needed to be kept in line every now and then. “Understand?”

This last, of course, being rhetorical and requiring no comment, the two nodded happily and went off, the corporal’s rifle from habit accompanying him hooked by its webbing over his shoulder, while the private’s machine-pistol — his pride and joy since he had only captured it that morning — swung from an arm strap. The two started at the foot of the few steps leading up the Tiergarten and the almost-decimated zoo, and followed the many passages and corridors of the bunker to their ends, finding little more than their comrades settling in, soldiers who resented the thought that they might be asked to give up this acquisitioned chair or that liberated table. But there was no sign of food, and the corporal and the private were about finished when by pure accident — Private Boldin kicked at a pile of rubbish more in frustration than for any other reason — they discovered a small recess in the wall. Apparently the recess had once been covered with plaster, but the plaster had crumbled under the heavy bombardment. The corporal bent down and studied the interior of the small cavelike opening. Then, with a sigh — for he had small expectations of finding anything either useful or valuable or even edible at that late date — he dragged a small trunk into view.

It was a small trunk, less than three feet long, several feet wide, and several feet high, with an old-fashioned rounded top. The two men examined it with increasingly diminishing interest. It was simply a small traveling trunk of an earlier era, made up either of cheap wood or imitation board covered with wood veneer, that had been, in turn, inexpertly covered with some sort of faded and malodorous artificial leather, and with bands of greenish copper riveted about it to give it the appearance, if not the actuality, of security. As if to add to this charade of invulnerability, someone in the past had fastened a heavy, efficient-looking padlock through the cheap hasp. Private Dmitry Boldin sneered openly at the padlock and raised his machine-pistol; he loved firing it at any excuse, and this seemed like a reasonable time to test his newly acquired acquisition once again. But just as quickly Corporal Leon Sokolov knocked the private’s arm up before he could fire.

“Idiot!” he said reprovingly. “What if there are bottles inside?”

Private Boldin had the grace to blush. He lowered his machine-pistol as Corporal Sokolov reversed his rifle, preparing to bring the butt down on the padlock. At this point Private Boldin retaliated.

“Or if it’s booby-trapped?” he asked.

Corporal Sokolov managed to restrain his downward thrust in time, and stared at the small trunk with a frown. Then he did what he should have done in the first place; he simply pulled his bayonet from its sheath, slid it through the hasp, and with an easy twist removed the hasp entirely, padlock and all. For a while he hesitated about opening the trunk, but the temptation was too great. He reached down and tipped the lid back, stepping back quickly. There was no explosion. The men stepped forward again and stared inside.

There were four packages there of approximately equal size. Corporal Sokolov put aside his rifle, picked one up, and began to unwrap it. The contents seemed to have been protected with exceptional care, the outer wrapping being of fine suede leather, and the inner one of sheet after sheet of tissue. The corporal’s hopes of a rich discovery began to increase as he noted the care with which someone had packaged his find. But his face fell when, after peeling away the final sheets of tissue, there only appeared to be some poor examples of buttons and beads made from what seemed to be a poor-quality brass. With a disappointed grimace he put the package aside and began to unwrap a second.

Private Boldin could not understand this waste of time with something obviously Germanic, especially since nothing edible or drinkable had been discovered.

“Let me put a couple of bursts through the entire works,” he said, his finger caressing the trigger of his machine-pistol almost sensuously. “Let me shoot it up. Whatever that junk is, let’s make sure no German bastard ever has a chance to use it. Although,” he added, frowning down at the opened package with the profound judgment of a Ukranian expert, “whoever on earth would want to use garbage like that, is beyond me.”

Sokolov shook his head. He had finished unwrapping the many folds of tissue that protected the contents of the second package, and while the contents were made up of larger pieces, the same cheap or inexperienced labor had apparently been employed, as well as the same inferior material. Still, the corporal had been sent on a mission, and about the only thing he had found that the troops hadn’t already taken over was this one small trunk, and he would have a hard time explaining to the sergeant why he had permitted Private Boldin to use it for target practice without at least first reporting it.

“No,” he said with finality, and roughly wrapped the pieces back into their original coverings, thrusting the packages back into the trunk and closing the lid tightly. “No. We’ll take it back to the sergeant. Maybe some of the guys will want to take some of this junk home with them for souvenirs.” He grinned, exhibiting large stained teeth. “They can tell their friends these are samples of the handiwork of the master race.”

“My old grandmother,” Private Boldin said critically, “half-blind and crippled with arthritis, could do better. With mud.”

“I’m sure,” Corporal Sokolov said politely. He picked up his rifle with one hand and one of the end straps of the trunk with the other, while Boldin picked up the other end. Even with its cargo of the four packages of metal the trunk was not very heavy, and the two men had no trouble bringing it to the room adjoining the captain’s quarters, where they set it on the floor before Sergeant Kolenko. The sergeant considered them quizzically.

“It’s all we found, at least all we found that the other guys weren’t already using, like benches and chairs and tables and stuff,” Corporal Sokolov stated, and sounded a bit shamed by his failure to bring more loot to his superior. He shrugged apologetically. “No food of any kind. It’s obvious this bunker was used just as an air-raid shelter, plus to store those paintings, and not as headquarters for any group who might have left any supplies behind. There’s no sign of continued occupancy.”

“I see,” the sergeant said, and studied the trunk. Its appearance was certainly not very prepossessing. He raised his eyes. “Where did you find it?”

“Boldin, here, was kicking at a pile of rubbish and this was behind it, in a little hole in the wall. Apparently it had been plastered over, but the barrage must have shaken the wall and the plaster broke.”

“Was there anything else in the hole?”

“No, sir. It was just about big enough for this trunk, as a matter of fact.”

“I see,” the sergeant said, and raised the trunk lid. He knelt down and opened the package Sokolov had rewrapped loosely and had placed on top. The sergeant stared at the contents with a frown upon his face. He unwrapped a second package, followed by his rapid unwrapping of the final two packages in the lot. His hands began to tremble. With an effort he kept his face expressionless as he came to his feet and carefully closed the lid.

“Boldin, here,” the corporal said into the vacuum, for the sergeant seemed at a loss for words, “he wanted to shoot the stuff up, just for the hell of it, I guess, or just for fun, or to make sure no German ever got to use the junk again, although why anyone would want to, I can’t imagine. But I figured that even if it’s garbage, maybe some of the guys might like to have pieces of it to take home for souvenirs—”

“You” — Sergeant Kolenko restrained himself with an extreme effort. He had been about to say “Idiots!” but managed to change it at the last moment — “are to be congratulated on your restraint. And you, too, private. That will be all.”

And when the two soldiers had left, the sergeant stared at the closed trunk lid for several minutes, sighed deeply, and then walked into the captain’s quarters. The captain was lying in his hammock, staring at the arched ceiling of the bunker.

“Captain—”

The captain rolled over in his hammock, almost pleased with the interruption; he had been thinking of the duties that peace would impose upon him and others of the occupying forces, condemned to try to clean up the mess their own artillery had produced. They were not pleasant thoughts.

“Yes, sergeant?”

“Captain,” the sergeant said, and took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice from trembling. “Captain, have you ever heard of the Schliemann treasure?”