The Balkan Assignment (4 page)

I pressed the accelerator pedal all the way down to the floor and the engine groaned twice over and began to click.

"Wait," he called. I saw him pick up the can and pour a little more kerosene into the carburetor and then dig into his pocket.

He stuck his head around the side of the raised hood and yelled, "Get ready. Try once more when I tell you."

I waited less than twenty seconds before I saw an orange glare blaze up. At the same time, Ley jumped back and screamed, "Now!"

I pressed down on the accelerator pedal once more, the

engine turned slowly and then something exploded in a tremendous backfire. Clouds of blue smoke rolled from both ends of the car and the engine ran crankily up. I eased in the choke and Ley slammed down the hood and pushed me over into the passenger's seat. He ran the engine up quickly to warm it, shifted gears and eased forward, then into reverse to break the grip of the frozen snow. The ancient car groaned and creaked, but moved out of its ruts, the engine lurching and coughing. As we drove carefully out of the parking lot, I leaned back and wiped away the sweat that had accumulated on my forehead in spite of the cold.

"How in hell did you get it started?"

Concentrating to avoid the deeper snow along the road, Ley replied abstractly, "I filled the carburetor with paraffin oil and lit it with a match. The manufacturers do not recommend it, but it does work."

"For God's sake," I exploded, "you could have blown the whole damned car up!"

"Perhaps, but it was a chance we had to take wasn't it? Now, shut up and let me drive." Still shocked, I was silent a minute. "All right, one more question, how do we get me back aboard that train?"

Ley twisted the wheel sharply and we cut onto the main road leading west out of the village and toward the summit of the pass. The road had been cleared efficiently here and he increased the speed to seventy kilometers. "We are heading for a small town on the far side of the Alps, with luck, less than three hours from here. There the track has snapped from the cold and the train will be stalled. You will get back aboard there."

"How do you know the rail has snapped?" I asked suspiciously.

"Because I arranged it. There will be at least a three-hour delay." I shut up. I hoped that this arrangement would work out a hell of a lot better than his last two. Both Mistako, Bowen and the two agents we had killed in the hotel room kept dancing around in my head. The Med., my airfreight line . . . my escape from the world's insanity . . . what in hell had happened to it. And I knew; the same thing that always destroys utopia ... greed.

The next few hours were an insanity of reckless driving

over frozen, ice-encrusted hairpin turns as Ley pushed the old car to its utmost. The Dinaric Alps are not high by the standards of their Swiss and French cousins—only some eight to nine thousand feet—but they are rugged. Most of the roads running through their passes and valleys had started out as foot trails in times immemorial and had progressed through horse, cart and, finally, metalled or asphalt auto roads. Often they were less than two lanes wide; no turnouts and no guardrails; as if even the highway builders had not taken seriously the idea that roads could or should be pushed through these ancient mountains and these were only temporary affairs. Ley didn't seem to mind; in fact, did not even seem to notice. He drove like Stirling Moss when he was at his best. Yet in spite of the obvious danger, fatigue and emotional letdown finally caught up with me, leaving me drained and exhausted. Ley's face was set hard in the darkness . . purposefully, completely in command . . . far different from the harassed civil servant of our first meeting that morning, or rather, the previous morning as it was now long after midnight.

Herr Fredrick Ley was clearly in a quandary. He paced back and forth, pursed his lips and wrinkled his brow as if the sum total of these actions would prompt a correct decision. From the way we had been introduced . hastily and with no explanations or credentials shown . . . I suspected that he belonged to one of the innumerable West German intelligence agencies. The only thing I knew about him for certain was that he was a West German. That had been made clear immediately.

He paused on the other side of the room to stare down on the Garlenplatz, filled with midwinter sunshine and scurrying shoppers, obviously trying to decide what he should do next. Finally, with a sigh, he turned to me and placed his heavy hands on the back of Colonel Mistako's chair and pushed downward so that it rocked in time to his words.

"Herr Boyd, I find your reluctance to tell me the truth," he paused to search for a word and found . . . "incredible."

I sighed in turn. "I know, I know. But as I said earlier, I don't give a damn what you think. That's my story. You do what you want with it."

Ley gave me a pained look.

"There are many questionable facts . .."

"I don't really care if there are," I said, trying my best to hold my temper. "That's it. Now, if you have finished, I'm leaving . . . unless, of course, you have a warrant?" Ley snorted. "I have no jurisdiction in Yugoslavia. Colonel Mistako will have to see to that."

"Fine, then I've got better things to do than to sit here answering silly questions about buried Nazi treasures; particularly when it might help a government that I don't even care about."

Waiting in the reception room outside the office was Colonel Alexandre Mistako, chief of European Liaison for the Yugoslav Federal Police. As I closed the door, he got up from the desk where he had been talking with his hungry-eyed secretary and came across to take my arm and lead me aside.

"What was his reaction?" he asked quietly, nodding his head towards the door. I shrugged. "What would your reaction be? He doesn't believe me when I tell him that I don't know what he is talking about, any more than you did. He knows that if he is wrong, then you are wrong as well, and you can both wind up looking like a couple of mighty big fools."

"It's a policeman's lot to always be in danger of looking the fool," Mistako scowled. "Do not mistake his, or my, hesitation for fear."

"Well, you know more about that than I do. This nonsense sounds too much like a Grade-B thriller . . . maybe that's why you are hesitating?" I waited for his answer and got only a cold silence. "Have you decided about a warrant?" Mistako's scowl deepened. "We do not have enough evidence to talk of warrants yet .. . but we will try very hard to find out what you and your two friends are doing on Komat Island."

"Nonsense! If you believed any of what Ley told you, you would have me down in one of your dungeons right now."

Irritably, I shrugged my arm out of Mistako's hand and turned toward the window. The center of the Garlenplatz was filled with people bundled against the cold wind sweeping in off the Sava River. Girls in mini-skirts and boots floated across the square on their way to office jobs, their parkas and bulky coats contrasting with bare and booted legs. The whole mood of Belgrade was lighthearted, in keeping with the coming holidays; a mood Mistako clearly was not feeling. He was worried. The typical bureaucrat I decided . . . faced with a new situation he was at a loss without orders from higher up, and as chief of European Liaison, Ley had rightfully come to him first with his suspicions. Now Mistako had to decide whether or not to act. If he decided yes, he would have to arrest me and notify the government; tantamount to admitting that he believed Ley's story.

"We do not put people in dungeons in Yugoslavia . . but as you say, the story is rather fanciful," he finished. I thought I detected deepening doubt in his voice.

"But not so much so that you do not believe it?"

Mistako hesitated a moment before answering. His gaze followed mine to the square beyond the window. "No, only . . . officially, I do not disbelieve it."

"Officially?"

Mistako looked even more uncomfortable. "Yes, officially. Personally, I do not know what to believe. I receive a report from Major Vishailly on Kornat Island. He tells me that he suspects you and your comrades are on the island to illegally recover a store of gold left by the Nazis in the last war . . . to steal this gold since it is considered the property of the State.

"But, I happen to know that this treasure is buried beneath tons of rock and mud in the middle of a mountain. The government has already conducted several studies, and all have ended by advising that the costs to recover the store would be more than the value of the gold. Ordinarily, I would have dismissed the entire matter as an exaggeration or fabrication, but for two things; Vishailly is extremely reliable and I have never had reason to question his judgment before. Secondly, this German arrives from Berlin with the same story. What am I to believe? What am I to say, other than I will study the matter further . . ." His voice trailed off and he continued to stare out the window, seeing nothing but his own thoughts.

I waited a moment, then turned from the window and wandered away a few paces. "You know, it might help if you'd tell me what is going on. It could help me to come up with more information that would add pieces to the puzzle."

I stared at him, helpfulness--or at least the offer

written all over my face, but he avoided my gaze and moved toward the office door. "I am sorry," he said in that official and officious tone—the bureaucrat's refuge—"but I am not allowed. Now, if you will excuse me, r would like to consult with Herr Ley and receive his impressions."

I nodded and he paused before opening the door. "I will want to discuss this matter further. Therefore, please do not leave the city without notifying me first." I shrugged. "You're the boss." Mistako opened the door and went in to talk with Ley. The Federal Police Building in Belgrade is one of those new modem edifices that are popping up all over the eastern bloc nations . . . now that they have money to spend on frills.

The Yugoslav police have long outgrown the old secret-police days; they no longer come for you in the dead of the night, for instance. Now, if you've broken the law, you go to court with your lawyer. But, this was still a communist nation, even though small "c" communist; where the individual's rights are subordinate to the State, and modem building or no, the setup still smelled of secret-police prisons complete with torture chambers in the basement. I was glad to leave.

I had last been in Belgrade during the mid-1950s attached to the air attaché's office at the U.S. Embassy. It was right after the Hungarian uprising, and everyone was scared stiff that Khrushchev was going to send troops swarming across the Hungarian and Rumanian borders to put an end to Tito and his independent ideas. Militiamen, looking more like vigilantes than soldiers, roamed the streets and the capital had a wartime air that was half defiant, half scared-to-death. Now, the city more resembled London or West Berlin. Soft popular music with a definite rock beat floated out of a store specializing in high fidelity and stereo music systems. Along the sides of the Garlenplatz, public and private traffic swarmed, heavy but well-behaved. None of the honking horns and gesticulating, angry drivers that you find in New York or Paris. Belgrade is a "different" city in many respects, combining Western living with old-world Balkan courtesy. In all, it is a lovely city and one I'm glad that the Russians stayed out of with their dour, almost Victorian morality.

Mini-skirts for example, were at least four inches shorter than anywhere else in the Communist world.

I reached the hotel twenty minutes later and rode the . elevator to the seventh floor. The thick carpeting, which seems to be a passion in the Balkans, blotted up the usual undercurrent of noise that infests hotels everywhere, and the double windows effectively shut out the traffic sounds. The maids had finished with the room earlier and the air was still heavy with the piney scent of disinfectant mingling with the rosewater room freshener on the bureau. Lying on the floor next to the closet was the carton containing the new fuel pump.

Vishailly had been right when he predicted that I would have trouble with the local phone system. The telephone bureau in range of Kornat did not employ Italian-speaking operators, thus making it impossible to get through to Brindisi. But he could and did get me through to Belgrade where we found a repair co-operative that had a spare fuel pump to fit the PBY—but only if they did not have to deliver it. So, Vishailly had put me on the mail boat that calls once a day at the island from Mostar and from there it was an overnight train trip to Belgrade.

Earlier in the morning I had not been sure just what had prompted the call from the Federal Police. But Mistako's polite but firm request had brooked no opposition. Vishailly, the police official on Kornat Island, had been so attentive that afternoon that he left me wondering if he wasn't onto what we were up to.

My thinking processes were not helped any by pacing about the room, and so I stopped in front of the window and parted the thin curtains. A small park lay between the hotel and walls of buildings on the far side. Although the sun was shining brightly again, a stiff wind had sprung up, whirling the snow in small gusts along the tops of the snow banks piled on either side of the street where the snow plows had been at it. People hurried along with heads down against the cold. A neon sign on one of the air travel offices opposite competed vainly with the sunlight to pour a washed-out message in Cyrillic script around its frame while the wind flung streamers of snow at it up the face of the building.

It had been obvious right from the beginning that Mistako wasn't telling me everything he knew; especially

obvious when Ley showed up. While Yugoslavia's relations with West Germany had never been as virulent as those of the rest of the Communist bloc, they were far from friendly. For Yugoslays to have invited the intervention of a West German intelligence agency . . . that indicated to me that something really out of line was in the works. If I had known then that Ley was a member of Interpol, I might have been even more worried than I was. The scene beyond the window offered no more answer than had the carpet, and I was about to go down to lunch when I heard a key slide into the door. It was done just a trifle. too stealthily to be a maid, I thought. As I turned around, the door edged open and a man I did not recognize put his head in. Startled, he gaped at me a moment then slammed the door. By the time I reached the door and pulled it open, he was gone, disappearing around the turn in the corridor that led to the stairway. The chase was hopeless and I closed the door thoughtfully behind me, wondering if Mistako had put him up to this. Perhaps the police had not expected me to return so quickly to the hotel. Suddenly, I was angry. I didn't like to be spied on I discovered, and I was not going to put up with it. I grabbed the phone and dialed Mistako's office. He was out, conveniently, I thought, and I left word for him to call back as soon as he came in. Then, I went to work to make sure that no key was going to open the door unless I wanted it to. It was a simple matter to insert my key into the lock after first wrapping a heavy rubber band around and through the ring hole and looping it up and over the door knob. The rubber band pulled the key up into the lock, jamming it against the tumblers so that it could not be forced out from the other side. Simple, but effective. Then I phoned room service for lunch and settled back to wait for Mistako to return my call. It turned out to be a long wait; an eternal wait. About three in the afternoon, I picked up the phone and called Mistako's office again. The buzzing of the bell on the other end went on for a long time before anyone answered. When they did, I was surprised to hear Ley's voice, and he was equally surprised to hear mine. I asked where the hell Mistako was? He was dead. That simple, and I sat down heavily, stunned, stunned the way you always are