idiot, Sampson. I knew he’d never make captain.’
Stein tried to placate him. ‘Jim says it’s unlikely the US government will act. They’ll just say they know nothing about it.’
‘Very cool, calm and collected, was he?’ said Colonel Pitman sarcastically. ‘Do you remember Jim Sampson on the day I offered to cut him into our caper?’
‘Lieutenant Sampson was in charge of the maintenance platoon,’ said Stein. ‘We had to have him with us so that he could verify to the military police that we’d got a mechanical failure and had to stay halted at the roadside while the rest of the convoy continued.’
‘Never mind the details,’ said Pitman. ‘Can you remember all that stuff Jimmy Sampson gave us about having a sick mother who would suffer hardship if he went to Leavenworth?’ The colonel gave a cruel little laugh as he remembered the scene. He put down his drink and walked across the room to the humidor next to the drinks tray. He opened it with the key that released the pressure on the air-tight lid. ‘Want one?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, nor did Stein reply. He had never been known to decline a good cigar, and certainly not one of the cigars that Colonel Pitman had delivered from Davidoff, the best cigar merchant in Geneva.
The colonel selected a large cigar with considerable care. ‘I’m not allowed cigars nowadays,’ he explained. ‘But I’ll enjoy watching you smoke one.’ He cut the tip from it, presented it and lit it for Stein. ‘What are we going to do, Corporal?’ he said at last.
‘Losing one hundred million will wipe us out,’ said Stein.
‘Word of it will get around,’ said Colonel Pitman. ‘Maybe the bank could sustain the loss, but lost confidence will make it very difficult for us to continue trading, unless we find someone who will buy us out. There are the government guarantees and so on. So far, I haven’t taken advice about the legal implications because I don’t want to go spreading the story all round town.’
‘Say two million dollars from the cases of drugs in Zurich airport free zone,’ said Stein. ‘What else have we got in fixed-interest stocks and gold and stuff that we could sell?’
‘Maybe three-quarters of a million US dollars,’ said the colonel sadly. ‘I’ve been all through our assets time and time again. We’ve taken a terrible beating with the decline in value of the US dollar. We should have diversified much more. If I sold this house, maybe I could put another million into the pot.’
‘Nix on that, Colonel,’ said Stein. ‘None of the boys would want to put you on the street, or even in some lousy little apartment block downtown. By the time we’d shared it out, it wouldn’t be so much. We all shared in the benefits and we all have to share in the losses.’ He rubbed his nose. ‘I guess this is the end of the bank.’
‘My fault,’ said Colonel Pitman. ‘I take a nice fat salary for looking after everyone’s money. I can’t go on living in luxury after letting you down.’
‘Then maybe we should sell the documents to Breslow, or to the highest bidder,’ said Stein.
‘Let’s not jump out of the frying pan into the fire,’ said Colonel Pitman. ‘At present we are only short of money – and, let’s face it, none of the boys are paupers. If we put those old documents on the market, we might find ourselves facing fifteen years in Leavenworth. I’d want to get a lot of legal opinion before we let anyone know what we’ve got.’
‘Maybe you are right,’ said Stein.
‘You read all that stuff years and years ago,’ said Colonel Pitman. ‘I can remember you sitting upstairs, buried under it all. What’s in them?’
‘All kinds of junk,’ said Stein evasively. ‘My dad spoke fluent German. He always wanted me to learn, but you know how kids are. I have difficulty reading it, and that stuff we have is all written in the sort of bureaucratic double-talk that makes our own official documents just as baffling.’
‘I remember you showing me one lot of documents,’ said the colonel. ‘It was the minutes of a meeting. You were very excited by it at the time, you almost missed your lunch.’ The colonel grinned. ‘The pages were annotated and signed “Paul Schmidt” in pencil. You told me that he was Hitler’s interpreter.’
‘Schmidt was head of the secretariat and chief interpreter for Hitler and the Foreign Office in Berlin.’ He tasted the cigar, letting the smoke come gently through his nostrils. The last remaining shreds of light caught it, so that it glowed bright blue like some supernatural manifestation.
‘I remember it,’ said Pitman. He was speaking as if the effort of conversation was almost too much for him. ‘Führerkopie was rubber-stamped on each sheet. You said it was the minutes of some top-secret meeting.’
‘That’s right,’ said Stein softly. Outside in the hall the old long-case clock struck midnight; the chimes went on interminably and sounded much louder than they did in the daytime. ‘What did you do with those documents?’ said Colonel Pitman.
‘It’s better you don’t know,’ said Stein in the edgy voice of Corporal Stein, the orderly room clerk who never got anything wrong.
‘Perhaps it is,’ agreed Pitman. He went across to switch on extra lights, as if hoping that they would illuminate the conversation too. He looked at the Persian carpet that was hanging on the wall. It was a Shiraz – all that now remained of the treasures from the Kaiseroda mine. The carpet had been thrown from the truck when they first began to unload, a dirty stain on the canvas wrapping into which it had been sewn. The colonel still recalled the markings: Islamisches Abteilung, part of the Prussian state museum’s treasures, put into the salt mine to keep them safe from Allied bombs and Red Army artillery. In the hysterical atmosphere of that night, Jerry Delaney, who had driven the first truck right behind the colonel’s jeep, had shouted, ‘A present for the colonel,’ and the soldiers had cheered. They were good boys. Colonel Pitman felt a tear welling in his eye as he remembered them. Now he touched the surface of the carpet to feel the tiny knotted pile and the tassels. They were fine men; he had been proud to lead them.
‘What must we do?’ said Colonel Pitman.
‘We’ll have to know more about these film people, Colonel. They could be very dangerous, but …,’ he fluttered his hand, ‘but maybe they can be handled. Let’s see what they’re after.’
Pitman turned to look at him and nodded.
‘I’m going to take a few other documents back to California with me,’ said Stein. ‘I’ll feed them some odds and ends to see how they react. Meanwhile you follow up this trouble we’ve got with the bank. Talk to the other banks, see if they’ll support us. Maybe it’s somehow connected to this Breslow guy.’
‘You know best, Corporal, you always have done,’ said Pitman.
All cops who regularly ride the cars have an ‘eating spot’. Doughnut shops are a favoured choice. Such places always have good coffee ready to drink and, if a radio call comes in during the break, a doughnut can be snatched up and taken along. Also, doughnut shops are usually situated near busy intersections and have conveniently large parking places for their customers. All in all, a doughnut shop is
