But the display cases of most interest to Jim the thief … were the ones that contained gold crowns studded with jewels, fabulous Faberge eggs made for the Royal court by the House of Faberge. Jim was sorely tempted to just smash the case, grab an armful of eggs and run for it, sod the treaty! He laughed inwardly, knowing that he would never do that but it pleased him that there was so much treasure on display. It meant that when the alarm was raised, if anything the Rooskians would think that someone was after the treasure and in the ballroom, not the Ambassador’s office, where he and the safe would be. A classic piece of misdirection.
Jim got a bit of a shock at one point when he looked up and saw Seretsky looking directly at him. He had come into the room while Jim’s attention was occupied with a particular display. Jim looked back but Seretsky ignored him and just carried on watching everyone in the room. He saw that Seretsky would spend a few moments on someone that had caught his eye, like Jim, and then move on. Basically, he was checking out everyone in the room and Jim breathed a sigh of relief.
Jim spent several hours studying the cultural display as well as the layout of the interior of the building. When he was satisfied that he had seen everything useful he made his way down to the exit. By this time the place was heaving with visitors. Just perfect, lots of panicking people to create alarm and confusion, tomorrow when he acted. On his way out he made sure he checked the display board that gave the opening times for the exhibition, ten o’clock to five o’clock. Ten o’clock eh? he thought. Fine, then I will strike tomorrow at eleven o’clock.
***
When he got back to his hotel he found a surprise waiting for him in his room. The porter had returned the suitcase and it was lying on his bed. He opened it and was pleased to find everything he had asked for, smoke-grenades, packs of pencil detonators and some more explosive gelignite.
The original explosives and detonators that had been supplied to him were a sufficient amount and the type used to blow a safe, as he thought that was all he would have to do. And they were of the type where you usually set the charge and then waited at the scene for it to explode. However, his new plan required loud and frightening explosions to happen at a pre-arranged time, several hours after the detonators had been set. For that he needed longer term detonators.
The best type was the No. 10 pencil detonator, invented for the British Army. So called because it consisted of a long brass tube, about the size of a pencil, which had a copper section at one end. In the copper section was a vial of acid connected to a thin metal wire, attached to the wire was a spring-loaded striker. To set the detonator, one simply crushed the copper section with a pair of pliers. The acid slowly ate through the wire until it broke, releasing the striker. The striker then flew down the hollow centre of the detonator and hit the percussion cap at the other end. The percussion cap would explode, igniting the gelignite. Voila! Big boom, job done, everyone goes home happy. (Except for the people whose fortifications you’ve just blown up, but then that serves them right for being the enemy, doesn’t it?)
The clever bit about these detonators was the accuracy of them. They came in different lengths of time before they exploded, ranging from ten minutes to twenty-four hours and were accurate to plus or minus two or three minutes. They came in packs of five, with each pack containing detonators of the same length of time. Jim wanted the diversionary explosions to take place around eleven o’clock, so he would have to place them in the early hours of the morning, therefore he had asked for a range of packs from ten hours to seven hours as four am was the latest he could plant them, and still be sure of remaining in the dark.
Jim smiled wickedly as he inspected the detonators and the explosive. He had enlisted in the British Army in Bharat under a false name when he was a younger man. He had joined as an officer in the Royal Engineers, where he had learned all about explosives and blowing things up. Since then although he normally preferred to ‘crack’ a safe by listening to the tumblers as he spun them, he always relished the chance to ‘blow stuff up’ when the opportunity presented itself. Basically, he liked a good bang! (And who doesn’t?)
The smoke-grenades were the standard type, set the time in seconds, pull the pin and then you could hold the armed grenade in your hand quite safely as the countdown didn’t start until the spring clip down the side was released. Once you let the spring clip go, quickly get rid of the grenade, as when the timer ran down it would then explode with a ‘Whumf’ and pour out clouds of grey smoke.
Jim took his jacket off and began to assemble the explosive charges. He cut the gelignite into six pieces, not too large as the intention was to blow up a bush with a burst of flame and noise and send dirt flying everywhere, not to hurt anyone.
Next, he selected the ten hour detonators and pushed two of each into the soft, putty like explosive. Experience had taught him always to use two detonators, especially on unattended, delayed explosions. Then he put all the explosive charges and spare detonators into a leather case he had brought to Budapescht, along with the rest of his luggage. It was small, briefcase sized so it wouldn’t draw any attention if he was seen walking around, carrying it. Then he hid the smoke-grenades away in the wardrobe.
He washed up and went down to the restaurant for dinner. He lay off the alcohol, pleading an upset stomach, as he never touched the stuff when he had to handle explosives later. Experience had taught him that too. He’d seen what had happened to other men who had ignored that rule. He’d known enough men called ‘Lefty’ to make him realise it wasn’t worth it.
After dinner he returned to his room, set his alarm for midnight and settled down for a snooze.
***
Jim woke up, splashed some water on his face to wake himself up properly and got ready to go on his mission. He checked the case again to make sure that he had everything. Detonators, explosives and most important ... a pair of pliers. You could bite through the copper section or stamp on it to set the charge if necessary, but that could all get messy and Jim preferred to keep his teeth in his head and his feet on his legs.
Fortunately, he had brought a dark overcoat and hat with him as he had expected to do some night time work, so he dressed in them and let himself out of his room. He went down the service stairs of the hotel and let himself out through the back entrance, so he wouldn’t be seen by the staff.
Jim walked all the way to the embassy so that no cabbie could testify to taking him there. Andrassy Way was busy enough, even at that time of night, so that he did not stand out as he walked along the boulevard. He noticed thankfully that the side streets were practically empty, which would work out fine for him.
As he walked the street he considered his position in this heist. He was like the visiting tenor at an Opera house. The regular cast were there to assist him (the spy network) and they were all working towards the same end ... but when the curtain went up, Jim would be the one standing in the spotlight by himself and the opera would succeed or fail on his efforts alone.
Arriving at the embassy at ten minutes to one o’clock, he slipped quietly into Bajza St. and then down an alley. Pausing for a moment to make sure no one was around; Jim opened the case and took out the pliers. He waited there in the dark alleyway until his watch told him it was a few minutes to one, then using the pliers he crushed the copper sections on all of the detonators. If the Gods were willing, they would all explode at eleven o’ clock, give or take a few minutes, which is precisely what he wanted. He was relying on the inaccuracy of the timers to ensure there would be a gap between explosions, that way it would appear as if they were under a sustained attack instead of ‘a one off’ explosion. That would add to the confusion, as no one knew how many more explosions there would be and discourage them from examining the blast zone. He slipped the explosives into his pockets and removed his hat, dropping it into the case. Checking again that no one was around, he ran across the street and climbed over the fence, into the embassy grounds.
He quietly made his way to the rear of th
e embassy and at each one of the six bushes behind the ground floor windows; he pushed an explosive charge deep into the centre of the bush. Fortunately they were those ‘evergreens’ as they are called, that keep their leaves, even through the winter, so there was plenty of foliage to hide it from a casual view. Jim just hoped that today wasn’t the day that the gardener did his rounds.
After he had planted the charges, he returned to the alley and picked up his hat and case. Then he walked back to Andrassy Way and headed for the river. He didn’t want to just drop the spare detonators down a drain, as he didn’t want to be responsible for blowing up the Budapescht sewage system. No, he’d decided that he would throw them in the river and maybe one day a fish would get a nasty surprise but apart from that it was unlikely that anyone would get hurt as they didn’t fish in the river within the city limits, as it interfered with the trade being carried out by boat.
Once he had got rid of the detonators and explosives, he made his way back to his hotel, sneaked in the back way and was back in his own bed by three o’clock. As he lay there smoking his last cigarette he thought to himself the first pieces are in play and the ball is rolling. This is it. The Great Game is on!
***
It was the morning of the 18th and Jim was standing in the ballroom of the Rooskian Embassy, looking at his fob-watch. The time was ten minutes to eleven o’clock. Once again he compared it to the clock hanging on the wall, the clock was a minute fast according to Jim’s watch. He put his watch away and decided to take his timing from the clock from now on as he would need both hands free.
He ran over his preparations that morning, in his mind. He had got up, had a bath, dressed and then gone out onto the balcony to check the weather. It was perfect, it was a bright, sunny day but as it was still early in the year it was nevertheless cold enough that one needed to wear outer clothing. Which was ideal, as he needed to wear his overcoat to conceal the smoke-grenades and extra gelignite he would be carrying to blow the safe. Then he had packed his suitcases and gone down to breakfast in the hotel restaurant.
After a leisurely breakfast he had lounged about in his room until it was time to go to the embassy. On the way out he had told reception that he would be checking out that afternoon and would they please have his bill ready. Then he had taken his time getting to the embassy, arriving about half an hour before the time he had planned to act, just in case one of the timers was way off the mark and exploded too soon.
He wandered around the room, looking at the jewels and icons as he surreptitiously checked the clock every few minutes. He’d made his way to the far end of the room away from the entrance, as when he set off the smoke, he wanted the crowd of sight-seers, which was quite large by now, to run away from it towards the door and then down the stairs. If he set if off by the door, it would be between them and the exit so they would stay in the room, looking for another way out.
He undid his overcoat and took two smoke grenades from where they were hanging inside his coat. The clock said four minutes to eleven, so it would be any time now, therefore he pulled the pins, while retaining a hold on the spring clips, and put his hands into his overcoat pockets. And then waited ...
Three minutes to eleven by the clock on the wall ... BOOM! Good old Albion technology, he thought, always reliable. Everyone stopped and looked at the windows where earth and stones rattled against them. While everyone stood still, stunned by the explosion, Jim took his hands out of his pockets and dropped the smoke-grenades. While the crowd still stood gaping, Jim quickly made his way through them and exited the ballroom before the first scream of panic echoed out behind him as the grenades exploded with a ‘Whumf!’ and smoke began to billow out of them.
BOOM! Another explosion went off as the crowd began to stream out of the ballroom. Jim stood at the balcony between the ballroom and the head of the stairs and unnoticed, dropped another smoke-grenade down into the foyer, behind some potted plants. This panicked the embassy staff that were standing around in the foyer when it exploded, and they rushed off into the outer offices to raise the alarm. BOOM! Another explosion rattled the windows.
On the first floor where Jim was, across the other side of the stairs the two Cossacks guarding the Ambassador’s office and quarters came forward to help. Unseen in all the confusion, Jim dropped two more smoke-grenades and kicked them along the floor so they exploded behind the Cossacks. Seeing this, they ignored the crowd and bravely dashed through the billowing smoke to find the Ambassador and his family and take them to safety.
As they reached the end of the corridor and disappeared around a corner, Jim made his move. Struggling through the panicking exhibition guests he made his way to the Ambassador’s office and entered it. He had minutes to blow the safe and get out of there.
The safe was on the wall to the left of the Ambassador’s desk as you looked at it from the front, hidden behind a picture hanging above a smaller desk with a chair pulled up to it. Jim went to the picture and feeling around the edge, found the catch that released it. He pulled on the picture to swing it away from the wall but nothing happened! It won’t open! he told himself, then he took a second to think it through. Of course it won’t open you dummy, it slides ALONG the wall, it doesn’t pull away from it! Cursing his own stupidity he slid the painting away, revealing the safe.
As he had been told, it was a big safe, manufactured by Wittgenstein and Drexler. Nasty buggers to open, thought Jim, that’s why he had opted to blow it instead of spending a long time trying to crack it by ear. Reaching inside his coat he brought out the gelignite. Tearing it into three lumps, he placed one chunk above the combination lock, one below and then one to the side, between the lock and the edge of the safe door. He pulled out three bits of fuse wire, each cut to the same length and pushed one into each of the chunks of gelignite.
BOOM! Another explosive charge went off outside, scaring the hell out of Jim as he thought it was the stuff he was holding that had just gone off. Taking a deep breath and steadying his shaking hands, he lit the three fuses with his cigarette lighter and hid behind the Ambassador’s desk as the charges went off with an almighty BAAANG!! Fortunately this was followed shortly afterwards by another BOOM! thereby adding to the illusion that all the explosions were coming from outside.
Jim went quickly to the safe and wafted the smoke away so he could see what he was doing. Elbowing the hot safe door open, he quickly pulled all the documents out onto the desk below and began to sort through them, looking for the treaty. He didn’t speak Rooskian or Ungarian and hadn’t had any idea what a treaty looked like, but when he had expressed this concern to Thornton Wells, he had told him that it would be a large, ornate piece of paper, with coloured filigree around the edges and there would be two signature blocks, hopefully one with ‘Grenko’ written on it. So this is what he looked for. He soon found it, slid it back into the folio where he’d found it and put it into his overcoat inside pocket.
As Jim straightened up to leave, a voice behind him spoke brusquely in Ungarian or Rooskian. He froze at first and then still with his back to whoever it was, reached gently into his open overcoat, grabbed a smoke-grenade and removed the pin before slowly turning round, holding the grenade against his side, part covered by the folds of his coat.
It was Seretsky! That made sense, if he was as good as Thornton said he was then Jim imagined his first instinct would be to suspect an attack or intrusion of some kind on the embassy, and the Ambassador or the contents of his safe were the most obvious targets. Seretsky had a revolver pointed at Jim’s stomach and he spoke roughly again to Jim who replied, ‘Sorry old boy, don’t understand a word.’
Seretsky waved his free hand upwards indicating Jim should raise his hands which he did, after first releasing the spring clip on the grenade and began counting to ten. As you quite rightly should when guarding someone, Seretsky watched Jim’s face as he raised his arms and completely failed to notice the grenade in Jim’s hand until it had reached full height. On the count of nine, Jim thr
ew the grenade at Seretsky and was rewarded with his accuracy by seeing it explode with a ‘Whumf!’ in Seretsky’s face. Jim grabbed the chair beside him and whirling round, smashed it down on Seretsky’s head and shoulders. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
Jim kicked the gun aside and checked to see if Seretsky was still alive as the final explosion went off outside, BOOM! Jim held his hand in front of Seretsky’s mouth and felt his breathing. That was good then, he hadn’t wanted to kill anyone. He stood up to leave then had a brilliant idea. He took out the last smoke grenade and then released the pin and the spring clip. Hoisting the unconscious Seretsky to his feet, he heaved him across his shoulder and set off. It would look as if he was rescuing an injured man from a smoke-filled room, they would think he was a hero; no one would dare stop him.
He made his way down the steps and out of the now deserted embassy. Everyone, staff and visitors included, had been safely evacuated and were now across the road, as nobody wished to approach the rear of the building if there were still live explosives waiting to go off. Meanwhile, the fire brigade and medical staff had begun to arrive. Jim approached an ambulance and handed over the burden he was carrying. Everyone congratulated him for saving Seretsky’s life and then, as they turned to attend to their patient, Jim slowly backed away into the crowd until he reached the edge. Once he was behind everyone he simply turned around and walked quickly away.
The Londum Omnibus Volume Two (The Londum Series Book 12) Page 21
