In Pursuit of Platinum: The Shocking Secret of World War II (Ben Peters Thriller series Book 1)

by Vic Robbie

  ‘Ah, Madame,’ said Bernay. And she wheeled around as if she’d been awakened and he saw her eyes shining jade green like a cat’s in the light from the lamp.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ Bernay stepped forward and, still sitting, she extended a gloved hand.

  ‘If you please, Ben,’ Bernay called him forward. ‘Ben Peters, this is Madame...’

  ‘My name’s of no importance.’ A frown flitted across her face.

  He offered his hand, but she ignored it and instead turned to Bernay.

  ‘Is everything ready?’ His confident smile was all the answer she needed.

  ‘Then we must go now.’

  ‘There’s no problem,’ Bernay reassured her. ‘You’ll be on your way within thirty minutes, I promise...’

  ‘Why the delay?’ She pushed her hair from her face with a gesture of impatience, glancing at the door like a trapped animal looking for an escape route.

  ‘Ben has agreed to drive you to safety, the car’s waiting downstairs.’

  A scrambling noise from under the banker’s desk interrupted Ben as he was about to speak. Bernay froze and Ben saw doubt slip across his face as he stooped to see where the noise was coming.

  A small boy with a mass of brown curls crawled out from under his desk dragging a worn teddy bear. ‘I’ve found him, maman, he was hiding. He’s a naughty teddy.’

  She laughed, a warm, deep-throated chuckle filling the room and softening the edge to the atmosphere, and he wondered if he could ever make her laugh like that. ‘Good, Freddie, come on now we’re going for a ride in a car.’

  He turned questioning Bernay, who merely shrugged. Bernay had apparently known about this and he felt anger building up inside him. He’d agreed to drive Bernay’s Bentley and the platinum out of France. Crazy enough. To have to act as a babysitter to this woman and her child was ludicrous and even more dangerous.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ he said. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too late to catch a train to the coast and a boat over to England if he decided not to stay in Paris. ‘It’s impossible. Surely your friend can find a safer way to get out of Paris, Philippe?’

  He was aware of movement and they both turned to see the woman now standing and smoothing down her black and white houndstooth suit. She started towards them and there was a determination in her step. Shoulders back, she walked with the confidence of someone who was used to being watched and her heels beat a tattoo on the wooden floor.

  For the first time, she acknowledged his presence and close up she was even more beautiful with almost Slavic high cheekbones and her skin glowed with a light tan. A dimple like a perfect scar marked her right cheek and she smiled at him with her full red lips open, giving the impression she knew what he was thinking, and he found it disconcerting.

  ‘Mr Peters.’ She used his name not out of respect, more as if she were dealing with a servant. ‘This woman and child aren’t afraid to make the journey, surely a big man like you isn’t afraid?’ He noted the hint of a tremor in her voice.

  He stood his ground, shaking his head.

  ‘We were prisoners of the Nazis. We escaped. We’ve something they want and if they find us, they’ll torture and kill us.’

  He watched her mouth and wondered what it would it be like to kiss.

  ‘Why can’t you just slip away to the country and find somewhere to hide?’ He felt he was being backed into a corner.

  Her hair was reflecting the light from the lamp and kinking over her right eye so it touched her curled eyelashes making them flicker.

  ‘You don’t know the Nazis, you don’t understand what they’re capable of.’

  He was finding it difficult to listen. Like dark pools of hypnotic green, one moment her eyes shone with a haughty arrogance and the next were so haunted it was like two separate personalities battling each other for dominance of her psyche. And it betrayed a vulnerability making him want to reach out and touch her.

  ‘They’ll find you. Even in their own country they’ve set up a system of informers. Everyone tells on each other, it’s the only way to survive. Brothers against brothers. Sisters against sisters. Even children are indoctrinated to report their parents.’

  Pushing back her hair, she smiled although it was more an appeal for help. ‘We’ve no other options; you’re our last hope...’

  He knew this was a bad idea. The more he thought about it, the more complicated it became burrowing into his conscience like the roots of an unwelcome tree. He looked away from her to Bernay hoping it would break the spell and commonsense would prevail.

  He’d never seen Bernay so agitated. The banker stepped between them and, grabbing both his arms, propelled him backwards and up against a wall almost immediately dropping his grip when he realised what he’d done.

  ‘For God’s sake, Ben, if not for me or for France, please help this woman and her child. If you don’t, it will be on your conscience for the rest of your days. The British asked me to arrange her safe passage. All is lost if you don’t take her. She’s very important to them.’

  The small boy looked up at Ben, uncertainty in his pale blue eyes.

  He glanced about him as if he expected someone to come to his rescue and, realising he was outnumbered, just sighed. Reason had been telling him to walk away, yet he almost welcomed the idea of an adventure. Bernay was playing on his conscience and he knew he was about to make the wrong decision and would pay for it.

  Smiling down at the boy, he said: ‘Right, come on Freddie, we’ve a car to catch.’

  And he took the small boy’s hand.

  The woman gasped with relief and grabbed his sleeve.

  ‘Do you have a gun?’

  She tugged at it.

  ‘You’ll need one.’

  ‘Oh, boy, do I have a gun.’ He looked accusingly at Bernay and realised there would be little point in telling her he’d never fired one before.

  ‘Promise me one thing.’ She fixed him with a desperate stare. ‘If the Nazis are going to capture us, you must shoot Freddie first and then me. You mustn’t let them take us alive.

  ‘Promise!’

  ‘I promise.’

  15

  AT first, he didn’t notice. she’d turned her head away from him and the hissing of the tyres on the tarmacadam and the whistling of the wind through the Bentley’s open windows muffled the sound of her sobbing.

  They’d packed Freddie into the back seat under a travel rug. But as Ben nosed the Bentley out of the bank’s car park the boy was up on his knees with his nose pressed to the small rear window taking in the pandemonium on the streets. To get out onto the roadway took forever, as the entire population of Paris appeared to be fleeing. By now the railway stations had closed their gates as they were being besieged by Parisians desperate to catch a train south. And only the more athletic were able to get into the stations by climbing over the high railings. Fear of the unknown hung over the city like an enormous, dark immovable cloud and the thousands of refugees knew the big boot of the Nazis could stamp down and crush them at any time.

  It was a parade of despair. They used any means of transport available to them – cars, motorcycles, vans, trucks, bicycles and horse-drawn carts piled high with possessions with women and children sitting precariously atop everything. And the horses were skittish adding to the mayhem. Others without transport walked carrying a few essential possessions on their backs and even the youngest children wore backpacks. Cripples, knowing they would be the first on the Nazis’ list for extermination, hobbled along on crutches and when they fell no one came to their aid. Some ran in a blind panic without any sense of direction, scrambling to get away from a ruthless army only a matter of hours away.

  As they sat becalmed by this mass of humanity, she became more and more agitated and kept glancing at her watch as if she knew when the Germans were expected.

  ‘If we’re going to share this car over the next few days, I should at least know your name,’ insisted Ben with what he hoped was a reassuring s
mile.

  She studied him for several seconds debating whether to give away any more information than necessary.

  ‘It’s Alena.’ She glanced away as if her eyes might reveal more.

  ‘Alena?’

  ‘Until we get to Estoril, it’s Alena Peters.’ There was an edge to her voice. ‘It will be better if they believe we’re a family.’

  He thought it made sense if they ever got moving. Bernay had planned a route south heading for Orléans, Tours, Poitiers, Bordeaux and crossing the border into Spain near Hendaye on the coast. However, getting out of the city would be more of a problem than he’d anticipated. His misgivings about accepting Bernay’s mission were mounting. Alone, he could have coped. Now he had a car, a woman and boy to babysit.

  She interrupted his thoughts. ‘Get out of the driver’s seat.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was brought up in Paris. I know my way around.’

  He did as he was told and walked around to the passenger’s side as she slid over into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

  She glanced at him with a determined smile.

  ‘Hold on, Freddie,’ she shouted and he squealed in excitement.

  He couldn’t see any way for her to break out of the jam, but she pointed to a narrow opening about fifty yards down the road.

  ‘If we can make it to that alley I know a way through.’ And she gripped the steering wheel all the tighter.

  She pulled hard on the wheel and reversed mounting the pavement and knocking over a dustbin and he winced at the thought of the damage to the Bentley’s expensive bodywork. The car made a horrendous mechanical grinding noise as she slammed it into first gear and it shot forward along the pavement scattering everyone in its path. He was convinced she was driving with her eyes closed because anyone with any feeling for humanity, seeing the mass of bodies ahead of them, would be forced to pull up.

  Somehow they reached the opening. Again she pulled hard on the wheel lurching down off the kerb and into the traffic. The Bentley’s nose parted a clump of screaming people who were in danger of falling beneath its wheels and they scraped through a gap between two cars.

  ‘Sors de la voie, salauds,’ she shouted at them and he glanced at her in surprise.

  Horns blared and people shouted in anger as they crossed the road and entered an empty alleyway that appeared to be a dead end. But a hundred yards down it turned sharp right and, crossing another road, they sped down another narrow alley.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he shouted gripping the dashboard. ‘It’s one way and we’re going the wrong way.’

  Pushing her hair away from her eyes, she turned with a defiant smile. ‘So what? We’re all going one way.’

  They wound their way down alleys and along side streets in a blur and eventually emerged onto the Rue du Pont Neuf where the traffic was now moving slowly. Law and order had been abandoned. The few traffic police still on duty had given up and all courtesies were ignored as cars aimed for wherever there was a gap to put a few yards more between them and the advancing enemy. As they approached the Seine, the traffic ground to a halt and there seemed to be no way through.

  ‘We’ll take the quais and try to cross the Seine at Bercy where it might be quieter,’ shouted Alena swinging the car left. And in his ignorance he nodded his agreement with a sharp intake of breath. He’d thought the Coney Island Cyclone roller-coaster with its 85-foot sixty-degree drop was the scariest ride he’d survived – it was nothing compared to Alena’s driving. She showed no quarter to either man or machine and after a series of unusual manoeuvres – some of which forced him to close his eyes – they were running free in the outskirts of the city.

  ‘Take over,’ she ordered bringing the car to a gradual halt. ‘You’re the one who’s supposed to be driving.’

  It had been one of his fantasies to drive this Bentley and even better with a beautiful woman by his side, but not in these circumstances. The smoothness of the ride was nothing like his old Ford convertible back home. That was like driving a biscuit tin compared to this beauty, and it lulled him into a relaxed state almost diminishing the imminent danger.

  He’d never worked out whether Hemingway was into cars. The writer loved his boats of course and his game fishing. Ben couldn’t handle them. He couldn’t even swim. As soon as he stepped onto a boat the movement made him queasy and when his parents took him on boat rides as a kid, he spent most of his time throwing up. No, give me a Bentley, he thought, and he’d be a happy man.

  Her sobbing was now becoming louder and her shoulders shook the more the southern suburbs receded.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it.’ He placed a hand on her arm and she stiffened at his touch and pulled away.

  ‘I’m okay, okay.’ She pushed her hair back from her forehead and her eyes were red with the tears. ‘It’s just a relief getting away from Paris.’

  ‘The Nazis must have very good reasons to be after you?’

  She gulped and cut off his questioning by turning to adjust the rug covering the now sleeping Freddie.

  He wondered why they were pursuing her and why the British were so desperate to get her to England. Where was the father of her child? Lurid permutations flashed through his mind and he felt the responsibilities on his shoulders growing heavier with every mile. Getting out of Paris had been achieved unscathed yet he wondered what lay ahead.

  16

  THE whole of france appeared to be on the move like an ants’ nest disturbed.

  They passed convoys of cars and trucks, including one with twenty nuns in the back sitting prim and upright and singing hymns, and horse-drawn carts and groups of refugees trudging along the side of the road weighed down by possessions as heavy as their thoughts. Some items once important were now discarded for the sake of speed and littered the roadside, and vehicles lay abandoned because they’d run out of fuel or had ceased to function. A potent mix of despair and fear swirled in the air. And Ben knew if the Bentley should fail this would be their fate so he listened to the note of the engine for an early warning of any mechanical problems.

  The aged and the infirm struggled side by side with the able-bodied and failed to keep up. The image haunted him so he suggested to Alena they allow some of them to cling to the car, standing on the running boards, at least until the next village. The vehemence of her answer surprised him. ‘If we do, every time we slow down or stop we’ll have them jumping on us.’ She frowned at his stupidity. ‘How long do you think we’d last then?’

  He gritted his teeth and concentrated on the road ahead. They made slow progress, but they were putting distance between them and the Germans and with every mile she seemed to relax a little more, although he thought a coiled cobra might have been more relaxed. Any attempts at conversation were futile. Now awake, Freddie jumped about in the back seat, taking in everything he saw and asking interminable questions, and only when she answered them with a concerned patience did she show her human side.

  The main highway had become more than just the tarred road and the endless convoy branched off wherever it appeared suitable for a vehicle. With the zeal of pathfinders, they took any gap helping them leapfrog the vehicles in front. When congestion blocked the way, some would break free from the cavalcade, like a tributary from a river, going cross-country until they found a path to rejoin the road. Occasionally, this tactic backfired when investing all their trust in the leader they’d find themselves at a dead end and had to stop and reverse and manoeuvre their way back with much shouting and honking of horns.

  Like an unwelcome visitor in the night, every so often the suggestion would slip into his mind. At first, he dismissed it before it could get a hold, but after a while he listened to it and in many ways it did have an appeal. Why not keep the car and the bullion of course. Perhaps he could persuade her to live with him like a king and queen somewhere in Spain or Portugal. Then he could write every day and when all this blew over they’d go back to America a
nd...

  ‘Ben, BEN.’ She shouted at him and shook his arm to get his attention making the car swerve. ‘Where’s your gun?’

  ‘Why?’ He couldn’t see any danger and the longer he could put off handling it again the better.

  ‘What would you do if we came upon a German patrol?’

  ‘They’re not supposed to be down here.’

  ‘We’ve no idea where they are. For all we know we might be heading straight into their lines.’

  He shrugged without thinking.

  ‘These people kill for fun; they’d shoot you like a stray dog. They don’t value human life. And these...’ She gestured at the refugees. ‘Any of them could ambush us and steal the car.’

  ‘They aren’t our enemies; they’re trying to escape the Germans like us.’

  ‘Don’t be naïve.’ She brushed her hair out of her eyes in exasperation. ‘They’re more desperate than our enemies making them even more dangerous. When trying to get out of Germany, I’d have done anything – even kill – to escape.’

  He looked across at her and didn’t doubt her for one minute.

  ‘It’s in my bag,’ he said.

  ‘Your gun’s in the trunk?’ She screwed up her face in disbelief. ‘Jesus, you’re supposed to be protecting us.’

  He nodded ruefully.

  ‘It’s no use to you there,’ she shouted slamming both hands down hard on the dashboard. ‘Stop the car now.’

  He stamped on the brakes and the car screeched as the tyres burned rubber and fishtailed to a halt.

  ‘Go on, get the gun.’

  Drivers of following vehicles shouted and cursed him to keep moving, but he ignored them and retrieved the gun. When he returned to the car, she took it from him and he noted she loaded it and expertly checked it before placing it in the glove box as he got the car rolling again.