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

by Vic Robbie

  He laughed. ‘Not any longer, it rattles like an old tin can.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Garza with a faraway look in his eyes.

  ‘The car’s not much use to you. I’m afraid it’s in a bit of a mess and I suppose the man in Lisbon will knock down the price now.’

  Garza spread his arms. ‘No problem, my friend, I’ve a collection of fine cars and the people to look after them.’

  He watched Garza’s eyes flicker over the playing Freddie and settle on Alena, who was looking down at her hands, and he felt Garza’s anticipation as hot as a lover’s breath on his skin.

  ‘Then there’s the child and the woman. She’s perfect...’

  51

  ANGER simmered just under the surface and every now and then he aimed a kick at whatever was in range. This was his operation. He was the one who was going to arrange the safe departure of the woman and child and, with a bit of luck, the platinum. Rafe Cooper alone was in charge, or so he thought until he’d taken the call.

  The orders were specific. A top agent from the British Embassy in Paris had been dispatched to ensure everything went to plan. This operation was too important to fail. The agent would arrive in Estoril either late on the Saturday night or early Sunday, the same day he expected the arrival of the Bentley with its valuable cargo. The agent would make contact and he must follow his orders to the letter.

  It didn’t help that Rafe’s head hurt like it had never hurt before. Those Germans knew how to celebrate and while he’d stayed at the Palácio to glean as much information as possible he wasn’t averse to a good supply of free champagne. He’d always marvelled how well they all got along together. Elsewhere they would be shooting each other. Here it was as if they were fans of rival football teams joining in the celebrations of victory or commiserations of defeat.

  And he’d sought out the hatcheck girl at the casino as she finished her shift. He’d still not found out her name, but by then he was past worrying and now he couldn’t remember whether she’d told him her name or not.

  Then the phone call. The agent had better not change his arrangements, he thought; he’d already paid out enough money and it was too late now to rearrange things. That would just put them all at risk.

  He set off to see Armand, the shopkeeper he’d known since he first arrived and would trust with his life. Armand kept reminding him the alliance between the English and Portuguese was the oldest in the world and it was their duty to continue it. Armand ran a fruit and vegetable shop in a cobblestoned side street just off the Avenida Marginal, Estoril’s main road running along the sea front. And Rafe had paid him for the use of a lock-up in a quiet lane not far from his shop.

  He’d no intention of burdening the shopkeeper with the details and Armand, not wishing to know, had put up a hand and said: ‘In ignorance there is safety.’

  He collected the keys from Armand, cracked a few jokes with his teenage son, Christiano, and walked over to the garage and unlocked the door. It was empty apart from some wooden crates piled high in a corner as he’d requested and a malodorous smell of rotting vegetables assailed his senses. Overhead lighting picked out a ramp on which the Bentley would be driven before being relieved of its bullion cargo.

  Perfect! The flying boat would come into the beach, Praia da Tamariz, only a couple of hundred yards away. And they would be able to work here and extricate the platinum and get it ready for transfer to the plane.

  He couldn’t see any flaws, and he hoped when he showed the incoming agent he wouldn’t either.

  52

  ‘WHAT are you saying?’ ben tried to keep his voice even, fighting against the alarm threatening to engulf him.

  ‘Well let’s say I help people to resettle and make new friends,’ replied Garza.

  ‘What do you mean?’ His voice was growing louder.

  Garza smiled. He could be a patient man when it suited him. ‘Africa is just across the Mediterranean from Spain and there they have different ideas to us about possessions. Like cattle, people can be possessions and they like to buy European –’

  ‘You can’t.’ He jumped to his feet understanding Garza’s intentions.

  One of the bikers waiting in the shade stepped forward and jammed his carbine into Ben’s ribs, and Garza clutched his arm.

  ‘Let’s not be hasty or else he’ll shoot you dead. Sit down.’

  He did as he was told and the biker slipped back into the shadows still training his carbine on him. ‘Please, let us go now.’

  ‘Let me offer you a deal.’ Garza poured another orange juice and took a sip before continuing. ‘As you’re an American writer, I’ll help you get back home and perhaps one day you’ll mention me in one of your stories and I’ll become famous in America. Maybe they’ll even make a film about me. However, in exchange for your freedom, you understand, I’ll have to keep the Bentley.’

  ‘No, you can’t, we need it to travel to Portugal,’ he replied although he was no longer worrying about the car.

  ‘Simple. I’ll give you another car – an old Ford, but it’ll get you there.’

  He didn’t say anything, fearing there was worse to come.

  ‘And, of course, the woman will have to stay with me.’

  ‘No,’ she shouted, horror radiating from her eyes.

  ‘Really?’ said Garza in mock amazement. ‘Perhaps I can change your mind. Let me tell you a story. I have a very wealthy customer in Marrakech. Every so often, he buys a young boy from me. He keeps them for a few years and when they get too old for his needs he moves them on to a contact, who has a very demanding clientele. He’d be very interested in your little Freddie. Now, Alena, I can let you go on to Lisbon, but the boy will be sent to Marrakech. Or you can choose to stay with me and as long as you keep me happy the boy will remain here. It’s your choice?’

  She glanced at him appealing for help and the tears were welling up in her eyes. Eventually, she mumbled a reply.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear what you said,’ insisted Garza. ‘Louder.’

  ‘I’ll stay with you,’ she forced the words out and her eyes blazed with a defiance making her look all the more beautiful.

  ‘You see.’ Garza smiled and turned to him as if they’d completed a satisfactory business deal. ‘I knew she’d agree.’

  ‘You can’t do this.’ He got to his feet. ‘We’re going to leave right now and you’d better not try to stop us.’ And he reached over and grabbed Alena’s arm.

  Garza nodded and the two men again emerged from the shadows, their carbines pointing at him.

  ‘This is tiresome,’ said Garza. ‘I offered you a good deal, your freedom for theirs. No one refuses Conde Juan Callas Garza. I make an offer just once. You’ve dishonoured me.’

  Garza thought it would have been pleasurable to break him as he’d done with so many before. Reduce him to a whimpering wreck. Emasculate him so he’d nothing left. No dignity. No pride. Play with him and discard him like a broken toy. Eventually, he would beg for his own death. But he wanted to concentrate on the car and the woman. He loved having the power of life and death; it made him feel like a god. Often he wished he could bring them back to do it all over again to see how they reacted to different methods. The trouble with death is it is so final.

  Garza turned to his men and, with a yawn, ordered: ‘Do it now.’

  One of the men stepped forward and his eyes narrowed as his finger tightened on the trigger. Ben heard Alena begging and saw a flash of his parents standing in front of their upstate New York home smiling and beckoning to him.

  And he heard the shot as clear as a cough in a library.

  53

  THE sniper watched his bullet all the way to the target through the telescopic sight of his Russian Mosin-Nagant rifle modified for this purpose. With satisfaction, he saw the surprise on the victim’s face a fraction of a second before the top of his head disintegrated. Adjusting his aim, he squeezed the trigger sending another bullet speeding down from the hill on which he hid.<
br />
  He’d found the location some time earlier and set up camp. He was able to rest his arm on a large rock and the surrounding bushes gave him cover so he couldn’t be seen from the house. He’d placed his jacket with his spectacles on top of another rock. He didn’t need them. He had perfect long sight; he only used them for reading. The layout of the hacienda was ideal for this task. He had a clear view of all the targets and he knew with this rifle from around five hundred yards he could hit the head of a matchstick give an inch or two.

  The second guard froze in shock and he had no time to raise his carbine before the bullet hit him foursquare in the forehead throwing him backwards over a chair.

  Garza dived under the table, but not knowing where the fire was coming from it didn’t give him complete cover. The sniper squeezed off another missile, shattering the count’s spine, and as the Spaniard rolled free from the table, he put another into his head.

  Garza’s men ignored Ben and Alena as they scrambled for protection behind pillars and tables believing they were under attack. Perhaps the Germans had invaded already. The guards from the gate joined them and fanned out around the pool and fired up at the hill although they were aiming at the wrong target and the sniper comfortably watched the spectacle unfolding beneath him.

  As Garza’s men moved in, Ben and Alena, carrying Freddie, inched towards the door and passed out of sight of the watcher on the hill.

  The sniper stood up, dusted himself down and put on his jacket and spectacles. He packed away the rifle and walked back down the other side of the hill to a car waiting in the shade of a copse of trees fifty yards away. His work was done.

  54

  INSTINCT told ben to stand still because he realised they weren’t the targets. Moving would have put them at greater risk. All around them the chaos unfolded as if in slow motion as men died with fear in their eyes. It was only when the firing paused he grabbed a shocked Alena and Freddie, who were white-faced and unable to move, and propelled them out towards the car.

  Garza’s followers had flooded into the house and were no longer interested in them and they took up positions and were firing blindly at where they believed the invaders to be.

  ‘We’ve got to get away, we’ve got to get away,’ she kept repeating as he bundled them into the Bentley. He gunned the accelerator willing it more than ever to respond and with a leap it shot out of the courtyard and onto the drive.

  The Bentley stopped.

  ‘For Christ’s sake what’s wrong?’ she shouted and tried to turn the wheel as if it would keep them moving. ‘We must get out of here.’

  ‘Hold on.’ He got out and ran into one of the barns housing Garza’s automobile collection. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for and he half-ran back to the Bentley carrying two jerrycans of fuel and forced them into the back of the car.

  ‘We need gas,’ he told her jumping in and releasing the handbrake. ‘I don’t know if we’ll be able to get any up ahead.’

  Still the intermittent crack of carbines continued as they drove away from the hacienda.

  Freddie spotted them first. ‘A car’s coming,’ he warned.

  Without looking, Ben pulled hard on the wheel and they lurched off the drive, down a slope into a field and bounced to a stop behind a hedge. He switched off the engine and they sat in silence not daring to breathe as two vehicles swept up the drive. A saloon car, which had one passenger sitting up front who appeared to be wearing a large white turban, was followed by a covered truck with two men up front and more in the back.

  ‘Nazis,’ said Alena without hesitation.

  He took her word for it; she knew her Germans better than he. It terrified him. Until now their pursuers had been only a possibility. Now they were right on their tail.

  As soon as the Nazis disappeared out of sight, he fired the ignition and drove back to the drive and picked up speed. He’d decided they weren’t going to stop for anything and the increasing sound of gunfire reinforced the feeling. There was one guard on the gate and he wouldn’t be stopping anyone as he lay in a pool of blood still clutching his carbine. All Ben could do now was put as many miles as possible between them and their pursuers and hope the Germans would be held up at the hacienda.

  Gradually, the sound of gunfire faded to be replaced by the purring of the Bentley’s six cylinders. Now they were out on the open road he had the opportunity to put the Bentley through its paces for the first time and the car responded like an animal escaping captivity.

  The maps Bernay had left for them were still in the car and Alena poured over them tracing a route through the middle of Spain with a finger.

  ‘It looks as if it’s a straight run,’ she said turning to him and brushing her hair out of her eyes. ‘We head for Valladolid.’ She prodded the map. ‘Salamanca and then it’s not far to the Portuguese border.’

  ‘How far?’ He turned towards her with a smile. Again she studied the map and tried to judge the distances between her thumb and forefinger.

  ‘About six hundred miles to Estoril, I think.’

  ‘And to the border?

  ‘Maybe three hundred.’

  She took another glance at the map. ‘Or two fifty.’ She shrugged, irritated she couldn’t be more accurate.

  He tried to calculate when they might arrive in Estoril if they had no further setbacks. The road ahead seemed quiet and if they could average fifty miles per hour they’d reach their destination late that night. It would give them all of Sunday to extricate the platinum from the car and prepare for the arrival of the flying boat on the Monday.

  In normal circumstances, the Bentley would outrun the Nazis’ car and truck. But he couldn’t be sure whether it had sustained any serious damage and by how much the extra weight of the bullion would slow it down. Before, there had been the possibility they were not being pursued, now he had to confront the reality they were the hunted. And it brought home to him he might yet be forced to do what Alena had asked of him when they first met.

  Kill them both.

  It was then he realised in his haste to escape the hacienda he’d left the revolver on the dining table and for the first time he wished he still had it in his possession.

  He swore under his breath, fearing more her reaction if she found out he’d left it behind, and he pressed all the harder on the accelerator pedal.

  55

  THEY were making good time and he kept his foot flat to the boards as they swept through the Spanish countryside on a hot, dry morning with the road ahead shimmering into the distance. At almost every opportunity, Alena glanced backwards expecting to see the Nazis roaring up behind them. Although he tried to reassure her he was also keeping watch in his mirror, it didn’t seem to make any difference. Seeing her pursuers in the flesh had brought back all her fears, only now they appeared to be magnified.

  In the end, fatigue overcame her and she fell into a deep sleep with her head resting on his shoulder. In the back, Freddie had also fallen asleep, clutching his teddy bear and so it went mile after mile.

  He continued to monitor the fuel gauge as the needle crept closer to empty and he wondered if a stray bullet had punctured the fuel tank. He didn’t want to risk refuelling just yet as he was determined to build a lead on their pursuers and he didn’t want to awaken Alena and Freddie. What he couldn’t be sure of was whether letting the car run low on gas could in some way damage the engine and prevent it from restarting.

  He thought about what awaited them in Estoril. All Bernay had told him was they were to check in at the Hotel Palácio and the British agent Rafe Cooper would contact them and he’d have made all the necessary arrangements. Portugal was neutral which meant the Germans wouldn’t have any jurisdiction, but he wondered if they would be safe there. If they allowed them to enter the country, they would also let in the Nazis.

  It seemed a lifetime ago they’d left Paris and the longer the journey took, the more his questions were mounting. What were the Germans after? Was it the platinum? Or w
as it Alena and Freddie? Or was it both? Who’d killed Garza? Was it some local rival or was there someone else after them? What was Alena’s secret making her so valuable to both sides? He felt like waking her up and demanding she tell him her secret. But seeing her relaxed and in a deep sleep he took another glance in his mirror and returned his concentration to the road ahead.

  * * *

  WEBER stood by the pool and lit a cigarette as he surveyed the detritus of battle scattered all around him. He inhaled and for a moment the smoke masked the smell of cordite causing him to sneeze. Although it had been a short gun battle, it had increased the pain in his head and he would have preferred to have found a quiet and darkened room and lie down.

  Garza’s followers lay around him. Most were dead and those who hadn’t been killed his men dispatched with a bullet to the brain. While Garza’s men had set up positions against what they thought were attackers up on the hill, Weber and his men had walked in the back door and wiped them out before they had time to retaliate. Although they’d been tough men, they were no match for his professionals.

  A small brown man in briefs lay by the side of a table with a hole in his back and another in his head. And he guessed he was Garza by the amount of gold he had around his neck and wrist.