XPD
‘Did they check it with you, Colonel? Before they paid out the money, did they check it with you? You’re in the bank almost every day, Erich told me so.’
‘They check everything with me,’ said Pitman. ‘They all run in and out of my office clucking like old hens. I’ve even seen Krug holding banknotes up to the light, to check out the watermarks before cashing fifty dollars for a tourist. But this seemed like a gilt-edged investment … with no risk at all.’
‘What about references?’
‘Friedman gave us wonderful references. My manager suspected that the drugs were not destined for Yugoslavia, because one hundred million dollars seemed far too much for a poor country like that to spend on one type of pharmaceutical. But that made it look better, rather than worse. Such things have happened before, and the bank has made a lot of money from such deals.’
‘Why didn’t those crazy bastards check the references out?’
‘Easy, Corporal. There’s nothing to be gained by getting excited. My manager did exactly that. We got a glowing reference from one of the best banks in West Germany. It said Friedman had been doing business with them regularly over the last eight years and they gave him a first-class rating.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Stein.
‘I’ve been on the phone to the president of that bank in person, a Dr Böttger. He says that they have no record of such a letter ever having been sent. Furthermore he says that it is their policy never to give such recommendations.’
‘And the letter … No, don’t tell me.’
‘It’s missing from our files.’
‘Jesus!’ Stein hit himself on the face in anger. ‘One hundred million dollars. Can we stand that kind of a loss? What happens now?’
‘I’ve been reluctant to let news of our trouble leak out but I’ll have to turn to other banks to help us. We tried one of the big ones yesterday and they turned us down flat. But that’s not significant. We’ll ride out the storm, Corporal, I’m convinced of it.’
‘Why our bank? Are we the most stupid?’
‘By no means. But we were suited to this kind of swindle. There’s no doubt that the people concerned studied our methods carefully and maybe got someone inside to steal the reference from the files. But references are not normally guarded very carefully. A cleaner could have stolen it. There was no reason to think it would be something a thief would want. Furthermore they knew enough about our banking methods to guess that we would say yes to the Peter Friedman deal. It was rather like deals we’ve made before and made money from. And they perhaps guessed that we’d finance it alone, rather than syndicating it with other banks.’
‘And who is this Dr Böttger? What do we know about him?’
‘He’s the president of a very successful German bank,’ said Pitman.
‘Shit,’ said Stein again, banging a hand on the chair in a purposeless display of energy.
‘There is nothing we can do about it right now,’ said Pitman. ‘Better that we talk about the documents. You saw Lieutenant Sampson?’
‘Yes,’ said Stein.
‘A good young officer,’ said the colonel. ‘An excellent transport officer, always kept his paperwork in order, I remember.’
‘Well, he’s not an officer and he’s certainly not young any more,’ said Stein. ‘I play poker with him every week. He’s got a big law practice with offices in LA, San Francisco and Santa Barbara. Two partners do nearly all the work nowadays. Jim Sampson is in semi-retirement.’
‘Time flies,’ said the colonel.
‘OK,’ said Stein. ‘Well, I went to see him and told him that we’ve got people talking about making the Kaiseroda mine business into a movie.’
‘And he gave you a legal opinion?’
‘He went bananas!’ said Stein. ‘He sat down heavily and went a pale shade of white. But he kinda got used to the idea after a while. I pointed out to him that doing a movie about the Kaiseroda mine doesn’t have to mean showing us stealing any trucks. Maybe they just want to do a story about the treasure.’
‘And if they don’t just do a story about the treasure?’
‘Sampson says that MFA&A and the Allied Reparations Agency issued statements in 1945 that there was nothing missing. Jim Sampson says that, to prosecute us, the US government would have to admit that they were lying through their teeth. He thinks it’s unlikely.’
‘I can see why his partners put Jim into semi-retirement,’ said Colonel Pitman testily. ‘You didn’t tell me he was senile. Doesn’t he read the papers? Doesn’t he know that all the world’s governments tell lies all day every day, and show no sign of contrition even when they are caught out in such untruths?’ Colonel Pitman reached for the wine bottle and poured more for both of them. ‘Goddamned 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.
Chapter 9
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 a good place to start looking for a cop.
The cars outside the Big O Do-nut Shop, where the Santa Monica Freeway passes over La Brea, were parked nose to the wall, except for the ‘black and white’. That was parked nose out, the way all police drivers leave their vehicles while taking a refreshment break. The two uniformed police officers could be seen inside the brightly lit windows. It was 11.34 P.M. on Saturday, 2 June, when a local resident, an eighteen-year-old auto mechanic named William Dawson, went up to the table occupied by the police officers and said he wanted to report a crime. This public-spirited action was prompted by some difficulties Dawson was having at the time with the county Probation Department.
Dawson, whose interest in motor cars extended all the way from repairing them to stealing them and driving them while under the influence of drugs, had become curious about the presence on La Brea of a dented green Cadillac. It was a 1970 Fleetwood Eldorado, featuring the 8.2 litre engine – the biggest production car engine in the world. In his written statement, Dawson said that he was looking closely at the car with a view to finding its owner and purchasing it. He said he wanted to fit the engine into a hot rod he was building, although more than one officer in the detectives’ room expressed the opinion that Dawson was about to steal the car.
Accompanying Dawson to the parked Cadillac, the two officers were shown blood marks on the road surface under the car. Forcing open the capacious luggage space, they discovered the bound body of a man. His age was difficult to determine, for his head had been removed from his torso and was not anywhere in the vicinity. The smell – which had first prompted Dawson to go to the police – was enough to indicate that the victim had been dead for a week or so. One of the police officers vomited. For his assistance to the police, Dawson was given a letter stating the facts for the Los Angeles county superior court, to which he was responsible for the probation order.
That the murderer, or murderers, had been interrupted or disturbed during the commission of the crime became apparent to the investigating officer within a few hours. It seemed likely that the criminal, or criminals, had intended to eliminate both the Cadillac and the corpse by running the car into the Pacific Ocean. The police computer revealed that the car was registered in the name of Bernard Lustig who lived in a large house in Portuguese Bend in the Palos Verdes peninsula, a plush suburb known locally as ‘The Hill’.
The door of the Lustig ranch-style home was opened by a Spanish-speaking maid when the detectives called the following morning, Sunday, 3 June. Mr Bernard Lustig was not at home. He had left the house at about nine o’clock in the evening, on Wednesday, 23 May, together with two guests with whom he had sat drinking for about an hour. The maid, whose comprehension of the English language was limited, thought that the three men had been talking about movies. That was, she explained, her employer’s principal interest. In fact, she added, since his separation from his wife fourteen months earlier, movie making had been Mr Lustig’s only interest.
Detective Lieutenant Harry Ramirez looked the girl up and down. She was young and attractive.
‘Could I see your papers?’ said Ramirez. ‘Do you have a resident alien’s card?’
‘Everything is with my aunt at her house in San Diego,’ said the girl.
‘California driving licence?’ The girl shook her head. Ramirez changed to Spanish. ‘Half the inhabitants of Los Angeles county have left their papers with that aunt of yours in San Diego,’ he told her bitterly.
‘I can get them,’ said the girl impassively. They both knew it was a game. The girl had come across the border without permission to work. But Ramirez knew that, even in the old days, illegal immigrants he had deported were back at work within seven days. Now, since Mexico had discovered oil, the US immigration officials could seldom be persuaded even to start the paperwork. Ramirez snorted and called the girl a bad name. When he remembered the way in which his father had conscientiously gone through the process of getting his papers, so that Harry and his brothers and sisters could grow up as citizens, it made him angry that the authorities turned a blind eye to this generation of wetbacks.
‘You share his bed,’ said Ramirez. ‘Don’t tell me no, I say you share his bed – puta!’
The girl began to cry. Whether that was at the shame of being called a whore, or at the prospect of being deported, no one could be sure, not even the girl.
‘He’s dead,’ shouted Ramirez. ‘They cut off his head and we still haven’t found it. Maybe it’s here.’
The girl’s eyes opened wide in terror.
‘Now, tell me about the men,’ said Ramirez.
The girl nodded and sat down wearily. ‘It is true,’ she said sadly. ‘Once I go to bed with him. Just once. It was after his father died. He was crying. He was so sad …’ Even with the girl’s full co-operation the description of the two men was sketchy.
The first lucky break the homicide officers got on the Lustig killing was a direct result of the killers’ haste. In order to prevent identification, they had removed the head and started to remove the hands. The forensic laboratory technicians stripped the lining from the luggage compartment and discovered, down under the tank, a very thin gold calendar wristwatch. A fresh cut in the leather strap confirmed that it had been worn by the victim (and the watch was identified as Lustig’s property by his housemaid). On the assumption that the dismemberment of the body would have taken place soon after the killing, the watch provided an indication of the probable time and date of the murder. The watch had stopped at 2.23 A.M. on 24 May, following the visit the two men made to the house.
The second lucky break came several days later. Marilyn Meyer was one of the meter maids who patrolled the streets of downtown Los Angeles in specially built single-seat vehicles, from which they pounced to affix parking tickets upon cars parked in violation of local by-laws. Like so many pretty girls in Los Angeles, she had come to the city in search of a career in the movie industry and stayed to enjoy the climate.
It was this meter maid who remembered the black Porsche sports car parked outside Bernard Lustig’s office on the afternoon of Wednesday, 23 May, and again on the following morning. She remembered that the ticket she had affixed to the car the previous day was still in position and she added a new one. It was not a tow away zone so she took no further action, but the Porsche parked carelessly on the pavement stayed in her mind. She noted the Illinois licence plates and regretted that out-of-state ‘scoff-laws’ could get away with such traffic violations. She even told a friend that the city should find some way of collecting out-of-state fines.
Detective Ramirez passed a formal identification request to the traffic authorities in the state capital of Illinois, Springfield, where the computer revealed that the registered owner of a black Porsche 928 with that licence number was an Edward Parker. Further inquiries revealed that Edward Parker and his Japanese-born wife had lived in Chicago for nine years; previous to that he had lived for more than three years in Toronto, Canada, and before that he had resided overseas. These inquiries also extracted from the computer the triple-digit-code that indicated that all police inquiries concerning Edward Parker must first be cleared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Identification Department) in Washington DC.
The bungled murder of Bernard Lustig, instead of resulting in a simple disappearance, had started a homicide investigation. In early June details of this became known to the KGB’s Moscow Centre. To what extent the reckless way in which Parker had risked becoming entangled in the investigation was also known to the Centre is unrevealed. Certainly by this time more than one meeting had taken place between officers of the First Directorate’s Illegals Section, who directly controlled Edward Parker, and specialists of the Communications Division, who would, if the worst came to the worst, arrange his escape route and temporarily close down his most vital networks.
Subsequent to these meetings in Moscow, one of the KGB’s most senior and experienced officers flew to Mexico City, where on Monday, 11 June, there was a meeting at the Soviet embassy. This curious turreted building, looking like the sort of Gothic folly in which wealthy nineteenth-century industrialists installed their mistresses, crouches behind some tall, straggly trees and a high fence. It was a hot day and the unending traffic on the Calzada de Tacubaya could be heard through the double glass of the ambassador’s private study, in spite of the noise of the air-conditioning. His Excellency was not present; he had been asked to vacate the room, since it was the one most recently tested for electronic devices.
The short notice at which Moscow had arranged this meeting in Mexico City is evidenced by the documents the Technical Operations Directorate – which provides KGB documentation, both real and forged – gave to Moscow Centre’s representative. Described on his diplomatic passport as a consular clerk grade three, he was a KGB general.
He was a tall, grey-faced man, gaunt to the extent that the bones and ligaments of his face and hands were clearly discernible, like those of an anatomical model. General Stanislav Shumuk, a Ukrainian born in Kiev, was recognized by the American agents who photographed him entering the embassy that day in June.
Shumuk had made his reputation in the late 1960s when, using a computer, he had compiled details of thousands of Canadian residents who had relatives living in Poland, the German Democratic Republic or the USSR. A large proportion of such people were Ukrainians. Systematically, Shumuk enrolled many such Canadians into the service of the KGB by threatening reprisals on their relatives. Described as a masterly operation in the KGB Secretariat’s secret report to the Central Committee, it was used to justify the cost of the enormous computer which was provided for the KGB in April 1972. This was the largest computer – measured by information storage – in use in the USSR.
Stanislav Shumuk consulted the steel pocket-watch he kept in his waistcoat pocket. He was dressed in a grey flannel suit, its Moscow-style tailoring baggy compared with Edward Parker’s beautifully fitted, hand-stitched suit. Parker had arrived thirty minutes early for the meeting, having flown in the previous evening from a convention in Kingston, Jamaica.
Shumuk put his watch away. ‘What time was Grechko expected?’
‘Downstairs they said he was booked on the Braniff non-stop flight that arrives at two o’clock.’
‘For a meeting arranged for 2.30,’ said Shumuk, ‘I regard that as inconsiderate.’
Parker nodded. He knew it was no use suggesting that they begin talking without Grechko. Shumuk had a reputation for keeping to the rule book.
It was Edward Parker’s first sight of the renowned general, whose mouth was turned down in a permanent sneer and whose face registered disdain for everything from the fine old engraving of Karl Marx to the jungle of potted plants which filled the sun-drenched windows. The only thing that won Shumuk’s approval was the tiny cups of strong black coffee that the Mexican kitchen maid brought to them every fifteen minutes or so.
It was after three o’clock when Yuriy Grechko arrived. Anticipating the mood of his superior, he was agitated and nervous. Mounting the stairs two at a time was rash: Mexico City’s altitude forbids such exertions and Grechko came into the room gasping and red-faced. When Parker shook hands with him he noted the damp palm that Grechko offered, and there was no doubt that Shumuk noted it too.
Stanislav Shumuk opened his briefcase and began to sort through his papers. The other two men watched him. There was only a few years’ difference in age between Edward Parker and Shumuk but they represented two different generations. ‘Stash’ Shumuk had been a combat soldier with the Soviet army – or the Red Army as it was still called then. He was one of the young officers who had taken NKVD detachments forward during the first big German attack in the summer of 1941. They had had to stiffen Red Army resistance, and they had done it by means of the firing squad. Colonels, generals, even political commissars had fallen to his bullets during those grim days when the Germans advanced as far as Moscow’s suburbs.