Kolchak's Gold (37 page)

Then of course there was the incident of the American shipload of mustard gas which blew up in an Italian harbor and killed a thousand people. And the OSS-Mafia alliance in Sicily. And then the overthrow of the Guatemalan regime by the CIA in behalf of an American corporation. And the Bay of Pigs, the Powers U-2 fiasco, the Dominican Republic, the abortive CIA attempts to bomb Duvalier's palace in Port-au-Prince, the Agency's overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in Cambodia, the Air America bomb-runs over four nations in Indochina, the CIA-IT&T attempt to overthrow the elected government of Chile, all the chilling secret maneuvers designed to make Latin America safe for the United Fruit Company, the Bolivian and Venezuelan fiefdoms of American oil companies, the massive CIA support of feudal despots in Arab oil basins while the right hand of the Administration gave lip service and jet planes to Israel.…

I knew that Haim had been right after all. In South Russia squatted a motionless pile of metal which in its way could be as destructive as fissionable uranium: on the open market, several billions' worth of gold bullion—enough to topple governments, enough to decide wars.

In November 1968 the Western monetary system depended for survival on the strength of the West German Deutschmark which was backed by a gold treasury no greater than Kolchak's.

Put it in CIA hands and who could be sure what use it might be put to? Or allow the CIA to put it in Soviet hands: same question. Or perhaps more so: Russia has always been, and still is, a nation in which all policy is controlled by a small band of totalitarian leaders who are restrained by no law, answerable to no one, and educated abysmally in the realities of the outside world.

My question put Ritter at a loss: evidently it hadn't occurred to him that I wouldn't recognize my obligation to prove my patriotism by handing over the gold to the CIA. He tried to conceal his indignant outrage; he tried to act contemptuous: “I'm empowered to offer you a sizable finder's fee.”

He said it too loudly.

I must have been in a state of emotional idiocy—an aberration from which I would soon recover in terror—but just then I was acting far more professional than he was and that was another thing he couldn't take. He'd been prepared to deal with a garden-variety scholar and we both knew what that was: probably gutless and naïve, certainly eager to bow before the whim of Authority. He found himself dealing with a self-assured lunatic who wouldn't knuckle under. It had to be disconcerting; had I been in his position I'd have burst a blood vessel.

“Listen to me, Harry. I'm making you a hell of an offer. Millions. If you turn it down there's nothing I can do for you. You understand what I'm saying?”

“I understand threats. You're very handy with the rack and thumbscrew, aren't you? You use bribes and blackmail and threats, and then you tell me I ought to do it because it's the right thing to do. Good God, Ritter, you can't preach patriotism and morality at gunpoint.”

He became very sibilant and German again. “I would suggest you consider the fact that you are in no position to dictate to me concerning such things as morality and patriotism.” I waited for him to call me
Herr Bristow
but of course he didn't, that was only the black comedy inside me.

“I don't know where your gold is. You may believe that or not—I don't much care. But you can't trade me to the Russians if I haven't got anything they could use. You can't turn me over to them if I'm worthless—all that would do is destroy your credibility with them.”

Of course I was bluffing but he couldn't know that.

I stood up. “They're going to wonder where I've been. It's almost five.”

“You went for a walk to soak up the atmosphere of the city. After all you're writing a book about it. It isn't your fault they lost sight of you.”

He hadn't risen from his chair; the back of it was against part of the door and he had my way blocked. I said, “If the way you handled my getaway this afternoon is an example, you'd never get near that gold—even if I found it for you.”

“It must have been the first day they used the car and the third man on you. I've had them under the eye for forty-eight hours. The plan would have worked perfectly well if they'd followed yesterday's pattern.”

That began to bring me back to earth. I put both palms flat on the table and leaned toward him. “Ritter, what made them change the operation
today?”

“You must have done something to alert them.”

“I did nothing. It had to be you. They spotted you, you clumsy bastard.”

“Don't be an idiot. I've been in this game long enough to know when I've been blown.”

“Sure you have.”

“You're rattled after all.” He was pleased. “It wasn't me, you know. Probably they observed your little ballet of indecision around the telephone kiosk last night. That might have been enough to make them increase their suspicions.”

“And just who set up that charade?”

“I did. I was mistaken. I'm to blame, I accept the responsibility, and I apologize.”

“I don't want your apology,” I said. “I want your absence.”

“I'm afraid that wouldn't conform with my orders.”

“And you're a good German, aren't you.”

He tried to ignore that. He said, “You opened a door a moment ago. You said, ‘Even if I found the gold for you.' “

“Figure of speech. An army of searchers might find it, if they had twenty years to search for it.”

He levered himself to his feet, grunting, one hand against the table for support. “I don't believe you.”

“Ritter, I'm not responsible for your speculations.”

“Think about this, Harry. In their country the incumbents get to count the votes. In their country ten million of you may get purged out of existence any minute, at the whim of some fool with red stars on his epaulets. You can't publish what you want to. You can't even think if your thoughts don't conform to the party line. You can't go where you want to go, you can't even have a conversation without worrying about whether somebody's going to inform on you. You can't agitate for reform, you can't defend yourself against phony charges. The freedoms you take for granted ——”

It was all true and I was tired of it because it was beside the point. I cut him off: “The freedoms which you're asking me to give up so that I can safeguard my freedom. Aren't you bombing the hamlet in order to save it?”

“Nuts. I'm asking you for only one thing—a piece of information which isn't rightfully yours anyway.”

“What makes it rightfully
yours?”

“We're both Americans.”

I laughed in his face.

He said patiently, “Harry, it does make a difference. I won't torture you or throw you in prison. I draw the line at that.”

“There are heroin pushers who draw the line at rape. I'm not impressed by people who draw lines.”

“You ought to be. If you were having this conversation with Zandor there'd be blood coming out from under your fingernails.”

He led the way out of the dreary apartment and we went down the stairs. I said, “And now?”

“Now I take you back to your neighborhood and you walk back to your hotel.”

“Just like that?”

“What did you expect me to do? Hold you prisoner until you capitulated?”

The temperature had dropped sharply under a pewter sky. We crowded ourselves into the little car and he got the engine going and waited for it to warm up. Our breath fogged the windshield. Ritter said, “Do you mind if I make a suggestion? It's for your own good. I think you ought to inform Comrade Zandor of the location of the treasure before you leave the Soviet Union. If the information was already out of your hands, your government wouldn't have reason to harass you.”

I said, “What have you got to gain by advising me to spill everything to Zandor?”

“Just cutting my losses, Harry.”

“No.” I reasoned it out. “You'd have to inform Zandor in advance that I was going to volunteer the gold to the Soviets—as a favor to you. That way you'd get the credit, you'd still get reciprocity from Moscow. One good turn.”

“The KGB might get that impression,” he murmured. He switched on the defroster fan but it didn't work very well. “Actually the way you'd better do it is write the information in a letter and mail it just before you fly out of the country. That way you'd avoid the tedium of questioning. No point taking unnecessary risks, is there.”

“I wonder how many people you've blackmailed into doing the right thing.”

“Then you'll do it?”

“I told you before. I have no idea where the gold is. The whole thing's a fantasy. Yours and MacIver's.”

He put the Moskvitch in gear.

*
Elsewhere, in a section deleted earlier by the editors, Bristow speculated on how' the gold might have been hidden: “Several possible methods. (A) Much industry had been moved to Siberia. Spur rail lines remained, now unused. Some went through tunnels. Unload gold inside tunnel, then demolish both openings at ends of tunnel as if air-raid bomb damage. (B) Old smelters—numerous in South Russia. Slag piles—enormous. Pile up gold in area of slag heaps, cover it with layer of slag. (C) Several lakes and reservoirs adjacent to spur RR lines. Sink gold in one of them. It won't corrode. (D) Several new highways then being laid & paved for military transport. Lay gold in road-fill, then pave over it. (E) The traditional way: dig a hole and bury it.”—Ed.

*
Probably March 22, 1973.—Ed.

*
Italics supplied by the editors. Written in growing haste, some of these passages are characterized by muddled verb tenses and uncertain syntax. As much as possible, we have left the wording alone, feeling that the best editing is the least editing.—Ed.

*
Ritter, of course, is the name of the man in the blue suit. Below, Bristow gives him more of a formal introduction. As mentioned earlier in the notes, these passages were added as insertions in the manuscript after Bristow had completed the basic structure; they are written on odd scraps of paper with such indices as “page 382-A, -B,” and so on, to indicate where Bristow wanted them to appear.—Ed.

*
This is the next morning—probably Friday, March 23.—Ed.

*
It is probably clear from the context that Bristow added this passage and inserted it here. Henceforth such insertions will not be pointed out unless it seems important to do so.—Ed.

*
“The Organs” is professional argot for the Soviet KGB.—Ed.

*
The reference is to Harris Bristow's
The War in the Aleutians
(New York, 1969). Clearly Bristow felt compelled to explain why he refused to cooperate with the CIA's Karl Ritter; therefore he added this passage to the manuscript. It appears to be one of the last segments he wrote.—Ed.

H
e reached across my lap to unlatch the door.

I walked back to the hotel and fifty people seemed to spring out of the cement. None of them accosted me but I felt eyes on me.

In the lobby I found Yakov Sanarski and Timoshenko playing chess.

Sanarski greeted me without smiling and I explained my disappearance when he requested the explanation. I was not sure if he believed my story but he didn't challenge it. He would report to Zandor and it would be up to Zandor to decide.

I did not want to be alone in my room. I pulled out a chair and watched the chess match. Timoshenko was an aggressive but careless player and Sanarski mated him easily. Then the KGB man went off, to a phone or a car, and Timoshenko asked what might be my pleasure for the evening; we had no interviews scheduled for the day. I was in a stage of delayed shock, the tremor starting in; I left the decision to him and resorted to my room to clean up and change. I remembered to put the old hat in one of my coat pockets and when we got to the restaurant I managed to leave it on the hat rack there.