And so it was on to Turin. Jacobs, Grant, Ajzen and Ense (who had ordered his chauffeur to drive his car back to Munich) traveled by plane with the suitcase; Ledl, Neubert and Amato went by car. They checked into separate rooms at the Piemonte Hotel. A few hours later, they were joined by Monsignor Barbieri. The party occupied almost an entire floor of the hotel.
From the outside and with the perspective of time and distance, it is possible to see the events of the next days as a silent-film slapstick comedy. But a sense of humor was not a strong point of any of these conspirators, and the issues themselves were so serious it is doubtful whether then or later any of them ever saw any of the humor.
It began that morning in Turin as Ledl once more told Jacobs that he, Grant and Ense were not needed. Jacobs objected strenuously, but Ledl ignored him, drove away with Amato, Neubert, Ajzen and Barbieri—and the suitcase. They stopped at a monastery on the outskirts of the city. Barbieri left the car and rang the bell beside the massive entrance doors. The doors opened. Cardinal Tisserant’s assistant appeared. Barbieri bowed, his manner one of respect and deference. The archbishop greeted him warmly, beckoned to those in the car, led them down passages to a large room. A few moments later, they were joined by a slim, short, expensively dressed man of about sixty. He was introduced as a deputy in the National Assembly, a very important man in the government and in banking, very close to those in power in the Vatican. He and Amato were obviously old and good friends.
They remained in that room only long enough for Ajzen and Neubert to be told to make themselves comfortable and wait. Ledl and Amato, now carrying the suitcase, followed the archbishop, the deputy and Barbieri to another part of the monastery. They were together for three hours. When they reappeared, Amato still had the suitcase, seemed a trifle distressed. Ledl displayed no emotion, nor did the others. They bowed, shook hands. The deputy, the archbishop and Barbieri escorted Ledl and his companions back to the car, watched as they drove off. On their way back to the hotel, Ledl and Amato said only that they were all going to Milan the next day.
Some by car, some by train, they continued north through the Italian peninsula, checked into the Excelsior Hotel in Milan and for a day did nothing, seemed to be without direction or purpose. Ajzen later said that the deputy they had met in Turin appeared suddenly the next afternoon, beckoned to Amato, Neubert and him, took them into the bar and told them that somehow a high official in Milan had learned about the scheme and wanted to be cut in. Ajzen was very worried. He hurried to find Jacobs, Grant and Ense, told them he had just learned something so upsetting he had to talk to them in private without delay. He was going to get into a cab and they should follow in another until they reached someplace where they were sure they could not be overheard. In a zigzag pattern, he led them around Milan, finally ordering the cab to pull into a narrow side street and stop in the middle of the block. He got out, gestured to those in the trailing cab, which had halted just at the turning, to meet him halfway between the vehicles. There, he told them what the deputy had said.
“How did that man find out?” Ense asked.
“I don’t know,” Ajzen said. “Maybe the priest told him. Maybe the deputy. Maybe a banker. I don’t know.”
“Are you sure he knows?” Jacobs asked.
“The deputy says he knows.”
It was a very unhappy group that headed back to the Excelsior. The four gathered in Jacobs’s room to try to chart a course for themselves, a road to safety. It took them only minutes to decide that they must put the whole deal on the shelf until things cooled off. Too many outsiders were getting involved, too many people were learning about it, and the more people who learned, the greater the danger. The thing to do, Jerry Jacobs said, was to split up, seek some guidance and new orders from those at the top, like his father and Rizzo.
That decision was quickly relayed to Ledl. He offered no objections, did not seem particularly concerned. If that was what they wanted to do, he said, then they should do it. Jerry Jacobs suggested that Ledl ought to try to arrange a meeting with Ricky as soon as possible, as soon as Ricky could arrange a furlough from prison. Ledl said he would try to do just that, though he made no effort later to follow through.
In the morning, the group went their separate ways. Ense got on a plane for Munich. Grant boarded a flight for London. Jacobs made the first available plane that would take him to Los Angeles, though before leaving he turned the suitcase with the counterfeit bonds over to Ajzen, explaining that he had no desire to carry it and risk a customs inspection when he arrived home. Just before Jacobs left, Ledl told him to be sure to inform his father and the others in America that there was nothing to worry about, that everything would turn out well.
A few hours later, Ledl, Amato, Neubert and Ajzen, carrying the suitcase, were on their way back to Rome. Once there, Ajzen handed the suitcase to Amato and asked what he ought to do now. Amato and Ledl both suggested that he find an apartment somewhere in Rome and remain for the next few months, at least through the middle of October.
Ajzen would later say that once he put the suitcase into. Amato’s hands at the airport in Rome that July afternoon, he never saw it or the securities again. Though he was in daily contact with Amato until he finally left Rome to return to Munich in the fall, all Amato ever said to him was, “Trust me. Everything will be all right and you’ll be taken care of.”
The crucial moments during those days would seem to have been the three hours at the monastery in Turin when Ledl and Amato disappeared with the archbishop, the deputy and Barbieri. What happened during those hours? Though he would later talk about many things and reveal much, Ajzen said he was never told. Amato and Neubert, who shared so much so intimately with him, were never asked by the Italian authorities and outside investigators never got near them. Ledl, who would later have much to reveal about many facets of the operation, had nothing to offer about those hours in Turin.
On the basis of events that ensued and a few enigmatic hints that were dropped, it is, nevertheless, possible to pierce that veil. Dollars and deutsche marks were, as the archbishop and Cardinal Tisserant had said, not easy to come by in Italy in those days, and with the tenuous position of the economy, the government and the banks, it would have been no simple thing to divert $6 million in hard currency without arousing considerable suspicion. There had been no time to prepare for the demand for such currency, and that only compounded the difficulties.
But there is something more crucial. Though the bonds in that suitcase had a face value of $14.5 million, they were just a sample of what was to come, had been brought to Italy, shown to the official of the Bank of Italy and to those in the Vatican only as a sample of the $950 million in securities that were to be delivered in September and October. A sample is only a sample, not the whole, and a business transaction turns not on the delivery of the swatches or the blueprints, but on the delivery of the finished product. Thus, while $6 million is a considerable sum, and the conspirators would not have been averse to walking away with it in return for the sample, it was as nothing against the $475 million that would be due them with the final delivery on October 11 and 12, less than three months in the future. It is, then, possible to surmise that during that long conference in the monastery in Turin an agreement was reached between Ledl on the one side and the archbishop on the other. The sample had been shown and was acceptable. The suppliers—Ledl, Rizzo and the others—would now proceed, would amass the full compliment of merchandise and when it was delivered, the full payment would be made, and meanwhile, the suppliers would retain possession of the sample.
That Ledl did not reveal this to Ense, Ajzen or Grant, or to Jerry Jacobs is not surprising. They were, after all, only underlings, along to play minor roles, not involved in the setting of major policy, and so there was no need to inform them. If Ledl told anyone, it was Ricky Jacobs and Vincent Rizzo, and they were no more likely to take these peripheral characters into their confidence than he was. After all, Ledl had not wanted Ense or Grant involved in the first place; he had accepted Ense only because he demanded a part once he had learned of the deal and had accepted Grant only because Rizzo had insisted. And, as Joe Coffey overheard in Munich the following winter, Rizzo’s opinion of Ajzen and Jerry Jacobs was something less than complimentary. He agreed with Ense’s comment that while Maurice Ajzen was somebody who could be trusted, nevertheless “he is a fool, this Maurice. He is very, very stupid. He makes mistakes a lot in a lot of places.…” As for Jerry Marc Jacobs, Rizzo had a few kind words. “Jerry is a son of a bitch,” he told Ense. “… And when I saw his father, I told his father that.… I says, ‘All right, your son’s out of it. Push him out.’”