Every hunt Ritter had been on needed a certain amount of planning, or more precisely, organization. A dive sometimes involved as many as fifteen or twenty people, including boat crews, divers, support personnel, and others. These people all had to be fed, bedded, paid, given days off, and looked after in a seemingly infinite variety of ways. But basically the work to be done was routine and normally followed a predictable pattern, getting the mother ship to the site, sending the divers down, searching and combing the ocean floor with the airlift, and, when something was finally uncovered, bringing it to the surface. All pretty straightforward.
This was drastically different. There was no precedent, no pattern. Although Ritter’s research had convinced all of them the treasure was still in Greece, just as Jimmy Waddell had said, nothing would be cut-and-dried about their operation. Each move would be a step into the unknown, their single largest source of anxiety and, possibly, danger. The unknown factor also severely limited how detailed any plan of action could be. This was the dilemma that faced Ritter, Khoury, and Thompson as they met again to make a number of final decisions.
“And transportation on the ground?” said Khoury.
“We’ll obviously have to have a car,” said Ritter. “We’re going to have to be mobile and independent. That means having our own vehicle. No drivers.”
“A rented car?” suggested Thompson.
“Wouldn’t work. Don’t think we could drive a rented car out of the country, could we, Elias?”
“Probably not,” said Khoury.
“Then we’ll buy one.”
Thompson rose to pour them another cup of tea. “You risk drawing attention to yourselves unnecessarily. How many tourists turn up in Thessalonica and buy cars? It’s usually the other way round. People come from Europe with cars to sell them. In Greece, cars are expensive by European standards.”
“Maybe we should drive one in from Italy,” said Khoury. “That would eliminate that problem.”
“Let’s backtrack a moment,” said Ritter. “We ought to discuss what kind of car. The more I think about it, the more complicated this could be. If there are five heavy boxes of gold, they probably won’t fit into the trunk of an ordinary car. The sag in the rear suspension would draw the attention of the authorities, they’d wonder what kind of a load a couple of tourists are carrying. It would be an invitation to an inquiry and trouble. Even worse, if the load was too heavy, it could damage the suspension or lead to a cracked axle on bad roads. We can’t afford any breakdowns once we’ve got the gold in our possession. That’s all we’d need, to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with a car full of gold.”
“What you need is a lorry,” said Thompson pouring the steaming water over waiting tea bags in their cups.
“What kind of tourists arrive in trucks?” asked Khoury. “If buying a car will attract attention, imagine what a truck would do.”
“Not a truck,” said Ritter, as though he had just seen a vision. “A camping van.”
“What?”
“A Volkswagen camper. It will meet all the requirements. What could be more normal than a couple of tourists buying a camper van to tour Greece and then taking the slow way home through Europe, where the van will be resold? The camper would be more than large enough to accommodate the boxes and to conceal them from those on the outside. Also, having Greek license plates will make it less conspicuous.”
Thompson pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. “Likely to be any trouble finding such a camper in Thessalonica?” He looked at Khoury.
“Hardly. It’s the second-largest city in the country. Yes, I think the camper is a good solution. It can also carry digging tools. If necessary, we can sleep in it.”
“Which brings us to another point—our escape route.”
“Escape is a strong word. Brian.”
“Come on, Alfred you don’t think it will be anything less than that, do you? The Greeks aren’t going to give this stuff away.”
“True, but those boxes no longer belong to anyone. They’ve been in the ground 34 years, far beyond the statute of limitations of any kind. They belong to whoever can find them. Naturally, you don’t want to attract any undue attention, but that gold is ours. No one in Greece even knows it’s there. No one else has a claim to it. No one will miss it when you’ve dug it up.”
“The government might not share your point of view on that,” said Khoury. “But I don’t think we want to waste time now discussing such a trivial matter. It is clear we will have to be as discreet as possible. It’s not exactly the kind of operation in which press coverage will be invited.”
“Back to the original point, then,” said Ritter. “Fortunately, there’ll be no visa problems. So when we arrive in Thessalonica, we’ll spend a few days looking around. Sight-seeing like tourists. Then we’ll buy the camper. We’ll tell anyone who will listen we’re tourists who’ve been successful in business together and want to take five or six weeks off to see a bit of Greece and southern Europe. We’ll tell everyone we’re going to tour all of Greece down to the islands. We’ll make no mention of leaving the country. Once we’ve got the van, we’ll wait a day, then buy the tools. We can explain we might need them if we get stuck in mountain roads. A couple of shovels and a pick should do it.”
Ritter paused to sip his tea. “Once we’ve located the gold and get it successfully into the van, we’ll drive straight to Igoumenitsa and take the ferry to Corfu. From there it will be a relaxing overnight ferry ride to Brindisi. The final hitch will be entering Italy. It will be necessary to declare the gold. It’s not illegal to export gold from Italy as long as you declare it properly when it’s brought into the country.”
“And then you’ll drive north as fast as you can, cross into Switzerland, and head straight for Geneva. We’ll meet there, go to a bank, have the gold valued, sell it, split the proceeds, and adjourn to the nearest pub for a small drink of celebration.”
“I look forward to buying that drink,” said Ritter.
“It’s a simple, efficient plan,” Thompson said. “The best kind, actually.”
“A bit too simple,” said Khoury.
“What do you mean?” Ritter said.
“Nothing. Except it sounds easy as we sit here talking about it. I’m not so sure it will be so simple in fact.”
“Nor am I, Elias. At this point we can’t expect to have more than a general outline or plan. We’ll have to improvise as we go along. That’s the nature of this filthy and hopefully lucrative beast.”
“I am worried about one basic thing,” said Thompson.
“What’s that?”
“The image of you two as tourists is a bit thin. Pardon my being so blunt. But you hardly look like two persons who would go off on a holiday together, anywhere.”
“I’ve been thinking about the same problem,” said Ritter with a measured air of casualness. “And I have a solution.”
“Plastic surgery? A sex change?” Thompson chuckled at one of his own rare jokes.
“A girl.”
“What girl?”
“A girl I know. We could take her along.”
Khoury bellowed like a wounded bull. “Have you gone mad?”
“Brian,” said Thompson, his voice rising, “let’s not make jokes. There is no room for another person in this operation.”
“Okay,” Ritter said. “Just consider the obvious. Elias and me riding around in a van in northern Greece would look damned suspicious. But with a girl along, we could pose as some sort of academics who have combined a holiday with research. It will make a much better story than the one we have now.”
“How much have you told her?” Khoury demanded, a threatening tone in his voice.
“She knows I’m going to Greece on a treasure hunt,” said Ritter evasively. “Not much more. She certainly doesn’t know enough to endanger anything,” he added, taking the offensive slightly. “She doesn’t even know she’s going yet,” A small white lie.
“And she’s not,” said Khoury again. “Of all the stupid …”
“Hold on,” said Thompson. A tone of conciliation. “Who is this girl? What do we know about her?”
“She’s a student. Her father was an American soldier killed before she was born. He left her and her French mother a very nice trust fund she’s been living on since she was born. She has completed her master’s and is now working on her Ph.D. That’s how I ran into her. She was doing research on the campaign of 1941 for her doctorate.”
“Sounds suspicious to me,” said Khoury resentfully.
“In what way?” challenged Ritter.
“I don’t know. But we’re in the middle of this project, and suddenly this woman turns up. I don’t like it. My instincts tell me there’s something not right about it.”
“With all due respect, Elias,” said Thompson, “you’re becoming a bit paranoid. A dangerous symptom anytime, but particularly now.”
“Elias, she didn’t just turn up,” said Ritter. “She was already at work in the reading rooms when I arrived. You’re the only two who knew why I went there. I sought her out. She didn’t pick me up.”
Khoury grunted, the unsatisfied sound of someone losing ground in an argument. “I still don’t like it.”
“It goes without saying I take full responsibility for her,” Ritter said.
“What about the money?” asked Khoury sharply. “There’s no question of any cut for her, certainly not out of my share.”
Finally, the guts of the matter. Thompson quickly jumped in. “He’s right, Brian. There can be no question of the girl sharing any of our part of the gold. What you do with your share is your business. But it must be understood that whatever you find will be split into thirds, and Elias and I each are entitled to a full third.”
Ritter sensed he had won. “I have no argument with that. She will not be entitled to any part of your shares. If she gets anything at all, it will be out of my third. That’s agreed.”
“All right, Brian,” said Khoury, accepting what he considered to be a concession. “If you want to have a good time on the side, that’s your private business. But if this woman gets in the way or makes a false move, we get rid of her. Understand?” He drew his finger across his throat. It was not a pleasant gesture.