the war.’
Ulster smiled, hoping to ease his concerns. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’
‘Really? Then why are you so damn happy?’
‘As I mentioned earlier, I lacked tangible evidence at the time of your call, but things have since changed. Fearing the worst, I spent the entire night going through my grandfather’s papers, searching for anything that had to do with Japan. Early this morning, about an hour before my departure, I stumbled across a folder filled with correspondence from the rightful owner of the van Gogh. Suffice it to say, my grandfather was named legal guardian of the painting way back in 1945, and he figured out a way to smuggle it overseas. Once my lawyers sort through the paperwork, we will formally return the painting to Japan.’
‘Hold up,’ Payne growled. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone smuggle a work of art into Nazi Germany? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.’
Ulster laughed. ‘I thought the same thing until I read through the correspondence. Towards the end of the war, most Japanese shipping lanes were blocked by Allied troops, so there was very little getting in or out of the country. That is, except for a distribution channel from Tokyo to Munich controlled by the Nazis. Apparently, this was how German diplomats and their supplies were ferried back and forth between Europe and the Far East. I’m not sure who thought of it - whether it was my grandfather or the man who owned the van Gogh - but they forged Nazi paperwork and used their route to get the painting out of Japan.’
‘That’s awesome,’ said Jones, who loved hearing stories about the war, especially when the Nazis were made to look like fools. ‘What happened then?’
‘If you look at a map, this bunker is between Munich and the Austrian border. If I had to guess, my grandfather didn’t want to subject the artefacts to an arduous trip across the Alps, so he stored them here. Sadly, he must’ve passed away before he had the chance to retrieve them.’
Kaiser pointed towards the open crate. ‘What do you know about the other van Goghs? Did you find their paperwork, too?’
‘To be honest, I didn’t have time to look. The paperwork from Japan stood out to me because it was so different from all the others. Once I get back to the Archives, I’m sure I’ll find documentation for all of the other artefacts - now that I know what to search for.’
‘And what if you don’t?’ Payne asked.
A look of determination filled Ulster’s face. ‘If I don’t, I’ll use every source I have to track down the names of the rightful owners. Thanks to my grandfather, these artefacts have survived the war. The least I can do is honour his memory and finish what he started.’
Driving a black SUV with German plates, the man pulled onto the grass near the side of the road and rolled down his tinted window. For the fourth day in a row, a helicopter had landed in the open field near the base of Zugspitze, the peak that towered above Garmisch-Partenkirchen. But unlike the previous trips, this chopper had arrived from the south.
More curious than alarmed, he grabbed the binoculars from his passenger seat and studied the strange scene at the foot of the mountain. No people. No trucks. No movement of any kind. Just a luxury helicopter sitting in the middle of a pasture, less than twenty feet from an unmarked trail. During the ski season, he was used to the uber-wealthy flying into town to enjoy the Olympic-quality ski slopes, but he had never seen this much activity in September. Obviously, something unusual was going on. But he didn’t know what.
Zooming in on the tail number, he hoped to determine the helicopter’s country of origin. From his time in the military, he knew every rotorcraft registered in Germany started with the letter D, followed by a hyphen and four additional letters. Yet this designation was different. Not only did two letters (HB) precede the hyphen, but three letters followed it. Although the 2-3 structure was fairly common around the world, he didn’t recognize the first two letters.
‘HB,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘Where in the hell is HB?’
After jotting the five-letter code into his notebook, he pulled out his phone and called an associate who worked in customs at Berlin Tegel Airport, the largest international airport in Germany. His friend had access to the aircraft registration database and was willing to look up tail numbers