In April 1945, World War II had come to an end, and the American, British, Soviet and other Allied forces had invaded the city of Berlin. The Soviets took control of the Berlin Zoo before the Americans and British.
Why did the Soviets preemptively take control of the Berlin Zoo? It turned out that after the Allied air forces bombed Berlin, Nazi Germany transferred the world art treasures they had plundered from all over the world to the zoo bunkers for preservation. The Berlin Zoo is already synonymous with the treasure house of German art.
As soon as the Soviets took control of the zoo, they began to transport the art from the bunker to the Soviet Union. A few days later, all the artwork in the bunker was removed, leaving Captain Sutikov with a squad to guard the Berlin Zoo.
One day, Boldin, a second-class soldier guarding the zoo, found a deep hole in the wall of a passageway. The deep hole was sealed with cooked plaster, which was shaken off under heavy artillery bombardment during the capture of Berlin. In the cave in the wall he found only a suitcase, which was wrapped in layers of suitcases, and when a layer of lambskin was opened, the thin silk was wrapped with what looked like brass buttons and rosaries, and some things that Pording could not name. Polding put the stuff back into the box and gave it to Sergeant Colencoe.
Sergeant Korenko joined the army as a professor of history and was assigned to the quartermaster. Korenko opened the suitcase and when he saw what was in the soft silk, his hands began to tremble. He carefully closed the box and immediately went to Captain Sutikov. He tried to say in a calm tone, "Captain, have you heard of the treasures of the German archaeologist Schliemann?" "The rank of captain, though much higher than that of sergeant, is no higher in knowledge than sergeant, and he knows nothing about Schliemann. Sergeant Korenko had to give a history lesson to the captain from the beginning:
In ancient times, there was no written record of human history, and it was passed down orally from generation to generation. Around the ninth century BC, a man named Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, recounting events that took place five or six centuries ago. This is what we call Homer's Epic.
Regarding the "Homeric Epic", people have always thought that it was fictionalized by imagination, and only the German archaeologist Schliemann firmly believes that the "Homer Epic" has a factual basis. It's not just a literary work, it's also a historical document. He did a great deal of work to prove his point, culminating in the discovery of the ruins of the ancient city of Troy in what is now Turkey in 1873 and the excavation of the golden treasure of King Priamun. This discovery is fully consistent with the account in Homer's Epic. Later, Schliemann donated all the gold treasures he had excavated to the Berlin Museum. When the Allies conquered Berlin, the Nazis transferred the gold treasures in the museum to the zoo.
When the sergeant spoke of such a history, Captain Sutikov asked incomprehensibly, "Sergeant, what exactly are you trying to explain to me?" ”
Sergeant Korenko said, "Report Captain, the treasure is in the box I brought up!" ”
Out of curiosity, the captain opened the suitcase and opened his eyes. These treasures include gold bracelets, golden beans, gold buckles, gold rosaries, gold masks and gold silk embroidered vests. The sergeant said to the captain: "The ancient craftsmanship is backward, and if you want to use very soft gold wire embroidery, you can only choose gold of high purity." ”
The captain was dazzled and momentarily overwhelmed, and he asked the sergeant, "What do you say we should do?" The sergeant said: "According to the order of the Allied Command, all works of art and treasures are handed over to the Allied Arts Committee. ”
The captain said, "That is tantamount to giving it to the Americans!" We bleed, they get the benefits? No way. We report up and let the above decide. ”
Hitler had committed suicide, the war was officially over, some German officers were being held in concentration camps for censorship, and some ordinary soldiers had been summoned to sweep the streets of Berlin. In the procession to clear the streets, there was a former SS major Sultz, who heard an old worker at the zoo tell him: "The suitcase you sent, the one sealed in the hole in the wall, has now been found by the Soviets." The old man told Sultz that the suitcase was now in the office of the Soviet captain.
When German Major Sultz got the news, he always wanted to get the treasure in his hands. But hard robbery is impossible, stealing, and there is no chance. He had been calculating: why didn't the Russians ship such a rare treasure in the captain's room to the Soviet Union? It seems that they are waiting for orders. He then thought, "Why shouldn't I give this order?"
It took Sulz three days to find a man who had previously forged dollars specifically for the Germans. This man's name is Peterson, and this guy fakes dollars that can be exchanged in U.S. banks. Now the Americans are arresting him, and he always wants to flee Germany, go to Sweden, and then go to other countries. Sultz approached Peterson and told him that he had obtained a boat in the Baltic Sea, but wanted to transport a treasure out before fleeing Germany so that he could make a fortune and live comfortably abroad. But in order to transport the treasure, some documents must be forged.
Peterson listened to Sultz's plan and said with confidence: "Whatever kind of documents you want, you can send the Russians to Moscow for inspection, and you will never show your feet." ”
A few days later, Sutikov, a Soviet captain stationed at the zoo, ordered his superiors by a man in a Soviet messenger's uniform: "Put the suitcase containing the treasure in an iron box with the captured medical supplies written on it, and transport it to Stuttgart by six o'clock tomorrow afternoon, catch the train to Leningrad, hand it over to Colonel Gorov and ask for written proof." This command burns immediately. The signature was like a ghost drawing, but the seal was clearly the name of Lieutenant General Svichev.
At six o'clock in the afternoon, former German SS majors Sulz and Petersen, dressed in neat black suits, arrived at the platform of the Stuttgart station. A truck honked its horn into the station and stopped in front of a wagon, and three soldiers carried an iron box into the van's trunk. At this time Sultz walked over and showed the Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to an officer standing in the van, and the Soviet officer saluted him, pointed the iron box at him, and the two sides successfully completed the handover procedure.
Sultz pointed to the carriage he was riding in and said to the conductor, "Go to Freienwald station and call us." ”
The train commander said, "Yes, Colonel! ”
Trains gallop through the fields. Sultz and Peterson leaned back in their chairs to recuperate. Not long after, the conductor told them, "Five minutes to get to Freienwald station." ”
When the train arrived, Sulz again showed the train commander proof and asked them to send two conductors to carry the iron box out of the station. There was a car waiting outside the station, which Sulz had hired in the morning. The car drove in the dark toward the Baltic Sea coast, arriving at Warnemünde Pier in four hours. Sultz and Petersen carried the iron box to the boat, which was also the general small yacht "Lindsay" that Sultz had obtained in advance. The boat sailed into the deep sea, and both were relieved: it worked!
The boat took six hours to reach its destination, Sultz was steering the rudder, and Peterson returned to the sleeping cabin. Because he was so happy, he took a bottle of wine and poured himself a drink. The guy was so drunk that he drank a bottle of wine in a few moments, but he opened another bottle before he knew it. After two bottles of wine, this guy was drunk, lying on the bed thirsty, trying to pour a glass of water to drink, but he couldn't touch the thermos. Just as he was touching it, he grabbed the valve of the liquefied steam cylinder, and the ghost made the god unscrew the valve, perhaps trying to boil the water, but after a while he fell asleep again, and the liquefied gas cylinder was leaking.
The boat enters the Danish coast. Sulz had mastered the law beforehand, and the Danish Navy patrol boats sailed every two hours. Sultz calculated that the gap time for the speedboat to patrol twice was enough to pass through the alert area. The speedboat machinery broke down again, just in time to meet Sultz's ship.
Sultz found the speedboat signaling him to stop two nautical miles away. He wanted to turn around and run away, but it was no longer possible. The speed of the speedboat is much faster than the boat, and the fact that there are guns on the speedboat can immediately bury the boat to the bottom of the sea. Sulz had to slow down to show that he was being inspected. But he didn't want the main object to fall into the hands of the other party, which was at the risk of his life. Sultz walked toward the iron box on the deck, and he decided to sink the iron box to the bottom of the sea so that he could one day get it back.
He tried with all his strength to drag the iron box outside the railing of the deck, but the iron box was too heavy to move it, and he tried to call Peterson to help, but a few shouts did not respond, and the guy must have been sleeping. Sultz saw that there was no light in the sleeping cabin and that the kerosene lamp was off. He drew a match and pushed open the door of the sleeping cabin, and the sound of "bang" immediately ignited a sea of fire, followed by an explosion, the liquefied gas cylinder that had been unscrewed by the drunk Peterson, the combustible gas had filled the sleeping cabin, and the match lit the combustible gas, causing an explosion. The boats were torn apart, and debris floated at sea, and some sank to the bottom of the sea.
Thirty-five years later, in January 1979, the brother of Danish sailor Krud died in a storm in the Baltic Sea. After the storm passed, Croode put on his diving suit and went to the bottom of the sea to find his brother's body, only to find an iron box, which was the treasure chest that sank to the bottom of the sea due to the explosion of the boat. Crude knew these things and thought they were made of ordinary metal, but he also suspected that they might be antiques. He decided to consult his cousin Neiburg.
Nieborg is a professor at Coppenhaal University. Crude took a few samples with him and faithfully recounted to his cousin how he had obtained them. Professor Neberg looked carefully at several samples, and searched for his own memories, and he finally saw that it was Schliemann's treasure.
Neberg waited for himself to calm down before he said to his cousin Crude: "This is made of inferior metal, it is likely that its owner threw it away, I will follow you to your house to see if there is anything more valuable, it is all these things, it is better to continue to let it lie on the seabed." ”
Neberg looked at all the treasures and confirmed them to be Schliemann's collection. He was so excited that he almost jumped out, but he calmly said to Croud, "You have suffered from salvaging these things, and for the sake of your relatives, I will try to get you some benefits." Give me a friend to play with, and I'll give you two thousand crowns. Let's just sell scrap metal! In that case, I'm afraid two hundred crowns is not worth it. Crude was so grateful to his cousin that two thousand crowns could put a cross on his brother's grave, and the rest of the money could buy a new anchor.
In this way, Schliemann's rare treasure was bought by Neberg for two thousand crowns.
Neberg knew these treasures, but he couldn't turn them into money. Once he publishes the news, don't say that his cousin is looking for him to settle the account, even the police will come to investigate the origin of the treasure, so that there will be nothing.
Neberg thought hard and finally came up with a good idea, so he went to the famous collector Count Lindholm. He lied a big lie to the Count, saying that Schliemann's treasure had been taken away by the Soviets and was now stolen by museum staff. The man now lives in Copenhagen and is in desperate need of cash to fly away.
The count believed it to be true. After seeing all the treasures, he decided to auction them to the world's largest museums, starting at fifteen million dollars, allowing the major museums to compete for prices. As long as the auction is successful, it is easy for the count to swallow the money alone, cutting people like Neberg like cutting a blade of grass.
The Piazzier's plan was this: to first notify the major museums around the world and to distribute the samples. On August 25, 1979, advertisements were placed in major newspapers around the world, announcing that a tender meeting would be held on September 1, and that museums would participate in the bidding meeting through the International Telecommunications Company for a period of three days.
The count himself participated only as a collector in the tender, which was presided over by a Swede who could not find out his identity. The bidding will end, and whoever pays the highest price will be the owner of Schliemann's treasure. Once the successful bidder puts the money in the hands of the arbitrator, the successful bidder can be connected with the major newspapers around the world at the same time
Knowing that, with the arbitrator's receipt, go to the vault of a specific bank to collect the treasure and complete the delivery procedure in front of journalists around the world.
This auction plan can be described as foolproof.
At the same time that the major museums were notified of the bids, the CIA was also meeting to study the auction. They had determined that Schliemann's treasure had fallen into the hands of the Soviets and had negotiated with the Soviet government for this purpose. The Soviets vehemently denied that such a thing had happened. And now someone would mysteriously auction the treasure to the public. The auction could not have been manipulated by the Soviet government, and no matter how economically depressed they were, they would not have spent less money.
Even if there is a lack of money, it will not auction Schliemann's treasure, which is tantamount to losing face in front of the world. There is only one possibility left that the treasure was stolen from the Soviet Union, which shows that the Soviet KGB has gone wrong with security measures. This is the question that the CIA is most interested in, if the Soviet Union has gone wrong with security measures and now that it has found out, it will inevitably have to replace the previous security means, and some of the intelligence of the other side previously held by the CIA will have no value. To this end, the CIA decided to send several cultural relics experts to secretly inspect the auction.
At the same time, the Soviet KGB made another judgment about the auction: Schliemann's treasure had been in their hands and had been deceived by the CIA, and the current auction operation, which could not have been controlled by the CIA, must have been stolen. What are the weaknesses of the CIA's security system? This is the question that the KGB is most interested in.
There was a shortage of people in the KGB who were familiar with archaeology, so they asked Dr. Kovpak of the Soviet Zoological Museum to assist them, and together with the KGB personnel, they formed a bidding team to participate in the bidding in the name of the Leningrad Museum.
Ruth, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, received notice from the auction house and immediately convened a board of directors to request funding and authorize her to participate in the bidding. Although the directors were aware of the value of Schliemann's treasure, they did not have enough financial resources to ensure that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York would become the owner of Schliemann's treasure and therefore did not agree to the appropriation.
Director Ruth was not discouraged, she thought of another way, in London, England, to hold a fraternity of major museums around the world, persuade the major museums to jointly raise funds, buy Schliemann's treasures, and then according to the amount of funding, let Schliemann's main objects travel between the major museums. In this way, the rare treasure is equivalent to the ownership of the people of the whole world, and the success of the one-time bid can be guaranteed, which is equivalent to ending the auction at the starting price in the absence of competitors.
This would have been a good idea, but at the London Conference, Turkey and Germany each made their own claims to Schliemann's treasure. Turkey believes that the treasure was unearthed in their country and should belong to Turkey. Germany, in its capacity as ex officio master, asked the participants to confirm German sovereignty over the treasure. The two sides were at odds and could not discuss fundraising at all. The London Conference, convened by Director Ruth, ended in an unhappy atmosphere.
Niukirke, a CIA official who attended the London conference as a Paris correspondent for the International Daily, had recognized the white-haired guy next to the Soviet archaeologist Kov Parker as a KGB official. Newker's judgment was correct, and the white-haired was Major Ukinov of the KGB. Of course, Uchinav was equally convinced that the reporter for the International Daily was an official of the CIA.
Through the London Conference, the Soviet archaeologist Kov Parker and the New York Ruth curator also met. Cove Parker is an internationally renowned scholar and Ruth has great trust in him. Koffparker told Ruth that the treasure had been in the hands of the Soviets for a time and had been deceived with a forged order. Ruth also told Cove Parker that it was not the Americans who cheated the treasure, because the CIA would never keep the treasure for a long time, it would definitely be handed over to the museum, and the only one who was eligible to accept Schliemann's treasure was the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
From the analysis of the exchange, both scholars believe that the treasure has never been in the hands of the Soviet Union and the United States, and has been privately owned for decades, and only in this way can the auction be reasonable.
Koffpark also told Ruth that there was a Swedish named Peterson who was an internationally renowned expert in counterfeiting, and that the Soviets had been trying to hunt him down because they didn't know his whereabouts.
According to the analysis of two experts, Coveparker and Ruth, under the circumstances, the only countries that the scammer could go to were Sweden and Denmark, and Peterson was Swedish, so the possibility of this person being in Sweden was greater. In the end, the two experts decided: unite, follow the trail of thirty-five years ago, and perhaps find the whereabouts of the treasure.
Ruth and Cobpark came to Denmark. She first made a call to the Danish collector, Count Lindholm. The count was so pleased to know that Ruth had come to Copenhagen that he invited her to a banquet in a luxurious restaurant. At the banquet, Ruth introduced Covepacker and the Earl of Lindholm.
Ruth told the Count that this time she had come to find the whereabouts of Schliemann's treasure. This sentence almost frightened the wine glass in the earl's hand: Isn't this for fear of the Lord?
Ruth then asked the Count for further assistance, asking him to provide information about Baltic storms and shipwrecks thirty-five years earlier. Ruth's request only reassured the count. This shows that Ruth has no doubts about him. But what was the use of her asking for storm and shipwreck information? Professor Neberg told the Count that the Schliemann treasure had been stolen from the Soviet Union and that the Count was unaware of the relationship between the treasure and the shipwreck.
The count took Ruth to the Danish naval base and consulted information that the weather was good on May 22 and 23, 1945, and that there were almost no wind and waves in the entire Baltic Sea, but there was a nautical diary that recorded that in the 0205 sea area a small boat self-destructed and sank, with no survivors.
Ruth was so happy to see this record that she said to Cove Parker, "That's it, we've found it!" While Ruth was excited, the count also figured out that the treasure had not been stolen from Russia at all, and that Neberg had made up a lie. Thirty-five years ago, the treasure was smuggled out of Germany by a small boat, exploded and sank near Geiser, and was later fished from the bottom of the sea and transferred to Neberg by unknown channels.
Now Ruth's search for the treasure posed the greatest threat to the earl.
Ruth decides to go to Geiser tomorrow to investigate further, and the Count says that he cannot accompany her tomorrow, but can use his car to send Ruth to Geiser.
The next day, the count said to his trusted driver, Wellton, "Ruth's actions are very bad for us, and you send them to Geiser tomorrow, and if they find clues about the treasure, they may be traced to Neborg's head." I think you know what to do with them. ”
Wellton nodded knowingly, "Rest assured, I'll do a pretty job!" ”
Ruth and Cobpopek arrived in the Wellton car to ask the nearby fishermen, but none of them knew about the sinking of the boat thirty-five years ago, only that in April this year, Croud's brother had a fishing boat crash, and that Crood had dived to retrieve his brother's body.
Ruth asked, "Did he salvage anything?" ”
Locals told her: "It was his brother's body that was recovered. ”
Ruth asked, "What else has been salvaged?" The locals spread their hands and said there was no comment. Director Ruth had trouble finding Crood again, and after several interrogations, Crude admitted to having salvaged an iron box containing some worthless bronzes that had been sold to Professor Nieborg for two thousand crowns. Ruth told Crood that the iron box contained treasures worth millions of crowns.
Croode woke up like a dream and said to himself, "He's a liar!" I'll settle accounts with him. ”
The Earl's chauffeur, Wellton, had been following Ruth, and when he saw that the clues were about to reach the Count, he secretly made up his mind.
Ruth and Cove Parker still took the car that Wellton drove back to Copenhagen. The car left the road and pulled over a path leading to the sea, and Wellton said he was going to check the tires. As soon as Wellton left the car, the car started on its own, sliding faster and faster down the downhill road, in front of which was the cliff, and below the cliff was the rough sea.
Ruth straightened up, her face pale in fright. Cobh Parker twisted the door handles hard, but the door was locked. As the speed of the car accelerates, it is getting closer and closer to the cliff. Kov Parker climbed forward from the seat, broke the soundproof glass, and climbed into the cab with difficulty, pulled the handbrake hard, and the car slowly slowed down, and finally crashed into the stone wall on the side of the road and stopped.
After a while, Wellton ran over in a panic. Cove Parker suppressed his anger and said to Welton, "Your car can still drive, and we don't dare to sit down." He stopped a taxi and sat back in Copenhagen with Ruth.
In the taxi, Cobfoot Parker said to Ruth, "I don't think it was an accident. Everything was prepared in advance. Ruth thought he had thought too complicated, and she still trusted the count, because she was an old friend for many years.
Back at the hotel, Ruth prepares to go to Professor Neberg tomorrow and persuade him to hand over the treasure, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art will give him a generous reward to force Neeborg to hand over the treasure. Otherwise, resort to the law to compel him to comply.
Covepacker thought better than Ruth, arguing that no famous professor in Europe had the financial means to organize such an auction, that there was someone behind Professor Nevinger, and that perhaps the treasure had fallen into the hands of this man. But none of his thoughts were discussed with Ruth, and it was not good for Ruth to know too much. Koffpak was a Soviet, and he wanted to get the treasure to their country.
When Koffpak returned to his room, he immediately hung up the phone to Professor Neeborg and told him that he was Dr. Koffpak of the Leningrad Museum, and that he now had a dinosaur fossil in his hand, and specially asked him to identify it as that age, and agreed to visit at nine o'clock tomorrow, and the next morning at nine o'clock in the morning, Ruth and Koffparker arrived at Niebor's house on time. When Ruth reveals the purpose of coming for the treasure, Neberg denies it, saying that his cousin Croud is a psychopath.
Cove Parker said to Nefer, "It's normal for you to deny it. However, you are bound to run into more trouble, and the CIA and the KGB of the Soviet Union are concerned, and before you are interrogated by the court, it is likely to fall into their hands... Before twelve o'clock in the afternoon, if you feel you need our help, you can call us at the Brazza Hotel. "Say goodbye to Ruth."
As soon as Koffpak returned to his room, the KGB official Uchinav told him that Neberg had just called a count. The news reminded Cove Parker that the treasure was most likely in the hands of the Count, at least it was a behind-the-scenes figure. They decided to go immediately to the earl's house. This time they were acting alone, and it was no longer necessary to take Ruth with them.
Shortly after Cliff Parker left, Ruth went to his room to find him. Ruth was surprised to see that Cliff Parker was not in the room. She feared the Russian expert might have been kidnapped by the CIA. Now what? The Count of Copenhagen was her only acquaintance and the most trusted one, and it seemed that the only way to find the Count was to help. She called the count to say that Cove Parker had suddenly disappeared, and asked the count to use his connections to inquire about Covepark's whereabouts.
Her phone call was tantamount to informing the count of a message: the intelligence agencies of both the Soviet Union and the United States were very concerned about Schliemann's treasure, and now both sides were collecting the net and trying to catch him as a big fish. He immediately dialed the phone and booked the first outbound flight, any country, as long as he left Denmark as soon as possible.
After booking his ticket, he returned to his room, packed Schliemann's treasure into a suitcase, and drove himself straight to the airport.
Soon after the Count drove the car out of his garden, he noticed a car following closely behind, and just as the two cars went hand in hand, the Count recognized that the car chasing him was Cove Parker, and the driver was a white-haired man. The white hair was forcing the count to stop, and the count was desperately trying to get rid of the other party, and when he made a sharp turn, he was afraid that the lord's car would hit a rock on the side of the road.
Uchinav stopped the car and walked over to see that the count's head was sticking out of the car, and he had been hit by a brain pulp and burst into tears.
Cobfpark took the suitcase from the Count and opened it: it was Schliemann's treasure!
Uchinov said to Kofpark, "Nerd, stand here waiting for the police?" Get in the car and go! Ruth was still waiting in the hotel for news of Cove Park, not Koef Parker, but the CIA Newk, who told Ruth that the person behind the auction was the Earl, who had crashed and died while escaping, and that the treasure had now been taken to the Soviet Union by Koffpark. Without Ruth's help, Newkirk was one step too late and became the loser in the battle for the treasure.
Ruth didn't believe Newker at all. Newker stretched out his hands helplessly and said, "Curator, tomorrow you will believe that I am honest, and then we will go back to the United States together!" ”
The next day, major newspapers throughout the world published Koef Parker's private statement: "My name is Koffpack, and I am an archaeologist, not a member of the KGB. My statement is against the will of the KGB and can only be made in my private name. I have brought Schliemann's treasure back to the Soviet Union so that the whole world will know that the treasure is in the Soviet Union. This forced the Soviet government to exhibit the treasure all over the world. The Schliemann Treasure belongs to the people of the whole world, and everyone has the right to see it. As for the question of its sovereignty, history will settle it justly. Let it be kept in the USSR now. Forgive me, I am a Soviet scientist. ”
Ruth read Kovpack's statement, and she said to herself, "But I'm an American scientist..." At this time, Newker sent her a ticket back to the United States, and she gratefully accepted.
(Liu Zhongyi)