The QE2 Is Missing

“This entire operation has been penetrated, spied upon by the resistance forces — and now they have captured these stupid play-acting politicians! They are after the diamonds, the arms ship, who knows — they must want everything. They shall not get it, Klaus. All they will get is a bullet. Stay there. Do you have a gun with you?”

“No, I’m sorry…”

“We’ll bring you one. We will hit them now, instantly, before they discover that they have been found out. Wait for us.”

Klaus, again at the door, heard his comrades coming down the corridor a few minutes later. He hurried silently to meet them.

“Nothing changed,” he reported.

“Good,” Wielgus said. He handed Klaus a pistol. His face was grim; the same expression mirrored by the four Nazis who stood behind him. “I have thought about what we must do while we were on the way here. I will knock on the door and say that I must talk to Stroessner about the arms shipment at once. They will open the door. You will take care of whoever opens the door____”

“It is dangerous,” Klaus protested. “One of the others must go in your place.”

“No. This is my responsibility. Come! Before we lose the advantage of surprise.”

Klaus stood out of sight to one side as Wielgus knocked on the door, again and again. A voice finally asked in Spanish what was going on.

“It is Doctor Wielgus. I must see the General at once.”

“I am afraid that he is asleep…. “

“I don’t care. Open now, immediately.”

After a short hesitation the lock rattled and the door opened a crack. The room was dark beyond. The Army Sergeant from Stroessner’s party looked out at them.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but everyone is asleep. I had specific orders…. “

He stopped as Klaus’s gun appeared over Wielgus’s shoulder, pointing him straight in the face.

“Hands in sight,” Wielgus ordered. “Walk backward. One wrong twitch and you are dead.”

They moved into the room. The lights came on and the armed Germans rushed in after them. Admiral Marquez was staring at them, tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth, his wounded aide unconscious on the floor beside him.

“How very interesting,” Wielgus said, looking about. “Watch this man closely. Guard the door, no one to enter — no matter what the excuse. Come, Klaus, we will look in the other room. I’m sure we will find something just as interesting in there as we did here!”

25

The roaring of the flame stopped as the engine room rating turned off the acetylene torch.

“That does it,” he said. “As neat a job as if I were trained in the profession. Maybe I ought to take it up as a trade after we make port. Robbing safes can’t be more dangerous than this blinking voyage…. “

“Stand aside,” Josep ordered, pulling the sailor’s shoulder. The heavy steel door of the vault was still glowing red from the torch, but the entire locking mechanism had been cut away.

Diaz was uncomfortable in his rubber mask, but he was not aware of it at this moment. He dug through the sailor’s toolbox and found an oversize screwdriver. “Use this,” he said, handing it to Josep.

Josep pushed it into the opening next to the fractured lock and threw his weight against it. Nothing happened. He did it again just as the ship rolled; the vault door creaked and opened a fraction of an inch. Josep stopped and signalled to the armed Tupamaro by the door.

“Take this sailor to the Captain’s quarters and put him with the others. Remain there with the others on guard.”

Josep waited until the two men had gone and he was alone in the cashier’s office with Diaz — who gratefully stripped off his mask.

“We did not need that sailor as a witness,” Josep said. “Let’s get this open.”

He levered harder with the screwdriver until they could get a grip on the edge of the door with their fingers. They heaved and the heavy steel door moved, wider and wider, until the vault was standing open.

On the burnished metal floor, in front of the rows of locked safe deposit boxes, stood the bag of diamonds.

Diaz bent over and picked it up and placed it on the table. “You have the key taken from the Czech?” he asked. Josep nodded and dug in his pocket. The key turned in the lock and the bag opened.

“An important moment in history,” Diaz said, reaching in and taking out a chamois sack. “This could mean freedom for both our countries.” He shook the diamonds out into the palm of his hand where they sparkled and gleamed. Josep nodded agreement. Diaz put the stones back, then locked the bag again. “You take the bag, I’ll take the key until we can divide these up.”

“Good. Now we will open these boxes and see what other funds the capitalists have supplied us with.”

“No. We will not do that. We are not thieves.”

Josep’s laugh was quick and humorless. “You amuse me, my little bourgeois revolutionary. You hijack the world’s largest ocean liner, kidnap two heads of state, burn open the ship’s safe to steal a fortune in diamonds — and stop short of taking some small change from the parasitical capitalists who squander their stolen money on this voyage. It is preposterous!”