Page 60 of The Little Liar

“Eighteen.”

“Listen to me, Lars. I need that passport.”

“Why not go home to Germany?”

He looked away. “I can’t. I have something to do, and once I do it, I need to start fresh.”

“Well, I can’t help you,” Nico said. “I’m sorry.”

Gunther snorted and looked out the window, as if contemplating his next move.

“Listen,” he whispered, “I can make us both rich.”

Nico studied the man’s clothes. A turtleneck sweater, grayslacks, dirty coat, fur hat. He didn’t look like a man who could make anybody rich.

“How?”

“Not long ago, there was a train, more than twenty cars long. It was full of gold, jewelry, cash—all things we took from the Jews. It was heading to Germany to fund the Reich.”

“So?”

“It made stops.”

Nico waited.

“It madestops,” Gunther repeated. “And at one of those stops, some crates... were taken off.”

He leaned back in his seat.

“I was a guard on that train. There were lots of us. And a few of us know where those crates are hidden.”

“Where?”

The man grinned. “Of course you ask me that. But I’m not telling you. I’ll just say there’s a church here in Hungary with a basement that has enough for a lifetime.”

He measured Nico with his eyes. “You get me a new passport, I’ll take you there.”

***

Three months later, on a damp, moonless night, a large truck sat in muddy grass that surrounded an abandoned Romanesque church in the small town of Zsámbék. The church, built centuries ago, was destroyed by the Turks in the seventeenth century and was never repaired. It had been a tourist attraction until the war. After that, there were few visitors.

From what Nico was told, Gunther and a fellow guard, whowere supposed to be doing a nighttime inventory on that Nazi train, had secretly unloaded several crates of gold, cash, and jewelry into a transport, then had driven it here in the middle of the night. Gunther said they’d paid off a night watchman to let them unload it into a basement chamber. They’d put a padlock on the door.

“What happened to your partner?” Nico asked.

“He’s dead,” Gunther said. “The Russians got him.”

“What about the night watchman? Didn’t he know what you were doing?”

“Not a clue.”

“How do you know he stayed quiet?”

“He did. We took good care of him.”

The stone floor beneath the church was wet and smelled of mold. Nico and Gunther found a heavy door with a padlock, and Gunther used an axe to break it. They pulled the door aside and lit the room with flashlights. Sure enough, there were four crates sitting inside.

“What did I tell you?” Gunther said, a huge grin on his face.