Paradise Gold: Ben Peters Thriller Series, #2

By Vic Robbie

America faces its biggest threat. Ruthless Nazis and Mafia assassins. German U-boats threatening to devastate New York and other American cities. And Ben Peters has to deal with two beautiful and dangerous women, who will do anything to get their own way. If you enjoy action-packed historical spy stories the second of this riveting World War II series is for you, taking you on a rollercoaster ride from London to the Caribbean to Manhattan. Reluctant spy Ben Peters fights evil forces as the Mafia and Nazis battle for French gold. In 1941, Martinique is vital to the outcome of the Second World War. France's gold reserves are held in the vaults of Fort Desaix, and France's Vichy Government and its Nazi masters want the gold repatriated to fund their war. Although President Franklin D Roosevelt considers sending in troops, America has no wish to get involved in the 'war in Europe'. But behind the scenes, factions in the US government enlist the Mafia's assistance to rescue the gold and British Intelligence persuades Peters to act as a 'neutral observer' on the island. Germany's U-boats are dominating the Atlantic, and if they get the gold Britain and ultimately America will be doomed. In this climate of danger and double-cross, Peters cannot trust anyone. And when he discovers the Nazis' horrifying plans to wreak havoc on the United States he faces a battle against the odds to save thousands of lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Principium Press
• Release date: Dec 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9780957346475

Vic Robbie

VIC ROBBIE was born in Scotland, lives in England and spends time in California. An author of fiction and non-fiction, he is an international journalist whose work has been published worldwide. He has worked for newspapers and magazines in the UK, Australia and the US as a writer, columnist and editor. His first book in the Ben Peters Thriller series, In Pursuit Of Platinum: The Shocking Secret of World War II, reached #2 on Amazon’s best-selling lists for War stories and #3 for Spy stories. He was also the founder and editor of the award-winning magazine Golf & Travel and published the PGA Official Yearbook. In addition to playing golf with a passion, but little skill, he has run several marathons including New York and London, for charity. 

Book preview

1

London: Saturday, September 7th, 1940

To kill her would be easy. Anyone could brush against her and all it needed was the thrust of a needle and a car to snatch her body away.

Late afternoon, and newspaper shift workers were heading home to the safety of the suburbs. As the Frenchwoman strode along Fleet Street, she studied every passing face searching for the one who would kill her. If she let her guard drop for a second, they would be on her as quick as wolves on wounded prey.

She’d stayed too long and now she must hurry. Surely no one could have begrudged her the chance to spend time with a handsome man who had an easy smile and a talent for flattery. Today was everything. Tomorrow? Who knew where they would be, and she had needed comfort, an interlude as an ordinary person. Tucked away at the back of The Old Bell Tavern, she let him buy her drinks. He held her hand and brushed her cheek with kisses as he whispered promises she didn’t want him to keep. While they might have appeared to be lovers, she was alert to every movement around her. ‘Always be aware of those closest to you,’ they had warned. But she had seen nothing suspicious. A man in a heavy overcoat and with a fedora pulled over his eyes had followed her into the bar. He ordered a pint of beer, a brew only a regular would know. He glanced in her direction and chose a table at the opposite end of the room and, opening a newspaper, started reading. Could he be the one? But he showed no further interest in her, and she allowed herself to relax knowing her looks often attracted attention.

Back on the street she was vulnerable, and she clutched her handbag closer to her. She passed the art déco Daily Express building, nicknamed the ‘Black Lubyanka’ after the prison in Moscow where Joseph Stalin’s henchmen tortured their prisoners until they died. The low Autumnal sun made her squint as she used its black glass facade to check if anyone was behind her.

France was gone, ripped apart as was the rest of Europe by the Nazi hordes. And the final humiliation, newsreel pictures of a gloating Hitler touring a conquered Paris. She could accept death, but she feared torture more and wondered if she would have the courage not to betray others.

The man emerged fast from the Daily Telegraph building. The collision surprised rather than winded her, and she put a hand to her chest as a stiletto of fear sliced through her and her heart pounded.

‘Watch out!’ he shouted and reached out to steady her.

‘Pardon.’ She blushed, forcing a smile and trying not to sound French yet failing. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going,’ she stuttered. He saw the look of a frightened animal in her eyes whose unnatural depth unnerved him.

‘No, it’s my fault.’ Ben Peters recovered, taking in the black hair tucked under an olive-green beret, her red-painted mouth, and the shapeliness of her ankles as she walked away.

She moved faster and pulled her coat closer as though that would protect her. She was behind schedule and she picked up the pace while trying not to bring attention to herself. But her fellow pedestrians were obstructing her at every turn and forcing her to weave in and out.

Ben was walking in the same direction, up Fleet Street towards The Strand, and realised he was following her. Her shoes beat a tattoo on the pavement with the rhythm of a tap dancer as she broke into a trot, and he was sucked in as though into a whirlpool. When she ducked left or right, he copied. And when she sped up, he did.

So intent was he on keeping her in sight, he didn’t hear the distant thuds followed by what sounded like hundreds of firecrackers. It was only when those around him stopped that his mind refocused on his surroundings. They were looking back along Fleet Street with the detachment of bystanders at an accident as if accepting its inevitability. The taste of defeat on the beaches of Dunkirk lingered and not even the victory of RAF planes in the Battle of Britain in the skies over England had dispelled their fears. There had been bombing raids over central London the previous month and there were reports that the Germans were amassing an invasion force on the coast of France.

In the distance what appeared to be a swarm of locusts, intent on ravaging everything before them blackened the sky. Below, flashes resembling lightning and black smoke and ferocious flames burning. And amidst it the brooding magnificence of the dome of St Paul’s stood tall and untouched as an icon of London’s defiance. The noise grew louder as the planes’ mechanical drone moved closer, and artillery batteries nearby opened up, the rattle of their fire followed by the crump, crump of the bombs. The banshee howl of air raid sirens cut through the clamour and sparked those around him into movement. As yet, there was no panic. Just a hurrying. And their voices remained quiet and in control. Young people helped the elderly and parents shepherded their children with words of encouragement while they glanced behind them at the approaching danger.

An air raid warden in a black uniform with his tin hat set at a jaunty angle stood in the middle of the road. In one hand, he held a gas mask and in the other a rolled-up cigarette and he pointed up the road, shouting: ‘Step lively now. Let’s be ‘aving you. There’s shelter a hundred yards on the right. If it’s full, make your way to the nearest underground station. Step lively now.’

Workers streamed out of their offices and shops, their querulous voices adding to the bedlam while Ben scanned the street for the Frenchwoman. Driven by an irrational need, he kept her within his sights. Perhaps he could be her white knight in a strange land and escort her to safety. At first, he thought he’d lost her, but she emerged from the crowd and was running harder now, almost pushing the slower ones out of her way as though in panic. And some, seeing her running, followed her lead. He stumbled into a run as he struggled to keep up.

She halted at the entrance to an alleyway and turned and stared back down Fleet Street with the look of the hunted fleeing a predator. Then she wheeled on her heel and plunged into its darkness.

He hadn’t noticed the man. Dressed in an overcoat and wearing a hat, he had muscled his way through the crowd and stood on the threshold to the alleyway. He paused, peering in, before following her.

Ben battled to reach the entrance, but the volume of fleeing pedestrians forced him back. A bomb fell, whistling on its descent. And a stillness settled as if they were holding their breath before a building, about half a mile away, disintegrated into a pile of rubble, sending a plume of smoke and flames flowering into the sky.

As though wading in a river swollen by a storm, he attempted to force his way through the crowd. His path blocked, he climbed a lamppost so that he could see over their heads and stared into the passageway that was in a half-light. He struggled to attune his eyes to the darkness. At first, he couldn’t make out anything, but gradually he identified two shapes.

The man was holding the Frenchwoman against the wall, his left hand on her throat. He shouted at her. Although her feet were off the ground, she argued back, her hands flailing at the man’s coat and face. With a sudden downward move, he pushed her head hard against the brickwork and she flopped to the ground. He felt in the pocket of his coat and raised his right arm, and something flashed as he slammed it into the side of her neck.

On the street, the noise was increasing. People screamed as more bombs fell and the ground shuddered with such power it almost knocked them off their feet. The drone of the German bombers, the constant firing of the artillery, and the explosions one after another built into a single cacophony. It filled his head with pain and the pressure mounted so that he thought it would burst. And there came a whoosh like an express train rattling through a station and the noise and force exploded out of his ears, nose and mouth.

2

Brooklyn, New York: Tuesday, September 30th, 1941

The kid wasn’t really family. Who’d object to Tony Paradiso terminating the dumbfuck? The bozo was his wife’s brother, and she often claimed he was her best friend, but for both their sakes the kid was better dead than alive. He’d turned out to be a 24-carat loser. Everyone saw that. Whichever way you looked, he wasn’t going anywhere with him hanging around his neck. Paradiso had to sort it. After all, he was a made man. They’d said nothing to him. But when your dog shits on the sidewalk it’s up to you to clear up the mess. Right?

He could’ve blamed his wife; she’d badgered him to find a job for her good-for-nothing brother. She’d asked him when they lay naked side by side in bed in their Brooklyn apartment. In the nineties and the goddamn air-conditioning packed up, and he wondered whether he’d the energy to do it in this heat. She was still cute, and when she asked him in her sugar-sweet voice to do things he found it hard to refuse. Do her a big favour and she’d be extra nice to him. How could he refuse for Christsakes? The wife had made an error of judgement, but he’d to carry the can. Still his responsibility.

Turned out the brother had a nasty streak, liked cutting up people with the knife he always carried. Picked the wrong person this time and made matters worse by getting drunk and blabbing all over the place. Said there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Said he was untouchable.

Named names for Christsakes.

That’s why he had to learn a lesson.

What would his wife say?

For Christsakes.

Mind you, they didn’t tell him he had to sort it out. Not the way they did things. It was a test. See whether he’d show initiative. How he would react in a crisis.

He’d been playing pool with Giorgio at Luigi’s when Giorgio let it slip. They wanted the kid dead. No second chances. Giorgio told him because they were buddies ever since that business in Key Biscayne. Giorgio owed him big time and would until the year dot. He realised Giorgio had been ordered to sound him out. Another test. Giorgio assured him the bosses didn’t hold it against him. Not his fault the kid turned out a waste of space. Nothin to reproach yourself for; won’t affect your prospects in the Organisation. They’d settle things. Nothin for you to worry about.

Nothin.

Absolutely nothin.

Bullshit!

Oh, boy, for Christsakes.

Do nothin and they’d be comin after him next. It was up to him. The message was crystal clear. These wise guys never said what they meant and if they did God help you.

So he invited the dumbfuck on a boys’ night out. Even cooked his speciality of spaghetti and meatballs at Luigi’s. Had a few beers and a game of pool – the least he could do for Christsakes. And when the kid was nice and relaxed and enjoying himself, thinking he was the main man, he blew off the top of his head.

The wife took it bad; her darling brother found on wasteland with his brains missing. Not that he’d that many.

‘Who could’ve done such a thing?’ she wailed. ‘Wasn’t a nasty kid.’

He shook his head in sympathy. Tough world out there. Lots of mad creeps looking to do something to innocent bystanders. He shook his head again as if unable to imagine anyone committing such a crime. He did his best to reassure her having bought the largest bouquet he could carry.

‘I’ll do my damnedest to find the person or persons who perpetrated this deed.’ He’d heard the line in some movie and thought it right for the situation.

She’d fixed him in the eyes with a hard, unwavering stare, and for a moment he thought she was extracting the guilt right out of him for Christsakes. But she couldn’t believe what he’d said. It lasted only a second before she dissolved in tears again and folded into the bosom of the blonde from next door who now had an arm around her and was dabbing his wife’s cheeks with a hankie. A wholesome blonde with large breasts that were always on show as if saying ‘Hey, guys, look what I’ve got’.

He’d always fancied banging her, but he’d never worked out how with her living next door. Her old man still banged her every night so that didn’t leave much time in her diary. Although that wouldn’t stop him. He could make a guy disappear in an instant. Happened all the time. But the husband was a Marine, and he didn’t fancy taking on the 1st Marine Brigade yet.

She talked to his wife in a soothing voice and that appeared to calm her. But it was what she said that interested him. Hubby, the Marine, was being posted to a godforsaken island in the Caribbean so she’d be around for his wife whenever needed.

He didn’t know it right at that moment, but it transpired she was talking about something much better than sex.

Gold!

Not a pot of gold but a whole fuckin boat made of the stuff for Christsakes.

3

London: Wednesday, October 1st, 1941

‘Our survival could depend on this’ was as much Pickering would say when he invited Ben to meet him at his London club. So rather than enjoying the sharp morning sunlight, Ben was experiencing a mixture of curiosity and trepidation as he limped along Piccadilly. He passed The Ritz where a woman, swamped in furs, was climbing into a Rolls Royce. And he marvelled that some didn’t seem deprived in the midst of war. Then he cut down St James’s Street. His progress could have been faster. Since the first night of the Blitz more than a year ago, he’d used a stick, although his doctors promised if he kept exercising he could soon dispense with it. He doubted whether his hearing would ever fully return. Now he heard a continual rumbling in his ears like distant thunder and wondered would he ever hear silence again. Although it appeared the Blitz had come to a halt after a nine-month long bombardment, London’s beleaguered citizens didn’t believe Hitler had finished with them. They were still on edge and barrage balloons, resembling tethered flying pigs, reminded them of the barbarity they had endured. Whether emerging from a building or alighting from a taxicab or bus, they would look skywards for any sign that an attack was imminent. And newspapers reporting Hitler’s scientists were perfecting long-range rockets to wreak more havoc on the capital didn’t alleviate the siege mentality. 

His destination in Pall Mall was a massive building where the privileged classes hid from ordinary people behind barricades of Portland stone and marble. The formidable porter looked him up and down as though judging whether he was suitable to be granted entry to these hallowed halls. And after what seemed like minutes, the porter snapped in the husky gravel of a smoker’s voice. ‘Follow me, sir.’ He put an emphasis on the ‘sir’ as he thought Ben to be no better than him.

He was led up a short flight of carpeted stairs into a square atrium, surrounded by Ionic columns rising several storeys to a lead crystal roof. A waiter appeared, and the doorman informed him ‘The gentleman is for Mr Pickering.’

With a nod, the waiter scurried away into the recesses of the building, a spider seeking cover, and he made to follow.

‘Please wait, sir,’ the porter ordered and positioned himself to bar his way. Ben did as he was told under the mournful gaze of the portraits of long since dead men in black coats and extravagant wigs lining the walls. 

Several minutes elapsed before the waiter returned to lead him into one of the main rooms off the atrium. To his surprise, even though it was a bright day outside, a large wood fire burned and spat out sparks like bullets. The only other noise came from a murmur of conversation between two members sitting on high-winged leather armchairs on the other side of the room. They checked out the newcomer and, deciding he wasn’t a threat, resumed their conversation. Another member was fighting sleep and his head kept dropping onto his chest and each time he spluttered back to consciousness. A newspaper slid off his lap with a thump and he snapped alert. Looking around like an old bird prodded with a stick, he picked up his paper, uttered ‘Quite, quite’ and resumed reading.

Pickering sat at the back of the room, hidden behind an outspread copy of The Times, although Ben could recognise him anywhere by the cloud of pipe smoke rising from behind the newspaper. He folded his paper and bellowed: ‘Peters, my friend. Good to see you.’ He rose to his feet and turned to the waiter who was now sporting a smile of relief: ‘Bring us two of my whiskies with water, James – and none of those piddling little measures. Make them large ones.’

The waiter flashed him a tired look as though he had taken the order too many times before. 

Pickering offered him a seat, before asking with an amused smile: ‘I presume you can take a snifter, won’t affect the pills and potions the docs are feeding you? How have you been?’ He ran his eyes over Ben with a look of concern as he slumped into the seat. ‘Bit worried about you at one time, old man, if I may say so. Thought you’d never wake from that bloody coma.’

‘Getting stronger every day,’ he said although not sure it was true. ‘I’ll be sprinting along Pall Mall in another week and most of my hearing will be back to normal soon.’

While the waiter placed two generous whiskies in front of them along with a glass jug of water, Pickering paused. ‘Thank God for Scotch.’ He raised his drink in a toast. ‘Although the war may be going badly, at least we’ve still got our booze.’

Ben declined the water and took a hefty swig of the whisky that warmed his mouth and brought a glow to his chest as it worked its magic.

‘Bloody rum do,’ Pickering continued, tapping out his pipe into a glass ashtray. ‘Just your rotten luck to be involved in the first night of the Blitz. What were you up to, in Fleet Street of all places?’

‘Can’t remember much. I was meeting a book reviewer friend at the Daily Telegraph. Everything afterwards, until I woke up in hospital, has gone.’

Pickering looked at him as though he didn’t believe him and, realising he didn’t want to dwell on it, changed tack. 

Since his escapade with Alena as the Nazis invaded Paris more than a year earlier, he realised Pickering was a friend; or as much of a friend as a well-connected member of British Intelligence could be. Which branch he worked for was a mystery. He had never asked, and they’d never tell you. After the Paris adventure, his American bank summoned him back to Wall Street. But Pickering, knowing he wanted to stay in London, arranged a job for him in the City while he got his writing career on track. The war was changing most people’s lives and certainly his. Now he wanted to stay in Europe and play his part in the struggle against the Nazis. Though life was hard and the bombing raids terrifying, the British, in particular the Londoners, were showing an indomitable spirit and will that would never be beaten. Had he gone back to the States, he would have felt as though he were running away from a fight he now believed was his.

 ‘I’m sorry that my message was cloak and dagger, old man. Needs must.’ Pickering hunched forward. ‘Very hush, hush.’ He looked around as if Nazi spies might be listening.

He started to speak, but Pickering stopped him with an upraised hand. ‘Let’s just say your efforts with the platinum impressed many important people and now there’s someone who wishes to meet you.’ 

‘If they’re looking for a repeat performance, they can forget it.’ He shook his head with a wry smile. ‘I’m not in tip-top shape, a robust game of chess is as much as I can manage.’

Pickering gave an unconvincing laugh and waved a hand. ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing like that.’ His eyes narrowed, and he took a gulp from his glass and Ben knew he was lying. ‘I have no idea why this chap wants to see you. In our line of business, it’s sometimes better not to know …’ Before he could finish his sentence, the waiter reappeared and whispered in his ear. ‘Right, he’s ready for us. Let’s go through now.’ He grabbed his arm, steering him towards an anteroom. ‘This guy’s important. Before the war, he headed the station in Berlin. Knows more about the Krauts than they do themselves. And he’s got the ear of people at the top.’ 

The room was spacious with a high ceiling that caused their voices to echo and tall windows, looking out on the street, and furnished with what appeared to his untrained eye to be expensive antiques. The man sitting in a chair in the centre of the room could have been an antique himself, he thought at first. He sat upright, his legs crossed, and a bony hand with long slender fingers grasped his thigh as though holding it in place. He was of indeterminate age. Maybe it was his full head of white hair that aged him, although time hadn’t troubled his eyebrows, which were the deepest black. Had his hair been black, he would have thought him to be younger. Or had his eyebrows been also white, older. In contrast, his skin was bright pink as though he’d climbed out of a hot bath, and there were no lines on his face as his skin appeared stretched over his bones. It was a patrician face, all angles and the sunlight streaming through the windows highlighted a surprising sharpness to his blue eyes. 

The man didn’t acknowledge them as Pickering pulled over two wooden chairs and, uncomfortable with the silence, Ben thrust out a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m Ben Peters.’

Instead of taking his hand, the man responded with a wintry smile aimed at no one in particular and he could see he hadn’t had too many opportunities to practise his charm. ‘Perfect, perfect,’ he said. And, when he caught his enquiring look, added. ‘An American.’ The man raised those eyebrows. ‘Years of living in France have not diluted your accent.’ And he made it sound more of an accusation.

‘I said he was exactly what you’re looking for.’ Pickering placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

‘Perhaps.’ The man fixed Pickering with a reproving stare as if he hadn’t decided. He glanced away and scanned the room before nodding to himself as if preparing to deliver a speech. ‘The name’s Smee. Dempsey Smee.’ And for the first time, he looked directly at Ben, who smiled as though he knew.

‘Not going to say who I work with. If I did, you wouldn’t have heard of them, anyway. Maybe better you don’t know.’ 

Smee watched him as he spoke, his eyes boring into him, looking for a reaction. ‘Just an offshoot of the intelligence services.’

‘A major one,’ Pickering interjected. 

Smee flashed him a warning not to interrupt. ‘The war won’t be won on the battlefields, but behind the scenes in secret. Those involved won’t be able to talk of this until after it’s all over. Intelligence, subterfuge, and propaganda. Those will be our major weapons.’

Unsettled by Smee’s staccato delivery as fast as Morse code, he stared at him.

‘Why are you here in England?’ 

Ben looked puzzled. 

‘As an American, surely being across the Atlantic would be a safer place to continue your writing?’ Not waiting for an answer, Smee continued. ‘That first night of the Blitz was much too close for comfort. Didn’t you learn from your experiences in Paris to avoid war at all costs?’

‘It’s not something I’d wish to repeat, but …’

‘Ah, yes.’ Smee was more used to talking than listening. ‘A young lady involved. Alena was her name. Is that your reason for staying in England?’

The mention of Alena’s name was a stab to the chest. He remembered meeting her for the first time in Bernay’s office at the Banque de France in Paris, the light from a lamp making her eyes shine jade green like a cat’s. Her warm, deep-throated chuckle. And the vulnerability in those eyes that reflected a haughty arrogance one instant and next haunted as though two separate personalities battled for dominance of her soul. The mystery of her disappearance had never been solved, and there wasn’t a day he didn’t think of her. There were times he believed he’d seen her in the street only to be disappointed. And every time a letter dropped through his letterbox he wished it were a message from her. She’d vanished off the face of the earth. Not even Pickering appeared to know her whereabouts. And he knew had he returned to America it would have severed any tenuous links with her.

‘Not exactly,’ he lied. ‘I’d hoped to see her again, but that’s not the sole reason.’ He hesitated and Smee encouraged him ‘Go on.’

‘I saw what the Nazis were capable of in France, and if they’re not stopped, they’ll enslave the entire world. I want to help the British people. Their bravery inspires me, and I want to be part of their fight.’ He was beginning to feel embarrassed that Smee had got him to show his emotions, yet he couldn’t stop. ‘I don’t want to run away when many others don’t have a choice.’

‘Commendable!’ Smee tapped a bony finger on his thigh. ‘This is why you’re here. Quite simple! We need an American.’ He let it sink in.