99. A Fox in the Hen House
Chapter 2
The group was able to sleep or at least rest until mid-afternoon, when the first batch of resistance fighters arrived. Casino was awake and dressed hurriedly. He gave one sharp rap of his knuckles on the door to Terry's room and kept going downstairs without stopping. He came to a stop in the main room and looked at the five men who were waiting for him. It was the first time he realized they spoke Italian as their first language. He spoke some, but not enough to explain the specifics of explosives. This was gonna be fun.
A couple minutes later, Terry arrived and looked around. "Qualcuno parla inglese?" she asked.
One hand went up belonging to a one of the partisans who did not look much older than Kelly Garrison.
Casino turned to the girl. "Can you translate explosives?"
Terry frowned at him. "Not very well. I was taught in English. What Actor's brother taught me was also in English." Her eyebrows rose. "I think I'll go get Actor."
"I'm here," said the voice of the con man from the stairs.
Casino was dubious as the tall man approached. "Can you talk explosives?"
"We shall see," shrugged Actor.
Two more small groups showed up. All in all, there were fifteen resistance men to learn from Casino. There was nothing to be gained by waiting, so the cracksman opened one of his boxes and took out some parts. The lesson began with the basics of how to make a timer, how to set one up with the explosives, and what not to do with one. Between Casino, Actor, Terry, and the English speaking men they were taught hands-on. Casino kept a closer eye on the woman. She was careful and methodical, taking her time to do it correctly. Most of the men were handling the timers and explosives the same way. Casino explained timers were used on things like trestles, ammo and fuel dumps, not trains. Train tracks were blown up with plastic explosives and detonators.
When Casino was satisfied, he looked around at the number of men. This wasn't going to work.
"I can't teach all these guys at the tracks," he said to Actor. "Tell them one English speaking man from each group can come with us and he will have to teach the others."
Actor interpreted and waited. One man from each group stepped forward. A short conversation passed between the con man and the three partisans.
"Marcello, Beppe, and Bruno will accompany us," Actor told Casino.
The cracksman nodded.
"What about blowing up trucks?" asked Terry.
"Not today," replied Casino. "When we go to hit a truck, we'll take some of them with us. Trucks are a little different in timing. It's a matter of setting it up and knowing just went to push the plunger, so you don't blow the whole truck up.
Terry shrugged. "I'm good at blowing the whole truck up, and the bridge if there is one."
Casino looked at Actor and saw the amused smile on the man's face. "I'm sure you can teach her how to do it better."
"Yeah," the explosives expert said doubtfully.
That evening, as the sun was setting, Casino found himself in a train tunnel with Terry and the three resistance men. Garrison held a small torch, covered with most of his hand so a sliver of light shown only on Casino. The safecracker didn't take them very far inside, explaining he was going to use the opening of the tunnel to gauge when to push the plunger. From his pouch, he removed a piece of plastic explosive. He showed his pupils how much he would use, more if he wanted to destroy the train. Casino worked it in his hands until it was soft and pliable.
Beppe asked why it didn't explode from the handling. With great patience, that was foreign to his nature, Casino explained it needed a detonator attached to a fuse to make it explode. He tossed the wad of plastic explosive to Terry, who caught it handily and tossed it to Beppe. The Italian squeezed it and passed it to another man, who passed it on to the last man before it came back to the cracksman. Casino reshaped it and pressed it against the outside rail, just in front of a tie. Next, he showed them the cylindrical detonator attached to fuse wire, and pushed the free end into the plastic wad.
Casino stood up and picked up the spool wound with fuse line and slowly backed out of the tunnel, holding it by the handles on either end to allow the line to unwind so there was no tension on it. As he moved back slowly, he left some slack and watched Terry move it with the toe of her boot so it ran alongside the wall of the tunnel, careful that she did not move the end in the explosive. Yeah, somebody had taught her some of this, but probably not enough.
Outside of the tunnel, Casino backed into the woods, still letting the line out carefully. He went behind some rocks that were far enough away to prevent them from getting hit with pieces of the engine, or the cars if they did derail. Behind the rocks was the box with the plunger. The wire was cut and attached to the box. Casino still had an unobstructed view of the entrance to the tunnel and train engine when it arrived. Now they waited.
The large truck that had brought them all to the site, was hidden a good ways through the woods on the other side of the tracks. There were also mules with pack saddles specifically for carrying boxes. Goniff, a dozen more resistance men and Giorgio were hidden on both sides of the tracks, far enough away from the explosion, but still able to shoot any of the guards that showed themselves from the train cars.
Garrison and Actor slipped between the trees to reach Casino and Terry. Both sat on their heels behind the other two.
"Learning anything?" whispered the Lieutenant to his sister.
"We'll see," she replied.
They didn't have long to wait before hearing the engine approaching from a distance. Casino frowned.
"I know there's a curve in the tracks inside the tunnel, but it seems to be goin' awful slow," said the cracksman.
The engine came into view, with a second engine behind it, followed by a tender and two box cars. There were two soldiers on the tender, and one on the ladders of each of the box cars.
"There's two engines," hissed Terry to Casino.
"Yeah, no sweat. Now watch," he said to no one in particular.
He waited until the front engine began to creep into the tunnel and slammed the plunger down. The explosion was loud and smoke and debris roiled out of the tunnel. The train came to an abrupt stop, with the second engine tilted to the right and the tender falling over, disconnecting from the first box car, which also settled at an angle.
Gun fire sounded and partisans approached the train, shooting. Garrison and Actor joined in. The shooting did not last long. Terry stayed back with Casino as he packed up his reel of wire and the plunger.
"I'm impressed," said Terry. "If I tried that, the engines would be on their sides and the cars jackknifed."
"I was lucky," said Casino. "They were going so slow, they didn't bunch up."
"I know there's a grade," said Terry, "But I don't know how much. Not that I guess it would matter at this point."
She picked up the plunger box and let Casino take the heavier reel of fuse. They made their way to the last boxcar and around it to the other side where the truck was hidden from view. There was a scurrying of men passing boxes out of the cars. Actor and Garrison were standing out of the way watching.
Casino left the girl with her brother and the con man, while he followed Goniff, who was carrying a small box by each hand. They went to the truck and the explosive equipment was loaded close to the tailgate. The rumble of another truck approached.
"We got company," said Casino, drawing his gun.
"It's all right," called Marcello to him from the inside of the truck being loaded. "It's one of our trucks. There's too much in those train cars for one truck and all the mules."
Casino lowered his gun but did not put it in his shoulder holster until he saw it was not a German truck. Glancing to his side, he saw Goniff keeping his gun down but ready. Immediately some of the men began loading the back of the second truck. Soon, both trucks were loaded. Casino climbed into the back of the first truck with his explosive equipment inside. Goniff and Beppe joined him. Garrison, Actor and Terry trotted up. The Lieutenant climbed into the cab of the first truck. Chief, Marcello and Bruno got in the back of the second truck. Actor motioned Terry to come with him. He put her in the middle of the front seat and sat next to her on the passenger side.
The second truck led the way back to the villa.
"It will be a long night," warned Actor.
"All this stuff is going to sit at the villa?" asked Teresa dubiously.
Actor shook his head. "As we finish cataloging and Casino closes the boxes back up, they will be taken and put on the mules. They can start up the trail to the closest cave. As we continue the boxes will then go into one of the trucks to be driven closer to the second cave."
"How will we know which artwork is going to which cave?" asked the woman.
Actor shrugged. "We will do it the easy way. We unload one truck and corresponding mule at a time. When the mules are fully loaded, we switch to the truck going to the other cave. Do you have what you need to write down the 'what', 'from somewhere', and the 'to where'?" Actor assumed she had come prepared.
"I have a supply of steno pads. I label the top of the pages with the number assigned to the cave. The items go down the left column and where they came from goes down the right column. When we are done with one cave, I start a new set of pages for the second cave. Craig has a microfilm camera with him and he will take pictures of the pages as back up. He also has the map of cave locations and they are numbered so all I have to do is put a number at the top and not write the whole thing out each time."
Actor nodded. He and the Lieutenant had discussed this without Teresa being present. The girl had the plan down perfectly. He knew she would. With her attention to details, she would make a great partner. Too bad she did not have enough larceny in her to do this after the war. The same with her brother. They were probably the only two people he would trust to partner with.
Back at the villa, Terry ran upstairs to get her steno pads and pens. Actor tossed his jacket on a chair and unbuttoned his shirt sleeves, rolling the cuffs up. Casino showed up, with a crowbar and hammer, behind the first large picture box. One of the resistance men brought in a sack of nails and handed them to the safecracker. As Casino pried the top off the first box, Terry came bounding back down the stairs.
"We're unloading the mules from the lead train car first, then the truck," Casino said. "They'll divide the stuff onto the mules that can safely go on them so they can leave first."
Terry pulled out a chair at the far end of the table, opened her first steno pad and looked at her brother. "Which number first?" she asked.
"Three," replied Garrison.
Terry watched as Casino pulled the first painting carefully from the box and handed it to Actor. "Capitoline," she said. That earned her a quick raised eyebrows look from the Italian.
"Yes," he verified. He didn't have time to remark beyond that.
After the problem with the Van Loon, he took the time to swiftly eye each piece to make sure it was not a fake. Satisfied, he told her the name of the painting and the artist. Somehow he had a feeling she knew it already. She was printing the title in one column with the artist's name and the name of the museum in the other column. Finished, he handed the painting back to Casino in return for the next one. The safecracker carefully slid the painting back into its box and nailed the top shut. This was taken by a resistance man and replaced with a new one. This was the routine for the rest of the art work.
They were partway through the first truck, when Actor stopped and studied a religious painting with closer scrutiny beneath a furrowed brow. The Germans were mixing their loads. He wondered if they were getting to the end of their plundering or what was going on. He gave the name of the painting and artist, as Sandro Botticelli, to Teresa, who looked up sharply at that. "Would you make a note beside this entry that it is from the Villa Borghese?" he added.
Terry wrote it down as requested. There was another, smaller painting from the same place and she made note of it too. When they were done with this load and Casino was putting the boxes back together, she stood and stretched her back before going over by the confidence man, shaking her head.
"What is troubling you?" Actor asked.
"I don't find it troubling," she said. "Just impressive. How do you keep all this knowledge in your head and not forget anything?" she asked.
He gave her a crooked smile. "Many long years of practice."
"You're not that old," she admonished him. Another thought crossed her mind and her voice lowered to barely above a whisper. "Did you ever acquire any of these paintings we have been cataloguing so far?"
"He was silent for a few seconds. "The first one from the Villa Borghese," he admitted.
"Are they relatives of yours?" Teresa wanted to know.
"Who? The Borghese?" At her nod, his smile widened. "So far removed that we don't even acknowledge it." He went on, "It wasn't in the Villa at the time."
"I didn't think there were Botticelli's at the Capitoline." Teresa smiled back at him. "Paintings, sculptures, jewelry, jewels. If I owned a museum, I would hire you to be the curator."
Actor chuckled. "Isn't that something like having the fox guard the hen house?"
"Who better?" she countered.
Before he respond to that, the next set of painting boxes came in.
As Actor was waiting for Casino to get the first box opened, Terry looked up at a sculptured bust. Aloud, she said the name of the piece and the artist and Capitoline. The con man glanced at it and nodded that she was correct. The woman told the men, in Italian, to put that one in the truck.
"Actor, that thing isn't even boxed up," she pointed out.
"Nothing we can do about that," he replied.
Terry wrote the information down as Casino handed the next painting to Actor. And on it went. It was midnight before they had catalogued the contents of the first truck and could begin on the artwork from the second set of mules and truck.
Terry carefully tore the pages she had written from the steno pad and called for her brother. She handed him the pages to photograph with the microfilm camera, and got the number of the next cave. From there things began again as quickly as the artwork from the first truck and mules. There was no time to rest.
They finally finished at three-thirty in the morning. Terry tore out the pages for the second cave and handed them to her brother to photograph. She stood up from her wooden chair and arched her back to get the kinks out from leaning over the table. Then, she started flexing the fingers of her right hand.
"I have writer's cramp," she lamented.
That brought a snort from Casino. "I think my shoulder and arm is out from all that nailing," he said, rotating his right shoulder. His grin should have warned the other two. "Hey, Actor, you ever touched so many famous paintings at one time?"
"No, I can't say that I have," the con man replied. "Very satisfying."
Before Casino could make any nasty remarks as was his way, Terry spoke up seriously. "How many were the most you've heisted at once?"
Actor thought about it. "I prefer the term acquired. Only three and they were miniatures," he said. "Nicholas Hilliard."
Terrys face scrunched in concentration. "Queen Elizabeth the First and King James the First."
Her eyes shot to his face. "You stole paintings from the National Gallery?" she asked in awe.
That even got Garrison's attention.
"No," chuckled the Italian. "Paris, 1933." They were in the collection of a very wealthy man there. Gilliard went there in 1576 for more money and more knowledge."
Garrison had never really addressed his second-in-command's reasons for stealing paintings. "Why did you steal them from Paris?"
The con man shrugged. "I had a buyer who would pay handsomely, so I went after them." He smiled broadly. "Good experience and quite a bit of money, even back then."
Terry yawned. "Can we get some sleep before the next train we hit?"
"Probably a truck, Babe," predicted Casino. "It'll take a while for them to clean up that mess in the tunnel and fix the rails."
"And it will most likely be farther away," added Actor. "yes, sleep would be welcome."
Terry picked up her steno pads and pens and led the way to the stairs.
7