“What were you able to find?” Mansfield asked.
Ivan passed him the folder, which contained a handful of photocopied papers. “Very little on the HMS Sentinel, I’m afraid. They had some build specifications and sea trial data, which I grabbed, along with a brief history. She apparently sank off Italy after striking a mine in March of 1917. The librarian said the Portsmouth Naval Museum might possess a greater operational history of the ship.”
“What about the risk insurance?” Mansfield asked.
“That’s what took some time. The original War Risks Insurance Office records were absorbed into the Ministry of Transport in 1919. I checked the data and found one payment in 1917 from Russia.”
He pointed to a page in the folder and Mansfield held it up. It was a statement of accounts for the full year 1917. Amid a long list of payments for merchant ships and cargoes lost at the hands of the German naval forces was a large credit posted from the Imperial Russian Treasury. The notation listed an April payment of two hundred thousand pounds drawn from an account in Ottawa.
Mansfield shook his head. “That was for an earlier shipment of arms valued at twenty million pounds.”
“Look on the next page,” Ivan said.
The following page held a short list of uncredited receivables. An additional entry was shown for the Imperial Russian Treasury in the amount of one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds.
“It says a pending shipment to Liverpool,” Ivan said. “But it was never paid.”
“From the submarine mentioned in the other file?” Martina asked.
“Yes, it must be the Pelikan,” Mansfield said. “My Moscow historian indicated it was lost in the Aegean in late February 1917. They evidently made it that far with the gold.”
“But the British government didn’t collect the insurance premium. They must not have received the gold.”
Mansfield noted the payment amount and whistled. “The Tsar paid one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds to insure the shipment.”
“That sounds like a healthy amount in 1917,” Ivan said.
Mansfield thought back to his meeting with Bainbridge. The banker said the earlier gold shipments were insured by a one percent premium on the shipment value. If the same formula held for this shipment, it would place the value of the gold aboard the Pelikan, at today’s prices, at more than two billion pounds. “There were no other indications that the premium was paid?”
“No,” Ivan said. “If you look at the other documents, you’ll see it was carried in their records for several years and ultimately written off as an uncollectible in 1925.”
Martina started the car and backed out of the church lot. “Is that the answer you were looking for?”
“It’s a data point. Not the concrete evidence I would prefer, but it provides strong inference.”
“What about the Americans?” she asked. “Are you satisfied they can cause no further trouble with what they know?”
“I am satisfied there is no signed copy of the treaty in England to worry about. As for the Americans, they can be a persistent bunch, so we must act to preserve what is ours.”
“What did you have in mind?”
He gave her an assured smile. “Tell me, Martina. Have you ever been to Greece?”
50
The Macedonia crept into Burgas Harbor just after dusk, the waters calm and glowing from the lights of the waterfront shops. The NUMA vessel’s lone crewman expertly piloted the ship alongside an open berth, where Giordino and a handful of dockworkers secured it to the wharf. Ana watched from nearby with a police escort, noting the speckled damage to the ship’s exterior.
“Ready to go aboard?” Giordino asked her.
“Yes, of course.”
He led her onto the Macedonia and up to the bridge, where they found Pitt shutting down the engines. His face was furrowed with exhaustion, but his eyes sparkled at the sight of the two visitors.
Giordino grinned. “How’s our zombie captain holding up?”
“Ready to sleep like Rip Van Winkle.” He lightly stomped his feet, cursing the pain in his knees that seemed to strike with more frequency as the years rolled by.
“How long were you at the wheel?” Ana asked.