Free A Small Death in lisbon by Robert Wilson

Bavarian pigs. And, may I remind you, Herr Hauptsturmführer, that glibness is not an approved National Socialist attitude.'
    They went to bed shortly after that, Felsen feeling outmanoeuvred and sick. He lay on his cot and stared at the ceiling smoking through his cigarettes, turning over Eva's dismissal of him, the slickness with which she'd set him up and pulled it off.
    'Ah well,' he said out loud, crushing his last cigarette into the ashtray on his chest, 'just another in a long line.'
    It took him two hours to go to sleep. He couldn't get rid of a picture in his brain and a thought. The sight of his father's bare feet and ankles, swaying minutely at eye height, and why did he take his shoes and socks off?
27th February 1941
    They wore suits to breakfast. Lehrer's was single-breasted thick wool, dark blue and heavy. Felsen felt flashy in his Parisian cut, double-breasted bitter chocolate suit and a regrettable red tie.
    'Expensive?' asked Lehrer, his mouth full of black bread and ham.
    'Not cheap.'
    'Bankers don't believe you unless you wear dark blue.'
    'Bankers?'
    'The bankers of Basel. Who did you think we were going to see in Switzerland? You can't buy wolfram with chips.'
    'Or Reichsmarks apparently,' said Felsen.
    'Quite.'
    'But Swiss francs ... dollars.'
    'Dr Salazar was a professor of economics.'
    'And that entitles him to be paid differently to everybody else?'
    'No. It just entitles him to the opinion that in wartime it's best to have strong gold reserves.'
    'You're sending me down to Portugal with a consignment of
gold?'
    'A problem is developing. The Americans are being difficult about letting us have our dollars so we've started paying for what we want in Swiss francs. Our suppliers in Portugal exchange those Swiss francs for escudos. Eventually, through the local banks, the Swiss francs find their way to the Banco de Portugal. And once they've accumulated enough, they use them to buy gold from Switzerland.'
    'I don't see the problem.'
    'The Swiss don't like it. They're worried about losing control of their gold reserves,' said Lehrer. 'So, we are experimenting.'
    'How do we move this gold?'
    'Trucks.'
    'What sort of trucks?'
    'Swiss trucks. There'll be armed soldiers with you all the way. It's taken some organization I can tell you. You don't think I enjoy having my head in my briefcase all day, do you?'
    'I didn't realize gold was physically moved. I thought it was accounted for on paper by national banks.'
    'Perhaps Dr Salazar likes ... physically ... to sit on his gold,' said Lehrer, thinking some more, but he left it at that.
    'Whose gold is this?'
    'I don't follow your question.'
    'Wouldn't German gold be held in the Reichsbank?'
    'Now you're asking me questions which I can't ... which I don't have the knowledge to reply to ... or the authority. I am merely an SS-Gruppenführer, after all.'

    By 11.00 a.m. they had drawn up outside an unmarked building in Basel's business district. There was nothing inside or out to indicate what happened in this building. There was a handsome woman in her thirties sitting behind a desk with a single telephone on it. A large marble staircase spiralled behind her. Lehrer talked to the woman quietly. Felsen only heard a single word—'Puhl'. The woman picked up the telephone, dialled a number and spoke briefly. She stood and set off on strong legs up the stairs. Lehrer indicated that Felsen should wait while he followed the legs.
    Felsen sat in a densely packed leather armchair. The woman returned and sat at her desk without looking at him. She folded her hands and waited for the next high point in her day. It took Felsen half an hour and several cubic feet of charm to find out that he was in the lobby of the Bank of International Settlements. The name meant nothing to him.

    At one o'clock Felsen and Lehrer were sitting at a table in a restaurant called Bruderholz. Only other men in dark suits ate in this place and at tables well-spaced from each other. There were