The Double Eagle

SIX

Washington DC19th July – 08:35am

The car was new and the smell of faux leather and moulded plastic hung heavily in the air. A silver crucifix hung on a thin chain from the driver’s mirror and spiralled gently, its flat surface catching the light every so often.

Looking up from her notes, Jennifer lowered the window and let the hot breeze massage her face as the car crawled through the downtown traffic on Constitution Avenue towards the Smithsonian, as first the Lincoln and then the black hulk of the Vietnam Memorial inched past. A lone veteran was on patrol, two small Stars and Stripes taped to the handles of his wheelchair like pennants on a diplomatic stretch. Up ahead, two huge coaches spewed Japanese tourists onto the sidewalk, cameras unholstered as soon as their feet hit the concrete.

Unconsciously she smoothed the left lapel on the jacket of her black trouser suit. She always wore black. She looked good in it and besides it was one less decision to make in the morning. Noticing the time on the dashboard clock, Jennifer shook her head in irritation. She was late for her appointment and she hated being late. Five minutes later, seeing that she was only level with the Washington Monument, she opened her purse.

‘I’ll walk from here,’ she said thrusting twenty dollars past the driver’s right ear.

She opened the door and stepped out onto the street, the tarmac already soft under the heel of her shoes as the temperature climbed. She squeezed between two government-issue black sedans, their air-conditioned passengers shielded behind smoked glass, and stepped onto the sidewalk. A bit further on, a hot-dog seller had already installed himself on the corner of 16th Street and the smell of frying onions and reheated sausage meat made her stomach lurch unsteadily. Gritting her teeth and breathing through her mouth, she walked on.

The Smithsonian Institution is the largest museum complex in the world, comprising fourteen separate museums and the National Zoo in DC itself and two further museums in New York. Taken as a whole, the museum’s collection numbers over one hundred and forty-two million separate objects.

The Money and Medals Hall of the National Numismatic Collection is housed on the third floor of the National Museum of American History, a low-slung, white stone 1960s building on the National Mall at the junction of 14th Street and Constitution Avenue. The Collection numbers over four hundred thousand items although only a tiny fraction of these are ever on display.

Ten minutes later, Jennifer was ushered into a dark wood-panelled office, her feet sinking into the thick green carpet. A Stars and Stripes loomed in the corner. Framed by two large windows at the far end of the room, Miles Baxter, forty-two, the curator of the National Numismatic Collection, was sitting behind a massive desk covered in files and papers. He wore a dark blue sports jacket over a button-down white shirt and beige chinos and the air was heavy with the scent of freshly applied aftershave. He didn’t get up.

‘They didn’t tell me they were sending a woman.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ Jennifer felt herself tensing automatically.

‘Quite the contrary, Miss Browne. It’s a very pleasant surprise. It’s just that if I’d known I’d have made more of an effort.’

He smiled and two rows of piano-key perfect teeth flashed back at her from a tanned and confident face. They shook hands and his palm felt moist. Almost subconsciously she registered that his hair was less fluffy where it parted on the left hand side. She knew instinctively that he had licked his hand and then smoothed his hair down just before she had been shown in. So much for not making an effort.

‘It’s Special Agent Browne, actually,’ said Jennifer, taking out her ID and passing it to him.

His smile faded.

‘Of course it is.’

He studied her ID carefully, diligently comparing her face to the picture with several searching glances. She took the opportunity to wipe her palm, still damp where he had clutched her hand in his, against her trouser leg. He snapped her wallet shut and handed it back to her.

‘Of course, I’ve dealt with the FBI before, although if I may say so never with someone quite so … attractive. Unfortunately I’m not at liberty to discuss those cases with you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘A small matter of national security; I’m sure you understand.’ He gestured towards the right hand wall which she could see was decorated like a small shrine with photos, carefully calligraphed certificates and gilt-lettered diplomas. She nodded and hoped that he didn’t notice her stifle a smile.

‘Do you know Washington well?’ She gave a slight shrug which seemed to be all the encouragement Baxter needed. ‘You know, if you want someone to show you around, I’d be very happy to act as your tour guide one weekend.’

A couple of years ago, when she had still believed that intelligence and hard work would be enough for a black woman to make it as an FBI agent, Jennifer would have met that sort of offer with an acidic smile and a dismissive laugh as a matter of principle. But that was before the dull blade of experience had taught her to use all the tools at her disposal. If that meant telling Miles Baxter what he wanted to hear so that she would have something good to go back to Corbett with, then so be it.

‘I’d like that.’ She brushed her hand coquettishly through her hair.

‘Great.’ He beamed. ‘Please sit down.’ He nodded towards the leather armchair opposite him. ‘And you must call me Miles.’

‘Thank you Miles.’ She smiled warmly. ‘You must call me Jennifer.’

Baxter placed his hands together as if in prayer, his fingers sore and ripped where he had bitten his nails.

‘So, Jennifer, how can I help?’

She reached inside her jacket.

‘What can you tell me about this coin?’ She held the coin still sealed inside its protective plastic envelope, out to Baxter, who slipped on a steel-rimmed pair of glasses and angled it underneath the green shade of his desk light so that he could make out the embossed detail. He looked up, his eyes wide with amazement, his voice halting and for the first time uncertain.

‘Where … what … how did you get this?’ He shook his head in disbelief, the slack skin under his chin tracking his head movements like a small pendulum. ‘This is incredible. It’s impossible.’ His breathing was ragged, his hands trembling slightly as he turned the coin over and over in his fingers as if it was too hot to hold still.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well … it’s a 1933 Double Eagle, of course.’

She shrugged.

‘I’m not a coin expert, Miles.’

‘No, of course not. Sorry. Well, you see, the US government has been minting gold coins since the mid 1790s and twenty dollar coins, or Double Eagles, since the 1849 Gold Rush.’

‘Why Double Eagle? There’s only one eagle on the coin.’

‘Just one of those things, I guess.’ He sniffed. ‘Ten dollar coins were known as Eagles, so when the twenty dollar coins appeared, they were called Double Eagles. Most people can be very unimaginative if they try hard enough.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s all down to the date,’ he said, with a thoughtful look on his face.

‘You mean on the coin? Why, what happened in 1933?’

‘It’s more what didn’t happen in 1933,’ said Baxter, tapping the side of his pink nose enigmatically as the colour began to return to his cheeks and his voice grew more confident. He placed the coin on the desk and sat back in his chair. ‘The interesting thing about a gold coin minted in 1933 is that at the time America was in the grip of the Depression. And as a result, days after assuming the Presidency in March 1933, Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard and banned the production, sale and ownership of gold.’

Jennifer nodded as a long-forgotten high-school history project bubbled back to the top of her mind. The Wall Street Crash in 1929. The Great Depression that followed. A quarter of the nation out of work, the country in chaos. And in that hurricane of human misery, with stocks and bonds worthless and life savings wiped out, people had clung onto the only thing that they believed had any real value. Gold.

‘The President wanted to stop the hoarding and calm the markets by shoring up the Federal gold reserves,’ Baxter continued, illustrating this with a series of increasingly animated hand gestures. ‘Executive Order 6102 prohibited people from owning gold and banks from paying it out.’

‘Leaving coins like this stranded, I guess.’

‘Exactly. By the time FDR passed this law, 445,500 1933 Double Eagles had already been minted and were just sitting in the Philadelphia Mint, ready to be put into circulation. Suddenly there was nowhere for them to go.’

‘So they couldn’t issue them?’

Baxter smiled. ‘They couldn’t do anything with them. Except melt them down, of course, which they eventually did in 1937. Every single one.’

He lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper.

‘You see officially, Jennifer, the 1933 Double Eagle never existed.’

SEVEN

Clerkenwell, London19th July – 2:05pm

He’d had the shop’s frontage painted a treacly black, although the windows themselves were still obscured from the street by the thin coat of whitewash. Against this background the shop’s name, freshly painted in large gold letters in a semicircle across both panes, seemed to stand out even more prominently. Tom read it proudly: ‘Kirk Duval’. His mother would have liked that. And then under it in a straight line and smaller letters: ‘Fine Art & Antiques’.

He checked both ways and then crossed the street, stopping halfway as he searched for a gap in the traffic, eventually reaching the shop door. It opened noiselessly under his touch to reveal a jumble of hastily-deposited boxes and half-opened packing crates, their contents poking resolutely through straw and Styrofoam. In one, an elegant Regency clock. In another, a marble bust of Caesar or Alexander, he hadn’t checked yet. Across the room, an Edwardian rosewood card table had been completely unpacked and a large Han Dynasty vase filled with dried flowers stood in the middle of the dark green felt. It was going to take weeks to sort it all out.

Still, that didn’t bother Tom. Not now. For the first time in as long as he could remember he had time on his side. He had thought about stopping before, of course, or at least toyed with the idea. After all, he hadn’t needed the money for years. But he’d never been able to stay away for more than a few weeks. Like a gambler ushered back to their favourite seat at the blackjack table after a brief absence, he had been sucked back in every time.

This time was different though. Things had changed. He’d changed. The New York job had proved that to him.

And yet one name lurked beneath the thin veneer of normality that Tom had tried to build for himself over the past few days. Cassius. He wasn’t sure if Archie had been lying or not, using Cassius’s name perhaps to try and force Tom’s hand to follow through on the job. If so he was taking a big risk. But if it really was Cassius that had commissioned the theft, then Archie was rolling the dice without even properly understanding the rules or how Cassius played the game. Or even perhaps what was at stake.

But Archie wasn’t his responsibility. That’s what Tom kept reminding himself. Not now, not ever. If he had gotten himself into this mess then it was up to him to get himself out of it. Tom wasn’t being heartless. Those were just the rules.

He continued through the shop, the wooden floor freshly cleared of the debris that had coated it, until he reached the two doors at the rear of the room. Opening the one to his left, Tom stepped through onto the narrow platform that ran along the back wall of the large warehouse.

On the left hand side, a metal staircase spiralled tightly down to the dusty floor some twenty feet below. A steel shutter in the opposite wall opened onto the street that ran down the hill and around the back of the building. There was a faint buzzing from the neon tubes that lined the warehouse ceiling and their primitive light made the flaking and stained white walls come out in a sickly sweat.

‘How are you getting on?’ Tom called out as he came down the stairs, the cast iron staircase vibrating violently with each step where it had worked itself loose over the years. The girl looked up at the sound of his voice, brushing her blonde hair aside.

‘There’s still a lot to do,’ she took her glasses off and rubbed her blue eyes. ‘How does it look?’ Her English was immaculate, although spoken with the slight tightness of a Swiss-French accent.

‘Great. You were right, the gold does look better than silver would have.’

She blushed and put her glasses back on. Still only twenty-two, Dominique had worked for Tom’s father in Geneva for the last four years. After the memorial service, she’d volunteered to help him move all his father’s stock back to London and get the business up and running there. She’d done a great job. He was hoping she would agree to stay on.

‘Is everything here?’ Tom nodded towards the piles of crates and boxes that were stacked across the warehouse floor.

‘I think so, yes. I just need to check those last few boxes off against my list.’

‘These?’ asked Tom walking over towards the three crates she had pointed at.

‘Uh-huh. Read off the numbers on the side will you?’

‘Sure.’ He went to the first one and bending his head slightly, read the numbers back to her.

‘131272.’

She turned back to the laptop she was sitting in front of.

‘Okay.’

Tom moved to the next crate.

‘1311…’

He was interrupted by a clipped, nasal voice that sank heavily from the platform above.

‘My, my – we have been busy, Kirk. You must have knocked off Buckingham Palace to get your hands on this little lot.’

‘Detective Constable Clarke,’ Tom said flatly without bothering to look up. ‘Our first customer.’

Clarke robotically lit another cigarette from the one already in his mouth before flicking the sputtering butt over the railing and wedging the new cigarette between his teeth. It landed harmlessly at Tom’s feet.

‘It’s Detective Sergeant Clarke now, Kirk,’ he said as he took a drag on his cigarette and made his way down the stairs to the warehouse floor, the staircase strangely silent under his lazy step. ‘While you’ve been away, there’s been a few changes around here.’

‘Detective Sergeant? They really must be desperate.’

A muscle in Clarke’s neck began to twitch. He was quite a tall man, although his rounded shoulders made him seem shorter. He was also distressingly thin, his grey skin drawn tightly across his sharp cheekbones, his mouth pulled into a permanently grudging grimace, his hair fine and brushed forward to disguise how far it had receded. His wrist bones, especially, jutted out under translucent skin and seemed so delicate that they might snap if you shook his hand too firmly. The only colour came from the broken blood vessels that danced across his sunken cheeks.

‘I heard you were back, Kirk. That you’d crawled out from whatever hole you’ve been hiding in for the last couple of months.’ His watery eyes flashed as he spoke. ‘So I thought I’d come and pay you a visit. A social call. Just in case you thought I’d forgotten about you.’

‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I’d certainly forgotten about you.’

Clarke clamped his mouth shut and Tom could see from the colour rising to his face that he was focusing all his energies on not losing his temper. Eventually he turned away from Tom and indicated the room around him with his head.

‘So, all this shit yours then?’

Tom stole an anxious look at Dominique, but she was staring at the computer screen as if nothing was going on behind her.

‘Not that it’s any of your business, but yes.’

‘You mean it is now,’ said Clarke laughing coldly. ‘But God knows which poor sod you nicked it off.’ He kicked the crate nearest to him, his clumpy, thick-soled shoes at odds with his delicate frame and making his feet seem huge. ‘What about this one. What’s in here?’

‘You’re wasting your time, Clarke,’ said Tom, his own mounting frustration giving his voice a slight edge now. ‘I’ve moved my father’s business from Switzerland and I’m re-opening it here. I have import papers in triplicate from both the Swiss and British authorities for everything.’

Clarke turned back to face him and smirked.

‘Tell me, was it the drink or the shame over having you for a son that finally did him in?’ Tom’s body stiffened, the muscles in his jaw bulging as he clenched his teeth together. He could see Clarke savouring the moment, his eyes narrowed into fascinated slivers of grey.

‘I think it’s time you left,’ said Tom, taking a step forward.

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘No, I’m asking you to leave. Now.’

‘I’ll go when I’m ready.’ Clarke thrust his chin out in defiance and folded his arms across his chest, the material of his grey suit, shiny on the elbows, acquiring a new set of creases.

‘Dominique,’ Tom called out while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Clarke’s. ‘Could you please get me the Metropolitan Police on the line and ask to speak to Commissioner Jarvis. Tell him that Detective Sergeant Clarke is harassing me again. Tell him that he has illegally entered my premises without a warrant. Tell him that he’s refusing to leave.’ She nodded but didn’t move.

Clarke stepped forward until he was so close that Tom could smell the smoke on his breath.

‘You’ll slip up, Kirk. Everyone does eventually, even you. And I’ll be there when it happens.’

Flicking his cigarette to one side, sparks scattering in its wake, Clarke marched back up the stairs and through the door.

Dominique fixed Tom with a questioning stare. He cleared his throat nervously. Although he had known that he would have to have this conversation at some stage, he had planned to do it on his own terms when he was good and ready. Certainly not like this.

‘I’m sorry you had to sit through that,’ he began. ‘It’s not what it looks like.’

‘Sure it is.’ She gave him a half smile and then looked away.

‘What do you mean?’ His eyes narrowed.

Silence.

‘Your father used to talk a lot, you know, when he drank,’ she said eventually. ‘He said some things about you. I got the picture. Your policeman friend just filled in a few gaps.’

Tom sat down on the crate nearest her and rubbed the back of his head.

‘Well, if you knew that, what are you doing here?’

‘You really think I expected you to be the only honest person in the art business? Everyone’s got some sort of angle. Yours is better than others I’ve seen.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Partly.’ She smiled and tilted her head to one side. ‘You know, I put a lot of time into this business with your father. By the time he died, things were going really well. When we first met, you said you were serious about trying to keep it going. I guess I wanted to believe you.’

‘I am serious about making it work. More now than when we first spoke about it.’ He looked at her earnestly.

‘So what about…?’

‘That’s over. This is all I’ve got now.’

‘Okay.’ She nodded slowly.

‘Okay?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You sure?’

‘Okay.’ She put her glasses back on and turned back to the computer.

EIGHT

The Smithsonian, Washington DC19th July – 09:06am

‘And unofficially?’

Baxter leapt up from his desk and gripped the back of his chair.

‘Unofficially, ten coins survived.’ He breathed excitedly, his upper lip beginning to bead. ‘It turned out they were stolen from the Mint by George McCann, the former chief cashier there, before the melting. He denied the accusations, of course. But it was him.’

‘And the coins?’

‘A couple started surfacing at numismatic auctions in 1944. A journalist alerted the Mint who brought in the Secret Services. It took them ten years, but eventually they tracked them all down and destroyed them. All apart from one.’

‘They couldn’t find it?’

‘Oh, they knew where it was. Only problem was that they couldn’t get to it. You see, it had been bought by King Farouk of Egypt for his coin collection and the United States Treasury, not realising what it was, had issued him with an export license. There was no way he was going to hand it back just because they’d screwed up their paperwork.’

‘Even though he knew it was stolen?’

‘As far as he was concerned, that probably just added to its value. In any case, after the Egyptian Revolution in 1952 he was out of the equation. The new government seized the collection and auctioned it off, including what had by then become known as the ‘Farouk coin.’

‘So somebody else bought it.’

‘No.’ Baxter’s eyes flashed, mirroring the excitement in his voice as he seemed to relive the events he was describing. ‘The coin just disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’ Jennifer found herself edging forward on her seat, excited by Baxter’s fevered account.

‘Vanished.’ Baxter bunched his fingers into a point and then blew onto them, stretching his hand out flat as he did so. ‘For over 40 years. Until 1996, when Treasury agents posing as collectors seized the coin from an English dealer in New York and arrested him.’ Baxter’s eyes glistened. ‘Only he then sued the Treasury, claiming that he’d bought the coin legitimately from another dealer. It went to court and eventually the Treasury agreed to auction the coin and split the proceeds with him.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Jennifer asked, puzzled at the level of detail that Baxter seemed to have at his fingertips. ‘This is just one coin – you must have hundreds of thousands here.’ Baxter threw up his hands.

‘Because this isn’t just any old coin, Jennifer. This is the holy grail of coins. It has been stolen from the Philadelphia Mint, owned by a king, vanished and then reappeared in dramatic circumstances. This is the forbidden fruit, the apple from the garden of Eden. It is totally unique.’

‘So how much are we talking?’

‘Twenty dollars for the paperwork to make it official US coinage,’ Baxter paused dramatically. ‘And just under eight million for the coin itself.’

Jennifer’s eyes widened. Eight million dollars for a coin? It was a crazy, reckless amount of money. It didn’t make any sense. Except that perhaps it did. It was certainly enough to kill for and, in Ranieri’s case, maybe even to die for.

‘You know, the National Numismatic Collection automatically receives examples of all American coins. We actually have two 1933 Double Eagles on display over in the Money and Medals Hall. They and the Farouk coin are the only 1933 Double Eagles in existence, although as museum exhibits they are clearly not available for private ownership as the Farouk coin is. We can go and take a look if you like.’ Baxter suggested eagerly.