‘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.
‘Sure.’ Jennifer nodded. ‘That way we could at least compare them to this one.’
Baxter slipped out from behind his desk and over to the door which he held open for her.
‘After you.’
‘Thank you, Miles.’
It was only a short walk to the Hall which revealed itself to be a long narrow gallery, flanked on each side by wall mounted rectangular display cases, their contents glittering under the lights. Baxter headed to one of the cabinets in the middle of the room and stopped next to it. Two coins were set apart from the others and lay side by side in a specially constructed chemically inert plastic container, each displaying a different face against the green felt.
‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they?’ Baxter’s hushed voice rippled through the empty room. Jennifer bent forward until she started to fog the glass, the ghostly fingerprints of earlier visitors materialising with each breath and then immediately vanishing.
‘The actual design was commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 from the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. You can see his initials there, just below the date. He wanted to try and capture something of the majesty and elegance of the coins of the Ancient World. I think he succeeded, don’t you?’
She sensed Baxter lowering his face and staring at her as she gazed at the coins, moving his head closer to hers, almost whispering in her ear.
‘As you can see, one side features a large eagle in flight, while the obverse depicts Lady Liberty, a torch in her right hand and an olive branch in the left, symbolising peace and enlightenment. She’s beautiful isn’t she?’
She felt Baxter’s hand brush against her neck and instinctively drew away with an annoyed shrug of her shoulders. She immediately wished she hadn’t. The hurt look on Baxter’s face showed his realisation that this, rather than their earlier flirtatious exchange, perhaps better reflected her true feelings for him. When he spoke next, his voice was tinged with anger.
‘What is this really all about, Agent Browne?’
‘This is about whether my coin is a fake, Mr Baxter.’ Jennifer made no attempt to be friendly now. It was too late for that.
‘Well, it’s impossible to say without running some tests. It’s clearly the same design and looks real enough, but we would need to analyse the coin, take some samples, compare it to our originals. It could take days, weeks even.’ He tailed off.
‘I understand.’ Jennifer nodded. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Baxter. It has been very useful. The lab will be in touch about those tests.’ She turned to leave but Baxter reached out and grabbed her shoulder, his fingers scrabbling against the black material.
‘Jennifer – wait.’ His voice was strained, pleading. ‘You can’t just go like that. Where did you get that coin? I have to know.’
She smiled.
‘I’m sorry Mr Baxter, but that information is classified. A small matter of national security; I’m sure you understand.’
FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia19th July – 12:30pm
‘So we still don’t know if it’s a fake or not? This guy, Baxter, he couldn’t help with that?’
Corbett sat down on one of the wooden benches that lined the shaded banks of the Potomac in this part of the FBI compound and placed a polystyrene cup full of thick black coffee down on the ground between his feet. Jennifer sat down next to him, her sandwich still in its plastic wrapper. Lunch could wait.
‘Not without sending it to the lab for tests which I’ll do this afternoon. But he did mention something else.’
‘What?’
‘Well, it’s probably nothing…’
Jennifer noticed Corbett’s forehead creasing. Although he probably had many qualities, she suspected that patience was very definitely not one of them.
‘It’s just that Baxter said that all nine of the coins recovered by the Secret Services in the 1940s were destroyed. But I spoke to someone I know over at the Treasury on the way out here who owed me a favour. He told me, off the record, that although four of the nine coins recovered by the Secret Services in the 1940s were destroyed, the other five were put into storage back at the Philadelphia Mint before being moved to Fort Knox about ten years ago when they re-inventoried the place. As far as he knows, they’re still there.’
Corbett nodded slowly and settled back into the bench, the sunlight seeping under the branches of the overhanging tree. Jennifer studied his face and noticed the total lack of surprise at this