GOLDEN REICH

by Mark Donahue

  Now calm and speaking in a deliberate, unemotional manner, Becker told the men, “We have a breech in our security. Four guards are missing from their posts, and we must assume one of two things. Either those four men are traitors infected by greed and intent on compromising our operation, or they have been overcome by outside assassins aware of our operation. I want to remind you of what is at stake over the next twenty-four hours; no less than the very future of the Führer’s doctrine, and to a much lesser degree, your futures as individuals also hang in the balance. I doubt you need be reminded of the financial rewards a successful conclusion means to each of you.”

  Seeing the look in the eyes of the men surrounding Becker reminded Rolle of the look in the eyes of another group of young men nearly twenty years earlier on a Berlin street corner. The difference was these sixteen young men were armed to the teeth and perfectly willing to die at that moment for what Becker was telling them. Rolle sensed that even Becker had underestimated these young men. They were not in an Arizona mine looking for gold or a new life in America. They were there because they still believed the promises. They believed that Becker was going to use the gold as he had pledged. They believed they were a key part in perpetuating Adolf Hitler and Fourth Reich. That belief made them far more dangerous for Rolle as adversaries than mere mercenaries. The men would also be dangerous to Becker if they learned that he intended to use the gold to make himself and his cronies very rich Americans.

  Chapter 28

  Arizona Desert—2014

  On the drive back to Phoenix after the aborted tour of the Jasper, Tom explained to Jon, in grindingly laborious detail, what his research over the prior six months had uncovered. This included tales regarding gold supposedly lost in the Arizona desert over the previous three hundred years.

  Jon could not help but think that his former jail mate had spent just a bit too much time in the Arizona sun. The tales of lost gold had been handed down from generation to generation since the 1700s, and to Jon’s knowledge, nothing had ever been found. But Tom had an explanation for that: “If you found gold, would you tell anybody?”

  Excited about the possibility of hidden gold, Tom tried to fill Jon in on six months’ worth of research in about an hour. Jon drifted off several times as Tom droned on about legends, tall tales, and lost payrolls. He did not want to rain on his friend’s parade, but it seemed that Tom had caught gold fever and the only thing that could cure him was to let him play out some of his plans. Besides, Jon was in no hurry. It was not like he was late for a job. He decided to let Tom talk, and if need be, spend a few weeks playing gold miner before he got on with the rest of his life.

  The only part of Tom’s theories that Jon could not explain, and what gave reluctant credence to all his stories, was the gold bar they had indeed found. Whether it was from a lost gold mine, Spanish treasure, or had fallen from an alien craft, it had come from somewhere, and that thought alone intrigued Jon enough to humor his friend.

  “By the way, how do we know the bar is even real gold in the first place?” Jon asked. “Because I broke off a small piece with a claw hammer and took it to a jewelry shop and had it analyzed. It’s the real thing. But we do have a problem,” Tom said.

  “What’s that?”

  “How do two ex-cons walk into a bank or coin store and sell twenty pounds of gold worth almost four hundred grand?”

  “We could say we found it in the desert while you were taking a piss.”

  “Yeah, and we would be back in jail the next day. I’m serious, we’re going to have a problem getting rid of the bar, and if there are anymore out there, it becomes a bigger problem.”

  “Good problem to have. Any ideas what we do with the bar we got?”

  “We could melt it down into small pieces and sell it to shops from here to New York and hope no one asks any questions, but that would take weeks. Or we could sell it to a “fence” at a discount of probably 50% and let them get rid of it in Mexico. Either way it’s going to take time and cost us a lot.”

  “If it’s going to be such a pain in the ass to get rid of the gold, why do you want to play gold miner in the first place?” Jon asked.

  “Because our options as far as careers go are limited, and I believe we came across one piece of what could be more gold than we could ever spend in our lifetimes.” The look in his gray eyes and tone of his voice made Jon realize Tom was deadly serious in what Jon had viewed as no more than a lark by two ex-cons with a few weeks on their hands.

  “So, what’s your plan?”

  Without hesitation, Tom explained his detailed strategies and tactics to Jon. After thirty more minutes of listening to Tom talk nonstop about finding and getting rid of the gold, Jon was no more convinced than before of the gold’s existence. However, he was sure that Tom was convinced there was gold, and the minute details of his plan indicated either brilliance or madness. Despite his skepticism, Jon could not help but be caught up in Tom’s enthusiasm, and given what Jon knew of Tom’s intellect, he could not simply brush off his friend’s theories or the fact that Tom had done his homework.

  Tom was basing his theories on the assumption that it was simply inconceivable that all the stories about lost gold in the Arizona desert were hoaxes or merely the stuff of legend. In some cases, there was simply too much documentation by historians and eyewitnesses to ignore. Of course, Tom admitted, that the further back in history he went, the less collaborative and detailed the information became. As a result, Tom had focused his investigation on the most recent stories, beginning with holdup of a Brink’s truck loaded with gold that was hijacked in 1953 with over five million in bullion in it. The gold was being moved from Tucson to Phoenix by the federal government.

  Using that heist as his departure point, Tom went back in time to the late nineteenth century. He carefully examined each reported incident. He subjectively measured the likelihood of the story being a fake or that the story was true, and the gold was either irretrievably lost or in fact already discovered by someone who would have the good sense to keep their mouth shut if they found a cache of gold.

  Tom also surmised that the problem he and Jon faced in disposing of their gold bar, would have faced anyone else who found such a treasure. That being said, what the hell would you do with a few million dollars in gold you found lying in the desert? You couldn’t just walk into town with a bucket of gold and ask for cash without attracting all kinds of unwanted attention from folks like the IRS; the state of Arizona, which would undoubtedly put a claim in for the gold if it was found on state land; and a myriad of other parties who would want to steal what you had found.

  Chapter 29

  Jasper Mine—1943

  Sitting Indian-style on top of the Jasper mine under a cloudless Arizona sky, Lester could hear dimly echoed voices from below. Even though the men were speaking in German, he could understand some key words, and from the agitated tones, that the three bodies of the guards he had dumped from the top of the high rocks had been found.

  Truth be told, Lester didn’t like Germans all that much. He remembered how they had beaten and tortured him during his capture in 1917 in France. And he sure as hell didn’t like what he had heard of Hitler and his henchman. Of course, he wasn’t too partial to the U.S. Government either at that point, since they had pretty much ignored him and his veteran buddies for the last twenty-six years. Yet, if he had a choice, he would rather kill a bunch of krauts than an American, unless of course some crazy bastard really deserved it.

  Perfecting his talent of adroitly spitting Redman over the side of the rocks, Lester’s hope that the guards would come to him was fading. After all, he could do little to them or their plan if he remained several hundred feet above them. After nearly two hours of waiting, he realized that his choice was simple. He could leave his perch, make his way back to the main road, and let the krauts have their damn gold, or he could stay and probably get himself k
illed.

  Of course if he left, he would walk away from a hundred thousand dollars, but that was no longer the only issue. While he wanted the Germans to pay for the deaths of his buddies, that wasn’t entirely it either. It was that for the first time in nearly thirty years, Lester felt alive. The cool, smooth weight of the .45 in his hand and the adrenaline that moved through his veins made him “feel” for the first time since the Argonne Offensive.

  It wasn’t the killing of the guards that created the feeling. Disposing of the Germans was done out of revenge, self-preservation, and fueled by an instinct that had been dormant for decades. It was more than all that, and yet Lester couldn’t quite put his finger on it. But it had to do with doing something important again.

  Lester wasn’t exactly sure what all those Germans were doing in the Jasper and damn well knew he couldn’t trust Rolle, but he instinctively knew that walking away and heading back to town was akin to abandoning his post. A post no one except Lester and Rolle knew he patrolled.

  Looking west toward Phoenix, he could see the glare of lights on the horizon. A warm breeze blew, and the quiet mesmerized him. Looking up at a blue-black sky he had forgotten existed, he thought of his father, and how thirty-five years earlier they’d come to that very spot, ate their dinners, and the same kind of breeze blew as they talked. But for the life of him, Lester at that moment could not think of one damn thing they talked about. All he knew was that the feeling of contentment and serenity he felt had been missing from his life for too long. He decided that if it was time to die, there was no better place than the Jasper.

  Reaching into his pack for the last of his food, he leisurely ate some salted sausage and crackers and sipped some water. He also wondered how the hell his country could win any goddamn war when it could not even keep a bunch of Nazis from invading its heartland to divide up what sounded like a shitload of gold. Unable to answer his own rhetorical questions, he swigged down the last of his water and figured he had waited for the krauts long enough.

  Moving away from the rim of the rock, he slowly ambled back to the opening where he had pulled the first guard down and entered the black hole. As he did, his hand ran over some of the blood and brain matter from the guard whose head had been blown off hours earlier.

  Nonchalantly wiping his hand on his pants leg, he slid down the vent until he came to the body of the first guard that he had shot the night before. Using the guard’s flashlight that he had taken earlier, he continued down for another twenty feet until the shaft opened slightly, and he was able to stand in a crouched position.

  The air vents were originally drilled solely for ventilation and were too narrow save for the thinnest of men to move through. But over time, as the drilling in the mine augured further and further into the rock below, the air shafts became valuable for dropping supplies to the men, especially dynamite that would be used regularly in the mine. As a result, the vents were eventually widened to allow the supplies to be lowered more easily.

  Lester recalled many occasions where he, as a ten-year old boy, used the shafts as giant slides where he would virtually leap into the abyss and slide down the thirty-five degree vents for what seemed like hundreds of feet. Of course more than once he ran into machinery or workmen that not only interrupted his fun but usually caused some serious bruising and a lecture from his father.

  Lester moved more slowly down the shaft now, and it was the smells that came back to him more than any other sense as he slid into the darkness. He had never noticed the smell as a kid, but an odor of fresh dirt permeated his nostrils. He knew that no matter what happened in the next few hours, he was glad he stayed.

  Before he reached the bottom of the shaft, Lester slowed his descent and stopped altogether at ten-foot increments to see if there were sounds coming from the horizontal tunnel still forty feet below him. The dozens of air shafts built into the Jasper mine angled off from the main tunnels with openings three to four feet above the floor. What Lester did not want to do was come sliding down the shaft into the lap of some German holding an automatic weapon. The problem was that Lester couldn’t control the gravel that preceded him and announced his arrival at the bottom of the vent. As a result, he was prepared to hit the tunnel floor firing if he had to.

  Lester stopped his slide ten feet before the end of the shaft and waited silently after he heard several pebbles hit the floor. He held his breath and wondered if anyone was awaiting his entrance. Hearing nothing for at least five minutes, he reluctantly let his feet leave the shaft and find their way to the tunnel floor. At first afraid to use his flashlight, he eventually turned on the beam and discovered he was alone in the cool darkness.

  Located three hundred feet from the main cavern entrance and fifty feet inside the tunnel, the shaft had brought him to a part of the mine that was one of the first sections closed when the mine slowed production.

  With three-foot-wide steel rails still in the floor of the twenty-foot-wide opening, Lester remembered that this tunnel, like several others, had been sealed off from the main entrance of the mine by huge wooden doors at least twelve feet high and eight inches thick. Unless the Germans had ideas of staying for a long period of time, he doubted they would go to the trouble of breaking down the doors just to enter a long-abandoned tunnel. He also doubted they had discovered the “secret opening” to the door that he had found as a boy. About halfway up the right-hand door, the wood frame moved slightly away from the rock, and an agile boy could slide his way into the abandoned tunnel from the main cavern through that opening.

  Moving toward the wooden door, Lester saw through the cracks the muted yellow light that covered several cars, trucks, and boxes about three hundred feet from his position. He also saw several guards, weapons at the ready, in and around the lighted area. That area measured approximately five thousand square feet within the massive cavern, which Lester estimated at over a million square feet. The yellowish light created an eerie specter and cast long shadows into the cavern where an army of Germans could hide.

  Looking around the cavern, Lester worried if he could actually re-enter the main area unseen and make his way to the old offices to meet up with Rolle to discuss the next part of their strategy. Lester felt trapped by what he could see in the dim yellow light. He counted six guards that stood at equidistant intervals around the lighted area. Each guard held an automatic weapon with bandoliers of ammunition crossing his chest. While they looked implacable and immovable, Lester was more concerned about the guards he couldn’t see. They could be outside patrolling the gates and roads, hiding in the shadows of the cavern itself, or some of them could be making their way back to the top of the cave looking for whoever killed their fellow soldiers. No matter where they were, he couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see.

  Two hundred and fifty feet to Lester’s right of the lighted staging area, he saw the small offices where he had met Rolle hours earlier. He assumed Rolle was still there, but from where Lester was he had no way of sneaking into the office to make contact with Rolle. But even if he could, he wasn’t sure he trusted that bastard either. On the other hand, he had little choice…for now.

  Lester knew he might be able to pick off two or three of the guards in the yellow light, but that would lead the rest of them to his position, and they might be able to track him down even in the darkness of the shafts and tunnels he knew so well. Sliding down from his ledge behind the wooden door, he rested for a few minutes and noticed the adrenaline that had kept him running for the last twenty-four hours was wearing off—he was tired.

  For the first time he felt the weight of the three rifles and the ammunition he carried from the dead guards. He also felt the cold metal of his Colt that he had wedged in his belt. His body was beginning to ache from too much exertion in too short a time. He knew if he waited much longer to act, he would be too tired to carry out any plan.

  Turning back to the yellow light, he took one of his rifles and slid it
through an opening between two thick wood slats that made up the door. He looked through the sight, took aim at the guard standing nearest to one of the trucks, and was certain he could hit the man in the chest. Saying “bang you’re dead” under his breath, he moved the rifle to the guard thirty feet to the left and was convinced he could nail him as well. The other four guards were also possible targets, but their angles to Lester made them more difficult to hit. Keeping the rifle in position, he squinted when he saw a more interesting target in the yellow light.

  Lester closed his left eye and looked down the barrel of his rifle. He aimed it at an area three feet to the left of the first guard, and two feet above the ground. Wiping sweat from his eyes, he again sighted his target and was sure he had at least a fifty-fifty chance to hit it.

  He retrieved the rifle from its position, scooped up the other weapons, and jogged back to the shaft from whence he had come minutes earlier. If he took a shot and missed, or hit his target and he was wrong, he needed a quick escape. He figured going back up the shaft was his best chance.

  After he stowed the weapons ten feet up the shaft, he returned to the wooden door and took his position. The guards had not moved. He wondered how they could stay in one position for so long. Taking aim, he laughed under his breath that he hadn’t even shot a rifle in thirty years, and here he was trying to hit a target hundreds of feet away, in piss yellow light. Even if he did hit it, he wasn’t sure what the hell would happen.

  Lester wasn’t sure if the guards even heard the shot. Or if the explosion from the right side gas tank of the large truck was the last and only sound they heard. He could not see what happened to the three guards on the left side of the truck, but the three nearest to him died almost instantly, as the forty-gallon gas tank exploded within five feet of the men. Dead in a microsecond, the men were thrown fifty feet in the air, ripped to pieces, and engulfed in flames, the remnants of the three bodies burning furiously thirty feet from the demolished truck.