by Roger Weston
“Who vouched for my character?” Jake said.
“All of them.”
Jake was speechless for a moment. “Even Horace?”
Dawson shook his head. “No, he’s missing. We picked up his two cohorts, and they claim he drowned.”
“He was a killer.”
“Yes, according to his pals, he panicked. He was afraid he’d be blamed for an explosion on the Atlas and taking the blame for the stabbing of a crewmember. His fear brought out the animal in him, and then he did kill. It wasn’t the first time, you know. He escaped from jail, but the reason he was there was for murder.”
“Well, I guess we’re all safer now.”
“Yes. Anyway, there are a couple of things I need to ask you about.”
“Sure.”
“Is it true that you are the same Jake Sands who was involved with the Queen Mary affair a while back?”
“Yes.”
He nodded gravely. “You’ve gotten in a lot of trouble lately.”
Jake shrugged. “I plan to go to Buenos Aires to do some research next year. I don’t want any more trouble.”
“And why are you now on South Georgia Island?”
“Historical research on an old shipwreck.”
Dawson eyed the legal pad. “There was one account of a man hanging by a rope up on the ridge right after the helicopter crash and the avalanche. Do you know anything about that?”
“Jake frowned but didn’t answer.”
“You realize,” Dawson said, “that almost an entire crime family was wiped out by that avalanche as well as a dozen Moroccan criminals?”
Jake shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “Sad.”
Dawson sighed. “You know, one of my men has located what he thinks is a fragment from a hand grenade.”
“There was an explosion in the helicopter,” Jake said.
“Yes, we know about that. What did you see?”
“It all happened very fast. They were shooting at me.”
“There are a lot of unanswered questions, Doctor Sands. I don’t know how it happened, but I think you’re right. They had a grenade up there. It either malfunctioned or was mishandled. That’s what I’m going to put in my report.”
“I saw the explosion.”
“Okay.”
Dawson reached down and picked up a plastic bag. He glanced in at the contents then looked over his glasses at Jake. “We found this in your knapsack when you were searched. It looks like vials of liquid. What are they?”
“I found them on the cruise ship. They were obviously stolen, so I took them. They’re an antidote to combat an insidious viral infection. I plan to return them to their rightful owner—Matara Laboratories—in Atlanta.”
“How do I know that you weren’t planning to steal it yourself?”
“You know who I am. I’m not a thief.”
“My apologies, Dr. Sands. I had to ask.”
“I understand.”
“You’re free to go; however, I have one piece of advice for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Stay away from Ava Hackworth. I don’t think she likes you.”
Jake shook his head. “You may want to question her about her relationship with Alamar. She’s been acting very strangely. I was a convenient scapegoat, so the obvious question is why was she panicking and putting on a big show about blaming me. Somebody was helping Alamar.”
“We know.”
“You know?”
“She cracked up after she learned Alamar was dead. She came unglued and confessed.”
Jake frowned.
“She’s facing many years in prison.”
Jake shook his head.”
“Be ready in half an hour,” Dawson said. “We have a boat taking all the survivors back to Buenos Aires.”
“I won’t be going.”
Dawson stared at him as though he was having second thoughts and might just throw Jake in the brig after all. “What?”
“Like I said before, I still haven’t found my shipwreck.”
“You would stay on this island alone? You would be all alone. The scientists from King Edward Point are all leaving for R & R. Everyone.”
“I’ll arrange for a ride when I’m ready.”
Dawson sighed. “Alright, I’ll have the crew drop you off over at Grytviken. Good-bye, Sands.”
***
On the beach at Grytviken, Jake said good-bye to Len Jackson, who’d decided that nature photography wasn’t for him after all. Jake took a walk with Talia. They said almost nothing. When they got back, Jake thanked her for believing in him.
“I’ll never forget that,” Jake said.
“I believe in you, Jake.” As she walked away, she looked back over her shoulder for just a moment, and Jake saw tears running down her cheeks.
It was hard for him to let her walk away. She was attractive and lovely and a good person. He cared for her and would miss her, but he also he cared for Ashley. The one thing he didn’t want to do was forget about the girl back home.
Jake was about to hike back over the ridge to the whaling station, but he saw a few sailors heading his way.
They surrounded him. Braulio said, “We were wrong about you, Sands.” He put his hand out to shake. Each one of them shook Jake’s hand and then walked away. They walked right past Ava, who looked like she’d aged by ten years. She sat in a fold-out chair, staring at the ground. Her face drooped. Her mouth hung open as if she might be ill.
Jake said, “Hey, Ava.”
She raised her head and looked over at him with bloodshot eyes.
“No hard feelings. I’ll pray for you.”
She was silent for a moment. “Thank you,” she said meekly and wiped the tears away.
CHAPTER 26
On the third day, Jake beached his zodiac in Cumberland Bay West and strapped on his snowshoes. The winds were forty knots and rising, and to stay on the water in such weather was too dangerous in a zodiac. He headed northwest, trekking along the coast to look for the orders of Grand Admiral Carl Dönitz. With his metal detector strapped to his backpack along with various climbing gear, he thought of the hidden secrets of the past, secrets that could stay hidden for centuries in a place like South Georgia—or that could be discovered.
He skirted the tomblike ice, weaving among the boulders, rocks and other debris either carried on or left behind by the glacier. He trudged over the white snow on the antiquated layers of ice. He could sense the vast weight beneath his feet, the lifeless mass that was crushing the islands coast beneath its millions of ageless pounds. A glacier was an ice sheet with a life span that in comparison made a human’s life look like a mere spark in the darkness. The glacier was an ancient thing carved by endless Antarctic hurricanes and piled on by unending weather systems. Carved by centuries of unimaginable pressures, crevasses and ridges formed and endured the harshest forces of nature. Walking across this ancient construction, Jake couldn’t help but feel insignificant. The awesome natural forces of weather patterns flowed above him. Vast ocean currents churned offshore. Mountains hewn by the mighty hand out of millions of pounds of rock dwarfed him. A timeless glacier flowed beneath his feet. He felt especially aware of his mortality and the fleeting nature of life. One accident out on the loneliness of the remote wastes was all that doom required.
Jake endured among the crevasses that had cut into the glacial ice as if by the blows of massive axe. The wind strengthened, but Jake persisted. The ice was fractured and twisted in dozens of parallel crevasses. While these deadfalls were easy to spot, many more were buried in snow. Rolling hills of snow covered these hidden dangers, any one of which might prove fatal. On many occasions at sea, he had felt moments of fear, moments when he realized that it would only take one rogue wave to sink his boat along with his life. These were moments when a man realized that how fragile life really was, how it could be snatched from him in a matter of seconds. Next to the dangers of the sea, the glacier seemed like a fairly placid thing.
Jake had his feet on hard ground, regardless of whether it was ice or packed snow. Nevertheless, safety on a glacier was not a thing to take for granted. Working without ropes, Jake felt a gnawing sense of vulnerability.
Despite his concerns over the glacial hazards, he fought on through the pounding winds and flying, sand-like ice. The wind moaned over the glacier like the chants of monks in some forlorn monastery in a remote and forgotten corner of the world.
Jake followed a haphazard path, aimlessly shifting course to avoid one potential trap after another. He zigzagged and backtracked. Then he caught some luck. His path crossed the path of a scientist from King Edwards Point who had already returned to the field to continue his research. The tracks were fresh, and Jake felt excitement that he might meet up with the scientist and enjoy a few minutes of friendly conversation. Thankful that he could now follow the path of an expert in ice crossings, Jake strode merrily across the glacier. After twenty minutes, he entered an area where the tracks threaded a path between huge blocks of ice, each of which weighing thousands of pounds.
As he was passing one of these ice boulders, Horace stepped out and blocked his path. Immediately Jake felt like a fool. He’d been following the tracks of someone who knew less about ice than he did. He realized then he was lucky to be alive, but at the same time, that emotion barely lasted two seconds.
“I told you I was going to kill you with my bare hands,” Horace said.
Jake felt something sink inside his bowels. Horace towered over him, his thick neck muscles moving beneath the brown scales of his snake tattoo.
“Hold on,” Jake said. “This is a bad idea.”
“I’ve been waiting for this.” Horace stepped closer, and Jake could feel the threat of his power.
“I liked you better when you were dead.”
In response, Horace swung and missed, but he recovered quickly and stepped toward Jake with his big long legs. He shifted his upper body as if to attempt another swipe, but instead he shot his leg out in a frontal kick. The heel impacted Jake’s chest like sledge hammer, and he landed on his back, a chunk of ice delivering a stunning blow his to spine. When he rolled off, another chunk of ice gashed his forehead open, and he wiped blood from his right eye.
“I’m gonna enjoy this,” Horace said. He stepped in close and landed a hook punch that caught Jake on the cheek. He spun and hit the ground where his face dug a five-foot trench in the frozen snow, and it felt like sand paper on his forehead.
As Jake started to get up, Horace slammed his book heel against Jake’s back, shoving him back down.
He said, “Why don’t you get up, you piece of shit?”
He booted Jake in the side of his head. It was like an astronomy lesson because Jake actually saw about a thousand stars.
Somehow he gained his feet and faced Horace. Jake’s head was tilted back slightly to look up at the big man, who must have been smelling victory because Jake could see the blood lust in his eyes.
When Horace threw a jab, Jake swung his forearm out, blocking the punch, but Horace followed up with a reverse punch that caught Jake in the side of the face. His head whipped sideways, straining his neck. A shockwave of pain sprung from the jaw and reached his brain, which wasn’t making connections as fast as usual. Jake kept his balance, but that worked in Horace’s favor because the big man was as fast as lightening when he delivered a double body punch to Jake’s mid section. The second punch knocked Jake backwards, and he tripped and fell when his foot snagged on a chunk of ice.
Jake felt ancient pain, the same pain that untold thousands of men had felt through the ages at a moment just like this, a moment when in spite of numbness of their rattled brain, they realized that they were getting their ass kicked. He felt the detached horror that a seal felt when after it was struck by a shark and knew that the predator would strike again in just seconds. Jake realized with some amazement that he might well be dead in few short minutes. This thought released just enough adrenaline so that he regained his feet.
His vision was blurred, but he did see Horace smile just before the hulk sunk down low and exploded toward Jake’s mid section to try and take him down hard. As Horace reached for his legs to pile Jake back onto ice, Jake sprawled his legs out, shooting them backwards out of Horace’s long reach. Jake came down on top of the back of Horace’s head. At the same time, Jake apexed his hands and delivered an ax hand to the side of the giant’s neck near the brachial plexus. Horace went down face first like a cargo container after a crane cable snapped at the Port of Buenos Aires.
In the best of all worlds, a thug doesn’t get up after a crippling blow, but Horace rolled away, leaving Jake with his elbows on the ice. Both men sprung up and faced each other.
Horace drew his knife from his sheath and waved it through the air in figure eight motions.
“I thought you said you were going to kill me with your bare hands.”
“I will, but first I’m gonna slice you up something ugly.”
Horace lowered the knife to his waist, then suddenly jabbed at Jake’s abdomen. With his left forearm, Jake blocked the thrust and shoved the hand down. The fingers of his right hand shot into Horace’s eyes, drawing blood on the right side.
Horace screamed like a fiend. His horrific voice hung on the air. It hurt Jakes ears; it crossed the glacier and Jake wouldn’t have been surprised if the bay had turned to solid ice. Horace shook his head wildly and screamed again. He still had one good eye, and his sight pierced through the pain and found Jake.
Jake preferred the offensive, so he kicked him in the chest. Horace sustained a hard blow. He staggered backwards. Trying to stay on his feet, he ran backward fifteen feet before he fell. When he got up, Jake was there to greet him with another kick to the chest. This time Horace landed on his side, and the ground collapsed beneath him. A deep crevasse opened up. Jake dove away as the ground beneath his own feet plunged downward. His upper body came down on solid packed snow, and he managed to wriggle up over the ledge. He glanced down into the crevasse. Seventy feet down there was no sign of Horace. He was buried in snow and ice. Back in Buenos Aries, Horace had managed to escape from jail. To avoid going back, he’d killed men and fled from justice. Now he would be imprisoned in ice for a very long time.
CHAPTER 27
The next day, Jake searched Köhler’s cabin. After an hour of fruitless searching, he found himself in the main room, staring at the bigger-than-life rendering of the the famous German freighter Greifswalder.
Jake sat there for several hours, wondering if the time had finally come to call for a boat to take him back to Buenos Aires. But then something slowly dawned on him. At first he ignored the idea as silly, but then he started to realize maybe it wasn’t silly.
Before Jake had come to South Georgia, he’d studied German raider ships like the Greifswalder. In World War Two, these raiders, disguised as regular freighters, snuck up next to cargo ships of every nationality. Once within range, the crew pulled back the tarps from their guns and gave the victim ships a tough choice—surrender or be blown out of the water. Most of them tried to escape and were sunken. However, the German raiders, after disabling enemy ships, were generally able to board and load up with a fortune in cargo before the victim ship actually sank several hours later.
While some surrendered, most of the victim ships ended up on the ocean floor, far below the German raiders that put them there. And usually, they sank with a fortune in cargo still aboard.
Slowly, Jake realized that Köhler had fooled him too. All week he’d been searching for a clue that could lead him to the Greifswalder, which was no doubt sunken somewhere along the island’s coast, yet the whole time, there the ship was right in front of him. The portrait of his bride, Mrs. Köhler, the princess for whom he’d built this palace, was directly beneath the portrait of the German raider Greifswalder on the stair landing up above. Why hadn’t he realized this before?
Just as the German’s sank fortunes in treasure, could Köhler —in the same tr
adition--have sunken the Greifswalder’s treasure. Jake studied the portrait of Mrs. Köhler more closely than he ever had before. She was Köhler’s great treasure. He tried to look behind the painting but realized that it wasn’t hung like a normal picture. It was attached securely. He could not look behind it. He gently pushed on the frame. He pulled on it. Nothing happened. He pushed up. He pulled down—and it slid down six inches. With a distinct clacking sound, a 4 x 6 floor panel rose up an inch.
Jake kneeled down and slid it back. He shined his light into the gap. He kneeled down and looked. A large metal cage hung there beneath the floor panel. It was an elevator that worked with a hand-crank.
Jake lowered himself down into the cold elevator and slid the expandable gate closed. He worked the hand-crank, which worked through a system of gears and pulleys to lower the elevator down thirty feet into a mine shaft. The temperature dropped as he descended. He used his flashlight, and he walked down a cave that was nine feet tall and just as wide. He wiped away nets of cobwebs and shined the light around. Blood-red mineralized quartz streaked through the cave walls. He’d gone only a hundred feet when he came into a large cavern with around a thousand square feet of space. Jake flashed his light around and sighed deeply.
Hundreds of wooden boxes were stacked all around. All along the back, they were stacked up to six feet high. Jake checked them out, and found them empty. On the next wall, he found the same thing. The third wall caused him to freeze in his place. He opened box after box of gold coins, each box marked as weighing a hundred pounds after a quick mental translation from the metric system.
He found ten boxes stuffed full of US dollars—all hundreds. Jake gasped in amazement. He had no idea how much this added up to, but he guessed it was over million dollars in cash. That wasn’t the end of it. He found twice as much in Swiss francs packed into boxes.
Then things got really interesting. He found stamp collections that he had no idea of their value, but they were big collections where each stamp had been carefully placed in protective plastic pockets. Sheets of these pockets were stacked in the wooden boxes. He found nine hundred pounds of gold bars, four chests of jewelry, six boxes of Danish coins, nine boxes of British pounds in large denominations, hundreds of bags of foreign exchange, printing plates and boxes of banknote paper. Jake yelled with excitement and did a little dance. He laughed like a madman.