The Last Monument

by Michael C. Grumley

  The old man stared at him, uncaring, and then turned in his seat to a door behind him, which was as featureless as the wall and the rest of the room, except for a single doorknob.

  The old man snapped his fingers and the door quickly opened. The other man from Lopez’s house appeared and extended something. The old man took the object and let the door close again.

  It appeared to be a computer tablet.

  The man inhaled but said nothing as he studied the screen, flicking lightly with his finger.

  “This is information from your home computer,” he said. “And it says you were doing some research.”

  “What…what research?”

  “You were looking for something.”

  “I don’t,” Lopez stammered, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You were searching for something rather specific two months ago. Ring a bell?”

  Lopez was desperately trying to remember. “I don’t know.”

  The old man peered over the screen in his hands. “Yes, you do.” He glanced at the other man, who moved back behind Lopez.

  “I don’t! I swear I don’t know what you are talking about!”

  “Where do you work?” the man asked.

  Lopez jumped at the chance to tell him something. Anything. “For the government. In Puerto Maldonado!” He paused, trying to think of the right words, settling on, “Planning jobs.”

  “Then tell me, Mr. Lopez. What happened two months ago?”

  “I…I don’t know.” He clenched his jaw. With his arms bound, he was nervous at not being able to see the man behind him. “I will tell you everything I know if you tell me what you are talking about!”

  “Did you receive or come across something unusual?”

  “I don’t—” Lopez suddenly paused.

  “Perhaps something,” the old man continued, “written in German?”

  Andre Lopez became still, quickly thinking back. Could that be it?

  “L-letters,” he stuttered.

  The old man’s expression finally showed a hint of emotion. “Letters?”

  “Yes. Yes! Very old letters. From a…” He didn’t have the words in English. “Oficina postal.”

  The old man looked at the man behind Lopez. He had shoulder-length dark hair and a grizzled chin. “Post office,” the man translated.

  “Old letters from a post office. Where?”

  “In Alerta!” Lopez blurted.

  ***

  The old man stepped outside into a bright but fading sun. The afternoon heat was still as heavy in the air as a thick blanket, causing his aged system to begin sweating again in the several steps it took to reach the waiting car—a gleaming black Town Car. He gratefully sank into the soft leather seat, instantly relieved by the interior’s air conditioning.

  The door was quickly closed behind him, causing him to glance back and view several of the locals who were inching forward, squinting, trying to see who it was inside the government car.

  Another man, in his sixties and dressed in a Peruvian uniform, was already waiting inside the car, and raised a glass to his lips as he watched the old German pick something off his slacks with aged, spotted fingers.

  “I told you.”

  The old man stared back with an expression impossible to read, a gesture with which he had become an expert. Something of which he’d been forced to become an expert at. How many years has it been now? Sixty?

  Six decades…searching for something without allowing anyone else to know what it was. Not granting anyone the ability to know more than was absolutely necessary. Only the smallest bits of information, so nothing could be pieced together.

  All for what appeared to be a hopeless mission.

  An utterly fruitless pursuit spanning most of his adult life. Half from desire, half loyalty. And all for something that would likely never be found.

  There were only three copies in existence. Copies of something that was beyond extraordinary. So incredible, in fact, that at least one of them simply had to resurface.

  Eventually.

  Because they would be dearly protected by anyone who had the faintest understanding of what they were. Or even a fraction of what they meant.

  “You were correct.” The old man finally nodded and retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing his forehead. “And you will be paid for it.”

  The officer grinned and tipped his glass of scotch.

  “After which, you will retire and leave the continent.”

  The man froze, staring over the top of the fine crystal. “The continent?”

  “Correct.”

  “You said no communication.”

  “That’s right,” the German said. “And I require assurance.”

  The look of surprise on the officer’s face eventually faded before he finally nodded. “Fine.”

  It would be well worth it, the officer mused. Besides, he knew nothing lasted forever, especially given how old this employer was.

  The car pulled forward and smoothly accelerated, prompting the old man to reach back for the seat belt, pulling it over his lean chest and securing it with a click.

  He had waited a lifetime for this. Sifting through hundreds of false leads which had proved one by one to be no more than ghosts in the end, leaving him embittered and hopeless, sure that what he longed for would never resurface again within his waning lifetime.

  But someday it would. Of that he was sure. At least one of them. No doubt long after he was dead. Falling into a new set of hands, and then another, until someone was bright enough to put things together.

  The steady aging of the document, combined with German writing, would be enough to make someone curious enough to search for the text online, eventually using enough of the exact German wording to separate it from the millions of searches of similar variations or coincidental fragments. After all, a sentence in any language with more than twenty words was virtually guaranteed to be unique enough to isolate it from the minutiae.

  And that’s what he had been waiting for.

  The old man had paid good money to a well-known German hacking group to monitor thousands of servers and networks around the globe for the exact phrasing. Phone calls, text messages, search engines. All digital channels for modern eavesdropping. The old man was no expert, but he knew people who were. And they assured him that if enough of those exact words were entered, their software would spot it.

  It was his last-ditch effort--a desperate, even paltry attempt to learn whether anyone would find one of the copies before he took his last breath. Which was not far off. But he never imagined the tip he was hoping for would come from a city worker in tiny Puerto Maldonado, Peru, a region he considered to be one of the armpits of the world.

  The car accelerated again, passing through a busy intersection with dozens of poor Peruvians milling about, working meager jobs and living miserable lives. Wearing faces dirtier than their clothes, convinced they somehow mattered in the world, in this tiny, meaningless place.

  He hated South America. A filthy, utterly impoverished existence barely a step up from Africa. A place in which he hated spending time. A place that could never hold a candle to the pristine beauty and rich culture of Europe.

  It was an extreme irony the old man was now being forced to endure that very thing. One of the areas he abhorred the most, being the place his lifelong search had finally turned up.

  19

  The nearest metropolitan airport, if he could call it that, was over the Bolivian border in La Paz, a slightly less abhorrent locale and fifteen hours away by car. Almost half the distance it would have been to Lima. Making him hate Puerto Maldonado even more for its isolation.

  But a man like him flying into such a small town would have attracted far too much attention, forcing him to instead land in La Paz and make the long trek by car, all the while being assured by the officer sitting across from him that the city worker Lopez was a legitimate mark.

  Of course, it had been worth it. A total
of thirty hours in a car was an easy trade for sixty long years of his life, giving the old man plenty of time to think, and even smile, about what to do next.

  “What are your instructions, Señor Bauer?”

  The old man almost didn’t respond. Deep in thought, he had forgotten the Peruvian officer did not know his real name.

  “What?”

  “How are we to proceed?”

  For the first time in years, the elderly German found himself caught slightly off guard. Not by the other man emptying another bottle of scotch single-handedly, but by the revelation. Even though he had been assured it was legitimate, the German was expecting it to be another false lead. And now that it appeared real, he had to think…carefully.

  The officer across from him was named Fernandez. A common Spanish surname in Peru, dating back to the decree of Phillip II in 1568. Though this Fernandez was different than most. A former colonel in Peru’s national intelligence service, he now worked outside of an official office or department, reporting directly, and covertly, to the Peruvian president’s intelligence council--when he wasn’t selling his talents and knowledge elsewhere.

  Fernandez was a deeply corrupt man, but extraordinarily useful--at least to the old man he was addressing as Bauer, who now sat quietly staring back at him, contemplating the question. There was so much to do now. The information they had gleaned from the peasant Lopez was just the tip of the iceberg.

  “Orders?” Fernandez asked again, now that he had his attention.

  “Give me time,” he replied.

  Fernandez still had a role to play. For some time. Until he too had to be silenced. But he had several more weeks, at least. Far better than Lopez, whose body should have already been disposed of by now. The old man briefly wondered just how many vital secrets throughout history had been permanently sealed through death.

  20

  Joe Rickards studied the paper again, then peered curiously at Angela. “Why do you think the passage in the letter was written in German?”

  “I have no idea.” She shrugged.

  “Did your great-uncle speak German?”

  “A little. Taught to him by the Army before being sent over with the rest of his group.”

  Rickards kept thinking.

  “Do you really think the date of the letter is that important?” she asked.

  Now it was his turn to shrug. “I don’t know. But it seems a little coincidental.”

  “Coincidental?”

  “That something of such importance happened in South America, at least as far as your grandfather was concerned, could possibly be related to that German passage.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because South America was where a lot of the Nazis escaped to after the Second World War.”

  “That was Argentina. With the Peróns.”

  “A lot of them went to Argentina. But some ended up in other South American countries.”

  Angela thought for a moment. “I forgot about that. You think it’s somehow connected?”

  “No idea. I just said it was coincidental. Unless the letter was sent before the end of the war, in which case maybe there’s no connection at all.”

  Angela nodded and turned to look out the side window of Rickards’ car. They were parked, and the corners were already forming bits of frost on the other side of the glass. “I feel like we’re on a stakeout.”

  “We’re not on a stakeout.”

  “I know. It just feels like it. Sitting in an empty parking lot, in the dark, waiting.”

  “You must watch a lot of TV.”

  Angela laughed. “I do.”

  Rickards peered out the windshield pensively. Denver’s main facility on 53rd looked more like a giant warehouse than a postal center. Dozens of large USPS semitrailer trucks lined the outskirts of the huge lot, all parked neatly at 45-degree angles. The building itself was bathed in an ambient glow of bright overhead LED lamps with a long wall of enormous shipping doors all closed tight. Above them, but beneath the black roof, was a row of long rectangular windows stretching the entire length of the building, all illuminated brightly from within by the center’s interior lights.

  Outside and closer to the giant building, Rickards and Angela sat, watching employees occasionally exit from a side entrance.

  “When is he supposed to be here?”

  “Any time.”

  “And how do you know him?”

  “He’s helped me with a few other investigations. A while ago. Don’t worry, you’ll like him.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Rickards frowned. “What does what mean? The word like?”

  “No. That I’d like him.”

  Rickards grinned. “Because everyone does.”

  She let it go and looked around again, glancing at the giant gray doors lining the face of the building. “He’s a postal inspector?”

  Rickards nodded. “And then some.”

  Angela turned to him with a sarcastic grin. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a hard man to get to know?”

  He reached for his paper coffee cup and took a sip. “Everyone.”

  “Do you have any kids?”

  He paused before answering. “No.”

  “Married?”

  “Next question.”

  “Where’d you grow up?”

  “Milwaukee.”

  “Wisconsin?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “How’d you come to work for the NTSB?”

  “I was trying out for the FBI. After college.”

  “And?”

  “Had trouble with the fitness test. It appears I have some bone spurs. I scored well enough on the rest that I got a recommendation from one of the officers to the NTSB.”

  “So, no running with this job.”

  She was surprised when he laughed. “Not generally.”

  Rickards changed the subject before she could ask another. “And you?”

  “Kind of boring,” she said. “Archaeologist turned cultural anthropologist. Lived here my whole life.”

  “And raised by your grandfather?”

  “Yes.”

  “How come?”

  Her face drew tight. “My mother died when I was young. During childbirth.”

  “Having you?”

  Angela nodded.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Rickards said, peering through the windshield.

  “Thanks. Fortunately, there’s not a lot of pain there since I never knew her.”

  “And that’s fortunate?”

  “Well, probably more regret than anything else. At never having the chance to meet her.”

  Rickards nodded silently.

  “I was raised by my grandmother and grandfather. And I actually had a great life. I also like horses, pizza and watching TV.”

  Rickards managed a brief grin. “So, what do you think the letter means from your grandfather’s older brother?”

  Angela inhaled, contemplating. “Honestly, I still don’t know what to make of it. I keep playing different scenarios over and over in my head.”

  “Like that paragraph in German?”

  “That’s one of them. My guess is that it’s some kind of cryptic message. Why else would he put it in there? Maybe something from an old Nazi project referencing the Incas. Hitler was a nut about all kinds of things.”

  “But you said the paragraph was a quote from that guy Fawcett’s book.”

  “Yes.”

  “That was written before the war?”

  “Long before.”

  “Seems strange,” Rickards said, taking another sip of his coffee, “that the Germans would use something like this as one of their codes. A reference maybe, but a code?”

  “And then there’s the bigger question of how my uncle came to be classified as dead by the Army when he was really in South America.”

  “Secret mission, maybe?”

  “There was no U.S. Army presence in South America during World War II. I checked. In fact,
most of those countries didn’t follow the world’s lead and declare war on the Axis powers until 1945. And Brazil was the only one to ever send troops. So there wasn’t anything happening in South America until after the war, when the Nazis were looking for a place in which to vanish.”

  “Enter Argentina.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then why would your uncle be there?”

  She shook her head. “I think it all depends on when he was there. Because if he was there after the war, that could mean the Army may not have been involved at all.”

  “But that would mean he was there on his own accord.”

  “Potentially.”

  “Which means…”

  “That he wanted to go there.”

  Rickards gave her a doubtful look.

  “What if,” she said slowly, “he wanted them to think he was dead?”

  Rickards blinked and leaned back again.

  “Think about what the Monuments team was doing there--searching for some of the most important and most sacred artifacts in all of human history.”

  “You think he found something.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Does that sound crazy?”

  “No crazier than everything else that’s happened so far.”

  Rickards glanced up at a pair of approaching headlights, winding around a row of parked cars before pulling up into one of the open spots near the building, not far from them.

  The driver’s side door opened and a man of average height stepped out, dressed in a thick blue coat and red knit cap. He immediately saw them and pushed the door shut, covering the short distance and smiling at the sight of Rickards climbing out of his car to meet him.

  “Nice night for a stakeout,” he said, smiling.

  Rickards looked sarcastically at Angela, who was grinning. He rounded the car and shook the younger man’s hand. “Ken, meet Dr. Angela Reed. Angela, the one and only Ken Stives.”

  “Come on now.” Ken shook his head, revealing a handsome smile below a set of green eyes and dark eyelashes. “You’d think I pay this guy or something.”

  “Thank you for meeting us.” Angela reached out and shook the young man’s hand. He was attractive and relaxed in appearance, and much younger than she expected.