Eden's Gate

by David Hagberg

  “You said that the bunker is flooded. Is it open to the lake?” Lane asked.

  “There was an explosion, probably sabotage, and it opened a passage directly to the lake bottom,” Speyer replied.

  “Why hasn’t anyone gone in that way?”

  “The walls are far too unstable, and by now they’re probably collapsed.”

  The grass and hedges were well maintained. There were several picnic benches above a small beach. They could see the town farther up the lake, but only woods and farmland on the opposite side two kilometers away. There was no sign of the two extra caretakers.

  The guard, in a green wool uniform, came out of the small office at the rear of the pavilion and looked up at them. Speyer waved and the guard waved back.

  “Even if the other two don’t come back, he’ll want to know what the hell we’re up to when we start breaking into the place,” Lane said.

  “No he won’t,” Speyer assured him. “He’ll be too busy to even notice.”

  They drove back to the chalet. Inside the shed Sergeant Schaub showed them the rest of the equipment.

  “Everything that you asked for is here,” he said. “Two mixed-gas diving outfits, including closed circuit masks, dry suits, lights, gauges, underwater navigational equipment, and buoyancy vests.”

  “You didn’t purchase all of this from the same place, I presume,” Speyer demanded.

  “I used different suppliers in Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Rostock, under four different names and on four different days.”

  “Who else is going down with me?” Lane asked, checking the equipment. It was all German made and first-class.

  “Just you, I’m afraid,” Speyer said. “I was unable to find anyone else.”

  “If something goes wrong I’m dead.”

  Speyer smiled. “But this way you’ll get the pay of two divers. That should help alleviate your concerns.”

  “We’re going to meet with the Russians tonight, and unless a problem comes up, we make the dive tomorrow,” Speyer told them.

  They were in the chalet’s great room, a fire burning on the grate in the big stone fireplace. Sergeant Schaub had put on a wild boar stew, and the entire house smelled like baking bread. Even Gloria roused herself enough to go into the kitchen and help with the hot cabbage salad and other side dishes. It reminded her, she said, of when she was a little girl.

  “And it wasn’t so long ago at that,” Sergeant Schaub offered gallantly.

  “It bothers me that the two maintenance men were missing this afternoon,” Baumann said,

  “Don’t worry about it. They probably finished their job and went to another,” Speyer reassured them. He turned back to Lane. “The Russians will be bringing a German Television One panel truck with them which they’ll park directly in front of the entrance shed. The three of us will be inside watching everything on the television monitors.”

  “What if the guard gets suspicious and wants to check on them?” Lane asked.

  “It’ll be okay, because these guys really are filmmakers. They’re working on a number of freelance projects.”

  Lane nodded. “I assume that they’ll keep the guard and any visitors who might show up busy while we peel the steel door and get inside. What then? I’ve never even heard of the place, let alone seen it.”

  “The Russians are bringing the engineering diagrams of the entire bunker system. They’ll leave them with us tonight, which will give us time to study them and figure out your route.”

  Lane glanced over at Baumann, who was chewing his lip. “Of course that’s providing that the explosion sixty years ago did nothing more than merely flood the bunker. There could be blown-out walls, collapsed ceilings, God only knows what other hazards.”

  “It’s a risk that I’m willing to take,” Speyer told him with a straight face.

  “Oh, are you diving with me?”

  “No. And if you want to back out now, go ahead. Ernst will drive you back to Hamburg in the morning. Of course I would have to have your word that you wouldn’t say anything to anyone about the project. I could give you five thousand dollars for your efforts to this point. I think that it would not be impossible to find another diver willing to take the risk.”

  Lane looked away for a long moment. “Okay, so I locate the diamonds, then what?”

  Speyer smiled. “Good man. The diamonds will be sealed in a black metal box about half a meter on a side. There’ll just be the one.”

  “Weight?”

  Speyer shrugged. “I don’t know, but not so heavy, I think, that it would be impossible for one man to handle it underwater. In any event you’ll be wearing a buoyancy control vest. A little extra gas in the vest should give you the needed lift.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to open the box, and empty the diamonds into a dive bag?”

  “No,” Speyer said a little too quickly. “Without bringing them back in the original sealed case we have no way of proving that these are the actual diamonds from the bunker. They could be any diamonds. This could be a confidence game.”

  Lane couldn’t help himself from laughing. “That’s a good one,” he said.

  KALISPELL, MONTANA

  Kalispell Chief of Police Carl Mattoon was just coming out of the Justice Building when a plain gray Chevy Caprice with federal plates pulled up. A tall, solidly built woman got out and came over, pulling an ID wallet from her purse. She flashed her badge.

  “Chief Mattoon, my name is Linda Boulton. I’m the new SAC in the Helena FBI office. Could I have a couple minutes of your time, sir?”

  “It’s late and I haven’t had my lunch yet. Why don’t you come back tomorrow?”

  “I understand, sir. This won’t take but a minute.”

  Mattoon did not trust women. He’d been married twice, and divorced twice, both times to women cops. There was something not quite right about a woman carrying a badge, in his estimation. He gave her a long, hard stare, but she did not back down.

  “Sir?”

  “Oh hell and damnation, if you insist.”

  They walked back inside and Mattoon took her to his office. His deputies and clerks were surprised, but they said nothing, because he had the “look.”

  The FBI agent waited until the door was closed, but she didn’t give Mattoon a chance to sit down before she unloaded on him. “Would you like to tell me what the fuck you people are doing down here? Because from where we sit it looks like you’re all a bunch of incompetent bastards and screw-ups.”

  That was another thing Chief Mattoon didn’t like: women who used foul language. “Now if you want to sit down and clean up your act, sweetheart, I’ll let you explain what you mean.”

  “It’s you who have the explaining to do.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Mattoon demanded.

  “Murder.”

  Mattoon took off his cap, tossed it on top of the file cabinet, and sat down behind his desk. He’d been warned that the FBI might come snooping around, and to hold them off for as long as possible without doing anything illegal. Until this moment, however, he wasn’t sure that he wanted a confrontation with the Bureau.

  “That’s a local matter, we’re working on it.”

  “Well, that’s real interesting, chief. But is it possible that I could interview your suspect, Mr. John Clark? The credit card that he used at the hotel comes up with a Washington, D.C., address. Makes it federal.”

  “We haven’t made an arrest yet, but as soon as we do I’ll give you a call and you can come on down here to talk to him.”

  “I’m not holding my breath. Mr. Clark has probably already left the state. Fleeing to avoid prosecution, now that’s another federal offense.” Her face was a mask of indifference, and Mattoon couldn’t read her. That made him uncomfortable.

  “That it is,” he said.

  “How about the victim then, Mr. Meyer Goldstein.”

  “What about him?”

  “I’d like to see the results of the autopsy, and then
have a look at the body.” She rocked forward a little and gave him a smile.

  “I’ll surely see what I can do for you.”

  “Funny thing about that, too, you know. There is no body at the hospital, and no one over there can explain what happened to it, or if an autopsy was ever performed. Don’t you find that odd?”

  “What the hell are you doing here, Agent Boulton? What do you want?”

  “Mr. Goldstein was a foreign national, he worked for the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Vienna, Austria.” She snapped her fingers. “Actually I should have said is a foreign national. I talked to him by telephone this morning. He’s never been to Montana in his life, and he’s never even heard of Kalispell.”

  “Well, then, it’s just a case of mistaken identity.”

  “I’ve had about enough of your shit—” Agent Boulton said, but Mattoon interrupted her.

  “No, it’s me who’s had enough of your shit, Special Agent Boulton. Until I formally ask for your help, this is my jurisdiction and my investigation. So why don’t you just skedaddle on out of here like a good little lady, and drive the fuck back up to Helena and lay siege to some Posse Comitatus or something.”

  She took an eight-by-ten photograph from a file folder and handed it to Mattoon. “Do you recognize this man?”

  Mattoon looked at it and handed it back. “Herbert Sloan. He’s a businessman, an investor of some kind. Owns a few hundred acres north of town.”

  “The German government thinks that his real name is Helmut Speyer, a former officer in the East German secret police.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. Why don’t you go out there and talk to him?”

  “That’s the problem, you see. He’s not out there. In fact he left two days ago, the morning after the murder.” She put the photograph back in the file folder. “It’s even possible that Mr. Sloan, or Herr Speyer, whoever he really is, along with his wife and another man, were in the bar at the time of the shooting.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Oh, but I think that you do, chief. And that’s why I came down here to talk to you. A murderer missing. A victim’s body missing. Witnesses missing.” She smiled harshly. “I don’t think that you’re going to get lunch today. In fact I even wonder if you’re going to get supper, considering all that we have to talk about.”

  Konrad Aden got back to his room in the Grand Hotel in time to order a drink from room service and take a shower before dinner. Sitting at the open window, sipping his martini, and looking down at Main Street, he used his cell phone to call Thomas Mann in Georgetown.

  “Good afternoon, Konrad. Are you making progress?”

  “I’m afraid that there may be some complications of a somewhat disturbing and puzzling nature. The FBI is here looking into the shooting.”

  “Will there be trouble for us?”

  “That’s the hell of it, General, I don’t know. But my gut reaction is telling me to tread very carefully. There’s something going on out here that just doesn’t add up.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “For starts, the body of the old Jew that Browne shot to death is missing. No one knows where it is, nor does anyone know anything about an autopsy. It’s almost as if there never was a shooting in the first place.”

  “Helmut and Ernst were there and saw it.”

  “Well, the body is gone now. And it looks as if Helmut and his wife and Sergeant Baumann may have been placed at the scene. The FBI has been out to the ranch asking questions.”

  “Were they satisfied with the answers?”

  “The FBI agent in charge of the Helena office is here talking to the chief of police.”

  “Who you have assured me knows nothing about Helmut’s actual identity.”

  “That’s not the problem yet,” Aden said. “But we do have one loose end that I believe must be taken care of immediately.”

  “Go on.”

  “The only other witness is the bartender, William Hardt. Do I have authorization?”

  “Do you feel that it is necessary?”

  “Jawohl, Herr General.”

  “Then you have the authorization. I assume that you will use your usual discretion.”

  “Of course.”

  The Grand Hotel bar closed at ten this evening, but Willy wasn’t finished shutting down and ready to go home until after 10:30. It had been a bitch of a week, and he didn’t think that he was out of the woods yet. Someone was going to be coming around to ask more questions that he wasn’t going to be able to answer. He just knew it. And no matter what he said or didn’t say, he was going to be in some deep shit.

  He flipped off the last of the lights behind the bar, and walked back through the kitchen where the only light was over the back door.

  “Hello, Willy,” Aden said from the shadows near the old walk-in freezer.

  Willy stopped short, his heart in his throat, as a man with a very large pistol stepped into view. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Nothing terrible. You just need to be put out of circulation for the rest of tonight. By morning everything will be settled. It’s for Mr. Sloan. Do you understand?”

  “Okay, that’s cool,” Willy said, relieved it wasn’t a robbery or something. “But you don’t have to point a gun at me. I’ll do whatever you guys want me to do.”

  Aden opened the freezer door. “The compressor is turned off, so you can stay in here. By the time the morning kitchen crew comes in and finds out that something’s wrong with the freezer, they’ll let you out. You can tell them that you got locked in by mistake.”

  Willy was about to tell the man that the freezer could be opened from the inside with the safety latch, but he shrugged instead. “Fine by me. But you know that I wasn’t going to open my mouth to the FBI.”

  “We understand.”

  Willy shuffled across the kitchen and into the freezer. Even as the heavy, soundproof door was closing, he realized that the compressor had not been turned off, and in fact it had probably been turned down to maximum cool, and the push rod for the safety latch was missing. When the light went out he understood that he was in some very big trouble.

  4

  NEUBRANDENBURG

  Daylight lingered at this time of the year, although a low overcast hung over the lake and a chill wind blew from the north. Lane, dressed in a soft leather Gucci jacket, cashmere turtleneck, tan slacks, and half boots, went outside after dinner to have a smoke and take another look at the equipment in the garage. He had done some thinking about the dive that he was supposed to make tomorrow. He didn’t have the experience that he said Browne had. But he did have some mixed gas training with the U.S. Navy about eight years ago during a project in the Azores. He’d actually made one dive to four hundred eighty feet, but it had been in the open sea, not into a dangerous bunker, and his total bottom time had only been about three minutes.

  Inspecting the heavy closed-circuit diving mask and regulator, he decided that a lot of knowledge could be forgotten in eight years, and if he was going to survive the dive he had to first make sure that he completely understood his equipment.

  He heard someone at the door, put down the mask, and turned around. Baumann came in.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Checking out the equipment before I put my life on the line tomorrow,” Lane said. “Is that okay with you?”

  “I don’t care. If it was up to me I wouldn’t go down there for all the money in the world. It wouldn’t do me any good if I was dead.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Helmut asked me to check on you. See if you needed any help. He figured that you were out here looking over things. This close to a mission he gets a little nervous, that’s all.”

  “From where I stand I’m the only one who has anything serious to be worried about.”

  Baumann picked up the bulky mask and inspected it. He looked up at Lane. “Do you really know how to use this shit?”

  �
��I’ve never used this specific equipment before, but it’s all about the same. Same principles and all that.”

  Baumann put the mask down. “The Russians won’t be here until midnight, so you have all the time you want. I’m going back inside.”

  “Tell Helmut that I might want to take another look at the memorial.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Probably. I’ll let you know.”

  Baumann nodded. “Whatever you want,” he said, and he left the garage, walked across to the chalet and went inside.

  Lane, watching from the deeper shadows just inside the doorway, saw a movement in the woods fifty yards behind the house. He stepped back a little farther into the garage, then went to a window. Five minutes later he saw a movement again, and this time he picked out a figure holding up what might have been a pair of binoculars. Someone was watching the house, and he had a pretty good idea who it was.

  He went back to the doorway where he could watch the back of the chalet and the woods at the same time, but not be seen himself. He didn’t want anyone sneaking up on him. He took out his cell phone and hit the speed dial number for the service provider here in Germany that would automatically transfer his call to his office in Washington. It took less than ten seconds for the connection to be made. Frances answered immediately.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s me, and I’m all right. I’m near a town called Neubrandenburg in what used to be East Germany.”

  Tom Hughes came on the line. “Are you in a secure location, William?”

  “For the moment.”

  “There’s nothing in the records about a Reichsamt Seventeen, and nothing on a need for diamonds for any sort of human guinea pig research. Speyer is either lying through his pearly whites, or he knows something that we don’t. And the way the BKA is carrying on, I’d say that the latter is the most likely.”