Eden's Gate

by David Hagberg

  With agonizing slowness Lane swam to the end of the tunnel and half-swam, half-crawled up the pile of rubble, through the opening, and into the shaft. Home free now, except that he could no longer hold the box in his arms. He eased it down on top of the rubble, let go, and shot upward immediately.

  A huge pressure stabbed his eardrums as if someone had driven hot pokers into his skull, and his lungs felt as if they were being ripped out. He was rising too fast.

  He fumbled in the darkness with the pressure valve on his BC, finally making his fingers work to release some of the gas. His rise slowed immediately. He released more gas until he was ascending at a slow, even rate and the pressure in his head and lungs cleared as did the cobwebs in his brain.

  He passed the stairs and the skull and crossbones and the cable, finally breaking the surface, the beam of a flashlight directly in his face.

  “Did you get it?” Baumann demanded. His voice was hollow in the chamber. Lane pushed his face mask back. “I need the rope. It’s too heavy to bring up by hand.”

  “Where is it?”

  “At the bottom of the shaft. I managed to get it that far.”

  “Wait,” Baumann ordered. He raced back up the stairs and slipped through the door.

  “We were ready to give up on you,” Schaub said. “It’s been over an hour. The filming is done and the Russians are on their way back to the truck.”

  “Tell Helmut to stall them if he wants his diamonds,” Lane said. “But I don’t want anything to happen to the caretaker. Do you understand?”

  Schaub nodded, his face ghostly in the reflected light from his flashlight beam. “He’s my cousin. Nothing will happen to him.”

  “Does Helmut know that?”

  Schaub shook his head as Baumann returned from the truck and rushed down the stairs. He carried the big coil of nylon rope, which he undid and handed an end to Lane.

  “I’ll secure it up here,” he said urgently. “When you’re ready, give me a couple of pulls. But for Christ’s sake hurry, they’re on the way back.”

  “It’s heavy, so be careful,” Lane warned. “I don’t want it coming back down on top of me.” He secured his mask, released some pressure from his BC, and started back down into the shaft.

  Golanov led the way back up the hill from the pavilion. Cherny, carrying the camera and bulky battery pack, was right behind him. Hans Mueller, the caretaker, was heading back to his office for his mid-morning tea and schnapps break. With the bad weather he wasn’t expecting any tourists this morning.

  “Do you think that he suspected anything?” Cherny asked.

  “No, he’s got an authorization document to file.”

  “What if he calls somebody?”

  “He won’t call anybody, Danil,” Golanov shot back impatiently. They were no longer filming so the sound equipment was off and there was no chance that anyone in the truck could overhear them. “I want you to get into the truck through the driver’s side door. Keep whoever’s in there busy. I’m coming in the back way, and with any luck we’ll end it right here.”

  “Only if you have a clear shot,” Cherny said. “I don’t want to end up at the bottom of the bunker.”

  “Just do your part and I’ll do mine.”

  Cherny went to the front of the truck, and Golanov went around back. The side door was ajar as was the steel door into the maintenance shed, but there was nobody about.

  He took out his Glock 17 and silently made his way along the side of the truck to the open door. He overheard Cherny say something, though he couldn’t make out the words. Then Speyer replied, “No delays.”

  Golanov swung around the corner and into the truck. Speyer reared back in surprise and grabbed for his gun from the top of the radio.

  “The instant you touch it you’re dead,” Golanov said.

  Speyer’s hand stopped. “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, but you’re throwing away a lot of money.”

  Golanov laughed. “From where I’m standing I’d say that you’re in no position to be giving orders now.” He turned his head slightly. “Keep a sharp watch for the caretaker, Danil,” he said. He backed up and motioned with his pistol for Speyer to come along. “You first, Herr Kapitän.”

  Speyer did as he was told, but very slowly, obviously looking for an opening. Golanov backed up, keeping a respectful distance, and waved Speyer inside the maintenance building.

  Inside, they started down the stairs, Speyer in the lead. Below, at the open shaft, Baumann and Schaub looked up in surprise.

  “Gentlemen, I want you to raise your hands right now,” Golanov said. “If you try anything your captain will take the first bullet.”

  For a long second neither of them moved.

  “Do as he says,” Speyer told them.

  Schaub tossed something into the water with a soft splash and he raised his hands.

  “Where’s Browne?”

  “Still in the bunker,” Schaub replied. “And it looks as if your timing is perfect. For a fucking Russian, that is.”

  At the bottom of the shaft Lane tied the rope to the container’s handles. It was all by feel because of the silted water. He turned and gave a couple of sharp tugs on the line, but it was slack. Baumann had paid it out meter by meter as Lane descended so that he could feel when the two pulls came, but Lane continued to bring the line down, hand over hand, until he had ten or fifteen meters of it. Something had gone wrong.

  Looping the rope through his weightbelt, Lane started to the top, conserving his energy, letting the BC do most of the work.

  There was no telling exactly what he was going to find, but he suspected that the Russians had gotten the drop on Speyer and the others and were waiting for him to surface with the diamonds. If it was Mironov, he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot first and ask questions later.

  Lane stopped his ascent a few meters from the surface. He could see the beams of two flashlights shining down into the water. He swam to the forward wall of the shaft directly beneath their feet. Hopefully they were watching for him to come up in the center and might not spot him until it was too late.

  Very slowly and precisely, so as to make absolutely no noise, Lane’s head broke the surface. He pulled his mask off. Baumann and Schaub, their hands up, were directly above him. To the left he could make out Speyer’s figure in the light reflecting crazily off the water. Behind him there was someone else. One of the Russians.

  Pumping more gas into his BC, Lane rose even farther out of the water. He unzippered his dry suit, took the Beretta out of his holster and switched the safety off. There was no one else down here with them, and he didn’t know what that meant. But the present situation would not last much longer. If he was going to do something it had to be now.

  “Help,” he shouted, his voice echoing throughout the chamber.

  Schaub pushed Baumann aside, and swung his flashlight around so that the beam caught the Russian in the face. At that moment Speyer stepped to the right, giving Lane a clear shot.

  “Put it down,” Lane shouted.

  Golanov fired into the water, forcing Lane to fire back, hitting the Russian in the middle of the chest, and driving him back off his feet.

  “Where’s the other one?” Lane demanded.

  “In the truck,” Speyer said. He grabbed Baumann’s gun just as Cherny appeared in the doorway above. Schaub shined his flashlight on the Russian, who dove to the right. Speyer fired two shots, both of them ricocheting dangerously off the concrete walls.

  Cherny rose up from the shadows, a pistol in his hand, but Lane fired twice, at least one of them hitting the man, sending him tumbling down the stairs and half into the water, dead.

  “I’ll check the caretaker,” Schaub shouted, and he raced up the stairs.

  Lane untied the rope from his waist and handed it up to Baumann. “Careful with it, the damned thing is heavy.”

  He levered himself out of the water, and as Baumann started hauling the container up from the bottom of the shaft, Sp
eyer came over and helped Lane out of his diving equipment. He was very excited.

  “You actually found it? You got it?”

  “Yeah. So let’s clean up this mess and get the hell out of here now. I don’t want the German police barging in here, guns blazing.”

  “You’re right,” Speyer agreed. He helped Baumann pull the container the rest of the way out of the shaft, and they manhandled it up onto the concrete floor. They all stared at it for a long moment, but then Lane finished pulling off his equipment. He bundled it in his dry suit, wrapped his weightbelt around it all, and dumped the lot into the bunker shaft. Speyer and Baumann rolled the two bodies into the water.

  They lowered the double doors. Baumann took a new padlock out of his pocket and secured the latch. “It’s not an exact match,” he said. “But it’ll pass unless they try to open it.”

  Schaub appeared at the doorway, out of breath. “It’s all right,” he called down. “He didn’t hear a thing.”

  “How do you know?” Speyer demanded.

  “I went down to the pavilion and looked in the window. He’s having his tea, and you can hear the television all the way up the hill.”

  “No tourists?”

  “Nobody else.”

  Baumann carried the heavy container up to the DF 1 truck. When it was loaded aboard, he replaced the lock on the maintenance door. Speyer got behind the wheel, and as they headed out of the memorial parking lot he thumped his fist on the steering wheel. “We did it. Son of a bitch, we did it.”

  Mironov, his pistol to Gloria’s head, watched from the front entry hall as the DF 1 truck came up the driveway. The big grin on his face died as he saw who was driving. He pulled Gloria back into the living room. “Say one word and I’ll blow your goddamned brains out.” He was glad now that something had prompted him to park his car out of sight behind the garage. Something had gone wrong, and now it was just him.

  Gloria said nothing, her eyes flicking back and forth between her captor and the kitchen.

  He could hear them outside, laughing, as they got out of the truck. They came onto the back porch to the kitchen. Mironov hauled Gloria around and, using her as a shield, covered the door.

  Speyer was first into the house, but he didn’t spot Mironov and Gloria in the living room until he was halfway across the kitchen, and Schaub and Baumann were inside. He pulled up short, a look of surprise and consternation on his face, and he started for his gun.

  “I’ll kill her,” Mironov warned.

  Speyer stopped. “What the hell are you doing here? What do you want?”

  “My car is parked in back of the garage. I want whatever you pulled up from the bunker put in the trunk.” Mironov knew that he was in trouble. Without Golanov and Cherny it was just him against the four of them. “And where’s Browne? I want him.”

  “Here I am,” Lane said from the front entry hall.

  Mironov twisted around, but before he could bring his gun to bear, Lane fired one shot, hitting him in the temple just above and forward of his right ear. The Russian slumped like a felled ox, dead before he hit the floor.

  Gloria jumped back, Mironov falling at her feet, but she didn’t utter a sound.

  “How did you know he was going to be here?” Speyer demanded.

  “Just a hunch,” Lane said, putting away his gun. “I didn’t think that Lukashin could keep his nose out of it. And this one certainly had a grudge.”

  “I like your hunches,” Speyer said. “But now we have to get to the ship. Are you coming with us, Otto? This’ll be your last chance.”

  “I’m staying,” Schaub said. “I’ll take care of everything here so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Once we’re gone we’ll be well out of it. They won’t make the connection no matter what they find. At least not until it’s too late.”

  “I’ll get rid of the body just the same, along with the truck and his car by the time you sail tonight.”

  “I left some gear in the garage—” Lane said, but Schaub waved him off.

  “Just get out of here, all of you. Leave this part to me.”

  There was an awkward moment, but then Baumann shook hands with him, and went out to put the container in the Mercedes’ trunk.

  “If you need anything let me know through the usual channels,” Speyer said.

  “Take care of yourself, Herr Kapitän,” Schaub said. They shook hands, and Speyer went to the door.

  “Thanks for your help,” Lane said, shaking his hand.

  “I saw what you were willing to do for my cousin,” Schaub said, half under his breath. “I am a good judge of men after all.”

  “I’ll bet you are at that.”

  Speyer came back. “Take my wife to the car,” he told Lane. “I want a last word with Otto.”

  “Okay,” Lane said. He took Gloria by the arm, gave Schaub a final nod, and went out.

  BKA Special Agent Leutnant Alois Hegel had set up his operational base post in the Neubrandenburg Protestant Church steeple looking down the hill at the lake. From his vantage point he had a direct line of sight not only to the war memorial, but to Otto Schaub’s chalet. Using state of the art Krupp Atlas charge-coupled image and sound intensifiers they had been able to all but look over the shoulders of Helmut Speyer and his henchmen.

  They were connected via a real-time data link with BKA Special Operations in Berlin, and Hegel was waiting for the green light to make his arrests. He was young and this was his first taste of the real action he had been trained for.

  His people were in place on every highway and dirt track within five kilometers of the chalet, and the perps were simply not going to get more than one kilometer away before they were taken down.

  The phone chirped. “Alpha one, base.”

  Hegel answered it. “Alpha one.”

  “Well done, Leutnant,” Chief Inspector Schey said. “Your unit may stand down now until Black Bishop has cleared the area.”

  Hegel couldn’t believe it. “Sir, they’re on the road now. I was going to order Red Range One.”

  “Nein. We know where they are going, and we’ll take it from here. As soon as they’re gone I want the crime scenes secured. Am I clear, Leutnant?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hegel said. He was seething inside. But he was a German and he knew how to obey orders.

  Lieutenant Hegel stood just inside the chalet’s kitchen. It was a few minutes before noon, and Speyer and the others would be up in Hamburg by now, leaving this one last surprise behind. The special BKA evidence team that had been standing by from the start of the operation had divided into two sections; one for here and the other for the memorial. Both teams had their hands full.

  “Alpha one, this is Alpha two.” The comms unit in his left ear came to life.

  “Go ahead, two.”

  “We have two bodies in the shaft. Golanov and Cherny. Do you have Schaub in custody?”

  “Nein,” Hegel replied. One body lay in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor, the other in the chalet’s great room. “He and the Russian are dead. Both of them shot in the head.”

  “Doesn’t pay to be friends with that bastard, does it. What the hell are they playing at?”

  “I don’t know,” Hegel said. “But I sure as hell would like to find out.”

  HAMBURG

  From the loading dock the M/V Maria looked deserted. There was no movement on her decks, and all of her hatches were closed. But when Lane and the others reached the top of the gangway, Captain Zimmer appeared from a doorway.

  “You got it then?” he asked.

  Lane stepped aside for Baumann, who was straining to carry the container. “Someplace secure, I should think, before poor Sergeant Baumann gets a hernia.”

  “Right, come with me.” Captain Zimmer went back into the passageway and took a stairway down ten decks to what Lane figured had to be the bottom of the ship, or very close to it.

  Baumann propped the box against a bulkhead as Zimmer undogged a waterproof door. “It�
�ll be safe in here,” he said. He reached inside and switched on a light.

  The Maria was double-hulled, and this was the space between the outer hull and that of the aft cargo hold. A catwalk curved back to the stern of the ship. It smelled very badly of diesel oil, garbage, and perhaps rotting sewage.

  “No one lingers very long back here,” Zimmer said.

  Gloria waited at the foot of the stairs while Zimmer led them the rest of the way aft to a special compartment he had built beneath the catwalk in the farthest aft and starboard corner of the ship.

  It took just a minute to lower the box into the hole, and when the section of catwalk was lowered into place there was no way of telling except under a very close examination that anything could be beneath them except the stinking bilge.

  “Now let’s have some lunch and something to drink,” Zimmer said, clapping his hands. “I think a celebration is in order before we have to hide the four of you.”

  “How soon can we set sail?” Speyer asked.

  “We’ll be gone by dinnertime.”

  “Good,” Speyer said. “After lunch Ernst can return the car to Hertz and we can settle in. I for one am ready for a relaxing ocean cruise. A couple of uneventful weeks.”

  “And then what?” Lane asked.

  “Then you’ll be a rich man.” Speyer grinned. “We’ll all be very rich.”

  6

  M/V MARIA

  Their most pressing concern on the trip across the Atlantic was making mealtimes which, for Captain Zimmer, his officers, and guests, were served in the expansive, tastefully furnished officers’ mess one deck below the bridge. The crew was international, but Zimmer insisted on German efficiency in everything. He had become somewhat nervous and not quite himself, however, as they approached their destination.