The Trail of Four

by Manjiri Prabhu

  ‘Yes! We can hear you.’

  Stefan’s blood curdled. It was Re’s voice. Anxiety ripped through his heart and for a moment his hands trembled. Oh Lord, let her be safe.

  ‘Are you hurt? Is Isabel there with you? Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Just please get us out of this stifling dark!’

  ‘Hang on! Step back from the wall. We are trying to tear it down!’

  With shovels and picks, the men began dragging the rubble away. Stefan grasped another shovel and with the vengeance of a man possessed, attacked the wall, a silent prayer on his lips.

  ***

  ‘Oh thank God!’ Isabel exclaimed, as light from the Cathedral gradually spilled into the dark crypt.

  A huge stone crashed to the floor in a cloud of dust, leaving a gaping uneven hole in the rubble. Re threw one last look at the dark crypt and murmured a little prayer of thanks. He sensed the energy inside the crypt, just as he had in the little chapel.

  Isabel squeezed her way out through the jagged gap. There was a little army of policemen on the other side of the rubble and as they squirmed out of the hole, they were greeted by open smiles of relief. Both he and Isabel were almost unrecognizable under a layer of dust and Re could feel the blood clinging and clotting on his forehead. Isabel stumbled over a bit of jutting stone and almost lost her balance, but Stefan caught her in time.

  ‘Bessy! Thank God you’re safe! Such a lucky escape… what made you go…never mind. Schatz, you’re hurt. Someone call the meds…’ Stefan worriedly supported Isabel to a bench.

  Re coughed, faintly aware of the chaos around him and Stefan’s spontaneous concern for Isabel. The cathedral loomed large and hovered like a huge, overwhelming umbrella over him. After the dark, it was all too loud and hurtful to his eyes. Then suddenly, he was surrounded by kind, concerned faces, urging him to relax, and he was whisked out of the cathedral.

  Chapter 2

  ou have nothing to worry about! We have excellent security at the Schloss and this is a private Seminar. Please relax,’ Dan faced the roomful of security men.

  The news of the bomb at the cathedral had spread like wildfire. There was no way it wasn’t going to reach the ears of the high-profile people at the Schloss.

  ‘Look, the police have it all under control and are trying to find the culprit behind it. This is not a national security breach. There is no terrorist threat here. You have no reason to worry.’

  Dan’s office was rife with tension. The men, of different nationalities, mostly Sheikh Mohammad’s eight men, bore expressions of grim determination. They glanced at each other, and one of them nodded. He was the private head of security of the American ex-secretary of state, Tim Wagner.

  ‘We believe you,’ he said. ‘But just for the sake of my own duty to safeguard my charge, I will place one man inside the room where our Mr Wagner will sit. At all times. One inside and one outside.’

  One of Sheikh Mohammad’s men nodded. ‘That’s right. We will not disturb the conference but I will plant our men within easy reach of Sheikh Mohammad.’

  There was a general murmur of consensus. Dan nodded. He was fully aware that he didn’t have much of a say in the matter. This was the only way to keep the present situation in control. In fact, he realized with a feeling of appreciation, the guests were handling the news rather well. It could’ve been a lot worse. Like the Seminar getting cancelled. All the money, organization and planning, emotional and financial investment, would’ve been washed down the drain. Mercifully, they had showed restraint, a great deal of presence of mind and maturity of thought, giving him enough time to resolve the situation at his earliest. If only he could. If only, Re, Isabel and Stefan would hurry!

  ***

  Re glanced across at Isabel. She sat sedately, her arm neatly bandaged, her face washed and gleaming and her blonde hair neatly combed into place. Her rust-coloured top was smudged and torn in places and Re felt a little sorry for her. It was the expression on her face that really arrested his attention. Her eyes were glazed, seeing something beyond everyone’s grasp. The coffee mug in her hand was loosely clutched, as if it could fall any minute. He doubted if she was even aware of his existence.

  He glanced through the window of the police van in which they were resting. The crowds had thinned but new tourists hung around out of curiosity. Re checked his deep pockets for his camera, flute and the clues. It was when he dug his hand into the outer pocket that something smooth brushed his hands. Frowning, he extracted it and stared at the tiny black button. A high-power microphone! Re stared at it amazed. Out of the blue, a streak of understanding crossed his mind. The motorboat attack on the lake! This was how someone knew that they would cross the lake in a boat! And time his attack. So this was how he was keeping abreast of their progress on the Trail. But who? Re’s mind flicked over the faces he had met the day before and there were many. Anyone could’ve had a chance to slip the microphone into his pocket, including Isabel. The thought made him pause with surprise. What on earth had made him bring her into the equation? Isabel and he were in this together, every step of the way, struggling to get to the end of the Trail and find the Gift. Courting danger to save the Pillars of Salzburg. She didn’t need the microphone at all! Then why in heavens had her name popped up in his head? Re floundered in bewilderment. He couldn’t allow Stefan to corrode his confidence in her. He couldn’t! The indisputable fact was that someone had placed the microphone in his pocket to keep tabs on their actions. The questions was, was it someone who wanted the Trail to be discovered? Or someone who did not?

  He had to get rid of it. He couldn’t afford anyone the satisfaction of eavesdropping into their conversation and pre-planning their moves. He cast an eye around the van and spotted a small can in a corner. He picked it and dropped the mike into it, shutting the lid tight over it.

  ‘We need to get past the last two clues and find the Gift,’ Isabel interrupted his thoughts.

  Re turned to glance at her. She was staring at him, both anger and sadness in her eyes.

  ‘And you think this whole episode will end after the Gift is found?’

  Isabel looked a little startled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean someone out there, perhaps a team of people, is crazy enough to plant bombs in a cathedral. The most famous symbol of Salzburg. You think all of this is only for Reinhardt’s gift? I seriously doubt it. This is more than greed. Or interest in history or Reinhardt. This is about revenge. And with every passing moment and incident, it smacks more of a conspiracy to me.’

  ‘What!’

  Re nodded. ‘The Mozart house, the cemetery, the cathedral. All public places targeted to create maximum unease, havoc and destruction. Not necessarily to people but also structures, icons of Salzburg. It can’t be someone’s idea of fun. It’s someone’s idea of revenge.’

  Re experienced a burning anger inside him. He placed his near empty coffee mug on the floor of the van.

  ‘You mean a political conspiracy?’ Isabel asked.

  ‘It could be. Planting bombs requires specialized knowledge. Someone knew how to enter the cathedral after closing hours and planted the bombs. He had an expert knowledge of the act. Who has expert knowledge of bombs? Not a layman, for sure. Someone who is probably in the police or—’

  Isabel’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean Stefan?’

  ‘No, I guess not, although he would be the perfect candidate, probably have ample know-how as well as opportunity, being a policeman. No, it can’t be Stefan—he is too conscientious and committed an officer. Someone who’s been trained in this kind of stuff.’

  ‘If it’s something political, it becomes larger than just finding the end of the Trail.’

  ‘Precisement!’

  ‘I just remembered something. Earlier, much earlier, when the Seminars had just begun to be held, people didn’t know what exactly was happening at the Schloss. They just knew that it was owned by an American organization and that experts visited from different coun
tries. Perhaps even that the CIA was involved,’ Isabel recalled. ‘But of course, that wasn’t true!’

  ‘The CIA!’ Re was struck dumb.

  Instantly, the image of the symbol of the Eagle rose before his eyes. Tim Wagner’s words also rang in his ears and he felt an urgent need to revisit the four hotel rooms. Soon…

  But first the Trail.

  The door of the van slid open and Stefan stepped in. Tired lines showed on his handsome face and his clothes were still a little dusty.

  ‘Hi! Feeling better?’ the officer asked, as he took the front seat, and turned to face them.

  ‘Fine, thank you.’ Re nodded.

  ‘Much better,’ Isabel replied. ‘But it was one of the most frightening experiences of my life! Re, I believe I owe you an apology. If it hadn’t been for me, we would’ve been out of the crypt long before the bomb went off. But I went on and on about—’ she broke off and the coffee cup in her hand trembled.

  ‘Non, forget it!’ Re brushed off her apology. ‘What was meant to be was meant to be.’

  ‘Why did you go in there in the first place?’ Stefan asked, curiousity stamped on his face.

  Re glanced at Isabel. It was her story to explain. Which she did, as briefly as possible.

  ‘Someone called you to the cathedral crypt to give you information about Justin. And instead you saw Justin himself in the crypt,’ Stefan repeated, carefully.

  ‘That’s right.’ Isabel shrugged.

  Stefan glanced at her queerly. Re knew exactly what was going through Stefan’s mind, but which he was cautious not to voice. Justin was dead!And although Isabel had refused to acknowledge that the body was Justin’s, Stefan was still convinced of the fact.

  ‘Re, did you see Justin in the crypt?’ Stefan asked suddenly.

  For one teetering moment, Re wanted to respond in the affirmative. He saw Isabel turn to look at him. Was it a glimmer of hope in her eyes? Hope because he had indeed seen Justin… Or was it an appeal? Appeal because even if he hadn’t, he would still admit that he had…Re looked away and fiddled with his pendant.

  ‘I’m afraid it was too dark. And Isabel saw him in a moving light,’ he replied.

  Re caught Isabel’s small sigh of disappointment. He couldn’t lie. Even for her.

  ‘If he was indeed there in the crypt, why did he vanish? Why didn’t he meet you? Why is he still missing?’ Stefan asked, patiently.

  ‘I don’t know, Stefan. I wish I could answer all these questions that you keep posing at me about Justin, but I can’t. I haven’t the least bit of idea of why Justin has gone missing or what has happened to him. All I know is that I did see him in the crypt. I did not conjure him up in my fertile imagination. And perhaps, just perhaps, if Re hadn’t been with me, Justin would’ve even probably stepped forward to talk to me.’

  ‘But you do understand that now that you have seen him, everything changes. You have witnessed that he is voluntarily not seeking you out and neither has he shown any inclination to return home. This means that he no more remains a missing person in the report,’ Stefan pointed out.

  ‘No, he doesn’t. And that excuses you from looking for him anymore!’ Isabel’s eyes flashed in anger. ‘You are anyway convinced that he is dead and that I am lying. No, please don’t say anything, because I can read the accusation in your eyes. If you were really serious about searching for Justin, instead of regarding me as a culprit, you would’ve found out who sent me that message about my husband. But you won’t do it, because it doesn’t serve your purpose to do so. It is so much easier to find a scapegoat and pin it all on me! Am I so important, Stefan? Why don’t you instead go find out who dared to attack the Pillars of our beloved Salzburg? Who had the pitiless gall to kill people and plant bombs in our sacred cathedral? Just go away, Stefan! I’ll report at the police headquarters sharp at nine tomorrow morning.’

  Isabel turned and stared out of the window, brushing at her eyes furiously. Stefan rose without another word. A muscle twitched in his tightly clenched jaw. For a moment, he hesitated, then stepped out of the van, shutting the door behind him.

  Re kept quiet, allowing Isabel to compose herself. After a few moments, she glanced at him, a sheepish, wry smile on her tear-stained face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Here, take this. My mom swears by it.’ He offered her five small white globules from a white plastic bottle.

  ‘Homeopathy.’ She smiled.

  ‘Works wonders on an upset mind.’

  She popped the pills into her mouth. ‘Danke! Do you always carry these with you?’

  ‘Always. I am often nervous and jittery because of my visions. I feel it helps calm my nerves in extreme conditions.’

  ‘Yeah, but it won’t help relieve my feelings for Stefan. I hate his guts.’

  ‘And yet, back there in the crypt your first thought was for Stefan’s safety, not Justin’s, Re reminded her quietly.

  Isabel stared at him, her expression changing rapidly from impassive to aghast. Her skin was suddenly shimmering with a sheen of moisture. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and shook her head.

  ‘It’s all right. It was a spontaneous reaction. You were under stress,’ Re emphathized instantly.

  ‘No, no, you’re right. I think it’s just force of habit. Stefan has sort of grown on me. In a way, he’s an inseparable part of my life. I feel sometimes that he’s with me all the time. And I’ve never really experienced this feeling with Justin. But I’ve just been so madly in love with Justin, so kind of crazy about him that I never thought to stop and think of what Stefan means to me. Am I making sense?’

  ‘Sort of. As long you can clear the air around your relationships and see them for what they are, it’s okay I guess.’

  ‘I guess.’ Isabel shrugged but averted her gaze.

  ‘So should we resume our Trail?’

  ‘Oh yes, let’s. I can’t wait to finish it. But first, let’s go get my car.’

  ***

  Stefan glanced at his watch. Five o’clock. It had taken ages, it seemed to him, trying to tackle the emergency at the Cathedral, and so much had transpired in that time… Isabel! Isabel had happened to him all over again! The love that he had brazenly surmised as forgotten and ousted from his heart forever, had restaged an entry like never before. That one despairing moment, when he had realized that she was trapped in the crypt, his heart had given way. It had been a moment of truth. Of revelation. Of brutal introspection. Of self-realization that criminal or not, married or not, Isabel meant more to him than any girl would ever mean to him. Ever. It was a sobering thought.

  He needed to think, but he knew there was no time for that. If they hadn’t reached the cathedral in time, it would have been completely destroyed by the four bombs. Fortunately, they had removed the major ones and the last one hadn’t been so demonic. The destruction had not been major either, and no one had really gotten seriously hurt. But the attack on the Pillars had intensified. What was in store for the last one? Fire, the last of the four elements. And which Pillar of Salzburg would it strike? Stefan was not going to take any chances. He was going to deploy total security to all the remaining structures while they tried to investigate on the make of the bombs and the source of their appearance. In the meanwhile, he hoped that Re would end the Trail and retrieve the Gift.

  ***

  ‘Leave the gift in the empty vessel of the lady by the lake as soon as you find it.’ Dan read the words of the email again and again. From Parisgirl! What an id! Definitely a fake one. Perhaps the id could lead Stefan to the person who had sent it? The police had all sorts of tricks up their sleeves and all kinds of freedoms and techniques to trace fake ids. Dan quickly punched Officer Weiss’s number but the line was engaged.

  Dan stepped out of his office and walked towards the bench. On the right side of the bank, close to the stone border and right under the chestnut tree, rested the Lady with the Vessel. Dan had no idea to which era the sculpture belonged. Going by
the moss that covered more than three-fourths of the statue, it seemed to be older than the Max Reinhardt era. The sculpture was that of a reclining lady supporting a round utensil—like an Indian pot—by her waist. The rain had ceased momentarily and a pale afternoon sun set her rather blurred features aglow, highlighting the curves of her reclining body. Dan had always assumed that the vessel had a closed mouth. But now he bent down, cleared away the green coverage around the top of the vessel and inserted his hand into it. Much to his surprise, he realized that the vessel had a round entry point the size of a big fist and was actually hollow in the inside. He was amazed. Here he was, the GM of the hotel, and he had no clue about the Lady with the Vessel. And on the other hand there was this smart, anonymous entity called Parisgirl who had explored every opportunity to unravel the secrets of the Schloss, including the next hiding-place for the Gift. Considering the number of guests that went in and out of the Schloss weekly, anyone in the past few days could’ve had this opportunity.

  Dan sighed. It was time to get through to Stefan and convey the latest development to him.

  Chapter 3

  he blessings of Catherine,

  Dissolve all sin

  On the path of the pilgrim,

  Waits the old bin.

  Where flour, bread and wine seat,

  And the personal and religious meet,

  And in memory of the war brethren

  Peace and solace strengthen.’

  Isabel read the clue, slowly and carefully. They were sitting in her car, in the parking lot. Re had fetched another two cups of coffee from the café down the alley, hoping the hot drink would stimulate his brain cells.

  Laughter trickled in from the street, carefree and happy. As if just some hours ago the cathedral had not been almost blown apart, as if the threat to the fourth Pillar was only a frightening dream, as if every ticking minute they were not getting closer to a horrendous conclusion. That was why truth was subjective, reality had such different dimensions and memory was sweet and short. Things happened to others, life happened to the self, tragedy struck in other houses, ours were soaked in love. Belief, faith and hope were the ingredients on which life thrived. Not fear, hate and worry. Re fiddled with his ponytail, forcing himself to concentrate on the clue in hand, ignoring the beautiful raindrenched light that spread over the Altstadt and the ignorant, happy people.