The Last Airship

by Christopher Cartwright

  *

  Sam Reilly slid open the secret safe beneath the gondola’s carriage, which he’d discovered on the night that he and Aliana had first found the Magdalena, and he stepped into the room where all eight people lay quietly, no longer breathing.

  The weapon that Ryan Walker had installed on the airship had served the purpose for which it had been designed – to disarm every single person within the room quietly and without a fight.

  He looked at the 100 loaded antidote syringes in the suitcase in front of him.

  John Wolfgang had done his job – the antidotes were right where he needed them to be.

  He injected Ryan first, and then Brett.

  “Quick, John’s been hit,” he told them.

  Lastly, he went over to do the same to John, but a cursory glance told him that the man had already lost far too much blood.

  Without hesitating, he stuck the needle into John’s deltoid muscle, and expressed the full contents of the syringe.

  The antidote began to work within seconds.

  Sam could hear the sound of gurgling blood coming from John Wolfgang’s mouth. He’d started to breathe again, but Sam guessed that it would not be for long.

  “Help me sit him up, Brett.”

  It only took a second, and the gurgling sound cleared for a moment as the blood slid down John’s throat.

  “I’m sorry John… I never meant for you to get hurt,” Sam apologized.

  His pale white face stared blankly back at him.

  John was already dead.

  Aliana was going to be devastated by the news.

  “I’ll get the Magdalena ready to launch,” Sam said.

  “Good,” Ryan commented, as he then picked up the satellite phone, scrolled down to the second number and pressed enter.

  When the call was picked up, he said, “I need you to eliminate the three targets on the map.”

  *

  On the other side of the planet, the President of the United States and several military aides, stood in a secure room as the order was given for three computer guided missiles to be discharged from a drone now in place 90,000 feet above an almost deserted runway in the Middle East.

  Sam watched as all three cars exploded simultaneously.

  The shockwave produced was almost enough to destroy the Magdalena and definitely enough to injure every single person who surrounded her on the ground.

  No more than a few seconds later, he felt the Magdalena lurch forward as Ryan and Brett cut the anchor ropes.

  He pushed the throttles forward to full, and the airship began to pick up speed.

  Behind him, Sam heard the scattered sounds of gunfire.

  “They’re waking up!” Sam yelled.

  “We’re on it,” Brett replied, as he ran out onto the open-air gangway.

  Sam adjusted the settings so that the Magdalena was ready to fly at maximum speed.

  Then he heard the sound of the grenades exploding below.

  Once the explosions settled, the sound of gunfire ceased.

  Sam set a course, and sailed the Magdalena toward home.

  Chapter Thirty

  Sam knocked on the door of his father’s Boston penthouse.

  It always irritated him that he should still have to do this. The place was guarded more heavily than the Pentagon, his father would have already known that he was on his way up, or else Sam would never have been able to reach his floor. It was that simple.

  Standing next to him, Aliana was wearing a flowery dress, which he thought made her appear even more beautiful, if that was even possible. Despite receiving the sad news of her father’s death, she was determined to see the good in the world, and vowed to make the Wolfgang Corporation the leader in medical research using the additional 10 billion dollars now in her father’s bank account.

  Aliana, Sam decided, would make his father happy, if nothing else.

  “Enter.” His father’s voice sounded as though he really did believe that he was right up there with God.

  Sam walked in, holding Aliana’s hand in his.

  “Afternoon, dad.” He said, as he found his father sitting next to another, older gentleman wearing an Armani suit. He might have been any one of his father’s many employees, advisers, politicians, or anyone whose name appeared on the Forbes Top Ten Rich List. “This is Aliana, the girl I told you about.”

  His father stood up and kissed her on both cheeks, “I’m James Reilly, and it’s an absolute pleasure to meet you.”

  Sam noted that his dad didn’t bother to introduce the old man with whom, he’d been sitting, and Sam didn’t bother to inquire. If his dad didn’t choose to make the introduction, it was because he didn’t want to. His father might be an arrogant, certified megalomaniac, but no one ever said that he was anything less than exceptionally intelligent, precise and deliberate in everything he did.

  A butler entered, and handed Sam a glass of red wine. Grange. 1994 vintage. Then he gave Aliana a glass of white Muscato. She looked at Sam as if to say, how did he know exactly what I like? “Don’t feel too excited, Aliana,” he said, “It would have been Martin, my dad’s butler, who took it upon himself to find out what you like to drink. My old man wouldn’t have thought about offering us any refreshments at all.”

  “That’s not true, Sam. I don’t like to be the only one drinking, when I’m not alone.” His father continued to completely ignore the older man, who still sat quietly at his side, sipping his drink. “And where’s Tom?”

  “He’s back on the Maria Helena.”

  “Ah, at least that makes one of you who actually does some work for what I pay you,” James Reilly said. “And, Aliana, what type of work do you do?”

  “I’m a microbiologist. I’m soon to complete a PhD in microbiology at MIT.”

  “Excellent. And when do you start working for me?” His father said, assuming that all intelligent people should be under his employ.

  “Thank you, but I plan to lead the research department of my late father’s company.” She then smiled politely at him, and said, “I’ll let you know if I’m ever in need of a job.”

  “You do that, won’t you?” He then turned to Sam: “So. What’s your plan now? When do you return to the Maria Helena?”

  “End of the week. First, Aliana and I are going on a holiday. A real one this time and then we’re both returning to work. The Maria Helena is off to the Gulf of Mexico, where a large amount of dead sea life has recently washed up ashore. My money is on one of the big mining companies doing something they shouldn’t be doing.”

  “Mexico? Well, they can’t pay very much, surely?” His father said, sounding disgusted.

  “They don’t pay at all,” Sam corrected.

  “You’re doing pro bono work now, son?”

  “No, technically, I’m still being paid by you,” Sam quipped and then laughed. It was a rare day when he got the best of his father.

  “Hurry back, and do some real work – something that at least brings money into the company, will you?”

  “You do know that dead fish in Mexico will lead to dead fish in the U.S., don’t you?” Sam asked.

  “Ah, that’s not my problem,” His father said, arrogantly.

  The older gentleman sitting next to James Reilly turned to look at him, and said in his upper-class British accent, the precise class of aristocratic British snobbery to which his father could relate, “Thanks for the drink James, but I must be on my way home. I have a flight to catch. They won’t hold my Lear Jet indefinitely. Glad to hear it all turned out well for you.”

  “Thanks Blake, I do appreciate your help,” Sam’s father replied, shaking the man’s hand.

  “Of course,” the man nodded his head solemnly, “when its family.” The man then turned to leave, but hesitated briefly. “Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, here’s that painting that was stolen from you.”

  “Ah, much appreciated,” James said.

  Then as the others were admiring the original Monet, James Reilly
tore the back off of it and removed a small sealed vial labeled, Hitler’s Virus: Antidote.

  “I do appreciate your efforts, Blake, but this thing is virtually useless now.”

  Mr. Simmonds gave it his most basic perusal, as only a fine European antiquities collector could, and then said, “Excluding of course, the almost priceless value of Claude Monet’s first attempt at painting water lilies.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s of some consolation. I’ll have it put up somewhere around here, I’m sure. If Sam’s mother was around I’m sure she’d insist it be hung in the kitchen, or some other silly notion. Perhaps I’ll have it hung in the study, as a reminder not to be so frivolous with my money again.”

  “Yes, I imagine that’s probably the only real value of it,” Blake agreed, before closing the door behind himself as he left.

  Sam looked at his father.

  “Well, you do look pissed, don’t you?” James Reilly said.

  “That man tried to kill me and steal the virus whose only purpose was to destroy humanity. I thought you said I could trust him?” Sam said, belligerently.

  “Me? No, I never said you could trust him. I merely said that he could provide you with answers. As it was, I didn’t realize that he worked for someone who wanted more than answers to your mystery, and who was willing to stop at nothing, including murder, to achieve his goal.”

  “What now, then?”

  “What do you mean?” His father looked genuinely surprised at the question. “Now we carry on with our lives. What you choose to do with yours is entirely up to you.”

  “No, I mean, what about Blake Simmonds?

  “I still don’t know what you’re referring to, son. I suppose he will go on with whatever it is that strikes his fancy, just as both you and I will do.” He then looked at Aliana, and glanced back at Sam, adding, “Although, I think that among the three of us, you have the better deal.”

  “So, that’s it? He tries to kill me and you write it off as nothing?”

  “My goodness, no.” His father mocked his son’s genuine concern. “He’s a rich and powerful man, and like all rich and powerful men, he is completely devoid of morals.” There was an inherent implication of his disapproval of Aliana’s father in his statement. “I should think, now that the virus has been destroyed, that he would cease to have any further dealings with you, alive or dead.”

  “So, it doesn’t bother you that he’s made several attempts to kill me in the past month?”

  “No, not really. Should it?” His father said, looking at him curiously.

  “Yes, of course it should!” Sam answered, adamantly.

  “Why? I thought that it was more revealing of your carelessness to involve a man like Blake Simmonds in a treasure hunt for something that was so valuable.”

  “You gave me his details!”

  “Yes, but I had no idea at that time just how valuable your treasure was.” It was as much contrition as he’d ever heard his father offer.

  *

  Blake Simmonds rested his head into the soft leather of his Lear Jet.

  He sat alone, and had told his pilot and crew to leave him that way for the duration of his flight, home across the Atlantic.

  After so many years, it was finally over.

  He then opened a $50,000 bottle of whiskey dated 1939.

  It had taken some serious effort to track the stuff down, and once he’d acquired it, Blake had stored it in anticipation of this very day. He poured himself a glass and then added ice cold whiskey rocks.

  From inside the secret safe at the end of the room, he withdrew his father’s military badge.

  It was a brass double rune emblem of the German Schutzstaffel, followed by the number 3, denoting the wearer as SS party member number 3.

  In terms of seniority, this placed his father only just below Emil Maurice, the founder of the SS, who was member number 2, and Adolf Hitler, who was, of course, SS member number 1.

  Blake Simmonds examined the precious historical artifact as his mind considered the life of its original owner.

  As a senior SS officer, placed in charge of the capture of Fritz Robentrop by the Fuhrer himself, August Frank had mistakenly allowed Fritz to escape, in the expectation of catching his partners in crime, and consequently then having more to show for his efforts. In retrospect, he soon came to realize that he lost something far more valuable – the virus.

  Frank placed all of the blame for that fiasco on Walter Wolfgang. Then, when it became apparent that no matter how ruthless the SS had become, Germany’s people would not rise up strongly enough to beat back the Allied invaders and Hitler was going to lose, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

  By the end of the war, Frank had reached the highest echelons of Nazi seniority. He used his power and position to take charge of a large stockpile of German gold, before escaping Germany as a refugee and moving to London. As an old graduate of Eton, he had many rich friends in the British aristocracy. He purchased a large estate and set himself up as a rich gentleman, always with the intention of one day returning to Germany and finding the lost Magdalena and the virus she carried. He was determined to one day rectify his mistake by acquiring the virus, and making Germany the supreme leader of the world, just as Hitler had tried and failed to do.

  His need to make amends to his beloved Fuhrer became an obsession, one that only he could accomplish with the enormous wealth that he had taken with him as he fled.

  As the years passed, and he realized that all the money in the world could not help him. He married and had a son, who Frank raised as a British gentleman. By the time the Berlin wall came down, Frank was an old man in his nineties, but he nevertheless believed that his son could one day achieve his dream. He was disappointed to discover that Walter Wolfgang was now dead, but motivated by the knowledge that Walter's son, John Wolfgang, had become a world leader in the field of microbiology, and desperate for the money required to set up his pharmaceutical business.

  It was an easy deal to make. He would have to help John Wolfgang find the Magdalena, and then figure out what to do with the virus.

  The hardest part, was to convince his only son that it was the right thing to do.

  Blake Simmonds then took a long drink of the whiskey,

  “Here’s to you dad – the man who inadvertently lost the war for Germany, but saved mankind.”

  Chapter Thirty One

  Sam Reilly opened the doors to the elevator.

  Aliana had left earlier, while Sam remained behind to have his annual twenty-minute catch up chat with his dad.

  His father owned the top ten floors of the building. The highest two and the roof were part of his grand residence, while the other eight floors were places Sam had never seen, nor had he ever bothered to wonder for what purpose his father used them.

  Today, the elevator stopped at the 76th floor.

  Four levels below his father’s residence.

  The doors opened, and a tall woman with tidy, short cropped, dark red hair walked in. She was slim, and the hardened bony features of her face betrayed the arrogant confidence of someone accustomed to power, and none of the signs of age which often afflicted other women in their early forties.

  Sam watched her enter and felt his heart beat just slightly faster, as his hands turned clammy.

  The doors closed but the elevator did not resume its downward movement.

  “Madam Secretary,” Sam Reilly smiled, unsure of how genuinely happy he was to see the U.S. Secretary of Defense again. “You could have saved me a lot of trouble if you’d shared your interest in the Magdalena with me from the start.”

  It was as much of a reproof as even he was willing to give the leader of the world’s most powerful Armed Forces, her position second only to that of the U.S. President, America’s Commander in Chief.

  “Sam Reilly,” she said, her voice was quiet but nonetheless scolding in its tone. “You have cost your own government a fortune, not to mention the loss of the single most da
ngerous bioweapon in history. Do you realize how long we have been manipulating John Wolfgang to both find the Magdalena and catch Abdulla?”

  Sam opened his mouth and started to answer…

  “I’m not finished yet, Reilly,” she continued, “It wasn’t until the very end that we were even convinced that we had any control over the man, and we never did learn the identity of his original financial backer, and, we could only imagine what that person’s interest in all this was. So, what do you have to say for yourself, Reilly?”

  “You should have let me in on the game from the beginning, “ma’am.”

  “Reilly, you impudent fool! We weren’t convinced you hadn’t gone rogue, especially when our surveillance showed you fraternizing with Wolfgang’s daughter. How could you have been so stupid? Haven’t you ever seen a pretty girl before?”

  Sam kept his mouth shut this time.

  “I want you to know, I expressed an interest in having you taken out from the onset, Reilly…” Her voice betrayed not one iota of an apology, and she continued to say, “but the Commander in Chief vetoed the idea, advising that your unique attributes made you useful and although it appeared that your loyalties may have been misplaced, perhaps through your bungled efforts, our surveillance might be successful in finally obtaining the identity of the person who was really controlling our puppet, John Wolfgang, from the beginning. I’m not sure whether or not the President really believed any of that, but if we inadvertently managed to kill James Reilly’s only son… well, we can only imagine how that might affect your father’s future presidential contributions, I’m sure.”

  Sam had never even considered the President’s relationship with his father, but he had no doubt that she was telling him the absolute truth.

  “After all, with your finances and your standing around the globe, who could possibly be entirely convinced as to where your true loyalties lay?” the Secretary of Defense said.

  Sam knew that it was a hollow threat.

  She, of all people, knew exactly how much honor meant to him. His word was like an ironclad bond, and when he gave it in service to his country, there was nothing and no one who could force him to break it.