by David Cline
It was a gold ring that looked as polished as the day it had been made. Large diamonds formed a wreath around the center which contained two parallel lightning bolts. Supporting the wreath on both sides of the ring was an eagle with its wings spread out wide.
André finished looking through the pockets and stood up to join them. “Do you guys recognize that symbol?” he asked.
Amara shrugged. “I haven’t brushed up on my semiotics for a while.”
He took it in his hands and rotated it in the light. “It’s the symbol of the Gestapo.”
Fin looked at him, with wide eyes. “The Nazi Secret Police?”
André nodded. “Founded in 1933 by Hermann Göring and then passed onto Heinrich Himmler, the Gestapo was the Nazi party’s muscle. After the act of carte blanche in 1936, Hitler became supreme chancellor. The Gestapo was then above the law to pursue any cases of treason, espionage, sabotage and criminal activities. That pretty much meant that any adversary to the Nazi party or their agenda disappeared.”
Fin looked at André impressed. “You know your German history.”
André shrugged. “My mother’s side is Jewish. It’s part of my family history.”
“What do you make of it?” Amara asked. “You think it belonged to our friend here?”
André shook his head. “If I had to guess, this guy was looking for something just like we are and maybe got too close.” He gestured for the crusty digital camera. Amara handed it to him. “If he had sensed danger, he would have run into the jungle seeking a place to hide. This tree is the perfect hiding spot.”
Fin pointed down at the rotting corpse. “Little good it did him.”
Amara looked around. “It would be the perfect hiding spot if whoever were pursuing you didn’t already know where you were. If they did, it might as well be a snare. Once you are inside here, there is no way you are getting out alive if they are too close.” The idea made her blood run cold.
André took out a small knife and pried the bottom of the camera open. “This camera is wasted,” he said. “But the memory card still looks to be in decent condition. Let’s put it into our camera and see what we can find.”
The three of them took their time climbing out. The last thing they needed in the middle of the jungle was a sprained ankle or broken arm.
Fin opened his backpack and pulled out the black protective case that housed the digital camera they had brought to document anything they might find. He slipped the 16GB memory card into it and switched the power on. The three of them gathered around and stared down at the bright little screen.
Festive colors and laughing faces blurred together as Fin cycled through the images.
“It looks like pictures from his daughter’s quincenera party,” Amara said. “It’s the Latino equivalent to the American sweet 16.”
Large purple and white draperies hung from the ceiling. A group of young teenagers were dressed in their finest. Circular tables spread across a large room were decorated in lavish fashion matching the color theme.
Soon the party pictures ended, and an image of a road sign flashed by.
“Go back!” Amara said. “I think I recognize that sign.”
Fin pressed the back button, and they examined a blurry image of a road sign.
“We passed that same sign on our way here,” Amara said. “I bet this picture is the first one he took as he traveled into this general area. He must have taken it while driving which is why it’s so out of focus.”
Fin continued through the images. Amara recognized some areas in the jungle they had passed through just hours before. Fin stopped on an image of the tree where they found the body.
“This is getting creepy,” Amara said.
André looked across at her. “He must have discovered the hiding spot before moving on, which was why he retreated back to it when trouble found him. Let’s see what direction he went.”
The next image was from the opposite side of the clearing from where they stood.
André pressed a button on his headlamp that made the light brighter and looked out into the night. “He went that way.”
Amara followed the light across the clearing. The warm colors from the sunset had transformed into brooding dark greys. She could not distinguish much more than where the tree line started. They swayed in unison as if beckoning them. Maybe it was a warning.
Fin kept scrolling. “Looks like he went up a little hill with some dense vegetation and then into another clearing.”
Amara held her breath. Looking through the photos felt like reliving the dead man’s last minutes.
“This guy took so many pictures,” Fin said. “Almost like he was a detective investigating a crime scene.”
Fin quickly clicked through the images until a play symbol shined up at them.
“This is a video!” Fin exclaimed. He turned up the volume and rotated the camera so all three of them had a good view.
The video was shaky as the man walked around. After a few seconds, the speakers clipped, and Fin hurried to turn the volume down a hair.
“Abajo de mis pies, yo creo que hay una red extensiva de túneles construido por los Nazis. Con qué propósito no sé.”
Both Fin and André looked up at Amara with expectant expressions. Out of the three of them, she spoke the best Spanish. “He’s saying that he believes there is an extensive tunnel network below his feet constructed by the Nazis.”
The man in the video held the camera with one hand and scraped the dirt off the little mound with the other. A grey material began to appear. Amara bent closer to the small screen. “That looks like concrete,” she said.
With a shake the video abruptly stopped. When Fin clicked the “next” button, it was pictures from the party again.
“That’s all there is.” Fin said, clicking the camera off and placing it back into his pack.
“Doesn’t help us solve what happened to the poor guy,” Amara said, with a disappointed frown.
“It does lead us to where we need to go though.” André said, with an excitement in his voice Amara had not heard before.
“You still want to check it out?” she asked.
When he did not answer but only smiled, her eyes widened. “In the middle of the night?”
André shrugged. “No time like the present. It is not worth fighting our way through the jungle back to the cars only to come back tomorrow morning. What do you think Fin?”
Fin heaved the heavy backpack over his shoulders and grinned. “Let’s go. I didn’t bring this foldable shovel all this way for nothing.”
“What about the dead man decaying ten feet away from us?” Amara asked.
André took a sip from his water. His eyes gleamed with eagerness. “He could have died in a lot of ways. Maybe he came with someone and they had a disagreement. Maybe he ran into a group of poachers or tribesmen. He might have even committed suicide for all we know. When we get back, we will report the body to the authorities, and they can investigate if they want to.”
“If he had committed suicide, there would be a gun lying next to the body,” she said, trying to reason with him.
André waved her off and started walking. “Vamonos!”
Amara rolled her eyes but shouldered her pack. She was outvoted.
They crossed the clearing and made it to the base of a small hill. The vegetation was so thick, Amara walked with both hands stretched out in front of her to prevent branches from swinging into her face. With a lot of curse words in at least three languages, the three of them made it up and paused at a spot like the one they had seen in the video. The same eerie feeling she had felt earlier returned, and she shivered despite her shirt being soaked through with sweat.
A different kind of sound engulfed the jungle at night. Sharp chirps and cries from concealed creatures surrounded them on all sides. She looked out into the night with her headlamp.
“Let’s find that little cement mound from the video,” André said, striding out into the clearing
.
“What are you hoping to find?” Amara asked, hesitating a moment before following him.
“I honestly have no idea,” he answered. “None of it makes sense, but at the same time, everything is adding up. First the Reichsmark coin with the letter S. Then the exquisite Gestapo ring which by its appearance had to belong to someone of importance. Then the video leading us to this open space with the cement mound.”
“You think it’s some kind of Nazi bunker?” Fin asked.
“Yes, I do,” André said. “When the Germans realized that they were going to lose the war, they prepared safe houses for escaping Nazi officials in neutral countries. Especially in South America and particularly Argentina.”
“It would be the perfect location,” Amara added. “We are within a day’s walk of Paraguay or Brazil in either direction, so if they had to cross an international border to buy them a little more time, this position would allow them to do that. Do you think it was ever used?”
André shook his head. “I doubt it. And if it was, no one has entered it since at least the 1940’s. Judging by the ring and the coin though…” he paused.
Fin finished the thought. “It could be a deposit location for Nazi loot.”
André nodded. “Exactly.”
Amara was about to ask another question when her foot caught something solid and she fell flat onto her face. Her heavy backpack prevented her from being able to catch herself in time. More surprised than injured, she took both Fin and Andrés extended hands and was helped back to her feet.
“Damn rocks,” she said, brushing dirt off her clothes.
“I don’t think that is an ordinary rock.” Fin took off his backpack and scraped off some dirt with his right foot. “I think you found the mound from the video.”
The three of them stared down at the exposed grey concrete for a moment. Then their archeologist instinct took over and they began to work.
A few feet away from the cement mound they found another identical mound. Using the foldable shovels that Fin and André had brought, they took turns digging up the soft soil. Two dug while the third documented everything with the camera. Before long, they uncovered a circular piece of cement with a 6-foot diameter. The edge was solid concrete about a foot wide, and the middle was filled with dirt. The mound turned out to be the top of a ladder.
When Fin’s shovel hit the first metal rung, he squealed like a little child not able to contain his excitement. “This must have been an emergency exit to the surface!”
The discovery only prompted them to work faster. At one-point Amara started laughing so hard, she had to put the shovel down to grab her aching sides.
“What’s so funny?” André asked, circling around the top to get a photograph from another angle.
Amara wiped her forehead. “We are in the middle of the jungle, only God knows where. We are all so filthy not even our mothers would recognize us, and we are digging on top of a cement bunker we believe to be a secret hidden cache full of stolen Nazi gold.” She paused, picking her shovel back up. “You can’t make this stuff up.”
Soon though, Amara began to feel lightheaded. She took a long drink from her water trying to stay hydrated. The late hour and the excruciating work were beginning to catch up to her. They had dug past the top of her head an hour before, and still the ladder showed no signs of ending.
It was not until the first colors of dawn appeared in the east that André, with a frustrated heave, buried his shovel beneath the dirt so far, they heard a muffled dong as it struck something solid. They hurried and removed the remaining dirt and discovered a circular hatch like those on submarines. Fin bent low and tried to twist the large door to no avail.
Only after a lot of boot stomps, swear words, and all three of them heaving did the door lift exposing a black hole. For a moment, nobody spoke. They just looked down into darkness.
Amara wiped her forehead with her sleeve and then looked up at the two shapes standing beside her. “Before you even think it, there is no way I’m going first. You guys can fight over that honor.” She hurried and climbed the ladder, grabbed the camera, and then turned to descend once again. Movement in her peripheral vision caught her off guard and she stopped to look out into the early morning light. A small flock of birds flew out of distant trees. After a moment, Fin called up to her. She turned and climbed back down.
They were exhausted and starving. Their clothes were crusty with layers of dirt and sweat. Yet the thrill of their discovery spurned them onward. She smiled. Blinded by the adventure of the moment.
André was the first to enter the void. Amara watched his light lower about 10 feet and then stop.
“I’m at the bottom!” he called up.
Fin went next, and when he was almost down, Amara followed him.
The cement bunker was cold compared to the suffocating jungle above them. It was the closest to air conditioning Amara had felt since getting off the plane.
She walked over to join André and Fin who were already busy discussing a large mural on the cement wall. A much larger version of the eagle found on the Nazi coin they had gotten from José was painted on the wall surrounded by soldiers. Each soldier propped up a shield with a strange symbol displayed on the front of it.
“Look at how well preserved the colors are!” André said. “It looks like it was painted yesterday.”
Amara slowly pivoted in place as she looked around the room. She guessed the ceiling was 12 feet high. Two pipes crisscrossed overhead and continued through both walls on either side. Behind the ladder were some large letters printed on the cement.
“What does it say?” Amara asked. “I don’t know any German.”
“It says, emergency exit 3,” André said.
“Emergency exit 3!” Amara exclaimed. “How big is this place?”
A loud metallic gong from above splintered the silence and they all jumped. They looked up and the light from their headlamps illuminated a face looking down at them through the round hatch. Amara’s throat constricted and she couldn’t breathe. The stranger’s eyes seemed to spit fire in the light.
The man shrieked with rage. “Gott verdammt Ausländer!” With a quick motion, he dropped something toward them and slammed the latch shut.
Chapter 3
Everyone’s light dropped to the object that bounced off the floor and was rolling away from them. Fin was the first to realize what it was. “Run!” he screamed.
They bolted out of the room like three spooked gazelles. Amara had just turned the corner when the explosion from the grenade rocketed past her and her head smashed against the wall. Her eyes and mouth filled with moldy dust as she toppled over in a heap gasping for breath. Tears streamed down her cheeks as her eyes tried to rinse themselves.
She could only guess how long she laid on the cold concrete floor. For a while, all she could hear was her own heartbeat. Her ears throbbed and in a sudden panic she thought she might have gone deaf until a soft voice slowly became clearer. She opened her eyes. Fin was kneeling over her. “You all right?” he asked.
Amara groaned and wiped gunk out of her eyes. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. A cloud of dust still lingered in the corridor they were in. Her headlamp pierced through it like a laser at a rock concert.
Fin stepped back and offered an outstretched hand. She took it and was lifted to her feet. The sudden movement caused her to feel so lightheaded, she would have fallen had Fin not gripped her tight.
“Easy,” he said. “Take your time.”
She nodded and braced an arm against a cement wall. “I’m good.” Her voice sounded raspy and unfamiliar. An octave lower than usual. She burst into another coughing fit and grimaced as her sides seethed.
A deep hollow noise caused Amara to tilt her head. Fin must have heard it too because he suddenly froze to listen. It sounded like an enormous turbine was turning over, trying to start somewhere far away. The metal pipes above them vibrated through the walls.
Fin
swore softly under his breath. “This can’t be good.”
The noise became a constant hum and Amara thought she felt a breeze against her sweaty face. “What is that?” she asked.
André emerged around the corner with a defeated look on his face. “We are trapped down here. The man filled our hole with dirt.” He paused and looked around noticing the continual hum of the pipes above them for the first time. He held out his hand and his eyes grew wide.
“What is it?” Fin asked.
“Oxygen pumps,” André whispered after a long pause.
“Well, that’s good news.” Fin said. “At least for now.”
André shook his head. “The air can either be pumped in or sucked out.”
Fin looked at him and then his face filled with an anxious agony. “They are sucking the oxygen out? There must be another way out of here! Let’s split up. Holler if you find anything promising.” He hurried off into the darkness.
André stood unmoving for a few moments and then disappeared the other direction.
Amara noticed her headlamp was getting dim and grimaced when she remembered that her extra batteries were in her backpack up on the surface. She shined her light and noticed for the first time that the corridors were wide. Probably ten feet across.
In the distance, she heard Fin’s voice echo down toward her. “If every emergency exit is buried like the one we found, we are dead.”
Amara slowly made her way down the hallway, trying to convince her body to reboot. She passed a doorway and peeked inside. André was at the top of a ladder pushing his shoulder against another hatch until the veins in his neck looked like they were about to burst.
With a miserable sigh, he climbed down and stopped next to her. He stroked his dirty beard, his eyes frantic. “These are all emergency exits,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. “There must be a main entrance somewhere. Without food, water or air…” his voice trailed off. “Just yell if you find anything.”