Eden's Gate (6 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Eden's Gate
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“I don't know, but apparently we're going to Germany, to a Nazi bunker, so our BKA friends in Berlin got at least that right.”
“I'll pass it back to them, and see if they've come up with anything new.”
“Baumann is suspicious of me, so I don't know how long it'll be before they discover this phone and take it from me. It looks like we'll be leaving here soon, so keep on your toes, but don't crowd us.”
“Don't take any unnecessary chances, William. This isn't rocket science, after all.”
“We're in the wrong business for not taking chances,” Lane said. Someone had come out of the house and was smoking a cigarette on the porch. Lane could make out the figure, but not who it was. “How is everything at your end? Is Tommy okay?”
“The dear old man is about to have a heart attack laughing at me,” Frances said seriously.
“Let me guess, it was because you called the hotel clerk ducky.”
“I am a Brit.”
“But ducky?” Lane demanded. The figure moved off the porch and headed down the hill. “Got to go, love. I'm about to have some company.”
“Take care, William.”
“You too.”
 
Lane got halfway up the hill before he could see that the figure was Baumann. He waved and Bumann stopped and waited for him to come the rest of the way.
“What were you doing down there?”
“I was trying to spot one of your bears,” Lane said. He grinned. “But they mustn't be out and about yet.”
“You were told not to wander around.”
“I didn't know that accepting a job offer meant that I'd be restricted to quarters.”
“It meant that you follow orders.”
Lane shrugged. “Whatever.” He glanced back toward the river. “How about tomorrow? Is there any trout in that stream? I'd like to try my luck.”
“There won't be any time. We're leaving first thing in the morning.”
“To where?”
“You'll find out when we get there.”
“What about my car?”
“It stays here,” Baumann said. “And that'll be all the questions. You'll be told what you need to know when you need it.”
In the distance to the southwest a Fourth of July rocket burst very low on the horizon. “Too bad we couldn't be in town tonight to catch the celebration. I'm in a mood to party.”
“I wasn't aware that South Africans were so interested in American holidays.”
Lane laughed. “Lighten up, Ernst. A party's a party. It's got to get pretty boring up here after places like Berlin. Not much to do, unless you like trout fishing or dodging bears.”
Baumann's eyes narrowed. “Don't fuck with me, Browne. If you so much as fart at the wrong time I'm going to jam my hand down your throat and rip your heart out.”
“Right,” Lane said. He stepped around Baumann and headed back up to the house. He got two steps and he turned around. “Don't bother coming up to tuck me in, Ernst, I think I can manage on my own.”
 
Speyer was on the veranda, drinking a beer and watching the distant fireworks. Baumann went up to him. “I don't trust the bastard.”
“Don't be tedious, Ernst. We've already had this discussion, unless you've learned something new.”
“He could be a plant.”
“What, a BND agent all the way here from Munich? You said he checked out.”
“Creating a background isn't all that difficult,” Baumann said.
Speyer considered it for a moment but shook his head. “If German intelligence suspected that we were up to something, let alone where we had gotten ourselves to, they would have sent more than one man to check us out. And I don't think they would have gone so far as to kill a man just to get in my good graces.”
“Maybe they faked the shooting.”
“I saw the blood with my own eyes. And Browne's gun checked out. The APB is on all the wires. If the BND wanted us, they would have asked the CIA for help, and with that bureaucracy they would have raised a dust cloud all the way from Washington that we couldn't have missed.”
“I hope you're right,” Baumann said.
“I know I'm right, Ernst. I did some checking of my own. There is no CIA operation against us in the works. Guaranteed.”
“What about the FBI?”
“My Washington contact would have heard if anything was in the wind. And there's nothing. Browne is a smart-talking bastard, but he's the right man for us at the right time and place. The moment he retrieves the package, he's yours. Until then he's mine. Do you understand?”
Baumann nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Fine,” Speyer said after a beat. “Now be a good sergeant and fetch me another beer, would you?”
 
Speyer retired to his quarters around midnight after making sure that the night shift was on duty and nothing was going to blindside them. Gloria was lying back on the couch in the sitting room, the lights low, watching the closed-circuit television monitoring Lane's room. He was in bed and apparently asleep.
“How long have you been watching?” Speyer asked, more amused than annoyed.
She was half-drunk on champagne. She looked up and grinned. “For a couple of hours. Since he came back.”
“Did he leave the bathroom door open for you, my dear?”
“Yes,” she said. “He doesn't have as much hair as you, Helmut, but he has more muscles. Does that make you sore?”
“Not at all,” Speyer said. “As a matter of fact I want you to keep an eye on him for me.”
“He's got a big prick, too,” Gloria said. She was baiting him, but it wasn't working tonight. He no longer gave a damn.
Speyer laughed. “I hope you find him amusing.”
“Oh, anything but that.”
“Well, we're getting an early start in the morning, so if I were you, I'd come to bed soon.” Speyer kissed his wife on the cheek, then headed for the bathroom.
“Helmut, do you know what impecunious means?” she called to him.
“Of course. It means he's dead broke. Didn't you know the word?”
She turned back to the television without answering him, the vacant look back in her eyes as she poured another glass of wine.
Everything Speyer did seemed to be first-class, down to the plush carpeting and leather upholstery in the Gulfstream jet. But reading between the lines Lane got the impression that all of this—the plane, the cars, the lavish spread in Montana—was straining him to the limit, and he'd been forced into working on something very dangerous that would somehow fill the coffers once and for all. The big score.
Like a lot of ex-Stasi officers, Speyer was nothing but a two-bit thug, albeit a well-to-do two-bit thug.
They landed at Washington's Reagan Airport a few minutes before 5:00 P.M. local, where a Lincoln Town Car limousine driven by a uniformed chauffeur was waiting for them. Speyer dismissed the captain, copilot, and steward for the night, but cautioned them to remain on call and sober. They would be staying at the Holiday Inn Downtown on Thomas Circle, and Speyer did not want to chase around town trying to find them if he needed to take off in a hurry.
With the last of the rush hour traffic it was after six by the time Speyer, Gloria, Baumann, and Lane crossed the Key Bridge into Georgetown, and another fifteen minutes before they pulled into the circular driveway of a lovely old three-story Georgian mansion just off R Street across from Montrose Park. The house was owned by Thomas Mann, a distant cousin of the famous writer.
It felt odd to Lane to be back like this, because he and Frannie maintained a house a half-dozen blocks away in a back alley called Rock Court. But he didn't think there was much risk of being recognized
here, not unless they went out to dinner someplace public tonight.
A slight man with thinning white hair, who walked with a stoop and was impeccably dressed in a three-piece London-tailored suit, waited for them in the flower-filled conservatory at the back. When the doorman left, the man gave Gloria a warm hug, and then shook hands with Speyer.
“It's good to be back in Washington, Herr General,” Speyer said.
I'm glad that you're here, and of course you can count on me to help,” Mann said in a comradely tone.
“You remember Sergeant Baumann,” Speyer said.
“Of course. You're looking fit, Sergeant.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And this is a new associate of ours, John Browne, until lately with South African Intelligence. I've hired him because of his … unique talents.”
Mann sized him up coolly, and then shook hands. “How is it that you met Helmut?”
“Let's just say that I was in the right place at the right time,” Lane replied.
“He saved my life,” Speyer explained.
Mann smiled thinly. “A valuable talent to have around.”
“Not only that, but he's a diver. South African UDT. Two hundred meters.”
“So you're going after it finally,” Mann said with some interest. “You must have found the key.”
“Only the means to the key,” Speyer said. “Which is why I'm here in Washington, and which is why I'm going to need your help, Herr General. But with your connections in Washington I don't think it should present a problem.”
Mann poured them each a glass of sherry. “All right, what can I do for you?”
“I need to know the chief of Russian intelligence here in Washington, and I need to know how closely he's being watched by the FBI.”
“Ivan Lukashin. Has a nice house over in Arlington. Three car garage, pool. A couple of golf and tennis memberships. He's better connected here in Washington than your congressmen from Montana. The FBI was watching him because there was a rumor that he was somehow involved with a drug smuggling ring. Russian mafia.
But they couldn't come up with any hard evidence, so they backed off a couple of months ago.”
“Is he connected?”
“If you mean in the Mafia, I frankly don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. He can't afford that lifestyle on his rezident's pay, so he's getting help from somewhere.”
“How about in the Kremlin?”
“His father was a missile service general, and his wife's father was just appointed to Putin's special advisory staff,” Mann told him. “What are you getting at?”
“I need his help, and I'm looking for a weakness that I can exploit,” Speyer replied easily. He'd seemed tense before, but now he seemed relaxed.
“Obviously it will be money. I can set up a meeting and secure the introductions. But what do you need him for?”
Speyer took a leather-clad notebook and Mont Blanc pen from his vest pocket, jotted down the names of four men, tore out the paper and passed it to Mann. “I need to hire these four men, and I must be assured of their loyalty to me, and their complete discretion.”
Mann read the names and looked up. “Russians still in Germany?”
Speyer nodded. “They are deep cover, and so far as I know they want to keep it that way. But they have some information and the connections with German Television One that I need.”
“The fewer the people involved, the better off you'll be,” Mann warned.
“I know. But if the information I have is accurate, and if it fits with what these four can tell me and do for me—providing they'll cooperate—then we'll be home free.”
Mann sat back, sipped his sherry, and gave Speyer a long, appraising look. “You have been after this holy grail—whatever it really is—for a long time, Helmut. I'll help even though I don't know what it is. I owe at least that much to you.”
“Thank you, Herr General,” Speyer said. “And believe me that you don't want to know the details. How soon can you arrange the meeting?”
“Later tonight, I should think. If that's not too soon for you.”
“Just perfect,” Speyer said.
“You must understand that you are playing at a dangerous game. The Russians no longer want to be connected with us; they have
their own problems. The old ideologies are gone. It's purely a matter of money now, and personal gain. Lukashin is a master at it.”
“I'll keep that in mind, my old friend,” Speyer said. “Thank you.”
 
Sitting alone in his second floor study, Thomas Mann had another thought. The arrangements for the meeting tonight were set, but something didn't seem right with the new man. He phoned an associate in Helena, Montana. “I have a mutual friend with me here in Washington,” he said.
“I shouldn't be surprised, with the trouble in Kalispell,” said Konrad Aden. Like Mann, he was a prominent attorney and businessman, but he was also the western chief of staff for the Friends, a loose worldwide organization of former Stasi officers in hiding around the world. He dealt with only the most prominent of men in the U.S. west of the Mississippi.
“Is he in any immediate trouble?”
“No, nothing like that. He has friends out here. But he was seen coming out of the Grand Hotel after the shooting. I have some reliable people on their way down to cover his tracks. He may have missed something.”
“I've heard nothing about a shooting.”
“It won't hit the national news,” Aden said. He told Mann everything that had happened, including the current lack of progress in the police investigation.
“It sounds like a set-up to me. I suspect he's actually brought the shooter here with him. Tall, well dressed, says he's John Browne, former South African Intelligence.”
“He could be the same man,” Aden said. “What are they up to?”
“I don't know yet. But clean up the mess out there, and if you find out anything new let me know.”
“Is Browne legitimate?”
“Helmut seems to think he is, but I'll do my own checking. The problem is one of coincidence, I should think.”
“I agree.” Aden chuckled. “Helmut was always the brash one. Our risk taker.”
“Age has not changed him,” Mann said, and he rang off.
 
They had their own beautifully appointed, spacious rooms, each with a bathroom. Speyer came down to Lane's sitting room, and tossed him the Beretta. “You might have use for this.”
“Thanks. I was wondering when I'd get it back.” Lane said. He checked the action and then the load, before stuffing it in his belt at the small of his back.
“Have you ever heard of this Russian?” Speyer asked. “Lukashin?”
“It's a new name to me.”
“He's supposed to be one tough son of a bitch, and he'll almost certainly not come to the meeting alone.”
“Is that where I come in?” Lane asked.
Speyer nodded. “Just keep in the background, and keep your mouth shut. But if the need should arise, kill him.”
“I had a silencer in my luggage.”
Speyer took it out of his pocket and handed it to him. “We're meeting with them at the Lincoln Memorial at ten o'clock, and it could go either way.”
“I'll be ready,” Lane said. “But it would be helpful if I knew what the hell I'm putting my life on the line for.”
“Money,” Speyer replied coolly.
“There's money, and then there's money, if you catch my meaning.”
“You're right,” Speyer said after a slight hesitation. “You're either going to walk away from this operation a rich man, or you're going to end up dead. So you might as well know what you're in for.”
“That's fair enough,” Lane said. “What's at the bottom of a flooded Nazi bunker that has you interested enough to hire me and to talk to the Russians? Gold?”
“The bunker was one of Hitler's research centers for
Wunder-waffen.
”
“Rockets?”
“Something better than that.”
“Nukes?”
Speyer shook his head. “That part's not important. They were using a special catalyst for their experiments, and they drained nearly all the Third Reich's entire supply—most of which came from Jews gassed in the concentration camps.”
“If it's not gold, what then? What's worth all this effort? Platinum? But that would be too heavy.”
“Diamonds,” Speyer said. “From engagement rings, heirloom jewelry, that sort of thing. A lot of those Jews were rich. There's
maybe three hundred million dollars' worth down there stored in a safe in the main research laboratory.”
“Why hasn't anyone gone after them before now?”
“In the first place, those records came into our hands in East Germany, and were buried until I came across them. And secondly, it would be impossible to get down there unless you had the engineering diagrams of the bunker system. There was an explosion right after the war, probably a booby trap, and the entire place is filled with water, and no way to drain it or pump it out. The Russians capped the entrances with a few hundred tons of concrete and marked it as a mass grave.”
“But they really didn't cap it.”
“Not that one, nor did they completely seal a dozen others. It's those records I want, and I know the four men who have access to them. Lukashin's the key.”
“What's the connection to German television all about?”
“We're going to do a documentary. That's how we're going to get inside without attracting any government attention.”
“Okay, I'm with you so far. But what about the Russians, do they know what's there?”
“I destroyed that part of the record.”
Something wasn't adding up for Lane. The German Federal Police were interested in what Speyer was going after, and the Russians knew the layout of the bunker and how to get into it. Why hadn't something been done by now? “What do the Russians think is there?”
“A bunch of dead Jews.”
“Besides that,” Lane insisted. “They'll want to know why you want to get down there. What are you going to tell them?”
Speyer gave him a calculating look. “You don't miss much, do you?”
“Diving into a flooded bunker to retrieve something is only part of it. I want to know who'll be coming after me when it's over, and why. It has to be more than diamonds.”
Speyer was silent for a long time. But then he nodded. “The Nazis were doing human research, genetics. They supposedly created some monsters.”
Lane gave him a skeptical look.
“I don't mean bogey men. I mean monstrosities. And the present German government, as well as everyone else who knows anything about the program, called Reichsamt Seventeen, doesn't want to
dredge it up again. The program was ten times worse than the gas chambers, and a thousand times worse than even Josef Mengele. Inhuman beyond belief.”
Even for you, Lane wanted to say. “And they used diamonds as a catalyst.”

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