Jack Du Brul - Pandora's curse

Mercer relit the lantern, setting it to a weak flicker, and crawled into his sleeping bag. “Tell us what you know.”

“My grandfather has spent his life trying to recover property looted from the Jews during the Nazi occupation of Europe. Recently he received some information from an unknown source in Russia about a shipment of gold taken from Stalingrad and sent to Hamburg. The documents also revealed that an engineer named Otto Schroeder had played a role in this transfer, an operation I learned was called the Pandora Project.” As she got further into the story, Anika’s voice firmed and her outrage returned stronger than ever.

“Up until ten days ago, Schroeder was living outside of Munich. I went to interview him about the gold. When I arrived at his house, he was being tortured by a group of men led by Gunther Rath, the man who planted the bomb on this plane. With his dying breath, Schroeder said that the gold — and I’m talking about tons of it — was only part of the operation and that Philip Mercer was someone who could help me.” She looked to him, searching for an answer in his eyes as to why.

“Around this time,” Mercer said, “I received an e-mail from a lawyer in Munich telling me that an unnamed client was sending me a package of documents.” He dug them out of his sample bag and held them close to the lamp for the others to see. “Until this journal arrived, I’d never heard of Otto Schroeder. Nor do I know why he would send it to me. And since it’s written in German, I have no idea what’s in it.”

Anika picked up the tale again. “Just before I left the Njoerd , I learned that Mercer was at the Geo-Research base. I knew that somehow we had been set up. Right after the helicopter crash, I went through the mailbag and buried anything addressed to him. I couldn’t take the chance that Schroeder’s information might be passed to someone I didn’t know or trust. I had planned to go back later to retrieve the letter I’d hidden a hundred meters from the chopper.”

Ira looked at Mercer. “Our stowaway wasn’t a stowaway after all.”

“She told me just before we discovered the bomb.” Mercer shifted in his sleeping bag. “Because of a practical joke played on me by my friend Harry, she never got the letter she was looking for. I suspect the envelope Anika took was from Charlie Bryce.” He indicated that she should continue.

“Because Schroeder was an engineer, my grandfather and I believe that he was involved with creating a secret storehouse for Nazi plunder far from where the Allies would find it. An enormous hoard of treasure was recovered in old salt mines at the close of the war, but there are still billions of dollars’ worth of art, antiques, jewelry, and gold bullion that was never found. Schroeder’s statement that the gold we sought was only part of the project made us think we had stumbled onto another of their hidden depositories.”

“Here on Greenland?” Marty Bishop asked. “Seems a bit excessive even for the Nazis.”

“I would agree if Mercer and I weren’t here with Rath.”

“How did Schroeder know the two of you were coming here?”

“I don’t know,” Anika admitted.

“It was part of the setup.” Mercer took a sip from his brandy bottle, which had survived the crash. “The Russians who sent the information leading Anika’s grandfather to Otto Schroeder chose him rather than better-known Nazi hunters because they already knew the gold is on Greenland and that Anika was coming here. I’m willing to bet that they were the ones who told Schroeder that Anika could trust me.”

“You’re right,” she cried. “He said that he received a mysterious call about you a few weeks before his murder.”

“That doesn’t explain how they knew Mercer would be here,” Ira pointed out.

“Either they got that information from the Surveyor’s Society Web site and just chose to include me,” Mercer said. A dark implication came clear and he hesitated. “Or because Charlie Bryce engineered it so that I was here at the same time as Anika.”

“That would mean Charlie’s part of this too,” Marty said doubtfully. “I’ve known him for years. He’s not a Nazi hunter or anything like that.”

“I’ve known him a long time too,” Mercer agreed. “As unlikely as it sounds, that’s the only explanation that works.”

“So what did you mean that the body at Camp Decade was the last victim of the Holocaust?” Hilda asked. Because she didn’t speak English, Erwin Puhl had been translating the conversation for her.

“I think he was a Jewish slave laborer used to excavate some sort of cave for the Germans to hide their plunder.” Tears welled in Anika’s eyes. “Somehow he was left behind and managed to survive for ten years until he discovered Camp Decade. I can’t imagine the horror and isolation he endured only to find his one chance at rescue had already been abandoned.”

The bitter irony left a long vacuum in their discussion, each thinking about the terror of such a death.

“He could have been a German soldier,” Ira offered after several long minutes.

“No,” Mercer replied. “The evidence was on his arm.”

Anika sniffled and wiped her cheeks. “You noticed?”

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now its significance is apparent.” Everyone hung on his words. “The body we found had a scar on the inside of his arm as if he’d been burned. I think it was self-inflicted to erase the identification number the Nazis tattooed on his skin when he became a victim of their Final Solution.”

“Is there any proof to this?” Marty asked.

“If there is, it’ll be in here.” Mercer handed Schroeder’s journal to Anika. “Figure out what you can. We’ve got other problems to discuss.”

Moving close to the lamp, Anika took the leather-bound manuscript and began thumbing through to the relevant sections.

“So what about-”

Mercer cut Ira off. “We’ll get to the other questions later. With Geo-Research moving their operation up this way, we can’t risk staying with the plane. They’re going to spot it once the fog lifts.”

“The number one rule of survival is staying with your vehicle,” Marty reminded.

“We don’t have a choice,” Mercer countered him. “If Rath finds us, we’re dead. Our only option is to keep moving.”

“How long do you think we’ll last without shelter?” Marty snapped. He’d been prepared to fight Geo-Research to return to Greenland, but Ingrid’s death had once again sapped him of his drive. He didn’t care about Nazis and looted treasure and Holocaust survivors. He wanted this nightmare to end.

“Longer than we’d survive if Rath finds us,” Mercer flared before checking his irritation. He had to remind himself how far the survivors were out of their league. He studied the others and saw fear reflected in their eyes. “Sorry. None of us deserve what’s happened, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re in this together. We’ve managed to hold on this long, and I think I know a way to keep us safe.”

“How?”

“It all depends on what Anika finds in that journal,” Mercer answered. “It’s pretty clear that Geo-Research’s scientific cover story is just that — a story. They, or whoever’s behind them, are on Greenland to find the treasure. Now, in order to save themselves thousands of man-hours, I suspect that the Nazis expanded an existing cavern for their warehouse rather than mine a whole new chamber. It’s my experience that if there’s one cave in an area, there are bound to be more. We can hide out in one far from the one the Nazis used until Rath and his merry band leave or we get the sat-phone working again.”

“Sounds reasonable to me.” Ira looked around the dim cabin for agreement.