by Paula Wynne
‘I remember. That alone seemed to seal her case that she was a bit loopy. Strange coincidence, though, that both men ended up here.’
‘Not coincidence, Matt. Camryn’s father was a treasure hunter. He did the research on finding Steffan Sommer’s vault. In fact, it was his obsession. I think that’s why he came here, to find Steffan. As it happened, when he did, he met a local lady, Cami’s mum, and settled here. It was just bad luck that his quest ended at the vault, but it has come full circle now. All the way back to Little Hollow.’
Matt stared at Bomber, wondering why this sudden revelation. ‘Bomber, listen, tell me the truth. Are you ill?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because you suddenly need me to know this.’
Bomber was silent for a long time, then said. ‘If something happens to me,’ he held up his hand to stop Matt interrupting ‘no, I’m not sick! But I am getting older. Old age creeps up on you and then bites you in the backside. That’s all.’
‘You promise?’
‘Promise.’ Bomber gave him a mock salute. ‘I don’t have anyone who can keep this a secret. But more than anything, I need you and I trust you to carry on Steffan’s oath to protect the secret map.’
‘But what if I don’t believe in keeping those treasures hidden? What if I prefer to expose all that? What if I believe those holocaust victims should receive those treasures to try and help them after their terrible experiences?’
‘Then, if you believe that is the right thing to do, you must do it.’
‘Even though you don’t want that?’
‘I never said I didn’t want that. All I did was to keep a promise. A child’s promise to my adopted uncle. But I never stopped to consider if it was right or wrong.’
‘Why didn’t you go looking for any of these treasures?’
‘Ah, this is the thing, you see. When people talk about treasure, they imagine gold and jewels and so on. Buy themselves a big house and a new car, all you could want in life. But that’s all just stuff. It doesn’t have any real meaning. It’s not who you are. It’s not your soul, the very essence of your being.’
Matt frowned. ‘I get your point, but how does that relate to the map and the Toplitz vault?’
‘Because that’s where the Nazis hid their legacy. Who they were and what they knew. They recognised they were going to lose, you see, but rather than let all their mad stuff about their master race destiny die, they started believing that a new Reich would rise up…and they wanted to give it a head start, and that’s what Steffan thought the Toplitz vault contains. As well as the locations of the gold and jewels, it holds all their science, all their secrets. Uncle Keith…Steffan explains this right here,’ Bomber tapped the page.
Matt looked down at the scrawled writing and then back up as Bomber continued, ‘And from what Steffan told me, they were developing technologies that we still haven’t matched today. If they’d have had just a few more years to develop these things, they’d have been unbeatable, but we got to them just in time. So what might be in that vault could be the key to world domination.’
Matt could only gape at him.
Bomber continued, remorselessly. ‘So that’s why it’s not as simple as reuniting Hitler’s victims with their stolen gold. Should I have given the map to the Americans, the people who dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima and waged war in Vietnam? Should I have given it to Russia and Stalin to help with the purges? Or how about Britain, which to me still looked very like the country which had plundered itself a global empire and was capable of the Amritsar massacre? I never managed to work it out.’
‘And so instead you’re giving that decision to me?!’
‘I am. And I’m sorry. My hope is that you’ll have the courage and the judgement to do what I never had.’
‘Phew!’ said Matt, slumping back in his seat and feeling that this was a gross understatement.
‘But,’ Bomber held up a finger.’ Things are a bit different now. After a while it got so I couldn’t hand the map over, because the first question would have been why I hadn’t done it years earlier. That doesn’t apply to you, because you can say you only started looking after the whole Cami thing, and so you’ll be a hero rather than a villain.’
‘Hah! Somehow I doubt that.’
‘Also, I think it can’t mean now what it would have meant forty years ago. Even if there are some interesting bits of science stashed away, there’s been so much progress since the war that there’s not going to be much in the way of deadly new secret weapons to be made from it anymore. So, actually, it might finally be just about reuniting the victims of the war with what they were robbed of. You could do that!’ Bomber sighed. ‘But it’s too late for me.’
Matt’s hand shot out and gripped Bomber’s arm. ‘It’s not too late. It’s never too late.’
Bomber smiled; his eyes watery. ‘You’ll do this for me, but keep me out of it, right?’
Matt returned the smile. ‘I’m sure I can find a way.’
Bomber placed the diary and the map in Matt’s hands. An electric shock whirled through Matt as he flicked through its pages. A German soldier had hidden his most secret thoughts, his private words in here, and Matt almost felt like a traitor reading it.
Breaking into Matt’s thoughts Bomber continued, ‘As a kid and even into adulthood, I strongly believed in keeping this a secret. All the time fearing what consequences they would have on the entire world.’ Bomber’s words almost stuck in his mouth, ‘But you know, never once did I read the diary. Nor did I look at the map. It was only after that whole thing with Camryn, that I finally got up the courage to open my uncle’s personal box. Even though it was a struggle as it was partly in English and partly in German.’
‘You did the right thing in the end. But now that this is my problem, I don’t want to hand this over to some powerful government who will just hide these secrets away and probably use some fancy sounding laws and state secrets to keep what are really people’s belongings.’ Matt looked down at the book and then back to Bomber.
Bomber bit his lip and then ventured, ‘I’ve heard there are charitable organisations who take this very seriously. They know how to work with the governments where the items are found to make sure that only the actual victims can stake their claims. It’s such a huge, sensitive thing now, there’s no way for greedy politicians to sweep things under the rug while they line their own pockets.’ He sank back into his seat, visibly relieved to get such a load off his shoulders.
‘Great! Together we’ll find the right people to deal with this.’ Matt leaned forward and said softly, ‘You know it was very unfair of your German uncle to put all that on you as just a little kid.’
‘He didn’t see it that way,’ Bomber sighed. ‘And neither did I at the time, but I see your point.’
Matt thought back to those few terrible days, which now seemed so long ago. Greed and revenge had twisted a lovely young woman into becoming a deadly monster. All that time, as she tried to get revenge for the things that had happened to her father, she had no idea she had become just like the people who had done those things to him. In her determination to seek justice, she had become as cold, calculating and manipulative as any Nazi officer.
If finding the right people to help make the right use of the map made Bomber happy, he’d do it. Ever since he had taught Matt to fly, the truth was he had become like a father, so they sat in companionable silence for a while as Matt digested the profound task Bomber had given him.
Bomber’s story wasn’t going to make him bitter and twisted, as the war had done to millions of people. Matt wanted this done right.
When forensics had searched Allan’s body they’d found a small, slimline cassette recorder tucked in below the waistband of his trousers. Talking to his employers, it seemed Allan had a trick of placing a tape recorder visibly in front of him but then not turning it on, which made people he was interviewing think he wasn’t recording them. In fact, the tiny recorder hidden in his cl
othes would be running the whole time, as it had been for Allan’s fateful interview with Cami.
With the combination of a hidden Nazi, a murdered reporter and a beautiful, young femme fatale, the murder trial had made headlines in all the tabloids for days. There had been gasps in the court as the tape was played for everyone to hear. Once Allan had crashed to the floor, unconscious, the medical expert assured the judge that Cami had stood over him and given voice to all her family secrets. How young Johan had overheard The Wolf talk about Steffan Sommer’s hidden treasure vault at Lake Toplitz and how he had worked obsessively to track it down, only to come home warped and useless when he finally achieved his dream.
Of course, Toplitz had been deluged with treasure hunters, but to date they had found nothing except for one more crate of sodden fake money. One newspaper had even sent someone to try and interview John Falcon, formerly known as Johan Falkner, still alive and in a home for Jewish survivors of the concentration camps. They had, of course, come home empty handed from Würzburg.
Matt hadn’t thought about Cami in a while. She’d played for high stakes, despite the possible risk of ruin. And she’d had no qualms about dissecting a piece of his soul along the way. She had, however, taught him something valuable. Before she came along, he had lived in his closeted world, too afraid to reach out and be someone. Unwilling to accept the love and support of those closest to him. These days he was going places, meeting new people, and maybe one day would even find a girl who was on the same page as him. That alone was something to look forward to, and he could add it to his own glory ride list.
After a while, a smile tickled Bomber’s mouth. Matt grinned back at him and stretched and twiddled his ankle.
Bomber murmured, ‘He knows not―’
Matt finished, ‘Where he’s going, for the ocean will decide. It’s not the destination. It’s the glory of the ride.’
70
Before Matt and Bomber spent time searching for the right organisation that could start the tortuous process of staking claims and finding the treasures so that as much as possible got back to their rightful owners, Matt had a stop to make first.
Without telling Bomber what he was doing, he boarded a commercial flight and headed for Germany.
When he’d started trying to learn to walk again, one of the physiotherapists had told him that the secret was to find the first step you could take and then to take it, however small.
This was his first step in the mission Bomber had set him, and he’d tell his friend once he had finished here.
Even though Cami’s father had been a ruthless treasure hunter and had racked up a fortune from black market sales of his undeclared finds, Matt figured the man had suffered enough.
First, by being incarcerated in a concentration camp at such a young age and witnessing such terrible human atrocities. Then, having that weird radiation thing happen to him. Sure, he shouldn’t have gone into the vault in the first place, but Matt had made enough of his own bad judgements to understand that John had been suffering from a life of obsessive hatred towards the Nazis, for which there was no real cure. He’d tried to find his own way to get justice, but it had been the wrong way.
Matt wrinkled his nose as he entered the pristine establishment with its pine-scented floors. The receptionist led him to Cami’s father’s room, and he sat in front of him. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say, mostly due to the shock of seeing the ghoulish-looking shadow of a man sitting in front of him, but also because he suddenly wondered if he had been right to come.
‘Mr Falcon, you probably don’t remember me. You and your family used to live down the road from mine outside Little Hollow.’
The old man’s one horrible eye stared vaguely in his direction.
Although he said nothing, and his face struggled to show emotion through the distorted grimace, Matt hoped he was recollecting that time in his life. If he was able to do that.
‘I knew your daughter. She told me a lot about you.’
He didn’t tell the old man what Cami had done in her vain attempt to seek vengeance for her father. Nor did he mention why she wasn’t here now. At least, by not being able to speak, her father didn’t ask those pertinent questions.
Matt opened his backpack, lifted out the little toy aeroplane and placed it into the old man’s clawed hands where they rested on his lap.
Adding together Cami’s story of her father and Bomber’s recollections, Matt thought there was a slight chance that the red aeroplane belonged to him. If not, at least it was similar to the one so cruelly stolen from Johan Falkner all those years ago.
Immediately, John’s fingers started trembling. He strained his hand and it stiffened, seemingly trying to lift itself but unable to move. He struggled to reach out and touch the top of it.
Matt lifted the old man’s hand and placed it on the fuselage.
The old man started grinding his teeth as he tried in vain to stroke the little plane.
‘It’s a genuine aeroplane from before the war. I know you had one similar. Even though this is probably not yours, I thought you should have it.’
As Matt looked deeply into the old man’s hollow eye, a tear slipped out and slid down his distorted face. He moved his swollen lips as if trying to say something.
Drizzles of spittle came out instead of words. With it, fresh tears escaped, making the skin redden and blotch around the hideous orb.
Just watching his obvious heartache disturbed Matt. He wanted to cry with him. Not for the replica plane, but for all the injustice and heartache he, and his people, had suffered.
A lump rose up into Matt’s throat. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. This probably wasn’t such a good idea, after all.
He was just upsetting the poor old chap, who didn’t deserve to be reminded of those horrible memories.
Matt felt a lump in his throat. With his broken foot he had not been able to fly the way he had always dreamed of doing, for the RAF. Yet how self-absorbed that sounded in comparison with a young boy, torn from his home and family, tortured and starved, and then the one object that still allowed him to hope and dream, stolen from him by a Nazi just because he could take whatever he wanted.
Matt could only understand that kind of suffering enough to appreciate that he had no concept of it.
Suddenly the old man’s index finger twitched. With jerky movements, it started stroking the aeroplane’s wheel.
Despite the sickly smell from being too close, Matt leaned forward. ‘Are you trying to tell me something, sir?’ Matt had no idea why he called the old man, ‘sir.’ Possibly out of respect for what he had been through in the war.
Again, the old man’s finger twitched under the wheel. It looked as though he was trying to tip it over.
Holding his twisted hand, Matt gently helped him flip it over. The little aeroplane sat in his palm upside down.
Again, his finger twitched under the wheel, this time his blackened nail scratching the thin tin surface.
Matt bent over and squinted at the point, where Mr Falcon’s finger had been rubbing the fading red paint on the underside of the fuselage, just in front of the rear wheel.
Something was scratched in the tin.
Matt raised his eyes to the old man, ‘Sir?’
A long string of drool slipped out of the side of the old man’s mouth. He grunted and muttered something garbled and incoherent. Another bout of spittle drooled down his chin. His hand started trembling. The gnarled finger jerked violently. More tears welled in his eye and slid down his cheek.
Matt leaned over the plane. There looked to be some sort of mark below the knotted finger. Gently, he laid the hand aside and lifted the plane so he could look closely at it.
He gasped at the tiny scrawled writing of a child. Two words, barely visible, had been scored into the tin.
Matt replaced the plane in the old man’s hand and closed the other over it.
Matt bit back the lump in his throat. He rose slowly and touched the old m
an on his shoulder. At the door, he took one last look as he left the old man with his hand closed over the scrawled writing.
Under the gnarled pale fingers, now clutching the little red aeroplane, were two words.
Johan Falkner.
The End of
Flying Without Wings
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Cold Feet
On a winter’s day, a woman finds herself on a country lane in Wales. After someone tries to attack her and threatens her with a date when she will die, a strange emptiness overwhelms her, as if her world is falling apart. Then, she realizes she doesn’t know who she is, where she’s from or what she is doing there.
Worse than that, she is driven by a burning urgency that her child is in danger. But who is her child? And where are they?
