The Crypt Trilogy Bundle

by Bill Thompson

  Philippe’s face turned bright red. He was livid. “I’ve never been in prison…”

  “If you haven’t, you damn well should have been. Save the crap for Milosh. He’s always been your puppet, so he’ll believe anything you say. I’m out of here.” She slammed the door behind her.

  Unaccustomed to seeing conflict in his own office, the lawyer nervously shuffled papers around on his desk. Then he said, “I suppose you won’t need the power of attorney now, since Miss Lepescu refuses to sign it.”

  “Give us five minutes,” Philippe told the solicitor.

  “You can use the conference room…”

  “I said give us five minutes! Get out! Shut the door behind you!” The terrified lawyer left his own office and sat in the anteroom with his assistant until the door opened and Philippe ordered him back.

  When they were seated, Philippe said, “We’ll execute the power of attorney now.”

  “But we must have Miss Lepescu sign…”

  “It’s all good. She dropped by while you were out of the room.” Philippe pointed at the document. There was a scrawl on the line above Christina’s printed name.

  The solicitor gulped. Over the last few weeks he’d become totally under Philippe’s control, but the lawyer was promised everything would stay solely between the two of them. Now a third person was here, seeing and hearing everything. He wasn’t sure what to do next, but he was determined to save his reputation.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Philippe, the signatures must be notarized…”

  Philippe smiled cruelly. This little shrimp would do whatever he was told. Philippe signed his name and pushed the paper and pen to his brother. “Sign it,” he said to Milosh, who did what he was told.

  Philippe tossed the paper across the desk and said to the lawyer, “You’re a notary. Look at the document. All three signatures are there. Now notarize it like a good boy and earn your money.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Bad Man was furious. When people didn’t do what he demanded, he went into a rage. Today had been one of those days. That lawyer was lucky. Sometimes people got hurt when they crossed him. Once in a while, it was a lot worse than that. In those instances, people really, really paid for what they had done. Permanently.

  Those were the truly satisfying times, the ones when he got to come out and play. That was when all those months spent hiding deep inside the man’s brain were rewarded. Very soon he’d play again.

  ——

  Milosh was ashamed at what had happened in the solicitor’s office. He felt used, dirty. As usual, Philippe had forced him to do something he didn’t want to do, just as he had done with the attorney. Philippe was three years younger than Milosh, but even as children, his little brother held a power over him. Philippe had a natural ability to twist weak people until they did his bidding. It had never worked on Christina. She was the youngest, but she was strong-willed and she had never succumbed to his manipulations. Milosh ended up doing Philippe’s dirty work. It had always been that way. Even today Milosh hadn’t had the guts to stand up for what was right.

  They stood on the sidewalk outside the young lawyer’s office. Milosh simpered, “What are you going to do with that power of attorney? Have you found something else of Grandfather’s?”

  Philippe patted Milosh on the back condescendingly and said, “Just leave the details up to me, big brother. I’ve always taken care of things. You’re the worrier, but everything’s under control now. One bit of advice: I wouldn’t mention any of this to Christina. I have a feeling she would think you’re the bad guy in all this.”

  He hailed a taxi to the airport. As he glanced at Milosh standing there dejectedly, Philippe thought he looked exactly like Winnie the Pooh’s gloomy friend Eeyore.

  Where it had been uncertain, Philippe’s future was now secure. His old partner Roberto Maas had given Philippe a partnership interest in a variety of investments, but all of those had quickly been undone when Philippe got caught embezzling. In Philippe’s twisted mind, by canceling their partnership, Roberto had cheated Philippe out of what was rightfully his, out of what Roberto had given him. Roberto must pay, and he had. Philippe had made certain of that on a satisfying night in London when he’d started the fire.

  Up to now his only asset was a few hundred thousand dollars. That wouldn’t last long, given Philippe’s intention to work as little and play as much as possible.

  By noon the next day Philippe had emptied Nicu’s safety deposit box at the Stadt Privatbank in Vienna. At the exchange rate for that day, his net worth increased by $6,182,677. That was enough to last a lifetime.

  On top of the world, he had no idea how soon his fortunes would change.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Paul Silver was a collector of rare and unique things that only he ever enjoyed. Given his past, no one else could ever know about them. There were men who still combed the world looking for him, and his well-known penchant for antiquities could betray him.

  Years ago, long before he used the name Paul Silver, he had formed a shell corporation to buy a flat in Knightsbridge. Only steps from the famous Harrods department store, it was nestled on a quiet street he’d come to love. He’d displayed some of his collection there, spending hours admiring their beauty. Roberto was disappointed that he had to leave that place behind on the day he died. He couldn’t risk keeping the flat or its contents. Even one unique object he kept from those days could tie Roberto and Paul Silver together, identifying both as one person. As far as his enemies would learn, Roberto had perished in a fire. Paul intended to keep it that way.

  Thanks to shrewd planning years ago, his wealth remained intact. Paul Silver was the newest incarnation of the young Ukrainian boy who’d long ago killed a man, then systematically blackmailed a hundred Russian oligarchs. In total they paid over a hundred million dollars, and the boy incurred the eternal hatred of every one of them. Killers had stalked him constantly until that night when Roberto Maas died in a fire in St Mary Axe Street. Now he was free – he’d been transformed into a new person. Now his entire life had been rebuilt and his papers confirmed he was an American citizen.

  Today he had a different home in London, one of five he maintained worldwide. The three-story Victorian townhouse he owned in Cadogan Square had been substantially altered to accommodate Paul’s collecting habits. When he had decided to buy another home in London, he engaged one estate agent after another to show him potential properties. Nothing worked until the afternoon one lady walked him through a townhouse built in 1879 by an earl who was a member of the House of Lords. The place had just come on the market, and she thought it would go fast in this popular area of the West End.

  Twenty minutes later Paul had nixed this one as well. Before they left, the agent said, “You may not be interested, but I want you to know that this house holds a secret.”

  “Really? And what would that be?”

  “Come with me.” She smiled slyly, hoping her picky client would find this interesting. She took him down a dark hallway on the top floor that ran the length of the house. Ornately carved wooden panels ran along both sides. The agent walked slowly, stooping to examine one panel after another until she found the one she was looking for. She knelt and pressed a barely visible notch near the bottom. The panel slid noiselessly aside to reveal a narrow stairway covered in dust.

  “Rumor has it that the earl and his wife hid a mentally ill child up in the attic for years. They were embarrassed to have anyone know they had birthed a defective baby, so the boy was locked up like an animal until he died a decade later. Do you want to see it, or shall we go?”

  “By all means, I want to see it.”

  His interest had surprised her. She’d shown Paul ten homes so far, and other agents had shown him many more. He didn’t seem interested in anything; he appeared to be looking for some specific feature that he wouldn’t reveal.

  “I’ll know when I find the right place,” he had said, and at this moment he was mo
re excited than he’d been the entire time since she’d met him.

  The properties she’d shown the American were all listed at five million dollars or more, and she pre-qualified him to avoid wasting her time. A Cayman Islands bank’s letter of reference attested to his ability to finance virtually any purchase he wanted, so she was willing to continue showing him houses until something struck his fancy. Even if it took a year, the commission on such a sale would be worth the wait.

  The agent went first, cautioning Paul to watch his step on the steep risers. At the top of the narrow stairway she opened a door, a drawn-out creak revealing how long it had been since someone had come up here.

  The attic was huge – it ran the entire length and width of the house. It was invisible from the street because it was behind a mansard roof with what looked to be dummy dormer windows. In fact, they were real but covered in so much dirt that very little light came through.

  A bedroom suite was at one end of the room, and stuffing from a mattress was strewn everywhere. There were a few old dusty books on the floor, their covers partially chewed by the same rodents that likely had torn up the mattress. Some old boxes and a trunk sat in a dark corner.

  “I realize it would take a lot of work to make this space anything you could use–”

  Paul interrupted her. “I’ll take it.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “I said I’ll take it.”

  She was astonished. This had never happened in her career. He’ll take it? What did that mean? Clients usually feigned indifference even if they were interested. This one rather matter-of-factly said he’d take it.

  “I … Uh, would you like me then to prepare an offer?”

  “No. I’ll pay the asking price. It will be all cash. Draw up the papers.” And that was that.

  He’d brought in a crew of workmen from France that he’d used before and trusted implicitly to discreetly remodel the attic into what he wanted. He could have used a contractor in London, but people tended to talk, and he wanted no one locally to know what was going on in the Cadogan Square townhouse.

  Today the attic was bright and airy with a high ceiling that made it appear even more spacious. Light paint on the walls, new flooring and display cabinets built into a long wall had made it exactly what Paul wanted. The stairway was so narrow that everything had to be assembled in the attic itself – cases, shelving, long tables and workbenches had been dismantled, lugged upstairs and put back together. The room ended up part museum and part research center. Bookshelves were crammed full of reference material, and at one end of the room he had built a complete laboratory. Scientific instruments and machines rested on shelves, ready for whatever Paul Silver’s next project required.

  ——

  Last summer, front-page headlines had blared reports about a newly discovered Nazi gold train. There had been many trains in the later years of World War II that were filled with treasures – unique paintings, sculptures and relics stolen by the Reich from churches, synagogues, homes and offices of prominent collectors. As the Nazis rounded up Jews and shipped them off to camps, Hitler’s handpicked men came in behind them, moving more than five million pieces of art and millions of dollars in gold to hiding places in Germany and occupied countries. A movie had even been made chronicling the adventures of the Allied soldiers who recovered the stolen artifacts.

  The latest news centered on a long-forgotten tunnel in Poland. Ground-penetrating radar revealed what appeared to be a long train with cannons mounted on it, sitting inside the tunnel. The entrance had been sealed, the track removed, and many of the prisoners who built the tunnel later died under the Nazis. In the years since 1945, the train’s location was lost and the story morphed into a local legend.

  An old man who claimed to have been there when the train was hidden came forward at last. Near the town of Wroclaw, Poland, his story went, a ten-car train was driven into a mountain tunnel built expressly for this purpose. It contained looted gold, priceless artwork and gems, and it was still there today. The man’s attorney was negotiating with Polish authorities, the article continued. He wanted a percentage of the recovery in exchange for revealing the train’s exact location.

  A true adventurer, Paul was fascinated by this sort of thing. He’d searched for the bones of King Arthur in London, the artifacts of an ancient civilization in Guatemala and been on a dozen other quests to find one-of-a-kind objects. The thrill of the search was as exciting as whatever he ended up finding.

  Not everything in Paul Silver’s twisted, labyrinthine life had turned out well. There had been losses along the way too. His father had sold him like a draft horse. Later the trusted friend who was his partner betrayed him. Paul had vowed never to allow anyone inside his heart and mind like that again … but it happened. Deep in the rain forests of Guatemala he fell in love, if that was what it had been, with a young anthropologist. She’d left him too, and he closed the door to his heart that day. The day he lost Hailey he promised himself never to open it again. Friends weren’t necessary. All they did was cause pain, anguish and confusion. He needed none of those. He was perfect on his own, trusting only one person – himself.

  Occasionally Paul used his vast wealth to accomplish the impossible. Everyone had a price. Some people were easily swayed so that a simple payoff worked. Others had noble aspirations for one cause or another. An incredibly generous donation from a wealthy stranger’s foundation usually greased the wheels and made things happen.

  After the story of the Nazi gold train surfaced, Paul visited the Ministry of the Interior in Berlin. The news report put the train in Poland, of course, but Berlin was the place to start. Paul wasn’t really that interested in the particular train that had already made headlines. He believed if there was one train that had escaped detection for seventy years, there might be another.

  A letter of introduction from a prominent banker in Munich got Paul an appointment with Franz Deutsch, Germany’s Minister of the Interior. Since he kept substantial funds on deposit and was a valued customer, the president of the bank was only too happy to write a letter to his friend the minister.

  Paul explained to the minister that the news of a gold train in Poland had piqued his interest. He had come here because he was considering a sizable donation to fund the search for similar stolen artifacts. “If there was one train hidden away in a mountain, why couldn’t there be more? I’m hoping you can guide me to a proper non-profit organization where a donation could assist the recovery efforts.”

  Herr Deutsch assured him that would not be a problem, and he seemed genuinely grateful for Paul’s generosity.

  “Am I chasing rainbows? Do you think it’s possible there could be other missing trains?” Paul asked.

  “Of course,” the official replied, happy to share his opinions with his new benefactor. “I think it’s unlikely we will find anything more here in Germany because of how thoroughly the Allied troops scoured for assets when the war ended. In my opinion, one would be more likely to find still-hidden assets in the occupied countries.”

  Deutsch launched into a history lesson, which Paul enjoyed immensely. He’d heard some of it before, but most was new information.

  “By the summer of 1942 the execution of Jews at Auschwitz was in full operation. As far as our research has shown, almost all the trains that the Nazis ran in those early years of the war carried humans. The Reich thundered across Europe, scooping up one country after another. Hitler’s pact with Mussolini and the Fascists brought southern Europe into the Axis. By 1943 the Nazis were stealing gold, art, sculptures and anything else they could grab. Heavily guarded trains moved throughout the occupied countries, most destined for places in one town or another where the loot could be stashed. The Allies found a lot, as everyone knows, but more was destroyed as the Germans retreated. And if you want my personal opinion, there’s more that hasn’t been found.

  “Hermann Göring was Hitler’s handpicked man to supervise the ‘acquisition,’ as t
hey put it, of artifacts from the occupation. Outright theft is the correct term for what Göring did,” he spat venomously. He stopped talking for a moment to compose himself.

  “I apologize, Herr Silver, that I cannot hide my feelings about the Nazi atrocities that were committed. Perhaps you have similar feelings. Are you Jewish, by chance?”

  Paul hesitated. He was Ukrainian by birth and wasn’t Jewish at all. Paul Silver wasn’t even his name – it was simply one he’d chosen when it was time to switch from his last pseudonym. He wasn’t sure whether it would help his case now to say he was a Jew or not.

  Noting his silence, the minister said, “I’m afraid I’ve overstepped my bounds. I apologize. To explain, I am a Jew myself. My parents were among the last to be gassed at Auschwitz in October, 1944, three short months before the Soviets liberated the camp. It makes no difference to me if you are Jewish too; I was simply establishing whether you and I had similar interests in this matter.”

  “No offense taken,” Paul responded with a warm smile, smoothly fabricating a story to fit the situation. “The reason I hesitated is that I’m an orphan. I never knew my parents and I was raised in Switzerland. Am I Jewish? I never really thought about it. I have no idea if the surname Silver was my parents’ or if it was tacked onto me at the orphanage.”

  “Ah, I see. Millions of us became orphans too – myself included – when Hitler’s men exterminated our parents and grandparents. What the Nazis did disgusts me more than I can ever express.” He stopped, clearly overwhelmed with emotion even after all these years, took a deep breath and said, “Enough digression. Now I’m going to give you some information very few people know. Do you know what the Fuhrerbunker is?”