GOLDEN REICH

by Mark Donahue

  “According to Lester, I’ll be able to see what’s going on from that location. I’ll just zip down there real quick, take a look, and give you guys a tug on the rope, and you can pull me up. It’ll take five minutes. Then based on what I see, we can either come up with a new plan, or if I see they’ve discovered the gold, we can head down to Elsa’s for lunch.”

  Without waiting for approval or a response to her explanation of next steps, Sam slipped into the harness. She threaded one end of the rope through the metal clips and handed the other end of the rope to Tom. “Tom, tie this around your waist and I’ll pull on it if I need help coming back up.”

  “What if this rope isn’t long enough? What if you run into some snakes down there? What if…” Jon’s questions made Sam smile.

  “Jon, I’ll be fine. I was in the military, you know. I’ve had training.”

  “You had snake training? Thought you were a pilot,” Jon replied.

  “Be careful, honey,” Ben said, knowing any argument with Sam at that point would be futile.

  “Don’t worry guys. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  They didn’t see Sam again for twelve hours.

  Chapter 59

  Jasper Mine

  “Dr. Martin, we’ve retrieved six gold bars from that pit by going down 150 feet. If we go any further, we’ll need more rope.”

  Responding to the leader of the engineering team, Dr. Martin replied, “Thank you for the update, Thomas. Let’s continue with the X-ray units for the time being and see what we come up with.”

  “Yes, sir. But if that gold is buried in this dirt and rock floor, it will take us weeks to cover it all. And that doesn’t include what could have been stuffed in the walls then covered over.”

  “Do your best, Thomas. If you require more equipment, please advise.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll let you know by the end of the day.”

  As the engineer moved back into the bowels of the Jasper, Dr. Martin had a feeling that this was going to be the day. The day that nearly seventy years of questions would be answered. He could feel it. It was palpable. He only wished the Führer were here to see that his vision and brilliance was soon to be rewarded.

  Chapter 60

  On Top of Jasper Mine

  After Sam checked her equipment for the last time, Jon approached with advice. “No need to be a hero down there. Just take a quick look and get your butt back up here.”

  “You’re not worried about me, are you?” Sam asked with a grin.

  “So what if I am? You know how you girls are, so weak and helpless.”

  “Careful. I might hit you with a sexual discrimination suit.”

  “Oh good, I thought you might just beat me up,” Jon said.

  “Wouldn’t want to embarrass a tough felon like you.”

  “Be careful, sis, and watch out for snakes.”

  “Roger, that.”

  Sam double-checked her ropes and harness and put on her head-mounted radio that connected to the one Ben wore. “Daddy, do you copy?”

  “Copy.”

  Sam nodded, and maneuvered into the same shaft Lester had entered to do reconnaissance decades earlier. Within ten feet of her entry into the darkness, Sam saw a snake. It was curled up on a rock and ignored her presence. Sam quickly slid past the reptile while she shook her head, and thought of Jon. “What are the chances?” she whispered to herself.

  After descending thirty feet into the shaft, she came to a turn and a small opening. Sam turned off her light and discovered she was already in total darkness. The angle of the shaft cut off the light from above. After turning her light back on, she wondered if Lester had a light source back then. If not, he was an even braver man than she gave him credit for being, and she already gave him a lot of credit.

  As Sam descended into the shaft, she immediately felt the decreasing temperature. She could smell the ancient dirt and rock that enveloped her. At one point she felt her shoulders touched by the rock that now seemed to want to embrace her. For several seconds, Sam had to choke down the feeling of claustrophobia. After moving past the narrow section of the shaft, Sam tested her radio. “Daddy, do you copy?”

  “Roger. But you’re breaking up just a bit. You okay?”

  “Okay. Shaft’s narrower than I thought. Very cool in here. Hear sounds from Jasper.”

  “You have plenty of rope left, Sam.”

  “Roger.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Roger…whoa…”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There was a steep drop that moved me down about twenty feet. Sounds getting louder.”

  “Sam, you’re breaking up. Say again?”

  Ben’s words were garbled.

  “Daddy, I’m getting interference on my end, not sure you can hear me.”

  After thirty more feet and another steep angle drop, Sam’s feet dangled over the edge of the exit of the shaft. With her light she could see the horizontal shaft below her. She turned off her light and dropped to the floor. On her right she saw the large wooden doors that Lester had written about and the damage done by the German grenades.

  “Sam, you okay? Come back.”

  “Daddy, I see the doors Lester shot through to hit the trucks. There are three armed guards at the entrance of the mine near the offices where we slept.”

  “Sam, did you say armed guards?”

  “Roger, and the rest of the mine is lit up, looks like a couple dozen guys with all kinds of electronics all over the floor.”

  “You’re still breaking up.”

  “I think I can climb through this door into the main cavern and get close enough to see if they’re working on the wall over the pit.”

  “Sam, stay where you are! Don’t go into that cavern. You copy? Stay where you are. Sam? Sam, get back up here! Do you copy?”

  “Daddy, can barely hear you. If the wall’s still there, we’ll know the gold is still behind it.”

  “Sam, we’re going to start pulling you up.”

  Sam ignored Ben, unhooked her harness, and began climbing though the hole in wooden door. She turned down the speaker on her headset. Ben, Tom, and Jon began pulling on the rope. There was no resistance; no one was attached.

  After sliding through the hole in the door, Sam moved along the northern wall of cavern. It was less well-lit and in heavy shadow. In the distance over a hundred yards away, she could see more than a dozen men scouring the floor area in front of and on either side of the pit with X-ray machines. The wall behind the pit was undisturbed.

  Sam flipped on her headset and whispered, “Daddy, the wall behind the pit is still there. I’m on my way back.”

  Ben could only hear static from his radio. “Sam, we can’t hear you. Come back up the shaft, now!”

  As Sam turned to make her way back to the shaft, she ran directly into the chest of a smiling Jagr, who stood in front of several other men.

  “What are you doing in here?” Jagr asked.

  Surprised by her unexpected introduction to Jagr, Sam sputtered, “Oh, I’m…I’m a spelunker, and I climbed up the walls of that pit. Who are you?”

  “A spelunk…?” Jagr asked, the smile still on his face.

  “Someone who explores caves,” Sam offered.

  “Who were you talking to on this radio?”

  “To the twelve U.S. Marines doing exercises here in this mine. They’ll be coming up the pit walls any minute. By the way, do you guys have permission to be in this mine?”

  “We work for the ownership of this mine and you are trespassing.” Jagr explained.

  “Gee, sorry about that, this is the first time I’ve ever seen anybody in this place. Well, I guess I better get going. Promise I won’t trespass ever again…”

  When Sam started to walk away, one of the men behind Jagr stepped in
front of her with his rifle pointed at her chest.

  “You were talking to someone on your radio. Who was it and why are you in this mine?”

  “Like I said, I am a spelunk…”

  Without warning, Jagr viciously backhanded Sam knocking her to the floor.

  “I suggest you answer me truthfully before my superior arrives. He is not nearly as patient as I am.”

  Sam wiped the blood from her mouth. “It’s not nice to hit a girl.”

  “Unless you tell me why you are here, I can assure you there are worse things than being hit…for a girl.” The men surrounding Sam laughed at Jagr’s threat.

  “I ask you one last time, what are you doing in this mine?”

  “I come here all the time. I run in the desert, climb up the pit walls, and run back to my car. Didn’t know this was private property.”

  Jagr reached down and ripped off Sam’s University of Arizona sweatshirt. She tried to cover herself, but two of the men grabbed her arms and lifted her off the ground. Jagr approached Sam and pulled down the straps of her sports bra. The men behind him and those holding Sam cheered. Sam stared defiantly into Jagr’s eyes. When Jagr reached for Sam’s breast, she kneed him in the groin. Staggered by the blow, he backed away. With a smile on his face, he recovered and hit Sam in the stomach with a powerful blow that knocked her to her knees while the guards continued to hold her arms.

  “So, the bitch is also a tigress.” Turning to his men, Jagr asked, “Which of you men would like to go first?”

  A tall, young, dark-haired man stepped forward with a smile on his face. “Hey, today’s my birthday. I guess this is my present.”

  The rest of the men laughed and cheered as the dark-haired man undid his belt. The men holding Sam lifted her off the ground and pulled down her black stretch leggings. A third man forced Sam to her knees. One of the men sliced off her panties with a long blade, while the dark-haired man positioned himself behind Sam, the smile on his face wider.

  As he was about to enter Sam, the dark-haired man gave a thumbs-up to the other men and said, “I think I’m going to remember this surprise birthday present.”

  At that moment, a bullet hit the man between the eyes. He had a look of surprise on his face, and as if in slow motion, fell straight back onto the mine floor. The other men raised their weapons but lowered them just as quickly when they saw who fired the shot.

  “Jagr, I am surprised at you for allowing something this unseemly to occur on your watch,” Dr. Martin said.

  “She refused to talk, sir.”

  “Jagr, help this young lady dress herself.”

  Jagr handed Sam her torn sweatshirt and helped her raise her leggings. After Sam was again dressed, she smiled at Jagr, and without warning, unloaded a right cross that knocked him backward almost off his feet. A look of rage appeared on Jagr’s face. He took a step toward Sam who stood her ground and threw a left hook that planted Jagr on his ass. Blood trickled from his mouth.

  “Next time, keep your fucking hands off me, you missing link.”

  Jagr reached for his pistol.

  “Jagr, no.” Dr. Martin’s voice was calm but firm. “You have disrespected this young woman and earned her wrath.” Dr. Martin moved between Sam and Jagr.

  “My dear, I am truly sorry for this lack of courtesy and disrespect. Please accept my apologies.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Would you care to join me in our offices for a drink and some conversation?”

  “No, I would not. What I want to do is get the hell out of here.”

  Sam tried to walk around the men. Dr. Martin nodded and one of the men placed a rifle in Sam’s back.

  “Young lady, perhaps you are not aware you are trespassing on private property, and I believe, as the owner of this mine, I am entitled to know why you are here. If you don’t want to talk to me, perhaps you would prefer I contact the local county sheriff and we can discuss your trespassing with him.”

  “C’mon mister, no need to call the sheriff. I’ve had enough trouble with him already,” Sam said.

  “Well then, I again, with the utmost respect and sincerest apologies, ask you to join me in a brief and private conversation. Assuming of course you will not take your pugilistic abilities out on a poor man of nearly ninety years of age.”

  Sam looked at the armed men around her and suddenly became agreeable.

  “Well, since you ask me so nicely.”

  “Splendid. Shall we?”

  Dr. Martin led Sam to the front of the mine and into the offices where she, Jon, Tom, her dad and Pax had slept during their inspection of the Jasper. Sam noticed that the armed guards, who had been cheering on her assault ten minutes earlier, were now standing watch outside the offices Dr. Martin had led her into.

  “Please have a seat, my dear. May I offer you something to drink?”

  “No thank you.”

  “I’m sorry, but I did not catch your name before.”

  “My name’s Samantha, but my friends call me Sam. You can call me Samantha.”

  “Of course, and I quite understand. But perhaps we can change all that after we have a little chat.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Well Samantha, your presence in my mine is quite surprising since we have all the entrances we know of guarded quite well, as you can see. Would you mind telling me how you got inside the Jasper, so we can improve our security?

  “Sure, I climbed up the pit walls.”

  “No, you didn’t, Samantha. Having seen the inside of the pit with our digital camera, that would have been utterly impossible.”

  “Okay, you got me, mister. Here’s the deal, I found a bunch of gold near here a while ago and thought maybe there’s more inside this mine. I mean where else could the gold have come from? So from time to time, I come in through some old air shafts, snoop around in the nooks and crannies, and see if I can find more gold. I didn’t know you’d have an army waiting for me in here today. This place is usually deserted.”

  Dr. Martin was visibly shaken at what he heard from Sam, but he quickly regained his composure. “Did you say you found gold? How interesting. Did you find the gold here in the Jasper?”

  “No, the gold I found, I mean, the gold me and my boyfriend found, was in the desert not far from here.”

  Dr. Martin seemed unsure on how to proceed. Sam sat quietly and looked around the office.

  “May I ask how much you found?”

  “Lots.”

  “You realize if you found the gold on my property…”

  “Then it would belong to you. But we didn’t find any gold in your property, at least not yet.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t my property? I own substantial land holdings in all directions around the Jasper.”

  “Because my boyfriend and me checked with the county after we found the gold and they told us it was state-owned land we were on.”

  “You didn’t tell the state you found…”

  “Are you kidding? Think we’re stupid?”

  “Of course not, Samanatha.”

  “Hey, you have a bathroom in here I could use?”

  “Of course, my dear. In the next room on your right.”

  Sam moved to the next office leaving her radio phone on the desk next to Dr. Martin. In the bathroom, Sam retrieved her cell phone from inside her running sock and sent Ben a text. Daddy, I’m okay, DO NOT TRY AND USE RADIO, CALL OR TEXT ME ON MY CELL!! I’ll contact you when I can. Stay put!! Love you, Sam. She deleted her text and put the cell back in her sock.

  On top of the Jasper, Ben felt his cell vibrate and saw the text from Sam. “She says, she’s okay, and we should wait for her to contact us.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. You think she’s down there with the Boys from Brazil having lemonade?” Jon asked.

  “N
ot sure, but we have no choice but to sit and wait here for a while,” Ben said flatly.

  After her text, Sam flushed the toilet and splashed her face with water before re-entering the office and taking her seat.

  “My dear, I am fascinated by your story. How did you possibly stumble on such a cache?”

  “Well, it was the craziest thing. My boyfriend Bruce and I were out walking in the desert after a rainstorm. About fifty feet in front of us we saw a reflection of something shiny after the sun came back out. So we walk over there and saw part of what turned out to be a big twenty-pound gold ingot. It was just lying there; we couldn’t believe it.”

  “It was just lying there in the open desert?”

  “Well, it was surrounded by some big rocks, but yeah, it was pretty much just lying there in the open in front of God and everybody.”

  “What did you do with the ingot?”

  “Oh, there was a lot more than just one ingot.”

  “What do you mean? How many more?”

  “I don’t know yet, we keep finding them all the time scattered all over that area near those big rocks.”

  “Do the ingots have anything stamped on them?”

  “Why? I found them. They belong to me and my boyfriend.”

  In a more impatient tone, Dr. Martin asked. “What was stamped on them?”

  “Names of countries; Mexico, United States, Canada, and some more.”

  “How many are left?”

  “I dunno, like I said, we keep finding them. Why do you care how many there are? They’re mine.”

  Dr. Martin walked away from Sam and stared out into the Jasper. He saw the flurry of activity and felt a rage well up inside him. For nearly a minute, he fought to hold in that rage. Finally, he turned back toward Sam with a wry smile on his face. “Samantha, I am quite certain you have discovered something that belongs to me, my dear. Something that I have been searching for a very long time. How it got to where you found it, I have no idea but…”

  Sam could see sweat bead up on Dr. Martin’s flushed face.

  “I don’t think so, mister. You know what they say, finders keepers…”