Ghosts of the Past

by Mark H. Downer

  We didn’t have a choice you dumbshit. “You’re welcome,” replied Bolivar. “You’re back at work as of now, however. We are going to put you in the lobby for a while. Hopefully, some rooms will become available this morning and we will book a room that all of us can share. If they’re still booked up, either Greg or myself will go back to the National and clean up. Have you eaten?”

  “No, I came straight here after you called.”

  “Well, let’s get an order in, and go check with the front desk for a room.”

  Bolivar signaled at the attractive blond server two tables over that was in the process of delivering a tray of food to Horst Marshall and Rudi Knabel.

  Marshall removed his elbows from the table as the plate of blintzes with fresh strawberries was laid in front of him, his right hand still holding the cellular phone to his right ear.

  “Where are you now?” Alden’s voice asked from the other end of the connection.

  “We’re getting breakfast in the hotel.”

  Knabel was eagerly wading into his plate of French toast and bacon.

  “Any sign of our lovebirds?”

  “Haven’t seen them this morning. You saw ’em last night. Judging by their behavior out in the waterfront park, I’m guessing they may have been up late satisfying their carnal lust.” Marshall looked at his Seiko diver’s watch, which read 8:36. “I wouldn’t expect to see them for a couple more hours.”

  “Maybe.” Alden’s voice sounded some caution. “They’re here for something more than a sexual rendezvous. I would hope the lust for lost art would override their lust for each other. If you don’t see them in an hour, let me know. I’ll plan to bring the car over around ten.

  Bolivar waited impatiently at the front desk for the clerk to return his American Express card. Thankfully, a room with two double beds was available later this morning. He phoned Keitel in the car and told him he could come in for a shower and some R&R in a few hours, and in the meantime, he or Terry would run some more coffee and Danish out to him right after they finished breakfast. Keitel shrugged it off as fine with him. They could even take their time; he was in no hurry. Bolivar was certain that Keitel was an iron man, and that all-night surveillance work was nothing new to him.

  “Thank you Mr. Garcia,” said the desk clerk as he returned the card. “You’re room will be available by 11:30. Can we take care of your luggage for you now?”

  “No. I’ll bring it in after we finish breakfast. We’re in the Maritime restaurant.”

  “Very good. Enjoy your meal!”

  Bolivar turned from the front desk and nearly bumped into Toby Shutt as he and Jean-Luc Daniel approached the front desk.

  The drive to Lucerne had been as easy as Daniel had said it would be. Shutt enjoyed the opportunity to be a passenger and soak in the incredible Swiss countryside. They had gotten on the road early, after Shutt received the late night phone call from Shawna Hammer confirming a registration for two under the name of Matthew Ferguson at the Palace Hotel in Lucerne. Shutt dutifully copied the address on the Hotel Tiefenau stationery next to his bed, and promptly woke Daniel and asked that they get on the road by seven o’clock the next morning. Wake-up calls were issued, and Shutt mercifully caught up on some badly needed sleep.

  They had pulled up to the Palace Hotel front entrance at half past eight. Daniel had called ahead and asked for two uniformed officers to meet him at the hotel at 8:00, but to remain out of sight until he arrived. They had been patiently waiting for him in their patrol car, parked across the street and down one block from the hotel as instructed.

  Daniel drove the black, four door Audi sedan parallel to the Stadtpolizei car and held up his Federal Police I.D. through the open driver’s side window, then waved at the two officers to follow him while he continued forward down Haldenstrasse.

  At the hotel, Shutt was introduced to the two officers in English, and then listened with no understanding whatsoever as Daniel instructed the policemen in Swiss German to remain out front with the two vehicles, while they entered the building. They were told that they were looking for two American citizens that were needed for questioning as material witnesses in a U.S. crime, and that neither was of any danger. If they needed backup, either he or Shutt would return for help.

  Daniel and Shutt waited in line behind the middle-aged Latino at the front desk, and then avoided him as he hurriedly turned around to leave the desk.

  Daniel removed his Federal Police I.D. from his coat pocket and spoke first, again in perfect Swiss German. “Excuse me, I’m Officer Jean-Luc Daniel with the Federal Police and you have two Americans that have registered with your hotel, and we need to speak to them please.”

  “Their names, please,” the desk clerk replied as he slid in front of a computer keyboard and screen.

  “Ferguson, Matt,” said Shutt, as he stepped forward in response to Daniel’s gesture to join the conversation. “F-e-r-g-u-s-o-n.”

  The clerk typed in the letters and hit the enter key.

  “We need the room number, please, and we’ll take it from there,” Daniel requested as the computer processed the information.

  The clerk responded with a pained expression. “I’m afraid the Ferguson’s checked out this morning,” he replied, in excellent English.

  “Shit. This is becoming a habit,” Shutt sighed.

  “Can you tell us when they checked out, or if they have left?” Daniel asked.

  “Not by the information I have here. But I would guess if you asked the concierge, he might be able to tell you when their luggage was removed from their room.”

  “Thank you. We’ll need you to also check with your garage to see if their car is still here, and your doormen to see if any of them saw if or when they may have left this morning.”

  “Brian, the concierge this morning, is upstairs with room 312, but should be down shortly, and the doormen have all been here since 6:00 am.”

  “Very good, please have them all gathered together for us in fifteen minutes, and you can give us the information on the Ferguson’s car at the same time,” said Daniel emphatically.

  “Yes sir, fifteen minutes,” replied the clerk, who was already dialing the garage attendant.

  Daniel turned to Shutt. “It appears they have, as you American’s might say, flown the coup.”

  “Yeah. Like I said before, they have been one step ahead of me for quite some time. It is starting to get a little irritating. I would have asked you to come down last night, but I really didn’t think they would be bugging out this quick. Something or somebody has them on the move again. For their sake, I hope we can get to them soon.”

  Ferguson had spent the better part of the last four and a half hours taking their new rental car on a nighttime exploration of northern and northeastern Switzerland, more than twice the time Ferguson had anticipated.

  After leaving the hotel a little after midnight, he had barely retraced their incoming route back to the northern edge of town, before Courtney was out like a light. Her anger had visibly subsided after the first five minutes inside the hotel room, and had given way to denial in the bathroom as she gathered her composure. After another ten minutes of repacking her luggage and getting into some loose cut Gap jeans, a white Polo turtleneck, and an oversize University of Illinois sweatshirt, she progressed into acceptance, and felt relaxed and comfortable enough to climb back into the car for another drive to who knows where? Nevertheless, not a word exited her mouth from the time she emerged from the bathroom until she had fallen asleep in the car, and not even a glance or smile in his direction.

  Ferguson had recognized the non-verbal behavior, otherwise known as the ‘cold shoulder’. Nothing malicious, but he was familiar with this ‘silent running’ form of emotional response from a female when upset, and he knew better than to try and instigate any conversation for fear of trigger
ing any of the other, more unattractive forms.

  Once on the open road back to Zurich, Ferguson had again retained the travel folder he had kept hotel information in, and removed from it a Map Quest map of Switzerland and driving instructions that were to take them from Lucerne to Wildhaus in a simple 1 hour, 44 minutes. Unfortunately, the detailed instructions were not as simple, with a list of 22 maneuvers involving turns, mergers, exits, one road becoming another, etc. Without the services of the sound asleep and unwilling-to-communicate navigator in the passenger seat, the inevitable occurred… Ferguson got lost.

  He was doing an admirable job of reading the instructions under the driver-side map light while negotiating the vehicle, pulling over to the side of the road when he thought absolutely necessary, but at instruction number 15 he missed exit number 42 that would have taken him off A3 to A53. As a result he drove another 40 minutes east in the wrong direction, got lost turning around in Flums, and proceeded to miss the same exit coming back. The slur of expletives on the second miss, stirred Courtney, but did not wake her.

  The sign to Stein read 5 km, and the gravel crescent to the side of the road was a perfect place to pull over to watch the unfolding marvel.

  Ferguson switched off the engine and headlights, and looked over at Courtney, who was still sleeping quietly in the reclined passenger seat, her head tucked into the folded brown leather flight jacket crammed in between the seat and door. Wow, what could have been?

  He was acutely aware that he had probably sacrificed an excellent opportunity for an incredible evening with one of the most beautiful and intelligent women he had ever met, much less laid eyes on. He kept assuring himself that it was the right thing to do. The prize was out there somewhere in the mountains, not riding next to him in the car. Even so, he was having a hard time believing it, and the thought kept creeping into his mind that maybe the opposite was true.

  As quietly as possible, he opened the door and stepped out of the Volkswagen Passatt, gently closing the door enough to extinguish the dome light inside. The mountain air was cold and damp, his breath billowing small clouds as he walked to the front of the car and sat down on the hood.

  He warmed his sweatered arms with opposite hands, rubbing them up and down, as he watched the landscape unfold before his eyes.

  Rich, horizontal bands of graded blues and purples, encouraged by a layer of orange beneath, pushed skyward into a star-filled black sky. The mountains seem to grow as the sky lightened with each passing minute. He nearly jumped out of his skin as Courtney threw his aviator jacket over his shoulders.

  “Sorry to scare you. I thought you might need this,” Courtney whispered, so as not to spoil the serenity of the event.

  “Thanks.” He looked to see that she had wrapped her own Patagonia mountain coat around her shoulders. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I’m upset you didn’t try. It’s gorgeous!”

  “Wow, at the rate I’m going, you may never speak to me again.”

  “You were not on my good list a few hours ago. Frankly, you were being relegated to the junk heap. However, you’re gaining ground with efforts like this.”

  Courtney slid her left hand and arm under Ferguson’s right arm and pulled herself close, as they stood in silence, huddled against the cold, as the sun peaked up over the snow-capped Churfirsten mountain range.

  The small cafe in the middle of Unterwasser was a welcome respite. Ferguson was into his third cup of extraordinary coffee, trying to knock the sleep that was steadily creeping into his brain. He was recounting the previous nights driving adventures to Courtney, and was pointing out on the maps he had printed before he left Louisville, their current position and their destination, which was just a few minutes down the road.

  “You don’t suppose we can stay in one place for a while, do you?” Courtney asked sarcastically.

  “I believe we’ll be hanging out here for a while. We are very close to the place Uncle Max went down. It’s around here somewhere, but we’ll need help finding it.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Once we get settled into the hotel, we’ll need to find a guide. Someone who knows the area… the mountains and lakes. Maybe even somebody who’s been around these parts for the last sixty years.”

  “You seem to be mister travel guide, with your folder of maps, hotels, driving instructions. You got a place for us to stay, in… where was it?”

  “Wildhaus. We’re headed to Wildhaus.” Ferguson pointed to the small town on the map. “Right there.”

  With a room secured for the three of them to share, Bolivar had been contemplating going up for a shower and shave, and maybe even a short nap. However, it was approaching noon and he was beginning to feel a little uneasy that neither of their quarry had emerged from their evening of passion.

  He folded the USA Today newspaper he had retained from yesterday’s flight, which he had read from front to back more than once, and with a touch of annoyance stood up from the wingback lobby chair to stretch his legs. He walked over to the bank of phones to the right of the front desk, picked up one of the house phones and dialed Sullivan, who was in their newly acquired room two flights up preparing to replace Keitel outside.

  “Hello?” Sullivan answered on the first ring.

  “Ah good, Terry you’re still there. It’s Julio, before you go to relieve Keitel I need you to go upstairs to the sixth floor and casually take a walk by our lovebird’s room. It’s suite 603, and should be on the corner. I still haven’t seen either one of them yet, and it’s getting pretty late. Whatever you do, don’t look conspicuous, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you Julio,” Sullivan answered slightly annoyed.

  Sullivan was beginning to think this cloak and dagger stuff was getting to be a little ridiculous, and he wasn’t very thrilled being talked to like some little kid. Nevertheless, he realized that he had been hand picked by the boss, who was emphatic that what they were doing was extremely important, so he was committed to try and live with it as long as could. He took the vacant elevator from the second to the sixth floor and exited to his left, taking another left at the brass plate signaling rooms 601-615 with an arrow in the appropriate direction. As the numbers descended and grew closer to the corner suite, the sound of the vacuum cleaner grew louder. Reaching the end of the hallway, he stepped into the recessed entrance area for the door that had the brass numbers “603” on the front, eluded the maid’s cleaning cart, and entered the room.

  “Veiderholen sie, bitte,” Sullivan yelled at the back of the short, stout, silver haired housekeeper over the noise of the sweeper.

  The maid literally jumped several inches in the air and nearly fell over, as she turned around and feigned a heart attack while recovering her composure.

  “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Sullivan continued in German.

  “It’s okay,” she answered in Swiss German, visibly shaken.

  “The young man and lady that were in this room last night, are they still here?”

  “They’ve gone. I believe they checked out early this morning.”

  “You’re sure. Absolutely certain,” pressed Sullivan.

  “Quite,” with a touch of indignation in her voice.

  Sullivan quickly exited the room, bumping into the cart on the way out the door, knocking a box of miniature soaps and shampoos to the floor. When he didn’t stop to pick them up, he could hear the maid cursing him as he turned down the hallway, nearly colliding with Paul Knabel, who was busy pretending to open the door to room 604 with an imaginary key.

  It was another three minutes before Sullivan reached the lobby and found Bolivar back in the same chair he had left him in earlier just after breakfast. Bolivar saw him coming over the Der Spiegel magazine he had found to replace the worn out USA Today, and noticed the concern registered on Sullivan’s face.<
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  Sullivan inhaled to catch his breath. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “I can see that,” replied Bolivar having risen from the same chair again.

  “They’re gone.”

  “They’re what?” Bolivar yelled in response. Immediately realizing the intensity of his vocal outburst, he visually surveyed the lobby to see whose attention he had attracted. He casually grabbed Sullivan by the arm and escorted him toward the men’s bathroom opposite the bank of phones he had just visited. Once in the bathroom, Bolivar searched the stalls to make sure they were alone.

  “How do you know they’re gone?” Bolivar asked.

  “Their room was empty.”

  “What do you mean empty? How did you get into their room?

  “I walked in, it was open, and it’s fucking empty! I ran into the maid cleaning the room, she said they had left earlier this morning!”

  “Shit!” Bolivar ignored Sullivan’s resentment, pulled out his cell phone, and stormed out of the bathroom with Sullivan reluctantly trailing him out several seconds later.

  Bolivar pecked at the number pad on his phone and placed it next to his left ear as he headed for the front desk.

  “Yeah?” Keitel answered his chirping cell phone, recognizing the number as Bolivar.

  “You haven’t seen their car leave the garage this morning?” Bolivar asked.

  “No, I haven’t seen them,” replied Keitel.

  “Come on inside, they’re gone. We’ll be in the lobby,” said Bolivar.

  Before Keitel could ask questions, the phone line went dead.

  Bolivar approached the desk, Sullivan languishing several paces behind him, and inquired as to the couple in room 603, mentioning them by name as if to collaborate his assertion that they were friends of his. The response was of no help, and only served to anger him further. They had checked out early this morning and left no forwarding information.

  Keitel met them as they retreated from the front desk. “What’s up?”