Ghosts of the Past

by Mark H. Downer

  “They apparently left this morning, no trace of where they’re going,” replied Bolivar.

  “I didn’t see their car leave the garage,” Keitel said defensively.

  Bolivar nodded to the elevators. “Let’s go down to the garage. Maybe they just left the hotel and they’re coming back for their car.”

  They reached the garage level and spread out in opposite directions, looking for the car as described again by Keitel on the trip down in the elevator. A minute later, a loud whistle signaled twice, attracted Bolivar and Sullivan to a waiting Keitel, who was staring at a Hertz service van parked in front of a silver Mercury Sable with a raised hood.

  Keitel stepped forward and spoke to a service man that was head first in the engine compartment. After a few minutes of animated discussion, Keitel returned to Sullivan and Bolivar who were standing off to the side of the van.

  “They’re definitely gone. They had a new car delivered very early this morning,” Keitel said, thumbing toward the mechanic. “This guy says one of the distributor lines was loose. He thought that was a little strange, but it’s possible it could have worked its way free. My guess is this was set up. They drove this car here, knowing someone might be following, and they did a little tampering with this on and pulled a bait and switch. The good news is we can find out what their new rental car is, but the bad news is we have no idea where they have gone.

  “Shit,” Bolivar and Sullivan said in unison.

  Knabel entered Suite 603 right after nearly being run down by the young man that had bolted the room in a hurry. A quick conversation with the same maid, confirmed the departure of Courtney and Ferguson that morning, but it revealed the same inquiry from the person who just urgently left.

  He stepped into the hallway, and quickly hit the redial button on his cell phone.

  “Marshall.” Horst Marshall answered the phone on the first ring. He adjusted his seat at the bar, so he could maintain his view of the hotel lobby past the couple that just sat in the open seats to his left.

  “Horst, we’ve got problems,” said Knabel.

  “Go ahead.”

  “The girl and her boyfriend are gone. They’ve checked out… sometime this morning.”

  “Damnit,” replied Marshall.

  “That’s not all. We have another party that looks to be following the same two we are. He is probably headed your way.

  He’s over six feet, thirty-ish, blond, he has an oatmeal colored turtleneck with a brown sweater vest. I think he had a pair of jeans on, but I’m not…”

  “I see him now,” Marshall interrupted as he saw Sullivan emerge from the elevators. “Get down here as soon as you can.”

  Marshall closed his phone, got to his feet, threw several francs on to the bar, and walked his drink into the lobby area. He watched as the man Horst described meet with another man, older with a dark complexion. As they spoke, the older one nearly screamed something, then caught himself and looked around the lobby in concern. Marshall followed discreetly as they marched off to the men’s room.

  Several minutes later, after they had exited the bathroom and approached the front desk, he watched as a third man joined the other two. All three went to the elevators, and entered the first available headed down.

  Knabel stepped out of an adjoining elevator, as the doors closed to the one manned by Bolivar, Sullivan and Keitel. Marshall met him as he reached the lobby.

  “There’s more than just the one you saw,” said Marshall.

  “Where are they? How many?”

  “Three so far. They just went down to the garage.”

  “You think they’re looking for their car?”

  “Could be. They might be headed for their own.” Marshall reached into his black leather jacket and retrieved one of the receivers that were tracking the car. He looked at the repeating red lights, which indicated a strong signal, meaning the car was still in the immediate proximity.

  “It’s still here?” Knabel asked incredulously.

  “Yeah, it’s still here. Let’s go have a look ourselves, but be discreet, I don’t want them catching on to us. I’ll take the elevator, you take the stairs.” Marshall pointed at the door at the end of the elevator hall with the plaque that read “Autowerkstatt”.

  Once they reached the garage, they were able to observe from a safe distances, equidistant from the three strangers in conversation over Ferguson’s car and a Hertz service truck. They waited until the three were finished in the garage and headed back upstairs via the elevators, before they rejoined each other. Marshall sent Knabel back up the stairs to keep tabs on their new friends, while he had a conversation with the same mechanic, who was decidedly curious as to why so many people were asking him questions… the same questions. Nevertheless, he gave the same answers.

  “I think they’re in the hotel,” said Knabel.

  “You’re sure?” Marshall inquired again for the second time.

  “Look, I got upstairs no more than one or two minutes from the time they got on the elevators in the garage. I covered the lobby and every entrance almost immediately when I couldn’t find them. None of the staff saw then either, and I think I asked about everybody that’s working right now.” Knabel waved at the hotel lobby from the same seat at the bar Marshall had been in thirty minutes earlier.

  Marshall was putting off the inevitable. He opened his phone and punched in Alden’s number.

  Alden was lying in bed reading Stern magazine, when his phone nearly vibrated off the nightstand. “Ja,” he answered.

  “Gerhard, it’s Horst. We’ve got a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  Horst Marshall told him the whole story. There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Gerhard, are you still there?” Marshall asked.

  “So who are these other people? Any clues?” Alden asked.

  “No, not right now. We’re going to hang around here to see if they surface. Rudi’s convinced they are in the hotel somewhere, maybe booked in a room or rooms. We’ll check on that next. It would help if you can put the word out on Ferguson’s new car. I know Hertz delivered a new one to them early this morning.”

  “I’ll get on that, but you need to find out anything you can about where our two friends are headed, and who our new friends are. Check with everybody in the hotel, money is no object. It would help if you can track down who these three new monkeys are. They may have some clues. If you do find them again, try not to lose them. You dumbfucks! They may be our only link to finding Ferguson and Lewis again.”

  Before Marshall could say anything, the line went dead.

  Marshall looked at Knabel. “He didn’t take it as bad as I thought he would.” They both swallowed their remaining beers. “Let’s get started.”

  Alden sat on the edge of the bed rubbing his hands through his hair. Who the hell are these two amateurs? I’m personally going to cut the heads off of both of you, if you don’t cause my death in the meantime. Where, oh where could you be going?

  He looked at the cell phone still resting in his now sweaty palm, and contemplated updating Herr Leiter. He shook off the thought and set the cell phone down. He opened his wallet, took out his Hertz Gold card, and lifted the hotel phone. As he dialed the international number listed on the card, he retrieved his Daytimer from the same nightstand and looked up the number for a numeral 15 listed under the “P’s”. He wrote the number down on a notepad and began a mental decoding of the number by writing a different number under each of the original numbers.

  He had hoped not to dip into the law enforcement portion of the organization, but this was starting to reach the status of an emergency… in fact his life depended on it. Hopefully, Leiter would understand.

  The Pratt & Whitney PW207D engines on the Bell 427 helicopter were nearly maxed out as the Rocc
a International helicopter roared over the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes Mountains, on its way from the La Paz-El Alto International airport to Ulloma, Bolivia. Constantine Rocca sat comfortably, as he and the two pilots cruised at a speed of 130 mph, with dawn forcing its way over the mountaintops to the east. They were only minutes from one of the company’s most productive silver mines south of the small Bolivian town.

  It was noisy, but he managed to hear the chirping of his cell phone as it lay on the vacant leather seat next to him.

  “Hello?” Rocca spoke loudly into the lower portion of the flip phone.

  “Mr. Rocca, it’s Julio. I’m sorry to bother you sir, but we have a bit of a problem here in Lucerne.” Bolivar spoke equally as loud on the other end of the connection.

  “Julio, you know I don’t like problems. What is it?”

  “We’ve lost Lewis and Ferguson. They disappeared late last night, early this morning, we’re not sure.”

  “Right out from under your noses?” Rocca asked sarcastically.

  “We watched them right into their room sometime after midnight. It appears now, they were either aware of us, or guessed that someone was watching them. From what we found out so far, they went to great length to have a new car brought to them in the middle of the night, and they snuck out of their room sometime early this morning, without passing through the lobby. We were vigilant outside, but we weren’t looking for them leaving in a different car.”

  “And do we know what car they left in?”

  “Keitel is headed for the Hertz office now. We do know it came from them.”

  “No idea of where they were headed?”

  “Not right now, but we’re starting to go through everyone on the hotel staff they were in contact with last night. Most of them are off right now and won’t be back on the clock until this afternoon.”

  “Fine,” said Rocca dispassionately. “Keep investigating. I have an alternative option that may bear fruit. Be ready to move when you hear from me.”

  “We’re sorry Mr. Rocca. I cannot believe they know we are here. We have been very careful and Keitel is very professional. I don’t think any of us have compromised our situation.”

  “Save it Julio. All is not lost. I’m pretty certain we’ll have Miss Lewis’ attention soon, and when we do she should be more than forthcoming with her whereabouts.” Rocca ended their conversation without waiting for a reply.

  The engines slowed and the helicopter began it’s decent to the elevated concrete helo pad, cut out of the top of a hill next to the two story mining office.

  “Your plane is fueled and waiting for us back at the airport Mr. Rocca,” the co-pilot’s voice chattered through the speakers in the main cabin. “We have priority clearance back to the hangar, whenever we decide to return. I will need to file a plan if we plan on flying out by this evening. Will we be returning today?”

  Rocca waived and nodded affirmatively, as the co-pilot looked back over his left shoulder for some acknowledgement. He then opened the cell phone again and hit a recall button, followed by the call key. He waited patiently until Enstrada answered on the fifth ring.

  Chapter 16

  May 23, 2001. Northeastern Switzerland.

  Hauptstrasse runs horizontally through the Toggensburg region of Switzerland, stretching along a natural valley through the Alps over to the border with Lichtenstein. Heading east on 16, following their brief respite just outside of Stein to watch the sunrise over the mountains, Ferguson and Courtney passed through Starkenbach, Alt Sankt Johann, and Unterwasser, finally arriving at Wildhaus.

  In the exact center of town, on the south side of Hauptstrasse, where the roads bends abruptly south and then west out of town, stands the Hotel Hirschen. The five-story, white stucco, Chalet style hotel, consisting of 70 rooms, is typical of the Swiss mountain architecture. Charming and comfortable, it was exactly what Ferguson had been hoping for when he had researched it on-line.

  The view to the south of the hotel was incredible. The lush green tentacles of the ski slopes carved amongst the evergreens and rocks, accompanied by a spider web network of lifts, were clearly visible up to the snow capped Gamesrugg and Chaserugg peaks. The balconies of all the rooms with the southern vista, were all adorned with large baskets of lavender flowers, while the sun that had so beautifully climbed the mountains that morning, was washing a blanket of Spring warmth over the entire town.

  Ferguson pulled into the lower level parking area and turned off the engine. “Here we are.”

  “This is where we’re staying? For at least twenty-four hours, please?” Courtney cajoled.

  “Hopefully, a little longer than that,” Ferguson deadpanned.

  “Excellent. It looks awesome. Can we go in?”

  “Absolutely. Leave the bags; I’ll come get ’em when we get checked in.”

  They climbed from the car and stretched their legs, walked through the nearly empty adjoining street cafe, and entered the hotel through an arched entrance directly off Haupstrasse.

  The check-in went smoothly and quickly, aided by the reservation Ferguson had made the previous afternoon. Anticipating the agitation that he was going to cause by the stealthy, unilateral move from Lucerne, he had booked them into the finest suite in the hotel. Given the degree of dissatisfaction he had caused, he was having second thoughts of not having made reservations for two rooms instead of the one.

  Keeping the quality of their accommodations secret, he dispatched Courtney upstairs to size up the room, while he returned to the car to park it in the first floor garage and retrieve their luggage.

  Five minutes later Ferguson knocked on the heavy wood door to the Chirfirsten Suite, identified by an engraved brass plate attached to the wall just left of the cut glass door handle. Courtney answered immediately, opened the door with a broad smile and stepped aside to let him and the luggage inside the entryway.

  The suite was indeed very nice. It was not the posh quality of a five star hotel, or even as nice as the suite they had had at the Palace, but it was excellent for a mountain chalet hotel. A large entry hall gave way to an arched entrance into a small, but very cozy living area of upholstered couches and chairs, a stone fireplace, and a glass double door exit onto the balcony with the identical majestic view of the southern mountain range. The bathroom was one big block of marble tiles, with a large whirlpool tub adjacent to a window offering the same panorama as the living area. The bedroom featured a king size bed buried under an oversize, pillowed comforter.

  “First the sunrise, now this. Slowly but surely you’re working your way back into my good graces,” Courtney nodded to the interior of the room as she reached for her suitcase and bag.

  “Thanks. I know it’s an uphill battle,” replied Ferguson with a raise of his eyebrows.

  “Can I unpack my things without fear of having to repack in the near future?”

  “You’re safe for the time being.”

  “And that time being what?”

  ‘We’ll be here for a few days at the least. Again, I don’t think we should stay in one place very long, but I can tell you we’ll be here long enough to get comfortable. “We shouldn’t have to stray to far from the hotel for what we’re looking for.”

  “Here, meaning this is close to the site?”

  “As close as we’re gonna get. Like I said earlier, it’s in the mountains around here. Our next step is to locate a guide, and somebody that has been around this area for a while. Someone who has a memory dating back to 1945.”

  “Okay. Do I have time to get a shower and unpacked?” Beseeched Courtney.

  “Absolutely. I need a shower as much as anyone. You first, and I’ll go downstairs and see if I can come up with a name of someone in town who can serve as a guide. They’re bound to have some shops in this town that cater to hiking and camping, or an outfitter of som
e kind.”

  “Are you sure you don’t need my help before I clean up?”

  “No, I’m just going down to the front desk. The desk clerk had a reasonable grasp of English, so I should be able to communicate well enough with him to get some feedback on what we’re looking for.”

  The shower and whirlpool had been therapeutic for both of them. Courtney had spent nearly 45 minutes sampling both, and the effects on her disposition were dramatic. She was energized, and the more she contemplated the nearness of their goal, the more excited she became.

  Ferguson’s enthusiasm was subdued from a lack of sleep. It was all he could do to keep from nodding off in the whirlpool after Courtney’s persuasive recommendation.

  While she had been bathing, Ferguson had spent almost an hour downstairs discovering all he needed to know about the best guide in town from the desk clerk, and from the very attractive blond waitress serving him another cup of coffee in the cafe. Both had suggested he go to only one shop, Der Bergsteiger, and talk to the owner, Rolf Batemann.

  He purchased a map of the town and surrounding area at the front desk, had the clerk indicate on the map with a red ‘X’ the recommended shop’s location, and reviewed it intently over the steaming cup of java. The shop was on the eastern end of town on Diesstrasse. As for the surrounding bodies of water, there were a number of lakes located on the map; however, if his attempted interpretation of the metric key was correct, he was guessing there were only three that had the capability of handling a landing aircraft. It was obvious there was only one that was significantly larger than any others in the area.

  He closed his eyes, imagining himself behind the wheel of a distressed World War II vintage aircraft. Remembering Uncle Max’s voice, he allowed himself to create a panoramic view of snow covered mountains and valleys, as he was flying between them frantically searching for a place to land.

  He opened his eyes quickly, startled by the waitress who was asking him in a broken mix of English, Swiss German and mime if he wanted a refill. He waved her off, left more money than necessary on the table and headed back to the room.