Ghosts of the Past

by Mark H. Downer

  “And your friends?”

  “Just spoke with them. How’s my father?”

  “He’s fine. I just got off the phone with detectives in Chicago. They have the interest of the FBI and Justice Department, who have him under constant watch from a number of folks. By the way, he knows, and he is cooperating fully. What did your friends say?”

  “I didn’t really want him to know what’s going on, but if that helps, so be it. Make sure he knows I’m okay.”

  “I already have.”

  “Thanks. My stalkers are going to let us find it and store it. After that, we’ve agreed that I will give them the location and they can come get it. It may very well happen tomorrow night, but I’m going to try to hold them off as long as I can. I will call you tomorrow afternoon if I can get service at the crash site. It’s way up in the mountains. If not I will get a hold of you when we are back in town. I’ll make sure we speak by… let’s say 3:00. My thieving friends are calling back at 5:00, and I’ll set them up for you late tomorrow afternoon or evening. Be ready!”

  “We’ll follow you up into the mountains?”

  “No. You’d be pretty obvious. We’re not going to run away this time, and nobody else knows where we are yet, so don’t screw things up by showing up on the lake. We’ll be back down as soon as we can load up what’s salvageable. You know where we’re staying. Wait for us to get everything down to the hotel.”

  “We’ll be here. By the way, what do Rudi and Rolf Batemann have to do with this?”

  “Nothing. We went to them and asked for their help in locating and guiding us to the lake. They drove us up there and rented us the jeep. They don’t have a clue. Just stay close and I’ll speak with you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  Courtney finished her wine, purchased a bottle of champagne, and confiscated two glasses. She stopped by the front desk on her way back to the room and arranged to rent an additional room for tomorrow morning, specifically requesting one on the first floor with an outside entrance. The only thing available that met that criteria was a banquet room that had an inside entrance, but included a small, adjacent storage room that had a connecting door into the garage. She approved immediately, and the clerk reserved the space indefinitely and told her it would be ready by 9:00 a.m. He gave her a key in advance.

  She caught the elevator, and on the way up, she was overcome by a sudden case of the guilt’s. It was if she was Judas, and was selling Matt out… taking it all away from him. She managed to reconcile her actions with the belief that he would understand once he knew her father’s life was in danger. He would lose the art, but he would be a hero for finding it. There had to be some substantial reward, and probably a sizable insurance settlement. Publicity galore. He would come out of it very well financially. She would make certain of that. However, she knew she owed him more than that, and honestly she was afraid that he may never speak to her again.

  Once inside the room she could hear the water running in the bathroom, so she tiptoed into the closet and hastily removed her clothes.

  Courtney entered the bathroom and caught Ferguson by surprise as he was preparing to enter the whirlpool. He was clad only in a white towel wrapped around the waist.

  She had reprised her outfit from the previous evening, the white bathrobe with nothing underneath but her naked body, a more aggressive display of the hollow between her bosoms. She produced the bottle of Perrier Jouet champagne and two glasses.

  “I thought you could use some company.”

  Ferguson was momentarily speechless. As she gave a look of disappointment, he recovered quickly. “Uh, this kind of company I can always use.”

  She took a few steps forward and leaned up to kiss him lightly on the lips. He slipped his right hand behind the back of her neck and returned the kiss, with significantly more passion. He reached out with his left hand and took the bottle and glasses from her hands. She responded by untying the belt to her robe, slipping it off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor.

  They kissed again, as she loosened the towel around his waist and removed it, with some difficulty, as it caught briefly on his enlarging groin area.

  “Sorry.” Courtney giggled, as their lips remained pressed against each other.

  “As you can probably tell, the rest of me appreciates the company as well.”

  The kissing grew more lustful and Ferguson grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to him as he backed up to the side of the whirlpool tub, bubbling steam rising from the water. He sat back on the marble and pulled her closer, exploring with his tongue from her chin to her belly button. She moaned very lightly as he moved back up her rib cage, spending several minutes negotiating both breasts and nipples and caressing her back and buttocks with his hands.

  She grabbed the back of his head with both hands and stepped over the edge of the tub one leg at a time into the pulsating liquid. Straddling him, she slowly eased herself down and gently took him inside of her.

  Ten minutes later they sat on opposite ends of the tub, legs entwined like pretzels. Ferguson poured more champagne, spilling several ounces into the water, as they laughed in unison.

  “I apologize for my lack of endurance; it’s been a little while since I have had my sexual fantasy fulfilled by the most beautiful woman in the world. I’m hoping for a second chance to prove my worth.”

  “There’s nothing for you to apologize about. Your worth was fantastic. I enjoyed it thoroughly. As for second chances, yours begins about thirty seconds after we get out of here.”

  Ferguson fumbled his glass and dropped it into the water. They both laughed again, as he made sure to feel everything below the surface before he discovered the missing glass.

  Chapter 19

  May 25, 2001. Voralpsee Lake, Switzerland.

  After nearly ten minutes, since reaching the dead end of the road, Ferguson finally found the access through to the boat ramp and navigated the jeep down the gravely path to the lake. He stopped, engaged the four-wheel drive, and continued along the shoreline within 10 meters of the cave entrance. It was still dark, and the headlights bounced up and down over the rough terrain, in sharp contrast with the still reflection of the moon off the lake, which intermittently peaked through the patchy mist that drifted lightly over the water.

  The air was cold this far up the mountain, and at 5:30 in the morning the sunshine wouldn’t be out for another two hours to alleviate the chill and the fog that fought a losing battle for survival as it reached out at the earthy edges. The jackets purchased from the Batemann’s were proving to be a welcome addition.

  Yesterday’s weather had been most cooperative and today’s forecast again sounded superb… thin clouds, mostly sunny, and mild temperatures. Ferguson and Courtney felt that without any unforeseen problems or intrusions, they could extract the balance of the crates by the end of the day, and then face the inevitable decision of what to do with the whole ensemble.

  Ferguson angled the front of the jeep toward the face of the cliff and set the high beams so they concentrated directly on the hole into the crash site. He killed the lights, but left the motor running as he and Courtney relaxed inside and sipped from the remainder of the large coffees they had brought with them from the hotel.

  They were both exhausted from the lack of sleep, but the renewed adrenaline rush from their return to the treasure hunt, had reemerged.

  “So you think we can get all of it?” Courtney asked.

  “Yeah, I’m going to try to pull away some of the fuselage around the door, if it doesn’t make anything unstable. That should make it easier to get the bulk of it out. We’ll start this morning with the smaller pieces, so we can fill up the jeep and you can take a load down by yourself. While you’re gone, I will bring out as much as I can. Do you think you can unload the smaller stuff by yourself?”

  “I
would think so. Let me see how small the smaller stuff is?”

  They both sipped at their coffees, as Ferguson rubbed on the fogged window to peak outside into the dark.

  “What in the hell are we going to do with this stuff?” Ferguson muttered aloud with a tinge of uncertainty. He looked directly at Courtney huddled in the passenger seat next to him. “This is about as far as my hair brained scheme took me. Frankly, I didn’t think we would find this shit, much less find it in the condition we did. I thought by the time we concluded our little treasure hunt, and then surfaced in the open again, the bad guys and the police would find us. We could tell them the whole story, and they could either be satisfied with what we told them, or go look for themselves… that the whole thing never survived 60 years of Alpine weather. Now we’ve got a bona fide, frickin’ stop-the-presses discovery worth a gazillion dollars. You’re the damn art expert. How are we gonna’ handle this?”

  Courtney laughed out loud and shook her head back and forth. “This is more than I dreamed we’d ever be dealing with. I agree with you, it sounded possible, but I was almost certain we would never find anything that amounted to squat. What we have now is one of the greatest discoveries of art in the last 50 years. “The only thing I can tell you is that most of what we have, belonged to somebody else at some point in time. Whether the different pieces can ever be traced back to their rightful heirs is another matter. There is certain to be some financial reward, probably from a number of different sources, if you turn it in. The question is… do you want to keep what we’ve found? All of it, some of it, or none of it?”

  “The art doesn’t belong to me… I know that. If the heirs of the rightful owners cannot be found, I’ll keep it. Still, I think we ought to make sure somebody, or some organization gets an opportunity to make the effort to track down the original owners, or by now a deserving relative. Having said all that, I would like to maintain some control on how it’s handled, and it sure would be nice to be rewarded for my efforts. Hell, I’m leaving you out of the equation. You’re as much the discoverer as I am. Do you want it?”

  Courtney was beginning to feel huge pangs of guilt, knowing full well that this discussion was mute, and in a few short hours, the decision would be out of their hands. However, she saw this as a golden opportunity to subconsciously plant the seed of redemption in Matt’s mind, and justify what was surely going to be the result of her giving them up, and their discovery, too.

  “Noooo! I have no intentions or interest in anything that does not rightfully belong to me. There are organizations out there that go to great pains to reunite lost or stolen art and antiquities with their proper owners, and I am totally in favor of turning over everything we find to them. Nevertheless, I’m a curator of art, and I would love to see what we found shared with the world. I’m not sure you can comprehend the significance of what we have. It’s incredible stuff. It’s very exciting to be responsible for discovering something of this magnitude. It’s an unbelievable story!”

  “Okay, we’re in agreement that we find someone to handle this stuff, with us definitely running the show, but who? And we need to make sure the information on the discovery gets out to the right media outlets, quickly, so we can get the lunatics that are chasing us off our backs.”

  “I’d say we start with the International Council of Museums. They have an agency or department created explicitly for provenance research, and I’m sure they cooperate with other organizations across the world doing the same thing.”

  “What’s that? Provenance?”

  “Provenance is ownership, or the history of ownership. They investigate ownership of art works, and explore and attempt to arbitrate claims and questions of history. They will also have some historical perspective of museums during World War II and the Holocaust. “The ICOM is an international organization made up of museums and museum professionals and they’re also independent of any governments, which should make them easier to deal with.”

  “Excellent. They sound perfect.” Ferguson gulped down the last of his coffee. “That’s a relief. I really wasn’t sure how my conscience was going to resolve the moral issue of all this. I’m sure I can reconcile the loss of the monetary value better when I understand that all of this stuff really and truly belongs to someone else.”

  “I think you’re doing right thing.” God I hope he believes what he’s saying. He’s gonna give it up to another authority at some point in time. Maybe he won’t hate my guts as much when he realizes I sold him out. Maybe he’ll understand when he realizes my father’s life was at stake.

  “Well, now that that’s settled, let’s go get the rest of the greatest art discovery in the last half century.”

  Gregory Keitel nibbled on the remaining scraps of a poppy seed bagel and glanced up from the Cosmopolis newspaper, casually surveying the small coffee shop through the throng of loyal patrons. Discreetly focusing on the Rosca coffee logo’d mirror on the wall in front of him, he could visually monitor the large black Mercedes sedan parked down the street facing his back.

  Bolivar and Sullivan joined him at the corner table by the window and sat down with their trays of pastries, doughnuts and coffee. They both dove into their respective plates in silence.

  “Keep eating and don’t look around in alarm, but I think we’ve got some company,” said Keitel said as he leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and refolded the paper.

  Bolivar looked at him from across the table and dabbed a napkin to his mouth. “Where?”

  “You’re looking right at them. Down the street, a large black Mercedes four door.”

  Bolivar kept his head focused on Keitel, but rolled his eyes slightly to the left, finishing with the napkin and replacing it in his lap. “I see it. Two occupants.”

  “Three. The other disappeared down the street about ten minutes ago. I think he went into the gas station about a block behind you.”

  Sullivan listened, but an attempt to look over Bolivar onto the street would have been too obvious. Since he felt as if he was beginning to catch on to this detective business, he did as he was told and kept on eating and listening as if nothing was going on.

  “So what makes you think they’re tailing us?” Bolivar mumbled through a mouth full of powdered doughnut.

  “The car looks like the same one that I noticed a couple of times in the mirror on our excursion across eastern Switzerland. Not to mention, the guy I saw walking down the street a few minutes ago, looks like the same chap I saw in the outdoor restaurant at the Palace. As I recall, he had another fellow with him then.”

  “Coincidence?” Sullivan asked. “There are a lot of black Mercedes sedans around these parts.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences Mr. Sullivan. My profession doesn’t allow that luxury.” The reply was accompanied by a cold stare.

  Sullivan recognized the admonishment and decided not to speak again until spoken to. Bolivar admired the hardened response and the keen eye of a seasoned investigator, and was certain that if Keitel thought they were being followed, that they were definitely being followed. “Police?”

  “I don’t know. That was my first thought, but three in the same vehicle… that doesn’t sound right.”

  “Well, we’ll know soon enough. Let’s finish up breakfast and we’ll head over to Stein and wait to speak with Miss Lewis. Bolivar pulled out the crumpled road map from his hip pocket and found Stein. “It’s only about ten minutes down the road. We could have probably made it there.”

  “My fuel gauge said otherwise,” replied Keitel. “Besides, we’ll fill up at that station up the street, and maybe I can get another look at the fellow who wandered down that way. He certainly hasn’t returned yet.

  All three stood, kept their coffees, and walked out the front door of the Cafe Knaus onto Hauptstrasse. They climbed into Keitel’s BMW, that was parked on the street right in front of them, an
d drove up the block to the POCO service station.

  While Sullivan pumped gas, Keitel made an intentional trip into the station for a water bottle and a Milky Way candy bar. He caught Knabel by surprise, seated in a booth in an adjacent glass enclosed dining area, the remnants of his own breakfast laying in front of him. Knabel quickly jerked up the newspaper he had been reading and opened it up in front of his face. It was too late. Keitel had seen enough to confirm his suspicions.

  Alden and Marshall were already driving up the street in pursuit of Keitel’s BMW. Having called Knabel’s cell phone to alert him that their quarry was on the move and they were on their way to pick him up, they hung up before they could warn him that their three friends had decided to pull into the service station for gas.

  At 9:46 in the morning, the navy blue BMW and the black Mercedes both exited the service station within thirty seconds of each other, headed west out of Wildhaus to Stein. Only two minutes later, Courtney Lewis pulled into the same station to fill up the Batemann’s jeep.

  The two-way radio in Jean-Luc Daniel’s hand briefly crackled with static before officer Peter Kirsch’s voice broke clear. “The transmitter is in place and operational. We’re picking up the suspect loud and clear.”

  Daniel acknowledged and turned to Shutt, who was busy focusing a pair of binoculars on the dark green jeep, 75 meters away, taking on a much-needed tank of gas.

  Daniel slowly pulled the Audi away from the curb. “Hang on, we’re headed that way. I don’t know if you understood that, but they said the transmitter on her car is working fine. It was nice of her to leave it unoccupied at the hotel.”