Ghosts of the Past

by Mark H. Downer

  Bolivar took a large gulp from the pilsner glass and smiled. “We got ’em.”

  Before either Keitel or Sullivan could inquire, Bolivar explained further. “That was Mr. Rocca. It seems our little miss know-it-all and her boyfriend made a mistake. I spoke to Mr. Rocca last night after I had my conversation with Miss Lewis. It was a long shot, but after she mentioned Unterwasser and Walenstadt, we agreed to apply some resources to checking hotel registrations in those two towns, bordering towns, and everything in between. Less than an hour ago, they discovered a registration for Ferguson, in Wildhaus, at a Hotel Hirschen. Upon further investigation, they found that an American couple is sharing a room under that name. Finish your beers gentlemen… quickly. We are headed back to Wildhaus.”

  Without another word being said, they all three downed their beers, walked quickly to Keitel’s BMW, and departed.

  Daniel, Shutt and Pernod hurriedly crossed the street to the front door of Weber’s office, unlocked the door and entered. They had been thoroughly surprised at the speed in which Ferguson and Lewis had extracted the artwork and were headed back down the mountain, and were now having to speed up their plans. On the way up the narrow office stairs, Daniel was on the radio immediately asking for undercover surveillance to be initiated on the hotel, and all uniformed officers to assemble across the street in the Hotel Bellvue as back up.

  Four plain-clothes canton officers, in two unmarked Audi sedans, had been biding their time in the parking lot of the Hotel Sonne for the better part of seven hours, waiting for the order to go. One officer from each vehicle exited the passenger side and walked to their prearranged locations inside the hotel, in the lobby and the Dorfstube restaurant. The two drivers drove their cars to designated spots inside the hotel garage and in an adjacent retail parking lot on the backside of the hotel.

  A police car passed by on the street below and turned right into the Bellvue parking lot. That was followed by another 30 seconds later. They had both been parked nearby the Hirschen since early that morning to keep visual contact on the hotel. All four officers waited in their cars, out of site.

  The shades were drawn and the blinds cracked slightly in the second floor law office, and Daniel, Shutt and Pernod intermittently scanned the hotel with binoculars, while Daniel translated to Shutt in English everything that was transpiring or being said.

  Daniel’s radio crackled with activity. “Ground from Air One Five, Ground from Air One Five, your suspects have turned west on to Hauptstrasse and are 500 meters from you.”

  “I copy Air 1, thanks.”

  “They’ll be here any second, Toby.”

  The Jeep with trailer in tow slowed and pulled into the open-air parking lot on the west side of the hotel. Courtney directed him behind the hotel and up to a freshly painted garage door that led into the hotel’s enclosed parking garage. He backed the trailer up to the door, killed the engine, and removed the keys.

  Courtney went into the garage through a pedestrian doorway, and the garage door began to rise slowly. Ferguson waited until the door reached just over his head and he stepped in and gestured to Courtney to stop. She pressed the red button on the electric panel and it stopped immediately.

  Courtney opened a set of double doors just inside the garage and flipped a light switch that illuminated an overhead bare bulb. “Let’s go inside and I’ll show you the room.” She inserted a key into another set of double doors and walked into a darkened banquet room. Light from a series of windows on one wall sneaked through the closed blinds, enough to allow Courtney to see a bank of switches on the wall just in front of her. She stepped forward, with Ferguson following behind her, and reached out to the wall plate.

  The door behind them closed and a man’s voice froze both of them in their tracks. “Welcome you two.”

  Gerhard Alden stepped forward from the opposite end of the room. “A little light Horst, if you would please.”

  Marshall gradually opened two window blinds until there was enough light in the room to distinguish the surprised faces of Ferguson and Courtney, as they recognized the face of Mr. Jones. It didn’t take long for them to realize he had two other behemoths with him, all of them brandishing silenced pistols.

  Alden walked over to Ferguson and closed his face to within six inches of Ferguson’s. “I’m still a little sore from the beating you administered.” He took the butt of his gun and rammed it into Ferguson’s abdomen, sending him to his knees. He followed that with a knee to the jaw that hurled him back against the wall.

  “Leave him alone!” Courtney screamed, as she turned and leaned down to help him up.

  “Leave him alone,” said Alden menacingly.

  She slowly got to her feet and backed up into the corner of the room.

  Alden looked at Ferguson who was coughing for breath and wiping the blood away from the split in his cheek, and then at Courtney, who for the first time realized her plan had just backfired and that they were in real jeopardy of losing their lives. “We want what you have found. We want it now!” Alden rubbed his chin with his left forefinger and thumb. “It’s not here.” He gestured around the room. “Where is it?”

  Neither of them spoke.

  “WHERE IS IT?” Alden screamed.

  Marshall and Knabel both cringed at the volume of Alden’s voice, and stepped toward both doors as if to increase their vigil against visitors. Alden got the message.

  “Go fuck yourself,” muttered Ferguson.

  Alden stepped forward and cocked the hammer on the Beretta 9mm handgun and placed the barrel of the silencer on the middle of Ferguson’s forehead.

  Courtney felt weak in the knees and thought she was going to pass out. “I’ll tell you. I know where it all is. I can lead you to it, but you’ll have to put the gun away first, or shoot both of us.” She was right on the edge of hopelessness, because if they knew the goods were right outside that door they were both surely dead. Her only hope was to make themselves visible, and hope that Shutt was outside somewhere watching the hotel.

  “Is that so?” Alden pulled the gun away and lowered the hammer.

  Ferguson breathed an internal sigh of relief, not sure what possessed him to say what he just said. He remained quiet and let Courtney go where she wanted to go.

  “We just brought down a handful of crates from the crash site. We can take you to the location, and you can have everything. We just want get out alive,” continued Courtney.

  Alden shook his head up and down, and looked around the room indiscriminately, as if mulling over the offer. Before he could answer, Marshall hushed them all with a forefinger to the lips as the sound of voices could be heard coming from the double doors leading from the garage. Alden waved his pistol at Ferguson and Courtney and replicated Marshall’s request for silence. He quietly walked over to the windows and closed the blinds again, thrusting the room into semi-darkness.

  There was a very soft knock on the door, which went unanswered.

  “They may have gone up to their room,” Bolivar suggested to Keitel in a whisper.

  Keitel turned the doorknob, which still had the key in it. He pushed open the door very slowly. He led Bolivar into the room and waited for their eyes to adjust. Once again, Marshall slammed the door behind them at the same time Alden pulled open a shutter.

  Keitel raised a Walther handgun and aimed it at Alden. He was too late. Two dull thuds migrated from the vicinity of Alden, and Keitel dropped like a rag doll. Marshall placed his gun to the backside of Bolivar’s head and asked him to drop his weapon. An identical Walther fell to the floor right in front of Ferguson. Alden reached down and picked it up, smiling at Ferguson and shaking his head back and forth. Unable to control her flimsy legs, Courtney slid down the wall on her back until she hit the floor.

  “Who are you?” Alden asked Bolivar.

  “Who are you?” Bolivar asked Alden.


  Alden aimed the Beretta at the floor and popped off another round right through the top of Bolivar’s left foot, who fell to the floor grimacing in pain. “I’m asking the questions.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Julio Bolivar. I’m employed by someone who is interested in what these two people have discovered.” He looked up at Alden and waved his hand back and forth between Ferguson and Courtney.

  “I see.” Alden had a look of curiosity. “We were following you for a while, how did you get to here?”

  “We were in Stein, where you followed us and then took off. We knew you had been tailing us since Lucerne. Not long after you left us at Stein, we found out these two were staying here. We arrived about a half hour ago and were parked in the garage, when they showed up with a trailer of stuff they were going to unload. I assume you know what’s on that trailer?”

  “Yeah, I know.” Alden scratched his forehead and then started to point his finger at Bolivar. “Wait a minute. The other Latino, the one at her apartment, the pizza delivery guy… you two peas are out of the same pod.”

  Bolivar also put two and two together and realized that the man standing in front of him was Carlos’ killer.

  “Where’s the other guy that was with you? The younger guy, there were three of you.”

  “We left him in Stein.”

  Alden raised his gun again and aimed it Bolivar’s other foot.

  Bolivar held up his hands in front of his face. “He’s in the garage in a blue BMW.

  Alden nodded to Marshall who slipped out the back doors into the garage. It took him ten seconds to locate the BMW. Slipping up behind an unsuspecting Sullivan, he tapped on the window with the Beretta, instantaneously extracting a frightened Sullivan from the car. With an additional wave of the gun, Sullivan wasted no time walking in front of Marshall back to the party in the banquet room.

  It was half past three o’clock, and Shutt was beginning to get little anxious that he had not heard from Courtney Lewis.

  Daniel’s radio crackled again and startled the three occupants of the law office.

  “Control, this is Kirsch in the garage. I’ve got a problem. I just had a large, white male come pull another white male out of a car at gunpoint, and disappear into the hotel.”

  “Lobby one, this is control, did you have anybody that fits that description come through your area.”

  “Negative control. The lobby is empty and has been for the last fifteen minutes. There are some meeting rooms around the corner, they could be back there.”

  “What’s going on?” Shutt asked.

  “We got problems,” answered Daniel, as he translated the conversations.

  “We need to go,” said Shutt. “They’re probably trying to store the stuff in one of those meeting rooms. They must have company, and we never saw them get in.”

  Daniel started to put the radio to his mouth to order everybody into the hotel, but Shutt put his hand up to stop. “Wait, let me try something to make sure.” He pulled out his cell phone and hit the redial on Courtney’s cell phone number.

  The ring came through muffled, but loud enough to hear on the phone in Courtney’s pants pocket.

  “Is that you?” Alden looked at Courtney.

  She pulled the phone out, as the ring grew louder. “Yeah.’ She looked down at the number, “It’s my father.”

  She answered it before Alden could say anything. “Hello Daddy.”

  Shutt spoke quickly. “If you’re in trouble, say ‘I’m fine’.”

  “I’m fine,” Courtney responded.

  Alden pointed the gun at her. “Hang it up. Tell him you’ll call back later.”

  “Get them into the garage, by the trailer, anywhere out in the open,” pleaded Shutt.

  Alden took a step towards Courtney. “Off… NOW!”

  “Thanks, but I have to go Daddy. I’ll call you back later.” She ended the call, turned the phone off, and put it back in her jacket pocket.

  Shutt turned to Daniel, “Let’s go. We need to cover the garage and all the hotel exits. Let’s hope she can get them into the open where we can make something happen. Otherwise we’ll wind up with a hostage situation, and I’m not real confident of the stability of the guys we’re dealing with.”

  Daniel spoke into the radio and barked orders to everyone on the team. Shutt had already headed down the steps with Pernod in tow. Daniel caught up with them as they hit the front door of the hotel. The three of them joined the two officers inside the hotel had sealed off the end of the hallway leading back to the banquet rooms area. Officer Kirsch manned the garage side entrances, and the fourth plainclothes officer covered the back of the hotel by the open garage door. Uniformed help was on its way over from across the street to back up both of them.

  Knabel was getting antsy about all of the commotion that occurred in the last ten minutes. “Boss, we might want to move him out of here,” he pointed his free hand at Keitel’s slumped body, which was beginning to spread blood onto the carpeted floor, “find what we came for, and get the hell out of here ourselves.”

  “I’ve gotta agree.” Marshall added.

  Alden looked first at Ferguson, then to Courtney. “So you found some things from this crash site, and you have it outside in the garage?”

  “That’s right. Some of it, but not all.” Courtney lied. She was betting that he wanted all of it, and he would keep them alive until he found out where the rest of it was.

  “I’m looking for one thing in particular.” Alden grabbed the collar of Keitel’s shirt, drug him over to the back doors, and handed him off to Marshall. “Horst, put him in the storage closet for now.”

  Courtney’s curiosity got the better of her. “What are you looking for in particular?”

  “I’m looking for a metal briefcase, silver with a Nazi inscription.”

  “I found one,” Ferguson mumbled, as he finally lifted himself from the floor, still rubbing at his gut.

  “Yeah, I saw it too,” said Courtney. I’m not sure if we brought it down or it’s still up there.”

  Ferguson was certain she knew were the briefcase was, realized she was up to something, and played along. “I’m not sure, but I know I got it out of the plane and the cave, and put it in the pile.”

  The tension in the room was suffocating and the temperature seemed to have grown incredibly warm. Beads of sweat were prevalent on everyone’s face, and Alden wiped at his forehead with a flick of his thumb. “Where’s your car and trailer now?”

  “Just outside the doors. It’s a Jeep, backed up to an open garage door,” said Courtney.

  Alden rubbed hard at his forehead, and then looked at Courtney. “Is there room for us to pull a car up behind you?”

  “I think so. Yes, definitely.”

  “Paul, you get the car and bring it up to this door. We’ll load these two in our car,” Alden kicked at Bolivar on the floor and thumbed at Sullivan standing next to Marshall, “and you and Horst go with them. I’ll ride with the other two. We’ll dump the dead one in the back of their Jeep. We’ll exit from here and drive west until I call you on the cell phone. Don’t lose sight of me. You, pick him up and get him outside.” He gestured at Sullivan to help Bolivar off the floor.

  Knabel had already gone for the car, while the others congregated in the storage area. Alden instructed Ferguson to help Marshall pick up Keitel and drag him out to the Jeep. The Mercedes pulled up behind the trailer as Marshall watched Ferguson struggle to load the lifeless body of Keitel into the back cargo area of the Jeep.

  “Well I’ll be damned.” Marshall stepped forward; keeping his gun trained on Ferguson, and grabbed the metal briefcase that was lying in the open on top of a stack of tools. “Look what we have here.”

  Alden came out into the garage with Courtney next
to him, while Sullivan was busy helping Bolivar, who was cussing incessantly under his breath, into the front seat of the Mercedes.

  “Would this resemble something you might be looking for?” Marshall held up the briefcase in front of Alden.

  Before Alden could reply, a police car skidded to a halt in front of the Jeep, and a voice called out from inside the garage.

  “This is the police, please drop your weapons, and lay down on the ground face first spread eagle.”

  Marshall responded immediately by dropping the briefcase to the floor, wheeling around and firing off three rounds at the police car, then crouching forward while letting go two more rounds in the general direction of the voice. Knabel had no line of sight towards the police car outside the garage, but he took aim and fired at a silver Audi about twenty meters away that had an armed man hiding behind an open driver’s side door. The windshield and door window exploded and the dull thud of several rounds crunched into automobile steel.

  The briefcase skidded toward Alden, who snatched it up under his arm, spun to his right and aimed his pistol at Courtney who was on her knees hiding against the concrete wall. His shot went wide right just over her head as Ferguson came crashing into him shoulder first, the two of them and the gun skidding across the pavement. By the time Alden had recovered his pistol, Ferguson had grabbed Courtney’s arm and dragged her back into the storage room.

  He pushed her through the other open door into the banquet room tumbling onto the floor.

  “Don’t move.” Shutt lowered his Sig Sauer P220 pistol. He peeked around the right corner of the door just in time to see Alden step in from the garage, notice his face, and loose off three shots that splintered the doorframe and sailed wildly into the banquet room.

  “Shit!” Shutt pulled back and wiped away blood dripping from his forehead. Without hesitating, he moved the gun from his right hand to his left, stuck it out in the open door and triggered five rounds wildly into the closet. Daniel crawled up behind him while another officer dove across the open doorway to the other side and leaned forward against the wall.