The Chalupa Conundrum

by Lyle Christie

  “Deal with it how? We’re a bunch of college professors for God’s sake.”

  “Did you see the Indiana Jones movies?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, then be that kind of college archaeology professor.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Look, Thomas, I’m going to do everything I can to get everyone out of here, so that you and Estelle can get to your romantic beachside wedding.”

  “Can you honestly guarantee all of our safety?” he asked.

  “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Tag will get us all out of this,” Estelle said.

  “How? He’s just a private investigator. He’s only slightly more useful in this situation than we are.”

  I realized Estelle hadn’t told her new guy much about her ex, and I was hoping it was because he was so boring that she didn’t want him to be intimidated.

  “Thomas, I haven’t really told you much about Tag or his background—most of it for your own good, but let me put it to you this way—if you were hoping for a real life James Bond to come to the rescue, then you’re looking at him right now. Tag is former special operations and CIA, and, therefore, more than capable of dealing with any threats,” she said.

  Thomas stared at me with a new sense of awe and perhaps a little fear, and I kind of felt bad for the guy. No one wanted their fiancé’s ex to be James fucking Bond. Those were big shoes to fill, and it would be intimidating to any man—myself included.

  “OK, but I hope you understand that all of our lives are in your hands.”

  “So that others may live. That’s always been my credo.”

  That was the end of the discussion, and we spent the rest of the evening trying to act as naturally as possible. By eleven, the festivities were over, and we all retreated to our rooms. About fifteen minutes later, there was a knock at my door, and I opened it to discover Fabiana, and she was carrying my clothes, which were neatly folded and had obviously been washed.

  “I suspected these might come in handy tonight, so I put a rush order on your laundry,” she said.

  “That’s why you put the super in supermodel.”

  She came in, and I immediately stripped down, but, just as I was just sliding on the pants, there was another knock on the door, and soon thereafter Estelle and Thomas walked in, though Thomas did a double take when he saw my state of undress.

  “Oh shit, sorry,” he said.

  “It’s OK, Thomas, Finn is used to being barged in on in varying states of undress,” Estelle said.

  I ignored her statement, but, as I continued to get dressed, there was another knock, and, a second later, Alessandra came walking in, and she also didn’t appear to be too bothered by my state of partial undress. Estelle, of course, once again noticed how Hot Sauce seemed very comfortable with my nudity, and she proceeded to give me an annoyed nod. You just can’t please all the people all the time. I fucking came halfway around the world to rescue her, and she still felt the need to give me shit. Oh well, we had bigger fish to fry, so I threw on my camo clothing and was officially ready to address the troops.

  “Is the rest of the UCLA team ready?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but how are we going to get out of here without being seen?” Estelle asked.

  “You know this place is basically a copy of Neuschwanstein Castle, right?”

  Thomas and Estelle nodded, so I kept going with my story.

  “Well, there is one little interesting fact that I happen to know about the original that might be able to help us here. You see—Neuschwanstein’s owner King Ludwig II installed a secret exit that practically no one else in the world knows about except the architect and a certain agent of the BND or Bundesnachrichtendienst.”

  “Which is?”

  “Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, and the agent in question was named Heidi, and, during a particularly interesting joint operation where we were monitoring a number of participants at an international trade conference being hosted at the castle, she just happened to have shown me one of it’s greatly held secrets.”

  “Would that be her vagina?” Estelle asked sarcastically.

  “No—it was a secret hidden passage that led out of the castle—kind of an emergency escape route. It was supposedly on Eduard Riedel’s original architectural plans, and, judging by what I’ve seen so far of this place, I’m guessing Lars’s father probably had one built as well.”

  “And why exactly did this Heidi girl show you the secret passage?” Estelle asked.

  “Um—well—we were looking for a little privacy.”

  “Why did I even ask?”

  “Anyway, in a perfect world I would have already done the recon and found out if the passage had been built in this castle, so tonight we all get to do it together, and it might even be fun—kind of like a field trip.”

  “Wait a minute, you didn’t tell me you were that familiar with Neuschwanstein Castle,” Alessandra said, in an annoyed tone.

  “A man has to keep a few secrets.”

  “Yeah, and if you’d told me all this before, I might have questioned why in the hell you needed my help to find Lars’s office tonight,” she said.

  “Well, I’m somewhat familiar with the castle, but…”

  “He didn’t fuck Heidi in that particular room,” Estelle interjected.

  “Tut-tut, no need to be crude—now, let’s gather the troops,” I said.

  Thomas, Estelle, and Alessandra left to gather the UCLA team, and it gave me a few moments alone with Fabiana.

  “So, Fabiana, the safest thing for you at this point would be to feign ignorance of this entire affair and leave of your own accord. You’re a supermodel, and the entire world knows you and Lars are together, so he could never get away with harming you.”

  “I don’t care. I want to go with you.”

  “It could get dangerous.”

  “I know, which is why I want to stay as close to you as possible.”

  Apparently, she wouldn’t be deterred from her current course of action. If only Doug and Beeber knew how badass their crush truly was, they’d have even bigger boners. A moment later, there was a knock at the door, and that meant it was go time. We left the room, joined the others, and I took the lead as we ventured down the hall. The castle had been set for night lighting, which meant our only illumination came from indirect floor based fixtures. It was a little like walking down an airplane or theater aisle at night in that it gave you a path, but it didn’t shine directly into your eyes and negatively affect your night vision. We descended the grand staircase and started making our way across the main floor but paused when we heard at least two men talking as they walked along the main hallway. The living room was our closest refuge, and so we all raced in and ducked down behind the various pieces of furniture. The men drew closer and actually glanced into the room before moving on to another part of the castle. We rose up and continued on, and made our way to the throne room, which resided on the other end of the main level.

  “Well? Where’s your secret passage?” Estelle asked.

  “Over there—beneath the throne, though the piano is the mechanism to make it open,” I said.

  I walked over and turned my attention to the piano then pressed a couple keys to make sure the thing worked. It thankfully made noise, but the throne didn’t budge, and Estelle gave me a rather patronizing smirk.

  “So much for Heidi,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d met her,” I responded.

  She mouthed the words fuck you as she gave me the finger.

  I ignored Estelle and took a moment to think back to my time with Heidi, and, fortunately, for my reputation as well as hers, I remembered the specific notes.

  “Ride of the Valkyries,” I said, aloud.

  “What about it?” Estelle asked.

  “It’s the key to open the door, and, as you may or may not know, King Ludwig was a great admirer and supporter of Richard Wagner, so he literally made it th
e key to his secret door. In Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, the opening melody is comprised of three notes played a total of five times that creates its signature dum—dum—dum-dum-dum—duuum—duuum, which should be familiar to all classical music aficionados and Apocalypse Now fans. Assuming this is identical to the throne room at Neuschwanstein, the piano keys are linked into a mechanical system that unlocks the door to the secret passage.”

  “I think you might have been drunk and focusing on other things while you were in the company of your German colleague.”

  “That’s not entirely inaccurate, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that my mind is like a steel trap, and I could never forget our monumental hump session in the secret passage.”

  “Man-whore,” Estelle muttered under her breath.

  “Indeed,” Alessandra added.

  “I think it’s kind of hot,” Fabiana said.

  I placed my hand on the keys again, but this time hit the notes A-D-A-D—F-D, and there was an audible click. I stepped over and pushed on the throne, and the entire raised platform rotated to the side to reveal a circular staircase that descended into the floor.

  “Bless you, Thomas Von Träger!” I said.

  “And all you had to do was sleep with a German intelligence agent. How romantic,” Estelle said, in her now-rather-expected sarcastic tone.

  “Clearly, everything in life happens for a reason,” Fabiana said, kissing me, as she was obviously caught up in the excitement of the moment.

  “Seriously, who are you and what have you done with the real Tag Finn?” Estelle asked me.

  “Oh, he’s right here, though he’s a little different after having had his heart ripped out.”

  “For being a man-whore.”

  “Which is still a man.”

  “Barely.”

  “Meh—it’s obviously still enough to get us all out of here.”

  “True,” she conceded.

  I turned my attention to the passage and saw that this one, unlike its Bavarian counterpart, had a light switch right at the edge of the rim, and I clicked it, and the passage below was instantly illuminated.

  “Thank God for modern conveniences,” I said.

  “And oversexed secret agents,” Estelle added.

  “Oversexed for sure,” Fabiana added with a smile.

  “Shall we?” I said, pointing at the stairway.

  We travelled down the spiral staircase to find it easily descended a good hundred feet until finally emerging in a large cavern. The only light came from the stairwell, and the air was dank and moist, and I would bet money that there was an underground river nearby. Luckily there was a breakout box on the wall as well as a number of switches that I suspect controlled the lighting. I hit the first switch and glorious light filled the space, revealing a spectacularly large area that had clearly been modified. Instead of the rough caverns we had traveled through in our escape from the pyramid, this large area was carved to look a bit like a massive amphitheater you’d imagine existing in the garden of Eden. Instead of seats, however, it had a large ornate fountain that utilized the existing river to create a series of descending pools, and each gradually trickled into the next. This was definitely where Thomas Von Träger’s idea of Neuschwanstein veered away from its Bavarian counterpart and went full Chalupan.

  “This is incredible! I can’t believe Lars never took me down here,” Fabiana said.

  “I’d have to say the same thing,” Alessandra added as she gazed around the space.

  Wow, awkward. The man of the house hadn’t taken either of his love muffins down to his secret half German, half Chalupan pool of paradise. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and now Lars would have at least two scorned women—a scenario that was at least twice as dangerous—even for a billionaire-drug-dealer-kidnapper-rapist. I turned my attention away from the cascading fountain and instead focused on the other features—namely the exits. There were two, and one was short, well-lit, and went to the left while the other was dark and descended rather abruptly to the right. I flicked on another of the switches and saw that the dark area was now illuminated and appeared to extend for quite a distance. Interesting. I thought back to our escape from the pyramid and remembered the dark passage in the final chamber and wondered if perhaps this was where it led. Cave systems created by water tended to interconnect, so it stood to reason it was possible. With a little renovating, Lars could have had his own personal secret tunnel to his very own pyramid. Maybe when he got out of prison, he could make it his first project.

  We left the area via the shorter tunnel and soon found ourselves at a steal door. I slid it open, and found that we were behind one of the manmade waterfalls that dotted the hillside beneath the castle. We stepped out from behind the flow of water, and each of us emerged into the quiet moonlit Chalupan night with a light dusting of mist on our skin and clothes. We set off and moved along by using the various statues, topiary, and hedgerows for cover until reaching a nice dense thicket of trees, which offered a decent hiding place, and I figured it was a good time to make sure everyone was with us. After a quick head count, I found that we were at nineteen, which was one short of our starting party size of twenty. I looked over the group and quickly discovered the identity of our missing adventurer.

  “Holy shit! We’re missing Alessandra!” I said.

  “She was right beside me just before we emerged from the waterfall,” Estelle said.

  “If I’m correct, and I hope I’m not, she decided to go confront Lars, and if that asshole sweet talks her with a bunch of bullshit, she might tell him our plans—in which case things will get very ugly—very quickly.”

  Suddenly, lights on the grounds started turning on all around us and illuminating the entire hillside, and we could hear voices coming towards us from farther up the hill.

  “Does this mean what I think it means?” Thomas asked.

  “Yeah, things are about to get very ugly, so our new plan is as follows. All of you head to the camp, and I’ll meet you there after I hang back and slow them down.”

  “No, we stick together,” Estelle said.

  “No, you guys get the hell out of here. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “No, we fucking stick together.”

  “Goddammit, Estelle! This is not the time to argue. I can work faster and better alone.”

  “He’s right,” Thomas said.

  Estelle glared at me, and there was something behind her beautiful eyes I couldn’t quite read. It might have been love or hate—or perhaps a little bit of both if I were lucky.

  “Fine, but if you get yourself hurt doing something stupid and heroic, I’ll kill you.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It will if you do something stupid.”

  Everyone formed up, and, as they began to leave, I threw in one final parting statement.

  “In case I don’t return, I just want to say good luck, Thomas—if you know what I mean?”

  Estelle gave me the finger then turned and joined the group as they started making their way down the hill. Fabiana paused and kissed me then looked nervously into my eyes.

  “I hope you didn’t come waltzing into my life to die in a hail of bullets,” she said.

  “I didn’t, as there are way too many Jacuzzis out there that we need to explore.”

  She smiled and kissed me.

  “I’ll see you at the camp,” she said.

  “Not if I see you first.”

  She turned and joined the procession, and, just when I thought everyone was gone, Bachué appeared at my side.

  “Tag, please be careful, as I still intend to make sweet, hard love to you when this is over,” she said.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’m going to survive but I think you…”

  Before I could finish my statement, she wrapped her arms around me and kissed me with such intensity that, by the time she had pulled free, I was sporting a very solid boner.

  “What was that you were going to say?”
she asked.

  “Never mind—I’ll see you at the camp,” I said.

  She turned and joined the others, thus leaving me alone to wage my personal guerrilla war. It was time to think about strategy, specifically that they had vehicles and would be able to quickly overtake us, so I needed to take their advantage out of the equation, at least temporarily. I moved across the hillside but stayed within the shadows until coming to the driveway, which I followed down to the gatehouse where I’d first met Carlos. At the moment, it was deserted, and the drawbridge was down. Perfect! The little building was unlocked, and I slipped inside and found the controls for the drawbridge. I pulled the lever, and up it came, thus separating the estate from the road to the ruins. I went through a door and into the next room, which housed the electric motor and winch assembly. Had it been a movie, I would have blown it all up with some C4 explosive I had found in some conveniently placed storage bin during our journey through the subterranean cavern. Since this was reality and I had no C-4 explosive, I was happy to simply pull out the electrical wires that powered the drawbridge. I went back into the main room and turned my attention to the short wave radio in the hope that I might listen in on some radio chatter and get an idea of what the enemy was planning. I clicked it on and instantly heard all number of conversations going back and forth between Lars and his security staff, and, as far as I could tell, they were loading up in their range rovers and would be coming down the mountain any minute. Time to haul ass to the camp and rendezvous with the others.

  I stepped out into the darkness and settled in for what I estimated would be about a thirty or so minute run. The night was unusually quiet and therefore especially spooky, and, while I knew that the King Chalupa myth was a hoax and his minions were nothing more than costumed assholes, they were fellow humans, and that made them the most dangerous things on the planet. After about twenty minutes, I reached the main road and turned right, so the camp was only a short distance away. As I got closer, I heard something moving through the trees off to my right, and I stopped and listened closely and could hear the footfalls of what sounded like people. I was hoping it was the UCLA team, but I couldn’t be sure, and I damn well wasn’t about to yell anything out and give away my presence.