The Pandora Box

by Lilly Maytree

  “You mean she didn’t volunteer for this duty? Don’t tell me she’s a civilian.”

  “It’s a special case.”

  “No case is special enough to use unsuspecting civilians as bait, Eddington. That would make us no better than the terrorists, wouldn’t it. I hope you’re going to tell me she at least knew what she was risking.”

  “I haven’t been so unethical. No, sir. That’s the thing about this case, it… well, it brings the absolute worst out of people. If you know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t think I do.” He reached for a silver bowled pipe that was resting in an ashtray on the desk and a blue foil pouch of tobacco to fill it with.

  “This ring has been active for over fifty years. Fifty years! Can you believe that?”

  Fergusen looked up from his small task and noted the unusual light in Eddington’s eyes. “I think I’m beginning to.”

  “And you know how many agents have worked on this case during that time? Three hundred and twenty-two. All victims…” He leaned forward in his chair a little. “… of something I call the Pandora Effect.”

  “The Pandora Effect?”

  “Sort of a legendary curse. But what it really is, Captain, is greed. It’s got an ungodly, powerful pull attached to it, but it’s greed all right. Pure, unadulterated, basic greed. Does terrible things to people. No, I haven’t been unethical, sir. But I’ll admit I sort of dangled that greed out there like a carrot and used it to crack this case.” He sat back in the chair, as if he could hardly believe it himself.

  The smell of the captain’s pipe smoke wafted toward him with a tantalizing aroma, and having only recently quit smoking, the temptation was almost overpowering. He reached into his pocket for a stick of gum.

  “So what are we talking about here, Ed?” The captain steered him back to the facts at hand. “That gets people so worked up and…beside themselves.”

  “Fifty million dollars in diamonds, that’s what we’re talking about.” He tore off the wrapper, popped the gum into his mouth, and continued to talk around it. “That’s what they’re all headed for. That little crack shot reporter stirred up the old legend again, managed to topple the hospital ring practically by accident, and has Anna Keller and Von Hayden running right along after her. The old man kept it to himself for years, until she came along. They gotta have it now. Those diamonds are the big money they’re going to need to set up somewhere else.”

  “Just how did she manage to do all that? Single handed, that is.”

  “By befriending the real Heinrich Keller, at just the right time. After he found out his daughter was blackmailing him. I think he convinced Parker to go after the diamonds for him. She didn’t know he’d get killed for it. And she didn’t know all these others would come after her if she tried.”

  “Seems at that point, somebody…” The captain paused long enough to give him a penetrating stare. “Should have felt responsible enough to tell her what she was up against.”

  “Oh, I did. But at that point, she was as hooked as everybody else that ever bumped into this legend. You might say she was already a victim of the Pandora Effect.”

  “Which is what you were counting on.”

  “Yes, but I never expected her to actually get tangled up with those two,” he admitted uncomfortably. “Just flush them out is all. That was a slip up, all right. Now I’ve got to do whatever it takes to help her, because…”

  “Because you want those arrests, no doubt,” the captain finished for him. “Seems this Pandora Effect is working you up pretty good, too, Ed.”

  “I won’t deny it. I’m as human as the next guy. But it happens to be my job, sir. And it just happens that I’ve finally cracked this thing after working on it, on and off, for the last ten years. I don’t mind saying I’m more than a little excited about it. A fifty year old case! But at the same time I’d feel terrible if I lost Parker to do it. You see, I…”

  He cast a calculating glance at the captain and realized he was going to have to tell the whole, naked truth. “I left out a vital piece of information that might have greatly influenced her decision to cooperate with us.” The former zeal drained out of his expression like a receding tide and he looked away from the older man as if it took all the pleasure of winning away.

  “What information?”

  “There are no diamonds anymore,” Eddington finally confessed. “The famous Pandora box that contained the Strassgaard collection was recovered by native seal hunters and sold to a private collector. Back in 1973.”

  36

  Descension

  “I felt lost. My head felt dizzy and my heart felt as if it would burst.” ~ Nellie Bly

  Dee began to feel sensation coming back into her arms and fingers and started pulling at the gauze wrapped around her face. But there was such a lot of it! The launch was gone, along with any hope of catching anyone’s attention through a porthole. She had thought of many ways she could have done that, while lying there. A flashing mirror had been her best bet. But it was too late for that now.

  Scott had not come back in. The seas were steadily rising with the gathering storm, and he was being kept busy on deck. Meanwhile, the temperature was dropping uncomfortably in the cabin, but she kept the porthole open, so she could hear what was going on up there. But where was the nurse? She hadn’t heard her voice for a long time. Ellen was not her real name. Von Hayden had called her Anna.

  Whatever kind of truth serum (was there really such a thing?) they had planned for her had obviously been postponed, due to Dee having barricaded herself in the bathroom. Forcing them to drug instead of kill her before White Fox caught up with them. She had no doubts these people wouldn’t hesitate to kill her as quickly as the others. The others!

  Oh, Lord, what had she done? God, forgive me, she thought over and over to herself as the phrase played in her mind like a disk stuck on repeat. How many more people would have to pay the price for her mistakes? She should have let go of this thing in San Francisco. The minute she discovered what was really going on. Now look what such foolishness had cost! And what on earth had made her think treasure hunting for stolen goods—that had a curse on them—could lead to anything but trouble?

  “The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just…” is what had captured her. Oh, what a perversion of scripture she had committed! Not to mention, “Greater love hath no man, than he lay down his life for his friends.”

  She knew now the only reason Peterson had “laid down his life” was because he would have ended up on trial as a war criminal, no matter how old he was. No wonder he had opted for the same way out as his famous commanding officer.

  “God, forgive me!” It was the first thing out of her mouth when she finally pulled the last of the gauze away. More of a slur than a sentence, but at least she was getting some mobility back. It would be a hard thing to die without being able to pray. Oh, but the others had no time to pray. “Lord, how could something like this happen when I was trying to do something good for somebody? Lord, where are you!”

  Suddenly, the most awesome feeling came over her. The most incredible sensation of God’s presence she had ever felt in her life. Well, this was it, then. She must be closer to death than she realized. Everything was over for her. Any minute, they would come in and force her to give over the journal. And considering her threshold for pain was not something she was proud of, she knew she did not have the makings of a heroine. So if she was going to die anyway, she would rather be shot than tortured. And the only way to do that…

  Was to get rid of the journal.

  That way, if there was such a thing as truth serum, she could only tell the truth. Suddenly, an incredible idea came to her. If she was going to die, she should at least leave something behind. Something that would “stay with the boat,” as Hawk had suggested, even if she couldn’t. She would leave an account of everything that had happened. The same way the real Peterson had done. Only she wouldn’t write anything down or hide it. Instead, she woul
d send an email to Devlin, back at the newspaper.

  Not that they were anywhere near a connection way out here. But that wouldn’t matter. Her mail program was set to send as soon as her computer turned on, and it would go through no matter who pushed the button, once it was within range. That way, whether friend or enemy found her laptop, the confession would get into the right hands. And that’s what it would be. A confession. Because there was no one more than herself to blame for what had happened here. She only hoped she could do it before anyone came in.

  Especially Scott Evans, who had obviously been manipulating her for months. Taking advantage of her respect for a senior reporter. Someone who was too much a part of this intricate deception to be anything less than major player in it. Whatever his role, it didn’t matter, anymore. He had passed up the one chance to save them both when they were boarded. Whether for money or anything else, it was the wrong choice for the wrong reasons. Innocent people had died. And if she even had half enough time left to explain all this, she could…

  It occurred to her, then, how she could barricade the door with something (anything) and it would at least buy her the time she needed. The wooden closet rod. It lifted up easily because it was set in like a shower rod, in case there was a need to get through to the crawlspace where one could check the aft bilges. She even piled her suitcase and the two duffels that were in there against the door. Her own things that she had brought in only this morning. Along with a heavy mesh bag that held Hawk’s diving equipment. But the very thought of him made her suddenly feel ill, and she had to head for the bathroom.

  She needed a drink of water, only she didn’t dare turn on the faucet because it would engage the pump. Then they would know she was awake. So she swished mouthwash around in her mouth, instead, and spit into the sink. The drug must have made her thirsty. After that, she quietly got her laptop and opened it, thankful that the sound was turned down. She couldn’t think about Marion, Hawk, or Starr. She didn’t dare, or she would never have the strength to do this one last thing.

  She kept to the basic facts in case she should get interrupted, working under the blanket so that she could shove the laptop quickly down to the foot of the bed if she had to. Yet, by the time she had the file in the outbox for sending, it was still eerily silent on the other side of the door. Maybe she better send a goodbye to her parents.

  Halfway through that she was entirely overcome with sobs and had to bury her face in the pillow to keep quiet. A pillow that still smelled faintly of Hawk’s aftershave.

  “It won’t work, you know. No one ever gets out.” Von Hayden’s voice drifted through the porthole.

  “So who asked you?” Scott was at the helm, almost directly above her.

  “They…they have…backup plans!” Von Hayden sounded like he was struggling with something heavy. “For deserters. No one…ever gets out.”

  “Yeah, and if I wanted to desert all I had to do was speak up when the Navy was here. Did I do it? Not when you still have something of mine, I didn’t.”

  Dee pulled the blanket back from her laptop, clicked on the podcast program, and turned it to face the porthole. Not that the web cam would catch anything but the rich hues of the smooth wooden bulkhead. But the voices would still come in clear.

  “I’m not interested in anything of yours, I’m not even interested in you. My own business is more lucrative than… Oh, this wretched thing doesn’t seem to be doing what it’s supposed to! There’s something stuck in it.”

  “Your business isn’t operational, though, so right now you need me as much as I need you.” He laughed, as if the thought was a sudden pleasure. “Tables have turned, haven’t they, Doc.”

  “Shut up and fix this thing!”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it. Just getting too rough out here. Won’t be long and it’s going to take all of us to keep a handle on things.”

  “Then you better be as good as Anna says you are. This boat is bigger than the other one. Are you sure you can handle it?”

  “Whatever Anna says.” Scott said the name in a tone that was almost mocking.

  Dee had never heard him talk that way. In fact, if she hadn’t listened to that same voice for all of her five years at the Columbia Herald, simply because his desk was across the room from hers, she wouldn’t have believed it was the same man. The Scott she knew would have been complaining of the cold by now or at least, throwing up over the rail. In fact, she distinctly remembered him saying that he didn’t like boats and never set foot on them. He had even traded his cruise for a plane ticket the one time he won Devlin’s feature award.

  He did have a bottomless need for money, though. And a fortune in diamonds might have been more temptation than he would ever admit. It occurred to her, then, that there was every possibility he had given her the Wyngate lead for no other reason than to extract the necessary information from Nels, that he had been unable to get from the old man, himself. But whatever his reasons, it was obvious these other two depended on him. She couldn’t imagine how he had managed that kind of confidence. Scott Evans was more crafty and deceitful than she ever could have imagined.

  “Get some sleep, Eric. You’re no good to me half-dead. You have about an hour before it gets really wild out here.”

  “I’ll stay on deck. I noticed a sleeping bag in one of these seat lockers, I’ll get under that.”

  Dee dived for the pillow and tried to stifle another sob. What kind of people could so easily use the things they had stolen from others, without so much as a second thought? Suddenly, there was a startled cry from Marion’s cabin and a near hysteric barrage of German before the nurse began to call out for Heinrich. But just as the chilling thought occurred to Dee that Von Hayden might actually be the notorious Heinrich Keller Eddington was looking for, it was an answering stream of German, from Scott, that echoed back down through the companionway. She only understood one word. Mutti…

  It was the German equivalent of mama.

  “Get up and take the wheel, so I can see what she wants,” he said. Not the slightest trace of an accent. Nothing, in all the years Dee had known him had ever led her to believe he was anything less than a patriotic American. Why he had overseen that charity event for wounded veterans, last Fourth of July.

  “No need,” Von Hayden’s voice was muffled, as if he had covered most of his head with the sleeping bag, already. “She’s just dreaming. I gave her a sedative.”

  “You what?”

  “She was close to hysterics. If she doesn’t get some sleep, she’ll have a breakdown.”

  “You give anybody anything, I want to know about it. Hear me? We need help up here when things get bad, or we’ll be worse off than last time.”

  “Anna said you could handle this boat singlehanded.”

  “Not in some freak typhoon, I can’t.”

  “Practically grown up on it, she said. All those years the three of you were making your endless circles around the world for people who would just as soon cut your throats as use you. Some grandfather you had. Man was strong as iron right up till he died. You aren’t half the man he was at your age!”

  “You think so? My grandfather had nothing to do with the operation at the asylum. I’m in charge. Only no one knows that because I’ve been using his name for a long time now. So what do you think about that? It was me from the very beginning. Meantime, you better hope I can remember enough about sailing to get us out of this, because we’re headed for a typhoon.”

  “Then change course and run from it. What are you thinking?”

  “I need distance between us and the Navy. We have to get through the Tsugaro Straits. Someone’s waiting for me, there.”

  “And risk getting us all killed? For a few lousy diamonds? I’ve had enough of it! That journal might not even exist!!”

  “It exists, I’ve seen it before. And Dee has it.”

  “You and your mother are so insane over it, you can’t see anything else. This is worse than when she brought the old man here,
on a pass, thinking he might tell her where they were if she helped him. But he had her number. Took off the first chance he got. I had to call in the police to get him back, almost blew the whole operation. For a few lousy diamonds! I’m not going through that again. I want no part of it.”

  “I said I’d get that journal, and I will. I’ll make Dee tell me where it is. She’s too smart when it comes to hiding things. I never found anything but the map before we left, and I turned her whole place inside out. If she’s transposed it onto some file on her computer, it could take weeks to find. Weeks we don’t have.”

  “Weeks you don’t have, maybe. Me, I have no intention of making myself a sitting duck, chasing after some famous hoard of jewels every treasure hunter and their brother knows about.”

  “They’re mine, and I’m going to get them, Eric.”

  “That crafty old codger knew all along this is how things would play out. Even dead, he’s smarter than you!”

  “Get up and take this wheel, so I can go down there.”

  37

  Those Who Are About to Die

  “I thought it very possible that I had spoken my last word to any mortal that the ship would doubtless sink…” ~ Nellie Bly

  Something came over Dee when she heard those words. The thought that Scott Evans had actually planned on her ability to befriend Peterson, gave her a worse sense of invasion than when she discovered he had broken into her house. It proved he was not acting out of any wild desperation for money, but from some twisted perspective that had gone deviant a long time ago. He might even be insane.

  And he was going to kill her.

  “Lord, forgive me. I’ve never wished anyone dead in my life,” she spoke out loud as she closed the laptop, shoved it down beneath the covers, and headed for the closet. “And I never tried to hurt anyone, either.” She reached for her canvas bag. Was she seeing things, or had the hatch cover always been slightly ajar?