Authors: Chuck Barrett
P
resident Rebecca Rudd
relaxed for the first time since she'd arrived in Indianapolis, her briefcase open on the coffee table in front of her. Her suite at the JW Marriot was surrounded by Secret Service. The suites on each side, above and below, and across the hall were filled with her protection detail. Sharpshooters perched on rooftops covered every angle with an exposure to her windows.
Tomorrow's emergency meeting was scheduled to start at 10:00 a.m. in the hotel's exhibit hall. Her presence was essential to the success of the global summit meeting.
This was her first public meeting since Evan Makley's murder. Even though he'd somehow become involved with the assassin Abigail Love, she'd come to rely on his advice and his expertise in managing her schedule. His replacement was of no use to her tonight. Makley was the only one on her staff that was up to speed on this meeting.
Wiley's stern warning about Makley raised her suspicions about his untimely death. Did Elmore Wiley have Evan Makley killed to protect her? That was, after all, what precipitated their first meeting when she was Secretary of State. In the past, Wiley's organization only sanctioned a hit after the White House had
unofficially
authorized it. Had he stepped beyond his bounds this time?
She and Wiley had been friends for many years and she'd placed her faith in his wisdom on more than one occasion. She'd considered him her guardian angel. Maybe that's the way he felt too.
Evan Makley had stepped on a few toes over the years he'd been on her staff. It was likely he had made a few enemies that might have wanted him dead. Many with powerful enough connections to make it happen. She shouldn't be too hasty to convict Wiley with the act.
The shrill ring of her cell phone startled her. With Makley dead, it usually only rang when it was her husband Kyle, or Jake Pendleton. This time it was neither.
She answered and listened to the caller. For the first time in her life she wanted to run and hide. She'd never backed down from a fight but the words the caller said threatened everything she'd accomplished. It threatened not just her reputation, one that she'd fought so hard to protect, but her Presidency and the fragile nature of the global economy. If this were true, negotiations would break down and the summit meeting would fail.
The call disconnected. Could it be the caller spoke the truth? Now was not the time to have to deal with this. Too much depended on the next few days. She had to make it go away, but whom could she trust?
She had an idea.
S
cott Katzer pushed
the casket through the entrance while his mother opened the receiving door. After he arrived at the funeral home and checked on the woman, he realized her condition had worsened. He checked her vital signs. She was alive, but not by much it seemed.
He wheeled the casket next to the embalming table and lifted her out of the casket onto the cold porcelain table. Under the harsh white lights, he could tell her condition was grave. He noticed the skin on her upper chest was marbled in appearance. He unbuttoned her shirt and noticed it extended from her shoulders to her lower abdomen.
"This woman needs a doctor," he said to his mother.
Her glare removed all doubt about the woman's fate.
Many decades ago Heidi Katzer, then Scheller, had been a nurse in Germany. Growing up, Scott remembered how his mother avoided doctors, opting to treat the family's injuries and illnesses herself. She seemed so smart back then. Educated. Now he knew it was the years of deception that made her paranoid, always afraid she was going to be discovered as a fraud, a thief, and even a murderer.
At his mother's request, Scott removed the woman's urine soaked pants. "Look at the swelling and the edema here and here." She pointed to areas of the woman's arms and legs. "I've never seen anything like this before."
Both of them remained silent for a few seconds.
"You say she had a seizure?" His mother asked.
"At least one that I know of. She had two bladder releases on the drive here. One I know came right after a seizure." He looked at this mother. Her eyes never left the woman. "What do you think it means?"
"I think she's dying."
"Of what?"
"I don't know, but I need to question her." His mother looked up at him from the other side of the embalming table. "Where's the journal?"
Scott Katzer reached inside his coat and removed the book from a pocket. He extended it to his mother. "Here."
An awestruck look came over his mother's face as she gingerly reached out with both hands. "I can't believe it." She said. "After all these years. The book has finally returned home."
She removed it from his hands and slowly cradled it against her chest. She held it tight for nearly a minute. She twisted from side to side as if rocking a baby to sleep. Scott let his mother have her moment, knowing full well that her mind was temporarily in 1946 reliving a different time and place.
She pulled it away from her chest and caressed the front with her arthritic hands. He watched her fingers dance across the initials branded on the leather. "Wolfgang," she whispered, "I knew one day you would return to me."
She looked up at him. "Look, Scott. Your father has come home."
It was at that moment he knew his mother was mad. Her mind had finally snapped, he thought. And the book was the catalyst. She'd seemed obsessive about the book, but he assumed it was to get to the treasures Major Don Adams had shipped to the United States hidden away in the caskets.
"Mother?" His voice startled her. "Whatever happened to his family?"
She gave him an agitated look.
"His legitimate family, I mean."
She didn't speak. Her eyes cleared and he could tell her mind had returned to the present and the matter at hand. But for how long?
"Wolfgang's wife, Gisela Fleischer moved to German Village in Columbus, Ohio after your father was executed as a Nazi war criminal. She had a son by him, your half-brother, who is five years older than you. Gisela died a few years back. I don't know whatever became of him."
"All you've ever told me is that my father was a war criminal. You never told me what he did to deserve to be executed."
"Some things you don't need to know, Scott."
"Mother. This I need to know." He'd never used this demanding tone with his mother and he could tell it startled her. "What exactly did he do?"
"Very well." His mother cradled the book against her chest again. "Your father was Commandant of the legendary Dachau Prison and Crematory. During the reign of the Third Reich, he, as did many of Hitler's higher ranking officers, hoarded some of the plundered treasures. He stored most of his cache in the salt mines not far from Dachau."
The woman on the embalming table moaned and started shivering. Scott Katzer went into the hall and returned with a blanket. He draped it over the woman then looked at his mother. She was still holding the book against her chest.
"Continue," he said.
"When the Allied Forces moved in and it became apparent that the Third Reich would fall, Wolfgang loaded his cache on trucks and brought it to Zugspitze."
"And that's when you met him?"
"No. I met him long before then," she explained, "he'd visited Schneefernerhaus Hotel and Resort on Zugspitze numerous times while he was commandant. He was the most handsome man I had ever met. That's when we became lovers."
"Where did he hide his hoard of treasures?"
"Wolfgang loved to hike. During the summer months he'd hike Reintal Valley east of the Resort. During those hikes, he'd discovered several deep limestone caves. When he fled Germany, he hid his cache in those caves then he crossed the border into Austria. He was headed for Italy, but was caught before he got there."
"You knew about the stolen treasures all along?" Scott eyed the woman on the table. Her trembling had stopped but he could tell she was still breathing by the up and down movement of the blanket.
"I went to his trial and was allowed to speak to him alone. He whispered to me about a journal that Hitler had given him for his birthday and where he had hidden it. He said to keep it a secret, that he wanted me to have it." She held the book out in front of her. "This is that journal. I had no idea what was in it until I read it."
"Where did he hide it?"
"Behind a wall in the Reintalanger Hut. I found it right where he said it was hidden. If he hadn't told me about it, it might never have been found."
"When did you find it?"
"Fall of 1945. A week after his execution, I went down to Reintalanger Hut and found the book."
"What about Adams? How did he get involved?"
"In 1945 after bombing Zugspitze and destroying the valley station of the Tyrolean Zugspitze Railway, the United States commandeered Schneefernerhaus. That was when I met Don. He started pursuing me from the beginning but I would have nothing to do with him. I just wasn't interested…until Wolfgang told me about the journal. When I read it, I knew I couldn't retrieve the treasure and get it out of Germany by myself."
"So you slept with Adams to get him to help you?"
"It was the only way." She placed her hand on the journal and rubbed it across the cover. "You must understand we were poor. I had two children to support, there was all the treasure sitting in those limestone caves, so I did what I had to do, Scott. Adams oversaw the return of dead American soldiers to the United States. He had the means to help me accomplish what I needed done. In December, he asked me to marry him and move to the States when his tour was up. That's when I came up with the plan to ship the treasures back in the caskets. He came up with the idea of using only caskets of soldiers who were mangled so badly that a closed casket ceremony was guaranteed. That way no one would be looking around inside. He logged each shipment in the journal by town, cemetery, and soldier's name. And what we put inside the casket. He either modified the casket lid so small light objects could be sealed inside or he made a false bottom for the heavier items. It was a good plan."
Scott Katzer knew what happened next. "You had him do your dirty work, retrieve the cache from the caves, ship it to the States, and then you double-crossed him."
"No. He double-crossed me. I caught him making entries in the journal about Wolfgang and his history. And about me."
"So you went after him and tried to kill him. In a way, you did kill him."
She stared at him and he knew what she was thinking. How could he question her judgment? But he'd had enough of his mother's commands. He would take over now.
He looked at the woman on the porcelain embalming table, struggling to take each breath. The woman so sick she would probably die even if he took her to a hospital. The quest for the journal had turned him into a criminal to satisfy his mother's desires. He was already implicated in the death of Samantha Connors. Now this woman was certainly going to be another victim as well.
He looked at his mother and could tell her thoughts had drifted again to another time. "You were wise to keep this a secret."
Heidi Katzer's head snapped around. Her eyes penetrated him. "You must never breathe a word of this to anyone. Do I make myself clear?"
He never got the chance to object to her tone.
Without warning, a man walked into the embalming room. He looked vaguely familiar but Katzer couldn't place him.
"And that is something," the intruder said. "I am here to ensure."
F
rancesca Catanzaro waited
across the street from Katzer Funeral Home. There had been no activity since Katzer and the old woman transported the casket from the van into the building. She speculated that Abigail Love must be inside. There was no way to know if Love was dead or alive. The last time she'd seen Love was in Butler. She was alive but had trouble walking. At first she thought Love was just exhausted from her run-in with Jake in Watauga Lake until Jake told her about the possibility of Love having decompression sickness.
It had been over an hour since Jake called in with Wiley's plan. She kept surveillance over the funeral home as he instructed. He'd relieve her when he got to Nashville. In the meantime it was her job to watch the building in case Katzer decided to leave. If he did, or Abigail Love appeared, she was to call him immediately.
Earlier Jake had informed her he was on Interstate 40 passing Crossville, Tennessee and would be there in an hour and a half. She checked the time, if Jake was right, then he should be arriving within the next fifteen minutes.
She was getting antsy. She'd been staking out the funeral home for almost three hours. She was hungry, thirsty, but mostly, she needed a restroom break.
She was about to get out to relieve herself when she noticed a dark figure in the shadows walking up the driveway toward the funeral home. She pulled her compact spotting scope to her eye and toggled it to infrared. In the dark green glow the man wore light colored pants and a jacket. From the back he looked like he had light colored hair.
The man walked up to the van, opened the door, and looked inside. He pulled back and walked to the side door and stopped.
She zoomed in as far as her spotting scope would allow her. The man turned and faced her, almost as if he knew she was there. Wanting her to see his face. The man raised his chin slightly, pushed his wire-rim glasses up on his nose and ran both hands through his hair. One hand behind the other. Then he disappeared into the building.
"Oh my God."
Elmore Wiley.
J
ake answered
his cell phone and listened to Francesca's frantic message.
"Jake. Wiley just went into the funeral home. I thought we were going in tomorrow morning. What do you want me to do?"
"I had a hunch that sneaky bastard was up to something. His plan sounded contrived from the get-go. Maybe he thinks he can handle this alone. For some reason, it's personal. I think he's too close and has lost his objectivity." Jake punched a button on the device. "According to Fontaine's GPS, I'm passing the airport now and should be there in six minutes. Stay put. If you see any movement, let me know."
"Hurry, Jake. I've got a bad feeling about this."
She wasn't the only one who had a bad feeling about it. Wiley's impromptu intrusion added an unexpected element to the scenario. "Francesca, where are you?"
"Across the street from the funeral home…in the Mt. Olivet Cemetery. There is a cul-de-sac at the mausoleum. You'll see it on the right of the entrance when you get here. I have a bird's eye view of Katzer Funeral Home. She said. "Jake, he looked right at me. Like he knew I was here."
"He did. I told him you were watching. He wanted you to see him. He knew you'd call me. He's counting on us as backup…or for the end game."
Jake turned on Lebanon Pike from Spence Lane and drove west. One minute later he turned into the entrance to Mt. Olivet Cemetery.
"Jake? Is that you in the white SUV? Or am I going to have to shoot somebody?"
"Don't shoot. It's me. I'll be there in thirty seconds."
Jake parked next to her at the top of the hill. He and Francesca waited in his Tahoe while they discussed their options and devised a plan.
"Are you ready?"
Jake looked at his watch. "Nope. Ten more minutes."
"Ten more minutes? Why ten minutes? We need to move and move now."
"No," he said. "It's not time."
"Time for what? Wiley has been in there too long. Something could have happened to him."
"Wiley knew what he was doing when he went in there. And if I'm right, I know why."
"What if you're wrong?" Francesca looked worried.
"Then Wiley's already dead."
G
eorge Fontaine spent
all day in his computer complex and it looked like he might very well have to spend all night. The computer he'd been tracking had not been back online in hours and, other than the scanned journal pages he'd viewed so far; most of what he'd downloaded was incomplete and unusable. The last time the computer was online was in Charlotte, North Carolina, which he couldn't connect to any information he'd collected thus far.
He hadn't had a chance to catch the news today so he decided to take a break and use the opportunity to read the USA Today on his iPad. He opened the app and noticed President Rebecca Rudd's emergency summit meeting in Indianapolis was the fifth article in importance out of the top stories. Top billing went to another bombing by Afghan insurgents. Wildfires in the West, the reappearances of several pieces of lost art, and tropical storm flooding in Galveston, Texas rounded out the top five.
Fontaine scanned through each article in his typical manner, only absorbing the highlights. The article that intrigued him the most was the sudden reappearance of famous paintings that disappeared during World War II. All recovered artwork was believed stolen by Hitler's Third Reich.
Although the article stated two priceless paintings suddenly appeared in the Hermitage Museum in 1995,
Place De La Concorde
by Edgar Degas and
White House at Night
by Vincent Van Gogh, what Fontaine found most intriguing was the recent recovery of two new pieces by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Painter On The Road To Tarascon
by Vincent Van Gogh was believed destroyed during World War II but had reappeared along with
Portrait Of A Young Man
by Raphael. The museum refused to disclose the manner of recovery, only that they were confident the items would be verified authentic works of art.
Fontaine thought about the timing, it was too coincidental not to be related to the casket invasions of the past few weeks. Considering what he did know, the odds were ever increasing that whoever sold the lost paintings to the museum also recovered them from the robbed graves.
He stood and stretched and then he heard the beeping of an incoming alert. The computer was back online. He started the trace as his server resumed the download. He scanned through the data as it downloaded and compared what he saw to the news article he had just read. Both art paintings from the news articles were listed in the journal. Now he had confirmation instead of theory.
Another alert sounded signaling the completion of the IP trace.
Fort Collins, Colorado.
Fontaine smiled. "Gotcha."