Time to move, Bryant decided. Nothing had stirred on the dark mountainside or down at the lake, and the peaks on the opposite shore were developing a nice swirl of mist. He hoped it would spread. He picked up the tripod and camera, wondering if he could afford to discard them with the jacket. But no, he thought; if any stray hunter met him, he would need a self-explanatory excuse. Photographers were known to work at strange hours in odd places—it wasn’t the first time he had risen before dawn to capture a sunrise. So camera and tripod went with him, his passport to innocence. He swung the cumbersome rucksack on to his back, stepped on to the open mountainside, walking carefully but confidently. He noted that his heavy grey sweater and grey trousers blended perfectly with the jutting crags around him. He smiled briefly. That wasn’t any lucky accident; it was a necessary precaution.
It might seem ridiculous to expect that the Nazis—after all these years—were still posting guards around here, or that they
had possibly installed a man in a nearby village like Unterwald to patrol Finstersee. And yet he had only to remember Lake Toplitz, some three miles to the south, and nothing seemed ridiculous about the patience and determination of a handful of totally committed men. Even as their army was surrendering in north Italy, with Berlin in flames and Hitler dead, a last stand in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps now impossible, they were planning for the future. Top-secret Intelligence files—the hard core of power for any resurgent force—were sealed in watertight chests and lowered into Lake Toplitz. The news of that had come out only years later when Toplitz proved there must be something worth guarding in its deep waters. Two British agents—but they could just as easily have been American or Russian or French—had been left to bleed to death on the crags above Toplitz, their bellies slit wide open.
He averted his eyes from the crags through which the track was leading him, thinking that there was at least one difference between Toplitz and Finstersee: the Intelligence agencies of the big powers hadn’t learned about this little lake; and the Nazis, for that reason, might not be expecting trouble. His chances were fair to good, especially with the mists spreading on the opposite shore. It was going to be a fine morning of clouds and drizzle. He increased his pace on the last few yards of downslope, leaving the track which had decided to start climbing again, and almost slid into the clump of twisted trees at the water’s edge. He sat down thankfully among the rough boulders. Phase one was over.
Not too bad an effort, he conceded as he glanced at his watch. After all, he was reaching forty-six, and that was twenty-two more years than he had carried in 1944 when
he had parachuted into the Tyrol and organised his Austrian agents among its mountains. It was surprising, though, how the old tricks came back. Reassuring, too. He chose the flattest part of the rough ground for laying out his equipment, braced his feet against the roots of a tree so that he would not slide into the lake before he was ready, and began unpacking the rucksack. Phase two would not take so long: checking and donning of gear. He had practised constantly in this last week, making sure of the routine, recalling everything he had learned last summer when he had bought his equipment and tested it, over and over again, in the same depths of water he would have to face here. The hidden ledge did exist, some twelve feet under the surface. He had made sure of that, too, last summer, with the help of Johann. Johann would be in a sour mood when he learned he had been left out of the action, but one man was less conspicuous than two, and why risk two lives when one was more than enough? With that, Bryant pushed his brother-in-law out of his mind—not quite admitting he didn’t trust Johann’s judgment once the chest had been recovered—and concentrated on unpacking and checking.
He laid out the suit—a dry suit it was called, made of thin sheet rubber in contrast to the newer wet suit type of foam-neoprene that fitted the body like a second skin. But the dry suit, hood attached, came in one piece instead of five; it had been simpler to pack, lighter to carry, and with the front opening he had chosen, it was fairly easy to put on and quick to take off. And for his purposes, it was speed at the end of his job that was absolutely imperative—if necessary, once he was out of the water, he could rip the suit off. It should be warm enough over the long wool underwear he was wearing
specially: he did not intend to stay more than thirty minutes in that cold lake, the maximum safety time for forty-degree temperature. The summer months must have taken some of the bite out of Finstersee, but he had had to plan for what might be possible, not for what he hoped would be probable.
Next, he drew out the contraption known by the ungainly name of single-hose regulator, one end fitted with a mouthpiece, the other to be screwed into the small valve of his scuba tank. Now the tank itself, a junior model chosen for easy handling but with sufficient compressed air for fully thirty minutes at the depths he would have to work in, was pulled gently from the rucksack. He had decided on this small size of scuba tank (“kid stuff” his instructor in Zürich last summer had called it) because it was considerably lighter to carry and less bulky inside the rucksack. He didn’t need the regular scuba: he wasn’t a sportsman going into deep waters; he was sticking on that ledge, twelve feet below. And he had better, he told himself grimly.
He unpacked a weighted belt which would let him drop down from the surface. Dark blue sneakers, something to give his feet a grip on the ledge and yet not cause added difficulties when the time came to rise to the surface. Mitts of foam-neoprene, tight but easily pulled on if he first wet his hands. A knife, one blade serrated. A strong wire cutter. (Both of these would be strapped to his leg.) A thirty-foot stretch of quarter-inch nylon cord, braided to prevent fouling, and a clamp to fasten one end of the cord that he would coil around the tree nearest the water, a second clamp, with quick release, to fasten the other end around his waist. A piece of rubber tyre to protect the tree’s bark from any friction. An underwater light. A waterproof watch with illuminated numerals. A slab of
chocolate and a flask of brandy to be left beside his camera and tripod, all covered by his clothes which he was now stripping off. He secured the neat pile with a heavy stone. Methodically, he began donning his gear.
He was ready. He pulled sharply on the rope coiled on its cushion of rubber around the base of the tree, testing the clamp. It would hold. The other end of the rope was already firmly around his waist, the remaining loops neatly gathered in the crook of his left arm. He glanced at his watch strapped over the mitt on his right hand, making sure that nothing interfered with the wrist seal of his suit. He checked the light hooked securely to his belt, adjusted the mask which would let him see sideways as well as above and below, and started regular breathing. Then, gripping the rope in his left hand, with a twist around the wrist for extra security, playing it slowly out, keeping it taut with his right hand, he took a step backwards into the lake. Its bank went straight down. As the water reached his shoulders, he remembered to check his descent and raise his right arm above his head so that his left hand could open the wrist seal briefly and let the air in his suit be pushed out. Then he gripped the rope with both hands again, removing the strain from his left wrist, and sank slowly down into a black-green world.
It was worse than he had imagined. Cold shock, as his face went under, and blind slow motion; a feeling of being trapped in darkness. With an effort, he forced down the split-second panic that attacked him, and kept his breathing regular. His feet touched something solid under slimy mud. He could stand on it, he could turn slowly, carefully. His right hand could free its rigid grip on the rope for a moment and fumble for the flashlight at his belt. He switched on its powerful beam. By stooping, and
that was the way he would have to move, he could direct the light in front of his feet. Yes, he had found the ledge.
It was about two feet wide at this point. How long? The beam showed a short stretch of ten feet, no more, before the ledge vanished. Nothing on that section. He turned slowly, remembering not to dislodge any silt by a quick or careless movement—muddied waters could take hours to settle again, and his job would be made impossible even before it had properly begun—and looked along the other stretch of ledge. It was just about the same length; the trees above him had marked almost the middle of this outcrop of rock. And near its end he saw a heavy mass, blacker than the waters around it.
It’s too big, he thought at first; I’ll never raise that weight by myself. And then, as he came closer, leaning forward—slowly does it, small sure steps, keep a grip on the rope and the breathing regular—he decided it wasn’t a chest at all, but a lump of stone that had fallen down the mountainside and ended here with a thud. It was only when he was close to it and could stoop over with his flashlight full on it that he saw it was really a huge lump of mud and moss-like growths. He unsheathed his knife and went to work on the deposit of twenty-one years, cutting and scraping gently, always mindful of the danger of disturbed silt, until he struck something hard. It glinted under the light. His depression vanished. It was a chest made of some bright metal that did not rust. Not iron, thank God. If it was aluminium, it would be all the more easily raised. (After all, the Nazis who had lowered it here wouldn’t want any difficulties in salvage. They planned ahead, those boys.) His one problem now was to get it free of the mud, and then ease it along to the spot where he had descended.
He began scraping cautiously at the encrustation until he found that, if he got his hands against the box and pushed up against the caked deposit, it peeled off like a matted carpet and floated away in broken chunks. There were long fraying fragments of hemp on the side handles of the chest, all that was left of the cords that had lowered it. He pulled them off quickly. Too quickly. There were shreds of thin wire embedded in the cord, and their broken edges ripped the palms of his gloves. Lucky his suit hadn’t been torn by one of these thin jags of wire—that would have been real trouble. He worked more carefully, using wire cutters, and at last released the chest completely. Now to secure it, his way.
He released the clamp at his waist and started twisting the freed rope around the chest and through its handles. Under water, its weight was no problem, and once he had it freed from the mud it had settled into, the task was only a matter of care and quiet movements. He used all the rope he could spare, and then clamped it to hold. The hardest job, because it was most worrying, was to find the place where he had descended. But by tugging on the rope overhead every few steps back along the ledge, lifting the chest with him as he moved so that it lay always beside his feet when he paused, he found the spot where the rope no longer strained at an angle between his hand and the tree, but fell straight as a plumb line.
Quickly, he released the buckle of his weighted belt, the flashlight hooked to it, and let them drop away. The wire cutter, which he had been too late to use when his mitts had been torn, went too. He started to float. Keep a firm grip on the rope, he warned himself, and don’t hold your breath; move slowly;
don’t hold your breath!
He rose to the surface, half swimming, half
pulling upwards on the rope, and hauled himself on to land. He staggered towards the cover of the tree. He tore off the mask, wrenched free from the rest of his equipment. The fresh air twisted his lungs. Twenty-seven, he noted with difficulty, twenty-seven minutes all told. The box... Better rest before he salvaged the box.
He did more than rest. He collapsed, face down, his cheek against the tree’s root. When he became conscious again, he had lost a valuable twenty minutes. Daylight was spreading from over the eastern ridge.
He rolled slowly over on his back, and lay there, unable to rise, his body heavy with fatigue. He was chilled to the bone. He shivered violently, remembering the last few minutes under water when the cold started to penetrate his body; colder, colder, the embrace of death. He sat up with an effort. Everything seemed out of control. He wanted to fall back again, let himself drift into deep, deep sleep. He rubbed the back of his neck, gently; that was where the headache began that encircled his brow. The box could wait. He had made sure it was lying safely on the ledge, well wrapped in tight coils of rope. First, he must drag himself to his clothes, get some brandy down his throat, get this suit off, get his flannel shirt and sweater and thick trousers on to his body. Something warm, for Christ’s sake, something warm and light. His body felt as if it were encased in a ton weight.
It took him another half hour to accomplish these simple things. And then, suddenly, he began to feel more in command. His chin, which had been exposed under water, felt frozen. And his hands were stiff. Their palms had been scored by the rope when his grasp had slipped. Now that he could see the sun and
breathe the fresh air, he would admit the worst moment down in that pit of darkness—the moment when he had rid himself of the weighted belt and the flashlight, sensing them go over the edge and sink into the depths; and he was left with only his grip on a quarter-inch thickness of rope to keep him from drifting out over the abyss too.
He had drunk all the brandy—its only effect was to bring him up to normal—and eaten some of the slab of chocolate to give him energy. He was far behind schedule now. He ought to have been back at the Volkswagen by this time, heading down into the valley where the highway would take him back home to Salzburg for breakfast. But as he worried, he worked. He removed the knife from its sheath and bundled the rest of his gear around the tank, empty now and heavier, and added the stone that had anchored his clothes. That should be weight enough. He would tie the package firmly with the rope once his use for it was over, and drop it all into the lake. Four feet out from the bank wouldn’t cause too much of a splash, he hoped; the bundle should sink as far as his belt had travelled.