Soul Intent (16 page)

Archibald picked it up and read it. A smile crossed his face. “You did it, Flora.”

She had, but at what cost? She shook this thought from her head and forced out a smile. “It was James’s plan.”

But he didn’t seem to hear. He let out a whoop and jumped out of his chair. He rushed around the desk and hugged Flora, then gave her a big kiss.

Without even thinking about it, Flora twisted free, lifted her arm, and slapped Archibald Morgan as hard as she could.

His hand flew up to his cheek.

Flora took a step back. “Damn you for what you made me do!” she cried. She turned and ran from the room.

An hour later the overseer knocked on Flora’s open door.

“Go away,” she said. She lay on her bed facing him.

“Flora, we must talk.”

She turned and faced the wall.

After a minute, she heard him close the door. Relieved, she turned over, and bit back a scream when she saw him standing over her.

“Flora, I must speak with you.”

She sighed. “If you must.”

He sat down on the chair and put his hands on his knees. “I owe you an apology.”

“You owe me your career.” Maybe even his life.

At that he was silent. Then he nodded. “You are correct. I do. Your actions have saved me my job, and I am in your debt, Flora.”

At last he acknowledged this. Too bad it came too late.

They sat quiet for a long moment. Then he cleared his throat. “Soon everything will go to the depositary, and soon we will go to America.”

“Can you show me the gold?” she asked.

He smiled. “You asked just in time. I have not yet sealed the final barrel.”

She got up, and she grabbed her purse. Maybe she’d get a chance to drug him again.

Downstairs, Archibald pulled out his chain necklace and selected the larger of the keys. He bent toward the basement door and unlocked it. He pulled on the door handle. It screeched as it opened.

Flora followed the overseer down the stairs and closed the door behind her.

When they reached the bottom, he flipped on a light switch and extinguished his flashlight.

Twelve wooden barrels the size of beer kegs and three long and narrow wooden boxes stood against the far wall. A desk and chair sat in front. The overseer walked over to the last keg and slid off its wooden cover.

The keg was full of sawdust. He brushed some aside and pulled out a canvas-wrapped, rectangle-shaped object. He grunted as he extended it toward her. “Careful, it is heavy.”

Flora grabbed it with both hands, and was surprised at the weight when the overseer let go. She hefted it up over the desk and set it down. It made a dull clink.

Archibald unwrapped the canvas, and the yellow metal gleamed in the light. The bar was about eight inches long, three inches wide, and two inches deep.

It was hard to believe something so small weighed almost twenty-eight pounds. Flora rubbed the cool metal with just her fingertips. She traced the serial number and date with her fingers, but she avoided the German eagle and swastika. She closed her eyes and thought that part of her father could be inside the bar.

Not just her father, but parts of each of the millions of slaughtered Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, priests, and prisoners of war were entombed in that bar of gold. She felt a buzzing in her head, and she swayed with dizziness.

She opened her eyes. The buzzing stopped. Archibald Morgan stood before her with a solemn expression on his face.

“You can still do the right thing,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “The right thing is to deposit Mr. Goering’s belongings.”

She pointed at the wooden boxes. “Those papers are his belongings. But you and I both know he stole the gold.”

He shook his head. “I am sorry, Flora. The gold must go to the depositary.”

She grabbed his arm. “You have the power to do something great. Please don’t let that monster steal the gold.” But even as she said the words, she realized she had lost. Archibald Morgan was a man of facts and reason, and she knew he would not be swayed by her emotional arguments.

He gave her a sad smile as he wrapped the bar in its canvas. “I have the power to do my job, Flora.”

She watched him bury the bar back in the sawdust. He placed the lid on the keg and nailed it down. He ran a length of red tape through holes drilled above the lid in each of the keg’s staves. When he finished, the tape’s crisscrosses resembled a spider web suspended an inch above the center of the lid.

The overseer picked up a large metal sealing tool and two small tablets of wax. He held the wax over both sides of the center of the tape, where it all came together, then squeezed it with the tool.

When he opened the tool’s jaws, the wax remained, attached to the middle of the red tape. “Now we are ready for the depositary team,” he said.

As he turned around, Flora was ready for him with her hypodermic syringe. She jabbed it into his arm and depressed the plunger.

He looked at her and at the syringe.

“Sit down before you fall down,” she said. She guided him to the chair, and he collapsed into it. The sealing tool hit the floor with a clang.

After a minute he opened his eyes, smiled at her, and then closed them again.

Had she overdosed him? “Mr. Morgan, are you all right?”

“Call me Archibald,” he said softly.

The dose was fine. “Archibald, when is the depositary team coming?”

“Six days from now, at five in the afternoon,” he said. “I wanted them here sooner, but they said it would take them that long to verify Mr. Goering’s signature on the release.”

“They’re depositing everything?”

He nodded. “Then I get to go home.”

“To much acclaim, I would imagine.” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

He smiled. “Yes, this will cement my position as next in line for executive overseer.” He leaned forward. “And then I will do some real good.”

“What will you do?” Despite her disgust at his self-serving decisions, she was interested in his plans.

“Transform Soul Identity out of politics and into a smooth-running business,” he said. “There will be no more currying favor, no more plots, and no more subterfuge. I will bring peace to the organization.”

If she was honest with herself, it did sound good. She could picture Archibald at the helm of Soul Identity, ruling with a firm but fair hand.

And she’d be right there with him, helping him, guiding him. With her passion and his vision they’d fight together against the evils of the world, and they’d live together happily ever after.

He reached out and grabbed her hands. “I owe my success of this mission to you, Flora. You are my heroine, and I love you.”

And then, thinking she could replace her nightmares of the past few months with his dreams of a better tomorrow, she pulled her hands free and wrapped her arms around his neck. Their lips crushed together, seeking each other hungrily.

She invested herself in that kiss, and as he returned it, she felt her frustration and pain and anger melt away, replaced by a raw hunger. Her body, shamed by Private Steven Lee, responded in new and urgent ways.

Archibald pulled his head back and stared in her eyes. “Flora…”

And then she was on the desk but under him, and then they were fumbling with each others’ clothes. A minute later she cried out with joy as he filled her. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him in even closer. He was the man she wanted; this was the love she needed.

They held each other when it was over, Archibald stroking her face, Flora kissing his hands. She wished the moment would last forever.

She sat up with a start. How many minutes had it been? Too long, she was sure. The thiopental might have worn off. She threw off his arm and searched for her purse.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Getting something,” she said. “Relax for a minute.”

She refilled the syringe with the remainder of the serum and injected it into his arm. Archibald’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed back on the desk.

She stood over him and cupped his face in her hands and covered it with kisses. “My sweet, sweet overseer,” she said.

But only sweet while drugged. Flora knew by now that Archibald Morgan was more interested in his career at Soul Identity than he was in her.

And to be fair, Flora was more interested in fixing the wrongs of the world than she was in Archibald Morgan. So she took her undergarments and wiped him clean, got them both dressed, and as he slowly woke up, she used everything Baba had taught her about the power of suggestion to help the overseer forget what had happened.

thirty

Present Day

Sterling, Massachusetts

Madame Flora gave us a rueful smile. “Did you see that coming?”

She and Archie doing the wild thing: yes. She and Archie creating one of the world’s great unsolved mysteries: no. “I can’t believe you guys helped Goering kill himself,” I said.

“He only swallowed the cyanide a few hours before he’d have hung,” she said.

“And I can’t believe Mr. Morgan had you sleep with Private Lee,” Val said.

 “It wasn’t so bad,” she said. “Besides, if I hadn’t done it with him, I never would have had the nerve to do it with Archibald.”

I scratched my head. “Are you sure he has no residual memories from that night?”

“I’m sure.” She smiled. “If he did, he would’ve told me by now, and I would’ve made him pay his share of child support.”

Whoa—I didn’t see that coming either. “He got you pregnant?”

“With my only child. Jamie.” She sighed. “Archibald’s only child, too, I would imagine.”

“Only Mr. Morgan doesn’t know he’s a father,” Val said.

Madame Flora shook her head. “And you can’t tell him, either.”

“Are you sure Archie’s the father?” I asked. “What about Private Lee?”

“Lee used his US Army-supplied condoms,” she said. “My Jamie was definitely Archibald’s son.”

“Does he know who his father is?” I asked.

“Jamie died as a journalist in Vietnam forty years ago. I never told him.”

“Something’s not adding up,” Val said. “How can Rose and Marie be your grandchildren?”

“They’re really my great-granddaughters,” Madame Flora said. “When Jamie died in Vietnam, his wife ran away and left me their little girl. I raised her as my own daughter.”

“And she’s the twins’ mother?” I asked.

Madame Flora nodded. “They don’t know about Archibald either.”

“When do you plan to tell them?” Val asked.

“When the time is right.”

“What are you waiting for?” I asked.

She smiled. “For us to recover the gold.”

Somehow I knew she was going to say that. “So you did find a way to hide it,” I said.

Madame Flora laughed. “Poor Archibald really thought he deposited it, but I fooled him after all.”

thirty-one

October 1946

Nuremberg, Occupied Germany

Flora waited in the lobby of the Grand Hotel for Major Ned Callaghan to come down from his room.

Baba had been sure that Callaghan, her grandfather’s best friend and fellow soldier from the Great War, would be happy to help Flora. “Old Ned will enjoy taking the mickey out of Soul Identity,” she said.

Flora could only hope Baba was right. Without a fake depositary team to receive the gold, her plan would fail.

She looked up as a middle-aged man with a cane approached her. “Stone the bloody crows, you’re the spitting image of your grandfather,” he said. “Only much prettier.” He passed the cane to his left hand and stuck out his right. “Ned Callaghan.”

Flora shook his hand. “Flora Drabarni, and thank you for meeting me.”

“No worries.” He looked around the lobby. “You up for a waltz around town? There’s too many ears here.”

She nodded, and they headed out into the afternoon sun. The day was bright and the air crisp. They walked to the Gooseherder’s fountain and sat down. Flora tried not to think about last week’s meetings here with Private Lee.

“Something nagging at you?” Callaghan asked.

Flora sighed. “Just some bad thoughts.”

He nodded. “The whole continent is buggered with them.” He laid the cane across his lap. “Your grandmother said you needed my help.”

“I do.” Now how to start? “Major Callaghan, Baba said you were friends with my grandfather.”

“Aye, his best mate,” he said. “Your grandfather was a top class fella. I knew him since we mined opals together in White Cliffs.”

“Were you there when he died?”

He nodded and looked into the distance. “We were digger mates in the first war.”