Soul Intent (38 page)

Her face tightened. “What else would it be?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it’s guilt. Or regret.”

She raised the pistol from my chest to my head. “Guilt from what? I didn’t steal the gold—they did.”

It’s not easy staying rational around a crazy old lady who’s pointing a pistol at your head. “Maybe you’re sorry that you couldn’t save your father,” I said. “Or your grandmother. Or Ned. Or James. Maybe you’re thinking little Jamie would have enjoyed getting to know his father.”

“How dare you presume to understand my motives?” Her voice trembled.

“I’d like to understand,” I said. “Do you really think if you get your gold trust established, it will somehow make up for your past mistakes?”

Her eyes flashed. “Stick with your day job, Scott, and stop trying to analyze me. I’m warning you.”

I pointed at her pistol. “Why are you aiming that thing at me?”

“Because you turned against me—you tricked me out of my gold.”

“We spent your gold to save the lives of those willing to die for your cause—who were shot through no fault of their own,” I said. “Isn’t that exactly how you said you wanted to spend it?”

We stood silently for another minute, glaring at each other.

I pointed with my free hand at the old SS officer. “These miserable old Nazis are not worth dying for.”

We stood for what seemed forever. Finally she nodded and lowered her pistol. “You’re right, Scott. They’re not worth dying for.” She wiped her eyes and put on a small smile. “I am so sorry.”

I took a step toward her, and she half fell, half collapsed into me. I hugged her with my free arm while I kept my pistol trained on the old man.

She squeezed me back fiercely. “Thank you,” she whispered.

I kissed her old wrinkled cheek. “You’re a tough old bird.”

The two soldiers and I lowered our weapons, and they started talking very fast German with the
Untersturmführer
. I patted Madame Flora on the back.

Just then the truck’s engine roared. I turned and saw it jerk back and come to rest with its rear bumper against the furnace. Then Val gunned the engine, and the furnace and crucible tilted toward us.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. I waltzed Madame Flora out of the way. The two soldiers dropped their rifles and pulled back on the old Nazi’s wheelchair. When the furnace fell over with a crash and a shower of sparks, we all managed to avoid its path.

The remaining ten gallons of molten gold flowed out of the crucible like red-hot lava out of a volcano. It blazed a path to the center of the fire pit and formed a four foot wide puddle. The fire pit’s ashes floated on its orange surface and glowed like hot embers.

The two soldiers scrambled over to the truck doors, but Val and Archie hopped out and pointed their pistols at them. The soldiers raised their hands.

The old Nazi gave a hoarse cry and wheeled himself to the edge of the fire pit. He stared at the glowing gold puddle with his mouth wide open.

I unwrapped my arm from around Madame Flora’s waist, and she and I walked to the opposite edge of the fire pit.

I looked toward the truck. The two guards lay face down on the ground. Val and Archie stood over them and trained their pistols at their backs.

The old man glared at Madame Flora, his face twisted in anger. “You people are no more than clumsy animals,” he screamed. “The only value you have is your dirty bodies. I remember at Dachau how we froze your kind and then tried to thaw them out. Our leaders thought that intercourse with Gypsy girls was the best way to revive a frozen man, but they were wrong—you people were clumsy even in bed.”

Madame Flora stiffened. “You worked on the freezing experiments at Dachau?”

He nodded and spat onto the gold puddle, where it evaporated with a sizzle. “We used our prisoners to our Fuhrer’s glory,” he said. “Their hands built our weapons. Their bodies taught us how to save our pilots downed in the North Sea. And when we killed them, we sold their clothes, tanned their skins, and extracted their gold to pay for our Reich’s food and oil.”

Madame Flora marched around the fire pit, turned his wheelchair toward her, and put her hands on the chair’s arms. “You tortured men in medical experiments to save your own pilots?” she asked. “You ripped the gold out of their mouths to feed your soldiers?”

“Not men,
fraulein
. Animals.” He spat this out. “We exterminated you vermin to purify our country. I made sure we benefited as much as possible.”

Madame Flora stared at the old SS officer with wide-open eyes. She shook her finger not six inches from his nose. “Your extermination left me fatherless. My grandmother died of a broken heart because of you.”

He pointed right back at her. “You people are all the same. No matter how humanely we treated our inmates, they kept messing things up. They sabotaged the weapons, fooled the guards, and devised countless ways to escape.” He spat in her face. “You are one of them,
fraulein
—a good for nothing Gypsy animal who messes up any well-ordered plan.”

“I am proud to be one of them!” She let out a cry of fury and launched herself on top of him, her hands wrapped around his neck. The old Nazi fought back by pounding his arms on her back, but his blows seemed weak and ineffectual.

When she finally pulled back, the SS officer took a few heaving breaths. “I hope it was I who killed your father,” he hissed, and he spat at her again.

Madame Flora howled. She hooked the arm of the wheelchair and spun it around. She grabbed the handles and shoved the chair right at the puddle of molten gold.

Archie cried, “Flora, no!”

I tried to reach the chair but I wasn’t fast enough. The wheels hit the stones surrounding the fire pit, and the chair came to a sudden stop.

The old man must have reached out and grabbed Madame Flora’s arm as he was launched out of the chair, because they tumbled together toward the red-hot puddle. They let out wild screams when they landed in it, and their hands sunk in past their wrists. Their clothes burst into flames, and they collapsed face down into the gold. Their bodies writhed for a minute, and then they lay still to our stunned silence.

sixty-two

Present Day

Dubnik Mine, Slovakia

The two soldiers, Archie, Val, and I stood in a ring around the fire pit as we watched the gold puddle dull from orange to yellow. We had retrieved Madame Flora and the
Untersturmführer
and covered what was left of them with blankets from the back of the black truck. Somehow by mutual consent we all had placed our weapons in a pile next to the fire pit.

Val grabbed my hand. “I was only trying to cause a distraction,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”

“They hurt themselves,” I said. Then I turned to the soldier who spoke some English. “Our friends will arrive soon. You two need to leave now.”

He looked at the now-solid puddle of gold and then back at me.

I shook my head. “My deal was with your boss.”

He glanced at the barrel containing the five golden Buddhas and let out a sigh.

“Take your furnace and your
Untersturmführer
,” I said. “He’s got plenty of gold on him.”

He spoke in German to the other soldier, and the two loaded the old man’s body into their truck. They took their furnace and the iron molds, then they climbed up front and drove out of the clearing.

As soon as they were gone, Archie knelt down next to Madame Flora’s body and peeled back the blanket. A thick layer of gold coated her front side, and her bare back was charred where her clothes had burned off.

Archie reached up and stroked her gold-coated face. He mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

I knelt down next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” I asked gently.

He turned to me and smiled. “I loved her, you know. I always did, right from the first time I saw her.”

I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat.

He traced her cheek with his fingertips. “At least we had the last two days together.”

I squeezed his shoulder.

“She killed herself chasing this gold,” he said.

“I suppose that chasing it gave her life meaning,” I said. “And she showed the strength to give it up at the end.”

He nodded.

We knelt in silence for another minute. Then Archie gave another caress to her cheek and pulled the blanket over her body. “Good-bye, my love,” he whispered.

Soul Identity’s Budapest team arrived in two green vans thirty minutes later. They were efficient in cleaning up the site. Val and I gave them directions to the bat hole, and they retrieved our equipment and the bodies of the five Nazi soldiers. They chopped the now-solid puddle of gold into smaller pieces, and they loaded them and four of the five golden Buddhas into the first van.

We placed Madame Flora’s remains into the back of that van. Archie sat next to her body, and Val and I got in front. We left the Budapest team and drove with the gold down to the hospital to see George, Sue, and the twins. I used my mobile phone to call Chief Dara Sabol. I told her to get her police officers to the clearing and recover the five dead Nazis. She stopped questioning me when I mentioned the million dollar golden Buddha we had left as payment for her troubles.

We headed up to the hospital’s recovery room. George and Sue had both survived surgery, and both their prognoses were good.

Rose and Marie were understandably shocked at the news of their grandmother’s death. Archie, Val, and I spent the next several hours sitting quietly with them, reliving moments from Madame Flora’s life.

The girls cried when I told them how she finally relinquished her claim on the gold, then cheered when I related how she stood up to the SS officer’s vile comments.

Rose looked at Marie. “Grandma died exactly the way she lived.”

Marie nodded back. “Passionate to the end.”

epilogue

Present Day

Sterling, Massachusetts

Archibald Morgan, executive overseer of Soul Identity, walked to the podium and adjusted the microphone. “We, the friends and family of Flora Drabarni,” he said, “are here to celebrate her life in this memorial service.” He gave Rose and Marie a sad smile.

Val and I sat in the front row of the Soul Identity headquarters auditorium in Sterling, Massachusetts. The twins and their mother sat across the aisle on our right. George and Sue sat next to us on our left.

George rested his new cane against his leg and caught my eye. “A little bird told me that Mr. Morgan is making a big announcement,” he whispered a little too loudly.

Ann Blake reached forward and swatted him with her program. “Don’t ruin the surprise, George.”

I turned around to smile at her and Berry, and I saw the auditorium jam-packed with people—more than had come to Bob’s centuriat party the year before.

Val and I had just returned from my and Ned’s soul line collection in the depositary, where I had placed one of the opals, Ned’s Soul Identity card, and my rendering of the story Madame Flora had told. Val decided to keep the other opal as a souvenir of our adventure in Slovakia.

I grabbed her hand as Archie unfolded a small stack of papers, laid them on the podium, and adjusted his glasses. The auditorium went silent, and he cleared his throat and began to read aloud.

“On April 15, 1929, Matko and Anja Drabarni celebrated the birth of their only child, Flora,” he said. “This was in the Istrian peninsula of what was then Italy, and is now Croatia. In 1943, Flora and her grandmother Violca, one of our Soul Identity readers, went into hiding after the Nazis sent the rest of their family to a concentration camp. They scavenged in the woods until the war’s end, and in 1946 they came at our bidding to Nuremberg. After Flora and Violca helped us conclude a delicate mission, they moved to Sterling.”

Val leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Delicate mission?”

“The understatement of the year,” I whispered back.

Archie looked around the auditorium. “I see several of you who can remember working here with Flora. She stayed full-time until 1949, and then left to start her own business and become a recruiter for us.”

I looked behind me and saw a few older people nod their heads and smile.

Archie cleared his throat. “In 1947, Flora’s only child Jamie was born. Some of you may remember Jamie running around our office, and you may even know that Jamie was killed in Vietnam.”

More heads nodded. Archie pulled out a handkerchief, then took off and polished his glasses. He resettled them on his face and leaned forward on his elbows. “What you may not know,” he said gravely, “is that I am Jamie’s father.”

For a moment you could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium, but then the air filled with the buzzing of excited whispers.

Archie waited for a moment, his face beaming. Then he chuckled and said, “I was surprised to find out as well, but when Flora broke the news to me last week, I was pleased as punch to meet my new family.”