“Yes,” he replied after a moment.
“How?”
“What’s it matter?”
“I want to stop him.”
“I know what you want from me. But I can’t talk about it. They swore me to secrecy, said it was the only way to keep die Glocke from falling into the wrong hands. Kept my word for over thirty years and I’m not going to break it now.”
“Maybe that worked before,” I said. “But Chase and his men are searching these tunnels for die Glocke. It’s only a matter of time before they find it.”
He gave me a long look. “You need to hear a story. It’s not…”
Suddenly, he coughed, wheezing for air. I slapped him on the back. He sounded horrible and I knew that his time was near.
“…my story,” he continued. It’s…it’s compiled from scraps I picked up from the Sand Demons. Back in 1976.”
“The Sand Demons?”
Sweat poured from his forehead. “I’ll…I’ll get to them. But first I need to tell you about the war. A Nazi physicist named Hartek…a real brainy guy…he worked at some top-secret facility.”
“I found his laboratory. Apparently, you did too, since you recovered one of his gold bars.” I reached into my pocket and removed the badge. “This was in his desk.”
“That’s the…”
He gasped, spitting blood all over himself. My heart wrenched as he lapsed into another coughing fit. His fate was sealed. There was nothing I could do to help him. The only question that remained was whether or not he would finish his story in time.
“Stay with me,” I said. “You were talking about the badge.”
“It’s a…a Golden Party Badge. Given to the original Nazi Party members. Hartek…he wasn’t one of them. He got his because of die Glocke.”
“What is die Glocke?”
“The Bell.”
“The Bell?”
“Die Glocke…is…German for the Bell.”
I recalled the bell-shaped object from Hartek’s journal. “What can you tell me about it?”
“Saw it only once. Looked like…like a bell. A big bell.”
“What did it do?”
“I…”
His eyes closed. I tried to speak but my mouth was dry. My hands grabbed his shoulders and shook him vigorously.
Hold on Ghost…just a little longer…
His eyes fluttered open. “I…the Bell…don’t know what it did.” He swallowed. “Some kind of particle accelerator I think. The Nazi’s…they called it a wunderwaffe.”
“Wunderwaffe?”
“Wonder weapon. To turn around the war. Fortunately, they ran out of…out of time. SS bastards didn’t want the Allies getting the technology. Murdered over sixty scientists.”
“But Hartek survived.”
He nodded. “SS spared him. His Bell…it was going to help them build a Fourth Reich. But our guys got to Hartek first. Brought him here. He slipped away a few years later…built a lab to continue his research…in secret. Hired a couple of kids…Cook. Gretchen. And Rictor…Sam Rictor.”
“There were only two bodies in the lab.”
“Rictor betrayed Hartek.” Jenson coughed and his voice became scratchy. “Killed the two kids. Kidnapped Hartek with his two brothers. They…they…stole the Bell. Planned to sell it to the highest bidder…Jack Chase. Sand Demons…they found out about it. And they…”
His eyes closed. Gritting my teeth, I shook him again.
His lids opened ever so slightly. “What…?”
“The Sand Demons. You were just about to tell me about the Sand Demons.”
“The Sand Demons. They were sandhogs…subway miners. They liked Hartek, even helped build his lab. They learned…about Rictor. Came to the rescue….”
“What happened to Hartek?” I asked. “And where’s the Bell? Did they destroy it?”
Jenson’s voice suddenly grew feeble. “Didn’t destroy it…couldn’t destroy it…don’t know why. Sand Demons put the Bell into the Omega…there’s a tunnel although it doesn’t look that way. Oh, and don’t forget the gold…it’s the foundation…the foundation of Hartek’s…”
His eyes closed.
His raspy breathing slowed, then stopped.
I shook him violently.
But he never awakened.
Chapter 31
“Is he…?”
I nodded. “He’s dead.”
Beverly paused a few seconds. “What do you think?”
“Jenson mentioned that the Bell was some sort of primitive particle accelerator. Does that sound familiar to you?”
“No.”
“He also talked about some group called the Sand Demons. And there was something about the Bell being in the Omega. And a tunnel that didn’t look that way. I don’t know. Maybe he was just delirious.”
“Let’s assume that’s not the case.” She scrunched up her forehead in thought. “So, a third assistant named Rictor decided to steal the Bell and sell it to Jack. Obviously, he wouldn’t want Jack to steal it out from under him. So, he kept the laboratory’s location a secret.”
I stood up. “That’s right. Then Rictor killed the other assistants and took the Bell with the help of his brothers. But before he could sell it, the Sand Demons intervened. That explains why Chase never got his hands on the Bell. The Sand Demons stole it.”
“And did what with it?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? Unfortunately, that’s when Jenson started babbling.”
“Did you catch what he said about not being able to destroy the Bell?”
I heard the edge in her voice. “Maybe he misspoke. After all, that’s when he started to get delirious. Anyways, it’s a moot point unless we actually find the Bell. And unfortunately, we’re no closer now than when we started.”
“What about that journal you found? Maybe it can tell us where the Sand Demons took the Bell.”
“It’s nothing but observations and equations. Anyways, Hartek left the journal behind. So, even if he knew where the Bell went, he never got a chance to write it down.”
“What do you think happened to Hartek?”
“We know that Rictor kidnapped him,” I replied. “As to what happened afterward, well, I have no idea.”
She sighed. “We’re out of leads. I say we go back to the tunnels and keep an eye on Jack.”
I stood still for a few seconds, mulling over our options. Finally, I cleared my throat. “Maybe it’s time we went to the police.”
“If you do, you’ll end up with a bullet in the back of your head. Jack’s untouchable. Believe me, I should know.”
I looked around the yard, seeing the sad, still corpses and the meager possessions scattered about the space. My gaze lingered on Jenson. It struck me that he seemed to have a troubled past, one which drove him to become a hermit. He existed outside the mainstream. Respectable people shunned him. In short, he was like me, post-Explorer’s Society.
The Explorer’s Society was as much a part of me as my college education, my days as an urban archaeologist, and my memories. But I was now an outsider to its hallowed halls, something I doubted would ever change.
I knew I could never fully return to that world. The past three years had seen to that. I was a different person now, irrevocably changed in ways I had barely begun to contemplate.
Yet, I could never fully leave that world behind either. It was too much a part of my past, too much a part of me. Regardless of where fate led me, I would always have one foot within the Explorer’s Society and one foot outside it.
As I mulled over our situation, my mind suddenly focused. I knew what I had to do. I needed to stop thinking like a respectable urban archaeologist and start thinking like a treasure hunter.