He had come too far to see it end now. Only one course was open to him and he felt nothing but mild irritation at what he had to do.
“Of course,” Chester said. “One moment.”
“The officers and crew are worried that you might have a negative impression of our company,” Bauer said from the other side of the closed door, his English passable but stiff, his tone mild. Chester wasn’t fooled. “I have some gifts,” the German continued, “pens and stationery for you as souvenirs of your flight.”
“Just leave them,” Bowie said as he made ready, knowing the next words and the next few seconds were critical.
“I would prefer to give them to you personal—”
That was all he needed to hear. They wanted into his cabin to steal the safe. Even as the last word hung unfinished in the air, Chester Bowie used what little strength the fever had left him to wrench open the sliding door and grab the German by the lapels of his black uniform jacket. He ignored the flurry of papers that spilled from Bauer’s hands, and the sheaf of pens that fell to the deck, and yanked the officer into the cabin.
Bauer’s only attempt at defense was a startled grunt. Bowie smashed him into the little ladder that allowed access to the upper bunk bed. And as the officer began to fall Bowie leapt on his back. He jammed his knee into the hollow at the base of Bauer’s head. When they hit the deck their combined weight snapped the German’s fourth and fifth cervical vertebra hard enough to sever the spinal cord. Bauer went limp and his body settled, expelling his final breath.
Bowie closed the door. They would never let him off the zeppelin. Even though he’d lost them when he fled Africa, he should have known they’d somehow pick up his trail again. He’d been so clever by traveling right into the heart of the beast and taking their own ship home. No one could have foreseen him doing that. But somehow they had. They were unholy. Like all-seeing Gorgons who knew the routes of man.
The body took up nearly the entire floor. Chester had to step over it to grab a notebook he’d left on the writing desk. He picked up one of the pens Bauer had dropped. He had no idea how long it would be before the captain sent someone else to get the safe. No, Chester realized, next time there would be many of them, too many of them.
He wrote quickly, the pen racing across pages as if it knew what had to be written and only needed Bowie to hold nib to paper. He watched his hand flowing back and forth, not fully conscious of the words it was writing. In fifteen minutes he’d filled eight pages with tight script he could barely read. No one came, so he filled another ten, fleshing out his story as best he could remember it. He was sure this would be his last will and testament, all that remained of a life’s obsession — these words and the sample in the safe. But it was enough. He had tread in the footsteps of emperors. How many men could say they’d achieved that?
When he felt his hand had written enough, he dialed the safe’s combination and stuffed the pages inside, taking what he knew would be his last look at the sample he’d brought back from Africa. It resembled a cannonball, a perfectly round sphere he’d crafted with the help of a blacksmith in Khartoum. He closed the safe and wrote a name along with a cryptic message on the stiff cover of his notebook. He tore the remaining blank pages from the book’s spiral binding, and using the lace from his left boot he threaded the spiral and note to the safe’s handle. There was nothing else he could do but pray that whoever found the safe would deliver it to the addressee.
There was no need to write where the man lived. Everyone knew how to find him.
Chester Bowie rolled the corpse of Gunther Bauer under the bottom bunk, trying hard not to notice how the head flexed unnaturally on the broken stalk of his neck. Then he began to shove the safe from its corner, straining at first but seized with such desperation he quickly skidded it across the carpet. He opened the cabin door, peered up and down the hallway, and then shoved the hundred-pound safe toward the stairwell to B deck.
So far no one had spotted him, but downstairs he knew passengers and crew would be watching the New Jersey coastline scroll below the observation windows.
“May I help you with that, sir?”
Bowie froze. The voice came from behind him and he recognized it. From where? His mind raced. Cairo? Khartoum? Somewhere in the jungle? He whirled, ready to fight. Standing before him was the earnest young steward he’d yelled at on the second day of the crossing.
Werner Franz did everything in his power not to recoil when he saw the crazed look in Bowie’s eyes, the feral countenance of a cornered rat. While only fourteen, Werner considered himself an experienced airshipman and no lunatic passenger would crack his veneer of professionalism. “May I help you with that?”
“Yeah, er, yes, thank you,” Chester stammered. Surely this mere boy wasn’t the second wave of Nazis sent to steal the safe. The captain would send mechanics and other officers, big men who’d beat him and hide the safe until tonight’s return flight to Frankfurt.
“I overheard the captain,” Werner said earnestly as he began pulling at the safe. “The weather’s cleared enough for us to make a run for Lakehurst. With luck we’ll land a bit after seven. I guess you want to be the first off the ship, Herr Bowie?”
“Er, yes, that’s right. I have people waiting for me.”
“May I ask what is in the safe? The other stewards think you carry gemstones to a New York jeweler.”
“I, ah, no. These are, ah, papers for, ah, an important scientist.” Jesus! Why had he said that? The boy could just look at the note tied to the handle to see who the safe was intended for. He should have gone with the story the steward had given him.
“I see.” Clearly Werner Franz didn’t believe him, and for that Chester was thankful. He’d traveled five thousand miles and almost given away his secret in the final minutes.
Together they dragged the safe down the stairway, its weight making the light aluminum steps vibrate with every tread they descended.
“We will leave it out of the way,” Werner said and dragged the safe into the observation room. “Crewmen need to lower the retractable gangways when we land, and we can’t have them tripping over your safe.”
“This is fine,” Chester said, panting from the exertion. His face had blanched under his tropical tan and his legs trembled.
“I will help you with your safe when we land,” Werner offered.
Bowie said nothing and waved the boy away so he could sit back against the railing protecting the outwardly angled observation windows. In a moment his heart had slowed.
The airship was flying due south and it seemed that every passenger and crewman not on duty crowded the port windows. The starboard observation room was thankfully empty. Without wasting any more time, Chester braced his still-shaky legs and lifted the safe from the floor. Muscles in his back strained under the load and he heard more than felt some tear. Yet he did not drop his burden. He lifted it higher, pressing it against the wall for leverage until he had it balanced atop the railing.
Below the zeppelin, the ground was an endless sea of pine trees and sand broken only occasionally by lonely rutted roads. They crossed over a stretch of cultivated land with a farmhouse situated along the perimeter. The barn was dilapidated and the tractors and machinery looked like toys.
The windows in the opulent promenade on A deck could open but those on B deck were fixed in place. Chester leaned across the railing, his hands tight around the teetering safe, and waited for the right moment. The Hindenburg cruised at a thousand feet as she plowed through the overcast sky. Beyond the protective bulk of the airship’s hull, rain fell in gusting curtains. Now that Bowie was ready, the airship continued over desolate stretches of pine. From above, the canopy of trees was an impenetrable mass. His whole body shook with frustration. At any moment a passenger or crewman would come by and his plan would be ruined. From above on the A deck promenade he heard someone play a few notes on the lightweight Bluthner baby grand piano.