The flight into Houston took almost three hours. It was enough time to look out the window, see what the world looked like when you aren’t in it in person. Short but quality enough to take stock of her life.
It’s been two years since the day her lover, John, died. In that time she had progressed a lot. She had become an alcoholic, had almost gotten fired from a job that brought her so much satisfaction. She sighed.
Bulbous clouds drifted below the wings of the airplane. The sky beyond the clouds was blue and very beautiful — everything that her life had been opposite of in the past two years. All because of a deal gone bad. She closed her eyes and tried not remember.
As a distraction she opened her personal computer and checked her mail. She glanced through old emails. There were those from the office, co-workers wishing her well. Two from her boss seeking information about the support group he recommended.
Olivia pouted at the emails. Resentment followed the feeling of anger she felt for Rob Cohen, her boss.
There was one from Professor Peter Williams.
“Olivia, I’m setting up a meeting with the faculty here. Harald’s box is Pandora and we are opening it. We should have an expedition up and running around Antarctica. What do you think?”
A shiver of excitement tingled the tips of her fingers.
Expedition? Antarctica? All of that crunchy ice under her feet, white all around?
Things were progressing fast.
If there was a secret lab under the ice there, then someone must want it to stay concealed. Underneath the elation, she felt apprehension.
The taxi drove her through Texas State Highway 249. The road stretched unknown in front of her, like most of her future.
Soon they came into the fairly large town of Willowbrook. Quaint houses set off the road, long and narrow streets with trees and liberal looking people on the streets. It was a perfect place for a German scientist to hide out.
The taxi stopped in from of a semi-urban house with a short driveway that ended at a garage beside it. Olivia steeled herself and wished she had a couple of drinks before coming here.
She gazed up and down the street. A man walked his dog down the road. He wore earbuds and sunglasses. He passed Olivia without so much as a glance.
Olivia walked up toward the house.
The house had what appeared to be an attic at the top. Flower pots hung from the ledge in front of the house. There were aloe plants in pots by the patio. The house had just been painted white recently, she could tell. There was no one about but she heard playful cries behind the house.
She decided to ring the bell instead of going around.
She rang twice before she heard the sound of flip-flops inside the house.
Olivia stepped back to let the screen door swing out a centimeter. A very pretty lady appeared. She wore almost a thousand hairpins in her auburn hair. Her face was bare of makeup. She wore a red shirt over blue denim. Slanting eyes questioned her.
“Hi?”
Olivia tried a smile on. “Is this where Mr. Robert Lehmann lives?”
Hesitation. She stepped back just an inch. “Who are you?”
“My name is Olivia Newton, I’m a journalist with the Miami Daily. I’d like to have a word with Mr. Robert Lehmann.”
The lady — she looked like a wife to Olivia — hesitated, took in Olivia’s appearance and then backed into the house like a cat. She reminded Olivia of Smokey. Only difference being, Smokey was a dude.
Olivia checked her appearance in the screen door glass. Her denim jacket had yellow paint stains on it from the last time she painted her apartment. And her hair, well, it was everywhere on her head. She breathed into her palm and grimaced.
Damn whiskey.
“Hello there.”
She turned around and there was a man, definitely in his nineties, but well used and looking younger, standing with one booted leg on the small steps.
“Mr. Lehmann?”
“Yes, I understand you are a reporter.”
“A journalist, actually.”
“Same difference,” he growled.
He had a full head of white hair, bushy black eyebrows, and a nose so thin it was almost invisible on his long face. His eyes were piercing grey. He had a mouth that looked ready to smile any second. Somehow, this man had learned to speak without a trace of his German accent.
Olivia liked him instantly.
“Welcome to Willowbrook.”
Olivia took his hand and shook it. It was soft, and warm with health. He climbed the steps and joined Olivia on the porch.
“What is this about?”
“Harald Kruger,” she said. “That name ring a bell?”
“Should it?”
Olivia considered her next words, but the old man was smiling already. “Now that you mention it, it does ring a bell. I saw a small report about it in the papers.”
He opened the door. “Come in, please. Have some coffee.”
10
The house was bare except for two paintings on opposite walls, and a set of chairs that matched the married colored walls. A small hall led off to what must be a kitchen and left it broke into what should be rooms.
The pictures on empty shelves showed that the lady that answered the door was Lehmann's daughter-in-law. The husband had Lehmann’s nose and full hair. His eyes were colder, almost sinister.
The lady, her name according to Lehmann, was Kendall, from Mississippi, brought a proper coffee. Olivia gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled shyly and quickly herded two snooping boys out the back door.
“Now, can I call you Olivia?”
“Yes.”
“And if you don’t mind, I have some vodka too.”
Olivia beamed at him. “You are my kind of granddaddy, Mr. Lehmann.”
Lehmann leaned in, lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I have a full bottle of vodka stashed somewhere in my room. My son, Gary, forbids me.”
“Then you should listen to him, sir.”
Lehmann grinned; his face radiated with it.
“Now, tell me what you want to hear,” he said.
Olivia let the confusing sentence pass. “I have here some documents from a box left by the deceased, Harald Kruger. He was a scientist in Peenemunde back when you worked there during the war. Do you by any chance know him?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Olivia checked the eyes. Basic psychology, the pupils remained dilated. She lingered on Lehmann’s face. No change.
She gave the man the documents.
“Please, I need your opinion of those documents.” She handed them over.
Lehmann riffled through them. His forehead creased in concentration, his face colored. He sighed.
“Such a long time. The past is one son of a bitch that doesn’t stay dead.” He looked at Olivia. “These are authentic German documents. I feel nostalgic right now.”
Olivia nodded in sympathy. Another day, she would grill this pops about life as a scientist in embattled Germany. But not today.
Finally, Lehmann said, “They are most definitely authentic.”
He handed the documents back. Olivia removed the box from her bag. She watched Lehmann’s reaction as she did. There was only mellow curiosity.
She spread the contents on the table. Curiosity was replaced on Lehmann’s face with indifference.
“Any of these look familiar, Mr. Lehmann?”
He came closer. He picked each object one after the other and put it back. He examined the object — that was the size of a fist — longer.
“This could be a part of a machine, you know.”
“What sort of machine, do you suppose?”