As with their hurried trip from Trieste to Innsbruck, Tanner had no timely transportation choices. The next flight to Graz, the largest city near Kulm am Zirbitz and the village closest to the Neumvield See, wasn’t until mid-afternoon. If he took the Mercedes, pushed the autobahn’s generous speed limits, and didn’t get himself lost in the labyrinth of Alpine roads between here and the Neumvield See, he could make the trip in three hours.
It took four, and would have taken longer still if not for the Mercedes’s powerful engine, as Tanner’s route took him deeper and higher into Austria’s eastern Alps with each passing mile.
It was shortly before four when he pulled into Kulm am Zirbitz. The sign on the outskirts—“Hohe 2678 Meters”—put the village at a dizzying nine thousand feet above sea level. Tanner had little trouble believing it as he stared at the peaks, jagged spires of black granite framed by snow-encrusted ridges. The lower slopes were an unbroken carpet of pine and spruce. Here and there Briggs caught glimpses of rivers, veins of silver-blue threading their way through the forests and into the valleys beyond.
As Kulm am Zirbitz was all but unknown to anyone outside of the Steiermark province, Oaken’s search for local amenities turned up little of interest to the typical tourist, but Tanner’s visit was anything but typical. As it turned out, the village was a favorite spot of local bergfisch, or mountain fish, a special breed of divers who preferred Alpine lakes to the oceans. According to Oaken, this village of only twenty-two hundred souls hosted three dive shops.
With daylight rapidly dwindling, Briggs chose the first shop he passed, found a parking spot, and walked inside. A middle-aged man with pale blue eyes and the sloping shoulders of a swimmer came out from behind the counter and smiled broadly. “Guten tag.!”
“Guten tag,” Tanner replied.
“Ah, English?”
Tanner smiled. “Am I that bad?”
“Not at all, not at all. How can I help you?”
Tanner had decided against an elaborate story to cover his search for Istvan’s train. It was probably a draw for local divers, so his interest was unlikely to arouse suspicion. Realizing this, Tanner was curious how Istvan’s canisters had remained undiscovered this long. Perhaps they hadn’t. Perhaps they were at this moment sitting on some diver’s souvenir shelf at home, that pair of curious cylinders they hadn’t yet gotten around to inspecting. The thought of it sent a tingle through Tanner’s scalp.
“I was hoping to do a little camping tonight, then some diving tomorrow. From what I hear, you’re the man to see about rentals.”
The man’s smile broadened with the compliment. “Very kind.” He extended his hand. “I’m Jurgen. What kind of equipment do you need?”
“Just diving. I have my own camping gear.”
The owner asked him a series of questions, trying to narrow his needs, before settling on a diving rig. As the owner gathered it from the back, he called, “Where are you headed?”
“Neumvield See.”
“Good choice. Do you need directions? I have good maps.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Tanner replied. “In fact, maybe you can help me with something else. A buddy of mine from Graz told me about this train that went into the lake a few years ago…”
Jurgen walked out of the back room lugging a scuba tank; he slid it into the oversized duffel with the rest of the gear. “The Geist Zug.”
It took a moment for Tanner to translate the words: “The Ghost Train?”
“That’s what we call it around here. Officially it was the Salzburg-Paal number seven. The lake had started eroding a section of track ballast and none of the inspectors caught it. The whole section finally just turned to quicksand. When the train passed over it, the ties gave way. The railroad people thought she grazed the landward slope, started rocking, then rolled over and went in.”
“Survivors?”
“Oh, no. They guessed the time from when she started rocking to when she rolled over was twenty seconds. She sunk like a stone. Plus, it was December. At that altitude, the water runs at about zero Celsius.”
Thirty-two Fahrenheit, Tanner thought. The point where water is more slush than liquid. He tried to imagine the scene: the screams of the passengers, the pounding of the train’s wheels on the tracks, the shrieking of steel … And then the slow, unrecoverable roll toward the lake’s surface, icy water pouring through the windows, filling the passageways as the train spiraled into the deep.
“What I wouldn’t give to see her,” Jurgen said. “They took some pictures of her. She’s sitting perfectly upright, you know. Like she’s still chugging along the tracks. Ach, that would be a dive to remember.”
“Why haven’t you gone?” Tanner asked.
“Your friend didn’t tell you? The site’s off limits. Verboten by the government.”
“Why?”
“The spring after she went in, the railroad sent some divers down to survey her. About twenty minutes later they popped up five miles into the lake — dead.”
“Undertow,” Tanner said.
“Exactly so. It sucked them straight to the bottom and dragged them for five miles before letting them go. They were beaten to a pulp. So what did the government do? They sent a team from the navy. Two more divers go down, two more pop up. There’s an underground river, you see. It pumps into the lake and circles the shore like a …” The owner hesitated, then made a circling motion with his fingertip.
“Whirlpool?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“How fast?”
“Four, five knots. No one goes near it. Even the bergfisch stay away, and they’re verruckt—crazy! Besides, since no one survived and no bodies were ever recovered. It has become a Heiligtwn—a sacred place. People say, let them rest where they died. It would be almost like grave robbing, you see?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not thinking about—”
Tanner shook his head. “No. I’m not that stupid.”
Oh, but you are, Briggs thought. Without proof to the contrary, he wasn’t willing to believe the Salzburg-Paal’s reputation had deterred Svetic in his search for Kestrel. Somehow Tanner doubted a local ghost story would frighten off a man as driven as Svetic.
Now the question was, How did he make the dive and not end up like the four divers who’d gone before him?
“How deep is the water where she went in?” he asked.
“The deepest part is about two hundred fifty meters — for you, eight hundred feet.”
“Eight hundred feet?” Tanner repeated. “But—”
“No, no, you misunderstand. The train hit a shelf at about sixty feet and stopped rolling. There’s a nice memorial at the spot she went in. The railroad stopped using that line about six years ago. I can draw you a map.”
Jurgen sketched the map, went over it with Tanner, then finished loading the gear into the duffel. As Tanner hefted the bag onto his shoulder and headed for the door, Horgan said, “It’s funny, you know, how thing’s happen.”
Tanner turned back. “How so?”
“No one around here talks about the Salzburg-Paal. It’s been years since anyone’s asked. Now in less than a week I’ve told the story twice.”
“Pardon me?”
“I had another customer — three of them, in fact—”
“When, how long ago?”
“Three, four days.”
Briggs forced a smile. “I’m sure you talked them out of it.”
“I hope so,” Jurgen replied, then shrugged. “Well, at least I haven’t heard of any bodies popping up on the Neumvield.”
Too bad, Tanner thought. If these mystery customers had in fact been Svetic and his men, a few bodies on the Neumvield might have solved his biggest problem. Now he’d have to find out for himself.