I’ve completed my work in Australia and will be leaving today. Will you be flying home with me, or are you planning on staying longer?
She thought about it for a moment.
She’d enjoyed the Australian coast and was happy to stay for another few days. Then, she responded with, Think I’ll stay until the end of the week. Will try to and see you again before returning to college. I’ve had fun. Thanks. Aliana.
When she turned the car key, the powerful, limited edition 6.2 Liter engine kicked into life, and she started making her way back into town.
She still couldn’t shake the image of the man she’d seen coming in from a dive earlier that morning. There were many good dive sites in the area, but she’d never heard of or seen one out near the point. Not that she knew the area all that well, having stayed there for barely a week. Still, there was something about him that seemed wrong — she just couldn’t figure out what it was.
She shook the thought from her mind as irrelevant and continued driving.
Her father had said that his work in Australia would take about three weeks. It was rare these days for her to follow him on these expeditions, but since she was on vacation from her studies, she’d decided to join him.
Aliana and her father had never quite seen eye to eye, but she knew that he loved her. He was driven by the power that accompanied the fortune he’d amassed, and consequently, he worked hard to maintain it. For Aliana, it was different. She became a microbiologist for two simple reasons, first, the science was fascinating, and second, it was a way to genuinely help people. At times, she wondered if her father even liked the fact that his discoveries had improved the lives of millions of people around the world.
Driving on, her thoughts returned to the man on the beach. She recalled his blue eyes, his kind face, and his disarming smile.
There was something about him that intrigued her. He certainly wasn’t there for the reason he had given her — of that much she was certain. A part of her felt ashamed to automatically discredit his story. The man had appeared to be friendly enough. He certainly hadn’t meant her any harm. The two of them had been the only two people on the beach. Upon reflection, she thought that she probably should have been at least a little frightened by him.
It might have been the scientist in her, but if she was going to be honest with her self-analysis, it was quite possible that her own father had fostered such distrust in her, not just because of the way he’d treated her mother while she was alive, but because her father had raised her to try to understand people, and people, she knew, were the most self-serving creatures on the planet.
Despite her mistrust, Aliana thought that she would have liked to get to know the man on the beach a little better.
She again wondered what it was about his story that just didn’t ring true.
Then it struck her — the man hadn’t been wearing a wetsuit.
At the age of sixty-seven, John Wolfgang showed little sign of aging. He had always been healthy. Despite growing up in socialist East Germany, his father had often told him that he came from good German stock.
John was finally back in his office, and wearing a $15,000 tailored suit — one of more than a dozen made specifically for him. He felt comfortable in it. He was much happier to be returning to his lavish lifestyle rather than being out on some ship investigating a new microbe that one of his scientists had recently discovered in an iceberg which had broken off from the Antarctic shelf. He was even happier to have returned from his other project, which Cyclone Petersham had delivered.
When he had boarded the long-haul return flight to Massachusetts, where his company Neo Tech was based, John had a number of important business calls to make, and one important call to receive. Although he was the sole passenger aboard his private jet, he was still dressed as if he were at sea, and he felt it impolite to do business in anything other than business attire. Now, after having a hot shower, he was comfortable in his familiar office, and in his perfectly-fitted suit; after a week out at sea, it was nice to feel clean again.
John felt that he was now ready to receive those important calls, while sitting at his desk in the largest room of his luxurious Lear Jet G6. Its accoutrements looked far more like they graced the office of a Wall Street billionaire than the inside of a luxurious Lear jet.
The room was simple but performed its purpose well. State of the art sound proofing allowed him to forget that he was on a plane. An imperial oak desk, a secure satellite phone, two separate computer monitors were all that made up his office.
A single painting graced the wall — an original Monet, depicting water lilies on a lake. It was the master’s first attempt, which he’d thrown out having been displeased with it for an obvious technical mistake in the method he used to depict the water lilies. Having been retrieved by a neighbor, and given to a cousin in Germany, it had adorned the Wolfgang family room for three generations, under the assumption that it was an imitation. Two years ago, the real origins of the painting had become known, and it became the most valuable Monet still in existence. Before reaching auction, it had been stolen.
It was only after its loss, that John had discovered the real value behind the great painting, which made it far more valuable than the 80 million dollars that the assessor suggested it could fetch at auction.
Only after the efforts of a billionaire and luck of the impending catastrophe of Cyclone Petersham, was John able to reacquire the painting.
John stared at it for a moment.
He cared little for the artwork itself, and wondered what his father would have said if he’d known what he’d hid, in plain sight, for most of his lifetime. Either way, it was on its way home now, and John only hoped that it wouldn’t destroy the world.
He let the phone ring once only, then picked up the handset.
John was expecting the call. Dreading it almost as much as he longed to receive it, so that it would finally be over.
He noticed the small tremors on his otherwise still hand.
That’s new, he thought.
“John, is this line secure?” The man spoke English; the tone of which could only be mastered by one the British aristocratic elite. An accent acquired at Oxford or even Cambridge, he guessed. It was a voice that betrayed the speaker’s lavish breeding. It had been years since he’d actually heard this man’s voice, but despite that, he recalled it as though it had been only yesterday.
And, after the information he received yesterday, he had no doubt that the man would contact him today about it.
“It is.” He said, unwilling to say more.
“Have they been taken care of?” The man on the phone sounded displeased.
“Yes.”
“All of them? Are you certain?”
“Yes. I took care of the last person myself.” John was unused to being questioned like this, by anyone, even the man on the other side of the phone.
“Now, how long before we have it?” The man's voice was coarse, sounding like that of someone in their eighties, who had spent a lifetime, smoking tobacco.
John nearly choked on his 30 year old Glenfarclas whiskey. Terrified, he looked up at his recent acquisition on the wall, terrified that this man knew about it already.
But how could he know? I didn’t even know its value until three months ago?
Suddenly remembering exactly why this man had called, John responded with his prepared response, “The thing’s been missing for seventy five years. It may still take some time before it’s found. Things generally are when they wish to remain lost. And this, was supposed to disappear forever. It’s a hard area to search, but we’ve already got people over there. Once they find her, we’ll send in our own team to retrieve it. It’s not like we can send in a team of mercenaries without anyone noticing. We have to be extremely careful exactly who we do send to do this, and we must be discreet, otherwise we’ll have every treasure hunter after her.”