“What time is it?” Sam asked, rolling over.
“It’s four o’clock. Shall we start our day?”
The time of day was irrelevant given their subterranean environment. They breakfasted on some dried fruit and nuts. It was a very basic meal, but it would provide them with enough nutrients to see them through.
“Okay, now what?” Aliana asked.
“You wait here while I see if it’s safe. I’m dying to have a look inside that gondola,” Sam replied. Then, looking sheepish, he said, “Actually, people have been trying to kill me to keep from looking inside that airship.”
Sam hadn’t gone as far as saying that he knew she was involved in the last attempt on his life, but the tone of his words suggested that he was intentionally letting her know that he was on his guard.
“Are you kidding me? No thanks!” Aliana hid her guilt with indignation. “If you’re going to check it out, I’m coming with you! After years of hearing about her disappearance, do you honestly think I’m going to let you explore her by yourself?”
“Suit yourself,” Sam replied.
They both climbed aboard the little boat and rowed out onto the lake toward the Magdalena.
Aliana watched as Sam fought to pull open the gondola’s hatchway, which was pretty much stuck solid after all these years in this damp environment.
Just like all men, Aliana observed, Sam doggedly attacked the first hatchway he could find, while she, on the other hand, noticed that she could climb onto the open-air gangway and then try to open the door from there, into the gondola. The open-air gangway was above the water level, along with its hatchway. If they were going to have any luck, that would be the most likely hatchway to use.
She reached up to grasp the thin wire safety railing of the open-air gangway, and started to pull herself up, first by her arms, then by swinging her legs up to one side, before climbing over the railing.
She attempted to open the hatchway door with a strong push, but it didn’t budge an inch. Then, she turned the door handle and pushed again.
It clicked as it opened.
“Are you coming?” She said, mockingly to Sam.
“I’m right behind you.”
She waited as he quickly climbed up to stand beside her, before pushing the door open completely.
There was no odor.
After seventy five years, any and all flesh that might have been aboard at the time of the crash, had long since departed from the remains of the Magdalena’s passengers.
Still, the ghastly sight in front of her took her breath away.
There were eight skeletons in total, who sat lifelessly, in the open gondola before her. Their clothing had almost completely disintegrated over time.
Aliana noted that one of them still wore a pendant around its neck. At its base, was the largest diamond she had ever seen.
She remembered reading about it in a book.
“It was called the Rosenberg Diamond,” Sam told her.
“That’s right. I remember reading about it one of my father’s books which was about some of the greatest treasures ever lost without a trace.”
Her eyes continued to scan the gondola.
Each skeleton was strapped into its seat, as though they were expecting a bumpy ride. The rest of the room looked as though it had been ransacked. The once majestic interior looked barren. She guessed that it wasn’t the passage of time which had destroyed her, but something else entirely — it appeared to her as though someone had deliberately removed all of the fine things that once adorned the place.
As her eyes continued to glance around the room and take in the entire scene, she began to worry that they were not the first ones to discover the dirigible. It was obvious to her that fixtures had been ripped from the walls, and everything that hadn’t been bolted to the floor had been removed.
“I wonder what went wrong,” Sam said aloud. There was a sadness in his voice.
Sam had said the precise thing that she was thinking.
“They must have thought they’d made it. They were so close. Looking at them now, it seems as though none of them even realized they were about to die.”
“Look at this,” Sam said, pointing at the ugly, brown wooden box, which sat amidst the seated skeletons.
It was one of the very few items still remaining inside the gondola, which had not been bolted down.
“What do you think’s inside it?”
“I don’t know, but it’s pretty heavy. Anything lighter would have washed away when the gondola was submerged.” Aliana watched silently as Sam struggled to open the lid, until he asked her, “Can you help me with this?”
She came up alongside him and helped him pull the lid open. The box was made of some sort of solid hardwood, but the water had caused the wood to expand, locking it closed, permanently.
Together, they managed to pry it open, using one of the oars from the rowboat outside.
“Wow,” Sam said, his eyes wide, “is that why your father wanted me dead?”
Inside, Sam saw that there were more than a hundred gold bars, each one bearing the letters G&O, artistically embossed in the center.
“Wow, that’s a lot of gold!” Aliana said, pretending not to hear what he had just said.
“Enough to kill for?”
“What? Of course, any number of treasure hunters would kill to get their dirty hands on this,” Aliana acknowledged. She appeared genuine, but the faintest of quivers to her bottom lip, reaffirmed her involvement.
Sam decided that now was not the time to corner her on it.
“Yes, well, I imagine that they were trying to get as much of their fortune out of the country as possible.”
He’d seen a lot of wealth in his lifetime, but he’d never set his eyes upon so much solid gold in one place, at one time.
Their luster gave them a uniquely strong allure, which surprised him.
“There’s another box over here,” Aliana said.
It was smaller, and easier to break open, but no less filled with gold. Inside it were German gold coins and a small bag of precious gems, including diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds.
“No wonder someone wants me dead,” Sam murmured, as he ran his fingers through the cache of precious gemstones. He raised his eyes to Aliana, and said, “There’s a fortune in treasure here — certainly enough to kill for.”
“You still don’t know what this is really about, do you?” Aliana asked.
“It’s what everything is about — Money, Power and Greed.”
“No, it’s about something even worse than that,” there was spite in her response.
It gave him pause.
Sam had expected her to be more contrite, instead, she was almost attacking him.
“Then what it is it?” Sam’s voice was stern with her, for the first time since they’d started this journey. Aliana had obviously known much more about it than she’d ever expressed to him.
Aliana didn’t speak a word.
The guilty expression on her face was, in itself, enough of an answer.
Sam ignored her. He had other priorities right now. He would deal with her later. He walked slightly further ahead and found a single small suitcase with a chain on one end. It terminated in a handcuff which was attached to what would have been the wrist of one of the skeletons. Unlike the others, this small case was entirely metallic.
He started to pull at it, but it was completely intact and strong as the day it had been built.
“Don’t touch that suitcase!” At her strident tone of voice, Sam turned to look at Aliana’s face. There was recognition in it.
“Why, what’s in it?”
“That one must be destroyed. It is of paramount importance that we destroy it!” There was true panic in her voice.
“Okay, tell me why?”
“My father told me about a virus that my grandfather was commissioned to create for Adolf Hitler. It was supposedly more lethal than anything else ever created. If Germany had succeeded in harnessing its power, the allied forces would have never had a chance to win the war. Like the Japanese after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Allied forces would have had no other option but to unconditionally surrender, and Nazis Fascism would have succeeded.