THIRTY-SEVEN

Present Day

Nuremberg, Germany

    George and Sue met Val and me as we came through the Nuremberg customs early in the afternoon. Val and I had arrived three days after everybody else, giving the others time to explore the city while we spent extra time diving. The others had come on Soul Identity’s jet. We had flown commercial.

    George wore lederhosen, a white shirt, and thick gray socks. He hooked his thumbs under the suspender straps and smiled. “Welcome to Bavaria,” he said.

    “Where’s the hat and hiking stick?” I asked.

    “Back in the hotel where they belong,” Sue said. “Next to the new dirndl you won’t ever see me wear.”

    George smiled. “She looks fabulous in it,” he said. “It’s one of the made-for-tourists dirndls, so it shows lots of cleavage.”

    Sue shook her head, but she was smiling. “Let’s get you out of the airport and checked into the hotel.”

    Once we closed the door of our hotel room, Val burst out laughing. “George gets so excited when he travels. Remember how he was in Venice?”

    I put my arms around her. “I’ve been imagining how you’d look in one of those dirndls.”

    She gave me a kiss. “Just keep imagining,” she said. “Sue said we’re having dinner at the Bratwurstglocklein, and I hear their waitresses wear some revealing ones.”

    “Cool.” I sat down on the bed and patted the space next to me. It was time to have the conversation that we both had been avoiding the last few days. “Val, I can’t shake the bad feeling I have about this little adventure.”

    She sat down and grabbed my hand. “I have it too. But then I tell myself that we’re doing the right thing, and it sort of fades away.”

    “How do you know it’s the right thing?”

    She sat quietly for a minute before speaking. “By the time I was a teenager, the Soviet Union was in its perestroika days, so things weren’t that bad. But my parents told me how it was in their generation. Success in those days wasn’t driven by hard work and determination, but by who you snitched on and how you played the game.” She squeezed my hand. “My mom said our next door neighbors, the nicest, gentlest family you could imagine, got hauled off to Siberia because their other neighbor’s cousins slandered them to get their flat. My parents were too afraid to speak out, and they lived in constant fear of losing their own place to another one of the cousins.”

    We sat quietly for a moment.

    “When my parents told me that story,” she continued, “I swore that I’d never do what they did-I’d never shy away from doing what is right, and I’d always help people with their struggles-no matter the consequences.” She looked at me with shining eyes. “And this is my chance. I can help the victims, and I can help Flora conquer her life struggle.”

    I could understand where Val was coming from. But should we put our lives in danger to satisfy Madame Flora’s warped sense of what was right?

    I stood up and grabbed both her hands. “It’s not just the diving and my stupid panic attacks that are bothering me. If we can believe her, the Nazis are still out hunting for that gold, and they’ll want revenge. Are you willing to risk dying for your convictions?”

    She stared right into my eyes. “We’ve been put in this situation for a reason, Scott. Flora is right-your connection to Ned Callaghan is more than just a random coincidence. We are here to make a difference.”

    “But it’s only twenty-five million dollars,” I said. “Soul Identity’s annual budget is what, several billion? Couldn’t Archie divert some of that toward a fund for Madame Flora’s victims?”

    “He’s too straight an arrow to do that. And besides, Flora still needs to complete her life struggle. She needs our help.”

    Val was committed. And so was I-partly because I agreed with her, and partly because I couldn’t imagine letting her go without me.

    We met the rest of our party at Bratwurstglocklein that evening. George wore his lederhosen, but he still hadn’t cajoled Sue into her dirndl.

    The restaurant was on the lower level of an old building. Waitresses carried plates of bratwurst and glasses of beer to the busy tables. The wooden floors gleamed from what must have been constant polishing. The eight of us sat on two long wooden benches placed on either side of a narrow table.

    The twins were reading the history of the restaurant from the back of the menu. “Listen to this,” Rose said. “The oldest bratwurst place in Nuremberg, established in 1313.” She looked up. “Did you eat here during the trial, Grandma?”

    Madame Flora nodded. “Only once-on a date with a soldier named Private Lee.” She glanced across the table at Archie.

    “I also dined here,” Archie said. “With James, the first weekend after I arrived.” He looked around. “It is almost the same as it was, though the waitresses’ dirndls are much more revealing than they were in 1946.”

    “I’ll drink to progress,” George said, hoisting his empty glass in the air. “Another hefeweizen, bitte schoen,” he said to the shapely waitress.

    We ate sausages with spicy mustard and a white asparagus salad, and we washed it all down with beer. When we were done, George cleared his throat. “This is a good time to review our itinerary,” he said. “We meet tomorrow morning at seven, where we will follow Flora’s route as she headed to…” he looked at Madame Flora.

    “East,” she said.

    “Grandma, don’t you think it’s time to tell us where we’re going?” Marie asked.

    Madame Flora lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “I told you already-they might be listening.”

    “Who’s listening?” I asked.

    “The Nazis!” she whispered.

    “Why would the Nazis be listening?” I said this a little too loudly, and the other patrons in the restaurant went silent.

    “Keep your voice down,” Madame Flora hissed. She looked around at the other tables and let out a nervous laugh.

    The other diners went back to their own conversations.

    “After all we saw today, Grandma must think she’s back at the trial,” Rose said to Marie.

    “Where did you guys go?” Val asked Rose.

    “Today was the Palace of Justice. We saw Courtroom 600, and then we rode the elevator down to Hermann Goering’s cell.” Rose shivered. “Grandma told us how she and Mr. Morgan took his photograph in there.”

    Marie laughed. “And how she got him to sit in the toilet.” Her smile faded. “After that, George drove us to a forest where Grandma said James got hurt.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “She and Mr. Morgan got into a huge fight about whose fault it was.”

    “Who won the fight?” I asked.

    She shrugged. “Nobody. It sounded like a discussion they’ve had many times before-like they were an old married couple.”

    “Speaking of which…” Rose turned to Archie. “Mr. Morgan, how come you never got married?”

    Archie put down his stein and smiled at her. “I seem to have always put my duties ahead of my personal life.”

    “Didn’t you ever want children?” Marie asked. “Or grandchildren?”

    He sighed. “I have been so deeply involved in Soul Identity that I never thought too much about it,” he said. Then he leaned toward Marie with a twinkle in his eye. “When I was young, my grandfather used to say, ‘If I had known grandchildren would be so much fun, I would have had them first.’” He turned to Madame Flora. “Was he right?”

    She shook her head. “My son, granddaughter, and now these two have been my life’s joy. I’m sorry to say this, Archibald, but you’ve missed out on the best part of life by not having children.”

    Wasn’t she the one who never told Archie about their child? I was about to say something, but then Val kicked my shin, and I realized I had better be quiet.

    Archie sighed. “We all make our choices, Flora.”

    Before Madame Flora could reply, I jumped in. “George, can you at least share tomorrow’s mode of transportation?”

    George grinned. “We’re flying. We’ll go slow, but we’ll cover in a few hours what took Flora four and a half days to do back in forty-six.”

    “Is everything arranged on site?” Madame Flora asked him.

    He nodded. “We’ll arrive simultaneously with the rest of the diving equipment.”

    The eight of us met in the lobby of the Grand Hotel after breakfast. George and Sue ushered us outside to a waiting van. We piled our luggage in the back, rode to the Nuremberg airport, and got onto the green Soul Identity jet.

    Val and I sat around a table with Archie and Madame Flora. Once we were airborne, the twins came by. “Now can you tell us where we’re going, Grandma?” Marie asked.

    Rose chimed in. “And how you got there?”

    Madame Flora nodded and beckoned to George and Sue. “It’s time I tell you about our mad dash from Nuremberg to Dubnik.”

    “Dubnik?” Archie asked.

    I smiled. “Of course-the opal mines your grandfather once worked at.”