SIXTY-TWO

Present Day

Dubnik Mine, Slovakia

    The two soldiers, Archie, Val, and I stood in a ring around the fire pit as we watched the gold puddle dull from orange to yellow. We had retrieved Madame Flora and the Untersturmführer and covered what was left of them with blankets from the back of the black truck. Somehow by mutual consent we all had placed our weapons in a pile next to the fire pit.

    Val grabbed my hand. “I was only trying to cause a distraction,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”

    “They hurt themselves,” I said. Then I turned to the soldier who spoke some English. “Our friends will arrive soon. You two need to leave now.”

    He looked at the now-solid puddle of gold and then back at me.

    I shook my head. “My deal was with your boss.”

    He glanced at the barrel containing the five golden Buddhas and let out a sigh.

    “Take your furnace and your Untersturmführer,” I said. “He’s got plenty of gold on him.”

    He spoke in German to the other soldier, and the two loaded the old man’s body into their truck. They took their furnace and the iron molds, then they climbed up front and drove out of the clearing.

    As soon as they were gone, Archie knelt down next to Madame Flora’s body and peeled back the blanket. A thick layer of gold coated her front side, and her bare back was charred where her clothes had burned off.

    Archie reached up and stroked her gold-coated face. He mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

    I knelt down next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” I asked gently.

    He turned to me and smiled. “I loved her, you know. I always did, right from the first time I saw her.”

    I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat.

    He traced her cheek with his fingertips. “At least we had the last two days together.”

    I squeezed his shoulder.

    “She killed herself chasing this gold,” he said.

    “I suppose that chasing it gave her life meaning,” I said. “And she showed the strength to give it up at the end.”

    He nodded.

    We knelt in silence for another minute. Then Archie gave another caress to her cheek and pulled the blanket over her body. “Good-bye, my love,” he whispered.

    Soul Identity’s Budapest team arrived in two green vans thirty minutes later. They were efficient in cleaning up the site. Val and I gave them directions to the bat hole, and they retrieved our equipment and the bodies of the five Nazi soldiers. They chopped the now-solid puddle of gold into smaller pieces, and they loaded them and four of the five golden Buddhas into the first van.

    We placed Madame Flora’s remains into the back of that van. Archie sat next to her body, and Val and I got in front. We left the Budapest team and drove with the gold down to the hospital to see George, Sue, and the twins. I used my mobile phone to call Chief Dara Sabol. I told her to get her police officers to the clearing and recover the five dead Nazis. She stopped questioning me when I mentioned the million dollar golden Buddha we had left as payment for her troubles.

    We headed up to the hospital’s recovery room. George and Sue had both survived surgery, and both their prognoses were good.

    Rose and Marie were understandably shocked at the news of their grandmother’s death. Archie, Val, and I spent the next several hours sitting quietly with them, reliving moments from Madame Flora’s life.

    The girls cried when I told them how she finally relinquished her claim on the gold, then cheered when I related how she stood up to the SS officer’s vile comments.

    Rose looked at Marie. “Grandma died exactly the way she lived.”

    Marie nodded back. “Passionate to the end.”