Emerald (4 page)

Slowing at the curve in the rutted driveway, Hans parked close to the farmhouse. Reaching into a travel bag on the front seat he took out an auburn wig and adjusted it carefully on his close cropped head. Next he put on a Harris Tweed tam. He looked in the car’s rear view mirror, grinned and took a roll of duct tape from the glove box of the car and shoved it into his pocket.

Dressed in white casual shirt and designer jeans, he adjusted the horned-rimmed glasses and walked toward the front door. These Swiss, he sneered, all want their stinking barn as close as possible. Why don’t they just sleep with the cows and pigs?

The birds sang in the trees as Hans walked up the steps to the front door. He pulled the rope attached to a cowbell on the elaborate iron grill above the door. Out of habit, he carefully measured his distance from the door. He waited. He reached to pull the rope for a second time when the door opened slightly, held in place with a safety chain. An elderly woman peeked through the partially-opened door, “Yes, who is it?”

Hans lifted his foot and crashed it against the door. The safety chain ripped from the doorframe. The force knocked the woman onto the floor.

Hans ducked inside, slammed the door, pulled the woman to her feet and held her with his knife to her throat.

“Now, Mrs. Klein, where’s your husband?”

She trembled and pointed toward a closed door, “Asleep. My God, who are you?”

“Shut up,” Hans picked her up and dropped her into an over-stuffed chair. He leaned over and gripped her small face in his hand and pointed the dagger at her. Terrified, she stared at him. Her face had gone white.

“Listen to me, and listen well. If you scream I’ll slit your throat from ear to ear.” He squeezed her cheeks between his thumb and fingers. “Do you understand?”

Not waiting for a response, he glanced around, “Is this the only telephone you have?” He pointed to the phone on the table beside her.

Mrs. Klein stared, horrified, and nodded. Hans released his grip, straightened, and ripped the cord out of the wall. He slung the phone across the room.

“Call your husband. Wake him up. Get him in here”

Hans yanked her to her feet. He wrapped his right arm around her and stood in front of the door she indicated. Sticking the tip of the dagger at her throat, he whispered in her ear. “Call him in here.”

“Simon. Simon, please come into the living room. I need you” she called.

Louder,” Hans said. “You wouldn’t want me to go in after him, would you?”

From some hidden recess inside the woman came a primordial scream that split the tense air.

“Simon Come into the living room. For God’s sake, help me.”

A disheveled man burst through the door and stumbled into the living room.

“Good God, Adi, what happened? You scared me.” He focused on Hans holding his wife. “Who is this man?”

Hans watched as the reality of the situation registered in Simon’s sleep-filled brain. He sank to his knees and stared at his wife. A moan rumbled out of his throat. He rocked slowly on his knees, his eyes tightly closed, his hands clasped in prayer. The moan changed to Hebrew, “Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one”

“Shut up, old man” Hans shouted. “Your stupid God won’t save you this time. Listen carefully, for I’m only going to tell you once. If I do not get what I want, your sweetheart dies a very slow and painful death. I’ll cut her neck from ear to ear. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Simon opened his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks and seeped into his white whiskers. He nodded. “Yes, yes. Anything you say. Please don’t hurt Adi.”

Hans laughed. “Where is the Whittelsbach Emerald?”

Simon cast a furtive glance at his wife. She shook her head and closed her eyes.

Hans picked up on the slight signal and swore.

“I am not a patient man,” Hans said. “Let’s see if a little pain will loosen your tongue.”

Keeping his attention on Simon, Hans moved the dagger from Adi’s throat and sliced a portion off her ear. She let loose a piercing scream. A red ribbon of blood ran down Adi’s neck. Simon slumped to the floor.

“If you so much as move, woman, I’ll slice off your other ear.”

He turned her loose, lifted the man to his feet, and dragged him to a wooden chair in the corner of the room. Taking the roll of duct tape from his pocket, he forced Simon’s arms around his back, bound his wrists together, and secured them to the chair. He taped Simon’s ankles to the chair legs, turned back to Adi cringing with fear and trying to staunch the flow of blood from her ear.

“We’ll never tell you where the emerald is.” She spat the words indignantly. “You can torture and kill us, but you don’t deserve to have that emerald.”

Hans walked over to her. His whole body stiffened. He glanced at the ceiling, spun around as quickly as a lightening bolt and threw the dagger at Simon.

Simon stared at the hilt of the knife protruding from his chest. He looked up at his wife, smiled, and closed his eyes.

Adi’s scream cut short. A deep moan pulled life out of her. She closed her eyes and slumped.

Hans whispered in her ear, “Now little lady, do you want to tell me where you keep my emerald?”

Adi looked up through pain-filled eyes. She spat into his face.

Hans wiped the spittle with the back of his hand. “That’s the way it’s to be? I’ll find it if I have to tear this house apart board by board and burn it to the ground.” He grasped a handful of her hair, and roughly lifted her to her feet.

Her scream so piercing, was almost pretty. A high, sweet sound. As the scream left her throat, Hans gripped her head, twisted it, and broke her neck. He closed his eyes at the satisfying crunch of vertebrae as they snapped. He dropped her limp body to the floor.

For an hour, he searched the farmhouse. He swore under his breath and stalked back into the living room to Simon’s slumped body. He placed his boot on the old man’s chest and withdrew his knife. With the bloody blade, he slashed open Simon’s nightshirt sleeve, carved two jagged lightening flashes in the man’s bicep, and did the same to Adi.

Hans carefully wiped blood from his knife on Simon’s nightshirt. He inserted his dagger back into its leather scabbard nestled between his shoulder blades.

He stomped toward the front door, kicking papers he had knocked off a desk during his search. He gave a final glance around the room, caught the glitter of gold in the letterhead on a piece of paper that read
Christy’s of Geneva
. He snatched it up and read the typing. It was a receipt for the Whittelsbach Emerald that would be sold at auction in just a few days. He left the farmhouse, slamming the door behind him.
Under no circumstances would anyone get that emerald. It was his emerald
.

Back in his car, Hans tossed the tam in the back seat, put on a black baseball cap, carefully applied a fake nose, and stuck a hairy wart near his chin. He started the engine, swung the Mercedes around, and sped toward Geneva.

C
rushing the letter from Christies in his fist, he stood by the front door surveying the carnage he had just created. He reveled in the adrenalin surge that made his heart race and his lungs pound. His emerald wasn’t here. Turning angrily, Hans quickly left the farmhouse, the dangling cowbell over the door ringing in his ear. As he ran toward his car the country breeze across his face was suddenly sweet, the air pungent, reminding him of death.

He settled in the soft leather seat but with trembling fingers could hardly get the key into the ignition. He loved this feeling, his heart pumping, mind reeling, hair standing up on forearms, if it could only last forever.

Back out on the highway, he had to force himself to drive close to the speed limit, and he calmed noticed that the sky was slowly changing from bright blue to a lovely, muted purple. After a short drive, with Geneva hours away, he pulled in beside a small Gesthof with a lighted vacancy sign.

He pulled out his small overnight bag from the car trunk and out of habit felt to make sure his stiletto was in its sheaf behind his neck. Pushing open the heavy, scarred front door he entered a dingy bar smelling of spilled beer, cigarettes and supper cooking in a distant kitchen.

From behind the bar came, “Welcome Sir, would you like a drink, supper, a room or maybe more?”

Han’s eyes adjusted to the gloom as he walked up to the bar, sat and replied, “A large Cognac would do me well.”

“Oh, sir, I’m terribly sorry. We are a small, poor establishment, and all we serve is beer on tap. How’ bout a nice dark Bavarian lager?”

“If that’s all you have I guess it’ll have to do.”

The hefty barmaid took a stein from the back wall, and pulled a large porcelain handle filling the stein with an amber liquid to the brim and overflowing. Placing it on the polished bar in front of Hans, she smiled and asked, “What else would you like?”

“I’m afraid it’s been a long and tiring day and all the energy I have left is to climb the stairs to a room, if you have one, and fall asleep.”

With a nod of her pigtailed head and a disappointed voice she said, “We do have rooms available, keys are over there on the wall. Just take your pick, and sleep well,” and walked out of the bar into a back room.

The old uneven floor creaked as Hans walked down the dimly lighted hall, pushed open a door marked 3 with his overnight bag and tossed it on the bed. Being careful not to spill his second stein of beer he eased into the floral, sagging over-stuffed chair, pushed off his shoes, put his feet on the edge of the bed and drank from the stein he had been allowed to take to his room. Sipping the tepid amber liquid he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The warm buzz he felt was not so much from the two steins of beer as from the killing adrenalin still pumping through his veins. He knew this feeling didn’t come from the actual killing, but started during the remembered connection to his father as he carved the lightning flashes into each victim. He closed his eyes and as after each killing, his memory flashed back to the contorted face of his father dying on the street in Buenos Aires.

He walked proudly beside his tall father as they left the compound on Garibaldi Street and headed towards the bus stop in the next block. Crossing the street just before the green and yellow bus pulled to a stop, they waited as several people exited the bus, two women and a young man, neighbors of theirs. His father’s head turned left and right looking for anything out of the ordinary. He felt very proud that his father had been chosen to protect Herr Klement. Someday he wanted to do the same. Suddenly, a white haired, stooped shouldered man came down the bus steps, looked at him, and smiled. Hans waved excitedly, as he always did when he saw Herr Klement. The man walked toward them and gave a slight wave. The bus door closed and pulled back onto Garibaldi Street to continue its late afternoon journey through the streets of Buenos Aires. He and his father walked toward the man, who seemed older than he really was, shook hands, turned and started back to the Klement compound. It was then that he noticed a large black limousine parked beside the curb, its engine hood up and a man leaning over the engine. Father grabbed his hand quickly and pushed Herr Klement to quickly cross the street. The black doors opened on both sides of the car, men came piling out, guns drawn, shouting for us to stop. Father dropped his hand, reached for the Luger he always carried, but before he could get it out of his holster several of the men shot him. He was shouting as his father fell and crumpled to the pavement. Hans tried to get to the pistol that had fallen beside his father. His father covered it with his hand and shook his head. Hans knelt down beside him, gently touched his face, called his name, and knew he was dead. Then he felt bullets burning into his body. He fell back on the street, screaming for Herr Klement to run, run, run, but they grabbed him and shoved him into the car, and Hans couldn’t do anything to help him. The terrified young man looked up and saw a man, not more than two feet away pointing his gun at His head. Through his pain he saw the trigger finger begin to squeeze and then relax. His eyes closed to block out the searing pain. The people in the car were shouting, “Finish him, finish him”. Car doors slam and opening his eyes he saw the big, black car speed off, tires screaming, down Garibaldi Street. The last thing he saw was the man who almost shot him again, looking at him through the back window of the car, and he passed out beside his father.