The Lions Of Lucerne

63

The next morning, Scot used the color kit Claudia had bought with their groceries and dyed his hair once again. He wanted to return to his sandy brown, but he needed two applications to cover up the white blond and subsequently ended up with a much darker shade than he’d hoped for. At least it didn’t all fall out, which had been a definite possibility with all of the chemicals it had been subjected to in the last couple of days. With his hair short, yet conservatively colored, hopefully no one would bother to give him a second look.

After straightening up the house and boarding up the broken window as best they could, Scot and Claudia left to pursue the only other lead they had, a package mailed from a small village north of Lucerne called Hochdorf.

“Do you think he’ll tell us anything?” asked Scot.

“We won’t know until we try, will we?” Claudia responded.

“And you’re sure he’s somehow connected?”

“Of course, I’m sure. When Miner had refused to meet and answer my questions, I began following him. That’s how I learned about the post office box in Interlaken. I also found he had one in Lucerne. After he and I had lunch, I thought there was little chance I would be able to get anything on him. He went on vacation, but I kept watching both of his post boxes hoping to get lucky. A few days ago, a package arrived for him in Lucerne.”

“Which of course you borrowed, steamed open, copied the contents of, and then replaced.”

“You’re very smart. Yes, I made copies of the contents. It held his passport, canceled train tickets, and credit card receipts. They showed that he had been in Greece, Italy, and France before returning home.”

“Was he out of the country during the time of President Rutledge’s kidnapping?”

“Yes, but according to the stamps in his passport, he was in Europe, not America.”

“Of course not. That would be too obvious. What’s the connection with the cousin in Hochdorf?”

“I don’t know. I’m hoping he will tell us. Who else would send Miner a package from Hochdorf if not his cousin? My files show he’s the only relative Miner has there. It has to be the cousin. Miner wouldn’t go up to Hochdorf just to mail himself a package.”

“What if he left it there while visiting and the cousin just mailed it back to him?”

“And what were you saying about going with your gut? At this point, this is all we have to go on.”

An hour outside Lucerne, Claudia pulled into a rest area.

“I need to call the office and let them know I won’t be in.”

“Don’t forget to see if you can get someone to look a bit deeper into Miner’s file to see if there are any links between him and Yugoslavia.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Scot got out of the car and stretched his legs while Claudia went inside to use the phone.

At a pay phone by the washrooms, she inserted her telephone card and dialed her office.

“Christina, hello. It’s Claudia. I’m not going to be in today; I have some outside work to do. Do I have any messages, please?”

“Herr Schnell has been looking everywhere for you. Hold a moment. I will connect you.”

Schnell? What could he possibly want? she wondered.

Ten seconds later a gruff voice roughened from years of cigarette smoke was on the line. “Where are you?”

“Good morning, Herr Schnell,” Claudia politely replied.

“Don’t good morning me. Where are you?”

“Why, what’s going on?”

“Where were you on Saturday?”

“I was pursuing leads in my case.”

“Where was that?”

“The Jungfrau area.”

“And did you stay at your parents’ farm in Grindelwald?”

“Yes, but-”

He cut her off. “And where were you all day Sunday and Sunday evening until now?”

Claudia was getting very suspicious. He couldn’t possibly know already that she had been in his house. She wanted to explain things to him, but decided she wouldn’t give out any more information until she had some of her own. “I was with a friend.” Quickly, before Herr Schnell could fire off another question, she asked one of her own. “What is this all about?”

“What this is all about is that for the longest time I couldn’t understand why you were not making any progress on the weapons case.”

“It has been extremely difficult. There are not many leads.”

“I spoke with Arianne Küess in the Hague. She had some very interesting things to say about you.”

“About me?” Claudia had no idea where this was going.

“She says you volunteered for this case.”

“That is correct, but I don’t understand-”

“So, you don’t deny it?”

“No, of course not. Herr Schnell, I must respectfully insist that you get to the point.”

He did. They had a brief exchange of words, and when Schnell was finished speaking, all Claudia could do was set the phone down and walk back out to the car stunned.

Scot sensed something was wrong right away. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Claudia started the car and backed out of their parking space faster than safe driving dictated.

“Claudia, hold it a second. What’s wrong?”

She gripped the steering wheel with all of her might as if somehow it could purge the anger from her body. “Yesterday, the police raided my parents’ farm in Grindelwald.”

“Raided? What happened? Are they okay?”

“Physically, I’m sure they’re fine, but they are probably very shaken. They are much too old for this.”

“For what? Why were the police there?”

“They had an anonymous tip.”

“Tip about what?”

“After a thorough search of the barn, the police found two ADATS.”

“ADATS? As in Swiss antitank missiles?”

“Yes.”

“Let me guess. The serial numbers on the missiles-”

“Match the ones that were stolen from the weapons depot outside Basel.”

“Claudia, I don’t know what to say.”

“I do. Someone is going to pay.”