The Lions Of Lucerne

70

Claudia got them out of town and onto the auto route for Bern as fast as she could. The heater was turned up as high as it would go. Scot stripped out of his wet clothes and remained huddled in the wool blanket until Claudia found a roadside café, where she bought containers of piping hot soup and coffee. Scot drank down everything she gave him and, when he was finally feeling up to it, reached into the backseat and pulled some clothes from his suitcase. Although Claudia should have been watching the road, every once in a while she sneaked a guilty peek at him getting dressed.

The color began to return to Scot’s face, and his shivering lessened.

“How are you feeling?” Claudia asked.

Even though he was fully dressed in new clothes with heavy wool socks, Harvath wrapped the blanket back tightly around his body. “Very pissed off.”

“Good. The way you were shivering, I thought we had made the wrong decision.”

“No, we made the right one. If we’d gone to the hospital, there could have been police, questions, and who knows what. Miner probably would have found us, and that would have been the end of the story.”

“I guess so, but if we had been wrong about the severity of your condition, that could have been the end of the story as well.”

“I know my limits. You don’t ever need to worry about me.”

“Thanks, Scot. I’ll remind myself of that next time I see you looking like a flipped turtle.”

There was a touch of hurt in her voice.

“Thank you,” said Scot.

“For what?”

“For saving my life.”

“You mean when I drew the fire of Miner’s men and pulled you from the river? That? That was nothing. Sorry I didn’t have a towel ready when you got out.”

Scot thought about what a gift she had for pissing him off while at the same time making him want to laugh out loud. They made quite a pair.

“How do you know the men were Miner’s?” asked Scot as he brought his mind back.

“They weren’t wearing any American brand-name clothes, and the man you shot in the throat was mumbling in German as he was dying. I just assumed Miner had sent them.”

“Seems like it.”

“You were also right about something.”

“What was that?”

“They were in radio contact. They each had an earpiece and a sleeve mike. The radio was a German brand.”

“Was there anything in their pockets?”

“No wallets, which doesn’t surprise me. These men would not be carrying ID around with them. That’s not the way it’s done.”

“I agree. Anything else?”

“Cash, cigarettes, and each had one of these,” said Claudia, who pulled out what looked like two playing cards from her pocket and handed them to Scot. He was getting warm now, and with his free hand he turned down the VW’s heater.

Harvath examined the cards. They had a magnetic strip on the back and a red dragon on the front, under which were the words Mt. Pilatus and some other lines written in German.

“What are these?” said Harvath.

“They are kind of like lift tickets for Mount Pilatus.”

“What is it?”

“Pilatus is a mountain not too far from Lucerne. Normally, on clear days, you can see it from the city. According to legend, the body of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate is buried in the lake near the top, and supposedly this was the only place his soul could rest. Every year on Good Friday, he is said to rise from the water to wash the blood from his hands. The mountain is named after him.”

“That’s just charming. What about this dragon on here? What’s that all about?”

“That is the logo for Mount Pilatus. It comes from something different. Starting in the fourteen hundreds, the people of Lucerne began to think they saw dragons around the mountain, and the image stuck.”

“Tell me more about the mountain.”

“There are two hotels on the top. One is called the Bellevue, and it is completely round like the Schilthorn in the Jungfrau region. The other is a more traditional hotel called the Hotel Pilatus Kulm.”

“What’s the attraction up there?” asked Scot.

“The views mostly. Although some people come for hiking, rock climbing, and paragliding as well.”

“So it’s kind of like the Jungfraujoch?”

“I guess that would be a fair comparison, but the Jungfraujoch is actually carved into the glacier and the mountain, while the hotels at Pilatus are basically built on top of it.”

“But, why would these two guys be carrying lift tickets for Pilatus?”

“Maybe they were hikers,” said Claudia.

“C’mon, Claudia, think. They don’t carry wallets with them, but they do carry these lift tickets? Why would they need them?”

Claudia focused on the road in front of her while she toyed with Scot’s question in her mind.

“Do you suppose,” Scot continued, “that they were going to kill us and then go off for a nice little hike?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Then why have the tickets?”

“To get up to the top of Pilatus.”

“Right. And if they were carrying the tickets with them when they attacked us, that probably means they were going to be using them afterward, right?”

“I guess you could be right.”

“How many ways are there to get up Pilatus?”

“Well, you can hike it. That takes about five hours. Then there is a series of two gondolas and a cable car from the town of Kriens, or you can take the cogwheel railway from the town of Alpnachstad.”

Scot opened Claudia’s glove compartment and started rummaging around.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Do you have a map of the area around Lucerne?”

“Yes, it’s in my Swiss atlas, underneath your seat.”

Scot fished out the atlas and found the pages he was looking for.

“Okay, I’ve got the towns,” said Scot. “So the cogwheel train is direct, no transfers?”

“Right. Why? What are you thinking?”

“Would it be possible to hide someone in one of the hotels up at the top of Pilatus? Let’s say maybe Miner knows the owner or is blackmailing him? Could he do it?”

“I suppose he could, but it’s not very likely.”

“Why not?”

“The staff of those hotels are much like others all over the country. They’re very chummy and they talk. They all know each other’s business and everything that goes on in the hotels. It is hardly likely Miner could hide your president there.”

“Good point. What about someplace else, maybe only halfway up the mountain?”

“From what I could see on the tickets, they are good for travel all the way to the top. Why would they pay for full trips and not use them?”

“To throw anybody off if they ever came across the tickets?” Scot speculated.

“If they ever thought anyone would find the tickets, why not leave them at home in their wallets? Or better yet in their car?”

“I was thinking about that. If for some reason the two men got separated or couldn’t get back to their car, they would need to know they could still get up the mountain, so they would have to keep their passes on them at all times.”

“Why not just carry enough cash to be able to buy a new ticket?”

“That means dealing with a cashier…maybe standing in a line. There’s too much chance of being remembered or seen on a security camera. If Pilatus is where they’re staying, they’d need to get up and down as easily as possible. Hence the need for keeping the passes on them at all times. Now, if they aren’t using the hotel, where else might they be?”

Claudia twisted her lip and frowned. “Aside from the gondola and cable car stations, the mountain only has scattered cowsheds and yurts that are used for hikers… What are you thinking?”

“There is a small airfield on the map here at Alpnachstad. It would be a piece of cake for Miner to get in and out from here with relatively little interference. Do you know if it’s a private airfield?”

“From what I remember, it’s mainly for civilian aircraft, but there are one or two military hangars… That’s it!” cried Claudia, thumping her palms against the VW’s steering wheel.

“What?” said Scot. “What’s it?”

“I was wrong,” said Claudia.

“About what?”

“About Pilatus.”

“How so?”

“I was wrong when I said the attraction, the tourism infrastructure such as the hotels, was built on top of the mountain, unlike the Jungfraujoch.”

“So, either it is or it isn’t.”

“Actually, it is and it isn’t. All of the things the tourists see are pretty much sitting on top of Pilatus. The final cable car ride up and the cogwheel railway each approach the summit from different sides of the mountain. Normally the tourists go up one side and come down the other. The marketing people at Pilatus call it the Golden Round Trip. The cable car and the cogwheel railway arrive and depart beneath the Hotel Bellevue, which is partly recessed within the mountain.”

“So?”

“So, when I first started climbing in competitions, I did some around Pilatus. My grandfather was a climber and he was my coach. He had done a lot of climbing on Pilatus itself. Do you know what my grandfather did for a living before he retired?”

“No, but I hope it has something to do with what we’re talking about.”

Claudia ignored Scot’s crack. “He was an engineer with the army.” She looked at Scot as if where this was leading should be obvious. Scot looked right back at her with a blank stare.

“Scot, have you ever seen a Swiss military base in all your visits to Switzerland? Ever seen any piece of military hardware except for a jet that might have flown overhead?”

“No, I never have. I always heard that despite their continuing stance of neutrality, the Swiss had a pretty good army. Nobody ever saw it, though, because…” His voice trailed off.

Claudia finished the sentence for him. “Because everything is hidden away in the mountains. When I was accepted into the Federal Attorney’s Office, my grandfather was very proud of me. I was his only grandchild. With my security clearance and role with the Bundespolizei, he began opening up to me more, telling me about what he did with the army. Do you know now what he did?”

“He was involved with the construction of the military mountain fortresses.”

“Very good, Agent Harvath. Yes, he was one of the engineers on the primary design team. From what he told me, they were involved with constructing these incredible fortresses throughout Switzerland. Oftentimes they used the development of ski resorts or other tourist attractions as a cover for all of the military activity. If you were building some sort of resort or something to boost tourism, who would suspect the real reason for gondolas, cable cars, or-”

“Cogwheel railways!” Scot broke in.

“Yes, again,” replied Claudia. “How can someone so smart not have the good sense to stay out of the water until spring?”

“A good swim relaxes me and helps me to think. Much like a well-placed gun in the back. So Pilatus is one of these Swiss military fortresses?”

“No.”

Scot’s heart sank. The pieces had all seemed to finally be coming together.

Then Claudia spoke again. “It isn’t one now. It used to be, but my grandfather said it had been decommissioned.”

Scot’s hopes began to rise. “Decommissioned, meaning it was abandoned?”

“Sort of. It was sealed off and put on the inactive list.”

“But it wasn’t destroyed?”

“No, nothing like that. The Swiss are pragmatists. You never know when we might need something like that again. It was just sealed off and left alone.”

“So theoretically, if Miner knew about this place, which in his position with the military there is a good chance he did, all he would have to do is figure out a way to unseal it?”

“It might not even be that difficult. According to my grandfather, there were several ways to access these fortresses. They needed to circulate air, so there were ventilation shafts. There were also escape passages. Cargo bays for delivering materials and supplies…”

“I’m liking your grandfather more and more. Do you think there’s any chance he might be able to help us? A person with that much knowledge could be very useful.”

“I think my grandfather would have liked nothing better. But, he passed away two years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” said Scot, and he really was-sorry for Claudia, sorry for himself, and most of all, sorry for the president.

Claudia seemed not to hear him. “He told me that every structure you saw on Pilatus served a purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

“For example, Pilatus already had the very large Hotel Pilatus Kulm, but they then built the little Hotel Bellevue.”

“What was the Bellevue’s purpose?” asked Scot.

“That he couldn’t share, even with me, but he said nothing happens by accident. Every structure serves a purpose. There’s the purpose the tourist appreciates and then the purpose the military appreciates. Those engineers were some of the greatest minds Switzerland has ever known.”

“Claudia, from what you’ve told me, it seems reasonable that Miner might be using this inactive fortress as his base. The question is, though, which way did he get in? You said there are many ways in, and all of the structures serve a purpose, right?”

“Right.”

“So there are the two hotels, and the cable car and cogwheel railway come and go from just beneath the Hotel Bellevue. Are there any other important structures on top of Mount Pilatus?”

“Let me think. The hotels, a small weather station, a radar station, and a…” Claudia’s voice trailed off.

“And a what, Claudia? What is it? What else is up there?”

“A church,” she said, looking at him with wide eyes.

Harvath repeated the words that Miner had said when they last saw him, which at that point seemed to make no sense at all, “Under God, all things are possible.”

Claudia pressed down hard on the accelerator, and the pair sped toward Bern.