30. August 25, 2024
Daleyza
The lake was choppy from the wind pushing it against the cliffside.
Not only were they getting battered by the wind as it hit their backs, but it didn’t have anywhere to go, so it felt like they were getting blasted a second time in the face after it bounced off the rocks.
Whether that was true or not, she didn’t know, but it felt like it, which made it true.
“I could push this boat faster than I’m driving it,” Medusa griped from behind the wheel.
When they came to a standstill inside the cove, Nemo’s voice came out of the darkness. “Gem, check Zade’s harness.”
“What’s the magic word?” the woman simpered.
Nemo sighed. “Please, kitty cat, will you check the fucking harness?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Daleyza saw the infinitesimal shake of Ildefanso’s head and the hint of a smirk.
“All good,” Gem assured him. She turned her attention to the dog and gave her a scratch behind the ears. “Remember our bargain, Zade. Every time he’s rude, you bite his ass.”
The dog appeared to grin, her tongue flopping out of her mouth.
“There is way too much estrogen in my life,” Nemo lamented.
“And you love it. Quit complaining.”
“Yup.” The handler’s and dog’s eyes met when she tilted her head to lick the underside of his chin. “Zade, werk,” he commanded in Afrikaans. Instantly, the dog lost her goofy demeanor and went on alert.
Medusa steered the boat as close to the cliff as she could so Nemo and Gem could lash it to the pitons Demon had set for them minutes earlier.
From his place alongside the boat, he prepped them.
“I had a bitch of a time getting those in there. Rock is hard, but at least it’s not brittle.
It’s going to take muscle, and pulling them out as you go is probably not an option. ”
“Piece of cake,” Gem assured him.
The two thieves began to hammer in their first set of pitons, the clanking of hammers sounding loud in Daleyza’s ears. When the first set had been placed, they set two more pairs each.
“Won’t the men hear the hammering?” she asked.
“They tested it with Demon setting the first ones. The wind is carrying the sound out over the lake.”
She shivered. “This looks extremely dangerous.”
“It is,” he replied, “but they’re experts at this, Gem in particular. They’re quick and efficient.”
They certainly were. By the time the brief exchange was over, they were already ten meters above them on a cliff that was easily fifty meters high. A fall would likely mean instant death.
“Are you ready?” Steel murmured to her.
An unkindness of ravens pecked at her insides, but there was no way she would back out now. “Yes,” she replied.
“Ahead, Medusa.”
Demon stayed in the water below the climbers, and Medusa pushed forward on the throttle to take them as close to shore as possible.
When the nose of the boat beached slightly, Steel hopped out and reached back for Daleyza’s hand. Once she had her feet solid beneath her, they took off for the cave in the far corner of the cove.
Inside the cave entrance, they did a quick weapons check.
“Steel online,” he murmured into his comm.
“Copy, Steel,” Midas said over the line.
“Daleyza online,” she said.
“Copy, Daleyza,” he confirmed. “All team members are live. Each sub-team is on its own channel, but I can connect you all at any time, and I can hear all sides at all times. Good luck, everyone.”
Ildefanso had a small flashlight on his screwdriver tool, which Gem had given to all of them, but it didn’t light very far.
To help guide her, Daleyza ran her hand along the wall.
About ten feet in, she said, “The texture of the walls has changed. It’s smooth, not merely cut stone.
” Her hand hit a square piece of metal that had nubs sticking out of it. “I found a light switch.”
“Hang on. Don’t move,” Steel said. She heard a rustle of his clothing and his pack, then a click. “Thermal imaging shows no signs or heat signatures, human or cameras.”
Midas clicked on. “Doesn’t mean there aren’t any cameras as they could be digital, but we’ll have to chance it.
I’m in their security system. Let me check.
If there are any for that hallway, I’ll put them on a loop for dark mode.
” Keys clacked in the background. Finally, he said, “You should be masked now. Go ahead and hit the switches, Daleyza. If there’s no one down there, they won’t spot you, and you’ll be able to move faster.
Plus, you’ll have a better sense of distance and where you might be under the compound. ”
She pulled down the first switch, and fluorescent lights flicked on approximately twenty feet in front of them.
“I don’t see further switches,” she said.
“Flip the second switch,” Ildefanso said. “I’ve got a hunch. Midas, how are we lining up right now?”
“Nova’s showing you almost directly underneath the residence. The kitchens, according to Daleyza’s drawings.”
“Copy. Moving forward.”
About five feet before they would move into the darkness of the walkway, another twenty feet of hallway lit up.
“There are sensors picking up traffic. The next section is lit up.”
“Then I bet once you move out of your current section, the ones behind you will go out.”
They both turned around, and sure enough, Midas was correct.
“The first switch turns on the first bank of lights. The second turns on the sensors.”
“Noted.”
“I’m watching to see if there’s a notification for movement in the walkway, but I don’t see anything. They must be running only when the visual trips the system.”
They continued down the hallway cautiously but with purpose until they approached a door about halfway down the walkway. It was large enough to fit one of the theorized golf carts through. “Midas, we’ve got something here that looks like a bank vault.”
“Can you see how it might open?”
“There’s a keypad on the wall to the right, and a wheel on the door itself to the left.”
“You got your skimmer with you?”
“Does the pope wear a funny hat?”
Midas muttered over the comm again about people stealing his lines.
“Get over yourself. It’s not exactly an original line.”
“Whatever. Attach the skimmer to the panel. Let me know when your plagiarizing ass is done.”
Steel slid his pack off his back and set it on the floor. After unbuckling the top, he reached into the bottom of the pack and pulled out what looked like a thin picture frame without glass on the front. He handed it to her, then closed his pack and hefted it onto his back.
When he held out his hand, she handed the item back to him.
He began to pull the top and bottom pieces, then the sides, to the correct size to fit the panel. He snapped it in place, then hit a tiny button in the top right corner.
“Skimmer attached.”
“Okay, skimming the code.”
They stood, waiting, then on the numeric panel, a whirling of red lights lit up in the rectangular window. After a minute, there was a beep, and a number appeared. This continued for several minutes until, one by one, the passcode appeared.
“Code is accurate,” Midas told them. “Hang on while I hide that the door is opening.” A few more clicks of the keyboard. “Entry secure.”
There was a click, and then Steel reached for the wheel, spinning it so they could open the door. He was gentle when he pulled, and the door didn’t budge.
Daleyza touched his forearm. “It’s a vault. Maybe it’s hermetically sealed. Pull a little harder.”
Following her instruction, he put a stronger effort into it. When the gap formed between the door and the doorjamb, there was a hiss. He opened the door wider, but they couldn’t see much further, other than some shrouded shapes in the immediate vicinity.
“Look for a switch,” he said.
She tipped her head inside the doorway, and as soon as it broke the plane, the lights went on. “Just like the hallway.”
Both stepped further inside to find crates upon crates stacked in the room. She watched as he pulled one of the sheets off an item directly to his right. They stared at what was in front of them.
“Madre de Dios,” he whispered.
“What is it? What did you find?” Midas asked in a rush.
“A statue of the crucifixion made out of gold, I think. Several marble statues of saints.” Ildefanso swiped another sheet off a long, low coffin-like structure. “A reliquary. Midas, there are tons of items down here. It would take months to catalog them all.”
Daleyza had wandered to the wall behind him. When she pulled the sheet off it, a large thin crate appeared, a corner of it broken off. “Fanso, this one is open. Help me take the lid off.”
They pried the lid off to find a mass of straw, and they dug in to find a frame for a very old painting, but the canvas was gone.
He turned to the next crate, and digging out Gem’s screwdriver again, he used the nail-puller feature to open it. This one had an undisturbed painting in it. “This looks like a Klimt,” she told him. They shared a look.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked her.
“My family was not Nazis, nor were they sympathizers,” she protested.
“Where else could all this possibly come from, Daleyza?”
Midas interrupted. “I’m patching God in.”
God’s voice came on the comms. “What’s this about Nazis?”
“Yes,” Daleyza confirmed. “This vault is filled with crates of what’s likely art, church artifacts, and I’ll bet jewelry and gold if we were to look further.”
Ildefanso added, “Bariloche was one of the major sites where Nazis fled at the end of the war since Perón was a known sympathizer. They’ve found objects and heirlooms, both from Nazis fleeing prosecution and from Jewish heirlooms stolen during World War II, all over Argentina.
Rumors held that there were still things to find.
Everything in this vault looks to fit the bill… and there’s a lot of it.”
“One of the crates held a painting, but it’s missing. The others appear undisturbed, at least in this area,” Daleyza reported.