In Plain Sight

One lay on the couch, her arms crossed across her chest as if she’d been laid out for burial. A man sat in one of the chairs, a book in his lap as if he’d just fallen asleep. A second man was slumped over the table, a pencil clutched in his lifeless hand. All of them were dressed far too nicely to be staying in this hotel.

Iggy came back into the room from the back; already air was beginning to move through the little space.

“So who are these three?” Danny asked.

Alex bent down and retrieved a book that had fallen to the floor beside the man at the table.

“I think these are our missing Germans,” he said, flipping through it. He held it open so Danny and Iggy could see the spidery script. “Anyone read German?”

“I do,” Iggy said, taking the book. He squinted at the text, the pulled his reading glasses from his coat pocket. “Give me a minute,” he said, running his finger along the text. “It’s been a long time.”

“If these are the Germans who came over with the plague, they’ll have their passports on them,” Danny said.

The man at the table had put his coat over the back of his chair before he died, so Alex checked its pockets and withdrew a small, leather-bound black book.

“Dietrich Strand,” he read, opening the front cover.

“This one is Greta Albrecht,” Danny said after going through the woman’s handbag. He pulled out his notebook and consulted it. “That would make this other guy,” he indicated the man with the book, “Helge Rothenbaur.”

Alex pulled the passport out of the dead man’s jacket pocket and opened it. “Sure enough. Helge Rothenbaur,” he read. Danny shook his head.

“What are these people doing here?” he said. “Didn’t they come to New York on the same airship as the plague jars?”

“Yes they did,” Alex said and nodded, “so why steal them once they get into a secure warehouse?”

“They couldn’t get to them on the airship,” Iggy said. He held up the journal. “Mr. Strand left us his confession. After declaring his love for Greta here,” Iggy nodded at the dead woman. “Strand says that the thief—”

“Beaumont,” Alex supplied.

Iggy gave him a withering look and Alex clammed up.

“—Beaumont told them to take this room and wait for him.”

“He must have used this place to preserve his anonymity,” Danny said. “Pretty smart.”

“Strand says that Beaumont came here claiming to have broken a jar and demanding an antidote. When he was told there was none, he fled before they could stop him.” Iggy looked around at the dead. “There are letters here from each of them to family members and loved ones,” he said. “They knew they were infected, that they’d have to stay here until they died.”

Alex looked around at the dead and shuddered. When his time came, he didn’t want to see it coming.

“Is there anything in there about why they wanted to steal the plague?” Danny asked. “They don’t sound like they intended to cause an outbreak.”

Iggy paged toward the front of the book. “It says here that these three were part of the team that developed the disease. They were told it was going to speed up disease research, cure things like polio and cancer.”

“What happened?” Danny asked.

Iggy paged back and ran his finger down the page until he found what he was looking for. “They overheard the project leader, an Alchemist named Josef Mengele, talking with a government official. Apparently the disease was meant to start a civil war here in America, giving Hitler and the Nazis free rein in Europe.”

“How are a couple of jars of a fast-acting plague going to start a civil war?” Alex asked. It didn’t make any sense. Worse, it looked like the European conference wasn’t the target after all.

“It goes on,” Iggy said, scanning the book. “The plague was supposed to be picked up in New York by spies operating in the city and then strike four specific targets.”

“Where?” Danny asked. Iggy shook his head and nodded at the dead man with the pencil.

“He didn’t know, but he thought it had something to do with New York’s sorcerers. Mengele was specific that the plague had to be resistant to magic.”

“So no one infected could use spells to purge the infection from their system,” Alex said.

“Probably,” Iggy agreed.

“It still doesn’t explain how four jars of instant plague could start any kind of war,” Danny pointed out.

“Four jars,” Alex said, the number tickling at something in his brain. There were six sorcerers, not four. He snapped his fingers as everything fell into place in his brain. “Where’s the phone?” he asked, looking around.

“There’s no phone here,” Iggy said. “If there were, these unfortunates could have called for help.”

“Why do you need a phone?” Danny asked.

“What would happen if four of New York’s sorcerers died from a mysterious magical plague?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Danny said. “I mean it would be a disaster for the New York economy, but we’d get through it.”

“What if the survivors were John D. Rockefeller and William Todd?” Alex grabbed the detective by the shoulders.

“Who cares who the survivors are?” Danny said.