Simple Genius

SEAN REACHED THE GROUNDS in front of Porto Bello without being seen. He crept up the rotted front steps and had no time to react as the board broke under him. Sean felt himself plummeting down; his leg hit something sharp and he involuntarily yelled in pain. He froze as his scream seemed to float up into the air and then, like a summer downpour, cascade down all over the damn place.

Was that a siren? Were those running feet? Had he heard the sharp bark of a scent hound? No, they were the products of his terror. He struggled to free himself from the wreckage of the front porch, silently cursing the royal governor for choosing unreliable wood over sturdy brick. He reached down and felt the blood flowing from a deep gash in his calf.

He limped into the house, and hurried down to the cellar. There he tripped over some debris and crashed against the wall, actually knocking a brick loose in the collision. Cursing, he rose up on his knees and rubbed at his scraped-up hands. Eye-level with the foundation wall he stared at the small gap the fallen brick had left. He flicked his light in the gap and something caught his eye. The foundation wall, he could see, was very thick with something behind it…

“Damn!”

Sean grabbed a broken piece of wood and jammed it in the opening, levering it around harder and harder until the mortar broke loose. He reached in and worked the object free, scraping up his hands as he did so.

A solid gold coin. He dug some more and what came out was a small, hard stone. He brushed the dirt off and shone his light on it. The stone was revealed as a gleaming emerald. Digging some more he saw what looked very much like a solid gold bar and then some more gold coins. It was Lord Dunmore’s treasure and it was more than just gold. He’d found it, and by the looks of the disturbed site, so had Monk Turing.

This is what Heinrich Fuchs had told Monk about in return for the American’s help in getting Fuchs back to Germany. Sean realized that it might be more than a king’s ransom hidden here. South Freeman had been wrong. Dunmore had been smart enough to keep the treasure undiscovered all these years by using a false foundation wall. Until an enterprising German POW trying to dig his way to freedom came along.

As Sean looked at his hands, another mystery was cleared up. And it also had to do with Monk Turing. He smiled in triumph, a feeling that was cut short by a sound.

Feet running. Feet running toward the house. Not his imagination this time; it was the real thing.

He grabbed a couple of bricks and jammed them in the gap in the wall to cover the treasure, slipped the gold coin and emerald inside his bag, raced to the part of the floor over the tunnel and removed it. He piled some of the bricks on top of the wooden cover, slid it partially over the hole, dropped through, reached back up and pulled the heavy cover closed over the tunnel entrance.

Then he started to run, bad leg and all.

When Sean reached the other end of the tunnel he realized he was totally screwed. He stared up at the exit to the tunnel that was three feet above his head. Even if he could jump that high on his bad wheel, there was nothing for him to grab on to. Michelle had had to stand on his shoulders to replace the cover. Their exit plan had consisted of Michelle being hoisted up on his shoulders and setting in place a knotted rope for him to use to climb out.

Wait a minute. If he was right, and Heinrich Fuchs had escaped alone, how had he done it? He dropped to his knees next to one of the fallen timbers they had passed on the way in. He managed to push the timber out of the way and frantically scraped away dirt until a rough-hewn ladder was revealed. It must have lain there undisturbed since Fuchs had made his escape all those years ago, until a fallen support timber had covered it along with decades of dirt.

He hoisted the ladder up and set it against the top of the tunnel entrance. Like Monk Turing, Heinrich Fuchs had also been a very precise man. It fit perfectly into a ledge of wood just below the tunnel’s cover. He slung his bag over his back, gripped the ladder and clambered up as fast as he could. He pushed aside the cover, climbed up and then pulled the ladder up with him. Then he stopped. If Michelle hadn’t gotten out of Camp Peary by truck she might need the ladder to escape through the tunnel. The next moment this thought was dashed from Sean’s mind as the sounds reached him. There were other people in the tunnel now. Michelle wouldn’t be getting out this way. He threw the ladder into the woods.