City of Palmer
Alaska
The trip so far turned out to be uneventful. Catching an early-morning flight out of JFK airport, Jen and Mitchell transferred onto another flight in Seattle, and then flew on to Anchorage, Alaska, where they rented a dark blue Jeep Cherokee. After quickly setting up the GPS, Mitchell drove out of the city and onto the Glenn Highway, heading north toward Palmer. Mitchell found the drive through the snow-covered countryside to be relaxing, as it reminded him of his home growing up on a farm. Additionally, it gave him time to think.
As they drove alongside the Matanuska River’s tree-lined shore, Jen stared at the thick layer of glistening snow and ice that reflected brilliantly, like diamonds in the bright sun. She had never been to Alaska before. The quiet beauty, combined with the fact that they were thousands of kilometers away from Charlotte, had her feeling somewhat more relaxed than she had been in days. Through his window, Mitchell could see groups of kids chasing each other over the river’s icy surface or playing games of hockey close to shore, taking him to another time when he was a kid in northern Minnesota. The world was a simpler place then, and Mitchell dwelt on it nostalgically for a few minutes, before turning his thoughts back to the here and now.
Mitchell slowed the car down when he saw the sign for Palmer. Checking his GPS to make sure he was in the right spot, Mitchell turned off the road and headed onto a curved, snow-covered trail that led toward an expansive frozen lake. With a reassuring smile at Jen, Mitchell drove for about a kilometer through a thick pine forest, until they saw a tall, wooden, A-framed house that faced out onto the lake. It looked almost too quiet, except that the snow had been recently plowed away from around the building, indicating that someone was home.
Mitchell stopped in front of the house, and dialed the number Fahimah had provided. After a few rings, Charles Reid answered his phone, and told Mitchell to come around the side of the cottage to the garage, where he was busy working.
Quickly bundling up, Jen and Mitchell got out of the car into a sharp, cold wind blowing up off the lake. Taking Jen by the hand, Mitchell led them around the side of the cottage where they found the garage, its side door open. Mitchell knocked once and then together they stepped inside, both happy to be out of the wind.
Mitchell stood there for a moment, almost disbelieving what sat in front of him. The old-fashioned-looking Ice Speeder was at least eight meters long, and was painted all red, with silver lightning bolts shooting down the sides. It sat atop three large skis. The enclosed, box-like speeder had a large fan attached to a powerful-looking engine mounted on the back, which would propel it across the ice at breakneck speeds. As a kid in Minnesota, Mitchell had seen a more modern version of the old speeder racing along the frozen lakes in the dead of winter, but he had never been in—let alone driven—one before.
“Hello, Mister Reid?” Mitchell called out.
“Oh, yes…sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” said a voice from inside the speeder.
A second later, the side door opened, and a small man in his eighties, wearing a grease-stained set of outdoor coveralls, climbed out. Mitchell made the introductions.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” said Reid as he looked at his speeder.
“It sure is,” said Mitchell. “How old is it?”
“She’s from the 1950s. I found her languishing away in a neighbor’s barn. I’ve been restoring her for the past few winters now.”
“Does it run?” asked Jen.
“Like the wind,” replied Reid, with a twinkle in his eye. “Now, why don’t you come inside and let me make you both a hot cup of coffee, and you can tell me why you young folks decided to fly all the way to Alaska in the dead of winter just to talk to me.”
Reid led Mitchell and Jen inside his rustic cabin. He threw the kettle on while he got out of his dirty coveralls and washed up.
An old German Shepherd, seeing new visitors in the house, trotted over from the living room and sniffed Mitchell’s outstretched hand. Once satisfied that he posed no threat, the dog nudged Ryan, and he obligingly scratched behind her ears.
“Sandy, he’s a guest,” explained Reid to his dog. Hearing her name, the German Shepherd dropped her head and slinked off into the kitchen to lie down on a worn, red woolen blanket, her head resting between her paws.
The cabin interior’s first floor was one large room, with dozens of photographs from multiple generations adorning the walls. Jen marveled at the thousands of books piled high in bookcases, all over the floor, and spread out along the walls. Reid probably had as many books as a small library. A set of highly polished wooden stairs led up to the second floor where Jen presumed the bedrooms were located.
Reid poured them both coffee, and then asked them to join him at an old wooden table in the middle of his small kitchen.
Jen thanked him for his hospitality and then got right down to the purpose of their visit. Together they told Reid what had happened in the Philippines and at the auction house, hoping that the old man could shed some light on why people may have wanted to kidnap her, and if he thought that the Goliath had any bearing on what was going on.
Reid sat there, drinking his coffee, and when they were finished talking, he shuffled over to a nearby bookcase by the stairs and rummaged around for a while, before returning with several binders of notes that he had amassed over the years while researching the disappearance of the Goliath.
Jen’s eyes lit up wide at the sight of the binders. Being a historian, she saw the binders as mini goldmines of information. Perhaps the answer lay hidden somewhere in the man’s voluminous notes.
Reid sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his thinning white hair. “Here is all the original source material that I have on my uncle’s fascination with the loss of the Royal Airship Goliath over Africa in 1931,” explained Reid as he spread the notes about on the table. “It kind of turned into a bit of a family obsession, you might say,” Reid explained as he looked down at the hundreds of pages and photos covering the table.
“Wow, you could say that,” said Jen, looking over the worn and yellowed pieces of paper with awe. “Sir, do you know why they didn’t ever find the Goliath? And what is so damned important about her?” asked Mitchell.
“Well, Mister Mitchell, those are both good questions,” said Reid as he took a sip of his coffee and then continued. “First things first, my uncle was certain that the man behind the Goliath, Lord Seaford, had actually grossly mismanaged his company’s funds and was heavily in debt to his creditors. He even wrote that he believed that Seaford was going bankrupt when the Goliath disappeared. Rather conveniently, his widow received millions from the insurance Seaford took out on his airship before it left England. However, with creditors demanding to be paid, his company folded shortly afterward,” explained Reid.
“And the search?” asked Mitchell.
Reid smiled. “For weeks, the French authorities scoured the desert, but found nothing. Over the years, several privately funded expeditions have only managed to find some small pieces of wreckage in the desert outside of a tiny village called Ouadane, in Mauritania, but no one to date has ever found the Goliath herself. I’ve always felt that if she is still out there, she’ll be found near the area known as the Eye of the Sahara, a truly massive, naturally formed rock feature that can be seen from space,” explained Reid. “I never went to Mauritania myself, couldn’t afford to, not on my salary, but my uncle did once, decades ago. The locals told him that a massive sandstorm lasting for days tore through that region about the same time that the Goliath disappeared.”
“So it could still be out there then, buried under tons of sand?” said Mitchell.
“Yes, Mister Mitchell, exactly. I, like my uncle, truly do believe that she’s waiting to be discovered someday.”
Mitchell rubbed his chin. “Well, that’s something, then. But why would someone still care after all these years?”
“That part’s easy,” said Reid, looking straight into Mitchell’s blue-gray eyes
. “Greed, Mister Mitchell, pure greed. The Goliath was carrying a fortune in her cargo hold when she disappeared.”
“How so?” asked Jen, looking up from a photograph of the lost airship. “Aside from the jewels and personal belongings carried by the passengers on the flight, I’ve never come across any reference to anything that would lead me to believe that there was a fortune to be found in her remains.”
Reid rummaged around on his table, grabbed a piece of paper, and then laid it out in front of Mitchell. “The flight manifest listed at least a dozen British and French millionaires as passengers. Their jewels alone would be worth tens of millions on today’s market, but that pales in comparison to what was loaded onto the Goliath during its brief stopover in Paris,” said Reid, as he reached over and topped up their cups.
“I take it you have an idea what that fortune might be?” said Jen.
“Oh, I know exactly what it is,” Reid replied, smiling at Jen.
Both Jen and Mitchell sat there, staring at Reid, waiting for him to speak.
“Have you ever heard the strange but true tale of how the Romanov crown jewels were loaned to Ireland by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution?” asked Reid.
“No,” said Jen and Mitchell in unison.
“Well then, let me tell you,” said Reid. “For a sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, the crown jewels were loaned to the Irish government, but they were never placed on display. Instead, they were hidden away in the home of the mother of the Irish envoy to the United States. However, trouble soon brewed in Ireland and civil war broke out. During the Battle of Dublin, the jewels were repeatedly moved around to ensure that they didn’t fall into the wrong hands. It was during one of these moves that the jewels were smuggled out of the country and replaced with flawless replicas.”
“So, you’re telling me that the ones on display in Moscow are fakes?” said Jen.
“Yes, that’s precisely what I’m telling you,” replied Reid. “In fact, the Russians themselves know it, and have spent decades and billions of rubles looking for them all over the world.”
“Being the only non-historian here, what exactly constitutes the Russian crown jewels?” asked Mitchell.
“They are the sovereign’s crown, which would have been worn by the Czar, along with the consort’s crown, and a scepter and orb,” explained Reid. “You can easily find information on all of them on the Web.”
Jen leaned forward in her chair. “Sir, that’s quite the claim. Can you prove any of this?”
“My uncle obtained the sworn testimony of a fellow called Father Patrick Murphy before he died of throat cancer in 1974. He claims to have helped transport the jewels to a rendezvous outside of Dublin during the fighting, where the jewels were switched, and his brother was murdered. He was lucky to survive, himself. When he finally arrived home and told his mother what had happened, he learned the truth behind his family’s participation in hiding the jewels.”
“But you said that they were placed onboard the Goliath in Paris,” said Mitchell.
“That I did,” he replied. “The jewels were smuggled out of Ireland by a pro-monarchist group who had decided to safeguard them until a Romanov heir could be returned to the throne of Russia. However, no secret ever stays a secret forever. Soon, Red agents began to close in on the hiding place of the jewels, so it was decided to move them far from Paris and to the home of Lord Roberts, a British sympathizer, who lived in Durbin, South Africa. Unfortunately, the jewels never arrived, as they were lost along with the Goliath.”
“Well, I can now see why someone would be very interested in finding the Goliath,” said Mitchell. “But why the fixation on Jen?”
“That, Mister Mitchell, I cannot answer.”
13