Chapter 5
Chapter 5
New York City
The month had flown by amid the rush of preparations. The documentation of the case had been sent to Bluthund and was being reviewed by linguistic and European history experts.
The case, code-named "Imperial Diadem," had been formally accepted by the Bluthund Community's management committee and a meeting had been scheduled for the beginning of spring.
Four prominent members of the Russian community in Vienna had been appointed by their peers to travel to New York City to the Bluthund plenary meeting to form a so-called "steering committee" that from its constitution would carry out the design and the day by day management tasks. The representatives who came from Europe were Golovkin, Naryshkin and Demidov in addition to Igor Fiodorov, Irina´s cousin.
“Another meeting and one more committee! In my company after each meeting follows a season of action.” Thiago growled.
…
"The actions that are carried out in your company do not include endless trips through deserts, steppes or the Siberian taiga or other sub polar regions, nor do you expose your skin every day." was Jack's rude response.
The building was located on Park Avenue in a high-profile business and residential area. The first three floors were occupied by a well-known international insurance company whose CEO was Dr. W. Richardson. One of his side secret activities was acting as Master of the Bluthund Community in New York, an informal organization of which he had been co-founder some twenty years before.
In the past, members had had to meet in an old, abandoned garment manufacturing factory in Brooklyn, in a less-than-desirable area, so being able to move to the new headquarters in an accessible and elegant location had been a great qualitative leap. Through Richardson's efforts, the company made its offices available to Bluthund on Saturday mornings, on the condition that no other commercial activity was planned.
Irina and Thiago had arrived at the door of the building a few minutes earlier than agreed but almost immediately saw Lakshmi Dhawan and her husband Jack getting out of a taxi. Immediately they were announced with the security guard in the lobby of the building, who already knew them and had instructions to let them in.
"Hi Lou, how are you?" Jack shook his hand.
“ Well, Mr. Berglund. Go to the meeting room on the third floor. Dr. Richardson and Mr. Watkins have already been making preparations for half an hour.”
Jack led them to the elevators, and then after passing through a short hallway they entered the main meeting room with a large rectangular table and about twenty chairs, and at the back part of it there was an adjoining projection room that was separated from the first by about removable screens. In the latter, two men in shirt sleeves were busy preparing a projection equipment with a large screen, a flipchart and accommodating some fifteen chairs in a semicircle.
The older man went out to meet the newcomers.
“Dr. Richardson. Thanks for having us.
“Welcome Jack, Lakshmi. You´ve arrived just on time.”
Jack made the required introductions and they were soon joined by the other man who introduced himself as Jerome Watkins; Jack knew him as the Master of ceremonies at all community events.
When they got away from him he commented to Irina and Thiago.
“ With all his gentle ways he is a former Marine.”
At that moment Richardson's cell phone rang and when he took the call the host answered.
“Thanks for advising Lou. Make them come up.”
Then, addressing those who were already in the room, he clarified.
“Von Eichenberg and Suzuki have just arrived. Only Madame Swarowska is missing.”
When the appointees entered the room Richardson once again introduced them.
“Dr. Dieter von Eichenberg, specialist in western and eastern esotericism and Mr. Taro Suzuki, among other things, philosopher and expert in martial arts.”
Richardson shook himself in an unexpected hug with the Japanese, which broke some molds of sobriety on both sides.
Interested Thiago asked.
“What martial arts do you cultivate, Mr. Suzuki?”
“In principle Karate.”
"Suzuki San cultivates other more deadly arts as well, some of which have no name," Added Richardson.
Again the cell phone of the homeowner rang, who stepped aside a little to take the call and then approached.
“ Madame Swarowska is here. When the guests from Europe arrive in the room we can start.”
Indeed, a beautiful blonde lady in her fifties elegantly dressed entered the room. Richardson rushed to meet her, kissing her hand, though then they kissed each other on the cheek, which Thiago found more predictable than the hug with Suzuki.
"Madame Nadia Swarowska," Announced the homeowner with evident pride.
“Madame Swarowska was also born in Austria, although from a Czech family.” Jack Berglund whispered in Irina's ear.
“I get it. And what is her specialty in this case?”
Jack ignored the hint of rivalry that the Russian's question showed and replied.
“She is a specialist in finance and has a doctorate from an English university ... although we all suspect that she is also a clairvoyant.”
“You suspect? Just suspicious? ” Thiago had joined the conversation in a low voice.
"She never stated it and what's more, she always emphatically denied it," Said Jack.
“Who dared to ask her if she was a clairvoyant if she never commented on it?
“William ... that is Dr. Richardson.” Jack replied. “He has a special relationship with her.” Jack winked meaningfully.
A new phone call from the Englishman told him that the guests from abroad had arrived.
When they showed in the room it was Irina's turn to make the introductions.
“The Duke Ivan Golovkin, a reference of our Russian community in Austria and in Europe. General Dimitri Naryshkin, Baron Boris Demidov, my cousin Igor Fiodorov and his wife Frederika.”
Watkins coughed for attention and moved to the front of the meeting as everyone sat in the semicircle of chairs.
“Everyone is aware of the purpose of this event. As we have a very long agenda, I will not delay with preambles and we will start with the projected activities. The first presentation will be made by Duke Golovkin. I have already received a flash drive with a PowerPoint presentations, so we will start immediately with the projection.
"Good, brief and concise," Thiago whispered in his wife's ear.
Golovkin's presentation and Naryshkin's later were basically the same that Irina and Thiago had already seen in Vienna, with more image content but without additional information. Thus, for example, slides had been added with photos of the imperial family before being assassinated by the Bolsheviks, other blurred pictures with metal shelves full of gold bars of the treasure, images of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1917 and other current maps of the mentioned areas, photos of the Russian mini submarine MIR that had submerged in the waters of Lake Baikal in search of the alleged sunken train and scenes from the cities of Omsk and Irkutsk where the different episodes had passed, but although they illustrated the narration they did not provide additional data. After the expositions, the Bluthund members asked questions that generally did not obtain conclusive answers, and finally Jerome Watkins rose from his seat and spoke.
“We invite you to a coffee that we are serving in the next room to air our ideas and stretch our legs. After the collation, the members of our Bluthund Community will report on the results of the preliminary investigations they carried out in the course of this month, since we made contact with this issue. The purpose is to be able to decide at the end of these expositions the course to follow in this investigation.”
After the collation Watkins invited the attendees to reenter the projection room and once there Dr. Richardson briefly said.
“ Now Dr. von Eichenberg and Mr. Berglund will present the provisional results of our investigations. From the multitude of versions referring to the destination of the approximately 100 tons of gold, we have selected two that, prima facie, look the most promising and each of the exhibitors will refer to one of them. It should be noted that once we are working in the field, that is, in the areas of Siberia where everything happened, the hypotheses may change in the light of new information arising from those trips.”
von Eichenberg stood with papers in his hand and took the stand.
“The first of the hypotheses of interest refers to the sinking of a train allegedly with a gold cargo in the waters of Lake Baikal. This lake is the oldest and deepest on the planet, and is located geographically not too far from the border with Mongolia, territory where the Bluthund Community was active a couple of years ago.*
(* Op. Cit.)
“The second hypothesis differs from the first not in relation to the site of the sinking but to its circumstances. According to this, a contingent of soldiers on foot and in horse-drawn carriages that traveled the frozen surface of the lake was surprised by temperatures of -60ºCelsius and its members perished on said frozen surface in the winter of 1919/1920. When the thawing of said surface occurred the following spring, the entire caravan sank to the bottom of the lake, including the gold cargo.”
Eichenberg took a sip of water and continued.
“Although not directly related to Lake Baikal, I will mention a third hypothesis, based on testimonies of an old soldier from one of the Siberian regiments led by Kolchak, according to which the treasure was unloaded from the train near the city of Kemerovo and buried in the vicinity.”
Watkins projected onto the screen a map showing Kemerovo's location. Eichenberg continued with his explanation.
“All the surroundings of this site were explored and excavated by the Soviets later without result, so this third hypothesis will be provisionally abandoned in our search. So let's continue with the events in Lake Baikal.”
“The first track, that is, the derailment in the lake, has in turn several versions. One of them says that on a steep uphill climb, the train's traction failed, unable to drag the heavy convoy, which, lacking direction, rushed into the waters in a part where the coast forms a deep cliff. This is the hypothesis that at first glance looks more consistent and will be one of those that we will try to clarify.”
The speaker sipped again a little water from the glass in front of him.
“Another theory supported at the time by alleged witnesses is that Bolshevik enemies caused a landslide on the train tracks, purposely derailing the convoy. There are fewer details about where this would have happened.”
“As for the second version, according to which in a particularly frigid winter the caravan of men on foot and in cars moved on the frozen surface of the lake and succumbed to low temperatures will be the most difficult to study since we have no clue on where on this huge surface this would have occurred. In addition, as when it thawed in the spring, everything fell to the bottom of the lake, it did not leave any superficial marks.”
At Eichenberg's gesture, Jerome Watkins projected a current photograph showing a large cylinder with a white hemispherical front, displaying all kinds of cameras and reflectors on its front, with two skis to slide on the water and that it was being hoisted or perhaps rather descending on the lake by a very large crane. On its front was the inscription MIR-1 in the Latin alphabet. Near the site floated a semi-rigid raft with several divers on board and in the background a medium draft vessel with the flag of the Russian Federation. The speaker continued.
“Recently a MIR-2 mini-submarine similar to the one we see on the screen descended to the bottom of Lake Baikal about 400 meters deep near Cape Toslty and obtained clear photos of the remains of railway stuff and boxes of ammunition. They also claimed to have seen glowing objects in the background but this could not be confirmed by the photographs, and attempts to remove samples from the objects found with the submarine's robotic arms failed. The authorities of the Lake Baikal Protection Fund stated that they will make a new search in the lake bottom, although they attributed the decision to the study of the lake's fauna and flora.”
When the time had come to summarize what had been said up to that moment, von Eichenberg took a new sip of water and concluded.
“As it appears from this information, there are a series of conflicting theories about the site and the reason for the sinking of the treasure, but all of them coincide in locating the remains of it in Lake Baikal.”
With a gentle nod towards the audience he finished.
“Now I give the floor to my colleague Jack Berglund, who will refer to another series of information different from those that I have exposed so far, although not necessarily divergent.”