Ghosts of War by Brad Taylor

about?”
    Shoshana started to say something else, and Aaron held up his hand. She closed her mouth and took a step back from Knuckles. That had never, ever happened. I said, “Well, well, looks like you’ve learned some discipline.”
    Shoshana settled her eyes on me and said, “I’ve always had discipline, but it never involved you. We’ve never needed you before. You and Jennifer. We need you now, and Aaron is afraid you’ll refuse if I aggravate you. So I promised not to do so until you agree. Then I get to do what I want.”
    I looked at Aaron and said, “What is she talking about?”
    â€œLike I said, we have a business proposition. It doesn’t require your skill. It only requires your company.”
    â€œWhat’s that mean?”
    â€œHave you heard about the fabled Nazi gold train in Poland? The one that’s supposedly buried in a secret tunnel?”

9

    O ut of all the things I had thought Aaron might say, this had not been even remotely in the ballpark. I said, “Did you say ghost train? No, actually, I haven’t. Have you heard about Area 51? Jennifer and I have been there. They don’t really have any aliens.”
    Jennifer said, “I’ve heard about it. I thought it was a hoax. Some guys said they used ground-penetrating radar to locate the train, but the government says they’re frauds and there is no train.”
    Leave it up to Jennifer to have a clue what the Israelis were talking about. She was constantly reading
National Geographic
and other, more obscure anthropological and archaeological magazines, and seemed to be tracking all attempts by modern man to penetrate the past. If it had anything to do with history, she almost always knew exactly what that history was. But this was a bit much.
    She saw my expression and said, “He’s talking about something real. Not just pulling your chain for a smart-ass response.”
    Shoshana nodded and said, “It’s real, all right. And they’ve found it. No hoax. The government just wants the treasure hunters to go away, because they’ve already emptied the contents.”
    Jennifer said, “What? They can’t do that in secret. The train probably held millions of dollars of property belonging to someone else.”
    Shoshana’s eyes glowed and she said, “Exactly. It also held something more valuable to us.”
    I held up my hands and said, “Wait, wait, damn it. Someone explain all this to me.”
    Jennifer looked at Aaron, and he gave her permission to lectureme. “Okay, it’s really pretty simple. You know about the horrific roundup of the Jews in Eastern Europe, right? How the Nazis hunted them and then sent them to the concentration camps?”
    I said, “Yeah, yeah. I know the history of World War Two. You can speed it up.”
    â€œWell, when they boarded the cattle cars, they lost everything they had, from famous artwork owned by the richest Jewish citizens to the meager wedding rings of the poorest. Everything valuable was taken, and as the Jews were taken from each city, their valuables were loaded onto trains and shipped west to Germany. Some of the trains were captured—for instance, one famous train in Hungary in 1945, with forty-four cars loaded floor to ceiling with gold products—while others were known to exist but have never been found.”
    I said, “And someone thinks they’ve located one of these missing trains, buried underground? Why would the Nazis do that?”
    Jennifer looked at Aaron and said, “You guys clearly know more than me on this train. Want me to continue?”
    Shoshana said, “Oh, yes. Please do. It’s not often we get to feel superior to Pike.”
    Knuckles snickered, and I said, “Like you know about this.”
    â€œI’m not the one they’re trying to hire, but given your lack of knowledge, I’d be suspicious of paying you