PART 14 – The Swiss Secret
The silence on the porch was suffocating. The spring breeze blew gently through the trees along the riverbanks, but my mind was spinning again. A second vault? In Switzerland?
"That's impossible," Daniel said firmly, standing up and stepping in front of me. "Thomas told me everything in his notebook. There was only mention of vault 408 at the city depot. What are you talking about?"
The man from the Attorney General's office pulled a sealed folder from his briefcase and handed it to Daniel.
"My name is Agent Carter," the man said. "When Senator Vance and his network were brought down, we seized all their international bank accounts. During the investigation in Zurich, Swiss authorities stumbled upon a numbered account registered not under Vance's name, but under a foundation titled 'Route 5'."
I held my breath. Route 5. That could be no coincidence.
"The foundation was established thirty years ago," Agent Carter continued. "The only two individuals authorized to open this foundation's vault are Arthur Van Dijk... and Daniel Vance."
Daniel looked at the papers in astonishment. "My surname... he used my real surname."
"What is inside that vault?" I asked in a trembling voice.
"We don't know," Carter answered. "Swiss banking privacy laws are extremely strict. Even with an international legal assistance request, they refuse to open the vault without the physical presence of at least one authorized person. The Attorney General wants you both to fly to Zurich to open the vault. We suspect there are international branches of Vance's network that are still active."
Daniel looked at me with concern. "Arthur... you don't have to do this. You've been through enough. I can go alone."
"No," I said resolutely, rising from my chair and straightening my back. "Thomas didn't give our names to this foundation for nothing. He wanted us to do this TOGETHER. If danger still looms, I want to see it with my own eyes."
Daniel saw the unyielding resolve in my gaze and nodded slowly. He knew there was no point arguing with me once I had made up my mind.
Two days later, we sat in the first-class cabin of a flight to Zurich, accompanied by Agent Carter and two federal guards. It was the very first time in my seventy-four years that I had ever been on an airplane. I looked through the window at the clouds below, memories of Thomas haunting my mind. What had he been keeping from me all this time? Was he an accountant, a spy, or simply a man desperately trying to make the world a little more just?
Upon arriving in Zurich, we were met by a black limousine that navigated us through the snow-covered, elegant streets of the Swiss city. The building of the Banque Privée de Zürich looked like an old marble palace.
We were received by an older, impeccably polite Swiss banker named Mr. Dupont. He led us deep beneath the building to an underground vault room even more impressive and heavily secured than the one in our hometown.
Behind a giant, round steel vault door nearly a meter thick lay a private chamber.
"Vault number 1109," Mr. Dupont said in a soft, professional voice. "Established in November 1981."
November 1981. That was the exact month Daniel had stepped onto my bus for the first time.
Daniel and I stepped forward. Mr. Dupont handed us two separate keys. "Both keys must be turned simultaneously," he explained.
Daniel looked at me. "Ready, Arthur?"
"Ready," I said.
We inserted the keys into the two separate locks of vault 1109.
"One... two... three," Daniel counted.
We turned the keys together.
With a deep, heavy click, the steel door unlocked. Daniel pulled the vault open.
Inside lay no money. There were no cassette tapes or political documents.
There lay a large wooden chest, covered in a thin layer of dust. And on the lid of the chest, a single word was burned into the wood:
HARRISON
Daniel stiffened completely. His breath hitched in his throat.
"Harrison..." he whispered. "That... that was my father's surname."
With trembling fingers, Daniel opened the lid of the wooden chest.
Inside lay a stack of personal belongings: an old gold watch, a wedding ring, a series of handwritten journals... and an audio tape with a recording device.
But the most shocking item lay at the very bottom.
A medical file from a hospital in Geneva, dated October 12, 2015.
Daniel picked up the file and read the name on the first page. His eyes went as wide as saucers and the paper trembled in his hands.
"That's... that's impossible," he stammered.
"What is it, Daniel?" I asked fearfully.
Daniel looked at me with a expression of sheer bewilderment.
"My father... he wasn't killed thirty years ago."
He pointed to the date on the medical file.
"He was still alive in 2015... Thomas kept him hidden in Switzerland all those years."
At that exact moment, all the lights in the underground vault room went out. We were plunged into pitch-black, suffocating darkness. And through the bank's loudspeakers, a strange, distorted voice echoed:
"Thank you for opening vault 1109, Mrs. Van Dijk. We have waited thirty years for this moment."
