A few weeks later, the contractors had been chosen and earthwork had begun. Rummy called Helen at her home office. They went over a variety of details, as the work that was beginning required careful supervision. So far, there had been no unexpected discoveries of springs or rock formations as the initial trenches were begun. The major excavation, the big hole where the machinery spaces and pools would be built, seemed at this stage to be as expected – trouble free.
“Anything else, Rummy?” Helen asked. “Sounds like you´ve got things under control.”
Rummy said, “I´m glad Hoch und Tiefbau won the bid on this. We´ve worked with Werner before and he was ready to go when we were. He´s already saved us a bunch of time.
“But there is one thing, Helen. I noticed a big S-Class Mercedes parked in front of the office this morning. It had Geneva license plates. I spoke to the engineer at the desk and asked who it belonged to.
“He said it was some fellow came in just after I did. I looked at the contact log, It was Raul Sauter. He went off somewhere: the guy on the desk said Sauter planned to see some of the subs.”
Helen said, “I want you to go out and find Werner, Rummy. Tell him to find Sauter and get him off the property. Not only is he a competitor of Werner´s, he simply has no business there. We´re not insured for sightseers – or whatever he is. Tell Werner, if he needs to, to say that I ordered it.”
“Right, I agree. That´s what I planned to do, but since I was talking to you, I thought I´d mention it.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
.oOo.
In Freiburg two weeks later, Helen and Rummy walked around the site, checking progress with the various contractors. Helen wore a hard hat, a man´s white dress shirt and jeans with stout boots. Rummy, somehow naturally, looked like another workman despite his dress shirt, tie and jacket. There was earth-moving machinery everywhere, digging and dumping in what appeared to be, but was not, a random manner. Here and there the roar of heavy machinery and the bleat of back-up warnings was deafening.
As they moved toward the widest of the excavations where the main buildings of the resort would be built, a burly man with a closely trimmed beard waved and moved toward them. Clad as they were, he also wore a yellow vest with the contractor´s logo on the back.
“Rummy!” he called, and strode up to them, towering over Helen – though not over Rummy. “Morgen, Frau Wallace. Glad to see you here. Where´s Dumont?” His voice carried over the noise of equipment everywhere. The man was Werner Siegmann, site manager for the general contractor, Hoch und Tiefbau.
“Haven´t seen him today, Werner,” Helen replied, extending her hand to be swallowed in his. “Do you need him?”
“No, Helen. In fact I´m glad he´s not here. I wanted to ask you something.” He looked at Rummy. “You brought her up to date?”
Rummy shook his head. “No, just that you wanted to talk to her.”
Werner looked back at Helen. “Dumont came to me yesterday. He said he could get me some laborers and some form workers at a good rate. Named a price that´s about two thirds what I pay for Bau workers. You know anything about it?”
“No, Werner. What did you tell him?”
“I told him no. I said I can´t take the chance of the Man from Bau getting wise to it,” he paused.
“And?”
“He said he could assure me there would be no trouble about that.” He took off his hard hat, drew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. He looked at Helen. “Now, normally, I wouldn´t even speak to him again, but Rummy said, if something like that happened, to stall and let you both know. You know I don´t mess with shady stuff like that. But, I told him I´d think about it. Next time I see him, I´m going to tell him off. I don´t need that kind of trouble.”
Rummy nodded. “That´s the best thing to do, Werner. Tell him you won´t get your hands dirty because you´re sure we´d find out and you can´t afford to get in trouble with us.”
Werner grinned. “And that´s the truth, isn´t it?”
Helen spoke up, “The absolute truth, Werner. But thanks for stringing him along.” She thought for a moment, then continued, “Actually, I´d appreciate it if you would keep it up just a little longer. Get him to give you numbers. How many, how much, what crafts, what skill levels. See if he wants a ‘commission.´” She rubbed her fingers in the traditional gesture. “Ask him about the crafts he knows you need. Take notes and let us know what his deal is. I´m thinking we need to carry this further. I´m not sure where Schellen is in this, but Dumont works for him. I think I´d better find out what´s going on.”
Werner agreed, though somewhat reluctantly, and catching sight of something that needed his attention, strode off in another direction.
Helen, too, found something of interest and began to walk across the uneven ground toward a trench being dug by two huge Liebherr Litronic excavators, known in German as Bagger. They were poised tail to tail, dumping the soil they lifted onto heaps at their working ends. She and Rummy walked to the space between the two machines, where Helen unrolled the site plan she had been carrying.
“Rummy, is this where it should be? I don´t recall there should be a trench here. And why are they piling it up, not loading it for removal?”
Rummy moved beside her to look at the drawing. “I´m not sure, Helen,” he said, and bent to study it. He looked up after a moment to check the relation of the site to other features nearby. A change in the noise around them, a peripheral glimpse – he never recalled what – triggered his instinctive reactions.
“DOWN!” he cried, grabbing Helen and throwing her to the ground. Both machines had swung completely around, their buckets passing inches above their backs as they lay prostrate on the damp soil.
“What?” Helen mumbled, trying to lift herself from the dirt. “What´s happening?” She looked up. The digging bucket of one of the machines had swung back and was poised above the two of them, about to strike downward at them.
“Underneath!” she shouted above the noise. “It´s going for us.” She scrambled for the underside of the machine, grabbing a towing lug, sliding her legs underneath and between the tracks. Rummy followed suit on the other side of the gap, rolling under the other machine. The bucket smashed into the ground where they had lain, onto the site plan they had been reading and that she had dropped at Rummy´s warning. The bucket rose immediately and the second bucket smashed down.
From her position, Helen could see that the buckets could not reach them under the machine bodies, but that it would be possible for the machines to move on their treads to give the operators a better chance of reaching them. Indeed, after a moment´s pause, as though the operators had had a moment to consult by gestures or signals, both machines began to move. Too close to the edge of the trench to turn, they first moved closer together. Fortunately, there was enough room between the undercarriages and the uneven ground that both Helen and Rummy were untouched. But soon, the machines began to move away from each other. Helen knew they would try to open the space enough to be able to make another attack with the shovels. She looked across at Rummy. Rummy gestured, pointing toward open ground, and began to rise on his hands and gather his feet beneath him. Helen did likewise, ready for the first opportunity to try an escape. Rummy raised his arms and, placing his wrists together, formed a “Y”. Helen nodded her understanding: they should split up as they ran.
In a moment, the machine above her had moved back far enough to allow Helen to gather her feet under her. She looked upward, watching the bucket that was poised above. It started to strike downward, and she broke to her left, running obliquely as hard as she could away from the trench and the threatening machine. In the corner of her eye, she saw Rummy doing likewise. She kept on running until she was certain she was out of range, then looked around for Rummy. He was also out of range, running toward her. They collided, more or less gently, and Helen threw her arms around him, holding tight for a long moment, shaking uncontrollably.
“God, Rummy. What was that?”
Breathing more heavily than Helen would have expected, he answered, “Attempted murder, I´d call it. Are you okay?”
“Pretty much, I guess. Just a few bruises.”
“Donnerwetter! Halt!” It was Werner´s voice. His bulky body went thundering past the two of them, heading for the machines by the trench. The operators had scrambled from their seats and were already jumping from the machines and heading for some place to hide or escape. It was clear to Helen that Werner had no chance to catch either man. Before long, he gave it up and hurried back to Helen and Rummy, by now standing side by side, supporting one another.
“Are you all right?” Werner asked, looking them both over.
“Well enough,” Rummy answered. “Who were those guys?”
“I don´t know,” Werner said, “but I´ll find out soon enough.” He waved at one of his men who was hurrying to the scene. Others, who had noticed the attack were converging on them.
“Helmut, get some men. Try to catch those two,” Werner called, and the man beckoned to some of the men coming to see what had happened. They split off and ran hard after the two figures that had by now nearly disappeared into a remote edge of the job site.
“Not much hope there, Werner,” Rummy said, as Helen pulled herself together and walked back toward the two machines, now idling beside the trench. She picked up the drawing she had been consulting before the attack and brought it back, dirty, torn and crumpled, but still legible.
“Werner, why is that trench there at all?” She held out the drawing, offering Werner one edge. “It´s not on this excavation plan.”
Werner looked at the drawing, looked back at the trench and the other excavations going on. “You´re right Helen. There´s not supposed to be a trench here.” He turned to address Helmut, who was now approaching. “Helmut, what is this?”
Helmut looked around, pulled off his helmet. “I have no idea, Werner. I didn´t authorize anything here. Look, it´s not even staked.”
“Any ideas who the operators were?”
“No. Those two machines were written up for maintenance today. They weren´t supposed to be in use at all. Their regular operators are doing other work today.” He walked with the others toward the trench. “Look, this trench is new today – there´s no rainwater in the bottom. And, it doesn´t go anywhere. It´s just make-work. Anyway, I don´t allow piling up dirt. It just makes more work to remove it later.”
Helen spoke up. “I think that´s what caught my eye. And then I couldn´t think why anyone would be digging there.”
“Looks to me,” Rummy said, “as though that´s what they were counting on – that you´d notice it and come over. It was a trap.”
“Well, they nearly caught us,” Helen said. “But why, and who?” She stumbled over a rock. “Werner, let´s get inside. I´m a little wobbly.”
They began walking slowly back to the construction office. Helen was still feeling a little shocky, but she didn´t accept Rummy´s offer of an arm. In the office, though, she collapsed into a chair. “Coffee?” she asked. Then looking at Rummy she said, “God, you´re a mess!” Rummy´s khaki pants and tweed jacket were covered with dirt and mud, and there was dirt on his face as well.
He smiled. “You´re no better,” he said.
Helen looked down the length of her body, now stretched from the chair. Her jeans were filthy indeed, and torn at the knees. Her shirt sleeve had torn partly from her shoulder and damp dirt made a mess across her chest, causing the fabric to cling to her breasts. She pulled the material away from her skin. “We both need a shower and a change.” She smiled at Rummy. “Quick thinking. Thanks. I think you saved my life.”
Werner said, “Well, unless you´ve got clothes here, you´ll have to wait because I´m calling the police. You probably need to wait until they´ve interviewed you. There´s a shower here, if you´ve got other clothes.”
“I suppose we do have to call the police, but I wish we didn´t, Werner. We´re not hurt, and those two guys are probably a long way away by now.”
“Well, Helen, I want to talk to all my men and see what they may have noticed. Someone checked out those machines, and I want to know who. Maybe someone noticed the guys.”
“Sure, Werner. I´m just anxious to get on with things,” Helen said, taking a long drink of the coffee someone had handed her. “I can´t let something like this hold up the project.” She looked sharply at Werner. “And don´t you let it, either.” She looked at Rummy. “My clothes are in the car. Okay if I take the first shower?”
It took more than an hour for the police to respond to the site, and then Helen and Rummy were interviewed for some time by a thorough police inspector. When they were done, Werner came to report that the two machines had probably been operated by two unknown men who had reported to work that morning. They had introduced themselves as maintenance workers from the manufacturer of the two excavators. Now they had vanished whence they had come.
Helen turned to Werner, “Would you please call Liebherr and see if they really sent anyone to do that job? I´d hate to think what those guys might have done to the real maintenance men.”
A few minutes later Werner reported, “They never sent anyone. I´ll have to check, but I´ll bet someone called us and told us to shut those machines down for maintenance today, just so those guys could get at them.”
“Why today?” Rummy asked.
“We´ve all known the two of you were coming today, Rummy. It´s routine to announce that you´ve got a site visit planned. Motivates people to finish up the ‘to do´ lists.”
“We were on the wrong list, Werner,” Helen said wryly.
She went to one of the tables and wrote up her site visit report, describing the incident and sent it by e-mail to Schellen´s office with a copy to Marie at the Paris atelier. Her inbox had a message from Paul Dumont.
“Rummy, Dumont says Schellen wants to meet us in Geneva tomorrow morning. Can you come?”