Chapter 2: كلمات القبطان العجوز الأخيرة

Rainwater wound down Seville’s fogged, puddled windows, blurring the view without concealing the faint red glow from the resonance device in Egon’s palm. The warning text on its screen was a cold incantation, freezing his fear at his fingertips.

The eyes staring at him through the murky water had now become countless tiny bubbles exploding inside his mind, carrying the pressure unique to the deep sea and bearing down on his skull. The rain tapping against the glass sounded like some kind of countdown. Each drop weighed heavily on his taut nerves.

He dared not linger another second. He quickly wiped the blood splashed across his hand with his sleeve. His fingertips scraped against the coarse cotton, raising a faint sting, but he had no time to care. He shoved the device inside his coat. Through the fabric, the warm metal pressed against his ribs, rising and falling with his ragged breath.

He stumbled out of the abandoned maintenance room. Behind him lay a deathly silence, broken only by the rain filling the empty corridor.

When he pushed open the heavy wooden door to the ward, the sharp smell of disinfectant rushed over him, mingling with the scent of old linen. The odor was both cold and sickeningly sweet with decay, provoking instinctive unease. Raindrops tapped against the high windows in sparse bursts, jarring against the oppressive atmosphere indoors.

Victor lay on his side in the hospital bed, his chest heaving with every breath. The green line on the monitor flickered weakly but stubbornly. Yet his dark-brown eyes were unsettlingly clear, like two ancient wells without bottoms.

When Egon entered, the old man showed no surprise. He merely struggled to raise a hand as dry as tree bark, blue veins standing out clearly beneath the skin, and pointed vaguely into the air. The movement was slow but resolute. Egon approached the bed, placing each footfall as lightly as possible, afraid to disturb the fragile balance.

He placed the unencrypted data fragment on the bedside table. His fingertips trembled slightly from his earlier injury, while damp stains from the warehouse still clung to the edges of the printed page.

Egon reached out with a trembling hand. The instant his fingertip touched the copper key, the resonance device in his coat emitted a crisp beep. Its screen flared brightly. The cold red warning vanished, replaced by a yellowed recording.

In the footage, lights swayed inside a dim vault chamber. An elderly man in a tailcoat carried black boxes one by one into a subterranean compartment. The clatter of metal echoed through the cramped space.

His face was hidden beneath the shadow of his top hat, but his profile was faintly recognizable: Marcus von Hagen in his youth, his features carrying a ruthlessness far beyond his years.

In the recording, the old Hagen spoke quietly to his assistant. His voice came through the device layered with the hiss of an old tape recorder: “Balance the books. Sink the ship. Let everything disappear beneath the water.”

Victor did not answer. Instead, he slowly, almost ceremonially, undid the buttons of his nightshirt, moving as gently as though handling fragile porcelain. From a pristine linen handkerchief kept against his body, he slowly drew out an old-fashioned copper key.

The key was dark green all over, its surface engraved with intricate geometric patterns. At its center was a winged golden lion—the family crest still used by von Hagen Bank. It weighed far more than Egon had expected. Holding it felt like holding a heavy piece of history. Its weight bore down on his palm, and on his heart.

At that moment, the ward door opened, its hinges giving a faint groan. Lucas Wittmeier stood in the doorway, enveloped in the pungent scent of cedar cologne. It clashed horribly with the medicinal air. A professional smile of concern rested on his face, but cold calculation lurked in his eyes.

He held a tablet. His gaze passed over Victor and locked directly onto the copper key in Egon’s hand, measuring its remaining value like a commodity.

Egon did not retreat. He raised the copper key high, his wrist steady and unequivocal. The resonance device flashed again. This time, it displayed footage of Victor in his youth, acting as a witness and personally handing the key over to the bank for safekeeping. In the recording, Victor looked full of confidence, his gaze resolute. “Look at this, Lucas.

“If I press send now, this video will be forwarded simultaneously to the European Anti-Fraud Office. Who do you think will be the first to go inside?”

A trace of sorrow surfaced in Victor’s eyes as he gazed toward the gray, lifeless sky outside the window. “That’s right. Half the secret in your hands, combined with the key in mine, makes the complete truth. This key can open the vault’s physical lock. It can also activate the resonance frequency and bring that gold back up from the seabed.

“Marcus searched every inch of silt in the harbor district. He never imagined the key had been with me all along.”

Suddenly, hurried, chaotic footsteps sounded in the corridor, accompanied by the scrape of a wheelchair rolling across the floor. The sounds drew closer, carrying a dangerous pressure. The nurses’ shouts drifted faintly through the hall, threaded with panic.

The clarity vanished from Victor’s eyes. His body convulsed violently. Beneath the oxygen mask, his breathing grew rapid and broken, like a trapped beast’s final struggle.

Lucas’s expression changed dramatically. The healthy flush drained from his face, leaving behind a sickly pallor. He took half a step back, his knee seemingly striking the foot of the bed, then the doorframe. He glared at Egon through clenched teeth, a vein throbbing at his temple. “You’ll regret this, Egon. This isn’t merely a key. It’s a knife that can cut your throat.”

Victor stared at the data. A sharp glint flashed through his cloudy eyes, then vanished beneath profound exhaustion, like a candle flame on the verge of dying. He spoke hoarsely, his voice rasping like sandpaper dragged across rough stone, every syllable accompanied by the difficult bob of his Adam’s apple. “You brought back half a map, boy, but you didn’t bring back your life.”

Humiliated and enraged, Lucas stepped closer. His polished shoe struck the floor with an unmistakable sound. The tablet in his hand lit up, displaying a freshly generated draft arrest warrant. Its harsh white glow illuminated the tense line of his jaw. “Egon, this is my final warning. Hand over the key, or we’ll keep it for you. Don’t force me to take extreme measures.”

The old man broke into violent coughing. A few drops of murky phlegm landed on the white bedsheet like a series of ugly seals. After a moment of gasping, his oxygen mask rising and falling with each breath, he corrected him coldly. “Not Marcus. The old bloodline behind von Hagen Bank. You think that arrogant heir is merely looking for treasure? He’s looking for evidence of a crime.”

“Egon, I knew you’d come today.” Lucas stepped inside and closed the door behind him with a soft click. In the dead silence, it sounded like a gunshot. “Mr. Victor is in poor health. Let’s discuss the practical matters. Regarding ownership of that data, the bank has a new proposal.”

“No. I mean the gold that was never declared.” Victor’s gaze sharpened, piercing Egon’s defenses. “That ship has slept on the seafloor for forty years. Seawater corroded the keel, but it couldn’t corrode evil. Yet some things, no matter how deeply buried, can shatter the foundations of the entire harbor district once the key turns.”

The smile froze on Lucas’s face. The muscles at the corner of his mouth twitched before returning to normal, but a shadow passed through his eyes, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue. “You think you can win with that piece of scrap metal? Don’t forget—you illegally entered port facilities. Once the chain of evidence is complete, you’ll be the one sitting in prison.”

Egon frowned. Thunder rumbled faintly outside, making the glass tremble. “Victor, I need to know why those signals led here. Marcus’s people have laid an inescapable net across the harbor district. I was nearly trapped. Their surveillance cameras were like countless eyes, leaving me nowhere to hide.”

Egon clutched the copper key tightly. His knuckles whitened under the pressure, the chill of the metal mingling with the sweat in his palm. He felt unprecedented power and danger twisting together inside him, as though he were dancing on the edge of a cliff. “Why?” he asked, his voice low and trembling. “Why did you give me something so dangerous?”

“Illegal?” Victor let out a low laugh from the bed. In the silent hospital room, it sounded especially grating, like bones rubbing together. “When you people toy with legal statutes in court, have you ever considered that every pit you dig will eventually bury you?”

Egon instinctively touched the resonance device beneath his coat. It seemed to sense its owner’s emotions and emitted the faintest hum, warmth passing through his shirt into his skin. He asked quietly, his voice unusually clear in the silent hospital room, “You have the key?”

Victor smiled. The expression was pale and feeble, tugging at the wrinkles on his face and making him look even older. “Because I trust you more than I trust money. Besides, I’m old. The calcium is leaching from my bones. Someone has to end this lie that has lasted for decades.”

The call connected to Vienna. Silence lingered on the other end. In the stillness, only the crackle of static could be heard, followed by hurried, heavy breathing—the faint flow of air beneath an oxygen mask. The sound was like a single thread linking the boundary between life and death.

“Quickly…” Victor summoned the last of his strength and pointed with a withered finger toward the gray sky outside the window. His voice was so faint it was nearly inaudible, like a guttering candle in the wind. “Go to Paris… find Sophia… she has the other half of the contract…”

The image dissolved like the ebbing tide, leaving behind a barren, desiccated wasteland. Egon gasped for air, cold sweat soaking through his shirt and clinging to his back with an icy chill. He stared at Victor in disbelief, eyes wide. “That was… my grandfather?”

Egon shielded the copper key and leaned forward slightly. His voice turned cold. “Lucas, there’s no data to discuss here. Only the truth. You’d better stay away from me.”

“Then let me test its edge.” Egon met his gaze without fear, the other man’s twisted face reflected in his pupils.

Egon’s heart jolted. The scattered clues in his mind instantly connected. “Evidence of a crime? You mean the wreck case from back then?”

Before the words had fully left his mouth, Victor’s fingers fell slack, like a piece of deadwood. The sharp light in his eyes went out completely, leaving only endless emptiness reflecting the cold fluorescent light on the ceiling. Clutching the cold copper key, Egon listened to the footsteps drawing closer beyond the door—the footsteps of fate, heavy and irreversible.

A fierce resolve surged through him. He knew he had little time left. There was only one path forward.