The Tunnel

By William Gardner

In September 1963 President Kennedy commissions intelligence officer Tom Grant to ferret out stolen gold and other treasure that vanished while in the hands of Nazi army officials.Grant soon discovers that nothing in his training at Langley and Fort Benning could adequately prepare him to deal with the deceitful minds and extreme dangers that lie ahead of him. He is caught in a web of intrigue and paranoia as he infiltrates the Iron Curtain. Encountering menacing characters at every turn, he is convinced that ex-Nazis and Communist assassins are following him. Throughout this roller-coaster story, Grant meets and sidesteps perils that nearly destroy him. Only at the thrilling conclusion, when he uncovers dirty little secrets of the Third Reich, does he fully comprehend the gravity of his precarious situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 28, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469772806

William Gardner

William Garder was raised in New Canaan, Conneticut, and served with the Army in the early 1960s in Munich and Augsburg, Germany. He has traveled extensively through and learned much about the people within Germany, Switzerland and the former Czechoslovakia. He is an executive and lawyer in New York City.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The wiper blades of my olive drab Army sedan raced at full speed in a futile effort to give me a clear view of Pennsylvania Avenue. I barely made out shapes of passing cars. As the Saturday morning rain quickly subsided, the White House appeared on my right. The great mansion cast a stately white silhouette against the dark gray clouds. Suddenly I was at the Northwest gate by the end of the driveway. A uniformed Secret Service agent in the guardhouse was expecting me.

Good morning, Lieutenant Grant. Please park your car in the small lot in front of the main steps. The Marine guard will assist you.

I thanked him, and he saluted me as I drove up the circular drive. It was my first time at the White House, and I was excited about my impending meeting with the President. As I ascended the steps, a Marine sergeant came out to greet me and saluted before he opened the door for me. I wasn’t in uniform, but he seemed to know exactly who I was. Nothing was quite as I expected. Everyone was extremely formal and polite. He immediately ushered me to the Oval Office. Even on the weekend it seemed that nothing slowed down at the executive mansion.

Miss Lincoln looked up from her busy desk in the outer office. She smiled warmly, and stood to welcome me.

Lieutenant Grant, the President is expecting you. One moment, please.

She picked up the intercom handset and pressed a buzzer. Almost immediately she began to speak. She replaced the handset and asked me to follow her to the door at the side of her desk. As the door to the Oval Office swung open, I saw President Kennedy beginning to stand in front of the tall window. He’d been talking with the Secretary of State, who was now standing in front of the massive desk. The President came around the left side of his desk to greet me, and extended his hand.

Lieutenant Thomas Grant, welcome to the White House. Have you met Secretary Rusk?

Good morning, Mr. President. Mr. Rusk.

Please have a seat.

The President sat in a wooden rocking chair to the right of the desk. The Secretary of State and I sat in captain’s chairs facing him. The President stared for a moment out the window, then turned to me with a serious expression.

Lieutenant Grant, you’ve been fully briefed on this project, so there’s no need to rehash details. You were selected to ferret out Nazi treasure because of your high test scores and recommendations of your superiors. Our objective is to return the stolen money to its rightful owners. Nazis stole from everyone to finance their dirty politics. There are important diplomatic ramifications for your success. We are extremely friendly with Israel. Chancellor Erhard and I hammered out this plan in an effort to set things right. It will be a difficult trail to follow, and you’ll probably have to travel into unfriendly places. With the erection of the Berlin Wall, our friends in Moscow haven’t made things any easier for you. Secretary Rusk and I want to assure you of our complete support. If you run into any difficulties, you will need to contact General Lemnitzer. General Taylor is aware of your activities, but Lyman is reporting directly to me on this. Do you have any questions for us?

No, sir. The Agency has been extremely thorough. I know how important this is to you, and I will do my best.

Thank you, Lieutenant Grant. I wish you the best of success.

We stood and shook hands. As I did an about-face, Miss Lincoln was opening the door. The President must have signaled her. She turned me over to a Secret Service agent who escorted me to the White House door.

I drove the government Chevrolet directly to Andrews Air Force Base for my C.I.A. flight to the Fürstenfeldbrück airport on the outer edge of Munich. The next day I was to meet my support team at an undercover location.

I dozed off as soon as the plane took off, and slept through the uneventful overnight flight to Germany. When the big cargo plane landed at the small field, the Air Force personnel helped me unload my specially equipped car and luggage. From there I found my way to the BOQ at Henry Kaserne in the Igolstädter Straße. The place was empty. All the other junior officers billeted there were on a field exercise near Freising. I unpacked and took a nap. I was still on Washington, D.C. time and was feeling tired in the middle of the morning.

By 1:00 p.m., I’d driven into the old part of the city where the buildings had been restored from the bombed out shells that they’d become during the war. I parked near Odeonsplatz. Then headed out by foot to the little street behind the city hall. I knew the area from my study of maps, but had not yet learned the names of all the side streets.

As I crossed the southern edge of Max-Josef-Platz, I heard what seemed like firecrackers echoing through the large square. It was gunshots. People scrambled in all directions. A boy ran from the direction of the main post office. On the steps, a man in a dark overcoat and hat clutched his chest as he fell to his knees. His limp body slumped backwards until his head slammed against a stone step. His hat rolled away down the sidewalk. I heard a woman’s bloodcurdling scream.

A boxy black sedan screeched around the corner and sped down Maximilian Straße toward the Isar River. I ran across the street to aid the fallen man. He’d been hit in the chest, and didn’t have much breath left. I propped up his head. He whispered, KGB. Don’t get involved.

Who are you?

His terrified eyes searched my face, then slowly glazed over. His body relaxed. The man stared at the sky with his mouth open. I quickly closed his eyes, retrieved the hat and placed it over his face. Following the dead man’s advice, I slipped into the growing crowd and walked briskly to the Cafe Europa. My heart was racing. I needed a stiff drink.

I opened the glass door of the cafe. My contact was Frau Hildegard Clemens. I spotted an attractive middle-aged woman waiting on tables. She wore a smart black skirt with a black sweater and a short white apron that covered the customary change purse carried by waitresses. It was Hildegard.

We shook hands.

Please call me Hilda.

Thank you, Hilda. How do you know me?

She smiled. After some time I, too, would know how obvious it was that I was American. My Yalie attire of gray tweed jacket, black slacks and brown loafers was as good as a billboard announcing my nationality.

I have been waiting for you. Major Pendleton is at the corner table.

MI5 agents liked to flash their military rank, even when they were on foreign assignments. Everyone knew they were Brits, and they didn’t try to hide it.

David Pendleton, Scotland Yard.

Scotland Yard, my ass. Secret agents all claimed to be from the Yard.

Tom Grant. How do you do?

Hope your trip from the States was smooth.

Well, the flight was a bit bumpy, and I’m still adjusting to the time change, but my quarters at Henry Kaserne are comfortable. I didn’t mention the horrifying incident I’d just witnessed. Pendleton might be trustworthy, but I’d been trained not to be too open with strangers.

Henry? I thought you Yankee spooks all worked out of McGraw.

Most do, but those folks at Henry don’t know about my project.

I was surprised by Pendleton’s indiscretion. He should have known that in the intelligence business nothing is usual.

You can relax around Hilda. She’s one of us.

Pendleton was a blustery man of about fifty with nicely graying hair and a distinguished moustache with waxed ends twisted upward. My first impression was that he was overly chatty, and probably given to stating

the obvious.

You a Harvard man?

No, Williams College.

I went to Sandhurst, and put in ten years with the Army. Enough about pedigrees, we’re here to talk about the mission. You know that after Potsdam, this place was sliced up like a big pie for the allies—Russians, French, Brits and Yanks. Each zone is controlled by one of the allies and monitored by all the others. Munich is crawling with Reds. You can’t say anything here without Moscow learning about it. The Russians are out to screw the Germans—in their sector and every other place. Their unofficial plan is to make the Germans suffer for what they did to the Russians during the War. The East Germans are stealing everything they can from the Russians and selling it on the black market. Along with that booty is gold stolen from prisoners of war, particularly Jews in the concentration camps. Some believe that these gangsters are the same characters who were in the junior officer corps of the Wehrmacht.

So…you want me to change all that?

"No, we’re perfectly happy that the commies are getting cheated. But most of the money really belongs to war victims. You know about the murder of Jews, but there were lots of others who also caught hell from Herr Hitler. When they were locked up in the camps, the National Socialists federalized their property—land, bank accounts, stocks, works of art—everything.

The smart officers saw the writing on the wall and squirreled away as much as they could. The poor bastards who ended up under the thumb of the Russians went from the frying pan into the fire. To protect what they’re stealing from the Russians, they set up a way to use the communist system for their own purposes.

He paused. Tom, we want you to infiltrate.

My throat went dry. I took a big drink from my tall scotch and water. I’d known that my mission was to find out how gold stolen by the Nazis was getting from East Berlin and Warsaw into Zurich. My briefing at Langley had covered the suspected routes. I’d been advised that my job would include some undercover work. I even had some tricky spy equipment. But the thought of masquerading as a member of such a dangerous group made my stomach lurch. If they found me out, I’d be a dead man.

My German’s basic, you know.

We thought of that. Your army has a good language school up the road in Augsburg. They’ll teach you some fine points. Then we want you to spend a lot of time mixing and mingling to learn about regional accents.

How am I going to do that?

Hilda! She’s got a place in the Alps where we have a community of operatives. They’ll give you a northern German accent. A lot of Plattdeutsch words sound like English, so it’ll justify a hint of your American pronunciation. And they’ll teach you how to walk and act so you can blend in. Do you like opera?

What? Pendleton’s abrupt change of subject threw me completely. My head was still spinning from the street killing, and from the prospect of impersonating a communist East German army officer who may have been a Nazi. Jet lag didn’t help in the mental alertness department—I’d just left McGuire Air Force Base the night before.

You know, Wagner, Verdi.

Oh, sure!

The Munich Opera is doing Rosenkavalier tonight. I have a ticket for you.

Well, as long as you don’t mind if I nod off a little, I’d like that. Might as well take advantage of the cultural pleasures of the host country.

We finished our drinks and headed out past Alois Dallmyer’s gourmet shop on Dienner Straße on our way to dinner at Weinstadl. A century earlier the little basement restaurant had been the city jail, and it still felt like a crusty, dank old prison. The rooms were small and dark, lighted by candle. I thought it would be a perfect place to bring a girl on a date.

I didn’t have a girl now. Betsy Davis had broken up with me when I’d gone to Langley. I could never get myself to tell her how much I cared about her, and I couldn’t tell her I’d been recruited by the CIA. I was full of idealism, inspired to serve my country by President Kennedy’s speeches. To evade questions about my top-secret work, I made up something about being involved with another woman. Betsy was crushed. She quickly married on the rebound. I thought Betsy was my perfect soul mate, but I didn’t know when or if I’d ever see her again.

Would you like to try the Russian eggs?

Excuse me? Oh, sorry. I must have been daydreaming. What’re Russian eggs?

It’s caviar, of course, but the locals call it Russian eggs. It’s the house specialty here, and they do it in a nice way.

That sounds terrific. I thought it was oddly appropriate that forty-eight hours after leaving Connecticut I was in the second biggest spy capital in Europe, having just come from CIA Headquarters, talking with a British secret agent ordering Russian eggs from a waiter whose security credentials were in doubt. And here I was, in a place that was world famous for high-quality beer, having scotch whiskey at a coffee shop and French wine in a former German jail.

Pardon me, David, but I need to use the restroom.

It’s down that hallway.

I got up from the small wooden table and walked down a narrow hall carved into the earth. I had to duck my head to clear a wooden ceiling beam. At the end of the hall were two doors. One had a large D on it, the other an H. I remembered that Herren was gentlemen. I felt more alert after splashing cold water on my face. Emerging from the W.C., I bumped into a gorgeous woman coming out of the door marked D.

She looked at me inquiringly and spoke. "Bitte, haben Sie Feuer?"

I stared back as if I had no clue what she was saying.

Then she said gently in perfect Oxford English, Do you have fire for me?

My face burned. Fortunately, the darkness hid my embarrassment. She was beautiful, and lustful thoughts made me forget my fatigue.

For my cigarette.

Oh, sure!

I reached into my trouser pocket and came up with a lighter.

Thank you!

You’re welcome.

She’d made a mistake that would have been fatal if she’d been a spy, a literal translation instead of knowing the language well enough to have colloquial expressions at hand. Was she testing me to see if I’d use an American lighter? The Company had provided for that contingency. But my clothes gave me away, anyway. Next time out, I’d better wear the clothes issued by the Company.

David, I just ran into the most beautiful woman!

Point her out to me, old man.

I saw her sitting at a table with a well-groomed fat man who was easily five inches shorter than she.

There she is.

Ah…be careful with her. The fat man is her husband. He’s filthy rich. He acquired her as an accessory. She studied singing in Vienna with a Russian master, but didn’t make it as a professional. Her parents are from Kiev. We suspect her of collaborating with the Reds. The Soviets occupied Austria until 1955. Musicians and dancers are about the only people allowed to cross the Iron Curtain freely. See the connection?

Surely that’s just speculation.

That’s right, but speculation is what we do. Well, Tom, it’s time for the opera. Let’s go.

We paid and headed back down the street through Max-Josef-Platz. There was no trace of the murder that had taken place there just a couple of hours before.

David, why are we going past the opera house when we’re going to the opera?

Seems you Yanks bombed Munich back to the Stone Age. When there are people who still don’t have a place to live, rebuilding the National Theater is not exactly the first priority. We’re going to the Herkulessaal. It’s part of the royal residence.

We arrived at the plain boxy building on the south side of a charming French garden. The fat man and his beautiful wife were seated a few rows ahead of us in the auditorium.

There’s that couple again! What’re their names?

He is Heinrich von Stolz. His wife is Gisela.

I fell asleep as soon as the overture started. After the opera I somehow found my way back to Henry Kaserne.

I’d just finished Army officer training at Fort Benning. I was officially attached to the 46th Infantry Regiment of the Seventh Army, supposedly as the Public Information Officer for the Third Battalion. But an infantry battalion didn’t really warrant a PIO, so they were going to change my assignment to the ski patrol. My orders differed significantly from those of other junior officers. Administratively, I’d be with the Army. But I’d report to the CIA.

Henry Kaserne was the smallest Army base in Munich. It had been built originally to house SS troops. With its parquet floors in the private quarters, tiled hallways and elegantly crafted double windows, the small military fort was almost as luxurious as a vacation resort. Our building accommodated thirty junior officers. I had a living room, bedroom and kitchen, all simple but very comfortable.

My briefing dossier had described some secrets about the kasernes, or military bases. Each building was connected to the others by a tunnel system carrying steam pipes from the main barracks building. Deep below ground was a steam-processing plant. Brass-railed catwalks crossed over gleaming machinery set on freshly painted floors. Everything was sparkling clean. Five men worked down there at any given time. They had a perfect opportunity to observe what went into and out of the base.

Not only were the buildings connected, but the whole complex of Will Kaserne, Henry Kaserne and the imposing Warner Kaserne were linked in a tunnel system running several miles south under Leopold Straße to a rail head at the Hauptbahnhof, the main railroad station. There was room to transport trucks and tanks without drawing attention from the civilian population. The tunnels also provided a cover from aerial reconnaissance. An entire brigade could be moved in and out of the city without anyone noticing.

The CIA suspected that something might be going on in the tunnels, but they didn’t know what. I wanted to explore them. I had to find a way in without being observed.

On Sunday morning I was lying in bed lazily wondering how to tackle the puzzle when the church bells were drowned out by a loud knock at my door. Hastily throwing on the plaid Brooks Brothers robe that Betsy had given me on my last birthday, I called out, Who is it?

Lieutenant Gray. Bob Gray.

So much for anonymity. I swung the door open.

I’d met Bob the previous day. Having been in Munich for a year, he’d offered to show me around town and, pointing out the sights, he’d given me his take on the diplomatic situation.

There on the left is the Cracker Box. It’s a hangout for enlisted troops, prostitutes, and Soviet agents who try to weasel bits of intelligence out of drunken soldiers. That’s why we won’t tell ‘em anything until the balloon goes up. The guys get pretty drunk, and they’ll say anything to get laid.

I’d asked, If we know it’s an intelligence leak, why don’t we plug it?

Bob grinned. Enlisted guys know what we tell ‘em. The plans call for controlled information leaks. In other words, the Pentagon makes up some bullshit that we want the Soviets to believe. We drop a little misinformation with the troops and they tell their girlfriends. Before you know it, Moscow has a wagonload of believable crap.

I’d laughed as he continued, Yeah, well, this business isn’t about the ground troops. It’s a big game of cat and mouse.

Bob invited me to join him for Sunday breakfast at the Officer’s Club. I’d brought a specially-equipped Volkswagen with me from the States. Among other modifications, it had a powerful Porsche engine. As I drove the mile or two to Warner Kaserne we talked about our military training and college, then our surroundings.

During the War, the Germans camouflaged Warner. From the air, it was invisible to our reconnaissance planes.

No foolin’?

Yeah! And they connected it to other kasernes and railroads in Munich with a system of tunnels.

I played dumb. That’s interesting. Tell me more.

Well, our guys don’t want the troops to go down into the tunnels because there may be booby traps in ‘em, but I know an entrance. I’ll show it to you after breakfast.

Perfect. I had to find out how to get to the tunnels, and it made sense for us to go into the tunnel together. If we were caught, we could claim we’d been inspecting the base.

The gate guard at Warner stopped us and checked our identification cards. Sorry, Sir! I have to stop all vehicles that don’t have US Army bumper stickers, said the private on duty. We weren’t in uniform. To improve relations with our host country, the Army encouraged us to wear civilian clothes during off-duty hours so the presence of American military wouldn’t be so conspicuous.

Warner Kaserne looked like a huge gray fortress. Three-story, gray stone buildings enclosed a huge square paved with cobblestones arranged in swirls. We headed for the south wall, where a large, brightly painted sign read Officers Club—Seventh Army. Next to it was a small building housing an American Express office.

That’s where we do our banking, Bob explained. In Europe, American Express is a bank. Everything’s strictly cash in Germany. The Krauts don’t use checks, and only hotels take credit cards. We encourage the troops to open savings accounts, otherwise they lose their money by the end of the month." As he chattered loosely, I began to wonder if I could trust him. Over breakfast he started again.

Military intelligence is ready to declassify this plan because we’ve got new orders, so I’ll tell you. In the case of threats from Moscow, everybody at Henry is part of an operation to cross the Danube and raise hell with the Russian army in Czechoslovakia. We’ve got mechanized infantry, tanks and portable bridges. The various units train heavily on the Danube.

It’s a scary plan because there’s no way for reinforcements to reach us. Basically a suicide mission. Because Czechoslovakian communists have been taking a less threatening stance toward the West, there’s a new plan now, but it’s still in the S-3 safe at HQ." Bob might be a good platoon leader, but I thought I’d better not tell him anything.

I asked him to show me the tunnel. I had to make him think my knowledge of the tunnel came from him. After we drove through the main gate at Henry, we continued along the cobblestone street, past the chapel, the parade field, the ammo dump and a building that served as a movie theater. The road was a mess, with mud everywhere.

See that low concrete structure over there on the right? Bob said. The entrance to the tunnel is inside it.

I was looking at an unimpressive rectangular structure less than half a meter high that looked like a large empty sandbox. As we drove around to the east side, we saw a ramp descending into the earth.

Oh my God! It’s huge! I said.

The opening into the ground was at least ten meters long and eight meters wide.

What do you say, Bob? Shall we take a look?

Bob bit his thumbnail uneasily. For all his brave talk, he seemed squeamish about doing something potentially dangerous. And he was obviously worried about getting into hot water for entering an off-limits area. After all he was a career officer, not a phony like me. "Well…the

enlisted guys come here during the week to wash jeeps and trucks. They sleep in on Sundays, so I guess nobody’ll see us."

At the entrance to the tunnel was a prominently placed sign: OFF LIMITS TO MILITARY PERSONNEL. I glanced around to see who might be watching. Not a soul was in sight. Any soldier who was awake would probably want to take advantage of the day off and make a beeline for the gate at the opposite end of the base.

Come on, Bob, I said.

Reluctantly, Bob agreed. Okay, but we’ll have to leave the car up here. There’s a lip at the edge of the ramp. You’d have to build it up if you want to drive down there with a civilian vehicle.

I grabbed the flashlight from my glove compartment. We started to walk down the ramp.

Gosh, this is awfully slippery, I exclaimed.

The dust and dirt have accumulated over the years.

It had been eighteen years since the War ended. The dirt should have been deeper than this. Clearly, somebody had been cleaning it periodically. Thirty meters down the ramp we came to a padlocked iron gate.

Bob said, Wait, I have a master key that might work. When you’re duty officer, they give you keys to all sorts of things, even off-limits areas, in case of emergencies.

The key didn’t work. Bob found a rock and struck the hasp a hard blow. It opened. We walked through and re-hung the padlock. It was very dark inside. The tunnel was straight for as far as we could see. I counted my paces. We were under the parade field.

If this tunnel goes anywhere, I’ll bet it comes out on the main road in front of the kaserne, I said.

It would have been easiest to build a tunnel right under the street. I also knew this because I’d seen drawings found by the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA. We kept walking for what seemed like a long time. In about fifteen minutes, we reached a massive steel door that completely closed off the tunnel. The door was suspended on rollers.

Let’s give this thing a shove.

We grabbed handles protruding from the right side of the door. As we were about to push it to the left, we heard a faint noise. We froze in our tracks and I quickly switched off the flashlight.

Bob whispered, What was that?

How the hell should I know? There’s no light coming under the door. People need light.

We listened breathlessly. Above the sound of our own hearts beating, we heard what seemed like squeaks and pattering. Wondering who else might be in the tunnels on a Sunday morning, I placed my ear against the steel door. I heard the noises again. The sounds were vaguely familiar. It was like the sound of squirrels scampering across the roof of my family’s house in Connecticut.

Rats!

Startled, Bob exclaimed, What?

There are rats in the tunnel.

Stepping back, Bob said, Oh, God, I hate those things. They give me the creeps.

They’re okay unless they’re hungry.

Why would rats be in abandoned tunnels? Didn’t they need food? Again we grabbed the door handles and pulled. The bulky door slowly and smoothly slid to the left. I held my breath and heard the pulse pounding in my head.

Now it was clear that we’d been in a branch tunnel. Stretching out on either side in front of us was a wider, higher tunnel. Shining my flashlight first to the left and then to the right, I could see no end. That made me nervous.

After a moment that seemed like an eternity, I said quietly, This must be the main tunnel. Let’s go to the right. That ought to take us north toward Warner.

Bob tried to respond, but his throat was too dry. Finally he whispered, All right. But keep shining that flashlight on the floor ahead, just in case the rumors about booby traps are true.

The hard leather heels of my loafers clicked on the concrete floor. I was overcome by the feeling that we were in too far to turn back to the safety of the sleepy Sunday base. After we’d gone about 500 paces, a sudden loud noise made us jump.

Turn off the light! gasped Bob.

We heard a soft whine, then saw a flash of light very far down the tunnel.

Run! Run as fast as you can!

The lights were headlights. We sprinted as fast as our legs would carry us. The whine grew louder. It was a jeep engine. The headlights began to brighten the space around us. I switched off the flashlight while running and almost slipped. We had to reach that heavy steel door before the jeep reached us. If they saw the open door, they’d look for us. Then we’d be in real trouble.

Chapter 2

Hide, they’re coming! Out of breath, our hearts racing, we flung ourselves through the doorway and covered our faces with our jackets, praying that the headlights wouldn’t find us. Grab the handle! Close the door! Hurry! I whispered frantically. We tugged at the handles, and, painfully slowly, the door slid shut.

Almost at the same moment, a jeep roared by. Then a second. They were American jeeps. American jeep engines made an unmistakable sound.

Bob said, Well, so much for booby traps! But what the hell was that?

I don’t know, but it’s mighty strange that American jeeps are in here where Americans aren’t allowed. My report says these tunnels were closed at the end of the War.

Your report? So you already knew something about this place?

In my agitation, I’d said too much. Well, yeah! I mean, I read about tunnels in Munich in one of the New York newspapers. It seemed like an interesting bit of information and I remembered it when I got here.

It was lame, but I hoped Bob would buy it.

Oh, I see, he said dubiously.

Damn it, now Bob was suspicious. Well, it couldn’t be helped.

We walked back to the entrance, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I was trying to fit together the pieces of this puzzle that I’d stumbled across. First, the shooting on the post office steps. Did that have anything to do with me or my mission? Then, our discovery of jeeps where no Americans were supposed to be. I couldn’t make sense of it. And, for all I knew, any one of my new acquaintances might be a KGB agent trying to sabotage my mission or even kill me.

On the way back to our quarters, I remembered something I’d seen. "I noticed something today