“How right you are, Sam,” he finally said. “It is uncanny.”
“You mean to say that the car accident and the truck of mummies burning to ashes is a deliberate act of sabotage?” Nina asked, also falling into their frame of mind. Purdue nodded.
“Aye,” Sam affirmed. “And I think whoever orchestrated the destruction of the remains, also tried to kill Miss Williams to make sure we did not get that cipher book.”
“But what about the lawsuit?” Purdue pondered aloud to make sense of the conservationists’ claims.
Sam was quick to cover his question too, having thought on it before. “Who do you think is behind that cruel method of culling, Purdue?” he asked, crossing his arms. “Think about it. They are trying to destroy any chance you have of finding out what really happened to the soldiers on board those Nazi sister ships on their way to Argentina. What is the best way to arrest the full attention of a businessman while you necessitate the destruction of covert information?”
“A blindside,” Nina answered, gathering up her books from the table.
“In other words, a lawsuit threatening to wreck my business reputation and to do it on a large scale media platform like radio and television news,” Purdue added. “My God, man. They are closing in on me again, aren’t they?” A small quiver of panic disturbed Purdue’s normally astute tone, but at least he knew who to watch out for. “Sam, you spent two days with the legal team and plaintiffs for that expose. How far do you suppose they are immersed in the Black Sun organization and its affiliates?”
Sam looked relaxed when he answered, “Honestly, I am almost one hundred percent certain that they don’t have a clue of it all. I believe this Palumbo bird and Eddie Olden have no idea that they are being used as media puppets under the pretense of being guardians of justice for the wilderness.”
“You don’t think they are in on it at all?” Nina asked, clutching her books tightly to her chest.
“No, I don’t,” Sam replied with resolve. “These people are just a pair of sandals away from being totally hippie, Nina. They are really suing Purdue’s chemical company for providing the poison used in these inhumane culling management systems. As far as they are concerned, they are taking down the head of the snake, so to speak, to avoid this barbaric practice to carry on.”
“We have to convince them that I had no knowledge of the leak in my company,” Purdue told Sam. “I need to get these people away from the mainstream media before my name makes it onto global media, for Christ’s sake!”
“I will get on that as soon as we get back from the Williams widow,” Sam promised.
“Right,” Purdue sighed, “we will see you later, my dear. I hope you can crack the hidden message in the letter. The more we know about those ships, the more we know of what happened on them and why they were headed to strange bearings, the bigger our arsenal against this killer who is trying to erase all evidence on behalf of the Black Sun.”
20 Visiting Grange House
Sam was driving the Hummer, or as he called it, the Yuppie Tank. Purdue was preparing himself mentally to deal with the widow, Mrs. Williams. He was at fault. That, he owned, but it would be difficult to speak to her, especially now that his name was again associated with another unsavory incident that took several lives.
“I hope to God that she does not listen to the radio,” Purdue said.
“Doubt she watches telly though, which would be a lighter blow,” Sam remarked.
“Oh God, of course, it would have been on television,” Purdue sighed, having not even really considered that. “In any evet, I have made her this offer and she has accepted, so let her think what she will.”
They were going to visit Mrs. Williams in the house she shared with her husband for 46 years, so that Purdue could present her with documentation citing that he would carry the full medical costs for her granddaughter’s treatment. A duplicate would be given to her to sign as acceptance to make sure that she could not sue him for it later, and Sam Cleave was to be the witness.
“Have you had word from my opposition yet?” Purdue asked Sam. “Are they happy with your rendition?”
“Funny you ask that, actually,” Sam replied. “Miss Palumbo called me to ask why my report is so one-sided in your favor.”
“What did you tell her?” Purdue asked eagerly.
Sam shrugged. “I told her that, until we have irrefutable evidence that you authorized the release of those lots, I cannot compile a report that blames you for the leak of the product.” Sam chuckled and gave Purdue a wink. “I told her that if I accuse you for orchestrating the destructive activity behind the culling, you could sue the shit out of me and then I would have to sue them, and so on and so on.”
Purdue laughed with Sam, relishing the journalist’s characteristic sharp wit and his ability to spin a story in such a way that he could control the view of the audience. It was almost a criminal talent that Sam had, but it came in very handy when they had to suspend interest or distract attention from what they needed to achieve.
“You are a scoundrel for the vaults, old boy,” Purdue smiled. As the Hummer turned into the last street that lead to the lane where Mrs. Williams lived, Purdue’s lighthearted demeanor began to change into one of somber apprehension. It was not intimidation. The only intimidation came from his acknowledgement of guilt for the family’s recent misfortune.
“Jesus Christ! Is she as rich as you?” Sam exclaimed as he leaned forward on the steering wheel to regard the ancient historical house that peered over the thick trees that lined the lane and its extensive stone fence.
“Almost,” Purdue replied. “But it comes from her husband’s family, his trusts, and his assets, not hers.”
“I almost feel as if I should have brought a sacrifice to this party,” Sam jested, hinting at the stately regality of the mansion.
“This is Grange House, Sam,” Purdue introduced gallantly, “where Dr. Williams and I spent many nights charming our way into affluent organizations that could further our careers. My God, we had some times in this house. Not just parties. We held secret meetings here with historical societies to acquire…questionable…artifacts for a solid fee, if you know what I mean.”
Sam looked at Purdue and shook his head. “And still you wonder why Karma fucks you.”
Purdue responded with a wry smile that implied that he agreed with Sam’s sentiments, but could not help himself. The old house towered over them like a stern governess. “I can take so many photographs of this beauty. Fuck me! Look at the architecture! A battlemented roof, turrets, wyvern gargoyles…it is like something from a Gothic horror film!”
“I know. It is an astonishing piece of property that I even once made Williams an offer for, but he would not sell it. He said that it was his favorite mausoleum. That always unsettled me the way that he thought of his house as a tomb,” Purdue related to his gawking companion.
“Where was he buried?” Sam asked nonchalantly.
Purdue gave him a long stare that carried untold meaning. Sam immediately caught on what Purdue was projecting. “Oh Jesus! Really? He is buried here?” he scowled in mild repulsion.
“Right at the bottom of the main tower, under the library fireplace,” Purdue winced.
“Holy shit,” Sam recoiled as he parked off the main drive. “Is his wife as creepy as he is?”
“Never spoke to her much,” Purdue said, looking emotionally burdened at the thought of it. “I guess it is time to get to know her a bit better.”
“Right,” Sam said warily, “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
Purdue hesitated, but upon realizing that Sam was serious, he bucked up and stepped out of the vehicle, dossier in hand. Sam watched the tall explorer and tech genius skulk his way into an old woman’s house, grateful that he could stay behind in the palatial garden.
There were no gardeners laboring that he could see, as he expected with such a perfectly groomed property and Sam rolled down the window to revel in the sweet scents of jasmi
ne and roses. Butterflies and birds frequented the branches and leaves of the plants and flowers that gave the place a grand coloring. Sam found the peace and beauty almost ethereal.
A darting shadow caught his eye, leading him to look left of the vehicle. It startled him so that his legs fell numb for a moment, yet Sam could not discern if the figure was real or a play of light. Quickly he jerked open his door, half of his body hanging out to see if there was any credence to his hallucination.
“That was not a hallucination. That is real, Sam,” he whispered to himself. “It has to be. I saw that plain as day, right? That was solid, not some shadow.” Keeping his body low, he lifted his legs out of the Hummer and hunched next to the open door. On the other side of the door, he heard the brisk footsteps race past again, but he remained still to locate the culprit by ear. Slowly, and as quietly as possible, Sam lifted the hem of his jeans and drew his switchblade from his ankle sheath.
With his other arm, he used his hand to press down on the ground to lower himself to road level. Sam craned his neck to look out from under the car door, but he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Far into the roadway, he could hear the front door creak and then followed the muffled conversation between Purdue and the old widow.
All he could hear nearby was the sound of chirping birds and the hiss of the treetops in the wind, but eventually the smell of moist soil and rubber under his nose bothered him enough to raise his head from where it was almost flat on the road. No voices could be heard from the front door anymore, and Sam knew that Purdue had entered the mansion. He sat up again, perching himself on the extended side step of the large vehicle to have a fag and he retracted the knife to slip it back into the holster.
He lit up a Marlboro and breathed it in, holding it like a phantom drink of whisky before exhaling. The house seemed alive, as most old manors did, but Sam figured that it was merely because this number of windows could hold a hundred peeking eyes.
“Oh God, this is good,” he huffed as the smoke made a halo around his head, easing through his lungs and airway with gentle hazard. At once, the footsteps came from behind him, but before Sam could swing around, a strong hand with zealous fingers grasped his shoulder. He yelped as his body jerked in reaction to the sudden contact and Sam dropped his cigarette. Barely avoiding burning a hole in his jeans, he kicked his legs out to keep the hot cherry from scorching him.
He looked into the ugly face of a man who reminded him of some ugly boxer that one would find in bareknuckle fights in messy alleyways. “Are you Sam?” the oaf asked with a Scouse accent that affirmed Sam’s comparison a bit more.
“Aye,” Sam replied with attitude, reaching down to retrieve his smoke. His fingers were almost crushed under the man’s boot as he stomped down on the cigarette and twisted the ball of his foot in a half-circle.
“No smoking at Grange House, Sam,” the brute warned. Sam was not about to disagree with the ogre, the size of whom loosely measured up to the sudden shadow he had seen previously. It was interesting, thought Sam, how such a big man could move so swiftly.
“Whatever you say, pal,” Sam said, holding up his hands in mock surrender.
“Come. Mr. Purdue asked for you,” the big man requested. “He says bring your gear.”
“The HD or the feed system?” Sam asked. The man gave him an indifferent leer, one that carried a warning that promised a beating if this was to persist. “Alright, alright, I’ll bring the HD.” Sam quickly added, and proceeded to collect his HD handheld camera from the sling bag Purdue had asked him to carry along just in case. Turned out that being prepared for a story, even in the most unlikely scenario, paid off.
In the late afternoon, Sam followed the enormous man up to the main front door of Grange House. He noticed that the man was dressed in cargo pants and heavy-duty sneakers in black. Along with this, he wore a long sleeve T-shirt with the sleeves pressed up to his elbows, also all black. However, the man kept his gloves on, which mildly unsettled Sam. Many big ogres with this dress code used to grace the lens of his camera while he covered human trafficking cartels in Eastern Europe.
“So what is your name?” Sam asked cordially.
“Oleg,” the man answered. “Keep your camera off until you are told otherwise,” he said, giving the journalist a dirty look, “Sam.”
“It is off,” Sam assured him, but Oleg could not be more apathetic. In silence, he took Sam up the steps that ascended the great front façade. They ascended between twin rows of flowerpots that occupied each step up along the flanking walls that served as balustrades.
“Don’t touch the flowers,” Oleg told Sam with the same monotonous tone, as if he was programmed to recite each line. “Mrs. Williams cultivated them herself.”
“What is it, Wolfsbane?” Sam teased, a stunt he instantly regretted. Big Oleg stopped in his tracks and sighed heavily, his gaze fixed before him. His annoyance was evident, but Sam kept walking, hoping to make it to the front door before the troll could pummel him to ground bone. He tried the door, but to his horror, it was locked shut.
“Oh shit,” Sam murmured, still trying the brass knobs of the thick wooden doors.
“We don’t leave doors open anymore, Sam,” the ogre grunted right behind Sam. It gave him the creeps to know that, again, the big black clad man managed to move swiftly and silently up behind him before he even knew it. Oleg’s tobacco breath heated Sam’s hair as he explained, “Not since the business with Miss Amy. Mrs. Williams feel that the attempted murder on Miss Amy was proof that this property is not safe anymore, that someone is watching.”
“Oh, I see,” Sam said. “That is what you are here for, right, Oleg? You have been hired as a bodyguard.”
Surprisingly, the big oaf chuckled sheepishly. “No, no. I’m the gardener.”
‘What the fuck?’ Sam thought. ‘I’d hate to see the chamber maid.’
21 The Impromptu Interview
“Ah, Sam, please come in,” Purdue invited as Oleg opened the door for Sam. At the landing of the lobby staircase stood Purdue, towering over a petite older lady, even smaller in stature than Nina. “Sam Cleave, meet Mrs. Gloria Williams.”
Sam wiped his hair back to look a bit more decent before he gently shook the small lady’s hand. She was in her early 60s, by no means as old and decrepit as Sam had pictured her, and she sported short, gray hair which gave her an air of youthfulness. Like the interior of the mansion, she looked refined and wise and she moved. She spoke with sophistication that implied that she was not just the late academic’s wife, but also educated in her own right.
She led the two men into her small office off a greenhouse that filled half the length of that wing. Sam was in awe of the architecture and the antique restoration throughout the ground floor they traversed. Mrs. Williams addressed Sam directly, tearing his admiration from the carpentry detail to the matter at hand. “As you can understand, I feel immensely vulnerable of late, so I have asked Mr. Purdue to take note of what I tell you both today, just in case those demons get the better of us Williams’ women.”
Sam pressed ‘Record’ on his handheld, and they sat down in the well-lit office.
“Oh, don’t talk like that, Madam,” Purdue comforted her.
Her eyes suddenly turned to blazing coals as she scowled at Purdue. “And why shouldn’t I, David?” she hissed. “I have every reason to believe that the Black Sun is closing in on us. Look at what happened to my granddaughter. Look at what happened to the Spanish delegates who came to collect the remains of the German soldiers! It is not just about the book, David. That book is just one click on a safe dial. Just like being part of a combination lock, it is but one of several components needed to unlock one big secret held by the Order,” she preached with wide eyes full of fear. “And this time they are not trying to get at your treasures by infiltrating your expeditions, David. They are protecting a secret you accidentally discovered in the Mediterranean, and they are busy eradicating every trace of what could lead you to it.”
Purdue looked ashen. “What are you saying?”
She bit her lip, her eyes still fixed on Purdue. “I am saying that, if I were you, I would hire an army to watch Wrichtishousis as we speak.”
The thought of his own residence being under threat was not far-fetched, but still disturbing. Purdue knew that his call boxes were not the problem concerning the information about the cipher book coming out, but that did not change the fact that the source of the leak was still unsolved.
Sam, however, had the journalist’s edge. He had another angle on her statement. “Mrs. Williams, what are the other clicks in that combination lock?”
The tiny woman frowned. She had been so busy chastising Purdue about his reckless ways that Sam’s virtually whimsical question caught her completely off-guard.
“W-what?” she asked, trying to be less hostile toward the rugged handsome man with the puppy eyes.
“The cipher book is important to exposing this secret, correct?” he clarified. “And obviously the remains in the caskets were another factor, which is why they went to such lengths to destroy these calling cards, right? So, can you tell us what the other clicks in your combination lock theory would be?”
“Good one, Sam,” Purdue agreed. As Mrs. Williams had asked, he placed the dossier, containing the acceptance of liability he had Jane prepare for legal purposes, on her desk while Sam was interviewing her.
“I am not sure, Mr. Cleave,” she answered, “but my husband’s research on a particular campaign from the SS camp cost him his life. I firmly believe that his misinterpretation of the Inca prophecy was responsible for them exterminating him like some inconvenient house pest.”
“Misinterpretation of the Inca prophecy?” Sam asked. Purdue was leaning forward, immersed in the woman’s accounts.
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