“That was odd. Odd, but strangely welcome,” Nina muttered.
Sam was on her shit list and she avoided him for most of the trip, save for the necessary notations here and there on diving gear and bearings.
“See? More explorers, I bet,” Purdue told Alexandr with a chuckle, pointing at a very decrepit fishing boat bobbing a distance from them. They could hear the Portuguese men arguing incessantly about the direction of the wind, from what they could decipher in their gestures. Alexandr laughed. It reminded him of the night he and six other soldiers spent on the Caspian Sea, too drunk to navigate and getting hopelessly lost.
A rare two hours of relaxation blessed the crew of the Atlantis expedition while Alexandr steered the yacht out to the coordinates locked by the GPS system he consulted. Although they were engaged in small talk and folk tales of old Portuguese explorers, lovers eloping and drowning, and the authenticity of the other documents recovered with the Atlantis Scrolls, they were all secretly anxious to see if the continent was really below them in all its glory. Not one of them could contain their excitement for the dive.
“I have thankfully taken care to increase my dives at a PADI-recognized diving school just under a year ago, just to do something different for relaxation,” Sam boasted as Alexandr zipped up his suit just before the first dive.
“That’s a good thing, Sam. At these depths you have to know what you’re doing. Nina, you are sitting this one out?” Purdue asked.
“Aye,” she shrugged. “I have a hangover that could kill a buffalo and you know how well that goes down under pressure.”
“Oh, yes, rather not,” Alexandr nodded, sucking on another joint while the wind ruffled his hair. “Don’t worry, I’m good company while these two go tease the sharks and get seduced by man-eating mermaids.”
Nina laughed. The image of Sam and Purdue at the mercy of fish women was hilarious. However, the shark idea actually concerned her.
“Don’t worry about the sharks, Nina,” Sam told her just before he bit onto his mouthpiece, “they don’t like alcoholic blood. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s not you I am worried about, Sam,” she scoffed in her best bitch tone and accepted a joint from Alexandr.
Purdue pretended he heard nothing, but Sam knew full well what it was all about. His remark the night before, his honest observation, had frayed their ties just enough for her to get vindictive. But he was not going to apologize for it. She needed to be woken to her conduct and coerced into making a choice once and for all instead of playing with the emotions of Purdue, Sam, or anyone else she chose to entertain while it pleased her.
Nina gave Purdue a caring look before he splashed into the deep dark blue of the Atlantic. She elected to give Sam a baleful, narrow-eyed grimace, but when she turned to look for him, all that was left was a blossoming flower of foam and bubbles on the surface of the water.
Pity, she thought, and dragged a deep one on the rolled paper. Hope a mermaid rips your bollocks off, Sammo.
41
Cleaning the drawing room was always last on the list for Miss Maisy and her two cleaners, but it was their favorite room, because of the generous hearth and the spooky carvings. Her two subordinates were young girls from the local college she employed for a handsome fee, on the condition that they never discuss the manor or its security measures. Fortunately for her the two girls were modest undergraduates who enjoyed science lectures and Skyrim marathons, not the typical spoiled and undisciplined types Maisy had encountered in Ireland when she had a personal security gig there between 1999 and 2005.
Her girls were salt of the earth young students who took pride in their housework and she afforded them regular gratuities for their loyalty and efficient work. It was a good relationship. In the Thurso manor there were a couple of places Miss Maisy chose to clean herself, and her girls kept clear of those—the guest house and the basement.
Today was especially chilly due to the thunderstorm announced on the radio the day before that was expected to ravage northern Scotland for the next three days, at least. Fire crackled in the large fireplace where the flames licked the charred sides of the brick structure that extended up a tall chimney.
“Almost done, lassies?” Maisy asked from the doorway where she stood with a tray.
“Aye, I am done,” the skinny brunette, Linda, cheered, tapping the stick of her feather duster across the ample buttocks of her redhead pal, Lizzy. “The ginger is still lagging, though,” she jested.
“What is that?” Lizzy asked when she saw the beautiful birthday cake.
“Some free diabetes,” Maisy declared with a curtsy.
“What’s the occasion?” Linda asked, dragging her friend to the table with her.
Maisy lit one candle in the middle, “Today, dames, is my birthday, and you are the unfortunate victims of my compulsory tasting.”
“Oh, dread. Sounds just awful, eh, Ginger?” Linda joked while her friend leaned over to drag the point of her finger through the icing for a taste. Maisy slapped her hand playfully and lifted the meat cleaver in a mock threat, driving the girls into a roaring shriek of excitement.
“Happy birthday, Miss Maisy!” they both shouted, waiting in anticipation for the head housekeeper to indulge in Halloween humor. Maisy made a face, closed her eyes for the crumb-and-icing onslaught she expected and brought down the cleaver on the cake.
As expected the impact smashed the cake in two and the girls squealed with the thrill of it.
“Come, come,” Maisy said, “dig in. I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Me neither,” Lizzy moaned, while Linda dished up skillfully for all of them.
The doorbell rang.
“More guests?” Linda asked with a stuffed mouth.
“Ach nie, you know I don’t have any friends,” Maisy scoffed, rolling her eyes. She had just taken her first bite and now she had to swallow it quickly to look presentable, a most annoying feat, just when she thought she could relax. Miss Maisy opened the door and was greeted by two gentlemen in jeans and jackets that reminded her of hunters or lumberjacks. They were wet from the rain, and the cold wind chilled the porch, but neither of the men even shivered or attempted to pull up their collars. It was clear they were undeterred by the cold.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Good day, madam. We hope you can help us,” the taller of the two friendly men said in a German accent.
“With?”
“By not making a scene or marring our mission here,” the other replied nonchalantly. His tone was calm, very civilized, and Maisy placed his accent from somewhere in the Ukraine. His words would have devastated most women, but Maisy was skilled in summing people up and disposing of most. They were indeed hunters, she reckoned, foreigners sent on an errand by which they were ordered only to act as harshly as provoked, hence the calm disposition and the open request.
“What is your mission? I cannot promise cooperation if it compromises my own,” she said firmly, allowing them to identify her as someone who knew the life. “Who are you with?”
“We cannot say, madam. If you would step aside, please.”
“And do ask your young friends not to scream,” the taller man requested.
“They are innocent civilians, gentlemen. Leave them out of this,” Maisy said more sternly and stepped to the middle of the doorway. “They have no reason to scream.”
“Good, because if they do, we’ll give them a reason,” the Ukrainian replied in a voice so kind that it was wicked.
“Miss Maisy! Everything all right?” Lizzy called from the drawing room.
“Dandy, doll! Eat yer cake!” Maisy shouted back.
“What were you sent to do here? I am the only resident of my employer’s manor for the next few weeks, so whatever you are looking for, you have come at the wrong time. I am just a housekeeper,” she informed them formally and nodded politely before she slowly drew the door to shut it.
They did not react, and oddly enough, that was what brought a tingle of panic to Mai
sy McFadden’s gut. She locked the front door and let out a long sigh, grateful that they accepted her charade.
A plate shattered in the drawing room.
Miss Maisy rushed to see what was happening and found her two girls in the forceful grasp of two other men who were obviously affiliated with her two callers. She stopped in her tracks.
“Where is Renata?” one of the men asked.
“I–I d–don’t know who that is,” Maisy stuttered, wringing her hands in front of her.
The man pulled out a Makarov and blew a gash in Lizzy’s leg. The girl wailed hysterically, as did her friend.
“Tell them to shut up or we’ll silence them with the next slug,” he hissed. Maisy did as she was told, asking the girls to stay calm and quiet lest they be executed by the strangers. Linda fainted, the shock of the intrusion too much to bear. The man who held her just dropped her to the floor and said, “Not like the movies, is it, sweetheart?”
“Renata! Where is she?” he shouted, holding the shaking and terrified Lizzy by the hair and pointing his weapon to her elbow. Now Maisy realized that they were referring to the ungrateful wench she was supposed to take care of until Mr. Purdue returned. Much as she loathed the conceited bitch, Maisy was being paid to protect her and keep her fed. She could not relinquish the asset to them, on order of her employer.
“Let me take you to her,” she offered sincerely, “but please, leave the cleaning girls be.”
“Tie them up and stash them in a closet. If they squeal, we’ll skewer them like Parisian whores,” the aggressive shooter grinned, locking eyes with Lizzy as warning.
“Let me just get Linda up off the ground. For God’s sake, you can’t let the child lie on the floor in the cold,” Maisy told the men with no fear in her voice.
They allowed her to get Linda to the chair next to the table. With her skilled hands moving swiftly they did not notice the cleaver Miss Maisy pulled from under the cake and slipped into her apron pocket. With a sigh, she rubbed her palms down her chest to clear them of crumbs and sticky icing and said, “Come.”
The men followed her through the vast dining room with all its antiques, entering the kitchen where they could still smell the freshly baked cake. But instead of leading them out to the guest house, she led them to the basement. The men did not suspect deception as a basement was a logical place for hostages and secrets to be kept. The place was dreadfully dark and smelled of sulfur.
“Isn’t there a light down here?” one of the men asked.
“Downstairs there is a switch. Not good for a coward like me who despises dark rooms, you know. Damned horror films will get you every time,” she ranted lightheartedly.
Halfway down the steps, Maisy suddenly dropped to sit down. The man following her closely tripped over her crouching body and took a brutal tumble down the stairs, while Maisy swiftly swung around with the cleaver to strike the second man behind her. The thick heavy blade jammed itself into his knee, separating the patella from the shin while the first man’s bones cracked in the dark where he had landed, silencing him instantly.
As the man behind her roared in dire anguish, she felt a crippling punch in her face that immobilized her for a moment, dousing her consciousness. When the dark haze subsided Maisy saw the two men from the front door appear on the top landing. As her training dictated, even in her daze she took note of their communication.
“Renata is not down here, idiots! The pictures Cleave sent us show her in the guest house! That one—outside. Bring the housekeeper!”
Maisy knew she could take on three of them, had they not alleviated her of the cleaver. She could still hear the kneecapped intruder screeching in the background when they stepped out into the yard where the freezing rain drenched them.
“Codes. Punch in the codes. We know about the security specs, darling, so don’t even think of fucking with us,” a Russian accent barked at her.
“Have you come to free her? Do you work for her?” Maisy asked as she pressed the number sequence of the first pad.
“That is none of your business,” the Ukrainian from the front door replied in a less-than-sweet tone. Maisy turned, her eyes fluttering under the interference of the pouring water.
“It is very much my business,” she retorted. “I am in charge of her.”
“You really take your job seriously. That is admirable,” the German from the front door patronized her. He pushed his hunting knife hard down on her collarbone. “Now open the fucking door.”
Maisy opened the first door. The two men form the door and a third man she had not seen before stepped into the area between the two doors with her. If she could get them in with Renata and close the door, she could lock them in with their quarry and contact Mr. Purdue for reinforcements.
“Open the next door,” the German ordered. He knew what she was planning and made sure she stepped in first so that she would not be able to lock them in. He gestured to the Ukrainian to get stand guard at the exterior door. Maisy opened the next door, hoping that Mirela would help her get rid of the intruders, but she did not know the extent of Mirela’s selfish power plays. Why would she help her captors fight off intruders, both factions holding no goodwill toward her? Mirela was standing upright against the wall behind the door, holding the heavy porcelain lid of the toilet. When she saw Maisy come through the door she could not help but smile. Her vengeance was small but sufficient for now. With all her strength Mirela brought the lid across and rammed it into Maisy’s face, breaking her nose and jaw in one sweep. The housekeeper’s body fell against the two men, but when Mirela tried to shut the door they were too fast and too strong.
While Maisy was on the floor she got hold of the communication device she used to send Purdue her reports and she typed in her message. She then slipped it into her bra and kept still while she heard the two intruders subdue and brutalize the captive. Maisy could not see what they were doing, but she heard Mirela’s muffled screams through the growling attackers. The housekeeper turned on her stomach to peek into the room, but she could see nothing directly in front of her. All went silent, and then she heard the German order, “Blow up the guest house as soon as we are out of the radius. Set the explosives.”
Maisy was too weak to move, but she tried to crawl to the door anyway.
“Look, that one’s still alive,” the Ukrainian said. The other men muttered something in Russian, setting the detonators. The Ukrainian looked at Maisy and shook his head, “Don’t worry, darling. We won’t let you die a horrible fiery death.”
He smiled from behind his muzzle flare as the shot echoed in the heavy rain patter.
42
The dark blue splendor of the Atlantic embraced the two divers as they gradually descended toward the reef-covered peaks of the submerged geographical anomaly Purdue found on his scanner. He ventured as deep as he could go safely and recorded the material by slipping some of the various sediments into small sample tubes. This way Purdue could determine which were natural sand deposits and which were of foreign materials, such as marble or bronze. Sediment consisting of minerals other than found in local marine compounds could be interpreted as possibly foreign, perhaps human-made.
From the deep obscurity of the distant ocean floor, Purdue thought he saw the threatening shadows of sharks. It startled him, but he could not warn Sam, who had his back turned to him a few meters away. Purdue hid behind the reef rise and waited, worried that his bubbles would betray his presence. Finally he dared to scrutinize the area, and to his relief found that the shadow was just a lone diver, filming the marine life on the reef. From the shape of the diver’s body he could see it was a woman and for a moment he thought it could be Nina, but he was not about to swim over to her and make a fool of himself.
Purdue found more discolored material that could be of significance and collected as much as he could. He saw Sam heading in a completely different direction now, oblivious to Purdue’s position. Sam was supposed to shoot pictures and video of their dives so that they
could assess the media once back on the yacht, but he was fast disappearing in the murk of the reef. Done collecting the first samples, Purdue followed Sam to see what he was up to. When Purdue came around a rather large cluster of black rock formations he found Sam entering a cavern under another of such clusters. Inside Sam appeared to video the walls and the floor of the cave. Purdue sped up to catch up to him, certain they would soon run out of oxygen.
He tugged at Sam’s flipper, almost scaring the man to death. Purdue gestured for them to go back up and showed Sam the vials he had filled with materials. Sam nodded, and they ascended toward the bright light of the sunrays that penetrated the rapidly approaching surface above them.
After determining that there was nothing out of the ordinary on a chemical level, the party was a bit disappointed.
“Listen, this landmass is not restricted to just the west coasts of Europe and Africa,” Nina reminded them. “Just because there is nothing conclusive right under us, does not mean it is not a few miles west or southwest even up to the American coastline. Chin up!”
“I was just so sure there was something under here,” Purdue sighed with his head thrown back in exhaustion.
“We’ll go down again in a bit,” Sam assured him, with an encouraging tap on the shoulder. “I’m sure we are onto something here, but I think we are just not deep enough yet.”
“I agree with Sam,” Alexandr nodded, chugging back another swig of spirits. “The scanner shows that there are craters and odd structures a bit lower down.”
“If I only had a submersible now,” Purdue said, rubbing his chin.
“We have that remote explorer,” Nina suggested.
“Yes, but it cannot collect anything, Nina. It can only show us the terrain we already know.”
“Well, we can try to see what we come up with on another dive,” Sam said, “sooner than later.” In his hand he held his underwater camera, flipping through the various shots to mark the best ones for downloading later.
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