“What can we do for you?” Nathan said.
Macon pointed to his boys to take chairs so they could all sit.
“You’re rather rude, sir,” Gus said.
“Take it easy there,” Macon said. The strangers sat wide and gangly, the two older boys ogling Leeda. “I’m the Reverend Macon Early, an’ these my boys. You’re Nathan Nols.”
“Oh,” Gus apologized.
“I don’t know these men.”
“But we know you, Nols, and this here, Leeda, and you, I think Gus.”
“What do you want?” Nathan said.
“We’ve been lookin’ for you a coon’s age and I’m worn out, so I’m gonna give it to you straight. Oh, by the way, regards from Constance. She misses you, and is worried you’re shackin’ up with this here woman.”
“I can see why he would, Pa,” Josiah said, grinning at Leeda.
“Me too, brother,” Joseph Henry said.
“What do you want?” Nathan asked.
“You tell ‘em, Josiah,” Macon said, sitting back.
“Your friend Tyler, T, is in a bad way. He needs your help,” Josiah said.
“How can I help him?”
“And we need your help too, to build and spread our church for the benefit of mankind.”
“And womankind,” Joseph Henry added, looking at Leeda.
“How much do you want?” Nathan said.
“Uh. . . .” Nathan’s response not part of his prepared script, Josiah looked to his father.
“You say, Josiah,” Macon calmly responded. “Ask and ye shall receive. I’m sure of it.”
“A million dollars. In gold,” Josiah uttered, and then turned to his father, but Macon’s face looked ahead at a wall expressionless.
“And what’ll happen?” Nathan said.
“Your friend’ll be saved and our church built.”
“Are you planning another Sistine Chapel?” Gus said.
“Huh?”
“You mean you’ll release my friend.”
“That’s right.”
“I can give you half.”
“Pa?” Josiah turned to his father, who kept staring out ahead. “Pa?”
“In gold?” Josiah turned back to Nathan.
“In gold if you want.”
Josiah looked at his brothers, both nodding, his father ignoring the negotiation. “Alright. Half a million dollars in gold.”
“After T is delivered safely to my home in Saint-Tropez.”
Macon coughed.
“Uh, no. No,” Josiah said. “First you give us the gold.”
“Do you know how much that weighs? Do you think people travel with that?”
“I don’t know and mister I don’t care. First you hand over the money and then the rest happens. And I ain’t got all day,” Josiah said.
Feeling self-important, Josiah jumped to his feet, his brothers following although haltingly when they saw their father sat. “Well, mister?” Josiah said, sitting back down. “You wanna see your friend alive again?”
“I’ll order half a million dollars delivered here.”
“When?”
“ASAP.”
“Uh, when?”
“As soon as possible.”
“When’s that?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I think our business is done here, boys,” Macon said, standing back up, and his sons following his lead. “An’ missy, you come with us,” he said to Leeda.
“Preposterous,” Gus said.
“Alright Pa!” the boys grinned with approval, going to Leeda who pulled back to being touched.
“She stays with us ‘till the gold’s handed to me. Then she’ll be givin’ back. Anybody try an’ stop us is gonna be right sorry. Right sorry, includin’ missy here and Mr. Tyler. He could end up swimmin’ with gators any time you stand in the way of this deal. I recommend you not let minor details cause any of us problems. That would be woeful for you. We got an understanding?”
“I’ll come,” Leeda said, waving away the many hands trying to help her up. “Just don’t touch me.”
“Leeda,” Gus said. “You can’t. These men are criminals. I’m going to call the police.”
Macon laughed. “Go ahead, Gussy. Call the police. What are they gonna do? I know what we’re gonna do to your Mr. Tyler ifin we don’t have a deal.”
“Nathan,” Gus turned to him. “These men are dangerous.”
“I know, Gus,” he said, his brow wrinkled, his shoulders stooped as he stood. “I can give you several thousand euros and we have a dozen or so gold coins between us I’m sure. Will you take that and allow her to stay with us until the money comes?”
“Wish we could, Nate, but you might all decide to disappear while we sleep. Sorry, she comes with us. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her. The faster the money comes, the faster you can all go wherever you’re all traipsing to. Come on, missy, with us.”
“I’ll be alright, Nathan,” she said. “You can, get what they want.”
“Yes. It’ll take a day. Tomorrow.”
“And Nathan if you have to leave on account of Mr. Hain, go.”
Nathan watched her slide by the table and start for the lobby, her velvet slacks swaying sprightly. Tips of her eyelashes fleetingly glanced back over her shoulder, and he sensed it would be the last time he’d see her.
“Be men of your word,” Macon said departing, his sons already trying to catch up with Leeda.
“Can you deliver this outrageous blackmail?” Gus asked Nathan.
“I promised I would, so I will, or has something changed about our confounded natures!”
“Control yourself.”
“First, a phone call to Saint-Tropez, then banks tomorrow when they open.”
At the front desk, Nathan dialed Antoine.
“I need you here.”
“Leaving now.”
>
After Nathan spoke to Antoine, he and Gus walked talking in the noisy lobby. Gus peeked into an unoccupied sitting room, and they entered the low-lit wood paneled study decorated with high backed chairs, cheap porcelain, and grimy oil paint vistas, while a cantata softly played in the background.
“Deplorable,” Gus said, entering the room with Nathan.
“Shameful, is what it was.”
“As well.”
“Shameful on us.”
“On us?”
“Our reaction.”
“I think it was commendable, dear boy.”
“Leeda in those men’s hands and you call our behavior commendable?”
“Yes. In the end you will save your friend and free her.”
“You put it so neat and clean. Free of responsibility for her. We let her just walk out with those thugs. You think they’ll just play—chess—with her? Those?”
“How could we stop them? We couldn’t.”
“If we were men.”
“And violent, of course.”
“We would’ve acted as men, and turned the tables on them. Put the knife to their throats. Literally. Knives to their throats. Told them to release T—if they even have him—and not come within a foot of Leeda or we’d slit their throats.”
“In your mind and spirit you play with fire. You own the greatest virtues of any animal, and you renounce it. Renegade.”
“I’m enslaved and it’s no condition to wish—on anyone.”
“Hunter and hunted, they and we, eternally switching places, that’s all that occurs.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with altering to improve. They do it constantly, reducing their weaknesses, gaining strengths. I say we begin to do the same. We’re as anachronistic as a windup clock. Un-advanced since the age of Druids and earlier.”
“We are already perfection.”
“Ah! But you seek The Book.”
“I mean, our core. I seek only some allowance around the margin. You talk of a confrontation with evolution. That’s not for you to do.”
“There has to be som
eone who resists, feels it’s time to take the leap, to evolve as fully as they, fuller, beyond! Otherwise in the face of their increasing advancement, we regress into defeat.”
“We live in a man’s world. Accept it.”
“Don’t tell me again that we’re already superior, when really we’re dependent and subordinate to them, like some ape form.”
“We, apes?”
“That we are, if we can’t compete, and in the end can’t resist, defend and—ready for this Herr Baron—aggress!”
“You’re going mad. I understand you did once, and once again, you’re falling ill. However, what you wanted then, might even be considered praiseworthy, but this now . . .”
“By any means that they devise, they gain on and bend nature. All our goodness, what good does it do if under siege we melt as minutes ago. What good kindness, peacefulness, and non-hate. We’re truer to man than man, but our lack of manliness mocks us in the end.”
They turned toward a cough that came from the middle of the room behind a high back chair. A form moved, and entering the brighter area where they stood approached a tall, sophisticated looking man with close-cropped hair. He sipped from a gold-rimmed tee cup, saucer held in the other hand. Nathan and Gus exchanged concerned looks.
“Do you remember me, Mr. Odem?” the man asked Nathan. “New York, several years ago, we shared a mutual young friend, Oslo Health Institute, Dr. Ulrick Thune,” he said with Scandinavian accent.
“I remember you, Dr. Thune.”
“I instantly recognized your voice.”
“This is my dear friend, Baron Gustav Fraunberg.”
“Herr Baron.”
“Doctor.”
“I did not dare interrupt your passionate conversation. I trust you don’t consider me impolite, but then, you know politeness is not my strong card.”
“Dr. Thune and I had a mutual friend in New York,” Nathan said to Gus.”
“What ever happened to her?” Thune said, sipping tea.”
“She disappeared.”
“As did I I’m afraid rather suddenly. The police and authorities became so tedious. They were about to shut down my work, when I, how do you put it, got away one step ahead of the law.”
“Dr. Thune,” Nathan turned to Gus, “I think would refer to his work as a messianic mission to the most needy.”
“Good, very good, Mr. Odem.”
“I’m Nathan Nols now.”
“Ah! Very well. But Herr Baron, my work is hardly so heroic. I simply save lives.”
“A high calling and honorable mission to save people from the ravages of disease.”
“Disease? There is no disease, Baron.”
“No diseases?”
“No. Nature does not recognize disease. There is only life and death, and I brought life. And I wanted Nathan here to help me bring it to the masses, not just those who could afford my rather hefty fees. My specialty, central interest, and cure, was and remains obesity. Rotundity in the extreme. Fatties. I saved many-many of those monstrosities. My methods were denounced, but only by the ignorant and stupid. The world advances on the hinges of imagination and the wings of dreamers. Power to them, the rest be damned. In fact, I could not tell if you were speaking about this difference, that is, between the simpletons and the heroic, or two different races. Different species? I wonder, Herr Baron. Hmm?”
“No. Just about different classes of people. You versus the commoner, doctor.”
“Hmmm.”
“But surely nature, while it may not identify disease events as bad—”
“Disease does not exist for nature. Depravity exists, leading to degeneracy. Degeneracy, not disease would be the accurate term of what you may have in mind, Baron. Voluminous intake of food, for example, equals depravity, degeneracy. Nature does not know disease. It knows life and death.”
“But surely she must have prevalence for life.”
“Why naturally. Without it, nature itself would cease. That is why it allows the infliction of harm for survival, even if that survival is not immediate or readily obvious. A beast that fails to act to self-preserve, increase its power, is vile to nature and nature will show it no quarter. Quickly, or more typically, slowly, the race or species would be exterminated.”
“All living things must adhere to and be truthful to their natures, doctor, or else grow corrupt.”
“Nonsense.”
“Nature cannot be outwitted. She will exact a price.”
“Nonsense. Wittedness is rewarded by nature. What is man’s nature if allowed idyllic environment? Slothfulness, dimness, and underdevelopment. His mind will slow, and his body will stall. His brain will vegetate and his body turn degenerate. In a word, become fat. Challenge that nature, and man turns great, noble, and athletic. His imagination rallies, he creates wonders on earth. Any pretense to the contrary results only in death and unnecessary suffering. Is that what you prefer? Nature’s preference is for you to live, Herr Baron.”
“You forget the rest of man’s overreaching nature. Wars, slavery, torture, human sacrifice, rivers of blood, obliteration of entire civilizations. All the barbarism that man inflicted by escaping what he should have been.”
“You mean, as you are? That is, as the class of men you identify with in your conversation with Nathan?’
“Well yes. By going beyond what he is, he would turn monstrous.”
“I won’t argue with you, Baron. I believe I understand you and what you say. For every departure and escape from this Adam that you describe, there is a toll to pay, one often in blood. But do you hear that plaintive cantata in the background? Johann Sebastian Bach, Mein Herze Schwimmt im Blut?”
“My Heart Swims in Blood.”
“That beautiful cantata, that supreme delight, achievement like the building of the tallest edifice or finding the greatest cure against bacteria, comes of turning your back on the ape, of seeking supremacy over nature. This cantata is good. That elevated building reaching to heaven is good. The fine warm clothes on our backs are good. Can you name me one good thing come from your benevolent pure man? The one you’ve been defending?”
Gus was speechless, and the crafty Thune quickly continued, “Of course you can, Herr Baron. I’m joking. I told you politeness was not my strong suit.”
“The painting behind you, do you see it?” Gus asked shaken.
“Titian,” Thune said. “Allegory of Prudence. Yes? . . .”
“Its famous inscription: From the experience of the past, the present acts prudently, lest it spoil future actions.”
“Prudence, you say. You preach from where no progress ever came, no future worth a damn, sir. Prudence, ha! I’m lecturing at the university two days, and later attending a, a sort of conference before departing Minsk. May we dine together the three?”
“Perhaps,” Nathan said. “Our plans are unresolved.”
“I take it you are staying here at the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“I very much wish to speak with you Nathan of many important ideas. I believe I understand you. I believe I can help you. Together we could achieve great things. Don’t let your dreams and visions slip away, or permit them to be quenched by the power of old notions and old men—like me, Herr Baron. Well then, my tea is finished, an herb found only in this region. Salubrious, stomach cleansing, anti aging. I’ll get you both some. For now, good evening, gentlemen. It has been a pleasure to meet you, Baron, and a great satisfaction to see you again, Nathan. Please do not fail for us to talk. Some people can change the world.”
“Good evening, doctor,” Nathan said to the departing Thune.
“Good night, doctor, Gus nodded.
Gus turned to Nathan. “When the king and pawn are both placed back in the box, they are both the same, goes the expression. Do you agree?”
“I’m sorry, Gus. I don’t understand. All I know is that when the pieces are out, man is king and he rules the chessboard. Goodnight. I’m going to my box—from where I, you, king and queen, ro
ok and pawn, are all still allowed to dream I hope. Again goodnight.”
Gus felt defeated watching the maverick leave. Things in the rebel’s spirit had evolved as he’d feared. What dreams of dangerous powers that should not be his would he dream? He believed now that he was dealing with someone defective or ill, and he did believe in disease.
He hadn’t wanted to see it, or at least, not admit it. This yulen had lit the fire in them to want, dream, and seek—far beyond their place—and look what it had done. He himself, he thought, had tried to make the others and the wild creature see, but their imaginations had taken wing. Regardless, he would see the journey through. He would not quit a second time. In the end though, he was sure that whether seeking The Book or seeking fulfillment through its answers, they would each be destroyed, and the most vexed and terribly—Nathan Nols. The cat was ready to spring from its bag. Only Hain stood in the way of it pouncing on the laws of nature.
XXIV
By the time Minsk’s smoky gray sky dawned the following day, through a stateside bank, Nathan had arranged the transfer of funds to a Swiss bank to cover the purchase and transfer of half a million dollars gold. It represented all the cash he had left.
He waited with Gus in a quiet section of the hotel’s lobby for European banks to open so he could give the bank delivery instructions. He and Gus hadn’t spoken since the evening. They watched the people parade instead. Gus’ device buzzed. “Hain,” he said. “Yes, Conrad . . . Hello? Hello?” He reviewed the message on the screen. “He gives an address here in Minsk. We must go there this instant. Final test before being allowed to his residence. We must go to this place, and once there, if we agree and register, must remain until the end. We have thirty minutes to get there, or miss the chance.”
“You have the location?” Nathan said, propping to his feet.
“Yes.”
“We have to get Leeda.”
“We have barely enough time.”
They quickly took an elevator, exited, and hurried down a hall. Nathan knocked on a guestroom door. “It’s Nathan Nols and Gustav.”
“You got our money?” came Joseph’s voice.
“It’s been ordered. We need to see our friend.”
“When you get the money.”
Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2) Page 23