Hunt for the Lost Treasure (Order of the Black Sun Series Book 17)

by P. W. Child

  The bartender pretended not to listen to the tall, lean man with the crappy accent, but he could not help but eavesdrop. When Purdue hung up the call and thanked him, the porky Italian chuckled and leaned on the bar. He whispered, “So, is your name Jimmy by any chance?” followed by a roaring laugh that gradually died down when he bent over to replace the telephone.

  “Another gin and tonic, please Gino,” Purdue sighed. “God, why did I have to pick America?”

  “Because it's the best place on earth, man! Everything is bigger in the United States, baby!” Gino hollered, evoking a rowdy roar of agreement from the men in the bar.

  “What, like your asses? My God, I have never seen people eat so much crap in my entire life. How do you not seize up and drop dead from a heart attack with all this junk food you all live on?” Purdue jested, puffing up to gesture how full he felt just from watching them eat.

  “Hey, we're Italian, Mr. Hoffa. Eating good is our culture, but those mooks out at Mickey Dee's? They don't know what food is!” the bartender exclaimed happily.

  Purdue had to laugh at the man's jovial explanation, even though he was exhausted from fatigue and concern about Nina. He had no idea how to find out if the reports were true, and if so, how to investigate without blowing his own cover. That was what he needed Sam for. He only hoped that Sam would get his message before it was too late. On the other hand, traveling back to the British Isles now would be too risky for Purdue to undertake, lest he be recognized and arrested. He could deal with being apprehended by the authorities, but that would mar his attempts at saving Nina from God knows who had her.

  Deep down inside, he naturally had an inkling that the Order of the Black Sun was involved, but he just did not know how. Perhaps it was his recurring tribulation at their hands throughout recent years that prompted this notion, but perhaps it was true. They could have been more tenacious than he’d estimated. Purdue had elected to hide in plain sight too, just like the man who took Nina. In the bustling insanity of a metropolis his presence would be inconspicuous and his face simply one in a molten ocean of features. If there was any place on this planet where individuality was challenged, it would be New York.

  Yet his choice of location had now distanced him even further from Nina and at the worst time, and Purdue construed this as a terrible error on his part. Refusing to let the write-up go, he paid the bartender and waved the patrons goodbye with a promise of returning some time. Out into the madness of the New York day he stepped, immediately swept off by the droves of bodies who coalesced continuously as they all went about their lives in the city.

  Countless times Purdue had tried Nina's cell number as well as her home phone, without any success. It only proved that the rumors were indeed true and it drove him crazy to know that he was helpless, unless he wished to be found out. Eventually, by the time Purdue entered the small room he was renting, he began to contemplate the alternative. Weighing up the possibilities became an incessant thought, if only to sate his need to do something constructive.

  Without his usual stimuli and adventure, Purdue felt his soul wilting. No science, no physics or technology surrounded him now, nothing that could challenge his mind and advance his knowledge. An emotional death blow to any man of his intellect and zeal. He had secured a telephone line for Sam to reach him here for the time being, but it was taking too long. Sam was taking too long. Purdue was growing more restless, his decision swaying dangerously close to electing the action he most feared – to pack up and travel back to Scotland, to Oban.

  By 9 p.m. he still hadn’t heard from Sam. Purdue saw it as a sign. Briskly he packed what little luggage he had, slung his high-end laptop bag over his shoulder, and paid up the rest of the week.

  “But where are you going?” asked Miss Warecki, the Good Samaritan who’d leased him one of her rooms. She was fond of the charming Scot, even as mysterious as he conducted himself.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Warecki, but something unexpected transpired that I was not prepared for in the least. Regrettably I am pressed for time, so I am forced to flee your coup, as it were.” He smiled, trying to sound calm while a storm of panic roared just beneathe the surface.

  “That really is a pity,” she replied coyly. She was quite taken with him, but she was mature enough not to exhibit her disappointment. “We really enjoyed having you here.”

  “Likewise, I enjoyed staying here. I just wish I didn’t have to run so soon,” he replied, slipping her a roll of bills that would cover the next two weeks of what would have been his stay.

  “Oh no, I couldn't take that,” she frowned sincerely. “We had no contract, remember? You were supposed to be but a house guest, as you requested.”

  “I know what our arrangement was, Miss Warecki, but please do me a favor and pretend that I’m still here as your house guest, alright? As far as you’re concerned, I’m still visiting and my absence will be explained by things like gym, shopping, sight-seeing, and the old favorite – I’m in the shower,” he winked playfully, noticing that Miss Warecki was sharp enough to catch his drift. “And that is why I have to pay for the rest of my stay here.”

  “Of course,” she agreed seriously. “Shall I use one of these explanations on Mr. Kilt when he calls back tonight?”

  “No, thank you. You can just tell him that I’m on my way home and will get in touch with him once I’ve arrived there. Thank you so much for your wonderful hospitality.” As she took the money, Purdue lifted his suitcase to leave.

  “David?” she called after him.

  “Yes?” he asked, stopping briefly at the door, his white hair stirred by the cool night wind outside.

  “If you ever decide to come back to Queens, you are welcome to visit us again.” She smiled kindly. “For real.”

  With Sam's help, Purdue had managed to procure enough cash funds from his accounts before MI6 took control of his estate and started tracking his credit card transactions as a precautionary measure until his body was found. Also, because of the latter matter, Purdue's attorneys had not proceeded with the necessary appeals for MI6 to rescind their control of his estate and had subsequently filed a dispute with the high commission. It was a long and tedious application that was better functioning once Purdue had been declared officially deceased by the court.

  Although only two people in the world knew beyond a doubt that David Purdue was still alive and kicking, the Black Sun disbelieved the reports of his demise just as well. Joseph Karsten, for one, was convinced that the smart explorer was fooling the world with his exquisite subterfuge, waiting for his chosen moment to resurface.

  But Karsten did not want to wait until this happened. He wished to put an end to the opposition from their former Renatus – or high leader of the Order – and kill him while the world believed him dead anyway. And he craved the credit for the deed. It was a case of double jeopardy, in Karsten's mind. If he murdered the insolent Purdue within the following weeks, chances were that he would not be arrested if caught. After all, nobody can kill a man who is already dead.

  Purdue used cash for all his transactions, using large bills to avoid having to carry thick wads of paper money around. With his previous dealings in less than legal terms, he had obtained one or two counterfeit passports, one of which he was utilizing for his current charade. Hastily he hailed a yellow cab and headed to JFK, en route to where he was vexed by a detour his cabby was forced to take due to a hellish traffic jam stretching all the way from Grand Central Parkway and York College.

  “Please, I have to get to the airport as soon as possible,” Purdue urged his cab driver, only because the Middle Eastern looking man was singing along with traditional music as if he had all night to get to his destination.

  “Is okay, sir. We get there when I turn,” the cabby smiled through cracked lips and a wicked white set of choppers.

  “When you turn…” Purdue moaned, throwing up his hands and falling back in his seat. “Of course, when you turn.”

  “Yes, as soon as we ge
t to Hillside Avenue, I turn!” the cabby shouted gleefully over the incessant whining of what sounded like a hybrid female-peacock on his radio speakers.

  “Okay, alright, you do that,” Purdue pretended to know what the man was talking about.

  But to his surprise the cabby did exactly that, turning onto a road which had virtually no traffic, at least not in the fiendish volumes that had previously been perturbing Purdue's journey to the JFK Airport. They reached the airport in under seven minutes after that, earning the caterwauling driver a good tip.

  Purdue booked a flight to Dublin, dodging the spies at Heathrow and Glasgow he knew would be on high alert.

  God, I could have really used the Babylonian Mask right now, Purdue thought to himself as he watched the colorful lights of the city night go by. That particular artifact could adapt to the face of another individual and give its wearer the power to be passed off as someone else. It would certainly have been highly beneficial on this trip. But for now he had to get to Dublin with his own face.

  And from there he would be forced to slow his trip considerably, travelling by boat past the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea to evade detection. By water he would head northward until he reached the port of Campbeltown, from which Purdue planned to rent a car to drive up the A83 to Oban, which would take him just short of three hours.

  He had to take the chance, even if he arrived in Nina's hometown to find her watching TV on her couch. The risk was worth knowing for sure that she was safe, even if it meant that he strolled into danger for it. If only his genius could lend to intuition, Purdue would know that he was doing just that.

  Chapter 10 – Jonathan Beck, meet Sylvia Beach

  Maria Winslet was beside herself. Pacing up and down, she gnawed nervously at her thumb nail and her blue eyes stayed glued to the floor. She was worried about her partner, Jonathan Beck. He had just received a push call from Joseph Karsten, one of his highest paying, and most nefarious, clients. The Austrian was asking for a progress report on the delivery of Dr. Nina Gould, a call Beck had been eagerly awaiting until he removed his captive's hoodie and found that he’d kidnapped the wrong person.

  Mrs. Sylvia Beach had been in his custody for two days, refusing to speak until she could call her husband, Dr. Lance Beach, to let him know that she was alright and to arrange some sort of release with her captor. However, with the sensitive nature of Beck's lie to his employer, the investigator could not risk any communication until he’d replaced his unwelcome prisoner with the real deal.

  “Jesus Christ, Jon! He’s going to have you forked!” Maria wailed. She had a very feminine voice, almost childlike, but in the state she was in she reminded him of a frantic mother of a criminal juvenile. “How did you not know who you were kidnapping?”

  Beck licked the corner of his mouth, gesturing toward the frightened Sylvia Beach who was tied up on the office couch under Maria's house in Glasgow. “Look at her, Maria! Look! And tell me she does not look exactly like Gould in low light!”

  She had to concede that Beck was right. Maria glanced at the weeping wife of Dr. Beach of Oban and realized that she had the same dark hair, pointy, pretty face, and large brown eyes. “She was driving Nina's car. She was unlocking Nina's house. Explain to me how I was supposed to know that it was not her?” he fumed, bellowing like an animal for being ridiculed for his error.

  “Surely when you picked her up and loaded her in you could have seen that it was someone else?” she persisted in her quivering tone that bordered on the hysterical.

  Livid, Beck's watery, bloodshot eyes blazed at her. He was shaking in fear and masking it as rage as he shoved his girlfriend hard. “Would you have noticed? Have you ever kidnapped anyone, Maria? Have you? Huh? Have you got any idea what happens while you are taking someone against their will from a house where anyone can see you at any moment?”

  She shook her head, retreating as he came at her, shoving her against the table. “No! No, you don't, you stupid bitch! You don't even know anything about the shit I have to get done, do you?”

  She lifted her hands defensively and shook her head as she sobbed in fear of his salivating attack. But Beck wanted to set her straight. He hated it when comfortable pen pushers had the cheek to question mistakes, particularly when they had no idea what it was like to exercise that particular feat. It frustrated him to no end when people assumed they knew better without any experience, and now that he’d fucked up with a sinister organization at his throat – something they would no doubt soon discover – he was in no emotional state to explain the mistake to Maria.

  Filled with homesick fear, Sylvia watched and listened. If she could win over the woman's empathy she could perhaps get a phone call out to her husband. However, she was sure that she would have no such luck with her taker. Sylvia was not an expert on abduction, but from the scenario the three of them were fixed in, she knew that she would probably not survive unless she tried to escape. For one thing, the furious man would not let someone go who had seen his and his partner's faces.

  By affiliation, she would also know that Dr. Gould could figure out who the man and his girlfriend were. Of all things, Sylvia did not know that she was now the only stranger who knew that Maria existed, a very dangerous revelation that could mean the end of Beck and Winslet's cozy freelance career.

  “You have no idea how nerve wracking such an operation is, do you?” he yelled as she kept shoving and screaming. “You don't know how easy it is, in all that rush, that time-constrained mission, to miss the finer details of a fucking…woman's…face!” With that he slapped her, followed by a backhand quickly after. That was it for Sylvia, who had never witnessed such abuse in her life.

  “Please stop! Please don't! Just…stop!” she shrieked. Instantly she drew Beck's full attention where he stood heaving and spitting. “I swear to God, I will help you sort this out if you just stop hitting her. I swear! Look, I don't know who you are or what you want with Dr. Gould, but I don't care. I just want to go back to my husband and my children and forget about all this.”

  “What were you doing with her car? And her house keys?” he asked while tremors still persisted through his large hands.

  “She was going to play organ for a funeral service…” she tried to explain.

  “Just get to the why, for God's sake!” he roared. “I’m not interested in the Housewives of Happy Oban. Just tell me where she is.”

  Sylvia snapped back, “I am trying to tell you, for fuck's sake! If you would shut up for one second I can explain everything. Jesus, I just want to go home!”

  Pinching her eyes shut, she waited for a pummeling, but to her surprise, Sylvia was met with two quiet people, patiently waiting for her to elaborate. She sighed, wiping her tears with the back of her taped hands before starting again. “She was going to play, but while we were at the church where she practiced the music she said she had to leave after the service the next day. Said she had an urgent family emergency she had to attend. So Dr. Gould slept over at our place, because the funeral was first thing in the morning.”

  Beck sank back in his chair, responding in a soft tone, “That was why she did not come home that night.” He shook his head and looked at Maria. “That was the night I was supposed to grab her.”

  “Aye, so after the funeral she left in a taxi,” Sylvia continued. “She asked me if she could leave her car in our yard while she was gone and we said yes, of course. I told her I would feed her cat until she came back, so that is why I took her car to her house two nights ago.”

  “Oh my God,” Maria sniffed.

  Beck was visibly taken aback by the small discrepancy that had run his plans onto the rocks. “Such a stupid little thing and now Maria and I will pay with our lives.”

  “Don't say that,” Sylvia choked. “Please, don't say that. If you let me go, I will help you find her for whatever reason you were going to take her.”

  Beck laughed. “Are you serious? Do you honestly think we are going to trust you to help us catch the good l
ittle doctor while you have no fucking idea what her fate would be? Listen, lady, don't insult my intelligence.”

  “What do we do now?” Maria asked softly. “The newspapers reported that Gould was kidnapped.”

  “I know. I saw that, but what good is that going to do us?” he barked. “This bitch is going to be reported missing too; probably has. So we have two problems – one woman we cannot find and another woman we didn't want.”

  “But the good thing is,” Maria said, “that the papers will make it look like you succeeded. The…” she peeked at Sylvia before she used important names in front of her, “…your client…won’t know we haven’t captured the right person. It will hold the bullshit together until you’ve managed to get the real Nina Gould, babe.”

  Beck gave it some thought. Although he did not like to be outdone with plotting, he had to admit that Maria had a valid point. His mood lifted at once when he realized that Karsten did not have to know that he’d screwed up his quarry’s seizure. Intimidation was key. He pranced over to Sylvia, making sure that he looked positively pissed. Then he sat down next to her, clutching her hair.

  “So, where is Dr. Gould, Mrs. Beach?” he growled softly.

  “I have no idea,” she replied, knowing in her heart that it was the worst answer she could give, but it was the plain truth. Her eyes teared up as she tried to say it another way, but her tongue would not move. In her peripheral vision she could see the huge man tense up and it scared the poor frail Sylvia to death.

  “The next time you say that,” he said calmly, tightening his fingers against her scalp, “I will snap your neck before you even breathe out.”