by P. W. Child
“Well, we didn’t come all the way here and nor gone through all this to quit, right?” Joanne said.
“No, we did not,” Sam agreed. “I know Purdue would have had the answer right now, the latest gadget to discount these serpentine motherfuckers in a blink,” he smiled fondly, “but he is unfortunately absent,” Sam said, his smile fading instantly, “mainly because of me.”
Joanne was not sure what he meant, but she refrained from prying. Nina knew exactly what he meant, but she couldn’t tell Sam in front of the other two that his decision not to turn Purdue in and instead fake his demise actually saved the billionaire from condemnation. He would have been arrested and stood trial for transgressions against several cultures by now had Sam not made him absent.
“Sam, can you get back into the septic tank, you think?” Virgil asked. “I think I have an idea, but you need to vacate that spot for it to work.
“I have not advanced too far in yet,” Sam reported. “I’m sure if I pace my exit as I did my entry, I could slip back out again. Why?”
“One thing at a time, my friend,” the sea captain replied. “Let's get you out first.”
Sam had to concede. One thing at a time was the most efficient way to go about things. He’d learned this many times before, yet it was not in his nature to put such a thing into practice. He was always too eager to get everything done in the shortest time possible, leaving many aspects unattended to. It was a flaw he recognized, but now that Virgil, too, prioritized in the same way, Sam had to admit that it was the better way.
As he had entered the tunnel, Sam started retreating back the way he’d come – by moving in oblivious care.
Don't let them know that you know. Don't let them know that you know, he repeated over and over in his head as his hands nervously sank into the murky soil under his body, inching himself backward ever so slowly. Sweat trickled down Sam's face and back even though the air was frigid in the subterranean duct. He would move his hands, feeling the slippery movement of slithering under his palms and fingers, urging him to cry out, but he did not entertain his fear. After pushing back with his arms, he would carefully shift his hips and legs in the same manner, gradually creeping backward out of the tunnel.
“Don't rush, Sam,” Nina warned. “Take your time. We'll wait as long as it takes.”
“I'm getting there,” he replied. “I don't think they are onto me ye…aow! Jesus!”
“Mr. Cleave?” Virgil cried.
“Sam!” Nina shouted with a hint of panic.
“I'm okay,” Sam answered. “Just a bloody thorn, or shard of glass in the mud. My flashlight is giving up the ghost so I can't pull it out right now.”
“Just get out so we can put some ointment on it. I have some antiseptic cream in my pouch here,” Joanne said reassuringly.
“Alright, thanks,” Sam thanked her in a shaky voice. “Christ, this little paper cut is killing me. Like a bee sting. Fucking hell!”
“Like a bee sting?” Joanne gasped. “Sam, did you see the thorn? Can you see how big it is?”
“This is not the right time to worry about trivialities, Jo,” he moaned.
“Sam! Listen to me!” she insisted, sounding mildly vexed. “Take a moment and shine on the wound so you can see what it is. Please. Please, just…just humor me.”
Sam obliged. Hardly bright anymore, his light fell on the place that burned and throbbed. The mud on his hand was stained with blood, as he expected, but there was no thorn; there was no glass in his skin.
“Sam?” Nina beckoned.
He was quiet, apart from a sigh that escaped him.
“Can you see anything?” Joanne asked.
“It's just blood and mud,” Sam reported, his voice beginning to falter.
With a very concerned expression riddled with subliminal terror, Joanne whispered to the others, “That sounds like a snakebite to me. I pray to God that I’m wrong, though.”
“Jesus! Oh my God! Again!” Sam wailed from nearby, just across the threshold of the septic tank. “I th-think I got b-b…” he started, but his words were interrupted by another cry of agony.
“Holy shit! They’re attacking Sam!” Nina screamed, bolting forward to help him, but she ran right into Virgil's obstructive hand which stopped her. The boat captain lunged forward in the weak beam of Joanne and Nina's flashlights, grabbing blindly around the edge to find Sam. Grappling wildly for a second, he groaned like a bear, pulling the injured journalist free of the dark pit and seizing his body tightly.
He carried Sam to the other side of the septic tank, shouting at the women, “Come quickly! Hurry! We have to get him to the boat or he is going to die!” They stumbled and scuttled all the way back out, trying not to show their frantic horror at the prospect of Sam's fate. Quietly, save for their panting breaths tufting out into the cold atmosphere of Martin Bay's rocky region, the group ran back to the boat. Reaching the Scarlet, the women took care of cleaning Sam up while Virgil hastened to get the medical kit to attend to the basic first aid the journalist needed to impair infection to the rest of his muscle tissue.
Abandoning their prize, literally meters away, the expedition sped away over the waves in the dead of night to reach the closest civilization they could find, hoping that Sam would not succumb to the nightmarish kiss of Olympias.
Chapter 29 – Hidden Talents
Sylvia and her husband volunteered to help Father Harper rescue David Purdue from the clutches of what they only knew where people with nefarious intentions toward the billionaire explorer and inventor they had been tracking since his deceit.
“They have been in there for ages,” Sylvia told Lance. They were standing outside the church of St. Columbanus, sharing a cigarette. Her husband appeared to be in deep thought as she talked, but she assumed it was merely the trauma of her abduction finally being undone, the relief leaving him somehow numb.
He looked at his watch. “It’s been forty minutes. Maybe he’s getting her drunk on communal wine and forcing her to convert,” Lance remarked quite dryly, taking another drag. “I know I am not the most religious of people, sweetheart, but I feel that sometimes we need to do God's work for Him.”
“Meaning?” she asked.
He looked up at the steeples reaching to the heavens, the holiness of it all, the antiquity and faith put into the masonry and glass of the majestic, massive shrine. Then he looked at Sylvia and shrugged. “That woman is evil, Sylla. She knew you had children and still she had no compunctions about putting a bullet through your skull.”
“I know,” she replied. “But how is this God's work?”
“Don't you see? Maria Winslet is a monster in human flesh. Beasts like her only hurt this world; they make it worse,” he frowned, smoking in quick pulls. “She must be punished, but not because we expect her to repent. She must be punished because she has earned torment and pain. That bitch should be put through hell before she is finally sent there with her own bullet.”
“Lance!” Sylvia gasped. “My God, what has gotten into you?”
He was furious; that was plain to see. But in the harsh comment of his wife's captor his eyes could not hide the tears turning them glassy with a shimmer. “Is it so wrong to want her to suffer like we did?” he asked. “If Father Harper does not get it out of her, I am sorry for Mr. Purdue, but I will kill her with her own gun, Sylvia. Even if it means that man's doom, by God I am going to make her pay.”
She took his shaking hands into hers and kissed him. “Don't worry, Father Harper is a gentle man with much wisdom and he will show us how to forgive her. Let's go in and see if he’s managed to find out where Purdue is being kept. Maybe being inside the church will help you find the peace you need to forgive.”
Sylvia led her upset husband into the church and closed the doors behind them. They checked the confessional and saw that Maria was not there anymore, so they proceeded to Father Harper's office to determine what information he’d managed to get from Maria.
“Where are they?” sh
e asked when they found the office vacant. Lance's phone rang.
“It's Father Harper,” he said, followed by, “Yes, alright. We'll be right there.”
“What now?” she sighed.
“Come. He says we must meet him in the back yard of the manse right now.”
They left the church garden at the back and rounded the wrought iron fencing that separated the manse from the church. Father Harper was just opening the external doors to his home office, motioning them inside urgently. When they stepped inside Sylvia knew something bad was going on. From the sofa Maria Winslet was staring absently at them. Her face showed the signs of Father Harper's desperate apprehension of her weapon from her earlier, but she seemed docile and coherent.
“There,” Father Harper said and gave Lance a piece of paper. Upon seeing the doctor's quizzical countenance the priest informed him that those were the hack codes and passwords of the accounts Lance's money had been paid into.
“How did you get her to tell you this?” he gasped in amazement, while his wife grabbed the paper to peruse it. She recognized the names of the accounts she’d had to relay to her husband on the phone.
“I can be very persuasive. Doing God's work sometimes takes a more…sinister…point of view, I'm afraid,” the priest answered.
Lance looked at his wife, gloating about the similarity between Father Harper's and his earlier statement. “See? Even God's people agree with me.”
“Oh shut it, Lance,” she sighed.
“Maria was raised Catholic, which admittedly aided my interrogation. With a little LSD and some SP117 I got her to believe that she was obliged to provide the information I asked or…” the priest shook his head in shame, “…or be cast in purgatory until she’d collected every bullet she’d ever used on a human being.”
“Father!” Sylvia uttered in absolute repugnance. “How could you do that to someone? A man of the cloth should not resort to idle deceit! Ever!”
“My dear Mrs. Beach,” Father Harper said, “would you rather this woman watch your children on the playground from a church tower?”
Sylvia wanted to defend the question in terms of morality, but she quickly swallowed her words once the true horror of the scenario entered her mind. Calmly, Father Harper urged, “Now, when you are positive about your innocence in this matter, Mrs. Beach, I suggest we get to Fallin as soon as possible. There is a man who needs our help.”
With Maria Winslet in their custody, Dr. Beach and Father Harper left Sylvia in charge of church business until Father Harper was scheduled to return. He assured her that they would be but three days at the most and that she only needed to take care of the arrangements pertaining to the Ladies Church Action, soup kitchen, and choir practice.
“Her pupils are still dilated, but she is fine, Father,” Dr. Beach reported. “I’m more concerned for the condition of the man her boyfriend kidnapped.”
“I expect him to be in a bad state, given the clients Mr. Beck delivered him to,” the priest said as they drove along the main road, thirty minutes from their destination. “I took the liberty of looking up Maria's partner and found him to be a rather unsavory character who once worked as an MI5 operative. Nothing states why he left Her Majesty's service, but I can only guess.”
“With the type of women he keeps company, I have all the information I need on this bloke's psychology. Birds of a feather, I suppose,” Lance Beach replied from the backseat he shared with their willing, although heedless guide. Dr. Beach put his pen light back in his pocket and closed his leather medical bag. “How far still?”
“We’re close. I’m not sure what she meant, but she said the house was concealed on the other side of the River Forth. Rather odd,” Father Harper admitted. “As far as I know the area she gave me coordinates to has no bridge.”
“Father, what happens when our escort here finds her bearings?” Dr. Beach asked. “LSD does not take this long to wear off. What did you really give her?”
“A Russian devised psychoanalytic compound that serves as a truth serum,” Father Harper disclosed. “They used it on KGB personnel and it is highly efficient, but I added the hallucinogen for good measure to convince her of the Biblical tyranny that would follow if she did not comply.”
To the priest's surprise, Dr. Beach bellowed with laughter. It made him smile to see that someone out there still appreciated the unorthodox measures needed to thwart evil. “How did you get your hands on SP117, Father?”
Father Harper smiled at his companion in the rear view mirror and shrugged. “I was not always a priest.”
Chapter 30 – Mysterious Ways
Purdue was in excruciating pain, but he dared not cry out or else Mother would switch on the air conditioner again. Inside the oubliette she had an outlet for such a system that blew ice cold air into the dungeon, exacerbating the dreadful aches of his bones and exposed flesh by a hundred fold. He had been running a fever for two days now and it only grew worse with his lack of sleep. By his pants he could feel that he had lost considerable weight and with nobody aware of his plight or his location, there was no hope in sight.
In his delirium of agony Purdue heard Karsten's voice coming from the dining room, but he thought it a dream. Mother had been engaged in a conversation with him for well over an hour.
“Is he still alive?” Karsten asked Mother.
“I believe so. I can only go on the last time he screamed, though, and it has been a while,” she said coolly, evoking laughter from Karsten.
“We will put an end to the devil-may-care philanthropist this time. Besides, he’s supposed to be dead anyway,” the Austrian answered.
“How goes the procurement of his estates?” Mother asked.
Purdue perked up, so to speak, at the woman's strange question. In his state, slipping in and out of consciousness, he was uncertain if he’d heard what he thought he had. The silence after punished him. He could hardly stay awake in his weakness, but he had to stay conscious to hear the answer.
“Slowly. You know we can only claim his estate by law if he remains missing for over seven years. May I ask, Mother, what is your interest in Purdue's property?” he asked.
“Properties,” she corrected him. “Plural.”
“You wish to extend your investments in the United Kingdom?” he asked.
“No, I just want Wrichtishousis.” Karsten was silent for a long time before asking in what sounded like a tone of threat.
“What on earth for?”
“That is my business, Joseph. What would you do with it anyway? You have vast mansions in Europe already,” she retorted.
“Mother, with respect, Purdue's manor is known to possess a wealth of technological and historical resources within its walls. It is even reputed to be the vault of the Heilige Lanze!” he growled under his breath. “With his superior-quality laboratories and equipment, along with his notes and designs – things he had not even patented yet – we could take over the world of technology and science! Purdue's mansion is hardly a quaint museum full of historical trinkets for the ego of the conqueror, Madam.”
Purdue heard her clout the passionate speaker, a smack so loud that even Purdue's fading senses felt it. With his meager energy Purdue could not help but smirk just a little.
How lovely to hear them fight over Wrichtishousis, he thought. If they only knew what it would take for them to breach those resources they so direly desire.
“Mind your tone with me, boy! I know what lies beneath Wrichtishousis and I have an inkling that fool who owns it knows too. The greatest relic I have sought, next to the Olympias Letter, lies under that goddamn mansion and I shall have it, at all costs. And you are the one who will procure that property for me. That was the deal!” she raged, her low rasp like the lust of a feeding lion. “In return, you can claim all the other estates he owns, along with reasonable access to his laboratories, if I deem it necessary.”
What is lying beneath Wrichtishousis? Purdue wondered in the solitude of his prison.
&nb
sp; “I know what our deal was, but you are just going to waste all the possibilities we could harness with your nostalgia for treasure getting in the way,” Karsten fought. “You lost Alexander's treasure and I’m sure that in your world that must have been devastating! But this is a different era, Mother! The greatest wealth, the biggest treasure of this century is technology! Gold and silver can only buy you more of the same. But whoever controls technology controls the world!”
“Don't you dare speak of what is precious, you fucking wretch!” she sneered.
“Put the Luger down, Mother. Please. We are on the same side,” Karsten coaxed, but the enraged woman would hear none of it.
“Do you realize who you are talking to, Joseph? I am not some girl who likes glittery things, chasing after pirates' chests and kings' ransoms! I am Yvetta goddamn Wolff, do you understand? My father was Himmler's treasure hunter, his golden boy,” she bellowed, out of breath with fury. “My father was the man whose research uncovered the existence of a hidden hoard from the empire of Alexander the Great! He deserved to have it for himself, after being Hitler's bloodhound for the Spear of Destiny, the Black Tarot, Odin's Tomb, and all the other invaluable relics hunted by the Nazis!”
Karsten had retreated up against the wall. Mother was so close to him that he choked in her vile alcoholic breath. “You will get me Wrichtishousis or you will join David Purdue in the oubliette, you ungrateful miscreant.”
A sudden clap started both of them. It sounded like a large rock had fallen on the porch's corrugated iron roof.
“Are you expecting anyone, my friend?” she asked sarcastically, toting the gun at his belly.
Karsten shook his head profusely. “Of course not! This is your house. Are you expecting anyone? Perhaps you sent for someone to kill me?”
“Oh don't insult me,” she groaned, and promptly shot Karsten in the hand, shattering two of his fingers. “I do my own cooking and I do my own killing, you insolent coward.” He howled in pain, a rather lovely melody to Purdue's ears. “Besides, I still need you to annex Purdue's holdings.”