Tomb of Odin (Order of the Black Sun Book 9)

by P. W. Child

  Nina and Sam glared at him, both wondering if he was just a very good actor or if there was something about Purdue’s expedition he was too embarrassed to share with them. He was well-known as a materialistic hedonist who did not put much stock into the deeper meanings of the things he chased after, except maybe for Nina Gould. And here he was confessing to having an emotional attachment to something he purchased, worth no more than what he had on his credit card balance at any given time.

  “Josef Palevski contacted me to ask if I could be a broker for his art. He said he heard I was good, honest man who did not cheat people out of their money. I liked his work very much, so I said yes,” Jari told them with a steady thread of emotion in his words. “We became very good friends, even if he was more than thirty years older than I was.”

  “Wow,” Nina whispered, evoking a slight smile from Jari.

  “So, then he starts telling me his past when we become better friends. He tells me he had a bad life. Not for years could he stop having nightmares of the Second World War,” the old man recounted. Nina and Sam perked up at the mention of the war. It was a sign that they were on the right track, finally. However, Purdue listened intently, uncharacteristically ignoring the facts for the sake of the tale.

  “Was he a soldier?” Sam asked.

  “He was a Polish prisoner of the Nazis, from Jugowice. They took him from Płaszów—”

  “Płaszów?” Sam asked again.

  “A concentration camp used for forced labor,” Nina told Sam.

  “That is correct, Nina,” Jari said, very impressed at her knowledge. He had no idea she was a German history expert, one thing the wise old man did not shock them with. “They took him to build railroads under the Owl Mountains where many he knew as brothers and sisters, some children of ten, eleven years, died of hunger, disease, or their bodies just broke under the hard labor,” he narrated with his pipe firmly between his teeth. “You know about the Nazi gold trains they talk about?”

  They nodded.

  “Now, Josef told me he saw one full of gold on the railway he helped to build a year later in another location. I did not believe him, of course,” he chuckled sadly, “but he told me there were some things on that trains—they came from scientists who were so intelligent they made things no man could understand.”

  “Hollow Earth theory,” Nina guessed.

  “Is that the myth of a super race living inside the Earth?” Purdue asked. “I’ve heard that so many times from those political science academics at charity parties.”

  “I told him is bullshit, right?” Jari laughed. “But then he showed me what he stole from that train after the war ended because he knew where it was. But he could not take much with him, only some gold, some things from the underground scientists and when I told him he lied, he gave me these mirror sheets that have no solid state inside the frame!”

  “No fucking way!” Sam marveled, bowled over by the coincidence.

  Purdue shook his head in wonder, his jaw buried between his hands as he listened.

  “So the mirrors around this house are not actual mirrors?” Nina asked.

  Jari shook his head. “It is made like fine embroidery, but with many metals they spin like spider webs to weave a floating reflect surface,” Jari described what he knew in his best rendition. “But it does not bond, so you can fold it like smoke. Only the edges are solid and hold the metal compounds in.”

  “Did he say what it is?” Sam asked.

  “Boron is the base element. Most of their work come from the stars,” Jari said, looking up at the sky.

  “Boron is the lightest metalloid chemical on the periodic table,” Purdue chimed in out of nowhere, still locked in awe though. “It is produced by supernovae and cosmic ray spallation, mostly.”

  “Ah-hah,” Sam murmured, mocking Purdue’s terminology by acting as if he knew exactly what the genius inventor was referring to. Nina laughed, slapping him on the upper arm again.

  “It is a stone that comes from space, Sam,” Purdue patronized him. “It looks like silver, like a mirror, if a mirror was a rock.”

  “All right, all right, you two!” Nina said. “Let Jari tell us the rest.”

  The old man adjusted his seat. “It was only a year before he died that I finally learned why he contacted me, really. Josef was my father.”

  His visitors sat in silent amazement, spellbound.

  “He made the cross and said I must put it in my garden here for 19 years and two months,” he told them. “But me and my wife . . . the trade was bad for a few years and nobody was buying rare items to keep us with enough money. And now they want to take my property, so I sold my father’s cross to David Purdue. Now me and my wife can keep this house, this land another year or two! So, it was a good thing.”

  “What happened after 19 years and two months?” Purdue asked.

  “I don’t know,” replied Jari. I sold the cross to you a month before that time . . . a month ago.”

  Collectively, the faces of his visitors went ashen.

  Chapter 18

  Neville Padayachee checked his travel documents. His clothing was laying around on his bed, along with an open suitcase. First he put his visas and passport in his laptop sling bag and then he hastily started roughly folding his clothes, just neatly enough to all fit into the suitcase. His train was due in less than 15 minutes and he was still at his hotel in Kolkata. Before he left, he shoved his plane ticket to Edinburgh in his jeans pocket and checked that he did not leave anything behind.

  In his haste and, in this case, sheer anxiety for the importance of the job, he always forgot the simplest things, so this time he had made a list of things to get done once in Scotland, in order of urgency. On the small note he wrote things like—

  get wheels

  find Miss Nina

  buy stuff

  pick up components

  contact Austin Powers

  call HQ and arrange delivery

  Visit mum

  “Mr. Padayachee, a call for you, sir,” the reception desk clerk called out as the archeologist raced for the front doors.

  “I can’t take that now. I’m late for my train,” he moaned in his stride.

  “It’s Amsel,” the clerk exclaimed as Neville reached the door. The archeologist stopped in his tracks. With a troubled expression he said, “Where can I take the call privately?”

  She showed him to a booth behind the counter where she directed the call. He could see her from the booth, where she had hung up the call, cutting it off from the switchboard to avoid any crossed lines or accidental eavesdropping.

  “Amsel,” Neville spoke reluctantly.

  A deep male voice thundered through the receiver, “Why is your phone off, Neville? Do you not know that I can locate you anywhere on this godforsaken planet at any moment in time?”

  “I know. I . . . my charger broke and I couldn’t charge—”

  “Neville, you are pissing me off. I pay you enough to buy a fucking cellular factory, so don’t insult me with your teenage level excuses,” Amsel raged, his voice as unnatural as his origins.

  “I’m sorry. I was just hoping to complete this task before speaking to you. I was afraid you would . . . well, I was afraid . . .” Neville could not help but be honest to a fault with his feelings, “of you. I just wanted to fix this before you found out.”

  The deep roar took on a milder tone, “I know. I know what you were thinking, but I wanted you to admit it. I have given you free rein from my associates to give you a chance to prove yourself, Neville Padayachee, so I implore you not to diminish that honor with your timorous ungratefulness.”

  “Yes, Amsel. I am busy undoing this catastrophe as we speak. In fact, I think I just missed my train because of it,” Neville lamented.

  “You missed your train because your cell phone was disconnected. Had it not been, we would not have had this conversation now, at the time of your train’s departure,” Amsel darkened his words with intonation. “Stop being a w
hiny bitch and get your fucking priorities sorted out, Neville. You spend far too much time making excuses and less time making effort.”

  “Yes, Amsel,” Neville conceded. “I will recover the generator and return it to you, if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Apt words,” Amsel said. “Odin wants his energy back where it belongs. Don’t make me come look for it, Neville. It would be less than providential for you.”

  “Affirmative. I’m on my way to Scotland now. Thank you for understanding,” Neville replied softly, his eyes scanning the reception area while he secretly wished he had a simpler, mundane life like the administration staff there.

  “Oh, understanding is my essence, remember? I will keep an eye on you from the heavens, just to remind you,” Amsel assured him with a wicked twist in his voice that bordered on gloating. The call disconnected to Neville’s relief.

  “This is exactly why I destroyed my phone, for fuck’s sake,” he snarled by himself. “Fucking satellites watching everything. God, I hate technology!” He was deeply disappointed that he had to reschedule his travel because of this hold up. Mumbling like an unruly child he punched in the station’s number to get a new departure time, “Fucking generator! If Basu did her damn job . . . oh, hello, can I reserve a ticket to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport again?”

  The train trip and the flight took just under two days to get Neville to Edinburgh, where he checked into a small three-star hotel for the next few days, while he would try to get in contact with Nina Gould. He had to find out where Special Agent Patrick Smith was to furnish him with much-needed information. Of course, Neville’s important information was not to help the agent with his analysis of the item, but to procure it from him at all costs.

  “My goodness, the rain just never stops here, does it?” Neville complained to the waiter at the hotel’s restaurant.

  “We are used to it, sir,” the waiter smiled. “May I get you something to drink?”

  “Mineral water, please,” Neville requested as he perused the menu. The thunder was boisterous on the other side of the window where he was forced to sit, since the eatery was filled to capacity by the time he arrived there.

  So sick of always being late for everything, he thought, looking about the place and feeling a seething discontent for the happy patrons around him, chatting away in comfort. In the afternoon after he arrived in the city he had bought himself a new cell phone to appease Amsel. Now he had to act quickly before he displeased the Vril Society high member again.

  He had never met Amsel before, but he had heard that the man was something fierce to behold, that his image was much like his voice insinuated. Neville never thought he would be so desperate for money, but his mother, who lived in London with her sister and brother-in-law, was of waning health and he wanted her to live out her days in luxury. With the money the Aryan society paid him to keep their secrets buried in his country, he could easily afford to give her just that.

  But it did scratch at his conscience that he, as an Indian, was betraying his race and that of all others, by enabling the evil Nazi legacy of ethnic subjugation and selective genetics to continue in this day and age. In some meager way Dr. Basu’s equal involvement made him feel better about it. Both of them were recruited by Beinta Dock as masks, non-Whites protecting the interests of the Vril Society for the guarantee of protection under the New Order. It always made Neville feel like a vampire’s familiar. There was not much difference between him and being a monster’s lackey for the promise of exemption when the rest of his breed would be laid to waste.

  All that kept him loyal, apart from fear, was the financial gain he received from the clandestine order he protected. Had Nina Gould not returned to the site all would have been well. He was sent along to make sure Cammerbach and his team would never find out that the particular location, mentioned in Cammerbach’s ancient texts, was in fact a forbidden entrance to somewhere arcane draped in such antiquity no human mind could fathom—and had to remain sealed. His tracker alerted another group of individuals Neville was involved with, that Beinta and Amsel could never know about. Genetically altered, they were super men who intended to get their own cut of the Vril, by means of the generator.

  It was a very dangerous game he played, but in his desperation Neville thought that serving Amsel’s faction would keep him financially independent while he could thwart the Vril Society’s endgame of eliminating all other races as equals. That would be his bit for his race, he thought. And the super men of whom he knew practically nothing offered him that chance. By helping them obtain the object of next-level, scientific-energy production, Neville knew they could extort the Vril and therefore create a silent war between the predators; and a war between predators usually gained the herd time to escape its fate or mount defenses, at least.

  They would come for Nina soon, if they had not already embarked on that hunt. Neville wanted more than anything to warn Dr. Gould of their imminent pursuit, only because he liked her. That was why he had shielded her from his associates while they slaughtered the Cammerbach party for intruding on their turf. Unfortunately, Dr. Basu was not as forthcoming as he was, having no trouble in informing Beinta Dock that Special Agent Patrick Smith had possession of the item.

  Before they found out that Dr. Nina Gould was the one who retrieved it, probably from Basu as well, he had to get to her to fill her in on the whole thing. Once she was safe from the super men and Beinta Dock, he could concentrate on retrieving the generator from Smith without incident, hopefully. From there on, Neville was still uncertain of his path, but he saved the funding from Amsel’s employ to flee both parties, should it come to that. He would first have to see which of the two parties would benefit his welfare better.

  His meal was half-eaten when he opened his laptop to contact Nina Gould. In his email to her he asked her for Patrick Smith’s address so that he could personally speak to him.

  Dear Nina,

  I hope you are well and that you have healed up properly by now.

  You left so abruptly that I had no time to obtain the relevant information from you, young lady. Special Agent Smith, whom I served as guide to find you, asked me to contact him with any information I had about the dig site and what had happened there.

  He told me not to call or send information over the Internet, so I am in Edinburgh to bring him the info he was looking for. And, of course, I forgot to get his address in Edinburgh! You know what a scatterbrain I am!

  If we could meet for coffee that would be great too. The information I have is very urgent, though, so if you could get in touch a.s.a.p. that would be excellent.

  Salutations,

  Neville Padayachee—Indian Jones

  Neville checked the wording to make sure it sounded casual enough not to alarm his friend. For her to disclose the information, he had to make it sound as if Patrick instructed him to find him, otherwise she would never oblige. His email looked amicable enough and he hit SEND just as his pudding arrived.

  Chapter 19

  Paddy was done with the red tape and statements it took to get him out of the police station. Due to this small diversion of death, bullets, and mayhem he was delayed by six hours. His first priority was to call his superior to report that he had arrived back, but he was certainly not going to have the item tested at Exova anymore, or tested at all actually. There was too much at stake with the Vril Society having its tentacles everywhere. If they could find him and get access this easily before, it would expose his position even more if he had the thing examined by more outside parties who could very well be part of the underworld he had just avoided getting exterminated by.

  Once he had called, his only desire was to get home. It had been an insane assignment he undertook and all he wanted to do now was to see his Cassie and curl up on the couch with a movie and a beer. Through the downpour he ran to get to his car, still parked at the airport parking bays. He called his commander and made up some story about a false lead that led to nothing e
ventually, closing that avenue of investigation for now, as he said. While he spoke he could hear the beep of another call every few seconds, but he could not abandon a call to his superior.

  As soon as he was done talking, he took the other call, hoping to hear his wife’s sweet voice. But what he learned from the administration staff member at Astley Ainslie Hospital sealed his day in a vacuumed bubble of abject misery.

  “Where is she?” he asked, his heart throbbing wildly. “Is she alive? I’m on my way, I will be right there!”

  He sped from the airport road to the hospital in the gray wetness, disregarding all traffic rules to make it to Cassie in less time. Through the lanes he weaved, twice nearly colliding with other vehicles. When he reached the second block from the hospital, Paddy’s car climbed the pavement to get past the stalling car in front of him to get ahead sooner. Leaving several furious motorists in his trail, Paddy sped into the hospital parking lot with tears in his eyes.

  You had to go and clean up Nina’s mess for Sam, didn’t you? his inner turmoil manifested as he ran through the rain to the main entrance. Of course, they are more important than your loving wife’s safety, eh? What special brand of prick leaves his wife unprotected while he goes off to find the biggest stick he could to poke at the hornet’s nest?

  He made for the hospital entrance and asked for his wife’s room. Through the wide, polished corridors that reflected the lights above like the surface of a pond, Paddy walked briskly, almost jogging to get to Cassandra’s room. His heart was wild in his chest and he dreaded what he was going to see when he reached her bed. Perhaps he did not want to see her, he did not want to reach the right room. That way he could not know how badly injured she was, and more than anything he would not have to look her in the eye after what he allowed to happen to her.