by P. W. Child
Paddy huffed from the running and jumping of steps up three flights to the third floor. As he neared her room his eyes burned with tears as his mind burned with rage and an unquenchable lust for revenge. It was not as if his Cassie was a tough, independent type of woman. She had always been a soft, gentle person who was scared of her own shadow if it stretched too high. He could not even imagine what she had to suffer for something like this to happen to her. Not only a home breach, but to be assaulted! He feared she would blame him, although he completely took the blame on himself already.
“Special Agent Smith?” the duty nurse asked as he stumbled through the hallway, looking lost and dazed. His tie was loose and his wet hair was a mess when he locked eyes with the nurse. In her opinion the poor man needed a sedative, by the looks of him. Too much stress and the burden of guilt bore down on Paddy.
“Yes, that’s me. My wife?” he panted heavily, holding his head.
“She is all right, sir,” the nurse soothed him. She could see that the man was about to collapse, so she softened her voice and smiled, “Come, I’ll take you to go and say hello.”
Her manner made a clear difference in his demeanor. Not once in the past day of tragedy, death, and terror had he heard one gentle remark or caring voice.
“Thank you, nurse. Thank you so much,” he sighed when she showed him into Cassie’s room. To her right there was a sleeping patient, but the other four beds were vacant. The natural light from the window was dim, as dusk and the cold raindrops sat against the glass, which he looked through to determine if the blinds were open or slightly pulled.
He stole to her bedside, “Cassie? Love? Can you hear me?”
Paddy wanted to cry, but he could not let his brave wife see him break. There she was, her face swollen and bruised black and green about her cheeks and eyes. Small red stripes marked the impact of the vase and the window glass she crashed through to escape a certain death. Her leg was in a cast and her forearms and hands were heavily cut and bruised from her altercation with her attacker.
“What happened?” he asked, not caring if she could hear him or not. He just needed to ask. The nurse came in and whispered, “She was beaten and suffered a bullet wound to the left lower leg, but otherwise she is calm and responds well to her treatment.”
“Did she say who did this?” he asked, but his voice shivered so that most of his words sank away under the threat of an uncontrollable spell of tears.
“All I could make of it was that the intruder wanted something she did not have. Then she said the assailant was looking for her husband . . . .and something about stabbing the intruder with her scarf stuff?” the nurse informed him. “Mr. Smith, I am very worried about the state you are in. Can I perhaps get the doctor to give you a little something for the shock?”
Paddy wanted to dismiss everything she said that did not pertain to his wife’s attack out of sheer fury, but she was so genuinely concerned about his well-being that Paddy reckoned a mild tranquilizer would serve him well while he waited for Cassie to wake up.
“I’m going to need what she was given,” he told the nurse, gesturing at his wife who was breathing deeply in a sound sleep. Her skin was riddled with cuts, her body ravaged by bruises, yet her countenance was one of courage and strength that Paddy could not help but greatly admired. Cassie proved that she could in fact take care of herself in a crisis, no matter how battered she came out of it. He was proud of his wife for surviving, for fighting.
“Mr. Smith,” the doctor said quietly, “I’m Dr. Burns. Your wife is going to be fine. We treated her for shock and gave her some IV Valium to help her rest and relieve the pain.”
“Thanks, doctor,” Paddy said, “but have the police been to the scene?”
“Yes, the neighbors called the police before they drove your wife here. There is a squad car or two guarding the house. I trust you have spoken to the officers?”
“No, I just got back to the city. I got the hospital call and came straight here. I have not been home yet,” Paddy told him.
“I’m going to give you some tranquilizers to take when you get home, so that you can rest as well. You have clearly been through some sort of trauma yourself, by what I see . . . or am I jumping to conclusions?” the doctor asked, concerned.
Paddy sighed. He wondered how he would recount in a nutshell how he was involved in a life-and-death struggle on a plane where several civilians were executed because he could not protect them either.
“Let’s just say I have had a very, very long day of more tension than any man can handle,” he said, and he placed his hand on Cassie’s forehead. As his palm met her skin, his wedding ring gleamed in the meager light as if it had come to life when he touched his wife.
“It shows. Maybe you should get home and rest, while we take care of Mrs. Smith. You can come in and see her tomorrow,” Dr. Burns reassured Paddy. “For now she is healing nicely.”
When Paddy arrived at his house he had a word with the two officers watching his house. He arranged for them to send an officer to stand guard at his wife’s hospital room, for fear that the assailant would return to finish the job. Since Paddy used to be a DCI at the same precinct, the commanding officer had no problem obliging. They all knew the Smiths. The sent out two men in eight-hour shift changes to watch Cassandra while she was in hospital.
In the meantime, Paddy was going to wait patiently for the attacker to come looking for him. The generator burned a whole in his pocket and he could not help resenting Sam and Nina just a little for pulling him away from his wife while endangering her with their constant involvement in these clandestine quests. Had it not been for them, none of this would have happened, but then again, his inner voice reminded him, he could have said no. His loyalty to Sam Cleave almost cost him his wife. He was done protecting Sam.
He boarded up the broken window with shaking hands and a very unstable disposition.
“This is where Cassie was shot,” he said to no one in particular. He felt like he had to say it out loud to give it the reverence it deserved, to honor her courage and remind himself that it could never happen again. A few hours before, the local police detectives had combed the scene for prints and evidence, but they found nothing conclusive, according to the squad car driver out in his driveway. “This is where Cassie escaped,” he said as he stepped back to observe the closed-up window. Then he turned to the couch. Blood stained the upholstery and carpet, forcing Paddy to weep, “This is where Cassie fought for her life.”
Patrick Smith collapsed to his knees, sobbing like a child. Almost losing the most important person in his life finally sank in and gripped his soul with a cruel squeeze. Whoever did this was going to pay, even if he had to resort to murder, even if he got suspended for taking the time out for his own vendetta. He did not care.
Through his tears, he noticed a green piece of wool yarn sticking out from under the couch. He followed it and found the knitting his wife had been teaching herself. A ball of wool with two knitting needles was bundled up with some horrendous attempt at a scarf. He had to smile for the mess she construed as a legitimate piece of work. But then it dawned on him that the blood on the knitting needle was not Cassie’s. After all, did the nurse not tell him that Cassie mentioned stabbing her assailant with her scarf stuff?
“Well done, love,” Paddy smiled through his tears. He reveled in the amount of blood on the wool. “Hope you killed the fucker.”
He got up and put the kettle on. There was no drinking tonight, not only for the pills he would take to help him sleep, but because he did not need to feel like shit in the morning. He had to be sharp, because he had to get rid of this generator once and for all. He took it out of his coat and put the small vessel that held the much-desired device on the kitchen counter. While he listened to the rain and the hum of the kettle element boiling the water, he stared at the Dewar, wondering what would happen if he opened it.
Tea and a cigarette sufficed as dinner before Paddy took the pills Dr. Burns gave hi
m.
“Hope you’re not also in on it, doc. I wouldn’t be bloody surprised,” he said as he threw his head back to swallow the tranquilizer. While he waited for the pill to kick in, he opened the freezer door at the top of his fridge. From the freezer he pulled out a box of frozen fish fingers and chucked the lot into a frying pan. But Paddy was not hungry.
He slid the silver flask of the generator into the box and replaced it in the freezer. If anyone was going to come looking for it, he would not make it easy to find. Better yet, he would sleep with his gun loaded, and make it downright impossible.
Chapter 20
Jari Koivusaari enjoyed the company of the Scottish celebrities he had been entertaining, yet he could not help but feel that they knew more than they let on. After he told them about Josef being his father, and the subsequent sale of the cross statue, they acted a bit different. However, he thought it was just his imagination.
“So did Josef tell you what would happen after 19 years?” Purdue asked.
“No. Has anything happened?” he asked Purdue. He sat forward in excitement, “Something happened, right? Or otherwise why are you here?”
Purdue was caught in a moral mess. If he told Jari that the cross fell apart and revealed solid gold, the Finnish dealer would be distraught for selling the item that would have gifted him his financial rescue. He might even be angry. The old man was very sharp, that much was clear to them. He had a way of deducing the truth behind things, so Purdue played it down the middle.
“It was damaged, but most of it is still standing,” he told Jari. “But we were just curious about the symbols on the head of the cross. Nina had a hunch it might be an interesting story.”
Nina looked surprised at his blaming her, but for the sake of the argument she held her tongue and just smiled. Purdue was trying to tell the truth without taking the responsibility for it and she knew it.
“That writing is Estonian,” Jari explained. “You see? Just like the real monument, this piece was looking like it is for Estonia. It says “Odinsholm 1943” and then it says “to the Grave of Odin will no compass yield. But his Wisdom lies beneath where the white eye looks.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sam wondered out loud.
Jari shrugged. “My father was no Christian. He had great respect for Odin. He told me that he had seen Odin’s wisdom and it terrified him to his soul. So he never went back.”
“Back where?” Nina asked.
“I don’t know. He was very . . . how is the word? He was mad with genius, with knowing things,” their host imparted, as he emptied the bottle into their glasses. “And Odin was one with wisdom.”
“Odin!” Nina shouted out. “Of course! Your dogs, their names are the same as Odin’s wolves! I knew those names were familiar!” She laughed proudly, rubbing her palms together. Jari joined in her glee, impressed again that she knew.
“Yes, yes. My children are named for the two wolves at Odin’s feet, just because they eat everything they can,” Jari chuckled.
“That’s right. His wolves were known to be ravenous,” Nina agreed. “Then that is a perfect name for these boys.”
Purdue knew all he needed to know. On his tablet he had noted everything referring to Josef Palevski and his eccentric riddles. It was time that they got going as the late afternoon loomed.
“Well, Jari, we have to be off. It was a great honor to meet you,” Purdue smiled, shaking the man’s hand. They parted with well wishes and another bottle of Virvatulet to consume while they mapped out their plan of action.
And they did. Next to the lake the three sat discussing the meaning of the inscription. Nina was of the mind that the term “Grave of Odin” was merely a metaphor.
“No, Odin’s grave could very well be a name for something,” Sam declared. “Look, I found this online.” He scrolled on his phone, reading the information in selected words to formulate a theory. “There is a place called Odin’s Grave. Pow! Just a straight-out statement. And it happens to be off the coast of Estonia.”
Purdue agreed. “Hmm, I venture we could go and see. After all, it’s practically a stone’s throw away from here.”
“What is Odin’s Grave, then, Sam?” Nina asked, having more wine. “A landmark, like a mound?”
“No, it is located on an island called Osmussaar, off the coast of Estonia. But now we have to remember that Odin had only one eye. Could that be the white eye he talks about?” Sam posed the important question.
“I don’t think so. Look, it would have said his eye, instead of the eye, right? I honestly think they are two separate things on this island,” Purdue speculated, but Nina had been checking her laptop for references to Osmussaar and had more to add.
“Could be, but I don’t know if your info told you this, Sam. Neugrund is a crater caused by a meteor, lying under the water off the coast of the island. So, is that what he meant by wisdom lying beneath?” she asked.
“Odinsholm 1943,” Purdue mused. “For some reason I think that is significant. It was during the Second World War. I think the island is significant. I think we should start there, but I don’t think that is where we will end up.”
“I agree. I think it is a clue to another location that he did not want to write, obviously,” Sam said. “All we can do is go and connect the dots to what Josef was really referring to.”
“I know what he was referring to,” Nina said, a little smile denting her cheeks.
“You do?” Sam played, rapidly blinking his eyes at her.
“Do share, dear Nina,” Purdue urged.
Nina closed her eyes, feeling the effect of the umpteenth glass of wine. “I think Josef is sending us straight to the Nazi train he stole the gold from.”
~~~~~
The following morning Sam, Nina, and Purdue set out to Osmussaar. Purdue had chartered a boat to take them there to examine the clues they were presented with. Nina had a very good point the day before, in the opinions of her companions. It was almost logical that the artist would leave clues for his son to find a treasure of which he managed to claim but a small fraction of, from a place he admitted to have been in—the underground railroads of Project Riese. The conundrum, though, was which of the known nine underground railroads they had to travel to, but that was what they had hoped to find once on Osmussaar.
The day was clear, the sun pale, and the water pleasant. Across the Gulf of Finland, they went southwest toward Estonia on the opposite side of the cold body of water they were crossing. Around them, several fishing trawlers floated lazily on the silver sheen of the waves. Nina was drinking a cup of hot chocolate, trying to keep her hair out of her face and failing utterly at it. She watched Sam taking pictures of the boats and the panorama away from the sunlight.
Purdue was working on his people skills, as he always did, chatting to the skipper about all kinds of traditions. They exchanged fishing stories and Purdue shared his from all around the world. She could not remember the last time she was so relaxed. The serenity was a godsend, after the horrible nightmares she suffered the night before, but dared not voice.
It was a recurring dream of a battlefield of giants, like the men in the tunnel with her. They were fighting against an army of locusts that ate away the skin on their faces and limbs until all that was left was enormous skeletons falling into a heap of bones. Overhead the Black Sun symbol was rotating faster and faster, pulling the blue of the sky with it into a circular smudge.
She picked up a bone from the heap and held it out to fight the sun, but gradually the bone turned into gold, slowly moving downward to her hand. No matter how she tried to cast it aside, it had become part of her, growing into her skin and fusing with her ulna. As she slowly turned to gold, the locusts began to laugh at her—a billion cackling insects standing like men and looking at her. Every time, right at the end of the dream, Nina used the bone in her hand to stab out one of her eyes, a terrifying splat that jerked her violently into the waking world.
Ever since she went to Wrichtisho
usis with Purdue and Sam, she had been having that same sequence of events playing in her nightmare and each time she stabbed out the other eye from the one of the night before. Her knowledge of mythology supported the notion that she was Odin, the Norse Allfather, who gave one of his eyes in exchange for wisdom. However, his right eye was plucked out, whereas hers alternated being stabbed.
Nina was desperate to rid herself of this wicked thrall that came in her dreams, without a doubt the result of her traumatic experiences in the Himalayas and a pinch of what she was chasing after with Sam and Purdue. Unless she spoke about it, there would be no way to end it.
But it would mar her focus on this unofficial expedition and she did not want to surrender to the growing darkness that gripped her more and more as the days passed. It was odd, because she did not give any of it much thought while she was awake, but she elected not to entertain the idea that she could be heading for a breakdown. To kill the time left of their boat trip, she decided to keep busy checking her messages.
“Hey, Sam!” she shouted over the din of the splashing slipstream of the boat.
“Aye!” he replied while zooming in on a lighthouse he found in his viewfinder.
“What is Paddy’s address again?” she asked.
“Why?” Sam inquired. “Since when are you and Paddy hanging out?” he smiled.
“Neville says he has intel for Paddy’s people and your best friend told him not to call or email. Apparently he has traveled to Edinburgh to tell Paddy in person. Shall I send him to Glasgow to get Paddy via headquarters?” she asked.
“No, he won’t be there for the next week. The generator has to be tested in Edinburgh before he reports it to his one-up, so send him to 88 Watson Avenue in Blackford,” he told her.
“Oh, when did they move?” she asked as she replied to Neville’s message, excusing herself from the coffee offer due to being “abroad.”