by P. W. Child
“Oh, you are worth it, my dear Francois,” Marcel winked, his arms folded over his chest.
“Excuse me, Monsieur Debaux,” Pierre, the barge pilot, interrupted their reunion politely from the top of the steps, “but we are now reaching Pont de Sully.”
“Ah! And perfect timing too,” Francois cheered, casting a naughty look at his young companion. “Let’s go and see the crew off, Marcel. I am heading for Bassin de l’Arsenal after this. If you are good, I’ll let you drive.”
“You always do,” Marcel replied in a sultry slur, his blue eyes shimmering under his long dirty blond fringe.
When the crew had disembarked, Francois and Marcel greeted the darkening night with some champagne and mutton pie. The pie was Marcel’s idea. The man had no finesse, but his food was always good, nonetheless, and Francois enjoyed his odd palate. Francois had finished his meal and stood admiring the lights of the rue parallel to the river where they had docked for the night.
“I’m going to swim,” Marcel announced.
“What?” Francois asked as he turned, but all he heard was the splash. As always Marcel did just what he wanted, when he wanted. It was a sexy rebelliousness he wielded wherever he went and Francois could only shake his head, smiling.
“Come on in!” Marcel called from the water, and Francois needed no more urging. He had been craving the water, so he undressed and jumped into the cold water, joining Marcel in a night swim.
His arm felt heavy, making it hard to swim toward Marcel.
“What is it? Not in such great shape anymore, eh?” Marcel joked, but soon he saw that the old man was not enjoying the effort anymore.
Marcel paddled playfully toward the step fixed to the side of the vessel and called out, “I’m going to jump from up there! Watch!” He pointed to the roof of the cockpit.
“Be careful!” Francois shouted, aware that his arm was so heavy that it seemed to pull him downward. His scowl grew deeper as he found himself unable to lift his hand and he did not even notice that Marcel was not on the roof. Instead he had entered the cockpit and switched on the engine.
“What are you doing?” Francois bellowed, as his arm was now drawn deeper under the surface, where the water now submerged his shoulder and ear. It was the bracelet, tugging him down, but he could not undo the clasp. With wide eyes he watched Marcel expertly set the route and drive the barge forward, accelerating with every second.
“Where the bloody hell are you going?” he screamed from the water, but he need not worry, because the electromagnet fitted under the hull of the craft was in love with the cobalt and iron in the steel bracelet. It drew more and more as the boat traversed the canal, pulling the old man under. In the black frigidity Francois felt his old lungs burning as they ran out of time and oxygen, while his body was relentlessly reeled in under the barge where there was no way of reaching the surface for breath.
For several minutes, Marcel piloted the barge down the Seine River, for good measure, dragging the cold, limp corpse of another council member through the slipstream of his own vessel. Then he dialed a number from his cell phone, and reported, “This is Unit 5. Francois Debaux—exterminated.”
He ended the call, moored the vessel and disembarked, disappearing into the gay vibe of the cheerful Paris night with a skip in his step.
Chapter 19
“I don’t want to know what you are doing in my house, Sam. And I don’t want to know how you found me,” Nina said in a low voice, the kind she used when she was livid. “I am finally out of that wretched world and I will not let you drag me back in.”
“I found you,” Patrick Smith said, standing in the doorway where he appeared from the dark corridor. “Sam, you can lower your weapon now.”
Sam realized he still had his barrel pointed at Nina. He lowered his gun and replaced the hammer.
“Now you have a gun? Jesus, Sam, you really changed,” she said plainly, fumbling in the woven fruit basket for her cigarettes. “Congratulations on the book.” Her tone was indifferent, truly indifferent, not the kind you get from scorned lovers who want to make you feel bad before inviting you back into their lives. She was really over him.
“Sam Cleave?” Gretchen asked. Sam nodded, slightly befuddled that a stranger here knew him. “Oh, my God, I read your book and I must say . . . ”
“You read his book?” Nina asked her friend in open amazement.
“I did, yes. I knew he was your friend so I was interested in his account of the terrible things that happened up until he got that Pulitzer,” Gretchen explained. “Sam, I am so sorry about what happened to Patricia, and how you had to recover from that loss, not to mention the danger it got you into.”
“Oh, just stop!” Nina sneered over her cigarette as she lit it. Sam knew he did not deserve her time or attention, but as much as he was tired of her rudeness and manipulation, she was precious enough to him to merit protection. “I don’t want you here. Sorry, Patrick, my beef is not with you.”
“No worries,” Paddy shrugged. He noticed the strange, tall, pale man and introduced himself. In turn, Richard responded with a polite and accommodating, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Smith. I am Dr. Philips, from Stanford University. Richard, if you wish.”
While they engaged in small talk about their respective vocations, Gretchen watched Nina and Sam’s shaky reunion with dread.
“I know we parted less than desirably, Nina, but you have to believe me. I am in no way responsible for what just happened here,” Sam tried to explain. “Can I bum one? Paddy won’t let me smoke in his company.” He pointed at her cigarette.
“It’s my last one,” she said, suddenly somewhat disarmed at his casual begging. It reminded her of the old Sam—the boyish, mischievous, and adorable journalist before he was a gun-wielding, celebrity author. Nina yielded, passing Sam her cigarette, “Puff, puff, pass.”
“Aye, thanks,” he replied, eagerly receiving the smoldering solace and sucking hard on it. His head fell back, eyes closed as he exhaled it with a long, relieved sigh. “God, that’s good.”
“So what’s going on?” she asked, much more composed now that the shock of seeing Sam was broken by some idle words.
“I hate to tell you this, but as you might have noticed, there is a hit on you,” he reported with sincere sympathy. “We came to intercept it, and none too soon, I see. Someone named McLaughlin is behind it, from what our sources tell us.”
Nina nodded nonchalantly as she took the fag from Sam for a hit, “That is the woman who sold me this property. She was here with these buffoons a few minutes before you came. No doubt she’ll be back if she doesn’t hear from them by morning.”
“She is one of the assassins employed by the council. For some reason, the Black Sun wants you out of the way so that Purdue can complete the work he is doing for them,” Sam mentioned, keen to hear her response.
“Purdue?” she asked, blowing her smoke upward. “He is not dead? He is working for them?”
Sam saw the opportunity to play saint. Now was the time to shatter all Nina’s trust in Purdue once and for all, no matter how much it made Sam feel like a bastard and opportunist. Their affection for Nina was, after all, the reason they were constantly at war.
“Apparently his so-called apprehension in Madeira was planned to make him look like a victim. He probably plotted the whole arrest with them,” Sam uttered his shameless lie as speculation. Nina frowned. She shook her head while following all the cogs in the wheel to make sense of it.
“What is he making for them now?” she asked.
Paddy approached her slowly, giving Sam a hard look as he saw the undisciplined journalist take the cigarette from Nina to finish it off. “They are busy with something called Final Solution 2, Nina. We have yet to find out what it means.”
Nina’s eyes stretched wide and she looked at Gretchen before replying. She could not believe they did not know what it entailed.
“Final Solution?” she marveled. “Final Solution was the euphemism the Nazis use
d for the eradication of all Jews by means of genocide.”
The group stood in silence for a moment.
“Only this time I have a feeling not only the Jews are being targeted?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. Gretchen held her breath at the horrid thought, and Paddy nodded. He remembered full well the nature of the discussions he overheard.
“Tell me, Nina, where did Venice fit into the Nazi plans?” he asked.
She leapt up and seated herself on the kitchen table and after a bit of thinking she replied, “Venice was targeted by Allied forces during Operation Bowler, I know, but I’m not sure what the exact underlying reason was. Why?” she asked Paddy, looking very interested all of a sudden. She seemed to have forgotten that there were two dead bodies in her house and her feud with Sam was shifted aside for now.
“The council is sending one of their members to Venice to oversee a clandestine plan already in action, and apparently Dave Purdue is the key to completing it,” Paddy answered.
“Purdue,” Nina said softly, her eyes getting lost in the seams of the floorboards. “How could he allow . . . ”
“Well, I think what we need is to get rid of these two bodies, first of all,” Sam jutted in quickly, before Nina thought too much about Purdue and his fate.
“Oh, yes, and then I have to get back to Glasgow to report and debrief. Remember, I’m not sharing any of this information with MI6, so after I leave here, you bunch are on your own to sort out this shite,” Paddy warned.
“Who is going to protect us . . . uh . . . Nina, then?” Gretchen asked with grave concern in her voice.
“I will. Patrick has played me the recording of the council meeting and I know what the members are up to, in short, but I need more information on the things they plan to use to facilitate this worldwide genocide. There is all this rubbish about opening portals to the Old Gods and something about arming the Longinus,” Sam explained.
“Oh, that is not rubbish, Mr. Cleave,” the queer Richard intervened in his quiet voice. “By means of quantum physics and some help from old mathematical texts, this rubbish is entirely possible.”
“Who’s the stiff?” Sam asked Nina in a whisper, as Gretchen jumped up to join in Richard Philips’ thesis.
“It is indeed. And even in old scrolls and records there are accounts of possible portals. Much like Nina’s house has the reputation of being a doorway to another dimension,” she babbled. Sam looked at her in disbelief, then shifted his eyes to Nina. But she did not look as cynical as he had hoped.
“You buy this?” he asked.
“Come upstairs with me, Sam. There are some things you have to see.”
She pulled Sam along and they were joined by the others. After showing Sam and Patrick the hidden books, Paddy’s face lit up.
“Of course! That is why they are headed for Venice,” he shrieked in awe.
“Care to share?” Gretchen pressed.
“The Library of Forbidden Books! It is located somewhere in Venice, but there is no record or map of it. It was supposedly moved away from the Vatican, to avert the occult treasure hunters and madmen who wished to obtain the writings of exiled occultists; several of them are based in the Middle East,” he roared, pleased with his epiphany. “These books, as you will see, have no ISBN, they have no press information, and others are just blatantly malevolent.”
“The subjects are a mix of Nazi doctrine and ideals, with occult lore, physics, and mathematical principles heading all in one direction—the act of punching a hole in inter-dimensional veils to let in terrible and super-intelligent denizens to rule the world,” Richard enlightened Sam and Paddy.
“And this house has always had a reputation for being one such portal,” Gretchen told Sam.
“Really?” Sam replied in his old sarcastic mockery.
“It does. I think my grandfather knew this, and the well below us, I think, has a lot to do with that. Long has it been said that water is a conductor. How do we not know that it could perhaps conduct subatomic particles and promote other mathematically driven properties of physics?” Richard suggested.
“All right, listen, you have a well under the house? We can dispose of the bodies there, right?” Paddy asked urgently. “I have to be in Glasgow by tomorrow morning, so time is of the essence here. I’ll of course be in touch.”
Nina’s skin crawled at the thought of the mouth and the ghastly thing living in it. Gretchen felt the same by the looks of her wince at the mention of the well.
“I’ll show you where it is,” Richard offered Sam and Patrick, and the three men descended the staircase to the ground floor of the house to collect McLaughlin’s goons. Nina and Gretchen trailed them at a distance. They had no intention of going near the hellish water hole again.
“So are you okay, doll?” Gretchen asked. “What are we going to do now? I suppose calling the police is not an option, since a secret agent doesn’t even get involved.”
Nina sighed, “Welcome to my life.”
“I now see what you have had to deal with,” Gretchen said, “and I have to say my problems have shrunk remarkably in the last day.”
“Ladies, can you help us with the door? I have to lead with the lights,” Richard asked them. Sam and Patrick each had a dead man on their shoulders, waiting for the trapdoor to be opened. One man had a broken neck and the other was shot in the head, leaving the back of his gushing skull gaping and wet among his hair.
Gretchen took off to the laundry room to vomit at the sight of it. Nina opened the trapdoor for the men, led by the American. He was holding three flashlights to illuminate the place enough for Sam and Paddy to find their footing in the basement.
“Christ, what is that hideous smell?” Sam cried from just below the kitchen floor as he entered the basement. “No-one will ever know about these bodies, if the place smells like this on average. Fuck!”
Paddy just coughed profusely inside.
“Aye, I suppose the Glade air freshener is not as strong as they say, huh?” Nina called after him, yielding to an inadvertent smile.
Gretchen wiped her mouth, pinching her eyes in disgust.
“Sorry, doll. I just couldn’t take that,” she apologized. “Don’t worry, I washed out the drain.”
“Let’s get some whisky,” Nina said. “This shit is too much for me. It’s happening all over again. And smokes. I need a fucking carton for this.”
As the women went to the trapdoor to ask for Sam to go to the store for them, a majestic roar filled the neighborhood, sending them jolting backward onto the floor.
“What the fuck!” Nina screamed at Gretchen.
It had sounded like the clap of a cannon, its sub-toned bass punching them in the gut as if a thunder cloud released a bolt of lightning in the house. A blinding white and blue light filled the whole place, its rays shooting forth into the night for all of Oban to see. In the streets, cars slammed into one another and posts were dislodged by disoriented drivers as all eyes turned to the house on Dunuaran Road. From the windows and roof tiles, daylight emanated like beams from a spaceship and residents raced outside to behold what had not happened in the small town since the late 1950s.
Here was irrefutable proof. The legend was real.
Chapter 20
Jaap Roodt inhaled deeply. He wanted to smile, but instead he just kept his content to himself. Venice was rife with tourists from all corners of the planet, it seemed, and the place bustled with posing lovers, spoiled children with tantrums, and the odd photographer with proper equipment aiming at the Basilica’s rounded crowns, spires, and domes. The day was beautiful. The piazza smelled of Italian cuisine and flowers where the light breeze carried it across the channels from side to side. Gardens were hardly ever in dearth for the blessing of the warmer temperate weather and the skilled hands of their keepers who delighted in beauty, as much as Italy reveled in its art.
Upon the water from the Adriatic, the cooler squalls persisted and to the trained eye this was a sign of impending rain. Jaap traverse
d Piazza San Marco leisurely, looking at all the people minding their own business, each blissfully unaware of what he was planning for them. At his age there was much reason to contemplate the condition the world had been dumped into, and on those odd occasions when his conscience threatened, all he had to do was walk among the population of the cities he visited. Soon it reminded him how a supreme cleansing was the only logical advancement of the human race, or those left to survive it.
He sat down and waited for his companion to show up. With fingers like talons betraying his age, regardless of the speed and agility with which he moved, Jaap Roodt pulled out his buzzing cell phone.
“Roodt,” he said sternly, perfectly aware by the caller ID display that it was his young wife calling. As he listened to her, his colleague finally showed up. He motioned for the sullen man to sit down across from him while he completed the call. The wind picked up and stirred his guest’s hair, giving him an appearance of feral fury. His eyes were bloodshot and it was abundantly clear that he had not been sleeping.
When Jaap hung up the phone, he gave Dave Purdue a long, serious look.
“My God, boy! You are a mess,” he told Purdue and offered him a donut, which was gracefully refused. “For the fate you escaped, my friend, you should be grateful for what you still have. And considering the position you have been awarded after betraying us, it is nothing short of a miracle. So chin up.”
Purdue’s expression was static and all he heard from Roodt’s words were the steely disrespect for his plight. Yes, he was rescued from an awful send-off, courtesy of the council and the Black Sun’s respective factions, but that did not absolve them from what they had done to him. Still, Roodt made it sound like Purdue was a stray dog put to good use for the privilege of scraps. Perhaps that was exactly what he was these days, but he knew what he was getting into. His wealth, like it did most fools, blinded him to his vulnerability for long past the point of peril. Now all that was left was to stop antagonizing the organization and do as he was told, at least until things settled and he could assess his position.