by P. W. Child
“That is where you want to go today?” Nina asked.
“Yes! I believe the tarot cards are kept there to keep them suspended between dimensions, therefore keeping them from doing harm here unless someone discovered them, see?” she explained. Once more Nina felt that thrill mount in her, the hunt for something extraordinary.
“Did your young pet tell you all this?” Nina winked.
“He told me straight out, Nina. And there is more. That house belonged to Petr Costita!” she revealed with no small amount of show. Nina’s mouth fell open. Progress was hopefully in the cards.
When they arrived there with Petra’s young friend, Anton, Sam stopped to put his last blank memory card in his camera. The house appeared to be in a dirty state of decay between the stick thin tall trees. On the path the dry leaves moved under almost no wind disturbance, giving the effect that something invisible was sweeping them along in front of the group of explorers. Nina looked back and saw Sam fiddling with the lens.
“Hurry up, before the forest swallows you, Sam!” she jested.
“Go on. Just a minute and I’ll catch up,” he shouted as she waved and joined Petra, Stefan and Anton who scouted the surroundings for vagrants, rusted wires in the overgrown grass or animal traps.
Sam clicked in his lens and switched on the camera, ready to roll. He could hear them talking about the state of the dilapidated structure when he felt the ice cold barrel of a pistol prod the back of his head. Sam’s legs buckled from the sudden threat and he froze in fear.
“Slowly, put your hands up, Cleave,” a familiar voice said.
Sam did as he was told. He knew that voice. It irritated him the moment they were introduced back in Zbiroh.
“Igor, you are not missing anymore,” Sam responded.
“I intend to stay missing, my friend. Give me the camera,” Igor ordered.
Sam slung it back slowly and he could hear other footsteps join them from two directions behind him.
“I believe you’ve met Captain von Ban,” Igor smiled as the captain rounded Sam from behind and came to stand face to face with him.
“Hello again, Sam,” the hideous bald man smiled.
“Captain, come to walk your dogs in the pretty woods?” Sam snapped. “Are they used to all the new recruits yet?” The captain bit his teeth down at Sam’s mockery of all the men in his unit that had perished while hunting the rogue journalist for his evidence against Greta Heller and all those employed by her.
“Don’t mind him, Captain. He’s a dead man. I can’t find the memory card. This one is empty,” Igor reported. The captain was once again left empty handed and it made him furious. Sam smiled. He knew he had a hell of a beating coming, maybe even torture, but he was not going to reveal the location of the memory card, otherwise they would shoot right away. Sam was as cocky as they imagined him to be after so many lucky escapes, but in truth he was absolutely terrified and he wished he could telepathically call to Nina and ask for help.
“Where is it?” the captain asked the question Sam was waiting for, the question that was going to bring him so much pain and injury. This time there was a six man fire team with three trained dogs at the captain’s bidding.
“Don’t you know what a stupid question that is around these parts, lads?” Sam quipped to win himself some time. He hoped to be discovered by his allies before they dragged him off and killed him before he could kiss Nina again.
“Looks like he will need persuasion,” the captain told Igor. “Tell your mother where to meet us.”
“You’re bringing your mum?” Sam laughed at Igor, but his hysterical guffaw was cut short by a formidable blow to the base of the skull that hurled him into unconsciousness.
When Sam came to his nostrils were filled with a vile smell he could only perceive as some sewer. It made him gag, but he could not throw up. On the back of head there was a huge gash and the blood had dried in sticky dark streaks down his neck and shoulders. The pain was unbearable, a dull pulsing headache that expanded his brain to a point of eruption. He remained still. If they thought he was still out cold they would wait for him to come to and he could have more time to find his bearings and figure out what to do.
He could hear voices in the distance, echoing in fevered discussion in German. Where he was, everything was quiet, apart from the noise of water dripping into the foul-smelling puddles of brackish sewage.
Sam tried his hands to feel what kind of restraints they had put on him and how tightly he was bound. His feet were tied separately to the chair legs under him and his mouth was stuffed with a dirty rag that tasted like gasoline and piss. He wanted to cough from the urge to throw up, but he had to hold back to maintain his ruse. Around his wrists he was tied with flex cuffs and his fingers were randomly tied with twine to fingers from his other hand to prevent him from using his hands to free himself. The flex cuffs held his ankles in place too, but the chair was made of wood, so he thought of breaking the chair legs.
While he could hear them talking he knew he could fiddle with the restraints, but as soon as they were momentarily quiet, he would stop and go limp. Sam knew his plan had failed when he heard Igor’s voice right behind him, so close that he could feel the young man’s voice vibrating in his ears.
“You can try all you like, Sam. Those plastic things are a bitch to get loose,” Igor said calmly and took the rag out of Sam’s mouth. “Just tell me where the memory card is and I’ll call off the dogs…so to speak.”
“I don’t have it on me, of course,” Sam whispered. His voice bounced off the walls around him; mildew riddled, ancient brickwork that was soaked in the horrid smell he woke up with.
“I know that, Sam.” Igor sighed. “Where is it now?”
“I’ll take you there. There is no fucking way I am telling you, pal. I will show you myself,” Sam stalled. His humorous snapping was now absent, because he just wanted to get out of there and did not want to waste any time. He thought of Nina, wondering if she had noticed by now that he was gone, but then it dawned on him that he could have been out for hours already.
“How long have I been out?” he asked, as Igor summoned the captain and his men to get Sam into the car.
“Oh, but isn’t that a stupid question to ask around these parts, Sam?” Igor returned his earlier sarcasm. “Ah! The ‘where’s’ and the ‘when’s’ of this place will get you every time, will they not?” Sam listened to his German accent growing heavier as he spoke, now that he did not have to hide his identity anymore. Sam looked at the good looking villain with disdain.
“Don’t worry, your precious Dr. Gould is safe and sound with Petra and all your new drinking buddies, Sammo,” Igor smiled and gave Sam a hearty open hand tap against the face. “I just want the gear you had in Germany with your other – late – colleagues. If I get the evidence I can let you live, otherwise, I just have to stop you from ever showing it to anyone, do you understand?”
Sam nodded, as the men pulled him up from the chair.
In the large 4x4 SUV Sam waited with Igor while the captain checked in with Greta to let her know that Igor had seized the journalist. Igor had called her a few hours before to let her know that he had met up with the captain and that all she had to do was bring the brat to lay the spread as soon as he disclosed their chosen location. For now Sam told them that he had hidden the memory card and other footage at the National Museum of Transylvanian History.
“You will leave Nina out of this,” Sam warned. “She was just hired as an advisor. Remember she had nothing to do with anything back in Germany. Are they still at the house?”
Igor stared at him with surprise and amusement. A streak of menace crossed his face as he smiled, “I don’t know where she is by now, Sam. Am I her keeper?”
“So it has been a few hours,” Sam noted. “How did you disappear like that in the forest? Where were you all the time?” he asked casually, as the car started moving towards Cluj on the E81.
“You and Nina walked through a time porta
l when you disappeared. I think I walked through a space portal when I vanished from your company. I suppose there are different inter-dimensional gateways all over that place. You came to another time, while I emerged in another place,” he explained, but he looked more impressed than he should have. As an investigative journalist Sam could pick up on that immediately.
“Where did you come out, then?” he kept the questions in a deceptively casual way so that Igor would not notice what he was doing.
“Let’s just say that Petra will not be finding her treasure in that house,” he told Sam, and pulled aside his right lapel of his coat to reveal his inside pocket. Inside it something bulged, something rectangular and thick that looked shockingly like a deck of cards.
“You found it!” Sam gasped under his breath.
“When I walked into the forest fog I felt dizzy, my ears were ringing and my body felt like it surged with such energy that the electrical current that went through me made me faint. When I woke up my bones were still vibrating, Sam,” Igor revisited the experience with marveling admiration for the eerie science. He did not sound like a kidnapper, even less like a potential killer. The way in which he told Sam about the experience was more like telling something to a friend with similar interests. Nevertheless, the danger was still real.
“And? Where did you come through? The house?” Sam pressed.
“In that house, but under the floor of all places! I was in this dark, dirty crawlspace. When I was trying to creep out of the trap door above me that I found the first two cards just lying there in the dirt,” Igor smiled. Looking for validation, he waited for a reply from Sam.
“This is un-fucking-believable,” Sam said. “And what are you going to do with them? I’m sure you are not going to deliver them to Petra, hey?”
“Why would I? My mother has the others, but she has no idea I have the majority of the deck. Once I relieve my mother of the others I will have the full deck. Do you even comprehend what that means? Can you imagine what I could do if I can get that little brat Radu Costita to lay out the spread I want?” Igor gloated.
Sam knew at once why he had been asked by Mueller’s daughter to protect the boy in the hospital from the Hellers.
“Oh my god! Radu,” Sam said to himself. “Radu is Petr’s son. And your mother must be…”
“Greta Heller, yes. But she will not be getting her way anymore. I am in control of everything now,” Igor said.
“How will you get her to give you her share of the deck?” Sam dared ask even though he did not want the answer to his question.
“She will give them to me or else…” Igor shrugged and patted his pocket.
“Is she going to join us at the Museum to get the evidence?” Sam asked, hoping to lure Greta there and hopefully save Radu from her clutches.
“Of course, she should be on her way soon. What’s the time?” he asked the goon in the passenger seat.
“4.24pm, sir,” he announced.
“She should meet us there at five,” he told Sam. “Just be warned, she is not as forthcoming as I am.”
“Oh, I’m not scared of her,” Sam smiled. He looked out from the captivity of the car and watched the hustle of people in Cluj-Napoca, hoping that his signal was clear enough.
Chapt er 33 – Turn of Events
Greta had gone to look for Radu at the office of the guest house after she woke up, but there was no-one around, so she returned to the room. There was not much time to find the boy, since they still had to make the trip to the Museum to meet Igor there. She was elated that he had Sam Cleave with him. Now she had one very heavy yoke off her neck. No accusation against her and her dealings would stand in the courts of law without Cleave’s footage. She could not wait to meet him face to face again. Had she only known back in Weimar that he was Radu’s hospital roommate, she could have done something there and then to avoid the captain having to lose more men after the Mueller farm shoot-out.
When she came into the room, Radu’s bed was still untouched, although his bag was packed and ready on the chair. He was sitting on his bed, legs crossed, with his back to her.
“Radu! Where the hell have you been? We have an appointment with Igor and some friends in less than half an hour!” she frowned.
Behind her the door slowly closed and clicked in. It was unusual for the door to do that with the window closed, but Greta did not believe in ghosts and goblins. She tried the door, but it was locked tight. As hard as she could manage with her pained and weak body, she jerked at the knob with all her strength.
“Come and help me, would you?” she barked at her adopted son, but he did not move. “What are you doing over there?” Greta left the door and came to see what Radu was doing on the sheets in front of him. On his wrist she saw him wearing her fine golden chain bracelet that was with her jewelry in her luggage.
“Where did you get th…?” she wanted to ask, but her words froze on her tongue when she saw the card he had put out – The Shackle, closing her doorway to escape. Calmly Greta put out her hands very slowly and kept her voice soft and low.
“Liebchen, what are you doing with that?” she asked as evenly as she could, while her heart exploded with terror inside her. She was afraid she may have taught him too much already when he had been so influenced by the cards that he physically suffered their destructive power. His reading was loosely based on the Mystic Seven spread, one of the five she had taught him with the cue cards, but since he lacked a full deck, he worked around it. After all, this was not a reading to reveal, but one to put to action the faces of its cards. Based on Radu’s will, they would find his grasp before he laid them.
“Listen, Radu, it won’t work like that,” she said in fear.
Radu did not respond to her, but he was perfectly aware of what he was doing. Next he placed The Boy to represent himself and The Pyre to fix himself in success.
“Radu, stop that at once!” Greta shouted, electing, unfortunately to take the disciplinarian route. Around them in the room time stopped for a few moments to adjust to the row of the present.
“Radu!” Greta screamed.
“Be quiet!” Radu roared in a voice that was only his in essence, but the tone was that of a god caught in a time lapse, dragging its words in a low slur. The young Romanian orphan turned his eyes to hers and she jolted. They were covered with a milky cataract, the edges of his irises gleaming in a gilded yellow like the frames of the Black Tarot’s cards.
“Gott im Himmel,” Greta shrieked with her hands on her mouth and her brow distorted in unbridled horror.
Outside the clouds grew darker under the thrall of the time manipulation and a swirling grey dawned over Transylvania, while the group of Gypsies helped Petra and Nina search for Sam around the ruins of Petr Costita’s house. They froze for a moment as if stunned, and then casually continued to call and search in the same place they had before. Petra and Nina looked at each other with perplexity and both said, “Déjà vu.”
The same happened in the car with Sam, Igor and the captain’s men. But although the others saw it as a strange feeling of familiarity, Sam and Igor knew what it meant. They stared at each other in disbelief.
“Your mother?” Sam asked.
“Or Radu,” Igor answered with a tremble in his voice. “We have to go to the park at the Botanical Gardens! Alexandru Borza Botanical Gardens! Now!”
“The Botanical Gardens?” Sam exclaimed. “Why? Don’t you want the footage I hid at the Museum?”
Igor could not decide. His face was overwhelmed with panic and a need to go to the park of the Botanical Gardens, but he said, “I must get the footage here at the museum. It is imperative…but…the museum…I have to go NOW! To the park, sergeant!” he ordered the driver.
“What the fuck is going on, Igor?” Sam frowned. His captor was scowling deeply, staring into space and shaking his head profusely every now and then. He looked up at Sam, countless emotions twisting his countenance all at once as if he was being summoned, but fought th
e pull.
The car turned right there, a block from the Museum of Romanian History, and it sped down Strada Emil Isac toward the Botanical Gardens. Sam panicked. He looked back at the street leading to the Museum where he had Interpol waiting to arrest his captors, as well as Greta Heller when she arrived.
They were prompted by the secret service, who had safely taken possession of Sam’s incriminating evidence against Greta Heller in Prague when Sam went to get his gear for the Hoia Baciu excursion. His friend at the MI6, Patrick Smith, facilitated the arrangement. All Sam had to do was deliver the memory card with the photos and the film footage to their office in Prague and from there they would keep track of him by tracking device. Now there was a change of plans and he sincerely hoped they would follow his signal – the trap that was set for the captain and his dogs who hunted Sam would have caught some extra meat that he did not even know was involved.
“What do we do when we get there, sir?” the captain asked, confused and a little irritated.
“You wait,” Igor said, “I will be at the green house inside the premises.” His eyes were blank and his voice almost robotic as his intense focus cut out everything around him. The sky rumbled over the city as the Dealer sealed Greta’s fate a few blocks away, unbeknownst to her son and subordinates.
Cha pter 34 – Dealer’s Revenge
Heinz had traced his wife to a small bed & breakfast to the northeast of Cluj’s old town. When he arrived, the place was deserted. He had left his luggage in the car he had borrowed from his military mates whom he met up with at the club house near the railroad tracks north of Cluj. He was not going to rent a vehicle, in case it could be traced by the wrong people.
“Hello!” Heinz called as he navigated the house, checking the rooms one by one. His left hand rested on the holster of the Makarov he carried on his hip while he used his other hand to check the doors. He called out again, but the only answer he received was that of thunder outside the confines of the sinister house he was investigating.