Purdue worked out the theory in his head while Nina did not bother to hide how confounded she was.
“Look, I take full responsibility for being uninformed in this field, but please, can you explain that more plainly, Don?” she asked, reaching for one of Purdue’s slices of toast. “I mean, how is the chemical process supposed to work then? You know, in short.”
He formulated a very basic explanation in his head to effectively relay the complex structures of chemistry to the historian.
“The process of calcination, in its most common application, usually comprises of the decomposition of calcium carbonate….” he said, but was met with Nina’s blank stare. “Calcium carbonate is limestone, which incidentally is overwhelmingly present in the composition of these statues. But that is to be expected since the mineral is prevalent in Greece anyway.”
“Okay, I’m with you,” she nodded, chewing on the crust of her toast.
“Good. Now, calcination is usually carried out in furnaces or kilns, you know, really high temperatures. With anything less than immense temperatures, this process is impossible,” he described. “Generally, with limestone, this chemical procedure causes carbon dioxide to be driven off to effect the transformation, decomposing carbonate minerals.”
“Like what supposedly turned animals and birds into stone at Lake Natron in Africa,” Purdue muttered inadvertently as he recalled the strange phenomenon he read about.
“That is a good example, yes,” Don pointed a resolute finger at his friend.
“What happened?” Nina asked.
Purdue shrugged, “I read about this lake where the alkaline levels are through the roof, for one thing. And subsequently, any animal or bird venturing into the lake or drinking from it became…”
“Stoned?” Nina giggled.
Purdue chuckled, “Yes, they were petrified, Nina. They practically became mummified by the high concentration of alkaline along with extremely elevated sodium deposits that make the lake inhospitable to animals.”
“Although it is a reach, I believe something similar is happening to these bodies,” Don speculated.
Purdue agreed. “They are not mummified, because the organs are still full and shaped like healthy, functioning organs. It has to be a rapid transformation… like trolls exposed to UV light,” he winked, referring to a Norwegian movie they watched at Purdue’s mansion before the expedition meeting.
“Too right!” Don laughed. “Well, I am not quite sure if it makes sense even to people who know this stuff, actually,” he admitted. “It is after all just a theory.”
“Carry on, old boy,” Purdue insisted. “What is the difference, then?”
Don looked both intrigued and a little unnerved. He shrugged, “From what I gather here, the chemistry of these men’s bodies was altered by intense heat concentrated on them, savvy?”
“Yes.”
“But here is the missing marvel,” he continued, still scrutinizing the print-out. “There was something else involved to bring about this unrealistically sudden transformation that not even Alchemy has mentioned in any of its teachings or texts,” Don admitted, rubbing his darkening jaw in thought. He looked up at them, still fraught with uncertainty. “This is an unprecedented side of both alchemical and scientific study, guys. There is something in this equation that either does not belong here, or that has somehow remained secret for centuries.”
“That is positively fascinating!” Nina said with a mouthful of cottage cheese she scooped up from the tub with her finger.
“It is,” Purdue agreed. “Now I really cannot wait to get to Ostrava. I am sure if that warehouse really exists there will be ample evidence of the element we might be looking for to complete this heinous transformation.”
“On that note,” Don said, clearing his throat. “We are due in the parking lot within eight minutes.”
“Yes! Nina, are you ready, dear?” Purdue asked.
After wolfing down two slices of toast and gorging herself with the chunky plain cottage cheese, Nina was bloated with food and very uncomfortable. Nothing would have profited her better than getting a move on.
Outside, Heidmann was waiting in the car. Don and Nina followed Purdue into the parking lot, but something was missing.
“Where is Costa?” Purdue asked Heidmann.
“I have no idea. Maybe he overslept,” the indifferent archeologist shrugged.
Nina and Purdue exchanged a knowing look.
“There he is!” Don announced. “Come on, Zorba! Tick-tock, son!”
The Greek professor looked disheveled and a bit hung over, but Nina could only see Sam’s features simmering through the handsome man as he approached. Even now he had the same skew gait Sam exhibited when he had been through a particularly wild night, but his big dark eyes still peered right into her soul, even when Costa was unaware of their power over the fetching Scottish historian.
Nina did not realize that she was gawking until Don nudged her out of her spell with a grin.
“You like Zorba, don’t you, love?” he teased under his breath. At first, Nina wanted to react defensively, which was her go-to, but instead she winked at Don. She simply liked him too much to be mean to him. He just nodded and said, “Nina, you can sit between Costa and me in the helicopter. I’m sure Dave and James will have to talk about their infiltration of the as yet un-pinpointed structure.”
“Aye, that is true,” she agreed and shifted into the backseat of the SUV.
They were well on time, but they still had to pick up Purdue’s German pilot who stayed over at his sister’s house in the city. With traffic the trip to the airport was tedious. Had it not been for the relatively good music on the regional radio station the group would have been properly annoyed by the slow movement of proceedings.
An hour and a half later they arrived at the airfield. Flying down southeastwards across Germany it was a relatively quick transfer although it took the party approximately three hours to make their way out of Germany toward the border between the Czech Republic and Poland.
“Ostrava is situated near the border, a few miles off,” Heidmann told Purdue. The helicopter pilot had already fixed the coordinates on departure from Hamburg, but Purdue requested more details on the location of the warehouse Heidmann had visited before.
“And the warehouse is in the city?” Purdue asked as he surveyed the terrain beneath them while they approached Leoš Janáček Airport to check in.
Heidmann shook his head. “No, the warehouse is a way out, eastward. Let me see if I can find a route there on my iPhone.”
While the pilot communicated with the air traffic controller, Nina and her colleagues were all quietly looking down to see what the town looked like. It was a bit warmer here than it was in Germany a few hours ago, which Costa especially welcomed. After they had touched down, Purdue sorted out their administration for the craft and other necessary papers before joining the group.
While he waited for his copy of the aircraft’s permit, Purdue received a call from Britain. His screen displayed the number of the British Museum, which he thought nothing of, guessing that it was probably an update on the repairs at the museum since the awful earthquake had wreaked its havoc.
19
“Hello Dave, I’m so sorry to bother you,” Prof. Helen Barry apologized from her locked office. “But I simply had to inform you of recent developments here in London.”
“Of course,” Dave replied. “No need to apologize if you think it important, Helen.”
Helen felt reluctant to rock the boat, should it just be a random attempted kidnapping, but she still felt compelled to inform Purdue in case something happened to her. After all, even with all her colleagues and the respect of a myriad of philanthropists Helen was very much alone and friendless. She thought to just put it out there to the most genial of those she knew, Dave Purdue that she might be in peril.
“Look, over the weekend, some strange things occurred. Soula and her husband were leaving for Greece the next
day, so she invited me to have dinner with them, right?” she stammered, wringing the electrical cord of the phone around her finger.
“Alright…,” he urged her to continue.
Helen checked one last time for eavesdroppers before cautiously telling him about the close call she and the Greek millionaires had suffered in the streets of Stoke Newington. He listened ardently to the whole story after which Helen paused for his response.
“You are right, Helen,” Purdue agreed. “It sounds like an attempted abduction. Who do you think would be behind it? It is hardly feasible for an enemy in her homeland to venture all the way to London to kidnap her for ransom. Suffice it to say that I think it must be a local entity out to seize her.”
“That is precisely what I reckoned,” she murmured. “But I have no idea who here would know about her wealth apart from…” she hesitated, desperately trying to avoid speculating, should she be accusing someone wrongfully, “…Dr. Heidmann.”
“Funny you should say that,” Purdue told her while keeping his voice down. “We, Dr. Gould, Dr. Graham and I, have been having the same thoughts on the man’s questionable intentions over here.”
“So what do you suggest I do? Soula treats this as if it happens to her all the time. I think she is in denial, David. Either that or she has something to do with it. How, I do not know, though,” she frowned, feeling utterly alone and scared.
“Has she returned to her homeland?” Purdue asked.
“She has, but…” Helen faltered. She did not want to make assumptions and sound paranoid.
“What is the matter, dear? Come now, spit it out,” Purdue coaxed.
Helen took a deep breath and sighed, “I think those men are still skulking around here in London, Dave. I saw them again not four blocks from my bloody home!” Her voice began to fail her as she held back her tears. “They have been here at the museum too.”
Purdue sounded alarmed, “When?”
“This morning,” she replied. “They were pretending to be patrons, prowling the hallways and all the different displays. I watched them from a distance. Whoever they are working for knows me, who I am, who Soula is and probably what we had here on exhibit.”
Both Purdue and Helen knew that this pointed to Dr. Heidmann.
“Alright, listen,” he said, “stay at my estate until we get back from the Czech Republic. I will contact my security people and let them know you are coming, but don’t tell them – or anyone else for that matter – what you suspect or why you are staying there, understand?”
Helen felt an enormous weight lift from her shoulders.
“Thank you! Thank you, Dave,” she gasped in relief.
“Be careful, dear Helen,” he urged. “I don’t want to have to worry about your safety.”
“No worries, Dave. I would suggest you look out for your own over there in the company of that man. You don’t know where he could be leading you,” she warned. “And thank you again.”
“You are most welcome, Helen,” Purdue replied. “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you soon, alright? Bye-bye.”
Helen was elated. She instantly felt safer. Someone tried to come in, fiddling with her office doorknob. It startled the curator so soon after speaking her mind about being stalked. From the other side of the door, Claire’s muffled voice relaxed her completely.
“Professor Barry? Are you alright? I can’t get in.”
“No, I’m okay, thanks, Claire,” Helen giggled nervously and opened the door. She did not even look at Claire after unlocking and immediately turned to return to her desk. Because of this, she did not see the two men standing in the door with her assistant.
“I just had a chat with a friend and needed some privacy, that’s all,” she explained absent-mindedly while opening her e-mails.
“Log off from your laptop and bring it with you,” a man’s voice ordered her. Helen looked up to see who was addressing her, but her heart dropped to the floor when she saw the very two men she recognized from Stoke Newington standing behind Claire. The assistant’s frozen eyes stared ahead at her boss, expressionless in shock. Her lip quivered as she mouthed, ‘They have a gun.’
“W-where are w—,” she tried, but Claire gasped in fright as her body was nudged forward by force.
“I have a gun in your assistant’s back, Prof. Barry,” the other man said. “It has a silencer fitted to its barrel, so if you utter one more word, I will send a bullet into her spine right here.”
“Okay! Okay!” she beckoned, packing up her laptop and sliding it into its bag. “Let me just get my power supply under the desk. Please don’t shoot Claire.”
Prof. Helen Barry may have been a stern teacher, firm manager of her division and hardened academic, but her compassion for others was a weakness. Like a mother she begged for Claire’s release and for the men not to harm her.
“Hurry, Professor. We are running out of patience.”
The captors had a strong Eastern European intonation, but she could not place the dialect to a particular country. On all fours under her desk, she collected the plugs she needed for her computer.
‘My God, I have to do something quickly,’ she thought to herself, but her heart’s maniacal throbbing scrambled her thoughts and ideas, rendering her brain almost useless to her. ‘They are going to catch you trying something, and they will shoot Claire. Are you willing to put her life on the line to facilitate your little plan?’ argued her common sense.
‘What plan? Christ, I cannot even remember my own name right now!’ her other inner voice countered.
Loudly she fumbled about with the plugs and electrical cords to give the illusion that she was very busy rummaging.
“Professor,” the gun-toting bastard said plainly.
“Almost done,” she called out from under the desk. “This double adaptor is too far back against the wall to reach. Just give me a second to get that one out.”
‘That sounded convincing enough, I think.’
The two men exchanged a quick few words during Helen was convinced she heard the word ‘Renatus’ being said. Other than that, she had no idea what they were talking about. She knew that she had heard the term before, many years before when Dave Purdue came to take refuge at her ancestral home in Cardiff. He claimed that he had been kidnapped and manipulated by a secret organization that referred to their leader as Renatus. For fear of her being mistaken with being involved by his pursuers, Purdue refused to share any more information with Helen.
He stayed under the radar with her as his sole sentinel for two years while his lover and consort, Nina Gould, thought him dead. The historian whom he was then romantically involved with remained resident at Wrichtishousis while he was missing, something of which Helen was well aware, yet she was not allowed to bring Dr. Nina Gould any consolation by revealing that Purdue was in hiding, alive and safe. It had always tormented Helen that the poor Nina spent every day in suspense, waiting to get tidings of the worst while her man was but a few kilometers from her all the time. Helen always protested, thinking him immensely cruel for it, yet Purdue had begged her to keep his secret, reasoning that it would jeopardize Nina’s safety if she ever knew.
Following Purdue’s explanation, Helen had subsequently made work of seeking which organization he was fleeing from. Through some studying through clandestine channels, she had learned about their secret existence even in modern times which was in no way anything less than terrifying. And now they were here!
Briskly, she etched into her wooden desk patrician with a pen, holding no regard for the ball point of the instrument, but rather using it to penetrate the surface of the wood. Roughly, she scratched a circle within a circle. From the center of the inner circle, Helen carved as many sharp edged S’s as she could in such a short time. On the symbol, they served as rays of lightning and anyone who knew this organization would recognize it as their primary symbol.
A hard grip fell on her ankle and violently pulled her out from under the desk, evoking a scream from her t
hat was promptly silence with a firm gun hand over her mouth. From above her, the beady-eyed man leered at her with no sign of humanity in his dark brown eyes. Luckily Helen had released the pen before she was pulled out into the bright light of her small office. Fortunately for her, her paranoid sense of what if catered for her to have prepared for this scenario and she still held a piece of the power cable in her other hand, convincing him that she was really having trouble with the cabling.
“Thanks!” she said. “I’d have never been able to pull this bloody thing free if you did not pull me that hard.”
The kidnapper had shown no reaction to her excuse, which was a win for Helen. He only pulled her up to her feet and said, “Finish up. We are behind schedule. You will pretend we are delegates from the Ukraine, Prof. Barry. Take us to the security section and insist on the footage from the night of the earthquake. And then to the lockers.”
Satisfied that she had left a solid lead where she ripped the electrical wires from the wall to lead investigators to the symbol, Helen felt almost calm. If she died, she knew that the sharper people of law enforcement, and her friend Dave Purdue, would know exactly what fate had befallen her.
20
Purdue’s party of explorers followed him to the vehicle he had hired from a friend of a friend in Romania. The small framed bald man, only known as Alex, brought the crooked looking minivan to them at the airport.
“Keys,” Alex smiled as he passed them to Purdue. “And he told you about the…uh…” His raised his eyebrows to gesture an unspoken feature of the vehicle Purdue would need.
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