“Oh my God,” Claire moaned. “Oh my God, Professor, you are right!”
“Don’t panic,” Helen comforted her young assistant. “There is no use in losing your mind. Just accept your fate and keep an eye out for signs of a way out. Pretend that you are content with the conditions, otherwise, they might get rid of you.”
“We will do no such thing, Professor Barry,” a man said from the doorway, scaring both women into a yelp of fright.
In the door stood a tall, muscular old man, about 65 years of age, dressed in a loose white shirt and black pants. Around his waist he wore an expensive, elaborately woven belt of black leather with a silvery sheen to it. He had a well-groomed beard and black and grey hair in a ponytails. His voice was deep and his piercing eyes were dark, just like his eyebrows. Claire looked at her boss and whispered, “Sean Connery meets Dumbledore.”
The man laughed. “I shall take that as a compliment.”
“She did not mean anything by that,” Helen defended her assistant.
“Oh rubbish,” he smiled. “She meant every word. And since one is the personification of wisdom and the other is a ladies’ man, I cannot find fault in her assessment at all.”
“Well, she does speak her mind,” Helen chuckled sheepishly.
“I have come to invite you ladies to have dinner with me. Just the three of us, if you do not mind? You must be famished,” he said.
Both women almost jumped up at the invitation. They were indeed, starving.
“And you are?” Helen asked cordially.
“Oh! Where are my manners?” he laughed. “I am Deon. Deon Fidikos.”
“You are Soula’s husband,” Helen gasped. She had never met him before, having only dealt with Soula as one of the biggest benefactors of the British Museum. “It is good to finally meet you.”
As Helen instructed her assistant, she kept her cool, playing along as if she were a guest. Nothing merited the mistreatment of a prisoner like someone behaving like one.
“Claire, this is Soula’s husband, would you believe?” Helen told Claire, who nodded profusely to play into her boss’ ruse.
“You look nothing like I imagined, Mr. Fidikos,” Claire smiled. “Oh, and that really is a compliment.”
He shook their hands and smiled. “Come ladies. If you do not mind walking on your stockings. I prefer it so. Don’t ask.”
“Of course. It is after all your house,” Helen agreed.
“One of many,” he noted unceremoniously as he led them down the hallway, down carpeted steps into a large dining room. Helen had a bad feeling about it all. There was just too much trust. There was just too much freedom. It was almost as if this man was so powerful that he needed no protection or guards to watch his prisoners. Such power was never good. People like that had to be feared.
26
The place was modest, but lavish. It was a proper dining hall with paintings on the walls of magnificent mountainous landscapes and adorned with marble statues of gods and warriors. Some were covered, velvet and silk draped over them to prevent atmospheric damage. If this was but one of Fidikos’ houses, they could only imagine in their wildest dreams what his own home looked like.
Large chandeliers hung in gold and porcelain from the ceiling, three in number. Even the ceiling sported the Greek motif of the drapes in the bedrooms. It was peculiar that the room had no windows, but the art made up for it. The floor was covered with a large Persian rug, covering the pattern fashioned by mosaic tiling.
“I took the liberty of serving, how shall I say, normal food. A lot of people might not enjoy traditional Greek food, you see?”
“I have meant to ask, Mr. Fidikos,” Helen dared what she had been reluctant to find out. “Where are we?”
He smiled as he pulled out a chair for her, “A few kilometers outside Athens, Prof. Barry.”
Claire almost swallowed her tongue. “You mean we are in actual Greece right now?”
“Yes. You have been out for over a day. Why do you think you are so hungry, dear?” he chuckled, heartily, as if kidnapping the two women were a favor.
On the table, there was the usual fare of what Mr. Fidikos called normal food.
“We did not know if you were meat eaters or vegetarians or those silly people who live on oxygen and water alone,” he jested as he examined the dishes on the antique table. “Please sit.”
There was a combination of foods, eclectically selected for what Helen and Claire imagined was the indecision of an old man. Pork cutlets, onion rings, Caesar salad, roast beef and chicken with gravy, potato wedges, basmati rice and an assortment of roasted vegetables.
“There is also pudding if you want,” he bragged.
Both women protested instantly, vehemently declining politely.
“You Europeans,” he said and shook his head, “are not like Mediterranean women. Our food is a pleasure, an occasion. Here women are beautiful because they are sensual and healthy, not emaciated and sick looking creatures. Forget about your skeletal frames and enjoy life, ladies. Enjoy the good food, good wine, good sex. The latter lacks sorely in the British Isles.” He leaned forward with a naughty glint in his eye, “I speak from experience.”
“I bet you do,” Helen flirted back, to Claire’s astonishment. True, Soula’s husband was exceptionally charming, but she had never seen her boss react that way to an older man – not since David Purdue.
Deon Fidikos smiled warmly as they dished up for themselves, whatever they wished.
“I should not eat too fast after such a long fast, but boy, this all looks so good,” Helen remarked.
“May I pour you some wine, ladies?” he asked, lifting an unmarked bottle in a woven bamboo cover from his portable wine container.
“Thank you,” both women smiled as they started to wolf down their food.
“Will you not be eating, Deon?” Claire asked with a mouth full of at least three different meats.
“Me? Oh no, thank you, my dear. I have already dined at my own home,” he replied, filling their crystal glasses with delectable red liquid.
“You are not poisoning us, are you?” she asked without thinking. Helen’s mouth was full, but she slammed on the table, staring in disbelief at her assistant’s uttering.
Deon laughed and shook his head. He motioned for Helen not to be angry at Claire, maintaining an amused expression.
“I am, actually,” he revealed. His words were directly opposed to his calm and sweet demeanor, confusing his two captives even more. They stopped chewing while trying to figure out if he was joking or not. Deon slapped his knee in jovial response to their reaction.
“Not to kill you! God, no! I’m not a monster! The food does contain a sedative. After all, you are my prisoners until I get what I want. Come now, you know that I cannot have you running around by your full positives, ladies.”
“You are serious,” Helen remarked with genuine fear in her eyes.
“For what it is worth, the wine is perfectly safe. Go on, eat. You have already consumed enough to keep you nice and docile for the next two days. Look,” he smiled as he poured a third glass, “I’ll be delighted to join you in drink!”
When their glasses were filled the large, well-built Greek stood up and said, “A toast! To Claire, without whom my men would not have retrieved what she had kept in her locker at the museum!”
A brief uncomfortable pause followed. Helen looked very confused and Claire just looked terrified. They raised their glasses nonetheless, feeling very lethargic from whatever the food held.
“What was it that you had in your locker, Claire?” Helen asked just as they had drunk the first sip of wine. Claire was hesitant, unable to explain as she did not know what the purpose of the relic was.
“Something I kept for Dr. Heidmann,” she told her boss.
Deon looked down on the two women, his smile now void of any kindness or humor. In fact, he looked villainous and sadistic for a moment as he filled Helen in.
“In her locker, your assi
stant kept a very valuable ancient stone that I had been seeking for decades, Professor Barry,” he admitted. His voice was now softer, deprived of its flamboyant charm. Now he just spoke, delivering the exposition Helen craved from him. Claire nurtured a thousand thoughts all at once, wondering what Heidmann was going to do to her when he found out that the item he had entrusted to her care had been taken.
“What stone? Claire? You’ve been keeping relics in your locker?” Helen scowled.
“No, it’s not like that, Prof. Barry,” Claire defended.
“No it is not,” Deon concurred. “She was asked to hold on to it for the man who had been a festering boil on the ass of the Order of the Black Sun with his delusions of grandeur and severe misjudgment. Overestimating himself around every turn. I mean, the boy actually considered himself of the same thread as the most powerful of men in this world…of which I am one.”
Helen’s heart sank when she heard mention of that insidious organization, but she was relieved that the symbol she left under her desk was in fact the correct assumption.
“But then what do you want with me?” she asked in bewilderment. “If Claire gave your men the stone, why not let us go?”
“Because there are three stones, each named after one of the three Gorgons from Greek Mythology, my dear Helen. I now have one. The other,” he sighed laboriously, seeming truly burdened by the thought, “my beloved wife thought good to give to her lover after taking it from my collection. The poor clueless woman! For all the knowledge she held on relics and Greek Art History, she did not know what she had done, the magnitude of loss I suffered when she gave Professor Megalos that stone.”
“Professor Megalos!” Claire gasped. “Dr. Heidmann referred him to Mr. Purdue. I was the one who invited him, but I had no idea who he was! Professor Barry, I was only following orders, I swear to God!”
Helen just patted the young woman’s hand in consolation.
“Now, Megalos has the Stheno stone. Thanks to you, Claire, I am now in possession of the Euryale stone, and I must say, it has served me well,” Deon declared. “Now we must just find the last one, the Medusa stone.”
He walked over to one of the covered statues against the wall. “And that is why I cannot let you ladies go yet. I need Mr. Purdue to locate and bring me the Medusa stone, and you are my leverage,” Deon explained.
“You don’t know Dave Purdue, Mr. Fidikos,” Helen replied, withholding all threat in her voice. “He will never let the Black Sun get their way with him again.”
“You know, that is just what my wife told me,” Deon smirked. He tugged the silken cover from the tall, shapely shape of detailed stone.
“Oh, Jesus!” Helen screamed hysterically. “Oh, sweet Jesus! Soula! Soula!”
Claire was speechless, so spellbound by the grotesque remnant of Soula Fidikos, still in her long flowing black dress, that she could not move. Next to her, Helen Barry was screaming like a trussed sacrificial animal, unable to control her horror.
Her shrieks of madness only hushed when she passed out from shock, but Claire hushed once and for all. The trauma of what had befallen Soula Fidikos twisted her mind so that she remained quiet. She would never speak again.
27
At the lodge, Purdue elicited the help of a local paramedic to remedy Don’s minor wounds, three bullets having grazed his upper arm and right oblique. Nina was quick to cover up their illegal doings as being victims of a failed hijacking while sightseeing. Her story was delivered so well that there was no doubt the visitors from Scotland were just shit out of luck while touring the small towns of Eastern Europe.
As soon as the young Ostrava inhabitant medic left, the three of them gathered in Don’s room this time, since he was resting and on his way to being high as a kite in a few minutes.
“Was it all for nothing? So we found the place, but did we find anything concrete?” Don asked, instantly bursting into a fit of laughter. “Excuse the pun!”
Purdue and Nina smiled at the word play Don probably genuinely employed by accident. Purdue looked exhausted, as they all were, but it weighed heavily on him that Nina was almost killed point blank today. She would never believe that her welfare was the most important thing to him, what with her always accusing him of dragging her into life-threatening circumstances. Her face and clothing was dirty, but she was unscathed.
“We did not leave empty handed,” Nina consoled Don and relished Purdue’s pleasantly surprised reaction.
“What do you mean?” he asked her.
She stuck her hand in her corduroy jacket pocket and brought out a handful of crumpled paper. “I have not had a look at these yet, but I am pretty sure they must be important,” she said, unfolding them and flattening each on top of the other on the corner of Don’s bed. With the rubbing of a flat hand, she smoothed them out, minding the writing so that she would not wipe the already fragile lettering on it.
“What are they?” Don asked.
“I got them off what looked like an SS officer, Don,” she revealed. “Just before the shit struck the fan too, so at least we may have gotten some clue as to the workings of this anomaly.”
“Or why we have determined how we think it works,” Purdue agreed. “ But I hope that will shed some light on what causes it.”
“Let me put this on the desk,” she decided and walked over to Don’s room desk. It had a study lamp, hotel stationery of the lodge and a pen. Purdue leaned over her to see the words on the paper.
“Oh, it is in German. Nina, you’re up,” he surrendered.
Carefully she read what she could make out in the disorganized and scratchy writing of the writer, which she guessed was the unfortunate proud Nazi himself. One line at a time she copied what she learned on the old document over onto the stationary pad in English.
When she had completed the first page, she tucked it under those she had not translated yet, snatching it from Purdue’s curious hand.
“No! You lads don’t get to read this until I am done. I want to be involved too!”
Purdue frowned, “But you already know what it says, madam! You translated it into English, after all. How can we have the information before you?”
Don snickered in the background.
“Aye, but if I am sitting here translating while you two are already speculating on the contents, I will miss out on the outcome, don’t you see?” she defended. “Now just give me a few minutes and I will deliver all the information at once.”
Purdue exchanged looks with Don, both men shaking their heads in defeat.
They bantered on in a low enough tone to enable the historian to do her thing. Outside, the rain died down a bit for the first time, allowing the earth to breathe a little as the night wore on to the early hours of the next day.
There was a knock at Don’s door; a weary, but insistent rapping so irritating that Purdue felt compelled to open it. Nina was unable to concentrate on the almost illegible wording and released a string of cuss words under her breath. She cradled her head in her hands, sinking her fingers into her hair in frustration.
“Costa!” Purdue exclaimed.
Nina almost gasped out loud, literally kicking back her chair to see past Purdue’s body. Peeping through the space between Purdue’s left arm and his body from the desk she saw someone move.
Don saw him too, shouting, “Hey! Zorba! You made it out alive!”
Purdue caught the soaking wet and wounded professor and helped him inside.
“Looks like I’d have to call that paramedic back,” Purdue said.
“No, no, I am really fine. I just look like shit,” Costa stated firmly. “Please, no paramedics or hospitals or that stuff, okay?” As Purdue set Costa down slowly to seat himself on the floor, he went to collect a dry towel from Don’s en suite bathroom.
Costa smiled gratefully for the towel and started drying his wild black locks, peeking from under the towel at Nina. She looked elated to see him, but she only said, “Welcome back stray cat.”
“How
are you feeling, Dr. Graham?” he asked Don.
“Man, I feel fantastic!” Don grinned, slurring his words.
Costa looked up at Purdue, motioning to Don with his head. “Drugs?”
“Legal ones, but yes,” Purdue smiled. “What the hell are you wearing?”
He was referring to Costa’s overcoat, one he had not worn before. It looked disturbingly like the coats of security men at the warehouse. Because of Costa’s height, the long coat was not long enough to reach his ankles, leaving his legs sticking out bare. He was also wearing an over-sized pair of boots looted from the same guard, from the looks of it.
Nina was only three pages into the total of six she estimated would be filled after translation, but she was dying to point her attention to her crush, especially after having thought he had died in the crossfire. Especially after he answered Purdue with, “I lost my clothes. I was practically naked…”
‘Don’t, Nina! Don’t picture that, because you will be moaning out loud!’ Nina’s inner voice warned.
“…from the dog attack. But I managed to kill the animal,” Costa lied.
“My God!” Don caught his breath. “Dogs hate me. I am deathly fucking scared of canines! How big was it?”
“Huge, like Cerberus without all the heads,” Costa replied believably. “Ripped my bloody clothes to bits when I tried to get away… and the fence shredded the rest! So I borrowed these to get back here.”
“Poor thing!” Nina said sympathetically. “You should jump in a hot shower immediately, Costa, or you’ll catch your death.”
“Good idea, Nina,” Don agreed. “Nina’s found some documents that might shed some light on the process of this stone working.”
“You have?” Costa asked with a gleam in his eye. “Do share with me, Dr. Gould. I’m afraid I was absent during class.”
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 4 Page 52
