“Right, then, I’m off. My last day tomorrow, so I have to head home,” Nina proclaimed, not even trying to hide her enthusiasm for getting out of Glasgow.
“Already, Miss?” Brian asked.
“Aye, young man. I have another meeting tomorrow evening in Edinburgh, so I have to get all my stuff ready,” she smiled. “Besides, your grandfather should be home soon, right?”
Sue looked at Pam with a look of concern. “Hasn’t answered his bloody phone all day,” she scoffed. “I called his workplace. Bekka says he left work at ten or eleven this morning, claiming to be sick. I tell you, if he is back to his bloody gambling days, I swear to God…”
“But he is never late form work, except the other night when he had to work late,” Pam remarked. “You tried the pub?”
“I even called the hospital he was supposedly going to this morning, and there was nobody by that name in for anything,” Sue hissed. “Are you married, Dr. Gould?”
“God no!” Nina inadvertently exclaimed. Brian and his mother laughed at her sudden, passionate response. “Sorry,” Nina grinned. “No, Mrs. Callany, I am happily single.”
“Dyke?” Pam asked with a wink.
“No!” Nina frowned. “Jesus.”
More laughter ensued around the table. For a moment, the family forgot that the man of the house was absent later than he should be.
“Come on Dr. Gould. One more cuppa before you take off,” Sue cackled, coughing sporadically. Her demeanor was so light that she appeared almost healthy for a minute, but as she crept toward the kettle, Nina could not help but wonder. Carefully she dared ask, “Sue, if I may pry. What is it that ails you?”
Sue looked alarmed. Her eyes fell to Brian immediately. Nina got the hint, and nodded.
“Just some bug,” Sue lied. “The doctors do what they can on what we can afford, you see. Just wish I got more painkillers in the time being, see, but they are just too expensive.”
As the night wore on, one cup became two, then three, until Nina finally had to leave. It was past 10 p.m. and Court Callany had still not returned home. After hours of anger, worry and speculation, Nina reluctantly said her goodbyes to the poverty-stricken family. She hoped that the grandfather was just out on a pub bender and would turn up hungover and sorry the next day.
All the way to her quarters, she could not help but reminisce about the truly unbelievable events of the day. What especially haunted her mind was the way in which Brian’s scabbard gleamed unnaturally when she touched it. It would be very interesting to hear what Purdue could dig up about the piece and she looked forward to visit Wrichtishousis the following night.
16
The Blissful Boredom of Sam Cleave
“I have told you before and I am telling you again. There is nothing I am hiding!” he panted. “I swear. That was all I had! Look, I will make you a deal. If you let me go, I can find out where the rest is, alright?”
Green eyes leered at Sam, having none of it. His pleas fell on deaf ears, but he had to persist, otherwise it would derail his plans. “Listen, Bruich, I promise that I will just be a few minutes. I will be back before you know it,” Sam tried again, but his giant ginger cat persisted in the pathetic glare of neglect. It was five minutes before kick-off and Sam had gone shopping for snacks to watch during the game, but forgot to get Bruichladdich’s favorite nibble.
“Okay, listen, half time! Half time I will get your Webbox sticks, I promise,” Sam negotiated. The huge feline was unperturbed, but the whistle sounded on the flat screen’s speakers. Similar to a gallows bell tolling for a doomed criminal, the poor cat knew that all bets were off. Sam lunged sideways onto his couch, popping open a Heineken and kicking back.
Not impressed, the cat leapt onto the coffee table, capsizing Sam’s guacamole dish onto the floor. Usually, Sam would have shoved his feline roommate off the table for his insolence, but this time he reckoned he had it coming. “Well done, you bastard,” he muttered as he dashed for a cloth and cleaned up most of the mess. Bruichladdich sat atop the table, licking his paw without a care while Sam missed the first few minutes of the footie.
As soon as Sam had finally returned everything back to normal, his phone rang.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” he bellowed. “That was what I forgot!” Referring to switching off his phone and communication devices, Sam could feel Bruich mentally adding, ‘That was not all you forgot, dipshit.’ Sam, however, was not going to answer, letting the phone ring out until the caller ceased the need to speak to him. He summarily grabbed the cell phone and was about to switch it off when he saw who had been trying to contact him.
“Purdue?” Sam read. “Why now?”
Sam was not one of the best investigative journalists in the world for naught. The only thing he excelled at more than investigating illegal activities, was being inquisitive. His curiosity was his most powerful driving force, and that counted for phone calls as well.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered as he gave in to his urge and called back. “Purdue! I was about to watch the game. How are you?”
“Well, thanks Sam!” Purdue exclaimed in his old jovial way. “Listen, I get the hint about the footie, so I will keep this short. How would you like to join me and some people tomorrow evening for the inauguration of my new and improved dining hall?”
Sam chuckled. “Dining hall, you say. It used to be a dining room. Is it bigger now? Or did you make it all Game of Thronesy?”
Purdue laughed, “Almost right, I suppose. No, the renovations are complete and it has a new, shall we say, image. Come and join us, will you?”
“Is Nina coming?” Sam asked inadvertently, keeping Bruich away from his beer.
“Already confirmed,” Purdue answered.
“Who else is going to be there? The rich and ridiculous, I presume. Do I have to dress like a penguin again?” Sam babbled, watching the first goal miss by his team as he spoke. He heard Purdue laughing.
“Nah, old cock. Just smart casual, nothing fancy. I am having some new acquaintances over in the antiques business, so we will be no more than a handful of people,” Purdue informed him. Bought this amazing antique table from them at an auction hosted by the Euphrates Society. Nina is going to be so jealous, but do not tell her anything if she calls you, okay?”
“‘Course not,” Sam agreed blindly, not really listening anyway. He just wanted to get back to the game. “Listen, I will see you then tomorrow night, Purdue?”
“Yes, yes, go on. Go watch your team losing again,” Purdue chuckled.
Only a while after the phone call did Sam realize that something was off about the information Purdue gave him about the table. During a momentary lapse of concentration on the fieldwork, the phone conversation came back to him like a bad burrito.
“Euphrates Society,” he said to himself. “I know that name. Don’t I know that name?”
Throughout the entire first half, Sam tried to recall the significance of the organization Purdue spoke about, but his memory eluded him. Frustrated, he looked up the name on the internet while keeping his eye on the game, but it yielded nothing suspicious. What he could find was a website that included a link for donations from private collections and funding of museums. For good measure to ease his mind, Sam followed the private collections link to find a list of previous donations. Not really focusing, Sam’s sharp mind had a tendency to record information, even when he was not really trying to memorize details.
The list read as long as the rest of the page down, citing different names from throughout the world. From military veteran officers to archeologists, Hollywood celebrities and Arabian Emirs, all merited a place on the ladder of esteemed members due to their generosity toward the society and its beneficiaries.
“Hmm,” Sam scoffed, impressed. It was no small organization trying to get rich people to appease their charity efforts, nor was it a small-fry company trying to trick people like Purdue into funding it. No, from what Sam read on the website, the Euphrates Society was so leg
it, that he was surprised it was not better known.
Then again, in his profession he had previously learned that the big knobs usually do not have to brag about it. Most legitimately powerful publishing houses and antique dealers moved under the radar, simply because they had the clientele and the reputation already. These companies did not need to advertise or acquire new blood – ever. Intrigued, Sam bookmarked the website for further study later, as he had five hundred quid on this game.
Since his last assignment for Channel 8, covering a human trafficking scam masked as a talent agency, Sam had spent a blissful three weeks doing nothing, in other words ‘important guy stuff’. The pub grew tiresome, as did the gym sessions with Tara, the Olympian nymphomaniac. He knew that, eventually, he would have to beg Purdue for something more adventurous than a house-warming party for the new dining hall. Soliciting Nina had become predictable and futile, so he hoped that she would indulge too much tomorrow night.
Other than that, he watched the footie like a drone, his shouts of fouls and blind referees coming with intervals. Bruich curled up lazily on the carpet, having accepted that he would not be getting his stick snacks while the humans on the square ran frantically chasing the black and white dot on the green.
17
Court’s Intuition
Court could hardly breathe, but he tried to straighten his legs to get his diaphragm to open a bit. His skin burned from the cold, but it was the biting restraints that chewed into his wrists that really brought the hell. Dressed in only his underpants and socks, he shivered wildly in the darkness. Outside the wall he was tied to, his car was waiting, he thought. What a terrible thought, that freedom, that the road home, was just about twelve inches of wall away. Yet, here he was, trapped alone in the storeroom of a cheap, shitty pawnshop in Gorbals.
Pain shot through every inch of his battered body. He wondered what Sue and the children were thinking. Surely they would know by now that he had to be in trouble, that he was not just out on some underhanded spree, or so he hoped. Barely escaping with his life, he now knew that he had to keep the location of the scabbard secret. However, time was running out faster than free minutes in a whorehouse and he had to get free before Silver and his associates found out where the scabbard was. It was the only leverage he still had that kept him breathing.
On the other hand, he was perplexed and heavily concerned about the supposed picture someone had sent of the sheath. It was under the floor of his home, as far as he recalled, so the prospect of how someone else could have discovered it was the first worry. Someone was inside his home? The second jabbing panic was that said person had not only managed to obtain the sheath, but took pictures and spread it around for any police organization or cartel to find.
Court had so many questions about his own secrets. Tomorrow night the German and his minion would be back to ask him about that secret, and with him having no idea how the item was found or where it was now, he would be as good as dead. If only they would allow him to go and retrieve it, he wished, but he soon realized that such an undertaking would lead them straight to his family.
He wept bitterly in the merciless dark. “I am so fucked.”
Only a lonely streetlight peeked into the storeroom where he was crying like a child, lost and afraid for his family. A few hours before he was convinced that their struggles were over when he came to sell the items for the reward of financial freedom. Now the money that drove all his actions was the last thing he could hope for. Now, he had to be grateful that he was still sucking air. How things could go bad if he only resorted to another form of conducting his business. Had he not taken this route of deception, he would have been in his bed right now, with his family safe. Yes, he would be poor, but poor is a cheaper price than dead.
Major Johannes Rian had questioned him about the new information obtained by that wretched phone call. From what he heard while the bodyguard, Yiannis, was beating the shit out of him, the scabbard was photographed and sent to some woman. Even now, Court could not figure out how this could happen, since the scabbard was safely lost under his house. Therefore, he was certainly in no position to even begin trying to articulate the conundrum while under the spell of agony.
In any event, the problem was now growing two heads for the poor mechanic who meant well. On one hand, he had tried to sell stolen goods that held the attention of the worst kind of people. One the other, he now had to explain how the woman who sent the pictures got her hands on the scabbard, if Court did not sell it to her. The entire thing was a huge misunderstanding, of course, but for him to argue the contrary of what looked like obvious treachery was a nightmare.
Parched and cold, Court tried in vain to reach a bottle of liquor that sat on a small chair near him. With his hands tied behind his back, around the plumbing, it was practically impossible to reach. The clear vodka would serve him in so many ways if he could only get it down his gullet. Surely it would warm his innards and inebriate him enough to reason with reckless liberty. This kind of logic usually got drunk men to do absurd things and survive. Why would it not work for his escape plan?
The tip of his dirty foot prodded the leg of the chair, inching it away from him with every attempt, but Court was no quitter. If he was going to die tomorrow night, he was going to celebrate his last night by drinking all Silver’s vodka left over. With three more taps to the chair, he had managed to disturb the balance of the bottle successfully, and it toppled over, thankfully not breaking on the floor.
“Yes!” Court shouted, but all that escaped his throat was a stupid moan through smiling lips. “Come hither, me beauty.” He smirked like a beast bound on its catch, rolling the bottle toward him with his foot. It was only when the smooth glass surface touched his leg that he realized he was still unable to open and drink.
“Fookin’ idiot,” he rasped in frustration. Once again, he tried to extricate his right hand from the duct tape, but even after so many attempts, he accomplished nothing more than a bruised wrist and aching joints. Desperate, Court felt like crying. He had already told the bastards that he had the scabbard. Once they found out who this mystery woman is, he was done for. They were only keeping the mechanic alive until they knew where she had found the relic. After that, he was dead.
During his interrogation, the German and his Greek enforcer had confiscated Court’s wallet and driver’s license. They had his street address. Nothing was stopping them from paying a visit to his family to make him talk. Panic overwhelmed Court in the solitude of the storage room, but he could not help it. As calm as he tried to keep himself, nothing could deter the constant scenarios that popped up in his head about the awful things they could do to the women and to little Beany.
Court Callany was not a man of intuition, but the horrid feeling about his family would not subside. And for good reason.
18
The Fallen Knight
Twenty kilometers away, a luxury sedan was pulling up to the Callany residence with its beams switched off. Only the sound of crackling loose stones and glass under the pressure of its tires could be heard, but in the howling gale, it became part of the dead night serenade. None of the residents were alarmed or awoken by it, and that included the Callany household.
“Drive on. Park around the corner,” Yiannis told his associate. “We do not want to be so obvious.”
The car idled onward for another half a block and halted I front of an unkempt play park of sorts. In the occasional moonlight that permeated through the passing clouds, the skeletons of seesaws and slides formed an ominous metal graveyard. Through the spider legs of the merry-go-round, the distant Glasgow city lights blinked as the two men got out of the car with stealth silence.
Moving swiftly, they walked over the wet grass to minimize the volume of their stalking. They had instructions to secure the house and all within it, and to bring the occupants to where Court was kept. According to the major’s sinister strategy, Court would be more forthcoming with information on the missing scabbard once he s
aw his family worked over. One thing about Major Rian was this – the man had no reservations about torturing women and children if it meant an end to his means.
Putting his finger on his lips to gesture to his accomplice, Yiannis motioned that he was going around the back. His partner, a childhood friend called Kostas, was very familiar with the pattern of infiltration they used. It was not their first abduction together. Both men were highly trained in Pankreation and several other close combat styles, which made the use of guns during abductions unnecessary. In fact, the omission of firearms avoided harsher charges should they be caught and arrested.
Having spent a few hours during the day doing reconnaissance, they knew the set-up of the house and all the inconspicuous possible access points. The dark house would hold no surprises now that they knew the layout of the place. Everyone inside seemed to have gone to sleep after the petite brunette left earlier the night before.
Kostas took his place at the bottom of the front porch steps, waiting for his partner to do the honors. Yiannis slipped around the back, loosening the frame of the small dish room. It was a small offshoot from the larger kitchen, an enclosed room where the sink was fitted next to the fridge and washing machine. Once the frame came loose, he carefully removed it along with the rubber edging and placed it quietly on the meager grass and mud. With swift athleticism, Yiannis breached the large hole and landed a bit hard inside.
Brian was in his room, having been unable to get any sleep. His grandfather’s absence was of great upset to him, especially after the worrisome day he had endured. The women of the house told him that he did not have to go to school today, which was a great relief for the troubled boy. However, the release of tension did not afford him rest. Perhaps it was a good thing, because he was the only occupant of the house who heard something out of sorts coming from the kitchen.
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 8 Page 29
