Nina chuckled and nodded in agreement. She remembered when she was living only for tenure at the University a few years ago, taking all manner of shitty lecture positions and submitting theses all over the place just to get her papers published for a bit of recognition. She recalled with no fondness working under the insufferable Prof. Matlock, the misogynistic fuckwit who’d thwarted all of her chances of success and even took the credit for Ice Station Wolfenstein from her.
“Oh, I know all too well what it is like to bust your balls and nobody gives a shit, Earle-girl,” Nina said. “And once you discover what you are capable of, you cannot imagine having lived, no, waded through, such a shit life.”
“I see we are exactly on the same page, Dr. Gould,” Joanne laughed, patting Nina on the shoulder. “In fact, we are down to the letter of the sentence.”
The vicinity of where the dead woman had spent the past few decades was barren of anything not put there by nature. Much as the two women searched, no matter how impeccably, there was nothing else that resembled, or could belong to, the collection the medallion could have come from. For over an hour, braving the cold and the gaining darkness, they examined every square inch of the dark soil of the under story. Nina even resorted to digging a few inches into the loose dirt in the exact spot where the corpse had been found, just I case her body was but a marker for something precious that was never recovered by those who buried it there.
Then again, the fact that the piece had been swallowed was a clear clue that it had been hidden successfully from whoever had killed the woman. If they had buried the rest she would not have gone to such lengths to conceal it. Nina gave up the search to find more of the coins – in this area, at least.
“Come, Jo, let's get back to the cabin,” she suggested, peering through the tall tree trunks for signs of detection. The place was getting exceedingly creepy as time wore on and she realized why Joanne had been so uncomfortable being there. It felt spooky, as if the dead woman were screaming so loudly to be heard that everything else in the woods became mute. “Jo.”
“Okay, I'm coming,” Joanne said, and stumbled out of the bushes to join Nina on the path back. Their walk back was a lot faster than their approach had been. “You can feel it too, right?”
“Shut it,” Nina snapped softly in her rush to get as much ground between her ass and the recently relieved grave. Had Joanne not been so anxious herself, she would have laughed at Nina's response. It was quite funny.
When they finally made it back to the solace of their cottage, Joanne made a fire while Nina unpacked her laptop for a bit of research on the historical significance of the area. If she found anything worth investigating, she was going to dislodge Sam from whatever he was busy with and drag him along.
“Hey Nina, I just remembered,” Joanne noted, “I could get you pictures, maybe, of the corpse.”
Nina looked sternly over the top of her laptop screen, the blue-white glow giving her a decidedly luminous quality. “We are not breaking into the local morgue, Joanne,” she jested.
“No, man,” she laughed, “I could ask Lisa, the girl who found the hideous pile of bones. That’s how she found the corpse in the first place, while taking pictures of the woods! I bet she would still have the shots. You know kids; she would have sent it to all her pals by now.”
“Do you have her number?” Nina asked, perking up at the prospect.
“I think I do. Let me check,” she replied, and switched on her phone to check her contacts. “I have Pam's. I can ask Pam to get Lisa's number pronto.”
“Excellent. While you do that, I'll see if there was any reason someone would kill in Canada for something connected to a conqueror from centuries before Christ,” Nina said.
14
The Snare Set
Purdue was relieved to have made it all the way to Oban without even a question about his identity. It had been a very strenuous journey from his hiding place in the Unites States, but he could not find a way to save Nina while he was so far from her ground zero. He had arrived at her house by taxi (he had returned the rental to its agency in town) in order to not draw attention to her house with the movement of an unknown vehicle. The place was void of the action he had expected. It was almost as if the citizens of Oban did not realize that she’d been taken, or that they did not care.
Confounded by the murky circumstances, Purdue gained access to Nina's house by means of a gadget he had invented years ago. In short, it was a device that used electromagnetism to mimic the unlatching edges of a key.
Using it, however, presented a peculiar feeling for him. Simultaneously he had to use his master technology in such circumstances where he was suddenly thrust into an alien world of having to get by like an ordinary person. Two opposing worlds – his own, with boundless technology and limitless resources where he could usually just board his private jet – and his present misfortune of having to keep track of the money he used, utilizing public transport and means to get to where he needed to be.
Nina was gone without a trace, yet pedestrians passing by on the sidewalk or people driving by turned their heads to look at the infamous residence as if they knew she was absent. Still, nobody deigned to spy if she was indeed gone and nobody came to call on her home in reverence, at least.
“Why does nobody want to know that you are gone, my dear Nina?” he asked as he wandered the darkness of her house with Bruich on his heels. Purdue looked down. “Where is she, old man? Did you see who took her? Did you hear her cries?”
But his innate positivity stopped him from asking any more morose questions. He was a problem solver, a go-getter who did not relent until the end, and he was not going to allow nostalgia and assumption to bring him to a level where he could not but expect the worst. Kidnappers normally abducted for money or some kind of vindictive revenge, not for murder. She had to be alive and whoever had her had to keep her healthy and well if they wanted to trade her.
The question was, who had abducted her and why? If he was the target and they took Nina for a ransom, because he had unlimited wealth, why have they not made contact yet?
Oh yes, because you are presumed dead, you imbecile! he thought immediately.
But this brought up another possibility, which made even less sense. Consider that they had also heard the news of his demise and assumed that he was dead. Why would they kidnap her then? A hundred questions hammered Purdue's sense of logic and deduction until he was sure he had nothing to do with her abduction at all. The whole endeavor simply remained a mystery to him, but nevertheless, he decided to stay in Nina's house for the time-being while he investigated her affiliations over the last few days. Any discrepancy should shed light on what she could have been involved with, he figured.
It was all so muddled up, twisted and back to front that it left Purdue's brain to do just one thing with it all. “The answer is ridiculously simple and right before my eyes,” he announced as he glared out the bay window in Nina's bedroom, overlooking the town's roofs and some of the ocean beauty to the left. “I just need to stop thinking and regard the first, most ludicrous simplicity to know what it is.”
Suddenly there was a knock at the door, a sound that Purdue found both uncanny and unbelievable. With the veil of secrecy surrounding Nina's disappearance, the billionaire was reluctant to answer the door, even just to avoid questions as to his identity, which could prove detrimental on all levels. Quickly he calculated the risks between his options and with the second sounds of knocking he had still not decided what to do.
Keep still and watch first. If they really want to come in they will come back, his safer reasoning suggested. There was no reason to rush into problems until he knew better. Purdue had to combat his erratic side, the part that wanted instant answers and progress, even in the face of the unreasonable and perilous. A brush at Purdue's leg in the pitch dark room practically made his heart stop and he kicked wildly at the slithering sensation on his calf. A heavy thump sounded a few inches to his side and he knew it ha
d not been his imagination.
Outside the man at the door gave up and started down the old cement pathway toward the road. Only then did Purdue see that it was a police officer that had called at Nina's door, but in the dark room it was more important to determine what manner of reptile was accosting him and the tall explorer pulled a small, but deadly dagger from his boot with great care and silence. He kept his blind eyes to the direction of the thump and waited for a moment, perking his ears for any movement.
An offended meow came from the darkness and the sound of a glass getting knocked over. Purdue switched on the light and found Bruich wet and agitated in the corner, having knocked over the standing vase of water and dead flower arrangement Nina had bought herself last. “Oh geez, old boy, I'm sorry!” he consoled the confused and very unnerved feline in between helpless laughter at the pitiful sight of him. “I thought you were something else, Bruich. Please forgive me.”
But soon his attention was peeled from the wet cat and its dreadful eyes. Again the same insistent knock came from the front door. “Oh shit, my friend, here come the fuzz,” Purdue told Bruich. “He must have seen me switch on the light in here. Back in a minute.”
Mulling over all manner of responses to the predictable questions the officer was going to ask, Purdue formulated something believable and innocent as he walked toward the lobby. The caller waited patiently for him to get to the door, unlike the inconsiderate oafs he was used to who could not estimate the distance a man had to walk to the front after the first knock; those idiots who kept knocking as if they presumed the occupants of the home were usually standing right next to the front porch.
Purdue opened the door and saw the same policeman he had seen leaving a few minutes before.
“Good evening, sir,” the man said.
“Good evening, Sergeant,” Purdue smiled, hoping that the cop hated watching the news. “How can I help you?” he asked, having ascertained the man's rank by his epaulets.
“May I have your name, sir?” the officer asked.
“Only if I may have yours,” Purdue smiled coldly. “What is this about that has you coming to my door at this hour? Sir?”
“But this is not your door, is it?” the sergeant answered. “This house belongs to a woman, Dr. Nina Gould, and unless you have a very good medical team for this remarkable transformation, I suggest you tell me your name or I shall have to arrest you for questioning as to her whereabouts.”
Touché, Purdue thought, and he responded with something he never resorted to – the truth.
“I am a close friend of Dr. Gould's. I saw the newspaper tag lines while I was on a business trip in California,” Purdue explained casually. “So I cut my trip short and came back to see if I could find her. As you can see, I am a friend of hers, because I had the key to her house. I clearly did not break in.”
“Neither did the kidnapper, sir,” the tenacious officer persisted.
Purdue sighed. “Have you heard anything from the kidnappers yet? I find it ridiculous to abduct someone without some contact with their immediate family or friends.”
“I am going to need some identification from you, sir,” the sergeant asked again.
“Just a minute,” Purdue said, but the officer followed him into the lobby to make sure he was not a criminal that would bolt as soon as the door was closed. Purdue got his jacket and produced his fake passport. Whilst the officer examined Purdue's credentials, Purdue peered past him to the exterior of the house and the front lawn. The officer looked up at him with a snide expression. “Expecting friends?”
“No, just peculiar that there is no squad car parked in the street. Did you walk here?” Purdue asked.
“My partner is waiting in the car around the corner, Mr. Hoffa,” the officer sneered. “You know, you look very nervous about something.”
“Only nervous because there is a stranger in my friend's house passing himself off to be an officer of the law,” Purdue said calmly. Flicking at the man's chest, he revealed another peeve. “I also do not see any identification card on this charlatan, who's long sideburns would never pass the dress code inspection and, you have no baton or stab vest on...Sergeant.”
The police officer showed no reaction as he pulled his gun. “Get down on the floor. Put your hands behind your back!”
“No.”
“I will not say it again! Get down on the floor! I am placing you under arrest for suspicion of a crime!” he shouted and pointed the gun at Purdue.
“What are you? MI6? You look the type! Did Patrick Smith send you?” the billionaire growled, biding his time to lunge at the gun aimed at him.
“It is of no consequence to you who sent me, David Purdue!” the officer roared furiously. “Now get on the floor and put your hands behind your back or I swear to God I will cripple you right here! Do not test me, mate!”
“No way,” Purdue repudiated the threat.
“This is your last chance, Purdue!” the man warned. It was indeed his last chance, this was evident to Purdue, so he propelled his body onto the impostor as swiftly as he could to catch him off-guard. He was not going to be arrested now, he thought, not when he was finally back where he could find Nina's trail.
Their bodies clashed with a mighty thrash, wiping all the porcelain off the sideboard in the lobby and sending the plates and tea cups crashing to the floor. Jonathan Beck's gun was between then, a hot steel threat that could end the life of either, or both, at any moment as they matched strength to seize the upper hand. Groaning and rolling on the wooden floor the two opponents fought until the gun came loose from their fumbling hands and slid across the floor into the darkness where neither man could see it.
From oblivion a hard set of knuckles slashed the skin on Purdue's cheek, ringing his ears on impact. He did not see it coming quick enough to block the blow, but it was the power behind it that rendered him unconscious. Still thinking that he was being apprehended by a crooked police officer working for Special Agent Patrick Smith's organization, Purdue passed out imagining in how much trouble he would be for resisting arrest when he woke again.
Vaguely he could hear himself slur, “I'm sorry, Nina.”
15
Lead the Way, Leslie!
Through page after page of PDF documents and online archive material Nina paged, reading every sentence in great detail, just in case she could come across anything significant happening in the criminal history of Newfoundland and Labrador. The term was laughable to both her and Joanne – criminal history of Canada – because of the country's reputation for, well, not crime.
“I get nothing,” Nina huffed heavily, sliding her empty coffee cup across the smooth surface of the nook to hint at a hot beverage – again.
“I’m not surprised,” Joanne replied, her voice yielding absolutely no wonder for the research and its long tedious hours of nothing. “Nothing ever happens here. You know, I heard a myth at school that a certain, undisclosed area in Labrador is known as the 'place of nothing.' It is reportedly a patch of earth where nothing significant has ever happened throughout history. Nothing. No events worth even mentioning had ever transpired in this particular piece of land.”
She could see the disbelief, disregard, and imminent ridicule in Nina's face, so she added quickly, “Apparently.”
“You heard this from high school kids?” Nina asked in more of a statement, keeping herself from laughing.
“I heard it from…yes, a teenager of Inuit heritage a few years ago,” Joanne confessed. “But think about it. This part of the continent is so godforsaken that even in ancient times the tribes here were meager, if any, at any given time. It’s really not that absurd that there could be a part of this coastline where nothing throughout history had ever taken place.”
Nina afforded her friend the courtesy of giving it some thought. Joanne was making another pot of fresh black coffee, but she secretly waited for a response from her colleague.
At last Nina said, “Nope. No, I can’t say that I can endorse
that theory, honey. Think about how old this planet really is. Not what the Bible tells you, not what scientists tell you, not what National Geographic or the agents of god-one, -two or -three tell you. Just what your instinct tells you when you really think about the things that have been here and things still to come when our tiny race of nothing is forgotten under layers of universes and millennia of chaos.”
“But it is so remote,” Joanne tried.
“Now, yes,” Nina argued her point. “But in this vastness of time where no records were, or could be, kept? Nobody can say for certain nothing ever happened there.”
Joanne set Nina's cup down and sat down, propping her face up on her hands. “It would be pretty cool though, hey? A place so barren of energy and so meaningless to happenstance that not a single incident wished to take place there.”
The morbid thought was strangely poetic. “Sounds like my mother's house,” Nina muttered in thought just before she took a sip of coffee, leaving Joanne in stitches. She was still laughing when she heard Nina catch her breath at something on the screen. Instantly Joanne stopped chuckling to inquire.
“What? What? What? Did you find something?”
Raising one eyebrow, Nina looked up from the luminescent screen, slightly adjusting her glasses on her nose. “Are you familiar with a missing persons case in Labrador from 1981?” she asked Joanne, who had been resident in Newfoundland long enough to not be considered a foreigner.
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6 Page 27
