Hunt for the Lost Treasure (Order of the Black Sun Series Book 17)

by P. W. Child

  “A day after running my beloved Leslie into a corner, Yvetta killed her like a dog after she…we… hunted her down in the outskirts of a small village a few miles away. They never told me where Yvetta's men dumped her body. Jesus! What have I done? Wh-what have I done? I was in love with her moments after I met her and that was what I gave her as a gift?”

  They watched Erich curl up in his chair, sobbing like a child. Shifting uncomfortably in their seats, Joanne, Nina, and Sam sat watching Erich Bonn breaking down while the camera kept rolling. From under his hands he wailed. “I still hear her shivering breath before those gunshots ripped twice through her beautiful face. I still hear her at night. Oh Jesus, she must have been so cold before we caught up with her. So very cold! So very lonely.”

  Again Nina looked at Sam. He had to relate to seeing his lover's face get blown off. It had happened to Leslie. And it had happened to Patricia. As the camera swayed, with the Low Battery light flashing on the display, Sam looked at Nina in silent reverence and sorrow. Until the clip ran its full length, the historian and the journalist – best friends, former lovers, confidants – just basked in each others eyes. They both knew. They both cared and they both found the experience deeply therapeutic.

  “Well,” Joanne broke the thrall with a loud exclamation that shattered any emotional reminiscence, “now we know what happened to Leslie.”

  “Aye,” Nina agreed, but her words were directed at Sam. “But I’m sure she is at peace now. He did love her and the world knows.”

  In the glare of the monitor screen Nina noticed an unusual glimmer in Sam's dark eyes before a single tear escaped and fell from his cheek.

  Chapter 18 – Going Down to Die

  Purdue woke up in a moving car, but unlike what he’d had expected, he was not en route to the Oban Police Precinct. This only affirmed his assumption about the phony police officer. He kept his eyes shut to ascertain his position and destination first. It was imperative to keep his consciousness secret for now, since he had no idea what his condition would prompt in the man who’d abducted him.

  Is he going to take me to Nina? he wondered in the dark of his charade. This has to be the man who took her. Hopefully I’m just a loose end he will keep as leverage until I can figure out what he wants with us.'

  With his eyes closed it was very difficult to see where they were driving, but Purdue could tell that it was a highway of sorts by the way in which the car smoothly changed lanes and he could hear passing cars speed by frequently. Other than that, he had no idea who the man was, what he wanted, or just how expendable his kidnap victims were. Whenever in doubt, Purdue had learned through many trials, play dead, look asleep, or behave oblivious in some way. It was a trick that had worked as well in the hazards of his life as it had in a poker game. To add to his vexation, he’d been relieved of his wrist watch. Of his own design, his watch recorded global positioning details and performed a wealth of other functions, functions he could have found very useful right now.

  The phone rang over the car's hands-free system. The sound was quickly smothered by the rapid reaction of Jonathan Beck, who feared that his prize would awaken from the din.

  “Beck,” he answered.

  Purdue memorized the name. An eloquent voice with an Austrian accent spoke over the speaker.

  “You said you had the order ready to ship?”

  “Yes, I do. But it’s not the order you placed the other day. I have good news,” Beck said next to Purdue, who listened keenly while deciphering the metaphors as they came. “I am delivering your original order instead.”

  The person on the other side of the line paused before responding in a satisfied tone. “Which shipping address do we use? I’m in the United Kingdom this week, on business. You can deliver the package to my mother's house at the coast. You do remember the way?”

  “Like it was yesterday,” Beck replied.

  “Good. There will be someone to sign for the parcel when you deliver,” the voice concluded before he ended the call.

  The car hummed along monotonously and Purdue's static physical position was beginning to agonize him. His back ached, his swollen face was on fire and he had a crippling headache threatening to split his skull in two. At a railroad crossing, Purdue parted his eyelids ever so slightly, keeping his frame absolutely motionless. To the side of the car holding him he saw a sign that revealed his location – the town of Stirling, about two hours' drive from Oban. Still, the information profited him nothing. More so, it would be better once he knew who he was being delivered to. The ‘why’ almost always pointed to money, but this time he had more to offer than money. Being a fugitive made him a very valuable asset, and a lucrative one at that.

  More than ever Purdue missed his manor. He could do very well now with the use of his staff and his investigators, not to mention his technology, to track Nina's whereabouts. Not a nostalgic character by far, Purdue found that he pined for the simple days of fundraisers and academic award ceremonies. He missed being a stuck-up asshole who stole away the affection of board members' wives, flirted with struggling undergrads, enjoyed the attention of royalty and heads of state for his philanthropy, and having a visible career as explorer and inventor. He would never have believed that at some point during his life he would end up with a budget, not –so-temporarily destitute, and above all, curled up on a car seat that sported upholstery that had seen better days. He would never have dreamed that he would be a hostage on his way to being traded like fowl at a country fair. But his ever-present opportunistic positivity soon kicked Purdue into gear and he decided that he could let them have their way, or he could do what he was known best for – outwit those who tried to subdue him. However, that would have to wait until he knew the identity of his new subjugator.

  The car swung hard to the right and Purdue knocked his head against the window, inadvertently uttering a yelp of alarm at the thump on his already throbbing skull.

  “Oh, you're awake, Mr. Purdue,” the fake cop noted from the driver’s seat.

  Purdue ignored him, but Beck just laughed. He was languishing in the fact that he practically had a treasure in his possession, only this one was not held by a chest. This treasure walked around bound in skin and possessed his own fortune and this presented a third option for Beck. Purdue could decide to make him a counter offer and pay him double what Karsten had paid him to kidnap the billionaire. That was a delectable notion and one Beck did not want to neglect, but he kept it to himself for now. Obviously he did not know David Purdue as well as he should have.

  “Where are we going?” Purdue asked, pretending to be oblivious of the town while counting the streets and memorizing beacons. He knew Stirling quite well, but that too, was his enigma to conceal.

  “That’s not for you to worry about, my friend,” Beck answered. “Just sit tight. We’re almost there. If you behave like a gentleman, we might loosen your cable ties a bit.”

  “I don't care, old boy,” Purdue remarked and looked out the window, looking into his own reflection by the acquiescence of the dashboard lights and the negation of the darkness outside.

  All he cared about was if Nina was also kept in the house of the caller's mother. He would trade himself for Nina's freedom in a heartbeat, yet he was beginning to worry about something pertinent to his abduction. Had they killed Nina? How else would this man, Beck, would he have needed to refer to an original order and the latest order?

  Purdue's intelligence was not confined to science or technology. Re-running the phone conversation in the car gave him several hints as to the situation, but not tangible enough to act upon until he was certain. The two orders placed were clearly referring to him and Nina, but according to the discussion only he, Purdue, was now on the table; a most alarming thought.

  Along the belly of the dragon that the River Forth resembled in its meandering beauty the car turned away from the main road. They had left Sterling. This had to be the picturesque village, he thought, where he had once donated a sum toward t
he Primary School in person. When they passed the familiar building Purdue was sure – he was to be traded in the village of Fallin, but to whom, he did not know.

  Lightning blinked behind the curtain of clouds that only afforded the world a glimpse of their existence with every flash. Under the arch of an old black metal arbor, Purdue discerned the entrance to a neglected, empty yard. There were nothing but lost trees in the abandoned terrain of thorn bushes and wild grass. Parting the wild landscape, the small cobbled road they were on ran straight ahead toward nothing at all. It reminded Purdue of a residence in Finland he’d once visited with Sam and Nina, its yard appearing similarly abandoned until they realized that the house was simply rendered invisible by a trick of science.

  “Wrong turn?” Purdue mocked, but he silently hoped he was correct in his assumption.

  “You wish, pal,” Beck smiled. He rolled down his window as they stopped aside an amorphous ruin that could perhaps once have been a gate post. “Let's just get you to the party so that I can get paid.” Beck said, casually waiting for Purdue to make him a huge counter offer. He was sorely disappointed. Purdue sat silently, surveying his surroundings. Beck knew that his captive had heard him loud and clear, so he took Purdue's refrain as an answer.

  Beck turned a dial on the strange old post and with one click turned it to the right. A small red light appeared below it and a moment later Purdue could hear a static sound as if Beck had turned on an old radio. He was quite correct. Over a speaker that was obviously well concealed Beck spoke to yet another unknown voice, much in the same fashion as his previous conversation on the hands-free set.

  “Who is it?” an old woman's voice asked firmly.

  “It's Beck,” was all he said.

  “Come straight,” she replied, and a loud click followed to conclude their conversation. Beck waited for exactly ten seconds, counting them down on his watch, before he drove forward into the unknown darkness with only two headlights between them and utter obscurity. The car moved at a snail's pace and it concerned Purdue, because from his sense of direction they would now be heading straight for the River Forth. His cautious eyes glanced rapidly at Beck every now and then, but he seemed to know where he was headed.

  Finally, Purdue could see the environment change ahead of them. The cobbled road became gravel, although the tall, dancing grass remained to both sides of the car. Above them the clouds were growing pregnant with the imminent storm, and he could see patches of the landscape only during those blinks of light courtesy of the lightning. In the brief light he could see the smooth surface of the river substitute the coarse land, a black snake sleeping in the soil of Sterling's keep.

  Fearing they would drive into the river, Purdue asked, “Should I have brought my snorkel?”

  That was when he gathered that the ten second pause was probably for some automated system to accommodate them. “You do know there are bridges, old chap?”

  Beck smiled, but kept his eyes straight ahead as he sped up considerably and propelled the vehicle forward with such velocity that even the adventurous and reckless Purdue fisted his hands for what was to come. “Our destination does not come after a bridge,” Beck said.

  Chapter 19 – Final Destination

  With the speed Beck attained the car reached the ramp just at the right time and instead of a massive splash Purdue heard the clatter of loose wooden boards under the tires. Curious and relieved, he looked out his window and noticed the flat bed of the ferry as the car came to a halt. Once on the river, Beck's rolled-down window allowed in a much appreciated freshness with just a hint of a drizzle that gave Purdue the second wind he needed. Feeling more awake, he started devising plans to escape and make it into the river, but somehow Beck could read his thoughts.

  “If I were you, Mr. Purdue, I would play along and not think of trying anything stupid,” he told Purdue as he switched off the engine. “Your door handle is rigged to send a devastating electrical charge out on contact with anything of 37º, give or take one of two degrees.

  “Ah, made especially for human contact then,” Purdue confirmed blandly.

  They drifted serenely forward over the scalloping surface of the water, listening to the silence tainted with the sound of gale and thunder. Had he not been in danger, Purdue may well have enjoyed the atmosphere. “Well, since we’re adrift, I'm sure you can at least tell me who the lucky bidder is, Mr. Beck.”

  Beck faced him with a stern countenance. “Oh, we are not adrift at all, my friend. Much like our situation, you are misjudging what is happening beneath the surface; how we are inexorably being pulled forward by the hand of a stranger we have relinquished our fate to.”

  “That is deep,” Purdue mocked. “But I was just asking for a name.”

  “You don't need any names, Mr. Purdue. As a matter of fact, all you have to know is that your days are numbered,” Beck replied snidely. Purdue was repulsed by him, but regrettably the reprehensible man was his only source of information and he had to take his word.

  “Alright, since I’m going to die, you may as well tell me what happened to Dr. Gould,” Purdue challenged.

  “I don't have to tell you anything, pal,” Beck sneered.

  Purdue resorted to childish means. “I understand. You cannot explain things you have no knowledge of. You could have just said so, Mr. Beck. In your line of work as a lackey, I’m sure information is not imparted unless it involved the location of your next task for your master.”

  “I like how you think belittling my position will provoke me into proving you wrong and telling you out of pride, Mr. Purdue. But alas, you are just not that good at reverse psychology,” Beck beleaguered him.

  The investigator was not such a dumb oaf after all, and Purdue realized he would get nothing out of him by conventional methods, so he elected for the other emotional manipulation – one mostly employed by the fairer sex. He became quiet, brooding and indifferent, just peering out the window for the sky flashes to show him the beautiful and restless water. Thinking Purdue defeated, Beck finally condescended to give Purdue something. He was not the type of character to be coaxed with patronization, but he certainly fell for matters of ego.

  “I'll tell you this…” Beck said, clearing his throat to sound more important.

  Bingo! Purdue thought under a static expression.

  “…just because I think you should know. Dr. Gould is not dead. In fact, she could be and we would never know, because I never kidnapped her.”

  Positively confounded by the illogicality of Beck's confession, Purdue gasped. “But then, where is she? And why would the papers report her missing? Kidnapped?”

  Beck chuckled sheepishly, wiping his brow with his hand in sheer embarrassment. “I did grab a woman in her house,” he looked at Purdue, “but it was someone else.”

  A moment of silence prevailed before Beck filled in the rest for Purdue. “A woman who came to feed the cat, actually. That was a right fuck-up! Hey?” Beck laughed, incessantly wiping his face and brow in a kind of frustration. “But you know, she looked exactly like Dr. Gould.” He shook his head. Even though he’d stopped laughing, his words were laden with stress about the mistake. “So, your Nina is not in my custody. Maybe she went on holiday with a friend, who knows? But she isn’t here and she isn’t dead.” Looking proud of himself, he asked Purdue, “Happy now?”

  Purdue exhaled a long, labored breath in relief and astonishment. He nodded while his eyes darted from side to side in front of him as he tried to unravel the mystery of Nina's disappearance. Did she go to see Sam? Granted, Purdue did ask that she and Sam not contact him until the dust had settled on his manhunt, but for her to just leave like that without even leaving a clue was a bit worrying. At least one consolation was knowing that she was still alive.

  “Finally. Payday,” Beck remarked. His tone had suddenly shifted to more accommodating and less stressful as he pointed toward the approaching river bank. Beck still reckoned that maybe Purdue hadn’t caught his hint the last time, so he
mentioned the payday for good measure, but still Purdue did not take the bait. By Beck's lighter tone Purdue knew the end of the line was near, where he would part with his abductor. Purdue's mind oscillated Between apprehension and repulsion, his heart racing.

  On the other side of the bank the dark palette of the rainy night was broken by colorful lights, four in number – their nature unknown. Again, Beck started the car and pulled away with a bolt to hit the ramp just right. With a shaky dismount the wheels hit the knackered cement roadway on the other side of the watery crevice between the ferry and the river bank.

  “Mother will be so pleased,” Beck grinned as they turned a sharp left and the vehicle propelled down a steep dip that quickly evened out into a clump of dark trees that seemed to rise to reach the flashing heavens above them by a trick of the light.

  “Meeting your family for a shindig, Mr. Beck?” Purdue asked sarcastically, taking in the environment that looked like nothing Scotland would normally yield. The explorer was in awe of the scene, but his intuition afforded him a serious admonition as to the character Beck was referring to as Mother. The very word instilled in him a sense of dread for reasons well buried since childhood. In his mind's eye Purdue pictured Mother as some sort of hybrid monster woman from an old 1930s horror film.

  “Not my family. Family is for those too weak to evolve to survive on their own,” Beck gloated with a smirk. “No, Mother is the matriarch of my employer's clan, not mine. You will not be fond of her – she is a bit of…an acquired taste.”

  Oh my God, Purdue thought to himself, taking a deep breath to prepare him for what turmoil awaited him. Not once did bribery cross his mind. Early on in life, Purdue learned that bribery only worked on men who had no honor, and men with no honor were not predisposed to keep their word at any rate. By the looks of him, Beck was a perfect candidate for the disloyal type, mercenary and fickle. Purdue wondered if his captor even had a woman, or man, for that matter, in his life. A successful relationship bearing any resemblance to a yield of emotion was somehow unimaginable given Beck's narcissism.