by P. W. Child
Another sound, footsteps, ensued from the front of the house. There were no car lights outside, and when Mother checked from a hidden peephole in the wall she saw no other vehicles or strange figures lurking. Then she saw someone by the door. Mother closed the dining room door to block out Karsten's childlike whining. Setting her gun on the table she went to answer the door.
“Good evening, Madam,” a tall, attractive priest greeted.
“Good evening, pastor. Are you lost?” she asked.
“No, why would you ask that?” he smiled.
“Because the gods worshiped here are eons older than your Christ,” she stated in a condescending tone. “I’m afraid you’re wasting my time and yours by calling on me. Good night.”
He stepped against her closing door, halting its movement, but he maintained that smile so well that it was almost unpleasant to behold. “But I am not here to discuss the Lord, Madam. I am here to…how do you say…raise hell.”
Mother had the most peculiar reaction to his words. Her face twitched in confusion before lighting up in amusement, and then she let out a hysterical laugh that Father Harper could tell was true humorous invigoration on her part. Through her cackle she heard a window shatter in the back and she ceased immediately. “What have you brought here?” she hissed at him, trying to strike him. But Father Harper had no reservations regarding stumping the acts of harpies and he caught her arm in mid-air.
“Justice,” he said to her and pushed her back into the house.
“Joseph!” she screamed as she scuttled for the Luger on the table. “Joseph! Help me, you worthless bastard!”
The door to the dining room opened, but it was not Joseph Karsten. A very tidy blond man stood there with his doctor's bag in one hand and a grasping awful looking young woman on the other. “Good evening, Madam. This is Maria Winslet, a very talented hacker who used to work with your private investigator, Jonathan Beck. She’s the one to thank for disengaging all your alarm systems.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the Italian looking girl saluted through drugged eyes.
“And you are her doctor?” Mother scoffed. “Jesus, I hope you never have to see to me, if that is what your patients look like.”
“Oh, trust me, lady, the only treatment you would get from me is a death certificate,” Lance retorted. Maria laughed lazily at his excellent counter, having no idea where she was. “Who is Joseph?”
A horrible sound echoed from somewhere in the drawing room. They all listened, apart from Mother, who started talking loudly, but Father Harper seized her and tightened his huge hand over her face to silence her. By his swiftness and strength she knew he would be a formidable opponent, so she relented in provoking him.
“H-h-aaalp!”
“What the fuck was that?” Dr. Lance whispered.
The ghastly cry had no voice, only a dry rasp formed into vowels, like a mummy speaking from its sepulcher. Again it tried to make a word, but it came to no more than a whimper.
“What is that?” Dr. Lance scowled.
Maria snickered, “Probably Purdue.”
“Where are you keeping him?” Father Harper asked the old woman. She declined with silence.
“Give her to me, Father,” Dr. Beach offered.
Purdue was trying to make alarm, feeling a second wind fueled only by bare hope. He slammed one of his hands against the wall of his prison until it bled. Trying repeatedly to cry out in vain, he started sobbing in hopelessness. They walked over the mouth of his cell without even noticing and he had nothing to make noise with. Purdue gathered all his strength and screamed. Nothing but hissing breath came out of him, yet he knew this was his last chance. In the scrape of his throat something emerged.
A sound, a little shard of sound escaped him, sending his rescue party scampering to find him. Once Purdue heard the commotion near his pen he summoned more strength and it came freely now that he was so close to freedom. Purdue tried once more, crowing like a morning cock as words eluded him.
“He is under the floor!” Dr. Lance shouted. “Get him out! Get him out!”
Taking Mother with them to the kitchen the two men looked for the entrance to the oubliette. They did not bother to negotiate with the cold hearted wench, so they simply obliterated the door that covered the entrance. Gasping at the sight of the iron spikes, Father Harper retreated slightly, dangling the thin old woman from his grasp.
“Get a rope, doctor!” the priest cried. Unable to give the gun to the untrustworthy Maria to watch Mother, and unable to save Purdue with both dangerous women free, the two men decided on something that would normally be construed as villainous.
“Throw them in the oubliette?” Dr. Lance offered. With a reprimanding look from the preacher the doctor felt a bit bad for suggesting it, but then Father Harper gave it some thought. “We really don't have any choice.”
“Don't you even think about it, you miserable son of a whore!” Mother growled at the doctor. “I will unleash people on you that your God will not save you from!”
“Can you do it from a little room under your house?” he asked the hissing witch, and gave her a nudge into the gaping mouth of the prison cell. Striking her head against the wall of the room on her way down, Mother was knocked unconscious and landed with a twisted thump in front of Purdue. He did not move. He did not feel sorry for her and he did not hate her. Purdue felt absolutely no emotion at the vision of her bleeding face in the dust and grime of her own oubliette.
The priest dropped down a thick rope he retrieved from the broom cupboard and came down with perfect execution. My God, it seems that the Almighty is sending priests to save souls in quite a physical way, Purdue thought as he watched the strong chaplain reach the bottom of the rope without even running out of breath.
“Now I have seen it all,” the doctor said from the top level, peering down. “A clergyman throwing an old lady down a trap.”
Father Harper looked up. “I told you. I was not always a priest.”
Wincing at the grisly remains of Maria's partner, Father Harper reached for Purdue. “David?”
Purdue nodded, barely able to stay conscious. “We're here to help. Up there a medical doctor is waiting to take care of you until we can get you to the nearest hospital.”
“T-th-ank y…” Purdue tried, “…you.”
After they lugged Purdue's injured body upward and laid him on the dining room table for some emergency treatment, Father Harper took Maria to the trapdoor. He removed his collar and undid the pin to reveal his throat and chest. She slapped him hard. “You wish, Father.”
“No, I don't,” he smiled. “I'm not your type, but I am going to unite you with your type. I just feel too guilty wearing this when I’m about to do this.”
“Do what?” she snapped at him.
Moments later Maria Winslet broke both legs in her fall, screaming in pain. The shriek awakened Mother, daughter of Waffen-SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff. She saw the feisty little assassin discover her lover's ripe cadaver rotting in the corner. Then the two women met gazes, and Maria seethed in rage.
“You killed Jonathan, you bitch!” Maria growled.
“I did,” Mother smiled. “And I fucking loved watching him choke!”
As Father Harper closed the lid of the oubliette he was at least consoled by the fact that neither woman he put in there would die from starvation.
Chapter 31 – Rush for Venom
Iqaluit, Nunavut (Canada)
“You have to go back and finish this before we miss out on it,” Sam insisted in slow deliberate words while the emergency room doctors administered antivenin to reverse the effects of the snakebites. “Remember this is the treasure he did not want the world to know about. You have to find out why!”
“Sir, you have to relax. Your heart rate elevates when you get excited and that spreads the venom faster,” the ER nursing sister advised urgently.
“Nina, take my gear and record everything,” he begged Nina through his rising fever.
“Do you think I am going back there again? No fucking way! What if we get bitten too? I don’t want to spend the rest of eternity with a bunch of Nazis in a glorified toilet bowl!” Nina protested.
Her exclamation was of such an amusing and peculiar nature that the staff and patients within earshot could not help but gawk, but Nina ignored them.
“Nina please,” Sam implored. “We have to know what was worth so much that Alexander the Great sent an armada to an unknown continent to bury his secret. Find a way to clear the snakes. Do what you have to do.”
“Just rest now, please, love. I don't want to lose you…again,” Nina answered. “We will go back – when you can accompany us.”
“I might not make it. Jesus, Nina, I am on fire here,” he moaned softly in her ear while she held his hand.
“Excuse me, Miss?” the attending doctor addressed Nina. “But you have to leave now. Mr. Cleave is in critical condition and we have to get him in.”
“Of course,” Nina sighed. Reluctantly she let go of his hand and settled in the waiting room with Joanne to wait out the rest of the nerve-wracking hours.
“How are you doing, Nina?” Joanne asked when Nina sat down. Joanne sounded absolutely bereft.
“You know, he’s not dead yet,” Nina told her friend, trying to keep it together.
“I know. But…had I not gotten this itch, if it had not been for me and my obsession with Alexander's treasure, Sam would never have come here. You would never have lost another friend so soon after the other,” Joanne lamented.
“Just stop it!” Nina snapped. “I have enough shit to deal with right now. I can’t stand for self-pity and uncalled for guilt trips right now!”
“Self pity?” Joanne asked, looking dumbstruck at Nina's assumption. “Wait, do you think I am feeling sorry for myself? I am truly sorry that I got you and your friend into this shit, Nina! I feel responsible for luring you out here. That’s all. And it is a fact that this expedition is precisely why Sam is heading for the ICU, and you think I am feeling sorry for myself?”
“Keep it down,” Nina said.
“No!” Joanne replied. “I will not keep it down. You know what, Nina. Thanks for all your help, but I don't need to be talked down to by some high school bully who grew up to be a celebrity academic. Once a bully, always a bully. And I have had it.”
She flicked the Alexandrian coin onto Nina's lap and with a bitter sneer she said, “For your trouble.”
Beyond words, Nina sat mute, still reeling from Joanne's rant. Usually she would fight back, but she was so shocked by her friend's reaction that she just started crying. She missed Purdue's fancy free influence, especially now. She worried for Sam's life, feeling as responsible for his condition as Joanne did. Now she may have lost Sam for good, and Purdue was God knows where. Nina punished herself that Joanne had just been a fleeting friend that gave the historian a second chance at having someone female to relate to and be silly with.
“Well done, Dr. Gould,” she sniffed under her hair as she folded forward on the chair. “Your enchanting personality has just fucked up yet another friendship.”
“Dr. Gould?” a man said.
Nina started and sat bolt upright. “Aye?” It was the doctor working on Sam. “Oh God, no!” she gasped.
“No, he is still with us,” he said quickly, “but he is deteriorating rapidly. We need to find out what kind of snake bit Mr. Cleave, because our serum is not working. We need antivenin from that particular snake.”
Nina buried her face in her hands before looking up at the doctor again. “This will sound crazy, but those snakes are exclusively found in Greece.”
“Then how did he get bitten in Newfoundland?” the doctor asked logically.
“You see, doctor, that is the crazy bit,” she winced, hoping he would not expect her to explain. Nina was in luck.
“I'm afraid we have limited time, so if you could help us obtain some of the venom from…Greece? That would be the only chance Mr. Cleave has. Until then, we can only manage his symptoms and keep him from going into cardiac arrest,” the doctor advised.
Wiping her tears, Nina agreed that she would try to get her hands on the poison from one of the snakes responsible for Sam's wounds. After the doctor left her alone in the empty waiting room, Nina broke down in tears again. “How am I going to do that? How am I going to do that all by myself?”
“Do what by yourself?” a familiar voice said, making Nina's heart jump.
Impossible, she thought. When she looked up she almost did not recognize Purdue. Nina, once more speechless, propelled herself at the emaciated frame of her close friend and confidant. She wrapped her arms around him and wept vigorously.
“Where have you been?” she sobbed. “God, I needed to see you so badly. You will not believe what happened while you were gone.”
Purdue could only smile at her ironic statement while he rubbed her back with his hands.
“Why are you so thin? Why are you limping?” she scowled when she gave him a good look. “What happened?”
“Long story,” he said. “I heard what Sam's doctor said. Where do we find these bloody vipers we need, then?”
It was typical of David Purdue, the arrival of whom always made everything seem probable, doable, and possible. He was the perpetual problem solver, creator of devices that made everything easier, and facilitator of that which seemed impossible to the average man.
“How did you know where to find me?” she asked.
“Friends of yours from church told me where you’d gone. From there I found out that you’d chartered a boat, so I contacted the boat owner and he told me which hospital you were at…in a nutshell,” Purdue accounted with a smile.
What he did not tell Nina was that, while she on her way to the weather station by sea, he’d been rescued from an oubliette, subsequently so sobered by his experience that he’d decided that he was tired of being dead. On Dr. Beach's phone Purdue had called Sam's friend, Patrick Smith at MI6, offering to give himself up conditionally. After his leg operation and days of recovery from malnutrition Purdue was discharged against medical advice to locate Nina.
“Wow!” Nina said. “I have other friends?”
“Father Harper, and Dr. Beach and his wife helped me – more than you realize. I could not call you. Your phone was off,” he said innocently, making Nina feel terrible all over again. “But now I have found you, finally, and you can catch me up on the flight back to…where do you need to be?”
“Newfoundland, please, Mr. Purdue,” Joanne said from the door. “I'm sorry Nina. I suck.”
“I suck too, Earle-girl. Purdue, this is Joanne Earle, expert on Alexander the Great and an old friend of mine,” Nina introduced them.
“Alexander the Great,” Purdue smiled. “Powerful king. Military genius.”
“I like him already,” Joanne winked at Nina.
“Aye, you seem to have a penchant for suave men with lots of money,” Nina joked, and dragged Joanne with her down the hallway. “We have to call Virgil.”
After Joanne called boat captain Virgil Hecklund to procure his services once more, Purdue offered to pick up the fee. Utterly relieved, after practically donating the medallion to Nina and being left penniless to settle with Virgil, Joanne accepted the offer gracefully.
“As if he would have allowed you to decline,” Nina smiled at her friend.
“Very nice of him,” Joanne agreed happily, as they took to their comfortable seats aboard the Scarlet again. In the cockpit Purdue and Virgil exchanged deep sea angling stories and laughed at marine puns for almost the entire distance back to Martin Bay.
Before they had departed the archipelago of Nunavut, Purdue asked Captain Hecklund to procure certain supplies for him, for which he would pay extra. It felt so good to have ready access to his own accounts again, Purdue thought, relishing the peace of mind to do so without fear of being tracked. In truth, he’d had access to his accounts while laying low, but they were being monitored.
“So, that’s what we were about to unearth, we believe,” Nina concluded, having told Purdue every detail that led to the awful attack on their colleague and friend, now leaving him fighting for his life.
“I have heard about the hidden treasure before, but I did not know about a letter from Olympias to her son,” Purdue admitted. “That is remarkable, something that has to be almost…godlike…in nature.”
“So do you think the hidden Treasure of Alexander the Great is something other than riches?” Joanne asked Purdue. He shrugged. “Being a scholar of his life, I’m surprised that his treasure would not be located in Iraq, Turkey, or Egypt, you know?”
“That was my initial thought when you told me about it on the phone,” Nina told Joanne. “Why would you have found a medallion like this on Canadian soil?”
“Look, there have been many archaeological theories from discoveries on a great many Inuit tribal lands. There have been European artifacts found that predate the Vikings, even,” Purdue informed them. “That makes it plausible that Alexander the Great would have had the wherewithal and the need to send an armada out here to make sure his enemies would never find it. The Persian Empires and Egypt were vastly wealthy, yet they would not have thought to send scouts or ships west, I would guess. Not for any reason but it was not necessitated. For Alexander, especially after his conquests and his army eventually becoming discontented with his greed, it was probably the most remote land he could have reached.”
“But Alexander was never reputed to have sailed this way,” Joanne challenged.
“No, he never did. But there is a very good chance, like the Mommy's Boy he was,” Nina teased again, “that members of his mother's order could have facilitated the mission, not his own army.”
“Ooh, that makes a lot of sense!” Joanne marveled. “She outlived him, after all. After his death she could have sent delegates from the Cult of Dionysus to stash the treasure here in what is now Canada.”
