by P. W. Child
“Cryo containers,” she marveled as she passed them, one after the other. It was heaven to Nina to be in a room filled with hot air exuded by all the engines at work around her and she took a moment to remove her gloves and warm her hands on the pipes of one of the ventilators.
Ventilators, she realized. They are only needed where biological agents are involved. Are there people down here? But Nina knew that the term was used loosely, as people came in all hideous varieties where the SS and its legacy was concerned. What the hell is going on down here? Nina’s frown deepened as the possibilities came to mind. It could not be an underground substation if it was buried under a 5-foot layer of rock that had to be chiseled through.
Everywhere she looked there were meters, measuring tubes, and power wattage controls, settings for alternate currents and battery chargers the size of Buicks. It was mind-blowing to the curious historian. There was a thick, multi-shelved cupboard with Perspex sliding doors where myriad containers were stacked. She put her gloves back on and retrieved an appropriate Dewar from the shelf to keep the object in. The generator had to be kept in liquid nitrogen to be transported and so it was, according to Deiter, already packed. All she needed to do was place it into the Dewar with tongs and seal the thing before taking it to them.
She opened every container one after the other until she found the container marked “Prototype—Vril 243.” Using the tongs as instructed, she placed it in the vacuumed flask and locked it tightly. Just before she closed the large, heavy door, she scanned the other tubes and flasks, of which one, in particular, caught her eye.
A loud bang ensued from the tunnel, and soon afterward a rustling and tumult came from beyond the machine room where she could not see, in reaction to the first din. Nina’s heart stopped. She listened, feeling a hot spurt of adrenaline fill her as the thunderous sound floated through the vents and appeared to originate from the very tunnel she had come from. A vile marked “LOX” drew her attention, because it was far greater in size than the others, but there was no time to scrutinize the many different compounds stored in the freezer. Nina had to hide from whatever was causing the dreaded commotion, whatever had come to see what had disturbed its slumber.
She scuttled with the flask safely tucked against her chest, taking care not to shake or agitate the container in any way. The contents were deadly if inhaled and even more hazardous when spilled and she was not about to tempt fate. It was enough that she had to bear the overwhelming pressure of the chore that was forced on her. Having her skin or appendages break off like brittle porcelain protrusions would be no fun at all.
Nina made for the tunnel, electing to go back in the direction of the noise rather than to wait to be discovered by whatever was reacting to said noise from the other side of the machine room. Back into the hellish, narrow tube of rock she crept, flask to her side held above the ground by her right hand. She crawled on her knees with only her left hand to hold up her torso, scampering far more quickly than when she came from the other side.
There was no time to worry about the space, about her sore limbs, her racing heart, or her inept lung capacity under the stress of her phobia. Now she had to get out to the men who were probably going to kill her, just to get away from whatever breed of demon was pursuing her trail. It was a lose-lose situation for Dr. Nina Gould and she lamented the awful way in which she was to meet her end. There was no glory in dying in a godforsaken tunnel under the ice.
What if I get to the other side and they really closed me in? Oh, God, please don’t let them wall me into this hell. Please. Please, her thoughts mingled with logic and terror. She had abandoned the lamp and decided to make her way back in the dark. Not only would the lit object light her whereabouts for anyone to locate her, but it would be in the way of her handling the flask. She could eventually see the shadows play at the entrance where she came in, but it brought her no relief to know that she was probably crawling toward her end. But behind Nina a deep rumble was born, so intense that she could feel it vibrate though the cavern floor under her palm.
Whatever it was, was furious and powerful. Claps like gunshots compelled her to bend down even lower as she hurried, but Nina heard the claps turn into screeches. Like abhorrent bats they screeched from behind her in the dark tunnel and Nina heard her wheezing turn to terrified gasps before the tears came again. For all the dangerous places she had ever been and all the terrible things she had had to endure in her life, this was by far the most horrifying terror she had ever suffered. Crying violently for her very life, Nina raced to get out of the hole to the shadows that waited ahead.
The unearthly screeches caught up with her and she could feel the hot breath of something big and fast against her feet and buttocks. Just as she finally reached the salvation of the portal back to the maze that led to the outer world, Nina was struck down hard. Darkness met her instantly and she did not even hear the voices of the men who were there to rescue her.
Chapter 9
“Is she dead? Is she dead?” Neville asked.
The obscure clinic in a desolate part of Bhutan was small, but adequate in medical provisions and staff. Archeologist Neville Padayachee leaned over the small frame of Nina Gould while nurses tried to keep him away from the bed until the doctor showed up. A British man entered the emergency room and pulled Neville backward to give Nina some room.
“You gentlemen cannot be here while we examine the patient,” one of the nurses informed them. “You are not authorized to be here.”
“You’re not going to operate on her, for Christ’s sake. She is not fatally injured. Any fool can see that. And I am Special Agent Patrick Smith of the British Secret Intelligence Service. I am damn well authorized,” Paddy ranted, keeping the equally jumpy Neville behind him.
“The doctor will be here soon, sir. Please, wait outside for him. It is our policy—”
“Come on, Neville. Let’s go wait outside until the doctor shows up. There is nothing we can do until she comes to anyway,” Paddy told the guide who had led him to the excavation site when Paddy arrived to collect Nina at the lodge. They soon found that she was absent and it was easy to see what she used and where she went. Her conversation with Neville gave away her plans anyway.
“I didn’t think for a second that she would leave it at that, Agent Smith,” he told Paddy as they sat down with some really bad tea in the waiting area. “But I never thought she would just go rogue and go on her own. I mean, the woman is a university lecturer, not to mention astute in all things, yet she embarked on a suicidal journey to one of the most dangerous places in the Himalayas! What was she thinking?”
Paddy shrugged. “I have known Nina for years and never seen her back down from a challenge no matter how perilous. My only explanation for her clearly irrational behavior is that her search for answers once again provoked this insanity.” He sipped his tea and gave it some thought. “Nina Gould is passionate, driven to find the truth under the guise of mundane matters. That is her madness. She resorts to irresponsible things all the time, but this is really an occasion where she pushed the envelope just a tad.”
“I wonder what happened to her down there. Have your men ascertained the nature of the item in her possession?” Neville asked. “It looked everything but antique. On the contrary . . .”
“They have no idea what it is, but we think it might be some compact energy producer utilizing technology we are unfamiliar with. It is really rather interesting,” Paddy said.
“What gets me is that there is no place in the cavern she could have obtained it,” Neville replied, astonished. “I have to speak to her when she wakes up. It is imperative that I know where she found it, because such technology has to be treated and kept in specific conditions—like that not of a common cave, you see?”
“I understand your confusion, Neville. My bother is that she literally had nowhere to go from where we found her, yet she appeared with this item. It is truly perplexing, I tell you. I have taken the liberty of calling the men who as
ked me to locate her in the first place. They should be here within the next day,” Paddy sighed. “I would love to know what they would make of this.”
“The patient is awake and cognizant, Agent Smith,” the nurse announced. “Dr. Basu is attending to her.”
“Thank you,” Paddy replied as the two men who discovered Nina followed the nurse to Nina’s room where they met Dr. Basu. She was a tall, attractive Indian woman in her forties with an unusually long braid that was folded and fastened on the back of her head. They exchanged introductions, but Nina remained uncharacteristically quiet.
“How are you feeling, Miss Nina?” Neville asked, keeping his voice low.
“Hello, Nina,” Paddy nodded.
Her eyes fluttered and she pried apart her parched lips slowly to form her first waking words, “What an odd combination you two are.”
The two men found her response amusing, but it made them uncomfortable for its oddity. Neville and Paddy exchanged a raised eyebrow or two.
“Who did you expect then?” Paddy asked.
“I don’t know, Patrick,” she sighed wearily, “it’s just weird to see a Scottish James Bond and an Indian Indiana Jones looming over me just as I came out of an encounter with five yeti and a room from Star Trek.”
“What?” Neville asked her, chuckling at the hilarious imagery she had just conjured in his head. Paddy was no less humored by it, and stood laughing under his hand.
“It’s true. I was sent to retrieve some sort of . . . generator by five German men disguised as yeti . . . wait . . . they were not men, but they were humanoid,” she frowned as she attempted to formulate a logical, and believable, account of her ordeal.
“You can tell us all about it after you have taken some rest, Dr. Gould,” Dr. Basu said gently. Her voice was mesmerizing—a low, husky song of words that instantly lulled those who heard it. All three of them stared at the lovely doctor for a moment, taking in her words.
“But I have to get as much information from her as possible, while she is still fresh out of the experience, doctor,” Paddy explained.
“I know, Agent Smith, and you will be allowed to do so. But first Dr. Gould needs to sleep,” she chimed.
“Sleep?” Neville gasped, astounded. “She just slept for a day and a half! How much more sleep could she need?”
“There is a difference between being unconscious and being asleep, Mr. Padayachee. Now that we have her back out of her oblivion, her mind needs sleep,” she said, shaking her head ever so slightly in annoyance. “I believe she is expecting more visitors, Agent Smith?”
“Aye, two more, due tomorrow.”
She rolled her eyes in the subtlest and most professional way possible, “Are they as astute as your friend here?”
Paddy had to snigger at such a fine low blow directed toward Neville.
~~~~~
The next morning Nina woke to hear the hushed conversation of familiar voices, but she did not have the strength to open her eyes. Over her nose and mouth she felt a strange sensation, something rubbery that had a sweet smell, drowning her in its thick composition. But she soon came out of the fog of her disorientation and realized that it was an oxygen mask, which she wasted no time in pulling off, as if by reflex.
“No, no,” a female voice urged, “don’t do that, Dr. Gould!” and she felt the mask being put back on.
“Is she awake?” more than one person asked, but they grew silent again. She reckoned the woman silenced them, thinking that she was still asleep. Nina pried her eyes open against their resistance and through the warped haze of her sight she could see four figures seated in a semi-circle. Nina gasped loudly and they turned their heads to look at her.
“No, no, no,” she whispered in sheer terror.
“Nina?” Purdue smiled, but she looked him straight in the eye, shaking her head in fright. “Nina, it’s me, Dave.”
Dr. Basu intervened, holding her open hand out to the men to stay away as she approached Nina’s bedside.
“Dr. Gould, what do you see? Who . . . do you see?” she asked her shivering patient.
“Deiter! A-and Thomas . . . and . . .” she stuttered, pushing herself up on her hands and retreating against the headboard of the bed.
“Who is Deiter? And Thomas, who is he?” Dr. Basu asked with her velvet voice that seemed to calm Nina instantaneously.
“The yeti in the cave,” Nina spoke evenly, as if in a trance for a moment, reminiscing.
“Did they hurt you?” the doctor asked, while Sam, Purdue, Paddy, and Neville sat in tense anticipation.
“They were going to kill me, they said. I pretended to be from the Black Sun, because they were umm . . . also . . . no, they were some . . . they were German and bad,” Nina struggled.
“That narrows it down,” Sam remarked softly.
The others hushed him.
“Sam?” Nina said suddenly, snapping out of her delirium. “Is that Sam?”
“Aye, fruitcake, it’s me,” the whimsical journalist with the smoldering dark eyes played and came to her side. Gradually the blur dissipated into a clear veil and she recognized the men sitting on the far of the room.
“Sam!” she smiled, finally animating her wan complexion with a positive emotion. “You were with me in the tunnel when I was scared!”
He looked back quickly at his companions, puzzled, but they shrugged and egged him on to go with it. Purdue got up and came to stand next to Sam, his clear eyes and taller frame being a stark contrast to Sam’s.
“Hey, Dave,” she smiled, as he took her hand.
“Hello, love,” he answered. “What the hell were you doing in that mole’s heap?
“Are the yeti still here, Dr. Gould?” Dr. Basu asked.
Nina shook her head, “No, just my friends . . . and Neville.”
“Hey,” Neville frowned at the exclusion, but Nina laughed.
“I’m just fucking with you, Indian Jones,” she joked. They could almost see the pink flush back in her pretty face.
“Indian Jones?” Purdue repeated in amusement.
“Aye. He is an archeologist, and he is Indian, get it?” she replied, rousing a good chuckle among them.
“Nina, not to piss on your parade, but I’m afraid I have to know what happened down there while you still have a vivid recollection of it,” Paddy interfered politely from the foot of her bed.
“Please, Agent Smith, I do not want her agitated right now,” Dr. Basu appealed to him.
“No, I’ll be fine, doctor,” Nina assured Dr. Basu with a sturdy nod, much like her old self. She took a deep breath. Her eyes ran from one visitor to the other, not seeing any trace anymore of the men who held her in the bowels of the excavation site.
“We saw nobody else there when we got there,” Neville mentioned with some concern.
“I don’t know what to say, Neville,” she answered. “There were four men with me down there, those very men you and I saw before the task force got there. Those things that killed the other members of the Cammerbach party, it was them.”
“And their names were Deiter, Thomas . . . and . . . ?” Paddy asked, taking notes.
“I don’t remember. Those two I remembered because they were primarily the ones threatening me and dragging me along,” she told them. Sam shook his head, looking bothered by the whole thing, while Purdue just listened.
“Why did you go alone?” Paddy asked. “Had Sam not asked me to find you, and had Neville not been available at the lodge to guide me to the dig site, you would be dead as a doornail right now, young lady,” Paddy reprimanded her gently. “It was a bloody stroke of luck that all this happened at the same time from all parties involved. You are remarkably lucky. I don’t know what god you believe in, but he or she is genuinely attending his or her post.”
“Synchronicity,” Purdue agreed.
“Why did you need to find me, Sam?” she asked. Purdue and Sam looked at each other before Purdue filled her in, “We’ll discuss that when you are well.”
&n
bsp; She could read their faces. They were up to something illegal again. It was obvious that they did not want to talk in front of outside individuals.
Here we go again, into the belly of the beast with my two best wingmen, Nina thought, and she knew that soon she would be immersed into the underworld of relic hunters and nick-of-time survival games again . . . just the way she liked it.
Chapter 10
Special Agent Patrick Smith and his team of subordinates pulled out of Tibet by the next day, en route back to Edinburgh to have the strange generator analyzed. Patrick and his assistant, Agent James Gallagher, were in possession of the object that held foreign technology, found on the person of Dr. Nina Gould when they rescued her from near death in the sub-zero temperatures of the Himalayas.
“James, please call Helen at Exova and let her know that we will be delivering the Dewar by 7pm tonight, her time,” Paddy told his right-hand man while they were preparing to take off in their private aircraft at Paro Airport.
“Yes, sir,” James replied and moved to the back of the plane to make the call while Paddy called in his errand to his superiors, using his usual subterfuge to convince them it was in the interest of Britain’s security, which it actually was. Discovering such an unprecedented item was most definitely a dangerous acquisition to any civilian, unless a reputable company could verify by chemical analysis that it was nothing to fret about.
But Paddy had a hunch that what Nina brought with her from apparent oblivion was of historical and scientific significance. What perplexed him and the archeologist assisting him there was how she seemed to have come out of the wall of the cavern. There was no crawlspace, because they combed the place after she was taken to hospital. How could a team of eight men, all guides and hired local laborers, explore the hole the Cammerbach party excavated and not find one single duct or vent break off from the main tunnel, but Nina recalled in detail where she went from there and returned, no less.
