by P. W. Child
There was no time for Sam to warn Nina and Purdue of the sight that awaited them. He stood open-mouthed, staring, and speechless. Faintly, distantly, he heard a muffled “Oh my God” from Nina, the sound half-drowned by the rushing stream.
Axelle’s golden curls were spread out round her head like a halo, but a trace of deep red was visible underneath the blonde hair. Her head was tilted a little to one side, showing a hint of the wound where somebody had staved in her skull. Half-open blue eyes gazed sightlessly into the distance. The skin of her neck was livid with red and purple bruises, and the wire that had choked the life out of her was still in place, biting deep into her throat. It had been twisted tight by means of a stick, which lay at her side.
“Threefold…” Purdue spoke softly, almost inaudibly. He knelt down beside her. Sam wondered what he was doing as he reached for her hand, but then he saw that Axelle was holding an envelope. Or at least, an envelope had been placed in her hand after her death. The paper was dry and evidently had not been in her hand when she had been submerged.
Deftly Purdue slipped a long finger under the flap and tore the envelope open. A thick piece of card fell into his palm, blank on one side. He turned it over and stared at the text. Sam watched him, but could make no sense of his expression. He followed the billionaire’s line of vision as he looked up towards the closed door. The card dropped from his hand.
It was Nina who picked it up. “What does this mean?” she asked, holding it out where Sam could see it.
Your time is up, Purdue.
-R
Before Purdue could answer, the door swung open. Two powerfully-built men strode in, flanking a tall, imposing woman in a high-collared duffel coat. She had strong, attractive features and long brown hair swept back in a chignon, and she carried herself with an air of immense confidence. She glanced round at each of them in turn, and Sam immediately felt wrong-footed, caught out. This is Renata, he thought. Who else could it be?
“Get rid of her,” the woman commanded, snapping her fingers at the two men. Obediently they marched forward and took hold of Axelle’s body, rolling her onto her side so that the deep hole in her skull was briefly visible before hanks of wet hair fell to cover it.
Positioned as he was, Sam was the one who got a clear view of it. The dark redness, the shards of white bone and the thick, heavy smell of blood were too much for him. Bile rose in his throat and he lurched forward and retched, falling onto his hands and knees. He heaved and puked until his body shook with exertion. By the time he raised his head, Axelle’s body was gone from the room.
The woman Sam assumed to be Renata stood facing Purdue. “I gave you a fair chance,” she said. “As fair a chance as I could. The man I used to know would have solved the whole puzzle in far less time than this. But then, the man I knew was… unencumbered.” She gestured to her guards. “Take them. All three.”
“Renata, no.” Purdue took an urgent step forward and then stopped, remembering himself. He forced himself to stay still, but his voice was low and urgent. “Please. All I need is a little more time. You shall have your painting and anything else you require. Anything you want. All I ask for is their safety. Not my own. You may do as you see fit with me, but with the greatest respect, I would ask you to ensure that they are safe.”
“You are not in a position to bargain, Purdue.” Renata’s tone was calm, a little dismissive. Nina watched Purdue, waiting for an angry reaction from him, certain that he would not appreciate being spoken to that way. To her amazement he kept his head and even looked a little humble.
The two guards advanced, one approaching Nina and the other targeting Sam, and bound their hands behind their backs. They pushed them toward Renata and moved towards Purdue.
“Stop,” Renata snapped. The guards halted at once. “Leave him,” she said. “I am sure that Mr. Purdue will accompany us of his own free will… Won’t you? If you want your dear friends to be safe?”
Purdue nodded intently. Renata smiled, but it was not a reassuring expression. Hers was the face of someone several steps ahead, watching everyone around her struggle to catch up. “Very well then,” she smirked, and linked her arm through Purdue’s. “Let us be on our way.”
END OF PART TWO
Chapter Thirty
For three days Nina saw no-one, spoke to no-one. Following their apprehension at the Minnewater house they had been led through a tunnel into a different house, a town house with a sweeping central staircase and at least three stories. Rooms that would once have been the servants’ quarters on the uppermost floor had been converted into basic accommodation with high-tech locks on the doors. Locks that could only be operated from outside.
‘I’m in a cell. Again.’ Nina stared at the window in the sloping ceiling. For the first day she had watched the street and tried to attract attention every time anyone passed. Shouting, screaming, waving, banging on the glass, everything had been ineffective. ‘It’s got to be soundproofed,’ she reasoned. ‘And considering that I’m not being blinded every time the sun is right overhead, I’d guess it’s also tinted on the outside. Even if I could somehow let someone on the outside know that we’re trapped here, what good would it do? What are they going to do? Call the police? If these people are anywhere near as powerful as they seem, the police aren’t going to do us much good.’
The faded wallpaper was beginning to peel in the corner where the bed stood. Nina lay on the hard mattress and picked at it, focusing hard on tearing it off in long, even strips. Whenever she failed to remove a strip cleanly, she would go back and meticulously pick off every scrap until the wall was clean and she could see nothing but the pale paint underneath. It gave her something to think about. Something that wasn’t the Order of the Black Sun, or what might have happened to Sam or to Purdue. She had spent far too much time thinking about all of those things during the first two days.
She heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor. Just forty-eight hours earlier she had responded to that sound by leaping to her feet, ready for whatever might come through the door – to fight for her life if they had come to end it, to barge past and run if she got the chance, or even just to make an attempt at talking her way out. Now she accepted that the door would not open. Meal trays were delivered via a slot. There were cameras mounted in the corners of the room, so there was no reason for anyone to enter to check on her. Even in the little shower room that adjoined her cell she was not free from the cameras. Knowing all of this, she no longer sprang into action every time she heard a noise outside. All she did was lying, waiting and listening.
The slot clattered open as her meal was delivered. She did not move. The footsteps moved away, one pace, two paces, three paces, four paces. Then they stopped, and a few seconds later another, similar clatter came from somewhere nearby. ‘That must be where they’re holding Sam,’ she thought. ‘Either in the room next door or two doors along at the very most. Unless they’ve got other prisoners? They could have, I suppose. Or it could be Purdue. I wonder how much longer they’re going to keep us here. I wonder why they haven’t just killed us yet. Surely that’s what they’ll do in the end.’
She got up and investigated the contents of the tray. Stew of some kind, a handful of green beans and peas, a thick slice of brown bread and a bottle of water. She would have killed for chocolate - or anything sweet – once again, the lack of cigarettes and alcohol was getting to her. She’d had a raging headache for the past two days.
‘I should have skipped the fundraiser that night,’ she thought as she curled up cross-legged on the bed to eat her meal. ‘If I’d just stayed in, got a pizza and spent the evening watching something mindless, which is what I wanted to do in the first place, we wouldn’t be here now. Well, Purdue might, but Sam wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t. It’s not like I cared about whether the university could fund a new sports facility. And if I had stayed at home I wouldn’t have run into Purdue, and I wouldn’t have let him talk me into having dinner with him, and we wouldn’t have ended u
p sleeping together. It’s my own damn fault. I knew he would be at the fundraiser, there’s no way the university would have let an event like that happen without begging him to come. And I knew that if he was there he would try…’
She remembered the night all too clearly. The event had been held in the Braxfield Tower, a building Nina hated. She had been determined not to go until it occurred to her that her nemesis, Professor Matlock, would be there, lording it over everyone and showing off about the fame the success of his book about the Antarctica expedition had brought him. She did not want her absence to make him think that he had won. She wanted to be there as a reminder to his conscience, if he had one, that he had stolen her research. So she had pulled out her old faithful red silk dress, donned her black patent heels, extra mascara and defiant red lipstick as if preparing for battle. She was going to be there, undefeated and working the room. Her mind was already made up that she would look for a position elsewhere, and it was time to do some serious networking.
The moment she had walked through the doors she had regretted her decision. Matlock had not bothered to turn up, too busy negotiating a television appearance somewhere. The faces in the room were all very familiar, people who had no power to help Nina and people whose cliques she had no desire to become a part of. The only person there who held any kind of interest for her was Purdue.
Purdue, whom she wanted to hate but found that she could not. Purdue, whose reckless approach to life she found herself envying and grudgingly admiring. The man who had taken her on the adventure of a lifetime. He had never made any secret of his attraction to her. It was not so much that he propositioned her every time he saw her, but that he would always make it clear to her that should she ever be interested, the offer was open. That night, utterly frustrated and in desperate need of some excitement, Nina had decided that she was interested. She accepted his invitation to dinner, which turned out to be served on the roof terrace at Wrichtishousis. They had watched the sun setting over the Firth of Forth as they dined, then as they stood by the balustrade and watched the moon rise, Purdue had kissed her. They ended the evening sipping excellent brandy lying on a heap of discarded clothes. She had not got home until two days later.
Purdue’s hedonism had been just the escape Nina had needed after years of hard, thankless work. He was an excellent lover and made few emotional demands on her. As far as she could tell, they were both enjoying a mutually satisfying but very casual relationship. And then she had agreed to go with him to America, and everything had changed.
‘Perhaps that’s the bit I should have said no to’, she thought. ‘Despite everything that’s happened, I’m pretty sure that if I could do it all over again I would still have gone home with him. If not that night, then some other time. I was always curious about him. I’d never have said yes to Antarctica if I hadn’t been.’
A little voice in Nina’s head wanted to remind her about her own hidden agenda towards Purdue – the other reason why she had agreed: he was a manageable risk and had a lot of money. She refused to acknowledge the comfort of her financial position since she had agreed to be his girlfriend and the subsequent ease with which she was able to support her research and ventures. Had it not been for his wealth working swimmingly with his affection for her, they would very well not have survived their quest for Valhalla. Even in his absence during that death defying excursion to Russia in search for the location of the Norse legend, Purdue had aided her invaluably. But Nina chose to be blind to the favor of his affluence.
She wondered what was happening to him, whether he had found his way back into the Order’s good graces. Based on the fact that she was still alive, she assumed that he had. ‘I hope Sam’s alright,’ she thought. A pang of worry shot through her abdomen. ‘I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to him. He wouldn’t be involved with any of this if it wasn’t for me. And I really should have -’
Her thought were interrupted by the sound of footsteps again. That was unusual. No-one walked along the corridor except at meal times, and even then it was a single set of footsteps. This time it sounded like there were at least two people. They stopped outside her door and she waited for the sound of the flap. It did not come. Instead she heard a series of beeps as the person on the other side of the door went through the threefold biometric verification. Nina got to her feet, readying herself for all the possible scenarios she had considered. The door swung open and a man stepped through.
She stared in amazement and horror at the curly black hair, the stocky figure, the slight curl of the man’s lip.
“Steven?”
Chapter Th irty-One
“Are you ready to co-operate, Mr. Cleave?” The voice echoed around Sam’s room. Since his arrival he had been trying to figure out where the microphones and speakers were, but to no avail.
“I’ve no idea,” Sam replied, feeling foolish as he addressed the empty air. “Honestly. This isn’t bravado, I’ve genuinely got no clue what it is you want me to co-operate with. If you tell me a bit more – Christ, if you tell me anything at all – I might be able to give you an answer.”
“Very well.” A few beeps, a few clicks and the door to his room slid open. A pair of guards waited outside. “Go with them,” the voice instructed. “We shall negotiate.”
In a display of uncharacteristic obedience, Sam stepped out to meet the guards. They escorted him down the back stairs, down to the first floor, and came to a halt before a set of ornate double doors decorated with an elegant, abstract interpretation of the same Black Sun insignia he had seen so many times before. Untouched, the doors swung open and Sam was pushed forwards into a long, exquisitely decorated room, containing a large oval table. At the far end sat Renata, lounging in a gilded seat that Sam could only think of as a throne. She beckoned him to come closer and indicated that he should take the seat to her left.
‘Christ, what is it about the Black Sun high council and its predatory females? Lita Røderic, Sara Stromer, Greta Heller, now this mad cow...’
Up close Sam could see that what he had initially thought was a lectern was actually a raised touchscreen. She wiped it clear as soon as she noticed Sam looking at it, but not before he noticed that the display was divided into multiple small windows. He recognized his own empty cell in one of them, but Renata cleared the screen before he could catch a glimpse of Nina’s.
“So what are you asking me to co-operate with?” Sam asked bluntly. It seemed a waste of time to indulge in small talk with his captors.
Renata’s brow furrowed. “Have you never been taught the proper way to address me?”
“I’ve only got the faintest idea who you are,” Sam said. “Secrecy is one thing your colleagues have been very good at. All I know is that you’re called Renata.”
“My title is Renata. But you are correct, that is the name by which you will address me. The point is that you will address me by name.”
“If I were a member of your Order I’d address you by name,” Sam said. “But I’m not.”
“You could be. That is what I have asked you here to discuss.”
“Asked?”
Renata ignored the jibe. She flipped open a panel on the armrest of her chair to reveal a number of small buttons. At the touch of one of them a wall panel slid back to reveal a well-stocked bar. “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Cleave?”
At the sight of a bottle of Lagavulin, Sam found himself practically salivating – but he thought better of it. ‘Who knows what she’s up to.’ He thought. ‘I learned my lesson back at Parashant. Nobody’s drugging me out of my mind again unless I want them to!’ Renata poured a glass for herself. The scent wafted across the room. Sam inhaled greedily. ‘Focus on getting out of here, not on the drink,’ he told himself. ‘Yes, it’s been a few days, but I have more self-control than that…’ “Just water, please.” She handed him a sealed plastic bottle and a glass. Still wary from his previous experiences, Sam pushed the glass away and drank straight from the bottle. He waited for
Renata to speak. She said nothing but began tapping the screen in front of her. Sam jumped as the whole table lit up and flickered into life.
Images of himself stared back at Sam from the polished surface. What he had taken for wood was nothing of the kind. The entire table was capable of functioning as an extension of the screen before Renata. One by one she highlighted the images in front of her and with a flick of her finger, sent them shooting and spinning across the table to create an extensive collage of Sam’s life.
Pictures he had never seen before were mixed in amongst familiar photos. ‘How on earth did they get these photos?’ he wondered as he caught sight of a particularly unflattering image of himself surrounded by a group of people he hadn’t seen since secondary school, all sporting signed shirts on their last day of sixth year. Another flew past, Sam with a girl he had briefly dated at university. ‘I can’t even remember her name. But surely that photo’s not on the internet, is it? I think it was taken with my camera. I don’t even think anyone else had a copy…’ There were also images harvested from newspapers – early byline photos, Sam accepting his Pulitzer, Sam looking dazed in the aftermath of the arms ring shoot-out. Then the more recent ones: Sam wrapped in a blanket, stepping off the boat in Ushuaia. Sam leaving the offices of the Edinburgh Post for the last time. Sam in the glass elevator of the Verbena Hotel, the fire extinguisher held aloft, seconds away from sending the FireStorm acolyte plunging to his death.
A snap of Sam and his friends engaging Lita inside the hall of Valhalla was followed by one of him leading Nina from Professor Kulich’s group in the tangled woods of Hoia Baciu. Then appeared a shot of him leaving the scene where Interpol grabbed Greta Heller’s son while Sam slipped off with Heinz Heller to escape arrest. These were all testament, not only to the more insignificant moments of his life, but to the incessant thwarting Sam had dealt agents of the Black Sun in the past years.
