The Atlantis Scrolls (Order of the Black Sun Book 7) Read online

  “History nerd,” Sam teased dryly.

  “Right, now that we have admired it and savored its ancient charm, we could probably move on to the poem and the rest of the clues to the jackpot,” Purdue declared. “This book might have stood the test of time, but I doubt we will, so . . . no time like the present.”

  In Sam and Purdue’s quarters all four assembled to find the page of which Agatha had the photograph so that Nina could hopefully translate whatever words were missing from the lines of the poem. Each and every page was scribbled in French by someone who had a terrible command of hand, but Sam shot every leaf nonetheless and saved it all to his memory card. When they finally found the page, well over two hours later, the four explorers were elated to see that the full poem was still there. Eager to fill in the blanks, Agatha and Nina took to writing down the whole thing before trying to interpret the meanings.

  “So,” Nina smiled satisfactorily, folding her hands on the table, “I’ve translated the missing words and now we have the complete piece.”

  “New to the people

  Not to the soil for 680 twelves

  Still growing, the God pointer holds the two trinities

  And the clapping Angels shelter the Secret of Ernaux

  And to the very hands that hold it

  It remains unseen, even he who holds his rebirth to Heinrich I

  Where the gods send fire, where the prayers rose

  “Secret of ‘Ernaux’ . . . umm, Ernaux is the writer of the journal, the French writer,” Sam said.

  “Yes, the old soldier himself. Now that he has a name he is less of a myth, isn’t he?” Purdue added, looking nothing less than intrigued by the outcome of what was previously intangible and risky.

  “His secret is obviously the treasure he had told of so long ago,” Nina smiled.

  “So wherever the treasure is, the people there do not know about it?” Sam asked, blinking profusely as he always did when he tried to unravel a crow’s nest of possibilities.

  “Correct. And it pertains to Heinrich I. What was Heinrich I known for?” Agatha pondered out loud, tapping her pen against her chin.

  “Heinrich the First was the first king of Germany,” Nina revealed, “during the Middle Ages. So maybe we are looking for his birthplace? Or perhaps his seat of power?”

  “No, wait. There’s more to it,” Purdue butted in.

  “Like what?” Nina asked.

  “Semantics,” he replied instantly, fingering the skin under the bottom frame of his glasses. “The line speaks of ‘he who holds his rebirth to Heinrich,’ so it has nothing to do with the actual king, but someone who was descendant of him, or likened himself to Heinrich I in some way.”

  “My God, Purdue! You’re right!” Nina exclaimed, rubbing his upper arm in acclamation. “Of course! His descendants are long gone, apart from maybe a distant line that was not at all significant in the era Werner lived in, the First and Second World Wars. Remember, he was the city planner of Cologne during the Second World War era. That is important.”

  “Okay. Fascinating. Why?” Agatha leaned in with her usual sobering reality check.

  “Because the one thing Heinrich I had in common with World War II was the man who thought himself the reincarnation of the first king—Heinrich Himmler!” Nina almost shouted in her unbridled excitement.

  “Another asshole Nazi surfacing. Why am I not surprised?” Sam sighed. “Himmler was a big dog. It should be easy to work this one out. He did not know he had this treasure, although it was in his hands, or something in that direction.”

  “Yes, that is mostly what I get from that interpretation too,” Purdue agreed.

  “So where would he keep something he didn’t know he had?” Agatha frowned. “His home?”

  “Aye,” Nina grinned. Her excitement was hard to ignore. “And where did Himmler reside during the time of Klaus Werner, city planner of Cologne?”

  Sam and Agatha shrugged.

  “Sehr geehrte herren und dame,” Nina proclaimed dramatically, hoping her German was accurate in this instance, “Wewelsburg Castle!”

  Sam smiled at her flamboyant announcement. Agatha just nodded and had another cookie, while Purdue slammed his palms together eagerly and rubbed them together.

  “I take it you are not bowing out after all, then, Dr. Gould?” Agatha asked out of the blue. Purdue and Sam also stared at her inquisitively and waited.

  Nina could not deny that she was captivated by the codex and its related information that spurred her to keep seeking to uncover what could be absolutely profound. Before, she thought she would be smart this time; to not go on wild goose chases anymore, but now that she saw yet another historical marvel unfold, how could she not pursue it? Was it not worth the peril to be part of something great?

  Nina smiled, dismissing all her doubts in favor of what the codex could be harboring. “I’m in. God help me. I’m in.”

  Chap ter 24

  Two days later, Agatha had made arrangements with her client to deliver the codex, as she was hired to do. Nina found it hard to part with such a valuable piece of ancient history. Although she specialized in German history, mostly that which concerned the Second World War, she held immense passion for all history, especially eras so obscure and far into the Old World that barely any true relics or accounts of it existed anymore.

  Most of what was written about truly ancient history was destroyed throughout time, defiled and destroyed by humankind’s desire for dominion over all the continents and civilizations. War and displacement had caused precious tales and relics from a forgotten time to be tucked into myth and debate. Here was an item that had actually existed while gods and monsters reputedly walked the earth, when kings breathed fire and heroines swayed whole nations by the word of God alone.

  Gently, her slender hand caressed the valuable artifact. The marks on her knuckles were beginning to heal and her demeanor was strangely nostalgic, as if the past week had been just a hazy dream wherein she had the privilege of being acquainted with something deeply mysterious and magical. On her arm the Tiwaz rune tattoo protruded somewhat from under her sleeve and she remembered another instance just like this, when she fell headlong into the world of Norse mythology and its alluring reality in this day and age. Not since then had she felt such an overwhelming sense of wonder as to the buried truths of the world, now reduced to ludicrous theory.

  Yet here it was in plain sight, tangible and very real. Who was to say that other words lost in mythos did not hold credence? Although Sam shot every page and captured the beauty of the old book with professional efficiency, she mourned its imminent absence from her. Even though Purdue offered to have the whole journal translated from the successive pages for her to read, it was not the same. The words were not enough. She could not place her hands on the fingerprints of antique civilizations with words.

  “Jesus, Nina, are you possessed by that thing?” Sam jested as he entered the room with Agatha in tail. “Shall I get an old priest and a young priest?”

  “Oh, leave her be, Mr. Cleave. There are few enough people left in this world who appreciate the true power of the past. Dr. Gould, I have transferred your fee,” Agatha Purdue notified her. In her hand she had a special casing of leather to carry the book in; one that clicked in on the top with a lock like Nina’s old school case when she was fourteen.

  “Thank you, Agatha,” Nina said amicably. “I hope your client appreciates it to the same extent.”

  “Oh, I am sure he appreciates all this trouble we went through to retrieve the book. Please refrain, though, from publishing the pictures or information,” Agatha requested from both Sam and Nina, “or telling anyone that I allowed you access to its contents. They nodded in agreement. After all, if they had to uncover what the book directed them toward there would be no need for its existence to be exposed.

  “Where is David?” she asked, as she collected her bags.

  “With Peter in his office out back in the other building,” Sam answered as
he helped Agatha with the bag of climbing gear.

  “Well, tell him I said goodbye, will you?” she said to no-one in particular.

  What a strange family, Nina thought to herself as she watched Agatha and Sam disappear down the stairs to the front door. Twins haven’t seen each other in eons and this is how they part. Shit, I thought I was a cold relative, but these two just . . . must be the money. Money makes people stupid and mean.

  “I thought Agatha was coming with us,” Nina called from the balustrade above Purdue as he and Peter made their way to the lobby.

  Purdue looked up. Peter tapped him on the arm and waved goodbye to Nina.

  “Wiedersehen, Peter,” she smiled.

  “My sister left, I presume?” Purdue asked as he skipped the first few steps to join her.

  “Just now, actually. I suppose you two aren’t close,” she remarked. “She couldn’t wait for you to come in to say goodbye?”

  “You know her,” he said, his voice a bit croaky with a definite hint of long-standing bitterness. “Not very affectionate even on a good day.” He gave Nina a deep look and his eyes became softer. “On the other hand, I am very affectionate, considering the clan I hail from.”

  “Sure, if you weren’t such a manipulative bastard,” she cut him off. Her words were not overly harsh, but they conveyed her honest opinion of her ex-lover. “Seems like you fit right into your clan, old boy.”

  “Are we ready to go?” Sam’s voice from the direction of the front door broke the tension.

  “Yes. Yes, we are ready to go. I have asked Peter to arrange transport to Buren and from there we’ll take a tour of the castle to see if we find any significance to the journal’s wording,” Purdue said. “We must hurry, children. There is much mischief to be perpetrated!”

  Sam and Nina watched him vanish into the side corridor to the office where he had left his luggage.

  “Can you believe he is still not tired of digging up the whole world for that elusive prize?” Nina asked. “I wonder if he knows what he is looking for in life, because he is obsessively searching for treasure, and still, it is just never enough.”

  Sam, just a few inches behind her, stroked her hair tenderly, “I know what he is looking for. But I fear that elusive prize will be the death of him yet.”

  Nina turned to look at Sam. His expression was fraught with a sweet sadness as he pulled his hand away from her, but Nina quickly caught it, and grasped his wrist tightly. She held his hand in hers and sighed.

  “Oh, Sam.”

  “Yes?” he asked as she played with his fingers.

  “I wish you would also let go of your obsession. There is no future there. Sometimes, no matter how much it hurts to admit you’ve lost, you must move on,” Nina advised him softly, hoping that he would heed her counsel about his self-imposed shackles to Trish.

  She looked truly sorry and it made his heart ache to hear her say what he had been fearing she felt all this time. Since her obvious attraction to Bern she had been acting distant, and with Purdue back in the scene, dwelling from Sam was inevitable. He wished he could go deaf, to have spared him the pain of her confession. But this was it, he knew. He had lost Nina once and for all.

  She caressed Sam’s cheek with a graceful hand, the touch he so loved. But her words skewered him beyond recovery.

  “You have to let her go, or that elusive dream of yours will be the death of you.”

  No! You can’t do this! his mind cried, but his voice stayed mute. Sam felt lost in the finality of it, immersed in the terrible feeling it brought. He had to say something.

  “Right! All set!” Purdue interrupted their moment of suspended emotion. “We have little time to get to the castle before it closes for the day.”

  Nina and Sam followed him with their luggage, neither saying another word. The road to Wewelsburg felt like an eternity. Sam had excused himself and settled into the backseat with his earphones plugged into his phone, listening to music and pretending to doze off. But in his mind all the happenings milled. He wondered how it came about that Nina chose not to be with him, because as far as he knew, he had done nothing to alienate her. Eventually he did drift off to sleep to the music and blissfully abandoned his worry over things beyond his control.

  They stayed on the E331 for most of the way, driving at a comfortable speed, so they could visit the castle during the day. Nina took the time to study the rest of the poem. They were down to the last line, “Where the gods send fire, where the prayers rose.”

  Nina frowned, “I suppose the location being Wewelsburg, the last line should tell us where in the castle to look.”

  “Probably. I must confess though, I have no idea where to begin. The place is magnificent . . . and massive,” Purdue replied. “And with Nazi-era documents you and I both know the level of deception they could attain and I think that is a bit intimidating. Then again, we can be intimidated, or we can see it as another challenge. After all, we have conquered some of their most secretive webs before, who says we can’t do it this time?”

  “I wish I had as much faith in us as you do, Purdue,” Nina sighed, running her hands through her hair.

  Lately she had felt the urge to just come out and ask him where Renata was, and what he had done with her after they escaped from the car crash in Belgium. It was imperative that she found out—and soon. Nina needed to save Alexandr and his friends at all costs, even if it meant jumping back in bed with Purdue—in every way—to get the information.

  Purdue’s eyes kept darting to the rearview mirror as they spoke, but he kept a steady pace. A few minutes later they decided to stop at Soest to get something to eat. The picturesque town invited them from the main road with church spires raised well above the rooftops and clumps of trees dipping their heavy branches into the pond and rivers beneath. Tranquility was always welcome to them, and Sam would be ecstatic to know there was food to be had.

  All throughout their meal outside a quaint café in the town square, Purdue seemed distant, even a tad uneven in his behavior, but Nina chalked it up to his sister leaving so abruptly.

  Sam insisted on trying some local flavor, opting for pumpernickel and Zwiebel-Bier, as suggested by a very happy bunch of tourists from Greece who had trouble walking in a straight line this early in the day.

  And that was what convinced Sam that it was his kind of drink. In general the conversation was light, mostly about the beauty of the town with a bit of healthy criticism of the passersby who wore their jeans too tight or those who did not deem personal hygiene necessary.

  “I believe we have to get going, people,” Purdue groaned as he got up from the table that was by now strewn with used napkins and empty plates with scattered scraps of what was a marvelous feast. “Sam, you don’t perhaps have that camera of yours in your bag, do you?”

  “Aye.”

  “I’d like a shot of that Romanesque-styled church over there,” Purdue requested, pointing to an old cream-colored building with a Gothic flair not half as impressive as the Cologne Cathedral, but still worth capturing on high definition.

  “Certainly, sir,” Sam smiled. He zoomed out to get the entire height of the church in, making sure that the light and filtering was just so that all the fine details of the architecture could be discernible.

  “Thank you,” Purdue said and rubbed his hands together. “Now, let’s go.”

  Nina watched him carefully. He was his old flamboyant self, but something about him was vigilant. He appeared to be a bit nervous, or something bothered him that he would not share.

  Purdue and his secrets. Always keeping a card up that sleeve, aren’t you? Nina thought as they approached their vehicle.

  What she neglected to notice was the two young punks following in their footsteps at a safe distance, pretending to be sightseeing. They had been trailing Purdue, Sam, and Nina since they left Cologne almost two-and-a-half hours ago.

  Chap ter 25

  Erasmusbrug reached its swan-like neck up to the clear sky above as Aga
tha’s driver sped over the bridge. She had barely made it to Rotterdam on time because of a flight delay in Bonn, but was now crossing over the Erasmus Bridge, affectionately known as De Zwaan, because of the shape of the bent white pylon holding it, reinforced with cables.

  She could not be late or it would be the end of her career as a consultant. What she omitted from her conversations with her brother, was that her client was one Joost Bloem, a world-renowned collector of obscure artifacts. There was no coincidental discovery by a descendant in his grandmother’s attic. The photograph was among the records of a recently deceased antique trader who was unfortunately on the wrong side of Agatha’s client, Dutch representative of the council.

  She was well aware that she was working indirectly for the very board of high-level members of the Black Sun organization, who stepped in when there were management issues within the order. They also knew who she was related to, but for some reason there was a neutral approach from both parties. Agatha Purdue dissociated herself and her career from her brother and assured the council that they were in no way affiliated, apart from name, a most regrettable feature on her résumé.

  What they did not know, however, was that Agatha hired the very people they had pursued in Bruges to procure the item they sought. It was, in her small way, her gift to her brother to give him and his colleagues a headstart before Bloem’s people deciphered the passage and followed in their tracks to find what Wewelsburg held in its bowels. Other than that, she was only looking out for herself and she did that really well.

  Her driver turned the Audi RS5 into the parking area of the Piet Zwart Institute where she was to meet Mr. Bloem and his assistants.

  “Thank you,” she said morosely and passed the driver a few Euros for his trouble. His passenger looked sullen, though she was dressed impeccably as a professional archivist and expert advisor on the subject of rare books containing arcane information and historical ledgers in general. He drove off as Agatha entered the Willem de Kooning Academy, the city’s main art school, to meet with her client in the administrative building where her client kept an office. The tall librarian had her hair up in a stylish bun and strode down the wide corridor in a pencil-skirt suit and heels, the very antithesis of the bland recluse she really was.