The Atlantis Scrolls (Order of the Black Sun Book 7) Page 16

  Chapter 27

  Purdue arranged hotel rooms for each of them.

  It was odd that he did not share a room with Sam, as he usually did, since Nina had locked him out of all privileges with her. Sam figured he wanted to be alone, but the question was why. Since they left the house in Cologne, Purdue had been acting more seriously and Sam did not think Agatha’s sudden departure had anything to do with it. Now he could not readily discuss this with Nina, because he did not want her to fret over something that could be nothing.

  Just after their late lunch, Sam removed his bandages. He refused to walk around in the castle wrapped like a mummy and be the global laughingstock of all foreigners who passed through the museum and surrounding buildings. Grateful that he had his sunglasses with him, he could at least hide the hideous state of his eyes. The whites around his irises were a dark pink and the inflammation had turned his eyelids maroon. All over his face the tiny cuts stood out in bright red, but Nina convinced him to let her apply some of her makeup over the scratches to make them less noticeable.

  There was just enough time to visit the castle and see if they could locate what Werner was referring to. Purdue did not like guessing, but this time he had no choice. They were going to the SS Generals Hall and from there they would determine what stood out, if anything peculiar struck them at all. It was the least they could do before their pursuers caught up with them, which was hopefully narrowed down to only the two Rammstein clones they had gotten rid of. Still, they were sent by someone and that someone would send more lackeys to take their place.

  When they entered the beautiful fortress with its triangular shape, Nina remembered the stone masonry that had been integrated so many times as the buildings were demolished, rebuilt, added on, and adorned with tower heads throughout the past since the ninth century onward. It remained one of the most prominent castles in Germany and she especially favored its history. The three of them went straight for the North Tower, hoping to find that Nina’s theory held credence.

  Sam could hardly see properly. His sight was altered so that he could see mostly the outlines of things, but other than that everything was still hazy. Nina hooked her arm into his and led him, making sure he did not take a tumble on the myriad steps in the structure.

  “Shall I take your camera, Sam?” Purdue asked. He was amused that the journalist with hardly any sight preferred to pretend that he could still take pictures of the interior.

  “If you wish. I can’t see a bloody thing. It’s pointless to even try,” Sam lamented.

  As they entered the Obergruppenführersaal, the SS Generals Hall, Nina cringed at the sight of the motif that was laid into the gray marble floor.

  “Wish I could spit on it without drawing attention,” Nina sneered.

  “On what?” Sam asked.

  “That fucking sigil I hate so much,” she replied as they crossed over the dark green sun wheel that depicted the symbol of the Order of the Black Sun.

  “Don’t spit, Nina,” Sam advised dryly. Purdue walked ahead, once again in a type of daydream state. He lifted Sam’s camera, concealing his spyglass between his hand and the photographic apparatus. With the spyglass set to IR function he scanned the walls for any objects hidden within. On thermal imaging mode he found nothing but temperature fluctuations in the continuity of the masonry when he checked heat signatures.

  While most of the visitors showed interest in the memorial to Wewelsburg of 1933–1945, situated in the former SS guardhouse at the castle forecourt, the three colleagues looked hard for something distinctive. What it was they did not know, but with Nina’s knowledge of especially the Nazi era of German history, she would be able to tell when something was out of place in what was to become the spiritual center of the SS.

  Beneath was the infamous vault, or gruft, a tomb-like structure sunken in the foundations of the tower to resemble Mycenaean-domed sepulchers. At first Nina thought that the curious drainage holes in the sunken circle below the dome’s swastika zenith could factor into the mystery, but she needed to go upward according to Werner’s writings.

  “I can’t help but think there is something in the dark down there,” she told Sam.

  “Look, let’s just go up to the highest elevation of the North Tower and look out from there. Whatever we are looking for is not inside the castle, but outside,” Sam speculated.

  “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  “Like Purdue said . . . semantics . . .” he shrugged.

  Purdue looked intrigued, “Do tell, my good man.”

  Sam’s eyes burned like hellfire between his lids, but he could not look at Purdue when he addressed him. With his chin dropped on his chest, sucking up the pain, he continued, “Everything in the last part refers to external things, like lightning and the rising prayers. In most theological depictions or old etchings, prayers are shown as smoke that rises up beyond walls. I really think we are looking for an outbuilding or an agricultural section, something outside the place where the gods threw the fire,” he elucidated.

  “Well, my devices could not distinguish any alien objects or anomalies inside the tower. I say we go with Sam’s theory. And we had better do it quickly, because the dark is nigh,” Purdue affirmed, giving Nina the camera.

  “Right, let’s go,” Nina agreed, slowly pulling at Sam’s arm so that he could move with her.

  “I’m not blind, you know?” he teased.

  “I know, but it’s a good excuse to hold you against me,” Nina smiled.

  There it is again! Sam thought. The smiles, the flirting, the affectionate help. What is her agenda? He began to wonder why she told him to let go, then, and why she told him that there was no future. But now was hardly the time for an interview concerning matters of no consequence in a life where every second could be his last.

  From the platform atop the North Tower, Nina set her gaze over the stretch of pristine beauty that surrounded Wewelsburg. Apart from the quaint and neat rows of residences along the streets and the different hues of green that surrounded the village, there was not much else that could bear any significance. Sam sat with his back against the top part of the exterior wall, so that his eyes would be spared the cold wind that haunted the crown of the bastion.

  Like Nina, Purdue could not see anything unusual.

  “I think we have reached the end of the path here, guys,” he finally admitted. “We really tried, but this might well be a charade of sorts to throw off those who do not know what Werner knew.”

  “Aye, I have to concur,” Nina said, looking at the valley below with no small measure of disappointment. “And I didn’t even want to do this. But now I feel like I failed.”

  “Oh, come now,” Sam played, “we all know you suck at self-pity, eh?”

  “Shut up, Sam,” she snapped, folding her arms across her chest so that he could not rely on her guidance. With a self-assured chuckle Sam stood up and forced himself to enjoy the view at least before they left. He didn’t sneak laboriously up here to leave without a panoramic view just because his eyes were sore.

  “We still have to find out who those assholes were that shot at us, Purdue. I bet they had something to do with that Rachel woman in Halkirk,” Nina urged.

  “Nina?” Sam called from behind them.

  “Come on, Nina. Help the poor man before he falls to his death,” Purdue snickered at her apparent indifference.

  “Nina!” Sam shouted.

  “Oh, Jesus, mind your blood pressure, Sam. I’m coming,” she growled and rolled her eyes at Purdue.

  “Nina! Look!” Sam kept on. He had his shades off, braving the agony of the whipping gust and sharp, late afternoon light in his aching eyes. She and Purdue flanked him as he stared out over the hinterland, repeatedly asking “Don’t you see that? Don’t you?”

  “No,” they both replied.

  Sam laughed maniacally and pointed with a steady hand that moved from right to left, closer to the castle walls as it stopped on the far left side. “How do you not s
ee that?”

  “See what?” Nina asked, slightly irritated by his insistence while she still could not see what he was pointing out. Purdue frowned and shrugged at her.

  “There is a series of lines all around this vicinity,” Sam said, catching his breath in astonishment. “They could be overgrown gradient lines or maybe old concrete cascades developed for elevation to build on, but they are clearly outlining a vast network of wide circular borders. Some end shortly outside the castle perimeter and others disappear as if they fell deeper under the grass.”

  “Hang on,” Purdue said. He adjusted the spyglass to be able to view through the superficial terrain of the area.

  “Your X-ray vision?” Sam asked, glimpsing at Purdue’s shape with damaged vision that made everything seem distorted and yellow. “Hey, quickly point it at Nina’s bosom!”

  Purdue laughed out loud and they both looked at the disgruntled historian’s pretty pouting.

  “Nothing either of you have not seen before, so stop fucking around now,” she teased confidently, evoking a bit of boyish grinning from both men. Not that they were surprised that Nina would just come out and make such normally awkward remarks. She had slept with both of them a few times, so she failed to see why it would be inappropriate.

  Purdue lifted the spyglass and started where Sam had begun his imaginary boundary. At first nothing seemed different, other than some underground sewer pipes adjacent to the first street past the border. Then he saw it.

  “Oh, my God!” he gasped. Then he started laughing like a prospector who just struck gold.

  “What! What!” Nina squealed in excitement. She ran up to Purdue and stood against him to sequester the device, but he knew better and held her at arm’s length while he surveyed the rest of the points at which the collection of subterranean edifices congregated and bent.

  “Look, Nina,” he finally said, “I could be mistaken, but it looks like underground structures right beneath us.”

  She grabbed the spyglass, delicately nonetheless, and put the scope to her eye. Like a faint hologram, everything under the ground exhibited a slight glimmer as the ultrasound permeating from the laser point produced a sonogram from otherwise invisible material. Nina’s eyes stretched in awe.

  “Well done, Mr. Cleave,” Purdue congratulated Sam for discovering the amazing network. “And with the naked eye, no less!”

  “Aye, good thing I got shot at and almost went blind, eh?” Sam laughed, slapping Purdue on the arm.

  “Sam, that’s not funny” Nina said from her vantage point, still combing the length and unchallenged width of what seemed like a leviathan necropolis lying dormant under Wewelsburg.

  “My handicap. Funny if I think so,” Sam retorted, now full of himself for saving the day.

  “Nina, can you see where they begin, farthest from the castle, of course. We’d have to make our way in from a point that is not guarded by security cameras,” Purdue asked.

  “Hang on,” she mumbled as she followed the only line that threaded through the entire network. “It stops under a cistern just on the inside of the first yard there. There must be a manhole we can climb down through.”

  “Good!” Purdue exclaimed. “That is where we will start spelunking. Let’s go get some shuteye so that we can get here before dawn. I have to know what Wewelsburg is keeping secret from the modern world.”

  Nina nodded in agreement, “And what makes it worth killing for.”

  Chapter 28

  Miss Maisy finished the elaborate dinner she had been preparing for the past two hours. It was part of her job at the manor to employ her qualification as a certified chef with every meal time. Now that the owner was absent, the house ran on skeleton staff, but she was still expected to do her full duties, as head housekeeper. It vexed Maisy no end, the behavior of the current occupant of the lower house, attached to the main residence, but she had to remain as professional as she could at all times. She hated having to serve the ungrateful witch temporarily residing there, although her employer made it clear that his guest would be staying indefinitely for now.

  The guest was a rude woman with more than enough confidence to fill a boat of kings and her eating habits were as uncommon and fussy as expected. A vegan at first, she refused to eat the veal or pie dishes Maisy painstakingly prepared, opting instead for green salad and tofu. In all her years the fifty-year-old cook had never encounter such a mundane and downright silly ingredient and she made no secret of her disapproval. To her dismay, the guest she was serving reported her so-called insubordination to her employer and Maisy was quickly reprimanded, although amicably, by the homeowner.

  When she finally versed herself in vegan cookery, the uncouth cow she cooked for had the audacity to inform her that vegan was no longer her desire, and that she wanted rare steak with her basmati rice. Maisy was furious for the unnecessary inconveniences of having to spend the house food budget on expensive vegan foods now wasted in storage because of the finicky consumer gone carnivore. Even the desserts were judged harshly, no matter how scrumptious. Maisy was one of Scotland’s foremost bakers and had even published three of her own cookbooks on desserts and preserves during her forties, therefore her guest’s dismissal of her best work had her mentally reaching for spice bottles containing more along the line of toxic substances.

  Her guest was an imposing woman, a friend of the homeowner according to what she was told, but she was given specific instruction not to let Miss Mirela leave her granted abode at any cost. Maisy was aware that the condescending wench was not there of her own choosing and that she was involved in a global political mystery, the ambiguity of which was imperative, lest the world fall into some sort of catastrophe last brought by the Second World War. The housekeeper tolerated the verbal abuse and juvenile cruelty of her guest only to serve her employer, but otherwise she would have already made quick work of the bratty woman in her charge.

  It had now been almost three months since she was brought to Thurso.

  Maisy was accustomed to not asking questions of her employer, because she adored him and he always had a good reason for whatever odd requests he threw at her. She had been working for Dave Purdue for most of her past two decades, serving in various capacities in three of his estates until she was charged with this responsibility. Every night, after collecting Miss Mirela’s dinner dishes and setting the security perimeters, Maisy was instructed to call her employer and leave a message that the dog had been fed.

  Not once did she ask why, nor was her interest piqued enough to do so. Almost robotic in her loyalties, Miss Maisy did only as she was told for the right price and Mr. Purdue paid very well.

  Her eyes shot up at the kitchen clock, wall mounted just above the back door that led to the guest house. It was only called a guest house in a cordial manner, for the sake of propriety. In truth it was no more than a five-star holding cell with almost all the amenities its occupant would enjoy if she were free. Of course no communication devices were allowed and the building was cleverly rigged with satellite and signal scramblers that would take weeks to penetrate with even the most complicated hardware and consummate hacking exploits.

  The other obstacle the guest was faced with was the physical constraints of the guest house.

  Unseen, the soundproof walls were lined with thermal imaging sensors that permanently monitored human body temperature signatures within to assure the immediate alert of any breach.

  On the exterior of the entire guest house, a basic mirror-based contraption employed an age-old sleight of hand used by illusionists in past eras, a remarkably simple and handy deception. It rendered the place invisible without intense scrutiny or a trained eye, not to mention the havoc it caused during thunderstorms. Much of the property was designed in such a way to divert unwanted attention and contain what needed to remain trapped.

  Just before 8 p.m., Maisy had packed the guest’s dinner for delivery.

  The night was chilly and the wind wayward as she passed under the tall pine trees
and vast rock garden ferns that stretched out over the path like the fingers of a giant. All about the property the evening lights illuminated the paths and plants like earthbound starlight and Maisy could see well where she was going. Punching in the first code of the exterior door, she entered and shut it behind her. Much like a submarine hatch, the guest house contained two passages; an exterior door and a secondary, to enter the actual interior of the building.

  When she entered the second, Maisy found the place deathly quiet.

  Normally the television was on, routed from the main house, and all the lamps that were switched on and off from the main house power board were out. An eerie dusk fell over the furniture and the rooms were mute with not even the movement of air on the fans.

  “Your dinner, madam,” Maisy called out plainly, as if there had been no deviation from the norm. She was wary of the strange circumstances, but hardly surprised.

  The guest had threatened her many times before and promised her a painful death, imminently, but part of the housekeeper’s manner was to let things roll off and ignoring idle threats coming from discontent brats like Miss Mirela.

  Of course Maisy had no idea that Mirela, her ill-mannered guest, had been the leader of one of the world’s most feared organizations for the past two decades and could do anything she promised her enemies. Maisy did not know that Mirela was Renata of the Order of the Black Sun, currently a hostage of Dave Purdue’s, to be used as a bargaining chip against the council when the time came. Purdue knew that hiding Renata from the council would buy him precious time to consummate a powerful alliance with the Brigade Apostate, enemies of the Black Sun. The council sought to depose her, but as long as she was missing, the Black Sun could not replace her and therein gestated his intentions.