The Fountain of Youth (Order of the Black Sun Book 15) Read online

  They both stared at Sam with straight faces, not amused. He threw up his open hands in a gesture of surrender. “Alright, so the Scandinavians have a different sense of humor. Noted.”

  “What are you looking for, Mr. Cleave?” Johild came right out. “Why are you really here? You said you were doing an exposé on the Grind, but then you start lurking around the historical sites, taking account of every single location.”

  “Johild, control yourself,” Heri reprimanded, stepping forward just enough to wedge in between the two.

  “No, Heri! I don’t trust this guy. Do you know who Sam Cleave is? Do you know what he usually gets involved with?” she fumed. “Espionage, subterfuge during sensitive political events, unearthing all kinds of Nazi catalysts and re-implementing their faculties for modern day warlords to use.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Sam shook his head as he stepped closer to her, forcing Heri to hold his breath and protectively put out his hands to both parties. “Where do you get this from, Johild? I’m no Nazi propagator, neither am I some bloody spy or whatever you think you know about me. If you have a problem with me, fine. But if you think I’m going to take your verbal abuse because of some fabricated ideas you have about me, think again!”

  “Fabricated? Your own woman lost her life because of your recklessness in busting an arms ring!” she retorted.

  “It was her story! I only went with her for…” he stopped, sobered and upset.

  “For what? For what, Sam?” she insisted, poking at the tragedy Sam was still haunted by.

  Heri looked in Sam’s eyes and gently pushed his cousin away from the journalist.

  “Protection,” Sam admitted. “I didn’t want her to investigate on her own, to go to the rendezvous point by herself. What happened was not because of my recklessness. She was about to get her big break.”

  “Enough,” Heri said. “Both of you. Enough. My God, why can’t we just talk this out? Play open cards, for fuck’s sake. If there is some miscommunication, badly reported reputation, whatever, we are grown people. Put it on the table and get this shit out of the way because it’s causing me way too much trouble.”

  With the commotion the three acquired some unexpected company. Johild’s father and two other men came over the mounds surrounding the bunkers. The old man exclaimed, “What the hell is going on here? Good God, we can hear you screaming at each other all the way from Sumba!”

  “It’s been sorted out, Uncle Gunnar,” Heri said, giving a look of warning at Johild. In turn, her light blue eyes pierced Sam’s dark pools where his furnace was still burning with anger.

  “Doesn’t smell like it’s sorted out,” the old man remarked as he approached. “What are you doing here, Scotsman?”

  “Just taking pictures of historical sites,” Sam replied. “Besides, I don’t have to report to any of you why I’m taking pictures while I’m on vacation, do I? I’m getting sick of this. Look, I get it that you are paranoid about journalists reporting on the whale issue, but for Christ’s sake, I’m taking pictures of British barracks and radio stations that I discovered while I was here. If you have something to hide, don’t make it my problem, please. Just leave me the hell alone.”

  Sam turned and walked in the direction of Heri’s 4x4, but old Gunnar was not done with him. “You! Scotsman! Don’t think you can just walk away without explaining! We will not let you leave, if you’re not careful.”

  Even Johild did not feel comfortable with that threat. She stood next to her cousin, worried for what her father was up to. “Papa,” she said softly, “don’t.”

  “Hold your tongue!” her father snapped at her. “You can rip him from the seams but nobody else can?”

  “Can we just sit down and talk this out?” Heri bellowed for all to hear. “Christ! You’re all throwing threats around, using accusations to make feeble points. Do you all even know what exactly you are bitching about?”

  “I don’t trust him because of his affiliations,” Johild said. “That’s my problem with him.”

  Sam turned and looked at her. “I’m not associated with Nazis or their sick propaganda, Johild! Do you want to know why I’m taking pictures of the World War II ruins?” he asked, walking back to her and keeping his body language calm, just in case her family thought that he was being hostile. He stepped through the men to face her. “Because I have a friend who is a historian and she would love some portraits of these Allied stations. I also have another friend who loves to travel and explore, and he has a hard-on for religious relics. That’s why I’m taking pictures of your land.”

  Sam’s dark eyebrows pulled apart as his frown disappeared, letting the cool midday light into his deep brown eyes. His long wild hair was black against the pale gray sky behind him, alive with the help of the wind as he lurched over her, waiting for her next attack. But Johild was close enough to see him – really see him. She had never been this close to him, where she could smell his cologne. Johild said nothing. Her face fell into a restful acceptance.

  Behind them Sam could hear Heri sighing in relief, but for a long while none of them said anything. Uncle Gunnar, however, had more questions for the Scotsman. He was not so easily taken by a handsome pair of eyes or Scottish pheromones.

  “Sam Cleave,” he said loudly in the hum of the breeze, “how were you involved with the Black Sun? I remember those Kraut swine-fuckers like it was yesterday, and any man close enough to them to have his name mentioned at the same time, needs some investigation, you see? So, since we’re all asking straight questions and giving straight answers, how about it?”

  “In short, it started when I was asked to cover and record an expedition to Antarctica a few years ago, to find the infamous Ice Station Wolfenstein, mentioned in several historical accounts,” Sam briefed the old man out of sheer courtesy. To be associated with the Order of the Black Sun was not something he enjoyed. He wanted to set the record straight, if only to a bunch of farmers and fishermen.

  “We were all hired to assist the famous explorer and inventor, David Purdue, in locating the elusive Nazi station that most academics and historians insisted was just a conspiracy theorist’s fabrication,” he continued. “That was the first time we got involved in the dark side of German history. Although we were almost killed by men affiliated with the arms ring Trish and I exposed, we soon became visible on the radar of the Order of the Black Sun. Regrettably, we’ve had several run-ins with them while trying to uncover Nazi relics used for nefarious purposes to inflict terror and assert dominance on the current world as we know it.”

  “So you’re not in cahoots with the Black Sun? Not that you would admit it if you were,” Gunnar asked.

  “Unfortunately I’m very familiar with the organization, sir. But I’m not at all connected to them as an ally,” Sam assured him. “Now it’s my turn to ask questions.”

  On looking like Gunnar was about to protest, Heri gave him a chastising, but light-hearted “Tsk, tsk, tsk” and the old man was forced to let his honor swallow his objection promptly. “Alright, Scotsman. What do you want to know?”

  “It’s simple,” Sam shrugged. “Why are you so vehemently opposed to my presence here on these sites – the sites of my ancestors, the Brits? What are you so threatened by? It feels as if I might discover something you’re trying to hide.”

  The foreigner’s assumption was categorically accurate to them all, but the others thought it best to let the subject of the interrogator’s attention do the honors. After all, as one of the elders of the island of Suðuroy, it was only fitting that he took the stage on explaining what they all knew they were protecting.

  “I don’t know how to answer that, Scotsman,” Gunnar replied. And he was quite sincere. He had no idea how to formulate the truth without spilling the secret they were keeping. To them it had not been a secret, not until someone had come prying in the early fifties. Then again, in 1969 and 1985 more came under the same wicked banner, teaching them that outsiders obsessed with their World War II remnants were
pests, carrying a sickness. And all islanders knew that pests had to be exterminated.

  Chapter 12

  Nina scrutinized the fountain, sinking to her haunches to read the inscription at the base of the centerpiece. It had been etched roughly into the old stone, but not by any professional scribe or mason. The words appeared to be scribbled by a childlike hand, making it all but illegible. With Nina’s deteriorated sight, the legacy of her radiation poisoning, it was virtually impossible to discern. Gently, she placed her fingertips against the letters and attempted to feel their characteristics to hopefully read the words.

  “Shit, even if this was Braille, I could still not read it,” she mumbled as her fingers found the first four letters. Behind her, the figure drew nearer to watch her guess at the words. “A-O-U…” Nina squinted her eyes to feel and read simultaneously. Her sight favored the shade of the overhead branches and thick leaves that filtered out the pale sunlight that marked a mild day, but even so her focus was too blurry.

  “That is a ‘Q’, my dear, not an ‘O’,” the familiar voice asserted, frightening the cute historian so that she fell ass-first into a thicket behind her.

  “Oh my God! Mrs. Patterson, you have to stop scaring the hell out of me!” she panted, cringing at the wet cold of the loose mud on the seat of her pants that would no doubt provoke questions about her fiber intake.

  “I’m so sorry, Dr. Gould,” the old woman apologized, trying not to laugh at the historian’s expense. “Let me help you out of that muddle.”

  “Muddle?”

  “Mud and puddle. I don’t know if there is such a word, but it seems quite appropriate, does it not?” Mrs. Patterson smiled as she pulled Nina up.

  “You can’t keep startling me like this,” Nina gasped. “You’ll take years off my life.”

  “I’m really sorry. Seems I have a soft tread after all. You know, I always wondered if my footsteps would become softer as I aged. Old people wane like spoiled fruit. Our cells diminish so that we become lighter and smaller. My goodness, I wonder how tiny you will be at my age?” she rambled as Nina picked up her coat.

  She’d been carrying her coat over her forearm and it had fallen when she did, so she reckoned putting it on would hide the suspicious looking mud stain on her Micala-wide leg pants she’d paid a fortune for. Disgruntled by her ruined clothing, Nina tried to keep the conversation mundane.

  “Fancy finding you here at this time of day,” she told the Dean’s mother.

  “I don’t only lurk at night, delivering food to esteemed historians, you know,” Mrs. Patterson played with a very boastful manner. “Sometimes I emerge in the frail sun to visit gardens too.”

  Nina laughed awkwardly. “That’s not what I meant. I just thought you’d taken a sabbatical from bossy academics for at least the next week.”

  Mrs. Patterson’s brow darkened with the mention of Clara’s confrontation earlier. “Can you believe that insolent little cow? I mean, I’m the Dean’s mother and she talks to me like that! I tell you, Nina, if I were not such a refined lady I would have walloped the disrespect right off her bloody mouth.”

  Nina was amused by the elderly lady’s pride. Mrs. Patterson’s feisty nature reminded her of her own. After locking horns with the unbearable Dr. Christa Smith in front of the Dean today, Nina was delighted to have realized that she had, in fact, not lost the trait she thought she had relinquished when she’d become ill.

  “Don’t let her get to you, Mrs. Patterson. Some women just have an illusion of who they are because of who they serve. Remember that,” Nina told her as they walked through the garden toward the cottages. Nina suddenly noticed a loose stone in the path in front of the old lady, but Mrs. Patterson was already right upon it, too late for Nina to pull her out of the way.

  “Ooh, Mrs. Patterson, watch out!” was all Nina could manage.

  To her amazement the old woman responded with lightning reflexes, quickly leaping to another stone on the side of the pathway and landing gracefully. “Good grief!” she exclaimed. “I could have broken my neck! Thank you for the warning. I’m going to have to let Humphreys know about that loose pebble and have him fix it before one of the students sue St. Vincent’s, hey?”

  Nina stood still, gaping in astonishment at her.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked Nina.

  Nina was flabbergasted. “How did you do that?”

  “Why, I jumped,” the amused old woman explained, quite aware that her abilities could stun, but enjoying the admiration nonetheless.

  “I know you jumped. I saw that,” Nina said. “But how did you pull off that move?”

  Mrs. Patterson smiled. “Och, I’ve always had great balance and coordination. Up until Daniel was conceived I’d been a national level gymnast. Competed in annual sports meets and even took part in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.”

  “That’s amazing!” Nina raved. “Did you get the gold?”

  “Nope. Was in second place until I broke my ankle in my final discipline,” Mrs. Patterson lamented.

  “That sucks,” Nina replied sympathetically. “But to be able to say you were there, that you competed…that in itself is a feat not to be sniffed at.”

  “Just like a real teacher would say,” Mrs. Patterson smiled sweetly at Nina. “I ended up working as an RN for most of my life, having a talent for the medical field that most people marveled at. Do you know how many days I wonder just what would have happened had I not sustained that stupid little injury?” Her face lit up for a moment at the thought of her triumph and then seemed to descend into a sad, bleak reminiscence. “Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder what could have been.”

  “I know the feeling, Mrs. Patterson. But you know, sometimes you think losing what you thought your future was is devastating, until you realize what came in its place is so much more brilliant.”

  “Spoken, again, like a true teacher,” the old woman said, smiling again.

  Nina smiled in return, but there was a hint of lost ambition in her face. Afraid that the old lady would inquire about the lost opportunities of Nina’s life, she quickly directed the conversation to an unanswered question she had.

  “Oh, incidentally, Mrs. Patterson,” she said with quick curiosity, “what does that inscription on the fountain say? I got ‘A’ and …‘Q’, you said?”

  “Yes, yes, that was a ‘Q’, my dear. The etching says ‘Aqua Vitae’ and it was carved into the stone when the fountain was just fashioned,” she explained. “I think it has always been here in Hook, even before the town was here. When I moved here with my late husband in 1980, Daniel was only six years old, God bless him. And even then, it was already here.”

  “So you don’t know who wrote that? ‘Aqua Vitae’ means ‘Water of Life,’ doesn’t it? Unless my Latin is off,” Nina said.

  “That’s correct. Whoever etched those words into the cement knew the secret of the underground river that ran under this town in the Middle Ages,” Mrs. Patterson said.

  “The Middle Ages? That far back?” Nina asked.

  Mrs. Patterson surveyed their surroundings before replying in a hushed tone, “That far back, my dear.”

  “How do you know that for sure?” Nina asked as they stepped up on her porch under the gathering clouds.

  “There was a historian here, just like you, teaching on invitation – on retainer, about twenty-five years ago,” the old lady told Nina, pushing her in through the front door to make sure that she could complete her tale inside Nina’s cottage. “His name was Cotswald, I think. But he uncovered the underground river and why the fountain was called the Fountain of Youth, so to speak.”

  Nina locked the door behind them as Hook grew darker from the coming rain. She put the kettle on and lit a cigarette after she showed her guest to her seat. The Dean’s mother continued as if she were relieving herself of a heavy psychological load to the ears of a therapist. Nina could tell that she’d been dying to tell someone about it.

  “He’d occupied the same office as you
are now, but back then it was a proper office and not an archive room, you see?”

  “So, he was also invited? He didn’t apply for the position of lecturer?” Nina asked, feeling the nicotine rush through her dying cells and not giving a damn.

  “He was,” Mrs. Patterson affirmed. “But his contract was cut short, I’m afraid. Naturally, after he discovered that the water in the fountain contained some sort of unexplainable elixir that stumped aging, he made the mistake of trying to claim the property by means of a lawsuit against St. Vincent’s. St. Vincent’s was then owned by my adoptive father, Professor Gregor Ebner. When my adoptive mother died, he buried himself in his academic career and expanded the programs here to branch out from historical studies to the sciences, giving a lot of students an opportunity to attend the college.” Mrs. Patterson smiled. “What a crazy old man! Apart from lacking a moustache, my father looked as scatter-brained and exceptional as Einstein…and he wasn’t far from being as smart, either.”

  Nina smiled at the joy Mrs. Patterson exuded while reminiscing about her father. She didn’t want to pry into the orphan’s family heritage or ask too many questions, fearing that she may overstep the line. “He sounds like he was an energetic man. I can see clearly that he raised the likes of you, Mrs. Patterson.” She gave the subject some time so as not to seem rude for rushing the old woman to spill the beans on the historian and the water table. Tactfully, she linked the two subjects to urge the story along. “So what did your father do about the lawsuit? I hope he sent the historian packing!”

  “Oh yes, I was telling you about that,” the elderly guest exclaimed, filling Nina with accomplishment. “He sued my father – some ancestral claim or something. I can’t readily remember, but my father won the case and the historian had to go back home with his tail between his legs. Serves him right, too!”

  “Good,” Nina agreed only to win favor. “What did he reckon? How could he prove that the fountain was that old, then? I mean, if it really dated from the Middle Ages, it should have suffered more ruin than that?”