He and Nina climbed out onto the gravel while Purdue tossed the keys to his driver and instructed him to come back when called to take the guests home. The driver nodded and took off again, steering the 4x4 around one of the adjoining buildings and out of sight. Blomstein, the bodyguard, simply swung his car into place in the driveway and left it there. As he climbed out Sam and Nina could see what Purdue had meant about Blomstein's presence making people feel they had no choice but to do as Purdue wanted. He was a tall, stocky man with scornful eyes, and his nose and cheekbones had clearly been broken several times. His jacket flapped in the wind as he stepped out of the car, giving them a brief glimpse of the gun in the holster at his hip.
"This way!" Purdue called, showing Sam and Nina into an imposing hallway. Staircases swept up the walls on either side, supported by elegant white marble pillars. Thick red carpet lined the floors. "The tour would take far too long," said Purdue, "so you will have to come back for that. For now, let's go to the conservatory."
Both Sam and Nina had pictured a small glass structure when Purdue mentioned his conservatory, but their expectations were far too small. After cutting through several large rooms containing strange, oversized sculptures, lavish modern furnishings, and discreetly concealed technology, they arrived in Purdue's library. "It's up here," he said, sliding open a hidden door to reveal a spiral staircase. They followed him up.
Purdue's conservatory contained nothing but the tiniest of plants. A painstakingly cultivated collection of bonsai trees was lined up against the back wall. The rest of the room was given over to large, luxurious couches, all arranged to face the windows. Even for a cynic like Sam, the view was breathtaking. South Queensferry was completely obscured by the woods surrounding Wrichtishousis, and beyond that lay the vast expanse of the River Forth, inky black beneath the clear night sky. Beyond that, the hills of Fife, impossibly white with snow. All three stood quietly, looking out at the panorama. Their silence had the muffled quality that only a snowy night can provide.
It was Purdue who eventually broke the silence. "I am glad that you seem to enjoy the winter scene, Nina," he said. "You'll be seeing plenty of it in Antarctica."
"What?" Nina whirled around and stared at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Have you changed your mind? Do you not still want to go? I believe you did earlier today."
Nina stormed across the room and slammed her fists into a sofa cushion. "That bastard!" she snarled. "It was Matlock, wasn't it? I bet he just couldn't wait to tell anyone who would listen about my stupid application."
Purdue crossed calmly to a section of wall and pushed it to reveal a well-stocked drink cabinet. "Professor Matlock did mention your application to me," he said. "But I have other sources of information. Now let me guess… a whisky for you, Mr. Cleave? Lagavulin? And Nina, for you…"
"Whisky," she said, "straight. But if it wasn't Matlock who mentioned Antarctica to you, who was it?"
"The important thing is not where my information comes from, but the fact that I have it. You are seeking a lost Nazi ice station. I find these things fascinating. I have never been to Antarctica, and for a man such as me this is a most serious omission. I have done most things, you know. I've leaped out of planes, I have climbed mountains, and I have taken submarines to the deepest parts of the oceans. I have a place reserved on the first commercial spaceflight. I've designed nano-electronics and software that you both use daily, though you don't realize it. I have made myself extremely rich. And yet I have never been to Antarctica. So I would like to join your expedition." For the first time, Purdue began to look less like a mechanized heron and more like a human being. In fact, he was beginning to remind Sam of a toddler becoming overexcited.
"Mr. Purdue," Nina said softly, "I wish I could help, but there is no expedition. My application for funding was turned down. Besides, I wasn't in charge of it. It was being led by Jefferson Daniels and the lead academic was Fatima al-Fayed."
"I am aware of all this, Nina," Purdue replied, settling himself on one of the couches with his whisky. "And I know that you are a friend of Dr. al-Fayed. So I have a proposition for you. If you can persuade Dr. al-Fayed to allow you, me, and a few carefully selected companions to join the expedition, I will meet the cost of the whole thing."
Nina stared at him. "Have I had too much to drink?" she wondered aloud. "No, scratch that — I know I've had too much. You're seriously offering to pay for the expedition on the condition that you can bring a couple of people along?" Purdue nodded. "Well," said Nina, "I'll have to think this through. This really isn't a decision I can make after quite a lot of champagne. And I'll have to ask Fatima. I'm sure she'll appreciate the offer to pay, but I don't know how she'll feel about having a group of tourists in tow."
Purdue sipped his drink, a contented smile playing around his lips. "Oh, I'm quite sure that when she considers the sum involved she will find it in her heart to accommodate us." He turned to Sam, who was trying not to doze off on the comfortable couch. "And you, Mr. Cleave — will you join me?"
"What, in Antarctica?" Sam laughed. "I can just see me thriving there. I'd get eaten by a polar bear or a penguin or whichever it is that they have there."
"I promise that you won't be eaten by penguins," Purdue said solemnly, "and there are no polar bears. We will need someone to document our adventures, and I feel in my gut that you would be just the man to do it, Mr. Cleave."
Sam was quiet for a moment. He rolled his head back to look at his surroundings. I'm sitting in a billionaire's pad, watching snow fall on the Forth and talking about a wee trip to Antarctica, he thought. A trip with this fucking weird billionaire, Nina, and a marine biologist or virologist or horologist or whatever she is. How the fuck is this my life?
"What the hell," Sam said. "Yeah, I'll come."
Chapter 8
"Mr. Cleave?"
Sam felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder as the young woman shook him back to consciousness. He turned his head on the pillow, rubbed the matter from his eyes and squinted at her, trying to wake up enough to focus on her glossy blonde hair and sweet, regular features. He had caught a glimpse of her just as he had drifted off to sleep and cursed his brain for letting him think for a moment that it was Patricia.
"We're just starting our descent into Ushuaia, Mr. Cleave," she said softly. "Time to sit up and fasten your seatbelt."
"Thanks." As Sam spoke he noticed how dry his mouth was. "Could I have another whisky?"
"It's 7:00 am local time, Mr. Cleave," the stewardess pointed out, the merest hint of disapproval in her voice.
"That makes it 10:00 am Scottish time. Perfectly acceptable time for whisky in my culture."
The young woman nodded, confirmed his order and moved away. Somewhere behind him, Sam heard her waking Nina. He dragged himself into an upright position and fumbled with the seatbelt until it clunked into place around his waist. Beyond the window he could see a vast expanse of cloud tinted pink by the early morning sun. Objectively he knew that it was beautiful, but after more than twenty hours on the plane he had lost his ability to be impressed by clouds.
"Good morning, good morning!" Dave Purdue glided into the cabin, clearly firing on all cylinders. Sam wondered whether the man ever slept. "I hope you both slept well? Not long to go now! I'm sorry you won't get a chance to explore Ushuaia, but I've had a message to say that the others have all arrived safely and are waiting for us on the boat. We had best not keep them waiting."