He looked into the ugly face of a man who reminded him of some ugly boxer that one would find in bareknuckle fights in messy alleyways. “Are you Sam?” the oaf asked with a Scouse accent that affirmed Sam’s comparison a bit more.
“Aye,” Sam replied with attitude, reaching down to retrieve his smoke. His fingers were almost crushed under the man’s boot as he stomped down on the cigarette and twisted the ball of his foot in a half-circle.
“No smoking at Grange House, Sam,” the brute warned. Sam was not about to disagree with the ogre, the size of whom loosely measured up to the sudden shadow he had seen previously. It was interesting, thought Sam, how such a big man could move so swiftly.
“Whatever you say, pal,” Sam said, holding up his hands in mock surrender.
“Come. Mr. Purdue asked for you,” the big man requested. “He says bring your gear.”
“The HD or the feed system?” Sam asked. The man gave him an indifferent leer, one that carried a warning that promised a beating if this was to persist. “Alright, alright, I’ll bring the HD.” Sam quickly added, and proceeded to collect his HD handheld camera from the sling bag Purdue had asked him to carry along just in case. Turned out that being prepared for a story, even in the most unlikely scenario, paid off.
In the late afternoon, Sam followed the enormous man up to the main front door of Grange House. He noticed that the man was dressed in cargo pants and heavy-duty sneakers in black. Along with this, he wore a long sleeve T-shirt with the sleeves pressed up to his elbows, also all black. However, the man kept his gloves on, which mildly unsettled Sam. Many big ogres with this dress code used to grace the lens of his camera while he covered human trafficking cartels in Eastern Europe.
“So what is your name?” Sam asked cordially.
“Oleg,” the man answered. “Keep your camera off until you are told otherwise,” he said, giving the journalist a dirty look, “Sam.”
“It is off,” Sam assured him, but Oleg could not be more apathetic. In silence, he took Sam up the steps that ascended the great front façade. They ascended between twin rows of flowerpots that occupied each step up along the flanking walls that served as balustrades.
“Don’t touch the flowers,” Oleg told Sam with the same monotonous tone, as if he was programmed to recite each line. “Mrs. Williams cultivated them herself.”
“What is it, Wolfsbane?” Sam teased, a stunt he instantly regretted. Big Oleg stopped in his tracks and sighed heavily, his gaze fixed before him. His annoyance was evident, but Sam kept walking, hoping to make it to the front door before the troll could pummel him to ground bone. He tried the door, but to his horror, it was locked shut.
“Oh shit,” Sam murmured, still trying the brass knobs of the thick wooden doors.
“We don’t leave doors open anymore, Sam,” the ogre grunted right behind Sam. It gave him the creeps to know that, again, the big black clad man managed to move swiftly and silently up behind him before he even knew it. Oleg’s tobacco breath heated Sam’s hair as he explained, “Not since the business with Miss Amy. Mrs. Williams feel that the attempted murder on Miss Amy was proof that this property is not safe anymore, that someone is watching.”
“Oh, I see,” Sam said. “That is what you are here for, right, Oleg? You have been hired as a bodyguard.”
Surprisingly, the big oaf chuckled sheepishly. “No, no. I’m the gardener.”
‘What the fuck?’ Sam thought. ‘I’d hate to see the chamber maid.’
21 The Impromptu Interview
“Ah, Sam, please come in,” Purdue invited as Oleg opened the door for Sam. At the landing of the lobby staircase stood Purdue, towering over a petite older lady, even smaller in stature than Nina. “Sam Cleave, meet Mrs. Gloria Williams.”
Sam wiped his hair back to look a bit more decent before he gently shook the small lady’s hand. She was in her early 60s, by no means as old and decrepit as Sam had pictured her, and she sported short, gray hair which gave her an air of youthfulness. Like the interior of the mansion, she looked refined and wise and she moved. She spoke with sophistication that implied that she was not just the late academic’s wife, but also educated in her own right.
She led the two men into her small office off a greenhouse that filled half the length of that wing. Sam was in awe of the architecture and the antique restoration throughout the ground floor they traversed. Mrs. Williams addressed Sam directly, tearing his admiration from the carpentry detail to the matter at hand. “As you can understand, I feel immensely vulnerable of late, so I have asked Mr. Purdue to take note of what I tell you both today, just in case those demons get the better of us Williams’ women.”
Sam pressed ‘Record’ on his handheld, and they sat down in the well-lit office.
“Oh, don’t talk like that, Madam,” Purdue comforted her.
Her eyes suddenly turned to blazing coals as she scowled at Purdue. “And why shouldn’t I, David?” she hissed. “I have every reason to believe that the Black Sun is closing in on us. Look at what happened to my granddaughter. Look at what happened to the Spanish delegates who came to collect the remains of the German soldiers! It is not just about the book, David. That book is just one click on a safe dial. Just like being part of a combination lock, it is but one of several components needed to unlock one big secret held by the Order,” she preached with wide eyes full of fear. “And this time they are not trying to get at your treasures by infiltrating your expeditions, David. They are protecting a secret you accidentally discovered in the Mediterranean, and they are busy eradicating every trace of what could lead you to it.”
Purdue looked ashen. “What are you saying?”
She bit her lip, her eyes still fixed on Purdue. “I am saying that, if I were you, I would hire an army to watch Wrichtishousis as we speak.”
The thought of his own residence being under threat was not far-fetched, but still disturbing. Purdue knew that his call boxes were not the problem concerning the information about the cipher book coming out, but that did not change the fact that the source of the leak was still unsolved.
Sam, however, had the journalist’s edge. He had another angle on her statement. “Mrs. Williams, what are the other clicks in that combination lock?”
The tiny woman frowned. She had been so busy chastising Purdue about his reckless ways that Sam’s virtually whimsical question caught her completely off-guard.
“W-what?” she asked, trying to be less hostile toward the rugged handsome man with the puppy eyes.
“The cipher book is important to exposing this secret, correct?” he clarified. “And obviously the remains in the caskets were another factor, which is why they went to such lengths to destroy these calling cards, right? So, can you tell us what the other clicks in your combination lock theory would be?”
“Good one, Sam,” Purdue agreed. As Mrs. Williams had asked, he placed the dossier, containing the acceptance of liability he had Jane prepare for legal purposes, on her desk while Sam was interviewing her.
“I am not sure, Mr. Cleave,” she answered, “but my husband’s research on a particular campaign from the SS camp cost him his life. I firmly believe that his misinterpretation of the Inca prophecy was responsible for them exterminating him like some inconvenient house pest.”
“Misinterpretation of the Inca prophecy?” Sam asked. Purdue was leaning forward, immersed in the woman’s accounts.