“When I heard that you, Mr. Purdue, had assisted that Spanish police chief to find that child…” she paused, looking more emotional than before. “When I heard that you had led an expedition to recover those missing Nazi soldiers’ bodies from the ocean floor of the Alboran Sea, I knew that you had made the same mistake my husband did. You mistook two separate omens for one.”
“So, the Nazi remains and the relics recovered from that ship,” Sam deduced, taking care not to specify the relics he had kept off record, “had nothing to do with the fruition of the Inca prophecy of the 2017 solar eclipse?”
She shook her head.
“They had similar fields of command, High Command, if you catch my drift,” she continued, “but these ships were on different missions until they would meet in Argentina. From there, they would each embark on their own missions. One ship would be dispatched to fulfill the Inca prophecy with the child sacrifice to open El Dorado, while the other one would sail elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere? Where to?” Purdue chipped in.
She shrugged. “How should I know? My husband was the linguist and historian, not me. All I am telling you here are things he told me as matters transpired in his own work, based on the unmarked twin ships of the Kriegsmarine-Zwei — that is what he called it. I don’t know what that is so do not ask me,” she told the two astonished men. “Mind if I smoke?” she asked suddenly.
“No, it is your house,” Purdue smiled, scoffing amicably at her courtesy.
“Would you mind terribly if I joined you?” Sam asked her. “After all this I could do with a fag.”
“Certainly, care for a cigarillo?” she asked, holding out an immaculate looking cigar container that looked like an antique in its own right.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Sam smiled. He placed his handheld on the desk, slanting it at such an angle that Mrs. Williams’ face was perfectly framed by the lens. Purdue’s sense of propriety prevented him from slamming his hand on the desk and demanding she tell them more. While the widow Williams and Sam Cleave had a social puffing break, he was dying to know more.
“You see,” she continued through her impaired drags, “that location, those names of the covert operations? That exact information is hidden in what I suppose you got your hands on, Mr. Purdue, and can only be interpreted by means of the correct cipher.” Mrs. Williams took her time to smoke the small, brown cigarillo, while her memory and emotion ran with her to a time when her beloved husband was still alive and well.
“All I know is that my Kenneth was killed shortly after returning from the Southern Hemisphere, where he was trying to uncover the second operation that the Nazi’s were executing before the ships went under. When he left here, he told me that he could not tell me much, for fear that it would put me in danger, you see,” she explained.
“That is understandable,” Sam concurred. “I used to cut communications with my late fiancé when I went undercover to infiltrate dangerous corporations.”
“Precisely,” she said, pointing her cigarillo-pinching index finger at Sam.
Purdue still had questions. “Do you know where he went to do his research down there?”
“An old farm he bought in the late 1970’s. It was a worthless piece of ground, but he thought it would be a good place to conduct his clandestine investigations of documents by deciphering the codes of the SS.” She chuckled sweetly and added, “He said he liked it because it was abandoned, solitary and strategically placed. Oh, Kenneth, my eccentric.”
“Does the farm now belong to you, Mrs. Williams?” Sam asked.
She yelped in amusement. “God no! Ha! Kenneth knew I would never travel there, so he left it to a nephew or something in his will. If you ask me, he deserves the place. He’s had a hard life, you know?”
Sam and Purdue could not believe the treasure trove of information they were obtaining from Mrs. Williams. Between them, they were so excited they could burst. Finally, Sam asked her what he knew Purdue was aching to ask.
“And this nephew… do you have a name for us?” he asked the lady.
“Of course,” she smiled through a billow of smoke. “His name is Lewis Harding.”
22 Operation Eden
After leaving Mrs. Williams in the care of her scary gardener and a reference to one of Purdue’s private security contacts, Sam and Purdue hurried back to Wrichtishousis. It was getting dark soon, and Sam still had to set up his gear for the next morning’s meeting with the Australian Wildlife people to interview Miss Palumbo before cutting and presenting them with the minor documentary about the lawsuit and what Wildlife was planning to do once the court dates have been set.
“And this material, Sam, has to be copied and distributed to several covert media servers,” Purdue reminded his colleague. “If anything happens to us, God forbid, I don’t want them to be able to destroy the truth. There will be too many clips to locate before my automated e-mail network sends it out to the major channels.”
“Good idea,” Sam agreed. “I will first leave this footage with you, personally, while I finish the assignment your Australian friends hired me for.”
“It feels rather strange to know my ally is working for my opponents, even for a minor slot on an insignificant TV station down under,” Purdue admitted.
“Aw, don’t fret, Purdue. It is good to have a double agent at your service, don’t you think?” Sam smiled. “Especially with the level of shit you always end up in.”
“I suppose. It just shows how much I trust you,” Purdue said. “Good to know you won’t pull a Judas on me.”
“Judas was a cheap hooker. I am a high-class whore. Only the richest can afford me,” Sam jested, nudging at Purdue with his elbow.
“I’m not so sure, my friend,” Purdue laughed. “In my eyes, a whore is a whore. On that note, how uncanny did you find Miss Palumbo’s resemblance to that Maria character from our last close call?”
“You noticed that too?” Sam asked. “When I saw her at first, I thought I was suffering some sort of post trauma that made me see her in other women.”
“No, no, she is a dead ringer for her. It is actually very interesting. I wonder if they have any remote familial relation,” Purdue said.
Sam looked at him as if he was crazy. “Are you mad? Focus, Purdue. Jesus, don’t you have enough on your plate to deal with now than to go on a genealogical hunt for Palumbo’s heritage?”
“I was not going to lodge a large scale investigation into it, Sam” Purdue defended. “I just think it would do us good to know who exactly we are dealing with here. Have you noticed how the worst ambush always comes from enemies who know each other?”
“I get it,” Sam replied. “I’m just saying we should get this lawsuit business out of the way first, and secondly, we have to find out why the Black Sun is trying to destroy what we are uncovering here.”
“And we will,” Purdue assured Sam. “Let’s hope she is not related to that Nazi heifer in some way. My God, they are practically identical twins.”
“Of which one is Australian,” Sam remarked as they reached the gates of Wrichtishousis.
“They both have Italian names, they have the same face, and coincidentally she happens to be on the opposite side of my camp, Sam, antagonizing me. It is a little too close for comfort,” Purdue explained. Sam was silent while he stopped for security to check.
“Mr. Purdue,” the guard said attentively. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you,” Purdue answered. “I trust you lot are not turning away people at my gate without calling in to the house first?”
“No, sir, we send nobody away. Our training specifically dictates that we follow that protocol. That guard was definitely not one of ours,” the guard defended his company, while the other one, standing on Sam’s side of the vehicle, nodded in agreement.