“Strange how courage fills a man when he is holding a beer, don’t you reckon?” he asked Bruichladdich, who was stretching lazily on the lobby chair just outside the kitchen door. “I think I’ll give Paddy a call. What do you think?”
The large ginger cat gave him an indifferent look and leapt onto the protruding wall section next to the stairs. He slowly stole towards the other end of the mantle and laid down again — right in front of a picture of Nina, Sam, and Purdue after the ordeal they’d survived after searching for the Medusa Stone. Sam pursed his lips and nodded, “I thought you would say that. You should be a lawyer, Bruich. You are very persuasive.”
He picked up the phone, just as there was a knock at the door. The sudden rapping almost had him dropping his beer and he gave Bruich a glance in passing. “Did you know that was going to happen?” he asked under his breath as he peeked through the peephole. He looked at Bruich. “You were wrong. It’s not Paddy.”
“Mr. Cleave?” the man outside implored. “May I please have a word?”
Sam shook his head. He was not in the mood for visitors. Besides, he really enjoyed the solitude from strangers and demands. The man knocked again, but Sam placed his finger over his mouth, gesturing for his cat to keep quiet. In response, the feline just turned around and curled up to sleep.
“Mr. Cleave, my name is Liam Johnson. An associate of mine is related to Mr. Purdue’s butler, Charles, and I have some information that might be of interest to you,” the man explained. Inside Sam, a war waged between his comfort and his curiosity. Dressed in only a pair of jeans and socks, he was not in the mood to look decent, but he had to know what this Liam bloke had to say.
“Hang on,” Sam cried inadvertently. Well then, I suppose my curiosity got the better of me. With an anticipatory sigh, he opened the door. “Hello Liam.”
“Mr. Cleave, good to meet you,” the man smiled nervously. “May I please come in before someone sees me here?”
“Certainly, after I’ve seen some identification,” Sam replied. Two old ladies of the gossiping variety passed by his front gate, looking taken aback at the handsome, rugged journalist’s shirtless appearance as they nudged each other. He tried not to laugh, giving them a wink instead.
“That certainly made them move along faster,” Liam grinned as he watched them hasten, holding out his credentials to Sam for scrutiny. Surprised at the swiftness with which Liam produced his wallet, Sam could not help but be impressed.
“Inspector/Agent Liam Johnson, Sector 2, British Intelligence, and all that,” Sam murmured as he read the fine print, checking for the little authentication words Paddy had taught him to look for. “Alright, mate. Come in.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cleave,” Liam said as he stepped inside quickly, shivering as he shook slightly to rid the loose rain droplets that could not penetrate his pea coat. “Can I put my brolly on the floor?”
“No, I’ll take that,” Sam offered and hung it upside down over a special coat rack where it could drip down onto his rubber mat. “Want a beer?”
“Muchly thanks,” Liam replied happily.
“Really? Did not expect that,” Sam smiled as he picked up a can from his fridge.
“Why? I am half Irish, you know,” Liam jested. “I venture we could outdrink the Scots any day.”
“Challenge accepted, my friend,” Sam played along. He directed his guest to sit down on the two-seat couch he kept for visitors. Compared to the three-seater where Sam spent more nights than in his bed, the two-seater was a lot firmer and not so lived in as the other.
“Now, what are you here to tell me?”
Clearing his throat, Liam suddenly became quite earnest. Looking very concerned, he answered Sam with a softer tone of voice. “Your research came up on our radar, Mr. Cleave. Luckily I caught it right off the bat, because I have a keen reaction to movement.”
“No shit,” Sam mumbled as he took a hefty few swigs to dampen the worry he felt at being detected so easily. “I saw that when you stood on my doorstep. You are a man of keen observation and have swift response to it. Am I correct?”
“I am,” Liam replied. “That is why I instantly noticed that there was a security breach in the official records of one of our highest executives, Joe Carter, head of MI6.”
“And you are here to deliver an ultimatum for a fee lest you leak the perpetrator’s identity to the Secret Intelligence dogs, right?” Sam sighed. “I don’t have the means to pay off blackmailers, Mr. Johnson, and I do not like people who do not just come out and say what they want. What do you want from me to keep this under wraps, then?”
“You misunderstand, Sam,” Liam hissed firmly, his demeanor instantly revealing to Sam that he was not as mild mannered as he seemed. His green eyes flashed, ablaze with the vexation of being accused of such banal desires. “Which is the only reason I would let that insult slide. I am Catholic and we cannot prosecute those who insult us out of innocence and ignorance. You don’t know me, but I tell you now that I’m not here to shake you down. Jesus Christ, I’m above that!”
Sam kept to himself that Liam’s reaction literally frightened him, but after a moment, he realized that his assumption, fathomable as it was, was uncalled for before he’d allowed the man to properly state his business. “I apologize, Liam,” he told his guest. “You are right to be pissed at me.”
“I’m just so tired of people who assume things about me. I suppose it comes with the turf. But let us put that aside and I’ll tell you what is going on. Since Mr. Purdue’s rescue from that woman’s house, the high commission of British Intelligence has issued a clamp down on security measures. I think it came from Joe Carter,” he explained. “At first I could not figure what would make Carter respond in such a way to, if you pardon me, a common citizen who just happens to be wealthy. Now, I don’t work for the intelligence sector for nothing, Mr. Cleave. I see suspicious behavior a mile away and the way in which a powerful man like Carter responded to Mr. Purdue’s being alive and well struck a bit of a chord with me, you know?”
“I see what you mean. There are things I can unfortunately not disclose about the research I am doing here, Liam, but I can assure you that you are dead-on about that suspicious feeling you have.”
“Listen, Mr. Cleave, I am not here to squeeze information out of you, but if what you know, what you are not telling me, pertains to the integrity of the agency I work for, I need to know,” Liam urged. “Fuck Carter’s agenda, I’m after the truth.”
10
Cairo
Under the warm skies of Cairo there was a stirring of souls, not in the poetic sense, but in the sense of the devout feeling that something sinister was moving through the cosmos, preparing to burn the world like a hand holding a magnifying glass just at the right angle and distance to scorch mankind. But these sporadic collections of holy men and their faithful followers kept the odd shift in axial precession of their stargazers between themselves. Ancient bloodlines safely secured within secret societies had maintained their status amongst their own, preserving the ways of their forefathers.
At first, the people of Lebanon suffered the darkness of a sudden power failure, but as technicians were struggling to find the problem, the news broke from other cities in other countries that the electricity there had failed as well, creating chaos from Beirut to Mecca. It was not a day later when reports came in from Turkey, Iraq, and parts of Iran that inexplicable power outages were causing havoc. Now in Cairo and Alexandria parts of Egypt were darkening as well, rushing two men from the stargazer tribes to look for a source other than the grid of a power station.