“Positive,” she replied under her breath, grasping his arm tightly. “I saw her in Russia while I was nursing my nosebleed. Now she is here.”
“All right, but a lot of people fly between Moscow and London, Nina. It could be coincidence,” he explained.
She had to concede that he had a point. But how could she convince him that something about the odd-looking woman with the white hair and pale skin unsettled her? It would seem ludicrous to use someone’s unusual appearance as basis for accusation, especially to insinuate they are from a secret organization and was going to kill you for the old “knowing too much” reason.
Sam saw nobody and sat Nina down on the waiting area couch.
“Are you all right?” he asked, relieving her of the bags and placing his hands around her upper arms for comfort.
“Yes, yes, I’m okay. I am just a bit jumpy, I suppose,” she reasoned, but inside her she still distrusted the woman. However, while she had no grounds to be wary of her, Nina elected to play it evenly.
“No worries, lassie,” he winked. “Soon we’ll be home and we can take a day or two just to recuperate before we start looking for Purdue.”
“Purdue!” Nina gasped.
“Yes, we have to find him, remember?” Sam nodded.
“No, Purdue is standing behind you,” Nina remarked casually, her tone suddenly serene and stunned at the same time. Sam turned. Dave Purdue stood behind him in a posh windbreaker jacket with a large duffel bag in his hand. He smiled, “Fancy finding the two of you here.”
Sam and Nina were dumbstruck.
What were they to make of his presence here? Was he in league with the Black Sun? Was he on their side, or both of the above. As always, with Dave Purdue there was no certainty as to what his position was.
From behind him stepped the woman Nina had been hiding from. A thin, tall, ash blond with those same shifty eyes that Purdue had, and with the same crane-like lurch too, she stood quietly, surveying the situation. Nina was perplexed, having no idea if she should prepare to run or fight.
“Purdue!” Sam exclaimed. “You are alive and well, I see.”
“Aye, you know me; always come out of things all right,” Purdue winked, while he noticed Nina’s wild stare just past him. “Oh!” he said as he pulled the woman forward. “This is Agatha, my twin sister.”
“Thank God we are paternal twins,” she scoffed. Her dry humor did not hit Nina until a moment later, after her mind processed that the woman was not dangerous. And only then did the woman’s relation to Purdue also sink in.
“Ugh, I’m sorry. I’m exhausted,” Nina offered her half-assed excuse for gawking a tad too long.
“You sure are. That nosebleed was a nasty business, eh?” Agatha agreed.
“Good to meet you, Agatha. I’m Sam,” Sam smiled and took her hand, since she only lifted it slightly to shake. Her odd mannerisms were obvious, but Sam could tell it was harmless.
“Sam Cleave,” Agatha said plainly, cocking her head sideways. Either she was impressed or seemed to acutely memorize Sam’s face for future reference. She looked down at the petite historian with a wicked eagerness and rapped, “And you, Dr. Gould, are the one I’m after!”
Nina looked up at Sam, “See? I told you.”
Sam realized that this was the woman Nina had been referring to.
“So you were also in Russia?” Sam played dumb, but Purdue knew full well that the journalist was prying as to their less-than-coincidental meeting.
“Yes, looking for you, actually,” Agatha said. “But we’ll get to that once we get you into some proper clothing. Good God, that coat reeks.”
Nina was flabbergasted. The two women just looked at each other with blank expressions.
“Miss Purdue, I assume?” Sam asked, attempting to interrupt the tension.
“Yes, Agatha Purdue. I never married,” she replied.
“Not surprisingly,” Nina grunted with her head bowed, but Purdue heard her and chuckled to himself. He knew his sister took some getting used to and Nina was the least equipped to adapt to her eccentricity, for sure.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Gould. No insult was intended. You have to admit, the damned thing smells like the dead animal it is,” Agatha remarked nonchalantly. “But my not marrying was a choice, if you could believe such a thing.”
Now Sam chuckled with Purdue at Nina’s constant foul-ups brought on by that feisty nature.
“I didn’t mean…” she tried to make up for it, but Agatha ignored her and took her bag.
“Come, dear. I’m going to buy you some new threads just up the road. We’ll be back before our flight is due,” Agatha said, flinging the coat on Sam’s arm.
“You are not traveling by private plane?” Nina asked.
“No, we took separate flights to make sure we were not traced too easily. Call it well-cultivated paranoia,” Purdue smiled.
“Or knowledge of impending discovery?” Agatha slammed her brother’s evasive ways head-on again. “Come on, Dr. Gould. Off we go!”
Before Nina could protest, the queer woman was ushering her out of the office while the men gathered up the bags and Nina’s awful rawhide gift.
“Now that we don’t have the instability of estrogen to derail our conversation, why don’t you fill me in how it is that you and Nina are not with Alexandr,” Purdue asked as they walked to the nearest coffee shop and sat down for some hot beverages. “God, please tell me that nothing befell the crazy Russian!” Purdue pleaded with one hand on Sam’s arm.
“No, he is still alive,” Sam started, but Purdue could hear by his tone that there was more to the news. “The Brigade Apostate have him.”
“So you managed to convince them that you were on their side?” Purdue asked. “Good for you. But now you’re both here and Alexandr… is still with them. Sam, don’t tell me you escaped. You don’t want these men to think you are untrustworthy.”
“Why not? You don’t seem to come off worse for jumping from one to the other loyalty at the drop of a hat,” Sam chastised Purdue in no uncertain terms.
“Listen, Sam. I have to maintain my position to assure no harm comes to Nina. You know that,” Purdue explained.
“And what about me, Dave? Where do I fit in? You always drag me along with you.”
“No, I dragged you twice, by my count. The rest was just your own reputation as one of my party who had dunked you into the shit pit,” Purdue shrugged. He was right.
Most of the time it was just circumstances arising from Sam’s involvement with Trish’s attempt to oust the arms ring and his subsequent participation in Purdue’s excursion to Antarctica that led to his troubles. Only once after that had Purdue secured Sam’s services on Deep Sea One. Other than that it was just the fact that Sam Cleave was now firmly on the radar of the sinister organization that had not ceased its pursuit of him.
“I just want my life back,” Sam lamented as he stared into his cup of steaming Earl Grey.
“So do we all, but you have to realize that what we have gotten ourselves into now has to be dealt with first,” Purdue reminded him.
“On that note, where do we stand on the endangered species list of your friends?” Sam asked with genuine interest. He did not trust Purdue one bit more than he used to, but if he and Nina were in trouble, Purdue would have spirited them away by now to some remote place he owned where he would do away with them. Well, maybe not Nina, but certainly Sam. All he wanted to know was what Purdue had done with Renata, but he knew the industrious tycoon would never tell him, nor would he deem Sam important enough to reveal his plans.
“You are safe, for now, but this is far from over, I expect,” Purdue said. Coming from Dave Purdue, this morsel of information was generous.
At least Sam knew from a direct source that he did not have to look over his shoulder too much, obviously until the next fox horn sounded and he was back on the wrong end of the hunt.