“I would like to recover the item they stole from us first. Then take them back with us to Russia as hostages. They could supply us with a wealth of information about the Black Sun’s doings and inform us of all the institutions and members we do not yet know of,” Bern answered, tying Bloem up with straps from the medical chamber next door.
“How did you get here?” Nina asked.
“Plane. I have a pilot waiting in Hannover as we speak. Why?” he frowned.
“Well, we have not been able to locate that item you sent us to bring back to you,” she told Bern with some unease, “and I was wondering what you were doing here; how you found us.”
Bern shook his head, a mild smile playing on his mouth at the pretty woman’s deliberate tact in her questions. “I suppose there was some synchronicity involved here. You see, Alexandr and I followed the tracks of something that was stolen from the Brigade just after you and Sam left on your journey.”
He crouched next to her. Nina could tell he was suspicious about something, but his affection for her kept him from losing his calm demeanor.
“What bothers me is that at first we thought you and Sam had something to do with it. But Alexandr here convinced us otherwise and we believed him, yet in following the Longinus signal who should we find, but the very people we were assured had nothing to do with its theft,” he sneered.
Nina felt her heart jump with fear. Gone was the kindness Ludwig always had for her in his voice and his eyes looked on her with disdain. “Now you tell me, Dr. Gould, what am I supposed to think?”
“Ludwig, we had nothing to do with any theft!” she protested, watching her tone carefully.
“Captain Bern would be preferable, Dr. Gould,” he snapped instantly. “And please don’t try to make a fool out of me a second time.”
Nina looked over at Alexandr for support, but he had passed out. Sam shook his head, “She is not lying to you, captain. We definitely don’t have any involvement in this.”
“Then how is it that the Longinus happens to be here?” Bern roared at Sam. He stood up and faced Sam, his imposing stature in a threatening posture and his eyes like ice. “It led us straight to you!”
Purdue could take no more. He knew the truth and now, once again because of him, Sam and Nina were getting roasted, their lives threatened again. Stuttering through the pain, he lifted his hand to get Bern’s attention, “It was not Sam or Nina’s doing, captain. I don’t know how the Longinus led you here, because it is not here.”
“How do you know this?” Bern asked sternly.
“Because I was the one who stole it,” Purdue confessed.
“Oh, Jesus!” Nina exclaimed, throwing her head back in disbelief. “You cannot be serious.”
“Where is it?” Bern shouted, focused on Purdue like a vulture waiting on the death rattle.
“It is with my sister. But I don’t know where she is now. In truth, she stole it from me the day she parted ways with us in Cologne,” he added, shaking his head at the absurdity of it.
“Good God, Purdue! What else are you hiding?” Nina screeched.
“Told you so,” Sam told Nina evenly.
“Don’t, Sam! Just don’t!” she warned him, and got up from under Purdue. “You can help yourself out of this one, Purdue.”
Wesley came out of nowhere.
He planted a rusty bayonet deep in Bern’s belly. Nina screamed. Sam pulled her out of harm’s way as Wesley’s maniacal grimace looked Bern straight in the eye. He pulled the bloody steel out of the fleshy vacuum of Bern’s body and sank it back in a second time. Purdue moved away as fast as he could on one leg while Sam held Nina against him, her face buried in his chest.
But Bern was tougher than Wesley had measured him to be. He grabbed the young man by the throat and propelled them both into the bookshelves with a potent thrashing. With an enraged growl he snapped Wesley’s arm like a twig and the two engaged in a furious battle on the ground. The noise brought Bloem out of his stupor. His laughter filled the background of anguish and war between the two men on the floor. Nina, Sam, and Purdue frowned at his reaction, but he paid no attention to them. He simply laughed on, indifferent to his own fate.
Bern was losing his ability to breathe, his wounds gushing down his pants and boots. He could hear Nina crying, but there was no time to look on her beauty one last time — he had a kill to make.
With a crushing chop to Wesley’s neck he immobilized the young man’s nerves, stunning him to a momentary standstill, just long enough to snap his neck. Bern fell to his knees as he felt his life slipping away. Bloem’s annoying laughter drew his attention.
“Please kill him too,” Purdue said softly.
“You just killed my assistant, Wesley Bernard!” Bloem smiled. “He was raised by foster parents in the Black Sun, did you know, Ludwig? They were nice enough to let him keep some of his original last name — Bern.”
Bloem let loose a shriek of laughter that infuriated everyone within earshot, while Bern’s dying eyes drowned in confused tears.
“You just killed your own son, Daddy,” Bloem chuckled. The horror of it was too much for Nina.
“I’m so sorry, Ludwig!” she wailed and held his hand, but Bern had nothing left in him. His powerful body failed under his will to die and he blessed himself with Nina’s countenance before the light finally left his eyes.
“Aren’t you glad Wesley is dead, Mr. Purdue?” Bloem turned his poison toward Purdue. “You should be, after the unspeakable things he did to your sister before he snuffed the bitch!” he laughed.
Sam grabbed a lead bookend off the shelf behind them. He walked over to Bloem and brought the heavy object down on his skull without any hesitation or contrition. The bone cracked while Bloem was laughing, and a disturbing hiss escaped his mouth as his brain matter seeped out onto his shoulder.
Nina’s reddened eyes looked gratefully at Sam. In turn, Sam looked shaken at his own deed, but he could do nothing to excuse it. Purdue shifted uncomfortably, trying to give Nina a moment to mourn Bern. Swallowing his own loss, he finally said, “If the Longinus is in our midst, it would be a good idea to leave. Right now. The council will soon notice that their Dutch affiliates have not checked in and they’ll come looking for them.”
“That’s right,” Sam said, and they gathered what they could salvage of the old documents. “And not a moment too soon, because that dead turbine is one out of two sickly devices keeping the electricity going. The lights will soon extinguish and we’ll be fucked.”
Purdue thought quickly. Agatha had the Longinus. Wesley killed her. The brigade traced the Longinus here, he formulated his deduction. So the weapon must be on Wesley and the idiot had no idea he had it?
Having stolen and handled the coveted weapon Purdue knew what it looked like and more so, he knew how to transport it safely.
They revived Alexandr and took some plastic-wrapped bandages they could find from the medical cabinets. Regrettably the majority of surgical instruments were filthy and could not be used to mend Purdue and Alexandr’s wounds, but it was more important to first get out of Wewelsburg’s evil labyrinth.
Nina made sure that she gathered all the scrolls she could find, in case there were more priceless relics of the antique world to be saved. Although she was sick with disgust and sorrow she could not wait to study the esoteric treasures she had discovered in the hidden vault of Heinrich Himmler.
Chapter 36
By late night they had all made it out of Wewelsburg and were heading for the airstrip in Hannover. Alexandr elected to take the heat off his companions because they were so kind to include his unconscious self in their escape from the underground tunnels. He had woken just before they exited the gate Purdue had removed on their arrival, feeling Sam’s shoulders supporting his limp physique in the ill-lit caverns of World War II.