Of course, a hefty fee offered by Dave Purdue did not hurt his sense of loyalty either and he thought it better to stay in the brigade’s good graces by not absconding. They were going to meet Otto Schmidt at the airstrip and get in touch with the brigade’s other commanders for further instruction.
Still, Purdue remained silent about his captive in Thurso, even when he received a new text, Muzzled the dog. It is rabid. Now that he had lost his sister and the Longinus, he was running out of trump cards to play when the opposing forces gathered on him and his friends.
“There he is!” Alexandr pointed at Otto when they arrived at Hannover Airport in Langenhagen. He was seated in a restaurant when Alexandr and Nina found him.
“Dr. Gould!” he exclaimed cheerily when he saw Nina. “Good to see you again.”
The German pilot was a very friendly man, and he was one of the men at the brigade who defended Nina and Sam when Bern accused them of having stolen the Longinus. With much difficulty they relayed the sad news to Otto and briefly filled him in about what had happened in the research facility.
“And there is no way you could have brought his body?” he finally asked.
“No, herr Schmidt,” Nina chipped in, “we had to get out before the weapon detonated. We still have no idea if it exploded. I suggest you refrain from sending more men in there to retrieve Bern’s body. It is far too dangerous.”
He heeded Nina’s warning, but promptly got in touch with his colleague, Bridges, to inform him of their status and the loss of the Longinus. Nina and Alexandr waited anxiously, hoping that Sam and Purdue would not run out of patience and join them before they had established a plan of action with Otto Schmidt’s assistance. Nina knew Purdue would offer to pay Schmidt for his trouble, but she reckoned it would be inappropriate after Purdue had admitted to stealing the Longinus in the first place. Alexandr and Nina made a pact to keep this fact to themselves, for now.
“All right, I have called in a status report. As fellow commander I am authorized to make any arrangements I see fit,” Otto told them when he returned from outside the building where he had placed the private call. “I will have you know that losing the Longinus and still not being closer to arresting Renata, is not sitting well with me… us. But as I trust you, and because you reported when you could have fled, I have decided to help you…”
“Oh, thank you!” Nina sighed in relief.
“BUT…” he continued, “I am not returning to Mönkh Saridag empty handed, so this is not getting you off the hook. Your friends, Alexandr, still have an hourglass rapidly losing sand. That has not changed. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Alexandr answered while Nina nodded gratefully.
“Now, tell me about your excursion you mentioned, Dr. Gould,” he told Nina, shifting in his seat to listen attentively.
“I have reason to believe I have discovered ancient scriptures as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls,” she started.
“Can I see them?” Otto asked.
“I would rather show them to you in a more… secluded location?” Nina smiled.
“Done. Where do we go?”
Less than thirty minutes later Otto’s Jet Ranger had four passengers — Purdue, Alexandr, Nina, and Sam — en route to Thurso. They would hold up at Purdue’s manor, the very same place Miss Maisy was attending to the guest of her nightmares without the knowledge of anyone other than Purdue and his so-called housekeeper. It would be the best place, Purdue suggested, because it had a makeshift laboratory in the basement where Nina could conduct radiocarbon tests on the scrolls she had found, scientifically dating the organic base of the parchment to check for authenticity.
For Otto there was the promise of taking back something from the discovery, although Purdue had been planning to rid himself of a very expensive and annoying asset sooner than later. All he wanted to do first was to see how Nina’s discovery panned out.
“So you think these are part of the Dead Sea Scrolls?” Sam asked her as she set up the machinery Purdue had made available to her, while Purdue, Alexandr, and Otto had elicited the help of a local physician to attend to their bullet wounds without asking too many questions.
Chapter 37
Miss Maisy entered the basement with a tray.
“Some tea and cookies?” she smiled at Nina and Sam.
“Thank you, Miss Maisy. And please, if you need help in the kitchen, I’m your man,” Sam offered with his trademark boyish charm. Nina scoffed and chuckled as she set up the scanner.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Cleave, but I’ll be fine on me own,” Maisy assured him, shooting Nina a look of playful terror that appeared on her face, recalling the kitchen catastrophes Sam brought on the last time he helped her make breakfast. Nina sank her face to giggle.
With hands gloved, Nina Gould handled the first papyrus scroll with immense tenderness.
“So you think these are the actual scrolls we always read about?” Sam asked.
“Aye,” Nina smiled, her face beaming with exhilaration, “and by my rusty Latin I know that these three in particular, are the elusive Atlantis Scrolls!”
“Atlantis, as in the sunken continent?” he asked, peeking over the machine to have a look at the ancient texts in a strange language, recorded in faded black ink.
“That is correct,” she replied, concentrating on setting the fragile parchment just right for the test.
“But you know most of it is speculation, even its existence, let alone its location,” Sam mentioned, leaning on the table to watch her skilled hands work.
“There have been too many coincidences, Sam. Several cultures containing the same doctrines, same legends, not to mention that countries reputed to have surrounded the continent of Atlantis have the same architecture and zoology,” she said. “Turn off that light there, please.”
He walked over to the switch off the main overhead light and draped the basement in low light from the two lamps on opposite sides of the room. Sam watched her work and could not help but feel unending admiration for her. Not only did she persist through all the hazards that Purdue and his affiliations put them through, but she still maintained her professionalism when conducting herself in her capacity as protector of all historical treasures. Never once did she think of fencing the relics she handled or of taking credit for discoveries she had made while risking her life to uncover the beauty of the unknown past.
He wondered what she was feeling when she looked at him now, still torn between loving him and thinking him some sort of traitor. The latter had not gone unnoticed. Sam had realized that Nina thought him as distrustful as Purdue, yet she was so close to both men that she could never really walk away.
“Sam,” her voice jolted him from his silent contemplation, “can you put this back in the leather roll, please? After you have put on gloves, that is!” He fiddled with the contents of her satchel and found a box of surgical gloves. He took a pair and snapped them on with great ceremony, grinning at her. She passed him a scroll. “Keep your cavity searches for when you go back home,” she smiled. Sam chuckled as he carefully fitted the scroll into a leather roll and tied it neatly inside.
“Do you suppose we’ll ever get to go home without watching our backs?” he asked on a more serious note.
“I hope so. You know, in hindsight I can’t believe my biggest threat once was Matlock and his sexist condescension at the university,” she shared the memory of her academic career under the pretentious attention whore who stole her every achievement as his own for the sake of publicity when she and Sam first met.