“Renata! Where is she?” he shouted, holding the shaking and terrified Lizzy by the hair and pointing his weapon to her elbow. Now Maisy realized that they were referring to the ungrateful wench she was supposed to take care of until Mr. Purdue returned. Much as she loathed the conceited bitch, Maisy was being paid to protect her and keep her fed. She could not relinquish the asset to them, on order of her employer.
“Let me take you to her,” she offered sincerely, “but please, leave the cleaning girls be.”
“Tie them up and stash them in a closet. If they squeal, we’ll skewer them like Parisian whores,” the aggressive shooter grinned, locking eyes with Lizzy as warning.
“Let me just get Linda up off the ground. For God’s sake, you can’t let the child lie on the floor in the cold,” Maisy told the men with no fear in her voice.
They allowed her to get Linda to the chair next to the table. With her skilled hands moving swiftly they did not notice the cleaver Miss Maisy pulled from under the cake and slipped into her apron pocket. With a sigh, she rubbed her palms down her chest to clear them of crumbs and sticky icing and said, “Come.”
The men followed her through the vast dining room with all its antiques, entering the kitchen where they could still smell the freshly baked cake. But instead of leading them out to the guest house, she led them to the basement. The men did not suspect deception as a basement was normally the place for hostages and secrets to be kept. The place was dreadfully dark and smelled of sulfur.
“Isn’t there a light down here?” one of the men asked.
“Downstairs there is a switch. Not good for a coward like me who despises dark rooms, you know. Damned horror films will get you every time,” she ranted lightheartedly.
Halfway down the steps, Maisy suddenly dropped to sit down. The man following her closely tripped over her crouching body and took a brutal tumble down the stairs, while Maisy swiftly rotated her swing backward with the cleaver to strike the second man behind her. The thick heavy blade jammed itself into his knee, separating the patella from the shin while the first man’s bones cracked in the dark where he had landed, silencing him instantly.
As he roared in dire anguish, she felt a crippling punch in her face that immobilized her for a moment, dousing her consciousness. When the dark haze subsided Maisy saw the two men from the front door appear on the top landing. As her training dictated, even in her daze she took note of their communication.
“Renata is not down here, idiots! The pictures Cleave sent us show her in the guest house! That one — outside. Bring the housekeeper!”
Maisy knew she could take on three of them, had they not alleviated her of the cleaver. She could still hear the kneecapped intruder screeching in the background when they stepped out into the yard where the freezing rain drenched them.
“Codes. Punch in the codes. We know about the security specs, darling, so don’t even think of fucking with us,” a Russian accent barked at her.
“Have you come to free her? Do you work for her?” Maisy asked as she pressed the number sequence of the first pad.
“That is none of your business,” the Ukrainian from the front door replied in a less-than-sweet tone. Maisy turned, her eyes fluttering under the interference of the pouring water.
“It is very much my business,” she retorted. “I am in charge of her.”
“You really take your job seriously. That is admirable,” the friendly German from the front door patronized her. He pushed his hunting knife hard down on her collarbone. “Now open the fucking door.”
Maisy opened the first door. Three of them stepped into the area between the two doors with her. If she could get them in with Renata and close the door, she could lock them in with their quarry and contact Mr. Purdue for reinforcements.
“Open the next door,” the German ordered. He knew what she was planning and made sure she stepped in first so that she would not be able to lock them in. He gestured to the Ukrainian to get on point at the exterior door. Maisy opened the next door, hoping that Mirela would help her get rid of the intruders, but she did not know the extent of Mirela’s selfish power plays. Why would she help her captors fight off intruders, both factions holding no goodwill toward her? Mirela was standing upright against the wall behind the door, holding the heavy porcelain lid of the toilet. When she saw Maisy come through the door she could not help but smile. Her vengeance was small but sufficient for now. With all her strength Mirela brought the lid across and rammed it into Maisy’s face, breaking her nose and jaw in one sweep. The housekeeper’s body fell against the two men, but when Mirela tried to shut the door they were too fast and too strong.
While Maisy was on the floor she got hold of the communication device she used to send Purdue her reports and she typed in her message. She then slipped it into her bra and kept still while she heard the two brigade prowlers subdue and brutalize the captive. Maisy could not see what they were doing, but she heard Mirela’s muffled screams through the growling attackers. The housekeeper turned on her stomach to peek under the couch, but she could see nothing directly in front of her. All went silent, and then she heard the German order, “Blow up the guest house as soon as we are out of the radius. Set the explosives.”
Maisy was too weak to move, but she tried to crawl to the door anyway.
“Look, that one’s still alive,” the Ukrainian said. The other men muttered something in Russian, setting the detonators. The Ukrainian looked at Maisy and shook his head, “Don’t worry, darling. We won’t let you die a horrible fiery death.”
He smiled from behind his muzzle flare as the shot echoed in the heavy rain patter.
Chapter 42
The dark blue splendor of the Atlantic embraced the two divers as they gradually descended toward the reef-covered peaks of the submerged geographical anomaly Purdue found on his scanner. He ventured as deep as he could go safely and recorded the material by slipping some of the various sediments into small sample tubes. This way Purdue could determine which were indigenous sand deposits and which were of foreign materials, such as marble or bronze. Sediment consisting of minerals other than found in local marine compounds could be interpreted as possibly foreign, perhaps human-made.
From the deep obscurity of the distant ocean floor, Purdue thought he saw the threatening shadows of sharks. It startled him, but he could not warn Sam, who had his back turned to him a few meters away. Purdue hid behind the reef rise and waited, worried that his bubbles would betray his presence. Finally he dared to scrutinize the area, and to his relief found that the shadow was just a lone diver, filming the marine life on the reefs. From the shape of the diver’s body he could see it was a woman and for a moment he thought it could be Nina, but he was not about to swim over to her and make a fool of himself.
Purdue found more discolored material that could be of significance and collected as much as he could. He saw Sam heading in a completely different direction now, oblivious to Purdue’s position. Sam was supposed to shoot pictures and video of their dives so that they could assess the media once back on the yacht, but he was fast disappearing in the murk of the reef. Done collecting the first samples, Purdue followed Sam to see what he was up to. When Purdue came around a rather large cluster of black rock formations he found Sam entering a cavern under another of such clusters. Inside Sam appeared to video the walls and the floor of the submerged cave. Purdue sped up to catch up to him, certain they would soon run out of oxygen.