“Free her and get off the bloody train! Now!” Nina shouted at Kasper.
“I have to help Sam,” he protested, but the feisty historian grabbed his arm and shoved him toward Olga.
“If you two do not get off this train, all of this will have been for nothing, Dr. Jacobs!” Nina shrieked. Kasper knew she was right. There was no time to argue or think of alternatives. He untied his girlfriend while Wolf was folding Sam over with a solid knee to the gut. Nina tried to find something to knock him out with, but thankfully she was joined by Dima, the Bratva liaison. Knowing his way around close combat, Dima quickly put Wolf down, saving Sam another blow to the face.
Kasper carried the severely injured Olga out and looked back at Nina before stepping off the Valkyrie. The historian blew them a kiss and gestured for them to take off before she disappeared into the room once more. He had to get Olga to a hospital, asking passers by where the nearest medical facility was. They immediately assisted the injured couple, but in the distance, the delegation was returning.
Zelda Bessler had received the transmission Lilith Hurst had sent through before she was overwhelmed by the butler at Wrichtishousis, and the timer on the engine was set to go. Flashing red lights under the panel marked the engagement of a remote control device held by Clifton Tuft. She heard the group returning to board, and made her way to the back of the train to abandon the vessel. Hearing the commotion in Tuft’s room, she tried to pass, but Dima stopped her.
“You stay!” he shouted. “Get back to the control room and disengage!”
Zelda Bessler was momentarily stunned, but what the Bratva soldier did not know, was that she was armed, just like him. She opened fire on him, ripping his abdomen into ribbons of crimson flesh. Nina kept quiet as not to draw attention. Sam was out cold on the floor, and so was Wolf, but Bessler had a lift to catch and thought them dead.
Nina was trying to revive Sam. She was strong, but there was no way she could carry him out. To her dismay, she felt the train begin to move, the recorded announcement coming over the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back on the Valkyrie. Our next inspection will be at the city of Novosibirsk.”
31
Corrective Measures
After the police left the Wrichtishousis grounds with George Masters in a body bag ad Lilith Hurst in shackles, Purdue trudged through the dismal surroundings of his lobby and adjacent drawing room and dining room. He surveyed the damage to the place, by way of bullet holes in his rosewood wall panels and furniture. He glared at the bloodstains on his expensive Persian tapestries and carpets. The incinerated bar counter and ceiling damage was going to take a while to repair.
“Tea, sir?” Charles asked, but Purdue looked like hell on legs. Silently, Purdue soldiered on to his server room. “I would like some tea, thank you, Charles.” Purdue’s eye caught the figure of Lillian standing in the kitchen door, smiling at him. “Hey, Lily.”
“Hey, Mr. Purdue,” she beamed, happy to know that he was okay.
Purdue went into the dark seclusion of the warm, humming chamber, alive with electronics, where he felt most at home. He had examined the telltale signs of the deliberate sabotage of his wiring and shook his head. “And they wonder why I stay single.”
He decided to catch up on messages via his private servers, and was astonished to find dark and baleful news from Sam, even though it was a bit late. Purdue’s eyes ran across the words of George Masters, the information of Dr. Kasper Jacobs, along with the full interview Sam conducted with him about the clandestine plan to kill the delegates. Purdue remembered that Sam was heading to Belgium, but he had not heard from him since.
Charles brought in his tea. The aroma of Earl Grey in the hot odor of the computer fans was heaven to Purdue. “I cannot apologize enough, Charles,” he told the butler who saved his life. “I am ashamed at how easily I am influenced and how I acted, all for a goddamn woman.”
“And for the sexy long division weakness,” Charles jested in his dry way. Purdue had to laugh, while his body ached. “All is well, sir. As long as all ends well.”
“It will,” Purdue smiled, shaking Charles’ gloved hand. “Do you know when this came in or has Mr. Cleave called?”
“Unfortunately not, sir,” the butler replied.
“Dr. Gould?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Charles answered. “Not a word. Jane will be back tomorrow, if that helps.”
Purdue looked at his satellite communication device, his e-mail and his personal cell phone and found them all riddled with missed calls from Sam Cleave. When Charles left the room, Purdue was shaking. The amount of chaos brought on by his obsession with the Einstein Equation was reprehensible and he had to start cleaning house, so to speak.
On his desk was Lilith’s purse contents. He had handed over her already ransacked bag to the police. Among the technology she carried, he found her transmitter. When he saw that the completed equation had been sent through to Russia, Purdue’s heart stopped.
“Holy shit!” he gasped.
At once, Purdue jumped up. He took a quick swig of tea and rushed to another server that could accommodate signaling via satellite. His hands were shaking as he hastened. As soon as the link was established, Purdue started writing a code like a madman, triangulating the visible feed to trace the position of the receiver. At the same time, he traced the remote device controlling the object the equation was sent to.
“Wanna play war games?” he asked. “Let me remind you who you are up against.”
While Clifton Tuft and his lackeys were eagerly sipping martini’s and excitedly waited for the fruition of their lucrative disaster, their limousine was heading northeast toward Tomsk. Zelda had the transponder that controlled the locks and impact data of the Valkyrie.
“How is it going?” Tuft asked.
“Currently accelerating as planned. They should approach Mach 1 in about twenty minutes,” Zelda reported smugly. “Looks like Hurst did her job after all. Did Wolf take his own convoy?”
“No idea,” McFadden said. “I tried calling him but his cell phone is switched off. To tell you the truth, I am glad I do not have to deal with him anymore. You should have seen what he did to Dr. Gould. I almost, almost, felt sorry for her.”
“He did his part. He probably went home to fuck his spotter,” Tuft growled with perverse laughter. “I saw Jacobs on the train last night, by the way, fiddling with my room door.”
“Good, then he is taken care of as well,” Bessler grinned, happy to take his place as project manager.
Meanwhile, aboard the Valkyrie, Nina was desperately trying to wake Sam. She could feel the train accelerate every now and then. Her body did not lie, feeling the g-force effects of the speeding train. Outside in the corridor, she could hear the confused mumbling of the international delegation. They, too, felt the train’s thrust and with no galley or bar available, they were beginning to get suspicious of the American magnate and his associates.
“They are not here. I checked,” she heard the United States representative tell the others.
“Maybe they stay behind?” the Chinese delegate guessed.
“Why would they forget to board their own train?” someone else speculated. Somewhere in the neighboring carriage, someone started to vomit. Nina did not want to cause panic by clarifying the situation, but it would be better than allowing them all to speculate and run amok
Peeking out the door, Nina gestured for the head of the Atomic Energy Agency to approach her. She closed it behind her so that the man would not see the unconscious body of Wolf Kretchoff.