“Can we just sit down and talk this out?” Heri bellowed for all to hear. “Christ! You’re all throwing threats around, using accusations to make feeble points. Do you all even know what exactly you are bitching about?”
“I don’t trust him because of his affiliations,” Johild said. “That’s my problem with him.”
Sam turned and looked at her. “I’m not associated with Nazis or their sick propaganda, Johild! Do you want to know why I’m taking pictures of the World War II ruins?” he asked, walking back to her and keeping his body language calm, just in case her family thought that he was being hostile. He stepped through the men to face her. “Because I have a friend who is a historian and she would love some portraits of these Allied stations. I also have another friend who loves to travel and explore, and he has a hard-on for religious relics. That’s why I’m taking pictures of your land.”
Sam’s dark eyebrows pulled apart as his frown disappeared, letting the cool midday light into his deep brown eyes. His long wild hair was black against the pale gray sky behind him, alive with the help of the wind as he lurched over her, waiting for her next attack. But Johild was close enough to see him — really see him. She had never been this close to him, where she could smell his cologne. Johild said nothing. Her face fell into a restful acceptance.
Behind them Sam could hear Heri sighing in relief, but for a long while none of them said anything. Uncle Gunnar, however, had more questions for the Scotsman. He was not so easily taken by a handsome pair of eyes or Scottish pheromones.
“Sam Cleave,” he said loudly in the hum of the breeze, “how were you involved with the Black Sun? I remember those Kraut swine-fuckers like it was yesterday, and any man close enough to them to have his name mentioned at the same time, needs some investigation, you see? So, since we’re all asking straight questions and giving straight answers, how about it?”
“In short, it started when I was asked to cover and record an expedition to Antarctica a few years ago, to find the infamous Ice Station Wolfenstein, mentioned in several historical accounts,” Sam briefed the old man out of sheer courtesy. To be associated with the Order of the Black Sun was not something he enjoyed. He wanted to set the record straight, if only to a bunch of farmers and fishermen.
“We were all hired to assist the famous explorer and inventor, David Purdue, in locating the elusive Nazi station that most academics and historians insisted was just a conspiracy theorist’s fabrication,” he continued. “That was the first time we got involved in the dark side of German history. Although we were almost killed by men affiliated with the arms ring Trish and I exposed, we soon became visible on the radar of the Order of the Black Sun. Regrettably, we’ve had several run-ins with them while trying to uncover Nazi relics used for nefarious purposes to inflict terror and assert dominance on the current world as we know it.”
“So you’re not in cahoots with the Black Sun? Not that you would admit it if you were,” Gunnar asked.
“Unfortunately I’m very familiar with the organization, sir. But I’m not at all connected to them as an ally,” Sam assured him. “Now it’s my turn to ask questions.”
On looking like Gunnar was about to protest, Heri gave him a chastising, but light-hearted “Tsk, tsk, tsk” and the old man was forced to let his honor swallow his objection promptly. “Alright, Scotsman. What do you want to know?”
“It’s simple,” Sam shrugged. “Why are you so vehemently opposed to my presence here on these sites — the sites of my ancestors, the Brits? What are you so threatened by? It feels as if I might discover something you’re trying to hide.”
The foreigner’s assumption was categorically accurate to them all, but the others thought it best to let the subject of the interrogator’s attention do the honors. After all, as one of the elders of the island of Suðuroy, it was only fitting that he took the stage on explaining what they all knew they were protecting.
“I don’t know how to answer that, Scotsman,” Gunnar replied. And he was quite sincere. He had no idea how to formulate the truth without spilling the secret they were keeping. To them it had not been a secret, not until someone had come prying in the early fifties. Then again, in 1969 and 1985 more came under the same wicked banner, teaching them that outsiders obsessed with their World War II remnants were pests, carrying a sickness. And all islanders knew that pests had to be exterminated.
Chapter 12
Nina scrutinized the fountain, sinking to her haunches to read the inscription at the base of the centerpiece. It had been etched roughly into the old stone, but not by any professional scribe or mason. The words appeared to be scribbled by a childlike hand, making it all but illegible. With Nina’s deteriorated sight, the legacy of her radiation poisoning, it was virtually impossible to discern. Gently, she placed her fingertips against the letters and attempted to feel their characteristics to hopefully read the words.
“Shit, even if this was Braille, I could still not read it,” she mumbled as her fingers found the first four letters. Behind her, the figure drew nearer to watch her guess at the words. “A-O-U…” Nina squinted her eyes to feel and read simultaneously. Her sight favored the shade of the overhead branches and thick leaves that filtered out the pale sunlight that marked a mild day, but even so her focus was too blurry.
“That is a ‘Q’, my dear, not an ‘O’,” the familiar voice asserted, frightening the cute historian so that she fell ass-first into a thicket behind her.
“Oh my God! Mrs. Patterson, you have to stop scaring the hell out of me!” she panted, cringing at the wet cold of the loose mud on the seat of her pants that would no doubt provoke questions about her fiber intake.
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Gould,” the old woman apologized, trying not to laugh at the historian’s expense. “Let me help you out of that muddle.”
“Muddle?”
“Mud and puddle. I don’t know if there is such a word, but it seems quite appropriate, does it not?” Mrs. Patterson smiled as she pulled Nina up.
“You can’t keep startling me like this,” Nina gasped. “You’ll take years off my life.”
“I’m really sorry. Seems I have a soft tread after all. You know, I always wondered if my footsteps would become softer as I aged. Old people wane like spoiled fruit. Our cells diminish so that we become lighter and smaller. My goodness, I wonder how tiny you will be at my age?” she rambled as Nina picked up her coat.
She’d been carrying her coat over her forearm and it had fallen when she did, so she reckoned putting it on would hide the suspicious looking mud stain on her Micala-wide leg pants she’d paid a fortune for. Disgruntled by her ruined clothing, Nina tried to keep the conversation mundane.
“Fancy finding you here at this time of day,” she told the Dean’s mother.
“I don’t only lurk at night, delivering food to esteemed historians, you know,” Mrs. Patterson played with a very boastful manner. “Sometimes I emerge in the frail sun to visit gardens too.”
Nina laughed awkwardly. “That’s not what I meant. I just thought you’d taken a sabbatical from bossy academics for at least the next week.”
Mrs. Patterson’s brow darkened with the mention of Clara’s confrontation earlier. “Can you believe that insolent little cow? I mean, I’m the Dean’s mother and she talks to me like that! I tell you, Nina, if I were not such a refined lady I would have walloped the disrespect right off her bloody mouth.”
Nina was amused by the elderly lady’s pride. Mrs. Patterson’s feisty nature reminded her of her own. After locking horns with the unbearable Dr. Christa Smith in front of the Dean today, Nina was delighted to have realized that she had, in fact, not lost the trait she thought she had relinquished when she’d become ill.