The guard nodded, not to be distracted by small talk while doing his check of the occupants. Dark spots on his uniform were proof that his body, too, was drenched from the heat. He bent forward to look into the back of the car, looking right into Madalina’s eyes for a long pause. Like a small animal sized up by a predator, she did not move a muscle. Even her lungs bade her heart to wait as she held her breath.
Javier said nothing, but the soldier on his side was adamant that he should get some rest.
“Please don’t drive in this condition,” he told Javier in a mix of both languages. “You look terrible, if I may be so blunt. I honestly don’t want you to make an accident.”
“I’ll be okay. Just a bit under the weather,” Javier replied. “Been driving all night.”
The soldier waved them through. Javier wished that he could jump out and ask them for help. But he was transporting a fugitive, and it soon dawned on him that Dr. Sabian was so crafty that he would have no claims to lodge if he could. Sabian had not harmed anyone physically — which was apparently the only punishable offence — and he could not be accused or faulted by any judicial system while he was, in fact, kidnapping three people.
“Drive faster, Javier,” Dr. Sabian instructed smoothly. “Stalling will only use up your own time sooner.”
Helplessness and hopelessness overwhelmed Javier as they raced along the A6 past Borba. Madalina sat confounded, trying to figure out how the border guards had not bothered to inspect their papers, if they’d had any. The weird words of the psychologist reverberated in her recollection. Could Javier be onto something? It was outlandish. Still, she saw the effect of his words with her own two eyes. Was he really responsible for her actions that night? The initial impossibility had now become the probable fact and it scared her to death. How would she ever persuade any court of law that she’d been brainwashed into committing terrible crimes?
Her brother was looking grim. In the past few hours the heat seemed to have affected him negatively, even while he drank an entire bottle of water and was well into his second already, without relief.
Javier started to cough as they passed through the predominantly arid landscape outside Évora, where the heat wave was especially brutal to the ground surface and the atmosphere directly over it.
“I have to stop,” he told Dr. Sabian.
“No,” Dr. Sabian protested. “If you stop things will not fare well.” He gave Javier a look of warning, but the young man slammed on the brakes nonetheless and drove the car off the tarmac into the sandy brushes growing by the side of the road. Madalina gasped, holding Raul tightly to her bosom, as Javier flung the door open and fell out of the car.
It sounded as if he was vomiting, but there was nothing his body could purge. Clutching his chest, he cried out in pain through what was left of his throat. Only dry rattles came from him as he writhed in the hot sand, his hands and feet contracting into horrific spasms. Madalina rushed to her brother’s side, hysterical, and grabbed hold of him to get him off the scorching soil. His lips had turned to papery peels over protruding teeth and his tongue was nothing but a fleshy finger of bacteria.
“Sweet Jesus, Javier! No, no! What is happening? What can I do?” she screamed. “Water!” she said suddenly, almost calm. Mumbling to herself as she stumbled to the car, she grabbed the energy drink little Raul held out to her while Sabian just watched his work pay off. “You just… you just need more… more water,” she stammered as she took the bottle from Raul. “Gracias, darling.”
“Madalina, let him go,” Dr. Sabian said gravely. “He is suffering with every minute he draws breath. Do not let him carry on any further.”
She ignored her former therapist and held Javier’s convulsing body in her arms.
“He is having a heart attack,” Sabian said. “Fluids will not help him anymore, my dear.”
“Shut up!” she shrieked at him, her eyes wild with panic and abhorrence. “Just for once, shut your goddamn mouth, you fucking freak!”
She poured the energy drink all over her brother’s face as she attempted to fill his mouth with liquids, but his mouth was now nothing more than a stagnant well, suspended in a ghastly gasp. Madalina knew that her brother was dead, but she refused to accept it. In silence and reverence, she took off her necklace and placed it around his neck. Her tears fell like rain onto the dried out skin that was stretched over his cheeks. Madalina removed his watch and strapped it to her wrist. Then she took up a jagged rock in her hand.
“There was nothing wrong with him, you son of a whore!” she screeched in rage, lunging at Dr. Sabian with the stone aimed at his skull. “You said it! You told him he would not make it to Lisbon, you swine! I heard you! I was awake! I heard what you told my brother!” she screamed, but Sabian stopped her in her tracks.
With a word, he switched off her brain and she fell to the ground in a tuft of dust, lying motionless at his feet. He looked up at the child who was standing in astonishment. “You knew this had to happen,” he told Raul. “It is part of the prophecy Mara told you about, remember?”
“I know,” Raul replied, his little voice shivering in sorrow. “When the sun closes its eye, I must die too.”
27
The Black Disc
The ghastly grin of Purdue and Sam’s captor disappeared as he got to business. He ordered Isabella to pour the two gentlemen some Scotch as a final gesture of courtesy. Truth be told, no matter how Sam and Purdue wanted to play hardball, they both knew they direly needed a few tots of Scotch.
“I will make this quick,” the suave man said after clearing his throat. His hands came together in a spire as he spoke. “My name is Basil Barnard. This is not some James Bond movie, so I shall refrain dragging on the obligatory speech of why this is happening, who I am, and why I hate you. All you have to know is that I am not a patriot, and my grandfather was a great man who had a stake in the very reserve you have been prying into. And that makes it mine.”
“You could always just have secured the find by law, you know,” Purdue informed him. “Then it is yours by law and nobody would be allowed to interfere. Rather ungentlemanly to mow down scores of people who don’t even know who the bloody hell you are, just because you refuse to fork out permit costs and a bit of patience on turnaround.” Purdue paused before insulting the man properly. “Or, can we assume you cannot afford the finances involved for permits?”
Sam added salt to the wound after surveying the two women sitting opposite them at the table. “By the looks of his help, I would say he is not a wealthy man at all.”
Another backhand ripped through Sam’s face as Maria slapped him for it.
“Holy shee-it!” Sam exclaimed. “Are you hiding a cock under that coat, love?”
Maria was known for her powerful assaults in hand-to-hand combat, even if it was only a love tap like this. Stephen had learned that lesson in the airport elevator, and now Sam Cleave knew too. She smiled and lifted her hand.
“Maria!” Barnard cried. “Be a dear and get the ropes ready, will you?”
She nodded and went out to summon the men to prepare for the execution of the two Scottish intruders.
“Mr. Barnard, would your grandfather be the Allied traitor who helped the SS obtain stolen artifacts from Catholic thieves who stole it from the true owners in 1533?” Purdue asked with spiteful civility. But Barnard was cool and unprovoked. In fact, he did not even react with enough passion to make the insult worthwhile.