At once she knew why Purdue had them chasing the Spear of Destiny, why the brotherhood’s volumes on Norse mythology spoke of shapeless gods and why Atlanteans suffered the fate they did for having too much knowledge of the advanced civilization reputed to have brought the human race to Earth. The occult societies of the Third Reich sought the means to use religious relics to summon ancient and evil gods. Nina looked at Gretchen and tried to recall what she shared in the car on their way to Oban. All that talk of metaphysics and Nazi secrets now had a ludicrous logic to it all.
Would now be the worst time to bring that conversation up, Nina wondered as she watched her old friend pull up her nose at the atrocious item on the floor. Why did she want me to go to that lecture in the first place, if not to sway me to their views even just a little?
“Gretch,” she said, without thinking twice about it.
“Yah?” her friend said from the floor, still unable to peel her eyes from the strange words in the hideous book.
“That lecture in Edinburgh you invited me to, do the subjects covered in it pertain to… I don’t know… anything, maybe, that you can see here?” Nina asked, holding two of the bigger books to her chest. Gretchen spared not a moment before looking straight at Nina. She pinned her with her eyes while she stood up quickly. Nina shrugged, feeling a tad out of line for asking, for basically insinuating that Gretchen would be involved with the kind of things mentioned in the words they discovered here.
“What are you really asking, Nina?” she asked.
“Look, you wanted me to attend a lecture on metaphysics and listen to this bloke ranting on about hidden religions and the theory of old gods as we know it, justified enslavement of the human race, and all that… and here we have a book that happens to promote that very same philosophy. It just seems like more than a mere coincidence,” Nina explained in a light- as-possible manner.
“So I knew that these books were here in your new house? Seriously?” Gretchen retorted, her voice a little more harsh than normal conversation would dictate.
“Look, I’m not saying you knew this was here. That’s absurd. I’m just wondering why you get in touch with me now, of all times, and you happen to bring up this subject matter just when I move into a house with the same subjects obsessed over by the previous owner. It’s weird, Gretch. That’s all I’m saying,” Nina explained, and she was correct. Gretchen had to admit it was all too suspicious.
“I had attempted to get in touch with you many times before, darling, but you were nowhere to be found. Do you know what I had to go through to locate you this time? For the past few years you simply disappeared off the grid. Have you noticed?” Gretchen struck back and what she said was true — Nina had been missing from her regular life for more than three years, on and off, thanks to the constant threat of death from the Nazi creeps she kept running into.
“I’m sorry, Gretch. You know, the past few years have shaken me up so badly I have developed trust issues, even with myself. But this is just too weird, don’t you think?” Nina explained in a more timid tone.
“Not weird so much as alarming, and creepy,” Gretchen agreed, looking at the grotesque book again.
A powerful knock thundered against the door downstairs. Three knocks, and three more a moment later. The two women glared wide-eyed at each other, frozen.
“Expecting company?” Gretchen whispered.
Nina shook her head, “No. I hope to God it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses, ’cause I can’t take much more unexpected freakouts.”
Chapter 12
For the whole day after their first close call at the Roodt residence, Patrick Smith and Sam Cleave slept at Anneke Roebeeck’s house. They were utterly exhausted, not only from the night’s vigil, but from their stress levels reaching a new high after they were almost discovered on the premises they were ordered to investigate for a few days. If they had been found out by Roodt, the entire MI6 objective and subsequent operation would have been thwarted. They could not afford for that to happen, and now that Sam found out the mark was a high seat in the Black Sun organization, he was even more nervous about the mission he was assisting with. Another crack in Sam’s confidence was the new anxiety he felt regarding the identity of their mark and how Patrick, his best friend since the dawn of time, omitted this fact when he asked Sam to join him.
This placed some strain on their relationship, not a considerable amount, but things between Paddy and Sam felt a little tense for the first time since they met as young lads. When the alarm went off on Sam’s bedside table, announcing it was time to get ready for tonight’s stakeout. From what Patrick told him, he overheard that a member of the council was murdered in his house and that a meeting was being held at 11:00pm tonight. If Sam and Patrick could collect valuable intelligence from this gathering, it would be greatly beneficial to the information they would get for MI6. The location to the hidden meeting place where the management of the Black Sun convened was pivotal to the investigation.
“I’m not sure what to do about this,” Paddy told Sam as they sipped their coffees. Anneke had just come home from shopping and her kitchen smelled of fresh toast and percolated coffee. She stood by the stove, quickly making the two agents in her charge some omelets with grated cheese and black pepper.
“What?” Sam asked.
“Should we both follow Roodt to the meeting place or should one of us stay to watch the house while the other tails the car? If we split up, we’ll get more covered,” Paddy suggested. “Thank you, Anneke,” he said, receiving his delicious-looking dish.
“I’m sorry I am making you boys breakfast at night, but it is nutritious enough and not too heavy on the gut for the rest of the night,” she shrugged with a smile.
“Oh, no, it’s perfect, thank you,” Sam assured her, eyeing his friend’s food and eager to get his own. He looked at Paddy with some concern, “Have you dealt with these people before, Paddy? They are not to be trifled with, but I have a feeling you have been given plenty of information on them already, like, before you elected me your accomplice.”
Paddy knew that Sam was still pissed. He could hear by his friend’s tone that Sam did not buy that Paddy enlisted him purely for his journalistic skills. It was obvious that MI6 would never send in an agent without thoroughly apprising him about the target’s affiliations and the reasons for the pursuit. Sam knew Paddy had knowledge of the organization Roodt was involved with before he acquired his friend’s services. What bothered him most about it, and infuriated him, was that Paddy still insisted on Sam’s company after he was fully aware of the peril Sam would be in. It felt as if he did not care for Sam’s welfare.
“Sam, I know the level of danger these people represent, believe me. But if we are ever going to take them down, we will need to get close enough to their core,” Paddy explained in a professional manner.
It took Sam some getting used to seeing Paddy in this capacity, evoking thoughts in him about the lengths to which Patrick Smith would go for the service of his country, and if he would even push the boundaries of their friendship to attain what his position dictated.
“That is a very hot core you speak of, Agent Smith,” Anneke remarked from the stove, her back still turned to them. “I would dare place the people Roodt is involved with in my top five most dangerous organizations in the world, in recent history!”
“Nobody knows that better than me, Anneke,” Sam chipped in.
He was getting frustrated with his companions, who acted as if they knew more about the Black Sun and its cesspool of rotten gods because they read all the files and studied the information gathered by other agents. How could they not realize that he, Sam Cleave, had been through lifetimes of hell in the embrace of these demented Nazi devils? If anyone knew the organization and its doings, its core, it was he and Nina Gould. Now he was reduced to a mere photographer on a field trip courtesy of his best friend. It was demeaning.