“Aye, I know, love,” Nina soothed him, “but you can avenge her by completing this mission and getting to the bottom of these bastards’ business, hey?”
Heidmann appreciated her sympathy. Of them all, Nina was the only one who gave a damn about his personal stake in this. But then again, how could she not? Of them all, she was the one most like him in that emotional state, knowing the pain of losing someone you love and not being allowed to grieve until the sorrow subsided. Having to just pick up and live again as if nothing ever happened while there was a gaping chasm in one’s chest.
“This way,” he whispered.
They followed him toward a hidden, smaller door under the stairs that led to the office. He clearly recalled passing through the unassuming entrance to the tomb of stone corpses and even remembered how the handle of the door had to be lifted before it could turn.
Don and Purdue remained just outside the entrance to make sure they were not discovered. The clatter of the metal sheets the structure was made of impaired their ability to hear the guards all the time. Every now and then, the sound of their voices would simmer through the roar of the coming rainstorm, but most of the time it was virtually impossible to keep track of their position.
Chapter 22
Behind Nina, the doorway grew smaller as she followed Heidmann into the sunken chamber. Beside her was Costa, holding his flat hand just behind her back in a gesture of protective care and also to make sure she did not lose her nerve and run back, which was what he feared most. Purdue made it clear that Nina had to complete her task as best she could because the entire expedition relied on the information gathered about Medusa and the strange collection of ancient effigies.
She looked at Costa with apprehension, but his handsome face and tender eyes quickly spurred her on. Nina felt safe with him; almost invincible.
“Nina, here is where I found ‘Son of Zyklon-B’, but unnamed at the time. Note these,” he whispered, pointing out the more dilapidated specimens just three rows behind the marked pieces, “are all named. Their clothing is still on them because the transformation only affects living tissue. Look, some of them have uniforms with name tags on them. Those we can identify.”
“Aye, that must be the older ones, not the World War II victims. Give me that torch, please,” Nina requested from Costa, who promptly crouched down beside her to study the faint markings on some and then proceeded to the military looking statues.
He ran his fingertips gently down the fabric of the statue’s pants, hardened by mold and age. “This is just less than a century old, yes. But what baffled me is this,” Costa whispered.
“What?” Heidmann asked with intrigue.
“These motifs on the collar are from the Second Century Movement in Greece, which is very odd for a German soldier to have. It is as if the two worlds fused somewhere,” the art professor noted.
Nina went from one to the other, all of them in different stances and expressions as if they were either caught off guard or they were trying to escape whatever confronted them. The effigies were not lined up as she expected, like the stone army in rows she imagined, but scattered and mixed up in age and era, making it exceedingly difficult for her to determine where the Nazi ones specifically would be.
“Over here, Nina,” Heidmann called in a whisper and motioned for her to come to the back near the one side wall. There stood in the corner what appeared to be an SS officer, his dusty uniform eaten by insects and tattered at the seams. His face looked unassuming as if he expected what was coming or maybe just did not care. The man had his fists clenched by his side as if he was standing attention and his sleeves were a tad too long, covering most of his hand just past the wrist.
“Look at him, so at peace. I mean, he almost looks proud,” she remarked as she studied him up close. “You guys look for more Nazi pieces, please?”
The two experts complied with her request, separating to cover more ground. In total, there were no more than 70 statues, again countering Nina’s expected army of hundreds. With morbid curiosity, she reached out to touch the soldier’s left hand, hoping that it would not affect her own skin. Between his contracted fingers and his palm, she felt something inconsistent with the texture of his hand. At first, Nina quickly recoiled at the alien sensation, but on closer inspection, she found that it was the remnants of paper sticking out on both sides of his fisted hand.
“What have we here?” she whispered in fascination.
A scuffling ensued near the door, and Don’s rasping voice warned, “They are coming in! Nina! James! Zorba! Can you hear me? The guards are coming! We’re taking shelter. Stay put!”
Costa gestured a thumbs up to Don as he and Purdue promptly disappeared from the doorway, closing it gently as not to be detected.
“Oh my God, I hope they don’t come in here,” Nina heard Heidmann panic.
“They won’t. They are here every night,” Costa argued, hoping to God he was right.
Nina quickly used her torch to obliterate the soldier’s hand with a loud crack to retrieve the paper.
“Nina! Jesus!” Heidmann grunted from his hiding place inside an old unused furnace nearby. Costa swooped down on Nina and grabbed her small body with ease in one movement to abduct her with him to his refuge. They rapidly scuttled into one of the large wooden crates used to ship the statues and Costa wrapped Nina up, using his body as a shell over hers.
The door cracked open violently, and several voices spoke softly, some orders uttered and some speculating. Footsteps spread out among the stone people, some passing right next to where Nina and Costa were concealed. The dust from their scuffling on the sandy concrete was overwhelming, and Costa had to pinch his nose not to sneeze. Nina was shivering with terror, knowing the dreadful fate she would suffer is they were discovered. In her mind, she already imagined what she would look like, standing in her own stone casing, a woeful tomb that would play testament to who she was for others to discover one day. Her dead eyes would be blind, staring out to the onlookers in some museum where she would be on display. The thought horrified her beyond reason. Instead, she spent the time absorbing Costa’s protective presence. She had to concede that being his prisoner was a deep pleasure she had denied given the situation, but now she had to use it to distract her from her other nightmarish thoughts.
Briefly, she wondered where Purdue was hiding, but soon the scent of Costa’s exotic skin bewitched her — an odor of shampoo and leather with a hint of musk. Her eyes closed inadvertently so that she could savor the sensation of his hands over her forearms and his powerful physique against her back and buttocks. Nina could not believe that amidst the tense anticipation of certain death upon discovery, she could be so aroused.
The boots stopped right in front of their crate and lingered. Both Costa and Nina held their breath, just waiting for that sudden violent exposure. Costa’s heart pounded hard against her back as his fingertips shifted nervously on her skin, his breath hardly stirring her hair as he held his breath as best he could.
In what sounded like Ukrainian or Russian, the guard by the crate said something.
‘Fuck, he sounds so close!’ she thought. ‘It is like he is right here with us. I wonder what he just said. Did he just tell the others that there is someone in the crate? Oh God, please don’t let that be what he said!’
Only the stormy gale that rattled the roof sheets of the structure made noise. There was dead silence otherwise, leaving Purdue’s entire team baffled and scared in their respective hiding places. Nobody had any idea what the guards were doing or saying. Had they been discovered? Were they being stalked, each hider by his own seeker? Nina tensed up and felt Costa’s arms pull her closer.