“Where did you work before the Professor burdened you with her insanity?” Sam asked, smiling. Healy laughed, but his anxiousness was obvious.
“I was a security consultant for years after I left the military. My father was a colonel. His father was an admiral, so they expected me to enroll just after school so that I could complete my studies through the force. But I enjoy this job much more, even with the madam’s moods and that pedantic nature of hers. Under it all she is really a sweet woman.”
Sam was impressed by how fond the butler was of the professor. Most of the nicest subordinates, as he learned through journalism, usually turned hostile given a moment of mock privacy to vent about their employers, but not Healy. There was an innate loyalty about the rigid butler who had now turned into a proper caitiff. Healy was downright edgy, clutching at the steering wheel as they turned from the riverside lanes into the parking lot of a very dilapidated looking shopping complex in a decent neighborhood.
“No wonder they sell booze other places don’t stock,” Sam remarked. “I don’t imagine the fuzz likes to bother here.”
“You are exactly correct, sir,” Healy agreed, looking around vigilantly. A clap of thunder had him shrugging, just about sinking into his seat. His eyes fluttered, but he recovered quickly. “Goddamn weather,” he mumbled as they parked in the back.
“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t park on that side. Twice now they smashed the wind shield and the second time they almost stole the vehicle,” he apologized.
“No worries, Healy. Let’s go get a yeast infection,” Sam smiled, tapping the lackluster butler on the shoulder as he got out.
Dodging the shower, Sam never saw the enormous body of the man who struck him down with a crowbar. The journalist hit the gravely tar with a splitting headache so severe that he could not manage to open his eyes. While he tried with all his strength to sit up and find his bearings, his brain switched off. Healy raced around the car to catch Sam before his skull hit the dark grey tarmac, but the man who towered over him simply looked out for any witnesses.
“Help me, Foster!” Healy told the giant with the crowbar. “I can’t believe you still wear that Christian memorabilia while you do what you do.”
“Even God needs killers, Healy. And even sinners deserve mercy,” Foster delivered his sermon to the annoyed butler.
“Where are you taking him?” Healy asked as Foster, who tossed aside the crowbar and picked up Sam’s limp body to hang him over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.
“That is not your concern, is it?” he told his old friend.
“It is very much!” Healy insisted. “My job is on the line for this.”
“Well, that was the same concern Albert Tägtgren had before Sam killed him, Healy. That poor man lost more than his job that day,” Foster empathized. “Go home and tell his girlfriend anything you need to. Your money has been transferred, old boy. Adieu!”
Healy stood in the rain, drenched. As the large SUV pulled away with Sam Cleave inside, he regretted agreeing to the subterfuge, but he direly needed that kind of money. He earned well enough under Lydia’s employ, but he was not about to give up a few thousand Euros for a stranger’s well-being. Still, he wondered exactly how far Foster was planning to take matters with the alleged murderer. It was a bit too hard to believe though, that Sam was a killer. Yes, he was a hardened investigative journalist in constant scraps with very dangerous organizations and deadly arms dealers, but he was not the kind who would kill.
Healy stood still while in conflict about Sam’s just deserts, not even flinching under the shattering thunder that threw bolts of lightning in his direction.
“Maybe I deserve to be struck, Mum,” he said under his breath. The ex-SAS man still struggled to see Sam Cleave as a murderer, but he also knew Christian Foster to be a man with an impeccable moral compass, one not to judge easily, nor harshly. If Christian was pursuing Sam for killing someone there was hardly any reason to doubt him. Never had Healy ever been this torn with a decision he thought he made perhaps too hastily.
The thunder shook the windows of the liquor store where Sam was anxious to pick up his beer. It was open. Healy went inside to purchase it anyway, although he thought it was in poor taste to do so. While the weather grew worse Healy sat in the car, opening the container of brew. It felt nauseating and therapeutic at the same time to swallow away that first bitter mouthful to ease his guilt. One after the other Healy drank beer after beer in a miserable attempt at taming the cancerous remorse that infected his heart.
“I’m so sorry, Sam. I had to. I had to,” he slurred after the fourth he tried to drown himself in. There had to be something he could do to purge him of this unfortunate position, because he had no idea how to explain his treachery to Lydia or Nina once he returned home.
Chapter 25
As the 2nd Panzer Division — Das Reich moved along through the countryside of Southern France, Purdue found himself in the leading Tiger S33 in the company of Sturmbannführer Diekmann and his men.
The metal monsters tanked along the low hills, over the tall grass, decimating the smaller trees and brushed in their way. Under the sunny morning sky the convoy of the Waffen-SS roared slowly through the Haute-Vienne region. The night before was catastrophic for one of the commanders of the regiment, the very cause for the urgent advance toward Oradour-sur-Glane this day. Led by the blood thirsty commander of the ‘Der Führer’ unit the war machines slithered to the sleepy little village where Purdue told them their commander was being held captive.
“I am not going to lie to you, Herr Purdue,” Diekmann told his new advisor, “I am not at all thrilled to bring you with me to the front. I do not trust you and I aim to kill you the moment you even smell of deceit.”
Purdue expected this hostility, but he hoped that Diekmann would have changed his mind by now. “I understand, Sturmbannführer. I really do. But I assure you that I am not here to mar your duties and I will stay out of your way until you have accomplished your goal.”
“Good. I have no time to play nursemaid to some Allied traitor who cannot decide which side he is on. There is little as evident of cowardice as a man who defends nothing for fear of severing unfruitful alliances,” Sturmbannführer Diekmann clarified. “Now, I need to know where the French Resistance is keeping Sturmbannführer Kämpfe. You had better pray that we find him alive in the hands of your faction, or you will suffer a fate worse than death.”
“I assure you, on my honor, that I am not affiliated with the French Resistance,” Purdue maintained. “I have this information because I have a special gift for foreseeing the immediate future.”
“That is well to say, but you are wasting that rubbish on a man who believes in science and logic and reason. There is no such thing as psychic ability and energy manipulation by means of thought!” he exclaimed.
“Yet your Führer has unquestionable faith in such a possibility,” Purdue retorted mildly.
“Look, for what I think is that the Führer has been advised on many subjects by many people. Unfortunately the demonesses of the Vril Society have made full use of this sorcery to influence the already fertile admiration that our esteemed leader has for the occult and things like psychic power. That does not mean that we all blindly fall for those claims… and that includes yours.”
“But how do you explain that I knew this about your colleague, Sturmbannführer Kämpfe?” Purdue asked, while the crew in the hull listened without saying a word between them.