“We did,” Nina told the stranger, “but he left us behind on Osmussaar and we had to get to Finland or we would miss our flight.”
“I’m Marleen,” she told Nina. With a much calmer demeanor the woman gave Purdue her banking details and he transferred an amount to her that she looked very pleased with.
“Good?” he asked.
“Good,” she smiled.
They were now reaching the last quarter of the trip between Osmussaar and Hanko, a good three-hour trip, give or take, based on the weather.
“What is this?” Marleen asked Nina, the only person she seemed to trust of the three. It was a positive sign, because women would get more from each other without the constant war of the sexes getting in the way — and Nina knew this.
“I’m struggling. I have no idea what ‘hiid’ refers to, because the calculations are completely off,” Nina lamented, playing on Marleen’s pity. “Of course, the men have no idea.”
Marleen looked at the three clues.
“You are looking for what?” she asked.
“Just looking for what this means,” Nina played her charade down the middle. She did not let the men hear her, since she did not agree with Purdue about the abbreviation.
“Funny thing, about ‘hiid,’” Marleen smiled, looking a bit silly. “In my language it means ‘giant.’ The person that wrote this was Estonian?”
“He was Polish,” Nina smiled. “But he lived in Finland, so maybe he knew Estonian?”
“Very possible. And very possibly he meant ‘giant,’” Marleen said proudly. “An abbreviation would be in capitals, no?”
“Do you hear that fellas?” Nina smiled with a wink. “It means ‘giant.’”
“Well done, ladies!” Sam smiled, frowning amusedly at Purdue who just shrugged and chuckled.
Purdue and Sam were counting on Nina to explain her findings as soon as they were safely on Finnish soil in Hanko.
Chapter 26
“So, Nina, how is the new revelation making any more sense than the previous hypothesis?” Purdue asked her as they embarked on their two-hour journey by rental car from Hanko to Helsinki. “You know we have to have a place to go once we get to the capital, right?”
“Immediately?” Sam asked.
“No, we still have to book our tickets. I am booking us on a commercial airline, but not to worry, it will be first class,” he recovered quickly before they could complain. He could see by their faces that the thought of a commercial flight was a nightmare. “I don’t think we should be on the radar, especially now, after the bloody mess we left in our trail. And a private aircraft is not a cash deal, you see.”
“I see,” Sam agreed. “Good thinking. I have a bad feeling about the whole thing on Osmussaar.”
“Like?” Nina asked as she examined the map and the direction that led to nowhere.
“Can’t put my finger on it. It is disturbingly close to the night Trish and I ran into the wrong side of that arms ring. Hopefully I am wrong. Maybe I just feel bad for our poor skipper who lost his life because of our affiliations.”
“Aye, me too, Sam,” Nina replied with sorrow and regret in her voice.
“It is very unfortunate, but you know, we did not kill the man. It is not our fault that evil people followed us. Don’t let that get to you,” Purdue said.
“Fuck!” Nina whispered from the back seat. “I can’t bring the direction to any point that has anything to do with the other clues.”
“I see you are beginning to doubt the ‘giant’ connotation, then?” Purdue teased, looking at her beautiful frowning countenance in the rearview mirror.
“Well, it’s still better than Massachusetts, Dave,” she countered with a raised eyebrow. He kissed the air at her and Nina slapped his arm softly, so that she would not urge him to overturn the sedan.
“Okay, let’s see,” Sam said after clearing his throat. Sounding all official, the journalist utilized his professional skills at putting two and two together to help solve the problem. “What would the giant reference be pointing to? I mean, it is a strange coincidence that we get chased by giants while we are looking for Josef’s train…”
“Jesus! Of course! Oh, Sam,” she kissed the palm of her hand and gently slapped him across the left cheek, “you just said it. I suppose I had to hear it out loud to make sense of it.”
“Um, aye, I knew you’d get it if I said it out loud,” he frowned, shrugging at Purdue.
“Would you like to fill us in?” Purdue asked.
“Project Riese!” she exclaimed. “Josef was a Polish prisoner of war, right, who worked on the construction of the Nazi underground railroads! It was called Project Riese, Project Giant!”
“Then the bearings on the map should point to?” Sam asked, checking the mark he made on the map that displayed the direction from the lighthouse.
“Project Riese, Project Riese,” Nina repeated quietly as her eyes stared into the roof above her to help her recall what she knew about the Nazi high command’s plans to build an underground network of railroads. “It was under a castle in Germany, I think?” She took out her cell phone and researched the town where the castle was located.
“Sam, will you check to see if your line from the lighthouse falls over Wałbrzych, Poland?” she asked, stroking the screen of her phone to scroll over the information.
“Aye! Aye, Nina, it falls right on this town I cannot pronounce,” Sam exclaimed with a beaming smile.
“Well done!” Purdue cheered. “Now, what about the symbol, the Val… something?”
“Valknut. Odin’s symbol,” she corrected him.
“I think that is what we’ll have to look for once we get into the underground railroad system,” Sam guessed. “Like an arrow to the treasure, you know?”
“Makes sense,” Purdue said. “Good, so now we know where to go. How we are going to get under it is another matter.”
Two days later, after a long Boeing flight from Helsinki to Wrocław-Copernicus Airport in Poland, the three explorers headed to Castle Książ, reputed to be right on top of one of the railroads built by Polish prisoners of war — prisoners of war, just like Josef Palevski. When they arrived in the town of Wałbrzych, where the castle was the pride of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Purdue purchased a vehicle in cash from a local private seller to make their travel easier and less obvious as tourists.
Overhead, the sky was filled with thick white clouds branding darker edges, barely letting any sun through, but the light breeze was mellow and temperate. Nina reveled in the wonderful sensation of the wind in her hair. Her hand played repeatedly over the smooth, wet surface of her glass of iced tea while she waited for Sam and Purdue to bring the car to the quaint little restaurant.
With her she had their luggage, grateful that her companions were light travelers too. In her opinion and experience, she was the only woman she could think of who did not lug around three trunk loads worth of clothes when she traveled. To the men with her, it was also a godsend when they had to load her stuff in the car.
Nina sucked on her cigarette as she explored the town through her dark glasses, hoping to not see any unusually sized men peering through the bushes at her. It was almost too easy to have come this far after the mess at the lighthouse and not be detected or pursued — for once. But she was not about to tempt fate by being ungrateful for the peaceful aftermath of her recent excursion and the backlash of it that instigated a torrent of events.
While she waited, she logged into her email account to see who had been looking for her while she was offline. As she worked her way through the unimportant stuff and spam mail, Nina wondered if Neville would tell her what he had discovered, what he wanted to tell Paddy. And then she came upon the message. She noticed that he had read it, but he had not responded yet.