“Rude asshole,” she whispered. “You’re welcome.”
She logged into his Facebook account and her heart stopped. There, in white and black, a post from his colleagues at the Calcutta Geological and Archeological Society stated:
It is with heavy hearts that we report that our dear colleague and friend, Neville Padayachee, passed away on 26 September 2015. A memorial will be held at the society on Tuesday. ALL WELCOME.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, no,” she gasped, tears flooding her eyes instantly. “How? How?”
Frustrated, she looked up the local news sites in Calcutta and Edinburgh, the latter because she knew he was in her home city to see Paddy. Nina’s body went numb. “Oh, my God, Paddy. I hope this had nothing to do with Paddy!”
She tried to call him, but his phone was disconnected. It was great cause for alarm for Nina. She knew Paddy’s communication lines were open, 24/7. She called the Blackford precinct.
“Hello, could you please put me in touch with Special Agent Patrick Smith?” she asked the desk sergeant.
“May I ask who is calling?” she asked.
“Dr. Nina Gould. I am a friend of his,” Nina replied.
“One moment please, Dr. Gould,” the sergeant said, and transferred the call.
“Williams,” a voice said on the line.
“Oh, I was looking for Special Agent Smith, actually, hoping someone there could put me in touch. His phone seems to be out of order,” Nina explained.
“You are Dr. Gould?” he asked.
“Aye, a friend of Patrick’s. I cannot seem to find him,” she told the man on the other side, while her heart slammed wildly in her. The same overwhelming feeling of dread she had been periodically suffering possessed her once again. Something was wrong. Why did they not let her speak to Paddy? Who was this Williams character, she wondered.
“Special Agent Smith is in the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, Dr. Gould. But he will be okay. So will his wife. Not to worry,” he conveyed. “Say, you would not be able to come in and see us, would you? He is in a coma and we need to know what he was involved in. Surely he would have told you something?”
Williams knew it was a shot in the dark and a hell of a bluff, but he had previously caught lucky breaks with long shots. Nina paused for a while, whispering her discontent at the developments they did not know about. She wondered if it had anything directly to do with Neville, but she dared not ask, lest they think she knew things she did not.
“No, I’m afraid not,” she said, thinking quickly. “I was just going to invite them to a birthday party. What on earth happened to him and Cass?” Nina did her best to sound dumb and uninformed, one of which was quite true.
“Home intrusion. He managed to kill the burglar, but he was wounded in the process. His wife suffered the same fate a few days earlier while he was out of town,” Williams filled her in. “You see why I need to know what the Smith household has that would make them targets twice in a stretch of four days?”
Christ! The generator! He still has the generator! she thought to herself.
Out loud, she said nonchalantly to Williams, “Aye, that does look like bad luck. They do have a lot of valuables, especially his love for technology could make them a prime target for break-ins.”
His tone hardened a tad, “Dr. Gould, I don’t think you fully appreciate the suspiciousness and the urgency of the matter. And I know who you are. If you know anything that can help us locate the reason my friend is in hospital, then I implore you, Nina, help me.”
“Look, sergeant…?”
“Detective inspector,” he corrected her.
“Detective Inspector Williams,” she said, “if you tell me who the burglar was, I might be able to help you find out what it was about. For all I know it was just a burglary gone wrong.”
Nina insisted on playing her ignorance card until she knew what was going on. Besides, this police officer could not force her to comply.
“An Indian archeologist, oddly enough,” he replied, “Neville Padayachee. See why all this is too strange to be coincidence?”
Williams’ confirmation of Neville’s identity shook Nina more than initially reading of his death, but she had to sound as composed as she could.
“Yes, that is odd. I have no idea who he is, but I can see what I can find out for you, detective. Sorry, but I have to catch a plane now. I’ll talk to you again.”
Chapter 27
Tears streaked over her cheeks as she spoke. Sam and Purdue rounded the corner. Their faces turned serious when they saw her sobbing and they rushed to her side.
“Nina?” Purdue asked with grave concern, holding her hand.
“Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?” Sam asked.
She took a moment, wiped her cheeks with her sleeve and lit another cigarette.
“Neville’s dead,” she announced. Before they could ask how, she answered their question with a double blow, “Patrick shot him.”
“What the fuck?” Sam cried, taken aback in utter disbelief from the news.
“That’s insane! Where did you hear that?” Purdue asked.
She tossed her phone on the table for him to see the post. “I just got off the phone with a detective in Edinburgh. Paddy shot Neville…” she accentuated her words to denote her astonishment, “when he broke into Paddy’s house… looking for something. Get it?”
“Oh, my God, Paddy still has the generator?” Sam asked.
Nina nodded.
“And why would Neville want it?” Purdue asked.
“I have to talk to Paddy. They are chasing us for the damn thing too,” Sam said.
“Paddy is in the hospital, but he and his wife are fine,” Nina croaked through tears and tobacco smoke.
“Jesus! What’s next? Do you have more bad news?” Sam gasped. “Give me one of those, would you, love?” He eyed one of Nina’s cigarettes.
“Be my guest,” she said blankly. “We have to pinch this excursion, Purdue. We have to get to the bottom of the Vril Society’s hard-on for this generator.”
“Wait, Vril?” Purdue asked.
“Aye, I told you all that in Bhutan!” she cried in amazement.
“Yes, dear Nina, but you were… you know, a bit under the weather,” Purdue soothed.
“We thought you were bat-shit crazy,” Sam rectified the statement in plain English.
“And where did that get your friend?” she asked Sam. “And it almost got us killed. I told you about four huge men in the tunnels who sent me to steal that fucking generator. I told you they were ex-members of the Vril Society. I told you all this, and now Paddy almost got killed, we almost got killed, and Neville is fucking dead as a doornail!”
“Do you know what this generator does?” Purdue asked. “I mean, what did they tell you?”
“I just know that it has to be kept in cryostasis or something,” she looked at Purdue, “but I’m a historian, not a scientist, so I don’t really know much about this stuff.”
“Is it a chemically ignited machine?” Sam asked.
“Well, the vril is an inexhaustible source of energy, one that would change the world’s energy production and consumption completely. The Nazis experimented with the idea of using vril to enhance their psychic and intellectual abilities to ascend as super beings. I am of a mind that the Neanderthal-looking Germans we recently wasted were such experiments,” she speculated.
“So vril is the force said to be radiated by the Black Sun?” Purdue inquired.
“Aye,” she answered. “And in this energy lies the ability to become super human in every way, just like the super beings, the notion of the Übermensch Nietzsche first addressed. Think of the ultimate wisdom, superior intellect, and boundless capabilities that are held captive by morality and the restrictions of the mind.”