The Black Sun Conspiracy

PROLOGUE

“No, madam. Declined. Again,” the clerk smiled apologetically, handing Nina the third credit card she tried to use to purchase their tickets back to Edinburgh.

“You cannot be serious!” Nina scowled, telling nobody in particular as she scrutinized the Platinum VISA card. At a distance behind her Sam waited unaware of the difficulty with their trip back home from Prague.

Nina turned to find him, turned back to the clerk with a warm smile which ineffectively hid her embarrassment and said, “Thank you. I’ll be back shortly.”

Václav Havel Airport was bustling with travelers looking as exhausted as Nina and Sam, some just aimlessly wondering around while waiting for their connections. Others sat at restaurants to make up time while waiting for their announcements to echo over the Public Announcement System. Sam looked forward to seeing Paddy and Bruich again, and to finally curl up on his couch with a double malt and a bit of footie while his cat’s hefty weight warmed his stomach.

Nina felt more hopeless than angry, but her frustration was mounting as it always did when she was faced with unnecessary obstacles. With an expression of determination she stormed towards the ATM a few steps behind the filled row of seats, with Sam’s reluctant befuddlement in witness. He was sitting on the floor of the airport terminal, legs pulled up and his head resting against the wall when Nina passed him without losing her sight on the bank machine.

“What’s wrong?” he had to ask, propping himself up to follow her.

“Jesus Christ, Sam. I swear I am going to blow a gasket one of these days! Kulich had just transferred my fees yesterday. Last night I still bought a cappuccino after dinner, remember?” she sneered as she slipped her card into the machine.

“I do. And now?” he asked, leaning against the frame of the ATM without invading her privacy by looking at the screen.

She punched in her PIN with hard fingers, clenching her jaw. Looking up at Sam’s annoying innocence she cocked her head, “My cards are being declined. All my cards are active, Sam, all of them. Well, supposed to be.”

As she finished her sentence the tone of the machine sounded, announcing that yet another transaction was unsuccessful. In a torrent of profanities Nina ripped her card from the slot and gave Sam a hard look.

“I wish I could check mine, but my card was stolen, remember?” he tried to sound proactive.

“Aye,” she sighed somewhere between defeat and vexation at his useless statement. “Now how are we going to buy our tickets?”

It perplexed Sam how such a thing could happen. With the allowance she received bi-annually from her obscenely rich lover combined with their recent remuneration for the Zbiroh expedition with Dr. Professor Kulich, she should have had more than enough dough in her account. As if she read his thoughts she rolled her eyes, “I have money in my account. But…” she looked down at the card and it’s useless platinum sheen, “it is just not available to me.”

“Give me your cell phone, Nina,” Sam said suddenly, looking far more composed than he had a few moments ago.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m calling Paddy. He can wire us some funds, at least until I can access my accounts again at home,” he said as he called his best friend, Patrick Smith at MI-6.

“Sam,” Nina said as her eyes darted past him.

“I can’t seem to get a signal,” he frowned, hearing her, but favoring his phone preoccupation.

“Sam,” she repeated in a more urgent tone. “Do you have friends on the Prague Olympic team?”

“Aye. Paddy sent a few lads over, remember?” His belated realization of her words snapped him out of his cell phone conundrum. “Wait, what? Why?” He looked up just long enough to see Nina’s eyes direct him to where they were. Sam turned and saw two large men, dressed sports track wear like a bunch of professional wrestlers.

“Those beefcakes? Um, don’t know who they are,” he squinted at the pair who looked way too friendly. “Relax, Nina. They are probably just sportsmen looking for their boarding gate.”

Before Nina could argue the deafening tone sounded to prepare for an announcement. A very professional female voice, lacking the heavy Czech accents of the passenger staff, floated through the terminal.

“Miss Bolden and Mr. Snoad. Please report to the Information desk, Terminal 3. Miss Bolden and Mr. Snoad.”

“Sam. Sam,” Nina pressed without moving her lips too obviously as the men approached, smiling.

“I have no idea who they are, Nina. Maybe they are really just athletes on their way to a meet. Let me just get a signal. For fuck’s sake, this is an airport! How can they have no signal?” He saw the two beefcakes advancing and Nina’s paranoia escalating. Sam smiled reassuringly, “I bet you they have no idea who we are either.”

“Mr. Cleave. Dr. Gould,” the one on the right smiled as if they were reuniting with old friends. Sam shrugged and smiled sheepishly at his petite friend who stared at him with no small amount of silent reproach.

“This is the second announcement for Miss Bolden and Mr. Snoad. Please report to the Information desk, Terminal 3. Miss Bolden and Mr. Snoad.”

“Sam, where is the Information Desk? We have to get there right now!” Nina said urgently, her tone so low that it took on a vague air of panic.

“It’s over there,” he pointed, nonchalantly. “Why?”

Nina slipped her arm into Sam’s and tugged him along to the counter in the widening hall to their left. At the desk a particularly cultivated-looking woman in some airline uniform scanned the crowd. The two beefcakes followed Sam and Nina, but maintained their calm and collected manner, minus the grins. Nina dared not look back as she pulled Sam like a trailer behind her.

“Excuse me,” she half shouted to the lady at the desk, “Miss Bolden and this is Mr. Snoad.”

“Nina, what the fuck are…”

“Shut up and play along,” she snapped under her breath and leaned on the desk to keep eye contact with the receptionist.

“Oh, Miss Bolden, Mr. Snoad, here are your tickets. Please do hurry. Your flight is boarding,” the receptionist said mechanically as she passed two tickets to Nina with a creepy cemented smile.

“Thank you so much,” Nina smiled and once more lugged her male friend with her, while he had the phone up in the air to look for a signal.

“For God’s sake, Sam, would you stop that?” she complained.

They stepped through the security checkpoint and in the vast sheets of glass Nina checked the reflection of their pursuers. Both had ceased their pursuit and now stood about chatting to maintain their inconspicuousness.

“Dr. Gould and Mr. Cleave,” they heard a strong male voice summon from the walkway.

There stood a casually dressed gentleman with a stern expression and a magazine in his hand, nodding at Nina and Sam.

“My name is Matteus. You don’t know me, but trust me when I tell you that you will be executed before nightfall if you do not come with me now,” he explained as if he was asking the time.

“How do we know we can trust you? What is this all about?” Nina protested.

The tall Italian looking man looked down at the short historian and passed a glance to her companion. Coolly, he replied, “Have you been having trouble leaving Prague?”

“Yes, we hit a glitch, but…” Sam replied, but Matteus interrupted him.

“Found your assets and bank accounts have been frozen?”

Nina gasped. Sam sighed loudly. ‘Oh God, here we go again.’

“I am assisting one David Purdue in securing your flight,” Matteus said plainly, “but I shall have to urge you to get a move on before those gorillas catch up.”

Eagerly gulping down a generous puddle of the Czech Republic’s finest peach slivovitz, Sam listened to Nina ramming Matteus with questions. He was a man of few words, remaining poised on delivering the two of them to Purdue without entertaining Dr. Gould’s verbal barrage. After presuming Purdue dead or missing pretty much for good, Nina was livid that she was collected so unceremoniously.

“He doesn’t even have the decency to come himself? After just taking off over two years of and without as much as a smoke signal to let me know he is okay? Christ, one of these days I’m just going to stop giving a shit trying to figure all this shit out!” she ranted, more to exhale her discontent at Purdue’s behavior towards her, his lover.

“Dr. Gould, as soon as we reach our destination, I suggest you direct your questions towards Mr. Purdue. However, I would beseech you to prepare yourselves for slightly less…luxurious accommodation,” Matteus informed them both. “I do not have the answers…” he cast an indifferent, slightly vexed look toward Nina, “…nor the patience, to explain all this now. But we are unfortunately forced to divert from your desired destination for your own safety.”

“Wait, do you mean to tell me that, not only does Purdue resurface without as much as a warning, but he calls the shots on our…”

“Nina,” Sam said plainly, “who is Snoad and Bolden?”

“What?” she barked at Sam, still in the heat of her exacerbation.

“Who is Bolden and Snoad and how did you know they meant us?” he asked lazily. Matteus watched how Sam could disarm the feisty little woman in the middle of her onslaught and it made him smile.

Annoyed that she was powerless to her irresistible need to talk history when asked a question, Nina had to break off her bitching to tell Sam about the two American soldiers who took out thirty five heavily armed Nazis in a house during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, 1944. Apparently she took the comparison as a compliment — two people up against insurmountable odds and they wiped out the enemy. After gingerly completing her tale she stared at the floor for a moment.

“As far as I know Snoad was killed during that mission…”

She looked up with a frown, but Sam Cleave was not listening. Slumped in his chair, his head leaned back in blissful sleep.

Matteus looked back from the cockpit where the co-pilot took over for a while and thought to himself, ‘Yes, Mr. Cleave, if only you knew how long it might be before you see home again… You are indeed well advised to rest.’