Hunt for the Lost Treasure

Chapter 29 — Hidden Talents

Sylvia and her husband volunteered to help Father Harper rescue David Purdue from the clutches of what they only knew where people with nefarious intentions toward the billionaire explorer and inventor they had been tracking since his deceit.

“They have been in there for ages,” Sylvia told Lance. They were standing outside the church of St. Columbanus, sharing a cigarette. Her husband appeared to be in deep thought as she talked, but she assumed it was merely the trauma of her abduction finally being undone, the relief leaving him somehow numb.

He looked at his watch. “It’s been forty minutes. Maybe he’s getting her drunk on communal wine and forcing her to convert,” Lance remarked quite dryly, taking another drag. “I know I am not the most religious of people, sweetheart, but I feel that sometimes we need to do God's work for Him.”

“Meaning?” she asked.

He looked up at the steeples reaching to the heavens, the holiness of it all, the antiquity and faith put into the masonry and glass of the majestic, massive shrine. Then he looked at Sylvia and shrugged. “That woman is evil, Sylla. She knew you had children and still she had no compunctions about putting a bullet through your skull.”

“I know,” she replied. “But how is this God's work?”

“Don't you see? Maria Winslet is a monster in human flesh. Beasts like her only hurt this world; they make it worse,” he frowned, smoking in quick pulls. “She must be punished, but not because we expect her to repent. She must be punished because she has earned torment and pain. That bitch should be put through hell before she is finally sent there with her own bullet.”

“Lance!” Sylvia gasped. “My God, what has gotten into you?”

He was furious; that was plain to see. But in the harsh comment of his wife's captor his eyes could not hide the tears turning them glassy with a shimmer. “Is it so wrong to want her to suffer like we did?” he asked. “If Father Harper does not get it out of her, I am sorry for Mr. Purdue, but I will kill her with her own gun, Sylvia. Even if it means that man's doom, by God I am going to make her pay.”

She took his shaking hands into hers and kissed him. “Don't worry, Father Harper is a gentle man with much wisdom and he will show us how to forgive her. Let's go in and see if he’s managed to find out where Purdue is being kept. Maybe being inside the church will help you find the peace you need to forgive.”

Sylvia led her upset husband into the church and closed the doors behind them. They checked the confessional and saw that Maria was not there anymore, so they proceeded to Father Harper's office to determine what information he’d managed to get from Maria.

“Where are they?” she asked when they found the office vacant. Lance's phone rang.

“It's Father Harper,” he said, followed by, “Yes, alright. We'll be right there.”

“What now?” she sighed.

“Come. He says we must meet him in the back yard of the manse right now.”

They left the church garden at the back and rounded the wrought iron fencing that separated the manse from the church. Father Harper was just opening the external doors to his home office, motioning them inside urgently. When they stepped inside Sylvia knew something bad was going on. From the sofa Maria Winslet was staring absently at them. Her face showed the signs of Father Harper's desperate apprehension of her weapon from her earlier, but she seemed docile and coherent.

“There,” Father Harper said and gave Lance a piece of paper. Upon seeing the doctor's quizzical countenance the priest informed him that those were the hack codes and passwords of the accounts Lance's money had been paid into.

“How did you get her to tell you this?” he gasped in amazement, while his wife grabbed the paper to peruse it. She recognized the names of the accounts she’d had to relay to her husband on the phone.

“I can be very persuasive. Doing God's work sometimes takes a more… sinister… point of view, I'm afraid,” the priest answered.

Lance looked at his wife, gloating about the similarity between Father Harper's and his earlier statement. “See? Even God's people agree with me.”

“Oh shut it, Lance,” she sighed.

“Maria was raised Catholic, which admittedly aided my interrogation. With a little LSD and some SP117 I got her to believe that she was obliged to provide the information I asked or…” the priest shook his head in shame, “…or be cast in purgatory until she’d collected every bullet she’d ever used on a human being.”

“Father!” Sylvia uttered in absolute repugnance. “How could you do that to someone? A man of the cloth should not resort to idle deceit! Ever!”

“My dear Mrs. Beach,” Father Harper said, “would you rather this woman watch your children on the playground from a church tower?”

Sylvia wanted to defend the question in terms of morality, but she quickly swallowed her words once the true horror of the scenario entered her mind. Calmly, Father Harper urged, “Now, when you are positive about your innocence in this matter, Mrs. Beach, I suggest we get to Fallin as soon as possible. There is a man who needs our help.”

With Maria Winslet in their custody, Dr. Beach and Father Harper left Sylvia in charge of church business until Father Harper was scheduled to return. He assured her that they would be but three days at the most and that she only needed to take care of the arrangements pertaining to the Ladies Church Action, soup kitchen, and choir practice.

“Her pupils are still dilated, but she is fine, Father,” Dr. Beach reported. “I’m more concerned for the condition of the man her boyfriend kidnapped.”

“I expect him to be in a bad state, given the clients Mr. Beck delivered him to,” the priest said as they drove along the main road, thirty minutes from their destination. “I took the liberty of looking up Maria's partner and found him to be a rather unsavory character who once worked as an MI5 operative. Nothing states why he left Her Majesty's service, but I can only guess.”

“With the type of women he keeps company, I have all the information I need on this bloke's psychology. Birds of a feather, I suppose,” Lance Beach replied from the backseat he shared with their willing, although heedless guide. Dr. Beach put his pen light back in his pocket and closed his leather medical bag. “How far still?”

“We’re close. I’m not sure what she meant, but she said the house was concealed on the other side of the River Forth. Rather odd,” Father Harper admitted. “As far as I know the area she gave me coordinates to has no bridge.”

“Father, what happens when our escort here finds her bearings?” Dr. Beach asked. “LSD does not take this long to wear off. What did you really give her?”

“A Russian devised psychoanalytic compound that serves as a truth serum,” Father Harper disclosed. “They used it on KGB personnel and it is highly efficient, but I added the hallucinogen for good measure to convince her of the Biblical tyranny that would follow if she did not comply.”

To the priest's surprise, Dr. Beach bellowed with laughter. It made him smile to see that someone out there still appreciated the unorthodox measures needed to thwart evil. “How did you get your hands on SP117, Father?”

Father Harper smiled at his companion in the rear view mirror and shrugged. “I was not always a priest.”