Keepers of the Lost City

22 Operation Eden

After leaving Mrs. Williams in the care of her scary gardener and a reference to one of Purdue’s private security contacts, Sam and Purdue hurried back to Wrichtishousis. It was getting dark soon, and Sam still had to set up his gear for the next morning’s meeting with the Australian Wildlife people to interview Miss Palumbo before cutting and presenting them with the minor documentary about the lawsuit and what Wildlife was planning to do once the court dates have been set.

“And this material, Sam, has to be copied and distributed to several covert media servers,” Purdue reminded his colleague. “If anything happens to us, God forbid, I don’t want them to be able to destroy the truth. There will be too many clips to locate before my automated e-mail network sends it out to the major channels.”

“Good idea,” Sam agreed. “I will first leave this footage with you, personally, while I finish the assignment your Australian friends hired me for.”

“It feels rather strange to know my ally is working for my opponents, even for a minor slot on an insignificant TV station down under,” Purdue admitted.

“Aw, don’t fret, Purdue. It is good to have a double agent at your service, don’t you think?” Sam smiled. “Especially with the level of shit you always end up in.”

“I suppose. It just shows how much I trust you,” Purdue said. “Good to know you won’t pull a Judas on me.”

“Judas was a cheap hooker. I am a high-class whore. Only the richest can afford me,” Sam jested, nudging at Purdue with his elbow.

“I’m not so sure, my friend,” Purdue laughed. “In my eyes, a whore is a whore. On that note, how uncanny did you find Miss Palumbo’s resemblance to that Maria character from our last close call?”

“You noticed that too?” Sam asked. “When I saw her at first, I thought I was suffering some sort of post trauma that made me see her in other women.”

“No, no, she is a dead ringer for her. It is actually very interesting. I wonder if they have any remote familial relation,” Purdue said.

Sam looked at him as if he was crazy. “Are you mad? Focus, Purdue. Jesus, don’t you have enough on your plate to deal with now than to go on a genealogical hunt for Palumbo’s heritage?”

“I was not going to lodge a large scale investigation into it, Sam” Purdue defended. “I just think it would do us good to know who exactly we are dealing with here. Have you noticed how the worst ambush always comes from enemies who know each other?”

“I get it,” Sam replied. “I’m just saying we should get this lawsuit business out of the way first, and secondly, we have to find out why the Black Sun is trying to destroy what we are uncovering here.”

“And we will,” Purdue assured Sam. “Let’s hope she is not related to that Nazi heifer in some way. My God, they are practically identical twins.”

“Of which one is Australian,” Sam remarked as they reached the gates of Wrichtishousis.

“They both have Italian names, they have the same face, and coincidentally she happens to be on the opposite side of my camp, Sam, antagonizing me. It is a little too close for comfort,” Purdue explained. Sam was silent while he stopped for security to check.

“Mr. Purdue,” the guard said attentively. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” Purdue answered. “I trust you lot are not turning away people at my gate without calling in to the house first?”

“No, sir, we send nobody away. Our training specifically dictates that we follow that protocol. That guard was definitely not one of ours,” the guard defended his company, while the other one, standing on Sam’s side of the vehicle, nodded in agreement.

“How did he get the shift then?” Purdue asked, and he quickly gave Sam a bewildered look.

“We don’t know, sir. He was on the register, and we have so many branches and personnel, I guess HR did not pick up on him until we got the police complaint from your assistant,” the guard revealed. “But all is well now, Mr. Purdue. They only use us now, your usual personnel, as before.”

“Good to know. Good to know,” Purdue smiled as Sam pulled away up the drive.

“Wonder what Nina has been able to put together,” Sam sighed. “Whatever it is, she cannot beat the plethora of details we gathered from Widow Williams today, right?”

Purdue smiled. “Bet you she could not unravel anything even remotely as juicy.”

When they entered the well-lit lobby of Purdue’s mansion, they could smell pizza.

“She’s still working,” Sam affirmed. “When Dr. Gould orders pizza, she is so invested in something that she cannot even break her concentration for a sandwich.”

“I know, right?” Purdue chuckled.

“Let’s go see what she has found,” Sam suggested. “Then I have to get home to prepare for tomorrow’s interview with Miss Palumbo.”

Purdue cringed.

“Don’t worry, Purdue, I am 100 % on your side. You know that, don’t you?” Sam asked.

“I do,” he said to Sam. “Just… lately…”

Purdue was very reluctant to share his vulnerability with someone, but Sam knew what he was trying to say. Of course he did. Sam was one of the most perceptive people Purdue had ever met. “I know the world seem to be out to get you, but we’ve had worse, right?” Sam consoled him. This was one of those times that Purdue did not have to say anything, nor did he have to feel stupid for feeling like this.

“Dr. Gould! Have you any joy with the Heike letter?” Purdue cried cheerfully as the two of them came down the steps to Storage 4. The smell of pizza was growing stronger and when they rounded the doorway and they did not know whether to laugh or panic.

With her hair tied back roughly, Nina propped up her face with her hand, leaning with her elbow on the desk. She had AC/DC playing at top volume from her iPod, and her black trousers were battered with white, powdery handprints from wiping her pizza hands. In front of her was a stack of books that were scattered, of which two were open next to the documents Purdue had retrieved from the last hoard.

“High time you two show up,” she said in a bossy jest. “How long does it take to drop off a fucking folder?”

The two men glanced happily at one another. “Oh, we lingered a bit,” Sam told her, “on account of some new found information and such. What about you?”

Over the top of her glasses, Nina ogled the gloating men and immediately read their minds. She turned down the music. “Let me guess,” she groaned in a sexy husky voice, “you think yours is bigger than mine.”

They nodded jovially.

“Think again,” she advised with cordial condescension.

“What do you have?” Purdue asked.

“No, no, by all means, you first,” she smiled, licking her bottom lip boastfully.

As swiftly as they could, Purdue and Sam shared the details of Mrs. Williams’ account, but as they bombarded Nina with the new details, she only smiled, tapping the end of her Biro against her lips.

“What?” Sam finally asked, having had enough of her delightful teasing. “What? Do you know something about this, esteemed Dr. Gould?”

“Aye,” she smiled coyly. “I have been busting my ass all day to figure out how this cipher works, boys, but once I did, this letter to Heike opened up like… well, I shall refrain from my uncle Dougal’s well-known maxim.”

“And?” Purdue pressed.

At last, Nina put on her serious face. “Well, there is a shit load of information in these pages that may, or may not, pertain to the covert assignment these soldiers were on.”

“Alright, but fire away so we can compare notes,” Purdue egged her on, while Sam was pouring them some coffee from the cappuccino machine Charles had brought in here for her.

“You said that Mrs. Williams told you that we misinterpreted the Inca prophecy and how it was actually two separate operations?” she started. “That is why they called it Kriegsmarine-Zwei. These twin ships were unregistered, although they belonged to the German Navy. They were a secret, even to the actual Kriegsmarine. In true Order of the Black Sun fashion, not even the navy knew of their own sub-fleet. The second operation was called Operation Eden.”

“Aye?” Sam urged, placing a mug of coffee in front of Nina’s work mess. “So there were two covert operations.”

“Ta,” she said. “That is true. Our soldier, Feldwebel Dieter Manns from Wolfsburg, distinctly marks here that their ship was to meet the Peruvian-based vessel in Argentina. But from there, they had two operations in effect. One was to go back up to Peru to deliver the child to the priests in Machu Picchu to exact the prophecy, while its sister ship would sail west, remember?”

“Yes, that is the part that did not make sense. The direction he jotted down,” Purdue confirmed.

“But it does make sense in the letter, because he wrote vergiss mich nicht,” she explained. “Forget me not, he says to Heike in here, but he refers to a flower blooming over their Lost City. It is not El Dorado, as we and others, may have thought. This Lost City allegedly lies under the protection of ‘guardians’.”

“What kind of guardians?” Sam asked.

She shrugged. “It does not say. Maybe I missed some detail, but that is what this part relates to, according to this method of decoding, Sam. However, it ends with him calling Heike ‘goldene Frau’, thanking her for holding his salvation in her heart.”

“The Golden Woman statue?” Purdue asked, looking as amazed as Sam at the mention of the full size statue they had salvaged from the Nazi ship along with the soldiers’ remains. Nina nodded. “I think so. What else could it mean?” she hypothesized. “We already know that something is hidden inside the chest of the statue, so he is probably referring to that.”

“Simply fascinating, my dear!” Purdue exclaimed happily. “My God, Sam, did you hear that? Our ‘golden girl’ is called Heike. It is all falling into place. No wonder these artifacts were unsuited for the Inca excursion!”

Nina smiled, as did Sam. She exhaled and threw her head back to close her eyes for a moment. “I’m exhausted.”

“You certainly should be, after all this,” Sam concurred. “I still have to meet up with Miss Palumbo in the morning for the second part of that interview. Once we have those people out of our hair, Purdue, you would probably want to go and find this “Lost City”, wouldn’t you?”

Purdue grinned mischievously. “You know me too well, old cock. Far be it from me to allow the Black Sun’s swine to successfully cover up something sinister their grandfathers had wrought and hidden. People, many innocent people, have died over this Operation Eden and its Inca counterpart. Naturally, the onus is on us to thwart the architects of these missions.”

“I like that. Cock-blocking the Nazi’s,” Sam agreed with a cheerful nod. Nina laughed at Sam’s expression as she grabbed the last, wrecked pizza slice to ravage.