Nazi Gold

Chapter 12 — At the hospital

“…Morgen, Herr Cleave,” her voice shook Sam’s brain into a state of alert and faded gradually into the white noise of his ears. Its sharpness pulled him reluctantly from the warm, safe darkness of the womb his mind was curled up in from the fatigue and the valium.

“Morning,” he groaned, sniffing and rubbing his eyes. His wild dark hair fell on his shoulders and framed his strong features and he ran his good hand over the top of his hair to get it out of his face.

“Good god, do we have to have the blinds open so early in the morning?” he complained with his hand over his eyes. Sam winced at the blinding rays that glared from all sides like daylight outside the entrance of a cave.

“The blinds are shut, Sam. You are just misty from the drugs. Relax,” he heard her more clearly now.

“Nina?” he smiled, still guarding his eyes with his hand.

“Aye.”

“So glad you could make it. To tell you the truth, I feel better with you holding on to my gear than some strange woman,” he said too loudly. From the small family visiting the old corpse patient, a teenager scoffed and chuckled at Sam’s words. Nina snickered with her, winking at the girl’s penchant for double entendres, and then turned back to Sam.

“Yes, no, I prefer to take care of it myself,” she said; then she lowered her head to Sam’s face and asked, “What’s on it?”

“It’s in the cabinet, Nina. First things first. Take it now. And put it in your bag and don’t let anyone get wind of the fact that you are in possession of that thing. It could cost you your life,” he whispered urgently, all the while savoring the sweet smell of her hair. His lids fluttered open at the onslaught of the white light and he saw that she did as he told her.

“So…what is on it?” she repeated, her eyes dwelling to the blood stained bandage on his chest and upper arm. She wanted to touch it, but she refrained. Her big brown eyes searched his for an answer and Sam remembered how nice it was to be in Nina’s company.

Really close to his face, she relished the scent of Sam’s skin as he recounted the whole awful business to her and why he was now being hunted, why she needed to get his camera out of Germany as soon as possible. She nodded as he explained, but his eyes strayed from her pretty face momentarily and Sam stopped talking altogether.

“Sam?”

He stared past her, his face a mixture of shock and disappointment. Nina turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing that could provoke such a reaction.

“Sam, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“Where the fuck is Radu?” Sam asked out loud, exasperated.

“Who?” she asked, trying to calm her friend who was clearly upset, trying to get out of bed.

“Nurse! Nurse!” Sam shouted, and a nurse quickly entered the room to see what was going on. She asked him to stay in his bed, but he refused to comply.

The timid old man was the only one who did not stare at Sam’s outburst. All he wanted was a cigarette, but his daughter shook her head vehemently. Behind her the teenager watched Sam and Nina like a kindred, almost as if she was a caged captive behind the unseen bars of her parents’ control. She tucked her smokes deeper into her pocket to avoid her grandfather seeing it.

Finally, Nina apologetically lifted an open hand to the onlookers and visitors while Sam settled down at the nurse’s threat to call his doctor. He knew the doctor was only too keen on drugging him, so that was not something he wanted to test.

“Radu was discharged this morning, Herr Cleave,” the nurse informed him. “Don’t worry, he is fine.” She smiled now, hoping that her news was good, thinking that Sam probably thought the worst when he had seen the young boy’s bed empty.

“Discharged? This morning?” he gasped. It dawned on Sam that he had been sleeping the whole day. It was visiting hours, yes — evening visiting hours! Then he looked at the confused Nina and placed his good hand on the nurse’s forearm. Sam stammered, “Where to?”

“Of course that information is privileged, you understand,” the nurse replied while she drew the curtains and checked Sam’s bandage briefly. Nina found it odd. Patients were not normally checked up on during visiting hours, especially not with visitors still seated by the bed, as she was.

The nurse nervously darted her eyes from Nina to Sam and back to Nina once more. She did not know who this petite Scottish woman was, but she was evidently in Herr Cleave’s trust, so the nurse did not hesitate to include her in the conversation.

“Radu was adopted rather quickly by a prominent philanthropist and business woman, Greta Heller,” she whispered to them with a frightfully unhinged look which told both Sam and Nina that she was afraid of sharing the details.

“Adopted?” Sam asked.

“Yes. He is a homeless boy from Cluj, he told me,” she explained, rushing her words and constantly checking through a space in the screen curtain to make sure she would not be discovered. Her English was good, but when she spoke this rapidly her accent was a bit difficult follow. Nina gestured with her hand for the young nurse to slow down.

“Cluj? Where is that, exactly?” Nina asked.

“Romania,” the German nurse answered. “I am worried for the boy because my father had always been in stern opposition of Heller’s ventures. She is a very well-liked dignitary, you know, so there is no proving that she is up to more nefarious practices, but I tell you, we have reason to worry for that boy.”

“I have the same feeling,” Sam said softly. “I have had that feeling since I saw him and the people who constantly came to check on him…while he was sleeping.”

Sam has feelings about stuff? That’s a new one, Nina thought, but she kept her serious face on.

“Exactly,” the nurse replied. “He doesn’t even know them, Herr Cleave! How come they wish to adopt him? How come they can facilitate the adoption so swiftly? What would Greta Heller want with a little Romanian hobo when she already has a beloved son of her own? It is not as if she needed a child, particularly at her age, you see?”

“It does sound very suspicious,” Nina agreed. “And you are telling us this, because…?”

“Yes, you could lose your job by getting involved in this,” Sam warned under his breath. The nurse gave him a steely look.

“I am already involved.”

“How?” Nina asked, intrigued.

“Is it because I bonded a bit more with the little guy? Is that why you want me to do something about it?” Sam asked her. The nurse looked through the curtain with a look of agitated determination.

“Herr Cleave, my name is Clara Mueller. Last night my father and brothers were attacked and tortured for helping you.”

Sam felt a sledgehammer rupture his chest. It was too late to get Paddy and his MI-6 buddies in, it seemed.

“Please! Please god, tell me they are alive,” Sam implored, but the nurse started shaking, her eyes filling with tears and he expected the worst. Nina’s hand fell over her mouth in shock, although she did not know Herrn Mueller. But that did not take from the atrocity of the news.

“What I am trying to tell you is…”

“Nurse Clara! Are you in here?” the nurse in charge asked suddenly. She was already in the room and pulled aside the curtains with a strong swipe to see what was going on. Before her she saw that the patient was chatting to Nurse Clara while she was cleaning his wound and checking his stitches while the visitor was pouring him some water at the basin by the window.

“”Oh, I see you’re busy,” the grouchy nurse noted.

“Oh, yes, nurse,” Clara replied with a smile, “Herr Cleave complained of some seepage, so I had to check it immediately.”

“Of course.” She gave Sam a leer, folding her arms. “His doctor has been having her hands full with his restlessness. No wonder you don’t heal properly, Herr Cleave. You are just too…” she raised her eyebrow in discontent and took her time to pick the perfect word, “…animate.”

Sam flashed her one of his charming, naughty smiles and said, “There will be enough time to be inanimate when I’m dead.”

“Indeed,” she agreed, her smile not as friendly as smiles were intended to be. “Hopefully you will remain animate for at least another Christmas.” With that chilling hint she turned and walked off, reminding Clara that she had rounds to do as soon as she was done. Nina narrowed her eyes at the insidious charge nurse.

“What the fuck does that mean?” she said loudly, voicing her protest to the threat to her friend while trying not to stir up a hornet’s nest doing so and drawing unnecessary attention to Sam. “Bitch,” she said a lot softer, just to say it.

“Listen; just see if you can find the boy. Even get someone to kidnap him if you have to. Something heavy and ugly is on the rise and I have a feeling he is in the center of it all. There is just no way a child, a stray like Radu, would be that important to a millionaire from another country,” Nurse Clara whispered as she gathered up the dirty bandages and disposed of them in the bin, which she picked up with both hands. One more time she gave Nina and Sam an imploring look, nodded and walked out of the room.

“Visiting hours is over,” another nurse called from the corridor.

“Nina, you have to get out of here. If that pack of animals who hunted me got to Herrn Mueller, they will know that I am here. They will be coming for me,” Sam said in a hard whisper, latching his hand onto Nina’s arm. “I want you to go. NOW!”

“And you?” she frowned, annoyed by his stubborn recklessness.

“I have nowhere to go. If I walk out of here they’ll know I am running, and…” he sighed in vexation and stared Nina down, “…I…I don’t want them to hurt you. Almost losing you in Russia did it for me, I think. There is no fucking way I am letting them find you.”

Nina’s heart skipped and she could feel the reddening of her skin, but she was Nina, therefore she had to dismiss his soppy caring.

“Like you have any say in my decisions,” she challenged. Sam scoffed and threw his head back at her hardheadedness, not that he expected anything else. She could see his annoyance and wanted to calm him down before he got really angry with her.

“Sam, come with me. I am on my way to the Czech Republic to do some consulting on an excavation at Chateau Zbiroh! Come with me, as my assistant. That way you will move under their radar, we will be out of Germany and we can regroup there. From there we can see if we can locate the whereabouts of this kid you are so worried about and we can ask Patrick to get a background check from Interpol on this Heller chick. What do you say?” she pitched, sincerely hoping he would agree to come with her. Not only would it save his life, but she needed his company, wanted it. Nina took Sam’s hand and caressed his skin with her warm fingertips to impress upon him how much it would mean to her.

He was no fool. He understood her intentions perfectly and had to admit that the alternative was dire. Besides, he loved her, whether she knew or not, whether she cared or not. Sam wanted to be around her as many times as he could be afforded that. For a long while they just stared at one another, and it was not awkward anymore to do so.

She left him a thick, warm sweater she bought him on arrival in Weimar, should he dismiss himself at night and she could not get to him immediately. Nina winked at Sam just before she left at the urging of the nurse.

“A pack of Marlboro’s,” she whispered as she slid it into the sweater’s fold, “for your health.”