Nazi Gold

Chapter 32 — Shuffle of Power

Sam fell off the couch and landed right next to a mangy mutt called Vladimir. It did not belong to any discernible breed that he knew of, unless it was some species own to Transylvania. When the pitch black thing that sported long tangled fur growled like a T-rex, Sam jumped back on the couch with gymnastic grace and speed to get away from the monstrous canine.

“Hey, fuck off, Cù Sìth!” he muttered through his unkempt hair, his unshaven face beginning to resemble a handsome Wildman.

“His name is Vladimir, not Koo-Shee,” the old Gypsy King chuckled from the flimsy kitchen table, where he sat watching the business news while having his morning brew. Sam wondered if he would ever know how oddly ‘Koo-Shee’, as the name was pronounced, was spelled.

“It is a death omen in my country — a big black dog, an angry lad at that, that appears on the moors when someone is going to die. ‘Cù Sìth’ means ‘fairy dog,” Sam smiled, not sure if the old man was even interested in Scottish lore.

“You have a fairy dog that brings death, but you people have trouble believing in a haunted forest that steals people?” King Iulian, the chief of Stefan’s clan, snorted.

Sam just shrugged, running his hand through his hair and hoping the flee-infested animal did not share its pests with sleeping journalists.

“You really went overboard last night, didn’t you?” Nina teased from the open back door where she was having herbal tea with Mihail’s wife, the quiet healer who was scared of being branded a witch for her root working on Nina’s wound.

“I did not,” Sam protested, unaware that the two women had discussed his chiseled body while he was asleep in as much detail as their language barrier allowed. Mihail was watching his baby for a change to give his wife a rare opportunity to socialize with a Western European woman who seemed very fond of her.

“The police have still not located Igor. I am getting seriously worried now,” Petra’s voice came from the corridor, growing louder as she approached. The tall beauty was speaking on the phone, moving where the meager signal bounced to a stronger reception. She was checking in with their guest house in Cluj and arranged another two day stay with the manager, promising to be back soon.

Petra hung up the phone and emerged from the dark hallway to join in the morning warm beverage binge. She was wearing a different shirt than her own. Sam stared suggestively as she passed him a glance, questioning her new wardrobe with a naughty look to which she answered his inquiry with a dirty smile. She flicked her eyes into the corridor and back to Sam, telling him that she slept with the owner of the shirt just down the hall. He smiled and mouthed a ‘whoo!’ and she laughed out loud for the first time.

“Looks like one of us had a good dose of local culture,” Nina teased her when she joined them outside.

“My god, Nina, the culture is richer than I ever thought. Deep culture, you know?” she played along.

“I know. Anthropology can only teach one that much of a country’s…abilities,” Nina jested with a straight face. “You learned a lot first hand last night, hey? I myself had to watch the object of my studies dance with a humongous dog to the tune of a coarse fiddle until he passed out — the object, not the dog,” Nina added, raising her mug and laughing.

Mihail’s wife was called in to get some breakfast and she excused herself in her best broken English.

“Nina, I know where the rest of the deck is,” Petra whispered. “Are you familiar with the ‘Heart of the Heavens’?”

Nina gave it some thought and searched her mind’s history files like a super computer. It sounded very familiar, although she was not sure in which country exactly the SS had established an outpost for the secret launch of their various UFO crafts, the experimental fighter planes reported over German airspace by the Allied Forces.

“….and some speculation came out over attempted communication with extra-terrestrial civilizations from the same area. But they called it ‘Gate of the Gods’, as far as I remember. Why?” she asked after her concise exposition of what history’s more obscure academics had reported.

“That area was just on the edge of the Hoia Baciu Forest, did you know? And guess what? In the 1980’s a house was built on the ground where the ‘Gate of the Gods’ were reputed to be located,” Petra keenly relayed to the equally curious historian. “Precisely the things you and Sam saw — the fiery orange, glowing red floating orbs and so on — similar to those things were thought to be Nazi produced crafts that followed fighter planes and could not be out- maneuvered or shot down. Maybe you saw something more esoteric, Nina, but nevertheless, there was a house built where that doorway was situated.”

“That is where you want to go today?” Nina asked.

“Yes! I believe the tarot cards are kept there to keep them suspended between dimensions, therefore keeping them from doing harm here unless someone discovered them, see?” she explained. Once more Nina felt that thrill mount in her, the hunt for something extraordinary.

“Did your young pet tell you all this?” Nina winked.

“He told me straight out, Nina. And there is more. That house belonged to Petr Costita!” she revealed with no small amount of show. Nina’s mouth fell open. Progress was hopefully in the cards.

When they arrived there with Petra’s young friend, Anton, Sam stopped to put his last blank memory card in his camera. The house appeared to be in a dirty state of decay between the stick thin tall trees. On the path the dry leaves moved under almost no wind disturbance, giving the effect that something invisible was sweeping them along in front of the group of explorers. Nina looked back and saw Sam fiddling with the lens.

“Hurry up, before the forest swallows you, Sam!” she jested.

“Go on. Just a minute and I’ll catch up,” he shouted as she waved and joined Petra, Stefan and Anton who scouted the surroundings for vagrants, rusted wires in the overgrown grass or animal traps.

Sam clicked in his lens and switched on the camera, ready to roll. He could hear them talking about the state of the dilapidated structure when he felt the ice cold barrel of a pistol prod the back of his head. Sam’s legs buckled from the sudden threat and he froze in fear.

“Slowly, put your hands up, Cleave,” a familiar voice said.

Sam did as he was told. He knew that voice. It irritated him the moment they were introduced back in Zbiroh.

“Igor, you are not missing anymore,” Sam responded.

“I intend to stay missing, my friend. Give me the camera,” Igor ordered.

Sam slung it back slowly and he could hear other footsteps join them from two directions behind him.

“I believe you’ve met Captain von Ban,” Igor smiled as the captain rounded Sam from behind and came to stand face to face with him.

“Hello again, Sam,” the hideous bald man smiled.

“Captain, come to walk your dogs in the pretty woods?” Sam snapped. “Are they used to all the new recruits yet?” The captain bit his teeth down at Sam’s mockery of all the men in his unit that had perished while hunting the rogue journalist for his evidence against Greta Heller and all those employed by her.

“Don’t mind him, Captain. He’s a dead man. I can’t find the memory card. This one is empty,” Igor reported. The captain was once again left empty handed and it made him furious. Sam smiled. He knew he had a hell of a beating coming, maybe even torture, but he was not going to reveal the location of the memory card, otherwise they would shoot right away. Sam was as cocky as they imagined him to be after so many lucky escapes, but in truth he was absolutely terrified and he wished he could telepathically call to Nina and ask for help.

“Where is it?” the captain asked the question Sam was waiting for, the question that was going to bring him so much pain and injury. This time there was a six man fire team with three trained dogs at the captain’s bidding.

“Don’t you know what a stupid question that is around these parts, lads?” Sam quipped to win himself some time. He hoped to be discovered by his allies before they dragged him off and killed him before he could kiss Nina again.

“Looks like he will need persuasion,” the captain told Igor. “Tell your mother where to meet us.”

“You’re bringing your mum?” Sam laughed at Igor, but his hysterical guffaw was cut short by a formidable blow to the base of the skull that hurled him into unconsciousness.

When Sam came to his nostrils were filled with a vile smell he could only perceive as some sewer. It made him gag, but he could not throw up. On the back of head there was a huge gash and the blood had dried in sticky dark streaks down his neck and shoulders. The pain was unbearable, a dull pulsing headache that expanded his brain to a point of eruption. He remained still. If they thought he was still out cold they would wait for him to come to and he could have more time to find his bearings and figure out what to do.

He could hear voices in the distance, echoing in fevered discussion in German. Where he was, everything was quiet, apart from the noise of water dripping into the foul-smelling puddles of brackish sewage.

Sam tried his hands to feel what kind of restraints they had put on him and how tightly he was bound. His feet were tied separately to the chair legs under him and his mouth was stuffed with a dirty rag that tasted like gasoline and piss. He wanted to cough from the urge to throw up, but he had to hold back to maintain his ruse. Around his wrists he was tied with flex cuffs and his fingers were randomly tied with twine to fingers from his other hand to prevent him from using his hands to free himself. The flex cuffs held his ankles in place too, but the chair was made of wood, so he thought of breaking the chair legs.

While he could hear them talking he knew he could fiddle with the restraints, but as soon as they were momentarily quiet, he would stop and go limp. Sam knew his plan had failed when he heard Igor’s voice right behind him, so close that he could feel the young man’s voice vibrating in his ears.

“You can try all you like, Sam. Those plastic things are a bitch to get loose,” Igor said calmly and took the rag out of Sam’s mouth. “Just tell me where the memory card is and I’ll call off the dogs…so to speak.”

“I don’t have it on me, of course,” Sam whispered. His voice bounced off the walls around him; mildew riddled, ancient brickwork that was soaked in the horrid smell he woke up with.

“I know that, Sam.” Igor sighed. “Where is it now?”

“I’ll take you there. There is no fucking way I am telling you, pal. I will show you myself,” Sam stalled. His humorous snapping was now absent, because he just wanted to get out of there and did not want to waste any time. He thought of Nina, wondering if she had noticed by now that he was gone, but then it dawned on him that he could have been out for hours already.

“How long have I been out?” he asked, as Igor summoned the captain and his men to get Sam into the car.

“Oh, but isn’t that a stupid question to ask around these parts, Sam?” Igor returned his earlier sarcasm. “Ah! The ‘where’s’ and the ‘when’s’ of this place will get you every time, will they not?” Sam listened to his German accent growing heavier as he spoke, now that he did not have to hide his identity anymore. Sam looked at the good looking villain with disdain.

“Don’t worry, your precious Dr. Gould is safe and sound with Petra and all your new drinking buddies, Sammo,” Igor smiled and gave Sam a hearty open hand tap against the face. “I just want the gear you had in Germany with your other — late — colleagues. If I get the evidence I can let you live, otherwise, I just have to stop you from ever showing it to anyone, do you understand?”

Sam nodded, as the men pulled him up from the chair.

In the large 4x4 SUV Sam waited with Igor while the captain checked in with Greta to let her know that Igor had seized the journalist. Igor had called her a few hours before to let her know that he had met up with the captain and that all she had to do was bring the brat to lay the spread as soon as he disclosed their chosen location. For now Sam told them that he had hidden the memory card and other footage at the National Museum of Transylvanian History.

“You will leave Nina out of this,” Sam warned. “She was just hired as an advisor. Remember she had nothing to do with anything back in Germany. Are they still at the house?”

Igor stared at him with surprise and amusement. A streak of menace crossed his face as he smiled, “I don’t know where she is by now, Sam. Am I her keeper?”

“So it has been a few hours,” Sam noted. “How did you disappear like that in the forest? Where were you all the time?” he asked casually, as the car started moving towards Cluj on the E81.

“You and Nina walked through a time portal when you disappeared. I think I walked through a space portal when I vanished from your company. I suppose there are different inter-dimensional gateways all over that place. You came to another time, while I emerged in another place,” he explained, but he looked more impressed than he should have. As an investigative journalist Sam could pick up on that immediately.

“Where did you come out, then?” he kept the questions in a deceptively casual way so that Igor would not notice what he was doing.

“Let’s just say that Petra will not be finding her treasure in that house,” he told Sam, and pulled aside his right lapel of his coat to reveal his inside pocket. Inside it something bulged, something rectangular and thick that looked shockingly like a deck of cards.

“You found it!” Sam gasped under his breath.

“When I walked into the forest fog I felt dizzy, my ears were ringing and my body felt like it surged with such energy that the electrical current that went through me made me faint. When I woke up my bones were still vibrating, Sam,” Igor revisited the experience with marveling admiration for the eerie science. He did not sound like a kidnapper, even less like a potential killer. The way in which he told Sam about the experience was more like telling something to a friend with similar interests. Nevertheless, the danger was still real.

“And? Where did you come through? The house?” Sam pressed.

“In that house, but under the floor of all places! I was in this dark, dirty crawlspace. When I was trying to creep out of the trap door above me that I found the first two cards just lying there in the dirt,” Igor smiled. Looking for validation, he waited for a reply from Sam.

“This is un-fucking-believable,” Sam said. “And what are you going to do with them? I’m sure you are not going to deliver them to Petra, hey?”

“Why would I? My mother has the others, but she has no idea I have the majority of the deck. Once I relieve my mother of the others I will have the full deck. Do you even comprehend what that means? Can you imagine what I could do if I can get that little brat Radu Costita to lay out the spread I want?” Igor gloated.

Sam knew at once why he had been asked by Mueller’s daughter to protect the boy in the hospital from the Hellers.

“Oh my god! Radu,” Sam said to himself. “Radu is Petr’s son. And your mother must be…”

“Greta Heller, yes. But she will not be getting her way anymore. I am in control of everything now,” Igor said.

“How will you get her to give you her share of the deck?” Sam dared ask even though he did not want the answer to his question.

“She will give them to me or else…” Igor shrugged and patted his pocket.

“Is she going to join us at the Museum to get the evidence?” Sam asked, hoping to lure Greta there and hopefully save Radu from her clutches.

“Of course, she should be on her way soon. What’s the time?” he asked the goon in the passenger seat.

“4.24pm, sir,” he announced.

“She should meet us there at five,” he told Sam. “Just be warned, she is not as forthcoming as I am.”

“Oh, I’m not scared of her,” Sam smiled. He looked out from the captivity of the car and watched the hustle of people in Cluj-Napoca, hoping that his signal was clear enough.