The Atlantis Scrolls

Chapter 21

“Anything else before I leave, Dr. Gould?” the night hostess asked from the other side of the door. Her calm tone was in stark contrast to the nail-biting radio drama Nina was listening to and it jerked Nina into another state of mind.

“No, thank you, that’ll be all,” she called back, trying to sound as un-hysterical as she could.

“When Mr. Purdue returns, please do let him know that Miss Maisy left a phone message. She said to relay to him that she had fed the dog,” the plump servant requested.

“Um… aye, I’ll do that. Good night!” Nina feigned a cheery disposition and bit her nails.

Like he’d give a shit about anyone feeding the dog after what just went down in the city. Idiot, Nina growled in her mind.

She had not heard from Sam since he shouted about the watch, but she dared not interrupt the other two while they were already using every sense to keep from falling. Nina was livid that she could not warn them about the police, but she was not to blame. There were no radio reports sending them to the church and their random appearance there was not her error. But surely Agatha was going to give her the sermon of a lifetime about it.

“Fuck this,” Nina decided, going to the chair to get her windbreaker. From the cookie jar in the lobby she delved in to retrieve the keys to the E-type Jag in the garage that belonged to Peter, the homeowner who accommodated the Purdue party. Abandoning her post, she locked the house and drove out to the cathedral to be of more help.

Atop the ridge, Agatha held on to the slanting sides of the roof that she crossed on all fours. Purdue was slightly ahead of her, moving toward the turret where the Angelus Bell and its friends hung in silence. Weighing almost a ton, the bell was unlikely to be moved by the tempestuous winds, which changed direction rapidly, erratically, corralled by the complex architecture of the monumental church. Both of them were utterly exhausted, as fit as they were, from the climbing glitch and the adrenaline of nearly being discovered… or shot.

Like sliding shadows they both slipped into the turret, grateful for the steady floor beneath and the momentary safety of the little tower’s dome and pillars.

Purdue undid the zipper on his trouser leg and pulled out his spyglass. On it was a button that would link up the coordinates he had recorded previously with the GPS on Nina’s screen. But she had to activate the GPS from her side to make sure that the exact point on the bell was marked, where the book was hidden.

“Nina, I’m sending the GPS coordinates to link with yours,” Purdue reported on his com device. No answer. Again, he tried to make contact with Nina, but there was no answer.

“Now what? I told you she lacked the mind for this type of excursion, David,” Agatha bitched under her breath as she waited.

“She does not. She is not an idiot, Agatha. Something is amiss, or she would have answered and you know it,” Purdue insisted, while inside he feared that something had befallen his beautiful Nina. He tried the penetrative view on the spyglass to see where the object was, manually.

“We don’t have time to bemoan the problems we are having, so let’s just get on with it, shall we?” he told Agatha.

“Old school?” Agatha asked.

“Old school,” he smiled, and switched on his laser for cutting around where the texture differentiation anomaly displayed in his scope. “Let’s deliver this baby and get the hell out of here.”

No sooner had Purdue and his sister started, before Animal Control showed up below to assist the police officers with the search for the rogue dogs. Unaware of this new development, Purdue had successfully removed the rectangular iron strongbox from the side of the clapper where it was placed before casting the metal.

“Quite ingenious, eh?” Agatha remarked with a lolling head that processed the engineering that must have gone into the initial casting. “Whoever presided over the making of this clapper was involved with Klaus Werner.”

“Or it was Klaus Werner,” Purdue added, as he slipped the welded box into his backpack.

“The bell is centuries old, but the clapper was replaced a few times during the last few decades,” he said, running his hand over the newer casting. “This could very well have been done just after the First World War while Adenauer was mayor.”

“David, when you are done cooing over the bell…” his sister said casually and pointed down toward the street. Below several officials were milling in the vicinity, looking for the dogs.

“Oh, no,” Purdue sighed. “I’ve lost Nina’s com and Sam’s device shut off shortly after we started climbing. I hope he doesn’t have anything to do with that business down there.”

Purdue and Agatha had to sit it out until the circus down in the street had subsided. They hoped it would happen before daybreak, but for now they sat down to wait and see.

Nina was heading for the cathedral. She drove as fast as she could without drawing attention to herself, but she was steadily losing her composure from sheer worry for the others. When she turned left out of Tunis Strasse she kept her eyes on the towering spires that marked the location of the Gothic church and hoped that she would still find Sam, Purdue, and Agatha there. In Domkloster, where the cathedral was situated, she drove much slower to bring the engine to a mere hum. Movement at the base of the cathedral startled her and she quickly applied the brakes and switched off the headlights. Agatha’s rental car was nowhere to be seen, naturally, because they could not lead on that they were there. The librarian had parked the vehicle a few blocks away, from where they had moved to the cathedral on foot.

Nina watched the strangers in uniform combing the area for something or someone.

“Come on, Sam. Where are you?” she said quietly in the silence of the car. The scent of real leather filled the car and she wondered if the owner was going to check the mileage when he came back. After a patient fifteen minutes the group of officers and dog catchers called it a night and she watched four cars and a van drive off one by one, in different directions to where their shifts had sent them that night.

It was almost 5 a.m. and Nina was exhausted. She could only imagine what her friends felt like by now. The very thought of what could have happened to them terrified her. What were the police doing here? What were they searching for? She dreaded the ominous notions her mind produced — how Agatha or Purdue fell to their death while she was in the toilet right after they told her to shut up; how the police were there to clean up the mess and arrest Sam, and so on. Every alternative was worse than the one before.

A hand slammed against the window and Nina’s heart stopped.

“Jesus Christ! Sam! I’d fucking kill you if I weren’t so relieved to see you alive!” she exclaimed, holding her chest.

“Are they all gone?” he asked, shivering violently from the cold.

“Aye, get in,” she said.

“Purdue and Agatha are still up there, trapped by the assholes down here until now. God, I hope they have not frozen up there yet. It’s been a while,” he said.

“Where is your com device?” she asked. “I heard you screaming about it.”

“Got mugged,” he said plainly.

“Again? Are you a magnet for a pounding or what?” she said.

“It’s a long story. You would have done it too, so shut it,” he panted, rubbing his arms to get warm.

“How will they know we are here?” Nina wondered out loud as she slowly veered the car to the left side and idled it gently toward the lurching black cathedral.

“They won’t. We just have to wait until we see them,” Sam suggested. He leaned forward to look up through the windshield. “Go to the southeast side, Nina. That’s where they ascended. They’ll probably…”

“They’re abseiling,” Nina chipped in, looking upward and pointing to where the two figures were suspended on invisible threads and sliding downward bit by bit.

“Oh, thank God, they are okay,” she sighed and threw her head back, closing her eyes. Sam got out and motioned for them to get in.

Purdue and Agatha jumped in the backseat.

“Though I am not partial to profanity much, I should just like to ask what the holy fuck happened there?” Agatha shouted.

“Look, it’s not our fault the police showed up!” Sam yelled back, scowling at her in the rearview mirror.

“Purdue, where’s the rental car parked?” Nina asked while Sam and Agatha went at it.

Purdue gave her the directions and she drove slowly through the blocks while inside the vehicle the shouting match continued.

“Granted, Sam, you did leave us up there with no warning that you were checking out the situation with the girl. You just left,” Purdue argued.

“I was relieved of my communication by five or six fucking twisted Germans, if you don’t mind!” Sam roared.

“Sam,” Nina urged, “let it go. You’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Of course not, Dr. Gould!” Agatha barked, now directing her rage at the wrong target. “You simply left the base and broke communication with us.”

“Oh, I thought I was not allowed to make one bloody peep over that com, Agatha. What, did you want me to send smoke signals? Besides, there was nothing on the police wire about this area at all, so save your accusations for someone else!” the fiery historian shot back. “The only response from the two of you was that I must keep quiet. And you’re supposed to be a genius, but that is base logic, sweetheart!”

Nina was so pissed she almost drove past the rental car that Purdue and Agatha would drive back.

“I’ll drive the Jag back, Nina,” Sam offered, and they got out of the car to switch seats.

“Remind me never to entrust my life to you again,” Agatha told Sam.

“I was just supposed to watch a bunch of thugs take down a young girl? You might be a cold, indifferent bitch, but I step up when someone’s in danger, Agatha!” Sam hissed.

“No, you are reckless, Mr. Cleave! Your selfish ruthlessness is no doubt what got your fiancé killed!” she screeched.

Instantly, silence fell over the four of them. Agatha’s hurtful words struck Sam like a spear to the heart and Purdue felt his heart skip a beat. Sam was dumbstruck. For the moment he had nothing but numbness in him, save for his chest, where it ached intensely. Agatha knew what she had done, but she was aware that it was too late to correct. Before she could try, Nina struck her down with a devastating fist to the jaw, jolting her tall body sideways with such force that she landed on her knees.

“Nina!” Sam cried, and went to restrain her.

Purdue helped his sister up, but he did not side with her.

“Come, let’s go back to the house. There is still a whole lot to be done tomorrow. Let’s all cool down and get some rest,” he said calmly.

Nina was shaking madly, spittle moistening the corners of her mouth as Sam held her injured hand in his. Purdue gave Sam a consoling press on the arm as he passed him. He felt truly sorry for the journalist who had watched the love of his life get shot in the face right in front of him a few years before.

“Sam…”

“No, please, Nina. Don’t,” he said. His glazed eyes stared torpidly forward, but he was not looking at the road. Finally someone said it. What he had been thinking all these years, the blame everyone absolved him from out of pity, was all a lie. He caused Trish’s death after all. All he needed was for someone to say it.