The Medusa Stone

Chapter 21

After a good dinner, the group gathered in Purdue’s room to discuss formation and time frame on the coming covert operation to gather intelligence discreetly. They took no chances in risking being overheard here in close proximity of the warehouse, on the off chance of the staff having knowledge of the place. Anyone here could be part of the secret practice of whatever it served and Purdue was intent on keeping things as quiet as possible.

Don looked at his watch, “People, it is time. Is everyone ready?” He kept his voice low as it was late and the rest of the lodge had quietened down.

The others nodded. Nina looked at Costa, who smiled instantly as his eyes found her gaze. “Are you ready, Dr. Gould?” he asked to sever the suspended web of awkward silences between them. Nina nodded with a shrug.

“Can I be the first to admit I am scared to death?” Heidmann uttered carelessly. Nina and Don snickered in agreement.

“I think we are all a bit shaky on this,” Purdue comforted them. “Now you know why I insisted that nobody drink tonight, hey?”

“Much as I love my stout, I have to concur with you on that sentiment, old pal!” Don affirmed. “It would pay to be sober tonight, and vigilant even for those who are attentive. Remember, I will mostly be protecting James while we advance into the storage room. However, I need you all to mind your surroundings nonetheless.”

“That’s right. We have to move as one unit to protect each other,” Purdue agreed as he flicked out his tablet and set his coordinates. “If all goes well, hopefully, we will be alone there.”

“Oh, good. If that is a possibility, I feel more encouraged now,” Nina sighed in relief.

Purdue continued, “Seclusion would be highly desirable, but honestly if I were hiding a treasure trove of ancient statues I would never leave it unguarded. It is almost certainly under guard.”

“And there goes the courage, again. Away it goes!” she filled in instantly, prompting Costa to lean over and wrap her in a tight hug of amicable consolation.

The four men seemed serene and humorous, but Nina could feel the anticipation among them. Knowing that they were as wary as she was made her more adamant to identify as many pieces as she could get to while they were there. She owed them that.

Silence prevailed in the dark van on the way back to the outskirts of Markvartovice. Here and there throat clearing or sniffing split the quiet atmosphere as the irregularly placed lights of street lamps or houses floated outside in the night. From the front of the vehicle where the immediate road was visible, the surrounding homes and street lights slid past along the sides of the van until they finally vanished into the blackness of its wake. The occupants of Purdue’s rented heap of Romanian trash each sat in contemplation of the events to come, listening only to the rattle of the neglected engine, the squeak of the dry shock breakers, and the whistling wind through the defective rubber window frames.

In the short distance, the faint illumination of the moon and the nearby settlements served as backlight for the grotesque landscape unfurling before them. No one uttered a sound, yet they were all of the same mind — this place felt evil. Over the dark silhouette of the dancing tree tops it protruded. Like a leviathan metal skeleton, twisted and bent, the three walls of iron and fuselage came into view.

“God, it looks like the night has teeth,” Nina remarked to the discomfort of her colleagues. “Jagged, rusted jaws trying to bite at the moon…”

“Nina, I beg you to cease your lovely poetry and tuck those words back into your head,” Costa implored. “You are not helping my nerves.”

“No shit,” Heidmann muttered, glancing at Purdue, who forced a smile under his strangely like-minded sensibilities. Nina sighed, hoping that this night would not be her last. Her big dark eyes were evidence of her vigilance as she scanned the surrounding area which had become completely alien in the darkness, had it not been for the female voice on Purdue’s GPS affirming that they were still on an earthly plane. Nina had taken caffeine pills to keep her extra alert during the first investigation. Unlike other expeditions, not of Purdue’s arrangement, this one was life threatening.

She felt Costa’s hand softly fall on her shoulder. When she looked at him in the green light of the van’s dashboard, she almost gasped at his likeness to Sam. The Greek Arts professor staring deep into her eyes was practically Sam Cleave’s doppelganger, shaking Nina’s inner feelings to a renewed sorrow for her lost friend. All she could do was to immerse herself in Costa for as long as she could and to keep her secret fantasy to herself. The fantasy that he was, in fact, Sam that had come back to soothe her aching spirit until they would meet again.

“Stop!” someone shouted suddenly. The van jerked to an immediate standstill, throwing the bodies of its passengers violently forward. “Jesus Christ! Did you see that?”

It was Don crying out. Purdue was ashen even in the weak lighting. Heidmann looked like he just saw a ghost.

“Please! Please, lads,” Don cried in a quivering voice, “tell me I am just tired. Tell me, please, tell me that I just imagined that!”

Purdue did not move. Heidmann was frozen in his seat. Don kept babbling incoherently, having whipped out his gun and checking if it was loaded. Nina and Costa did not see what the others did. Bewildered they asked the others what it was.

“We did not see it here in the back,” Costa said, finding a better excuse for their ignorance than the truth. We were staring into each other’s eyes just would not float that well in the current situation.

“You did not see that?” Don asked them, almost sounding hysterical with his high pitch fear-voice. “Jesus! I think I shit in my pants just then!”

“What was it?” Nina shouted. “We almost hit something?”

“Let me just keep driving, so that we are not stationary for that… thing… to catch up,” Purdue said.

Nina was worried about Don’s reaction. The man was a hardened and tough individual, hardly shaken by anything, yet here he was positively shaking. Nina leaned forward and gently put her hand on his arm. “Don, what was that?”

He turned to face her, his eyes wide as saucers and filled with confounded terror.

“I don’t know. She just walked into the road in front of us. But by God, I could have sworn it was a woman who had snakes for hair. Jesus, Nina, it looked like dreadlocks that moved on their own.”

Costa had no expression as he stared at Don. Nina placed her hand lightly on Costa’s knee as if she was checking his attention. “Are you alright, Professor?” she whispered as the van slowed down outside the large barren yard of twisted steel where talons of iron and wire reached for the night sky. Costa nodded a bit absent-mindedly, probably imagining the frightful sight Donovan had described.

“You know that cannot really be, right?” she assured him while she was in fact convinced that Don was not imagining things. From the things she had seen and experienced in the past years, Nina knew well that anything was possible in the underworld of clandestine dealings. Costa nodded, locked his big eyes on hers and smiled timidly. His hand found hers and pressed it with affection.

“I will not let them get you, Dr. Gould. That I promise,” he whispered in her ear, so close that Nina’s flesh grew taut from his warm breath. It felt like Sam. His dark allure and his honesty mirrored Sam’s to a fault, and she wished that she could just surrender to him there and then, even if it was just to be with Sam in essence.

The engine died. Now it was real. The moment had come when their plan would have to be meticulously executed in the threat of almost certain discovery and peril. Not one of them uttered a word as they prepared to exit the relative safety of the minivan. Around them, the silence was deafening, only broken by the eerie wailing of the wild gusts that rocked the vehicle with its force.

“Let’s go,” Purdue announced like a judge delivering the capital punishment.

“I hope that freak is lost in the dark,” Don said. “I swear I will shoot that thing on sight. There is no way that such a creature is harmless.”

“Maybe she is just deformed, Donovan,” Heidmann reasoned. “Some people are born with physical defects, especially here in the Third World. You cannot just assume she is dangerous based on how she looks. If you shoot her, you will betray our presence here, remember?”

Don was not impressed. “Well, if she shows up I’ll be sure to send her your way so that you and your bleeding heart can keep her occupied, alright?”

With Heidmann leading, and an armed Dr. Graham beside him, the party stole through the long black shadows outside the warehouse. They all clumped together, sneaking as quietly as they could toward the least impregnable heap of steel junk.

“Thank God for the vicious wind,” Nina whispered. “It helps mask any noise we make.”

“On the downside, these winds mean that there would soon be a storm, Nina,” Heidmann told her. “I learned that the hard way when Tessa and I spent eight months excavating at Ostrava.”

“Shit. We’ll just have to hurry,” Costa said. As Purdue nodded in agreement, he caught a glimpse of Heidmann and Costa locking hostile looks again before Heidmann proceeded to the hole in the fence he recalled being there. The billionaire could not help but think that he made a huge mistake trusting Helen’s word to bring the Greek professor on board to help.

He had nothing against Megalos, but Heidmann was more valuable in pointing them to the location of the place. More so, the apprehensive archeologist was a pivotal part of finding the origin of the anomaly, whereas Megalos was merely a consultant on the authenticity of the art they uncovered.

One by one they braved the spiky protrusions of the unforgiving rusty rods and razor wire. Nina got through the easiest, being so petite, but Don had trouble. He got stuck for a moment and had to be untangled by Costa and Purdue, who were behind him while Nina and Heidmann waited on the other side. Heidmann tapped Nina on the back to draw her attention to a shimmering warm glow a small way ahead. She nodded affirmatively. It was caused by two drum fires lit by the night watchmen to simultaneously keep them warm and to lend some light to the silent storage hangar.

Once they were all through, they separated as discussed in their meeting in Purdue’s room and continued in formation to flank the warehouse and meet where Heidmann had estimated the entrances by memory. They could hear the four large men at the fires chatting and laughing.

“They look like soldiers,” Costa remarked.

“More like war criminals,” Don guessed.

Heidmann’s face visibly sank as they entered the smaller main hall. It was vast and empty, apart from the upstairs office where Heidmann claimed to have overpowered the seller that tried to kill him.

“What is the matter, James?” Nina asked. “Where are the statues kept?”

“Come on, son. We have very little time,” Don urged.

Heidmann snapped out of it. “I’m sorry. It’s just… the last time I was here…” he caught his breath, “…I lost my Tessa.”

“Aye, I know, love,” Nina soothed him, “but you can avenge her by completing this mission and getting to the bottom of these bastards’ business, hey?”

Heidmann appreciated her sympathy. Of them all, Nina was the only one who gave a damn about his personal stake in this. But then again, how could she not? Of them all, she was the one most like him in that emotional state, knowing the pain of losing someone you love and not being allowed to grieve until the sorrow subsided. Having to just pick up and live again as if nothing ever happened while there was a gaping chasm in one’s chest.

“This way,” he whispered.

They followed him toward a hidden, smaller door under the stairs that led to the office. He clearly recalled passing through the unassuming entrance to the tomb of stone corpses and even remembered how the handle of the door had to be lifted before it could turn.

Don and Purdue remained just outside the entrance to make sure they were not discovered. The clatter of the metal sheets the structure was made of impaired their ability to hear the guards all the time. Every now and then, the sound of their voices would simmer through the roar of the coming rainstorm, but most of the time it was virtually impossible to keep track of their position.