The Vault of Hercules

Chapter 24

After Nina had packed — she was the last one to leave Wrichtishousis — she passed the butler in the hallway on her way to the lobby. As was tradition, he followed her to the front door where Purdue was waiting with Bruno. Charles and Nina had another of those exchanges that made Purdue ache with curiosity, but once again he was not in a position to ask. In turn, Purdue gave his butler a lingering stare which accurately conveyed his inquiry, yet all Charles could do in response was to drop his gaze to the floor in humility.

“My boys will be outside twenty-four-seven, capiche?” Bruno told Charles. “You just make sure they are fed and have fresh linen to sleep on and they won't shoot you, alright!”

“Jesus! If he whips out the wannabe Tony Soprano again I'm going to drown him in cement,” Nina mumbled to Purdue, who couldn’t help but smirk at her annoyance with the mafia toddler.

“Let's just get out of here first so that we can find the Vault of Hercules. Then we can send out the Secret Service to arrest these mooks before Nina lets him sleep with the fishes,” Sam whispered from behind them as he joined them at the small luxury minibus. The three of them had a rare chuckle before giving their luggage to the driver of the vehicle.

“Oh, I have a feeling that ol' Charles will be just fine in charge here,” Nina said.

“Why?” Purdue asked as they inched in one by one on the back section seats.

“I'll tell you when we get to Greece,” she sighed nervously, watching Rita intently as the archaeologist rounded the exterior of the vehicle to get into the front seat.

“Tell me now,” he insisted.

Nina motioned to him that she could not talk within earshot of their coercive colleagues. Sam was equally curious, but he had other aspects to weigh up on the coming trip that he too, could not share yet. On their way to the airstrip at North Berwick, Sam decided to lay his head back and relax. Nina was relieved that he seemed almost back to his old self. Purdue had arranged with Larsen and his crew to fly his jet to the closer airstrip at North Berwick and pick up their travel party there. There was no way he would reveal the location of his actual flight base at Milltown to the likes of Prof. Rita Medley and her mafia mutts.

It would be a five-hour flight to Athens, Greece. Soon Purdue, Sam and Nina knew that the trip would feel like a week's worth with a noisy, thankless brat. After they boarded Purdue's jet to hopefully cut the journey shorter, the fiasco began. From the food served to the turbines of the craft, Guido Bruno knew better, owned better, did not approve of and apparently outdid. Even Rita, who hated Purdue's guts, defended his classy fleets and posh dishes in flight and was looking terribly embarrassed by her husband's behavior. This particular bitch-fit was for having to take Purdue's jet instead of one from Bruno's uncle's fleet. He could not handle the fact that he had to be a mere passenger on the opponent's aircraft, which somehow implied some form of weakness to his status.

Nina managed to use the continuous raving and bitching to her advantage.

“Purdue, did you have an Egyptian assistant on your less than legal exploit in Ethiopia?” she whispered, while Rita and Guido were arguing profusely in the background.

“I did, why?” he replied.

“Where is he?” she asked.

Purdue looked uncomfortable and a bit upset. “He is dead, Nina. His name was Adjo Kira. Team Medley came at us in a hail of bullets just before my chopper showed up to pluck us up with the relic. I believe he got shot several times because he was completely unresponsive when I checked his condition. Whatever they did to his brother, I shudder to think.”

“He’s alive,” she whispered.

“What?” Purdue gasped, going pale at the news.

“Is that not good news?” Sam asked lazily.

“Well, yes, of course, but it’s remarkable. Nina, how do you know this?”

Nina checked the status of the argument between Rita and Guido before continuing. “Your old pal Rita apparently saved him from certain death while he was strapped to a kitchen chair in… in… some fucking dried up desert town somewhere.”

“Strapped to a kitchen chair?” he frowned, trying to make sense of her revelation.

“Her hubby-wubby tortured him to find out where you were and he almost bit it when the whiny bitch with the Italian shoes got fed-up…until Rita interfered. Now, because of her sweet disposition, your Egyptian assistant is probably hanging upside down in a basement somewhere, but he is very much alive,” she explained, to Purdue's elation.

“Excellent,” he smiled. “Not that the poor man’s being held, but that he’s not dead after all. You know, my escape from the locals in Aksum and my attainment of the relic are all thanks to Adjo and his brother. I have to find out where he’s being kept.”

“You don't have time to go out and save your assistant,” Nina reprimanded him. “You have to get off the grid and stay there until…”

Purdue did not understand. Neither did Sam, who peeked over his laptop screen and waited for an explanation for her urgency regarding Purdue. Of course, Sam did not want Purdue to go off the grid until the journalist had enough on him to tighten the net for Paddy's people.

“Nina,” Purdue asked softly, “what do you know that I don't, my dear? And please, be specific.”

Nina sighed anxiously. Looking at Sam always melted her defenses, so she tried not to look at him. But she felt obliged to tell Purdue now that they were safely passing over the German border to Austria and a good distance from Edinburgh. “Charles…”

“I knew it!” Purdue said a bit too loudly, momentarily drawing the attention of the fighting spouses. The three Scots merely smiled and pretended to be engaging in trivialities to misdirect them. “I knew it,” Purdue said again. “The way he was looking at you was just too… wait, how does he fit into this?”

Sam was fascinated with what Nina was sharing. “Charles didn’t want to jump the gun and get into his boss' business, that’s all, Purdue. Geez! He approached me so that he could protect you without confronting you personally.”

“About?” Sam chipped in.

“His brother-in-law works for a government agency responsible for the smashing of antique syndicates. He wouldn't say, but I think it may be loosely the same intelligence people Paddy works for,” she said under her breath. “There is a dragnet active, Purdue, for your arrest. Interpol is assisting on a superficial basis to locate you, but the Ethiopian Government and several international Historical Preservation organizations are calling for your indictment on contraband charges.”

“Fuckin' hell,” Sam said. “Sounds like you really stepped in it this time, old boy.”

“Most sites are protected by 1906 Antiquities Act and the 1979 Archaeological Resource Protection Act,” Nina added, “so any theft of artifacts on federal land is a turd in their punch bowl.”

“So he didn’t want to tell me personally,” Purdue wondered out loud. He admired his butler for his professionalism in this regard, but it was shocking to only learn about his wanted status now that he was en route to do it yet again.

Sam said nothing. He couldn’t deny that it stung him a bit to see his friend vulnerable, but it was time for Purdue to be struck down to size by the authorities he’d always eluded so easily, almost arrogantly, because of his wealth and contacts. Instead, the journalist did some background research on Guido Bruno, the man who had them all at his mercy, the man who had the gall to practically take over their respective lives to get what he wanted.

Later, the excitement between the spouses had died down mostly from exhaustion. Purdue was taking a nap and Nina was watching a movie on her laptop. Sam used this time to snoop on the man-child who threw a tantrum every time he was not in charge. There was not much on Guido Bruno, although the Familia he belonged to did not disappoint Sam's assumptions.

Inside the jet it was quiet of conversation, giving Sam time to hear himself think. There was a lot at stake, all of it depending on him. Having to make a choice between Purdue and Paddy was weighing heavily on him, but he was certainly more fed-up with one than the other. Flashes of horrible pictures from scenes perpetrated by the Cosa Nostra was nothing new to him, but what he was after were those easy-to-ignore, small report pieces in insignificant newspapers. Fortunately Sam knew exactly how to obtain information from those, and he knew just where to find them.

Then his heart jumped. He found what he was looking for, but it was more than what he’d bargained for. Sam's eyes stretched as his heart rate accelerated. His dark eyes instantly dashed up over the screen to find the reprehensible scum that suddenly sank to the bottom of his shit pool. Sam clenched his fists, wishing he could just shove a butter knife into the Sicilian snake's eye, but that would compromise his entire mission to keep tabs on Purdue so that Paddy's associates could arrest him.

On Sam's screen there was an old picture from 2009, the subject of which he didn’t even bother or care to read. All he needed to know was what the photograph confirmed — that Guido Bruno and Igor Heller were celebrating together after the infamous Agrigento Massacre, during which Bruno's business partner was killed, coincidentally after taking Bruno to court over a real estate dispute.

“What are you looking at, Mr. Cleave?” Guido dared ask in his condescending manner.

Sam's skin flushed with rage. “Nothing,” he replied with equal contempt. “Absolutely nothing.”