Nina had to snigger, her head sunk so that her hair could cover her face. She felt bad for Petra being in such a sorrowful moment and Sam’s jokes thrashing right through the meaning of it.
“So why did he not want you to know about it until now?” Sam asked Petra. At first she looked at him in befuddlement, but then she remembered that he was not aware of the situation.
“He died recently, Sam. This stuff was allocated to me by means of his Last Will and Testament,” she answered politely.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry,” he said quickly.
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t know,” she smiled and had more wine. “I got the news about three weeks ago, that they had discovered his body in a car in Germany. They…” she stopped to catch her breath, “…they think he killed himself. My brother would never have shot himself. Ever! He was a bibliophile with a love for the good life, goddammit.”
“Sounds like you were close,” Nina said in her best comforting tone.
“We were not. Not for a long time…we saw each other in 2003 last at a relative’s funeral, funny enough. He was my parents’ eldest, you see, and I was born almost fifteen years after him, so he was out and about in the world already when I was in primary school. Nevertheless, I knew him. Of the times we did spend together on birthdays or Christmas with our folks the country, we got along great and found that we both had a penchant for cultures and languages,” she continued to explain, clutching her glass while she reminisced. “He did not commit suicide. He was murdered.”
“So maybe he hoped he would find the mystery trunk first and that is why he probably did not tell anyone about it while he was alive,” Sam debated.
“Could be. You see, as Nina explained to me a while back, the SS occupied this castle specifically for one purpose — to intercept worldwide radio signals during the war, something they found by accident while repairing vehicles here,” Petra said.
“That’s correct. Because the hill consists of chert rock and jasper and the Wehrmacht noticed it had amplification properties.”
“Maybe the planting of the explosives had something to do with the sound properties of the rock? Who knows?” Igor chimed in as he placed his empty glass next to Nina’s. “But that does not make it easier for us to find it.”
“So you are looking to open this trunk, Petra?” Sam asked, slightly worried. “And then?”
“Sam, I cannot let precious antiques wither away in obscurity like that, especially those of my culture and of historical significance. You heard what that man in the letter said — it was stolen from the kingdom of Bohemia. It must be given back to the land, put in museums to commemorate the hell our country went through at the hand of the Third Reich, don’t you agree?” Petra asked Sam. She folded her dainty hands under her chin and leaned with her elbows on the table.
“I agree, Professor,” Igor said firmly. “Art of such age and skillful excellence should not be left under the earth because of some long dead failed regime. I move we approach the SCSA Security Company, responsible for the excavation to see if they maybe recovered such a chest.”
The others all agreed and Petra sent Igor to get the ball rolling. He was to make an appointment with the archeologist who headed the excavation while she would invite the owner of Chateau Zbiroh to dinner to get some information about the already recovered items. She was aware of the weapons, Nazi documents and artifacts they had found, but the terms were very general and she thought it would be better to get a more detailed inventory of what had been pulled out, so that she could have a guess what was still lying under the false bottom and the explosive traps.
Sam and Nina looked at each other, while Petra went looking for the owner of the estate, somewhere in its hive of rooms and halls.
“What are you thinking?” Nina asked.
“Do you still have my camera?” he asked her under his breath.
“Of course. It’s in my locked vanity case,” she assured him.
“You have a vanity case?” Sam sank back and widened his eyes playfully at her.
“Oh fuck off, Sam,” she laughed. “You can come and get tonight after dinner.”
“Cool.” He played with his fingers and gathered the courage to talk. “Hey, Nina, I just wanna say thank you.”
“For what? The new clothes and cell phone I paid for in the expensive travel bags I bought you?” she teased about the shopping spree she took her injured friend on the day before to replenish his lost wardrobe.
“No, silly wench…for saving my life,” Sam said sincerely. Nina felt guilty about that more than she was proud of helping Sam escape from the killers. She was late because she got into a tiff with a man and his son about parking her in, instead of asking him to just move his car. Typically of her, she had to be cocky and started with a sarcastic remark the man did not take well to from the start, so it took her a while to defuse the situation and get him to let her out. Had it not been for that, Sam, who had already been in physical distress, would never have been assaulted so brutally. But she decided to keep that to herself.
“Oh Sam, what would I do without you? You are my wingman every time I get into stupid shit,” she smiled shyly. He was surprised to see her like that, vulnerable and sweet.
God, you’re beautiful, he thought as he looked at her marble skin, her high cheekbones and her wide and beautiful smile. Even the scar on her arm was beautiful. He made a mental note to ask her about the treatment she had been undergoing, but she looked healthy enough to leave it at that for now.
For a moment he recalled his despair at her rapidly declining condition when she was poisoned at first, how frail and pale she had been, hardly able to walk as it got worse. He realized just how grateful he was to have his Nina back and he did not even think twice before reaching out to her with his good arm and embracing her. He breathed her scent as she fell against him with a sigh. She smelled so good that he reminisced about the night in Purdue’s house.
“Do you have travelling papers, Sam?” Petra asked loudly in the doorway. “I have a VISA arranged for Nina for the next few weeks because of our agreement, but since I did not expect you, we could not afford you the same facility.” She was pleased to see the two parting at the sound of her voice.
“Aye. I have my papers. Ready to go,” he smiled and she returned his grin, very pleased that he would come with them.
Fortunately he had the common sense to leave his passport, press credential and driver’s license in a locked box at the station in Berlin where he first met with his late excursion colleagues. Sam never took identification with him when he went undercover or embarked on dangerous assignments. They retrieved his documents and managed to leave Germany before his hunters could find him again.
“Oh, um, by the way,” Nina frowned curiously, “where are… we…going?”
“We will be going to Romania. Thanks to this record I obtained from the owner,” Petra flashed a police report from the office files of Chateau Zbiroh like a trophy.
“Do tell,” Nina exclaimed.
“I shall, I shall,” the professor jested. “I told Igor to cancel the appointment with the security company who handled the excavation, because, according to this report, the content of that chest was stolen in 2002 by a contract worker who helped with the exploration of the well and the cataloguing of the items retrieved.”
She continued as Sam poured more wine for the three of them.
“According to this, a chest was brought up, but to this day it had never been opened to see what was missing. Nobody can open it. Yet, a mysterious deck of cards vanished from the catalogue list of items and shortly after, so did…” she scrutinized the names on the form, “… one Mr. Petr Costita. So, it is the general consensus that he was the thief, because he disappeared around the same time as the cards.”