“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.