It was difficult to discern between the relentless tapping of the gale-stirred tree branches and the fumbling of a lock pick, or the rapping of a spark plug to cut the window glass. Purdue stopped to listen. Not generally a man of intuition at all, he now found himself at the receiving end of solid acrimony, courtesy of his own emergent instinct.
He knew better than to take a peek, so he used one of his gadgets, one not yet tested before he fled under cover of night from his mansion in Edinburgh. It was a spyglass of sorts, converted for more varied tasks than just clearing a distance to scrutinize the doings of those unaware. It contained an infrared function, complete with a red laser beam that resembled that of a task-force rifle, however this laser could slice through most surfaces within a hundred yard radius. On the flick of a switch under his thumb Purdue could set the spyglass to lock onto heat signatures, so although he could not see through walls, he would be able to detect any human body temperature on the move outside his wooden walls.
He briskly skipped the nine steps of the wide makeshift ladder to the second floor of the cabin and tiptoed to the very edge of the floor where he could look through the narrow slit where it joined the thatch roof. With his right eye on the lens he explored the terrain directly outside the structure, slowly navigating his way from corner to corner.
The only heat he could detect was that of the engine of his Jeep. Other than that there was no sign of any immediate threat. Perplexed, he sat there for a moment, contemplating his newfound sixth sense. He was never wrong about these things. Especially after his latest brushes with deadly enemies, he had learned to recognize impending threat.
As Purdue made his way back down to the first floor of the cabin, he closed the hatch that led to the room above him and jumped over the last three steps. He landed hard on his feet. When he looked up a figure was sitting in his chair. Instantly he knew who it was and his heart stopped. Where did she come from?
Her big blue eyes looked ethereal in the glare of the colorful hologram, but she looked through the diagram, straight at him. The rest of her melted away into the shadows.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” he said, failing at hiding his honest surprise.
“Of course, you didn’t, David. I wager that you rather wished the same, instead of counting on its actual gravity,” she said. That familiar voice felt so odd to Purdue’s ears after all this time.
He moved closer to her, but the shadows prevailed and hid her from him. Her eyes flicked downward and combed the lines of his design.
“Your cyclical quadrilateral is incorrect here, did you know?” she mentioned matter-of-factly. Her eyes stayed fixed on Purdue’s mistake and she made herself mute, regardless of his barrage of questions on other topics, such as her presence there, until he came to correct the fault she had spotted.
That was just typical of Agatha Purdue.
A genius with compulsive idiosyncrasies that left her twin brother looking utterly mundane, Agatha’s personality was an acquired taste. If one did not know that she had a stupefying intelligence quotient, she might well have been perceived as a lunatic of some sort. Unlike her brother’s suave application of his smarts, Agatha was borderline certifiable when she locked on to a problem that needed solving.
And this was where the twins differed vastly. Purdue had successfully utilized his aptitude for science and technology to acquire a fortune and a reputation the likes of ancient kings among his academic peers. But Agatha was no less than a pauper compared to her brother. With her unappealing introversion to the point of being reduced to a staring freak, men just found her weird and intimidating. Her self-esteem was largely based on correcting the mistakes she found effortlessly in the work of others and this was what mainly dealt her potential a solid blow every time she tried to work in the competitive fields of physics or science.
Eventually Agatha became a librarian, but not just any librarian, forgotten among towers of literature and the dusky light of archival chambers. She did show some ambition in becoming more than what her antisocial psychology dictated. Agatha had a side career as a consultant for various wealthy clients, mainly those invested in arcane books and the inevitable occult pursuits that came with the gruesome trappings of antique literature.
To people like them the latter was a novelty, nothing more than a prize to an esoteric pissing contest. None of her clients ever showed genuine appreciation for the Old World or the scribes that recorded the events that new eyes would never see. It pissed her off, but she could not refuse the occasional six-figure remuneration. That would just be idiocy, no matter how she yearned to stay true to the historical significance of the books and locations she so freely led them to.
Dave Purdue looked at the problem his annoying sister had pointed out.
How the hell did I miss that? And why the hell did she have to be here to show me? he thought as he fixed the paradigm, surreptitiously checking her response with every redirection he implemented on the hologram. Her expression was empty and her eyes hardly moved as he completed the circuit. That was a good sign. If she had sighed, shrugged, or even blinked he would know that she disproved of what he was doing — in other words — it meant that she would be sanctimoniously patronizing him in her own special way.
“Happy?” he dared ask, just waiting for her to find another error, but she simply nodded. Finally her eyes moved like a normal person’s and Purdue could feel the strain abate.
“Now, to what do I owe this intrusion?” he asked as he went to pull another bottle of liquor from his travel bag.
“Ah, polite as always,” she sighed. “My intrusion is very well-founded, I assure you, David.”
He poured himself a glass of whisky and held up the bottle to her.
“Yes, thanks. I’ll have some,” she replied and sat forward, pushing her palms together and slipping them between her thighs. “I need your help with something.”
Her words fell like shattered glass in his ears. By the crackle of the fire Purdue turned to face his sister, ashen with disbelief.
“Oh, come now, with the melodrama,” she said impatiently. “Is it that inconceivable that I might need your assistance?”
“No, not at all,” Purdue answered as he gave her a glass of liquid trouble. “It is inconceivable that you would deign to ask.”
Chapter 4
Sam hid his memoirs from Nina. He did not want her to know such deeply personal things about him, although he did not know why. It was clear that she knew just about everything about his fiancé’s gruesome death at the hands of the international arms ring, run by the best friend of Nina’s ex. Many times before Nina had lamented her involvement with the callous man who stopped Sam’s dreams in their bloody tracks when he brutally killed the love of his life. Still, his notes contained a certain subliminal hurt he did not want Nina to see if she read them, and so he elected to keep them from her.
But now that they were waiting for Alexandr to return with word on how to join the ranks of the renegades, Sam realized that this period of boredom in the Russian countryside north of the border would be an opportune time to further his memoirs.
Alexandr had gone bravely, perhaps foolishly, to speak to them. He would offer his help, along with Sam Cleave and Dr. Nina Gould, to stand against the Order of the Black Sun and eventually find a way to crush the organization once and for all. If the rebels had not yet gotten word of the delayed official ejection of the leader of the Black Sun, Alexandr planned to use this momentary weakness in the order’s operations to introduce an effective strike.