Masters wished he could smile. After what the Hurst’s and their colleagues did to him at Tuft Chemical Facility, she deserved to be buried alive, let alone get flack from her husband’s idol.
“I cannot believe you just said that, David,” she hissed. “I will not take this from some cloaked crook who comes in here and corrupts you. Have you told him you have work to do?”
Purdue looked at Lilith in disbelief. “He is a friend of Sam’s, my dear, and I am still the master of this house, if I may remind you?”
“Master of this house? Funny, because your own staff could not take your erratic behavior anymore!” she bitched. Lilith leaned to look around Purdue at the man with the hat she loathed for his interference. “I do not know who you are, sir, but you best leave. You are upsetting David’s work.”
“Why do you complain about finishing my work, my dear?” Purdue asked her calmly. Upon his face, a faint smile threatened to come through. “When you know full well that the equation was completed three nights ago already.”
“I know no such thing,” she retorted. Lilith was livid at the accusations, mostly because they were true and she feared that she was about to lose control of David Purdue’s affection. “Where do you get all these lies from?”
“Security cameras do not lie,” he argued, still keeping a serene tone.
“They show nothing but a moving shadow and you know it!” she defended heatedly. Her bitchiness gave way to tears in hopes of playing the pity card, but to no avail. “Your security people are in league with your house staff! Can you not see that? Of course they will insinuate that it was me.”
Purdue stood up and poured another brandy for him and his guest. “Would you like one too, my dear?” he asked Lilith. She uttered a yelp of exasperation.
Purdue added, “How else would so many dangerous scientists and businessmen find out that I discovered the Einstein Equation in the Lost City? Why were you so adamant for me to complete it? You transmitted incomplete data to your associates and that is why you are pushing me to complete it again. Without the solution, it is practically useless. You need to send those last few pieces in order for it to work.”
“That is correct,” Masters spoke for the first time.
“You! Shut the fuck up!” she shrieked.
Purdue would normally not allow someone to yell at his guests, but he knew that her hostility was a sign of admittance. Masters rose from his chair. With care, he slowly removed his hat under the electric light of the lamps while the firelight added nuance to his grotesque features. Purdue’s eyes froze in horror at the sight of the mutilated man. His speech had already given away that he was deformed, but the sight of him was quite worse than expected.
Lilith Hurst recoiled, but the man’s features were so mauled that she did not recognize him. Purdue allowed the man his moment, because he was immensely curious.
“Think back, Lilith, to the Tuft Chemical site in Washington DC,” Masters slurred.
She shook her head in fear, hoping that denying it would make it untrue. Flashbacks of her and Phillip setting up the vessel returned like jabbing blades in her forehead. She fell to her knees and held her head, keeping her eyes tightly closed.
“What is going on, George?” Purdue asked Masters.
“Oh Jesus, no, it cannot be!” Lilith wailed into her hands. “George Masters! George Masters is dead!”
“Why would you assume that, if you did not plan for me to be roasted? You and Clifton Tuft, Phillip and the other sick bastards used that Belgian physicist’s theory in hoped that you could claim the glory for yourselves, you bitch!” Masters drawled as he came toward the hysterical Lilith.
“We didn’t know! It was not supposed to burn up like that!” she tried to reason, but he shook his head.
“No, even an elementary school science teacher knows that that kind of acceleration will cause the vessel to combust with that much velocity,” Masters screeched down at her. “You tried then what you are going to try now, only this time you are doing it on a devilishly large scale, aren’t you?”
“Wait,” Purdue halted the revelation. “What large scale? What did they do?”
Masters looked at Purdue, his deep-set eyes glinting under his molten brow. A hoarse chuckle ensued from the slit that was left of his mouth.
“Lilith and Phillip Hurst were funded by Clifton Tuft to apply an equation roughly based on the infamous Dire Serpent to an experiment. I was working with a genius such as yourself, a man by the name of Kasper Jacobs,” he recounted in slow words. “They found out that Dr. Jacobs had solved the Einstein Equation, not the famous one, but a sinister possibility of physics.”
“The Dire Serpent,” Purdue murmured.
“This,” he hesitated to call her what he wished he could, “woman and her colleagues robbed Jacobs of the credit. They used me as a test subject, knowing that the experiment would kill me. The velocity on entry through the barrier disrupted the energy field in the facility, causing a monumental explosion, leaving me a molten mess of smoke and flesh!”
He grabbed Lilith by her hair. “Look at me now!”
She pulled a Glock from her jacket pocket and shot Masters pointblank in the head, before aiming it straight at Purdue.
28
Terror Train
On the trans-Siberian flash train, the delegates made themselves at home. The two-day trip promised all luxuries equal to any lavish hotel in the world, except for the swimming pool privileges nobody would appreciate in the Russian autumn anyway. Each large compartment was decked out with a queen sized bed, mini bar, en suite bathroom and heat.
The announcement was made that, due to the nature of the train’s construction, there would be no cellular or internet connections until the town of Tyumen.
“Tuft really went all out with the interiors, I must say,” McFadden grinned jealously. He was clutching his champagne glass and studying the interior decoration of the train, with Wolf beside him. Tuft joined them soon after. He looked focused, but relaxed.
“Heard from Zelda Bessler yet?” he asked Wolf.
“Nyet,” Wolf answered, shaking his head. “But she says that Jacobs fled Brussels after we took Olga. The goddamn coward probably thought he was next… had to get out. The best part is that he thinks that his leaving with his work leaves us empty.”
“Yes, I know,” the repulsive American grinned. “Maybe he is trying to be a hero and coming to rescue her.” They kept their laughter restrained to fit their image with the international council members McFadden asked Wolf, “Where is she, by the way?”
“Where do you think?” Wolf scoffed. “He is not a fool. He will know where to look.”
Tuft did not like the odds. Dr. Jacobs was a very sharp man, even though he was exceptionally naïve. He did not doubt that a scientist of his conviction would at least attempt to come after his girlfriend.
“As soon as we disembark at Tyumen, the project will be in full swing,” Tuft told the other two men. “By that time we must have Kasper Jacobs on this train, so that he can perish with the rest of the delegates. The dimensions he created for the vessel is calculated on the weight of this train, minus the collective weight of yourselves, myself and Bessler.”
“Where is she?” McFadden asked, looking around, but finding her absent form the large summit party.
“She is in the control booth of the train, waiting for the data Hurst owes us,” Tuft reported as softly as he could. “As soon as we get the rest of the equation, the project is locked. We leave during the stop at Tyumen, while the delegates are inspecting the town’s power reactor and having their senseless report lecture.” Wolf was scanning the guests on the train while Tuft laid out the plan for the perpetually uninformed McFadden. “By the time the train has continued on to the next town, they should notice that we have left… and that would be too late.”