“Let’s say, around the Second World War,” Nina clarified, as Gretchen brought in the tea she had prepared for Nina, herself, and the academic she had been so fascinated by since she had attended his lecture on metaphysics and religious history two years before in Hamburg.
“The Second World War?” Mrs. McLaughlin asked nervously, but it was clear that Dr. Philips had perked up at the mention of it. “Well, I’m certain I would not know offhand, being so long ago, but I could of course find out for you.”
“Heinrich Manfred Schaub,” Dr. Philips said plainly, as if he answered a trivia question on a television show. All three ladies stared at him, waiting for more elaboration, but the esteemed lecturer merely sipped his tea without meeting their eyes with his.
Eventually Nina’s urge got the better of her, “And… how would you know this, doctor?”
He looked up serenely at Nina, “Because he was my grandfather. He never married my grandmother, because their families had… differences.” His tone was solemn, but sincere.
The uncomfortable silence after this revelation was so intense that Mrs. McLaughlin jumped in with her true reasons for calling this time of night.
“Actually, ladies, I brought Dr. Philips to see the house because of this very reason,” she said with an apologetic wince. “He showed up this afternoon, having no idea that someone had recently purchased the place, so I thought the least I could do was to ask you if he could just see the house his grandfather lived in.”
“But, of course,” Nina replied. Inside her a feeling of weird warning sprouted roots. Gretchen was equally uneasy, but both composed themselves for the purpose of sating their curiosity.
“I would have to go soon, so could we perhaps take a tour of the house now?” Mrs. McLaughlin suggested.
“Certainly,” Nina said sharply, annoyed by the estate agent’s dictation. “Let’s get it over with.”
The party of four started on their brief excursion through the old Scottish house, with Nina pointing out the basics. She was definitely not planning on revealing the delicious secrets of the residence that she had discovered.
“I am fascinated by your work, Dr. Philips,” Gretchen told the tall, forty-year-old man. He raised an eyebrow as she continued, “I am especially interested in your theory of the old gods in fact being an ambiguity of extraterrestrial civilizations and how several so-called ludicrous speculations are correctly interpreted, but discarded for the absurdity of name association.”
He stopped in his tracks and cocked his head at Gretchen’s relation of the subject matter of his lectures. “I must say, Professor Mueller, this is the last place I expected to discover a like-minded, or even fathomable specimen.”
Gretchen could burst at his reply. Nina listened closely to their conversation while blandly pointing out the features of the old place to her visitor, but she watched Mrs. McLaughlin’s permanently fixed smile vanish every time Richard Philips passed a room without attention. Nina wondered if this was a show of disapproval for her troubles, or perhaps a disappointment of sorts, not that she could argue a point to such an assumption anyway. Yet she could not help but find something amiss with the fact that the estate agent, who knew the premises very well, would still be curious as to the opinion of the well-informed visitor.
“Are there any places you specifically wish to see, Dr. Philips?” Mrs. McLaughlin snapped suddenly. The gaunt guest replied in his gentle way, “My apologies, madam. I am sure I can find my own way back to my motel, if you need to depart. I do not intend to keep you at all.”
“No! Oh, no, that is not what I meant,” she smiled quickly, alarmed by his response. It was clear that she wanted to stay to see what he pointed out, if anything.
Nina knew something was up with Mrs. McLaughlin.
“Mrs. McLaughlin, I’d be happy to drive Dr. Philips back to his motel after his visit here,” Nina offered resolutely, testing the weight of her suspicion. McLaughlin protested politely, but finally Nina subdued her intentions with a definite decision to kindly expel her presence and take on the responsibility of her guest.
Not happy at all, Mrs. McLaughlin wore a sour smile as she made her way to the front door a few minutes later with an equally corrosive Nina Gould accompanying her.
“Thank you so much for bringing him, Mrs. McLaughlin,” Nina grinned kindly, although her spite was delicious. Mc Laughlin was after something and that something was in Nina’s house. The estate agent had planned to use Philips, like a bloodhound, to find it. It was a pleasure to show McLaughlin out and let the academic genius with the penchant for the esoteric keep her and Gretchen company. No doubt it would be a queer, but fascinating conversation among the three of them about the oddities hidden in the house. And the last thing Nina wanted was an audience with someone who clearly had hidden agendas. What concerned the historian most, though, was not knowing what McLaughlin wanted with the house, and why she insisted on Dr. Philips exploring it.
As she closed the front door behind the estate agent’s back, Nina felt that same fearsome, unsafe feeling wash over her — the one she felt when the locals gathered in front of her house like a silent lynch mob earlier. Something important was hidden in Nina’s new house and from the types of people who left it here, it was nothing good.
Chapter 15
Agent Patrick Smith had switched off all communications, including his personal cell phone. He knew it was important to stay in touch with Sam, especially now that their tasks were inadvertently divided, but even such a small thing as the signal of a cell phone on the wire of a communication device could alert the council watchdogs to his presence and that was a risk he could not afford.
He swept back his short brown hair and pulled a black beanie over his head, keeping his earpiece in his right ear nonetheless. Under his black, knitted sweater he wore a Kevlar vest, his shield against any unforeseen confrontation that aimed lower than his head. This was the high council of the Order of the Black Sun and there was no telling what could befall him should he be discovered. The council, although comprised of senior members of the order and older men in general, was deceptively swift and deadly. Why else would they exert control over Renata, or whoever governed the Black Sun organization at any given time.
Paddy was taking no chances tonight.
As he parked his vehicle a proper distance from the dystopian-looking structure they called Kraftwerke, he made sure to utilize the timed gate activation used by each member’s vehicle on entry. Under the weeping sky, Paddy stalked the entrance and one thing struck him, more than the hideous atmosphere of the blank massive building looming over him. Like Jaap Roodt’s home, the place had absolutely no tighter security measures other than a fence and a gate. What made them so reckless in their self-preservation?
He did not like it one bit, but he had to use their lenient measures to obtain entry to the compound. Tonight the rain had kept them from their usual organized, social entrance to the meeting place, which was better for a scavenger like Agent Smith to move unperturbed and undetected. He was grateful also for the downpour serving as white noise to confuse any audio surveillance the building might have had fitted. With his six-foot, three-inch frame pushing ground at two hundred and forty pounds he was not the most stealthy of sneakers and the patter of raindrops and crash of thunder masked his intrusion beautifully. If anything, Paddy was more worried about getting out than getting in.
In his inner zipped pocket, between the exterior panel of his jacket and his Glock sitting snugly against his side, the wideband audio surveillance gadget pulsed its tiny red light as it recorded. Before Paddy left Anneke’s house he had matched it up with a sub-frequency stream to be fed into his laptop, should the recording device be compromised. One by one he watched the members of the council arrive, rushing to make it into the warm shelter of the abandoned power-station walls. Jaap Roodt showed up among the first three members, so he was already in the meeting hall when the last of the current membership of the council showed up. There were few words spoken among the men tonight, a feeling of strained and unspoken apprehension among them. Paddy could not use the narrow tunnel to the meeting hall without being discovered, so he had to make do with the best place for a signal to his audio’s mini-antenna to hear the conversation in the other room.