While they engaged in small talk about their respective vocations, Gretchen watched Nina and Sam’s shaky reunion with dread.
“I know we parted less than desirably, Nina, but you have to believe me. I am in no way responsible for what just happened here,” Sam tried to explain. “Can I bum one? Paddy won’t let me smoke in his company.” He pointed at her cigarette.
“It’s my last one,” she said, suddenly somewhat disarmed at his casual begging. It reminded her of the old Sam — the boyish, mischievous, and adorable journalist before he was a gun-wielding, celebrity author. Nina yielded, passing Sam her cigarette, “Puff, puff, pass.”
“Aye, thanks,” he replied, eagerly receiving the smoldering solace and sucking hard on it. His head fell back, eyes closed as he exhaled it with a long, relieved sigh. “God, that’s good.”
“So what’s going on?” she asked, much more composed now that the shock of seeing Sam was broken by some idle words.
“I hate to tell you this, but as you might have noticed, there is a hit on you,” he reported with sincere sympathy. “We came to intercept it, and none too soon, I see. Someone named McLaughlin is behind it, from what our sources tell us.”
Nina nodded nonchalantly as she took the fag from Sam for a hit, “That is the woman who sold me this property. She was here with these buffoons a few minutes before you came. No doubt she’ll be back if she doesn’t hear from them by morning.”
“She is one of the assassins employed by the council. For some reason, the Black Sun wants you out of the way so that Purdue can complete the work he is doing for them,” Sam mentioned, keen to hear her response.
“Purdue?” she asked, blowing her smoke upward. “He is not dead? He is working for them?”
Sam saw the opportunity to play saint. Now was the time to shatter all Nina’s trust in Purdue once and for all, no matter how much it made Sam feel like a bastard and opportunist. Their affection for Nina was, after all, the reason they were constantly at war.
“Apparently his so-called apprehension in Madeira was planned to make him look like a victim. He probably plotted the whole arrest with them,” Sam uttered his shameless lie as speculation. Nina frowned. She shook her head while following all the cogs in the wheel to make sense of it.
“What is he making for them now?” she asked.
Paddy approached her slowly, giving Sam a hard look as he saw the undisciplined journalist take the cigarette from Nina to finish it off. “They are busy with something called Final Solution 2, Nina. We have yet to find out what it means.”
Nina’s eyes stretched wide and she looked at Gretchen before replying. She could not believe they did not know what it entailed.
“Final Solution?” she marveled. “Final Solution was the euphemism the Nazis used for the eradication of all Jews by means of genocide.”
The group stood in silence for a moment.
“Only this time I have a feeling not only the Jews are being targeted?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. Gretchen held her breath at the horrid thought, and Paddy nodded. He remembered full well the nature of the discussions he overheard.
“Tell me, Nina, where did Venice fit into the Nazi plans?” he asked.
She leapt up and seated herself on the kitchen table and after a bit of thinking she replied, “Venice was targeted by Allied forces during Operation Bowler, I know, but I’m not sure what the exact underlying reason was. Why?” she asked Paddy, looking very interested all of a sudden. She seemed to have forgotten that there were two dead bodies in her house and her feud with Sam was shifted aside for now.
“The council is sending one of their members to Venice to oversee a clandestine plan already in action, and apparently Dave Purdue is the key to completing it,” Paddy answered.
“Purdue,” Nina said softly, her eyes getting lost in the seams of the floorboards. “How could he allow… ”
“Well, I think what we need is to get rid of these two bodies, first of all,” Sam jutted in quickly, before Nina thought too much about Purdue and his fate.
“Oh, yes, and then I have to get back to Glasgow to report and debrief. Remember, I’m not sharing any of this information with MI6, so after I leave here, you bunch are on your own to sort out this shite,” Paddy warned.
“Who is going to protect us… uh… Nina, then?” Gretchen asked with grave concern in her voice.
“I will. Patrick has played me the recording of the council meeting and I know what the members are up to, in short, but I need more information on the things they plan to use to facilitate this worldwide genocide. There is all this rubbish about opening portals to the Old Gods and something about arming the Longinus,” Sam explained.
“Oh, that is not rubbish, Mr. Cleave,” the queer Richard intervened in his quiet voice. “By means of quantum physics and some help from old mathematical texts, this rubbish is entirely possible.”
“Who’s the stiff?” Sam asked Nina in a whisper, as Gretchen jumped up to join in Richard Philips’ thesis.
“It is indeed. And even in old scrolls and records there are accounts of possible portals. Much like Nina’s house has the reputation of being a doorway to another dimension,” she babbled. Sam looked at her in disbelief, then shifted his eyes to Nina. But she did not look as cynical as he had hoped.
“You buy this?” he asked.
“Come upstairs with me, Sam. There are some things you have to see.”
She pulled Sam along and they were joined by the others. After showing Sam and Patrick the hidden books, Paddy’s face lit up.
“Of course! That is why they are headed for Venice,” he shrieked in awe.
“Care to share?” Gretchen pressed.
“The Library of Forbidden Books! It is located somewhere in Venice, but there is no record or map of it. It was supposedly moved away from the Vatican, to avert the occult treasure hunters and madmen who wished to obtain the writings of exiled occultists; several of them are based in the Middle East,” he roared, pleased with his epiphany. “These books, as you will see, have no ISBN, they have no press information, and others are just blatantly malevolent.”
“The subjects are a mix of Nazi doctrine and ideals, with occult lore, physics, and mathematical principles heading all in one direction — the act of punching a hole in inter-dimensional veils to let in terrible and super-intelligent denizens to rule the world,” Richard enlightened Sam and Paddy.
“And this house has always had a reputation for being one such portal,” Gretchen told Sam.
“Really?” Sam replied in his old sarcastic mockery.
“It does. I think my grandfather knew this, and the well below us, I think, has a lot to do with that. Long has it been said that water is a conductor. How do we not know that it could perhaps conduct subatomic particles and promote other mathematically driven properties of physics?” Richard suggested.
“All right, listen, you have a well under the house? We can dispose of the bodies there, right?” Paddy asked urgently. “I have to be in Glasgow by tomorrow morning, so time is of the essence here. I’ll of course be in touch.”
Nina’s skin crawled at the thought of the mouth and the ghastly thing living in it. Gretchen felt the same by the looks of her wince at the mention of the well.
“I’ll show you where it is,” Richard offered Sam and Patrick, and the three men descended the staircase to the ground floor of the house to collect McLaughlin’s goons. Nina and Gretchen trailed them at a distance. They had no intention of going near the hellish water hole again.
“So are you okay, doll?” Gretchen asked. “What are we going to do now? I suppose calling the police is not an option, since a secret agent doesn’t even get involved.”