“And Harris,” Sam added.
Toshana silently nodded at the assassination of the annoying journalist. Sam almost felt sorry about the loss. He probably would mourn his old foe even for just a minute, had he not been livid and sore beyond sympathy.
“If this priest dies, Toshana, I am smashing your skull against this wall. I swear to Christ! You had better spill it, or you die right now,” Sam reiterated. “Purdue, I am really reaching the end of my tether right now.”
“Alright, alright,” she finally cracked, “but I’ll take you to the citadel myself. That way you will have to let me live. Otherwise you get nothing!”
“The citadel?” Sam asked. “Here in Jerusalem?”
“Not in Jerusalem,” she stammered though bloody teeth. “That is where Lieutenant Hermanus was on her way to when she was…” she looked at Father Harper, “…intercepted.”
“We knew Hermanus was Vril Society. We found her fleeing to Medina. She had their mark branded on her chest, between her breasts,” Father Harper mumbled. “A warped lightning bolt springing from a Black Sun emblem. But you, Toshana…”
“What?” she gasped. Sam’s grip seemed to tear her scalp from her skull.
“You serve something much older, don’t you?” the priest grunted. His voice shivered over its last two words and his body went limp on the floor. Sam and Purdue both felt their impatience escalate at Toshana’s delays.
“Finally, a Templar dies in the Templars’ ill-begotten palace,” Toshana remarked. Her impudence earned her another kick and she cried out in a hoarse voice, refusing to weep.
“Where is the citadel?” Purdue asked, sounding harsh and tired.
“I will take you if you let me live,” she insisted.
“Do we still have to give her to the Militum, Sam? Isn’t there a way out of that?” Purdue asked.
“Aye, there are two ways. Toshana dies now or Nina dies later. Either way, one of them will die, Purdue,” Sam said. He turned and gave Purdue a sharp look. “Choose very carefully which one you would prefer to keep breathing. I know I’ve made my choice.”
From a distance, they could hear a rumbling ensue. It was way past closing hour and the mosque had to be empty by now. Above them there was no trembling of ground, so Sam and Purdue realized that the sound came from both sides of the tunnel. “The light!” Sam whispered loudly. “Kill the light before they find us.”
Purdue promptly switched off the light. Men shouted from the sudden darkness, confirming that they had been discovered under the mosque.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Sam whispered. “How do we get out?”
“They sound very angry, Sam. Have any ideas?” Purdue asked.
“Your pen laser,” Sam suggested. “Why don’t you use that hostile fucking stationary on someone besides your friends?”
“I have no idea where it is. You knocked it out of my goddamn hand, genius,” Purdue retorted.
Suddenly, Sam felt a terrible pain in the arm he was holding Toshana with. A heavy, sharp stone came down on his elbow joint, spraining the joint and forcing Sam’s hand open on impact.
“Jesus Christ!” Sam bellowed. He lost all feeling in his arm for a while, but his legs were still strong. “You bitch!” He jumped up and pursued her clapping footsteps in the dark.
“Sam! Wait for me!” Purdue cried, bolting forward as much as his beaten body would allow. It sounded as if the soldiers were lost down there, their voices floating in argument and suggestions. Their flashlights could not penetrate far enough into the tunnels to locate the intruders. With the speed that Sam and Purdue moved after the fleeing Countess, they quickly left the soldiers behind.
But by the time they found the exit of the tunnel, they had been walking for over an hour. Toshana’s footsteps were silent now. Either she had escaped through the women’s mosque or she was hiding somewhere in the dark. The two men had no time to waste trying to find her in the perpetual dark of an endless maze.
“What do you wager she is on her way to the citadel?” Sam finally asked.
“She paid me in gold bars, stamped ‘RB,’ you know?” Purdue confessed. “I should have known.”
“What is ‘RB’?” Sam asked, wedging out through a crevice in the tunnel that led out from the Temple Mount.
“It is how the SS marked their gold, the abbreviation for Reichsbank. Now, how many normal financial institutions have those?” Purdue asked, shaking his head at his own foolishness.
“Don’t worry. We might not know where to find the citadel exactly, but we know someone who would know,” Sam said. “Doubt he will be very helpful, though, once he knows that we lost Toshana again.”
“Poor Father Harper,” Purdue lamented the fate of the priest. “That man saved me from a terrible fate under Mother’s house when nobody else knew where I was or cared to rescue me.” They stumbled out over the loose rocks, their tired eyes blessed by the beauty of the lights everywhere around the site. Jerusalem by night looked like a galaxy of floating stars shimmering over highways that held their orbit.
“He died because of my mistakes, you know,” Purdue persisted.
“He died because he came to Nina’s rescue,” Sam corrected Purdue. “Something I would do in a heartbeat.
31
In Hoc Signo Vinces
After Nina had played witness to the terrifying symbology in the grand hall, she found it impossible to sleep or hold down any of the food she was given. Ayer came to check on her where she was listlessly lying on her stone bed.
“Dr. Gould, may I have a word?” he asked politely from the doorway.
Nina only shrugged, not feeling like talking at all. She could hear his clothing rustling as he came in and sat down.
“I have received word from Mr. Cleave,” he began, watching Nina sit up at once.
“What did he say?” she asked.
Ayer’s face betrayed nothing of his thoughts or plans, making it difficult for her to ascertain the amount of trouble she was facing, if any. It was just good to hear that Sam was still alright — alive. She had no misgivings about the men who kept her. After their violence on Toshana and the killings at the morgue, not to mention the manner in which they conducted the funerals of their fallen brothers, she knew full well that these were by no means gentle monks that would make Buddha proud.
“He cannot deliver Toshana to us. Apparently they had her, but somehow allowed her to escape them. Dr. Gould, I hate to have to resort to this, but it is time for a sacrifice on one of the sides here. Otherwise we will be locked in this stalemate, you see,” he imparted the sentence as politely as he could. “I must prove to Sam Cleave that Toshana must be killed at all costs, either by him or by us. But I fear he misjudges us, thinking us fools who will wait patiently for him to deliver what he stole from us.”
Nina felt her legs go numb, a sure sign of terror, but she tried to hold her voice steady. Ayer’s cryptic words did not clarify enough for her to make a decision in her emotional state. Her hands were perspiring dreadfully, as if her common sense had already made the decision to panic. With a heavy heart, she tried to come to a certain conclusion. “So, what does that mean for me, Ayer?”
As he spoke, Nina watched his face distort into a monster, the result of the tears impairing her sight. “I am so sorry, Dr. Gould,” he said, “but we will have to make an example of you. If Sam still does not comply after what we do to you, he will have proven inept, spiteful, and unreliable.”
“W-wh-at?” Nina stuttered in disbelief. Her slender hands wrung within one another, savoring for old time’s sake the comfort of not being in pain, of being alive and comfortable. “What? Are y-you going to k-ill me, then?”