“Amsel,” Neville spoke reluctantly.
A deep male voice thundered through the receiver, “Why is your phone off, Neville? Do you not know that I can locate you anywhere on this godforsaken planet at any moment in time?”
“I know. I… my charger broke and I couldn’t charge—”
“Neville, you are pissing me off. I pay you enough to buy a fucking cellular factory, so don’t insult me with your teenage level excuses,” Amsel raged, his voice as unnatural as his origins.
“I’m sorry. I was just hoping to complete this task before speaking to you. I was afraid you would… well, I was afraid…” Neville could not help but be honest to a fault with his feelings, “of you. I just wanted to fix this before you found out.”
The deep roar took on a milder tone, “I know. I know what you were thinking, but I wanted you to admit it. I have given you free rein from my associates to give you a chance to prove yourself, Neville Padayachee, so I implore you not to diminish that honor with your timorous ungratefulness.”
“Yes, Amsel. I am busy undoing this catastrophe as we speak. In fact, I think I just missed my train because of it,” Neville lamented.
“You missed your train because your cell phone was disconnected. Had it not been, we would not have had this conversation now, at the time of your train’s departure,” Amsel darkened his words with intonation. “Stop being a whiny bitch and get your fucking priorities sorted out, Neville. You spend far too much time making excuses and less time making effort.”
“Yes, Amsel,” Neville conceded. “I will recover the generator and return it to you, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Apt words,” Amsel said. “Odin wants his energy back where it belongs. Don’t make me come look for it, Neville. It would be less than providential for you.”
“Affirmative. I’m on my way to Scotland now. Thank you for understanding,” Neville replied softly, his eyes scanning the reception area while he secretly wished he had a simpler, mundane life like the administration staff there.
“Oh, understanding is my essence, remember? I will keep an eye on you from the heavens, just to remind you,” Amsel assured him with a wicked twist in his voice that bordered on gloating. The call disconnected to Neville’s relief.
“This is exactly why I destroyed my phone, for fuck’s sake,” he snarled by himself. “Fucking satellites watching everything. God, I hate technology!” He was deeply disappointed that he had to reschedule his travel because of this hold up. Mumbling like an unruly child he punched in the station’s number to get a new departure time, “Fucking generator! If Basu did her damn job… oh, hello, can I reserve a ticket to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport again?”
The train trip and the flight took just under two days to get Neville to Edinburgh, where he checked into a small three-star hotel for the next few days, while he would try to get in contact with Nina Gould. He had to find out where Special Agent Patrick Smith was to furnish him with much-needed information. Of course, Neville’s important information was not to help the agent with his analysis of the item, but to procure it from him at all costs.
“My goodness, the rain just never stops here, does it?” Neville complained to the waiter at the hotel’s restaurant.
“We are used to it, sir,” the waiter smiled. “May I get you something to drink?”
“Mineral water, please,” Neville requested as he perused the menu. The thunder was boisterous on the other side of the window where he was forced to sit, since the eatery was filled to capacity by the time he arrived there.
So sick of always being late for everything, he thought, looking about the place and feeling a seething discontent for the happy patrons around him, chatting away in comfort. In the afternoon after he arrived in the city he had bought himself a new cell phone to appease Amsel. Now he had to act quickly before he displeased the Vril Society high member again.
He had never met Amsel before, but he had heard that the man was something fierce to behold, that his image was much like his voice insinuated. Neville never thought he would be so desperate for money, but his mother, who lived in London with her sister and brother-in-law, was of waning health and he wanted her to live out her days in luxury. With the money the Aryan society paid him to keep their secrets buried in his country, he could easily afford to give her just that.
But it did scratch at his conscience that he, as an Indian, was betraying his race and that of all others, by enabling the evil Nazi legacy of ethnic subjugation and selective genetics to continue in this day and age. In some meager way Dr. Basu’s equal involvement made him feel better about it. Both of them were recruited by Beinta Dock as masks, non-Whites protecting the interests of the Vril Society for the guarantee of protection under the New Order. It always made Neville feel like a vampire’s familiar. There was not much difference between him and being a monster’s lackey for the promise of exemption when the rest of his breed would be laid to waste.
All that kept him loyal, apart from fear, was the financial gain he received from the clandestine order he protected. Had Nina Gould not returned to the site all would have been well. He was sent along to make sure Cammerbach and his team would never find out that the particular location, mentioned in Cammerbach’s ancient texts, was in fact a forbidden entrance to somewhere arcane draped in such antiquity no human mind could fathom — and had to remain sealed. His tracker alerted another group of individuals Neville was involved with, that Beinta and Amsel could never know about. Genetically altered, they were super men who intended to get their own cut of the Vril, by means of the generator.
It was a very dangerous game he played, but in his desperation Neville thought that serving Amsel’s faction would keep him financially independent while he could thwart the Vril Society’s endgame of eliminating all other races as equals. That would be his bit for his race, he thought. And the super men of whom he knew practically nothing offered him that chance. By helping them obtain the object of next-level, scientific-energy production, Neville knew they could extort the Vril and therefore create a silent war between the predators; and a war between predators usually gained the herd time to escape its fate or mount defenses, at least.
They would come for Nina soon, if they had not already embarked on that hunt. Neville wanted more than anything to warn Dr. Gould of their imminent pursuit, only because he liked her. That was why he had shielded her from his associates while they slaughtered the Cammerbach party for intruding on their turf. Unfortunately, Dr. Basu was not as forthcoming as he was, having no trouble in informing Beinta Dock that Special Agent Patrick Smith had possession of the item.
Before they found out that Dr. Nina Gould was the one who retrieved it, probably from Basu as well, he had to get to her to fill her in on the whole thing. Once she was safe from the super men and Beinta Dock, he could concentrate on retrieving the generator from Smith without incident, hopefully. From there on, Neville was still uncertain of his path, but he saved the funding from Amsel’s employ to flee both parties, should it come to that. He would first have to see which of the two parties would benefit his welfare better.
His meal was half-eaten when he opened his laptop to contact Nina Gould. In his email to her he asked her for Patrick Smith’s address so that he could personally speak to him.
Dear Nina,
I hope you are well and that you have healed up properly by now.
You left so abruptly that I had no time to obtain the relevant information from you, young lady. Special Agent Smith, whom I served as guide to find you, asked me to contact him with any information I had about the dig site and what had happened there.