Preston Child - The Fountain of Youth

“What is it?” Purdue’s growl emanated through the shield of the door.

“Sir, Lieutenant Campbell is here from the Dundee police offices. He insists on speaking with you, sir,” Charles announced as the cop’s shadow fell upon him. Alarmed at the prohibited protocol, he was going to ask Campbell to wait upstairs, but Purdue had already opened the door. Charles was caught standing there between the two, awkwardly mute.

“Mr. Purdue,” Campbell nodded.

“Lieutenant Campbell,” Purdue acknowledged. “You have come far to see me, I presume?”

“Can I see you…in private?” the cop asked, looking hard at the poor butler who was unable to move from between the two men in the confines of the narrow passage.

“Step into my laboratory. We can talk here,” Purdue offered and ushered the cop inside. Realizing that the butler would have left them if he hadn’t been trapped, a bit of the old Purdue came out as he winked at Charles in amusement and whispered, “You’re welcome.”

Charles almost smiled as he walked away from the uncomfortable situation.

In Purdue’s lab, Lieutenant Campbell had time to look around as his host tidied up a stray chair for him to sit on. The place was packed with machines, lights, and monitors the likes of which the police officer had only ever seen at MI5 before. The billionaire smelled of fresh Aloe Vera shower gel, but his shirt was clammy from his still moist body and his white hair was unkempt and wet. Even his glasses seemed to sit a little skew on his face and he was barefoot.

“This place…uh,” Campbell started. “it looks like you’ve been busy since we last saw each other.”

“Yes, yes, I have. I’ve been busy with some very important experiments,” Purdue said hastily, as he rushed to create some order around the officer. He found two glasses and poured them both some fruit juice he kept in the bar fridge.

“That sounds like Frankenstein stuff. Experiments. Laboratories always gave me the creeps,” Campbell admitted as he took the drink from Purdue. “Thanks.”

“Oh, don’t worry. There’s nothing like that going on here. Just quantum physics and some technological gadgets, but you won’t find corpses hooked up to lightning conductors,” Purdue soothed him. “That stuff is scheduled for next year.”

The lieutenant, a sharp judge of character, instantly knew that Purdue was joking. Yet by his background check on the world-renowned explorer and scientist, Campbell knew that Purdue was perfectly capable of such atrocious science.

“I have some new information from a reliable source,” Campbell started. Purdue sat down and leaned with his elbows on his thighs to listen as Campbell continued. “Your hit at Sinclair was facilitated by an inside job. Reusch, the impostor, was working under one Walter Guterman, a criminal kingpin we suspect is in alliance with the Order of the Black Sun. It was Guterman who had him killed after he was arrested.”

“My God, the Order is like a cancer, tainting cells everywhere,” Purdue theorized as his mind’s eye ran over the biological crash course in lung cancer he’d been undergoing to help Nina. “And where you cut them out, they just infest another part and grow all over again.”

Campbell agreed. “Funny you should say that, Mr. Purdue, because they’ve spread to another part of your life.”

Alarmed, Purdue sat up. “What do you mean?”

“Your holding company, Scorpio Majorus,” Campbell read from his notes, “owns the Orkney Institute of Science. Am I correct?”

Purdue nodded, but he felt the pit of his stomach fill with a tempest of bile. He had known something was amiss there, and he was about to find out why.

“My source tells me that someone at your clinic has been leaking information to Guterman, and that this information may have jeopardized the safety of a former patient of your clinic…and a friend,” Campbell said. “Dr. Nina Gould.”

“Nina? How?” Purdue shrieked.

“Listen, we will locate Dr. Gould and warn her about a possible attempt to abduct her. We have reason to believe that Guterman wants her alive and that he may set a trap via his operatives in England, where she was invited to teach for a few months,” Campbell shared.

“Her number is discontinued, at least to me,” Purdue lamented, looking dreadfully sad.

“To us as well, but we can locate her from other ways. Don’t worry,” Campbell said. “Just alert her should she contact you first.”

“What does this Guterman want with my clinic? And with Nina? What are we to him?” Purdue inquired.

“Well, I’m not sure how to put this. It sounds quite ridiculous when said out loud,” Campbell groaned. “It appears that Guterman and a few other people involved here, are desperately trying to locate…” the cop looked hesitant to say it, “…the Fountain of Youth.”

“Excuse me?” Purdue said quickly.

“True story. During the Second World War there was a Nazi project called Lebensborn — meaning ‘the Fount of Life.’ Long story short, there are a few people still pursuing this project and they seem to think Dr. Gould’s blood has some sort of resilience,” Lieutenant Campbell revealed. “Aside from gathering the information from your mental control, Mr. Purdue, the bogus therapist was supposed to use you to get to Dr. Gould. Guterman believes, apparently, that Nina Gould holds the Fountain of Youth.”

Purdue’s face went ashen. “How do you know all this? Who told you?” he shouted in panic. “Who helped them get Reusch in to me?”

Campbell did not have to divulge the information, but he felt that Purdue needed to know.

“Melissa Argyle, aged forty-nine, and a subject of Guterman’s Lebensborn project since she was nineteen years old in 1966.”

Purdue dropped his glass.

Three large eyes blinded Nina as Christa switched on the operation lights. The beams were so sharp that even her deteriorated sight was violated. Through her skull behind her eyes the light stung into her brain.

“Did you clean that up?” Christa asked Clara, who nodded.

Nina couldn’t see what they were talking about because her head was strapped too tightly to the headrest, impairing her ability to move. From the tray next to her Christa lifted a large, long needle and the fine silver tube flashed with a sheen in the lights above them.

Oh Jesus, no! Nina thought, having great apprehension about the intended entry point of the monstrous instrument. She felt Christa’s cold latex touch on her thigh and she tried to kick, but her legs were restrained, both at the knees as well as the ankles, leaving her helpless. Clara had gagged her and waited for Christa’s instruction before she’d applied a swab of iodine to the inside of Nina’s thigh. Yet, despite all her terror and livid protest, Nina was relieved that the devilish implement was meant to penetrate her skin and tissue alone.

“Sorry if this is a little cold,” Clara said as she swabbed the yellow liquid onto a small patch of Nina’s skin. She could see in Nina’s eyes that what she said was ludicrous to their victim, but she was grateful that she didn’t have to hear the verbal abuse Nina would no doubt have flung at her for it.

“This is going to hurt. I’m not going to lie,” Christa told Nina as she prepared to sink the needle in. Everyone present knew that the remark was a subliminal mocking towards her nemesis to rub in, if the pun could be excused, the fact that Christa was victorious over Nina.

The historian narrowed her eyes derisively at her tormentor, but it did nothing to avert what Christa was doing. Unceremoniously the department head of the Academy pushed the shaft of the needle into Nina’s thigh, slowly plunging it deeper until it had reached the desired depth. Nina’s already sensitive skin took the procedure far worse than it normally would have, had it not been inflamed by damaged nerve endings.