Preston Child - The Fountain of Youth

“No! No, she’s bullshitting us. Naturally. She would say anything to get us to stop draining her fucking blood out! Can’t you see what she’s trying to do?” Clara defended frantically. Her face was visibly paler after Nina’s exposition, even under the overpowering white lights.

“You said she had Lita Røderick’s blood from a transfusion four years ago, Clara!” Christa screamed, red in the face.

“She does! It was on her chart when the Order intercepted her blood work after she came back from Chernobyl. Everyone in the Order knew that she’d received Lita’s blood just before Lita disappeared. Dr. Cait swore that Dr. Gould was a carrier of Lita’s DNA, the exact same composition as Himmler had originally engineered Lita with as Wunderwaffe !”

“Jesus Christ!” Nina gasped. “ That is what this is all about? That red-haired harlot the Black Sun put their hopes on before we watched her get her ass kicked?”

Christa walloped Nina right across the face. Her hand burned into Nina’s jaw and cheek, but Nina didn’t care. Dr. Cait had betrayed her! She’d believed all along that he was treating her for radiation poisoning, when all the while he’d had some nefarious agenda!

Now that she knew their secrets, she knew how to get under their skins. Nina had always hated the thought of knowing that the blood of Lita Røderick — the monstrous genius genetically produced by Himmler’s scientists during World War II — was running through her veins. The evil redhead had almost destroyed her and her friends when they’d raced to find the historical Hall of Valhalla.

“She was not a wonder weapon,” Nina laughed coarsely. “Lita Røderick was nothing more than a deformed product of SS-buggery with a tail like a lizard. She was killed by a motorcycle gang inside the meeting hall of Odin, you imbeciles!”

“Shut up!” Christa grunted. She quickly gagged Nina and hushed Clara. “Someone is coming!”

“I’ll find her,” Purdue said urgently.

“You’re still under suspicion for Reusch’s murder, Mr. Purdue,” Campbell said. “I’d advise you to give me her location so that I can send the local police in her area out to pick her up.”

“Fine, fine,” Purdue replied as he rummaged through his drawers for a thin, rectangular wooden box which he promptly pulled out from under a crow’s nest of wiring and switches. Fascinated, Campbell sat watching the frantic genius. It would appear that Dr. Gould was very important to him.

“What the hell is that?” Campbell asked as Purdue unlocked the box and set down the contents on the desk next to his tablet. “It looks like something out of a Sci-Fi movie.”

Purdue smiled. “It is. This is a tracking device based on biometrics, the application of recognition analysis based on biological data.”

“Facial recognition?” the officer asked, shifting closer with his chair. His curiosity and interest pleased Purdue. Most people just naïvely shook their heads at his remarkable creations, but Campbell asked questions and looked impressed with the intimidating technology.

Purdue hooked up the black and chrome casing to his tablet, expanding the space between his index finger and thumb.

“Fuck me!” Campbell exclaimed as he watched the hardware expand with Purdue’s dragging fingers. “How in God’s name?”

Purdue chuckled, “Well, the Bible does state that everything is possible through God, my friend. But this makes you think twice about what God really is, hey?”

“Valid point,” the stunned investigator admitted. “So where are the scanners that are supposed to have registered Dr. Gould’s facial features?”

“Satellite surveillance, Lieutenant Campbell,” Purdue said. “There are cameras everywhere, as you know, most of which we might construe as common CCTV surveillance or traffic radar devices. However, many of those are, in fact, government owned, streaming information to large data vaults where information is gathered on the world citizens.”

“That sounds a tad paranoid; a bit conspiracy theory-based,” Campbell said, wincing.

“I understand, Lieutenant. That kind of dismissive behavior is exactly what they rely on to keep invading privacy, but,” he winked at the officer, “if I can track Nina via one of these devices I will have proved to you that this is not a conspiracy theory, right?”

“I suppose,” Campbell said in awe. “But why don’t you distribute this kind of technology, Mr. Purdue? You could make a fortune with this kind of genius design. I mean, you could be…” he stopped, realizing that he was sitting in an opulent mansion on a historical property, previously owned by kings, “…a billionaire.”

Purdue had to laugh at the cop’s stupid expression, feeling sheepish about his ridiculous remark. Inside the chrome frame the black screen split into two parts. One lit up with satellite views of various continents, while the other section waited for Purdue to import a passport picture of Nina Gould to work from.

“I’m stumped, Mr. Purdue. Do you have any idea how this device could help us locate criminals?” he mused, looking at the sweating face of his host, concentrating on locating Nina on the landmass of the British Isles.

“I realize that, Lieutenant,” he replied while keeping his eyes nailed to the search on the screen. “But you also have to consider the paramount abilities of criminal organizations to duplicate this kind of technology. And should they be introduced to this paradigm, they could find people in Witness Protection, for instance. They could locate politicians, informants, and spies that might be pivotal to trials or important information.”

The police officer had to concede that it would be a gamble to release the blueprint of such equipment to the world.

“You see, Lieutenant, the world is not ready for intelligent knowledge. The Human Race is far too primitive to responsibly apply this level of knowledge, and I dare admit, we have an innate insidiousness to test the dark sides of everything intended for good. We, as scientists and teachers, inventors and enforcers of law, cannot allow our efficiency and progressive nature to be jeopardized by the lesser minds of the average human,” Purdue presented, finally meeting eyes with his guest. He shrugged, “I realize how egocentric that sounds and I make no excuses for it, because the state of the world these days — and always through history — has proven mankind to be greedy, evil Neanderthals on some power trip. I will never allow my technological talents to be undermined and corrupted by people like those.”

“Again, I have to agree with you. Maybe you can play consultant for people like me in extreme cases. I will get the information from you and in turn your technological secrets will be safe. Hey, what say you?” then investigator chuckled, patting Purdue on the back.

“Absolutely! If you happen to find me home. I do have itchy footsteps,” Purdue said with a smile, referring to his love of exploration and travel.

“Hopefully not too itchy,” Lieutenant Campbell said. “How long does this scanning take?”

“I’ve only used it once before, in fact. And that was to test the device by looking for my butler when I sent him out for a drive,” Purdue said. “But that was area-specific. Now I have to run the whole of England, starting at Hampshire, if that was where she was supposed to have gone. That should take several hours…maybe days.”

“Will you please phone me the moment you find out where she is?” Campbell requested. “We’ll get her to safety until this Guterman character is safely in Interpol’s custody. Of course, if you could use this gadget to find him , we would be eternally grateful,” Lieutenant Campbell hinted.