Order of the Black Sun Box Set 3

by Preston William Child

  From her left she caught sight of the lone woman who emerged from the stall next to the one she used. Nina did not want to look in her direction. Russian women, she realized soon after arriving with Sam and Alexandr, were quite chatty. Since she could not speak the language she wanted to avoid an awkward exchange of smiles, eye contact, and attempted conversation. In Nina’s peripheral she saw the woman glaring at her.

  Oh, God, no. Don’t let them also be here.

  With her face wiped with wet toilet paper, Nina took one last look at herself in the mirror just as the other two ladies took their leave. She did not want to be alone in here with the stranger, so she hastened to the bin to dispose of her tissue and made for the door that slowly closed in the wake of the other two.

  “Are you all right?” the stranger suddenly spoke.

  Fuck.

  Nina could not be rude, even if there was the possibility she was being pursued. She still headed for the door, calling back to the woman, “Yes, thank you. I’ll be fine.” With a modest smile Nina slipped out and found Sam waiting for her right there.

  “Hey, let’s go,” she said, practically shoving Sam forward. They briskly walked down the terminal, flanked by the impressive silver pillars that lined the length of the high building. Passing under the various flat screens with their flashing red, white, and green digital announcements and flight numbers, she dared not look back. But Sam hardly noticed that she was a bit spooked.

  “Good thing your boyfriend got us the best forged documents one could get,” Sam mentioned as he looked over the first-rate fake IDs Bern had had his forger produce to get the two safely back to the United Kingdom.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” she contested, but the thought was not altogether unpleasing. “Bern only wants to make sure we get home swiftly so that we can get him what he wants. There is no courtesy in his actions, I assure you.”

  She hoped she was wrong in her cynical assumption, used more to shut Sam up about her amicable relationship with Bern.

  “About that,” Sam sighed, as they passed though the checkpoint and gathered up their light hand luggage.

  “We have to find Purdue. If he won’t tell us where Renata is ...”

  “Which he won’t,” Sam chipped in.

  “Then he’ll surely assist us in presenting the Brigade with an alternative,” she finished with an annoyed scowl.

  “How are we going to find Purdue? Going to his mansion would be foolish,” Sam said, his eyes rising to the large Boeing in front of them.

  “I know, but I don’t know what else to do. Everyone we knew who is somehow involved in this is either dead or proven to be enemies,” Nina lamented. “Hopefully we can figure out our next move on the way back home.”

  “I know this is a terrible thing to even consider, Nina,” Sam said out of the blue once the both of them had settled into their seats. “But maybe we can just disappear. Alexandr is very adept at what he does.”

  “How could you?” she whispered harshly. “He got us out of Bruges. His friends took us in and harbored us without question and they ended up getting marked for it—for us, Sam. Please don’t tell me you have lost your integrity along with your security, because then, honey, I am certainly all alone in this world.” Her tone was stern and angry at his notion and Sam thought it best to just leave it at that, at least until they had used the time in flight to see their way around it and find a solution.

  The flight was not altogether bad, apart from an Australian celebrity getting witty with a gay mammoth that stole his armrest and a rowdy couple who appeared to have brought their tiff onboard and could not wait to get to Heathrow before continuing the martyrdom of marriage they both suffered.

  Sam was sleeping soundly in his window seat while Nina fought her nausea she had been suffering since she left the ladies’ room at the airport. Now and then she would rush to the toilet to vomit, only to find that there was nothing to purge. It was becoming quite tedious and she started to worry about the worsening feeling that was pressing on her stomach.

  It could not have been food poisoning. For one thing she had a cast-iron stomach, and second, Sam ate all the same meals that she had and he was unscathed. After another unsuccessful attempt at alleviation she looked in the mirror. She looked strangely healthy, not at all pallid or weak. Eventually Nina wrote off her ill feeling to the altitude or cabin pressure and decided to also get some sleep. Who knew what was waiting for them at Heathrow?

  11

  Bern was furious.

  After his pursuit of the intruders, he failed to discover them among the travelers he and his men had held up just off the winding road from the Mengu-Timur monastery. One by one they had searched the people—monks, missionaries, nurses, and three tourists from New Zealand—but they found nothing in their possession that was of any significance to the brigade.

  He could not understand what the two prowlers were looking for in the compound, which had never been breached before. For fear of his life, one of the missionaries did mention to Daniels that the convoy originally consisted of six vehicles, but at their second stop, they were one vehicle short. None of them thought anything of it, because they were told that one of the cars would veer off to serve the Yangste Khan hostel nearby. But after insisting on looking at the itinerary Bern obtained from the lead driver, there was no mention of six cars.

  There was no use in tormenting innocent civilians for their ignorance, nothing more could come of it. He had to admit that the burglars had eluded them effectively and that all they could do was to return and survey the damages incurred by the break-in.

  Alexandr could see the suspicion in his new commander’s eyes as they entered the stables, wearily dragging their feet as they led the horses in to be seen to by the staff. Not a word came from any of the four men, but they all knew what Bern was thinking. Daniels and Mackey exchanged glances, surmising that Alexandr’s involvement was mostly the common consensus.

  “Alexandr, come with me,” Bern said evenly, and simply walked away.

  “You’d better watch what you say, old boy,” Mackey suggested in his British twang. “The man is volatile.”

  “I had nothing to do with this,” Alexandr replied, but the other two men only looked at each other and then looked pitifully at the Russian.

  “Just don’t press him when you start making excuses. Groveling will just convince him that you are guilty,” Daniels advised him.

  “Thank you. I would kill for a drink right now,” Alexandr shrugged.

  “Don’t worry, you might get one as a last wish,” Daniels smiled, but glancing at his colleagues’ serious expressions he realized that his statement was in no way helping and he went about his business of fetching two blankets for his horse.

  Through the narrow corridors, lit by wall lights, Alexandr trailed the commander to the second floor. Bern skipped the stairs without paying attention to the Russian and when he reached the lobby of the second floor he asked one of his men for a cup of strong black coffee.

  “Captain,” Alexandr said behind him, “I assure you my comrades had nothing to do with this.”

  “I know, Arichenkov,” Bern sighed.

  Alexandr was perplexed at Bern’s reaction, relieved as he was for the commander’s answer.

  “Then why did you ask me to accompany you?” he asked.

  “Soon, Arichenkov. Just let me have my coffee and a smoke first, so that I can deal with my assessment of the incident,” the commander replied. His voice was disturbingly calm as he lit a cigarette.

  “Why don’t you go take a hot shower? We can reconvene here in, say, twenty minutes. In the meantime I have to know what was taken, if anything. I don’t think they would go through all this trouble to steal my wallet, you know,” he said, and exhaled a long tuft of blue white smoke in a straight line ahead of him.

  “Yes, sir,” Alexandr said, and turned to head for his room.

  Something did not feel right. He ascended the steel steps up to the long corridor where
most of the men stayed. It was too quiet in the hallway and Alexandr hated the lonely sound of his boots on the cement floor, like a countdown to something awful that was coming. Far off he could hear male voices talking and something that sounded like an AM radio signal, or perhaps some form of white noise device. The scratchy sound reminded him of the excursion to Ice Station Wolfenstein, deep in the bowels of the station where soldiers were killing one another from cabin fever and confusion.

  As he turned the corner he found his room door ajar. He stopped. Inside there was silence and nobody appeared to be in there, but his training had taught him not to take anything at face value. Slowly he pushed the door open all the way to make sure no-one was hiding behind it. Before him was a clear signal of how little the brigade trusted him. His entire room had been upturned and his bed linens ripped off to be searched. The whole place was in disarray.

  Sure, Alexandr did not have much, but whatever he had in his room was thoroughly ransacked.

  “Fucking dogs,” he whispered, his pale blue eyes searching from wall to wall for any suspicious evidence that could help him ascertain what they thought they would find. Before he exited toward the communal showers he shot a glance at the men in the far room where the white noise was now doused somewhat. They sat there, four in number, just staring at him. Tempted to curse them, he elected to play it down and simply ignored them as he walked in the opposite direction for the bathrooms.

  While the tepid weak stream of water immersed him he prayed that no harm had come to Katya and Sergei while he was gone. If this was the level of trust the brigade had in him it was safe to assume that their farm might also have played host to a bit of vandalizing in pursuit of the truth. Like a captive animal, the brooding Russian plotted his next move. It would be foolish to confront Bern or Baudaux or any of the brutes here about their suspicions. Such a move would exacerbate things rapidly for him and both his friends. And should he escape and try to get Sergei and his wife away from here, it would only prove their reservations about his involvement.

  When he was dry and dressed he returned to Bern’s office, where he found the large commander standing at the window, staring out over the horizon as he always did when he mulled things around.

  “Captain?” Alexandr said from the door.

  “Come in. Come in,” Bern said. “I trust you understand why we had to search your quarters, Alexandr. It was imperative we know your position on this matter as you came to us under very suspicious circumstances with a very powerful claim.”

  “I understand,” the Russian agreed. He was dying for a few shots of vodka and the bottle of homebrew Bern kept on his table was doing him no favors.

  “Have a drink,” Bern invited, his hand gesturing to the bottle he saw the Russian eyeing.

  “Thank you,” Alexandr smiled and poured himself a glass. As he lifted the fire water to his lips he wondered if it was laced with poison. Alexandr Arichenkov, the crazy Russian, would rather die an excruciating death at the taste of good vodka than to pass up the chance in lieu of abstinence. Fortunately for him the drink was only poisonous in the way its makers intended and he could not help but groan happily at the burning chest he suffered as he swallowed it all down.

  “May I ask, captain,” he said after he caught his breath, “what was damaged by the break-in?”

  “Nothing,” was all Bern said. He waited a moment for dramatic pause, and then revealed the truth. “Nothing was damaged, but something was stolen from us. Something that is priceless and extremely hazardous to the world. What bothers me most is that only the Order of the Black Sun knew that we were in possession of it.”

  “What is it, may I ask?” Alexandr asked.

  Bern turned to him with a penetrating stare. It was a look, not of rage or frustration for his ignorance, but a look of genuine concern and undisguised dread.

  “A weapon. They stole a weapon that could devastate and destroy, governed by laws we have yet to fully grasp,” he announced, reaching for the vodka and pouring a glass for each of them. “The intruders took it from us. They stole the Longinus.”

  12

  Heathrow was abuzz with activity, even for three in the morning.

  It would be some time before Nina and Sam could board the next flight home and they were contemplating booking a hotel room not to spend the time waiting in the blinding white lights of the terminal.

  “I’ll go check when we’d have to be back here again. We’d have to get something to eat for one. I’m fucking starving,” Sam told Nina.

  “You ate on the plane,” she reminded him.

  Sam gave her the old schoolboy teaser look, “You call that food? No wonder you weigh next to nothing.”

  With that he took off toward the airline counter, leaving her with her massive yak coat over her forearm and both their travel bags over her shoulders. Nina’s eyes felt thick and her mouth dry, but she felt better than she had over the last few weeks.

  Almost home, she thought to herself, and her mouth pouted into a self-conscious smile. Reluctantly she allowed her smile to bloom, no matter what bystanders and passersby might think, because she felt like she had earned that grin, suffered for it. And she had just come out of twelve rounds with Death and she was still standing. Her big brown eyes trailed Sam’s well-shaped body, those broad shoulders lending his gait even more attitude than he already exhibited. Her smile lingered for him too.

  For so long she was indecisive about Sam’s role in her life, but after Purdue’s last stunt she was certain that she was done dangling between the two jousting males. Owning Purdue’s affection did help her in more ways than she cared to admit. Just like her new admirer on the Russian/ Mongolian border, Purdue’s power and means benefitted her. How many times would she have been killed had it not been for Purdue’s resources and money or Bern’s mercy on account of her likeness to his late wife?

  Her smile vanished at once.

  From the international arrival area a woman emerged, one who looked hauntingly familiar. Nina perked up and backed into the corner formed by the protruding ledge of the coffee shop where she was waiting, hiding her countenance from the approaching woman. Practically holding her breath, Nina peeked around the edge to see where Sam was. He was just out of her line of sight and she could not warn him about the woman heading straight for him.

  But to her relief the woman entered the sweet shop just short of the airline counter where Sam was throwing about his charms to the delight of the young ground hostesses in their perfect uniforms.

  “Jesus! Typical,” Nina frowned and bit her lip in vexation. Quickly she walked toward him, her face stern, and her stride a bit too wide as she tried to move faster than she could without drawing attention to herself.

  She passed the guide ropes and bumped into Sam.

  “Are you quite done?” she asked in an unashamedly catty way.

  “Well, look here,” he marveled playfully, “another pretty lady. And it’s not even my birthday!”

  The ground hostesses giggled, but Nina was dead serious.

  “There is a woman following us, Sam.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked sincerely, his eyes combing the people in close vicinity.

  “Positive,” she replied under her breath, grasping his arm tightly. “I saw her in Russia while I was nursing my nosebleed. Now she is here.”

  “All right, but a lot of people fly between Moscow and London, Nina. It could be coincidence,” he explained.

  She had to concede that he had a point. But how could she convince him that something about the odd-looking woman with the white hair and pale skin unsettled her? It would seem ludicrous to use someone’s unusual appearance as basis for accusation, especially to insinuate they are from a secret organization and was going to kill you for the old “knowing too much” reason.

  Sam saw nobody and sat Nina down on the waiting area seats.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, relieving her of the bags and placing his hands around her upper arms for comfort.
>
  “Yes, yes, I’m okay. I am just a bit jumpy, I suppose,” she reasoned, but inside her she still distrusted the woman Nina had no grounds to be wary of her, so she elected to play it evenly.

  “No worries, lassie,” he winked. “Soon we’ll be home and we can take a day or two just to recuperate before we start looking for Purdue.”

  “Purdue!” Nina gasped.

  “Yes, we have to find him, remember?” Sam nodded.

  “No, Purdue is standing behind you,” Nina remarked casually, her tone suddenly serene and stunned at the same time. Sam turned. Dave Purdue stood behind him in a posh windbreaker jacket with a large duffel bag in his hand. He smiled, “Fancy finding the two of you here.”

  Sam and Nina were dumbstruck.

  What were they to make of his presence here? Was he in league with the Black Sun? Was he on their side, or both of the above. As always, with Dave Purdue there was no certainty as to what his position was.

  From behind him stepped the woman Nina had been hiding from. A thin, tall, ash blond with those same shifty eyes that Purdue had, and with the same crane-like lurch too, she stood quietly, surveying the situation. Nina was perplexed, having no idea if she should prepare to run or fight.

  “Purdue!” Sam exclaimed. “You are alive and well, I see.”

  “Aye, you know me; always come out of things all right,” Purdue winked, while he noticed Nina’s wild stare just past him. “Oh!” he said as he pulled the woman forward. “This is Agatha, my twin sister.”

  “Thank God we are paternal twins,” she scoffed. Her dry humor did not hit Nina until a moment later, after her mind processed that the woman was not dangerous. And only then did the woman’s relation to Purdue also sink in.

  “Ugh, I’m sorry. I’m exhausted,” Nina offered her half-assed excuse for gawking a tad too long.