Order of the Black Sun Box Set 3

by Preston William Child

“Sam!”Nina screamed in the pitch dark of the lobby.

  “I’m all right,” she heard him groan somewhere near the couch.

  “Where are you?” she panted, crawling on all fours with one arm extended in the black oblivion. She found his arm and then felt his hair. He was sitting on the floor with his gun in his hand.

  “Well, that was a fuckup,” he noted casually. “Now everyone knows we’re in here and they are about to send in the cavalry.”

  “Aye, I see three coppers rolling up the pathway now. Come, Sam. The door is wide open for anyone. If we stay here, we are fucked,” she said, laboriously helping Sam to his feet. She could hear that he was injured. Gretchen came flying up the steps of the basement and rushed into the hallway to collect the books.

  “Hurry up, for God’s sake!” she shouted to Sam and Nina. “The police have their bloody guns toting!”

  “I’m trying to carry a whole man here, Gretchen. Give me a fucking break, will you?” Nina moaned as Sam leaned heavily on her. His knee was blown out and bleeding profusely, so that he kept losing consciousness every few seconds, fighting to keep upright. “Get Richard to help us!”

  They staggered into the kitchen just before the cops reached the front door.

  “Police! We’re coming in!” they heard in the lobby as Sam and Nina slipped behind the kitchen table. Gretchen was discovered in the powerful beam of the officer’s torch, but she refused to put her hands up,

  “I don’t want to drop the books, officer,” she explained. The officers did not see Sam and Nina to Gretchen’s left.

  “You will have to, lady. I’d say books are less important than your life, wouldn’t you?” he argued with the black eye of his barrel staring her in the face. Gretchen’s eyes darted briefly to her two friends in the corner. The other officer, more aggressive, approached rapidly and shouted, “To hell with your bloody books, miss! Raise your hands above your head where we can see them. Your books are of no importance here!”

  His head exploded in a warm mess of brain matter and blood right in front of her as a bullet tore through his cranium.

  “You clearly don’t mean these books, laddie,” a woman said in the darkness.

  Not a second later the other two officers suffered the same dead-aimed fate and dropped to the floor with lifeless weight. The rays from their flashlights flickered wildly, spotlighting random things in the kitchen until they rolled along the floor and became still. From her dark vantage, Nina saw McLaughlin towering over her, every hair still in a perfect bun and make-up unscathed. In her left fist she had Gretchen by the hair, gun to her temple. The beam of the last fallen officer came to a stop exactly in front of Nina, where she sat cowering in the corner behind the door. Like a machine, the prim princess locked onto her target to shoot as quickly as she dealt with the police.

  Nina’s eyes pinched shut, denying her the pleasure of watching Sam bring an obliterating right hook down on the pretty face of the Grace Kelly killer. Her legs buckled under her as she jolted sideways onto the table top and cupboard doors, slipping downward in a very unflattering pose to sleep it off. Sam stood on one leg, his face showing evidence of excessive agony. Nina rose to her feet. Both of them could not believe that Gretchen had remained standing after her captor had gone down like a bad boxer. The German professor stood dumbstruck at the recent events, books still snugly in her embrace.

  “You know, if we had time, I’d find that extremely funny,” Sam mentioned.

  Out in front of the house, helicopters were shining their blinding troopers into the house, splitting the darkness, and sending the shadows sliding in under furniture and into corners. Some inaudible ultimatum was made over a public announcement speaker from one of the Jet Rangers, but the three of them did not merit the invitation feasible. After Gretch briskly packed her sports bag with all the odd, old, antique codexes, they scooted for the trapdoor. With immense difficulty maneuvering Sam, they finally shut and locked the door above them.

  Stumbling along the wet rock surface under their uneven treads, Sam, Nina, and Gretch made for the rushing well of sea water that sounded once more like it was sucking in air to breathe like a leviathan face. Nina shuddered as she heard it grow louder. Above them they could hear the task force’s heavy boots thunder throughout the span of the house, calling one by one to report to the pack leader.

  “Clear!”

  “Clear!”

  “Where is Richard?” Gretch asked, using her newly acquired, bloody flashlight to seek him. A distance from them a crumpled bundle of white cotton and brown corduroy came into view. Sam felt a blackout coming and he sank to his knees to give Nina some relief.

  “Clear!”

  “Gretch, be careful!” Nina called after her, and left Sam to ascertain Richard’s condition.

  “Clear! Check the upstairs!”

  The two women turned him over, expecting McLaughlin to have gifted him a silver slug too, but he was intact. Lightly tapping him on the cheek, Gretchen tried to rouse him, but he was reluctant to react.

  “How would we even know if he has fainted?” Nina asked in her snappy mockery. “His skin is always wan as a snowbank.” Gretch had to smile at her friend’s observation.

  “That’s funny ’cause it’s true,” she sniggered very softly. Not only did she not want the task force to hear her, but she did not want Dr. Philips to be offended at her laughing either.

  “Move aside,” Nina ordered Gretchen. She held one hand over his mouth and with the other she slapped him hard across the face, jerking him to life. He cried out from the unpleasant sensation, which is why she plugged his mouth. With wide open eyes full of terror his eyeballs rolled rapidly from side to side in their sockets. Nina gestured for him to be quiet and pointed upward so that he could hear the muffled orders of the hit squad.

  “This one is still alive! Take her into custody!”

  “Sounds like they just arrested that ivory bitch,” Gretchen growled under her breath. “Good. I hope she pulls a gun from one of them and they make her a colander.”

  Sam snickered over where he sat, his humor still not failing him. In his fingers, he fumbled with the canvas bag of books while trying not to give in to the excruciating throb in his right knee. He looked over at Richard, who slowly sat up. His eyes were wild and his hands shook uncontrollably while the women tried to snap him out of his apparent fugue state to lead them out the way he claimed he had discovered. But all Dr. Richard Philips could do was to cast his eyes into the maelstrom of the well, as if he knew what was below.

  And he did.

  27

  “Listen, Dr. Philips, we have run out of precious time. It’s only seconds before they pick up the smell of this place and figure out that there is a basement,” Nina urged. “Now where is the way out?”

  He slowly looked at Nina with a face that carried no comfort. “You are not going to like it, Dr. Gould.”

  “Oh, God, no,” she replied in defeat. “What? Just tell me.”

  He pointed at the swirling pool, leading all three to look into the well.

  “I don’t fucking think so!” Nina protested. “There is no way!”

  “Sam?” Richard checked with the injured journalist who looked utterly lost.

  “I second Nina’s sentiment,” Sam replied calmly, his eyes studying the menacing gape.

  “Me too,” Gretchen added. “There is something in there.”

  “Don’t need to hear that. Again,” Nina’s voice shrieked from behind Gretch.

  “Look, it is our only way out. Do you expect the ocean to be void of life forms? Don’t be ridiculous. Naturally there would be things in there. It is the goddamn North Sea, people,” Richard reprimanded them so that they exchanged looks at his sudden control and command. “Besides, the thing you saw just below the surface last time is not a big sea creature,” he continued in a quivering voice that implied that he was not quite sure of his own statement.

  “What is it then?” Gretchen asked.

  “It is our on
ly way out of here. It is a submarine,” he disclosed with a weary sigh.

  The other three took a moment to work through the revelation. Suddenly more boots traversed the floorboards up top and appealed to their will to survive. Gretchen got up and dusted her jeans off, “Let’s get to it then.”

  “Gretchen, I have a problem with closed spaces, remember?” Nina reminded her, recalling vividly the terrifying trips on the Wolfenstein expedition.

  “I am aware, doll,” Gretchen replied, as she assisted Richard with the old pulleys furtively mounted to the rock wall under the pantry corner of the kitchen. “But then you’d have serious problems with a morgue fridge, wouldn’t you?”

  “She’s right, Nina,” Sam agreed, doing his best to stay awake and moving. “We are sitting ducks here.”

  “Sam, get in first with that leg,” Gretch suggested, but Richard almost immediately contradicted her idea. With almost frantic repudiation he contested the idea.

  Pulling hard at the decades-old, thick, shipyard rope, he slowly hoisted the ugly silver hub up from the mouth like an enormous shark. Under them, tucked upside down in the water, a crane system was bolted to the rock. Intricately crafted in the efficient engineering of the Middle Ages with materials from the late nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution, the lever system worked like a hydraulic jack. It pushed the watercraft up as the ropes kept aside the docking arm.

  Nina felt fear gripping her at the sight of the small hatch and the cylindrical vessel she would have to enter. A water coffin awaited her—again. Sam startled her to a stupor when he laid his hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s not so bad,” he tried in vain, but she did not even afford him a scowl. “I’ll get in and you’ll see it’s fine.”

  “No, Sam goes last,’ Richard insisted more aggressively.

  “Who is going to drive this thing? It’s been down there for fucking eons!” Nina complained. “Its battery would not be charged, you guys! Look how small and cramped it is!”

  “This is just the entry hatch, doll,” Gretch told her. “Believe me, this fucking thing is enormous! The rest of it lies under the water and rock, you’ll see. And by the way, if you look at the structural design of its docking bay, you’ll note that its propulsion was provided for by means of water-powered dynamo systems to generate electric charge.”

  “Um, Gretchen,” Sam said casually, “you must subscribe to U-Boat Monthly, aye?”

  Gretchen smiled, “No, man. My late husband was a structural engineer with a naval war craft obsession. I must admit, it rubbed off on me.”

  “Come, Nina. And do hurry. I fear those men will discover us shortly,” Dr. Philips pressed the reluctant historian with a bad case of claustrophobia.

  “Why not have Sam go first?” she asked.

  “He is bleeding. And since we have to get in the water to get to the hatch, even just ankle deep, predators will come,” he explained as calmly as he could, but they all detected that same shiver in his voice that he had when he first woke. Suddenly Richard’s eyes remained on the churning water and it unsettled Gretchen just a tad.

  “I’ll go first,” Gretchen said, giving Nina a wink. Nina sighed in relief and smiled. The boots had stopped right above the trapdoor.

  “Over here! Bring the iron bar, sergeant!”

  “Oh, crikey, shall we get a move on?” Sam pushed on. Gretchen stepped onto the slippery surface, finding her footing as the vessel bobbed on the currents under her. Nina looked on in horrified agitation. Gretch attempted to open the hatch, but could not. Richard swallowed hard and lunged forward onto the hollow hull sheeting to help Gretchen with the lid. A relentless thud, followed by a forceful hammering sound came from the steps of the trapdoor.

  “Move!” Sam yelled. The trapdoor opened slowly, a streak of sharp light painting the crude rock beneath it. A pair of combat boots appeared on the first steps. In alarm Sam insisted, “Jesus Christ! Move! They are going to shoot us!”

  Richard crawled in after Gretchen. Nina jumped without a moment to spare, knowing full well what the alternative was. Sam tossed her the bag with books. And then he limped over to the edge of the treacherous mouth. Behind him the tactical team poured in from above, not yet making sense of the terrain they were faced with, and some were held up by vomiting spells from the horrendous stench that assaulted their senses.

  As Sam stepped into the shallow water to mount the rocking steel vessel, the blood from his leg blossomed into the shallow lapping tongues of foam and salt. Once more he looked back at the hit squad. He noticed that the woman who Nina rammed into the basement was gone. Thinking she had escaped, he placed his hands on the open hatch to lift his body over the rim. His eye caught sight of something lying on the wet rock near the rope pulley where they had found Richard out cold. It was a severed arm and ripped fabric strewn from the rope fixture to the edge of the mouth, stained with blood and chunks of meat.

  A hand fell hard on his.

  “Are you coming, Mr. Cleave?” Dr. Philips’ pale, odd face peeked over the rim of the hatch. He had gripped Sam’s wrist to keep him from falling into the rushing waves, and now was tugging fervently to get the journalist inside. His dark eyes stayed on the water as he helped Sam, which was more than disturbing to see.

  “What the hell are you looking at? They’re going to fucking shoot us as soon as those flashlights shine over here!” Sam hissed anxiously. But as he plummeted over into the hatch, he saw what Richard was spellbound by and it turned Sam’s blood to ice in his veins. The hatch fell shut with a deafening clang, its old motors roaring in a low murmur among the din of the tumultuous current. They could hear the raining bullets clank against the sheeting as they sank beneath the North Sea waves below the cavern on which Nina’s house stood.

  Sam was more ashen than he had been before. With a familiarity, the two men met eyes in silent frenzy.

  28

  Poveglia

  Purdue’s head felt thick and his legs heavy and numb under his average weight, which had fallen visibly in the past months. It was unlike him to feel poorly, but for the first time in a long time his mind was the cancer of his welfare and his thoughts dictated his health. Apart from rediscovering his sister, few other things gave him pleasure these days. Nina was dead and Sam was a traitor. Alexandr, his favorite guide and exploration colleague had disappeared into the fold of the Brigade Apostate, sworn and effective opposition of the Black Sun. That made Purdue his friend’s foe, and there was no way out of it that did not involve a coffin and a lot of dirt overhead.

  Poor Agatha had been brutalized so severely during her council-commanded imprisonment in Rotterdam—under Bloem’s monsters—so that she had literally changed into a cold and arrogant woman, robbed of her beautifully annoying eccentricities. Now she conformed more than what was natural to her, even with the guidance of brainwashing and parental discipline that could never before unnerve her from her idiosyncrasies. His heart was heavy, and his wealth could not heal him. Now that he was a prominent figure in the Order of the Black Sun, his life was in more danger than ever. Inside his inner sanctum slithered the eyes of traitors, while his friends lived behind enemy lines where he could not reach them.

  Even though his sister reluctantly disclosed the location of the Longinus and returned to him what she had stolen, he still loved her. More than anything, in a strange way he felt that she was the only one insane enough to trust anymore. As they collaborated on the unlawful claim of the Longinus they would now once more team up to hunt for the Library of Forbidden Books. Purdue had a mind to burn the place to the ground as soon as he came upon it, but within it were locked the carefully shunned and rebuked truths of the ancient universe, something a man such as he would find enormously useful. It was worth at least first investigating and sifting through to see the subliminal rivers of knowledge meandering under the false world ideologies chiseled out by power-drunk, religious lunatics.

  After what Dr. Alfred Meiner had imparted to Purdue, the normally resilient and reckless b
illionaire found it just about impossible to find any form of hope in the continuation of humankind collectively. As much as he felt saddened by the fate of the innocent and promising, Purdue realized finally and totally that it was time for the world to end. It was the only way to end the revolving suffering of generations and undo the countless avenues and labyrinth of cluttered ideologies. Misshapen psychology would never cease its evolution to breed a more deadly human, and a more indifferent reaction to unrighteousness. The children Meiner spoke of in such mundane terms hindered Purdue’s mental focus and deterred his concentration on the goal at hand. He stood at a fork in his road, he knew, and it was the darkest decision he had ever been forced to face.

  First, he could once more counter the insidious agendas of the order and the council, somehow hoping to survive it only to be drawn back in from just another arm of the colossal cephalopod it had become under the wretched symbol. Second, he could mobilize Final Solution 2 and put the world out of its misery, only to suffer the far worse fate of having to share his new life with the snakes of Himmler, the children of Hitler. Then there was the option he held no belief in, yet was entrusted to ensure. The coming of the old gods, whether they were indeed super-intelligent extraterrestrial beings or apocryphal demons of chilling measure and size, would result in extinction entirely. Such things, should they exist, would never share power with these timid droplets of cosmic piss that populated Earth in their arrogance before vaporizing at the sight of the sun.

  All these contemplations passed through his thoughts as he paced leisurely along the elevated circumference of the great structure the organization dubbed ARK. For more than twenty years the ideology was gestating in the minds of members, but the search for relevant relics held up their swift progress, as did interfering parties threatening to expose or destroy them. He had never realized that his influence and genius in the academic society and his subsequent obsession with historical treasure hunting would get him into the dark world of those who truly believed that they could control the fate of others.