Order of the Black Sun Box Set 5

by Preston William Child

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “I am,” he affirmed, to her dread.

  “Look, how do you know who it is? Did you see him here? Did you see him with your own eyes? Because if you didn’t, chances are you’re just being paranoid, my friend,” she stated, hoping to help him think over his assessment to bring him some clarity. She also hoped that he was mistaken, as she was in no condition to be evading a killer. She saw his wheels turn as he considered her words. “Another thing,” she added, “if you cannot even remember who you are or what happened to you, how do you know that some faceless assailant is after you?”

  Nina was not aware of it, but her choice of words reversed all of the effects the young man was suffering from – memories now flooded back in. His eyes grew wide in terror as she spoke, piercing her with their black gaze so strongly that she could see it even through her dwindling sight.

  “Sam?” she asked. “What is it?”

  “Mein Gott, Nina!” he wheezed. It was actually a scream, but the damage to his voice box smothered it into a mere hysterical whisper. “Faceless, you say! F-face-faceless! He was…Nina, the man who set me on fire…!”

  “Aye? What about him?” she pushed, although she knew what he was revealing. She just wanted more details, if she could get them.

  “The man who tried to kill me…h-he had…no face!” the horrified patient wailed. If he could cry, he would have sobbed at the memory of the monstrous man who’d pursued him after the game that night. “He caught up with me and he set me on fire!”

  “Nurse!” Nina hollered. “Nurse! Somebody! Please help!”

  Two nurses came running with quizzical expressions. Nina pointed to the upset patient and exclaimed, “He just remembered his attack. Please give him something for the shock!”

  They raced to his aid and pulled the curtains, administering a sedative to calm him. Nina felt her own lethargy threaten, but she tried to unravel the strange puzzle by herself. Was he serious? Was he coherent enough to make such an accurate call or was he making it up? She doubted that he was insincere. After all, the man could hardly move on his own or utter a sentence without struggle. He certainly would not be so frantic if he were not convinced that his incapacitated state would cost him his life.

  “God, I wish Sam was here to help me think,” she murmured as her mind begged to sleep. “Even Purdue would do, if he could refrain from trying to kill me this time.” It was coming on dinner time already and, since neither of them expected visitors, Nina was free to sleep if she wished. Or so she thought.

  Dr. Fritz smiled as he walked in. “Dr. Gould, I’m just coming to give you something for the eye problem.”

  “Shit,” she muttered. “Hello doctor. What are you giving me?”

  “Just a treatment to alleviate the tightening of the capillaries in your eyes. I have reason to believe that your sight is being impaired by constricted circulation in your ocular area. If you have any trouble throughout the night you can just call on Dr. Hilt. He’ll be on duty again tonight and I’ll check in with you in the morning, okay?”

  “Alright, doctor,” she agreed, watching him inject the unknown substance into her arm. “Do you have the test results yet?”

  Dr. Fritz pretended not to hear her at first, but Nina repeated her question. He did not look up at her, apparently concentrating on what he was doing. “We’ll discuss that tomorrow, Dr. Gould. I should have the lab results back by then.” He finally looked up at her with failed reassurance, but she was in no mood to pursue the matter any further. By now her roommate had calmed down and grown silent. “Good night, dear Nina.” He smiled kindly and pressed Nina’s hand before closing her file and replacing it at the foot of her bed.

  “Good night,” she hummed, as the drug took course and lulled her mind away.

  10

  Escape from Safety

  A boney finger poked Nina’s arm, starting her into a frightful awakening. Reflexively she clamped her hand down onto the touched area, unexpectedly catching a hand under her palm that scared her half to death. Her inadequate eyes sprang wide open to see what was accosting her, but apart from the piercing dark spots under the brow of the plastic mask, she could not discern the face.

  “Nina! Shh,” the empty face implored in a soft rasp. It was her roommate, standing by her bed in his white hospital gown. The tubes had been removed from his arms, leaving trails of oozing crimson wiped away carelessly on the barren white skin around it.

  “W-what the hell?” she frowned. “Seriously?”

  “Listen, Nina. Just keep very quiet and listen to me,” he whispered, sinking to his haunches a little so that his body was obscured from the entrance of the room by Nina’s bed. Only his head was elevated above so that he could speak in her ear. “The man I told you about is going to come looking for me. I have to find a hiding place until he is gone.”

  But he was out of luck. Nina was drugged into delirium and did not care much for his fate. She just nodded until her free floating eyes disappeared under the cover of heavy lids again. He sighed in despair and looked around, his breath increasing with every passing moment. Yes, there was the police presence protecting the patients, but honestly, armed protection hadn’t even saved the men who were employed by it, let alone those who were unarmed!

  It would be best, Sam the patient thought, if he hid instead of risking an escape. If he were to be discovered, he could then deal with the assailant accordingly and hopefully Dr. Gould would not be harmed by any ensuing violence. Nina’s ears had improved vastly since she had begun losing her sight; this allowed her to she stayed tuned-in to the shuffling feet of her paranoid roommate. One after the other, his footsteps withered away from her, but not towards his bed. She kept drifting in and out of sleep, but her eyes remained shut.

  Soon after, deep behind Nina’s ocular cavities a numbing pain had blossomed, bleeding out in a flower of hurt through her brain. Nerve connections quickly introduced her receptors to the splitting migraine it was causing, and Nina yelped out loud in her sleep. Suddenly, the gradually growing headache filled her eyeballs and set her brow on fire with fever.

  “Oh my God!” she shouted. “My head! My head is killing me!”

  Her cries echoed through the practical silence of the dead of night in the ward, promptly summoning the medical staff to her side. Nina’s shivering thumbs finally fumbled their way to the emergency button and she pressed it repeatedly to illicit help from the night nurse. A new nurse, fresh from the academy, came rushing in.

  “Dr. Gould? Dr. Gould, are you alright? What is the matter, dear?” she asked.

  “M-my…,” Nina stuttered through her drug-induced disorientation, “head is exploding with pain! It sits right behind my eyes now and it is killing me. My God! It feels as if my skull is cracking open.”

  “I’ll go and get Dr. Hilt quickly. He just came out of surgery. Just relax. He’ll be by just now, Dr. Gould.” The nurse turned and hastened out for help.

  “Thank you,” Nina sighed, exhausted from the hideous pain, no doubt courtesy of her eyes. Briefly, she lifted her head to check on Sam the patient’s , but he was absent. Nina frowned. I could have sworn he spoke to me while I was sleeping. She thought about it further. No. I must have been dreaming.

  “Dr. Gould?”

  “Aye? Sorry, I can hardly see,” she apologized.

  “Dr. Hilt is with me.” Turning to the doctor she said, “Excuse me, I just have to run next door for a moment to help Frau Mittag with her bed pan.”

  “Of course, Nurse. Please take your time,” the doctor replied. Nina heard the nurse’s feet patter out lightly. She looked at Dr. Hilt and informed him of her exact complaint. Unlike Dr. Fritz, who was very active and liked to diagnose swiftly, Dr. Hilt was a better listener. He waited for Nina to explain precisely how the headache settled behind her eyes before responding.

  “Dr. Gould? Can you at least see me properly?” he asked. “The headaches usually are directly connoted with the impending blindness, you
see?”

  “Not at all,” she said morosely. “This blindness seems to be getting worse every day and Dr. Fritz has not done anything constructive about it. Can you please just give me something for the pain? It’s almost unbearable.”

  He removed his surgical mask to speak clearly. “Of course, my dear.”

  She saw him tilt his head, looking over to Sam’s bed. “Where is the other patient?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Maybe he went to the toilet. I remember he told Nurse Marx that he had no intention of using a bed pan.”

  “Why would he not use the toilet here?” the doctor asked, but Nina was quite frankly becoming really sick of reporting on her roommate when she needed help to alleviate her splitting headache.

  “I don’t know!” she snapped at him. “Look, can you please just give me something for the pain?”

  He was not impressed with her tone at all, but inhaled deeply and sighed. “Dr. Gould, are you hiding your roommate?”

  The question was both absurd and unprofessional. Utter annoyance coursed through Nina at his ridiculous question. “Aye. He is somewhere in the room. Twenty points if you can give me a painkiller before you find him!”

  “You have to tell me where he is, Dr. Gould, or you will die tonight,” he said plainly.

  “Are you absolutely daft?” she shrieked. “Are you seriously threatening me?” Nina felt that something was very wrong, but she could not cry out. With blinking eyes she watched him, her fingers furtively seeking the red button that was still on her bed next to her while she kept her eyes on his missing face. His blurry shadow lifted the call button for her to discern. “Are you looking for this?”

  “Oh Christ,” Nina wept at once, burying her nose and mouth behind her palms as she realized that she recalled that voice now. Her head was pounding and her skin burning wet, but she dared not move.

  “Where is he?” he whispered evenly. “Tell me, or you will die.”

  “I don’t know, alright?” her voice quivered softly behind her hands. “I really don’t know. I’ve been sleeping all this time. My God, am I his keeper?”

  The tall man replied, “You are quoting Cain, straight out of the Bible. Tell me, Dr. Gould, are you religious?”

  “Fuck you!” she yelled.

  “Ah, an Atheist,” he remarked speculatively. “There are no atheists in fox holes. That is another quote – perhaps one more suited for you in this moment of final restitution, where you will meet your death at the hands of something you will wish you had a god for.”

  “You are not Dr. Hilt,” the nurse said behind him. Her words came like a question dipped in disbelief and realization. Then he struck her down with such elegant speed that Nina did not even have time to register the brevity of his act. As the nurse fell, her hands released the bedpan. It went sliding along the polished floor in a deafening clatter that immediately drew the attention of night staff at the nurses’ station.

  From nowhere, police officers started shouting down the hall. Nina waited for them to seize the imposter in her room, but instead they darted right past her door.

  “Go! Go! Go! He is on the Second Floor! Corner him in the Dispensary! Quick!” the commanding officer was shouting.

  “What?” Nina scowled. She could not believe it. All she could distinguish was the figure of the charlatan rapidly moving towards her and, just like the fate of the poor nurse, he landed a mighty blow on her head. She felt immense pain for a moment before dissolving into the black river of oblivion.Nina came to only moments later, still uncomfortably contorted on her bed. Her headache now had company. The blow on her temple taught her a new level of pain. It was now swollen so that her right eye felt smaller. On the floor beside her, the night nurse was still lying sprawled, but Nina had no time. She had to get out before the eerie stranger made his way back to her, especially now that he knew her better.

  She grabbed for the dangling call button again, but the head of the device had been severed. “Shit,” she moaned, carefully swinging her legs off the side of the bed. All she could see were the mere outlines of objects and people. There was no indication of identity or intent when she could not see their faces.

  “Fuck! Where are Sam and Purdue when I need them? How do I always end up in this shit?” she whined half between vexation and fear as she went, feeling her way to relieving herself of the tubes in her arms and navigating past the heap of woman next to her uncertain feet. The police action had drawn the attention of most night staff and Nina noticed that the Third Floor was eerily quiet, save for the distant echo of a television weather report and two patients whispering in the next room.Clear. It prompted her to find her clothing and get dressed as best as she could in the gaining darkness of her diminishing vision that would soon abandon her. After she was dressed, her boots in her hands to avert arousing suspicion when she walked out, she snuck back to Sam’s bedside table and opened his drawer. His charred wallet was still inside. She removed the license card inside, slipping it into the back pocket of her jeans.

  She was beginning to worry about her roommate’s whereabouts, his condition, and most of all – if his desperate petitioning had not perhaps been real. Thus far she had only considered it a dream, but with him missing she was starting to think twice about his visit earlier that night. Either way, she now had to escape the impostor. The police could offer no protection against a threat with no face. Already they had ran after suspects without any one of them having actually seen the man responsible. The only way Nina knew who was responsible was by his reprehensible manner with her and Sister Barken.

  “Oh shit!” she said, stopping in her tracks, almost at the end of the white hallway. “Sister Barken. I have to warn her.” But Nina knew that asking for the stout nursing sister would alert staff that she was sneaking out. There was no doubt they would not allow that. Think, think, think! Nina urged herself as she stood still, wavering. She knew what she had to do. It was unsavory, but it was the only way.

  Back in her dark room, using only the hallway light shining in on the glimmering floor, Nina began undressing the night nurse. Fortunately for the small historian, the nurse was two sizes larger than she was.

  “I’m so sorry. Really, I am,” Nina whispered as she stripped the woman of her scrubs and put them on over her clothing. Feeling rather awful for what she was doing to the poor woman, Nina’s clumsy morality drove her to drape her bedclothes over the nurse. After all, the lady was in her underwear on a cold floor. Give her a roll there, Nina, she thought on a second look. No, that’s stupid. Just get the fuck out of here! But the nurse’s motionless body seemed to call to her. Perhaps it was the blood that came from her nose, blood that had formed a sticky, dark puddle on the floor under her face, that provoked Nina’s pity. We don’t have time! the forceful reasoning reprimanded her pondering. “Fuck it,” Nina decided out loud, and gave the unconscious lady a roll over once so that the bedding would wrap her body and keep her insulated from the hardness of the floor.

  As a nurse, Nina would be able to foil police officers and get out, as long as they did not notice that she was having trouble finding steps and doorknobs. When she finally made it down to the Ground Floor, she overheard two officers talking about the murder victim.

  “Wish I was here,” one said. “I’d have caught that son of a bitch.”

  “Of course all the action happens before our shift. Now we’re stuck babysitting what’s left,” the other bemoaned.

  “This time the victim was a doctor – on night duty,” the first one whispered. Dr. Hilt, perhaps? she thought as she headed for the exit.

  “They discovered this doctor with a piece of his facial skin peeled off, just like the one security guard of the night before,” she heard him add.

  “Shift over early?” one of the officers asked Nina as she passed. She caught her breath and formulated her German as best she could.

  “Yes, my nerves did not handle the murder well. Passed out and hit my face,” she replied in a quick mumble
as she tried to find the door handle.

  “Let me get that for you,” someone said, and opened the door amidst their expressions of sympathy.

  “Have a good night, nurse,” the police officer told Nina.

  “Danke schön,” she smiled as she felt the cool night air on her face, fighting her headache and trying not to tumble over the steps.

  “And you have a good night too, doctor…Hilt, is it?” the cop asked behind Nina at the door. Her blood froze in her veins, but she kept true.

  “That is correct. Good night, gentlemen,” the man said cheerfully. “Stay safe!”

  11

  Margaret’s Cub

  “Sam Cleave is the just the man for this, sir. I’ll get in touch with him.”

  “We cannot afford Sam Cleave,” Duncan Gradwell answered quickly. He was dying for a cigarette, but when the news of the fighter plane crash in Germany came over the wire on his computer screen, it demanded instant and urgent attention.

  “He is an old friend of mine. I’ll…twist his arm,” he heard Margaret. “Like I said, I’ll get in touch with him. We worked together years ago when I assisted his fiancée, Patricia, with her first piece as a professional.”

  “Is that the girl who was shot dead in front of him by that arms ring whose operation they busted open?” Gradwell asked in a rather insensitive way. Margaret sank her head and replied with a slow nod. “No wonder he took to the bottle so strongly in the years after that,” Gradwell sighed.

  Margaret had to chuckle at that. “Well, sir, Sam Cleave did not need much coaxing to suck on a bottle neck. Not before Patricia, nor after the – incident.”

  “Ah! So tell me, is he too unstable to cover this story for us?” Gradwell asked.

  “Aye, Mr. Gradwell. Sam Cleave is not only reckless, he’s infamous for a bit of a bent mind,” she said with a fond smile. “Which is precisely the caliber of journalist you want to blow open the covert operations of the command of the German Luftwaffe. I’m sure their Chancellor will be thrilled to know about it, especially now.”