“Hey, what’s the tourist doing here?” Kohl asked when he saw Sam.
“He’s not a tourist,” Nurse Marx defended as she held Werner’s head. “This is a world renowned journalist!”
“Really?” Kohl asked sincerely. “Nice.” And he held out his hand to pull Sam to his feet. Himmelfarb just shook his head, standing back to give everyone room to move. The officers cuffed the man, but they’d been informed that the Air Force representatives had jurisdiction in this case.
“We must hand him over to you, I believe,” the officer conceded to Werner and his men. “Let us just finalize our paperwork so that he can be officially transferred into military custody.”
“Thank you, officer. Just sort it all out right here in the office. We do not need the public and the patients to get alarmed all over again,” Werner advised.
The police and security guards took the man aside while Nurse Marx performed her duty even against her own will, dressing the old man’s cuts and abrasions. She was certain eerie face could easily haunt the dreams of the most hardened of men. It was not that he was ugly, per se, but his lack of features made him ugly. In her gut she felt a strange sense of pity mingle with her repugnance as she dabbed his scarcely bleeding scratches with an alcohol swab.
His eyes were perfectly shaped, if not rather attractive in their exotic nature. However it appeared as though the rest of his face had been sacrificed for their quality. His skull was uneven and his nose seemed almost non-existent. But it was his mouth that struck a nerve with Marlene.
“You suffer from Microstomia,” she remarked to him.
“Systemic sclerosis in a minor form, yes, causing small mouth phenomenon,” he replied casually, as if he were there to get a blood test. His words were well pronounced, nonetheless, and his German accent was virtually flawless by now.
“Any prior treatment?” she asked. It was a stupid question, but if she did not engage in medical small talk with him he would repulse her so much more. Being in conversation with him was much the same as speaking to Sam the patient when he had been there – an intelligent conversation with a cogent monster.
“No,” was all he answered, deleting his capacity for sarcasm only because she had cared to ask. His tone was innocent, as if he were fully accepting her medical scrutiny while the men babbled in the background.
“What is your name, pal?” the one officer asked him loudly.
“Marduk. Peter Marduk,” he answered.
“You’re not German?” Werner asked. “Geez, you had me fooled.”
Marduk wished he could smile in response to the ill-formed compliment on his German, but the tightening of the tissue around his mouth refused him the privilege.
“Identity documents,” the officer snapped, still nursing his swollen lip from a stray punch during the arrest. Marduk slowly slipped his hand into his jacket pocket under Dr. Fritz’s white coat. “I need to take his statement for our records, Lieutenant.”
Werner nodded approvingly. They were authorized to track down and kill Löwenhagen, not to apprehend an old man who impersonated a doctor. Yet now that Werner had been told why Schmidt was really after Löwenhagen, they could benefit well from more information from Marduk.
“So Dr. Fritz is dead too, then?” Nurse Marx asked softly when she leaned in to cover a particularly deep cut from the steel links of Sam Cleave’s watch.
“No.”
Her heart jumped. “What do you mean? If you were pretending to be him in his office you had to have killed him first.”
“This is not the tale of the annoying little girl with the red shawl and her grandmother, my dear,” the old man sighed. “Unless it is the version where the grandmother is still alive in the wolf’s belly.”
19
The Babel Exposition
“We found him! He’s fine. Just knocked out and gagged!” one of the police officers announced when they found Dr. Fritz. He was exactly where Marduk had told them to look. They could not hold Marduk without concrete proof that he’d committed the murders of the precious nights, so Marduk had yielded up his location.
The imposter insisted that he’d only overpowered the doctor and assumed his guise to allow him to exit the hospital without suspicion. But Werner’s appointment had blindsided him, forcing him to play the role a little longer, “…until Nurse Marx spoiled my plans,” he lamented, shrugging in defeat.
A few minutes after the police captain in charge of the Karlsruhe Police headquarters showed up, Marduk’s brief statement was completed. They could only charge him for petty offenses like minor assault.
“Lieutenant, after the police are finished I must clear the detainee medically before you take him,” Nurse Marx told Werner in front of the officers. “It is hospital protocol. Otherwise the Luftwaffe might incur legal consequences.”
No sooner had she touched on the subject when it became relevant in the flesh. A woman walked into the office, a posh leather briefcase in her hand and dressed in corporate attire. “Good day,” she addressed the police officers with a firm, but cordial tone. “Miriam Inkley, British legal liaison of the W.U.O. branch in Germany. I understand that this sensitive matter has been brought to your attention, Captain?”
The police commander concurred with the lawyer. “Yes, it has, madam. However, we are still sitting with an open homicide case and the military is claiming our only suspect. That presents a problem.”
“Not to worry, Captain. Come, let us discuss the joint operations of the Air Force Criminal Investigation Unit and the Karlsruhe Police HQ in another room,” the mature British woman offered. “You can authorize the details if they satisfy your investigation in association with the W.U.O. If not, we can arrange a future meeting to better accommodate your grievances.”
“No, please, let me see what the W.U.O. has in mind. As long as we bring the guilty individual to justice. I don’t care about the media coverage, just justice for the families of these three victims,” the police captain was heard saying as the two of them walked off into the corridor. The officers said goodbye and followed, paperwork in hand.
“So the W.U.O. even knows that the pilot was involved in some underhanded PR stunt?” Nurse Marx worried. “That is pretty serious. I hope this does not foil the big treaty they’re going to sign soon.”
“No, the W.U.O. does not know anything about this,” Sam said. He was wrapping his bleeding knuckles in a sterile bandage. “In fact, we’re the only ones who are privy to the escaped pilot and, hopefully soon, the reasons for his pursuit.” Sam looked at Marduk who nodded in compliance.
“But…” Marlene Marx tried to protest, pointing at the now empty door where the British lawyer had just told them otherwise.
“Her name is Margaret. She just saved you lot a whole bucket of legal hold-ups that would have procrastinated your little hunt,” Sam revealed. “She is a reporter for a Scottish newspaper.”
“A friend of yours, then,” Werner assumed.
“Aye,” Sam confirmed. Kohl looked befuddled as always.
“Unbelievable!” Nurse Marx threw her hands up. “Is anyone who they say they are anymore? Mr. Marduk plays Dr. Fritz. And Mr. Cleave plays tourist. That reporter lady plays a W.U.O. lawyer. Nobody shows who they really are! It’s just like that story in the Bible where nobody could speak each other’s languages and there was all this confusion.”
“Babel,” came the collective answers from the men.
“Yes!” she snapped her fingers. “You’re all speaking a different language and this office is the tower of Babel.”
“Don’t forget that you pretend that you’re not romantically involved with the Lieutenant here,” Sam stopped her with a reprimanding index finger.
“How did you know?” she asked.
Sam just cocked his head, declining even bringing her attention to the closeness and petting between the two. Nurse Marx blushed when Werner winked at her.
“Then there is the bunch of you who pretend you are undercover officers when in f
act you are distinguished fighter pilots of the German Luftwaffe Operational Forces, just like the prey you are hunting for God knows what reason,” Sam eviscerated their deceit.
“Told you he was a brilliant investigative journalist,” Marlene whispered to Werner.
“And you,” said Sam, cornering the still dazed Dr. Fritz. “Where do you fit in?”
“I swear I had no idea!” Dr. Fritz confessed. “He just asked me to keep it for him. So I told him where I had put it in case I was not on duty when he was discharged! But I swear I never knew that thing could do that! My God, I almost lost my mind seeing that…that…unnatural transformation!”
Werner and his men, along with Sam and Nurse Marx, stood confounded at the doctor’s incoherent babbling. Only Marduk appeared to know what was going on, but he remained quiet to watch the madness unfold in the doctor’s office.
“Well, I’m thoroughly confused. How about you lads?” Sam declared with his bandaged hand at his side. They all nodded in a resounding chorus of disapproving murmurs.
“I think it is time for some exposition to help us all unmask each other’s real intentions,” Werner suggested. “After all, we might even be able to help each other with our various pursuits, instead of trying to fight each other.”
“Wise man,” Marduk chipped in.
“I have to do my last rounds,” Marlene sighed. “If I don’t show, Sister Barken will know something is up. Will you fill me in tomorrow, darling?”
“I will,” Werner fibbed. He then kissed her goodbye before she opened the door. She looked back at the admittedly fascinating anomaly that was Peter Marduk and blessed the old man with a kind smile.
When the door closed, a thick atmosphere of testosterone and distrust overwhelmed the occupants of Dr. Fritz’s office. There was not only one Alpha here, but each man knew something the other lacked knowledge of. Sam started eventually.
“Let us make this snappy, shall we? I have a very urgent concern to attend to after this. Dr. Fritz, I need you to send Dr. Nina Gould’s test results to Mannheim before we sort out whatever you have sinned,” Sam ordered the doctor.
“Nina? Dr. Nina Gould is alive?” he asked in awe, letting out a sigh of relief and crossing himself like the good Catholic he was. “That is wonderful news!”
“Small woman? Dark hair and eyes like hellfire?” Marduk asked Sam.
“Aye, that would be her, no doubt!” Sam smiled.
“I’m afraid she took my presence here wrongly too,” Marduk said, looking sorry about it. He decided not to share that he had slapped the poor girl when she had made trouble. But when he told her she would die, he’d only meant that Löwenhagen was at large and dangerous, something he did not have time to explain all over now.
“That’s alright. She is like a bite of hot pepper to just about everyone,” Sam replied while Dr. Fritz drew Nina’s hard copy folder and scanned the test results into his computer. Once the document with the awful material was scanned in, he asked Sam for the e-mail of Nina’s doctor at Mannheim. Sam furnished him with a card containing all of the details and carried on clumsily putting a fabric plaster on his brow. As he winced, he cast a glance toward Marduk, the man responsible for the cut, but the old man pretended not to see.
“There,” Dr. Fritz exhaled long and hard, relieved that his patient was still alive. “I’m just elated that she is alive. How she got out of here with that poor eyesight, I’ll never know.”
“Your pal led her all the way out, doctor,” Marduk enlightened him. “You know, the young bastard you gave the mask to so that he could wear the faces of the people he killed in the name of greed?”
“I did – not – know!” Dr. Fritz seethed, still sour at the old man for the throbbing headache he was suffering.
“Hey, hey!” Werner stopped the ensuing argument. “We’re here to resolve this, not fuck it up even more! Now, first I want to know what your,” he pointed straight at Marduk, “involvement with Löwenhagen is. We were sent to apprehend him and that is all we know. Then, when I interviewed you, all this mask business came out.”
“As I told you before, I do not know who Löwenhagen is,” Marduk insisted.
“The pilot who crashed the plane is Olaf Löwenhagen,” Himmelfarb replied. “He burned in the crash, but somehow survived and made it to the hospital.”
There was a long pause. Everyone waited for Marduk to explain why he was chasing after Löwenhagen in the first place. The old man knew that, if he told them why he was pursuing the young man, he would have to reveal why he had set him alight too. Marduk took a deep breath and started shedding some light on the crow’s nest of misunderstanding.
“I was under the impression that the man I pursued from the blazing fuselage of the Tornado fighter plane was a pilot named Neumand,” he said.
“Neumand? That can’t be. Neumand is on leave, probably gambling away the last of his family’s coins in some back alley,” Himmelfarb scoffed. Kohl and Werner nodded approvingly.
“Well, I chased him from the scene of the crash. I pursued him because he had the mask. When I saw the mask I had to exterminate him. He was a thief, a common thief, I tell you! And what he stole was too powerful for any foolish imbecile like that to handle! So I had to stop him the only way a Masker can be stopped,” Marduk said anxiously.
“A Masker?” Kohl asked. “Man, that sounds like a horror movie villain.” He smiled, patting Himmelfarb on the shoulder.
“Grow up,” Himmelfarb grunted.
“A Masker is one who assumes the face of another by using the Babylonian Mask. It’s the mask your evil friend made away with along with Dr. Gould,” Marduk explained, but they could all see that he was reluctant to clarify more.
“Go on,” Sam sniffed, hoping that his guess as to the rest of the description would be incorrect. “How does one kill a Masker?”
“By fire,” Marduk replied, almost too quickly. Sam could see that he just wanted to get it off his chest. “Look, to the modern world this is all old wives’ tales. I don’t expect any of you to understand.”
“Never mind that,” Werner dismissed the angst. “I want to know how this is possible, to put on a mask and have your face change into someone else’s. What part of that is even rational?”
“Believe me, Lieutenant. I have seen things people only read in mythology, so I would not be so quick as to deem this irrational,” Sam declared. “Most of the absurdities I once scoffed at I’ve since found to be in some way scientifically plausible, once you dust off the embellishments of ages added to make something practical sound ridiculously fabricated.”
Marduk nodded, grateful that someone there had the capacity to at least hear him out. His sharp look jumped between the men who listened to him as he studied their expressions, wondering if he should even bother.
But he had to bother because his prey had escaped him for the most nefarious undertaking of recent years – to ignite World War III.
20
The Incredible Truth
Dr. Fritz had kept quiet all this time, but at this point he felt he had to add something to the conversation. With his eyes cast down to the hand in his lap, he testified as to the strangeness of the mask. “When that patient came in, burning, he asked that I keep the mask for him. At first I thought nothing of it, you know? I thought it was precious to him and that it was probably the one thing he had saved from a house fire or something.”
He looked up at them, perplexed and horrified. Then he locked onto Marduk, as if he felt the need to make the old man understand why he’d pretended not see what he saw.
“At one point, after I put the thing down, uh, on its face, so to speak, so that I could attend to my patient. Some of the dead flesh that had peeled off his shoulder clung to my glove; I had to shake it off to continue working.” He was now taking shivering breaths. “But some of it landed inside the mask and I swear to God…”
Dr. Fritz shook his head, too embarrassed to recount the nightmarish and ludicrous claim.
&n
bsp; “Tell them! Tell them, in the name of the holy! They have to know that I am not insane!” the old man cried. His words were troubled and slow, for the shape of his mouth made speech difficult, but his voice penetrated the ears of everyone present like a crack of thunder.
“I have to finish my work. I’m still on the clock, I’ll have you know,” Dr. Fritz tried to change the subject, but nobody moved a muscle to support him. Dr. Fritz’s brow quivered as he reconsidered.
“When…when the flesh fell into the mask,” he continued, “the surface of the mask…took shape?” Dr. Fritz found that he could not believe his own words, yet he remembered what had happened just so! The faces of the three pilots remained frozen in disbelief. Sam Cleave and Marduk, however, had not an inkling of judgment or surprise on their faces. “The inside of the mask became…a face, just,” he inhaled deeply, “just concavely. I told myself that it was the long hours and the shape of the mask playing tricks on me, but once the bloody tissue was wiped from it the face disappeared.”
Nobody said anything. Some of the men had a hard time believing it, while the others tried to formulate possible ways in which this could have occurred. Marduk thought this would be a good time to append the doctor’s stunner with more of the incredible, but this time to present it more from scientific standpoint. “That is how it happens. A rather macabre method is employed by the Babylonian Mask, utilizing dead human tissue to absorb the genetic material contained therein and then forming that individual’s face as the mask’s.”
“Jesus!” Werner said. He watched Himmelfarb run past him, headed for the en suite toilet. “Yes, I don’t blame you, Corporal.”
“Gentlemen, may I remind you I have a ward to run.” Dr. Fritz reiterated his previous statement.
“There is…more,” Marduk jumped in with a slow, boney hand aloft to accentuate his point.
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 5 Page 31
