Order of the Black Sun Box Set 8

by Preston William Child

  His head throbbed rhythmically while his chest played host to an incessant ache. Sam wondered exactly which ingredient it was that made one’s organs switch tasks, but one thing he knew well. From now on, he would stay loyal to whiskey and quite cheating on her with alien drinks from godless distillers hiding in Europe.

  The idea to try and speak to Carlos Cruz came somewhere between the second wave of convulsions and the third wish that he could fall into a coma. Sam reckoned that Sonia’s husband, whom she had claimed acted out of fear, was perhaps harboring a secret that possibly had something to do with his odd behavior. It was worth at least attempting to speak to him, in the grand scheme of things. What father would not want to help find his child’s killer?

  Feeling like roadkill, Sam flushed the toilet yet again and stumbled back to bed with the distinct plan to call the Cruz lady in the morning to arrange a meeting with her husband. Night was falling on the first wasted day of his trip here, but he knew that he would feel right as rain in the morning. The widescreen television mounted on the wall screened Hollywood blockbusters dubbed into Portuguese, which was perfect for sleeping, Sam thought. He could doze off blissfully, just like when he watched bad action movies from his couch at home. It was so real that he could almost feel his big orange cat sleeping on his stomach, hear the Edinburgh traffic outside and smell the odor of his neighbor’s rusks.

  Sometime during the night, Sam was rudely awoken by a shrill chime. It came from much too near and drilled into his brain. He wailed at the annoyance and pulled his pillow out from under his head and put it over his ear, but it persisted relentlessly. Forced to examine the origin of the hideous cacophony, Sam let out a string of cuss words as he switched on the bedside lamp. It was the hotel room telephone.

  “For fuck’s sake!” he yelled, his eyes barely open. His stomach still felt like a tin can. The white light was like stakes into his eyes. He grabbed the phone. “What? What is it?”

  “This is the reception desk, Senhor Cleave,” the poor night receptionist stammered. Her voice exhibited the tiniest quiver at the shock of his reaction, although she was aware that the hour was unreasonable. “I am so sorry to wake you, but I have an urgent call for you.”

  “I doubt that,” he grunted. “Nothing can be this urgent.”

  “Senhora Cruz asked for you. She is holding for you. My apologies, but she says it is life and death?” the night receptionist elucidated carefully. Sam’s eyes sprang open at once. He had to sober up quickly.

  “Obrigado. I will speak to her,” he told the operator, who was only too happy to transfer the call and be rid of the rude Scotsman. A static background introduced him to the new call, and the faint hysterics of a child reverberated somewhere in the distance.

  “Sam? Sam, are you there?” Sonia Cruz asked frantically.

  “Aye, Sonia, what is the matter?” he asked.

  “Can you come? Please, can you come to see me? I need your help! I do not know what to do!” she screeched.

  “You have to calm down,” he coaxed. “What is going on? Tell me, what is going on?”

  There was trouble. He could hear that there was a great disturbance in the background, but he had learned throughout years in journalism and media that sounds, or even visuals, could be misconstrued and judged wrongly. He had to hear it from her, because in his profession, there was no place for assumptions. Sonia was panting wildly. Then she whispered, sniffling in between. “Sam, please come. Talk to him. Talk to Carlos. He has gone mad.”

  “Who is that crying?’ Sam asked, sober as a judge with the confrontation of the matter.

  “Carla, my daughter,” she informed him.

  Sam got angry. “Did he hurt her?”

  “No! N-no, he would never. She is just u-up-set at seeing him like…like this,” she stuttered.

  “Sonia,” Sam said with a furious calmness, “did he hurt you?”

  A long pause ensued, and inside the void, only Sonia’s heavy breathing. She sniffed hard as a rumble came up in the distance. Then Sam heard the man shouting in Portuguese and he knew by the crescendo of his voice, that Carlos was fast approaching Sonia. “He cannot help it, Sam. He is mad with sadness.”

  “Bullshit!” Sam barked. “He has no excuse for taking it out on you! I am on my way right now, Sonia.”

  “Please, Sam,” she said apprehensively. “Hurry!” she shrieked before the line died in his ear. Sam’s heart jump-started in his chest. Before he knew it, he had pulled on his jeans and boots. His adrenaline was coursing through him like a flooding gutter as he gathered up his stuff and rushed for the elevator. It was just before 4am.

  Sam paid his bill at reception, tapping his credit card annoyingly on the front desk. The already nervous night receptionist tried not to glare at him as she proceeded to print out his receipts, but she knew that the rugged, handsome man in front of her was the rude man on the phone. Sam could sense it and, much as he was in a hurry, at least gave the girl a smile.

  “Sorry I was so mean on the phone,” he mentioned as she swiped his card.

  She smiled reluctantly. Sam shrugged, “Too much drink.” The girl nodded and smiled, wishing to God that the machine would just spit out his credit card slip already. That was as good as he was going to get for being an asshole, he reckoned, so he abandoned any more attempts.

  “There you go, Senhor,” she said plainly, handing him his card and slip. “Drive safe.”

  ‘Ouch,’ he thought as he picked up his bag. ‘Cheeky little bitch, aren’t you?’

  Before long, Sam was speeding down the A13 towards Torres Novas, where the Cruz family resided. He had learned that Peniche was just their weekend away, the terrible patch of beach they never wished to visit again. The trip took Sam just over an hour of anticipation, running various scenarios through his imagination, so much, that he was almost disappointed to find the neighborhood so peaceful and civilized.

  18

  Carlos’ Confession

  Upon arrival, he saw the lights on in the house Sonia Cruz had listed as their address.

  As soon as he got out of the car, he knew there was trouble inside. The weeping daughter he had heard on the phone was sitting outside on the steps, her face buried in her hands.

  “Carla?” he said, using wide strides to get to her sooner. The house was one of only four in the street, with vast yards that provided much space in between the residences. The girl looked up through bloodshot eyes while the shattering of glass in the house broke the silence of the early morning.

  “Papa is crazy. Please stop him! I cannot lose my mother too,” she sobbed in very good English, commanded as well as her mother’s.

  “I will,” he assured her with a brief caress to her cheek. A shot went off in the house, followed a hysterical scream. A few yards away, lights went on in other houses. Sam pushed open the front door without considering his safety. Inside he found Sonia on her knees on the living room floor, wailing. When she saw him, she ceased instantly, placing her finger on her mouth to keep him quiet.

  The foreign language Carlos was babbling in, did not help Sam ascertain the problem at all. He had no idea what the father was this upset about, but by Sonia’s swollen face, he knew where Carlos aimed to put it. Carlos was in the hallway, out of sight from Sonia, but Sam followed his voice to find him in Mario’s room. In the back pocket of his jeans, he pressed record on his DPM6000 pocket memo recorder. If there was to be a crime committed tonight, he thought it best to record the whole thing for the purpose of evidence.

  “Mr. Cruz,” Sam summoned. His blood ran cold when the babbling stopped abruptly. It left him with no way of locating the madman, but he would find out soon enough. A blinding blow came out of the darkness of the bedroom and clocked Sam right on the chin, sending him into the opposing wall of the corridor. ‘Great!’ Sam thought. ‘More fucking pain. Just what I needed.’

  Carlos appeared from the dark, tears rolling down his face, but Sam was used to brawling and he still stood upright. The two men lock
ed eyes, face to face at equal height.

  “Mr. Cruz, I am Sam Cleave,” Sam tried to defuse the situation by distracting the man. “Let me help you. I came to help you. All of you.”

  The drunk, weeping man examined Sam’s face. Suddenly Sam could see what Sonia was talking about. It was clear in Carlos’ eyes that he was immersed in sorrow. His knuckles were torn from hitting his wife, his brow wet with perspiration and, from his left hand, a shotgun dangled. He opened his mouth to say something. Sam stood ready, expecting some malicious ranting in Portuguese, but Carlos spoke English, and he spoke it softly.

  Sounding lost and ridden by guilt, Carlos spoke with deep weariness. “He died because of me. Me. I am the reason my little boy is dead. Me. I am guilty.”

  “Guilty of what, Carlos? You did not kill your son. Some animal, that I am going to find and bring to justice, did that. Not you,” Sam comforted the grieving father, but Carlos just shook his head. Sadness consumed him, that was obvious, so Sam tried to find out why he suffered such guilt. “Alright, tell me why you are guilty.”

  Carlos Cruz said nothing. Sam was extremely on edge, but he kept his pose not to come across as confrontational or judgmental. The man with the gun was immensely volatile. He had nothing to lose, which made him very dangerous to all those around him. At once, Carlos grabbed Sam by the back of his shirt, not violently, but with resolution. He proceeded to push the Scottish journalist down the corridor and up the stairs. Sam allowed it, if only to get Carlos away from his wrecked family.

  “Up, up,” he directed Sam. Under Sam’s boots, the contrast of soft, thick carpeting was ironic. Such a homely place. It proved that Carlos made a good, comfortable home for his family. He was a decent man once. The lights were dim in the attic room of a small steeple-like extension to the second floor. “In there.”

  “What is in there?” Sam dared.

  “My guilt,” Carlos said. It made little sense, but that was what Sam did best –

  he made sense of the senseless. The room was a man’s room. There was no sign of a feminine hand in it. Office materials populated most of the desk in the corner with a full golf bag leaning against the wall. Two walls were lined with bookshelves and maps, with some of the shelves boasting trophies for various disciplines like fencing, angling and marathons. Diplomas in chemistry and pharmaceuticals hanged side by side with qualifications in metallurgy in impressive lettering.

  Sam could find nothing sinister about the room or what it represented. Was Carlos just in a drunken delirium? He looked at the broken man to the inside of the doorway. Carlos was looking at a framed photograph, black and white and gritty, on the top shelf of one of the bookshelves. With care to move slowly, Sam removed it from the shelf and perused it. Carlos was telling him something he could not quite figure out. “What is this about?” he asked Carlos.

  “See me there?” he asked Sam.

  “Aye,” Sam affirmed. Carlos, as a much, much younger man, stood on the right side of the second row. All the men on the picture were dressed in some kind of uninterpretable uniform. “It looks like a World War II picture.”

  “Take it out of the frame. Read the back, Senhor Cleave,” Carlos instructed. His voice was empty and dangerously serene. Sam read it aloud. “Perceval Chapter…1944?” He looked up in astonishment. It took him but a moment to realize the gravity of the revelation. Befuddlement rode Sam’s face, but Carlos just stood there, unimpressed. A hiccup of imminent weeping cracked in his throat, and he repeated, “My guilt.”

  “Wait,” Sam hastened, “what is this about? How does it pertain to Mario’s death?”

  “Perceval Chapter,” Carlos sighed. “World War II, a secret society who helped the fucking Brits hide the Holy Grail from the Nazi’s when they encroached on North Africa. Like military Templars, only, we…we all abused our privilege.” Sam did not dare interrupt Carlos, not even when the police cars stopped downstairs outside the house. Carlos acted like he did not hear them- and he did not. All he could hear was his son’s haunting cries, calling his Papa. His lips trembled. “We killed for the Grail. We killed small children, one each. It was war. It was easy to kill children and blame it on the Nazi’s.”

  Sam held his breath. He could not believe his ears, but he kept a straight face and held his tongue to allow the man to spew his treacherous deeds for some kind of personal absolution. “You see, it is how the Grail works,” he gasped hastily as the madness overtook him. “There is nothing holy about it, Senhor, nothing. It would give us youth, heal our war wounds, even keep us from death, but the price! Oh Jesus! The price! A small male child’s blood in the chalice, Senhor Cleave, and we drank, each our own little victim!” Carlos broke down in a storm of tears, crying so hard that his voice went hoarse. He fell to his knees. “Like vampiros! We drank their blood from the Holy Grail and became gods, malefic gods!”

  From behind Carlos, Sam saw the police officers appear at the base of the flight of stairs, but he did not betray their presence. He only hoped that they would allow Carlos to finish his dire confession before they would take him into custody. Sucking in deep tufts of breath as his emotional state worsened, Carlos looked around the room. “This room is where I kept my secret all these decades! The man who took my child, the man who drank his blood, he was God’s emissary, God’s demon. He killed my Mario, my precious Mario to keep himself alive or young, I do not know.” Carlos shook his head helplessly, his dark eyes painting the walls of his office. “My Mario died as a price for my arrogance, Senhor. This room is my oratory. My oratory. My coffin.”

  “Your coffin?” Sam asked, but the blast from the shotgun swallowed the sound of his words. Carlos had shoved the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger, staining the walls in his blood and splattering it all over the creeping policemen. Sam closed his eyes, but it only sharpened his hearing. He heard Sonia scream. He heard Carla cry for her father. Although both knew that Carlos was dead, they still called his name repetitively, until Sam came downstairs to enfold both in his embrace. He understood now, why Carlos Cruz broke.

  19

  Turn of the Tide

  Under the bright lights of the arched hallway, Nina held Terry at gunpoint. The place was dead quiet and eerie, likened to a concrete bunker in some godforsaken woodland in Eastern Europe. At least, that was how it felt for Terry. He could not believe that he was inept enough to let a small woman outsmart and overthrow him, but he hoped to kill her soon anyway, keeping the awful truth under wraps for good.

  “You know, I trusted you,” he hissed as he trudged along into the unknown section of the bunker.

  “Oh, spare me,” she exclaimed. “You started this. Now shut the fuck up. I am going to get to the bottom of this little intrusion into my life, and lucky you, you will be getting all the information you wanted as well.”

  He tried to glance back to her to respond, but the sheen of his ow gun under the cold white lights turned him to face front quickly. “What is the catch?” he asked.

  “The catch is that I come with you. Once you find this moron you and your boyfriends are looking for, I am going with you,” she explained, sounding quite short-fused. “If you are willing to kill children and frame an innocent man for it, I am going to get involved. If you do not agree with this,” she sneered, cocking the gun loudly, “just grunt.”

  “No!” he said quickly. “We can…we can work something out. I just do not think my boss is going to like it much.”

  “Your boss will have to deal, mate,” Nina said sternly, “or else he will never find his target, will he?” Terry noticed that they had run out of corridor. He hesitated as he approached the wall in front of him. Two stone pillars served as beams to hold up the bunker roof, it seemed. “Turn right, you idiot,” she ordered. To their right, just past the pillar, was a hidden door.

  “Oh,” he said stupidly, and stopped.

  “What?” asked Nina, frowning.

  Softly, he said, “It is dark in there.”

  “You know where else it is d
ark?” she barked. “That place right after the bullet cleaves your skull. Very dark there, and that light never goes on again.”

  “Okay, alright,” he calmed her. “Relax. I just…are there any steps or such?”

  “Terry, walk into the fucking doorway or I swear to God I will kneecap you,” she warned. By his aching scrotum and bruised scalp, Terry reckoned Nina was serious, so he stepped inside with a load of apprehension. In the distance, he briefly saw a red laser beam as he entered the room. Another clank jolted him back, but it was only the activation of the lights in the new, more confined room.

  “Motion detector,” she said. He looked around in the chamber and smiled. Finally, they had reached a place that looked worthy of the term ‘archives’. The whole place was filled up with antique codices, scrolls, unframed paintings of a dark subject and chained books. One painting that drew Terry’s eye was a particularly terrifying thing. A black devil, as hairy as a spider and equally menacing, had a child in its claws. The babe was suckling one of its teats, with tiny protrusions on his haloed head.

  “Christ, that is hideous,” he grimaced at the picture. “But strangely arousing.”

  Nina scoffed. “Remind you of your mum, does it?”

  Terry turned defensively, but the cyclops eye of the weapon glared right back at him. He thought twice about mouthing off. “So, this is the Templar archives? It looks more like a satanic cult library,” he remarked. “Everything feels nasty in here.” His shoulders pulled up in a shrug as a chill ran down his spine, shaking his body slightly.