Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6

by Preston William Child

  “Where did you go hunting ghosties then?”

  He smiled, delighted that someone at least was interested in his hobby. “Duart Castle. You know it?”

  “Aye,” she grinned, lighting up a Marlboro and closing her eyes for that first ecstatic rush. “The Dark Headland. Did you see anything...headless?”

  “No, but I aim to. I will,” he said with such zest that he arrested his father's attention for a moment. Quickly he quieted down and resumed his duties, still beaming at the historian's interest. Nina's ears blotted out the incomprehensible comment of the television as the whiskey quite literally drowned her sorrows, however few she harbored. Her body felt relaxed.

  Through the past few years she had triumphed over injury and illness, both of which had spelled certain death at first. For the first time in a long time, Nina was healthy. Back in shape and medically spicy, the feisty academic felt strong and able, even for the vexing remnants of her past tribulation. Even her mind was a bit calmer than usual. There was, God forbid, no ructions in her personal life – for now.

  A word from the blurry noise of the ancient telly on the makeshift shelf punched her to pay attention.

  “Purdue.” Nina perked up. Her eyes searched the TV screen for anything that would justify the surname she had just heard. A female reporter stood in front of a very familiar estate, but the few men at the pool table were making so much noise that she could not make out a single word from the television journalist. Normally Nina was an assertive person, although she was not inclined to be bossy or mean unless pushed. In fact, she’d carefully worked at her tolerance for the painfully intolerable since she’d been given a second chance at life a few months before.

  However, with her gullet thoroughly imbued with liquor and her general aversion for patience just about peaking in favor of the television news broadcast, the wee Nina rose to her feet and flicked her cigarette at the sweaty ogre with the limp who found it impossible to formulate words under the 20 kHz sound barrier. The cherry exploded in minute fireworks against the skin of his neck where it made contact, quickly shutting him up. He swung around, holding the back of his neck.

  “Can you keep your voice down long enough for other people to hear themselves think, mate?” she shouted, her dark eyes ablaze with annoyance. The manner in which the small historian leered at the pool-playing oaf conveyed an oddly threatening quality and instead of taking her on, the local simply rubbed his neck. He picked up her fag and smoked it, turning his back on Nina and making his shot in astonished, but indifferent, silence.

  Lenny's son, in awe of her gutsy move, smiled and turned up the television. Nina was completely focused on the bulletin as the scratchy sound delivered the journalist's report.

  “...here behind me. But authorities have joined forces with international rescue agencies to facilitate a joint effort on searching for Mr. Purdue in the location where he went missing. Although presumed dead, several organizations agreed that a search party for the explorer would be worth a try...”

  “Of course they do,” she murmured by herself. “The pricks want to find him so they can arrest him, you idiot.” Her lips quivered slightly before she finished the last of her whiskey. Nina took note of what the TV anchor reported, especially to keep careful track of what the authorities, such as the Archaeological Crimes Unit and MI6, planned for Purdue once they discovered him alive and well. Until they devised a plan to liberate him from these charges, Nina had to keep her friend's secret and harbor him as far as she could, along with their mutual friend, Sam Cleave.

  “...until Mr. Purdue's status is ascertained, the British Secret Service will take custody of the Wrichtishousis mansion and estate to make sure that the property does not play host to any undesirable guests. This is Natalie Graham, Channel ...”

  Oh my God, that’s all we need now – Paddy's consorts and colleagues writhing like earthworms all over Wrichtishousis while he is absent. Jesus, what if they find things they don't understand in that maze of his? She gestured for Lenny to supply more fire water. Nina had reason to be concerned. Although she and David Purdue had had their differences over the years, the man was ultimately one of her only friends left in this world, as was Sam Cleave.

  After shielding him against MI6 during the last excursion she really had no other course to follow but to keep hiding him from those who were looking for him. Sam Cleave had helped Purdue stage his own death on camera during their last run-in with shady forces, just barely escaping capture by government authorities – and barely escaping death by affiliates of the Order of the Black Sun. Between the two of them, Purdue had gone undetected thus far.

  The fact that Sam was a world-renowned investigative journalist with contacts in the media was, of course, highly beneficial as well. It also helped that he was childhood friends with Patrick Smith, an agent at MI6, a friendship recently rekindled thanks to Sam's success in rescuing Patrick's daughter from a most sinister abductor.

  With these valuable assets in place the media was being kept surprisingly ignorant of Purdue's warrants where it mattered, such as keeping MI6 in the dark about the fact that he was still alive. However, Nina was still not sure if special agent Patrick Smith even knew that Purdue was, in fact, still drawing breath, even after the operative's careful edits of Sam's video footage where Purdue's so-called demise had been recorded.

  But for now she knew that Wrichtishousis, Purdue's vast historical manor that played sentinel over the ancient city of Edinburgh, was off-limits. She sighed, leaning on one arm as Lenny delivered her a spare shooter.

  “What's this?” she frowned.

  “From that gentleman across...” Lenny smiled.

  “Len, I don't accept drinks from strangers. I told you before,” she whispered loudly in reprimand, practically lying her head on the counter to keep her voice low.

  “Oh,” Lenny's scarlet cheeks sank, “but I thought you knew him.”

  “How would you know that?” she inquired in short snappy grunts.

  “Well, because he said to tell you...happy birthday? How would he know your birthday?” the pub owner shrugged. Nina kicked away from the heavy wood of the counter, sending her chair twirling. She stopped it abruptly when she caught sight of the dark figure at the far corner of the establishment. He was draped in shadow, his gloved hands folded on the table in front of him and his clothing generously obscured his frame. Still, she could not deny those eyes. Light blue, piercing eyes stared back at her from under a thick woolen knit hat.

  “Unmistakable,” she smiled. “Thanks Lenny.”

  “Do you know him, then?” the plump pub owner asked, looking quite relieved for it.

  “Aye, I know that one,” she smiled dreamily as she rose from her seat to join the man in the dark, “but Lenny?”

  “Aye?”

  “...if you tell anyone, I'll kill you.”

  2

  Joseph Karsten, Level Three

  “What do you mean, you cannot find her? She has a GPS in her cell phone, you imbecile!” Karsten bellowed. He was furious that the private investigator he’d hired could still not locate either Sam Cleave or Dr. Nina Gould. “What the hell did I pay you for?”

  “With respect, sir, increasing my fee will not make these people surface any better or faster,” came the wry response. Karsten leered at the impudent specimen, his nostrils positively flaring as he panted softly. From the narrow flagstone lane inadvertently formed by the myriad of lined potted plants in his greenhouse, he called an associate he had employed to help narrow the net for him.

  Under the blue and orange Austrian heavens, Karsten's lone house stood in the cool late afternoon wind. It was a colossal place, built in the fashion of an Italian courtyard, complete with hanging plants and creepers adorning the walls like feral botany from a science fiction novel. On the outside of the rectangular walling of the south boundary, Karsten kept his greenhouse. There he spent most of his time after 3 p.m., escaping the dreaded sharp morning sun, much like his plants did. It was consid
erably warmer inside the glass house, a temperature difference the private detective could feel by the trickling sweat down his spine.

  The investigator just stood there, waiting for dismissal or further orders, as was the custom when he worked for the Order of the Black Sun or its affiliates. Apparently the person on the other side of the line had similarly empty news, because Karsten suddenly growled, clenching his teeth as he ended the call. The livid Level Three member of the old Nazi organization tried to compose himself, closing his eyes and slowing his breaths gradually from heavy groans to shallow inhalations. If the investigator had not been under the eye of Karsten's bodyguard, he may well have rolled his eyes at the melodrama.

  Karsten opened his eyes, looking decidedly sorrowful. His expression reminded the investigator of a pouting child as the overweight fascist slid his phone into his pocket, sniffing in disgust. To the indifferent investigator he said sullenly, “I want you to find anyone close to Dr. Gould. Even if it is an old lady she helps to buy groceries or a niece who visits her...anyone remotely close to her heart. If she wishes to be invisible I will find someone close to her who beams like a goddamn star! And then she will have no choice but to come to their rescue.”

  “Why Dr. Gould, Herr Karsten?” the private dick had to ask, as the logic of it eluded him. He was met with a look from the Austrian millionaire that resembled a face confronted with the odor of putrefaction. “No, seriously,” the man continued sincerely. “If you’re after David Purdue, why not trail someone close to him?”

  That was it for Karsten. He slowly approached the ignorant buffoon, trying not to lose his cool in the process. “Do you know anything about David Purdue, Beck?” Jonathan Beck's shook his head. “Of course not. This man has no one close to him, save for the esteemed little black-eyed beauty we’re tracking, you see? And do you know why? Purdue had a twin sister he and an uncle abandoned once in Africa when they were mere children. And when they were reunited as adults, it took that insolent bastard no more than a few weeks to get rid of her for good.”

  “Then why would he kill his sister and not Dr. Gould?” Beck asked, to his detriment. Karsten slapped him hard and waited for him to recover before explaining. “Obviously he was not fucking his sister, was he?”

  “I see,” the still shocked Beck stammered.

  “Do you understand now? Do you?” the moody Karsten demanded.

  “I do, I get it. A lover is good bait,” Beck answered. “So I’ll start in her home town watching her house. Give me a week to assemble a dossier of activity by surveillance.”

  “That’s too long,” Karsten protested. “The Super Moon is fast approaching; it’s less than two months away and still we don't have what we need. Dr. Gould is not just a historian versed in modern history, but she has walked in the light of the Black Sun. She understands what we’re about and she knows the other side, the dark side, of political history like no other scholar of her time. I’d venture to say that she’s remarkable and unique in the things we deal with. Whether she fully grasps that is a mystery. Whether she realizes how important her knowledge in the matters of the Order is, is of no consequence right now; just that we apprehend her as soon as possible.”

  “Sir, you must give me time to effectively breach the perimeter of her home. I need to install feeds so I can record all regular activity. That’s the only way we can find out which people Dr. Gould is close to,” Beck explained to the impatient Karsten. Feeling his cheek throbbing from the wallop, he continued to state his idea. “I must insist that you use a little more patience. It’s best not to rush this procedure and to do it right the first time, otherwise the whole plan may be botched...and recovering from that will take twice as long...sir.”

  “The German military does it faster,” Karsten mocked.

  “But MI5 does it thoroughly,” Beck bragged dryly, without meeting eyes with his employer. “My training allows me to effectively arrest her daily life, Herr Karsten. Trust me. In the end, I’m worth every cent of my fee.”

  “So they say,” Karsten calmed a bit, continuing to prune his creeping azaleas and blue Alpine snowbells. “But they don’t have a celestial stopwatch ruling their missions as I do. Just get me Nina Gould and do it quickly so that I can proceed with the second stage of the plan. There are many checkpoints for me to complete, my dear Beck, and stage two is but the start. All the other feats need to be accomplished speedily, you see?”

  “I do. Let me get to Oban, Scotland...and start from there. No more technology. Now I follow the real world, real footsteps and seeking with my own two eyes rather than using machines to do my searching for me,” Beck informed his employer. “Besides, if she decides to come home, we’ll be a few steps ahead already.”

  Without looking at the former MI5 operative Karsten replied, “Let us hope, then.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” was all Jonathan Beck said before turning on his heel and leaving. He passed the typically over-sized bodyguard with the shaved head and wealth of chins under what had once been a strong jawline. Beck simply scoffed as he exited the greenhouse to bathe in the relief of the naturally cooler weather outside.

  He took a deep breath of fresh air, not only because of the contained heat inside the greenhouse, but because the residence would have been stuffy even without the abnormal temperature. Leaving that greenhouse was the air of freedom, of walking away from what felt like an enormous spider lying sprawled at the edge of the Salzkammergut region; a giant monster of wood and glass and ill temperament along with ill temperature. Behind him as he walked, he could almost hear its pincers grinding as it watched him get into his Volvo.

  Only when he started his car did he dare look up at the large house and its vast gardens, perfect for the climate in this mountainous area. Inside it was quite different. The interior of Joseph Karsten's house was like the circles of hell, each a special place of pain or misery, almost proudly so. No plants could possibly flourish inside the house itself, Beck imagined, not with such a stifling atmosphere of negative energy and hate. Peculiar to the place when he first stayed over was the lack of…life. No music was ever heard inside the house, no radio or television broadcast bringing any external contact into the residence, even for entertainment. The entire interior of the manor was silent – silent as a tomb.

  Birds and butterflies did not venture into the gardens nor beautify the courtyard with song and color. It wasn’t the result of a pet predator's presence, as one would think. No, Karsten had no pets either. Nothing living could be maintained or nourished in his chateau and the shelter of the Salzkammergut Mountains was a perfect metaphor for the seclusion of the Black Sun's doings. It was almost ironic how the Black Sun, a symbol of perpetual and inexhaustible energy, could be the representation of such damning and perverse ideologies. At least, this was the perception of the organization from a quite poetic operative who could not wait to drive out of its ineluctable web and return to Britain to start his vigil on Dr. Nina Gould's home in Oban.

  3

  The Black Angel

  Purdue had been lying low since that fateful ruse Sam had staged with him. It had been Sam's idea, in fact, in the wake of an investigation into Purdue's involvement with stolen artifacts. The British Secret Service's international dragnet had been getting too tight when the plan was hatched. In fact, it had been Sam Cleave's guilty conscience that had conjured up the idea of saving Purdue at just about the same time the same guilty conscience had him working for Patrick Smith's agency to capture Purdue. It had been a Gordian knot he’d needed to sever without injuring either allegiance.

  Such were the dilemmas Sam Cleave constantly faced in his line of work, especially with the opposing characters he kept in his small circle of friends. Having a passion for investigative journalism had caused him little more than pain and had gifted him the constant threat of danger, yet Sam knew these things were par for the course with his passion. His friends were prominent and valuable, even to their foes, but it was when the two worlds overlapped that he felt l
ike a cat on an electric fence.

  For now, he’d garnered some time. Just enough time, to formulate another plan by which he could keep Purdue from being incarcerated while retaining Paddy's friendship. All of these matters were why Sam had decided to put some space between himself and Purdue, why he’d accepted a small assignment for an independent publication in Kuala Lampur. Both men thought it better to cut communications at least for a few months to assure that neither could run the risk of being discovered for their subterfuge.

  It had been a week or two since Purdue's faux demise, but the funeral of Professor Medley was nigh, the one unfortunate outcome of their last meeting. However, since Sam hadn’t known the lady outside of their mutual mission, he had no intention of attending the wake. Nina had informed him that she would be attending, though, out of respect for the woman she’d surely have become friends with had she known her a bit longer.

  Nina stepped out of the shower, her first early morning shower in a long time. She hated to admit that her hangover was getting the better of her, but there was no denying the pounding chiseling going on in her brain. Luckily she was not prone to vomiting like most, which was a godsend since Nina hated hurling with a passion, especially since her bout with cancer where she’d had plenty of daily practice.

  Outside, the wind was blowing like crazy. This wasn’t unusual for Oban, but today the sea was especially wild and breathed hard over the coast. Clouds populated the skies from horizon to horizon in clumps of sinister hues that reflected the erratic nature of the season. Purdue had taken his leave before she’d awoken, but she knew he wouldn’t be far away at any time.