Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6

by Preston William Child

  “Aye!” Nina affirmed. “Wait, wait. You are on that again, Jo? Geez.”

  “Good point!” Sam cried. “On that note; Virgil, have you ever heard of that myth?”

  The captain leaned against the exterior of the cockpit, having a smoke. He offered Nina one, and she took two. She lit both and passed Sam the other.

  “Thank you muchly,” he said from behind the camera. “Mr. Hecklund, you are a local. Have you ever heard of the patch of earth on the Labrador/ Newfoundland land that is reputed to be so cursed and desolate that nothing in history has ever happened there?”

  “It's preposterous, Sam. Why do you even entertain that?” Nina said with her arms crossed.

  Virgil smiled. “You know, when I was a teenager I had a pal I met during a Biology Camp at school. The guy was Inuit and he first told me about this. Is that where we’re going? Is that why you wanted to go to Martin Bay?”

  Joanne cleared her throat. “Yes, but we’re going to look for a weather station there for our…documentary. The place where nothing happens, that story, that is just Sam's curiosity and Nina's skepticism we want to shed light on for.” She gave Nina a wink and Nina rolled her eyes in retort.

  Virgil sighed and shrugged. “There is just this place off Martin Bay where they say nothing throughout history has ever taken place; that there is something wrong with the land and that no notable events or incidents, or even accidents or murders, ever happened there. Naturally, if you reckon the age of the planet, it is safe to assume that just about every square meter of land would at some point have been the site of a battle, or a murder, at least some happening, hey?”

  “I agree,” Nina said.

  “But, in this place,” he chuckled, “I feel stupid even saying this. In this place incidents refuse to happen.” Then Virgil laughed with such sorrowful perplexity that his passengers knew that there was more to his tale. He looked at them with a more serious expression, his face revealing that what he was about to say had some emotional effect on him.

  “Look at the lens, Virgil,” Sam suggested gently.

  The giant man with eyes like gray ice looked at the camera and took a deep breath. “In the summer of '94 I went up there with Jobie and two of his cousins,” Virgil's voice trembled. “We were having this same argument as you bunch, see? Like, how can nothing happen in a place. If it happens, it happens, right? So we went to the place. I told them I was going to walk onto the designated spot they claimed was the core of the Place of No Happening.”

  Sam held up his hand for Virgil to wait and said, “Place of No Happening. Mark.” Sam's hand went into a rolling motion and Virgil carried on with the story. “Okay, so I told them, if I cut myself that would be a happening, right? I mean, we were not going to start a war just to test the myth.”

  The clouds began to gather slowly, darkening the deck ever so slightly as if Mother Nature were introducing the mood of Virgil's chilling tale of illogical science. “I took out my knife to cut my hand,” the captain of the Scarlet said, smiling awkwardly, “and my knife…it would not cut. I swear to God, I can’t explain it to this day. It was in my hand but every time I brought it to cut my hand, it just stopped on my skin…just…sat there.”

  “Really,” Nina smirked sarcastically.

  “Really, Dr. Gould,” Virgil answered sincerely, almost defensively. “And if you go there for whatever reason you will eat your words on Mr. Cleave's camera. You will wear this stupid smile too, because you will not understand what happened, or did not happen, to you.”

  “So, this patch of land is essentially anti-historical?” Sam joked, trying to lighten the mood, but the others were too immersed in the true and false of the matter to find the humor in it.

  “That was not the end. Jobie and his one cousin thought my attempt was not conclusive, right, so they decided to beat the crap out of each other,” Virgil spoke as if it were the first time in his life that he could actually talk about it. “When Jobie tried to dive tackle his cousin his feet stopped. I mean, I could see his upper body lunge over from the speed he was going, but his feet would not advance to make contact. His cousin threw a punch which was guaranteed to connect, but Jobie's body had shifted a few inches away without any of us noticing! I’m telling you, that place scares the holy hell out of me, but I know what I saw and I know what I felt.”

  “Oh my God, this is gold,” Sam exclaimed. “People are going to love this.”

  “Just please, don't disclose the location, Mr. Cleave,” Virgil warned. “We don't want fools from all over the place disturbing Inuit land for some urban legend crap. Chalk this up to some old superstition on your program, alright?”

  “Relax, Captain,” Sam replied professionally. “I appreciate the need for some arcane and magical places to stay unknown.”

  “Aye, you can trust Sam,” Nina assured Virgil, giving the journalist a wink of approval that set everything right in his heart.

  23

  Unlikely Treasures

  It was nighttime when the Scarlet pulled into a cove in Martin Bay. There the vessel bobbed on the breathing tide, a cold and restless heaving chest beneath the hull. The gales swept over the bay surface in hard breaths, sounding like wailing sirens and leaving the passengers of the boat thoroughly freaked out.

  “God, this is creepy. This is right out of H.P. Lovecraft,” Nina remarked. “Hope your Alexander the Great makes it worth our while, Earle-Girl.”

  “I hope so too,” Joanne replied as they lugged their bags off the boat and onto the dingy that would get them onto land. “Because I just don't think I can take more of your insults toward my boy Alex.”

  The women dared have a laugh as they toiled through the icy waters to an unknown, uninhabited outpost in the stormy twilight. Sam asked Virgil to come along, but the captain preferred to stay with his vessel until his passengers returned. As the three of them started hiking, each one was armed with food rations and basic clothing, along with whatever gear Sam needed to record what they would hopefully discover there.

  “Why the hell would Alexander's treasure be out here in the godforsaken Arctic archipelago?” Nina huffed in the cold.

  “Think about it,” Sam shrugged. “It is nowhere near his Kingdoms, right? Nobody would think to plunder here.”

  “That is true. He was a master of misdirection and strategy as much as he was good at head-on attacks,” Joanne agreed.

  “But his treasure, most of which he obtained from empires he toppled, like Persia, Syria, and Egypt, could not possibly have been hauled all the way here. And let's not deny it – he was not afraid of a fight, hardly the type to sneak around to hide his gold when he believed he practically owned everything anyway,” Nina debated. “He would not have bothered to conceal his treasure at all. I would imagine Alexander the Great would have more than enough soldiers to guard his hoard instead of hiding it.”

  “Unless that hoard contained something more important than gold and silver,” Sam mentioned.

  “You know, that could be a strict possibility,” Nina conceded. “Perhaps something more powerful was hidden among his treasures, because most pillagers would only see the gold and valuables and not pay attention to the real item that he treasured.”

  “Which would be?” Sam asked. Neither of the ladies could come up with a speculative answer yet, both falling silent to consider what it could be.

  “Look!” Sam cried out. “Just ahead, a bit to the right. See that? Is that the weather station Erich spoke of?”

  They squinted through the pitch dark with only the weak beams of flashlights to light the way. But in the haze of the cold, misty weather appeared what looked like compact, temporary structures showing signs of severe disrepair. There were two identical buildings constructed side by side with a large mess of iron and copper wiring hidden behind the weathered walls.

  “Super creepy,” Joanne said with a shiver.

  “Yep,” Sam answered. “Go on ahead, ladies. I'll film you from behind.”

  “Not funny
, Sam. We all go together, alright?” Nina suggested.

  “I think those iron rods used to be a tower to mount weather instruments,” Sam remarked as they came closer to the deserted post. “This must be where Erich and his colleagues loaded the boats. Look, on the other side of this ridge there is more ocean hugging the land. That must be were the U-boat is submerged.”

  “Aye, when I researched Weather Station Kurt,” Nina said, gesturing at the structures in front of them, “I read that German submarine U-537 was en route to this location when a storm broke the hull right off the coast here. I bet they were sending more than a mock-weather station out here. History says the U-boat departed again after the weather station was erected, but word of mouth says it is still sunk in Martin Bay.”

  “So this is…was…weather station Kurt?” Joanne asked. “Then it makes perfect sense that Leslie must have snagged the medallion here. I bet there are quite a bit more lost gold medallions around here between the submarine and these buildings. There has to be.”

  “Okay, let's go and see what is inside,” Sam urged, tugging up his collar against the sting of the cold. When they rounded the right side structure they found that its door had been ripped off the hinges at some point. “Ah! Easy access,” Sam sighed, “although that usually spells trouble for us.” He leered back at the women in ominous jest.

  Inside they found the entire cubicle barren, save for one or two loose switches jutting from the wall and a pulverized office chair. “This must have been the front for a transmission center, in case the Allied Forces discovered it,” Nina observed as their lights fluttered about the inside of the prefab box.

  Nina was looking out the glass-less window frame. “Looks like the building next to us is bigger than this one. It is built out towards the other side, see?”

  “That must have been the barracks, the place with the beds, whatever,” Joanne guessed. “I think we will be getting more out of that one. Unless this little room has a dungeon with secrets, I think we are done here.”

  Sam chuckled at Joanne's manner. “Then let's go. You don't actually think this room has a dungeon, Dr. Gould?”

  Nina was looking at the floor with considerable fancy, pondering, before she looked up at them and plainly said. “No, that would be silly.” Filled with some doubt as to the obviousness, Nina followed her two friends out of the small room. “Actually…”

  “No way,” Sam uttered at the front of the line, as if he knew that she would have second thoughts about the absurdity.

  “Look, if there was anything worth anything, I would not hide it in a residential stock house where other people shared my space. I would hide it in the most insignificant place,” she speculated, shrugging with a face that implored them to trust her instincts.

  “I'm going to check out the place with the beds and lockers,” Sam announced. “You are welcome to follow your idea, but I am going there first. No use trudging about in one place for something that probably is not there while the other place has not even been investigated.”

  With that Sam went on to the larger, neighboring structure while Nina climbed back up into the former office. The three-steps constructed of aluminum had been disassembled and chewed up by saline weather for ages. She found Joanne close at her heel. Looking astonished, but content, Nina asked Joanne, “Um, Jo? You are choosing to come with me instead of your crush? Wow, I’m flattered.”

  “Oh shut up,” Joanne said as Nina pulled her up into the tiny place again. “You were right. He can be insufferable sometimes. Besides, I have to concur with you about that certain kind of logic for hiding things. Only thing is…”

  “What?” Nina asked as she rubbed her hands together for some hopeless attempt at heat.

  “What are we looking for?”

  Nina had no idea how to explain the chance discoveries she had previously experienced just by accident. True, she did not know what she was looking for, but it did not matter because the decrepit weather station was empty enough to detect any object remotely worthy of treasure or ancient history. They were not exactly in the Palace of Versailles or the Taj Mahal right now. Anything in the line of what they were seeking would stand out here.

  “Nina, shall we rip up the floor boards?” Joanne asked.

  Nina smiled at Joanne's zest. “Honey, we don't have to go all Indiana Jones on this little outhouse. Just look around.”

  Joanne's face contorted in a painful twist. “Nina!” she cried. “Nina!”

  “Christ, what?” Nina shouted irately. “I am standing right here, for fuck's sake!”

  Joanne stared into her friend's face, but not a word was uttered while her mind was computing whatever it was that just came to her. The teacher's eyes moved as she tried to mull around her intimation.

  “I swear, Jo, if you don't tell me what you're on about I am going to slap you,” Nina threatened. It seemed to work, but not because of the historian's warning. Joanne had figured out what she thought was ludicrous, but worth mentioning.

  “You know how you told me stories about how sometimes the dumbest stuff turned out to lead you guys somewhere?” she asked Nina.

  “Aye?”

  “Weather Station Kurt, was it an unmanned station or did the Germans have full-time staff manning it?” Joanne wanted to know.

  “From the records the submarine crew and two scientists put the place up here, but other than that we don't know how many people stayed here. Wetter Funkgerät Land-26 was an automatic weather station, code-named 'Kurt' because of the scientist who brought it. Why is that important?” Nina inquired.

  “You said 'outhouse.' They had to have bathrooms, right? Erich Bonn said that Johann and Yvetta caught Leslie crawling out of the toilet window,” Joanne recounted excitedly.

  “Jo, I don't think I like where this is going,” Nina said plainly. Joanne just laughed when she realized that her friend knew what she was going to point to. “I really don't.”

  Sam showed up outside the door, looking positively defeated. “Nothing there either. Even the lockers are empty.” He noticed that he had interrupted something and lifted his camera. “Shall I film this?”

  The two girls smiled at one another. Keeping her gaze on Joanne, Nina told Sam, “I think you should, because it is going to be priceless footage, Sam.”

  “That sounds sinister coming from the two of you,” he confessed reluctantly as he joined his two female companions on their way to the larger residential building. “Where are we going, then?”

  When they reached the ruined ablution block of the sleep house used by the soldiers and staff throughout the years, Sam stopped in his tracks before they entered the open doorway. The ladies just sniggered and looked back at him. “You’re not serious,” he decided.

  Nina pointed at her friend. “It was Jo's idea.”

  “Hell no,” Sam protested.

  “Oh come on, Sam,” Joanne said. “You have gone to great lengths to get a good story before. I am sure you've had to put up with a lot of shit before.”

  Nina burst out laughing, her amusement echoing in the angry wind. Joanne could hardly finish her sentences too, especially at the expression on Sam's face. “We just have a mad hunch about where Leslie's coin could have surfaced, and besides, it has been over thirty years since anyone's been here.”

  “What are you expecting to find?” he asked frantically.

  “Something someone could not have hidden where anyone would want to look,” Joanne explained as she went ahead into the deserted ruin full of broken glass, cracked walls, and exposed electrical wires. Over shattered wooden beams that had broken from the ceiling, Joanne moved to the last toilet in the row to start her search.

  “Let's just go. Your over-zealous friend has led us on a goose chase over a bloody coin,” Sam whined.

  “You heard what Erich Bonn said. You know she is onto something,” Nina frowned at him.

  “You know, you are rubbing off on her, Dr. Gould,” Sam whispered to Nina as they trailed the adventurous teacher. />
  “You should be so lucky,” Nina answered.

  “Oh my God, guys!” Joanne hollered from the darkness ahead, her flashlight depicting a grotesque likeness of her crouched body against the whitewashed wall.

  “Oh yeah, she is loose,” Sam affirmed.

  “What did you get?” Nina called out.

  “You will not believe this!” Joanne muttered as she trampled about on the debris.

  “You found the treasure of Alexander the Great in a toilet in Canada?” Sam mocked happily, getting a solid elbow punch from Nina. “Shall I roll on the camera?”

  Joanne stepped out from the cubicle, holding a huge, furry, awful thing in her hand. It was as big as she was, swinging from side to side in the gust.

  “Jesus!” Sam screamed as Nina cringed with him. “What the hell is that?”

  Joanne looked ecstatic as she approached them with what looked like a five-foot-tall bear skin.

  “I got it!” she smiled at Nina and Sam.

  “What, rabies?” Sam mumbled.

  Ignoring Sam's taunt, she shook the furry thing and grinned, “It’s Leslie's parka!”

  24

  Maria's Mayhem

  Maria was beginning to get worried. She hadn’t heard back from Beck in over three days. He was supposed to let her know when he had received their fee from Karsten and then returned to pick her up. She wasn’t supposed to kill Mrs. Beach until he’d secured the money for Purdue's trade. That way they would have another hostage to work with if things went south for their plans.

  It was beginning to be very taxing on Maria's frail emotional state to take care of a hostage for this long. There was a reason why she did the technological spying and left the people skills to her boyfriend – Maria had spent much of her life in rehab facilities and nuthouses for being a bit on the reckless side when it came to the security of other human beings.

  When she was twelve she’d spent a few months in juvenile detention for killing the neighbor's cats and hanging them from nooses in her mother's yard. When she was seventeen she’d slit a man's throat with a beer bottle at a bike rally, but got away with no witnesses. She was an avid admirer of hardcore pornography and snuff films and resorted to cutting when she became really unhappy.