Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6

by Preston William Child

  “I was thinking the same thing. Could you imagine making this trip through water with the dangers of lightning and pouring rain impairing our vision?” he concurred. “There! Up there. It looks like a canoe?”

  “Aye, but it is awfully tiny,” she bemoaned the sight. The handcrafted vessel was hardly big enough for Sam alone, let alone the both of them. Finding nothing else remotely useful, the two had to face the inevitable solution.

  “You will have to go alone, Nina. We just don’t have the time to fuck about. Daylight will hit in less than four hours and you are light and small. You would travel much faster on your own,” Sam explained, dreading sending her off alone to an unknown place.

  Outside a few women screamed as a house roof collapsed, spurring Nina on to get the diamonds and put an end to the suffering of innocent people. “I really don’t want to,” she admitted. “The thought terrifies me, but I will go. I mean, what could a bunch of peace-loving, celibate monks possibly want with a pale heretic like me?”

  “Except burning you ate the stake?” Sam said without thinking in an effort to jest.

  A slap to the arm conveyed Nina’s dismay at his thoughtless conjecture before she gestured for him to bring down the canoe. For the next forty-five minutes, they drew it behind them on the water until they found an open area without any buildings or fences to deter her way.

  “The moon will light your way, and the fires on the walls of the monastery will mark your target, love. Be careful, alright.” He shoved his Beretta, with a fresh clip, in her hand. “Mind the crocodiles,” Sam smiled as he gathered her up in his arms, holding her tightly in his embrace. In truth, he was worried sick about her lone effort, but he dared not aggravate her apprehension with the truth.

  As Nina covered her petite body in a cloak made of burlap, Sam felt a lump in his throat for the dangers she had to face alone. “I’ll be right here, waiting at the town hall for you.”

  She did not look back as she started paddling, nor did she utter a single word. Sam took it as a sign that she was focused upon her task, when in fact she was crying. He could never know how scared she was to travel alone to the ancient monastery, having no idea what awaited her there while he was too far away to save her if something happened.

  Not only did the unknown destination frighten Nina. The thought of what lurked in the elevated waters of the lake – the lake from which the Blue Nile sprang – scared her senseless. Fortunately for her, though, many of the townspeople had the same idea as she did, and she was not alone on the vast stretch of water that had now obscured the true lake. She had no idea where the actual Lake Tana started, but, as Sam had directed, she was only to look for the blaze of fire pots along the walls of the Monastery on Tana Qirkos.

  It was eerie to be afloat among so many canoe-like boats, hearing people speak around her in tongues she did not understand. “I guess this is what it feel like to cross the river Styx,” she told herself in amusement as she paddled with a strong pace to make her way to her destination. “All the voices; all the whispers of many. Males and females and different dialects, all floating in darkness upon black waters at the mercy of the gods.”

  The historian looked up at the clear, starry sky. Across her brow her dark hair fluttered in the cordial wind on the water, peeking from under the cowl. “Twinkle, twinkle, Little Star,” she whispered, clutching at the butt of the firearm as the tears rolled gently over her cheek. “Fucking evil is what you are.”

  Only the shouts echoing over the water reminded her that she was not bitterly alone, as in the distance she beheld the faint glow of the fires Sam spoke of. A church bell was ringing far away, and it appeared to alarm the people in the boats at first. But then they began to sing. At first, it was a myriad of differing melodies and keys, but gradually the people of the Amhara region started singing in unison.

  “Is that their national anthem?” Nina wondered out loud, but she dared not ask for fear of betraying her identity. “No, wait. It is…a hymn.”

  Far away, the clang of the somber bell reverberated across the water as more waves were born from seemingly nowhere. She could hear some of the people break their song to exclaim in terror while others sang louder. Nina pinched her eyes shut as the water fluctuated violently, leaving her no doubt that it could be a crocodile or a hippopotamus.

  “Oh Jesus!” she yelped as her tankwa careened. Grasping the oar with all her might, Nina rowed faster, hoping that whatever monster was under there would choose another canoe and let her live a few more days, at least. Her heart went wild as she heard people scream somewhere behind her along with the vociferous commotion of splashing waters that ended in wailing sorrow.

  Some creature had claimed a boatful of people and Nina was horrified at the notion that in a lake this size, every living thing had siblings. There was bound to be many more onslaughts under the indifferent moon, where the fresh meat ventured out tonight. “And I thought you were joking about the crocodiles, Sam,” she panted in fear. Unknowingly, she imagined the beast to blame to be exactly what it was. “Water demons, all of them,” she wheezed as her chest and arms burned under the effort of rowing through the treacherous water of Lake Tana.

  Near four o’clock Nina’s tankwa had carried her to the shores of the island, Tana Qirkos, where the remaining of King Solomon’s diamonds were hidden in the cemetery. She knew the location, but still, Nina had no idea where the stones would be kept. In a case? In a bag? In, God forbid, a coffin? As she approached the fortress built in ancient times, the historian was relieved about one bad thing. It appeared that the rising water levels brought her right up to the wall of the monastery and she would have no need to make her way across perilous ground teeming with unknown guards or animals.

  By her compass navigation Nina ascertained the location of the wall she was to breach and used her climbing rope to secure her canoe to a protrusive buttress. The monks were frantically busy taking in people at the main entrance, as well as relocating their food stores to the higher towers. All the chaos benefitted Nina’s mission. Not only were the monks too busy to pay attention to intruders, but the din of the church bell made certain that her presence would never be detected by sound. In essence, she did not have to sneak about or be quiet while she made her way to the cemetery.

  Rounding the secondary wall, she was delighted to find the graveyard just as Purdue had described it. Unlike the rough map she was given as to the section she was supposed to find, the cemetery was considerably smaller in scale. In fact, she easily found it on first glance.

  ‘This is too easy,’ she thought, feeling a bit uneasy. ‘Maybe you are just so used to having to burrow through shit that you cannot appreciate that thing called a lucky break.’

  Perhaps her luck would hold long enough, just until the Abbot who saw her breach captured her.

  29

  The Karma of Bruichladdich

  With her latest obsession with fitness and strength training, Nina could not argue with the benefits now that she had to utilize her conditioning to keep her from getting caught. Most of the physical effort was quite comfortably executed as she scaled an interior wall barrier to find her way into the lower section adjacent to the hall. Stealthily, Nina gained access to the narrow trench-like row of graves. It reminded her of a row of macabre train cars in sequence, lying lower then the rest of the graveyard.

  What was peculiar was that the third grave from her, the one demarcated on the map, had a remarkably new slab of marble over it, compared to the obviously worn and dirty covers of all the others in the line. She suspected that it was an indication of access. When she came to it, Nina noticed that the head stone read Ephippas Abizithibod.

  “Eureka!” she smiled, while the premises was being overrun by hysterical citizens and the fearful monks who were trying to calm them. Nina was one of the best historians in the world. Although she was mainly an expert on World War II, she had an affinity for ancient history, apocrypha and mythology. The two words chiseled in the antiquated granite
did not represent the name of some monk or canonized do-gooder.

  Nina sank to her knees on the marble and ran her fingers over the names. “I know who you are,” she sang cheerfully while the monastery started taking on water from the crevices in the external walls. “Ephippas, you are the demon King Solomon employed to raise a heavy cornerstone of his temple, a great big slab much like this one,” she whispered as she scrutinized the headstone to find some sort of device or lever to open it. “And Abizithibod,” she announced proudly, dusting off the name with a wipe of her palm, “you were the naughty fucker who helped the Egyptian magicians against Moses…”

  Suddenly the slab started moving under her knees. “Holy shit!” Nina exclaimed as she fell back, looking straight up at the giant mounted stone cross on the main chapel roof. “Sorry.”

  ‘Note to self,’ she thought, ‘give Father Harper a call when all this is over.’

  The water crept up higher while still there was not a cloud in the sky. While Nina was apologizing to the cross her eye caught another shooting star. “Oh, for fucks sake!” she moaned, crawling in the mud to get out of the way of the evenly animate marble. It was so thick in breadth that it would crush her legs instantly.

  Unlike the other grave markers, this one bore names of demons bound by King Solomon, irrefutably declaring that this was where the lost diamonds were kept by the monks. As the slab grated its way into the casing of granite, Nina winced at what she would see. True to her fears, she was confronted with a skeleton lying in a purple bed of what was once silk. Upon the skull a golden crown gleamed, encrusted with rubies and sapphires. It was pale yellow, true crude gold, but Dr. Nina Gould could not care less about the crown.

  “Where are the diamonds?” she frowned. “Oh God, don’t tell me the diamonds have been taken. No, no.” With as much respect as she could afford at the time and circumstance, she started to examine the grave. Lifting the bones one by one and muttering with worry, she did not notice the water flooding the narrow channel of graves where she was busy searching. The first grave filled up with water as the fence wall gave way under the weight of the rising lake. Prayers and laments coursed from the people on the higher side of the fortress, but Nina was adamant to obtain the diamonds before all was lost.

  Once the first grave was filled, the loose ground it was cradled in turned into mud. The casket and headstone sank under the water, allowing the stream free passage to the second grave, just behind Nina.

  “Where the fuck do you keep your diamonds, for Christ’s sake?” she shrieked in the din of the maddening church bell.

  “For Christ’s sake?” someone said above her. “Or for Mammon’s?”

  Nina did not want to look up, but the cold end of the gun barrel coaxed her to obey. Above her a tall young monk stood, looking positively furious. “Of all nights to desecrate a grave for treasure you choose this one? May the Lord have mercy on you for your devil’s greed, woman!”

  He was dispatched by the abbot, while the head monk concentrated his efforts on salvaging souls and delegating for evacuation.

  “No, please! I can explain everything! My name is Dr. Nina Gould!” Nina shouted, throwing up her arms in surrender, having no idea that Sam’s Beretta, tucked in her belt, was in plain sight. He shook his head. The monk’s finger played on the trigger of the M16 he held, but his eyes widened and froze on her body. It was then that she remembered the gun. “Listen, listen!” she implored. “I can explain.”

  The second grave sank into the loose quicksand formed by the wicked current of muddy lake water, stalking the third grave, but neither Nina, nor the monk realized.

  “You explain nothing,” he cried, looking decidedly unstable. “You keep quiet! Let me think!” Little did she know that he was staring at her chest, where her buttoned shirt parted and revealed the tattoo that also fascinated Sam.

  Nina dared not touch the gun she bore, but she was desperate to find the diamonds. She needed a diversion. “Watch out for the water!” she shouted, feigning panic and looking past the monk to fool him. As he turned to look, Nina leapt up and cold cocked him with the Beretta’s butt, hitting him at the base of the skull. The monk fell to the ground with a thump and she frantically fumbled through the bones of the skeleton, even whipping at the satin fabric, but nothing came of it.

  Furiously she wept in defeat, lashing about the purple rag in rage. The motion dislodged the skull from the spine with a grotesque cracking sound that swiveled the head bone askew. Two pristine little stones spilled from the eye cavity onto the fabric.

  “No fucking way!” Nina groaned happily. “You let it all go to your head, didn’t you?”

  The water swept away the limp body of the young monk and claimed his assault rifle, pulling it to the muddy tomb below, while Nina gathered up the diamonds, chucked them back inside the skull and wrapped the head in the purple fabric. As the water spilled into the third grave bed, she thrust the prize into her satchel and flung it back onto her back.

  A pitiful moan came from the drowning monk a few meters away. He was upside down in a funneling tornado of muddy water draining downward into the cellar, but the drainage grid prevented him from going through it. So he was left drowning, caught by the downward spiraling suction. Nina had to go. It was almost dawn and the water was flooding the entire holy island along with the unfortunate souls who sought sanctuary there.

  Her canoe was bobbing wildly near the second tower wall. If she did not rush, she would go down with the landmass and lie dead under the lake’s muddy rage like the rest of the dead bodies bound to the cemetery. But the gurgling shouts occasionally coming from the churning waters over the cellar appealed to Nina’s compassion.

  ‘He was going to shoot you. Fuck him,’ her inner bitch urged. ‘If you bother to help him, you will end up the same. Besides, he probably just wants to grab you and hold you under for bludgeoning him just then. I know I would. Karma.’

  “Karma,” Nina mumbled as she realized something from the night in the Jacuzzi with Sam. “Bruich, I told you Karma would whip me with water. I have to make things right.”

  Cursing herself for the trivial superstition, she hastened through the powerful current to reach the drowning man. His arms were flailing wildly when his face went under as the historian rushed toward him. Mainly, the problem Nina encountered most was her small frame. She simply did not weigh enough to rescue a grown man, and the water swept her off her feet as soon as she stepped into the swirling vortex with still more lake water pouring in.

  “Hold on!” she shouted, as she tried to grab a hold of one of the iron bar teeth that barred the narrow windows to the cellar. The water was furious, dumping her under and thrashing her gullet and lungs without resistance, but she did her best not to release her grip as she reached out her hand to the arm of the monk. “Grab my hand! I’ll try to get you out!” she shouted as the water slammed into her mouth. “I owe a goddamn cat some amends,” she said to nobody in particular, as she felt his hand lock over her forearm in a lower arm grasp.

  With all her strength, she pulled him upwards, even just to help him catch his breath, but Nina’s tired body started to fail her. Again, she tried to no avail, watching the walls of the cellar crack under the weight of the water, soon to collapse onto them both in certain doom.

  “Come on!” she screamed, electing this time to wedge the toe of her boot into the wall and using her body as leverage. The effort was too great for Nina’s physical ability and she felt her shoulder dislocate as the monk’s weight along with the current, pulled it out of the rotator cuff. “Jesus Christ!” she shrieked in agony just before the gulf of mud and water drew her under.

  Like the swirling liquid madness of a crashing ocean wave, Nina’s body was jerked harshly and flung against the bottom part of the collapsing wall, yet she still felt the monk’s hand hold firmly. As her body hit the wall a second time, Nina grabbed the bar with her good hand. ‘Like a chin-up,’ her inner voice urged. ‘Just pretend it is a really heavy chin-up, beca
use if you don’t, you’ll never see Scotland again.’

  With one last roar, Nina pulled herself up from the water’s surface, dislodging the suction hold on the monk and he came darting to the top like a buoy. He was momentarily unconscious, but when he heard Nina’s voice, his eyes opened. “Are you with me?” she shouted. “Please grab on to something because I cannot hold your weight anymore! My arm is badly injured!”

  He did as she asked, keeping himself up by hanging onto one of the next window’s bars. Nina was exhausted to a point of passing out, but she had the diamonds and she wanted to find Sam. She wanted to be with Sam. He made her feel safe and she needed that more than anything right now.

  With the wounded monk in her wake, she climbed up on the top of the fence wall to follow it to the buttress where her canoe waited. The monk did not chase her, but she bolted onto the little vessel and rowed madly over Lake Tana. Looking back frantically every few paces, Nina raced back to Sam, hoping he had not sunk along with the rest of Wereta yet. In the pale dawn of morning, with prayers against predators rolling over her lips, Nina floated away from the diminished island which had now become nothing more than a lone lighthouse in the distance.

  30

  Of Judas, Brutus, and Cassius

  Meanwhile, as Nina and Sam battled their tribulation, Patrick Smith was tasked with making the arrangements for the delivery of the Holy Box to its resting place in Mount Yeha, near Aksum. He was preparing the paperwork to be signed off by Col. Yimenu and Mr. Carter for submission to the MI6 head office. As the head of MI6, Mr. Carter’s administration would then present the papers to the Purdue tribunal to close the case.

  Joe Carter arrived at Aksum Airport few hours earlier to meet with Col. Yimenu and the legal representatives of the Ethiopian government. They would oversee the delivery, but Carter was apprehensive about being in the company of David Purdue again, fearing the Scottish billionaire would attempt to expose Carter’s true identity as Joseph Karsten, First Level Member of the sinister Order of the Black Sun.