Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6

by Preston William Child

  Nina had almost reached the edge of town, her face pallid and wet from exhaustion and injury. Sam waded through the difficult waters to get to her before the monks on her trail would. She had slowed down considerably as her arm started to fail her. With all his strength, Sam used his arms to move faster and braved potholes, sharp objects and other obstacles under the water he could not see.

  “Nina!” he shouted.

  “Help me, Sam! I dislocated my shoulder!” she moaned. “I have nothing left in me. Pl-please, just he—,” she stammered. When she got to Sam he swept her up in his arms and doubled back, but he slipped into the cluster of buildings to the south of the Town Hall to find a place to hide. Behind them, the monks were shouting for people to help them seize the thieves.

  “Oh shit, we are in seriously deep shit now,” he wheezed. “Can you still run, Nina?”

  Her dark eyes fluttered and she groaned, holding her arm. “If you could put this back in the socket, I could make a genuine effort?”

  From all his years in the field, filming and reporting on war zones, Sam had picked up valuable skills from EMT’s he had worked with. “I’m not going to lie, love,” he warned. “This is going to hurt like fuck.”

  With willing citizens striding through the narrow alleyways to find Nina and Sam, they had to be quiet while performing the replacement of Nina’s shoulder. Sam gave her his satchel, so that she could bite down on the strap and while their pursuers shouted below them in the water, Sam stepped against her rib cage with one foot, holding her timid arm with both hands.

  “Ready?” he whispered, but Nina only pinched her eyes shut and nodded. Sam pulled hard at her arm, inching it away from her body. Nina screeched in agony under the canvas bit, tears rolling from between her eyelids.

  “I hear them!” someone exclaimed in their native tongue. Sam and Nina need not know the language to understand the statement and he carefully rotated her arm until it felt aligned with the rotator cuff before relenting. Nina’s muffled scream was not loud enough to be heard by the monks seeking them out, but there were already two men coming up the staircase protruding from the water’s surface to discover them.

  One was armed with a short spear and he came straight for Nina’s weak body, lunging at her chest with the weapon, but Sam intercepted the stick. He punched him full in the face, rendering him temporarily unconscious while the other assailant sprang from the windowsill. With the spear Sam swung like a baseball hero, smashing the man’s cheek bone on impact. The other he had punched, came to. He grabbed the spear from Sam and stabbed him in the side.

  “Sam!” Nina wailed. “Heads up!” She tried to get up, but she was too weak, so she flung his Beretta at him. The journalist caught the firearm and with one movement thrust the attacker’s head under water, planting a bullet in the back of his neck.

  “They will have heard the shot,” he told her, pushing down on his stab wound. A row ensued outside in the flooded streets amidst the military helicopters’ deafening flight. Sam peered down from the elevated hiding place and saw the chopper still standing.

  “Nina, can you walk?” he asked again.

  Laboriously she sat up. “I can walk. What’s the plan?”

  “By your infamy I take it you managed to get King Solomon’s diamonds,” he asked indirectly.

  “Aye, in the skull in my backpack,” she answered.

  Sam did not have time to ask about the skull reference, but he was relieved that she obtained the prize. They moved to the adjacent building and waited for the pilot to return to the Chinook before quietly staggering towards it while the rescued people were being seated. In their trail, no less than fifteen monks from the island and six men from Wetera were in pursuit through the marring waters. As the co-pilot prepared to close the door, Sam shoved the barrel of his gun against his temple.

  “I really don’t want to do this, my friend, but we have to go north and we have to do it now!” Sam grunted, holding Nina’s hand and keeping her behind him.

  “No! You cannot do this!” the co-pilot protested harshly. The shouts of the furious monks drew nearer. “You stay behind!”

  Sam could not allow anything from keeping them off the helicopter and he had to prove he was serious. Nina looked back at the angry mob, hurling stones at them as they came closer. A rock struck Nina on the temple, but she did not fall.

  “Jesus!” she screamed, finding blood on her fingers where she touched her head. “Stoning women every chance you get, you fucking primitive…”

  A gunshot silenced her. Sam had shot the co-pilot in the leg, to the horror of the passengers. He aimed at the monks, stopping them in their tracks. Nina could not see the monk she saved among them, but while she sought his face, Sam grabbed her and pulled her into the helicopter full of terrified passengers. Next to her on the floor was the groaning co-pilot, and she removed her belt to tie down his leg. In the cockpit, Sam was shouting orders at the pilot at gunpoint, commanding the man to head north to Dansha, to the rendezvous point.

  32

  Flight from Aksum

  Around the base of Mount Yeha several locals had gathered, horrified by the sight of the dead Egyptian guide they all knew from the dig sites. Another astonishing shock to them was the colossal rock fall that had closed up the bowels of the mountain. Unsure of what to do, the group of diggers, archaeological assistants and vengeful locals examined the unexpected happening, muttering amongst them to try and figure out what exactly happened.

  “There are deep tire tracks here, so there was a heavy truck here,” one laborer surmised, pointing to the impressions in the ground. “There was two, maybe three vehicles here.”

  “Could just be the Land Rover that Dr. Hessian uses every few days?” another guessed.

  “No, there it is, over there, just where he left it before he went to get more tools in Mek’ele yesterday,” the first laborer argued, pointing to the guest archaeologist’s Land Rover parked under a canvas tent roof a few meters away.

  “Then how do we know if the box was returned? This is Adjo Kira. Dead. Purdue killed him and took the box!” one man shouted. “That is why they destroyed the chamber!”

  His aggressive deduction effectively started a furor among the locals resident in the neighboring villages and the tents near the dig site. Some of the men tried to reason, but the majority wanted nothing more than pure vengeance.

  “Do you hear that?” Purdue asked Patrick, where they emerged from under the east face of the mountain. “They want to skin us alive, old boy. Can you run on that leg?”

  “Fuck no,” Patrick winced. “My ankle is broken. Look.”

  The cave-in brought on by Adjo did not kill the two men because Purdue had remembered an important feature of all of Adjo’s constructions – the postbox exit concealed under a false wall face. Thankfully, the Egyptian had taught Purdue about the old ways used to create traps in Egypt, notably inside old tombs and pyramids. It was how Purdue, Adjo and Adjo’s brother, Donkor, had escaped with the Holy Box in the first place.

  Covered in scratches, gouges and dust, Purdue and Patrick crawled out behind some of the larger boulders at the foot of the mountain, Careful not to be detected. Patrick cringed as the stabbing pain in his right ankle pained him with every dragging motion forward.

  “Can…c-can we just take a quick breather?” he asked Purdue. The white haired explorer looked back at him.

  “Look, mate, I know that hurts like hell, but if we don’t hurry, they are going to find us. I don’t have to tell you what weapons these people are brandishing, so I? Shovels, spikes, hammers,” Purdue reminded his companion.

  “I know. That Landy is way too far away for me. They will catch up to me before my second step,” he admitted. “My leg is rubbish. Go on ahead, draw their attention, or get out and get help.”

  “Bullshit,” Purdue replied. “We are getting to that Landy together and we are chasing the hell out of here.”

  “How do you propose we do that?” Patrick gasped.

&
nbsp; Purdue pointed to the digging tools nearby and smiled. Patrick followed his direction with his gaze. He would have laughed with Purdue if his life did not depend on the outcome.

  “No goddamn way, David. No! Are you daft?” he whispered loudly, slapping Purdue on the arm.

  “Can you think of a better wheelchair here in the gravel?” Purdue grinned. “Be ready. When I get back we make for the Landy.”

  “And I suppose you will have time to hotwire it, then?” Patrick asked.

  Purdue pulled out his reliable little tablet that served as multiple gadgets in one.

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” he smiled at Patrick.

  Usually Purdue used its infrared and radar functions, or utilized it as a communication device. However, he was always improving the device, adding new inventions and upgrading its technology. He showed Patrick a small button on the side of the device. “Electrical surge pulse. We have ESP, Paddy.”

  “What does it do?” Patrick frowned, his eyes flashing past Purdue every now and then to stay alert.

  “It starts cars,” Purdue said. Before Patrick could process the answer, Purdue jumped up and hurtled toward the tool shed. He moved stealthily, bending his lanky frame forward to stay low.

  “So far so good, you crazy bastard,” Patrick whispered as he watched Purdue retrieve the wheelbarrow. “But you know that thing is going to make a racket, don’t you?”

  Bracing himself for the upcoming chase, Purdue took a deep breath and measured how far the mob was from him and Patrick. “Here we go,” he said, and pressed the button for the Land Rover to start up. Its lights did not go on, apart from those on the dashboard, but some of the people at the mountain entrance could hear the idling engine. Purdue reckoned that he should use their momentary befuddlement to his advantage, and he bolted out toward Patrick with the squealing wheelbarrow.

  “Jump! Quick!” he yelled at Patrick as he was about to reach him. The MI6 agent flung himself onto the wheelbarrow, almost toppling it with his velocity, but Purdue’s adrenaline kept it steady.

  “There they are! Kill those bastards!” a man roared out, pointing at the two men racing towards the Land Rover with the wheelbarrow.

  “God I hope it has a full tank!” Patrick shouted as he rode the shaky iron bucket straight at the passenger door of the 4x4 vehicle. “My spine! My ass bones, Purdue. Christ, you are killing me here!” was all the mob could hear as they stormed towards the fleeing men.

  When they reached the passenger door, Purdue smashed the window with a rock and opened the door. Patrick struggled to get out of the wheelbarrow, but the approaching madmen urged him to tap into reserve strength and he hurled his body into the car. They pulled away with wheels spinning, flinging rocks at the mob who got too close, before Purdue finally floored the pedal and made some distance between them and the pack of murderous locals.

  “How much time do we have to get to Dansha?” Purdue asked Patrick.

  “About three hours before Sam and Nina are supposed to meet us there,” Patrick informed him. He cast a look at the petrol gauge. “Oh my God, this will not take us further than 200km.”

  “That’s alright, as long as we get away from the bee hive of Satan in our trail,” Purdue said, still checking his rear view mirror. “We will have to contact Sam and see where they are. Maybe they can bring the Hercules closer to pick us up. God, I hope they are still alive.”

  Patrick groaned every time the Land Rover hopped a hole or jerked on a gear change. His ankle was killing him, but he was alive, which was all that mattered.

  “You knew all along about Carter. Why did you not tell me?” Patrick persisted.

  “I told you, we did not want you to be an accessory. With you not knowing, you could not be implicated, Patrick,” Purdue explained.

  “And that business with his family? Did you send someone to take care of them too?” Patrick asked.

  “My God, Patrick, I am not a terrorist. I was bluffing,” Purdue assured him. “I needed to rattle his cage and thanks to Sam’s research and a mole in Karsten…Carter’s…office, we got the intel that his wife and daughters are en route to his home in Austria.”

  “Unbe-fucking-lievable,” Patrick replied. “You and Sam should enroll as agents for Her Majesty, you know? You are insane, reckless and clandestine to a point of hysterics, you two. And Dr. Gould is not far behind.”

  “Why, thanks, Patrick,” Purdue smiled. “But we like our freedom, you know, doing the dirty work under the radar.”

  “No shit,” Patrick sighed. “Who is the mole Sam used?”

  “I don’t know,” Purdue replied.

  “David, who is the fucking mole? The guy will get no flack from me, believe me,” Patrick snapped.

  “No, I really don’t know,” Purdue insisted. “He approached Sam, once he detected Sam’s clumsy hacking skills into Karsten’s personnel files. Instead of outing him, he offered to get us the information we needed, on the condition that Sam expose Karsten for who he was.”

  Patrick mulled the information around in his head. It made sense, but after this assignment, he was not sure anymore who to trust. “The mole gave you Karsten’s personal details, including the location of his properties and such?”

  “Right down to his blood type,” Purdue smiled.

  “How is Sam planning to expose Karsten, though? He could legally own the properties and I am sure the head of Military Intelligence knows how to cover his red tape tracks,” Patrick surmised.

  “Oh, he does,” Purdue agreed. “But he picked the wrong snakes to toy with in Sam, Nina and I. Sam and his mole hacked into the communications systems of the servers Karsten uses for his personal uses. As we speak, the alchemist responsible for the diamond killings and global disasters is on his way to Karsten’s mansion in Salzkammergut.”

  “What for?” Patrick asked.

  “Karsten advertised that he has a diamond for sale,” Purdue shrugged. “A very rare prime stone called the Sudan Eye. Like the prime stones Celeste and Pharaoh, the Sudan Eye can react with any of the smaller diamonds King Solomon bound after his Temple was completed. The primes are needed to release each plague bound by the seventy-two of King Solomon.”

  “Fascinating, and now we are forced by what we experience here, to rethink our cynicism,” Patrick remarked. “Without the primes the Magician cannot perform his diabolical alchemy?”

  Purdue nodded. “Our Egyptian friends of the Dragon Watchers informed us that, according to their scrolls, King Solomon’s magicians bound each stone to a particular heavenly body,” he relayed. “Of course, text predating the familiar scripture texts claim that the fallen angels numbered two hundred, and that seventy-two of those were summoned by Solomon. This is where the star maps come into play with each diamond.”

  “And Karsten has the Sudan Eye?” Patrick asked.

  “No, I do. It is one of two diamonds my brokers have managed to purchase from, respectively, a Hungarian baroness on the brink of bankruptcy,” Purdue smiled, “and a widower in Italy who wants to make a fresh start away from his Mafia in-laws, would you believe? I have two primes of the three. The other is the Celeste, in the possession of the Magician.”

  “And Karsten offered it for sale?” Patrick scowled, trying to make sense of it all.

  “Sam did, using Karsten’s personal e-mail,” Purdue clarified. “Karsten has no idea that the Magician, Mr. Raya, is coming to procure his next prime diamond from him.”

  “Oh, that is good!” Patrick smiled, clapping his hands together. “As long as we can get the remaining diamonds to Master Penekal and Ofar, Raya cannot release any other surprises. I hope to God Nina and Sam managed to get them.”

  “How do we get hold of Sam and Nina? My devices got lost in the circus back there,” Patrick asked.

  “Here,” Purdue said. “Just scroll down to Sam’s name and see if the satellites can connect us.”

  Patrick did as Purdue asked. The small speaker clicked erratically. Suddenly Sam’s voice crackled faintly on t
he speaker, “Where the hell have you been? We have been trying to connect for hours!”

  “Sam,” Patrick said, “we are on our way from Aksum, running on empty. When you get there, could you pick us up if we send you the coordinates?”

  “Look, we are in deep shit here,” Sam said. “I,” he sighed, “I sort of…capped a pilot and hijacked a military rescue helicopter. Long story.”

  “Geeezuss!” Patrick shrieked, throwing his arms up in the air.

  “They just landed here at the airstrip at Dansha as I forced them to, but we are about to be arrested. There are soldiers everywhere, so I don’t think we can help you,” Sam lamented.

  In the background, Purdue could hear the rotor clap of the helicopter and people shouting. To him it sounded like a war zone. “Sam, did you get the diamonds?”

  “Nina got them, but they will probably be confiscated now,” Sam reported, sounding absolutely miserable and enraged. “Patch through your coordinates anyway.”

  Purdue’s face contorted in focus, as it always did when he had to make a plan out of a predicament. Patrick took a very deep breath. “Out of the frying pan.”

  33

  Apocalypse over Salzkammergut

  Under the drizzle, Karsten’s vast, green gardens rolled in perfectly kept beauty. In the grey of the rain, the colors of the flowers seemed almost luminescent and the trees towered in majesty in lavish fullness. But for some reason, all the natural beauty could not deter the heavy sense of being lost, of being doomed, that loomed in the air.

  “Christ, what a miserable paradise you live in, Joseph,” Liam Johnson remarked as he parked the car under a shadowy clump of silver birch and lush firs on a hillock above the property. “Just like your father, Satan.”