Order of the Black Sun Box Set 11

by Preston William Child

  Daisy folded her arms. “I doubt Poseidon would do that.”

  Sam gave a hopeful, half-smile. “Maybe the god will surprise you. Where was it that Irving said to go next again? The location of the third pearl?”

  Daisy answered. “It's supposed to be on a small island off the eastern coast of the United States. Some place called Assateague. It's in Maryland I believe...or Delaware...one or the other. Supposed to be an island with wild horses on it. That sounds like a place Poseidon would like.”

  “Just one more pearl then we can get them all back where they belong.”

  10

  WHISPERS AND DEMANDS

  Everyone else was sleeping below deck or in their cabins. Sam was leaning against the railing, once again looking down at the dark water below. He watched the water slap against the boat's hull over and over, like it was trying to nudge the vessel forward, to press onward. The sound of the slaps repeated over and over against the boat, in a rhythm. As Sam listened to the sound beneath him, he started to hear another sound woven between the splashes.

  It was a whisper. The same voice that had echoed throughout the Order of the Black Sun's hideout; that gargled, angry snarling. This was quieter than before and wasn't accompanied by a water figure.

  “Give it.”

  Rather than the bone-rattling yells from before, the words just slipped through Sam's ears this time. It was like the voice didn't want to wake the others or was trying a different approach than the destructive commotion it caused to deliver its message before.

  “Give it back. Give it back now.”

  Sam shook his head, trying to loosen the voice from his brain. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be that easy and the voice persisted with its demands.

  “You have two. They are not yours. They are mine. Give them back.”

  Sam put his hands over his ears, turning his palms into walls to prevent anything from slithering into his earlobes. It proved to be just as unsuccessful of a tactic. The words continued to come, moving right through his hand blockades.

  “Give them back. Give them back. Give them back. Give them back. Give them back.”

  “Stop...” Sam muttered, closing his eyes and pushing his hands harder over his ears. “Stop...stop it.”

  “Give them back. Give them back. Give them back. Give them back.”

  “Stop it,” Sam said, taking a step away from the water. “Stop it. Please.”

  “They are mine. They are mine. They are mine. They are mine.”

  “I...I know...I know.” Sam wanted that voice to leave more than anything. This was far worse than the explosive water that came before. This felt so much more personal, like the entity had lodged itself into the back of Sam's head and he wouldn't be able to get it off. He was stunned with the maddening sounds.

  He had only heard the voice for seconds but it already felt like he'd been hearing it for hours. He couldn't stand to hear it any longer than he had. He couldn't imagine what point of sanity he would be in if the voice remained for an extended period of time.

  “They are mine. They are mine. They are mine. They are mine.”

  “I know,” Sam said again, through gritted teeth. “I know that, alright? I know! I'm doing the best I can. I'm trying to get them back to you. Don't you see that? I'm going to get all three and bring them back to you. Just be patient.”

  “No patience.”

  “You have to be!” Sam said, his voice raised. “You have to at least give me more time! I'm on my way to find the third! Once we have it, I'll bring all three to the trident. That's what you want isn't it?”

  There was no response.

  “That's what you want! Right? Is that what you want or not!?”

  Sam was yelling now, screaming at the top of his lungs at the black sea in front of him. He didn't even realize how loud he was being and didn't know just how angry he was getting from this horrid conversation.

  “Is that what you want!?”

  “Sam?”

  Sam turned around to find Aya walking along the deck to him. She was looking out in the direction that he was shouting, probably expecting to find some sort of intruder, or ship, or at least something but there was nothing but ocean. She glanced back to Sam with some concern.

  “Are you alright?”

  Sam collected himself and finally realized how crazy he must have looked shrieking out at nothing in the dark, in the middle of the night. He continued to glance nervously out at the ocean and kept waiting to hear the voice again but after a moment, took a calming breath.

  “Yes,” Sam said. “I think so.”

  “You could not sleep?”

  “No,” Sam said. “I suppose not. Too many things on my mind.” Like whispers and demands, he thought, but kept that to himself. “All of this boat's rocking was making me feel a little bit sick I guess.”

  “That does tend to happen,” Aya said with a shrug, almost ignoring his cover story. “Who were you yelling at out here?”

  “Oh, you heard that?”

  “It was impossible not to...” Aya said but then offered a smile. “This is my ship, Sam. There is nothing that happens on this ship that I don't know about. So tell me, who were you talking to? And don't tell me you were just talking to yourself. This was not that, was it?”

  Sam knew he would sound crazy if he told her the truth but he already sounded crazy anyway so there wasn't much of anything to lose. “I don't know if Purdue told you the specifics, but at the start of all of this, we received a message. A voice that made all of the water at our headquarters burst from the walls. That voice made demands, wanting the pearl that we possessed.”

  “It was Poseidon, yes?” Aya guessed. “The one whose trident we need to bring the pearls to.”

  Sam had nearly forgotten that he had already told Aya that part of the story. Back then, he'd been embarrassed to even talk about it, but the longer this voyage lasted, he was starting to become more and more convinced of it. But that was from things that he was witnessing with his own eyes and hearing with his own ears, nothing that Daisy Judge had babbled on about.

  “Yes...I think so...” Sam said. “I heard him again.”

  “Just now?” Aya said with some interest. “On my boat?”

  “It sounded like he was in the ocean, maybe, I don't know...or in my head...I'm not exactly sure.”

  “Maybe you have some water blocking your ears, Sam,” Aya said with a playful smirk. “I have experienced that many times. Horrible. Sailing across the ocean can do strange things to people. I have seen friends go insane out here, people that I trusted with my life suddenly try to throw themselves overboard. It is the isolation, and the loneliness of having nothing but more water around you. That is all. People go mad at sea all the time. Do you need me to tie you to the mast?”

  Sam laughed. “No, I don't think so.”

  “Good,” Aya said. “Because my boat does not have one.”

  They both laughed together and Sam hoped they hadn't woken anyone up. He had made enough noise that night. He was glad to be hearing things that made him smile rather than the whispers from the darkness that made demands.

  “You should get some sleep, Sam,” Aya said. “That is one of the only ways to get better once you have started to lose your mind. Rest can repair your head. Give it a try.”

  “I will,” Sam said “Thank you, Aya. I'm just going to stay out here a little longer.”

  Aya nodded. “Well keep your voice down then. And if it is Poseidon talking to you, tell him to shut his mouth too.”

  Aya disappeared around the deck, leaving Sam alone again with the black sea and the voices that were emanating from its currents. He stared down into the watery darkness, once again focused on the sounds of the water slapping against the boat.

  “I'm really trying...” Sam muttered, barely even speaking the words aloud.

  One last whisper slid into his ears. “Try harder then. Give them back.”

  11

  BLIND INVESTIGATIONS

 
Nina understood the need for her eyes to be covered by a blindfold during her trip with Inspector Amaro. Amaro and his mysterious group couldn't risk Nina seeing exactly where one of their bases was. That was a valid reason considering she still was an enemy of theirs and could report information back to Purdue if they weren't careful. The blindfold disarmed her of easy ways to turn this trip against them. They were being cautious, that was all. She couldn't blame them for that, even if it did make her feel very uncomfortable about what was ahead.

  She took the time to listen to the hum of the car's engine beneath her, doing her best to take note of the movement of the vehicle. They had been making quite a lot of turns before but now, they seem to have been going straight. They must have been on a highway. But since they weren't getting in some kind of private jet—at least not yet—it might mean that the group's base was somewhere in England or in the surrounding countries. Was it really somewhere within driving distance? Or was the Old Lady just staying in a temporary location for this interview? Whatever the case, there was some things that a blindfold couldn't hide and logic was one of those things.

  Inspector Amaro wasn't being his usual chatty self. Maybe he was too focused on what was ahead, considering all of the possibilities of how this meeting was going to turn out. There was a chance, she was sure, that he might have to dispose of Nina by the end of the day if the conversation with the Old Lady turned sour. Nina was getting a little nervous herself. Agreeing to meet with the people that were supposed to be their biggest enemies could easily turn into a very disastrous choice.

  To help break the tension, she decided to ask some preliminary questions of her own. “So how terrifying is this old woman, Inspector? Should I be scared or is this going to be much more pleasant than I've been led to believe?”

  “That is impossible to determine,” Inspector Amaro said from the darkness in front of her. She wasn't even positive he was driving or if there was another person in the car. “It's hard to know how two people are going to interact. Sometimes personalities have a way of fitting together like puzzle pieces. And sometimes it can be a bit more...reactionary...a bad mix...and then...ka-boom. Hopefully for your sake, Dr. Gould, it's not going to be the latter. Why did you even agree to this?”

  Nina was wondering the exact same thing but she did her best to give a neutral answer. “I have a habit of letting my curiosity get the better of me. When I have the chance to see something new or learn something new, I usually jump at that chance. It's the only way to figure anything out. Sometimes risk just comes with the territory.”

  “I see,” Amaro said. “This is quite the risk, as I'm sure you're aware.”

  “Was it as much of a risk for you when you joined? Did they invite you and put a blindfold on or were you out seeking for a new line of work?”

  “There was no blindfold for me, no.”

  Nina didn't know if she should be honored or worried that they felt the need to blind her.

  “So tell me then, Inspector, were you a detective or an errand boy first? Were you always trying to solve crimes or was that just a position that your boss lady put you in to help benefit her? Is everything about you just because of the Old Lady?”

  Amaro let out a stifled laugh but she couldn't see his face so couldn't tell if it was genuine or not. “I appreciate you trying to get to know me better, Dr. Gould, especially if we're going to be working on the same team now, but asking about my personal history is not going to get you very far, I'm afraid. It is a long, tumultuous web that will get you nowhere, believe me. But if you must know, I was a detective well before I joined this group. All the Old Lady did was enhance what I was able to do in my work.”

  “Like get you to investigate innocent people that haven't committed any crimes. That really enhances your work as a detective, doesn't it?”

  Inspector Amaro didn't respond—and she knew that she should stop prodding now that she had apparently struck a nerve.

  INTERLUDE – ONE CASE CLOSED, ONE CASE OPENED

  Inspector Donatello Amaro had a tendency to take his work home with him. He always had. It was one of the more problematic habits he had as a detective since there was never nearly enough time during work hours to properly do his job to its fullest. Painters and builders could leave their work waiting for the next day. Salesmen and office workers could put aside their paperwork until they went back to their desks and cubicles. Even cooks could put their work into freezers or on the stove for when they would need to serve it later. Solving criminal cases didn't allow him such a luxury; stopping crime wasn't quite the same as a usual nine to five job. The work never stopped as it required more like twenty-four hours of work every day. If he wasn't thinking about the case, having his brain constantly work overtime, then there was a chance that someone's life could be at risk because he hadn't brought the perpetrator to justice yet.

  Crime never slept—but unfortunately justice sometimes had to. Amaro just settled for getting very little sleep. Some of his co-workers struggled with that but it had always been perfect for him. Rest was usually much more of a struggle for him. His brain didn't seem to believe in the practice; his synapses were constantly throwing a party in his head, popping with theories and speculation. There was so much that he needed to remember during a case: names, faces, exact locations, license plate numbers, criminals records. He had to have practically memorized people's entire histories including their family trees and what their favorite food was. Those types of details, big or small, could sometimes be the keys to closing a case.

  There was more information that had to be processed than some detectives could handle so they quit or never became detectives at all. Then there were the people that stayed on as detectives but they were absolutely incompetent since they couldn't keep any of their facts straight. Amaro never had that problem. Somehow everything stayed nice and orderly in his brain...at least to him, since he imagined a lot of people would have trouble figuring his logic out if they were able to take a peek inside his head. The only price for his mental prowess was the severe lack of sleep and an even more severe lack of any kind of social life to speak of. Amaro didn't really mind either of them. He found sleep a rather dull affair and he really didn't like people very much.

  Inspector Amaro gained a reputation among his peers as someone that was good to work with since it usually meant that the case would be solved, but they also regarded him as too odd to go out and have a drink with. Everyone kept a safe distance from him, probably fearing what might happen if he had too good of a look at them; for all they knew, he could take that analytical gaze and learn everything about them in moments and that must have scared them. Still, whatever effect he had on his coworkers, they couldn't deny his success rate. He solved more cases than most of the department put together.

  But there was one case in particular that kept prodding at the back of his brain at all hours of the night. A rich collector of antiquities, Carmine Lorelli, went missing after his mansion had been nearly stripped clean of all of those prized items. No one knew what to make of it and most investigators gave up after barely even trying to figure it all out. They declared that it was hopeless, a lost cause, and just one of the unfortunate risks of having valuables that weren't properly protected. Amaro wasn't so easily deterred from the mystery though. If anything, the colder the trail, the more interested he was in seeing where it led; it was just more interesting of a challenge than something simple and straightforward. He preferred that since it gave him much more to chew on. His frantic brain needed fuel to keep functioning. It could only survive on meager tasks for so long.

  Even after the case was stored away with all of the other unsolved ones, Amaro hadn't given up. At that point, most of his peers knew that a case being put away as unsolved usually didn't mean it never would be. It just meant that it was put aside for Amaro to figure out once he had the time. This one was no different but Amaro decided to pursue it immediately, since it still kept his interest. There was no reason not to. The deeper he
dug into it, the more he got the feeling that he was working on something much larger than he initially expected. Everything about the disappearance just seemed too clean. There was nothing at all to give any hint as to what happened to the lost Carmine Lorelli. In most cases, there was at least something worth noting but not this time. It was almost like it had been scrubbed clean. It reminded Amaro of some criminals hiring a fixer to make it look like nothing happened at all, but this was even beyond that. Everything in his home looked like it had never, ever been touched. Even his computer had been scrubbed clean of anything. There were no downloads, no search history, not pictures, and not even a single file to speak of. That was the definitive proof that Amaro needed. Someone was intentionally hiding something—and they were doing a very good job.

  Things seemed like they weren't going to pan out as Amaro hoped. He was starting to believe that he might not ever be able to thaw out this particular cold case. He was considering giving up on it—but one fateful encounter changed all of that despair.

  An elderly woman was sitting on the bench outside of the police station as he walked by on his way to his car. She looked at him curiously and then held her hand out to him. “Excuse me, sir. Inspector!”

  Amaro turned around instinctively. It didn't occur to him until later that he should have realized this wasn't a normal encounter. He didn't even think about the fact that she somehow knew exactly who he was and had come there looking specifically for him. He was too distracted by what came next.

  “Would you be able to walk me home? It's getting late and I get nervous walking by myself this time of night. If anyone tried to rob me...they would be able to without much of a problem. I wouldn't be able to fend them off.”