Black Order

by James Rollins

  Not here.

  Painter turned to her as she entered. She noted how disheveled his hair had dried, giving him a rakish, boyish appearance. Barefooted and in a matching robe, he filled a pair of stone mugs with a steaming brew.

  “Jasmine tea,” he said and waved her to a small sofa in front of the fire.

  A platter rested on a low table: hard cheeses, a loaf of dark bread, piled slices of roast beef, mustard, and a bowl of blackberries with a tiny decanter of cream.

  “Our last meal?” Lisa asked, trying to sound flippant, but she couldn’t carry it off. They were to be interrogated first thing in the morning.

  Painter patted the seat next to him as he sat down.

  She joined him.

  As he sliced the bread, she picked up a sliver of sharp cheddar. She sniffed and set it down. No appetite.

  “You should eat,” Painter said.

  “Why? So I’ll be stronger when they drug us?”

  Painter rolled a piece of beef and popped it into his mouth. He chewed as he spoke. “Nothing’s certain. If I’ve learned nothing in life, I’ve at least learned that.”

  Unconvinced, she shook her head. “So what are you saying? Just hope for the best?”

  “I personally prefer a plan.”

  She eyed him. “And you have one?”

  “A simple one. Not exactly guns-blazing, grenades-exploding.”

  “Then what?”

  He swallowed his roast beef and turned to her. “Something that I find works a surprising amount of the time.”

  She waited for an answer. “Well?”

  “Honesty.”

  She slunk back, shoulders slumping. “Great.”

  Painter picked up a slice of bread, slathered it with some coarse mustard, added a slice of beef, and topped it with a piece of cheddar. He held it out toward her. “Eat.”

  Sighing, she took his creation in hand, only to appease him.

  Painter made a second one for himself. “For instance, I’m the director for a division of DARPA named Sigma. We specialize in investigating threats to the U.S., employing a team of ex–Special Forces soldiers. The strong arm for DARPA out in the field.”

  Lisa nibbled at the edge of the sandwich’s crust, catching a tangy bit of fresh mustard. “Can we expect some rescue by these soldiers?”

  “Doubtful. Not in the time frame we have. It will take them days to discover that my body’s not among the ruins of the monastery.”

  “Then I don’t see—”

  Painter held up a hand, munched a mouthful of sandwich, and mumbled around it. “It’s about honesty. Putting it out there, plainly and openly. Seeing what happens. Something drew Sigma’s attention out here. Reports of strange illnesses. After operating so covertly for so many years, why all these slips in the past months? I’m not one to place much stock in coincidence. I overheard Anna speaking to the soldier-assassin. She hinted at some problem here. Something that has them baffled. I think our two goals might not be at such cross-purposes. There may be room for cooperation.”

  “And they’d let us live?” she asked, half scoffing, but a part of her hoped. She bit into the sandwich to hide her foolishness.

  “I don’t know,” he said, staying honest. “As long as we prove useful. But if we can gain a few days…it widens our chances for a rescue or maybe a change of circumstance.”

  Lisa chewed her food, contemplating. Before she knew it, her fingers were empty. And she was still hungry. They shared the bowl of blackberries, pouring cream over them.

  She eyed Painter with a fresh perspective. He was more than stubborn strength. There was a brilliance behind those blue eyes and a wealth of common sense. As if sensing her scrutiny, he glanced at her. She quickly returned to studying the platter of food.

  In silence, they finished their meal, sipping the tea. With food in their bellies, exhaustion weighed on them both, making even talk a burden. Also she enjoyed the quiet, sitting next to him. She heard him breathing. She could smell his freshly scrubbed skin.

  As she finished the last of her honeyed tea, she noted Painter rubbing at his right temple, one eye squinted. His headache was flaring up. She didn’t want to play doctor, go clinical and worry him, but she studied him askance. The fingers of his other hand trembled. She noted the slight vibration in his pupils as he stared at the dying fire.

  Painter had mentioned honesty, but did he want the truth about his condition? The attacks seemed to be coming on more frequently. And a part of her was selfish enough to fear—not for his health, but for the thin hope of survival he had instilled in her. She needed him.

  Lisa stood. “We should get some sleep. Dawn cannot be far off.”

  Painter groaned but nodded. He stood. She had to grab his elbow as he teetered a bit.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  So much for honesty.

  She guided him toward the bed and pulled back the blankets.

  “I can sleep on the sofa,” he said, resisting.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Get in. Now’s not the time to be concerned with any impropriety. We’re in a Nazi stronghold.”

  “Former Nazi.”

  “Yeah, big comfort there.”

  Still, he climbed into the bed with a sigh, robe and all. Walking around the bed, she did the same, blowing out the bedside candles. The shadows thickened, but the dying firelight kept the room pleasantly aglow. Lisa didn’t know if she could handle the total darkness.

  She settled under the blankets, pulling them up to her chin. She kept a space between the two of them, back to Painter. He must have sensed her fear and rolled to face her.

  “If we die,” Painter mumbled, “we’ll die together.”

  She swallowed. Those were not the reassuring words she had expected to hear, but at the same time she was oddly comforted. Something in his tone, the honesty, the promise behind the words, succeeded where weak assertions of their safety would have failed.

  She believed him.

  Snuggling closer, her hand found his, fingers entwined, nothing sexual, just two people needing to touch. She pulled his arm around her.

  He squeezed her hand, reassuring and strong.

  She pulled deeper against him, and he rolled to hold her more snugly.

  Lisa closed her eyes, not expecting to sleep.

  But in his arms, she eventually did.

  10:39 P.M.

  COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

  Gray checked his watch.

  They’d been hiding for over two hours. He and Fiona had holed themselves up inside a service shaft for a ride called the Minen, or Mine. It was an old-fashioned animatronic amusement where cars rolled past cartoonish molelike animals in mining gear, working some whimsical subterranean quarry. The same musical refrain kept playing over and over again, an aural form of the Chinese water torture.

  Shortly after disappearing into the crowds of Tivoli Gardens, Gray and Fiona had hopped on the old ride, playing father and daughter. But at the first unsupervised turn, they rolled out of their car and into a service cubby behind a swinging door with an electrical hazard sign on it. Never finishing the ride, Gray could only imagine the end: the molelike creatures merrily ensconced in hospital beds, suffering from black-lung disease.

  Or so he hoped.

  The jaunty refrain in Dutch continued for the thousandth time. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as the It’s-a-Small-World ride at Disneyland, but it was a close second.

  In the cramped quarters, Gray had the Darwin Bible open in his lap. He had been perusing the pages with a penlight, searching for any clue to its importance, page by page. His head throbbed in tune to the music.

  “Do you have a gun?” Fiona asked, crunched in a corner, arms crossed. “If you do, shoot me now.”

  Gray sighed. “We only have another hour.”

  “I’ll never make it.”

  The plan was to wait for the park to close. The park only had one official exit, but Gray was sure all exits were under surveillance by now. Their only chance was to try t
o escape during the park’s mass exodus at midnight. He had tried to confirm Monk’s arrival at the Copenhagen airport, but the iron and copper in the old building were playing havoc with his cell phone reception. They needed to reach the airport.

  “Have you learned anything from the Bible?” she asked.

  Gray shook his head. It was fascinating to see the house lineage graphed inside the front cover, the Darwin family’s personal evolutionary tree. But otherwise, of the remaining pages he’d perused so far, the brittle and fragile sheets offered no clues. All he discovered were a few scribblings. The same mark over and over, in many different positions and incarnations.

  Gray glanced at his notebook. He had jotted down the symbols as they appeared, written in the margins of the Bible—whether by the hand of Charles Darwin or a later owner, he didn’t know.

  He nudged his notebook toward Fiona.

  “Anything look familiar?”

  Fiona sighed and leaned forward, uncrossing her arms. She squinted at the symbols.

  “Bird scratches,” she said. “Nothing worth murdering over.”

  Gray rolled his eyes, but he held his tongue. Fiona’s mood had darkened. He preferred her vengeful amusement and manic anger. With their incarceration here, she seemed to have drawn inward. Gray suspected she had driven all her grief and energy into the ruse to obtain the Bible, her small act of revenge against her grandmother’s murder. And now, in the dark, the reality was setting in.

  What could he do?

  Picking up pen and paper, he sought some means to keep her focused on the present. He drew another symbol, the small tattoo on the back of the male bidder’s hand.

  He slid it over. “How about this one?”

  With an even louder, more dramatic sigh, she again leaned forward to stare. She shook her head. “A four-leaf clover. I don’t know. What’s that supposed to…wait…” She took the notebook and looked closer. Her eyes widened. “I’ve seen this before!”

  “Where?”

  “On a business card,” Fiona said. “Only it wasn’t like this, more of an outline.” She took up his pen and began to work.

  “Whose business card?”

  “The prat who came months ago and searched through our records. The guy who stiffed us with the fake credit card.” Fiona continued to work. “Where did you see it?”

  “It was drawn on the back of the man’s hand, the one who bought the Bible.”

  Fiona practically growled. “I knew it! So it’s been the same bastard behind this all along. First he tries to steal it. Then he tries to cover his tracks by killing Mutti and burning down the shop.”

  “Do you remember the name on the business card?” Gray asked.

  She shook her head. “Only the symbol. Because I recognized it.”

  She slid her drawing over to him. It was a more detailed line-drawing of the solid tattoo, revealing more of a tangled nature to the symbol.

  Gray tapped the page. “You recognized this?”

  Fiona nodded. “I collect pins. Course I couldn’t wear them with these naff clothes.”

  Gray remembered her hooded jacket, the one he had first spotted her wearing, festooned with buttons of every shape and size.

  “I went through a Celtic phase,” Fiona said. “It was the only music I’d listen to, and most of my pins had Celtic designs.”

  “And the symbol here?”

  “Called an Earth Square or Saint Hans Cross. It’s supposed to be protective, calling on the four corners of the earth for power.” She tapped the cloverleaf circles. “That’s why it’s sometimes called a shield knot. Meant to protect you.”

  Gray concentrated but found no significance to the clue.

  “It’s why I told Mutti to trust him,” Fiona said. She had sunk back. Her voice lowered to a whisper, as if afraid to talk. “She didn’t like the man. On first sight. But when I saw that on his card, I thought he must be an okay bloke.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “Mutti did,” she said sharply. “And now she’s dead. Because of me.” Guilt and anguish rang through her words.

  “Nonsense.” Gray moved closer and put his arm around her. “Whoever these people are, they were damned determined from the start. You know that. They would have found a way to get that information from your shop. They wouldn’t have taken no for an answer. If you hadn’t convinced your grandmother to let them look through the records, they might have killed you both on the spot.”

  Fiona leaned against him.

  “Your grandmother—”

  “She wasn’t my grandmother,” she interrupted hollowly.

  Gray had figured as much, but he stayed silent, letting Fiona speak.

  “She caught me when I tried to nick some stuff from her store. Two years ago. But she didn’t call the police. Instead she made me soup. Chicken barley.”

  Gray didn’t need to see in the dark to know Fiona had smiled slightly.

  “That was the way she was. Always helping street kids. Always taking in strays.”

  “Like Bertal.”

  “And me.” She stayed silent for a long moment. “My parents died in a car accident. They were Pakistani immigrants. Punjabis. We had a small house in Waltham Forest in London, even a garden. We talked about getting a dog. Then…then they died.”

  “I’m sorry, Fiona.”

  “My aunt and uncle took me in…they had just arrived from the Punjab.” Another long pause. “After a month, he started coming into my room at night.”

  Gray closed his eyes. Dear God…

  “So I ran…I lived on the streets of London for a couple years, but I got in trouble with the wrong people. Had to run. So I left England and backpacked across Europe. Getting by. I ended up here.”

  “And Grette took you in.”

  “And now she’s dead, too.” Again that ring of guilt. “Maybe I’m just bad luck.”

  Gray pulled Fiona tighter. “I saw the way she looked at you. You coming into her life was not bad luck. She loved you.”

  “I…I know.” Fiona turned her face away. Her shoulders shook as she quietly sobbed.

  Gray just held her. She eventually turned and buried her face in his shoulder. Now it was Gray’s turn to fight twinges of guilt. Grette had been such a generous woman, nurturing and instinctive, kind and empathetic. Now she was dead. He had his own culpability to balance here. If he had proceeded with more caution…been less reckless with this investigation…

  And the cost for his neglect.

  Fiona’s sobbing continued.

  Even if the murder and arson had been planned regardless of his own blundering inquiries, Gray judged his actions afterward. He had fled, abandoning Fiona to the chaos, leaving her to her grief. He remembered her calling out to him—at first angered, then pleading.

  He hadn’t stopped.

  “I have no one now,” Fiona cried softly into his suit.

  “You have me.”

  She pulled back, teary-eyed. “But you’re leaving, too.”

  “And you’re coming with me.”

  “But you said—”

  “Never mind what I said.” Gray knew the girl was no longer safe here. She would be eliminated, if not to gain the Bible, then to shut her up. She knew too much. Like…“You mentioned you knew the address from the Bible’s bill of sale.”

  Fiona stared at him with open suspicion. Her sobbing had stopped. She pulled back and eyed him, judging if his sympathy was a ruse to get her to cough up what she knew. He understood her wariness now, born of the streets.

  Gray knew better than to push it. “I have a friend flying in on a private jet. He should be touching down at midnight. We can connect with him and fly anywhere. You can tell me where we have to go once we’re on board.” Gray held out a hand, prepared to seal the deal.

  With one eye squinted in suspicion, Fiona took his hand.

  “Deal,” she said.

  It was a small patch on Gray’s mistakes of the past day, but it was a start. She had to be removed f
rom harm’s way, and she should be safe once on board the plane. She could stay aboard, under guard, while he and Monk investigated further.

  Fiona pushed his notebook back toward him with all the doodled symbols. “Just so you know…we need to go to Paderborn in Central Germany. I’ll give you the specific address once we’re there.”

  Gray took her concession as a tiny measure of trust. “Good enough.”

  She nodded.

  The deal clinched.

  “Now if only you could get this gormless music to stop,” she added with a tired moan.

  As if on cue, the incessant chant died. The constant low machinery hum and clacking of the cars over tracks also ceased. In the sudden quiet, footsteps sounded outside the narrow door.

  Gray gained his feet. “Stay behind me,” he hissed.

  Fiona gathered up the Bible and tucked it into her purse. Gray grabbed a length of rebar he had found earlier.

  The door opened and a bright light shone in their eyes.

  The man barked sharply, startled. He spoke in Danish. “What are you two doing in here?”

  Gray straightened and lowered the bar. He had almost speared the man in the maintenance uniform.

  “Ride is closed,” the man said, stepping aside. “Get out of here before I call security.”

  Gray obeyed. The man scowled at him as he passed. He knew how it must look. An older man with a teenaged girl holed up in a cubby of an amusement park.

  “You all right, miss?” the worker asked. He must have noticed her puffy eyes, ripped clothes.

  “We’re fine.” She hooked her arm into Gray’s and sashayed her hips a bit. “He paid extra for this ride.”

  The man frowned in distaste. “Back door is over there.” He pointed to a neon exit sign. “Don’t let me catch you in here again. It’s dangerous to be traipsing around back here.”

  Not as dangerous as outside. Gray led them to the door and pushed through. He checked his watch. It was only a bit after eleven. The park wouldn’t close for another hour. Maybe they needed to try for an exit now.