The Black Sun

by James Twining

  “The old Jewish cemetery,” the rabbi answered.

  It suddenly dawned on Tom that the dark shapes in front of him were in fact gravestones, thousands of them in all shapes and sizes, some leaning against others for support, some lying prostrate as if they had been sprinkled like seeds from a great height. They were jammed so close to each other that the ground, muddy and wet where the morning’s frost had melted, was barely visible between them. Tom was certain that if he were to topple one, the rest would fall like a field of overgrown dominoes.

  “For hundreds of years this was the only place the city allowed us to bury our dead. So each time it filled up we had no choice but to put down a layer of earth and start again. Some say there are eleven levels in all.”

  Tom knelt down at the stone nearest to him. A swastika had been etched on the stone’s peeling surface. He looked up at the rabbi, who gave a resigned shrug.

  “The war may have ended long ago, but for some of us the struggle continues,” the rabbi said, shaking his head. “Now, Mr. Kirk, tell me—what do you know about Karel Bellak?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  NATIONAL CRYPTOLOGIC MUSEUM, FORT MEADE,

  MARYLAND

  January 3—2:26 a.m.

  It was a little game he played, something to pass the time on his rounds. As he came upon each exhibit he would test himself against the display’s information cards to see how much he could remember. After twenty years he was pretty much word-perfect. First there was the Myer flag system, a line-of-sight communication tool devised in the Civil War by an army doctor who went on to form the Signal Corps. The glass cases held the original flags, battle-torn and stained with age.

  Satisfied, he walked on, his rubber soles squeaking rhythmically on the floor like a metronome marking time, the polished toe caps of his boots glowing with a white sheen from the dimmed overhead lights.

  Al Travis had been a guard at the National Cryptologic Museum since it had first opened. He liked it there. He’d finally found a place where he felt he was part of something special, something important. After all, technically he worked for the NSA, the agency responsible for protecting Uncle Sam’s information systems and breaking the bad

  guys’

  codes.

  17 the black sun

  Hell, the NSA was right in the thick of things with this whole War on Terror. He came upon the next exhibit—the Cipher Wheel. A series of rotating wooden discs, the wheel had been used by European governments for hundreds of years to encrypt sensitive communications. According to the card, it was designed to be used with French, the international language of diplomacy until the end of the First World War. The Cipher Wheel’s cylindrical shape nestled snugly in its display case, the wood polished by generations of anxious fingers. He paused, looked at it, and checked with the information card that he was right in believing this to be the oldest such device in the world.

  And then of course there was his favorite exhibit—the big one, as he liked to say—the Enigma machine. The museum had several versions on display in two large glass-fronted cases, and Travis never failed to pause when he walked past, running his eyes appreciatively over them. He found it incredible that, in breaking the code generated by this oversized typewriter, Polish and then British mathematicians had helped win the war for the Allies in Europe. But that’s what the card said, and who was he to argue?

  A sudden noise made Travis stop. He checked over his shoulder and then peered into the semidarkness ahead of him.

  “Anyone there?” he called out, wondering if someone had come to relieve him early. As he paused, waiting for an answer, a steel wire shaped into a noose was lowered from above him until it was hovering just over his head, glinting in the lights like a silver halo. Then, just as Travis was about to move on again, it snapped past his face, the wire tightening around his neck and pulling him three feet off the ground. Travis’s hands leapt to his throat as he scrabbled at the wire, his legs thrashing beneath him, his throat making an inhuman gurgling noise. Two dark shapes materialized out of the shadows as he struggled, and a third man dropped down noiselessly from where he had

  hidden

  himself

  in

  the

  roof

  space

  above

  the

  ceiling

  tiles.

  18 james twining

  One of the men pulled a chair over from the wall and positioned it under Travis’s flailing legs. Travis located the top of the chair with his feet and, wavering unsteadily, found that he was just about able to perch on tiptoe and relieve the choking pressure on his throat, his lungs gasping for air, blood on his collar where the noose had bitten into the soft folds of his neck.

  Teetering there, his mouth dry with fear, he watched as the three figures, each masked and dressed in black, approached the left-hand display cabinet. Working with well-drilled efficiency, they unscrewed the frame, levered the glass out, and leaned it against the wall. Then the man in the middle reached in, took out one of the Enigma machines, and placed it in his accomplice’s backpack.

  Travis tried to speak, tried to ask them what the hell they thought they were doing, to point out that there was no way they were ever going to make it off the base, but all that came was a series of choked grunts and whispered moans.

  The noise, though, made the men turn. One broke away from the others and approached Travis.

  “Did you say something, nigger?”

  The voice was thin and mocking, the last word said slowly and deliberately. Travis shook his head, knowing that these were not people to be reasoned with, although his eyes burned with anger at the insult.

  The man didn’t seem to be expecting an answer. Instead he kicked out and knocked the chair from under Travis, who plunged toward the floor, the steel wire twanging under tension and snapping his neck.

  For a few seconds Travis’s feet drummed furiously, then twitched a few times, then were

  still.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CLERKENWELL, LONDON

  January 3—5:02 p.m.

  Tom was sitting at his desk with a copy of The Times in front of him, folded into four so that only the cryptic crossword was visible. He had a ballpoint pen in his mouth, the end chipped and split where he had chewed it, his forehead creased in concentration. Much to his frustration, he hadn’t filled in a single word yet.

  The desk itself was French, circa 1890, solid mahogany carved with fruit, foliage, and various mythological creatures. It had four drawers on the left and a cabinet on the right, each opened by a lion-mask handle. Caryatids and atlantes flanked the corners, supporting the overhang of the polished top.

  Tom and Archie had bought the desk not for its rather obvious beauty but because it was identical on both sides, a subtly symbolic statement of equality that had resonated with the two of them. And despite his occasionally feeling like one-half of some odd Dickensian legal couple, for Tom, at least, the desk had come to encapsulate his new life—a solid partnership on the right side of the law.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Yeah?”

  Tom

  called,

  grateful

  for

  the

  interruption.

  He

  had

  20 james twining

  been staring at the paper so long that the clues had started to swim across the page. The door opened and a woman wearing jeans, a pale pink camisole, and a tight black jacket walked in, her right arm looped through the open visor of a black motorcycle helmet.

  “Catch,” she called.

  Tom looked up just in time to see a tennis ball flashing toward his head. Without thinking, he shot a hand out and snatched it from the air, his fingers stinging as they closed around it.

  “How was your game?” Tom asked with a smile as Dominique de Lecourt stripped off her jacket, hitched herself up onto the side of his desk, and placed her helmet down next to her. She had a pale,
oval face that had something of the cold, sculpted, and remote beauty of a silent-movie star, although her blue eyes, in contrast, shone with an immediately inviting blend of impulsive energy and infectious confidence. Her right shoulder was covered with an elaborate tattoo of a rearing horse that was only partially masked by her curling mass of blond hair. Her left arm, meanwhile, was sheathed in a glittering armor of silver bangles that clinked like a hundred tiny bells every time she moved. Just about visible, under her top, was the bump of her stomach piercing.

  “Didn’t play. Decided to go to that auction instead.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.” Tom laughed. “See anything good?”

  “A pair of Louis XV porphyry and gilt-bronze two-han-dled vases.” Her English was excellent, with just a hint of a Swiss-French accent.

  “Made by Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot in 1760.” Tom nodded. “Yeah, I saw those in the catalog. What did you think?”

  “I think two million is a lot to pay for a couple of nine-teenth-century reproductions made for the Paris tourist market of the day. They’re worth twenty thousand at most. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

  Tom smiled. Sometimes he found it hard to believe that Dominique was still only twenty-three.

  She

  had

  an

  instinct

  21 the black sun

  for a deal, coupled with an almost unnatural ability to retain even the most incidental detail, that rivaled all but the most seasoned pros. Then again, Tom reminded himself, she’d had a good teacher. Until he died last year, she’d spent four years working for Tom’s father in Geneva. When Tom had relocated the antiques dealership to London, she’d readily accepted his offer to move with it and help run the business. The antiques store itself was a wide, double-fronted space with large arched windows, vital for attracting passing trade, although most visitors to Kirk Duval Fine Art & Antiques called ahead for an appointment. At the rear were two doors and a staircase. The staircase led to the upstairs floors, the first floor currently empty, the second floor Dominique’s apartment, the top floor Tom’s. It was supposed to have been a short-term arrangement, but the weeks had turned into months. Tom hadn’t pressed the point, sensing that she would move out when the time was right for her. Besides, he valued her company and, given his pathological inability to form new friendships, that gave him his own selfish reasons for keeping her around.

  The left-hand door opened onto a warehouse accessed via an old spiral staircase, while the right-hand door gave onto the office. The office was not a big room, perhaps fifteen feet square, the space dominated by the partners’ desk. There was a single large window, which looked out over the warehouse below, a low bookcase running underneath it. Two comfortable armchairs were positioned on the left-hand side of the room as you went in, the brown leather faded and soft with age. Most striking, though, was the wall space behind the desk, which was taken up with Tom’s glittering collection of safe plates—an assortment of brass and iron plaques in various shapes and sizes, some dating back to the late eighteenth century, each ornately engraved with the safe manu-facturer’s name and crest.

  “How are you getting on with the crossword?” she asked with a smile, peering down at the unfilled grid in front of him. “Any easier?”

  “Not

  really,”

  he

  admitted.

  “I

  mean,

  take

  this:

  ‘Soldier

  got

  22 james twining

  into cover for a spell.’ Five letters.” He shook his head. “I just don’t see it.”

  “Magic,” she answered after a few seconds’ thought.

  “Magic,” Tom repeated slowly. “Why magic?”

  “A soldier is a GI,” she explained. “A cover is a mac. Put GI into mac to get a spell. Magic.”

  She tapped her long, graceful finger playfully on the tip of Tom’s nose as if it was a wand.

  “I give up.” Tom, defeated, threw his pen down onto the desk.

  “You just need to keep at it.” She laughed. “One day it’ll all just click into place.”

  “So you keep saying.” Frustrated, he changed the subject: “When’s Archie back?”

  “Tomorrow, I think.” She picked at a frayed piece of cotton where her jeans were ripped across her left thigh.

  “That’s twice he’s been to the States in the last few weeks.” Tom frowned. “For someone who claims to hate going abroad, he’s certainly putting himself about a bit.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “God knows. Sometimes he just seems to get an idea into his head and then he’s off.”

  “That reminds me—where did you put those newspapers that were on his desk?”

  “Where do you think? I threw them away along with all his other rubbish.”

  “You did what?” she exclaimed. “They were mine. I’d been keeping them for a reason.”

  “Well, try the bottom left-hand drawer then,” Tom suggested sheepishly. “I stuffed a bunch of old papers in there.”

  She slipped off the desk and opened the drawer.

  “Luckily for you, they’re here,” she said with relief, pulling out a large pile of newspapers and placing them down in front of him.

  “What do you want with all these anyway?” Tom asked. “Are you collecting coupons or something?”

  “Do I look like I collect coupons?” She grinned. “No, I wanted to show you something. Only

  you

  might

  not

  like

  it

  .

  .

  .”

  23 the black sun

  “What are you talking about?” Tom frowned. “You can tell me anything, you know that.”

  “Even if it’s about Harry?” she asked.

  “Harry?”

  Harry Renwick. The mere mention of his name was enough to make Tom’s heart rise into his throat. Harry Renwick had been his father’s best friend, a man Tom had known and loved since . . . well, since almost as long as he could remember. That was until it transpired that dear old Uncle Harry had been living a double life. Operating under the name of Cassius, he had masterminded a ruthless art-crime syndicate that had robbed and murdered and extorted its way around the globe for decades. Only last year, Renwick had tried first to frame Tom for murder and then to kill him. The betrayal still stung.

  “You told me he’d disappeared after what happened in Paris. After the—”

  “Yeah,” Tom cut her off, not wanting to relive the details. “He just vanished.”

  “Well, wherever he’s gone, someone’s looking for him.” Dominique unfolded the top newspaper, the previous day’s Herald Tribune. She turned to the Personals section and pointed at an ad she’d circled. Tom began to read the first paragraph.

  “Lions may awake any second. If this takes place alert me via existing number. ” He flashed her an amused glance. She indicated that he should read on. “If chimps stop their spelling test within one or so hours, reward through gift of eighty bananas. ” He laughed. “It’s nonsense.”

  “That’s what I thought when I first saw it, but you know how I like a challenge.”

  “Sure.” Tom smiled. Among her many attributes, Dominique had an amazing aptitude for word games and other types of puzzles. It was partly this which had driven Tom, never one to be outdone, to attempt the crossword. Not that he was making much progress.

  “It only took me a few minutes. It’s a jump code.”

  “A

  what?”

  24 james twining

  “A jump code. Jewish scholars have been finding them for years in the Torah. Did you know that if you take the first T in the Book of Genesis, then jump forty-nine places to the fiftieth letter, then another forty-nine places to the fiftieth letter after that, and so on, it spells a word?

  “What?”

  “Torah. The book’s name is e
mbedded in the text. The next three books do the same. Some say that the whole of the Old Testament is an encoded message that predicts the future.”

  “And this works in the same way?”

  “It’s a question of identifying the jump interval. In this case, it’s every eighth letter.”

  “Starting with the first letter?”

  She nodded.

  “So that makes this L”—Tom counted seven spaces— “then A . . .” He grabbed a pen and began to write down each eighth letter: “Then S . . . then T. Last!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

  “Last seen Copenhagen. Await next contact. I decoded it earlier.”

  “And there are others like this?”

  “After I found this, I looked back through earlier editions. There have been coded messages using the same methodology every few weeks for the last six months or so. I’ve written them out here—” She handed Tom a piece of paper.

  “HK cold, try Tokyo,” he read. “Focus search in Europe . . . DNA sample en route . . . Reported sighting in Vienna . . .” He looked up at Dominique. “Okay, I agree that someone seems to be looking for someone or something. But there’s nothing to say it’s Harry.”

  Dominique handed him a newspaper from the bottom of the pile and opened it at the Personals page.

  “This was the first and longest message.” She pointed at a lengthy ad she’d circled in red.

  “What does it say?”

  “Ten million dollar reward. Henry Julius Renwick, a.k.a. Cassius, dead or alive. Publish interest next Tuesday.”

  Tom was silent as he tried to digest this news. “Did anyone reply?” he asked eventually.

  25 the black sun

  “I counted twenty-five replies in all.” “Twenty-five!” “Whoever’s behind this has got a small private army out

  there trying to track Harry down. The question is why.” “No,” Tom reflected, “the question is who.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FBI HEADQUARTERS, SALT LAKE CITY DIVISION, UTAH

  January 4—4:16 p.m.

  Where had it all gone wrong? When had he passed from being a high achiever to an average Joe, a stand-up guy, but one who, according to his superiors, didn’t quite have what it took to go all the way? How was it that people almost half his age were accelerating past him so fast that he barely had time to spit their dust from his mouth before they were a speck on the horizon? When had hanging on long enough to max out his pension become his only reason for getting up in the morning?