Order of the Black Sun Box Set 7

by Preston William Child

  “Why?” Capt. Sanchez asked without thinking.

  “Oh, because I am very concerned about her, naturally,” the doctor explained with overdone benevolence. The police captain likened Dr. Sabian to a rotten clergyman being sanctimonious, and if what Javier had told him was true, it only made the psychologist’s tone more repulsive. However, Sanchez had no reason to assume readily that Dr. Sabian was the snake Javier had accused him of being, so he had to keep his reservations objective.

  “I told you I would contact you if we heard from her, doctor,” the captain said plainly. “You don’t have to worry. If we track her down, we will afford you a session with her.”

  Sabian’s face lightened up, “You will? That would be splendid.”

  “Provided her lawyer and myself are present during the session, of course,” Sanchez added nonchalantly, deliberately, to rattle Sabian’s cage. He just needed to prod a little, to ascertain the level of commitment the psychologist had to Madalina’s mental health and anything else he was conditioning her for.

  “Why?” Dr. Sabian snapped angrily. “Our sessions are confidential!”

  Captain Sanchez turned on his heel and glared at the upset shrink with a look of concern until the man calmed down and realized that he was acting out of sorts. “You do know, Dr. Sabian, that this condition is granted as a privilege to you, should we locate Miss Mantara before she does something . . . out of character.”

  Dr. Sabian was no fool. The manner in which the police captain delivered his ultimatum, the way in which he laid out his subliminal accusation, was too dramatic to have been purely a statement. Immediately he knew what the captain was insinuating and he did not like it one bit. His nose wrinkled as his face distorted in malice. “Have you been listening to Javier’s ramblings for too long, Captain Sanchez? You appear to have been buttered by his delusions.”

  “Now, why would you say such a thing?” Sanchez asked. “I have not seen that young man since I took his statement and warned him to disclose to the police all contact with his sister, otherwise he would face some serious charges. Is there something I should know about?”

  Captain Sanchez was playing his counter-threat perfectly, leaving just enough duality in his words to keep his pursuit secret. He aimed to play oblivious to what Sabian thought he was driving at—and succeeded—as not to reveal that his meaning was intended exactly as Sabian had initially gathered. Decades in the most hardcore crime fighting units, not to mention having to have aced a psychology module to attain his rank, had trained Pedro Sanchez in a bit of cerebral how’s your father too—and it worked.

  “Nothing, no,” Dr. Sabian answered. “I just feel that Javier is a loose canon who might be harboring feelings of jealousy towards any other men in his sister’s life. First Paulo, and now myself.”

  Captain Sanchez said nothing in retort. With his silence, he could claim any thought Dr. Sabian had about the matter without allowing an opinion. It was a technique often used during hostage negotiations he had been involved in before. He had planted the seed in Sabian’s mind that he, Sanchez, could possibly know more than what Sabian reckoned. However, at the same time, the police captain was keeping the psychologist in the dark as to his intentions, confusing him into an uncertainty regarding the captain’s level of comprehension. In other words, Sanchez played dumb.

  “Is there anything else, Dr. Sabian?” the captain asked. “If you don’t mind, I have some administrative work to get out of the way before some scheduled meetings.”

  The psychologist raised himself from the seat and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Alright, then, captain. I thank you for your time,” he mumbled awkwardly, having been so unceremoniously ejected from the conversation. “Please, do not hesitate to call me should anything of interest arise.”

  “Likewise, doctor,” Sanchez replied. “We should do our best in assisting each other to help this lady. I am sure you agree that we do not want her to go on some sort of psychotic spree with that child in her care.”

  “Agreed, agreed,” Dr. Sabian concurred, back in his professional guise. He nodded and left promptly. It was a great relief to watch him disappear down the hall, finally leaving the station before the next meeting was due; it would have proved problematic to the police captain’s plan. Sweating profusely in the mid-morning heat, he checked his watch. Only a few minutes remained before he was due to see his next appointment.

  Sanchez jumped up and took a small black box from his brief case. It looked like a pencil case, perhaps somewhat smaller, but it opened much like the packaging of fancy watches and bracelet’s. The bright sun refused to be deterred by the broken blinds of his window and sharp rays penetrated the shadows of the room to illuminate the objects in the box he was opening in his palm.

  “The air conditioning people are here, sir,” the sergeant said suddenly by the door, sending the captain into another jolt of fright. “I’m sorry, Captain! Just thought you should know.”

  “I have an appointment, Sergeant,” he grumped.

  “I know, sir, but I wanted to ask if I could sign off their work once they are done, or would you prefer to do it yourself?”

  “Oh, no, that would actually suit me,” Sanchez replied in a nicer tone, holding the box out of sight. “Gracias, Sergeant.”

  Once the sergeant had left the office, Sanchez hastened in his preparations. From the box he took a small device that looked like a square stamp, only thicker. The bugging apparatus was a potent new product Sanchez had invested in two months before while on a stake out to bust a human trafficking ring in Zaragoza. There was no distance limitation in its function, and it contained a SIM card that Sanchez had programmed to collaborate with his personal cell number. All he had to do was plant it on the target and for the next forty-eight hours of battery power he could simply call the bug from his cell phone to listen in.

  When he had it prepared, Sanchez called his front office from his desk phone. “Sergeant Martin, for the next two hours I want you to confiscate all personal effects of civilians coming in as a security measure.” Dismissing the officer’s enquiries as to the security breach concerned, Sanchez simply told him to obey orders. “All effects are to be returned to them once their visits or charges are completed. Do you understand?”

  “Sí, Captain,” the desk officer replied, sounding slightly baffled.

  He then sat behind his desk, waiting for his next appointment, contemplating the lengths to which he was going to apprehend this suspect and at the same time, look into speculation usually not of his concern. Usually, Pedro Sanchez only spent his time on that which directly pertained to the actual crime and the people involved. He didn’t know why he was feeling so compelled to get personally involved in this homicide case, not only to arrest the killer, but also to find out why it all happened the way it did.

  “Captain Sanchez?” he heard from his doorway. Surprised from his brief contemplation, Sanchez tried to look unassuming.

  “Oh, hello Javier,” he smiled. “Thank you for coming in on such short notice. I just want to make sure we cover all bases.”

  He looks like a walking dead man. My God, the captain thought at the sight of the pasty-skinned Javier Mantara. It was clear that he had not been sleeping much, or eating, perhaps, in days? His eyes were sunken and his cheeks too pronounced, especially since only three days had elapsed since they last met.

  “Sir, did you give some thought to my point of view since the other day?” Javier asked, jumping right in. “He’s mad, calling me and saying nothing but his usual stupid mumblings like ‘inaquosum!’ or ‘perpello’. Asshole.”

  But the captain gave him a waving gesture. “Please, Javier, let me just get the formalities out of the way for which I asked you here,” Sanchez told the troubled young man. “Then we can talk about things, okay?”

  Javier reluctantly agreed with a shrug.

  “Come, I must take your prints, just to make sure we have your current biometric information,” Sanchez said. “Did they also t
ake your personal effects at the front?”

  “Yes, that was strange,” Javier frowned, standing still while the captain tried to get him to accompany him into the corridor. “What’s going on, Captain?”

  “Just a precaution for today. I am not at liberty to say, but we had to clamp down a bit with the public freely walking in,” Sanchez lied. “Come, I need your prints.”

  “Why don’t you get an officer to do the dirty work, sir?” Javier asked innocently as he followed the captain into an interrogation room. Sanchez had expected the question, so he chuckled, “I have taken a special interest in this case, as you know, Javier. Maybe I just want to make sure that all the details are obtained correctly so that we don’t have any foul ups.”

  Javier accepted the reason. In truth, he was too tired to second-guess the police captain. He had slept well and still maintained his healthy eating habits, yet the fatigue was on him like a psychotic ex-lover. No amount of rest could rejuvenate him, but he chalked it up to the unusual heat this summer had brought with her. Even for Spaniards the heat had begun to sting.

  “Please, have a seat. I’ll be right back. I forgot the inkpad,” Sanchez told Javier. The captain went to the front desk. “Javier Mantara’s effects, please. I’m done with him, so I’ll take them back to him in the office.” On his way back to his office, the police captain looked at the few items in the plastic basket belonging to Javier. He selected the young man’s digital diver’s watch, the best bet for what he had planned.

  Prying the back of the watch open, Sanchez used his old skills in special tactics to place the bug with the SIM card inside and replaced the case cover without signs of tampering. Once he had done this, he opened his desk drawer and retrieved the special inkpad he’d bought from Labyrinth Technologies in London. It contained a substance that looked like ink, but infiltrated the skin of the subject for a period of approximately seventy-two hours, depending on the amount applied.

  Walking back, his cotton shirt gave no reprieve from the sweltering heat. It clung to his back, reminding him that it was more than high temperatures causing him to perspire. His level of concentration was also provoking his body’s reaction, for he had to get everything just right or his plan would fail.

  15

  Tales of Perdition

  Solar Eclipse Imminent: 53%

  On board the Cóndor, an interesting development was unfolding. Purdue and Sam had both mistook the trawler’s flag for that of the sinister organization they had been battling in secret for the past few years—The Order of the Black Sun. They soon found out, however, that the sigil flying from the finial represented something entirely different—the Children of the Sun. The only question was if it called on equally wicked support.

  “That’s right!” Vincent cried after Hannah guessed at it. “The lady wins a bottle of Aragh Sagi, courtesy of my own collection!” Hannah smiled, taking a sip of her as yet untouched wine.

  “Where do you get Arak from? It’s rare, is it not?” Purdue asked, referring to the ancient Persian distilled drink, traditionally not easy to come by in conventional corners.

  “Why would you ask that?” Sam jested. “Can’t you see the man has the robust voice of a pirate?” Sam winked at Vincent, who found him very amusing.

  “Your friend is correct, Mr. Purdue,” Vincent cheered. “I travel almost everywhere at sea, and by the sea I obtain my desires. In this case, the batch Miss Hannah here will be rewarded with was produced by my good friend Amat in Shiraz, a man I worked with on fishing charters for eight years.

  While the men were talking, Hannah’s eye fell on a beautiful gilded item that reminded her of a cartoon-shaped dog bone. It fanned out on both ends of a flat strip, upon which illegible carvings had suffered some erosion.

  “My father-in-law gave me that,” Vincent commented when he saw her staring.

  “He lives in the most beautiful place, the eye of Pachamama, I tell you!” With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, he leaned forward and asked them all, “Would you like some Arak?”

  Purdue vehemently declined as gracefully as he could, citing the wine as plenty for his sensitive palate. Sam, however, was a sport. Both he, Peter, and Hannah agreed to the challenge, on the condition that the captain would relate to them all the superstitious basis of the region’s waters.

  “What is Patama-what?” Sam asked, wishing he had his voice recorder with him. It had been salvaged, but it was still below deck in the bunk where he had rested after the Cóndor rescued him from the rubble of the crash.

  “Pachamama,” Vincent said sincerely. He leaned over to one of his deckhands. “Adrian, go get the Arak for us, would you? Um, Pachamama is the name given by some of the indigenous peoples of South America to Mother Earth. You know, like Gaia, for instance,” he explained to his guests.

  “Ah,” Purdue replied. “So you are from South America?”

  “With those baby blues?” Hannah chuckled. “I doubt that.”

  Vincent smiled and shook his head. “My wife is. My wife is from Lima, born and raised, but her parents are a bit more . . . ,” he cocked his head and winced a bit, “. . . traditional. It is from my father-in-law that I got the name of this boat, you see?”

  “The prophecy of the condor and the eagle?” Hannah asked.

  “My, my, young lady, you know a lot more than your quiet way leads on.” The skipper looked immensely impressed.

  “Oh, please do not look so amazed, Vincent,” she objected coyly. “It is all from my brother’s rants and the information he forced into me over the years that stuck all this stuff in my head. In fact, the reason I took this particular gig with Mr. Purdue was because I heard that he was planning to traverse this part of the waters. I wanted to make my brother jealous by sailing across the Alboran Sea.”

  Purdue was elated that the traumatized woman was finally loosening up a bit, hopefully putting the tragedy behind her as best she could now that they were safe from the perils of the elements and the gods that controlled them. Vincent looked a bit solemn at Hannah’s words. He blinked slowly and replied in a soft voice, “You might change your mind if you knew what slept under these waves, Miss Hannah.”

  Sam and Peter received their Arak with enthusiasm, but soon they regretted their zeal. The drink rendered them breathless for a good few seconds, ripping their chests open with a ghastly rush of ethanol and raisins.

  “Oh my God!” Sam choked, slamming down the glass to the skipper’s amusement. Hannah had not liked what Vincent had to say about her wanting to sail here, but she hoped it was just an alpha-male response and nothing more. Peter was leaning over, halfway to the floor as he coughed profusely. He could not utter a word, and Purdue was in stitches.

  “What is sleeping under us?” Hannah asked abruptly, partly because she felt shirked by Vincent and his confidence, and also because she wished to know more about the artifact. “Did you get that under the waves too?”

  “I told you, it was a gift from my father-in-law,” Vincent told her.

  “It exhibits signs of deterioration: marine corrosion, most likely,” she added.

  Vincent scoffed, changing the cheerful atmosphere to one of uncomfortable silence. His demeanor looked labored, and his male guests hoped that he would be tolerant of the lady and not let his temper flare again. To their surprise the skipper answered with lenience, “It was discovered by divers in 1958, off the coast of Peru, my dear girl. One of those divers was my father-in-law, Harim. If you have to find something bad about it, about my possession of it . . . Harim stole that relic, alright? It is a stolen item from a find over sixty years ago, and part of the reason why he gave it to me was because he was on his deathbed.”

  The cabin was silent.

  The only sound was the night waves crashing invisibly in the darkness that surrounded their solitary, floating haven. Hannah felt like shit for prying. She cleared her throat and reached for her wine. Vincent waited for a counter-argument, but she had abandoned her pursuit, it seemed. Sam broke the stalemate
. “Tell us about this cursed stretch of water, oh captain.”

  As always, Sam’s boyish jesting quickly recovered the merriment, much to Hannah’s relief. Peter attempted another shot of Arak with her, while Vincent gathered his thoughts. He took a few sheets of paper from a small treasure chest made of finely crafted wood and ivory inlays, By the looks of them, they were very old, and by the correlating holes punched along their sides, they appeared to have come from the same book. Without introduction, Vincent began to read.

  “Phantom ships hosting soldiers from a hundred nations across the Great Sea, across the measures of that before the Lord and that after, came to fall where the devil has blue eyes. No matter the breed and color of men at arms, they fell to the lost world as soon as their journeys made way past the Pillars of Hercules, whether hither or thither. The hand of the Great Giantess claimed all what had not gold to appease.

  Not ‘ere the Sun could not sate the belly of the blue-eyed devil with its insatiable craving for gold. Not ‘ere the Sun, the Great Almighty, could satisfy the floor of the hellish waters. From Pharaoh to Queen Isabelle, they all sent men to find gold and with gold as their anchor, they sank to the depths where Scylla’s children feared passage.”

  “It is said that since antiquity, Egyptian pharaohs dispatched ships to sail into the Strait of Gibraltar to battle with unknown hordes,” Vincent reported as he looked up. “Have you heard of the “solar barge” boats?”

  The group shook their heads. Vincent explained, “In ancient Egypt, they were ritual vessels used during the funerary rites of kings to carry them across the heavens along with Ra, the sun god. Gold. They were all obsessed with gold. Many of the battles waged here were between Spanish armadas and so-called phantom vessels, across many centuries, even since the Gauls and Visigoths. They would sink and be devoured by the sea before trace could be found,” he said hastily, “which, as we all know, is impossible unless you speed up time by a century per day.”