Order of the Black Sun Box Set 7

by Preston William Child

  “You see, I need to know what they are, what they aim to do, before this young woman and the little boy come to harm . . . ,” he insisted, but Nina stopped him. She had an idea.

  “Capt. Sanchez, I am in Spain currently,” she began to explain.

  “Oh, fantastic! Can we me . . .?” he interrupted her.

  “Listen!” she barked. “My apologies for being a bitch, but I have two dear friends missing, I have not slept in about two days, and I have no idea where to even begin looking for them. Now, I might have a solution for both of us,” she offered in a milder tone.

  “I’m listening,” he replied.

  “Alright, Captain. I’m at the airport in Madrid, the Madrid–Barajas airport,” she said.

  “Sí, sí,” he mumbled, clearly busy grappling for a pen and paper on the other side of the line.

  “If you could meet me here, I can postpone my flight to Málaga and first help you,” she suggested. “But in return I need your help and resources to help me find my friends. Do we have a deal?”

  “I’ll do you better,” he said hesitantly, and then corrected his phrase. “I’ll do you one better, okay? If you help me with this information, I will take you myself to where you must go and ask my colleagues to make a search party, if you want.”

  Nina was more than satisfied. “Captain Sanchez, we have an accord. What time will you be here?”

  23

  Don’t Keep a Lady Waiting

  Sam could hardly keep up with the excited chatter of his two companions on the main deck. Vincent was ecstatic. There was no trace of his bad temper as he related the macabre tale of the road to the ultimate discovery Purdue had made in the boiler room adjacent to the galley. It was Sam’s task to not only take pictures and interview the crew and captain on the find, but also to capture their accounts on his old-fashioned voice recorder. However, the latter was made exceedingly difficult by the excitement of the two expedition partners and their zest.

  “Hang on, hang on,” Sam halted Vincent. “A full-sized statue of what again? You have to slow down a wee bit, alright?”

  The skipper caught his breath and sighed, smiling like some pervert. “She’s beautiful, and what is more, Sam, she survived the horrid intentions of the conquistadors to melt her down into a golden sludge to make more coins.”

  Purdue waited his turn, resisting the urge to have a glass of sparkly just yet. He intended to dive again, which would be counterproductive if he drank alcohol. With glee, he watched Sam recording the elated words of the passionate relic hunter from the better side of sun symbolism. But his eyes wandered.

  Over the aging day’s ripples he studied the waters, and for the first time since the accident, that which had pestered Sam’s psyche long before his dawned on him as well. The recollection of it all overwhelmed him, now, being in the same close vicinity where his own staff members had been brutality claimed by a sinister fate and the monsters that served it.

  “Purdue! Wake up, lad!” Sam hollered near him.

  Purdue turned and smiled, effectively concealing his minor brush with a bad memory. “Is it my turn now?”

  “Aye,” Sam affirmed, saluting the skipper who was walking to the cockpit to chat with his co-pilots.

  “Before we do my interview,” Purdue said under his breath, “tell me what he told you about that statue. Do you think that it is the match to the prayer stick?”

  Sam glanced back to see if Vincent was near before he responded. He pulled the tall explorer aside to share. “He said that it was part of the sacking of Cuzco, Peru, after the abduction of the Inca emperor, Atahualpa. Apparently, it ended up in the poor bastard getting killed anyway in 1533, even after he paid the Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, more than the ransom required to buy his freedom. On top of that, they raided the Inca temples and pillaged their greedy way through the towns, killing for silver and gold.”

  “Ah!” Purdue nodded, trying to remember the details and why Vincent was raving about the statue. “How did the statue survive then?”

  “He doesn’t know,” Sam replied, looking through his written notes of the captain’s words. “But here is the interesting part . . . .”

  “The Nazis found her during one of their terror campaigns in Spain?” Purdue jested, though in truth he thought it was a probability.

  “Close,” Sam winked. “An Allied soldier by the name of Harold Barnard . . . Sub-Lieutenant Harold Barnard of the British Commonwealth, assisted the Waffen-SS in obtaining the statue from a Catholic convent near a small town called Cuacos de Yuste, in . . . you guessed it . . . Spain.”

  “Bingo!” Purdue grinned. “I bet if Nina were here . . . .”

  “No way, Purdue, no,” Sam protested.

  “. . . we could help Vincent locate the matching relic much quicker,” Purdue continued without relent.

  “No, just no,” Sam snapped. “Leave her out of this for once.”

  “So we still don’t know where to look for the other piece,” Purdue explained, trying to soften Sam up to the idea of consulting Nina.

  “We’ll figure it out. After all, it’s none of our concern, really. Our part is more the creepy fucking mummy hoard, isn’t it?” Sam lowered his voice and leaned in to Purdue. “Let Vincent sort out his El Dorado . . . Inca prophecy thing of world peace with his yellow princess, mate, and let us concentrate on the weird shit you decided to bring me here for, eh?”

  “You know what I’m like when it comes to mysterious relics and ancient history, old cock,” Purdue reminded his friend.

  “Aye, lest I forget,” Sam groaned.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he told Sam, “once we’ve brought her up with my portable mass grave of bodies, we can take it step by step. And you might be vehemently opposed to this, but who would be the best person to help us get to the bottom of the mummy phenomenon on these German soldiers?”

  “Nina,” Sam conceded.

  “Nina,” Purdue affirmed.

  The next morning yielded a considerably calm ocean. It was shortly after 8 a.m. when Vincent appeared from the trawler’s cockpit after his morning checks. He found his partner, Dave Purdue, and Sam Cleave chatting over breakfast toast in hand.

  “Are we diving or are we going to fuck about, my friends?” Vincent chuckled. “I’m taking the nylon straps down there to secure her for the pull-up.”

  “Good God, man, slow down!” Sam teased playfully. His color was returning and he looked relaxed under his newly groomed beard. It was becoming, in a rugged sort of way that paired well with Sam’s already lavish dark locks. He was certainly attractive enough to pull off most variations of the image. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  “She’s first priority, Vincent,” Purdue assured him, “so you will rekindle your relationship soon enough.”

  “I just don’t like to keep a lady waiting, is all,” Vincent tilted his head and winked at them. Sam had to ask something he’d neglected to clarify the day before.

  “Vincent, tell me, how does the lady’s statue fit with your prayer stick? How is she working with that relic of yours to fulfill the prophecy?” Both Sam and Purdue were of the opinion that Vincent did not know because he chose to give an ambiguous answer. But in truth, he still didn’t trust them enough to disclose such valuable information.

  “I have not had time to examine her yet, boys, so only once I get to study her features will I be able to ascertain the exact method,” he said, spinning the bullshit he was most comfortable with. The two Scots nodded along, looking pleased with his vague answer. “Now!” he clapped his hands loudly. “Shall we get things going?”

  “Aye,” Sam cheered. “Finally I’m getting to test my underwater gear.”

  “Are you going to be able to handle a big camera while the currents twist around you?” Vincent asked Sam.

  “Easily,” Sam answered, whipping out a small, high-definition diving camera. “I have my Nauticam handy. Look at this.” Sam’s little video camera fitted into a casing he fixed around his ne
ck like a dog collar. “Hands-free. And it films everything I see and experience in HD wide-angle brilliance.”

  Purdue studied the features of the camera as it was secured to Sam’s neck, looking comical as he was craning his neck over the journalist like a curious pelican, pecking at the strap with pinching fingers.

  “That is impressive,” Vincent and Purdue remarked in unison.

  “I would have to borrow this sometime, Sam, when I go cave diving in the Yucatán again,” Purdue insisted cordially.

  “Sure,” Sam said. “Now please, get off me before the men get the wrong idea about our friendship.”

  Vincent laughed heartily as they sauntered to the stairwell. Yapping about underwater capture technology, they descended to the lower deck to put on their diving suits.

  When they finally sank into the pristine Alboran waters, Vincent could hardly contain himself. He waved at Sam’s lens just before he propelled his body deeper down into the darker hues of the sea to return to the golden woman who waited in the German steel-plated tomb. Purdue and Sam followed suit, each holding their tools, like hooks and straps, to facilitate the hoist of their respective assets.

  Again, the ghastly moan of the current rushing through the mouth of the opened hatch chilled the men’s blood with its gaping darkness. It was only the three of them for now. The other divers in Vincent’s crew would join them after the signal. They waited for Vincent to confirm that the find was ready to be brought up by means of hydraulic arms extended from the gunwales of the trawler. For this, the captain of the Cóncord had a sonar device, which pinged into their own radar system as a signal.

  Once down in the galley among the stacks of petrified skeletons baring teeth and hair from their Nazi uniforms, Sam got to remove his mask for a grand exclamation.

  “Oh sweet Jesus!”

  “My thoughts exactly at the time, old boy,” Purdue chuckled.

  “Fucking hell, Purdue. What in God’s name do you want to do with all these grisly bastards? I mean, Christ, there must be over five hundred corpses here! What the fuck happened here?” he ranted on and on in disbelief of what his eyes presented him. No amount of cussing could justify how horrified Sam was by it all.

  By the time he finally settled down enough to film the ghastly collection of bodies, Vincent had secured his ancient golden relic. Purdue and Sam, however, still had some serious work to do. Samples would not be enough. In the name of honor Purdue decided to excavate every last body laboriously to return them to their own government. Of course, that would only be organized by Purdue’s people after he had the mummies examined. The putrefaction of these men was a very strange phenomenon that he simply had to lay claim to in order to record the peculiar nature of the find, along with the reputation of the legendary marine region.

  “Right, I’m going out to signal Marius and Henry,” Vincent announced as he passed the other two in their makeshift morgue.

  “Alright, Skipper!” Sam cried. “I’ll just stay here with my insane colleague, sifting for more creepy shit through all these delightful dead people. Have fun now! I know I won’t.”

  Purdue sighed. “I’ll give you a bonus for emotional injury.”

  “Ta,” Sam replied.

  “You bitch like a teenager,” Purdue muttered as he dragged a papery seaman onto the casket edge. “The good thing is that they are quite light in weight, so they’re not difficult to handle.”

  “That’s true. I feel so much happier that they don’t weigh a lot,” Sam teased.

  “All jokes aside,” Purdue said, “could you please go up into the wet for me, Sam? I left the blowtorch at the entrance of the hatch, and I have to melt these locks quickly.”

  “Gladly,” Sam answered. “Even the heart-stopping moan of that entrance hatch is preferable to this body pit.”

  Sam had been gone for less than five minutes before he surfaced through the flooded drain entrance again.

  “Damn, that was quick,” Purdue chuckled, but Sam was not laughing. His face was white as a sheet as he tried to form words.

  Purdue ran toward him, just as Sam lifted Vincent’s limp body up from the dark pool where the chasm in his throat had colored the blue to dark red.

  “Oh my God! What happened?” Purdue exclaimed.

  “I don’t know!” Sam finally managed to force. “I came out of the lower level and there he was, floating as if he had drowned! But then I saw the blood! Look, somebody cut his hose and severed the valve lines to his cylinder. Look, serrated incisions.”

  “Diving knife,” Purdue guessed. “Jesus. Vincent!”

  “At once the skipper of the trawler inhaled a monstrous tuft of air, making for a hideous death rattle through the scarlet fountain that welled from his neck. He pounded his chest, his voice impotent from the injury.

  “What is it?” Sam asked. Again, Vincent glared at them while hitting his chest with his last strength. With his hair tucked into his neoprene hood, his bulging turquoise eyes were prominent enough to linger in Sam’s memory for good.

  The dying man kept slamming his own chest, and just before he died, he mouthed, ‘melt her down.’

  24

  The Martyr

  Solar Eclipse Imminent: 71%

  Dr. Sabian stood half behind Javier Mantara, prompting the young man’s actions with a conducted electrical weapon, a device much like a Taser pressed to his short rib, which by now had become quite prominent. Javier was suffering all the symptoms of anorexia and advanced dehydration, yet he was consuming food and drink like everyone else. He knew by instinct that the Santero had something to do with his current condition, but how to reverse it, he did not know.

  It terrified Javier that the evil old man could control his physiology without even touching him, but he dared not back down or show fear. His sister’s welfare was everything, as was her safety from both Sabian and the police, and he did not intend to waver in the face of tribulation.

  “I’m so sorry, Madi,” Javier uttered blandly, but the quiver of his brow attested to his intense emotion in betraying her. Nonetheless, Madalina rushed to embrace her brother. Instantly, her tears reappeared as she wept on his neck. “My God, what have I done to you? I’m the one who should be sorry, Javier. I love you. I love you. Now look at you! Because of me, because I could not listen to you.”

  Raul and Sabian eyed one another like age-old acquaintances while the siblings sobbed in each others’ arms. “This is not your fault,” Javier whispered to his sister, while a waitress interrupted Sabian’s subliminal engagement with the child to ask if he would like a menu. Politely, Dr. Sabian accepted the offer and took his seat next to Raul as if nothing was amiss.

  “But look at you! Clearly the stress of my actions, my terrible actions and my disappearance have caused you to neglect yourself,” Madalina persisted, wailing softly with her face tucked into his bosom. Javier stroked his sister’s crown and hushed her. Perhaps it was better if he had shared his ludicrous theory with her, if only to lighten her burden of guilt for his condition. It was so far-fetched that he doubted that she would even consider it a consolation, but he said it anyway.

  “Madi, I am under a terrible spell, a curse that is bedeviling my brain to detach from my body,” he whispered in her ear. “Are you listening to me?” He hissed angrily into her hair that covered her ear to impress upon her the seriousness of his accusation. “Sabian is responsible for this. I don’t know how, but he is causing my body not to recognize nourishment.”

  “You are as crazy as I am,” she said, holding his gaunt face in her hands. “Honey, that is impossible.”

  Javier did not have time to persuade her, and he was immensely fatigued from the trip. “Let me prove it to you.”

  “How?” she asked under her breath.

  “What happens when I eat peanuts?” he asked her.

  “Jesus! Are you insane? You’ll die from the allergic reaction, Javier! What are you trying to do? Your throat will swell up and you’ll die if you do that!” she cried, unable to un
derstand why her brother would put his life at risk for such a trivial remark about his bodyweight. “Okay, okay,” she panted, feigning concurrence, “I believe you! I believe you about Sabian, okay? Just, don’t, you don’t have to prove anything. I believe you.”

  “Just sit down,” her brother replied indifferently. He knew when she was bluffing. There was not a grain of belief in her that he was not crazy and she was a terrible liar.

  “Hola, doctor,” Madalina greeted. She eyed her therapist but said nothing else.

  “Madalina,” he nodded cordially, but she could detect no judgment on his face for absconding from his treatment a short while before the incident in the motel.

  Javier sat down and looked at the child. “You are a very good boy,” he said slowly. The difficulty of speaking increased every day, but Javier managed with hard whispers.

  “I am a very good boy,” the child answered him with a smile. Javier smiled, “And what is your name?”

  “Raul,” the boy replied. “Are you a martyr?”

  Madalina gasped. Sabian’s prying eyes grew wide. Javier felt his heart sink, but he reacted with curiosity while he hid his dreadful assumptions about his illness. “Why do you think I am a martyr?”

  “You look like one,” Raul informed him. “When I was in Romania during the religious festival last year, I saw many pictures painted on the walls of churches. It was all pictures of men who looked like you, and they looked very sad. The priest called them martyrs.”

  “Well, I sure feel like one,” Javier answered down the middle, resisting a leer at the psychologist next to the boy in the booth. “I’ll tell you what, Raul. Do you eat peanuts?”

  “No,” Madalina yelped suddenly.

  “I love peanuts, Madi,” the boy frowned. “Please? Please can I have some?”