Order of the Black Sun Box Set 7

by Preston William Child

  “Sí, over there on the bar counter they have bowls of peanuts,” Javier struggled to smile at Raul. “Why don’t you go and get us some?”

  Raul jumped up cheerfully and made for the bar on the other side of the room. Sabian and the siblings stared at one another. They could discuss nothing yet, because the child would be back shortly. The awkward silence was thankfully filled with a group of Australian tourists coming in through the main doors with quite a lot to say about the interior décor and how steep the ramp road up to the Castillo de Sax was.

  Madalina could feel pearls of sweat form on her brow as she thought of what her brother was about to do. Why would he commit suicide right in front of her? Was this some sort of punishment, she wondered. There was, of course, no way that she would let him go through with it. Sabian knew nothing. Only Madalina and her brother knew that Javier was allergic to nuts, among other things.

  Raul came back with a bowl of peanuts in his hand and an ashtray in the other. “They won’t let me take two, but they said I could split it by using the empty ashtray,” he giggled. He looked at Javier. “I take the ashtray! You can have the bowl!”

  “No problem.” Javier winced in an attempt to smile at Raul.

  Madalina’s eyes stretched, bloodshot and wet as she fought inside herself whether to trust her brother or interrupt the preposterous intention.

  “What’s going on?” Dr. Sabian suddenly asked as Raul tucked into his meager snack.

  “Nothing,” Madalina answered evenly in a shivering tone. Her eyes did not leave her brother’s face for an instant as she watched him chew on two handfuls of peanuts. “I just cannot believe how sick my brother looks. I feel so guilty for leaving him.”

  “You did what you had to,” Dr. Sabian comforted her just like he used to when memories of her abusive husband drove her into insomnia and panic attacks.

  “I did not have to do anything, doctor,” she said, looking at the sly psychologist for the first time. “What about murder and kidnapping is not a choice? Doing what you have to do is normally reserved for survival and protection. Nothing I did to this boy’s caretaker or to him was something I had to do.”

  “I am sure you had your reasons for feeling that you had to take him,” Dr. Sabian said in that annoying tone of arrogance he used to condescend. “Perhaps it was a need to feel powerful in a world where you were always the victim.”

  “Oh fuck you, Sabian,” Javier suddenly blurted, spitting tiny fragments of peanut all over the table as he spoke. His lips had begun to grow thinner, unable to cover his teeth completely, and this made it difficult not to spit while he tried to talk. “Don’t vilify my sister for something she had absolutely no control over! You will not make her feel guilty for this! And especially that bullshit about needing to feel powerful. Spare me! You and I both know she is nothing like that. She took Raul to save him from an abusive bitch!” He leaned over the table and glowered hard into Sabian’s eyes with his discolored, milky irises. Dr. Sabian recoiled slightly from the hideous deadness of the young man’s angry eyes. Javier sneered. “She felt the need to do it because she was unknowingly turned into a minion for some insidious plot! Your sick ideals, you son of a bitch!”

  “Oi mate, keep it down, will ya?” an Australian patron hollered from the bar.

  Javier lifted an open palm in apology. “Thanks mate,” the tourist said and carried on talking to his friends. Javier whispered in Sabian’s face. “You are nothing but a fucking pedophile.”

  “Javier,” Madalina reprimanded her brother. “Easy.”

  In the same threatening position he had addressed Dr. Sabian, Javier turned to his sister. “Tell me, Madi, do you see anything unusual yet? I have scarfed handfuls of peanuts and look at me.” He leaned back and spread out his arms like a crucifix. “See? Do you see?”

  She had to concede that his physical reaction to the nuts bore no resemblance to what normally happened when he consumed them. By now, his face would have ballooned, his eyes would have swollen shut, and he would have been fighting to breathe through a constricted windpipe. His lips would be blue and he would be wheezing, and here right in front of her, nothing. Madalina looked at her brother’s facial features. Much as they were distorted into a man she could hardly recognize, there was no sign of the telltale symptoms he was supposed to exhibit.

  He was right. His brain did not know what his body was eating—or that his body was eating. The thought made her sick to her stomach and she held down a convulsion of nausea.

  “Oi, inaquosum!” Dr. Sabian exclaimed. “Can you please stop upsetting your sister?”

  But Madalina knew that her brother’s outlandish claim had to be true. She looked at Raul, who was slowly eating his nuts one by one, and wondered why she would have felt so compelled to take him. The boy looked up at her with his beautiful big dark eyes, but he did not smile. Quickly he looked to Sabian and back to Madalina, and something in his eyes changed. Madalina construed it as a realization, a change of mind somewhere in his innocent wisdom.

  “You are helping the police, then?” she suddenly changed the conversation, sounding uncharacteristically strong as she directly addressed her former therapist. Without noticing, Dr. Sabian was now forced to comply with her requirements if he wished to uphold his charade.

  “They called me in, of course, to be a character witness. They also asked for your sessions, which I was forced to surrender to them. I am here to help. The police have no idea I have come to see you, so you can relax, my dear.” In a darker tone he added, “Nobody knows where you, or the boy, is.”

  “Just the way you want it, right?” Javier grunted, drinking down a half glass of water Madalina had abandoned when they first entered. Raul looked at the young man. “I am so sorry for you, Javier.”

  Javier set the empty glass down and asked why. Raul replied, “You are the martyr.”

  25

  Enemy Waters

  Solar Eclipse Imminent: 78%

  “There is a traitor among us, Sam,” Purdue said, wincing as he carefully secured Vincent’s body to be hoisted up to the Cóncord.

  “Should we stay down here?” Sam asked. “We don’t know where the killer is. For all we know they could be waiting just outside the wreck so that they can ambush us like they did with Vincent.”

  “I honestly cannot decide. We can’t stay down here forever. But on the other hand, it will conserve oxygen while we are not using our cylinders. Better not to go up yet, not before we can think of a way to survey the situation,” Purdue suggested.

  “Aye, I’m with you. I’d rather wait here for nothing than to get my fucking throat cut. It’s par for the course when you get involved in treasure hunting, but I really thought this time was going to be different,” Sam admitted.

  “Oh Sam, it’s always the same. Haven’t you learned by now? No matter how amicable the parties are, where gold is involved men become mad,” Purdue said. He sat back and sighed. Against their better judgment, the three men had removed their units and breathing apparatuses to better maneuver the prizes they had come to package for the hoist. Purdue kept his eye on the heavy gear they still had to reassemble and put on. “We should get that on in case the killer, or killers, come in here, Sam.”

  They stood in the solitude of the old boiler room, both looking at the frightful corpse of the late Captain Vincent Nazquez. The robust and charismatic leader was a great loss, but what made it profoundly sad was the fact that he never got to see the fulfillment of the Inca Prophecy he so deeply believed in. Purdue thought of his last words and at once he knew what they could do while waiting for the attackers they expected.

  “Sam, he said we must melt her,” Purdue cried. “Do you realize what that means?”

  The bewildered journalist ran his fingers through his dark hair and shrugged, “That he assumed we have a furnace on hand?”

  Purdue lunged forward with a glimmer of enthusiasm in his eyes. “It means that there is something of worth inside the statue, something that can wit
hstand temperatures higher than 1000 °C. Gold typically melts at about 1064 °C, so if we melt her down we should find the true relic matching the prayer stick inside.”

  “I get that, and it makes sense,” Sam argued, “but how the hell do we get her hoisted so that we can melt her down somewhere on land while there is a fucking assassin in the water right outside waiting for us?”

  “Look, we go up first. We have to take our chances. If Vincent’s divers come down here to look for all of us, they will find you and me in the company of their slaughtered captain. And what do you think they will think at that moment?” Purdue asked.

  Sam sighed, “So we arm up and whoever tries to kill us on our way up gets a Scottish welcome.”

  “No need for that,” a woman said from the mouth of the hatch in the galley where she had just surfaced. “We’ll just come to you.”

  “Christ!” Sam yelled, jumping up. He grabbed his diver’s knife and stood at the ready to confront the diver who had a firearm aimed at him. He realized his knife was a worthless defense against her weapon, but Purdue was prepared. From his belt he unclipped a pouch next to the flashlight strap and slowly pulled out the laser device used for cutting steel under water.

  “Give it up, David,” she sneered, her red tresses peeking from under her hood. From behind her, another woman surfaced while she completed her threat. “Your lasers will not save you down here.”

  “Are you sure?” he teased sarcastically. “They are quite a bit faster than bullets, and have a hell of a lot better target penetration.”

  The brunette diver removed her mouthpiece and giggled like a hyena. “Speaking of penetration,” she gawked at Sam, “there’s that dark handsome passenger Stephen failed to kill. He is mine, got it?”

  Sam scoffed and looked at Purdue. “Can you believe this shite? Bitch to the second power.”

  “Get your gear on, boys. You’re going back up,” the redhead said. “Isabella will lead the way and I will cover the back to make sure you don’t attack her.”

  “And what do you think will happen once we get to the boat, ladies?” Purdue asked as he clipped in the buckle of his diving apparatus over his wetsuit. “There is a crew of . . . .”

  “Save it!” she shouted. “They’re all shark bait now. We have commandeered the vessel, and once you surface, we will deliver you to our employer so that he can finally finish the job that poor Stephen was unable to complete.”

  “Which is?” Sam asked, sounding really thick after what he’d barely survived.

  “What do you think?” Isabella snapped. “To dispatch both of you in one unfortunate accident.”

  “He worked for you?” Sam asked, furious.

  “No sweetheart,” Isabella smiled, “Maria here gave him a prick of Mesmer Piss, some Stuka-Tablets to move him, and within minutes his brain was ours!”

  “Whether he liked it or not,” Maria grinned.

  Purdue could not believe how candid and nonchalant they were. With a sneer he told Sam, “Bitch infinity, actually.”

  “Aye,” Sam agreed.

  “Enough with the calculus, boys,” Maria growled. “Time to go. We’ll have our men bring up the golden girl over there.”

  “What about Vincent’s body?” Sam asked them.

  “Fuck him,” Maria replied and gestured for the two men to get back in the water.

  Purdue and Sam had no choice. They accompanied the devious women into the powerful tow of the mid-afternoon tide, hoping that they could find a way to survive the harpies’ second attempt at killing them.

  When they broke the surface of the swells, the trawler was a lot more quiet than it had been when they’d departed earlier. A sickening stench, hot and sweet, lingered in the air as the warm Spanish wind swept over the strewn carcasses of gunned down men. Purdue and Sam exchanged wary glances. Isabelle held onto Sam with her barrel snugly in his back, pointing upwards for maximum damage should he or his friend attempt an attack.

  It would be dark soon. Another boat bobbed idly behind the Cóncord. It was a large powerboat, a red and black cruiser. By the looks of it, it was vacant. There were no other vessels within eyesight, which is why the attackers struck with automatic weapons in the middle of the day. But they’d neglected to take note of the patrol flights overhead that masqueraded as charter tourist trips. Either that, or the killers simply did not care about being discovered. The latter was a frightful notion in Purdue’s mind, but he tried to set this concern aside long enough to think up a plan for escape.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but it won’t work, David,” Maria said, as she wormed out of her wetsuit, revealing a curvaceous figure the likes of screen goddesses like Sophia Loren or Jayne Mansfield. Purdue gulped at the glorious sight. Sam soon joined in when Maria shook loose her wet red locks.

  “Why do they always have to be bad guys?” he sighed.

  Purdue just shook his head and replied, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, at least we’ll die with a feast for the eye,” Sam shrugged.

  Purdue scoffed, “Ach, we won’t. We’ve killed prettier women than her.”

  “You won’t be killing anyone, sweetie,” Isabella said from behind them, grinning like a shark. She was a lot skinnier than the older Maria, but she was equally enticing. She eyed Sam. “But don’t worry, Mr. Cleave. I will make sure you die a very delicious death. You are fortunate that I favor you.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Purdue murmured.

  “You, I leave to Maria,” Isabella told Purdue. “She gets turned on by money. I get turned on by dark eyes.”

  “Why?” Sam mocked her. “Does it remind you of the farm animals you usually sleep with?”

  She dealt him a hefty clout that left him reeling. Then she grabbed him by the nuts and squeezed while Maria alleviated Purdue of his laser device. Sam squealed in agony.

  “Get out of your wetsuits,” Maria ordered them. “Isabella take their wetsuits and shred ‘em. We don’t want these two to go into the water again . . . not safely anyway.”

  “You heard her,” Isabella hissed. “Take off your suits. And make yourselves presentable. You are meeting the boss.”

  “I don’t have a boss,” Purdue informed her snidely.

  “Maybe so, but he holds more than your balls in his hands, boys. Clean up and get dry. You are meeting him in ten minutes,” Isabella commanded, suddenly a lot more unfriendly than she’d been thus far. Her girly appearance and disposition had evaporated, and they soon realized why she was part of the villainous team who’d killed an entire trawler crew and its captain.

  When Sam removed his wetsuit, he took note to remove the camera collar and passed it to Purdue who swiftly slipped it into one of the steel folds of the support post next to them. The women did not notice the slight of hand, and neither did the four mercenaries who stood watch with M16s to make sure that any visitors would be eradicated on sight. When Purdue and Sam were dressed again they were made to sit in the same nook where they’d last had cheerful conversations with Vincent Nazquez. They stared through the salt-riddled window while the men hoisted up the golden statue and Purdue’s precious body caskets. All but the captain’s body were brought up.

  “Remind me to give them a burial at sea once we get our own back,” Purdue whispered to Sam, who nodded with conviction. The boat’s steadiness was beginning to exhibit more turbulence on the waves as the night drew on and the wind speed increased. With it, the temperature dropped as well, which diminished the awful smell of the drying blood everywhere.

  The men in charge of the recovery also helped dispose of the bodies of the Cóncord crew, unceremoniously tossing the bodies into the Alboran Sea for the monsters and tricks of science to feed on. Sam shook his head in disbelief and anger, pursing his lips. He knew he had to keep his cool, but their blunt desecration and disrespect for the fallen men was appalling.

  A posh looking man entered the cabin, dressed in cargo pants and a button-down shirt. He was no taller than Sam, but his eyes were as cold as Purd
ue’s. Slicked back hair made his brow more prominent, and although he had dimples in his cheeks, he by no means looked sweet. When he spoke, he revealed abnormally large teeth that gave him a ghoulish flavor.

  “Mr. Purdue. Mr. Cleave,” he said affably, “how nice it is to get to kill you myself.”

  The two Scots gave each other a look of surprise, mocking the abilities of the stranger with smirks. He ignored their derision, playing with his golden rings as he sat down across the table where Vincent used to sit. “I have been following your skullduggery for a few years now,” he told them, “even read your books, Mr. Cleave. But I must confess that I harbor no admiration for either of you. I always thought you would meet your fate at the hands of someone you fucked with one too many a time.” He chuckled. “But never in my wildest dreams would I have thought you would encroach upon my turf in your little expeditions!” He grinned, sending chills down their spines with his distorted countenance.

  26

  Sunset in Portugal

  Solar Eclipse Imminent: 84%

  Madalina and Raul sat in the back of the speeding car, traveling towards the border. She held the boy’s hand, staring into the rear view mirror at her physically regressing brother. The diner was the perfect shelter for Dr. Sabian to relay his plans to the Mantara siblings in the security of a public place.

  Javier’s attempts at antagonizing the psychologist were futile, even though his sister was convinced that her brother’s condition was the result of some form of witchery. She was not a superstitious fool. Madalina was an atheist, yet she could fathom the implications of a skilled psychologist manipulating the brain to believe that the body was malnourished in a heartbeat. What would be seen in the old world as witchcraft could be explained as proficient mental control over the body. But with all her knowledge, and her concurrence on her brother’s unfortunate blight, there was as yet nothing to make her doubt Dr. Sabian. Nothing he did or said made evident an evil ploy to harm any of them. He simply explained that he wished to help her escape the country and that was why he had to use Javier to get to her.