Raul, on the other hand, knew what the psychologist was aiming at, at least in the short term. Something about the frumpy old man with the cheap suit told him that he had no good intentions for them, but he was not in a position to help.
Every time they stopped at a town to refill the tank or get something to eat, Madalina watched her brother wolf down liters of water with his burgers and fries, yet he never pissed. Nothing came of his feasts, especially not what it was meant for. Javier gradually became exhausted, yet Dr. Sabian insisted he drive.
“I can’t,” he told Sabian at the fuel pump while Madalina and the boy chatted in the back seat. “My eyes are sore from the light, and they are so dry I can hardly blink anymore!”
“Keep your voice down, son,” Dr. Sabian warned.
“You drive, for Christ’s sake!” Javier rasped with his faltering vocal chords.
“So that you and your sister can attack me while I’m driving? I don’t think so,” Dr. Sabian countered.
“I can’t see! Do you understand that?” Javier seethed.
“You can still see the road edges and you can see the directions. You’ll do fine. Javier,” he whispered, stepping closer to the waning young man. “If you don’t do what I say, I will shoot your sister in the face as soon as we leave city limits. Do not test me.”
Javier wished he could throw a punch, but his muscles and ligaments were taut and weak. He wished he could weep in frustration and rage, but his eyelids were like papyrus, impairing his vision even more than the milky cataracts that plagued his vision.
The extreme heat, topping the usual 31 degrees Celsius by about five points, exacerbated its toll on the suffering Javier. In the past few days his hair had been falling out, but not significantly. Today, however, the ailing young man found that his hair came out in clumps, leaving the base of his skull bald on the right-hand side.
Eventually they headed to Badajoz, from where they would cross the border into Portugal. Once in Lisbon, Dr. Sabian and his associates in the Order of the Black Sun had chartered a private jet to South America. His companions, however, had no idea this was the plan. From what they were told, they were simply fleeing Spain to elude the authorities. Dr. Sabian kept the Taser device ready during the entire trip.
Madalina and Raul played games in the back of the car, occasionally sleeping, since the heat in the car could knock out the devil that afternoon. Javier was not afforded the luxury of sleep, and to his dismay, his captor had more abilities than just manipulating the psyche. Dr. Sabian seemed to have the ability to stay awake for unnatural stretches of time, without the aid of drugs. Javier reckoned that it was yet another trick of mind-over-matter exhibited by the wicked shaman.
“What’s going to happen once we are in Portugal?” Javier asked. “I’m not stupid, you know. I know I’m expendable. There is no way you’re going to organize a new life for my sister in Portugal with or without this child. Even less will you leave me alive to stay with her, because of all the people in the world, I know your sick fucking secret.”
Dr. Sabian glanced back to the backseat passengers to make sure that they were fast asleep before he answered. “You know, it’s a pity you are going to die, Javier. You really are an asset to the world with your sharp intellect and your strong will. We could have used you well in our service, but you are correct. There is no way that you will see Lisbon and there is nothing you can do about it, because your own mind is working against you, you poor sod.”
“I’m going to kill you the moment you fall asleep, Sabian,” Javier promised. In order not to wake the two in the back, Sabian held back his would-be cackle, reducing it to contorting his face in amusement.
“Good luck, my friend,” he told Javier. “I have been trained like the super soldiers of the SS. We don’t sleep unless we get our brains removed, know what I mean?” He dared to snicker a little, driving Javier into a fury he could not let out.
When they arrived at the border just past Badajoz, Madalina was frantic. Surely by now her picture had been sent across the countries that bordered hers. Raul held her hand as if he knew what she feared, and perhaps he did. He knew so many things beyond that which children learned, she would not have been surprised if he knew exactly what was happening. After all, he knew that she had killed Mara and that she had felt the urge to take him.
“You should maybe put on some sunglasses, Javier,” Dr. Sabian advised as they neared the border post. Ahead of them, two soldiers halted the vehicle and slowly sauntered over to their car, rifles in hand.
“Oh Jesus,” Madalina muttered, perspiring profusely. “They’re going to arrest me.”
“Just be quiet, my dear,” Dr. Sabian soothed. “They will not even see you back there.”
“What do you mean? I am in plain sight!” she moaned, but he gestured for her to be quiet with his index finger on his lips. Javier was wearing Madalina’s shades against the glaring daylight hounding his weak eyes. “Oh my God, I am done for. I am done for!” she whispered, looking down at her lap to avoid eye contact with the guards.
“Passaporte, por favor,” the soldier demanded when he came to Javier’s window. The other guard walked over to where Dr. Sabian had his passenger side window open. Dr. Sabian, for his part, was remarking on the excessive heat this year, throwing in some incomprehensible dribble within earshot of both guards. Madalina knew a bit of Portuguese, being so close to her native tongue, but what she heard Sabian say after the weather remark made no sense.
The guard nodded, not to be distracted by small talk while doing his check of the occupants. Dark spots on his uniform were proof that his body, too, was drenched from the heat. He bent forward to look into the back of the car, looking right into Madalina’s eyes for a long pause. Like a small animal sized up by a predator, she did not move a muscle. Even her lungs bade her heart to wait as she held her breath.
Javier said nothing, but the soldier on his side was adamant that he should get some rest.
“Please don’t drive in this condition,” he told Javier in a mix of both languages. “You look terrible, if I may be so blunt. I honestly don’t want you to make an accident.”
“I’ll be okay. Just a bit under the weather,” Javier replied. “Been driving all night.”
The soldier waved them through. Javier wished that he could jump out and ask them for help. But he was transporting a fugitive, and it soon dawned on him that Dr. Sabian was so crafty that he would have no claims to lodge if he could. Sabian had not harmed anyone physically—which was apparently the only punishable offence—and he could not be accused or faulted by any judicial system while he was, in fact, kidnapping three people.
“Drive faster, Javier,” Dr. Sabian instructed smoothly. “Stalling will only use up your own time sooner.”
Helplessness and hopelessness overwhelmed Javier as they raced along the A6 past Borba. Madalina sat confounded, trying to figure out how the border guards had not bothered to inspect their papers, if they’d had any. The weird words of the psychologist reverberated in her recollection. Could Javier be onto something? It was outlandish. Still, she saw the effect of his words with her own two eyes. Was he really responsible for her actions that night? The initial impossibility had now become the probable fact and it scared her to death. How would she ever persuade any court of law that she’d been brainwashed into committing terrible crimes?
Her brother was looking grim. In the past few hours the heat seemed to have affected him negatively, even while he drank an entire bottle of water and was well into his second already, without relief.
Javier started to cough as they passed through the predominantly arid landscape outside Évora, where the heat wave was especially brutal to the ground surface and the atmosphere directly over it.
“I have to stop,” he told Dr. Sabian.
“No,” Dr. Sabian protested. “If you stop things will not fare well.” He gave Javier a look of warning, but the young man slammed on the brakes nonetheless and drove the car off the tarmac
into the sandy brushes growing by the side of the road. Madalina gasped, holding Raul tightly to her bosom, as Javier flung the door open and fell out of the car.
It sounded as if he was vomiting, but there was nothing his body could purge. Clutching his chest, he cried out in pain through what was left of his throat. Only dry rattles came from him as he writhed in the hot sand, his hands and feet contracting into horrific spasms. Madalina rushed to her brother’s side, hysterical, and grabbed hold of him to get him off the scorching soil. His lips had turned to papery peels over protruding teeth and his tongue was nothing but a fleshy finger of bacteria.
“Sweet Jesus, Javier! No, no! What is happening? What can I do?” she screamed. “Water!” she said suddenly, almost calm. Mumbling to herself as she stumbled to the car, she grabbed the energy drink little Raul held out to her while Sabian just watched his work pay off. “You just . . . you just need more . . . more water,” she stammered as she took the bottle from Raul. “Gracias, darling.”
“Madalina, let him go,” Dr. Sabian said gravely. “He is suffering with every minute he draws breath. Do not let him carry on any further.”
She ignored her former therapist and held Javier’s convulsing body in her arms.
“He is having a heart attack,” Sabian said. “Fluids will not help him anymore, my dear.”
“Shut up!” she shrieked at him, her eyes wild with panic and abhorrence. “Just for once, shut your goddamn mouth, you fucking freak!”
She poured the energy drink all over her brother’s face as she attempted to fill his mouth with liquids, but his mouth was now nothing more than a stagnant well, suspended in a ghastly gasp. Madalina knew that her brother was dead, but she refused to accept it. In silence and reverence, she took off her necklace and placed it around his neck. Her tears fell like rain onto the dried out skin that was stretched over his cheeks. Madalina removed his watch and strapped it to her wrist. Then she took up a jagged rock in her hand.
“There was nothing wrong with him, you son of a whore!” she screeched in rage, lunging at Dr. Sabian with the stone aimed at his skull. “You said it! You told him he would not make it to Lisbon, you swine! I heard you! I was awake! I heard what you told my brother!” she screamed, but Sabian stopped her in her tracks.
With a word, he switched off her brain and she fell to the ground in a tuft of dust, lying motionless at his feet. He looked up at the child who was standing in astonishment. “You knew this had to happen,” he told Raul. “It is part of the prophecy Mara told you about, remember?”
“I know,” Raul replied, his little voice shivering in sorrow. “When the sun closes its eye, I must die too.”
27
The Black Disc
The ghastly grin of Purdue and Sam’s captor disappeared as he got to business. He ordered Isabella to pour the two gentlemen some Scotch as a final gesture of courtesy. Truth be told, no matter how Sam and Purdue wanted to play hardball, they both knew they direly needed a few tots of Scotch.
“I will make this quick,” the suave man said after clearing his throat. His hands came together in a spire as he spoke. “My name is Basil Barnard. This is not some James Bond movie, so I shall refrain dragging on the obligatory speech of why this is happening, who I am, and why I hate you. All you have to know is that I am not a patriot, and my grandfather was a great man who had a stake in the very reserve you have been prying into. And that makes it mine.”
“You could always just have secured the find by law, you know,” Purdue informed him. “Then it is yours by law and nobody would be allowed to interfere. Rather ungentlemanly to mow down scores of people who don’t even know who the bloody hell you are, just because you refuse to fork out permit costs and a bit of patience on turnaround.” Purdue paused before insulting the man properly. “Or, can we assume you cannot afford the finances involved for permits?”
Sam added salt to the wound after surveying the two women sitting opposite them at the table. “By the looks of his help, I would say he is not a wealthy man at all.”
Another backhand ripped through Sam’s face as Maria slapped him for it.
“Holy shee-it!” Sam exclaimed. “Are you hiding a cock under that coat, love?”
Maria was known for her powerful assaults in hand-to-hand combat, even if it was only a love tap like this. Stephen had learned that lesson in the airport elevator, and now Sam Cleave knew too. She smiled and lifted her hand.
“Maria!” Barnard cried. “Be a dear and get the ropes ready, will you?”
She nodded and went out to summon the men to prepare for the execution of the two Scottish intruders.
“Mr. Barnard, would your grandfather be the Allied traitor who helped the SS obtain stolen artifacts from Catholic thieves who stole it from the true owners in 1533?” Purdue asked with spiteful civility. But Barnard was cool and unprovoked. In fact, he did not even react with enough passion to make the insult worthwhile.
“Probably him, Purdue,” Sam said. “The Black Sun is not taking care of its legacy, I see. The Nazi afterbirth have to fight for their own treasures. Not like in the old days when the High Command took care of their own. Or do they perhaps only support members worth supporting?”
“You might have a point there,” Purdue answered Sam. “I know the organization to fund all pursuits for ancient relics and give grants for nuclear research, biological agent testing, and other high profile ventures. And I should know. I was once the Renatus of the Black Sun’s organization.”
“One of the best reasons to kill you,” Barnard blandly stated.
Sam quickly intervened. “It means one of two things, Purdue. Either the esteemed Mr. Barnard is not high enough on the food chain for the Black Sun to endorse his endeavors,” Sam turned to address Barnard, “or he is pursuing this hunt without their knowledge.”
Barnard smiled, and those big incisors filled the bottom half of his face in a monstrous way that could have gotten him into a circus if he’d dared to audition. He grinned, but it looked more like a feral primate baring its teeth for battle. “You’ll never know. And you’ll never be able to tell on me, either.” He meant to sound as juvenile as he did, but it was time to stop talking and accompany Sam and Purdue out onto the main deck.
Aptly, the sun was setting on the horizon in line with the distant Iberian landmass when the two doomed men were pushed forward into the hands of their executioners. Maria and Isabelle stood aside for once, allowing the strength of men to seal the fate of men. Two large mariners from Barnard’s gang stripped the two Scots down to nothing but their haircuts and started tying their hands to one another.
“It is probably cold, from what I see,” Maria teased, laughing. “Hell, it’s the Mediterranean, boys, not the North Sea.”
A bout of laughter erupted, but Sam was having none of this. He used the rope between his left wrist and Purdue’s right to strangle one of the mariners, but he came second in the match. The large man punched Sam so hard that he collapsed.
“Ow! Right in the bollocks,” Barnard cringed. “Hurry up, lads. We only have a few hours to get back to Málaga.”
“Just two questions,” Purdue requested.
“Alright,” Barnard answered cordially.
“How did you know we were still alive? And how did you know which vessel was hosting us?” Purdue asked as the cool night wind played with his white hair. He was trying to buy time, for what reason he did not rightly know. They were alone and doomed.
Barnard sneered as he approached Purdue with both Maria and Isabelle by his side for good measure. “You should do better background checks on your hired crew, Renatus.”
Purdue lost the color in his face. “Peter.”
“No,” a woman said from above him. “Hannah.”
Purdue looked up in disbelief at where the skinny stewardess leered down at him with a cheerful wave. “Isn’t she lovely?” Barnard asked Purdue. “My triad of beautiful slayers is complete. Come down, Hannah-love. It is time to say goodbye to Mr. Purdue and
his pet photographer.”
In his periphery Purdue could see Sam coming to, and in the distance by the entrance to the lower deck stood Vincent’s beloved golden lady. They had tied his feet to a heavy chain, as was Sam’s, and they had tied one of their hands to the other’s, while the free wrists were tied to a long, loose rope on both sides.
“Ladies,” Barnard announced, kissing the hand of each, “and seamen!” A sporadic succession of chuckles followed as he continued. “Tonight you will all be witness to the demise of two of the biggest festering cancers on the face of the mighty Black Sun society!”
A mighty cheer ensued from the small group of mercenaries, who shot their guns up into the night sky. Spain’s habit of spontaneous fireworks for the smallest celebration made it so that the noise on the Cóncord went unchecked. Sam looked pissed when he got to his feet, but that was of little solace to Purdue. They were both being restrained by skilled seafaring men who knew a sailor’s knot when they tied one. There was little chance of escape.
“Purdue,” Sam wheezed, “I think this time we might be fucked, mate.”
Purdue could not buy his way out, and it was too late for charm. “I believe so, old boy.”
“Good thing we had some single malt for old time’s sake,” Sam responded, trying to lighten the mood. “God I hope I die before the fish start chewing on my knob.”
“Without further ado,” Barnard proclaimed, “the execution of David Purdue and Sam Cleave . . . by keelhauling!”
“Oh Christ no!” Sam exclaimed. “I don’t want to drown!”
“Me neither,” Purdue snapped. “I had a more adventurous death in mind than this!”
The men tossed the long rope from Purdue’s wrist around the left yardarm and snaked it over a few times with a solid knot to secure it.
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 7 Page 36
