Order of the Black Sun Box Set 5

by Preston William Child

  “I agree,” Margaret affirmed, locking her hands in front of her while she stood at attention in front of her editor’s desk. “I will get hold of him immediately and see if he’ll be willing to knock some off his fee for an old friend.”

  “I should hope so!” Gradwell’s double chin shivered as his voice escalated. “The man is a celebrated author now, so I am sure these insane excursions he embarks on with that rich idiot are not a feat of necessity.”

  The ‘rich idiot’ Gradwell so fondly referred to was David Purdue. Gradwell had cultivated an increasing disrespect for Purdue through the recent years, due to the billionaire’s snubbing of a personal friend of Gradwell’s. The friend in question, Professor Frank Matlock of Edinburgh University, had been forced to resign as Department Head in the much clamored over Brixton Tower after Purdue had ceased his generous endowments towards the department. Naturally, a furor ensued over Purdue’s subsequent romantic involvement with Matlock’s favorite chew toy, the object of his misogynistic by-laws and reservations, Dr. Nina Gould.

  The fact that this was all ancient history worthy of a decade and a half of water under the bridge made no difference to a bitter Gradwell. Now he was running the Edinburgh Post, a position he had attained with hard work and fair play, years after Sam Cleave had deserted the dusty halls of the newspaper.

  “Yes, Mr. Gradwell,” Margaret replied politely. “I’ll get a hold of him, but what if I’m not successful in reeling him in?”

  “In two weeks of world history will be made, Margaret,” Gradwell smirked like a Halloween rapist. “In just over a week the world will watch a live broadcast from the Hague, where the Middle East and Europe will sign a peace treaty to ensure the cessation of all military hostilities between the two worlds. A sure threat to that happening is the recent suicide flight of Dutch pilot Ben Grijsman, remember?”

  “Yes, sir.” She bit her lip, knowing full well where he was going with this, but refusing to provoke his wrath by interrupting. “He got into an Iraqi air base and stole a plane.”

  “That’s right! And crashed into the C.I.T.E. Head Quarters creating the fuck-up now unfolding. As you know, the Middle East obviously sent someone to retaliate by rogering a German air base!” he exclaimed. “Now tell me again how the reckless and sharp Sam Cleave will not jump at the chance to get into this story.”

  “Point taken,” she smiled coyly, feeling deeply uncomfortable at having to watch her boss produce threads of saliva while he spoke passionately about the nascent situation. “I should go. Who knows where he is these days? I’ll have to start calling around promptly.”

  “That’s right!” Gradwell roared after her as she made a beeline for her small office. “Hurry and get Cleave to cover this for us before another anti-peace prick gets a boner for suicide and brings about World War III!”

  Margaret did not even glance at her colleagues as she rushed past them, but she knew that they were all having a good laugh at the delightful phrases Duncan Gradwell spat out. His choice words were an office joke. Margaret usually laughed loudest when the veteran editor of six prior press offices started getting excited about the news, but now she did not dare. What if he saw her giggle at what he considered to be a seriously newsworthy assignment? Imagine what he would thunder if he saw her smirk reflected in the large glass panels of her office?

  Margaret looked forward to speaking to young Sam again. Then again, he had not been young Sam for a while now. But to her, he would always be the wayward and over-zealous news snout out to expose injustice wherever he could. He had been Margaret’s understudy in the previous era of the Edinburgh Post, when the world was still in the chaos of liberalism and the conservatives wanted to tighten the very freedom of every individual. Things had swung around drastically since the World Unity Organization took over the political administration of several former EU countries and several South American territories had broken away from what had once been Third World governments.

  Margaret was not a feminist by any reach, but the World Unity Organization being predominantly run by women had showed a considerable difference in how they governed and resolved political tension. War efforts no longer enjoyed the favor they’d once received from male-dominated governments. Now, achievements in problem solving, invention and the optimization of resources profited from international endowments and investment strategies.

  At the head of the W.U.O. was the chair of what was instituted as the Council for International Tolerance Efforts, Professor Marta Sloane. She was a former Polish ambassador to England who had won the last election to run the new union of nations. The Council’s main objective was to eliminate war threats by engaging in treaties of mutual compromise instead of terrorism and military engagement. Trade was more important than political hostility, Prof. Sloane always imparted in her speeches. In fact, it became a principle associated with her in all media.

  “Why do we have to lose our sons in their thousands to sate the greed of a handful of old men sitting in office where war will never affect them?” she was heard proclaiming only days before she was elected by a landslide victory. “Why do we have to cripple economies and destroy the hard work of architects and masons? Or destroy buildings and kill innocent people, while modern warlords profit from our heartbreak and the severing of our bloodlines? Youth sacrificed to serve the unending circle of destruction is madness, perpetuated by the feeble-minded leaders presiding over your future. Parents losing their children, spouses lost, brothers and sisters ripped from us because of the ineptitude of aged and bitter men at resolving conflict?”

  With her dark hair taken back in a braid and her trademark velvet choker that matched whatever suit she wore, the petite, charismatic leader shook the world with her seemingly simple cures for the destructive practices practiced by religious and political systems. In fact, once she’d been ridiculed by her official opposition for claiming that the spirit of the Olympics had turned into nothing but another exuberant fiscal generator.

  She insisted that it should have been employed for the same reasons it was begotten – peaceful competition by which the winner is determined without casualties. “Why can we not go to war on a chess board, or on a tennis court? Even an arm wrestling match between two countries could determine which gets their way, for goodness sake! It’s the very same idea, only without the billions spent on military material or the countless lives destroyed by casualties between foot soldiers who have nothing to do with the proximal cause. These people kill each other, having no reason other than orders to do so! If you, my friends, cannot walk up to someone in the street and shoot them in the head without regret or psychological trauma,” she asked from her podium in the city of Minsk a while ago, “why do you force your children and siblings and spouses to do it by voting for these old-fashioned tyrants that perpetuate this atrocity? Why?”

  Margaret did not care if the new unions were criticized for what the opposition campaigns called the advent of feminist rule or the insidious coup by agents of the Anti-Christ. She would support any ruler who stood against the senseless mass murder of our own human race in the name of power, greed and corruption. In essence, Margaret Crosby supported Sloane because the world was less heavy since she’d come to power. Dark veils that had covered age-old feuds were now addressed outright, allowing a channel of communication between begrudged countries.If it were up to me, the dangerous and immoral constraints of religion would be relieved of their hypocrisy, and dogmas of terror and subjugation would be abolished. Individualism is pivotal in this new world. Uniformity is for formal attire. Rules are for scientific principles. Freedom is about the individual, about respect and personal discipline. These will enrich each one of us in mind and body and allow us to be more productive, to be better at the things we pursue. And as we get better at what we do, we will learn humility. From humility comes amity.

  Marta Sloane’s speech played on Margaret’s office computer while she looked up the last number she’d for Sam Cleave. She was excited to speak to
him again after all this time, and could not help but cackle a little as she dialed his number. As the tone clicked into the first ring, Margaret was distracted by the bobbing frame of a male colleague just outside her window wall. He was waving wildly to get her attention, pointing to his watch and the flat screen of her computer.

  “What the hell are you on about?” she said, hoping his aptitude for lip reading surpassed his hand signal skills. “I’m on the phone!”

  Sam Cleave’s phone went to voicemail, so Margaret stopped her call to open the door and hear what the clerk was on about. Jerking open the door with a hellish scowl, she snapped, “What in God’s name is so important, Gary? I’m trying to get hold of Sam Cleave.”

  “That’s just it!” Gary crowed. “Check the News. He’s on the news, already in Germany, at the Heidelberg Hospital where the reporter said the fellow that crashed the German plane was!”

  12

  Self-Assignment

  Margaret ran back into her office and switched the channel to SKY International. With eyes glued to the scenery on the screen, she sought between the strangers in the background to see if she could recognize her old colleague. Her focus was so fixed on this task that she hardly paid attention to the reporter’s commentary. Here and there a word would simmer through the concoction of facts, striking her brain in the just the right place to memorize the overall story.

  “Authorities are yet to apprehend the elusive murderer responsible for the deaths of two security officers three nights ago and another death last night. The identities of the deceased will be made available once the investigation by the Wiesloch branch of the criminal investigation unit under the Heidelberg Direktion is complete.” Margaret suddenly discerned Sam amidst the onlookers behind the cordon signs and barriers. “My goodness, lad, how you have changed into…,” she put on her glasses and leaned in to get a better look. Approvingly, she remarked, “Quite the good looking ruggard now that you are a man, eh?” What a metamorphosis he had undergone! Now his dark hair was grown out just short of his shoulders, the ends flicking upward in a wild unkempt way that gave him an air of wayward sophistication.

  He was dressed in a black leather coat and boots. Around his collar a roughly wrapped green Cashmere scarf adorned his dark features and equally shadowed clothing. In the misty grey of the German morning he was moving through the crowd to get a better look. Margaret noticed him speaking to a police officer who shook his head in response to whatever Sam was suggesting.

  “Probably trying to get in, aren’t you sweetie?” Margaret made a tiny smirk. “Well, you have not changed that much, have you?”

  Behind him she recognized another man she’d often seen in press conferences and flashy university party footage sent over to the editing booth for news clips by the entertainment editor. The tall, white-haired man craned forward to scrutinize the scene next to Sam Cleave. He, too, was dressed impeccably. He had his glasses tucked inside his front coat pocket. His hands stayed hidden inside his pants pockets as he paced. She noticed his brown, Italian-cut, fleece wool blazer covering what she imagined had to be a concealed sidearm.

  “David Purdue,” she announced softly as the scene played out in two minimized versions in the glass of her spectacles. Her eyes moved away from the screen for a moment to shoot across the open plan office to see if Gradwell was stationary. He was quiet for once, perusing an article just brought in to him. Margaret scoffed and returned her gaze to the flat screen with a scoff. “Clearly you did not see that Cleave is still thick as thieves with Dave Purdue, did ya?” she chuckled.

  “Two patients have been reported missing since this morning and police spokesperson…”

  “What?” Margaret frowned. She’d heard that one. This was where she decided to perk her ears and pay attention to the report.

  “…police have no idea how the two patients could have gotten out of the building with only one exit, an exit guarded by officers twenty-four hours a day. It led the authorities and hospital administration to believe that the two patients, Nina Gould and a burn victim only known as ‘Sam,’ could possibly still be at large inside the building. The reason for their absconding, though, remains a mystery.”

  “But Sam is outside the building, you idiots,” Margaret scowled, thoroughly confused by the report. She was familiar with Sam Cleave’s affiliation with Nina Gould, whom she’d once met briefly after a lecture on pre-World War II strategies visible in modern day politics, “Poor Nina. What happened to land them in the burn unit? My God. But Sam is…”

  Margaret shook her head and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue as she always did when she tried to solve a puzzle. Nothing made sense here; not the disappearance of patients through police barriers, not the mysterious deaths of three staff members without anyone as much as witnessing a suspect, and the strangest of all – the confusion of Nina’s fellow patient being ‘Sam’ while Sam was standing outside among the onlookers…in plain sight.

  The sharp deductive reasoning of Sam’s old colleague kicked in and she sank back in her chair as she watched Sam disappear off-screen along with the rest of the crowd. She steepled her fingers and stared blankly ahead of her, oblivious to the changing news reports.

  “In plain sight,” she said over and over as she articulated her formulas into different possibilities. “In plain sight…”

  Margaret jumped up, knocking over her thankfully empty teacup and one of her Press Awards that had been lying on the edge of her desk. She gasped from her sudden epiphany, spurred on even further to speak to Sam. She wanted to get the long and short of the whole matter. By the bewilderment she felt, she knew there had to be several pieces of the puzzle she didn’t have, pieces that only Sam Cleave could donate to her new pursuit of truth. And why wouldn’t he? He would be only too happy to have someone with her logical intelligence to help him solve the mystery of Nina’s disappearance.

  It would be a pity if the beautiful little historian were still caught in the building with some kidnapper or madman. Such a thing almost guaranteed bad news, and she didn’t want it to come to that at all, not if she could help it.

  “Mr. Gradwell, I’m putting in a week for a story in Germany. Please arrange my away time allocation,” she huffed as she swung open Gradwell’s door, still busy putting on her coat in haste.

  “What in the name of all things holy are you talking about, Margaret?” Gradwell exclaimed. He swung around in his chair.

  “Sam Cleave is in Germany, Mr. Gradwell,” she announced excitedly.

  “Good! Then you can fill him in on the story that he’s already there for,” he shrieked.

  “No, you don’t understand. There is more, Mr. Gradwell, so much more! It would seem that Dr. Nina Gould is there too,” she informed him through flushing as she rushed to do her belt. “And she is now reported missing by the authorities.”

  Margaret took a moment to catch her breath and see what her boss thought. He stared at her in disbelief for a second. Then he roared, “What the hell are you still doing here? Go and get Cleave. Let’s expose the Krauts before someone else hops in a bloody suicide machine!”

  13

  Three Strangers and a Missing Historian

  “What do they say, Sam?” Purdue asked quietly as Sam joined him.

  “They say two patients are missing since the early hours of this morning,” Sam replied just as discreetly as the two walked away from the crowd to discuss their plans.

  “We have to break Nina out before she becomes another target for this animal,” Purdue insisted, his thumbnail placed askew between his front teeth as he mulled it over.

  “Too late, Purdue,” Sam announced with a sullen expression. He stopped walking and examined the skies above as if he were seeking help from some superior power. Purdue’s light blue eyes stabbed at him in question, but Sam felt as if a stone had lodged itself in his stomach. Finally he gave a deep sigh and said, “Nina is missing.”

  Purdue did not process this immediately, maybe because it was the
last thing he wanted to hear…next to tidings of her death, of course. Snapping at once out of his moment of thought, Purdue stared at Sam with a look of utmost intent. “Use your mind control to get us some information. Come on, you used it to get me out of Sinclair.” he urged Sam, But his friend only shook his head. “Sam? This is for the lady we both,” he was reluctant to use the word he had in mind and tactfully replaced it with, “adore.”

  “I can’t,” Sam lamented. He looked distraught at this admittance, but there was no point in him perpetuating a fallacy. It would not benefit his ego or help anyone around him. “I l-lost…the…ability,” he struggled.

  For the first time since the Scottish festivities Sam said it out loud and it sucked. “I lost it, Purdue. When I fell over my own bloody feet running away from Giant Greta, or whatever her name was, my head struck a rock and, well,” he shrugged and cast Purdue a look of terrible guilt. “I’m sorry, man. But I lost that thing I could do. Christ, when I had it I thought it was a spiteful curse – something to make my life miserable. Now that I don’t have it…now that I truly need it, I wish it had not gone away.”

  “Splendid,” Purdue moaned, his hand slipping over his brow and past his hairline to settle under the thick white of his hair. “Alright, let’s think about this. Think. We’ve survived far worse than this instance without the help of some psychic trickery, right?”

  “Aye,” Sam agreed, still feeling like he’d let his side down.

  “So we just have to employ old-fashioned tracking to find Nina,” Purdue offered, trying hard to project his usual never-say-die attitude.

  “What if she’s still in there?” Sam shattered all illusions. “They say there is no way she could have walked out of here, so they reckon she might still be inside the building.”