Order of the Black Sun Box Set 5

by Preston William Child

  Quietly he watched as Neumand pulled out his gun, stepped out of the shadows and shot the biker point blank in the face. Gunshots were not exactly an oddity around these parts of town, although some people alerted the other bikers. Their silhouettes rose over the edge of the parking pit soon after, but they were still too far away to see what had happened.

  Choking for what he beheld, Löwenhagen played witness to the gruesome ritual of slicing off a piece of the dead man’s flesh with his own knife. Neumand dropped the bleeding tissue into the underside of the mask and started stripping his victim as hastily as he could manage with his drunken fingers. Wide-eyed and shocked, Löwenhagen learned the secret of the Babylonian Mask there and then. Now he knew why Schmidt was so eager to get his hands on it.

  With his new grotesque looks, Neumand rolled the body off into the trashcans a few meters away from the last vehicle in the dark and then nonchalantly climbed onto the man’s motorcycle. Four days later, Neumand took back the mask and absconded. Löwenhagen tracked him down outside the Schleswig base, where he was hiding from Schmidt’s wrath. Neumand still rocked the biker look, complete with shades and dirty jeans, but he had gotten rid of the club colors and the bike. Mannheim’s chapter of Gremium was looking for the impostor and it wasn’t worth the risk. When Neumand encountered Löwenhagen he had laughed like a madman, rambling on incoherently in what sounded like an ancient Arabic dialect.

  Then he lifted the knife and tried to cut off his own face.

  22

  Blind God Rising

  “So, you finally made contact.” A voice ripped through Löwenhagen’s body from behind his left shoulder. He instantly pictured the Devil, and he was not far off.

  “Captain Schmidt,” he acknowledged, but did not rise nor salute, for obvious reasons. “You will excuse me for not responding in proper fashion. I am, after all, wearing another man’s face, you see.”

  “Absolutely. Jack Daniels, please,” Schmidt told the waiter before he’d even reached the table with Löwenhagen’s food.

  “Put the plate down first, pal!” Löwenhagen shouted, prompting the confused man to obey. The manager of the restaurant was standing nearby, waiting for just one more transgression before asking the abusive man to leave.

  “Now, I see you have found out what the mask does,” murmured Schmidt under his breath and dropping his head to check for eavesdroppers.

  “I saw what it did the night your little bitch Neumand used it to make away with it. ,” Löwenhagen said in a low tone, barely breathing in between bites as he wolfed down the first half of his meat like an animal.

  “So what do you propose to do now? Blackmail me for money like Neumand was doing?” asked Schmidt, playing for time. He was very aware of what the relic took from those who used it.

  “Blackmail you?” Löwenhagen shrieked with a mouthful of pink meat minced between his teeth. “Are you fucking kidding me? I want it off, Captain. You are going to get a surgeon to take it off.”

  “Why? I recently heard you were burned pretty badly. I would have thought that you would want to keep the face of a dashing doctor instead of a melted mess of flesh where your face once was,” the commander replied evilly. He watched amusedly as Löwenhagen struggled to cut his steak, straining his failing eyes to find the edges.

  “Fuck you!” cursed Löwenhagen. He could not see Schmidt’s face very well, but he felt an overwhelming urge to plunge the steak knife into the general vicinity of his eyes and hope for the best. “I want it off before I turn into a bat shit crazy…r-rabid…fucking…”

  “Is that what happened to Neumand?” interrupted Schmidt, helping with the sentence structure of the toiling young man. “What exactly happened, Löwenhagen? By the gambling fetish that imbecile had I can understand his motive for keeping what is rightfully mine. What perplexes me, though, is why you would want to keep it from me this long before contacting me.”

  “I was going to give it to you the day after I took it from Neumand, but I found myself on fire that very same night, my dear captain.” Löwenhagen was now stuffing chunks of meat in his mouth by hand. Horrified, the people directly around them began staring and whispering.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” the manager said tactfully in a hushed tone.

  But Löwenhagen was too intolerant to listen. He tossed a black American Express card on the table and said, “Listen, bring us a bottle of tequila and I’ll buy all these curious assholes a round if they stop looking at me like that!”

  Some of his sympathizers at the pool table cheered. The rest of the people went back to their business.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be leaving soon. Just get everyone their drinks and let my friend here finish his food, okay?” Schmidt excused their present state with his holier than thou, civilized manner. It won the manager’s disinterest for a few more minutes.

  “Now tell me how it was that you ended up with my mask in a goddamn public institution where anyone could have taken it,” Schmidt whispered. The bottle of tequila arrived and he poured two shot glasses.

  Löwenhagen swallowed with great difficulty. The alcohol had obviously not doused the agony of his internal injuries effectively, but he was ravenous. He told the commander what had happened mostly to save face, not to make excuses. The entire scenario that he’d been fuming about earlier replayed itself as he told Schmidt everything that had led up to where he’d found Neumand speaking in tongues in the biker’s guise.

  “Arabic? That is unsettling,” admitted Schmidt. “What you heard was actually Akkadian? Amazing!”

  “Who gives a shit?” Löwenhagen barked.

  “Then? How did you get the mask from him?” Schmidt asked, almost smiling at the interesting facts of the story.

  “I had no idea how to get the mask back. I mean, here he was with a fully developed face and no trace of the mask that was hiding under it. My God, listen to what I’m saying! This is all nightmarish and surreal!”

  “Carry on,” Schmidt urged.

  “I asked him straight up how I can help him get the mask off, you know? But he…he…” Löwenhagen laughed like a rowdy drunk at the absurdity of his own words. “Captain, he bit me! Like a fucking stray dog the bastard growled as I came nearer and while I was still talking the fucker bit me on my shoulder. He took a whole chunk out! Christ! What was I supposed to think? I just starting beating him with the first piece of metal pipe I could find lying around.”

  “So, what did he do? Was he still speaking in Akkadian?” asked the commander, pouring another round for the two of them.

  “He took off running, so I chased after him, of course. We ended up going through the east side of Schleswig, there where only we know to get in?” he told Schmidt, who nodded in turn, “Yes, I know the place, behind the auxiliary building hangar.”

  “That’s right. We ran through there, Captain, like bats out of hell. I mean, I was ready to kill him. I was hurting badly, bleeding, fed-up with him eluding me for so long. I swear I was ready to just break his fucking head into pieces to get that mask back, you know?” growled Löwenhagen softly, sounding delightfully psychotic.

  “Yes, yes. Carry on.” Schmidt was pushing to hear the end of the story before his subordinate finally succumbed to the pressing insanity.

  As his plate grew messier and emptier Löwenhagen spoke faster, his consonants more pronounced. “I did not know what he was trying to do, but maybe he knew how to get the mask off or something. I pursued him right into the hangar and then we were alone. I could hear the guards shouting outside the hangar. I doubt they recognized Neumand now that he had someone else’s face, right?”

  “Is that when he took the fighter plane?” Schmidt asked. “Was that why the plane crashed?”

  Löwenhagen’s eyes were almost completely blind by now, but he could still tell where shadows and solids were. A yellow tinge stained his irises, the color of a lion’s eyes, but he recounted on, pinning Schmidt with his blind eyes as he lowered his voice and dipped his head a little. “My God
, Captain Schmidt, how he hated you.”

  Narcissism prevented Schmidt from caring about the sentiment of Löwenhagen’s declaration, but common sense had him feeling a bit tarnished – right where his soul was supposed to jitter. “Of course he did,” he told his blind underling. “I’m the one who introduced him to the mask. But he was never supposed to know what it did, let alone use it for himself. The fool brought this on himself. Just like you did.”

  “I…” Löwenhagen lunged forward wrathfully amongst clanging utensils and toppling glasses, “only used it to get your precious bloody relic out of the hospital and to you, you ungrateful subspecies!”

  Schmidt knew Löwenhagen had served his purpose and his insubordination was of little concern anymore. He would soon expire nonetheless, so Schmidt allowed him his tantrum. “He hated you like I hate you! Neumand regretted ever getting involved with your evil plan to send a suicide squad into Baghdad and The Hague.”

  Schmidt felt his heart jump at the mention of his supposedly clandestine plan, but his face remained straight, sheltering all worry inside its steel expression.

  “Spitting your name, Schmidt, he saluted and said he was going to visit you on a little suicide mission of your own.” Löwenhagen’s voice pierced through his smile. “He stood there laughing like a mad animal, screeching for relief from what he was. Still dressed like the dead biker, he went for the jet. Before I could get to him, the guards burst in. I just ran to keep from being arrested. Once outside the base, I got into my truck and raced to Büchel to try to warn you. Your cell phone was off.”

  “And that’s when he crashed the plane outside our base,” Schmidt nodded. “How am I supposed to explain the true story to Lieutenant-General Meier? He is under the impression that it was a legitimate counter-attack after what that Dutch idiot did in Iraq.”

  “Neumand was a first class pilot. Why he missed the target – you – is as much a pity as it is a mystery,” growled Löwenhagen. Only Schmidt’s silhouette still indicated his presence next to him.

  “He missed because like you, my boy, he had gone blind,” stated Schmidt, relishing in his victory over those who could expose him. “But you did not know about that, did you? Because Neumand wore sunglasses you did not know about his poor eyesight. Otherwise you would never have used the Babylonian Mask yourself, would you?”

  “No, I would not have,” grated Löwenhagen, feeling defeated to a boiling point. “But I should have known you would send someone to burn me up and get the mask back. After I drove to the crash site, I found Neumand’s charred remains flung far from the fuselage. The mask had been detached from his scorched skull, so I took it to bring it back to my dear commander whom I thought I could trust.” At this point his yellow eyes had gone blind. “But you already took care of that, didn’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?” he heard Schmidt say next to him, but he was done with the commander’s deceit.

  “You sent someone after me. He found me with the mask at the site of the wreckage and chased me all the way into Heidelberg until my truck ran out of fuel!” snarled Löwenhagen. “But he had enough petrol for the both of us, Schmidt. Before I could see him coming, he poured petrol all over me and set me on fire! All I could do was run to the hospital a stone’s throw away, still hoping that the fire would not catch and maybe even extinguish as I ran. But no, it only got stronger and hotter, consuming my skin and my lips and my limbs until I thought I was screaming through my flesh! Do you know what it is like to feel your heart explode under the shock of smelling your own flesh burning like a steak on a grill? DO YOU?” he screamed at the captain, wearing the vicious expression of dead man.

  As the manager jogged hastily to their table, Schmidt raised his hand dismissively.

  “We’re going. We’re going. Just charge it all to that credit card,” Schmidt ordered, knowing that Dr. Hilt would soon be found dead again, while his credit card statement would show that he’d lived a few days longer than initially reported.

  “Come, Löwenhagen,” Schmidt said urgently. “I know how we can get that mask off your face. I have no idea how to reverse the blindness, though.”

  He led his companion to the bar where he signed the slip. As they left, Schmidt slipped the credit card back into Löwenhagen’s pocket. The staff and patrons all gave a sigh of relief. The unfortunate waiter who’d received no gratuity clicked his tongue, saying “Thank God! I hope that is the last we see of him.”

  23

  Assassination

  Marduk watched the clock and the small rectangle on its face with the flip-type date panels arranged to announce that it was the 28th of October. His fingers tapped on the counter while he waited for the receptionist at the Swanwasser Hotel, where Sam Cleave and his mysterious lady friend were also staying.

  “There we go, Mr. Marduk. Welcome to Germany,” the receptionist smiled kindly and returned Marduk’s passport. Her eyes dwelled on his face for a moment too long. It made the old man wonder if it was because of his unusual face or because his identification documents stated Iraq as his country of origin.

  “Vielen Dank,” he replied. He would have smiled if he could have.

  After checking into his room, he went downstairs to meet Sam and Margaret outside in the garden. They were already waiting for him when he stepped out onto the deck overlooking the swimming pool. A small, smartly dressed man had been following Marduk at a distance, but the old man was far too astute not to know.

  Sam cleared his throat in a suggestive manner, but all Marduk said was “I see him.”

  “Of course you do,” Sam said to himself, motioning to Margaret with his head. She looked up at the stranger and recoiled somewhat, but she kept it from his view. Marduk turned to look at the man following him, just enough to assess the situation. Apologetically, the man smiled and disappeared into the corridor.

  “They see a passport from Iraq and they lose their bloody minds,” he snapped irately as he sat down.

  “Mr. Marduk, this is Margaret Crosby of the Edinburgh Post,” Sam introduced them.

  “Lovely to meet you, Madam,” said Marduk, again using his polite nod instead of a smile.

  “And you also, Mr. Marduk,” Margaret replied cordially. “It’s wonderful to finally meet such an informed and travelled man such as yourself.”Is she actually flirting with Marduk? Sam wondered in amusement, as he watched the two of them shake hands.

  “And how do you know this?” Marduk asked in mock surprise.

  Sam lifted his recording device.

  “Ah, all that business in the doctor’s office is on record now.” He gave the investigate journalist a stern eye.

  “Not to worry, Marduk,” said Sam, intending to dismiss all concern. “This is just for me and those who are going to help us track down the Babylonian Mask. As you know, Ms. Crosby here has already done her part in getting the police commander off our backs.”

  “Yes, some journalists have the common sense to be selective about what the world should know and…well, what the world is better off never knowing about. The Babylonian Mask and its abilities fall into the latter category. You are assured of my discretion,” Margaret promised Marduk.

  His image fascinated her. The British spinster had always had an affinity for the unusual and unique. He was not nearly as monstrous as the staff of Heidelberg Hospital had described him. Yes, he was clearly deformed by normal standards, but his face only added to his intriguing personality.

  “That is a relief to know, Madam,” he sighed.

  “Please, call me Margaret,” she said quickly.Aye, some geriatric flirting going on here, Sam decided.

  “So, to the business at hand,” interrupted Sam, starting into the more serious conversation. “How are we going to start looking for this Löwenhagen character?”

  “I think we should discount him from the game. According to Lieutenant Werner, the man behind the procurement of the Babylonian Mask is Captain Schmidt of the German Luftwaffe. I’ve instructed Lieutenant Werner to go
under the pretense of reporting and steal the mask from Schmidt by noon tomorrow. If I have not heard from Werner by then, we’ll have to assume the worst. In that case, I myself will have to get inside the base and have a word with Schmidt. He is at the root of this whole deranged operation, and he will want to be in possession of the relic by the time the signing of the great peace treaty takes place.”

  “So you think he is going to impersonate the Meso-Arabian Commissioner for the signing?” asked Margaret, aptly using the new term for the Middle East since the merging of the flanking, smaller lands under one government.

  “There are a million possibilities, Mada…Margaret,” Marduk clarified. “He could choose to do that, but he does not speak any Arabic, so the Commissioner’s people will know he is a charlatan. Of all the times not to be able to control the minds of the masses. Imagine how easily I could have averted all of this if I still had that psychic nonsense, Sam lamented to himself.

  Marduk’s laid-back tone continued. “He could take on the face of an unknown man and assassinate the Commissioner. He could even send another suicide pilot into the building. That seems to be the fashion these days.”

  “Wasn’t there a Nazi squadron who did that in the Second World War?” asked Margaret, with her hand on Sam’s forearm.

  “Uh, I don’t know. Why?”

  “If we knew how they got those pilots to volunteer for that mission, we might be able to figure out how Schmidt was planning to arrange something similar. I might be way off, but shouldn’t we at least investigate the possibility? Dr. Gould might even be able to help us.”

  “She is confined to a hospital in Mannheim at the moment,” Sam said.