Order of the Black Sun Box Set 5

by Preston William Child

  “I – I w-would have to…think about it, Mr. Purdue,” she stammered, still unable to make up her mind.

  “You had better hurry, Dr. Gordon,” Purdue reminded her. “The signing is tomorrow, in another country, and time is running out.”

  “I shall contact you as soon as I have spoken to our advisers,” she told Purdue. Internally, Lisa knew it was the best solution; no, the only one. The alternative would just be far too costly and she had to forcefully weigh her morals against the greater good of all. It was really no contest. At the same time, if she were to be discovered plotting such deception, Lisa knew she would be held accountable and probably indicted for treason. Forgery was one thing, but to be a knowledgeable accessory to such a political travesty – they would have her tried for nothing short of a public execution.

  “Are you still there, Mr. Purdue?” she cried out suddenly, looking at her desk phone system as if it displayed his face.

  “I am. Shall I make the arrangements?” he asked cordially.

  “Yes,” she affirmed firmly. “And this must never, ever surface, do you understand?”

  “My dear Dr. Gordon. I thought you knew me better than that,” Purdue replied. “I will send Dr. Nina Gould and a body guard to Susa on my private jet. My pilots will use W.U.O. clearance under the assumption that the occupant is indeed Prof. Sloane.”

  After they ended the call, Lisa found her demeanor somewhere between relieved and terrified. She paced around her office with her shoulders hunched and her arms folded tightly, contemplating what she had just agreed to. Mentally she was checking all her bases, making sure each was covered with a plausible excuse in case the charade came to light. For the first time was happy about the media delays and persisting blackouts, having no idea that she was in cahoots with the people responsible.

  31

  Who’s Face Would You Wear?

  Lieutenant Dieter Werner was relieved, apprehensive, but nonetheless elated. He’d contacted Sam Cleave from a prepaid phone he’d acquired while on the run from the air base, marked as deserter by Schmidt. Sam had given him the coordinates of Marlene’s last call and he was hoping she was still there.

  “Berlin? Thank you so much, Sam!” said Werner, standing in the cold Mannheim night, away from the earshot of the people at the gas station where he was filling up his brother’s car. He’d asked his brother to lend him his vehicle, as the military police would be looking for his issue Jeep since he’d escaped Schmidt’s clutches.

  “Call me the moment you find her, Dieter,” Sam said. “I hope she is alive and well.”

  “I will, I promise. And tell Purdue a million thanks for tracing her,” he told Sam just before he hung up the call.

  Still, Werner could not believe Marduk’s deceit. He was upset with himself for even thinking he could trust the very man who had deceived him when he’d interviewed him at the hospital.

  But for now he had to drive like hell to get to a factory called Kleinschaft Inc. on the outskirts of Berlin where his Marlene had been held. With every mile he drove, he prayed that she would be unharmed, or at the very least, alive. The holster on his hip held his private firearm, a Makarov he’d received as a gift from his brother on his twenty-fifth birthday. He was ready for Himmelfarb, if the coward still had the gall to stand and fight when he was up against a real soldier.

  In the meantime Sam helped Nina prepare for the trip to Susa, Iraq. They were due there the next day, and Purdue had already arranged the flight after getting the very furtive green light from the W.U.O. second in command, Dr. Lisa Gordon.

  “Are you nervous?” Sam asked as Nina emerged from the room, splendidly clothed and groomed just like the late Prof. Sloane. “My God, you look just like her…if I didn’t know you.”

  “I’m very nervous, but I just keep telling myself two things. It’s for the good of the world and it will take all but fifteen minutes before I am done,” she admitted. “I hear they’ve been playing the sick card with her absence. Well, they have that one spot-on.”

  “You know you don’t have to do this, love,” he told her one last time.

  “Oh Sam,” she sighed. “You are relentless, even when you lose.”

  “I see you are not in the least perturbed in your competitive nature, even by common sense,” he remarked as he took her bag. “Come, the car is waiting to take us to the airport. In a few hours you will make history.”

  “Do we meet up with her people in London or in Iraq?” she asked.

  “Purdue said they will meet us at the C.I.T.E. rendezvous in Susa. There you will spend some time with the actual successor of the W.U.O. reins, Dr. Lisa Gordon. Now remember, Nina, Lisa Gordon is the only one who knows who you are and what we are doing, okay? Don’t slip up,” he said, while they slowly walked out into the white fog that drifted through the cold air.

  “Got it. You worry too much,” she sniffed, adjusting her scarf. “By the way, where is the great architect?”

  Sam frowned.

  “Purdue, Sam, where is Purdue?” she repeated as they started driving.

  “Last I spoke to him he was home, but he is Purdue, always up to something.” He smiled and shrugged. “How are you feeling?”

  “My eyes are almost completely healed. You know, when I listened to the recording and Mr. Marduk said that the mask wearers go blind, I wondered if that was not something he must have thought that night he visited me by my hospital bed. Maybe he thought I was Sa…Löwenhagen…masquerading as a chick.”

  It was not as far-fetched as it sounded, Sam figured. In fact, it could have been just so. Nina did tell him that Marduk asked her if she’d been hiding her roommate, so it may very well have been a real assumption on the part of Peter Marduk. Nina laid her head on Sam’s shoulder and he bent his body uncomfortably to the side to be low enough for her to reach.

  “What would you do?” she asked suddenly in the subdued hum of the car. “What would you do if you could wear anyone’s face?”

  “I had not even thought of that,” he conceded. “I suppose it depends.”

  “On?”

  “On how long I get to keep that person’s face on,” Sam teased.

  “Only a day, but you don’t have to kill them or die at the end of the week. You just get their face for a day and at the end of twenty-four hours it comes off and you have your own again,” she whispered softly.

  “I suppose I’m supposed to say that I would assume the face of some important person and that I would do good,” Sam started, wondering just how honest he should be. “I should be Purdue, I think.”

  “Why the hell would you want to be Purdue?” Nina asked, sitting up.Oh great. Now you’ve done it, Sam thought. He thought of the genuine reasons he’d chosen Purdue, but they were all reasons he did not want to reveal to Nina.

  “Sam! Why Purdue?” she insisted.

  “He has everything,” he replied at first, but she kept quiet and paid attention, so Sam elaborated. “Purdue can do anything. He is too notorious to be famous as a generous saint, but too ambitious to be a nobody. He is smart enough to devise miraculous machines and gadgets that can alter medical science and technology, but he is too modest to patent them and make a profit that way. Between his mind, his reputation, his contacts and his money, he can literally attain anything. I would use his face to progress to higher aims that my simpler mind, meager finances and insignificance could obtain.”

  He waited for a scathing review of his twisted priorities and misplaced goals, but instead Nina leaned in and kissed him deeply. Sam’s heart jolted at the unpredictable gesture, but it went positively wild at her words.

  “Keep your own face, Sam. You possess the one thing Purdue desires, the one thing for which all his genius, money and influence will profit him nothing.”

  32

  The Shadow’s Proposal

  Peter Marduk didn’t care about the developments happening all around him. He was used to people acting like maniacs, storming around like derailed locomotives whenever somet
hing beyond their control reminded them just how little power they had. With his hands in his coat pockets and his eyes alert from under his fedora, he passed through the panic stricken strangers at the airport. A lot of them were heading to their respective homes in case of a national shutdown of all services and transport. Having lived through many eras, Marduk had seen it all before. He’d survived three wars. Everything had always straightened out and rippled to another part of the world in the end. War would never stop, he knew. It would only move to another neighborhood. In his opinion, peace was a fallacy designed by those weary of fighting for what they had or jousting to win arguments. Harmony was just a myth written by cowards and religious fanatics, hoping that sowing the belief would earn them the monikers of heroes.

  “Your flight has been postponed, Mr. Marduk,” the check-in clerk told him. “We expect all flights to be delayed due to the latest situation. There will only be flights available tomorrow morning.”

  “No problem. I can wait,” he said, ignoring her scrutiny of his odd facial features, or rather lack thereof. Peter Marduk decided to take rest in a hotel room in the meantime. He was too old and his frame too skeletal for long periods of sitting. There would be enough of that on the flight back home. He checked into the Cologne Bonn Hotel and ordered dinner via room service. Looking forward to a well-deserved night’s sleep without worry over the mask or having to curl up on a basement floor while waiting for a murderous thief was a delightful change of pace for his tired old bones.

  As the electronic door locked behind him, Marduk’s potent eyes saw the silhouette sitting in the chair. He had no need for much light, but his right hand slowly gripped the skull face inside his coat. It was not a difficult guess that the intruder was there for the relic.

  “You will have to kill me first,” Marduk said calmly, and he meant every word.

  “That wish is within my reach, Mr. Marduk. I am inclined to grant that wish in an instant if you do not accede to my demands,” the figure said.

  “Let me hear your demands, for God’s sake, so I can get some sleep. I’ve had no peace since yet another insidious breed of man stole it from my home,” Marduk complained.

  “Sit down, please. Rest. I can leave here without incident and allow you to sleep, or I can alleviate your burdens for good and still leave here with what I came for,” said the intruder.

  “Oh, do you think so?” The old man chuckled.

  “I assure it,” the other told him categorically.

  “My friend, you know as much as all the others who come for the Babylonian Mask. And that is nothing. So blinded by your greed, you pursuits, your vengeance…whatever else you crave with the use of another’s face. Blind! All of you!” He sighed as he plopped down comfortably onto the bed in the dark.

  “Is that why the mask blinds the Masker?” came the stranger’s question.

  “Yes, I suppose its maker instilled in it some form of metaphorical message,” Marduk replied as he kicked off his shoes.

  “And the insanity?” inquired the intruder again.

  “Son, you can ask as much information about this relic as you wish before you kill me and take it, but you will get nowhere with it. It will kill you or whomever you trick into wearing it, but there is no way around the fate of the Masker,” Marduk advised.

  “Not without the Skin, that is,” the intruder revealed.

  “Not without the Skin,” Marduk agreed in slow words bordering on the dying. “That is correct. And if I die, you will never know where to find the Skin. Besides, it does not work by itself, so just give it up, son. Go on your way and leave the mask to the cowards and charlatans.”

  “Would you sell it?”

  Marduk could not believe what he was hearing. He let out a delightful peal of laughter that filled the room like the agonizing cries of a torture victim. The silhouette did not move, nor did he take action or admit defeat. He simply waited.

  The old Iraqi man sat up and switched on the bedside lamps. In the chair sat a tall, lean man with white hair and light blue eyes. In his left hand he held steady a .44 Magnum pointed right at the old man’s heart.

  “Now we all know that using the skin off the donor’s face changes the face of the Masker,” Purdue said. “But I happen to know…” he leaned forward to speak in a softer, scarier tone, “that the real prize is the other half of the coin. I can shoot you in the heart and take your mask, but it is your skin I need most.”

  Choking in astonishment Peter Marduk stared at the only person who had ever discovered the secret of the Babylonian Mask. Frozen in place, he glared at the European with the big gun, sitting in quiet patience.

  “How much?” Purdue asked.

  “You cannot buy the mask, and you certainly cannot buy my skin!” Marduk exclaimed in horror.

  “Not to buy. To rent,” Purdue corrected him, properly befuddling the old man.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Marduk frowned. It was an honest question to a man whose motives he truly could not fathom.

  “For the use of your mask for one week, and the subsequent removal of your facial skin to remove it within the first day, I will pay for a complete skin grafting and facial reconstruction operation,” Purdue offered.

  Marduk was stumped. Speechless. He wanted to laugh at the absolute absurdity of the offer and mock the idiotic principals of the man, but the more he replayed the proposal in his mind, the more sense it made to him.

  “Why a week?” he asked.

  “I wish to study its scientific properties,” Purdue answered.

  “The Nazi’s tried that too. They failed horrendously!” the old man mocked.

  Purdue shook his head. “My motive is pure curiosity. As a collector of relics and a scientist, I only want to know…how. I like my face just the way it is and I have this odd desire not to die from dementia.”

  “And the first day?” the old man inquired, more amused.

  “A very dear friend needs to assume an important face tomorrow. It is of historical importance for a temporary peace between two long-fighting foes that she is willing to risk this,” Purdue explained, lowering the barrel of the gun.

  “Dr. Nina Gould,” Marduk realized, speaking her name with gentle reverence.

  Purdue, delighted that Marduk knew, continued, “If the world finds out that Prof. Sloane really was assassinated, they will never believe the truth: that she was killed by a German high officer’s orders to frame Meso-Arabia. You know this. They will stay blind to the truth. They only see what their masks allow – tiny binocular views of a bigger picture. Mr. Marduk, I am dead serious in my offer.”

  After some consideration the old man sighed. “But I come with you.”

  “I would not have it any other way,” Purdue smiled. “Here.”

  He tossed a written agreement on the table, stipulating the terms and the time frames for the ‘item’ that is never mentioned for what it is to make sure no one ever learned of the mask this way.

  “A contract?” Marduk exclaimed. “Seriously, son?”

  “I might not be a murderer, but I am a businessman,” Purdue smiled. “Sign that accord of ours so that we can get some bloody rest. At least for the time being.

  33

  The Judas Reunion

  Sam and Nina sat in the heavily guarded room, merely an hour before the meeting with the Sultan. She did not look well at all, but Sam refrained from prying. However, according to the staff at Mannheim, Nina’s radiation exposure was not causing a terminal condition. Her breath hissed as she struggled to inhale and her eyes remained a bit milky, but her skin had healed completely by now. Sam was no doctor, but he could see that something was amiss, both in Nina’s health and by her abstinence.

  “You probably can’t handle my breath near you, hey?” he played.

  “Why do you ask?” she frowned, adjusting the velvet choker according to the pictures of Sloane that Lisa Gordon had supplied. They were accompanied by a grotesque sample that Gordon did not want to know about, even when Sloane
’s funeral director had been ordered to supply it by means of a questionable court order from Scorpio Majorus Holdings.

  “You don’t smoke anymore, so my fag breath must make you crazy,” he pried.

  “Nope,” she replied, “just the annoying words that come out with that breath.”

  “Professor Sloane?” a female voice with a heavy accent called from the other side of the door. Sam nudged Nina painfully, forgetting how frail she was. Apologetically he held out his hands. “I’m so sorry!”

  “Yes?” Nina asked.

  “Your entourage should be here in less than an hour,” the woman said.

  “Oh, uh, thank you,” Nina answered. She whispered to Sam. “My entourage. That would be Sloane’s representatives.”

  “Aye.”

  “Also, there are two gentlemen here who say they are with your private security, along with Mr. Cleave,” the woman said. “Are you expecting a Mr. Marduk and a Mr. Kilt?”

  Sam burst out laughing, but held it in behind his hand, “Kilt, Nina. That would be Purdue, for reasons I’ll decline to share.”

  “I shudder to think,” she replied and called out to the woman, “That is correct, Yasmin. I have been expecting them. In fact…”

  The two entered the room, shoving through big Arabian guards to get in.

  “…they are late!”

  Behind them the door closed. There were no formalities, since Nina did not forget that clout she’d received in the Heidelberg Hospital and Sam did not forget that Marduk had betrayed their trust. Purdue picked up on it and cut it short right there.