Order of the Black Sun Box Set 4

by Preston William Child

  The Scottish billionaire had two bags with him on his latest travel venture – one valise with two changes of clothing and some toiletries and an unassuming brown leather case which contained a remarkable amount of technology that he reckoned he could perhaps run by Lydia. She was an expert in most subjects similar to those he dabbled with. Therefore, if she was not too perturbed by her malady, he hoped to pick her brain with some advice, shortcuts or suggestions as it were.

  Purdue hired a car and driver familiar with Lyon and at 11am he left for Lydia’s home in Brotteaux, an affluent neighborhood by reputation situated between the railway and the Rhône River.

  “Course Franklin Roosevelt? And then toward the river, Monsieur?” the driver, Pascal, asked Purdue. Purdue nodded, and passed the small note he had scribbled Lydia’s directions on to the drive.

  “It should hopefully make more sense to you than it did to me. I’m afraid she changed her mind several times, but such is the nature of her illness. Confusion and lapse of memory,” Purdue explained awkwardly.

  “She is ill with confusion?” Pascal asked sincerely.

  “Brain cancer, Pascal,” Purdue replied.

  The driver shook his head in pity for the lady and uttered a nasal whine, “That is very sad, Monsieur Purdue. Poor Madame Jenner. Your friend? Or family?”

  The Audi S6 pulled away and glided along the rue towards the larger main road along the river where the barges lazily bobbed on the glint of the morning river ripples.

  “Old friend, but still the news was hard to take,” Purdue said as he looked out the window at the deep blue of the Rhône. “Could you figure out her address from all those details?”

  “Oui, Monsieur,” Pascal nodded with a boastful smile. “I believe she lives in the chateau at the end of Rue Antoinette off this road. The house is known to stand alone, away from the other properties here that are mostly shops and museums and so on.”

  “Ah!” Purdue said, lightly tapping his hand on the car door where his forearm rested over the rolled down window. “A chateau?”

  “Only by name, really,” Pascal informed Purdue, casting quick looks in the rear view mirror as he spoke. “It is a manor, but not of remarkable size. Not by the standards of Versailles, at least!” He chuckled, joined by his passenger. Purdue knew what he meant about the palaces in France and how one could hardly call any regular mansion ‘large’ in comparison. “But it is known by most drivers in Lyon solely because it is so…out of place.”

  Purdue detected a bit of mystery in Pascal’s tone, but he chose to let the matte be and spend the rest of the drive just pondering upon his visit. He wondered what poor state Lydia was in and if he was perhaps doing more harm than good by taxing her with his presence. But she was not the type to fold to mere burdens and Purdue hoped that she had still hopefully retained her adventurous personality.

  While they stopped at a traffic light, Pascal switched on the radio for a bit of musical distraction, but it was time for the news. Purdue’s French was alright, but it had been a while since he had heard it spoken in its native environment. A female voice with a professional and husky intonation reported on a fire that broke out in a laboratory in Geneva the night before and that over four hundred meters of the tunnel had been damaged, although not irreparably.

  “Pascal?” he asked the driver as he pulled away again. “What tunnel is she speaking of? She spoke a bit fast for me to catch everything.”

  “Oh, uh, she said that a fire broke out in the tunnel of the CERN project in Geneva. Some of the machine was damaged but they can fix it,” Pascal translated loosely in his easiest English.

  “Oh my God!” Purdue replied, running his fingers through his hair and staring at the blue sky. “That is beyond dangerous! It could end the bloody world, you know.”

  Pascal shrugged and smiled faintly, “I don’t know, I’m afraid. I am not much of a follower of science things. I know what CERN is, of course, but not how it works or what they really do there. I keep to sports. Football, Formula One and so, Monsieur.”

  Purdue nodded in acknowledgement, “I see. Yes, I don’t mind a good bit of football myself.”

  But though he was chatting casually with his driver about sports, Purdue felt a spark of panic and curiosity flare up inside him as to the exact details of the incident. Eagerly his long fingers itched for his tablet, just to peruse the related articles until he reached Lydia’s home, but he refrained. He was too close to his destination now to go hounding around on the Internet for accurate news.

  “Here we are, Monsieur,” Pascal announced.

  He stopped at the tall gate and got out of the car, leaving the engine running. Through a thorny maze of branches that possessed the stone pillars where the gate was hinged Pascal buzzed the intercom and conversed briefly. Purdue could discern his own name and then the gate clicked and slid open. Being made of solid steel the gate did not allow Purdue a view of the mansion until it gradually slid aside, disappearing behind the sturdy stone wall that barely revealed itself from under the wild growth of foliage.

  “There we go, Monsieur Purdue,” Pascal groaned as he fell back into his seat and shut the door. “Shall I wait for you inside or will you call when you are ready to be collected again?”

  Purdue thought quickly. It was a difficult decision. He was not sure how well she was to receive visitors. It would be awkward if he sent Pascal away and found that Lydia was mentally incapacitated or sedated. “Don’t go too far,” he smiled, amused at his own answer.

  Pascal was a sharp tack. He caught on what his employer’s predicament was and nodded politely, “I’ll be right across the park at the restaurant, having some lunch. Ready to come when you summon, Monsieur Purdue.”

  “Good man,” Purdue cheered with a pat on Pascal’s shoulder.

  But both men found the yard they drove through very peculiar. As the gate closed behind the Audi they became aware of an electrical charge along the inside of the perimeter wall. The place did not resemble at all the garden or terrace of such a posh mansion. Instead of plush brushes and elegant trees, flower beds and fountains there was only tall grass, gravel and overgrown, un-kept gardening. Reinforced with what looked like steel plating, the entire fence wall ran nine foot high along the circumference of the yard. Rusty nails secured the plates crudely to the stone and mortar under the creepers and wild tree branches. The lawn was dry and brown, because, Purdue guessed, water would upset the charge he could hear vaguely between the plates.

  It was very strange, but now he understood why the house had such a reputation of being singled out among the other properties. Even Pascal could tell something was amiss.

  “I think I should rather wait here in the car, Monsieur Purdue,” he remarked, gawking at the cracked and chipped statuettes all over the property. “If this is what the outside looks like there is no telling what you might find in the house.”

  Purdue gave it some thought.

  “No,” he cried finally, keeping to his light demeanor, “you go on, Pascal. Have some lunch. I’ll be fine. Whatever is in that house, I can appreciate.”

  Pascal mumbled, “Oui, but can you outrun it?”

  Purdue took his leather case and slung it over his shoulder, giving his driver a brief wave as he skipped carelessly up the cracked cement steps to the leave strewn terrace. A chair with a seat stained from months of mud and downpour rocked in the slight breeze at the far right side of the porch.

  Purdue ignored the ominous looking surroundings and rang the doorbell. A stocky, abstemious creature opened the door. His eyes were weary, even in their coldness and his clothing painfully neat on every curve of his body. Purdue guessed the butler in his fifties, but his voice sounded ancient.

  “Master Purdue,” he said plainly, “welcome to Jenner Manor.”

  “You’re British?” Purdue asked without thinking.

  “Yes, sir. You expected a French maid?” the rigid man asked dryly.

  Purdue had to laugh.

  “Pardon me, f
riend. I meant nothing by it. I just did not expect…” he chuckled, but by the man’s lack of enthusiasm for Purdue’s humor, he swallowed his laughter. “Is Professor Jenner available? I know I am a tad early.”

  “That is not a problem, sir. Please, have a seat in the parlor and I will inform the professor of your arrival,” the butler suggested and without sparing a moment for Purdue’s response he disappeared up the stairs.

  The inside of the house was not as dilapidated as the exterior, apart from the slightly wilted and dried up bouquets of flowers on the corner tables that gave the place an odd odor of old rot and stagnant water. But the tile floors were spotless, the walls lacking any art or photographs and left utterly bare throughout the hallway. Purdue stood in the dusty, faintly lit drawing room where the slightly separated drapes yielded to a tardy bit of sunray that accentuated the trickling dust particles settling in the room.

  The furniture was completely out of place for the design of the classical manor. Purdue had to smile to himself at the sight of the plain couches and coffee tables of the sunken lounge floor that reminded him of a kitsch London apartment from the early seventies. The hearth was built in with bricks and instead of charming paintings adorning the walls as he would have expected, there was yet again nothing hung. Pastel green and cream sections of the walls revealed studded edges that he simply had to scrutinize.

  Purdue frowned as his fingertips studied the short nails that ran from the ceiling to the floor where they had fixed yet another collection of sheeting to cover the interior of the room, perhaps all the rooms. He had to know why.

  3

  Sam woke up way too late. He had missed breakfast by hours and he had well a way to go before lunch would be served. And as he always had a solution for such little problems, he made for the mini fridge instead – to keep him occupied, as it were. The party from the night before turned out to be quite the anti-climax. Even though his intention was to gather information there, he ended up hoping for more and ended up being sorely disappointed. Her name was Lily and she would have been the perfect night cap, but she left with someone else before Sam could close the deal.

  His cell phone shattered his hung over thoughts.

  “Cleave,” he grunted, wondering where his clothes were shed the night before as if the caller could see him.

  “Sam Cleave! This is Penny Richards from the Cornwall Institute of the Sciences,” a female voice chimed.

  “Cornwall…in Ireland,” Sam stated with distinct uncertainty.

  “It’s a surname, Mr. Cleave,” she chuckled. “Bernard Cornwall was the benefactor of our foundation, hence the name.”

  “Ah! I see,” Sam replied, looking for his pants. “For a moment I thought I was caught in a science fiction novel, or perhaps a scientific experiment in the Bermuda Triangle.”

  He could tell the woman was smiling and did her best to be friendly, but her words were somewhat impatient. “Listen, Mr. Cleave, I was wondering if you have any new information on the imminent sabotage of the CERN LHC site.”

  She cleared her throat uncomfortably.

  “I spoke to several people last night, Miss Richards,” he reported, “but I’m afraid there was not much I could ascertain from the faculty. As I told your colleague Mr. Somanko yesterday, I don’t think his ex-employee is involved in the sabotage. These threats came from someone more professional, a group of people rather than just one individual.”

  “So you are saying it is more serious than we thought?” she asked.

  “Aye,” Sam nodded. “I suggest you tighten up on security.”

  She paused for a moment, allowing Sam some time to locate his pants and open a tiny bottle of Southern Comfort for breakfast. He could hear her composing herself.

  “Mr. Cleave, have you read the morning paper?” she asked in a much more serious tone. “Have you seen the morning news?”

  “I have not,” he admitted, although it was a terrible confession to make at this hour of the day.

  She sighed hard, “A fire ravaged two kilometers of the CERN tube last night, Mr. Cleave. Were you sleeping on the job?”

  “I’m sorry, I was ill during the night and only fell asleep at dawn, Miss Richards,” he lied, swallowing the bourbon to get some hair of the dog. He felt ashamed for being so out of synch, so off kilter in his career. Of all people a Pulitzer winner, a renowned investigative journalist such as himself, should be on top of things. It was a shame that he was fraying at the ends like this to have lost his focus for but a night, yet neglected to know what the rest of the world already knew and looking utterly inept at his job.

  “Look,” she said more gently, “I understand that you do not need our support and that you are a celebrity journalist and author, but you accepted this assignment, Mr. Cleave, so please, I implore you to please show more enthusiasm for the case. If anything it would help us avoid another, perhaps bigger, catastrophe.”

  “You are correct, Penny. You are absolutely correct,” Sam agreed sincerely. “I have been distracted and overslept this morning which does not reflect well on my reputation, but I assure you I will be following up on this incident.”

  “We will appreciate that, Mr. Cleave,” she replied in clear relief. “Please make your way to tomorrow’s conference in Geneva as soon as possible to see if you can shed some light on the arsonist in the meantime. I don’t think it was any coincidence that some of our investment was destroyed within a week from the anonymous threat we received. God knows, I do hope it was just an accident, but we need to be sure.”

  “I shall leave this afternoon. Can you arrange a press pass or something similar for me at your convention? It is called the Cornwall…?” Sam asked, penning down the details.

  “Bernard Cornwall Trust. That is the name you should look for at the Vidal Lux Hotel. I shall book a reservation for you there so long,” she informed him.

  “Got it. Thank you, Miss Richards,” Sam said, relishing the warmth of the bourbon in his throat. He pressed the red button on his phone. “Jesus, could do with a fag now,” he lamented, having run out of cigarettes just before he passed out on the bed a few hours before.

  The whole thing with the CERN threats had him bothered. He was not hired by Penny’s organization, but it was more like a mutual professional courtesy between them. The Cornwall Institute contacted Sam in hopes of him exposing an enemy of theirs that had been imperiling their projects for months. In return, should he find the culprit he would have exclusive rights to the story and yet again prove his worth in gold at exposing criminals to the world. It was a good deal for Sam. His book was still doing well, but he would not soon be donating sports stadiums to cities or buying yachts for random laid off fathers for charities. Now and then Sam Cleave still took on a worthy story to see if he could get to the bottom of the sewer of deception to retrieve what was left of fairness.

  “Well, Sam, no time like the present,” he sighed to himself as he headed for the shower. With heavy feet he sauntered into the overwhelming white plastic environment of the en suite bathroom. Maggie’s Bed & Breakfast certainly knew how to make cheap look pretty, but he was not about to judge an establishment with such a good array of liquor stashed in their rooms.

  After checking out just before 2pm, Sam made it just in time for his 3.40pm flight from Dublin to Heathrow. He hoped that no unforeseen obstacles like weather or mechanical problems would perturb his urgent trip to Geneva, but for now such concerns would not benefit him. What did vex Sam while he found himself in lonely moments on the plane, was that he had no idea exactly why someone would sabotage the CERN project, since it was not something substantial for the criminal world.

  Next to him sat a gentleman who, to Sam’s relief, was not a talker. However, he did look like a complete drip from an old horror film. Small, round spectacles rested on a long, crooked nose and his white grey hair stood on end as if he had poked his index finger at a power point. A small goatee extended from his chin, but it was horribly untidy and frizzled. Sam taxed his ocu
lar muscles to look at the man without turning his head. As the image dictated, the man wore a bowtie with his cardigan and brown pants.

  The old man caught Sam glaring, even in his meager glances.

  “Hello,” he said to Sam.

  “Good afternoon,” Sam smiled self-consciously.

  “Anything interesting about me, then?” he asked the journalist outright.

  Sam felt awful for being discovered in his curiosity. It was a first class flight, therefore he knew that the old man who spoke to him could not have been just any old fool. Quickly Sam paged through his mind’s reserves for a proper explanation and, to his own surprise, he found a good one.

  “My apologies for staring, sir. And I hope you don’t take insult to this, but…” Sam hesitated, “…you remind me of a young Albert Einstein.”

  “Agh, vell!” the man exclaimed with a hearty grin. “Einstein is one of my idols. In fact, had it not been for his Unified Field Theory, I would not be sitting here next to you right now!”

  “Really?” Sam smiled with relief.

  “Yesh, yesh,” the man replied gleefully in his heavy Dutch accent, “he was my inspiration to become a theoretical physicist.”

  “You are a theoretical physicist?” Sam gasped. He was truly surprised to have run into someone who happened to be in the same line of the people he was snooping for.

  “Yesh, I am. Professor Martin Westdijk, University of Utrecht Applied Physics,” the old man smiled, extending a hand to Sam.

  “Sam Cleave. Journalist, among other things,” Sam replied, but he could not help but feel that he sounded extremely inadequate in title compared to the professor.

  “Journalist? Interesting. Have you heard about the fire?” he asked Sam, as if he knew the Scotsman’s business.