Order of the Black Sun Box Set 4

by Preston William Child

  Nina peered past Sam’s chest to see. “They are gone. The door is shut. Now let go of me. You just wanted an excuse to get close!”

  “What? You snuck up on me,” he frowned. Nina was amused, but she was not going to let Sam see that. If he wanted to play with Crystal, she was going to let him. But he’d have to forget about the pleasure of enjoying Nina’s affection as well.

  “We have to wake the others. The sun is already up,” she said blandly, grazing his chest with her hand as she walked away. Sam knew this game. He did not like it much, but somehow he constantly found himself in Nina’s penalty box. She was too sensitive to competition, even a brief flirt, in his opinion. Did she not know that he loved her and only her, even when there he was flirting with both of them?

  He watched her walk over the white and gray tiles with bare feet. Her hair was wild and fell softly over her back and shoulders, and her smooth legs were only partially covered by the hem of the large shirt she was wearing over her bikini. It was autumn here in the Southern Hemisphere, but it still felt like summer. Once Nina’s thrall faded as she left him alone, he recalled the conversation he had overheard between the two security men.

  ‘Who is the whore they were referring to?’ he wondered, running his hands through his hair, pushing the strands out of his face. It had to be one of the women Billy brought with him, but which one, and why? It was cause for concern, but he was not going to ruffle any feathers by asking Billy. For all Sam knew, the lecturer had no idea what was going on and it could endanger the whole project.

  Once everybody had gotten out of bed, the group sat spread out all over the premises. Outside, Sam and Billy discussed the tides and the coming dive of the day. Inside, Nina and Mieke cooked breakfast while Cheryl was still in the bathroom, doing what she had to do to survive the day without withdrawal symptoms. Zain had engaged Purdue in a conversation about the wreck and its estimated value, just as a matter of course. Purdue enjoyed talking about projected profits and thought nothing of the security advisor’s interest.

  Sibu tried to impress the ladies in the kitchen, but he soon realized that he was just in the way. He tried very hard to stick to Zain’s rules, playing it cool and not causing any trouble by trying to hit on the women. The educated, smart women annoyed him immensely. They were not the kind of women he was used to. He preferred women on their knees – in every way. In his culture, women were there to serve the men and to take care of the home and the children. They were not supposed to have any social command. That was a man’s place.

  But Zain had warned him; he had threatened to kill him should he ever do anything that could spoil their plan – and from what Sibu knew about his associate, the man was not one to go back on a threat. The day Sibu had seen Zain shoot his own cousin for taking away his business in the drug trade he had learned just how ruthless Zain was. Under that civilized coolness lurked a Copperhead poised for attack.

  “Okay people, we have located what we think is the wreck,” Purdue spoke up after breakfast, once everyone was awake and fed, ready for the task at hand. “Here and here,” he pointed on the screen, “will be our entry points. Now, I believe Crystal Sam, and I will do the first dive, to scout the wreck?”

  They all nodded in agreement. Nina did not like being left behind with the strangers, but the dive would not take longer than two hours. They decided to all join them on the yacht Purdue had chartered. At his request, the yacht had already been equipped with the necessary diving gear, and Nina had the consolation of knowing that the vessel had a big, well-stocked bar. Hopefully, she could keep Mieke and Cheryl off each other’s throats for the duration of the dive. It pissed her off that she had to babysit them like ill-mannered, bickering little girls, while her own temper threatened to flare should the childish competition continue.

  “So we will get footage of the terrain we’ll have to deal with when the salvage tug arrives. Dr. Malgas, you will be able to see more detail on the wreck and Nina will help you validate if it is really the Admiral Graf Spee. That way you will be able to calculate what this find would be worth to – say, collectors or museums,” Purdue said to Billy in front of the group.

  Zain and Sibu’s eyes met briefly before they cast a look toward Cheryl. She seemed satisfied that they knew she was making good on her promise of the prize. In fact, she seemed very content, but that was only because of the illegal substances cursing through her system after some happy time in the bathroom, courtesy of Pyramid Pete.

  “And when are we expecting the salvage tug to arrive?” Sam asked Crystal.

  She stood next to Purdue with her arms crossed over her chest. “I have notified them of our position. They are coming down along the coast from Egypt, so they should be here in a day or two,” she reported.

  “That will give us just enough time to determine the condition of the wreck and decide on how we are going to recover it before figuring out how to tow it,” Purdue added with a smile.

  16

  Exploration #1

  The boat’s owner had charged Purdue an extra fee for the yacht because he had insisted on chartering it without its crew. At first, the owner had been reluctant, but upon meeting him, the Scottish billionaire and the German lawyer had been able to convince the owner that his vessel was going to be in reliable hands. It had taken Crystal and Purdue little over an hour of coaxing and reassuring as well as several glasses of gin and tonic for the owner to finally change the contract.

  After loading the sonar equipment and gear, Purdue arranged all the necessary devices for the use of his tablet to ascertain the status of the subterranean parts of the vessel once they reached the dive site. Nina was excited to see if it was truly the ship she had read about, although according to the documents she had found it had fled for the coast of Uruguay. She hoped that perhaps it was old propaganda since the pocket battleship of the Nazi Kriegsmarine was reported to have passed the Cape of Good Hope at one point, sinking several Allied ships in the process. It could have run aground on the east coast of Africa instead of the east coast of South America, who knows?

  Sam loved diving. He was excited about the chance to float weightlessly in the quiet blue womb of the planet again and film the elusive ship that had only recently shown itself on radar and satellite zooms Purdue had run. Just the night before, in fact, they had come across something interesting. Once Purdue, Sam, and Billy had been properly oiled by the local alcoholic beverages, the subject of the oddity of the vessel’s elusiveness came up.

  Sam had asked Billy if he was confident that local authorities had never before noticed such a massive piece of metal, which must have been right under their noses for almost eighty years. Billy, who had looked a bit bewildered by the question, had explained that his assistant had checked all records to make sure that no such on a potential discovery of the vessel had ever been entered. According to Billy, the ship had sunk and had been covered by the surface sediment of Bluewater Bay since the early 1940’s.

  “Perhaps it was just buried in a shallow grave until recently. The coast here is known for its erratic currents and strong undercurrents, which could have been responsible for sweeping away the top sediment layer and revealing the dead ship,” he had speculated.

  Purdue had shaken his head, “I’m no expert, but that’s something that would take decades, Billy.”

  For the first time in his life, Sam had seen his sharp friend Billy looking speechless. To Sam's surprise, he had even looked a bit as if he did not know much about the find, but he had reckoned that it had just been his drunken bias judging the scrawny lecturer.

  Then, when the subject of the conversation had drifted to the women, Sam had joked about how superstitious sailors had always been when it came to women on board. Soon after that, the discussion had taken a creepy turn, one Sam still mulled over now as they packed the gear to put out to sea.

  Purdue, who had a penchant for the dramatic and the metaphysical when he had had too much to drink, had come to the fore with a chilling what if…


  In the fire of the braai, his eyes had flared with mystery as he had leaned closer to his audience, now including the two security advisors and Nina.

  “What if the ship was not there at all? Until now?” he had slurred, hands extended in a dramatic gesture. "What if the ship simply appeared there after some scientific anomaly facilitated its shift from one part of the ocean floor to another?"

  “Ghost ship?” Sam had asked, fascinated.

  "Aye, like a life-sized trinket of doom set up in a particular place to lure the greedy and desperate to try and claim it," Nina had added to the notion.

  “That’s right!” Purdue had gasped.

  “Aw, that is a good one!” Sam had chuckled, applauding.

  Dr. Malgas, Cheryl, and Sibu had looked at each other with wide eyes at the possibility of the existence of such an insidious ghost ship. While Dr. Malgas knew that it couldn’t be a ghost ship, the notion instilled quite a bit of fear in him. Cheryl had felt uncomfortable as she had been using Dr. Malgas’ discovery for her own gain and Sibu, had immediately seen the devil in the water out to punish him. As a son of the Xhosa tribe and culture, the superstition and witchcraft had always been close to his heart, prompting him to go off into a torrent of curses and incantations at the talk of these things in his presence.

  The Scots had loved the idea, and Purdue had even encouraged Sam to venture into fiction with his publishers and conjure up a similar kind of tale the next time he was going to be asked to write a book. Sam and Purdue had had a toast to such a novel, but by then Billy Malgas had sunk into a world of his own, lamenting his own reasons for allowing Mieke to lead everyone on a giant scale charade. If the surfacing ship represented his fate, then he would not be able to escape the consequences of his lies.

  After discussing the alcohol-induced theories of otherworldly ships and the general possibility of mythical objects of retribution, the group had come to the conclusion that the wreck ‘was what it was.' That had seemed to be agreeable to all, scientific skeptics and gullible believers alike.

  Nina, however, had given the subject more attention even after it had been replaced by more tangible matters.

  Even while they were outfitting the yacht in the mid-morning sunshine under the pristine sky, she sat on a deck chair with a can of soda, overlooking the mysterious ocean. Her mind transcended reality into an almost psychic realm where she allowed her body and senses to listen to the vast expanse of water teeming with life and history. For a minute she closed her eyes, blocking out the banter between Sam and Purdue, Crystal and Mieke discussing sunscreen, and the bustling noise as they lugged the equipment around to where they needed it.

  In her imagination, she was sinking. Without a body, she submerged herself beneath the friendly breakers and descended slowly into the cold eternity of the deep. There, set her sights on the shape she had seen on Purdue’s screen the day before, but here, in her mind, the lines turned into an actual structure. For some reason, the vessel terrified Nina, and an irrational fear took a hold of her heart with an icy hand squeezing tighter, the closer she came.

  No longer was it a mere sunken ship, forgotten by time and mankind. It had become a beacon of something terrible, a seemingly insignificant wreck that beckoned her in a silent siren song to something sinister. Even if it was the vessel Dr. Malgas thought it was, it had been serving a different purpose– very different than what the history books implied.

  Suddenly she didn’t want to float closer to the submerged monster of rust and bent metal, fearing for her very life. It lay motionless, yet it moved. It wasn’t the current she was floating on, it was actual motion. Nina watched as the hull opened just above the ship’s propeller and formed a mouth with jagged metal teeth. It screamed. Nina’s heart raced as she heard it screaming in a thousand voices; men bemoaning their imminent demise and women in pain, begging for the lives of their children.

  Sam tapped Nina on the shoulder, jolting her from her terrifying daydream with such force that she yelped in shock. He pulled her in his arms tightly and held her until she realized that she had been dreaming.

  “Jesus Christ, Sam!” she fumed when she came to her senses. Nina roughly freed herself from Sam moved away. “Do you want to give me a heart attack?”

  “Oh my, I apologize, Dr. Gould!” Sam retorted. “I had no idea you would be taking a nap in the middle of our first exploration journey! I thought you were staring at the waves. Good God woman! Keep your mood swings in check!”

  He stormed off, leaving a whole collection of dumbstruck faces staring at Nina, before she looked out over the ocean again, ignoring the unwanted attention.

  “Are you alright, love?” Purdue asked softly from where he stood protectively between her and the curious stares of the others, who were only reluctantly resuming their work. Nina wanted to cry. Her emotions were suddenly all over the place. She was startled by Sam’s touch, horrified by the ship in her dream and its vivid warning, and furious that she lost her temper in front of all these people.

  "I'm alright, thank you, Purdue," she muttered softly without looking at him. The dream had snuck up on her, caught her off-guard; now it lingered and refused to release her no matter how much she tried to think about mundane things.

  “If you need anything,” he whispered in her ear, his lips so close that his breath stirred the tips of her hair. “…just let me know.”

  Nina turned to look at Purdue. His light blue eyes were warm and welcoming, a look she remembered seeing on his face on those cold Scottish mornings when she woke up in his arms after a passionate night.

  “Purdue!” Sam called, breaking the spell between Nina and her ex-lover.

  ‘I bet you did that on purpose, Sam,’ Nina thought as she looked him with narrow eyes. ‘Didn’t you?’

  But her thoughts were biased. Fortunately, she did not say it out loud. It would have only brought her a bunch of bitch-points, no doubt. Sam had a legitimate reason to summon Purdue. The coast guard had appeared behind them. Sibu and Zain nodded at each other, grabbing their Berettas, but Cheryl shook her head in alarm, mouthing ‘no’ to stop them from escalating a possibly friendly exchange.

  “I’m so sick of having to take orders from that bitch,” Sibu whispered to his associate.

  “I know, but she knows when we should back down. She knows these people and how they work, Sibu. We’ll get our chance to waste the lot as soon as we know what’s on that wreck. Just don’t fuck it up,” Zain replied under his breath.

  Purdue stopped the yacht to let the coast guard board. As he spoke to the office, Nina stayed on her own, watching Crystal encroach again between the two men the historian had held dear in her life, more than any, for the past fifteen odd years. She allowed the lawyer her space, particularly when she would prove valuable with her knowledge of international maritime laws. Besides, Sam and Crystal had started spending more and more time close to each other. To Nina, it was a clear indication that Sam's interest in her withered in the presence of powerful women.

  “Your permit, sir?” the officer smiled. “Vacation this time of year? Smart.”

  “Why?” Sam asked cordially.

  "Offseason. This place is a nightmare during peak times!' the officer explained, sighing as he pretended to look at the coastline. Actually, Mieke noticed, he was checking the gear lying on the starboard floor before taking a look at the passengers. Cheryl was relieved that she had told her two thugs to dress casually that morning. They blended in well as a bunch of overweight fishermen.

  “I can imagine,” Purdue chuckled.

  “And all this?” the officer asked, pointing his pen to all the diving gear and sonar screens. By any standard the level of technology was more than adequate, bordering on suspicious.

  "I am a film producer," Sam jumped in, flashing his dashing smile. "Might make a documentary about your lovely city's marine life. Just scouting for now."

  Nina shook her head and sank to her seat. “Here we go.”

  17

&nbs
p; Murder on the High Seas

  “That’s four crew members dead by now. Four! In two days!” Ali shouted at the three subordinates in his presence. They had dropped their gazes to the floor in front of them, their hands behind their backs as not to appear hostile toward Ali Shabat, fierce mariner of the Arabian Sea. He ran a tight ship, so to speak. Years on the sea and most of that time spent in collecting riches from reluctant hands and deep waters had made him hard, but efficient.

  “It is time for this crew to contribute, or else I am going to have to resort to extreme measures. So far I have been hoping to employ this crew to do the Meyer job and afterward being kind enough to let you share in my victorious kindness, but it looks like some heads are going to roll!” he ranted and paced while the vessel rose and sank more steadily after the storm had subsided. The tug was well on its way to the strait between Madagascar and Africa, through which on passing the Aleayn Yam would officially be in Southern African waters to where it had been summoned.

  Ali and Manni were determined to make sure the tug functioned at full capacity until they had salvaged the Nazi ship that was allegedly lying on the ocean floor. Then they would decide which route would be best to sail to reach a dry dock where they could, at length, take the wreck apart and see if it contained any Nazi treasures their buyers could be interested in.

  “Ali, the skipper asked for you. He says he has a suggestion,” one of Ali’s men said from the door.

  “I don’t need his suggestions. Everybody is manning their posts just fine.” he boasted, chewing the khat he had brought with him. The others laughed with him when he urged them to join him in ridiculing Fakur’s futile attempts to get out of his current position. The Egyptian skipper did not agree with what Ali had planned for the salvage vessel.

  “And what about the welder?” Ali asked. Manni scoffed. It was clear that Manni and Fakur’s friend, the welder, did not get on well at all. Ali looked at Manni in amusement and gave it some thought. “Bring me that welder. We might convince him to change Fakur and the others’ minds. I don’t need a mutiny aboard this ship.”