Order of the Black Sun Box Set 8

by Preston William Child

  “Again, you have been deceived by all this high and mighty, holy roller bullshit. The Templars were knights – hardened militia, Terry, not romantic choir boys,” Nina preached as she paced slowly around the room. “Romantic notions about these men are just folly. Just like the holy relics such people were said to protect, they were planted in shit-seeped soil, growing from muck towards the heaven they lied about. They were men, just men, and men are incapable of piety. No wonder you are surprised in here. This is the true face of the angels believers revere…and I fucking love them!”

  “You do?” he gasped. “Sounds like you are insulting them.”

  “No, it sounds like an insult to the muddled, brainwashed mind. Religion will do that to you. This,” she raised her hands in reverence to the items in the room, “is the face of truth, Mr. Jones. There are no lies down here.”

  Terry did not like her dismissal of all he was raised to believe in, but she did raise interesting points. He did not want to accept it, although a man like him would be considered a man of God, if what Nina said were true. If Templars and priests were soldiers and rapists, he would fit right in as a knight, he figured.

  “Now, what is it you were seeking on behalf of this Keating fella?” she asked.

  Terry did not look forward to this part. He was not allowed to disclose the nature of his quest to anyone and Norman Kingsley was just going to be a pawn to get to the Templars’ record keeper. He was to obtain the information and dispose of the keeper before returning to Keating, but he had no idea that the keeper would be a feisty ball-buster.

  “Jones,” she prompted him. “I cannae help if you will not tell me what you are looking for.”

  “We need to find the remaining, living members of the Perceval Chapter,” he revealed.

  ‘Perceval,’ she recalled the missing knight name her stepbrother could not remember.

  “The Perceval Chapter? Enlighten me,” she requested. “Give me an era, or even a century to refer to.”

  “Why don’t you just capture everything in a bloody computer, Dr. Gould?” he asked sarcastically. “This is the 21st Century, you know.”

  “Tell me, genius,” she started again. “Does your little gang, the Meisters, have hackers to help you fuck with your enemies?”

  “Of course. Best in the world,” he bragged.

  “Doubt that,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Nevertheless, could your hackers have found this bunker by using their ‘skills’?”

  “No,” he had to admit.

  “There we go, then. Now you know why we do things old school down here,” she said. “Now be a lamb and answer my fucking question.”

  Terry cleared his throat. “World War II, North African campaign. The Perceval Chapter were an elite band of soldiers and officers tasked with…”

  She patiently waited with a stern look. “Aye?”

  “They were supposed to take the Holy Grail out of Jerusalem before the Axis forces could send their specialist relic hunters to retrieve it from where it was,” he shrugged. “The Perceval lads were not told where it was initially hidden, I hear, but in 1944 they were founded for that one purpose.”

  Nina looked at Terry like a mother leered at a fibbing child. Her head lolled to the left, as it always did when she called someone’s bluff. “Who told you this?” she asked.

  “My commander in the Meisters. Why?” he countered offensively.

  “The North African campaign ended on the thirteenth day of May, 1943, genius,” she corrected him. “Sort out your facts.”

  Terry wanted to kill her. Not only did she get one over on him, and not only was she going to seal his fate with Keating, but she was much smarter than him – all the time. Pursed lips displayed how irate he was becoming, but he could not retort. She was a historian who specialized on modern war history, predominantly, and he was only a street rat who did a bit of bareknuckle fighting.

  “Where did they take it, then?” she asked.

  “That is the thing, you see,” he explained, wary of using dates this time round, “the group disappeared with the Grail instead of delivering it to Churchill’s Galahad Trust, for safekeeping.”

  “Sounds like theft to me,” she shrugged, “but I suppose that is beside the point. So, the Meisters are of the mind that the Perceval Chapter stashed the Grail somewhere, and they want to locate the surviving members to find out where.”

  “Um,” he hesitated, “yes.” It was almost right, but he accepted it. After all, it was better if she knew less. “We need to find out who is still alive and find out where they are. That is it. That is all we need from you.”

  “Mr. Jones, I am a historian and relic hunter myself,” she told him in an esteemed tone of voice. “What makes you think that I will help you find the Holy Grail and let you claim it?”

  “Nothing. In fact, that is the very reason I was supposed to leave your lifeless body behind after you told me,” he replied in brutal honesty. “I am sure you know how this works.”

  “Aye, but now you and I are in a stalemate…mate,” she smiled.

  “’Tis true,” he admitted. “Now what?”

  “Unlike you, I am not a killer,” she said. Nina’s eyes wandered above her for a moment as she reconsidered her statement. “Oh, not a coldblooded one, anyway. However, you will drop me in my tracks the moment I turn my back. What if we both work for some incentive, and perhaps both make it out of here alive?”

  “I am listening,” he said.

  “Tell me first, how many men who fought in the Second World War would still be alive today? You do realize that the average soldier in World War II would not be around a hundred years old, right?” she speculated. “Give or take, depending on what age they joined the armed forces.”

  Terry immediately understood what Dr. Gould was trying to tell him, but he would have to divulge the more important, more fantastical factor of his quest to make her comprehend. All she would do was ridicule him again, like she did with the religion speech.

  “I get what you are saying, but you have to believe me. These men are still alive, unless they died in accidents or were murdered,” he tried to explain. His words came with uncertainty and he spoke slowly. Nina frowned, “Tell me why you would think so. I have a gut feeling there is more to your theory.”

  Terry scoffed and chuckled. “Do you at least believe in a sixth sense, Dr. Gould? Because yours is sharp as lightning.” Nina knew this, but she only smiled, waiting for him to reveal more layers of the thickening plot to her. “I really do not know how to say this to you, since you already think I am daft to believe in miracles and holy relics,” he sighed. “The men from the Perceval Chapter drank from the Holy Grail during their custody of it.” He winced, his statement sounding more like a question as he waited for her dismissal. There was no opinion, as yet, from Nina, so he continued. “And one of them…is my boss.”

  “Mr. Keating,” she stated plainly.

  Terry nodded. “He wants the artifact, Dr. Gould, because he is over a hundred years old and very reluctant to say goodnight, you know what I mean?”

  “Jesus,” she exhaled in amazement.

  “You believe me?” he gasped. “Please tell me that you believe me, because I am telling you…”

  Nina grinned and finished his sentence. “The Gospel truth?”

  Terry had to laugh. “Yeah, that is it. So, I need to trace all the men in the secret alliance, you see? The ones who are still alive…one of them…”

  “One of them has the Holy Grail,” she added. “Which one?”

  “Mr. Keating believes we are looking for Carlos Cruz. A Portuguese metallurgist, most likely to possess the chalice, but we are not one hundred percent sure. His whereabouts will be in these Templar archives, and that is why I was tasked to find the keeper of the records,” Terry spilled the lot. He did not care if Nina Gould believed him. This was the truth of what he knew, of what his mission was, whether she approved of his sanity or not.

  “Okay, let us find the records o
f the Perceval Chapter,” she agreed. “But we take down the information and then, Mr. Jones, you and I will drive to my home. There we will call my associates and you will sign a statement rescinding all claims you have made against Norman Kingsley to Interpol as the farce that it is. Upon it, you will admit that your organization orchestrated the horrendous crime.”

  “I cannot let you do that!” he hissed. “This is our claim! The Holy Grail is ours! The Meisters will not tolerate th…”

  Nina shot him. One single slug to the shoulder tore through his flesh and hurled his body to the floor. “Keep talking, genius,” she said, aiming straight at his crotch. The bleeding brute wanted to rip her to shreds, but Dr. Nina Gould had proven to be his ultimate nightmare, a nightmare with a full clip.

  20

  Cut and Dried

  “Get in the car. You drive,” Nina ordered Terry Jones. With many promises of violence, she had finally managed to get him out from the bunker and to the car in the dead of night.

  “I drive? I am wounded. Remember? You shot me!” he protested at the top of his voice.

  “It is an automatic, Terry. You will not need your arm to change gears. Stop acting like a little bitch and get in the car!” Nina commanded with the gun pointed squarely at his face. “You can drive just fine with a wounded shoulder.”

  In the car, it was quiet for a spell, while they drive back to Nina’s house. The yellow lights of the main road rolled over the car as it progressed toward Dunuaran Road with its two occupants inside running on strain and adrenaline. Terry was clearly immensely upset, not in the way of anger, as such, but he appeared to be worried sick about the turn of events. Nina could see his discontent, but she said nothing. He needed to stew in his own juices, she figured, at least until she could figure out if there was any stock in what he was after.

  Terry could take no more. The bullet hole in his shoulder was killing him, burning like a lump of coal in his rotator cuff muscle. Along with the fever he had begun to exhibit, the thug started shaking uncontrollably. Nina looked at him. His face was pale and clammy, his teeth clenched, the early signs of tetanus, but she did not want to feed his self-pity until they reached their destination.

  At once, he turned his head. “Dr. Gould, I really cannot go to prison for something I did not do.”

  “Good,” she replied coldly. “Then you will understand Norman’s position perfectly. Next one left, remember?” she reminded him of the route.

  “Listen, I had nothing to do with that child’s death,” he said. “I swear to Christ. I did not make a real phone call that night. It was a bluff. You can check my phone records, Nina. There was no call to kill a child. Jesus Christ, I am a brawler, maybe beat my wife one time, always worked for bad men, but I am not a fucking child murderer. That was a bluff! You have to believe me!”

  Nina almost did believe him. He sounded sincere, and if she had ever learned something about the nature of men, it was that they spilled the truth when they tasted desperation. He was pleading, but groveling always annoyed her and right now she felt sickened by his begging.

  “Then tell me how come a child was murdered that night,” Nina asked with a stone face.

  “I have no idea. Mr. Keating had me living with Kingsley for two weeks leading up to your return from Egypt, or wherever you were. During that time,” he rambled through quivering, bluish lips, “I was stealing Kingsley’s license, pulling his prints off glasses and the like. That was why I had to keep an eye on him, see? Mr. Keating said I was delivering all that as incentive, you know, so that we can use it to blackmail Kingsley. I never knew they would really kill someone, Dr. Gould!”

  “So they planted the evidence you collected from my stepbrother at the scene of the crime,” she conjectured. “But you did not kill the boy?”

  “No!” he scowled impatiently. “Of course not! I was busy trailing Kingsley, ready to alert the cops once Mr. Keating signaled me by a phone call. I was nowhere near that boy! I was following your stepbrother like a bloody shadow all night. Followed him to your house when he outran the police too. That is why I happened to be here when they took him away.”

  She had to concede that it made perfect sense, given the facts were not twisted in Terry’s favor. He was a villain and a charlatan, but she knew enough of human psychology to see that Terry Jones was more muscle than mind. A pawn.

  “You look like shit,” she remarked as he pulled the car into her driveway.

  “I have to get to a hospital,” he groaned. “Not being a pussy, but I think I those jabs at the paint factory did me in worse than your gunshot.”

  “I will call an ambulance, but first you are going to confess on video, pal,” she announced.

  “But I did not do it!” he insisted.

  “Listen!” she snapped. “Shut up for a second and let me tell you what is going to happen. You are going to confess all you just told me on video. I will forward it to an undisclosed recipient who will keep it until I am certain you will not try to kill me.”

  “Keep talking,” he said in a more mellow tone.

  “On this video clip you will turn on Keating by name,” she informed him.

  “He will kill me,” Terry shrieked, but Nina shoved the barrel of his gun against his head.

  “I will fucking kill you,” she hissed. “Now, you have fucked with my brother, my family. That is not a light matter in any case, Mr. Jones. You and your cohorts have orchestrated an innocent child’s murder, which is reprehensible! Mull those facts around in your head for a minute and tell me you do not deserve getting shot!”

  He panted heavily. The fever was taking him, his soul was tarnished by the deeds of other men and he was not going to come out of this business unscathed. Terry’s dark blue eyes searched Nina’s for mercy, but found none. She was right. He could not deny that she was right in every morsel of disdain he received from her. Finally, he bowed his head and nodded. Pearls of sweat trickled from his wan skin and his mouth trembled.

  “Either you take the fall with your sick pack of rabid dogs, or you can turn on them and get off with a comparative rap on the knuckles for accessory charges,” she said. “Your choice.”

  It was a no-brainer. Terry almost immediately agreed with a desperate nod. He could hardly breathe properly, but he mustered, “J-just get me an ambulance, please. I will do anything you want. Just do not let me die.”

  Nina felt nothing, but she needed Terry Jones to liberate Kingsley. “What is the matter, Jones? You are not that eager to meet your god anymore?” she sneered as she exited the vehicle in the drizzle.

  A half hour later, an ambulance showed up in front of Nina’s house. She had Terry’s confession on video, implicating Keating and his Meisters for the murder of little Tommy Hayward of Basildon, Essex.

  However, Nina had explained the plan to Terry, who was to report to Keating as planned. He was to play along, stalling any mission for the Holy Grail by providing false intelligence she would provide. In the meantime, she was going to contact Sam Cleave to impart on him the new details she had learned regarding the serial murders of the children that he was asked to investigate.

  Once they were certain of the suspect, she would help Sam Cleave alert Interpol with all the parties involved, complete with Terry’s confession. He was going to take a fall, but he was going to turn state’s evidence to lighten his punishment. This would absolve Norman Kingsley of the charges against him and keep the secrets of the Templar Knights intact.

  “What happened here, madam?” the EMT asked when they took Terry’s vitals.

  “Big mistake!” she answered, acting like a shocked and frail female. Terry was impressed by Dr. Gould’s acting abilities, but he was not allowed to laugh. She was frantic, pretending to feel terrible for what she had done. “I thought he was a burglar and I shot! He fell through my back-porch window and landed in the debris behind the house. Now look at him! I am so sorry, darling,” she told Terry, holding his hand. “I had no idea you were going to surprise me. You were n
ot supposed to be back for days yet!”

  “I know, love,” he played along. “Just wanted to surprise you.”

  “Jab him. Blood poisoning,” the female EMT told her partner over Terry’s body. She looked down at the Cockney thug with a reassuring smile. “If it is any consolation, I think what you did was very romantic, sir.”

  “Thank you,” he grinned weakly. “That’s just how I am.”

  Now Nina had to hold her chuckle. She watched the medical technicians wheel him off to the ambulance, anxious to get in touch with Sam. Terry turned his head sideways to look at the petite pepper pot on the porch, her arms folded with authority.

  “Well, played, dear Nina,” he whispered in admiration for her usurpation, and grateful that she still allowed him that last choice instead of dropping him like the bastard he had been.

  Back inside, Nina made sure to lock her doors and windows. She was utterly exhausted after this horrible and active night, but her new discovery prompted her to make a call to Sam before catching up on her sleep. To her surprise, Sam answered his phone at this hour.

  “Did I wake you?” she asked.

  “No,” he sighed wearily, sounding terrible as well. “I am still up. Rough night.”

  Nina rolled her eyes and exhaled long. “Tell me about it! Listen, when are you coming back?”

  “Supposed to be back today, but things took…a rather unsavory turn,” he explained. “Why do you ask?”

  “I have some information on your serial killings, Sam. You will not believe this shit,” she said. Upon hearing no response, she assumed he needed to hear more. “These murders are not the work of a serial killer.”

  “How so?” he asked.

  “My stepbrother, Norman Kingsley, came to me for help. Long story, but he was framed for these child murders and is currently in custody. But Sam, he did not commit these murders. Did you hear about the latest one? A boy in Essex?” she reported.

  Sounding confused and fatigued, Sam replied, “No. Another one when?”