Order of the Black Sun Box Set 8

by Preston William Child

  “Two days ago! While Norman was here with me. Look, I cannot say much on the phone, but you are wasting your time in Portugal. The people who killed that Portuguese boy are now in London, because they killed the Essex boy! Come back, so that we can track them. I know who is doing this!”

  “The Perceval Chapter?” he chanced.

  Nina’s heart stopped for a moment. She almost dropped the phone at his answer but stuttered in astonishment. “S-Sam? How in God’s name did you come to that conclusion?”

  “The father of the Cruz boy who was killed here was a member. I have the group photo of the unit right here. He committed suicide last night…right in front of me,” Sam shared evenly, but Nina could hear that what she construed as fatigue in his voice was, in fact, shock.

  “Oh my God, Sam!” she sympathized. “Are you alright?”

  Both of them immediately thought of Sam’s fiancé, who was shot in the face right in front of him a few years ago, but neither mentioned it. “I have seen it before,” he hinted at the worst day of his life, “but I know now where to look to find this savage.”

  “Do you need a partner?” she asked. “I have archive records of the Perceval Chapter and their evil deeds to exploit the Holy Grail.”

  “Aye, we should team up and compare notes,” he agreed, “but once we have gotten some sleep. I will let you know when I return, so that we can go at this.”

  “Absolutely,” she concurred.

  “Before I go,” he said. “How well did you know Father Harper?”

  “Very well,” she replied. “I was very fond of him. He was an amazing, pure and strong man. Why do you ask?”

  Sam sighed and paused, before responding. “Because he is on the photo too.”

  21

  Watching Wrichtishousis

  Purdue felt like his old self again. The fundraiser was a resounding success and, although he did not bring anybody home with him, as he used to, he was more than satisfied to go to sleep alone. Not only did he get re-acquainted with old business friends, but his party went without incident and he collected no less than four phone numbers of beautiful women. Besides, he was not growing any younger and needed to keep busy while waiting for Nina to realize what a catch he was.

  “What is the time, by the way?” he asked Dugal, the chauffeur, as he plopped into the back of the limousine. Jane walked by with her date just then and she overheard the amusing enquiry.

  “Way past your bedtime, sir,” she smiled. “Your watch is on your wrist?”

  Purdue smiled stupidly in his tipsy state, looked down and saw the golden sheen of his Louis Moinet. He scoffed self-consciously, “Oops.”

  Jane and her male companion chuckled. “Good night, Mr. Purdue,” she said, and Purdue returned a small salute before disappearing into the lavish interior of the limousine. “Thank you, Dugal!” he said as the door closed. On the way back home, he elected to check in with his security people about calling on Nina. “Jason, David Purdue again,” he slurred a little. “Is Dr. Gould alright?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jason replied from the other side of the line, sounding a bit groggy from being awoken at home. “The first time we drove past, she was not home, but we made several trips on the hour and found her home just under three hours ago, sir. She said for you not to worry, that everything was fine. I called your assistant as well to confirm this.”

  “Ah, thank you, Jason. Have a good night,” Purdue smiled and hanged up the phone. No doubt, Jason was unhappy about relaying a message and still being ripped from sleep for it, but he was impressed at how David Purdue remembered his friends’ welfare, even after what sounded like a bath of whiskey.

  With no reason to be concerned for Nina anymore, Purdue arrived home in high spirits. The manor was vacant at this weak hour, but Purdue had enough top of the line technology to do things for him. His inventions served him well. Before saying goodbye to the last guests at the yacht, he used his pocket sized tablet to switch on the under-floor heating in the house and opened the vents to emit a low flow of warm air. From his limousine he already activated his bedroom coffee machine and unlocked his interior doors and gates. Once he arrived home, he simply had to open the main door by electronic code, eradicating the inconvenience of remembering the other passkeys in his less than sober state.

  At just before 5am, Purdue unlocked his front doors and entered an already welcoming manor. The smell of coffee permeated through the main hallway, where it fell from the second floor bannisters onto the open lobby.

  “Ah! The smell of sobriety,” he smiled. As he trudged upstairs, the billionaire sang some hybrid overture, confused by his brain’s rare misfiling. He could not help but feel a vague sense of insecurity, but in the state he was in, it was hard to tell. Thoughts were scrambled, let alone coherent perceptions of his direct environment, but Purdue assured himself that all was well. With his security people on twenty-four-hour duty at the gates of his estate, there was little reason to be paranoid.

  While Purdue tackled the enormous task of successfully getting himself out of the tuxedo, socks and shoes, he reminisced about the pretty woman by his side all night. April Lazlo was a bit too thin to his liking but made for riveting conversation and excellent scenery. She was not the only one who draped herself from his arm. A number of available ladies made his acquaintance during the evening, offering to make his existence even more of a pleasure in the immediate future – or at least that is what he thought he made of the whole affair.

  Their numbers and e-mails came in varieties of jotted napkins and folded business cards, tumbling from his trouser pockets. He was too inebriated to pick them up, and just smiled at the hoard. He wondered, in his mangled thoughts, if the lively teacher from Glasgow would contact him as she had promised. At some point in the evening, Jane had interrupted their cozy conversation more than once, pulling him aside and trying to warn him. If only he could remember what Jane was on about, but right now, all he could remember was how to drink coffee and fall into bed.

  As the morning light sharpened the shadows in the estate garden, the clouds stood still, thick and full. Purdue was fast asleep by now, blissfully unaware of the covert surveillance that his mansion had been under all night long.

  Later, in Glasgow, the school principal of Gracewell Primary was devising a plan to breach the gates of the mighty Wrichtishousis. Mr. Willard had not attended the fundraiser after all, as he thought it to wiser to stay off the radar. Of course, Miss April had gone. He wondered how her plans had gone, whether she got into the mansion of David Purdue to steal Excalibur. After losing the legendary sword to Purdue and his accomplices, Mr. Willard was beyond sour for the loss. However, being yet another member of the Order of the Black Sun, he opted for a more final solution to Purdue’s incessant social sodomy of the organization.

  He could have Excalibur once Miss April obtained it, with or without her permission, but killing David Purdue was far more flattering to the ego, especially amongst the ranks of the Order and its affluent members of highest society.

  Mr. Willard was by no means a small fish in the Black Sun scheme of things, though not the most well known. What he was especially good at, as many a mercenary corpse in his back yard could attest, was building traps. An engineer for the SAS and other Special Forces units, he was also a very accomplished mechanic – a bomb builder. Being a school principal was the perfect day job for the old man and his eccentric ways. He loved children and enjoyed educating the next generations, but above all, it afforded him some small redemption to counter his destructive past.

  A knock at the door broke his concentration, forcing him to lift the pen from the paper, where his diagram was taking form.

  “Mr. Willard, are you home?” he heard Miss April cheer in her shrill voice.

  “Christ,” he mumbled, finishing the last of his tea, to answer the door of his modest house in Londale Street. He opened the door and checked the time on his watch.

  “Yes, I slept in. Long night, you see,” she smiled, tos
sing a bag of scones on his table. “Thought I would bring something to have with tea.”

  He cut right to the chase. “Did you steal Excalibur?”

  April gasped. “What, no foreplay?”

  “Did you?” he repeated himself, putting on the kettle.

  “Not yet. I had to get to know him better first,” she said. “You will not believe what a wealth of information a well-oiled man will give a woman while his nose is exploring her cleavage.”

  “You have a cleavage?” he teased.

  “Joke if you want, but I know exactly where Excalibur is in his house and…,” she pestered him, “…he even told me where some of his other artifacts are.”

  “Do tell,” Mr. Willard insisted.

  “Are you coming with me?” she asked nonchalantly. “I was thinking, I could introduce you and we can scout out the mansion while talking about education and fundraisers and all that shite.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” he admitted, serving the tea. “How do you plan to remove and escape with a sword larger than your body, my dear April? I am just curious.” He sat down and stirred his tea, waiting eagerly for an amusing description of the mission.

  “Actually, I was hoping that you could come up with that part of the plan, being so good at rigging things up and making things explode and all that,” she winked with those beautiful green eyes. Mr. Willard nodded in thought. “Could work,” he agreed. “We could visit Mr. Purdue. I have always wanted to meet the former Renatus of the Black Sun organization.”

  “He is charming! Cannot believe he is not married,” she swooned.

  “No wealthy man in his right mind would wed, my dear,” Mr. Willard told her sincerely. “It is the surest way to end up divorced and broke. He is clearly a genius. A smart billionaire keeps his money away from a spouse, from anyone who could claim rights to his wealth. I almost feel sorry for what I am going to do to him.”

  “Ha! Losing some ancient relics will hardly hurt him,” she cooed, skipping the teacup to break her scone into tiny bits. Mr. Willard maintained the charade that he intended to help her steal Excalibur. Rightly so. By the way in which she exalted David Purdue, she may well decide to thwart his murder if she knew of its probability, so the principal kept his intentions to himself.

  “You can lure him into the garden. I am sure you would not mind getting to know him better,” he said suggestively, smiling. “While he is occupied, I can lift the sword while under pretense of a stomach bug. An explosion in some part of the property will attract his guard, giving me the way out without perturbation. You can act as surprised as he, keeping your alibi clean and his trust for you undamaged.”

  “And you?” she asked.

  “Hide the sword in plain sight,” he winked. “I am going to put it in the boot of my car.”

  “You lost me,” she frowned. “What do you need the explosion for? What is the use of the guard leaving the gates unattended if you are not going to flee?”

  “Diversion,” he smiled. “I cannot look guilty, can I? I will rush out of the restroom eventually, looking frantic at the sound of the blast. Innocently concerned for what is happening. Nobody will know who took the sword, but they will believe that he must have escaped through the unattended gates. Understand now?”

  “Great, but what about the surveillance cameras?” she contested proudly. She enjoyed jousting with Principal Willard when he planned small attacks like this.

  “The blast will erupt in the hub, a mock-summer house where all the electricity grids for the estate is housed. At the moment of the explosion, all circuits will blow, including the generators running from Lab 4, conveniently situated a few seconds from the downstairs toilet I will be occupying,” he explained expertly.

  Miss April was stunned. “My God, you are amazing,” she marveled. “How do you know where everything is?”

  “Last night, while you were using your feminine guiles, I was doing reconnaissance the old fashioned way. Satellites and floor plans, mostly,” he divulged boastfully. Miss April shook her head in absolute wonder of the simple plan Mr. Willard had conceived. Subsequently having their tea in relative silence, the two cohorts relished the imminent victory. While Miss April could not wait to hold Excalibur in her hands, she had no idea that her superior had a far more baleful evening planned. He looked forward to defile Wrichtishousis and kill her master.

  22

  Where the Kite Fell

  Sam made work of following up on what Carlos had disclosed before his suicide. His last remark to Nina on the phone the night before made quite an impact, but he assured her that they would discuss the matter in person once he returned from Portugal. When he logged in to his laptop and did some research, he found support to Nina’s claim that yet another murder of a child had taken place in the United Kingdom.

  Either it was the work of a copycat, which was logically unsound as a theory, or the so-called serial killings were executed by a cartel or cult of sorts. The latter was a firmer bet in Sam’s opinion, especially now that he knew about the terrible deeds of the Perceval Chapter. Considering them as a concrete suspect made a lot of sense, apart from the fact that similar child murders had been recorded all over the world in the past few centuries. How this was accomplished, and why, was the next subject on Sam’s agenda.

  After the police had left and Carlos Cruz’ body removed, Sonia Cruz had allowed the journalist to stay for another day. She allowed him free rein of her late husband’s study, in order to assist in his investigation. Even after what she was told about her husband’s real age, and his involvement in confessed atrocities, Sonia still wanted to find the individual who killed her so. In her opinion, she could not care any less about the motive for Mario’s slaughter. All the wanted, was the man who did the actual killing brought to justice – bloody as necessary, if need be.

  Sam only slept for a few hours after the terrible thing that occurred the night before and stayed in the background to give space to what was left of the grieving family. He kept to himself for most of the day, while Sonia finalized the business side of her husband’s death. The unpleasant matters, such as the coroner, the funeral home arrangements, obtaining his death certificate to notify his insurance companies and banking institutions, had to be concluded as soon as possible. Sonia could not bear to be home anymore after losing both her husband and son in less than a fortnight.

  “Getting anywhere?” she asked Sam, who was sitting at her husband’s desk. The investigative journalist was surrounded by towers of folders, documents and photographs, most of which were not pertinent to his confession. However, there was a smaller stack of papers and maps to Sam’s right, singled out as valid documentation concerning the Perceval Chapter.

  “Aye,” he answered in a light tone. He knew that she was deeply distressed at the fresh loss, so he wished to keep her spirits up by sounding productive. “I have found a lot of solid evidence that could lead us to the people Carlos told me about. One of them is definitely Mario’s…” he did not quite know how to phrase the proper noun for the man who killed one’s child.

  “Killer,” she finished the sentence with that same cold, stern tone of truth she had exhibited at the hotel in Coimbra. “Say it, Sam. I will not sugar coat the nature of the beast for my own comfort. I need to call him what he is. I need to stay angry. As long as I am angry, I will have the fire to avenge, to seek out, you know?”

  Sam admired her sentiment. “I understand that completely.” Again, he was reminded of that feeling he too felt before, when he watched the love of his life gunned down in cold blood. He truly did understand the need for that hardness and that fire Sonia spoke of.

  “Do you have any idea who it is?” she asked, folding the edges of her cardigan over her chest. Her large dark eyes zoned in on the old World War II photograph on the desk. Softly, she ran her fingertips over the grainy image of her husband’s face.

  Sam shrugged. “It could be any of them, those who are left. I am busy researching on which of these men are
still alive, up until the date of Mario’s death.” This time he said it without hesitation. Mario’s death. Plain and simple, exactly as it was. It was remarkably liberating not to have to choose softer terms for terrible things. “But I found that, in the broader scheme of things, these murders are not a new invention. Similar killings have taken place,” he looked up for her approval, “according to your husband’s research, since the Holy Grail was taken out of Jerusalem.”

  “That is tremendously interesting. I mean that,” she told Sam, “but that hardly tells me who killed my son in this year. Could you please find out which man on this picture killed my Mario? Please, Sam. There will be plenty of time to write entire books about the unholy actions of ancient soldiers once you have found the one who took my baby boy from me.”

  Her eyes pinned Sam’s, showing not an inkling of sadness or frailty. All he could see behind her stare was a resolute need to find one man, just Mario’s killer, and to concentrate her hate, sorrow and feelings of vengeance upon him. Sam nodded in agreement. “You are right, Sonia. It can wait. My apologies. I tend to get greedy with such large puzzles, instead of focusing on one important piece without which an entire scene could not be complete.”

  “That is what I am good at,” she said casually, leaning against the desk while looking over all the papers in general. “My husband always blamed my woman-ness for it.”

  “Your ‘woman-ness’?” Sam smiled. “Not femininity?”

  “No,” she smiled as well. “He told me that femininity is a matter of biology and taste. Woman-ness was the specific traits women had when challenged by men. A woman’s nature when being…not like men.” She laughed with a tainted bitterness. “You know how men always dread a woman’s memory. In an argument, as men claim, women always bring up old and specific incidents that have been forgotten long ago. Carlos said, I always focused on that one tiny piece of information, that three seconds of wrongdoing, and I never let it go.”