King Solomon's Diamonds (Order of the Black Sun Series Book 18)

by P. W. Child

  Nina sank to her knees on the marble and ran her fingers over the names. “I know who you are,” she sang cheerfully while the monastery started taking on water from the crevices in the external walls. “Ephippas, you are the demon King Solomon employed to raise a heavy cornerstone of his temple, a great big slab much like this one,” she whispered as she scrutinized the headstone to find some sort of device or lever to open it. “And Abizithibod,” she announced proudly, dusting off the name with a wipe of her palm, “you were the naughty fucker who helped the Egyptian magicians against Moses…”

  Suddenly the slab started moving under her knees. “Holy shit!” Nina exclaimed as she fell back, looking straight up at the giant mounted stone cross on the main chapel roof. “Sorry.”

  Note to self, she thought, give Father Harper a call when all this is over.

  Though there was not a cloud in the sky the water continued to creep higher. While Nina was apologizing to the cross her eye caught another shooting star. “Oh, for fucks sake!” she moaned, crawling in the mud to get out of the way of the evenly animate marble. It was so thick in breadth that it would crush her legs instantly.

  Unlike the other grave markers, this one bore names of demons bound by King Solomon, irrefutably declaring that this was where the lost diamonds were kept by the monks. As the slab grated its way into the casing of granite, Nina winced thinking of what she would see. True to her fears, she was confronted with a skeleton lying on a purple bed of what was once silk. Upon the skull a golden crown gleamed, encrusted with rubies and sapphires. It was pale yellow, true crude gold, but Dr. Nina Gould could not care less about the crown.

  “Where are the diamonds?” she frowned. “Oh God, don’t tell me the diamonds have been taken. No, no.” With as much respect as she could afford at the time and circumstance, she started to examine the grave. Lifting the bones one by one and muttering with worry, she did not notice the water flooding the narrow channel of graves where she was busy searching. The first grave filled up with water as the fence wall gave way under the weight of the rising lake. Prayers and laments coursed from the people on the higher side of the fortress, but Nina was adamant to obtain the diamonds before all was lost.

  Once the first grave was filled, the loose ground it was cradled in turned to mud. The casket and headstone sank under the water, allowing the stream free passage to the second grave, just behind Nina.

  “Where the fuck do you keep your diamonds, for Christ’s sake?” she shrieked in the din of the maddening church bell.

  “For Christ’s sake?” someone said above her. “Or for Mammon’s?”

  Nina did not want to look up, but the cold end of the gun barrel coaxed her to obey. Above her a tall young monk stood, looking positively furious. “Of all nights to desecrate a grave for treasure you choose this one? May the Lord have mercy on you for your devil’s greed, woman!”

  He was dispatched by the abbot, while the head monk concentrated his efforts on salvaging souls and delegating for evacuation.

  “No, please! I can explain everything! My name is Dr. Nina Gould!” Nina shouted, throwing up her arms in surrender, having no idea that Sam’s Beretta, tucked in her belt, was in plain sight. He shook his head. The monk’s finger played on the trigger of the M16 he held, but his eyes widened and froze on her body. It was then that she remembered the gun. “Listen, listen!” she implored. “I can explain.”

  The second grave sank into the loose quicksand formed by the wicked current of muddy lake water, stalking the third grave, but neither Nina nor the monk realized.

  “You explain nothing,” he cried, looking decidedly unstable. “You keep quiet! Let me think!” Little did she know that he was staring at her chest, where her buttoned shirt parted and revealed the tattoo that also fascinated Sam.

  Nina dared not touch the gun she bore, but she was desperate to find the diamonds. She needed a diversion. “Watch out for the water!” she shouted, feigning panic and looking past the monk to fool him. As he turned to look, Nina leapt up and cold cocked him with the Beretta’s butt, hitting him at the base of the skull. The monk fell to the ground with a thump and she frantically fumbled through the bones of the skeleton, even whipping at the satin fabric, but nothing came of it.

  Furiously she wept in defeat, lashing about the purple rag in rage. The motion dislodged the skull from the spine with a grotesque cracking sound that swiveled the head bone askew. Two pristine little stones spilled from the eye cavity onto the fabric.

  “No fucking way!” Nina groaned happily. “You let it all go to your head, didn’t you?”

  The water swept away the limp body of the young monk and claimed his assault rifle, pulling it to the muddy tomb below, while Nina gathered up the diamonds, chucked them back inside the skull and wrapped the head in the purple fabric. As the water spilled into the third grave bed, she thrust the prize into her satchel and flung it back onto her back.

  A pitiful moan came from the drowning monk a few meters away. He was upside down in a funneling tornado of muddy water draining downward into the cellar, but the drainage grid prevented him from going through it. So he was left drowning, caught by the downward spiraling suction. Nina had to go. It was almost dawn and the water was flooding the entire holy island along with the unfortunate souls who sought sanctuary there.

  Her canoe was bobbing wildly near the second tower wall. If she did not rush, she would go down with the landmass and lie dead under the lake’s muddy rage like the rest of the dead bodies bound to the cemetery. But the gurgling shouts occasionally coming from the churning waters over the cellar appealed to Nina’s compassion.

  He was going to shoot you. Fuck him, her inner bitch urged. If you bother to help him, you will end up the same. Besides, he probably just wants to grab you and hold you under for bludgeoning him just then. I know I would. Karma.’

  “Karma,” Nina mumbled as she realized something from the night in the Jacuzzi with Sam. “Bruich, I told you Karma would whip me with water. I have to make things right.”

  Cursing herself for the trivial superstition, she hastened through the powerful current to reach the drowning man. His arms were flailing wildly when his face went under as the historian rushed toward him. Mainly, the problem Nina encountered most was her small frame. She simply did not weigh enough to rescue a grown man, and the water swept her off her feet as soon as she stepped into the swirling vortex with still more lake water pouring in.

  “Hold on!” she shouted, as she tried to grab a hold of one of the iron bar teeth that barred the narrow windows to the cellar. The water was furious, dumping her under and thrashing her gullet and lungs without resistance, but she did her best not to release her grip as she reached out her hand to the arm of the monk. “Grab my hand! I’ll try to get you out!” she shouted as the water slammed into her mouth. “I owe a goddamn cat some amends,” she said to nobody in particular, as she felt his hand lock over her forearm in a lower arm grasp.

  With all her strength, she pulled him upwards, even just to help him catch his breath, but Nina’s tired body started to fail her. Again, she tried to no avail, watching the walls of the cellar crack under the weight of the water, soon to collapse onto them both in certain doom.

  “Come on!” she screamed, electing this time to wedge the toe of her boot into the wall and using her body as leverage. The effort was too great for Nina’s physical ability and she felt her shoulder dislocate as the monk’s weight along with the current, pulled it out of the rotator cuff. “Jesus Christ!” she shrieked in agony just before the gulf of mud and water drew her under.

  Like the swirling liquid madness of a crashing ocean wave, Nina’s body was jerked harshly and flung against the bottom part of the collapsing wall, yet she still felt the monk’s hand hold firmly. As her body hit the wall a second time, Nina grabbed the bar with her good hand. ‘Like a chin-up,’ her inner voice urged. ‘Just pretend it is a really heavy chin-up, because if you don’t, you’ll never see Scotland again.’

&nbs
p; With one last roar, Nina pulled herself up from the water’s surface, dislodging the suction hold on the monk and he came darting to the top like a buoy. He was momentarily unconscious, but when he heard Nina’s voice, his eyes opened. “Are you with me?” she shouted. “Please grab on to something because I cannot hold your weight anymore! My arm is badly injured!”

  He did as she asked, keeping himself up by hanging onto one of the next window’s bars. Nina was exhausted to a point of passing out, but she had the diamonds and she wanted to find Sam. She wanted to be with Sam. He made her feel safe and she needed that more than anything right now.

  With the wounded monk in her wake, she climbed up on the top of the fence wall to follow it to the buttress where her canoe waited. The monk did not chase her, but she bolted onto the little vessel and rowed madly over Lake Tana. Looking back frantically every few paces, Nina raced back to Sam, hoping he had not sunk along with the rest of Wereta yet. In the pale dawn of morning, with prayers against predators rolling over her lips, Nina floated away from the diminished island which had now become nothing more than a lone lighthouse in the distance.

  30

  Of Judas, Brutus, and Cassius

  Meanwhile, as Nina and Sam battled their tribulations, Patrick Smith was tasked with making the arrangements for the delivery of the Holy Box to its resting place in Mount Yeha, near Aksum. He was preparing the paperwork to be signed off by Col. Yimenu and Mr. Carter for submission to the MI6 head office. As the head of MI6, Mr. Carter’s administration would then present the papers to the Purdue tribunal to close the case.

  Joe Carter had arrived at Aksum Airport few hours earlier to meet with Col. Yimenu and the legal representatives of the Ethiopian government. They would oversee the delivery, but Carter was apprehensive about being in the company of David Purdue again, fearing the Scottish billionaire would attempt to expose Carter’s true identity as Joseph Karsten, First Level Member of the sinister Order of the Black Sun.

  During his trip to the tent village at the base of the mountain site, Karsten’s mind was racing. Purdue was becoming a serious liability, not only to him, but to the Black Sun in general. Their release of the Magician to dump the planet into a terrible pit of catastrophe was coming along just swimmingly. The only way their plan could fail, was if Karsten’s double life was exposed and the organization discovered, and those problems had only one trigger – David Purdue.

  “Did you hear about the floodings in Northern Europe, now hitting Scandinavia?” Col. Yimenu asked Karsten. “Mister Carter, I apologize for the power failures making everything so inconvenient, but most of the North African countries, as well as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, all the way up to Syria, are suffering darkness.”

  “Yes, so I have heard. It must be a terrible burden on the economy, for one,” Karsten said, playing a splendid role of ignorance, while he was the architect of the current global dilemma. “I am sure, if we all put our minds, and financial reserves, together, we might be able to salvage what is left of our countries.”

  After all, that was the aim of the Black Sun. Once the world was crippled by natural disasters, businesses failing, and security threats causing grand scale robberies and destruction, it would be injured enough for the organization to overthrow all super powers. With their boundless resources, skilled professionals, and collective wealth, the Order would be able to capture the world under a new regime of Fascism.

  “I don’t know what the government will do if this darkness, and now the floods, cause any more damage, Mr. Carter. I just don’t know,” Yimenu lamented in the noise of the bumpy trip. “I trust the United Kingdom has some form of emergency measure?”

  “They should,” Karsten replied with a hopeful look at Yimenu, his eyes not betraying his disdain for what he deemed a lower species. “As far as the military is concerned, I reckon we will be using our resources as much as one can against acts of God.” He shrugged, looking sympathetic.

  “This is true,” Yimenu replied. “These are acts of God; a cruel and angry god. Who knows, we might be standing on the brink of extinction.”

  Karsten had to fight off a smile, feeling like Noah, watching the un-favored meeting their fate at the hand of the god they did not worship well enough. Trying not to get carried away in the moment, he said, “I’m sure the superior ones among us will survive this Apocalypse.”

  “Sir, we’ve arrived,” the driver told Col. Yimenu. “It looks like the Purdue group has already arrived and taken the Holy Box inside.”

  “Is there nobody?” Col. Yimenu shrieked.

  “Yes, sir. I see Special Agent Smith waiting for us by the truck,” the driver affirmed.

  “Oh, good,” Col. Yimenu sighed. “That man is on top of things. I must congratulate you on Special Agent Smith, Mr. Carter. He is always one step ahead, making sure all orders are executed.”

  Karsten winced at Yimenu’s exaltation of Smith, playing it off as a smile. “Oh, yes. That is precisely why I insisted Special Agent Smith accompany Mr. Purdue on this trip. I knew he would be the only man for the job.”

  They exited the vehicle and met with Patrick, who informed them that the Purdue party’s early arrival was due to a turn of the weather which had forced them to take an alternative route.

  “I thought it was odd that your Hercules was not at the airport in Aksum,” Karsten remarked, hiding how furious he had been that his appointed assassin was left without a target at the designated airport. “Where did you land?”

  Patrick did not like his superior’s tone, but having not been let in on the true identity of his boss, he had no idea why the esteemed Joe Carter was so insistent on trivial logistics. “Well sir, the pilot dropped us in Dansha and proceeded to another flight strip to see to repairs for damage incurred during the landing.”

  Karsten had no retort to that. It sounded perfectly logical, especially provided that most of the roads in Ethiopia were not sound, let alone being of proper condition in the rainless floods lately plaguing the countries of the continents around the Mediterranean Sea. He accepted Patrick’s quick-witted lie without reservation in front of Col. Yimenu and suggested they go into the mountain to make sure Purdue was not up to any skullduggery.

  Col. Yimenu then received a satellite phone call and excused himself, gesturing for the MI6 delegates to continue on into the site in the meantime. Once inside, Patrick and Karsten, along with two of Patrick’s assigned men, followed the sound of Purdue’s voice to find their way.

  “This way, sir. They’ve managed to secure the surroundings, courtesy of Mr. Adjo Kira, to make sure the Holy Box is returned to its old place without concern for cave-ins,” Patrick informed his superior.

  “Mr. Kira knows how to prevent cave-ins?” Karsten asked. With great condescension he added, “I thought he was just a guide.”

  “He is, sir,” Patrick elucidated. “But he is also a qualified structural engineer.”

  A winding, narrow corridor led them down toward the chamber where Purdue first found himself confronted by the locals, just before he stole the Holy Box, mistaken for the Ark of the Covenant.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” Karsten greeted, his voice falling on Purdue’s ears like the song of dread, splitting his soul with hatred and terror. He kept reminding himself that he was not captive anymore, that he was in the safe company of Patrick Smith and his men.

  “Oh, hello,” Purdue greeted jovially as he pinned Karsten’s glare with his icy blue eyes. Mockingly, he accentuated the charlatan’s name. “So nice to see you…Mr. Carter, is it?”

  Patrick frowned. He thought Purdue knew the name of his superior, but being a very sharp chap, Patrick quickly caught on that something more was going on between Purdue and Carter.

  “I see you started without us,” Karsten noted.

  “I explained to Mr. Carter why we arrived earlier,” Patrick told Purdue. “But now, all we have to worry about is getting this relic back in place so we can all go home, hey?”

  Much as Patrick maintained an a
micable tone, he could feel the tension tighten around them like a noose around his neck. According to him, it was just an uncalled for emotional jump because of the bad taste the whole relic theft left in everyone’s mouth. Karsten noticed that the Holy Box had been replaced correctly and when he turned to look behind him, he realized that Col. Yimenu conveniently had not returned yet.

  “Special Agent Smith, would you please join Mr. Purdue by the Holy Box, please?” he instructed Patrick.

  “Why?” Patrick frowned.

  At once, Patrick learned the truth behind his superior’s intent. “Because I goddamn told you so, Smith!” he roared furiously, drawing his sidearm. “Yield your weapon, Smith!”

  Purdue froze in his tracks, holding up his hands in surrender. Patrick was dumbstruck, but he obeyed his superior nonetheless. His two subordinates scuffled about in uncertainty, but soon composed their reaction, electing to keep their weapons holstered and their feet still.

  “Finally showing your true colors, Karsten?” Purdue mocked. Patrick scowled in his confusion. “You see, Paddy, this man you know as Joe Carter is in fact Joseph Karsten, head of the Austrian arm of the Order of the Black Sun.”

  “Christ,” Patrick mumbled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We did not want you to be implicated in anything, Patrick, so we kept you in the dark,” Purdue explained.

  “Well done, David,” Patrick groaned. “I could have avoided this.”

  “No, you could not have!” Karsten shouted, his fat red face quivering in derision. “There is a reason I lead Britain’s military intelligence, and you don’t, lad. I plan ahead and do my homework.”

  “Lad?” Purdue scoffed. “Stop pretending that you are worthy of the Scots, Karsten.”

  “Karsten?” Patrick asked, frowning at Purdue.