Order of the Black Sun Box Set 9

by Preston William Child

  “For instance...” Roland continued.

  He pushed his sleeve up. A high tech watch-like device was wrapped tightly around his wrist—and it was blinking red.

  Sam's eyes widened as it dawned on him that his hostages had a cavalry coming for them. It was some sort of distress signal. A GPS leading straight to their location. He tried his best to remain calm. “And just why the hell would you tell me about this? Why would you show this?”

  Roland smiled, rolling his sleeve back over the watch. He sat back comfortably like he no longer had any cares in the world, despite the gun still aimed at him.

  “Why?” He yawned. “Because at this point, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's too late for you to do a damn thing. Even if you killed us, broke the bracelet, they're already close. They'll be here any minute.”

  Roland fastened his seat belt and Ulrich did the same up front, winking at Sam in the rear view mirror. “I would buckle up if I were you.”

  Almost on cue, there was a pop—a sudden blast of air—and he knew that at least one of the car's tires had burst. Sam quickly pulled down the strap of his seat belt and clicked it in place, just in the nick of time. The car weaved and wobbled uneasily, tilting about on the road. Ulrich didn't seem to be bothered at the wheel by the disturbance. There was another pop and another tire gave out beneath the vehicle.

  The car suddenly careened hard and flipped over completely, its roof skidding across the road before coming to a halt in the grass nearby. All of its passengers would have been thrown about the car if not for the seat belts strapped over their bodies, causing them all to instead stay suspended upside down in their seats, reeling from the whiplash of the crash.

  Sam's whole body ached but he was glad to still be breathing. He opened his eyes but found himself in a disorienting world, hanging upside down where he sat. Blood rushed down into his head and he felt thankful that he was at least buckled in. That was kind of Roland to suggest that he put it on before the crash. Roland may have been a member of an evil secret society but at least he cared about safe driving.

  Sam let out a groan and craned his head to the seat beside him. Roland was recovering from the crash too. Sam noticed that the pistol he had was now beneath him on the flipped ceiling of the car. He must have dropped it during all of the commotion, and without it, he lost the only bit of leverage he had.

  Roland, still struggling to recover himself, also took notice of the firearm on the ceiling between them. They both stared at the pistol and then looked at each other. The same thought crossed their minds at the same moment—get that weapon.

  Both of them reached out for it but it was just beyond how far their arms could stretch. Their fingertips were only an inch away from the grip. That small of a margin might make the difference between life and death. Roland released a frustrated growl and tried to unbuckle his seat belt but was having trouble with it. Thankfully, the strap seemed to have been damaged during the crash.

  Feeling trapped and unable to get out, Roland instead focused his energy on hitting Sam to stop him from unbuckling himself. Sam blocked his punches and returned a few of his own, and the two traded blows while hanging upside down. From where they sat, stuck beside each other, it wouldn't take long for one to beat the other to death, and Sam knew that he wouldn't be on the winning side of a brawl like that.

  He let Roland land a couple of blows and focused on shifting his energy to get loose. He tried to click his seat belt, but it seemed jammed up from the crash just like Roland's. While that seat belt might have saved his life when the car flipped, now it might be the death of him, keeping him from escape while he was brutally beaten to death. It was the worst possible time for his buckle to not be working properly. He pulled at the strap hard with one hand while trying to block Roland's strikes with the other.

  Finally, after yanking as hard as he could, the strap came loose and away from his body. The seat belt came undone, dropping him down hard from where he was suspended, head first onto the car's ceiling.

  At least now he could reach the gun. It hurt to move but he managed to grab the pistol, and part of him considered using it on the two Black Sun agents while they were stuck, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He wouldn't kill someone so defenseless like that. They may have been trying to abduct him, but they hadn't tried to kill him. He wouldn't kill them when they weren't at least intending to do the same to him.

  He started painfully crawling toward the door on his side of the car, away from the upside down Roland, who still flailed and thrashed around helplessly from where he was hanging in the car seat. He tried reaching for Sam, as Sam pushed the car door open to escape and crawled out of the overturned vehicle.

  As he pulled himself out into the fresh air and the mud, Sam felt impossibly shaky. He was still disoriented from the force of the car flipping, but at least he was moving. Once he was completely out of the car, he tried his best to get to his feet. His whole equilibrium felt off balance, and it hurt to stand, but he forced himself up.

  Once he was standing firmly enough that he didn't feel like he was about to tip, he turned back to the overturned car. Both tires on its left side had been completely destroyed, popped like balloons. The rubber was just hanging loosely over the metal wheels.

  Both Black Sun operatives were slowly pulling themselves from the wreckage just like he had. Sam had kind of hoped Roland would stay stuck in his seat but he knew he wasn't that lucky. Ulrich must have been able to help Roland out of his buckle, because they both emerged from the vehicle and started limping unsteadily toward him. Ulrich looked like he caught the brunt of the crash; a large, bloody gash ran down his face from a deep wound over his brow. Maybe his air bag hadn't deployed.

  Both of them winced as they moved, looking like they were doing their best to ignore the pain that came with each little step they took. Whatever reinforcements had come and flipped the car had done quite a number on their own allies. Sam wasn't really surprised; he doubted the Black Sun cared if their own men died, as long as the overall task was completed.

  Sam tried to get away but he wasn't moving very well either. He was close to collapsing. The whole world around him was spinning. He tightened his grip on the pistol in his hand and pointed it at his wounded enemies. This might be his only chance. Shooting the two of them might be the only chance he had at getting away.

  Ulrich and Roland saw the gun pointed their way and both stopped their pursuit.

  “Last chance to get the hell away from me,” Sam said.

  The two men looked at one another for a moment and then back at Sam, slowly starting their approach again, one step at a time. His threat had slid off of them like it was nothing more than simple words ... maybe that was really all it was.

  “We can't do that,” Ulrich said, wiping away some of the blood on his check. “We have our orders. We're taking you to Corvus, whether you like it or not.”

  “No,” Sam said. He waved the gun to remind them who had the upper hand. “I respectfully decline. That's not going to happen.”

  “Then you will have to shoot us!” Roland snapped, holding out his arms like he was awaiting the bullets to come any minute, like he welcomed them. “You keep pointing that at our faces but I don't think you're going to pull the trigger, are you? It doesn't look like it to me.”

  “He's not,” a female voice came from behind Sam.

  He turned around to find the source of those words—Sasha was standing there, a sniper rifle at her side. She looked from Sam to her fellow Black Sun agents, then back to Sam again, with that smug expression that Sam remembered from when he first met her in Jerusalem. She was an enforcer, a soldier, and a murderer, loyally serving the Order of the Black Sun, even when she was under the command of a psychopath like Julian Corvus.

  “Sam Cleave is not going to just gun down two men in the middle of the road. Not these days, at least. Isn't that right, Sam?”

  “Sasha...” He was too stunned by her sudden appearance to offe
r an intelligent response. He looked around her to see if there were any vehicles nearby. There was nothing but the possible shape of a car a long way across the valley. She had got here first and walked all that way, just to set a trap for Sam, just to free her allies.

  Sasha dropped her sniper rifle and took a step closer, still smiling. “It's been some time since we last saw each other, hasn't it? Since looking for the Spear of Destiny. Back in the swamp cave in Norwich.”

  “Yeah...” Sam said uneasily. He remembered it very well. What he remembered most was how much he didn't like her. She was nothing more than hired muscle for the Black Sun to use as a blunt instrument. A cold killer who only knew how to be a weapon, and nothing else. “Yeah I remember. You went running for the hills when Julian Corvus fell into that pit. From what I have heard, his luck has more than improved since that tumble he took.”

  Sam aimed his gun at Sasha now. She wasn't injured like her two comrades, and despite dropping the sniper rifle, she still had a weapon within her reach. She was groomed to be a killer and could easily take out Sam if it came to it, unarmed or not. Most importantly, Sam knew the truth about his three enemies. He knew full well that Sasha was the leader and the most dangerous of the trio he was up against.

  “You blew out the tires,” he said through gritted teeth. “You could have killed us.”

  “I know,” she said with a simple shrug of her shoulders.

  “You're cold,” Sam grimaced. “Were you there when Purdue got burned alive?”

  Sasha nodded. “I was. In fact, if you really want to know, I was the very last person who saw Purdue that night.”

  “So you came to finish me off too? Or are you here to help these morons bring me to your boss?”

  Sasha again looked hard at Sam and then shifted her gaze behind him to Ulrich and Roland. They were inching slowly toward Sam from behind, probably hoping to jump him while he was distracted by Sasha's arrival. Sasha brought her attention back to Sam. He was still pointing his gun at her head.

  “I'm going to ask nicely that you stop trying to put up a fight. It won't make any difference from here on out, because no matter how much you resist, I am taking you from here,” Sasha said. Something strange crossed her face and Sam couldn't place it. “But not to Julian.”

  There was confusion behind Sam. Ulrich and Roland stopped in their tracks and stared at Sasha with uncertainty. They looked flabbergasted by the decision she was making. Sam shared their confusion. If he wasn't being taken to Julian Corvus, then where could Sasha be planning on taking him?

  Ulrich's face grew red and all of his anger that had been fixated on Purdue shifted to Sasha. “What the hell are you talking about, woman?! Of course he's going to Julian! We have our ord—”

  Sasha suddenly drew a pistol from her belt, in one stunningly fast motion, and fired just as quickly. If she had been going after Sam, he would have been dead long before he had a chance to fire his own weapon. As it turned out, though, Sasha wasn't targeting Sam. She had other targets in mind to kill.

  Two shots rang out and both bullets flew past Sam's head. Ulrich and Roland collapsed, each with a bullet planted perfectly between their eyes. They were both dead immediately, the second the bullets entered beneath their brows. They would never be able to hunt anyone down ever again.

  Sam had the instinctive urge to return fire but was frozen in place from shock, too stunned to even try. None of what was happening made any sense to him. It was like he was watching a movie that had taken a major twist, and all he could do was sit in the audience and be baffled that it was unfolding before him.

  “Don't just stand there, you moron. Come with me. Now.”

  He didn't have any other choice. He could stay in the middle of nowhere with a flipped over car and two dead bodies. He could try his luck of picking a direction and walking to find any sort of civilization; maybe he would follow the road back to some place far less deserted than his current location. Or he could follow a woman who he knew was his enemy, who had been since the moment they first met.

  Sam settled on the latter of his options.

  Sam tried to keep up with Sasha as they walked through the field of grass toward the car in the distance, but she was a brisk walker, and didn't even bother looking back to see if he was still following. Sam glanced back and could still see the overturned vehicle and the bodies beside it. The carnage left in the wake of whatever was going through Sasha's mind; by whatever caused her to fight members of her own group.

  “What the hell was that back there?!” Sam called ahead. “What was that?!”

  She didn't answer and just kept walking. He was still holding the pistol in his hand, and still wasn't sure if he should be using it or not. She could be leading him somewhere worse than Ulrich and Roland were taking him. Hell, she could be hand delivering him to Julian Corvus himself as some special favor or as a way of earning the new Black Sun leader's favor.

  He tried to think of any possible reasons she would want to save him, and even go so far as killing her own men to see it through. Nothing sprang to mind. She didn't owe him anything. His life certainly shouldn't have mattered more than the lives of her own men.

  Sasha protected him, and murdered members of the Black Sun to do it.

  Why?

  “Those were your friends,” Sam said in bewilderment. “Those were you friends and you gunned them down without a second thought. There wasn't any hesitation at all. Hell, I would say you really wanted to do it ... maybe even were waiting for the chance.”

  “They weren't my friends,” Sasha said matter of factly, still maintaining her hasty pace through the field.

  “Fine,” Sam said and rolled his eyes. “You shot up your coworkers and colleagues then. Better? Why would you do that? Isn't the Order of the Black Sun going to have to ... I don't know ... punish you or something for that? Aren't they going to be mad?”

  “What are you doing?” Sasha balked. “You trying to conduct an interview for one of your big stories, Sam? You trying to use me as your big scoop?”

  “No story, though this would make for one hell of a headline,” Sam said. “I'm just trying to wrap my head around how someone could do that. Something so callous...”

  “What are you complaining about?” Sasha raised her voice and yelled into the air, letting the breeze take her anger back to the man following her, rather than turn and look him in the eyes. “All you're doing is whining. All you need to know is that I saved your ungrateful little ass. If they brought you to Julian, how do you think that would have turned out for you?”

  Sam remembered the pale eyes of Julian Corvus well. That man was unhinged and crueler than most people Sam had met, maybe even most people on the entire planet. The Order of the Black Sun was bad enough before, but with Julian reigning over them, large and in charge, things could only be getting much, much worse since his induction. Whatever Julian had done to take over leadership of the entire order, it couldn't have been good. If anything, it was something horrific, because he knew that Julian relished that kind of murderous environment.

  If Sam was brought to Julian, he would probably be killed in some terrible and excessively gruesome fashion. Or if he became Julian's prisoner, Sam might even be allowed to live but have to suffer torture every day for the slights against Julian that Sam had helped Purdue and Nina make.

  Sam didn't like Sasha very much and he never had. She was a cold, homicidal enforcer for a group that obviously wasn't on the right side. Despite her tough outer shell, Sasha wasn't nearly as demented and plagued by demons as Julian. Sasha even seemed afraid of Julian back when they were all looking for the Spear of Destiny together.

  “If I was in front of Julian Corvus again ... well. I will just stick to this. It probably wouldn't end well for me. Not at all.”

  “Exactly,” Sasha said. “And if we're going to bring down Julian, we're going to need all the numbers we can get. All of them.”

  They approached the lone car parked in the grass, and it was in
deed the vehicle Sasha used to come ambush Ulrich and Roland. She started unlocking the car, but Sam barely noticed the automobile. At that moment, all he could think about was images of Julian finally being taken down a peg or two, and looking up at them with both anger and acceptance. He wanted that so badly. He needed to prove that he could beat Julian, but at this moment time, there was no way he could accomplish that on his own.

  “Bring down Julian?”

  “That's what I said,” Sasha said. “He's tearing apart the order. Defiling it with all of his horrors. Ruining the Order of the Black Sun by taking it down a path it should never have gone. His ascension was never supposed to happen. It shouldn't have. I couldn't stop it from happening back then but maybe I mean to correct that. I can and I will.”

  Sasha didn't sound like the blood thirsty mercenary he met in Jerusalem, and she certainly didn't sound like the loyal Julian Corvus supporter that she had played in Norwich. She didn't seem like a follower anymore. Now she was more confident and seemed more comfortable in her own skin. She was something entirely else than he remembered.

  He might have even been impressed, because he found himself asking her questions about her intentions and the means of seeing them through. “Do you have any help? Any other Black Sun members who are standing beside you against him?”

  “None,” Sasha said. “And I can't risk even trying to recruit anyone. Far too many of them are loyal to Julian and those tendrils of his are wrapped around so many of their minds. They're not thinking straight. They're just seeing the grand promises he makes about spreading our influence over all aspects of the future, about making the order more powerful than we've ever been. They're all falling for his lies and his empty assurances. He's corrupting the Order of the Black Sun from the inside.”

  Sam wanted to argue that the Order of the Black Sun was already corrupt and had been for a long, long time, but he kept quiet. He was not in the mood to get into a pointless debate, not when he was still trying to just process everything that was happening. The last few minutes were still a dizzying flurry of abnormal events, or maybe that was just his splitting headache from the car flip affecting him.