Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6

by Preston William Child

  “Of course, Mother,” Joseph Karsten agreed respectfully. “Come, Purdue.”

  Confused, Purdue frowned at the developments, but he was too unsure to just ask. This Karsten character was quite different from his previous captor, and not someone to play with. There was something about him that kept Purdue wary of confronting him in any form. Karsten came across as an old world military man, which was probably why he shared Mother's penchant for military commanders, terrible leaders, and tyrants of nations.

  Down a short kite-winder staircase made of old oak Karsten led Purdue, with only one single light fixture above their heads to light the way. A myriad of thoughts went through Purdue's head, among others the repetition of references to his fast approaching death being the most prominent along with Beck's constant subliminal suggestion as to a bribe. In any event, a deal was out of the question with the man leading him down into the floor level now. A peculiar fear crept into Purdue's psyche, a distant acquaintance of his heart, but one not often engaged. It was a fear of death, a growing terror that was beginning to seem all too real to the flamboyant billionaire since he had stepped into the out of place place.

  “You know,” Karsten finally broke the silence, “there are a great many things the French are lacking as a nation, I find, but one thing that I do admire about some of their historical monarchs and generals is their exquisite aptitude for cruelty.”

  It was not the sort of conversational piece Purdue would have hoped for, but true to his charm he was polite and ever so witty about things that frightened him. “Let me guess, you are fondly referring to their women? Or is it their abhorrence for obesity?”

  As they came to the end of the stairwell where the solitary light could not reach, Purdue perceived a dark spot on the floor.

  “I shall answer your question,” Karsten chuckled cruelly. Before Purdue could adjust his sight to accommodate the pitch dark he felt a violent push from behind that flung him hard into the floor. At first he thought that the impact would leave him stained by whatever darkened the floor, but only when his long legs folded into the dark spot did he realize that it was a hole.

  Purdue fell blindly into the confined tubular entrance to the oubliette. The floor came sooner than he thought and shattered his left tibia on impact. Purdue screamed in the darkness, not even aware yet that the angle of his fall had narrowly prevented him from being impaled on an iron spike. It was one of five, positioned like the spots on a die, cemented into the floor under the confined neck of the trap.

  “Oh dear, that does sound painful,” Karsten cackled from above, unseen from where Purdue was writhing on the floor. “What a pity that we have had to treat a former Renatus like this, but then again, you and your friend Sam Cleave did almost wipe out the entire elite membership of the Black Sun a few years ago in Poveglia, so I suppose we are allowed a margin for revenge.”

  With that short introduction the trap door slammed and left the stunned Purdue alone in the pitch dark with his leg on fire, unable to move. He soon noticed that the oubliette sported small peepholes through which he could clearly hear the conversation in the dining room of the house. Famished, Purdue could not determine which punishment was worse – to have his lower leg snapped in two and shoved into the flesh or to smell the delectable odor of cooked food enjoyed by his detractors while his stomach was aching for nourishment. They did not even leave him any water to sustain him.

  Still in shock from his injuries, Purdue was forced to listen to the others enjoy a delicious banquet while the stormy night continued outside their secure shelter of hedonistic glee. The conversation left him no clues or explanation, identification or cause. All they talked about was the next Puccini opera at the Festival Theatre and which of the mezzo-soprano's would be featured in London the following month.

  Out of the blue Jonathan Beck started choking. Instead of the expected panic ensuing to assist him, the usual stampede for water or a first aid maneuver, Purdue heard only the sound of cutlery on porcelain as Mother and Karsten continued eating.

  “My God, he is going to die if they don't help him,” Purdue whispered to himself as Beck began to convulse.

  “Mother, I must compliment you on the splendid main course, especially,” Karsten flattered with a groveling smile on his fat face.

  “Oh, do you like it? It has always been a personal favorite of mine, but Herr Beck is being treated to my Duck and Spaetzle Dumpling a la Zyklon B, the lucky devil,” she replied coolly and took a sip of her bourbon. “Although the name does not state the main ingredient – cyanide.”

  “Ah,” Karsten answered with an interested nod to the tune of their third guest's profuse vomiting as he succumbed to a vicious seizure. Beck groped his chest in the agony of cardiac arrest that eventually blessed him with death on the dusty carpet on the floor of the house that stood out of place in the middle of Scotland.

  “Second helping?” Mother asked.

  “Bitte,” Karsten smiled and held out his plate.

  Purdue passed out.

  21

  The Canuck

  “With Purdue caught in purgatory we cannot expect him to fund this search, so we will have to shed our predisposed love for luxury during excursions,” Sam half-joked and half-confessed after he’d helped Nina map out their venture to Weather Station Kurt to pick up the trail of the gold that had cost Leslie Michaud her life back in 1981.

  “I still think we should just try to make contact to let him know I’m not home, in case he shows up there,” Nina suggested. “He’s going to be crushed that he is missing out on this juicy treasure hunt, poor devil.”

  Had Karma bothered to waver in favor of wordplay, she would certainly have caught her breath at Nina and Sam's discussion. But as it were there was no resolve in measuring the affection of gods and wonders, leaving Purdue in the solitude of fond thought, but forgotten to the rest of the world. Purdue's two closest friends were conducting their conversation in wary whispers, occasionally checking the bathroom door to make sure Joanne was still unable to hear them speak, lest she find out that Purdue is not as dead as the newspapers made the authorities believe.

  “Are you sure Miss Muffin can keep up with us?” he asked Nina.

  “Sam, we’re going to traverse a few hundred miles to a place on relatively flat terrain that probably does not exist anymore. There is probably nobody there, or hasn’t been for years, which greatly reduces the probability of danger the likes of which we are accustomed to. I am sure she will keep up,” Nina elaborated.

  “Aye would have sufficed too,” he muttered as he bagged his Canon waterproof, ignoring her amused grin. “Are you sure we will be able to get a boat to hire on this short of notice?”

  A rowdy Canadian voice thundered in the open front door. “Dr. Gould, your boat is ready when you are, ma'am!”

  Sam turned in awe. At the door stood a mountain of a man, his roughshod look terrifying upon first glance.

  “Jesus, it's Jason Voorhees, Nina. I told you this would happen,” Sam gasped at Nina. Desperate to laugh at Sam's realistic reaction, Nina contained herself instead before she could introduce them.

  “No, sir. I'm not Jason. He runs the fishing charters to the west. I'm Virgil Hecklund, owner/operator of Hecklund Fisheries right here in merry Goose Bay,” the man corrected the silly Scottish journalist and promptly trudged inside to give the confused young man a hearty handshake. Sam was impressed by Nina's swift organization and elated at her choice of charter. He was always in favor of interesting and amicable characters, especially on long trips.

  “An honor, an honor,” the red faced giant smiled at Sam when he made his acquaintance. “Well, can I help you carry anything to the boat, Mr. Cleave?”

  “Uh, yes, thank you, Virgil,” Sam replied, only too grateful for the help. He hated lugging gear and luggage around, which was regrettably a huge part of his job. “I would appreciate that.”

  Virgil lifted both Sam and Nina's travel bags with ease and walked out with Sam to the boathouse,
very keen to get to know his passengers. “So, Mr. Cleave, tell me about this Jason Voorhees you mistook me for.”

  Nina laughed, wondering how Sam was going to explain the horror franchise to the sea master who could not care less about anything technologically entertaining. Joanne had just emerged from the shower, drying her hair. “What did I miss?” she asked when she saw Nina's smile.

  “Oh, just Sam's foot-in-mouth disease taking Goose Bay by storm,” Nina giggled. “Are you ready, Miss Earle?”

  “I am so fucking ready, honey!” the poor reclusive teacher beamed at the prospect of the adventure.

  “Do you have the thing?” Nina whispered, checking for Sam in the vicinity.

  “Of course I have the thing. How else are we going to get this guy to take us all the way up there on the North Atlantic?” she shrugged.

  “I can’t believe you’re willing to part with it,” Nina sighed.

  “It’s the only way we can pay for the trip, Nina,” Joanne reminded her.

  “I know, I know, but…it once belonged to Alexander the Great, for Christ's sake! Do you know what that thing is worth?” Nina persisted in disbelief of the price her friend put on the opportunity to be part of an expedition.

  “Listen, if what Erich the Mad said is true, there has to be more of these,” Joanne mentioned excitedly under her breath, holding up the medallion at Nina. Nina grabbed Joanne's hand and brought it down.

  “Don't fucking flash it like that, Earle-girl. If one person here recognizes it we will have trouble, understand?” Nina warned. “It's just that it is so very valuable and worth way more than Virgil's entire fleet.”

  “I get that,” Joanne explained. “But Alex had so many of these he wouldn’t miss this one if we gave it to a happy Canuck sailor, eh?”

  “Stop making fun of Canadians, Jo,” Nina said playfully. “You’re one too, remember?”

  “Which gives me special permission,” Joanne winked.

  “Look, what if, God forbid, we don't find anything up there?” Nina exhaled laboriously. “That is a possibility.”

  “You are used to this, love. I am as much paying for the adventure and the once in a lifetime experience as I am for the prospect of finding the treasure of one of the greatest and richest kings of ancient history.” Joanne smiled, in awe of what was happening to her. Resting her hands on Nina's shoulders she mused, “I don't know if that would make sense to someone like you, someone who gets to do what others only daydream of – to you it’s just another day. This is my only chance to live – really live – for once. Do you understand that?”

  “Aye, more than you know,” Nina had to concede. She did know. When she’d been near death, riddled with radiation sickness and finding cancer knocking at her coffin lid, she’d felt the same…if she could just live, that would be enough. “I understand now. I do, Jo.” She took the coin from her friend and flicked it up in the air. When it landed on her palm Nina could feel the ancient magic of it infuse her. She smiled, holding it up to Joanne. “So let's go find the rest of the family, shall we?”

  “Aye, aye!” Joanne yelled gleefully. With the place deserted and no boat in sight from the front door she looked around in confusion. “Great. So…where do I take my stuff?”

  22

  The Place of No Happening

  It was close to 11am when they boarded Virgil's blue beauty, the Scarlet. The name of the vessel was just one of those peculiar things about Virgil, and Sam had the big man on camera before he could protest coyly.

  “Well, I painted her blue because it was my late wife's favorite color. God, she loved blue. All her best dresses, her car, our bedroom, all blue,” he smiled. “She painted it herself; the room, not the boat. After she died in 2011, I painted the boat blue, even though it was named after my wife. I couldn't help that her name was Scarlet, right?”

  “No,” Joanne smiled. “But it makes the coincidence so much sweeter, I think.”

  “You do?” he asked, seeming taken aback that she was of the same mind as he. “That is so nice of you to say, Miss Earle. I always saw it the same way. Quirky is always interesting, hey?”

  “I could not agree more,” Joanne concurred.

  The robust sailor and the history teacher exchanged pleasant conversation for much of the first leg. He was a widower with seven charter boats and a fishing business, living the relaxed life in a remote and beautiful place.

  From what Sam could gather, Virgil was a simple man, but by no means was he slow-witted. His innocence and naivety only made him more interesting, along with his powerful physique. His simple way of dealing with life, was what Sam, Nina, and Joanne all needed to learn, and Virgil was the master at it, a master only too willing to share his uncomplicated nature.

  Joanne especially gained from his happy-go-lucky manner. She was a spinster with practically no life outside her classroom and here he was teaching her what no school could – the benefits of letting go of what you know and trusting the currents and tides to sweep you to the distant shores you once called home. To Nina's pleasant surprise, Joanne was quite comfortable with such a lesson.

  “You think I've lost my biggest fan to the Goose Bay Gladiator here?” Sam asked Nina as he sat down next to her.

  “Unmistakably so,” she answered, taking the beer he offered. “But I’m sure a suave heart breaker such as yourself should not have to venture far to find another maiden swooning.”

  Sam gave her a long, intense look, the same way he always did before he kissed her.

  “You reckon?” he asked, leaning forward to kiss her.

  “I reckon,” Nina affirmed, pulling away just before his lips touched hers. Instead, she took a swig of beer from her bottle and looked across the waters. Sam maintained his position and just glared at her. “This is for the kiss in my cabin, right?” he sighed.

  “Don't be daft,” she said, and turned her head toward Joanne and Virgil. “Wonder what she is telling him. He looks absolutely spellbound.”

  Nina got up and walked over to Joanne, leaving Sam puckering and feeling stupid. Finally he just sighed, drank the rest of his beer in one go, and mumbled to himself. “You asked for that one, you big jessie.”

  When Nina joined the other two she was not about to interrupt. Joanne was telling Virgil about things he had heard about before, but did not know much about. Sam soon joined just to be close to Nina after she’d jilted him so poetically.

  “But I thought he was some sort of prince of Persia, some ass-kicking general,” the big sailor admitted. “I had no idea he was actually a king.”

  “Who?” Sam asked.

  Both women turned to him, their answers simultaneous. “Alexander the Great.”

  Feeling a little singled out, Sam just nodded and stood back a bit, much like an exchange student at a new school. He drank his beer, enjoying the chill of the beautiful blue that lifted and plummeted them with the hull while Joanne shared her knowledge with Virgil.

  “Alexander the Great won his first battle at age sixteen, only the first of an undefeated record he would have by the time he died at the ripe old age of thirty-three,” she relayed.

  “Goddamn!” Virgil exclaimed. “I thought I was the main man when I caught my first arctic char at age five!”

  Sam was filming some footage of the azure Atlantic stretch and close-ups of the beautiful historian, where she stood listening to her friend educate the captain of the vessel on Alexander the Great and his unmatched legacy.

  “He is regarded as the greatest military genius of all recorded time,” Joanne said, taking a moment to drink her cold beer, something Nina found very amusing. Joanne had never liked alcohol, but between her crush, Sam, and her new interest, she appeared to have cultivated a taste for it.

  “I think he was a narcissistic mama's boy,” Nina remarked.

  “He was a genius, a man of vision and conquest,” Joanne countered.

  “Aye, power-hungry to feed his ego. Philip II should have spent more time with his boy to teach him some
bloody humility, instead of drinking himself into a stupor and being a shitty king,” Nina persisted.

  Joanne stared at Nina in disbelief. “You have always hated Alexander. I remember back at the university you wrote this thesis on his misguided psychology being the reason for his…”

  “Megalomania,” Nina finished her sentence for her. “I believe I said he was an ego-driven megalomaniac with too much time on his hands, who put too much effort into destroying empires when he could have uplifted the infrastructure and prosperity of his own Macedon. That is what I said. And I stand by it. Like those who rule the world of today, Alexander the Great was an egotistical fuckwit with too much money and no respect for the freedom of others.”

  “He sounds like Hitler,” Virgil chuckled.

  Nina applauded with a smile. “Thank you, Virgil!”

  “A victor,” Joanne argued. “A great and powerful king who forgot he was just a fallible human.”

  “Proving my point exactly. The bloke thought he was a god, born from a union his equally deluded mother had with Zeus. If that is not Hitler B.C. I don't know,” Nina jousted.

  Sam zoomed in on the two women and casually commented, “The War of the History Hags.”

  Virgil bellowed out a roar of laughter with Sam as the two woman scowled at the camera.

  “Switch that off or…or…,” Nina thought of an acceptable threat, but Joanne helped her out, “…or you'll sleep with the fishes.”

  “Aye!” Nina agreed loudly as the beer started going to her head. “Don't subject us to your judgment when you are standing on the sidelines.”

  “Yes, you tell him, Nina. What do you know about ancient history? Nothing close to Nina and me,” Joanne bragged playfully to more exclamations of 'Aye!' from Nina in the background as the history teacher from Labrador City stalked Sam's lens seductively. “You know nothing, sir. Where history is concerned your head is like the place where nothing ever happens!”