Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6

by Preston William Child

  Now she had to babysit a living thing she felt nothing for – Mrs. Sylvia Beach – the woman who begged her for all sorts of favors from the other side of the door all day. It drove the anti-social Maria insane to listen to Sylvia's incessant imploring and weeping.

  “My God, you are spoiled!” Maria roared from her chair in front of the monitors.

  “I just need to go to the toilet, Maria,” Sylvia explained. “I won't be long.”

  “Hold it. I'm on the phone,” Maria barked. In front of her the screens streamed Nina Gould's house in Oban, still revealing absolutely no movement since her man had grabbed Purdue almost a week before. In her hand she was holding her rigged cell phone, the one she used for scrambled communication with Beck, and what it revealed for the umpteenth time was just too much for her. By the tone it sounded she knew that the apparatus inside had been destroyed completely, otherwise it would have given her a Morse code signal that Beck was just offline or away from the device.

  “Please, Maria!” Sylvia moaned.

  “Piss in a cup, you annoying brat!” Maria sneered, feeling a terrible despair embrace her, a lonely sense of loss she could not describe.

  It had been a long time since she’d received any feedback from him and it was time to do something about it. As usual, it was raining in Glasgow and even the pizza man was tardy with Maria's delivery. “Should have gone out to buy food myself,” she grunted. “Would have given me a goddamn break from this bitch, for one thing.”

  The feisty Maria took the Glock Beck always left her for protection and jerked open Sylvia's door, finding the doctor's wife cowering on the stained sleeper couch, the only furniture in the room. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot when she peeked over her folded arms.

  “Come on, then!” Maria snapped. “Take a leak and wipe your nose. Jesus. Clean yourself up a bit. We are going out.”

  Terrified that this was the drive to her execution, Sylvia started sobbing hysterically.

  “Please, no! I just want to go home! I won't tell a soul about this, Maria. Please, just let me see my children again!”

  “You know, this is all probably very effective on weak-willed doctors and the like in that little village of yours,” Maria panted impatiently, rocketing toward her hostage and shoving the gun against her cheek, “but here in Glasgow that is called begging for pain. Now, you have exactly one minute to empty your bladder and compose yourself or I swear to God I am wasting you and throwing you in the Clyde, understand?”

  Sylvia nodded, her face still in a horrible wince of despair. She got off the couch and Maria grabbed her by the arm to drag her along to the bathroom with the barrel of the Glock snugly nestled under Sylvia's bottom rib. “Hurry. Hoodie on.”

  The road trip was ominous and balefully quiet between the two women. Sylvia was praying inside her head while remaining mute as the car raced north on the A82, just passing Balloch from a sign post they’d passed. Sylvia wanted to know where she was going to be executed, but she dared not ask. For the past hour she had managed not to provoke her unstable guardian and she hoped to keep things nice and smooth until she could break away. Maria was really good at ties, though. Unless Sylvia could find her way to a tool shed or building depot she had no chance of freeing herself from her restraints.

  They still had a good two-hour trip ahead of them with the traffic and weather impairing their speed. Maria was eating the lukewarm pizza she’d had delivered at her home before they took off.

  “Eat something,” Maria muttered through a mouthful of chicken mushroom pastry.

  “No, thank you,” Sylvia answered as politely as she could.

  “Eat!” Maria shouted. “I’m not having you ransomed if you look like shit.”

  “Ransom?” Sylvia asked as her face lit up.

  “Yes, you imbecile. I am going to trade you for a lot of money. Doctors are loaded, aren't they?” came Maria's rhetorical question.

  “I'm going home?” Sylvia asked incredulously. Maria smiled. She was convinced that her abusive boyfriend was dead, and it presented her with new possibilities.

  “Yes, you are going home…if he wants you,” Maria laughed. “By now he has gotten himself a new piece of jive and told your kids you ran away with the circus!”

  “He will pay anything to get me back. My husband loves me.”

  “Oh save it!” Maria hissed. “Stop deluding yourself. You are just a safe shield against any scrutiny. Your only value is as his front while he hustles behind your back. Wake the fuck up. They don't love us, they tolerate us and they are willing to lie to great lengths to keep us docile and compliant so that they can safely fuck around and look pious. If he wants you back, it will be for your children, sweetie. Only to raise them for him so that he has more free time on his hands for those adolescent patients he so loves to inject.”

  “Lance is not like that!” Sylvia screamed furiously. “He will do anything to get me back. Just because you allow your boyfriend to treat you like shit, doesn't mean other women are as worthless to their husbands as you clearly are!”

  Sylvia saw the blood spatter against her window before she even felt the blow Maria dealt her. It took her a moment to register what had happened, but then she felt the intense agony ensue in full force under her eye.

  “That is called a pistol-whip, bitch! Keep talking!” Maria raged, barely keeping the car on the road in her fit of fury. But Sylvia would not talk anymore. She felt the swelling on her cheekbone well up under her right eye, already impairing her sight through that eye. Her nose was gushing, but she used her hoodie to pinch her nose and drain any blood that escaped.

  When they reached the darkening roads of the late afternoon town of Dalmally, Maria pulled over into the village. She tossed the scrambled cell phone in Sylvia's lap. “Call your husband. Tell him to wire this to those three accounts.” She gave her a piece of paper with three bank account numbers in different countries. “They are untraceable and they belong to government officials who have nothing to do with this, so if I draw the funds and I get a trace from the National Crime Agency someone innocent will be implicated.”

  Sylvia hastily dialed her husband's number with trembling hands, her fingers erring four times before she got the right number punched in.

  “Just remember to tell him; I know where you live,” Maria reminded her. “And Sylvia?”

  “Yes, Maria?”

  “Remember that I know where your children go to school, what they look like and what their names are,” Maria threatened so truthfully that Sylvia Beach started crying again. Maria was not done. “Tell him there is a gun to your head.”

  “Oh, Maria, I am already causing him such duress just with this phone call. I hate lying to him to agitate him even more,” Sylvia said.

  Maria pushed the Glock against Sylvia's head, silencing her in the clattering rain that pelted the car windows and roof off the railroad. She pulled back the hammer. “There. Now you're not lying.”

  25

  The Olympias Letter

  Under the strong light of Sam's flashlight the three explorers stared at the barely legible document issued officially by what appeared through slants of printed ink as a high officer of the Waffen-SS, as per the insignia at the top of the ripped paper. Joanne had found it in Leslie's coat pocket, crumpled up carelessly as only a fleeing, terrified person would have done. Apparently she did not only steal a gold coin, but also came upon something of much worth to someone like Yvetta.

  Soiled with decades of dust, wear, water damage and deterioration it was difficult to discern, but Nina was prepared for such an eventuality. After all, she did come all the way hoping to find historical items, and when she expected to locate such valuable trinkets she came prepared.

  From her small canvas sling-strap satchel she pulled a magnifying glass. Both Sam and Joanne looked impressed with her deftness, but Nina merely raised an eyebrow and accepted their admiration. While the cold bit at their skins and tussled their hair, the three concentrated on deciphering the
difficult message and the diagram that accompanied it.

  “Here, look,” Sam pointed out something. “Are we surprised?”

  It was a watermark at the base of the document depicting the dreaded sigil of the Order of the Black Sun.

  “What is that?” Joanne asked.

  “A secret occult organization within the Thule Society,” Nina explained to her friend. “It was attended by a handful of the elite of the Nazi Party, the High Command of the SS, and at the helm was Himmler, trying to bring to fruition some ludicrous prophecy that Hitler was the chosen vessel to bring forth the old gods – evil gods that would rule the world once more.”

  Frowning in fear, Joanne's voice trembled as she deliberately exhibited her repulsion, “Je-sus. That’s not twisted at all. How did the SS pull this off?”

  “The Order of the Black Sun was so secret, not all members of the Thule Society knew of it. Very exclusive, for very exclusive evil fucktards,” Nina delivered her concise lecture in a mock-professional manner to support her sarcasm.

  “What does it say, though, Dr. Gould?” Sam asked, reminding her that they were busy reading the document. “How is your German these days?”

  “Oh my God,” Nina gasped as she read through the parts that had not been eaten away or rusted. “I don't think Leslie stole this coin from the Nazi treasure they were loading here, guys.” She looked up from under her dark, unkempt fringe at her two companions. “According to this, there was another clandestine mission under the pretense of this Nazi stash. The stuff they loaded here was only Nazi plunders of art and treasure from Europe. This was just another place where the Nazis hid their stolen loot.”

  “So…Alexander the Great's medallion is bullshit?” Joanne moaned in utter disappointment.

  “No, no,” Nina smiled. “Listen to me. The coin and this document was what Yvetta had in her possession when she came to oversee the supposed transfer of the U-537 treasure. On her person she had Jo's coin and this document! That was why she went to such great lengths to hunt Leslie down after the girl stole her coin! She must have neglected to realize that Leslie's coat stayed behind, that it contained the document while the coin went with the thief, see?”

  Sam was filming the damaged decree. He chimed in, “So Yvetta was actually here to find what this blueprint is showing. She was here to find what this letter refers to as the Treasure of Alexander the Great?”

  “Aye. We are dealing with an operation that was actually two operations. One was loyal duty, the other was greed,” Nina grinned. “Are you guys ready to get rich? God knows we will need it after this little treasure hunt of ours.”

  “I am very ready, believe me. I’m wearing my best pair of cargos and they're already ripped,” Sam winked. Nina and Joanne smiled at him. “If we find this treasure we'll be richer than Purdue.”

  “That is almost true, y'know?” Nina agreed before she dropped her eyes once more to the words, forgotten by those who’d once written them. “This memorandum was issued by Karl Wolff, Obergruppenführer of the Waffen-SS. He states here that he is initiating Operation Olympias...”

  “Olympias was Alexander the Great's mother!” Joanne chipped in, glowing with intrigue.

  “What was Operation Olympias? Does it say?” Sam pressed.

  “It was an expedition Wolff would secretly facilitate, sending small missions out to parts of Greece, Turkey, and Egypt to find the treasure Alexander had hidden according to legend, after receiving a letter from his mother, Olympias, that revealed a devastating secret.” She frowned as she tried to string the existing sentences together where words lacked. Her right index finger nail trailed along the third line from the bottom. “Most of this is missing, but it speaks of this blueprint being the casket of the Olympias’ Letter.”

  “Yvetta lost the blueprint and the coin before she could study it. Her true mission to Canadian soil failed because of a young girl's interference. I'd be livid. Jesus, I'd be pissed! No wonder she put two slugs in Leslie's skull; probably sheer frustration!” Sam speculated.

  “Well, now that we know why,” Joanne announced, pointing at the blueprint, “we can get to the where. If we find the letter, it will direct us to the treasure Alexander chose to conceal, right?”

  “Correct,” Nina affirmed. “See? I told you, he would not hide just any treasure. The man owned everything he walked through. He had no reason to bury treasures.”

  “What do you think, Dr. Gould, is so valuable about this particular hoard that Alexander the Great did not wish it to be found?” Sam asked Nina, holding the camera steady.

  “Truthfully, it could be anything,” Nina replied, looking at the lens. She turned to Joanne. “What would you think, Miss Earle? As a history teacher and an admirer of the legendary warrior king, you should have a firm opinion as to what he would have found so special about gold and silver.”

  Joanne caught her breath when Sam pointed the camera at her.

  “I am no expert, certainly, but I think it would be something his other conquests, his collective treasures and estates could not give him. It has to be something more important, more substantial, than mere riches,” she explained. “But as to what exactly it is? I honestly have no idea.”

  “Nice,” Sam smiled as he switched off the camera. “Now for some…I don't want to say it…dirty work. Does the blueprint show the point of entry?”

  “Someone's coming!” Joanne shrieked and fell to her knees, pulling Nina and Sam down with her by grasping their sleeves.

  “Where?” Sam asked.

  She pointed over the bottom of the bare window to the darkness outside. Sam peeked for a few moments, showing no response.

  “Sam!” Nina whispered hard. “Is someone there?”

  He came back down, drawing his gun from his left boot. “I see two flashlights. They are moving slowly, but they are coming straight here. Do you have weapons?”

  “Oh God, not this again,” Joanne lamented, remembering Nina's insistence on blunt force protection the last time when they went looking for Leslie's empty grave.

  “I have a hunting knife,” Nina panted. “Joanne, take the gun in my bag.”

  “Excuse me?” the teacher started.

  “Take the fucking gun, Joanne,” Nina growled, shoving a Beretta into her friend's hand. “This is not an action-adventure fiction novel. This is real! We don't know who they are, but I am pretty sure anyone else who knows about this place is not here to ask us for directions. Do you understand?”

  Joanne looked pale, her expression one of careful adherence as she reluctantly took the weapon from Nina. Backs to the flaking wall the three of them waited for the two strangers to enter the ablution block. Sam was aiming straight for the doorway, looking calm and intent. Nina chewed her bottom lip and Joanne missed the annoying conversation of Mr. Spence at camp before she had to fear for her life.

  The approaching threat yielded no conversation. No voices could be heard to ascertain the nature of their visit in the middle of the night or why they were there. At least, if they had spoken to one another during their arduous journey to the derelict building, there would be some way to detect their accent, thus their origin and with it probably their purpose. Their hearts raced as they waited anxiously for the strangers to follow the growing beams of their flashlights. Sam's eye sharpened and he shut out the din of the frigid gales and creaking roof boards.

  At last a shadow appeared, then a part of the body that created it. It was a monstrous outline that did not enter before looking about across the near perimeter one more time.

  “Don't shoot yet, Sam,” Nina whispered. “Wait until he is inside.”

  “Aye, I know,” Sam nodded softly without tearing his eyes away from his target. Joanne was petrified, but to some measure she felt quite secure between the two seasoned relic hunters. Her untrained hands clutched the gun, but she had no intention of using it. Instead she pinched her eyes shut as the floorboards cracked under the entering weight and she heard Sam's hammer click.

  2
6

  Verfluchte Erde

  The first enormous shadow crept over the doorway and stepped inside. It was then that they noticed it was only one man, holding two flashlights.

  “Oh my God! It is Virgil!” Joanne shrieked and jumped up to embrace the boat captain.

  “You guys were gone too long, so I got worried,” the Canadian relayed nonchalantly. “Also, the bay is extremely tempestuous and no fun to endure with only my radio as company.

  “My friend, you scared us half to death,” Sam exhaled with a puff. He holstered his gun back in his boot and patted Virgil on the arm. Nina sheathed her knife and grabbed her gun from Joanne.

  “What? What did I do?” Joanne asked her.

  Nina clipped a small lever in place and said casually, “The safety was off.”

  “Oh shit! I'm sorry,” Joanne gasped.

  “No worries,” Nina smiled, “I'm sure we could have figured out how to work Mr. Hecklund's boat.”

  Sam and Virgil chuckled at Nina's shocking sobering of her friend. After Virgil tore himself away from the grateful teacher and buried his hands in his sides and said, “It would have been better if Miss Jo had tried to shoot me a few paces from this building. At least there nothing would have happened!”

  He was joking, they thought, but he confirmed his statement by pointing out the toilet window.

  “No, really. Out from there to the marker on the rock hill it lies. All the way there and across about say, two hundred meters,” he reported.

  Nina thought she knew what he was referring to but she wanted to make sure. “What lies there?”