Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6

by Preston William Child

  Ten minutes later Father Harper was being enlightened with the same news as the three of them sat in his office at St. Columbanus. Sylvia was dying to know what he had done with Maria, but the absence of police units at the church told her that the authorities were not supposed to know about Maria Winslet. Sylvia smelled a cover-up and she was remarkably comfortable with it.

  Father Harper pressed his lips together, his hands in a steeple in front of him on his desk as he rolled around the information in his head. “So Dr. Gould is unharmed? She is where?”

  “I heard them talk, Father. They said that when they’d collected the money for Purdue they would chase after Dr. Gould to kill her and seize everything she discovers on her expedition! Maria overheard a phone tap conversation, and Nina is on the trail of a treasure,” she trailed off.

  “As always,” Father Harper smiled.

  “The one hidden treasure of Alexander the Great,” Sylvia said.

  “Jesus!” Father Harper exclaimed at hearing the name. “Excuse me,” he flushed awkwardly. “The one buried treasure of Alexander III of Macedon?”

  “That's what Maria told her boyfriend, yes,” Sylvia nodded.

  “By the saints! Do you have any idea what value that hoard holds?” Father Harper asked, still astonished. His two guests were quite oblivious to ancient history and legend, so he filled them in. “Alexander the Great flaunted his power, believing himself to the son of Zeus; a god in the flesh, if you will.”

  Lance looked up at the wall-mounted crucifix in the office, depicting Christ's suffering on the cross. “I see a pattern here.”

  “Lance!” Sylvia nudged him to shut up, but Father Harper chuckled at the doctor's honesty.

  “I wasn't always a priest, you know,” he smiled. “There is no doubt there are some very suspicious parallels in the Bible to various pagan practices and gods. Keen observation, doctor.”

  “Carry on about Alexander, please, Father,” Sylvia requested.

  “It was said that Alexander never bothered to bury the treasures he seized from the empires he conquered, because in essence entire kingdoms belonged to him. He adorned everything in his name, and gold was to him like wine or weapons,” Father Harper recounted as he paced along his book shelf. “But there is a story that has been prevalent along clandestine orders and secret scholars through the centuries, that Alexander's greatest treasure was an incantation from his mother, Olympias, chiseled on three tablets of malachite. Upon the invocation of this mantra the holder would attain godlike dominion over his enemies – over empires – and would be undefeated and become the world conqueror.”

  “Father, what have you been drinking?” Dr. Lance jested.

  “Wine. Since I clobbered that poor woman I’ve had to have two glasses just to steady my nerves, doctor,” Father Harper confessed. “But wine is a cunning poison in our lives. Olympias was a devout member of the Cult of Dionysus.”

  “The god of wine?” Sylvia asked. Father Harper nodded and lifted his glass before drinking the last of it.

  “Dionysus was associated with a great many creatures and plants, but it is said his Cult worshiped serpents,” the priest told them. “So, dear Nina is off hunting after something she is not equipped to discover while she thinks it is gold and diamonds she is looking for. That concerns me. But Mr. Purdue is our first concern. Shall we find out where he is from Miss Winslet?”

  “Where is she?” Sylvia asked, terrified to see the face of her nemesis again.

  “She’s in the confessional, Mrs. Beach,” he answered respectfully.

  “And if she doesn’t disclose the location?” Dr. Lance asked.

  “She will,” Father Harper assured him. “Because I am about to put the fear of God into her.”

  28

  The Kiss of Olympias

  “Audentes Fortuna Iuvat”

  Nina, Joanne, and Virgil waited patiently for Sam to report on or return from locating what was marked on the Nazi document issued by Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff concerning Operation Olympias during the Second World War. Down in the dark he had just passed the remains of Nazi soldiers to continue toward the place marked on the blueprint, when the mud beneath his right knee slipped away from under him.

  With a yelp he fell against the side of the wide duct he was crawling up. He could hear Nina and Joanne crying down the tunnel, imploring him to report and confirm that he was still okay. But he was reluctant, because he wasn’t okay.

  “Just give me a second!” he shouted. “Something's going on down here!”

  Again the slippery muck under his grip slipped through his fingers, a most unnerving sensation that forced another cry from him.

  “Sam?” he heard Nina's voice much nearer than before. “I'm coming, hang on!”

  “No, stay where you are!” he barked with a crack of terror in his voice. Then he heard Joanne's voice with Nina's, the two discussing how far in Sam was. He could hear Nina moan in fear of the confined space she had a phobia for, but Joanne coaxed her on. Once more Sam heard a wet, sickening sound in close proximity and this time he rapidly brought his flashlight to see it, something he regretted instantly. Sam drew in his breath and a hysterical whisper escaped him, “Christ!”

  “Sam?” Nina called as she could be heard slipping in the muck, not having seen the uniformed bones yet.

  “Nina! Jo! Go back! Just go back!” Sam ordered. “Something bad is down here.”

  “What is it?” Virgil shouted from a way behind the women.

  “I don't think you want to know, Captain Hecklund!” Sam warned, as another shift under him startled him. Hard, muscular meat writhed about him and his waning flashlight revealed the true horror as the women screamed in the septic tank. “Did you find the Nazi's?” he asked, his voice trembling.

  “Aye, we did!” Nina's muffled voice answered him. “My God, Sam, what could have killed them down here?”

  “Something that lives here,” Sam remarked loudly. His words struck horror into his companions. “Something that cannot possibly belong here, but I know what I’m seeing.”

  Virgil waded past the women, making sure that they did not falter. With an impatient tone he accentuated his question, “Mr. Cleave, what is it?”

  Sam was frozen in terror. “Ohias.”

  “What?” Virgil asked as he violently tossed one of the skeleton's aside. “What is an ohia?”

  Sam was too afraid to speak, but he hoped that holding his body dead still would not provoke the wicked plague that had him pinned. “Ohias…s-snakes, Virgil. Very venomous vipers, adders...get out of here!” Sam screamed at his friends.

  “No way, Sam,” Joanne's voice challenged him in the dark beyond the tunnel. “I think I mentioned before how I detest snakes. Sit tight, we are coming to shoot them.”

  “We are?” Nina asked her softly, frowning in surprise.

  “Um, we have to, right? You said to always have a weapon in case of danger,” Joanne recited. “And this is danger, so let's kill the fuckers and get Sam out.”

  “Jo?” Sam called.

  “Yes, Sam?” she answered.

  “Cheers for that,” he sighed, quivering.

  Joanne grinned happily at the salute from her crush.

  “What the hell would adders be doing down here, in the earth, like bloody earthworms?” Nina inquired as she waited just outside the tunnel where Sam was. He answered her, keeping his voice low to avoid moving too much.

  “That is the creepy bit, Nina. These snakes are indigenous to Greece! This is highly unusual, even impossible,” he reported. Something clicked in Joanne's recollection. Being the admirer of Alexander the Great here, she instantly knew where the snakes came in.

  “Sam, Olympias worshiped snakes. She was part of the Cult of Dionysus. If we are looking for the Olympias Letter, it would naturally be guarded by the same slimy bitches of her religion and country, right?”

  “That is extremely interesting, Jo, and I would love for you to tell us that on camera at some point if we surviv
e, but that only impresses on me the fact that their presence here is…supernatural or some shite,” Sam admitted. “Which means they are here to avert the discovery of the Alexandrian treasures.”

  “No wonder the dead Nazi's here wrote that the earth is cursed,” Nina mentioned. “It seems that the ground is infested with these things, like a disease.”

  “Like a curse,” Virgil added. And he knew he was right. After all, it was the earth of the place where nothing grew, nothing happened, earth that the legend called condemned.

  “Well, we didn’t come all the way here and nor gone through all this to quit, right?” Joanne said.

  “No, we did not,” Sam agreed. “I know Purdue would have had the answer right now, the latest gadget to discount these serpentine motherfuckers in a blink,” he smiled fondly, “but he is unfortunately absent,” Sam said, his smile fading instantly, “mainly because of me.”

  Joanne was not sure what he meant, but she refrained from prying. Nina knew exactly what he meant, but she couldn’t tell Sam in front of the other two that his decision not to turn Purdue in and instead fake his demise actually saved the billionaire from condemnation. He would have been arrested and stood trial for transgressions against several cultures by now had Sam not made him absent.

  “Sam, can you get back into the septic tank, you think?” Virgil asked. “I think I have an idea, but you need to vacate that spot for it to work.

  “I have not advanced too far in yet,” Sam reported. “I’m sure if I pace my exit as I did my entry, I could slip back out again. Why?”

  “One thing at a time, my friend,” the sea captain replied. “Let's get you out first.”

  Sam had to concede. One thing at a time was the most efficient way to go about things. He’d learned this many times before, yet it was not in his nature to put such a thing into practice. He was always too eager to get everything done in the shortest time possible, leaving many aspects unattended to. It was a flaw he recognized, but now that Virgil, too, prioritized in the same way, Sam had to admit that it was the better way.

  As he had entered the tunnel, Sam started retreating back the way he’d come – by moving in oblivious care.

  Don't let them know that you know. Don't let them know that you know, he repeated over and over in his head as his hands nervously sank into the murky soil under his body, inching himself backward ever so slowly. Sweat trickled down Sam's face and back even though the air was frigid in the subterranean duct. He would move his hands, feeling the slippery movement of slithering under his palms and fingers, urging him to cry out, but he did not entertain his fear. After pushing back with his arms, he would carefully shift his hips and legs in the same manner, gradually creeping backward out of the tunnel.

  “Don't rush, Sam,” Nina warned. “Take your time. We'll wait as long as it takes.”

  “I'm getting there,” he replied. “I don't think they are onto me ye…aow! Jesus!”

  “Mr. Cleave?” Virgil cried.

  “Sam!” Nina shouted with a hint of panic.

  “I'm okay,” Sam answered. “Just a bloody thorn, or shard of glass in the mud. My flashlight is giving up the ghost so I can't pull it out right now.”

  “Just get out so we can put some ointment on it. I have some antiseptic cream in my pouch here,” Joanne said reassuringly.

  “Alright, thanks,” Sam thanked her in a shaky voice. “Christ, this little paper cut is killing me. Like a bee sting. Fucking hell!”

  “Like a bee sting?” Joanne gasped. “Sam, did you see the thorn? Can you see how big it is?”

  “This is not the right time to worry about trivialities, Jo,” he moaned.

  “Sam! Listen to me!” she insisted, sounding mildly vexed. “Take a moment and shine on the wound so you can see what it is. Please. Please, just…just humor me.”

  Sam obliged. Hardly bright anymore, his light fell on the place that burned and throbbed. The mud on his hand was stained with blood, as he expected, but there was no thorn; there was no glass in his skin.

  “Sam?” Nina beckoned.

  He was quiet, apart from a sigh that escaped him.

  “Can you see anything?” Joanne asked.

  “It's just blood and mud,” Sam reported, his voice beginning to falter.

  With a very concerned expression riddled with subliminal terror, Joanne whispered to the others, “That sounds like a snakebite to me. I pray to God that I’m wrong, though.”

  “Jesus! Oh my God! Again!” Sam wailed from nearby, just across the threshold of the septic tank. “I th-think I got b-b…” he started, but his words were interrupted by another cry of agony.

  “Holy shit! They’re attacking Sam!” Nina screamed, bolting forward to help him, but she ran right into Virgil's obstructive hand which stopped her. The boat captain lunged forward in the weak beam of Joanne and Nina's flashlights, grabbing blindly around the edge to find Sam. Grappling wildly for a second, he groaned like a bear, pulling the injured journalist free of the dark pit and seizing his body tightly.

  He carried Sam to the other side of the septic tank, shouting at the women, “Come quickly! Hurry! We have to get him to the boat or he is going to die!” They stumbled and scuttled all the way back out, trying not to show their frantic horror at the prospect of Sam's fate. Quietly, save for their panting breaths tufting out into the cold atmosphere of Martin Bay's rocky region, the group ran back to the boat. Reaching the Scarlet, the women took care of cleaning Sam up while Virgil hastened to get the medical kit to attend to the basic first aid the journalist needed to impair infection to the rest of his muscle tissue.

  Abandoning their prize, literally meters away, the expedition sped away over the waves in the dead of night to reach the closest civilization they could find, hoping that Sam would not succumb to the nightmarish kiss of Olympias.

  29

  Hidden Talents

  Sylvia and her husband volunteered to help Father Harper rescue David Purdue from the clutches of what they only knew where people with nefarious intentions toward the billionaire explorer and inventor they had been tracking since his deceit.

  “They have been in there for ages,” Sylvia told Lance. They were standing outside the church of St. Columbanus, sharing a cigarette. Her husband appeared to be in deep thought as she talked, but she assumed it was merely the trauma of her abduction finally being undone, the relief leaving him somehow numb.

  He looked at his watch. “It’s been forty minutes. Maybe he’s getting her drunk on communal wine and forcing her to convert,” Lance remarked quite dryly, taking another drag. “I know I am not the most religious of people, sweetheart, but I feel that sometimes we need to do God's work for Him.”

  “Meaning?” she asked.

  He looked up at the steeples reaching to the heavens, the holiness of it all, the antiquity and faith put into the masonry and glass of the majestic, massive shrine. Then he looked at Sylvia and shrugged. “That woman is evil, Sylla. She knew you had children and still she had no compunctions about putting a bullet through your skull.”

  “I know,” she replied. “But how is this God's work?”

  “Don't you see? Maria Winslet is a monster in human flesh. Beasts like her only hurt this world; they make it worse,” he frowned, smoking in quick pulls. “She must be punished, but not because we expect her to repent. She must be punished because she has earned torment and pain. That bitch should be put through hell before she is finally sent there with her own bullet.”

  “Lance!” Sylvia gasped. “My God, what has gotten into you?”

  He was furious; that was plain to see. But in the harsh comment of his wife's captor his eyes could not hide the tears turning them glassy with a shimmer. “Is it so wrong to want her to suffer like we did?” he asked. “If Father Harper does not get it out of her, I am sorry for Mr. Purdue, but I will kill her with her own gun, Sylvia. Even if it means that man's doom, by God I am going to make her pay.”

  She took his shaking hands into hers and kissed hi
m. “Don't worry, Father Harper is a gentle man with much wisdom and he will show us how to forgive her. Let's go in and see if he’s managed to find out where Purdue is being kept. Maybe being inside the church will help you find the peace you need to forgive.”

  Sylvia led her upset husband into the church and closed the doors behind them. They checked the confessional and saw that Maria was not there anymore, so they proceeded to Father Harper's office to determine what information he’d managed to get from Maria.

  “Where are they?” she asked when they found the office vacant. Lance's phone rang.

  “It's Father Harper,” he said, followed by, “Yes, alright. We'll be right there.”

  “What now?” she sighed.

  “Come. He says we must meet him in the back yard of the manse right now.”

  They left the church garden at the back and rounded the wrought iron fencing that separated the manse from the church. Father Harper was just opening the external doors to his home office, motioning them inside urgently. When they stepped inside Sylvia knew something bad was going on. From the sofa Maria Winslet was staring absently at them. Her face showed the signs of Father Harper's desperate apprehension of her weapon from her earlier, but she seemed docile and coherent.

  “There,” Father Harper said and gave Lance a piece of paper. Upon seeing the doctor's quizzical countenance the priest informed him that those were the hack codes and passwords of the accounts Lance's money had been paid into.

  “How did you get her to tell you this?” he gasped in amazement, while his wife grabbed the paper to peruse it. She recognized the names of the accounts she’d had to relay to her husband on the phone.

  “I can be very persuasive. Doing God's work sometimes takes a more…sinister…point of view, I'm afraid,” the priest answered.

  Lance looked at his wife, gloating about the similarity between Father Harper's and his earlier statement. “See? Even God's people agree with me.”