Order of the Black Sun Box Set 6

by Preston William Child

“You know, he’s not dead yet,” Nina told her friend, trying to keep it together.

  “I know. But…had I not gotten this itch, if it had not been for me and my obsession with Alexander's treasure, Sam would never have come here. You would never have lost another friend so soon after the other,” Joanne lamented.

  “Just stop it!” Nina snapped. “I have enough shit to deal with right now. I can’t stand for self-pity and uncalled for guilt trips right now!”

  “Self pity?” Joanne asked, looking dumbstruck at Nina's assumption. “Wait, do you think I am feeling sorry for myself? I am truly sorry that I got you and your friend into this shit, Nina! I feel responsible for luring you out here. That’s all. And it is a fact that this expedition is precisely why Sam is heading for the ICU, and you think I am feeling sorry for myself?”

  “Keep it down,” Nina said.

  “No!” Joanne replied. “I will not keep it down. You know what, Nina. Thanks for all your help, but I don't need to be talked down to by some high school bully who grew up to be a celebrity academic. Once a bully, always a bully. And I have had it.”

  She flicked the Alexandrian coin onto Nina's lap and with a bitter sneer she said, “For your trouble.”

  Beyond words, Nina sat mute, still reeling from Joanne's rant. Usually she would fight back, but she was so shocked by her friend's reaction that she just started crying. She missed Purdue's fancy free influence, especially now. She worried for Sam's life, feeling as responsible for his condition as Joanne did. Now she may have lost Sam for good, and Purdue was God knows where. Nina punished herself that Joanne had just been a fleeting friend that gave the historian a second chance at having someone female to relate to and be silly with.

  “Well done, Dr. Gould,” she sniffed under her hair as she folded forward on the chair. “Your enchanting personality has just fucked up yet another friendship.”

  “Dr. Gould?” a man said.

  Nina started and sat bolt upright. “Aye?” It was the doctor working on Sam. “Oh God, no!” she gasped.

  “No, he is still with us,” he said quickly, “but he is deteriorating rapidly. We need to find out what kind of snake bit Mr. Cleave, because our serum is not working. We need antivenin from that particular snake.”

  Nina buried her face in her hands before looking up at the doctor again. “This will sound crazy, but those snakes are exclusively found in Greece.”

  “Then how did he get bitten in Newfoundland?” the doctor asked logically.

  “You see, doctor, that is the crazy bit,” she winced, hoping he would not expect her to explain. Nina was in luck.

  “I'm afraid we have limited time, so if you could help us obtain some of the venom from…Greece? That would be the only chance Mr. Cleave has. Until then, we can only manage his symptoms and keep him from going into cardiac arrest,” the doctor advised.

  Wiping her tears, Nina agreed that she would try to get her hands on the poison from one of the snakes responsible for Sam's wounds. After the doctor left her alone in the empty waiting room, Nina broke down in tears again. “How am I going to do that? How am I going to do that all by myself?”

  “Do what by yourself?” a familiar voice said, making Nina's heart jump.

  Impossible, she thought. When she looked up she almost did not recognize Purdue. Nina, once more speechless, propelled herself at the emaciated frame of her close friend and confidant. She wrapped her arms around him and wept vigorously.

  “Where have you been?” she sobbed. “God, I needed to see you so badly. You will not believe what happened while you were gone.”

  Purdue could only smile at her ironic statement while he rubbed her back with his hands.

  “Why are you so thin? Why are you limping?” she scowled when she gave him a good look. “What happened?”

  “Long story,” he said. “I heard what Sam's doctor said. Where do we find these bloody vipers we need, then?”

  It was typical of David Purdue, the arrival of whom always made everything seem probable, doable, and possible. He was the perpetual problem solver, creator of devices that made everything easier, and facilitator of that which seemed impossible to the average man.

  “How did you know where to find me?” she asked.

  “Friends of yours from church told me where you’d gone. From there I found out that you’d chartered a boat, so I contacted the boat owner and he told me which hospital you were at…in a nutshell,” Purdue accounted with a smile.

  What he did not tell Nina was that, while she on her way to the weather station by sea, he’d been rescued from an oubliette, subsequently so sobered by his experience that he’d decided that he was tired of being dead. On Dr. Beach's phone Purdue had called Sam's friend, Patrick Smith at MI6, offering to give himself up conditionally. After his leg operation and days of recovery from malnutrition Purdue was discharged against medical advice to locate Nina.

  “Wow!” Nina said. “I have other friends?”

  “Father Harper, and Dr. Beach and his wife helped me – more than you realize. I could not call you. Your phone was off,” he said innocently, making Nina feel terrible all over again. “But now I have found you, finally, and you can catch me up on the flight back to…where do you need to be?”

  “Newfoundland, please, Mr. Purdue,” Joanne said from the door. “I'm sorry Nina. I suck.”

  “I suck too, Earle-girl. Purdue, this is Joanne Earle, expert on Alexander the Great and an old friend of mine,” Nina introduced them.

  “Alexander the Great,” Purdue smiled. “Powerful king. Military genius.”

  “I like him already,” Joanne winked at Nina.

  “Aye, you seem to have a penchant for suave men with lots of money,” Nina joked, and dragged Joanne with her down the hallway. “We have to call Virgil.”

  After Joanne called boat captain Virgil Hecklund to procure his services once more, Purdue offered to pick up the fee. Utterly relieved, after practically donating the medallion to Nina and being left penniless to settle with Virgil, Joanne accepted the offer gracefully.

  “As if he would have allowed you to decline,” Nina smiled at her friend.

  “Very nice of him,” Joanne agreed happily, as they took to their comfortable seats aboard the Scarlet again. In the cockpit Purdue and Virgil exchanged deep sea angling stories and laughed at marine puns for almost the entire distance back to Martin Bay.

  Before they had departed the archipelago of Nunavut, Purdue asked Captain Hecklund to procure certain supplies for him, for which he would pay extra. It felt so good to have ready access to his own accounts again, Purdue thought, relishing the peace of mind to do so without fear of being tracked. In truth, he’d had access to his accounts while laying low, but they were being monitored.

  “So, that’s what we were about to unearth, we believe,” Nina concluded, having told Purdue every detail that led to the awful attack on their colleague and friend, now leaving him fighting for his life.

  “I have heard about the hidden treasure before, but I did not know about a letter from Olympias to her son,” Purdue admitted. “That is remarkable, something that has to be almost…godlike…in nature.”

  “So do you think the hidden Treasure of Alexander the Great is something other than riches?” Joanne asked Purdue. He shrugged. “Being a scholar of his life, I’m surprised that his treasure would not be located in Iraq, Turkey, or Egypt, you know?”

  “That was my initial thought when you told me about it on the phone,” Nina told Joanne. “Why would you have found a medallion like this on Canadian soil?”

  “Look, there have been many archaeological theories from discoveries on a great many Inuit tribal lands. There have been European artifacts found that predate the Vikings, even,” Purdue informed them. “That makes it plausible that Alexander the Great would have had the wherewithal and the need to send an armada out here to make sure his enemies would never find it. The Persian Empires and Egypt were vastly wealthy, yet they would not have thought to send sc
outs or ships west, I would guess. Not for any reason but it was not necessitated. For Alexander, especially after his conquests and his army eventually becoming discontented with his greed, it was probably the most remote land he could have reached.”

  “But Alexander was never reputed to have sailed this way,” Joanne challenged.

  “No, he never did. But there is a very good chance, like the Mommy's Boy he was,” Nina teased again, “that members of his mother's order could have facilitated the mission, not his own army.”

  “Ooh, that makes a lot of sense!” Joanne marveled. “She outlived him, after all. After his death she could have sent delegates from the Cult of Dionysus to stash the treasure here in what is now Canada.”

  “That would explain the snakes,” Nina remarked. Her face fell into sadness again. “Sam.”

  Joanne embraced her. “Don't worry, honey. We'll get those slimy bastards.”

  “Oh!” Purdue exclaimed. “On that note…”

  He limped away to the open cabin door and excused himself before disappearing below deck.

  “Where is he going?” Nina asked.

  Virgil smiled and dusted his hands as he sat down. “Only an hour before we reach Martin Bay. Mr. Purdue asked me to bring a few electronic wares so that he could fashion a device he jovially calls a Snake Charmer,” Virgil announced proudly.

  “What does it do?” Joanne asked.

  “Does it matter? If Purdue names anything it usually has a good reason,” Nina smiled as she tilted her beer.

  32

  The Unearthing

  “With the right attitude, self imposed limitations vanish.”

  Although Purdue was moving with great labor, he insisted on coming along to retrieve the Olympias Letter – if it was still there – and secure a few of the serpents that attacked Sam for medical use. He had been filled in on the kind of snake it was and Purdue took a minute to learn about the Ohia snake and its origins.

  “I am no expert on snakes, but when you told me this specific breed is found only in Greece, I could not help but see some kind of supernatural connotation, which is odd, for a scientist like myself,” Purdue groaned as he helped Virgil lift the Snake Charmer over the rocks from where the Scarlet was moored.

  “What kind of contraption is this?” Nina asked, astonished. “I know what you named it, Purdue, but did you have to make it look like a fucking snake too?”

  “That part was unintentional,” Purdue smiled. “I cannot help that the construction resembles a constrictor,” he attempted some form of loose homonym that had Nina rolling her eyes. “I know. I know it is an adder!”

  Virgil chuckled as the women went ahead with the tool box and Sam's gear. Nina was greatly worried about Sam's deterioration and Purdue picked upon it. He made a point of watching her keenly to offer support because he knew her well enough to see that her skin only served as a casing for the collapse going on inside her. Having not slept for over a day, the three previous explorers were dangerously fatigued and Purdue had more physical trouble than he would ever admit.

  It was the afternoon after the night they had spent rushing Sam out of the septic tank and they could all feel the fickle, lazy sun tempt them to slumber. But knowing that Sam's time was running out and that his recovery depended on their success inside a full blown snake pit, impelled them beyond their limitations. The only consolation was that they had already located the site and had a good idea of the threats and distances inside.

  “This time is far more difficult than the last time,” Joanne puffed as she lugged Sam's gear with hers. “But it isn't dark and it is much warmer, so I am better for it.”

  “I feel like collapsing, I won't bullshit you there,” Nina groaned as they approached Weather Station Kurt once again. Pinching one eye shut, Nina remarked, “It looks much friendlier in the day,”

  “But underneath it is still night,” Virgil burst her bubble, and with a wide-eyed stare added, “and still unfriendly.”

  “Ta, Captain,” Nina nodded. “Good thing we have this monstrosity here, hey? Whatever it does.”

  Purdue just smiled.

  “Where is the perimeter?” Purdue asked Virgil. Nina gave him the blueprint on the document issued by Karl Wolff to better effect the accuracy of his mission.

  “So that is where the tablet is supposed to be,” Nina pointed on the diagram. “That is where the snakes got Sam. Purdue, please be careful.”

  “I thought we're all going in,” Joanne frowned.

  “Aye, we are. But he has not been down there yet, that's all,” Nina shrugged.

  “Well, I’m braving my fear of snakes and you are braving, for the second time, your fear of confined spaces,” Joanne smiled reassuringly from under her beanie, looking like a lovable nerd.

  “That's the spirit, Miss Earle,” Purdue smiled as he and Virgil sank the long, insulated snake of copper wiring and rubber down the shaft. At the front end the device actually sported two large steel spikes made of the same material as roof antennas, coincidentally mimicking the fangs of a viper. At the other end, though, it was connected to a machine Purdue had converted from a generator engine and a high voltage transformer. He briefly explained to the laymen, “Think of it as a small scale Tesla coil. I’m using this transformer to essentially cause a deliberately erroneous conversion to generate a pulse or a discharge through this conductor,” he ran his finger along the body of his snake charmer device.

  “Ooh, I get it!” Joanne smiled. “Like a Taser for snakes.”

  “Purdue, is this safe for us?” Nina asked.

  “The voltage is not powerful enough to hurt us, mostly because we’re wearing rubber boots and are insulated from the actual current,” he assured the worried historian. “Don't worry, as long as we’re not rolling inside their muddy walls where the prongs will be inserted, we should be fine.”

  Virgil chuckled heartily at Purdue's sense of humor. “This is the most fun I’ve had since I started my fishing charter business, believe me!”

  With the generator started, the party descended one by one down the tunnel. Virgil went first to feed the head of the snake charmer into the tunnel. Then Nina and Joanne followed with the gear bags, and finally Purdue struggled down the slippery dark duct of muck with his leg far from healed. He was not supposed to put any weight on it for several weeks, but with his considerably less weighty frame he saw it fit to take the chance.

  Fresh batteries in their flashlights were a blessing this time round and made it easier for Nina to navigate the enclosed darkness without succumbing to terror. However, Joanne's fear was to remain real for longer. She helped Purdue to his feet when he slipped into the septic tank. Then she switched on Sam's handheld camera just as he had instructed her and started filming the journey.

  Purdue chose to remain absent, staying out of the frame at all times, just until the media was updated with news of his discovery. As a matter of fact, being abducted and left virtually walled in to die was the perfect screen for David Purdue to resurface without being blamed for any dishonesty about his demise. For all the world knew, the poor man was shot, then seized and imprisoned by his kidnappers and presumed dead, not of his own doing. Karsten and Beck did him a favor, absolving him of any fraudulent practice by essentially making him a victim of attempted murder. It was a perfect alibi; one the authorities could not now refute.

  Perhaps this was why Special Agent Patrick Smith had been so forthcoming when Purdue called him to make the deal that allowed him his passage to Nina. It seemed, Purdue figured, that all bad things do happen for a reason. Sometimes when terrible things befall people it seems unfair - until later, when that very unsavory incident is proved to have resolved issues that would have otherwise been left in a Gordian knot. And Purdue's flight from the Black Sun while creeping about like a cockroach for the rest of his life presented just such a Gordian knot.

  If there were one thing Purdue had learned from Alexander the Great, it was indeed that fortune favored the bold; simply going ahead
and severing the whole thing recklessly was sometimes the only way to solve the Gordian knot.

  “Okay, stop!” Virgil called from the front of the group, holding the head of the device up until Purdue could instruct him on its positioning.

  “Shall we put on our gloves, Jo?” Nina asked rhetorically and gave Joanne her pair. The two women had the atrocious task of retrieving the three or four specimens for Sam's antivenin after Purdue had electrocuted the serpents. Purdue and Virgil steadied the prongs and stabbed into the wet, muddy wall.

  They could all hear the snakes come alive with aggression instantly, and Purdue rushed to flick the switch that regulated the current. Nina and Joanne ran for the front of the head as the jolt turned from a hum to a clap that stunned the animals, killing some from the overwhelming surge of electricity that pumped through their tiny hearts, erupting inside their pericardia.

  “Go, go, go!” Nina screamed, pulling Joanne along. With their gloves and flashlights they collected three living specimens, still writhing weakly in their grasp. Joanne understandably cringed, wailing like a banshee as the pulled the scaly monsters from the mud. “Oh God! Oh my God, I can't deal with this!” she kept moaning in a low volume murmur until they had all they needed.

  “Right,” Nina said, “take my container, please. I am going in.”

  “In where?” Joanne shrieked.

  But Nina's petite body was already hastily progressing down the tunnel as her voice faintly echoed, “No time like the present! Before the live ones realize we killed their friends!”

  Joanne stood dumbfounded, holding the two jars of motionless adders while Purdue passed her to follow Nina. Virgil waited, holding the buzzing electrical device above the floor surface, just in case.

  Purdue was closely behind Nina.

  “Do you see the letterbox yet?” he wheezed, hardly noticing the grimy sludge covering his white crown. After his time in the oubliette he was no longer bothered with such things.