The Babylonian Mask (Order of the Black Sun Book 14)

by P. W. Child

  “They are not agents of Satan, Sam. Come on,” Purdue sniggered, pulling Sam by his sleeve past the two cleaners that were chatting about trivialities. “They don’t even know I’m a patient. For all they know, you’re my patient.”

  “Mr. Purdue!” a woman called from behind, strategically interrupting Purdue’s statement.

  “Keep walking,” Purdue muttered.

  “Why?” Sam teased loudly. “They think I’m your patient, remember?”

  “Sam! For God’s sake, keep walking,” Purdue insisted, only vaguely amused by Sam’s juvenile interjection.

  “Mr. Purdue, please stop right there. I need to have a word with you,” the woman reiterated. He stopped with a sigh of defeat and turned to face the attractive lady. Sam cleared his throat. “Please tell me that is your doctor, Purdue. Because…well, she can brainwash me any day.”

  “It appears she already has,” Purdue mumbled with a sharp look to his associate.

  “I have not had the pleasure,” she smiled as she met eyes with Sam.

  “Would you like to?” Sam asked, receiving a mighty elbow from Purdue.

  “Excuse me?” she asked as she joined them.

  “He’s a bit shy,” Purdue lied. “He must learn to speak up, I’m afraid. He must seem so rude, Melissa. I’m sorry.”

  “Melissa Argyle.” She smiled as she introduced herself to Sam.

  “Sam Cleave,” he said plainly, keeping track of Purdue’s surreptitious signals in his peripheral. “Are you Mr. Purdue’s…”Mindfucker?

  “…attending psychologist?” Sam asked, keeping his thoughts locked safely away.

  Coyly she scoffed amusedly. “No! Oh, no. I wish I had such authority. I am just the head of administration here at Sinclair, ever since Ella went on maternity leave.”

  “So you will be leaving in three months?” Sam feigned regret.

  “I’m afraid so,” she replied. “But it will be okay. I have a freelance position at Edinburgh University as an assistant, or advisor, to the Dean of Psychology.”

  “Do you hear that, Purdue?” Sam marveled a bit too much. “She is stationed at Fort Edinburgh! It’s a small world. I haunt the place too, but mostly for information when I research my assignments.”

  “Ah yes,” Purdue smiled. “I know where she is – stationed.”

  “Who do you think got me this position?” she swooned and looked at Purdue with immense adoration. Sam could not let the opportunity for mischief slip by.

  “Oh, he did? You old scoundrel, Dave! Helping talented, budding academics into positions even when you do not get publicity for it and all. Isn’t he just the best, Melissa?” Sam praised his friend, not fooling Purdue at all, but Melissa was convinced of his sincerity.

  “I owe Mr. Purdue so much,” she chirped. “I just hope he knows how much I appreciate it. As a matter of fact, he gave me this pen.” The back of her pen rolled left to right across her dark rose lipstick as she subconsciously flirted, her yellow locks barely covering her hard nipples that strained through her beige cardigan.

  “I’m sure that pen appreciates your efforts too,” Sam said plainly.

  Purdue looked ashen, screaming in his mind for Sam to shut up. The blond woman stopped sucking her pen immediately, realizing what she was doing. “How do you mean, Mr. Cleave?” she asked sternly. Sam was unfazed.

  “I mean that pen would appreciate your efforts in signing Mr. Purdue out in a few minutes,” Sam smiled confidently. Purdue could not believe it. Sam was busy using his freak talent on Melissa to get her to do what he wished, he realized at once. Trying not to smile at the journalist’s audacity, he kept his expression agreeable.

  “Absolutely,” she beamed. “Just let me pull up the discharge documents and I’ll meet you both in the lobby in ten minutes.”

  “Thank you so much, Melissa,” Sam called after her as she descended the stairs.

  Slowly his head turned to face Purdue’s strange expression.

  “You are incorrigible, Sam Cleave,” he reprimanded.

  Sam shrugged.

  “Remind me to buy you a Ferrari for Christmas,” he grinned. “But first we’re going to drink until Hogmanay and beyond!”

  “Rocktober Fest was last week, didn’t you know?” Sam said matter-of-factly as the two strolled down to the ground floor reception area.

  “Aye.”

  Behind the reception desk, the flustered girl Sam had bewildered stared at him again. Purdue did not have to ask. He could only guess what mind games Sam must have played on the poor girl. “You know that when you use your powers for evil the gods will take them from you, right?” he asked Sam.

  “But I’m not using them for evil. I’m breaking my old pal out of here,” Sam defended.

  “Not me, Sam. The women,” Purdue corrected what Sam already knew was his meaning. “Look at their faces. You did something.”

  “Nothing they’ll regret, sadly. Maybe I should just allow myself a little bit of female attention by means of the gods, hey?” Sam tried to elicit sympathy from Purdue, but he received nothing but a nervous leer.

  “Let’s just get out of here scot-free first, old boy,” he reminded Sam.

  “Ha, good choice of words there, sir. Oh look, there is Melissa now,” he flashed Purdue a naughty smile. “How did she earn that Caran d’Ache? With those rosy lips?”

  “She belongs to one of my beneficiary programs, Sam, like several other young women…and men, I’ll have you know,” Purdue defended hopelessly, knowing full well that Sam was pulling his leg.

  “Hey, your preferences have nothing to do with me,” Sam mocked.

  After Melissa signed Purdue’s discharge papers, he wasted no time to get to Sam’s car on the other side of the enormous botanical garden that surrounded the building. Like two boys playing truant, they walk-jogged away from the facility.

  “You have balls, Sam Cleave. I’ll give you that,” Purdue chuckled as they passed security with the signed release papers.

  “I do. Let’s prove it though,” Sam jested as they got into the car. Purdue’s quizzical expression compelled him to give away the secret celebratory venue he had in mind. “Just west of North Berwick we go…to the beer tent village…and we’ll be wearing kilts!”

  Chapter 5 – The Lurking Marduk

  Windowless and dank, the basement lay in quiet wait for the lurking shadow that inked its way along the wall as it slithered down the stairs. Just like a real shadow, the man who cast it moved without a sound as he stole down to the only deserted place he could find to hide long enough until shift change. The emaciated giant plotted his next move meticulously in his mind, but he was in no way oblivious to reality – he would have to lay low for at least another two days.

  The latter was a decision made at the scrutiny of the staff roster up on the second floor, where the administrator pinned the week’s work schedule to the staff room bulletin board. On the colorful Excel document he’d caught sight of the tenacious nurse’s name and her shift details. He did not want to confront her again and she would be on duty for two more days, leaving him no choice other than to squat in the concrete solitude of the slightly illuminated boiler room with only plumbing to amuse him.

  What a setback, he thought. But ultimately getting to Flieger Olaf Löwenhagen, until recently stationed at the Luftwaffe unit at Büchel Air Base, would be worth the wait. The lurking old man could not allow the heavily injured pilot to stay alive at any cost. What the young man could do, should he not be stopped, was simply too risky. The long wait had begun for the deformed hunter, the epitome of patience, now hiding in the depths of the Heidelberg Medical Institution.

  In his hands he held the surgical mask he’d just removed, wondering what it would be like to walk among people without some sort of covering over his face. But upon such pondering came the undeniable disdain for the wish. He had to admit to himself that it would vex him immensely to walk in the daylight without a mask, if only for the discomfort it would grant him.

  Nak
ed.

  He would feel bare, barren as his featureless face was now, if he had to reveal his defect to the world. And he contemplated what it would be like to look normal, by definition, as he sat down in the quiet darkness of the east corner of the basement. Even if he were not plagued by malformation and wore an acceptable face, he would feel exposed and horribly – visible. In fact, the only desire he could salvage from the notion was the privilege of proper speech. No, he changed his mind. Being able to speak would not be the only thing that would please him; the joy of smiling itself would be as an elusive dream captured.

  He eventually curled up under the coarse cover of a stolen bed linen, courtesy of the laundry room. He’d rolled up a bundle of bloody, tarp-like sheets he’d found in one of the canvas hampers to serve as insulation between his fatless body and the hard floor. After all, his protruding bones bruised his skin even on the mildest of mattresses, but his thyroid did not allow him to gain any of that soft lipid tissue that could gift him comfortable cushioning.

  His childhood illness had only exacerbated his birth defect, leaving him a monster in pain. But it was his curse to equalize the blessing of being what he was, he assured himself. At first it had been a hard thing for Peter Marduk to accept, but once he had found his place in the world, his purpose was clear. Handicap, physically or spiritually, would have to give way to his role given by whatever cruel Maker had produced him.

  Another day passed and he had gone undetected, his foremost skill in all endeavors. Peter Marduk, aged seventy-eight, laid his head on the stinking linen to get some well-needed sleep while he waited for another day to pass above him. The smell did not bother him. His senses were selective to a fault; one of those blessings he had been cursed with when he hadn’t received a nose. When he wanted to track a scent, his sense of smell was like that of a shark. Alternatively, he had the ability to utilize the opposite. That was what he did now.

  Switching off his sense of smell, his ears were perked for any normally inaudible disturbance while he was asleep. Blissfully, after more than two full days awake, the old man closed his eyes – his wonderfully normal eyes. Far away, he could hear the squeak of trolley wheels under the weight of Ward B’s dinner just before visiting hours. Fading from consciousness rendered him blind and restful, hoping for a dreamless sleep until his task would prompt him to perk up and perform once again.

  ***

  “I am so tired,” Nina told Nurse Marx. The young nurse was on night duty. Since she had become acquainted with Dr. Nina Gould over the past two days, she had slightly abandoned her girl-crush mannerism and adapted a more professional geniality towards the ailing historian.

  “Fatigue is part of the illness, Dr. Gould,” she told Nina, sympathetically while adjusting her pillows.

  “I know, but I haven’t felt this tired since I was admitted. Did they give me a sedative?”

  “Let me see,” Nurse Marx offered. She slid Nina’s medical chart from the slot at the foot of her bed and flipped slowly through the pages. Her blue eyes scanned administered drugs of the last twelve hours and then slowly shook her head. “No, Dr. Gould. I see nothing here other than the topical medication in your drip. Certainly no sedatives. Are you feeling sleepy?”

  Marlene Marx gently took Nina’s arm and checked her vitals. “Your pulse is quite weak. Let me have a look at your BP.”

  “My God, I feel like I cannot lift my arms, Nurse Marx,” Nina sighed heavily. “It feels like…” She had no good way to ask, but in light of the symptoms she was feeling she had to. “Have you ever been Roofie’d?”

  Looking a little worried that Nina knew what it was like to be under the influence of Rohypnol, the nurse again shook her head. “No, but I have a good idea what a drug like that does to the central nervous system. Is that how you feel?”

  Nina nodded, now barely able to open her eyes. Nurse Marx was alarmed to see that Nina’s blood pressure was extremely low, crashing in a way that totally belied her previous prognosis. “My body feels like an anvil, Marlene,” Nina slurred softly.

  “Hang on, Dr. Gould,” the nurse said urgently, keeping her voice sharp and loud to wake Nina’s mind while she ran to summon her colleagues. Among them was Dr. Eduard Fritz, the physician who had treated the young man who had come in two nights go with the second-degree burns.

  “Dr. Fritz!” Nurse Marx called in a tone that would not alarm the other patients, but would relay a level of urgency to the medical staff. “Dr. Gould’s BP is dropping rapidly and I’m struggling to keep her conscious!”

  The team hastened to Nina’s side and pulled the curtains. Onlookers stood stunned at the response of the staff to the small woman who singly occupied the double room. Visiting hours had not seen such action in a long while and a lot of visitors and patients waited to see if the patient would be alright.

  “It’s like something out of Grey’s Anatomy,” Nurse Marx heard a visitor tell her husband as she ran past with the meds Dr. Fritz had asked for. But all Marx cared about was getting Dr. Gould back before she crashed completely. They opened the curtains again twenty minutes later, conversing in smiling whispers. From the looks on their faces the bystanders knew the patient had been stabilized and returned to the bustling atmosphere usually associated with this time of night at the hospital.

  “Thank God we managed to save her,” Nurse Marx exhaled as she leaned on the reception desk to sip a cup of coffee. Little by little visitors started to vacate the ward, saying goodbye to their confined loved ones until the morrow. Gradually the hallways grew quieter as footsteps and subdued tones died down into nothingness. It was a relief to most of the staff members to catch a quick breather before the final rounds of the night.

  “Well done, Nurse Marx,” Dr. Fritz smiled. It was rare for the man to smile, even at the best of times. As a result, she knew that his words would have to be savored.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she replied modestly.

  “Really, had you not reacted immediately we may have lost Dr. Gould tonight. I’m afraid her condition is more serious than her biology indicates. I must confess to being confounded by it. You say that her vision had been impaired?”

  “Yes, Doctor. She had been complaining that her vision was blurry until last night when she used the words ‘going blind’ outright. But I was in no position to give her any advise, as I don’t have a clue what could be causing it, other than the obvious immune deficiency,” Nurse Marx speculated.

  “That is what I like about you, Marlene,” he said. He was not smiling, but his statement was respectful nonetheless. “You know your place. You do not pretend to be a doctor or presume to tell patients what you think is plaguing them. You leave it to the professionals and that is good. You will go far under my supervision with that attitude.”

  Hoping that Dr. Hilt did not relay her previous behavior, Marlene only smiled, but her heart went wild with pride at Dr. Fritz’s approval. He was one of the foremost authorities in the field of wide spectrum diagnostics ranging from various medical avenues, yet he remained a modest physician and advisor. Considering his career achievements, Dr. Fritz was relatively young. In his late forties, he had already authored several award-winning papers and lectured all over the world during his sabbaticals. His opinion was highly regarded by most medical academics, especially mere nurses like the fresh-from-internship Marlene Marx.

  It was true. Marlene knew her place around him. No matter how chauvinist or sexist Dr. Fritz’s statement might have sounded, she knew what he meant. However, of the other female staff, there were many who would not have understood his meaning so well. To them, his authority was egotistical, whether he had earned the throne of not. They saw him as a misogynist both in the workplace as well as socially, often speculating about his sexuality. But he paid them no attention. He was only stating the obvious. He knew better and they were not qualified to diagnose out of hand. Therefore, they had no right to give their opinion, least of all when he was on duty to do it properly.

  “Look alive,
Marx,” one of the orderlies said in passing.

  “Why? What’s happening?” she asked, wide-eyed. She usually prayed for a bit of action during the night shift, but Marlene had had quite enough nervous tension for one night.

  “We’re moving Freddy Krueger in with the Chernobyl lady,” he answered, as he motioned for her to get started on preparing the bed for the transfer.

  “Hey, have some bloody respect for the poor man, you asshole,” she told the orderly, who just laughed off her reprimand. “He is someone’s son, you know!”

  She opened the bed for the new occupant in the faint, lonely light above the bed. Pulling aside the blankets and top sheet to form a neat triangle, if only for the moment, Marlene contemplated the fate of the poor, young man who had lost most of his features, not to mention his abilities from the onslaught of nerve damage. Dr. Gould moved in the shadowy side of the room a few feet away, appearing to be resting well for a change.

  They brought in the new patient with a minimum of disruption and transferred him to his new bed, grateful that he was not awake for what would certainly have been unbearable pain during their handling of him. They left quietly once he was settled in, while in the basement slept equally soundly, an imminent menace.

  Chapter 6 – Dilemma in the Luftwaffe

  “My God, Schmidt! I am the commander, the Inspector of the Kommando Luftwaffe!” Harold Meier shrieked in a rare moment of lost control. “These journalists are going to want to know why the missing airman used one of our combat fighters without permission from my office or the Joint Operations Command of the Bundeswehr! And I find out only now that the fuselage has been recovered by our own people – and hidden?”

  Gerhard Schmidt, second in command, shrugged and looked at his superior’s flushing face. Lieutenant General Harold Meier was not a man to lose control of his emotions. The scene playing before Schmidt was highly unusual, but he understood fully why Meier would react this way. This was a very serious matter, and it would not be long before some snooping journalist got their eye on the truth of the escaped airman, a man who had single-handedly made off with one of their million-Euro planes.