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

by P. W. Child

  “What?” Sam exclaimed, scowling. “I am Sam Cleave, looking for Dr. Fritz.”

  “Do you have Dr. Nina Gould?” the officer asked.

  In the background of their discussion the nurse gasped. The Sam Cleave, right here in front of her.

  “Aye,” Sam started, but before he could utter another word they lifted their guns in a straight aim at him. “But I did not kidnap her! Jesus! Put your guns away, you idiots!”

  “That is not the correct way to speak to an officer of the law, son,” the other officer reminded Sam.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said quickly. “Alright? I’m sorry, but you have to hear me out. Nina is my friend and she is currently undergoing medical care in Mannheim at the Theresien hospital. They need her folder or file, whatever, and she sent me to see her attending doctor to get that information. That is all! That is all I am here for, understand?”

  “Identification,” the security guard demanded. “Slowly.”

  Sam refrained from poking fun at the officer’s FBI-movie moves, just in case they were trigger-happy. Carefully he opened the flap of his coat and retrieved his passport.

  “There you go. Sam Cleave. See?” Nurse Marx came out from behind the officer, apologetically putting out her hand to Sam.

  “I am so sorry for the misunderstanding,” she told Sam, and repeated the same to the officers. “You see, the other patient that went missing with Dr. Gould was also called Sam. Obviously I immediately thought it was that Sam wanting to see the doctor. And when he said Dr. Gould could die…”

  “Yes, yes, we get the picture, Nurse Marx,” the security man sighed, holstering his gun. The other two were equally frustrated, but they had no choice but to follow suit.

  Chapter 18 – Unmasked

  “As you were,” Sam jested as he was given back his credentials. The flushing young nurse lifted her open hand in a grateful gesture to them as they walked away, feeling dreadfully sheepish.

  “Mr. Cleave, it is an honor to meet you.” She smiled, shaking Sam’s hand.

  “Call me Sam,” he flirted, deliberately looking intensely into her eyes. Besides, an ally could help his mission along; not only in obtaining Nina’s folder, but also in getting to the bottom of the recent incidents at the hospital and perhaps even the air base in Büchel.

  “I am so sorry for screwing up like this. The other patient she disappeared with was also called Sam,” she explained.

  “Aye, my darling, I caught that the other time. No need to apologize. It was an honest mistake.” They got an elevator to the Fifth Floor. A mistake that almost cost me my bloody life!

  In the elevator with two radiology technicians and the gushing Nurse Marx, Sam pushed the awkwardness from his mind. They were silently staring at him. For a split second Sam contemplated spooking the German ladies with a remark on how he once saw a Swedish porn flick start much in the same fashion. The doors opened on the Second Floor and Sam caught a glimpse of a white sign on the hallway wall reading “X-ray 1 & 2” in red lettering. The two radiology technicians breathed out for the first time only after they’d stepped out of the lift. Sam could hear their giggling die down as the silver doors slid together again.

  Nurse Marx wore a smirk and her eyes stayed glued to the floor, prompting the journalist to relieve her of her discomfiture. He breathed out hard, looking at the light above them. “So, Nurse Marx, is Dr. Fritz a radiology specialist?”

  Her posture straightened up instantly like a loyal soldier. From Sam’s knowledge of body language he realized that the nurse harbored an undying reverence or desire for the doctor in question. “No, but he is a veteran physician who lectures at global medical conferences on several scientific subjects. Let me say – he knows a little about every disease, where other doctors specialize in just one and know nothing about the rest. He took very good care of Dr. Gould. You can be assured. In fact, he was the only one who picked up on th…”

  Nurse Marx swallowed her words immediately, almost spilling the cancerous news she’d been stunned by just that morning.

  “What?” he asked kindly.

  “All I meant to say is that whatever is plaguing Dr. Gould, Dr. Fritz will figure it out,” she said, pressing her lips together. “Ah! Here we go!” she smiled, delighted at their well-timed arrival on the Fifth Floor.

  She led Sam out to the Administrative wing of the Fifth Floor, past the archives office, and a staff tearoom. While they walked, Sam enjoyed periodical sights from the identical square windows that lined the off-white hall. Every time the wall gave way to a blinded window, the sun would reach through and warm Sam’s face, showing him an aerial view over the local surroundings. He wondered where Purdue was. He’d left Sam the car and had taken a taxi to the airport without much explanation. That was another matter for Sam to carry unresolved deep inside his psyche until he had time to deal with it.

  “Dr. Fritz should be done with his interview by now,” Nurse Marx informed Sam as they neared the closed door. She briefly explained about the Air Force commander sending an emissary to speak to Dr. Fritz about the patient who had shared a room with Nina.Well, well. Sam pondered. How convenient is this? All the people I need to see, all under one roof. It’s like a compact information center for criminal investigation. Welcome to Corruption Mall!

  As was the protocol, Nurse Marx knocked three times and opened the door. Lieutenant Werner was just getting up to leave and did not seem at all surprised to see the nurse, but he recognized Sam from the news van. A question brushed on Werner’s brow, but Nurse Marx stopped and lost all the color in her face.

  “Marlene?” Werner asked with an inquisitive look. “What is it, baby?”

  She stood motionless, in awe, while slowly a twinge of terror overwhelmed her. Her eyes read the nametag on Dr. Fritz’s white coat, but she shook her head in a daze. Werner came to her and cradled her face as she prepared to scream. Sam knew something was up, but as he knew none of these people, it was vague at best.

  “Marlene!” Werner shouted to jerk her to her senses. Marlene Marx allowed her voice to return and she roared at the man in the coat. “You’re not Dr. Fritz! You are not Dr. Fritz!”

  Before Werner could fully grasp what was happening, the imposter propelled forward and grabbed Werner’s gun from his shoulder holster. But Sam was quicker in his reaction and he lunged ahead to push Werner out of the way, thwarting the malformed attacker’s attempt to arm himself. Nurse Marx retreated from the office, hysterically crying for security to help.

  Narrowing his eyes through the plate glass window in the double doors of the ward, one of the officers Nurse Marx had previously summoned tried to distinguish the shape running toward him and his colleague.

  “Heads up, Klaus,” he scoffed to his colleague, “Polly Paranoid is back.”

  “Good God, but she is really moving, huh?” the other officer noted.

  “She is crying wolf again. Look, it’s not like we get a whole lot of action on this shift or anything, but being fucked with is not what I see as keeping busy, you know?” the first officer replied.

  “Nurse Marx!” the second officer exclaimed. “Who can we threaten for you now?”

  Marlene dove at speed, landing right in his arms, clawing at him.

  “Dr. Fritz’s office! Go! Go, for God’s sake!” she screamed as people started to stare.

  When Nurse Marx started tugging at the man’s sleeve, pulling him along with her towards the office of Dr. Fritz, the officers realized that this time it was not a hunch. Again, they raced towards the distant hallway just out of their sight as the nurse cried for them to catch what she kept calling the monster. Confused as they were, they followed the sound of the altercation ahead and soon discovered why the frantic, young nurse referred to the imposter as a monster.

  Sam Cleave was busy exchanging blows with the old man, stepping in his way every time he went for the door. Werner was sitting on the floor, dazed and surrounded by shards of glass and a few kidney dishes that had gone sprawling after the im
postor had knocked him out cold with a bedpan and toppled the small cabinet where Dr. Fritz kept his Petri dishes and other breakables.

  “Mother of God, look at that thing!” the one officer yelled at his partner as they elected to bring the seemingly invincible culprit down by piling their bodies onto him. Sam struggled out of the way as the two officers subdued the offender in the white coat. Sam’s brow was decorated in crimson ribbons that elegantly lined the features of his cheekbone. Next to him, Werner was holding the back of his skull where the bedpan had connected painfully.

  “I think I’m going to need stitches,” Werner told Nurse Marx as she carefully crept around the doorway into the office. His dark hair sported bloody clumps where the gash smiled. Sam watched how the officers restrained the odd-looking man with threats of deadly force until he had finally yielded. The other two loiterers Sam had seen with Werner outside the news van showed up too.

  “Hey, what’s the tourist doing here?” Kohl asked when he saw Sam.

  “He’s not a tourist,” Nurse Marx defended as she held Werner’s head. “This is a world renowned journalist!”

  “Really?” Kohl asked sincerely. “Nice.” And he held out his hand to pull Sam to his feet. Himmelfarb just shook his head, standing back to give everyone room to move. The officers cuffed the man, but they’d been informed that the Air Force representatives had jurisdiction in this case.

  “We must hand him over to you, I believe,” the officer conceded to Werner and his men. “Let us just finalize our paperwork so that he can be officially transferred into military custody.”

  “Thank you, officer. Just sort it all out right here in the office. We do not need the public and the patients to get alarmed all over again,” Werner advised.

  The police and security guards took the man aside while Nurse Marx performed her duty even against her own will, dressing the old man’s cuts and abrasions. She was certain eerie face could easily haunt the dreams of the most hardened of men. It was not that he was ugly, per se, but his lack of features made him ugly. In her gut she felt a strange sense of pity mingle with her repugnance as she dabbed his scarcely bleeding scratches with an alcohol swab.

  His eyes were perfectly shaped, if not rather attractive in their exotic nature. However it appeared as though the rest of his face had been sacrificed for their quality. His skull was uneven and his nose seemed almost non-existent. But it was his mouth that struck a nerve with Marlene.

  “You suffer from Microstomia,” she remarked to him.

  “Systemic sclerosis in a minor form, yes, causing small mouth phenomenon,” he replied casually, as if he were there to get a blood test. His words were well pronounced, nonetheless, and his German accent was virtually flawless by now.

  “Any prior treatment?” she asked. It was a stupid question, but if she did not engage in medical small talk with him he would repulse her so much more. Being in conversation with him was much the same as speaking to Sam the patient when he had been there – an intelligent conversation with a cogent monster.

  “No,” was all he answered, deleting his capacity for sarcasm only because she had cared to ask. His tone was innocent, as if he were fully accepting her medical scrutiny while the men babbled in the background.

  “What is your name, pal?” the one officer asked him loudly.

  “Marduk. Peter Marduk,” he answered.

  “You’re not German?” Werner asked. “Geez, you had me fooled.”

  Marduk wished he could smile in response to the ill-formed compliment on his German, but the tightening of the tissue around his mouth refused him the privilege.

  “Identity documents,” the officer snapped, still nursing his swollen lip from a stray punch during the arrest. Marduk slowly slipped his hand into his jacket pocket under Dr. Fritz’s white coat. “I need to take his statement for our records, Lieutenant.”

  Werner nodded approvingly. They were authorized to track down and kill Löwenhagen, not to apprehend an old man who impersonated a doctor. Yet now that Werner had been told why Schmidt was really after Löwenhagen, they could benefit well from more information from Marduk.

  “So Dr. Fritz is dead too, then?” Nurse Marx asked softly when she leaned in to cover a particularly deep cut from the steel links of Sam Cleave’s watch.

  “No.”

  Her heart jumped. “What do you mean? If you were pretending to be him in his office you had to have killed him first.”

  “This is not the tale of the annoying little girl with the red shawl and her grandmother, my dear,” the old man sighed. “Unless it is the version where the grandmother is still alive in the wolf’s belly.”

  Chapter 19 – The Babel Exposition

  “We found him! He’s fine. Just knocked out and gagged!” one of the police officers announced when they found Dr. Fritz. He was exactly where Marduk had told them to look. They could not hold Marduk without concrete proof that he’d committed the murders of the precious nights, so Marduk had yielded up his location.

  The imposter insisted that he’d only overpowered the doctor and assumed his guise to allow him to exit the hospital without suspicion. But Werner’s appointment had blindsided him, forcing him to play the role a little longer, “…until Nurse Marx spoiled my plans,” he lamented, shrugging in defeat.

  A few minutes after the police captain in charge of the Karlsruhe Police headquarters showed up, Marduk’s brief statement was completed. They could only charge him for petty offenses like minor assault.

  “Lieutenant, after the police are finished I must clear the detainee medically before you take him,” Nurse Marx told Werner in front of the officers. “It is hospital protocol. Otherwise the Luftwaffe might incur legal consequences.”

  No sooner had she touched on the subject when it became relevant in the flesh. A woman walked into the office, a posh leather briefcase in her hand and dressed in corporate attire. “Good day,” she addressed the police officers with a firm, but cordial tone. “Miriam Inkley, British legal liaison of the W.U.O. branch in Germany. I understand that this sensitive matter has been brought to your attention, Captain?”

  The police commander concurred with the lawyer. “Yes, it has, madam. However, we are still sitting with an open homicide case and the military is claiming our only suspect. That presents a problem.”

  “Not to worry, Captain. Come, let us discuss the joint operations of the Air Force Criminal Investigation Unit and the Karlsruhe Police HQ in another room,” the mature British woman offered. “You can authorize the details if they satisfy your investigation in association with the W.U.O. If not, we can arrange a future meeting to better accommodate your grievances.”

  “No, please, let me see what the W.U.O. has in mind. As long as we bring the guilty individual to justice. I don’t care about the media coverage, just justice for the families of these three victims,” the police captain was heard saying as the two of them walked off into the corridor. The officers said goodbye and followed, paperwork in hand.

  “So the W.U.O. even knows that the pilot was involved in some underhanded PR stunt?” Nurse Marx worried. “That is pretty serious. I hope this does not foil the big treaty they’re going to sign soon.”

  “No, the W.U.O. does not know anything about this,” Sam said. He was wrapping his bleeding knuckles in a sterile bandage. “In fact, we’re the only ones who are privy to the escaped pilot and, hopefully soon, the reasons for his pursuit.” Sam looked at Marduk who nodded in compliance.

  “But…” Marlene Marx tried to protest, pointing at the now empty door where the British lawyer had just told them otherwise.

  “Her name is Margaret. She just saved you lot a whole bucket of legal hold-ups that would have procrastinated your little hunt,” Sam revealed. “She is a reporter for a Scottish newspaper.”

  “A friend of yours, then,” Werner assumed.

  “Aye,” Sam confirmed. Kohl looked befuddled as always.

  “Unbelievable!” Nurse Marx threw her hands up. “Is anyone w
ho they say they are anymore? Mr. Marduk plays Dr. Fritz. And Mr. Cleave plays tourist. That reporter lady plays a W.U.O. lawyer. Nobody shows who they really are! It’s just like that story in the Bible where nobody could speak each other’s languages and there was all this confusion.”

  “Babel,” came the collective answers from the men.

  “Yes!” she snapped her fingers. “You’re all speaking a different language and this office is the tower of Babel.”

  “Don’t forget that you pretend that you’re not romantically involved with the Lieutenant here,” Sam stopped her with a reprimanding index finger.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  Sam just cocked his head, declining even bringing her attention to the closeness and petting between the two. Nurse Marx blushed when Werner winked at her.

  “Then there is the bunch of you who pretend you are undercover officers when in fact you are distinguished fighter pilots of the German Luftwaffe Operational Forces, just like the prey you are hunting for God knows what reason,” Sam eviscerated their deceit.

  “Told you he was a brilliant investigative journalist,” Marlene whispered to Werner.

  “And you,” said Sam, cornering the still dazed Dr. Fritz. “Where do you fit in?”

  “I swear I had no idea!” Dr. Fritz confessed. “He just asked me to keep it for him. So I told him where I had put it in case I was not on duty when he was discharged! But I swear I never knew that thing could do that! My God, I almost lost my mind seeing that…that…unnatural transformation!”

  Werner and his men, along with Sam and Nurse Marx, stood confounded at the doctor’s incoherent babbling. Only Marduk appeared to know what was going on, but he remained quiet to watch the madness unfold in the doctor’s office.

  “Well, I’m thoroughly confused. How about you lads?” Sam declared with his bandaged hand at his side. They all nodded in a resounding chorus of disapproving murmurs.

  “I think it is time for some exposition to help us all unmask each other’s real intentions,” Werner suggested. “After all, we might even be able to help each other with our various pursuits, instead of trying to fight each other.”