Nina aimed the pistol and fired one shot into Oniel's back. The Jamaican man stopped his assault and staggered backward a few steps, turning around to face Nina. That bullet must have hurt, but Oniel, as usual, didn't show his emotions very clearly on his face. He took a step toward her and sneered. He probably would’ve cursed if he was able to speak. Nina pulled the trigger again and again as Oniel started to approach. One bullet grazed his arm, the other planted itself in his stomach. He was still coming though, with those hollow eyes and his knife rising in his hand.
Nina let out a yell and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Each bullet ripped through Oniel as he approached. He was close enough to maybe swipe at her with his blade when the last bullet plunged into the center of his skull and he dropped the ground dead at Nina's feet, his body riddled with bullets. Nina was still trying to pull the trigger, just out of pure survival instinct, but it clicked harmlessly since it was out of bullets. She was breathing heavily and her teeth were chattering.
When she finally caught her breath, she kicked at Oniel's body to make sure he was dead and then turned to Purdue angrily. “I don't know what exactly made you cross paths with a guy like this or what you did to get on his bad side, but if I’d been there and not been a prisoner when you met this psycho, I would’ve told you to not go anywhere near someone like him!”
Everyone stood in shock at her sudden display of brutal heroism. August got to his feet and thanked her for saving his life while Yusuke and Riley merely watched the whole debacle with flabbergasted expressions.
Galen was getting up from the ground, and his brow bleeding from where he had been hit with the gun. He tried to reach for Oniel's blade that had rolled toward him, but Nina stomped on his hand when he tried. She then pointed the gun directly at Galen. Galen winced from the pain in his hand, but then started laughing as he looked down the barrel of the gun.
“I forgot just how ferocious you could be, Dr. Gould,” Galen laughed, looking up at her. “But you do realize that you're out of bullets, eh?”
“I do, yes,” Nina declared darkly. She raised the gun over her head like she was about to use it as a club if Galen dared make a move. “There are other ways to use a firearm.”
Purdue was honestly relieved that Oniel was dead. Of the many enemies he’d made over the course of his career, Oniel was one of the scariest. Oniel wasn't someone that could be reasoned with or negotiated with rationally. Oniel was just silent death, stalking toward his victims. Oniel was last remnant of the Wharf Man and his defunct crime ring that had given Purdue so much trouble at one point. And now Galen was beaten, too.
Things really were looking up.
16
THE MAN WHO WATCHED
Purdue grasped the sack of bones in his hand tightly. He and his team had attained their prize and overcome some of their most frequent obstacles. Galen and Oniel were threats to the new roster of the Black Sun, still holding onto old grudges. There were a few holdover issues that Purdue wanted to tidy up when he took over the Order of the Black Sun. Galen and Oniel were major parts of those housecleaning tasks. There were going to have to be dealt with at one point or another, especially given that their issues were highly personal with Purdue, and not even just the order as a whole.
“So I think that means you've won the game, Davy,” Galen suggested, still pinned to the ground by Nina's foot. “Or, I should say...Dr. Gould won the game for you. We had you, you know.”
“Sure, Galen,” Purdue said with an eye roll. “You would’ve gotten away with it if not for us meddling kids and all that shit, aye?”
“So, we're going to kill him, right?” Nina asked, still standing on Galen. They’d talked about having to put Galen and Oniel down, but now that Purdue knew that Galen wasn't responsible for Shin Wo's death, it didn't seem quite as necessary to do that. Then again, Galen was always going to be a threat. The man never knew when to give up or toss aside old grudges. There was no purging the bad blood between them, at least not easily. “As discussed?”
“N-n-no,” Galen muttered, his eyes widening. He turned to Purdue pleadingly. “Davy, you can't! That's not what you do!”
“Maybe not what I usually do, no,” Purdue mumbled with a shrug. “But you just watched Nina unload a whole clip into Oniel. She barely even knew Oniel...but you...you made her time as a prisoner pretty miserable, didn't you? You think she's going to hesitate putting you down?”
“I won't,” Nina threatened just for emphasis and holding the pistol over her head, ready to bring it down on Galen's skull.
“Or maybe we should let August do it,” Purdue suggested, giving August a pat on the back. August glanced to him with uncertainty but Purdue just smiled. It was nice knowing that he and Galen weren't in league after all. “You did stick your beast on him just a few minutes ago. Plus, I just don't think he likes you, aye?”
“Never have,” August confirmed.
Galen was practically a blubbering mess on the ground. He was never the most dignified man, but especially not when he was backed into a corner with very little chance of escaping. He’d break down as much as he needed to if it meant gaining any sort of sympathy or even pity, anything that would keep him alive.
“Davy! Please! I didn't do those things you accused me of! None of it!”
“Aye, maybe not,” Purdue admitted. “But you've done plenty of bad, Galen. Tons of it. And don't like you haven't. We both know the truth.”
“I can change!”
“Highly doubt it,” Nina said sternly.
Purdue walked up beside Nina, looking down at Galen. Galen had initially just been a colleague, someone he only ever saw at fundraisers or parties. They had then become sort of friendly rivals, at least from Galen's perspective, but Purdue never liked him very much. And because of Galen's insecurities, he’d made Purdue into an enemy.
“Davy!” Galen cried out.
Purdue and Galen locked eyes and he saw just how broken this fragile man was now. He’d propped himself up with so many attempts to seem powerful and all of them had come crumbling down. He quit the Order of the Black Sun and now he lost his best friend. He was pretty powerless now, just back to the same old pitiful Galen that Purdue always knew; the one trying so hard to make himself seem bigger than he was.
“Fine,” Purdue agreed.
Before a debate of any kind could break out, something sounded out nearby.
There was a slight rumbling in the air before a helicopter curved around a cliff into view. Its propeller cut through the air threateningly as the chopper approached them. They all stared up at it, but with the sun behind the chopper, there was a disorienting glare when they tried to decipher it more.
Purdue held the bag of bones even tighter in his grasp. Whatever this was, it couldn't be good.
The helicopter slowly landed, sending of the surrounding grass into disarray. Once it touched down, a man hopped out and began walking toward them. His trench coat and dirty blond hair whipped around him in the helicopter's windstorm, but he was steady as he moved. Once he was close, he gave a half-hearted smile, pointing at the sack of bones in Purdue's hand.
“You found them? Wonderful. I'll be taking those off of your hands then.”
Purdue laughed, but part of him was shaking with anxiety. Purdue had no idea who this was and how this stranger knew what they came for...but however he did, there was something dangerous about this man. Maybe he was a friend of Galen's, but when Purdue looked in Galen's direction, the Irishman seemed just as baffled by the stranger as he was?
“That's not going to happen,” Purdue argued. “You should at least buy me dinner first.”
The man looked at him and frowned. “Really? You? You're the guy?”
“The guy?”
“The new guy,” the man sighed. “The new boss of the Black Sun. That couldn't possibly be you.” He rubbed his face with disappointment. “Oh it is...that's...ugh. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude. I just expected that whoever was running the Black Sun now would be..
.someone with a bit more presence. I doubt I'll remember you in a couple hours.”
He knew quite a lot about the Order of the Black Sun for a complete stranger.
“And just who the hell might you be, aye?”
The man raised his arms in the air and shrugged. “Me? I'm nobody.”
“You know a lot for someone who’s a nobody.”
The man smiled again and then held out his hand expectantly, gesturing toward the bag in Purdue's grasp. “You can hand over Khan or I could kill every last one of you and take him myself.”
“Now just hold on a minute!” Nina broke in, raising her hands. “This is ridiculous. You could at least tell us who you are before you start spewing out demands and threats.”
The man just kept smiling. “Sorry if I seem crass...I'm not much of a talker.”
Purdue hadn't felt so nervous since the first time he met Julian Corvus. This man had a similar way about him—like a volcano on the verge of eruption. Somehow Purdue believed that this man would absolutely make good on his threats. It wasn't just empty talk unfortunately.
“Last chance.”
His pithy negotiation tactics felt like a countdown on a bomb. It was ticking down, and getting very close to zero. Any minute now, they’d have to deal with that explosion.
When no one made a move, the man chuckled to himself again. “You really have no idea, do you? You mean to tell me that you’d no clue what you were signing up for when you took your new job. That's not good...incompetent really. Are you sure that you were the right choice for your position? I've been watching you fumble around every step of the way.”
“You've been watching us? For how long?”
“Long enough to figure out what kind of man the great David Purdue really is...and you're a mess of a man. A real bad mess. You didn't respond too well to any of the challenges I put in your way.”
A thought dawned on Purdue, and he immediately knew it was true.
“It was you. You killed Shin Wo.”
“I did, yes. He was far too helpful to you.” The man showed no remorse during his confession. “And rather than think it over, you jumped straight to accusing your friends and allies of the deed. How pathetic. Just another example of your ineptitude.”
“It wasn't just what happened with Shin Wo.” Purdue was starting to put the pieces together and finally things were starting to make some sense. Everything that had happened seemed clearer than ever before. “It was much more than that, aye? All of this. It was all of it. You did it.”
“Yes,” the man confessed plainly. “Right from the very beginning.” He glanced at Riley. “Did you really think that she stumbled upon a random bow that gave such a big clue for finding the location of the tomb? Really? Do clues like that usually manifest themselves so easily? Of course not.”
Riley's face was growing red and she even seemed to be biting back tears. Purdue wanted to tell her it was okay, but he couldn't find the words. She stuttered, trying to speak up for herself. “I thought I...”
“Found something amazing?” The man cut her off with a chuckle. “Sure, lady, but only because I served it up to you on a silver platter; only because I allowed you to find it. The tomb of Genghis Khan...lost for centuries...it all sounds so tempting doesn't it? Too enticing for David Purdue and his new Order of the Black Sun to pass up, wasn't it? And so, like moths to a bug zapper, you went racing toward it with evidence that should have been suspect from the start. I thought it was too obvious, that someone with your reputation would figure it out. But you didn't. Didn't you ever wonder why the tomb of Genghis Khan had never been found after hundreds of years of digs and excavations? Especially now? With all of the advanced tech we have out in the world? Well, because it already was. We found it years ago. You can't discover what's already been discovered.”
Purdue looked at the sack full of bones in his hand and found himself questioning just how real any of this was. Was he just holding glorified props, put in place to make him feel accomplished? Was this all just part of the show?
“Oh, don't worry,” the man said reassuringly. “Those are the real deal. And that was indeed the real tomb. It's just that we put everything back where it belonged for you to find it.”
“Why?” Purdue couldn't fathom the answer. It all seemed like so much effort just to mess with him.
“For this to work, we needed everything to be as real as possible. Real, accurate locations. Real bones. All we had to do was leave obvious breadcrumbs about for you to follow. To be frank, it was a helluva a lot harder for us. We didn't have someone pointing in the right direction. You're welcome, by the way.”
Purdue couldn't believe what he was hearing. There was no way this could have all been so carefully orchestrated by an outside force. There were too many factors...too many variables and little details to control for this to be true.
“So you're trying to tell me that this was all...what? Some bloody test?”
“Exactly,” the man smirked. “You all were just running through the mouse tubes that we built, trying so hard to get to that cheese that we put in the cage. We needed to see how the new Order of the Black Sun would do. So we gave you a quest and then threw all kinds of obstacles in your path to see how you’d do.”
“Like killing Shin Wo,” Yusuke said, looking furious but nodding begrudgingly, understanding just how intense this situation was.
“Yes,” the man confirmed. “Like I said, he was too helpful. He was contaminating the test results. To get the best understanding of how you operated, we needed to take someone like that off of the board. We needed to see how you would react to all kinds of situations. Like sending Wai Lin to see how you’d handle a sudden ambush in a public setting.”
This was indeed the man who had hired her and her mercenaries, after all.
“Or making it look like one of your old enemies was far greater of a threat than he actually was.”
Purdue felt like a puppet. He could practically see the strings hanging from his joints. He’d been played. They all had been played. And the worst part was that he didn't even know who these puppeteers even were. At least when he was fighting Julian Corvus, he knew his enemy. Even this man in front of him, this grand manipulator that had spun him up like a wind-up doll, was still nameless.
Galen limped forward. His face still looked horrible from the scuffle. Purdue expected Galen to take a place beside the new arrival. They could’ve been working together after all...then again, this didn't feel like Galen's style. This man was taking all of the glory from anyone else by being so in control. There was no way Galen would allow that to happen. And he'd also framed Galen as well which wasn't a great thing to do to someone. Sure enough, Galen didn't seem to be a big fan of this man—something that he and Purdue could finally agree on mutually.
“Looks like we have ourselves some big time puppet master, eh? You like stringing us all along, eh? Mr. Pied Piper and you're just leading us all to where you would like us to go. Look at you. You love having that power. You adore being in charge...but this doesn't concern you. All of this is between the Order of the Black Sun and people like me...that used to be part of it. So unless you have a membership in the order before Davy's time and before my time with the Black Sun, then why don't you make like a tree...and get the hell out of here, eh?”
Galen's pompous nature was usually insufferable but right now Purdue appreciated Galen's aggressive negotiation tactics. It probably wasn't a smart time to use them, but he had to admire the Irishman's brashness. Hopefully it was enough to get this man to back down but Purdue doubted it, especially when that man just started smiling.
“I'm sorry,” the man said. “Who are you?”
That was the biggest insult anyone could ever give Galen. He loved recognition, he loved fame, and he loved being respected. Not being recognized was like a physical blow to a narcissistic man like Galen. His face grew red and he looked ready to start swinging his cane around and beat this newcomer to death. He bit back on that a
nger, squeezed his walking stick tightly, and just chuckled instead.
“My name is Galen Fitzgerald,” Galen said, and then waited a moment, like he expected the name to get a reaction. It didn't. The man just looked at him blankly. “Perhaps you have read my book? I'm just as world renowned as Davy and if this is about the Black Sun...well, I'm no longer with them, but I was there longer than Purdue has been...”
“Why should I care about any of this?” The man said with a smile and looked right past Galen, like he was nothing more than a wall in his way. He craned his head around Galen and spoke to Purdue again. “Give me the bones, Purdue. Now.”
Galen was seething from being ignored, and he moved to strike the man with his cane. However, the man caught the stick before it ever reached him. The stranger looked at Galen with some pity like the Irishman was just a kid playing around with toys.
“Listen, you're not nearly as important as you think you are,” the man stated coldly. “The business going on here is between my superiors, who I represent, and the Order of the Black Sun. In your own words, you said you’re no longer part of their order. So, it looks to me, Mr. Leprechaun that you're the one who should...how did you put it? Make like a tree...and get the hell out of here...”
The man suddenly drew his pistol and pulled the trigger. A bullet plunged into Galen's chest and he staggered away a few steps before collapsing onto his back. Blood spread across his lower torso, right over his stomach. It was a bad wound, but one that would take some time to kill him. Galen yelled from the pain and Purdue's team all froze, knowing that they probably shouldn't try and face the person with a loaded gun, especially someone who they didn't know well. He could be capable of anything, maybe even killing all of them.
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