Black Order

by James Rollins

  “But not the Bell,” Painter said, drawing the discussion back to its original point. His nausea would not let the conversation stray too far afield.

  “Not the Bell,” Anna agreed. “My grandfather managed to escape with the heart of the Chronos Project, born of research into zero point energy. The project was given a new name by my grandfather. Schwarze Sonne.”

  “Black Sun,” Painter translated.

  “Sehr gut.”

  “But what about this Bell?” Painter said. “What did it do?”

  “It was what made you sick,” Anna said. “Damaged you at the quantum level, where no pill or remedy can reach.”

  Painter almost tripped a step. He needed a moment to digest the information. Damaged at the quantum level. What did that mean?

  The last stairs appeared ahead, blocked by a cordon of crossed wood beams, guarded by another pair of men with rifles. Though stunned, Painter noted the scorched rock along the roof of the last turn of the spiral.

  Beyond opened a cavernous vault. Painter could not see far into it, but he could still feel the heat. Every surface was blackened. A row of humped shapes lay under tarps. Dead bodies.

  Here was the blast zone from the explosions they had heard earlier.

  Out of the ruin, a figure appeared, blackened with ash, but his features were still recognizable. It was Gunther, the massive guardsman who had burned down the monastery. It seemed those here had reaped what they had sown.

  Fire for fire.

  Gunther crossed to the cordon. Anna and Klaus joined him. With Klaus and Gunther side by side, Painter recognized a similarity between the two giants—not physical features, but in some hardness and foreignness that was hard to pin down.

  Gunther nodded to Klaus.

  The other barely noted his presence.

  Anna bowed her head with Gunther, speaking rapidly in German. All Painter could make out was a single word. It was the same in German and English.

  Sabotage.

  So all was not right in the Granite Castle. Was there a traitor here? If so, who? And what was their purpose? Were they friend or another foe?

  Gunther’s eyes fell upon Painter. His lips moved, but Painter could not discern what he said. Anna shook her head, disagreeing. Gunther’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded.

  Painter knew he should be relieved.

  With a final pinched stare, Gunther turned and strode back into the blackened ruins.

  Anna returned. “This is what I wanted to show you.” She waved an arm at the destruction.

  “The Bell,” Painter said.

  “It was destroyed. An act of sabotage.”

  Lisa stared at the ruin. “And it was this Bell that made Painter sick.”

  “And held the only chance for a cure.”

  Painter studied the devastation.

  “Do you have a duplicate Bell?” Lisa asked. “Or can you fabricate another?”

  Anna slowly shook her head. “One of the key components can’t be duplicated. Xerum 525. Even after sixty years, we’ve not been able to reformulate it.”

  “So no Bell, no cure,” Painter said.

  “But there might be a chance…if we help each other.” Anna held out her hand. “If we cooperate…I give you my word.”

  Painter reached woodenly over and grasped her hand. Still, he hesitated. He sensed a level of subterfuge here. Something Anna had left unspoken. All her talk…all the explanations. They were all meant to misdirect. Why were they even offering him this deal?

  Then it dawned on him.

  He knew.

  “The accident…,” he said.

  He felt Anna’s fingers twitch in his.

  “It wasn’t an accident, was it?” He remembered the word he had overheard. “It was sabotage, too.”

  Anna nodded. “At first, we thought it was an accident. We’ve had occasional problems with surges. Triggering spikes in the Bell’s output. Nothing major. Venting the energies triggered a few illnesses locally. The occasional death.”

  Painter had to restrain himself from shaking his head. Nothing major, Anna had said. The illnesses and deaths were major enough to warrant Ang Gelu sending out an international call for help, drawing Painter here.

  Anna continued, “But a few nights back, someone jinked with the settings during a routine test of the Bell. Exponentially increasing the output.”

  “And zapping the monastery and the village.”

  “That’s right.”

  Painter tightened his grip on Anna’s hand. It looked like she wanted to pull away. He wasn’t about to let her. She was still hedging from full disclosure. But Painter knew the truth as surely as the headache that pressed now. It explained the offer of cooperation.

  “But it wasn’t just the monks and the village that were affected,” Painter said. “Everyone here was, too. You’re all sick like me. Not the rapid neurological degeneration seen at the monastery, but the slower bodily deterioration I’m experiencing.”

  Anna’s eyes narrowed, studying him, weighing how much to tell—then she finally nodded. “We were partially shielded here, somewhat protected. We vented the worst of the Bell’s radiation upward and out.”

  Painter remembered the ghost lights seen dancing in the mountaintops. To spare themselves, the Germans had blasted the immediate area with radiation, including the neighboring monastery. But the scientists here had failed to escape totally unscathed.

  Anna met his gaze, unflinching, unapologetic. “We’re now all under the same death sentence.”

  Painter considered his options. He had none. Though neither side trusted the other, they were all in the same boat, so they might as well get closer. Gripping her hand, he shook it, sealing the pact.

  Sigma and the Nazis together.

  SECOND

  7

  BLACK MAMBA

  5:45 A.M.

  HLUHLUWE-UMFOLOZI PRESERVE

  ZULULAND, SOUTH AFRICA

  Khamisi Taylor stood in front of the head warden’s desk. Stiff-backed, he waited while Warden Gerald Kellogg finished reading his preliminary report on the past day’s tragedy.

  The only sound was the creak of an overhead fan, slowly churning.

  Khamisi wore a borrowed set of clothes, the pants too long, the shirt too tight. But they were dry. After spending all day and night in the tepid water hole, shoulder deep in the muddy pan, arms aching while he held the rifle at the ready, he appreciated the warm clothes and solid footing.

  He also appreciated the daylight. Through the back office window, dawn painted the sky a dusty rose. The world reappeared out of the shadows.

  He had survived. He was alive.

  But he had yet to fully accept that.

  In his skull, the calls of the ukufa still echoed.

  Closer at hand, the head warden, Gerald Kellogg, rubbed absently at his bushy auburn mustache as he continued to read. The morning sunlight gleamed off his bald pate, giving it an oily pink sheen. He finally looked up, staring over a pair of half-moon reading glasses perched on his nose.

  “And is this the report you intend for me to file, Mr. Taylor?” Warden Kellogg ran a finger along one line on the yellow paper. “‘An unknown apex predator.’ Is that all you can say about what killed and dragged off Dr. Fairfield?”

  “Sir, I didn’t get a clear look at the animal. It was something large and white-furred. As I reported.”

  “A lioness perhaps,” Kellogg said.

  “No, sir…it was no lion.”

  “How can you be sure? Didn’t you just say you didn’t see it?”

  “Yes, sir…what I meant, sir…was that what I saw did not match any known predators of the lowveld.”

  “Then what was it?”

  Khamisi remained silent. He knew better than to mention the ukufa. In the brightness of an ordinary day, whispers of monsters would only provoke derision. The superstitious tribesman.

  “So some creature attacked and dragged off Dr. Fairfield, something you never saw clearly enough to identify…”


  Khamisi nodded slowly.

  “…yet still you ran and hid in the water hole?” Gerald Kellogg crumpled up the report. “How do you think that reflects on our service here? One of our own wardens allows a sixty-year-old woman to be killed while he ran and hid. Tucked tail without even knowing what was out there.”

  “Sir. That’s not a fair—”

  “Fair?” The warden’s voice boomed, loud enough to be heard in the outer room, where the entire staff had been called in due to the emergency. “How fair is it that I have to contact Dr. Fairfield’s next of kin and tell them their mother or grandmother was attacked and eaten while one of my wardens—one of my armed wardens—ran and hid?”

  “There was nothing I could do.”

  “Except save your own…skin.”

  Khamisi heard the unspoken word purposefully left out.

  Save your black skin.

  Gerald Kellogg had not been thrilled to hire Khamisi. The warden’s family had ties to the old Afrikaner government, and he had risen through the ranks because of his connections and ties. He still belonged to the Oldavi country club, exclusively white, where even after the fall of apartheid much economic power was still brokered. Though new laws had been passed, barriers broken in government, unions formed, business was still business in South Africa. The De Beerses still owned their diamond mines. The Waalenbergs still owned most everything else.

  Change would be slow.

  Khamisi’s position was a small step, one he meant to keep open for the next generation. So he kept his voice calm. “I’m sure once investigators canvass the site, they’ll support my course of action.”

  “Will they, now, Mr. Taylor? I sent a dozen men out there, an hour after the search-and-rescue helicopter found you after midnight wallowing in the muddy water. They reported in fifteen minutes ago. They found the rhino carcass, almost stripped by jackals and hyenas. No sign of the calf that you reported. And more importantly, no sign of Dr. Fairfield.”

  Khamisi shook his head, searching for a way past these accusations. He flashed back to his long vigil in the water hole. The day seemed never ending, but the night had been worse. With the loss of the sun, Khamisi had waited to be attacked. Instead, he had heard the yip-yip-yip of hyenas and the bark of jackals descend into the valley, accompanied by the furious growls and cries of scuffling scavengers.

  The presence of the scavengers had made Khamisi almost believe it was safe to attempt a run for the Jeep. If the usual jackals and hyenas had returned, then perhaps the ukufa had left.

  Still, he hadn’t moved.

  Fresh in his mind had been the ambush that had waylaid Dr. Fairfield.

  “Surely there were other tracks,” he said.

  “There were.”

  Khamisi brightened. If he had proof…

  “They were lion tracks,” Warden Kellogg said. “Two adult females. Just like I said earlier.”

  “Lions?”

  “Yes. I believe we have a few pictures of these strange creatures around here somewhere. Maybe you’d better study them so you can identify them in the future. What with all the free time you’ll have.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re suspended, Mr. Taylor.”

  Khamisi could not keep the shock from his face. He knew if it had been any other warden…any other white warden…that there would be more leniency, more trust. But not when he was wearing a tribesman’s skin. He knew better than to argue. It would only make matters worse.

  “Without pay, Mr. Taylor. Until a full inquiry is completed.”

  A full inquiry. Khamisi knew how that would end.

  “And I’ve been told by the local constabulary to inform you that you are not to leave the immediate area. There is also the matter of criminal negligence to rule out.”

  Khamisi closed his eyes.

  Despite the rising sun, the nightmare refused to end.

  Ten minutes later, Gerald Kellogg still sat at his desk, his office now empty. He ran a sweating palm over the top of his head, like shining an apple. The sour set to his lips refused to relax. The night had been interminable, so many fires to put out. And there were still a thousand details to attend to: dealing with the media, attending to the biologist’s family, including Dr. Fairfield’s partner.

  Kellogg shook his head at this last problem. Dr. Paula Kane would prove the biggest thorn in the coming day. He knew the term “partnership” between the two older women went beyond research. It was Dr. Paula Kane who had pressed for the search-and-rescue helicopter last night after Dr. Fairfield hadn’t returned home from the day trip into the bush.

  Woken in the middle of the night, Gerald had urged caution. It was not uncommon for researchers to bivouac overnight. What got him out of bed was when he learned where Dr. Fairfield had been headed with one of his wardens. To the park’s northwestern border. Not far from the Waalenbergs’ private estate and preserve.

  A search near there required his immediate supervision.

  It had been a hectic night, necessitating fast footwork and coordination, but everything was almost over, the genie returned to its proverbial bottle.

  Except for one last item to attend to.

  There was no reason to put it off any longer.

  He picked up the phone and dialed the private number. He waited for the line to pick up, tapping a pen on a notepad.

  “Report,” came a terse response as the connection was made.

  “I just finished my interview with him.”

  “And?”

  “He saw nothing…nothing clearly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Claims to have caught glimpses. Nothing he could identify.”

  A long stretch of silence followed.

  Gerald grew nervous. “His report will be edited. Lions. That will be the conclusion. We’ll shoot a few for good measure and end the matter in another day or so. The man, meanwhile, has been suspended.”

  “Very good. You know what you must do.”

  Kellogg argued against it. “He’s been suspended. He won’t dare rock the boat. I’ve scared him good. I don’t think—”

  “Exactly. Don’t think. You have your orders. Make it look like an accident.”

  The line clicked off.

  Kellogg settled the phone receiver in its cradle. The room stifled despite the chug of the air-conditioning and the slowly turning fan. Nothing could truly withstand the blistering savanna heat as the day warmed up.

  But it wasn’t the temperature that rolled a bead of sweat down his forehead.

  You have your orders.

  And he knew well enough not to disobey.

  He glanced down to the notepad on his desk. He had absently doodled as he spoke on the phone, a reflection of how uneasy the man on the other end of the line made him feel.

  Gerald hurriedly scribbled over it, tore the sheet off, and ripped the page into tiny strips. No evidence. Ever. That was the rule. And he had his orders.

  Make it look like an accident.

  4:50 A.M.

  37,000 FEET ABOVE GERMANY

  “We’ll be landing in another hour,” Monk said. “Maybe you should try taking another nap.”

  Gray stretched. The low hum of the Challenger 600 jet had lulled him, but his mind still ticked through the past day’s events, trying to piece the puzzle together. He had the Darwin Bible open in front of him.

  “How’s Fiona?” he asked.

  Monk nodded back to the sofa near the rear of the plane. Fiona was sprawled out under a blanket. “Crashed finally. Knocked her down with some pain meds. Kid doesn’t shut up.”

  She had been talking nonstop since the pair arrived at the Copenhagen airport. Gray had alerted Monk by telephone, and he had arranged a private car to whisk them safely to the waiting jet, already refueling. Logan smoothed out all diplomatic and visa issues.

  Still, Gray had not breathed easily until the Challenger was wheels up and into the air.

  “Her bullet wound?”

  Monk
shrugged and collapsed into a neighboring chair. “Scratch really. Okay, a really deep nasty scratch. Will hurt like hell the next few days. But some antiseptic, liquid skin sealant, and a bandage wrap, and she’ll be right as rain in a couple more days. Ready to rip more people off.”

  Monk patted his jacket, making sure his wallet was still there.

  “She only stole it as a way to say hello,” Gray said. He hid a tired smile. Grette Neal had explained the same to him yesterday. God, was it only yesterday?

  While Monk had ministered to Fiona, Gray had reported to Logan. The temporary director was not happy to hear about his escapades following the auction…an auction Gray had been forbidden to attend. Still, the damage was done. Luckily he still had the flash drive containing all the participants’ pictures, including the ice-blond pair. He had forwarded it all to Logan, along with faxed copies of some of the pages from the Bible and his notes. He had even sent his drawing of the cloverleaf tattoo he had spotted on the night’s assailants. Some unknown blond assassin squad.

  Logan and Kat would work at their end to ascertain who was behind all this. Logan had already made inquiries with the Copenhagen authorities. They reported no deaths at the park. It seemed the body of the assassin they had clotheslined had disappeared. So the aftermath of their flight from Tivoli Gardens proved no worse than bruises and scrapes among the jostled visitors. No serious injuries…except to a parade float.

  He watched Monk check the pocket of his jeans.

  “Ring still there?” Gray asked, needling his friend.

  “She didn’t have to steal that, too.”

  Gray had to give Fiona credit. Fast fingers.

  “So you going to tell me about that ring box?” Gray asked, closing the Darwin Bible.