Black Order

by James Rollins

  Gray spotted three guards at the two-, three-, and nine-o’clock positions. Ischke, still dazzling in her black and white outfit, stood on the far side—at twelve o’clock—both hands on the inside rail, staring down at Fiona.

  “A bullet through your knee might quiet you down,” she called to the girl, placing a palm on a holstered pistol.

  Fiona paused in midkick, mumbled something under her breath, then lowered her foot.

  Gray calculated the odds. He had one rifle against three guards, all armed, and Ischke with her pistol. Not good.

  A spat of static sounded from across the glade. Garbled words followed.

  Ischke unhooked her radio and lifted it to her lips. “Ja?”

  She listened for half a minute, asked another question that Gray couldn’t make out, then signed off. Lowering the radio, she spoke to the guards.

  “New orders!” she barked to the others in Dutch. “We kill the girl now.”

  6:40 A.M.

  The ukufa let out a trebling series of yips, ready to leap at the dangling boy. Khamisi sensed the approach of the woman at his back. Hands on the rope, he couldn’t go for any of his weapons.

  “Who are you?” the woman asked again, knife threatening.

  Khamisi did the only thing he could.

  Bending his knees, he threw himself over the cabled railing. He clenched hard to the rope as he tumbled. Overhead, the line whistled around the steel support post. As Khamisi fell earthward, he caught a glimpse of the boy being dragged skyward, flailing with a long scream of surprise.

  The ukufa leaped at its fleeing prey, but Khamisi’s falling weight zipped the boy straight up to the walkway, banging him hard against it.

  The sudden stop ripped the rope from Khamisi’s grip.

  He fell, landing on his back in the grass. Overhead, the boy clung to the underside of the walkway. The woman stared down at Khamisi, eyes wide.

  Something large crashed to the ground a few meters from him.

  Khamisi sat up.

  The ukufa bounded to its feet, throwing ropes of saliva, furious, growling.

  Its red gaze fell heavily upon the only prey in sight.

  Khamisi.

  His hands were empty. His rifle still rested on the planks above.

  The creature yowled in bloodlust and anger. It leaped at him, intending to tear out his throat.

  Khamisi fell to his back, lifting his only weapon. The Zulu assegai. The short spear was still strapped to his thigh. As the ukufa dropped onto him, Khamisi shoved the blade up. His father had once taught him how to use the weapon. Like all Zulu boys. Before they left for Australia. With an instinct that crossed deep into the past of his ancestors, Khamisi slipped the blade under the creature’s ribs—one of flesh, not myth—and drove it deep as the hyena’s weight fell atop him.

  The ukufa screamed. Pain and momentum carried it over Khamisi and yanked the spear’s handle from his fingers. Khamisi rolled clear, weaponless now. The ukufa thrashed in the grass, corkscrewing the impaled blade inside it. It screamed one last time, jerking hard, then went limp.

  Dead.

  An angry cry above drew his eye.

  The woman on the bridge had found Khamisi’s rifle and had it pointed at him. The blast sounded like a grenade. A bush exploded at his heels, gouting up soil. Khamisi shoved back. Overhead, the woman shifted the rifle, fixing him more surely in its sights.

  The second blast sounded oddly sharper.

  Khamisi twisted away—but found himself unscathed.

  He glanced up in time to see the woman topple over the cable, her chest a bloody ruin.

  A new figure stepped into view on the walkway.

  A muscular man with a shaved head. He had a pistol held out, steadied on the stump of a wrist. He leaned over the cable and spotted the boy, still dangling by his hands.

  “Ryan…”

  The boy sobbed with relief. “Get me out of here.”

  “That’s the plan…” His gaze found Khamisi. “That is, if that guy down there knows the way out of here. I’m so friggin’ lost.”

  6:44 A.M.

  The pair of gunshots echoed through the forest.

  A small flock of green parrots took wing from canopy roosts, squawking in protest, flapping across the glade.

  Gray crouched.

  Had Monk been found?

  Ischke must have thought the same, her head craned in the direction of the gunfire. She waved to the guards. “Check it out!”

  She raised her radio again.

  The guards, rifles in hand, pounded around the circular elevated walk, all coming in Gray’s direction. Caught off guard, Gray dropped and rolled, hugging his rifle to his chest. He flung himself off the planks. The closest guard would be in view in mere seconds. Like before, he snatched the planks’ support cable, but in his haste, off balance, he barely caught a purchase with one hand. His body swung. The rifle slipped from his shoulder, dropping away.

  Twisting and reaching, he snagged the leather strap with one finger. He silently sighed in relief.

  Guards suddenly battered past overhead, boots hammering, jigging and bouncing his perch.

  The rifle’s leather strap popped off Gray’s finger. Gravity disarmed him. The weapon fell, spearing into the underbrush. Gray grabbed another handhold and hung there. At least the rifle hadn’t gone off when it hit the ground.

  The guards’ footfalls echoed away.

  He heard Ischke talking on her radio.

  Now what?

  He had a knife against her pistol. He didn’t question her compunction to use it or her marksmanship.

  The only real advantage he had was surprise.

  And that was severely overrated.

  Hand over hand, Gray traversed the underside of the walkway and reached the circular concourse. He continued along the underside, keeping to the outer edge, out of direct view of the Waalenberg woman. He had to move slowly or his swaying weight would alert Ischke. He timed his movements to the occasional breeze that ruffled the canopy.

  But his appearance did not go unnoticed.

  Fiona crouched in her cage, putting as many bars as she could between her and Ischke. Plainly she had understood Ischke’s earlier words in Dutch. We kill the girl now. Though the gunfire had momentarily distracted the blond twin, eventually her attention would return to Fiona.

  From her low vantage, Fiona spotted Gray, a white-jumpsuited gorilla scaling the underside of the walkway, half-hidden by the foliage. She jerked in surprise, almost standing, then forced herself to stay low. Her eyes tracked him, their gazes met.

  Despite her noisy bravado, Gray read the terror in her face. The girl looked so much smaller in the cage. She hugged her arms around her chest, attempting to hold herself together. Hardened as she was by the streets, he sensed her only defense against a complete panicked breakdown was her prickly blustering. It sustained her—barely.

  Blocking with her body, she signaled him. She pointed down and slightly shook her head, eyes wide in fear, alerting him.

  It wasn’t safe below.

  He searched the thick grasses and bushes of the glade. Shadows lay thick. He saw nothing, but he trusted Fiona’s warning.

  Don’t fall.

  Gray estimated how far he’d come. He was about at the eight o’clock position along the circular walkway. Ischke stood at the twelve o’clock. He still had a distance to traverse, and his arms were tiring, his fingers aching. He had to move faster. Stopping and starting were killing him. But he feared going any faster would draw Ischke’s attention.

  Fiona must have realized the same. She stood and began kicking the bars again, rattling her cage, swaying it with her weight. The motion allowed Gray to increase his pace.

  Unfortunately her effort also drew Ischke’s wrath.

  The woman lowered her radio and yelled at Fiona. “Enough of your foolishness, child!”

  Fiona still clutched the bars and kicked.

  Gray hurried past the nine o’clock position.

 
Ischke stepped to the inner rail, half in view. Luckily her focus was fully on Fiona. The woman pulled a device out of the pocket of her sweater. She used her teeth to extend the antenna. She pointed it at Fiona. “It is time you met Skuld, named after the Norse goddess of fate.”

  A button was pressed.

  Almost directly under Gray’s toes, something howled in anger and pain. It thrashed out of the shadowed eaves of the jungle and stalked into the grassy clearing. One of the mutated hyenas. Its hulked mass had to tip three hundred pounds, all muscle and teeth. It growled low, hackles high on its sloped back. Lips snarled back as it barked and snapped at the empty air, sniffing up at the cage.

  Gray realized the monster must have been stalking him all along from below. He suspected what was coming.

  He hurried, swinging past the ten-o’clock spot.

  Ischke called to Fiona, enjoying the terror, prolonging the cruelty. “A chip in Skuld’s brain allows us to stimulate its bloodlust, its appetite.” She tweaked the button again. The hyena howled, leaped at the cage, flinging ropes of drool, driven into a ravening bloodlust.

  So that was how the Waalenbergs controlled their monsters.

  Radio implants.

  Subverting nature again to their will.

  “It’s time we sated poor Skuld’s hunger,” Ischke said.

  Gray would never make it in time. Still, he rushed.

  Eleven o’clock.

  So close.

  But too late.

  Ischke pressed another button. Gray heard a distinct clink as the trapdoor in Fiona’s cage unlatched.

  Oh, no.

  Gray paused in midswing. He watched the trapdoor fall open beneath Fiona. She fell toward the slathering beast below.

  Gray prepared to drop after her, to protect her.

  But Fiona had learned from Ryan’s demise. She was prepared. As she fell, she caught the lower bars of her cage and hung there. The creature, Skuld, leaped for her legs. She tucked up and hauled with her arms.

  The beast missed and crashed back to the underbrush with a yowl of frustration.

  Climbing up, Fiona now clung to the outside of the cage like a spider monkey.

  Ischke laughed with dark delight. “Zeer goed, meisje. Such resourcefulness! Grootvader might have even considered your genes for his stock. But alas you’ll have to satisfy Skuld instead.”

  From below, Gray watched Ischke raise her pistol again.

  He swung beneath her, staring up between the planks.

  “Now to end this,” Ischke muttered in Dutch.

  Indeed.

  Gray pulled with his arms, kicked back his legs—then swung forward and over, like a gymnast on a high bar. His heels struck Ischke in the belly as she leaned on the rail, steadying her aim at Fiona.

  As his heels connected, her pistol blasted.

  Gray heard the ring of slug on iron.

  Missed.

  Ischke was knocked back as Gray followed through and crashed to the planks. He rolled up, knife in hand. Ischke was down on one knee. Her pistol lay between them.

  They both lunged for it.

  Ischke, even with the wind kicked out of her, proved incredibly fast, like a striking snake. Her fingers reached the pistol first, snatching it up.

  Gray had a knife.

  He jammed his blade through her wrist and into the planks. She screamed in surprise, dropping the pistol. Gray tried to grab it, but the hilt bounced off the planks as Ischke thrashed. It flew past the walkway’s edge.

  The momentary distraction was long enough for Ischke to yank her wrist free from the planks. She pivoted off her other wrist and kicked out at Gray’s head.

  He lunged back, but her shin struck his shoulder as hard as the bumper of a speeding car. Gray rolled with it, bruised to the bone. Damn, she was strong.

  Before he could get up, she leaped at him, swinging her arm at his face, trying to use the tip of the blade impaled through her wrist to blind him. He barely caught her elbow, twisted it, and carried them both to the walkway’s edge.

  He didn’t stop.

  Locked together, their bodies fell off the walkway.

  But Gray hooked his left knee around one of the walkway’s support posts. His body jerked to a stop, swinging by his leg, wrenching his knee. Ischke peeled off of him and dropped away.

  Upside down, he watched the woman snap through some branches and crash hard into the grassy sward.

  Gray hauled himself back up to the walkway, sprawling flat.

  With disbelief, he saw Ischke climb to her feet below. She limped a step to steady herself, ankle painfully twisted.

  A clatter to Gray’s side startled him.

  Fiona landed on the planks, swinging over from one of the cage’s suspension wires.

  During the fight, the girl must have crabbed her way atop the cage, then used the wires to reach the walkway. She hurried to him, shaking her left hand and wincing. Fresh blood flowed from where Ischke had cut her.

  Gray searched again below.

  The woman stared up at him. Murder in her eyes.

  But she wasn’t alone in the clearing.

  Behind her, Skuld raced toward the woman, the hyena’s muzzle low to the ground, a shark in the grass, scenting blood.

  How fitting, Gray thought.

  But the woman merely raised her uninjured arm toward the beast. The massive hyena ground to a stop, lifted its nose, dripping drool, and rubbed against her palm like a savage pit bull greeting its abusive master. It mewled and lowered to its belly.

  Ischke never broke eye contact with Gray.

  She limped forward.

  Gray stared below.

  Steps from the woman, Ischke’s pistol rested in plain view.

  Gray climbed up, gaining his feet. He grabbed Fiona’s shoulder and shoved her forward. “Run!”

  She needed no further goading. They raced around the arc of the walkway. The girl flew on fear and adrenaline. They reached the exit.

  Fiona made the corner, hanging on to one of the support posts to keep her footing. Gray followed her example. As he swung clear, a ringing spark off the support post accompanied a pistol blast.

  Ischke had found her gun.

  Spurred on, they ran faster along the straight path, putting distance between them and the limping shooter. In a minute, approaching a crisscross of paths, Gray suspected they might be safe. Caution overcame panic.

  He slowed Fiona by the same crossroads he had stopped at before. Paths led in all directions. Which way? By now, there was a good chance Ischke had raised an alarm—unless the fall had broken her radio, but he couldn’t count on that. He had to assume guards were already congregating between here and the outside world.

  And what about Monk? What did the gunplay that drew off Ischke’s guards portend? Was he alive, dead, recaptured? There were too many unknown variables. Gray needed a place to hole up and hide, to let his trail cool.

  But where?

  He eyed the one path that bridged back to the manor house.

  No one would expect to look for them over there. Plus the place had phones. If he could get to an outside line…maybe even find out more about whatever the hell was really going on there…

  But it was a pipe dream. The place was locked up tight, a fortress.

  Fiona noted his attention.

  She tugged on his arm and pulled something from her pocket. It looked like a couple of playing cards on a chain. She held them up.

  Not playing cards.

  Key cards.

  “I nicked them from that ice bitch,” Fiona said, half spitting. “Teach her to slice me.”

  Gray took the cards and examined them. He remembered Monk scolding Fiona for not stealing the museum director’s keys when they were trapped in Himmler’s crypt. It seemed the girl had taken Monk’s lesson to heart.

  With narrowed eyes, Gray again studied the manor house.

  Thanks to his little pickpocket, he now held the keys to the castle.

  But what to do?

 
; 13

  XERUM 525

  10:34 A.M.

  HLUHLUWE-UMFOLOZI PRESERVE

  ZULULAND, SOUTH AFRICA

  Painter sat in the mud-stone and woven-grass hut, cross-legged around a series of maps and schematics. The air smelled of dung and dust. But the small Zulu encampment served as the perfect staging spot, only ten minutes from the Waalenberg estate.

  Periodically, security helicopters buzzed the camp, rising from the estate, wary and watchful of their borders, but Paula Kane had the site well orchestrated. From the air, none could tell that the small sandy village was anything but a way station for the nomadic tribes of Zulu that eked out a living in the area. Nobody would suspect the council under way in one of the ramshackle huts.

  The group had gathered to strategize and pool resources.

  Across from Painter, Anna and Gunther sat together. Lisa kept near Painter’s elbow—as she had since arriving in Africa, her face stoic but her eyes worried. Near the back, Major Brooks stood in the shadows, ever vigilant, palm resting on his holstered pistol.

  They were all attentive on the final debriefing from Khamisi, a former game warden here. At his side, leaning forward, head to head, was the most surprising addition to the gathering.

  Monk Kokkalis.

  To Painter’s shock, Monk had wandered into the encampment with an exhausted and shell-shocked young man, both led by Khamisi. The young man was recuperating in another hut, kept safely out of harm’s way, but Monk had spent the last hour relating his story, answering questions, and filling in blanks.

  Anna stared at the set of runes Monk had finished drawing. Her eyes were bloodshot. She reached out a trembling hand toward the paper. “These are all the runes found in the books of Hugo Hirszfeld?”

  Monk nodded. “And that old fart was convinced they were damn important, critical to some next stage in his plan.”

  Anna’s gaze rose to Painter. “Dr. Hugo Hirszfeld was the overseer for the original Black Sun project. Do you remember how I told you he was convinced he had solved the riddle of the Bell? Performed one last experiment, one done in secret, attended only by himself. A private experiment that supposedly produced a perfect child, one uncorrupted of taint or devolution. A perfect Knight of the Sun. But his method…how he did it…no one knew.”