by P. W. Child
THE BLACK SUN
CONSPIRACY
Order of the Black Sun - Book 6
by
Preston William Child
PROLOGUE
“No, madam. Declined. Again,” the clerk smiled apologetically, handing Nina the third credit card she tried to use to purchase their tickets back to Edinburgh.
“You cannot be serious!” Nina scowled, telling nobody in particular as she scrutinized the Platinum VISA card. At a distance behind her Sam waited unaware of the difficulty with their trip back home from Prague.
Nina turned to find him, turned back to the clerk with a warm smile which ineffectively hid her embarrassment and said, “Thank you. I’ll be back shortly.”
Václav Havel Airport was bustling with travelers looking as exhausted as Nina and Sam, some just aimlessly wondering around while waiting for their connections. Others sat at restaurants to make up time while waiting for their announcements to echo over the Public Announcement System. Sam looked forward to seeing Paddy and Bruich again, and to finally curl up on his couch with a double malt and a bit of footie while his cat’s hefty weight warmed his stomach.
Nina felt more hopeless than angry, but her frustration was mounting as it always did when she was faced with unnecessary obstacles. With an expression of determination she stormed towards the ATM a few steps behind the filled row of seats, with Sam’s reluctant befuddlement in witness. He was sitting on the floor of the airport terminal, legs pulled up and his head resting against the wall when Nina passed him without losing her sight on the bank machine.
“What’s wrong?” he had to ask, propping himself up to follow her.
“Jesus Christ, Sam. I swear I am going to blow a gasket one of these days! Kulich had just transferred my fees yesterday. Last night I still bought a cappuccino after dinner, remember?” she sneered as she slipped her card into the machine.
“I do. And now?” he asked, leaning against the frame of the ATM without invading her privacy by looking at the screen.
She punched in her PIN with hard fingers, clenching her jaw. Looking up at Sam’s annoying innocence she cocked her head, “My cards are being declined. All my cards are active, Sam, all of them. Well, supposed to be.”
As she finished her sentence the tone of the machine sounded, announcing that yet another transaction was unsuccessful. In a torrent of profanities Nina ripped her card from the slot and gave Sam a hard look.
“I wish I could check mine, but my card was stolen, remember?” he tried to sound proactive.
“Aye,” she sighed somewhere between defeat and vexation at his useless statement. “Now how are we going to buy our tickets?”
It perplexed Sam how such a thing could happen. With the allowance she received bi-annually from her obscenely rich lover combined with their recent remuneration for the Zbiroh expedition with Dr. Professor Kulich, she should have had more than enough dough in her account. As if she read his thoughts she rolled her eyes, “I have money in my account. But...” she looked down at the card and it’s useless platinum sheen, “it is just not available to me.”
“Give me your cell phone, Nina,” Sam said suddenly, looking far more composed than he had a few moments ago.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m calling Paddy. He can wire us some funds, at least until I can access my accounts again at home,” he said as he called his best friend, Patrick Smith at MI-6.
“Sam,” Nina said as her eyes darted past him.
“I can’t seem to get a signal,” he frowned, hearing her, but favoring his phone preoccupation.
“Sam,” she repeated in a more urgent tone. “Do you have friends on the Prague Olympic team?”
“Aye. Paddy sent a few lads over, remember?” His belated realization of her words snapped him out of his cell phone conundrum. “Wait, what? Why?” He looked up just long enough to see Nina’s eyes direct him to where they were. Sam turned and saw two large men, dressed sports track wear like a bunch of professional wrestlers.
“Those beefcakes? Um, don’t know who they are,” he squinted at the pair who looked way too friendly. “Relax, Nina. They are probably just sportsmen looking for their boarding gate.”
Before Nina could argue the deafening tone sounded to prepare for an announcement. A very professional female voice, lacking the heavy Czech accents of the passenger staff, floated through the terminal.
“Miss Bolden and Mr. Snoad. Please report to the Information desk, Terminal 3. Miss Bolden and Mr. Snoad.”
“Sam. Sam,” Nina pressed without moving her lips too obviously as the men approached, smiling.
“I have no idea who they are, Nina. Maybe they are really just athletes on their way to a meet. Let me just get a signal. For fuck’s sake, this is an airport! How can they have no signal?” He saw the two beefcakes advancing and Nina’s paranoia escalating. Sam smiled reassuringly, “I bet you they have no idea who we are either.”
“Mr. Cleave. Dr. Gould,” the one on the right smiled as if they were reuniting with old friends. Sam shrugged and smiled sheepishly at his petite friend who stared at him with no small amount of silent reproach.
“This is the second announcement for Miss Bolden and Mr. Snoad. Please report to the Information desk, Terminal 3. Miss Bolden and Mr. Snoad.”
“Sam, where is the Information Desk? We have to get there right now!” Nina said urgently, her tone so low that it took on a vague air of panic.
“It’s over there,” he pointed, nonchalantly. “Why?”
Nina slipped her arm into Sam’s and tugged him along to the counter in the widening hall to their left. At the desk a particularly cultivated-looking woman in some airline uniform scanned the crowd. The two beefcakes followed Sam and Nina, but maintained their calm and collected manner, minus the grins. Nina dared not look back as she pulled Sam like a trailer behind her.
“Excuse me,” she half shouted to the lady at the desk, “Miss Bolden and this is Mr. Snoad.”
“Nina, what the fuck are...”
“Shut up and play along,” she snapped under her breath and leaned on the desk to keep eye contact with the receptionist.
“Oh, Miss Bolden, Mr. Snoad, here are your tickets. Please do hurry. Your flight is boarding,” the receptionist said mechanically as she passed two tickets to Nina with a creepy cemented smile.
“Thank you so much,” Nina smiled and once more lugged her male friend with her, while he had the phone up in the air to look for a signal.
“For God’s sake, Sam, would you stop that?” she complained.
They stepped through the security checkpoint and in the vast sheets of glass Nina checked the reflection of their pursuers. Both had ceased their pursuit and now stood about chatting to maintain their inconspicuousness.
“Dr. Gould and Mr. Cleave,” they heard a strong male voice summon from the walkway.
There stood a casually dressed gentleman with a stern expression and a magazine in his hand, nodding at Nina and Sam.
“My name is Matteus. You don’t know me, but trust me when I tell you that you will be executed before nightfall if you do not come with me now,” he explained as if he was asking the time.
“How do we know we can trust you? What is this all about?” Nina protested.
The tall Italian looking man looked down at the short historian and passed a glance to her companion. Coolly, he replied, “Have you been having trouble leaving Prague?”
“Yes, we hit a glitch, but...” Sam replied, but Matteus interrupted him.
“Found your assets and bank accounts have been frozen?”
Nina gasped. Sa
m sighed loudly. ‘Oh God, here we go again.’
“I am assisting one David Purdue in securing your flight,” Matteus said plainly, “but I shall have to urge you to get a move on before those gorillas catch up.”
***
Eagerly gulping down a generous puddle of the Czech Republic’s finest peach slivovitz, Sam listened to Nina ramming Matteus with questions. He was a man of few words, remaining poised on delivering the two of them to Purdue without entertaining Dr. Gould’s verbal barrage. After presuming Purdue dead or missing pretty much for good, Nina was livid that she was collected so unceremoniously.
“He doesn’t even have the decency to come himself? After just taking off over two years of and without as much as a smoke signal to let me know he is okay? Christ, one of these days I’m just going to stop giving a shit trying to figure all this shit out!” she ranted, more to exhale her discontent at Purdue’s behavior towards her, his lover.
“Dr. Gould, as soon as we reach our destination, I suggest you direct your questions towards Mr. Purdue. However, I would beseech you to prepare yourselves for slightly less...luxurious accommodation,” Matteus informed them both. “I do not have the answers...” he cast an indifferent, slightly vexed look toward Nina, “...nor the patience, to explain all this now. But we are unfortunately forced to divert from your desired destination for your own safety.”
“Wait, do you mean to tell me that, not only does Purdue resurface without as much as a warning, but he calls the shots on our...”
“Nina,” Sam said plainly, “who is Snoad and Bolden?”
“What?” she barked at Sam, still in the heat of her exacerbation.
“Who is Bolden and Snoad and how did you know they meant us?” he asked lazily. Matteus watched how Sam could disarm the feisty little woman in the middle of her onslaught and it made him smile.
Annoyed that she was powerless to her irresistible need to talk history when asked a question, Nina had to break off her bitching to tell Sam about the two American soldiers who took out thirty five heavily armed Nazis in a house during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, 1944. Apparently she took the comparison as a compliment – two people up against insurmountable odds and they wiped out the enemy. After gingerly completing her tale she stared at the floor for a moment.
“As far as I know Snoad was killed during that mission...”
She looked up with a frown, but Sam Cleave was not listening. Slumped in his chair, his head leaned back in blissful sleep.
Matteus looked back from the cockpit where the co-pilot took over for a while and thought to himself, ‘Yes, Mr. Cleave, if only you knew how long it might be before you see home again... You are indeed well advised to rest.’
Chap ter One
A flicker of yellow light flared up in the darkness, followed by the pinprick orange glow of a lit cigarette. The streetlights at the end of Via dell’Acqua were out again, but that suited Sam well enough. A dark corner, a quiet cigarette… for the briefest of moments he could step into a doorway, shut his eyes and imagine himself back in Edinburgh.
It was a little too warm, of course. The January wind lacked the bite that he was accustomed to back home, and it hardly ever rained. However, it was safe enough as long as he kept his head down, and that was what mattered most. During daylight hours it was safest to stay indoors, but in the dead of night, when the feeling of being cooped up got too much for him, Sam went wandering.
Matteus had warned him not to, of course. There had been plenty of short, terse lectures and passive-aggressive comments about the danger Sam was bringing them into by going out unnecessarily. Poor Matteus was fighting a losing battle, though. Sam smirked as he pictured the agent’s irritable face glaring round at him, Nina and Purdue. ‘It can’t be much fun trying to tell the three of us what to do,’ he thought. ‘God help him when I’m the most biddable person in the room.’ Still, as a concession to Matteus’ concerns Sam tried make himself a little harder to recognize. His messy brown hair, which had always been slightly too long, was now close-cropped and covered by a woolen beanie pulled down to his eyebrows, and the collar of his jacket was turned up to obscure his face. To anyone walking past him on the dark streets, he would look indistinguishable from any other man trying to keep warm.
Sam glanced along Via delle Burella as he finished his cigarette. He could see the door to their staircase, black and forbidding, but with every step he took towards it he felt less and less inclined to go back. ‘Just another five minutes,’ he thought. ‘A wee bit more time to myself. Stretch the legs. I’ll have a quick saunter round the square and then I’ll get back.’
He headed along towards the Piazza di Santa Croce, all but deserted at this time of night, and began a slow circuit of the spacious square. As he strolled past the church, a softly-lit pink and white confection, a trio of young men emerged from the shadows and made their way in the opposite direction to Sam. Gripped by a sudden feeling of apprehension Sam turned his head to check that they weren’t turning back, but before he could look round he felt fingers close around his arm, twisting it up his back. He thought he could feel the point of a knife pressing against him, just under the ribs.
“English?” a young male voice hissed. Sam swiftly weighed up his chances of convincing them he spoke neither English nor Italian in the hope that an obstacle, however minor, might cause the men to lose their nerve and run. He decided against it. These three did not seem like opportunists who would be put off so easily. He nodded.
“Walk. Don’t say a word.”
Sam allowed himself to be marched past the church, into the shadows where one of the men pulled a scarf around his eyes. Blindfolded, Sam tried to make a mental map of the twists and turns of their route, but the alleyways of an unfamiliar city did not lend themselves to easy visualization. Helpless, he put one foot in front of the other.
‘I can’t get out of this,’ he thought. ‘If these guys are anything to do with the Black Sun… I’m dead. I just hope I haven’t led them straight to the others.’
“Far enough,” the young man said, and Sam’s captors brought him to an abrupt halt. “Now. Empty your pockets. Quickly.”
For a moment Sam wanted to laugh in relief as he dug out the meagre contents of his pockets. They just want to mug me! He thought. Well, fine. Let them take anything they like. His fingers closed around his cheap Bic lighter, its plastic reservoir nearly empty, and a twenty euro note. He held them out for his captors to take. It was only when he felt the lighter snatched from his hand and heard it being thrown and skittering away across the ground that he realized that he was still in danger.
“Are you crazy?” The young man’s voice was angry this time. “What is this shit? Give me your phone and your wallet, now.”
Sam held up his hands. “No phone, sorry. I didn’t bring it with me. Or my wallet. I was only out for a smoke.”
“Are you fucking with me? Give me your fucking phone.”
“Honestly, I don’t have one. If I did I’d give you it. Honestly. You can search me if you like.”
Rough hands grabbed at Sam, rifling through his pockets, patting down the lining. Failing to find what he wanted, the young man uttered a stifled obscenity.
Then the first blow landed. An unseen fist slammed into Sam’s face, sending him spinning. He collapsed onto his knees. A sharp blow to his back knocked all the breath out of his body. Now prone, he curled up in a ball and threw his arms over his head. The blows rained down, fists and feet connecting with his back, his belly, his ribcage. There was no point in trying to fight back. Three against one, especially when the three were younger, stronger and fitter than the one, would only end badly and Sam knew it.
After what felt like an age the assault came to an end. Sam wanted nothing more than to rip off the blindfold, but he made himself wait until he had heard the three men leave. Slowly, trying not to use any of the muscles that were currently aching, he reached up and pulled the scarf from his eyes. The alley was empty. No chance of catch
ing a glimpse of any of his attackers. Not that he could have gone to the police anyway.
Step by painful step, Sam began trying to find his way home.
Cha pter Two
After a surreal and tense reunion after their trip from Prague, Nina and Purdue had honed their current relationship to a strange dance of amicable distance. In name and practice surely they were still lovers, domestic partners, but obviously both understood that a lapse of two years would change the dynamic.
The first few days after their meeting was spent sharing Sam and Nina’s recent adventures with Purdue, although mostly one sided. His curiosity as to his lover’s runic tattoos started the conversation, where she began to explain her ode to a fallen friend that led to a dangerous meeting with some bad apples. On his inquiry, Nina filled him that the very same people had gifted her with the permanent scarring on her forearm during a horrific episode of Nazi medical care.
In return Dave Purdue said no more than what he could play loosely, so that he could easily deviate from the truth and still retain his basic line of stories should he be cornered for information. It was a hapless attempt on Nina’s end to pry, no matter how hard she tried to get behind the secrets, of which Purdue claimed he had divulged already – it was without success. It left her cold to him, especially in the light of her growing affection for Sam Cleave during the past year or two.
Purdue listened as they relayed their subsequent run-ins with unsavory types, forced travels and close calls. From the engagement in Edinburgh with a host of museum thefts that culminated in the hunt for a Viking legend to the more recent clash Sam had with a unit of German task force operatives. The latter had driven him into hiding where he joined Nina and a Czech anthropologist seeking Nazi treasure as far as Romania’s haunted forest.