The Seventh Secret (Order of the Black Sun Book 11)

by P. W. Child

  “I’ll cut you loose,” she told him. “There is no way I’m letting you die here.”

  “Leave me,” he implored. “I have no desire to live.”

  Nina pulled a stack of pallets toward where the man was hanging from the ceiling and carefully climbed up. Using the filthy can, she cut through the plastic zip ties around his ankles. His hands were bound with steel cable, so there was nothing she could do to free his hands.

  “My limbs are useless, lady,” he whispered through chapped dry lips.

  “Well, now the blood will rush back into your legs,” she replied. “I promise I’ll get help if I can get out of here.”

  Nina screamed as loud as she could, kicking against the door and making as much noise as she could. She was well aware that the ruckus of the sea and the walls between her and anyone else would muffle her screams, but she kept yelling. Finally, she heard scuffling outside the door. Nina crouched right next to the doorway, wrapping her hand with fabric from her shirt so that the jagged tin would not cut her when she used it as a weapon. Then she waited.

  The door clattered under the force of someone’s hands, wiggling the dogged mechanism and finally dislodging the lock. Nina held her breath, mentally preparing to cut the ligaments at the back of the knee. With force the door swung open, but nobody entered. Still, Nina waited in silence.

  "Nina," a voice whispered. "Nina, are you okay?"

  It was Purdue. He knew how she could be when she was afraid and because of her penchant for violence he addressed her first. It was a wise choice.

  “Purdue?” she asked. Peering around the door from her crouched position, she recognized him through the blurred vision of her one good eye.

  "Oh my God, Nina!" he exclaimed, sinking to his haunches to wrap her up in his arms and help her up. "What did they do to you?" It was a rhetorical question, but he was still furious about it. He saw the man hanging from the ceiling, now outstretched with his feet almost touching the floor.

  “Do you have something that can cut through steel cables?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he smiled. “How do you think I opened this lock?”

  "How come they did not capture you?" she asked while Purdue used a tiny blowtorch to cut the man’s restraints.

  Purdue breathed out a long sigh at what he was about to reveal. He took a moment before he just came out and said it. “I knew that Crystal had set this whole charade up, Nina. She thinks that I drowned. When we surfaced, I saw Sam tied up at the top of the tug boat,"

  “He’s what?” she shrieked.

  “No worries. He is the next we are going to rescue,” Purdue consoled. “We have less than fifteen minutes before the Geheimnis pulls her disappearing act.”

  Nina was livid. "Wait; you knew all this all along? Jesus Christ, Purdue! This is the last time you put my life in danger; I swear to God! I have had it with your shit. After this, I never want to see you again!"

  Purdue swallowed hard at her words, but he finished freeing Fakur and kept his poise. But inside his heart was aching. Nina would never understand that he had had no choice and that the Order of the Black Sun had forced him to cooperate.

  “I’ll explain later,” Purdue said. “Let’s go get Sam.”

  “No more explanations, Purdue. I’ve had it,” she growled. “I don’t care what your reasons were or whatever bullshit excuse you cook up this time.” She followed Purdue to the opposite side of the red door, where he opened a bulkhead that led up to the next deck above them. They climbed the jack ladder, but when they reached the top of the superstructure, Sam was gone.

  Chapter 33 – Too Many Secrets

  Crystal was trapped. Manni and Benjamin had tied her up and locked her into a cargo crate. She could see the light shine through the tiny slits where the wood did not quite come together, but none of them was wide enough for her to see where the crate was kept. Her restraints were way too tight to get out of, and she had no idea how long it would be before the Geheimnis would disappear.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ she thought. ‘We don’t even know if the tug would actually teleport with the ship. For all you know, only the actual object would go through the process.’ Her inner voice turned on her. ‘You better hope so. This is all your doing. Hope you are satisfied.’

  Ali had captured her after she had boarded the tug. She had assumed that Purdue had been with the six crew members who had surfaced with her. Only when they had taken her captive and the others had removed their diving masks she had noticed that the billionaire had been missing. She could not believe that she had been dumb enough to assume that Ali was employed by Fakur’s company, but then again she had been so focused on towing the Geheimnis to Yemen to notice anything else.

  Her plan had been to tow the wreck to port and have her associates capture Purdue, Sam and Nina there. The Order of the Black Sun had been laying low concerning the journalist and the historian, but by no means were they going to let them get away for all they had done to inflict damage to the organization. She would have Mieke; she would have the ship’s intricate instruments isolated and then she would travel back to Germany with her prize. Her reputation with the high council of the organization would soar.

  Now she was stuck in a box on a vessel sailing toward Somalia to be sold or ransomed, and there was nothing she could do. In the distance, she suddenly heard Sam’s voice. Crystal perked up.

  “Sam,” she whispered in and smiled. Sam had told Ali to bring Crystal aboard the Geheimnis with them because she could best appease the dark forces at play. Crystal had no idea that she would soon become the captain of her precious ship.

  ***

  Purdue used his tablet to find his way through the tug boat, utilizing its high-frequency close distance locator to find Sam. The setting on the device used heat signatures to identify human presence, so he and Nina could evade capture until they found their friend.

  “Where is Crystal?” Nina asked.

  "No idea," he whispered. "I was kind of busy keeping my eye on Sam while they took her away. I figured we could find her after we free Sam since all this was her idea anyway. That makes her less important."

  “You just want to save Sam for the footage you need,” she snapped at him. She pulled a monkey wrench from a toolbox on the shelf where they were hiding; listening to two Somali’s talking and smoking. Ali merely had a skeleton crew aboard the tugboat, leaving only three men to guard the captives while they took Sam over to the Geheimnis.

  “Oh come now, Nina. I don’t care about the find anymore,” he retorted.

  “It’s a bit late for that, Purdue,” she frowned. Then she saw Zain hanging upside down not far from them. He was covered in blood but still alive. She nudged Purdue, pointing to Zain. Purdue did not think twice. He darted toward the two men, burying his diving knife into the gut of the unsuspecting pirate who turned around at the moment of impact. When the other one attacked Purdue, Nina's adrenaline kicked in, and she tackled the pirate. The heavy steel tool in her hands connected with his skull, breaking the bone upon impact.

  The pirate fell to the ground, bleeding profusely from wound and Nina rushed to take out Zain’s gag. “Where is Sam, Zain?” she shouted frantically.

  “He is on the death ship with Ali and the rest of the men. Sam told them that they must release the ship and disconnect the towing gear, because…” he caught his breath, “…be-because… he told them there were a bunch of water walkers on the ship, and if they don't sever ties, the water walkers would come and kill them.”

  “Brilliant,” Purdue smiled, impressed with Sam’s resourcefulness. “So they are all on the ship right now?”

  Zain closed his eyes and nodded. “They have Sibu, too. He joined their ranks. Fucking traitor, but I saw that there is still a hole in the hull, just above the water line, so it’s only a matter of time before that ship sinks again. They… they destroyed all our equipment and everything we brought to erase the evidence. Those godforsaken bastards.”

  “It is time, Nina!”
Purdue announced with foreboding in his voice. “Ali and his people have no idea that the ship is about to teleport with them on board. I trust Sam does, though.”

  “Oh Christ, I hope he does!” Nina cried. Her hands were shaking as she freed Zain. “I hope there aren’t any more of those bastards on the tug with us.”

  Zain was lying on the floor, recovering from the deadly position he had been hanging in. He took Nina’s hand. “Dr. Gould, you go ahead. I’m alright. I’ll make sure nobody interferes with you and Mr. Purdue. Just give me a second to get my bearings.”

  “Good man,” Purdue smiled, placing a reassuring hand on Zain’s chest. “Nina, let’s go. We have to release the Geheimnis right now, or we are going with her."

  Purdue and Nina raced toward the towing winches. He called out the time left as they braved the massive waves that lurched over the tug boat and crashed hard against it. It was late afternoon, and they were entering Somali waters at the Horn of Africa. Storms had been forecast for the next few days, and the passengers of the Aleayn Yam were already getting a taste of what was awaiting them.

  Purdue disengaged the first of the three connections while Nina screamed for Sam. The sinister black ship sailed quietly behind them as if she made a point of keeping Nina’s calls at bay. Nina leered at the Black Sun symbol on the hull. “You won’t have him, bitch.”

  "Nina! Help me to disconnect the third! We have less than two minutes left!" Purdue cried. His voice came and went in her ear under the rage of the waves. She scanned the dreadful black vessel for any signs of Sam, but they must have all been deep in the bowels of the ship where Sam had gone to show Ali the ghastly remains of the Jews and officers. Given their heinous fate, Ali was bound to be convinced that they were water walkers and that the Geheimnis would have to be let go.

  “Sam!” she screamed one last time. “Sam! Two minutes! Two minutes!” Her throat burned from the effort as she cast one final glance at the cursed ship. “I hope you heard me, love. I hope you heard me.”

  "Nina!" Purdue urged. The tugboat began to tremble to more than the raging ocean.

  "It's happening!" Nina cried hysterically. Between her, Purdue and Zain they managed to disengage the mechanical towing gear as the Aleayn Yam started shaking wildly under the pulsing electromagnetic power that grew stronger by the second. Some of the pirates came out on the death ship’s deck; squealing frightened by what they could not understand. Sam was not among them, and neither was Ali.

  “Ten seconds!” Purdue screamed as the last of the locks slipped loose and the cables dropped into the furious foam of the ocean. Purdue grabbed Nina and fell against the bulwark, holding her tightly. They could not get further away, but at least the ties between the vessels had been severed.

  “SAM!” she screamed until her voice failed, then she buried her face in Purdue’s shirt, sobbing bitterly. As the horrifying shriek of metal and the atrocious song of science merged to a dreadful cacophony, sounding deafeningly over the sea, Purdue watched the Nazi ship shake and bend into a wormhole of magnetic charge. Flashes of lightning radiated into the atmosphere as the horrified faces of the Somali pirates distorted and froze before their bones were shattered inside their bodies.

  Purdue closed his eyes as the majestic clap of the charge closed the portal. Nina felt the tug boat jolt forward a little as the waters filled the hollow space where the Geheimnis had been only a second before, and the sea recovered. Only the din of the ocean’s hiss was left, apart from the dreadful nothingness of lost lives. Through the rush of the angry sea, only Nina's desperate whimpers resounded, as Zain and Purdue stood, shocked into silence by what they had just witnessed.

  On the horizon, the sun pierced through the clouds to paint the ocean in silver and yellow. Purdue had some serious amends to make, and he hoped that Sam had somehow escaped the Geheimnis before she had vanished. Nina clung to him as she mourned Sam, but Purdue knew that her arms were only around him because of her love for the journalist.

  ***

  Malgas could not need to keep his secret anymore. He had to tell someone that the find was nothing but a hoax.

  He forgave Cheryl for keeping her addiction a secret, trying to impress him.

  Ali should just have abducted the expedition members instead of concealing that they were pirates. His secret had gotten him killed.

  Crystal’s hidden motivation behind her participation in the excursion was resounding prove that greed was deadly even for the most powerful.

  Zain and Sibu’s secret intentions had brought them to a juncture that had forced them to reevaluate their paths. One of them had chosen wisely; the other not so much.

  With all the evidence and footage destroyed, the entire venture would always remain nothing but another marine myth, a tall tale told by sailors to scare tourists.

  Purdue’s secret knowledge of Crystal’s plan had put his friends’ lives at risk once more, probably causing Sam’s death and alienating Nina for good.

  Most of all, the seventh secret prevailed. The great mystery ship would remain an elusive puzzle, even to those who would briefly lay eyes on her in the morning fog or marvel at her dead silence in the rage of the storm.

  THE END