Order of the Black Sun Box Set 7

by Preston William Child

  “Better safe than sorry, hey, Bruich?” he huffed as he tried to get his jeans over his half wet thighs and ass. “Better know where she is just in case they get creative with their threats. It’s not like I have a lot of work at the moment anyway, right?”

  The large orange feline simply peered at Sam, curling up on his master’s bed to do a bit of grooming. Bruich seemed to scoff at Sam’s desperate grasp for reason, but other than that, he paid attention only to his own needs, as cats do.

  12

  Emergency Procedure at the King George

  After Sam’s clandestine arrival in Barking, he checked into a small Bed & Breakfast to keep a low profile, even though he was convinced that the leader of the unsavory group of killers could find him if he wished. He’d come by train this time, opting for leaving valuable things like photographic equipment and cars behind in the safety of his home. All he wished to do was to locate the unknown woman for possible leverage, but when Sam arrived at King George Hospital, he was met with staff who behaved curiously, to say the least.

  Even upon entering it appeared that the nursing staff and security people recognized him. Sam shrugged uncomfortably as he traversed the lobby toward the stairs to make his way up to the ward where he’d last seen the woman. Strange looks and murmurs lingered among the routinely executed chores and announcements, making him feel as if he had entered behind enemy lines.

  “Can I help you, Mr. Cleave?” a man asked firmly as Sam skipped the last step onto the landing of the third floor. He turned, expecting a helpful countenance, but what Sam saw was off kilter on his register of expressions. As an investigative journalist, he had cultivated a flair for telling what was behind the mask of a face.

  “Doctor…,” Sam sang, trying to recall the name of the attending physician that day, “Lin—?”

  “Lindemann,” the doctor informed him. “Yes, sir. To what do we owe your visit here today?”

  Sam frowned. The doctor had encountered him but once, yet he knew who he was and what he was here for, no doubt. “Just the man I was hoping to see, actually,” Sam said confidently.

  “How so?” the doctor asked abruptly, slipping his hands into the pockets of his white coat with a ruse of interest.

  “The lady I brought in the other day,” Sam started, but the doctor did not care to allow him the rest of his query.

  “She has been discharged, son,” he explained. “Now, if there is nothing else, I have patients to attend to.”

  “Wait,” Sam commanded, lowering his tone. “I’m not an idiot. Obviously, by now she will have been discharged. All I wanted to know was if she had returned to her family in Barking.”

  “To the men who tried to kill her, you mean,” the physician sneered. “That, my friend, is none of your business. You are not even a friend, let alone a family member, so that information is private. Good day.”

  “No, no,” Sam protested. “I came a long way to make sure she was okay, Dr. Lindemann, and the least you could do is to assure me that she is safe.”

  “I am not her bloody babysitter, Mr. Cleave,” he hissed under his breath, his eyes fixed on Sam’s in what seemed to be fear of discovery. “Please leave now. On your way. I do not keep track of people once they leave this hospital. My job is not to hold their hands out in the big bad world. And if they choose to leave through some sewer leakage in their lives, that is their choice. Now, good day to you.”

  Without another word, Dr. Lindemann brushed past Sam’s shoulder and hastened to the nurse’s station to collect a folder from the sister who was waiting for him. “Geez!” Sam said in astonishment as the man walked away from him. “I hope I never get sick around here. Asshole.” What irritated him most about the change in the doctor’s demeanor was how he accentuated certain words to put more disdain behind his sarcasm. But when Sam turned to go down the stairs, the doctor’s intonation of certain words became clear.

  A man and a woman came up the stairs, looking by no means cordial. Sam’s keen observation skills led him to see through their charade as a couple. They were holding hands, but their eyes were dead set on him and under their jacket’s Sam saw the unmistakable bulge of a sidearm.

  They are strapped? he wondered. What else did the doctor say? What the fuck did he say? Holding hands, and…?’

  He pretended to know nothing, passing them on the steps and heading down past the elevators. In the mirrors of the ajar elevator doors, he could see them turn on their heels to follow him. Sam knew that the asshole in the white coat was in fact, trying to protect him. He hastened without being too obvious, electing to steer clear of the lifts so as not to allow his pursuers to trap him inside. Such momentary privacy could prove deadly.

  The couple trailed Sam with equal inconspicuousness, still hand-in-hand.

  “Hmm, that’s not creepy at all,” Sam muttered as he noticed. Still, he persisted in his mock-ignorance and went for the main reception desk, the one with the busy waiting area. From countless previous experiences, Sam reckoned he would be safe if he stayed in public, amongst many people, with cameras watching. His mind whirled with the words the doctor said all funny to warn him. Something about a shitty exit, he mulled. No wait. It was something to the effect a drain pipe?

  He could not remember the exact direction the man’s words took, but while he was in the hub of the busy mid-morning bustle, he could take his time to recall it. Sam did not want to sit down. If he did, the couple tracking him could join him and introduce him to any wicked means of dispatch – a gun barrel under a coat, a switchblade to the kidney, even a well-placed hypodermic with the plunger chasing air into his jugular.

  “Good morning, sir,” the receptionist greeted. Sam smiled, but he looked more like a mental patient with diarrhea, his brow glowing with beads of sweat in the daylight that was filtering in. “Can I help you?”

  Sam was a bit pissed off at the manner in which the lady offered to help. Clearly she thought that he was admitting himself for some reason, because she sounded downright sympathetic. He forced out a desperate sentence. “I am looking for a patient.”

  “Oh!” she replied, thoroughly surprised that the handsome man in front of her was not in horrendous pain, as his face suggested. “Name?”

  Sam had no idea who Patient #1312 was registered as, but he used the sliding doors behind the receptionist to keep an eye on the two people chasing after him. He had to think quickly. “Um, my wife. I am looking for my wife. They called to say she had been admitted.”

  The amicable receptionist nodded slowly, exercising great patience with him. “Alright? And what is her name, sir?”

  Sam hesitated, preoccupied with the image in the reflection of the glass. “Sir?” she said again. A strong smell of perfume enveloped them as the woman of the couple approached with a wide grin.

  “Maybe I can help,” she said to the receptionist, slipping her arm around Sam’s bicep with charming will. “This is my brother, Miss. He is a bit shocked, you see,” she explained. Her voice became soft and pitiful as she explained to the lady behind the desk, “His wife passed away this morning and I think he cannot process the disbelief yet. I’m sure you understand.”

  Sam gaped at her as she sold the lie effortlessly. “Oh, but of course I do. I am so sorry for your loss,” the receptionist sympathized.

  Sam had to think. He had to do it right and he had to do it fast.

  “Where is your men’s room, please? I have to piss like a donkey,” he asked, adding his crass remark to make himself seem more unstable.

  “I’ll take him, Sonya,” the woman’s partner butted in, looking just as convincing as she was. “And then we have to get going, alright?”

  “Absolutely,” she agreed and gave the reception clerk a tap on the hand to assert her role. “I’ll wait here,” she said, looking right at Sam, grasping the object under her jacket, “with this kind lady until you both come back.”

  It was a message Sam got loud and clear, but he honestly did not want to take responsibility fo
r the safety of the staff as well. Unlike his usual protectiveness and sacrifice, Sam felt that this time would be the last time if he did not start looking out for himself. His plan was simple. In the men’s restroom, he would overpower the hitman and escape. How, he did not know yet.

  “Come on, then,” he complained with a sneer. “I haven’t got all goddamn day.”

  Approaching the sterile white stench of the restrooms with the eager assassin breathing down his neck, the doctor’s words came to Sam at once. Sewer leakage! And now it made sense. Just to the right of the toilet cubicles a door was cordoned off with plastic hazard tape, accompanied by a small printed sign, roughly typed out by one of the administration staff members.

  No Entry.

  Plumbing repairs.

  Apologies for the inconvenience

  Sam made sure that his malignant guard did not see him scrutinizing the parameters of the room, measuring the distance to the off-limits door.

  “Smart move, Cleave,” the man told Sam in a heavy accent Sam could not place at all. “But you’ve already wasted too much of our time this morning.”

  As predicted, he tugged at the sidearm at his short rib, giving Sam the green light to strike. The scarred and muscled journalist was surprisingly tough opponent for the trained combatant, but ultimately Sam did not have the training and precision of the meticulous killer. At the sight of the man’s weapon Sam instinctively did what Purdue’s former bodyguard, Calisto, taught him once. He did not try to take the gun from his assailant, but instead he delivered a hefty jab to the man’s gun-wielding forearm, fracturing his radius effectively.

  “Jesus!” the man cried as his hand opened up to inadvertently let go of the gun. With his other hand, he grabbed at his forearm, a reflex he came to regret. In momentary response to his injury, he bent forward where Sam’s right knee came up under his chin. As the assassin staggered back, Sam grabbed his firearm and went straight for the door. But the attacker was upon him before he could reach the doorknob, striking Sam hard with a fist to the spine. With a yelp, Sam hit the floor, unable to move his left leg from the nerve damage sustained on impact. This man was not someone Sam could fight hand to hand, he realized.

  The firearm was like nothing he had ever used, or even seen, before. It had no safety catch and no trigger.

  “What the fu…?” Sam groaned.

  “Don’t play with toys you can’t handle, Cleave,” the attacker growled as he drew a small device from his pocket. Sam had no idea what the deal with the gun was, only that an inscription on its butt spelled out Baphomet X in what looked like crude ivory. That was all Sam could see before the item exploded in his hand, plummeting him into a tumultuous hell of heat and oblivion.

  13

  Mysteries in the Mist

  At the personal cost of Dr. Hooper and Dr. Victor, Nina took an early flight the next day to London. The two colleagues asked the historian not to disclose any information they had given her, including the reasons for her trip – at least not until they’d ascertained what, or whom, they were dealing with.

  Nina was glad of the distraction, because she felt things dwindling unnecessarily between her and Sam since he was apparently refusing to switch on his phone. After receiving numerous notifications of missed calls from him, Nina had tried to call back to make peace. Finding that his number was unavailable left her somewhere between angry and sad, but played bewilderment right down the middle.

  Such a small vexation between them was now becoming the foundation for mind games, it appeared, since Sam’s erratic reactions caused her to doubt their closeness. Why would he call her so many times, knowing that she couldn’t answer while traveling? Surely he wouldn’t be childish enough to see her non-responsiveness as a line in the ground, opting for war?

  He was more intelligent, more logically minded, than that. But she figured not having his phone on gave her some hint of their crumbling relationship. At least a day or two working in England, away from Sam, would divert her emotions from the inexplicable change in her friend’s demeanor. Nina took a taxi to Upney Lane, but it did not save her from getting her dark locks wet in the persistent drizzle that hazed over the buildings and cars. From the window of the taxi, the entire world looked like a ghost town and pedestrians moving along the pavement looked like lost souls, wandering.

  Nina wondered what the two medical examiners could have come upon that merited her attention and expertise, especially the request to be most discreet. What she did not look forward to, however, was seeing cadavers, especially after the medical examiner on the phone had disclosed their cause of death.

  I don’t know if I could handle mangled corpses. Not today. That is the very word he used. Mangled. Christ! she thought as her taxi stopped in front of the state of the art public morgue. Through the white misty veil, she could read the name – Nirvana Public Morgue. “Nirvana. That’s a laugh,” she muttered as she passed the driver his fee in a thinly rolled note. “Thank you.” Nina stepped out of the car, hardly able to see a few meters ahead of her. Straining her eyes to watch where she was going, Nina had no idea what her surroundings looked like, save for a barbwire gate fixed with a rusty sign that designated a parking area to her right.

  In her fertile imagination, she envisioned the stumbling frames of walking dead people emerging from the mist all about her. Her pace quickened toward the main entrance at the thought. Aye, and you are walking toward the dead people, did you know? she teased herself.

  From nowhere a thunderous screech of metal on metal assaulted her ears. It radiated out of white obscurity, crashing through the peaceful environment with a harsh clacking that frightened Nina to near death.

  “Jesus Christ!” she squealed in terror, her knees buckling at the terrible sound that seemed to come from all directions. She teetered sideways in her physical reaction to the fright, spraining her ankle between the concrete slab of the walkway and the well-kept lawn adjacent to it. A loud crack affirmed her pain as she fell to the wet grass.

  Hands came from the whiteness, grabbing at her and Nina felt her heart explode with fear as dark shapes emerged around her. Mute with terror, she soon realized that it was not a gang of London zombies trying to tear her limb from limb, but staff from the morgue trying to help her up.

  “Don’t step on that foot, Miss,” a young man advised as he propped her up against his body. A female assistant was picking up Nina’s travel bag and another man, older and more distinguished, gently took hold of her other arm to alleviate the weight on her ankle.

  “I am so sorry, Dr. Gould,” he apologized as they helped Nina inside. “I’m afraid you fell victim to old Eighty-Eight Black, a freight train carrying coal on the line behind the building here. Makes a right racket.” He sighed laboriously, looking at the lawn. “The cement is wet and a bit elevated. Always causes problems for visitors who don’t know the place, and the mist always makes things even worse.”

  “It’s alright, doctor,” she groaned. “Doctor Hooper, right?”

  “Yes, madam,” he smiled finally, as they helped Nina past an old reception desk and its registers, a cold empty wall with warning signs, hazard rules, and a few pointless old posters rallying against smoking and drugs. “Oh, that is the old reception area,” Dr. Barry Hooper explained. “The new wing is far more agreeable and professional. We only use that entrance for, well,” he smiled sheepishly and lolled his head, “you know, the customers.”

  Nina had to smile. “Aye, I understand, Dr. Hooper. I must be the only live one that ever came through it – and I do not intend to stay for the prize accommodations, I’ll have you know.” The staff on duty were relieved that the visiting expert had a sense of humor, dark and unapologetic as their own. With a chuckle, they ushered Nina into Dr. Barry and Dr. Victor’s office, setting her down in Dr. Barry’s posh leather chair.

  “Put some ice on that, Liam,” he ordered one of the dieners, pointing at Nina’s ankle after he helped her remove her boot.

  “That sounds vaguely disturb
ing,” Nina remarked, “you know, considering where we are and all.”

  Barry snickered, shaking his head. “I just hope this injury is not so bad that we’ll have to cart you off to King George or Barking Hospital,” he said, wincing at the slightly swollen joint of the visitor. He caught Nina’s eyes combing the steel tables in the main room curiously. He lowered the volume of his voice considerably before clarifying, “Oh, the men I asked you to have a look at are not in there, Dr. Gould. Since the markings on them are all identical, I suppose you only need to see one of them.”

  “Oh God, yes,” she agreed instantly.

  “We are keeping them,” he looked around first, checking if there was anyone within earshot, “somewhere else.”

  Nine nodded in acknowledgement and answered in a similarly secretive tone, “And that is because you reckon there is something…special…about them?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he affirmed sincerely. “You see, in the Muslim tradition, these deceased men would have been collected by their families so fast it would make your head spin. They choose to deal with burial rites and such personally, you see?”

  “Aye,” she answered.

  “But they have been here for the better part of a work week and still – nothing,” he informed Nina, looking properly suspicious of it. “Why? Their fingerprints yielded nothing, apart from one-name entries in what appears to be a confidential file at Home Office. The fact that nobody claimed them tells us we are dealing with something illegal, you know, in a national security kind of way?”

  “Sounds like it,” Nina agreed. “Show me the symbol you referred to when we last spoke, Doctor. I just hope I can identify it.”

  She placed her laptop on his desk, and put her bag on the other chair. Her foot pulsed with pain and frigidity, but Nina wanted to sate her curiosity and if it came to something insignificant, she would be only too happy to go home as soon as possible.