Black Order (36 page)

The tree appeared ancient, twisted, and was bound in copper wire. It hung heavy with blossoms, each one perfectly symmetrical, balanced and in harmony.

“She is two hundred and twenty-two years old,” the old man said, admiring his handiwork. His accent was thick, Heidi’s grandfather in a waistcoat. “She was already old when given to me by Emperor Hirohito himself in 1941.”

He set down his tools and turned. He wore a white apron over a navy suit with a red tie. He held out a hand toward his grandson. “Isaak,
te’vreden…
”

The young man hurried forward and helped the elder down from the second tier. This earned him a fatherly pat on the shoulder. The old man shed his apron, retrieved a black cane, and leaned heavily upon it. Gray noted the prominent crest upon the cane’s silver crown. A filigreed capital
W
surmounted the familiar cloverleaf symbol, the same icon tattooed on the twins, Ischke and Isaak.

“I am Sir Baldric Waalenberg,” the patriarch said softly, eyeing Gray and Monk. “If you’ll please join me in the salon, we have much to talk about.”

Swinging around, he tapped his way toward the back of the solarium.

The old man had to be in his late eighties, but besides the need for a cane, he showed little debilitation. He still had a thick mane of silver-white hair, parted in the middle, and cut a bit rakishly to the shoulder. A pair of eyeglasses hung from a silver chain around his neck, one lens of which was outfitted with what looked like a jeweler’s magnifying loupe.

As they crossed the slate floor, Gray noted that the conservatory’s flora consisted of organized sections: bonsai trees and shrubs, a fern garden, and last, a section that was dense with orchids.

The patriarch noted his attention. “I’ve been breeding
Phalaenopsis
for the past six decades.” He paused by a tall stalk bearing midnight purple blossoms, the hue of a ripe bruise.

“Pretty,” Monk said, but his sarcasm was plain.

Isaak glared at Monk.

The old man seemed oblivious. “Yet still, the
black
orchid escapes me. The Holy Grail of orchid breeding. I’ve come so very close. But under magnification, there is either banding or more purpling than a solid ebony.”

He absently fingered the jeweler’s loupe.

Gray now understood the difference between the jungle outside and the hothouse. Nature wasn’t enjoyed here. It was something to master. Under the dome of the conservatory, nature was snipped, strangled, and bred, its growth stunted with copper bonsai wire, its very pollination orchestrated by hand.

At the back of the solarium, they passed through a stained-glass door and reached a seating area of rattan and mahogany woods, a small salon dug into the side of the main house. On the far side, a double set of swinging doors, muffled with insulating strips, led into the interior of the mansion.

Baldric Waalenberg settled into a wingback chair.

Isaak crossed to a desk, complete with an HP computer and wall-mounted LCD monitor. A blackboard stood next to it.

Prominently chalked across its surface was a line of symbols. All of them runes, Gray saw, noting the last was the
Mensch
rune from the Darwin Bible.

Gray counted and memorized them discreetly. Five symbols. Five books. Here was the complete set of Hugo Hirszfeld’s runes. But what did they mean? What secret was
too beautiful to let die and too monstrous to set free
?

The old man folded his hands in his lap and nodded to Isaak.

He tapped a key, and a high-definition image filled the LCD monitor.

A tall cage hung suspended above the jungle floor. It was sectioned into two halves. A small figure huddled within each side.

Gray took a step forward, but a guard restrained him at rifle point. On the screen, one of the figures looked up, face bright, illuminated by an overhead spotlight.

Fiona.

And in the other half of the cage, Ryan.

Fiona had her left hand bandaged, rolled up in the hem of her shirt. The cloth was stained dark. Ryan held his right hand tucked under his armpit, putting on pressure.
Bloody them up first
. The bitch must have cut their hands. Gray prayed that was all it was. A dark fury hollowed out his chest. His vision sharpened as his heart hammered.

“Now we will talk,
ja
?” the old man said with a warm grin. “Like gentlemen.”

Gray faced him, but he kept one eye on the screen. So much for gentility. “What do you want to know?” he asked coldly.

“The Bible. What else did you find within its pages?”

“And you’ll let them free?”

“And I want my goddamn hand back!” Monk blurted out.

Gray glanced from Monk to the old man.

Baldric nodded to Isaak, who in turn waved to one of the guards and barked an order in Dutch. The guard turned on a heel and shoved through the double doors, entering the manor house’s interior.

“There is no need for further nastiness. If you cooperate, you have my word you will all be kept well.”

Gray saw no advantage in holding out, especially as he held nothing of value except lies. He shifted sideways and displayed his bound wrists. “I’ll have to show you what we found. I can’t accurately describe it. It’s another symbol, like these others.”

Another nod, and in a moment, Gray was free. He rubbed his wrists and approached the blackboard. Several rifles were dead-leveled upon him.

He had to draw something that would be convincing, but he was not all that familiar with runes. Gray remembered Himmler’s teapot, the one back at the museum. A runic symbol had decorated the pottery. It should be cryptic enough, convincing enough. And by throwing a proverbial wrench in the works, it might also delay these folks from solving the mystery here.

He picked up a piece of chalk and sketched the symbol on the pot.

Baldric leaned forward, eyes pinched. “A sun wheel, interesting.”

Gray stood by the board, chalk in hand, like a student awaiting a teacher’s verdict on a math problem.

“And this is all you found in the Darwin Bible?” Baldric asked.

From the corner of his eye, Gray noted a slight smirk on Isaak’s face.

Something was wrong.

Baldric waited for Gray to answer.

“Let them go first,” Gray demanded, nodding to the monitor.

The old man locked gazes with Gray. Despite his dissembling attitude, Gray recognized a savage intelligence and a hint of hard cruelty. The old man enjoyed all this immensely.

But finally Baldric broke their standoff, glancing over to his grandson and nodding again.

“Wie eerst?”
Isaak asked. Who first?

Gray tensed. Something was definitely wrong.

Baldric answered in English, his eyes again fixed on Gray, wanting to fully enjoy the entertainment. “The boy, I think. We’ll save the girl for later.”

Isaak tabbed a command on the keyboard.

On the screen, the bottom of the trapdoor fell open underneath Ryan. He silently screamed, flailing as he fell. He crashed hard into the tall grasses below. He stood quickly, searching around, terrified. The boy was plainly aware of a danger to which Gray was blind, perhaps something drawn by their dripping blood.

Ischke’s earlier words replayed in Gray’s head.

We just wait word from
grootvader…
Then the hunt can begin
.

What hunt?

Baldric motioned to Isaak, miming turning a knob.

Isaak tapped a key, and sound rose from speakers. Screams and shouts echoed out.

Fiona’s voice rang clear. “Run, Ryan! Get up in a tree!”

The boy danced once more in a circle, then ran, limping, out of the frame. Worse still, Gray heard laughter. From guards out of camera view.

Then a new scream stretched out from the speakers.

Feral and full of bloodlust.

The cry shivered the hairs all over Gray’s body, standing them on end.

Baldric made a slashing motion across his neck and the audio was muted.

“It is not only orchids we breed here, Commander Pierce,” Baldric said, dropping all pretense of civility.

“You gave us your word,” Gray said.

“If you cooperated!” Baldric stood, rising smoothly. He waved an arm dismissively to the blackboard. “Do you think us fools? We knew all along that there was nothing else in the Darwin Bible. We have what we need already. This was all a test, a demonstration. We brought you here for other reasons. Other questions that need answering.”

Gray reeled from what he was hearing, realization dawning. “The gas…”

“Only meant to incapacitate. Never kill. Your little sham was amusing though, I’ll grant you that. Now it is time to move on.”

Baldric stepped closer to the mounted screen. “You are protective of this little one, are you not? This fiery little slip of a girl.
Zeer goed
. I will show you what awaits her in the forest.”

A nod, a tapped key, and an image filled a side window on the monitor.

Gray’s eyes widened in horror.

Baldric spoke. “We wish to know more about a certain accomplice of yours. But I wanted to be sure we are done with games now,
ja
? Or do you need another demonstration?”

Gray continued to stare at the image on the screen, defeated. “Who? Who do you want to know about?”

Baldric stepped closer. “Your boss. Painter Crowe.”

6:19
A.M
.
RICHARDS BAY, SOUTH AFRICA

Lisa watched Painter’s legs tremble as they climbed the steps to the local office of British Telecom International. They had come here to meet a UK operative who would aid in logistical and ground support for any assault on the Waalenberg estate. The firm was only a short taxi ride from the airport at Richards Bay, a major port along the southern coast of South Africa. It lay only an hour’s drive from the estate.

Painter clutched the handrail, leaving a moist handprint. She caught his elbow and assisted him up the last step.

“I’ve got it,” he said with a bit of a snap.

She didn’t respond to his anger, knowing it bubbled up from an internalized anxiety. He was also in a lot of pain. He’d been popping codeine like M&M’s. He limped toward the door to the telecom firm.

Lisa had hoped the downtime on the plane would have helped him regain some strength, but if anything, the half day spent in the air had only advanced his debilitation…his
devolution,
if Anna was to be believed.

The German woman and Gunther remained at the airport, under guard. Not that any sentry was necessary. Anna had spent the last hour of the trip vomiting in the jet’s bathroom. When they had left, Gunther had been cradling Anna on the couch, a damp washcloth over her brow. Her left eye had turned bloodshot and seemed painfully bruised. Lisa had given her an antiemetic for the nausea and a shot of morphine.

Though Lisa hadn’t voiced it aloud, she estimated Anna and Painter had at best another day before they were too far gone for any hope of a treatment.

Major Brooks, their only escort, opened the door ahead for them. His eyes scanned the streets below, ever vigilant, but few people were about at this early morning hour.

Painter walked stiff-limbed through the door, struggling to hide his limp.

Lisa followed. In a few minutes, they were ushered past the reception area, through a large gray maze of cubicles and offices, and into a conference room.

It was empty. Its wall of windows at the back overlooked the lagoon of Richards Bay. To the north stretched an industrial port of cranes and container ships. To the south, divided by a seawall, spread a section of the original lagoon, now a conservation area and park, home to crocodiles, sharks, hippos, pelicans, cormorants, and the ever-present flamingos.

The rising sun turned the waters below into a fiery mirror.

As they waited, tea and scones were brought into the room and spread out on the table. Painter had already settled into a seat. Lisa joined him. Major Brooks remained standing, not far from the door.

Though she didn’t ask, Painter read something in her expression. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” she countered softly. The empty room intimidated her for some reason.

He smiled at her, his eyes sparkling. Despite his outward degeneration, the man himself remained sharp. She had noted a very slight slurring to his speech, but it could just be the drugs. Would his mind be the last to go?

Beneath the table, her hand reached for his, a reflexive gesture.

He took it.

She didn’t want him to go. The strength of her emotion overwhelmed her, surprising her. She had barely gotten to know him. She wanted to know more. His favorite food, what made him belly laugh, how he danced, what he would whisper when he said good night. She didn’t want it all to go away.

Her fingers squeezed, as if her will alone could hold him here.

At that moment, the door to the room opened again. The UK operative had finally arrived.

Lisa turned, surprised at who walked in. She had been picturing some James Bond clone, some clean-cut and Armani-suited spy. Instead, a middle-aged woman, dressed in a wrinkled khaki safari suit, entered the room. She carried a hat crumpled in one hand. Her face was mildly pancaked in red dust, except around her eyes, where sunglasses must have sat. It gave her a startled appearance, despite the weary set to her shoulders and a certain sadness in her eyes.

“I’m Dr. Paula Kane,” she said, nodding to Major Brooks as she entered, then stepping over to join them. “We don’t have much time to coordinate.”

Painter stood over the table. An array of satellite photos was spread out over the table. “How old are these shots?” he asked.

“Taken at dusk last night,” Paula Kane said.

The woman had already explained her role here. After graduating with a Ph.D. in biology, she had been recruited by British intelligence and posted in South Africa. She and a partner ran a series of research projects while secretly monitoring and watching the Waalenberg estate. They had been spying upon the family for close to a decade, until a tragedy less than two days ago. Her partner had been killed under strange circumstances.
Lion attack
was the official explanation. But the woman had looked little convinced as she offered this explanation.

“We did an infrared pass after midnight,” Paula continued, “but there was a glitch. We lost the image.”

Painter stared at the layout of the massive estate, over a hundred thousand acres. A small landing strip was visible, cut through a swath of jungle. Outbuildings dotted a landscape of forested highlands, vast grassy savannas, and dense jungle. In the center of the densest section of forest squatted a castle of stone and wood. The Waalenberg main residence.

“And we can’t get a better view of the lay of the land around the mansion?”

Paula Kane shook her head. “The jungle in the area is Afromontane forest, ancient woodlands. Only a few such forests remain in South Africa. The Waalenbergs picked this location for their estate both because of its remoteness and to capture this gigantic forest for themselves. The bones of this forest are trees forty meters high, layered into distinct strata and canopies. The biodiversity within its bower is denser than any rain forest or Congo jungle.”

“And it offers a perfect insulating cover,” Painter said.

“What goes on beneath that canopy is known only to the Waalenbergs. But we do know the engineering of the manor house is only the tip of an iceberg. A vast underground complex lies beneath the estate.”

“How deep?” Painter asked, eyeing Lisa. If they were experimenting with the Bell here, they would want it buried away.

“We don’t know. Not for sure. But the Waalenbergs made their fortune in gold mining.”

“At the Witwatersrand Reef.”

Paula glanced up at him. “Correct. I see you’ve been doing your homework.” She turned her attention back to the satellite photos. “The same expertise at mine engineering was used to construct a subterranean complex beneath their mansion. We know the mining engineer, Bertrand Culbert, was consulted in the construction of the manor’s
foundations,
but he died shortly thereafter.”

“Let me guess. Under mysterious circumstances.”

“Trampled by a water buffalo. But his death was not the first, nor the last associated with the Waalenbergs.” Her eyes flared with pain, plainly reminded of her partner. “Rumors abound of people vanishing in the area.”

“Yet no one has served a search warrant on the estate.”

“You have to understand the volatility of South African politics. Regimes may change, but gold has always ruled here. The Waalenbergs are untouchable. Gold protects them better than any moat or personal army.”

“And what about you?” Painter asked. “What’s MI5’s interest here?”

“Our interest goes back a considerable way, I’m afraid. British intelligence has had their eye on the Waalenbergs since the end of World War II.”

Painter settled back down into his chair, tiring. One of his eyes was having trouble focusing. He rubbed at it. Too conscious of Lisa studying him, he turned his attention to Paula. He had not voiced his discovery of the Nazi symbol buried within the center of the Waalenberg crest, but apparently MI5 was already aware of the connection.

“We knew the Waalenbergs were major financial backers of the Ahnenerbe Forschungs und Lehrgemeinshaft, the Nazis’ Ancestral Heritage and Teaching Society. Are you familiar with the group?”

He shook his head, triggering a spasm. His headaches of late had spread to his neck and shot pain down his spine. He rode the agony, teeth clenched.

“The Ancestral Heritage Society was a research group, under Heinrich Himmler. They were conducting projects seeking out the roots of the Aryan race. They were also responsible for some of the most heinous atrocities committed in concentration camps and other secret facilities. Basically they were mad scientists with guns.”

Painter held back a wince—but this time it was more
psychic
than physical. He had heard Sigma described in similar terms.
Scientists with guns.
Was that their true enemy here? A Nazi version of Sigma?

Lisa stirred. “What was the Waalenbergs’ interest in this line of research?”

“We’re not entirely sure. But there were many Nazi sympathizers in South Africa during the war. We know the current patriarch, Sir Baldric Waalenberg, also had interests in eugenics, and he participated in scientific conferences in Germany and Austria before hostilities broke out. But after the war, he disappeared into seclusion, taking his entire family with him.”

“Licking his wounds?” Painter asked.

“We don’t believe so. After the war, Allied forces scoured the German countryside, searching for secret Nazi technology.” Paula shrugged. “Including our own British forces.”

Painter nodded. He had already heard about that pillaging and looting from Anna.

“But the Nazis were good at spiriting away much of their technology, employing a scorched-earth policy. Executing scientists, bombing facilities. Our forces came upon one such site in Bavaria minutes late. We discovered a scientist, shot in the head in a ditch, yet still alive. Before he died, he revealed some clues as to what had been going on. Research into a new energy source, one discovered through quantum experimentation. They’d had some breakthrough. A fuel source of extraordinary power.”

Painter shared a glance with Lisa, remembering Anna’s discussion about zero point energy.

“Whatever was discovered, the secret was smuggled out, escaped through rat runs set up by the Nazis. Little is known except the name of the substance and
where
the trail ended.”

“At the Waalenberg estate?” Lisa guessed.

Paula nodded.

“And the name of the substance?” Painter asked, though he already knew the answer, putting it together in his head. “Was it called Xerum 525?”

Paula glanced to him sharply, straightening with a frown. “How did you know?”

“The Bell’s fuel source,” Lisa mumbled to him.

But to Painter, it only made sense. It was time to come clean with Dr. Paula Kane. Painter stood.

“There’s someone you need to meet.”

Anna’s reaction was no less intense. “So the secret to manufacturing Xerum 525 wasn’t destroyed?
Unglaublich!
”

They were all gathered back at the Richards Bay airport, huddled in a hangar while a pair of dusty Isuzu Trooper trucks were being loaded with weapons and equipment.

Lisa ran an inventory check through a medical kit while overseeing the discussion between Painter, Anna, and Paula. Gunther stood at Lisa’s side. His brow was deeply furrowed with worry as he watched his sister. Anna seemed steadier after the medicine Lisa had given her.

But for how long?

“While the Bell had been evacuated to the north with your grandfather,” Painter explained to Anna, “the secrets of Xerum 525 must have been shipped south. Dividing two parts of one experiment. At some point, word must have reached the Waalenbergs of the Bell’s survival. Baldric Waalenberg—as a financial backer for the Ancestral Heritage Society—must have known about
Granitschloß
.”

Paula agreed. “The society was the group that backed Himmler’s expeditions into the Himalayas.”

“And once discovered, it would have been easy for Baldric to infiltrate spies into
Granitschloß
.”

Anna’s face had grown paler—and not from illness. “The bastard has been using us! All along!”

Painter nodded. He had already explained the gist of it to Lisa and Paula on the ride back to the hangar. Baldric Waalenberg had been orchestrating everything, pulling strings from afar. Not one to waste talent or reinvent the wheel, he had allowed the
Granitschloß
scientists, experts in the Bell, to continue their research, while all the time, his spies siphoned the information back out to Africa.

“Afterward, Baldric must have built his own Bell,” Painter said, “experimenting in secret, producing his own
Sonnekönige,
refining them through the advanced techniques discovered by your scientists. It was the perfect setup. Without another source of Xerum 525,
Granitschloß
was vulnerable, unwittingly under the thumb of Baldric Waalenberg. At any moment, he could pull the rug out from under them.”

“Which he did,” Anna spat out.

“But why?” Paula asked. “If this secret orchestration was working so well?”

Painter shrugged. “Maybe it was because Anna’s group was drifting further and further away from the Nazi ideal of Aryan supremacy.”

Anna pressed a palm against her forehead, as if that would ward against what she was learning. “And there were rumblings…among some of the scientists…of going mainstream, of joining the scientific community and sharing our research.”

“But I don’t think it was just that,” Painter said. “Something more is afoot. Something larger. Something that suddenly made
Granitschloß
obsolete.”

“I believe you might be correct,” Paula said. “For the past four months, there has been a sudden increase in activity at the estate. Something stirred them up.”

“They must have come to some breakthrough on their own,” Anna said with a worried expression.