Black Order

  Bloody them up first.

  5:18 A.M.

  AIRBORNE OVER AFRICA

  Painter sat with a pen in hand. The only noise in the plane was the occasional snore from Gunther. The man seemed oblivious to the danger into which they were flying. Then again, Gunther did not have the same time constraints as Anna and Painter. Though all three were headed toward the same place—devolution—Anna and Painter were in the fast lane.

  Unable to sleep, Painter had used the time to review the history of the Waalenberg clan, gaining as much intel on the family as possible.

  To know your enemy.

  The Waalenbergs had first reached Africa by way of Algiers in 1617. They proudly traced their family history back to the infamous Barbary pirates along the North African coast. The first Waalenberg was a quartermaster for the famous pirate Sleyman Reis De Veenboer, who operated an entire Dutch fleet of corsairs and galleys out of Algiers.

  Eventually, rich upon spoils from the slave trade, the Waalenbergs had moved south, settling into the large Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. But their piracy didn’t end there. It just went aground. They gained a powerful stranglehold on the immigrant Dutch population, so that when gold was discovered in the lands they settled, the Waalenbergs profited the most. And the gold found was not a small amount. The Witwatersrand Reef, a low mountain range near Johannesburg, was the source of forty percent of all the world’s gold. Though not as ostentatious as the famous diamond mines of the De Beerses, the gold of the “Reef” was still one of the world’s most valuable storehouses of wealth.

  It was upon such wealth that the family set up a dynasty that transcended the First and Second Boer Wars, and all the political machinations that became South Africa today. They were one of the richest families on the planet—though for the past generations, the Waalenbergs had grown ever more reclusive, especially under the auspices of their current patriarch, Sir Baldric Waalenberg. And as they disappeared from the public’s eye, rumors grew around the family: of atrocities, perversions, drug addictions, inbreeding. Yet still the Waalenbergs grew richer, with stakes in diamonds, oil, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals. They put the multi in multinational.

  Could this family truly be behind the events at Granitschloß?

  They were certainly powerful enough and had ample resources. And the tattoo Painter had found on the blond assassin definitely bore a resemblance to the “Cross” of the Waalenberg crest. And then there were the twins, Isaak and Ischke Waalenberg. What was their purpose in Europe?

  So many unanswered questions.

  Painter flipped a page and tapped his pen on the Waalenberg crest.

  Something about the symbol…

  As with the history of the Waalenbergs, Logan had forwarded information about the symbol. It traced back to the Celts, another Nordic tribe. Emblematic of the sun, the symbol was often found emblazoned on Celtic shields, earning it the name of shield knot.

  Painter’s hand paused.

  Shield knot.

  Words filled his head, spoken by Klaus as he died, a curse cast at them.

  You will all die! Strangled when the knot tightens!

  Painter had thought Klaus had been making a reference to a tightening noose. But what if he had been referring instead to the symbol?

  When the knot tightens…

  Painter turned over a fax sheet. He sketched while staring at the Waalenberg crest. He drew the symbol as if someone had cinched the knot more tightly, drawing the loops together, like tying a shoelace.

  “What are you doing?” Lisa materialized at his shoulder.

  Startled again, he scooted his pen across the paper, almost tearing it.

  “Good God, woman, will you please stop sneaking up on me like that!”

  Yawning, she settled on the arm of his chair, perching there. She patted him on the shoulder. “Such a delicate disposition.” Her hand remained there as she leaned closer. “Really. What were you drawing?”

  Painter suddenly was too conscious of her right breast next to his cheek.

  He cleared his throat and returned to his sketch. “Just playing with the symbol we found on the assassin. Another of my operatives saw it on a pair of Sonnekönige in Europe. Twin grandchildren of Sir Baldric Waalenberg. It must be important. Perhaps a clue we’ve overlooked.”

  “Or maybe the old bastard just likes branding his offspring, like cattle. They’re certainly breeding them as such.”

  Painter nodded. “Then there was something Klaus said. Something about tightening a knot. Like an unspoken secret.”

  He finished the sketch with a few more careful strokes, cinching it down.

  He put one beside the other.

  The original and the tightened.

  Painter studied both drawings and realized the implication.

  Lisa must have noted the slight intake in his breath. “What?” she asked, leaning even closer.

  He pointed his pen at the second sketch. “No wonder Klaus was swayed to their side. And possibly why the Waalenbergs had become so reclusive these past few generations.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re not dealing with a new enemy here. We’re dealing with the same one.” Painter shaded the center of the cinched-down shield knot, revealing its secret heart.

  Lisa gasped. “A swastika.”

  Painter glanced to the slumbering giant and his sister.

  He sighed. “More Nazis.”

  6:04 A.M.

  SOUTH AFRICA

  The glass conservatory had to be as old as the original house. Its paned windows were leaded and swirled, as if melted under the African sun and set into a black iron framework that reminded Gray of a spiderweb. Condensation on the inside of the glass blurred the view to the dark jungle outside.

  After first stepping inside, Gray was struck by the moisture. The humidity in the chamber had to be pressing the 100 percent mark. His thin cotton jumpsuit sagged against him.

  But the solarium was not for his comfort. It sheltered a wild profusion of greenery, potted and shelved, climbing in tiers, hanging from baskets held by black chains. The air was perfumed by hundreds of blossoms. A small fountain of bamboo and stone tinkled quietly in the center of the room. It was a handsome garden, but Gray wondered who needed a hothouse when you already lived in Africa.

  The answer appeared ahead.

  A white-haired gentleman stood on a second tier with a tiny pair of snip scissors in one hand and tweezing forceps in the other. With the skill of a surgeon, he leaned over a small bonsai tree—a flowering plum—and clipped a tiny branch. He straightened with a satisfied sigh.

  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 arou
nd 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.”

  12

  UKUFA

  6:19 A.M.

  RICH
ARDS 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.