King Solomon's Diamonds (Order of the Black Sun Series Book 18) Read online

  KING SOLOMON’S DIAMONDS

  Order of the Black Sun - Book 18

  Preston William Child

  Edited by

  Usnea Lebendig

  Contents

  Also by Preston William Child

  Poem

  1. Lost to the Beacon

  2. Treading on Snakes

  3. A Touch of Endearment

  4. The Doctor is In

  5. Distress in the Walls of Villa d’Chantal

  6. High Price

  7. Absent is the Traitor in the Pit of Revelation

  8. Blind Tribunal

  9. The Caller

  10. Cairo

  11. The Parchment

  12. Enter Dr. Nina Gould

  13. Eclipse

  14. A82

  15. Casting the Players

  16. Demons Don’t Die

  17. Foreplay

  18. Across the Heavens

  19. Chasing the Dragon

  20. The Enemy of my Enemy

  21. The Portent

  22. Alter Course

  23. Like a Diamond in the Sky

  24. The Accord

  25. Alchemy of the Gods

  26. Releasing the Scorpion onto the Snake

  27. Wet Desert

  28. Grave Robbing 101

  29. The Karma of Bruichladdich

  30. Of Judas, Brutus, and Cassius

  31. Flight from Wereta

  32. Flight from Aksum

  33. Apocalypse over Salzkammergut

  34. The Best Hundred Quid

  Also by Preston William Child

  Ice Station Wolfenstein

  Deep Sea One

  Black Sun Rising

  The Quest for Valhalla

  Nazi Gold

  Black Sun Conspiracy

  The Atlantis Scrolls

  Library of Forbidden Books

  Tomb of Odin

  The Tesla Experiment

  The Seventh Secret

  The Medusa Stone

  The Amber Room

  The Babylonian Mask

  Fountain of Youth

  Vault of Hercules

  Hunt for the lost Treasure

  Copyright 2017 by Preston William Child

  Created with Vellum

  “Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

  How I wonder what you are!

  Up above the world so high,

  Like a diamond in the sky.

  When the blazing sun is gone,

  When he nothing shines upon,

  Then you show your little light,

  Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

  Then the traveler in the dark

  Thanks you for your tiny spark,

  How could he see where to go,

  If you did not twinkle so?

  In the dark blue sky you keep,

  Often through my curtains peep,

  For you never shut your eye,

  Till the sun is in the sky.

  As your bright and tiny spark

  Lights the traveler in the dark,

  Though I know not what you are,

  Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”

  ~ Jane Taylor (© The Star, 1806)

  1

  Lost to the Beacon

  Wrichtishousis was even more radiant than Dave Purdue could remember. His home for over two decades, the majestic mansion’s towers, three in number, reached toward the ethereal Edinburgh sky as if to attach the manor to the heavens. Purdue’s white crown of hair stirred in the silent breath of the evening as he closed the car door and walked slowly up the remainder of the drive toward his front door.

  Careless of the company he was in or the taking of luggage, his eyes reacquainted themselves with his residence. Too many months had passed since he had been forced to flee its security. Its security.

  “Um, you did not get rid of my staff also, did you, Patrick?” he asked sincerely.

  By his side Special Agent Patrick Smith, Purdue’s former hunter and rekindled ally from the British Secret Service, sighed and motioned for his men to close the gates of the estate for the night. “We kept them on, David. No worries,” he replied in a calm, deep tone. “But they have denied any knowledge or involvement in your pursuits. I hope that they did not impair our superior’s investigation as to the harboring of religious and invaluable relics on your property.”

  “Rightly so,” Purdue agreed firmly. “These people are my housekeepers, not my colleagues. Even they are not allowed to know what I work on, where my pending patents are, or where I travel to when I am absent on business.”

  “Yes, yes, we have ascertained that. Look, David, since I’ve been following your movements and put people on your trail…” he started, but Purdue lent him a sharp look.

  “Since you turned Sam against me?” he snapped at Patrick.

  Patrick caught his breath, unable to formulate an apologetic comeback worthy of what had transpired between the two of them. “I fear he put more stock in our friendship than I’d estimated. I never intended for things between you and Sam to crumble because of it. You have to believe me,” Patrick explained.

  It had been his decision to alienate himself from his childhood friend, Sam Cleave, for the safety of his family. The separation was sore and necessary for Patrick, affectionately known to Sam as Paddy, but Sam’s involvement with Dave Purdue had steadily drawn the MI6 agent’s family into a dangerous world of post-Third Reich relic hunting and very true threats. Subsequently, Sam had had to rebuke his favor of Purdue’s companionship in exchange for Patrick’s acceptance once more, which turned Sam into a mole to seal Purdue’s fate during their excursion to find the Vault of Hercules. But Sam had ultimately proven himself loyal to Purdue by helping the billionaire stage his own death to avert capture by Patrick and MI6, while maintaining Patrick’s partiality for assisting in Purdue’s location.

  After exposing his status to Patrick Smith in return for rescue from the Order of the Black Sun, Purdue had agreed to stand trial for archaeological crimes lodged by the Ethiopian government for his theft of an Ark of the Covenant replica from Aksum. What MI6 wanted from Purdue’s property not even Patrick Smith could figure out, since the government agency had taken custody of Wrichtishousis shortly after the apparent demise of its owner.

  Only during a short preliminary hearing to prepare for the main tribunal meeting did Purdue manage to connect the smears of corruption, which he shared with Patrick in confidence the very moment he was confronted with the vile truth.

  “Are you sure that MI6 is being controlled by the Order of the Black Sun, David?” Patrick asked under his breath, making certain that his men did not hear.

  “I stake my reputation, my fortune, and my life on it, Patrick,” Purdue answered in the same fashion. “By God, your agency is under the supervision of a madman.”

  As they ascended the steps of the front façade of Purdue’s home, the front door opened. Inside the threshold, Purdue’s house staff stood with bittersweet welcoming faces, applauding their master’s homecoming. They kindly ignored the hideous deterioration of Purdue’s physical appearance after his week of starvation in the torture cell of the Black Sun’s matriarch, and they kept their astonishment a secret hidden securely under their skins.

  “We raided the pantry, sir. And your bar has been ransacked too, while we were drinking to your good fortune,” said Johnny, one of Purdue’s groundskeepers and a man Irish to the bone.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Johnny.” Purdue smiled as he stepped inside amidst the affectionate furor of his people. “Let’s hope I can replenish those stores immediately.”


  Greeting his staff took only a minute, as they were few, but their loyalty was like permeating sweetness dripping from jasmine blossoms. The handful of people in his service were like family, all like-minded, and they shared Purdue’s admiration for courage and perpetual search for knowledge. But the man he most wished to see was not there.

  “Oh, Lily, where is Charles?” Purdue asked Lillian, his cook and the in-house herald of gossip. “Please don’t tell me that he resigned.”

  Purdue could never reveal to Patrick that his butler, Charles, was the man responsible for indirectly warning Purdue that MI6 was out to capture him. It would squarely discount the assurance that none of the Wrichtishousis staff was involved in Purdue’s business. The hardy butler was also responsible for arranging the release of a man held prisoner by the Sicilian Mafia during the Hercules expedition, a sign of Charles’ ability to go beyond the call of duty. He had proven to Purdue, Sam, and Dr. Nina Gould, that he was beneficial in so much more than just ironing shirts with military precision and remembering each engagement on Purdue’s calendar every day.

  “He has been absent for a few days, sir,” Lily elucidated with a somber face.

  “Has he called in?” Purdue asked seriously. “I told him to come and live on the estate. Where does he live?”

  “You can’t go out, David,” Patrick reminded him. “Remember, you’re still under house arrest until the meeting on Monday. I’ll see if I can go round his place on my way home, alright?”

  “Thank you, Patrick,” Purdue nodded. “Lillian will give you his street address. I am sure she can tell you anything you need to know, right down to his shoe size,” he said with a wink at Lily. “Good night, all. I think I will retire early. I have missed my own bed.”

  To the third floor, the tall, emaciated master of Wrichtishousis climbed. He showed no signs of being at all emotional to be in his house again, but the MI6 men and his staff wrote it off as fatigue after a very trying month on his body and mind. But as Purdue closed his bedroom door and made for the balcony doors on the other side of his bed, his knees buckled. Barely able to see through the tears that flooded his cheeks, he reached for the handles, the right one a rusty annoyance he always had to wiggle.

  Purdue threw open the doors and gasped at the rush of cool Scottish air that filled him with life, real life; life like only the soil of his forefathers could bestow. Overlooking the vast garden of perfect lawns, ancient outbuildings, and the distant sea, Purdue wept to the ears of the oak, spruce, and pine trees that guarded his immediate yard. His silent sobs and chipping breaths disappeared in the whisper of their tops as the wind rocked them.

  He sank to his knees, allowing the hell in his heart, the infernal torment of his recent experience, to drown him. Trembling, his hands held his chest as it all came pouring out, dampened only for the sake of keeping quiet from human attention. He thought of nothing, not even Nina. He said nothing and did not consider, plot, or wonder. Under the extended roof of the enormous old manor, its master shook and wailed into his hands for a good hour, just feeling. Purdue abandoned all reason and elected only to feel. It took its own course, regurgitating the past few weeks from his life.

  His light blue eyes finally opened laboriously from swelling lids, his glasses long removed. That glorious numbness after sweltering purging caressed him as his whimpers lessened and became more subdued. Above him, the clouds pardoned a few calm twinkles of brightness. But the wetness of his eyes when he looked up at the night sky turned every single star into a blinding sparkle, their long streaking rays meeting at points as the tears in his eyes stretched them unnaturally.

  A shooting star caught his attention. It streaked across the dome of the heavens in silent chaos as it fell rapidly to some unknown destination, to be forgotten forever. Purdue was amazed at the sight. Though he’d seen it so many times before, this was the first time he really took notice of the strange way in which a star perished. But it was not necessarily a star, was it? He imagined the rage and fiery fall to be the fate of Lucifer – how it burned and screamed on its way down, undoing, un-creating, and ultimately dying alone where those who beheld the fall indifferently perceived it as just another quiet death.

  His eyes followed it on its path into some amorphous chamber within the North Sea, until its tail left the sky unpainted, returning to its normal, static state. Feeling a tinge of deep melancholy, Purdue knew what the gods were telling him. He too, had fallen from the crest of mighty men, turned to dust after erroneously deeming his happiness eternal. Never before had he been this man he had turned into, a man who was nothing like the Dave Purdue he knew. He was a stranger in his own body, a brilliant star once, but reduced to a quiet void he did not recognize anymore. All he could hope for was the reverence of the meager few who deigned to look up at the sky to watch him fall, to take but a moment from their lives to salute his collapse.

  “How I wonder what you are,” he said softly, inadvertently, and closed his eyes.

  2

  Treading on Snakes

  “I can do it, but I’ll need very specific and very rare material,” Abdul Raya told his mark. “And I’ll need those by the next four days; otherwise I will have to cancel our agreement. You see, Madam, I have other clients waiting.”

  “Do they offer a fee close to mine?” the lady asked Abdul. “Because this kind of exuberance is not easily trumped or afforded, you know.”

  “If I may be so bold, Madam,” the dark skinned charlatan smiled, “by comparison, your fee would be seen as a gratuity.”

  The woman slapped him, leaving him even more satisfied that she would be forced to oblige. He knew that her offence was a good sign, and it would leave her ego scorned enough to procure what he wanted while he duped her into believing that he had higher paying clients waiting on his arrival in Belgium. But Abdul was not entirely deceptive about his abilities in his boasting, because the talents he hid from his marks was a far more devastating notion to grasp. That, he would keep close to his breast, behind his heart, until it was time to reveal.

  He didn’t leave after her outburst in the lowlit drawing room of her lavish house, but remained as if nothing happened, leaning with his elbow on the mantle in the dark red surroundings broken only by gold-framed oil paintings and two tall, carved, oak and pine antique tables near the entrance of the room. The fire under the mantle crackled with zeal, but Abdul ignored the unbearable heat against his leg.

  “So, which ones do you need?” the woman sneered, returning soon after leaving the room, fuming. In her gem-adorned hand she held a posh notepad, ready to jot down the alchemist’s requests. She was one of only two people he had approached successfully. Unfortunately for Abdul, most Europeans of high class had keen character judging skills and quickly sent him on his way. On the other hand, people like Madame Chantal were easier marks because of that one quality men like him needed in his victims – a perpetual quality in those who always found themselves at the edge of the quicksand: desperation.

  To her, he was just a master smith of precious metals, a purveyor of fine and unique pieces wrought from gold and silver, their precious stones fitted in fine smithing. Madame Chantal had no idea that he was a virtuoso at forgery as well, but her ravenous taste for luxury and extravagance blinded her to any revelations he may have accidentally allowed to leak out of his mask.

  With a very capable left-handed slant, he wrote down the gems he needed to perform the task she’d hired him for. He wrote in the hand of a calligrapher, but his spelling was horrendous. Nevertheless, in her desperation to outdo her peers, Madame Chantal would do her best to attain what was on his list. After he was done, she perused the list. With a scowl sunk deeper in the prominent shadows of the fire, Madame Chantal let out a long sigh and looked up at the tall man that reminded her of a yogi or some arcane cult guru.

  “By when do you need this?” she asked abruptly. “And my husband cannot know. We must meet here again, because he does not readily come down to this part of the manor.”
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  “I have to be in Belgium in less than a week, Madam, and by that time I must have completed your order. We are pressed for time, which means I will need those diamonds as soon as you can slip them into your purse,” he smiled gently. His empty eyes fixed on her while his mouth spoke sweetly. Madame Chantal could not help but associate him with a desert adder, flicking its tongue while its face remained stone.

  Repulsion-compulsion. That is what it was called. She loathed the exotic craftsman, who also claimed to be an exquisite magician, but for some reason she could not resist him. The French noblewoman could not take her eyes off Abdul when he wasn’t looking, though he thoroughly revolted her in every aspect. Somehow his hideous nature, animal grunts, and unnatural talon-like fingers fascinated her to a point of obsession.

  He stood in the light of the fire, casting a grotesque shadow that was not far from his own likeness against the wall. A crooked nose upon a bony face lent him the appearance of a bird – a small vulture, perhaps. Abdul’s narrow-set, dark eyes shied away under virtually hairless eyebrows, caught in deep falling holes that only made his cheekbones seem more protrusive. Stringy and greasy, his black hair was taken back into a ponytail, and a single, small hoop earring adorned the lobe of his left ear.

  The stench of incense and spice permeated from him, and when he spoke or smiled, eerily perfect teeth broke the line of his dark lips. Madame Chantal found his scent overwhelming; she could not tell if he was Pharaoh or Phantasm. Of one thing she was certain: the magician and alchemist had a larger than life presence without even raising his voice or presenting a move of his hand. It frightened her and escalated the strange revulsion she had for him.

  “The Celeste?” she gasped as she read the familiar name upon the paper he had given her. Her face betrayed the concern she felt for obtaining the gem. Flashing like sublime emeralds in the light of the fire, Madame Chantal’s eyes searched Abdul’s. “Mr. Raya, I cannot. My husband has agreed to donate the Celeste to the Louvre.” Trying to remedy her fault at even suggesting she could get him what he wanted, she looked down and said, “The other two I can manage, surely, but not that one.”