The Black Sun Conspiracy

Chapter Forty-Nine

Sam wrapped his arms around her and let himself be comforted by the hug. In all of this madness, it was a relief to feel something as simple as a friendly touch, more so the friendly touch of one so precious to him. He closed his eyes and stood for a moment, inhaling the clean scent of her hair, taking comfort in her proximity.

“They said you wanted to see me,” he said softly, not letting go.

“I did,” she nodded. “I do. There’s something you have to know, something Professor Lehmann told me. I should probably have just asked him to tell you himself rather than risking getting everyone into trouble this way, but I thought… I thought you’d better hear it from me.”

“Sounds serious,” he said. “Let go for a second. Here. If it’s going to be serious, we’ll probably need these.” He pulled out his remaining cigarettes and lighter. “It’s not like we’re going to have to worry about setting the smoke alarms off, not with the window gaping open like that.”

Gratefully Nina accepted a cigarette, then curled up at one end of the bed and tucked her feet under her. Sam sat opposite, shoving her pillow against the brass rails behind his back. There was something oddly comforting about these moments, he found. From the depths of an Antarctic bunker to the moonlit riverbank at the far end of the Grand Canyon, from sticky-floored pubs in Edinburgh to this strange Belgian prison, the one thing that stayed constant was Nina, and the feeling of being in this together — even when they had not known exactly what “this” was.

“Professor Lehmann came to see me,” said Nina, searching for a way to begin. “He told me… well, he told me a lot. Things about the Order in general and how he got involved with it when he was young, and how he hoped that when he moved to England he would be able to keep a low profile and avoid being an active member. Unfortunately for him — unfortunately for all of us — he has Steven for a son. As Steven grew up, some of Lehmann’s old contacts from the Black Sun began offering him jobs. Eventually they invited him to join the Order, and when Professor Lehmann suggested that it would be a bad move, Steven decided to go for it. That’s always been the way with him. He’s got this massive inferiority complex where his father’s concerned — thinks he’s out to keep Steven down and make sure he’s never as successful as his father was. It’s nothing of the kind, as far as I can tell. Just one of those unfortunate cases where a genius father manages to have a stupid son. Or rather, a son who’s just intelligent enough to recognize that he’s not in his father’s league, but not clever enough to figure out why.”

She paused and took a deep drag on her cigarette. “Sorry. I’m rambling. The point is that Steven got involved because of his father’s contacts, who realized that he was fairly easy to manipulate and enough of a thug to be useful if you put him in the right position. He was also good friends with Charles Whitsun.”

“You’ve mentioned that before,” said Sam. “Are you going to tell me that Steven was part of the arms ring? Because I’ve had my suspicions for a long time.”

“He was,” she nodded, staring out at the dark sky. “I didn’t know that at the time, of course. When we were together. As far as I knew, he was a marketing manager for a global spirits retailer. He went abroad quite a lot, because part of his job was to go and convince people in the Middle East to buy vodka or gin or whatever it was that he was peddling. Apparently that was a front. He was really acting as a go-between for this arms ring. Not a very powerful position — and he was working closely with Charles Whitsun and always in his shadow. But it must have made Steven feel like he was hanging around with the big boys, and he always liked that.”

“So did Professor Lehmann say that Charles Whitsun was actually running the ring?” Sam asked, his curiosity getting the better of the pain involved in dredging up the memories. “I thought he was in charge, but ever since Antarctica I’ve thought that his father was pulling his strings.”

“That’s exactly what was happening. Charles had responsibility for one small part of it, moving weapons through that warehouse in East London with Steven as his bully boy, but Admiral Whitsun was the one responsible for the global operation. The only person he was answerable to was the head of the Order. Professor Lehmann didn’t go into much detail about who that was, but he referred to ‘Renatus’ rather than ‘Renata’ so we can assume it wasn’t the woman we’ve seen. From what he’s said, she hasn’t been in power very long. The point is that Admiral Whitsun was considered much too valuable to go down when the arms ring fell, so he sacrificed his own son instead.”

Sam nodded pensively. He had supposed as much when he had speculated about Admiral Whitsun’s involvement. Charles Whitsun had never struck him as sufficiently charismatic or an effective enough leader to run such a dangerous operation. He had been far too indiscreet, too puffed up with pride and keen to use his status to impress a hot girl. People who ran black market arms deals successfully, Sam was sure, did not spill their secrets that easily.

“Apparently Whitsun had hoped to avoid a trial and all the exposure that went with it,” Nina ploughed on. “His intention was that Charles would get caught in the cross-fire during the shoot-out that you were involved in. He even asked Steven to be the one who saw to it. I doubt he would have, because he was honestly devoted to Charles, but he got shot himself and didn’t have a chance to do it — or at least that’s what he told the Order when they found him hiding out afterwards. If they’d thought he had disobeyed a direct command they would probably have executed him. As it was, it took Professor Lehmann calling in a lot of favors to keep Steven safe. But he told me… he said that after you went to their house that time, he and Steven fought bitterly. Steven thought you’d gone there because his father was trying to set you on him and have him taken down the way Charles was. While they were arguing…” she broke off, searching for the right words. “While they were arguing, Steven said that Charles had known about Patricia’s real identity. He had known that she had been planning to write an expose to bring down him and the arms ring, and that’s why he’d invited her along that day. He had given Steven the task of… of shooting her. He killed her, Sam. Steven Lehmann was the one who murdered Patricia.”

Sam was silent. The world around him seemed to have slowed to a stop. He searched for something to say. Nothing much, just a few words to acknowledge what Nina had said. He had nothing. He had always assumed that he would never know exactly who fired the bullet that robbed Trish of half her face. In the cross-fire, he had thought, it could have been anyone. Seeing the arms ring fall and Charles Whitsun brought to trial was all the vengeance or closure he was ever going to get.

Now, to learn that her death had not been a matter of chance, and that the man who set out to kill her was right here under the same roof… It was bizarre. ‘I should be reacting differently,’ he thought. ‘I should be on my feet now, I should go after the bastard. I should be halfway down the stairs, ready to smash his head to pulp or die trying. So why am I not? Why am I just sitting here?’

“Sam?” Nina had moved along to his end of the bed without him even noticing until she put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you ok? I thought I’d better tell you…”

He gave his head a swift shake, trying to pull himself back to reality. “Yeah,” he said distantly. “Yeah, I’m fine… You were right to tell me. You had to.”

She watched him intently. “There’s more to tell,” she said. “After the arms ring fell, and apparently just before Renata was appointed, there was some kind of schism within the Order. Professor Lehmann thinks it might have had something to do with her appointment. She was an odd choice, but her predecessor named her and that’s all it took. There was a faction within the Order that wanted to overrule it and appoint someone else, but it didn’t end well. The ones who didn’t support her formed a sort of splinter group, and now there’s a weird standoff going on between the Order of the Black Sun and this other organization. They’re based in one of the old arms ring strongholds on the border between Mongolia and Russia, but Professor Lehmann thinks they’re drawn from all the different branches of the Order and that no-one knows how deeply the splinter group has infiltrated.”

Her words washed over Sam. He tried to follow what she was saying, but his mind was still full of Trish’s ravaged face and the thought of Steven Lehmann pulling the trigger. Slowly a few words began to sink in, but not quickly enough for Nina. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him a little.

“Sam! I know it’s a lot to take in, but it’s important. Listen. If there is a splinter group, then these people are not all-powerful. It means we don’t have to give in to them. Someone out there is already fighting them. We can, too. There’s still a chance! If we can find a way out of here, perhaps we can make contact with this group — I know where they are, Professor Lehmann told me. We still have a chance!”

Like a man waking from a deep sleep, Sam felt himself piecing things together. The sense of being lost was beginning to clear. If the Order of the Black Sun was responsible for Trish’s death, then he would not join it to save his own life. Not under any circumstances. If he knew the identity of Trish’s killer, he would make sure that man paid. And if there was a chance, however slim, that he could fight against the Order, then that was what he was going to do. He had played his part in the fall of the arms ring, and in the collapse of FireStorm. He was involved in the biker brawl in Valhalla that silenced the most powerful threat to the human race and her iniquitous plans. He had done all of those things when his only fights had been against injustice and threats against the people he loved.

“Let’s fight them, then.” Sam’s voice was a resolute growl. “Let’s fight them every step of the way.”

Then somehow, Sam did not quite know how, Nina was in his lap and his arms were around her and his lips were on hers, her hands were on his skin and all sense of everything beyond the rush of sensation was lost.