A pitiful moan came from the drowning monk a few meters away. He was upside down in a funneling tornado of muddy water draining downward into the cellar, but the drainage grid prevented him from going through it. So he was left drowning, caught by the downward spiraling suction. Nina had to go. It was almost dawn and the water was flooding the entire holy island along with the unfortunate souls who sought sanctuary there.
Her canoe was bobbing wildly near the second tower wall. If she did not rush, she would go down with the landmass and lie dead under the lake’s muddy rage like the rest of the dead bodies bound to the cemetery. But the gurgling shouts occasionally coming from the churning waters over the cellar appealed to Nina’s compassion.
He was going to shoot you. Fuck him, her inner bitch urged. If you bother to help him, you will end up the same. Besides, he probably just wants to grab you and hold you under for bludgeoning him just then. I know I would. Karma.’
“Karma,” Nina mumbled as she realized something from the night in the Jacuzzi with Sam. “Bruich, I told you Karma would whip me with water. I have to make things right.”
Cursing herself for the trivial superstition, she hastened through the powerful current to reach the drowning man. His arms were flailing wildly when his face went under as the historian rushed toward him. Mainly, the problem Nina encountered most was her small frame. She simply did not weigh enough to rescue a grown man, and the water swept her off her feet as soon as she stepped into the swirling vortex with still more lake water pouring in.
“Hold on!” she shouted, as she tried to grab a hold of one of the iron bar teeth that barred the narrow windows to the cellar. The water was furious, dumping her under and thrashing her gullet and lungs without resistance, but she did her best not to release her grip as she reached out her hand to the arm of the monk. “Grab my hand! I’ll try to get you out!” she shouted as the water slammed into her mouth. “I owe a goddamn cat some amends,” she said to nobody in particular, as she felt his hand lock over her forearm in a lower arm grasp.
With all her strength, she pulled him upwards, even just to help him catch his breath, but Nina’s tired body started to fail her. Again, she tried to no avail, watching the walls of the cellar crack under the weight of the water, soon to collapse onto them both in certain doom.
“Come on!” she screamed, electing this time to wedge the toe of her boot into the wall and using her body as leverage. The effort was too great for Nina’s physical ability and she felt her shoulder dislocate as the monk’s weight along with the current, pulled it out of the rotator cuff. “Jesus Christ!” she shrieked in agony just before the gulf of mud and water drew her under.
Like the swirling liquid madness of a crashing ocean wave, Nina’s body was jerked harshly and flung against the bottom part of the collapsing wall, yet she still felt the monk’s hand hold firmly. As her body hit the wall a second time, Nina grabbed the bar with her good hand. ‘Like a chin-up,’ her inner voice urged. ‘Just pretend it is a really heavy chin-up, because if you don’t, you’ll never see Scotland again.’
With one last roar, Nina pulled herself up from the water’s surface, dislodging the suction hold on the monk and he came darting to the top like a buoy. He was momentarily unconscious, but when he heard Nina’s voice, his eyes opened. “Are you with me?” she shouted. “Please grab on to something because I cannot hold your weight anymore! My arm is badly injured!”
He did as she asked, keeping himself up by hanging onto one of the next window’s bars. Nina was exhausted to a point of passing out, but she had the diamonds and she wanted to find Sam. She wanted to be with Sam. He made her feel safe and she needed that more than anything right now.
With the wounded monk in her wake, she climbed up on the top of the fence wall to follow it to the buttress where her canoe waited. The monk did not chase her, but she bolted onto the little vessel and rowed madly over Lake Tana. Looking back frantically every few paces, Nina raced back to Sam, hoping he had not sunk along with the rest of Wereta yet. In the pale dawn of morning, with prayers against predators rolling over her lips, Nina floated away from the diminished island which had now become nothing more than a lone lighthouse in the distance.
30
Of Judas, Brutus, and Cassius
Meanwhile, as Nina and Sam battled their tribulations, Patrick Smith was tasked with making the arrangements for the delivery of the Holy Box to its resting place in Mount Yeha, near Aksum. He was preparing the paperwork to be signed off by Col. Yimenu and Mr. Carter for submission to the MI6 head office. As the head of MI6, Mr. Carter’s administration would then present the papers to the Purdue tribunal to close the case.
Joe Carter had arrived at Aksum Airport few hours earlier to meet with Col. Yimenu and the legal representatives of the Ethiopian government. They would oversee the delivery, but Carter was apprehensive about being in the company of David Purdue again, fearing the Scottish billionaire would attempt to expose Carter’s true identity as Joseph Karsten, First Level Member of the sinister Order of the Black Sun.
During his trip to the tent village at the base of the mountain site, Karsten’s mind was racing. Purdue was becoming a serious liability, not only to him, but to the Black Sun in general. Their release of the Magician to dump the planet into a terrible pit of catastrophe was coming along just swimmingly. The only way their plan could fail, was if Karsten’s double life was exposed and the organization discovered, and those problems had only one trigger — David Purdue.
“Did you hear about the floodings in Northern Europe, now hitting Scandinavia?” Col. Yimenu asked Karsten. “Mister Carter, I apologize for the power failures making everything so inconvenient, but most of the North African countries, as well as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, all the way up to Syria, are suffering darkness.”
“Yes, so I have heard. It must be a terrible burden on the economy, for one,” Karsten said, playing a splendid role of ignorance, while he was the architect of the current global dilemma. “I am sure, if we all put our minds, and financial reserves, together, we might be able to salvage what is left of our countries.”
After all, that was the aim of the Black Sun. Once the world was crippled by natural disasters, businesses failing, and security threats causing grand scale robberies and destruction, it would be injured enough for the organization to overthrow all super powers. With their boundless resources, skilled professionals, and collective wealth, the Order would be able to capture the world under a new regime of Fascism.
“I don’t know what the government will do if this darkness, and now the floods, cause any more damage, Mr. Carter. I just don’t know,” Yimenu lamented in the noise of the bumpy trip. “I trust the United Kingdom has some form of emergency measure?”
“They should,” Karsten replied with a hopeful look at Yimenu, his eyes not betraying his disdain for what he deemed a lower species. “As far as the military is concerned, I reckon we will be using our resources as much as one can against acts of God.” He shrugged, looking sympathetic.
“This is true,” Yimenu replied. “These are acts of God; a cruel and angry god. Who knows, we might be standing on the brink of extinction.”
Karsten had to fight off a smile, feeling like Noah, watching the un-favored meeting their fate at the hand of the god they did not worship well enough. Trying not to get carried away in the moment, he said, “I’m sure the superior ones among us will survive this Apocalypse.”