Preston Child - The Babylonian Mask

“But…” Marlene Marx tried to protest, pointing at the now empty door where the British lawyer had just told them otherwise.

“Her name is Margaret. She just saved you lot a whole bucket of legal hold-ups that would have procrastinated your little hunt,” Sam revealed. “She is a reporter for a Scottish newspaper.”

“A friend of yours, then,” Werner assumed.

“Aye,” Sam confirmed. Kohl looked befuddled as always.

“Unbelievable!” Nurse Marx threw her hands up. “Is anyone who they say they are anymore? Mr. Marduk plays Dr. Fritz. And Mr. Cleave plays tourist. That reporter lady plays a W.U.O. lawyer. Nobody shows who they really are! It’s just like that story in the Bible where nobody could speak each other’s languages and there was all this confusion.”

“ Babel ,” came the collective answers from the men.

“Yes!” she snapped her fingers. “You’re all speaking a different language and this office is the tower of Babel.”

“Don’t forget that you pretend that you’re not romantically involved with the Lieutenant here,” Sam stopped her with a reprimanding index finger.

“How did you know?” she asked.

Sam just cocked his head, declining even bringing her attention to the closeness and petting between the two. Nurse Marx blushed when Werner winked at her.

“Then there is the bunch of you who pretend you are undercover officers when in fact you are distinguished fighter pilots of the German Luftwaffe Operational Forces, just like the prey you are hunting for God knows what reason,” Sam eviscerated their deceit.

“Told you he was a brilliant investigative journalist,” Marlene whispered to Werner.

“And you,” said Sam, cornering the still dazed Dr. Fritz. “Where do you fit in?”

“I swear I had no idea!” Dr. Fritz confessed. “He just asked me to keep it for him. So I told him where I had put it in case I was not on duty when he was discharged! But I swear I never knew that thing could do that! My God, I almost lost my mind seeing that…that…unnatural transformation!”

Werner and his men, along with Sam and Nurse Marx, stood confounded at the doctor’s incoherent babbling. Only Marduk appeared to know what was going on, but he remained quiet to watch the madness unfold in the doctor’s office.

“Well, I’m thoroughly confused. How about you lads?” Sam declared with his bandaged hand at his side. They all nodded in a resounding chorus of disapproving murmurs.

“I think it is time for some exposition to help us all unmask each other’s real intentions,” Werner suggested. “After all, we might even be able to help each other with our various pursuits, instead of trying to fight each other.”

“Wise man,” Marduk chipped in.

“I have to do my last rounds,” Marlene sighed. “If I don’t show, Sister Barken will know something is up. Will you fill me in tomorrow, darling?”

“I will,” Werner fibbed. He then kissed her goodbye before she opened the door. She looked back at the admittedly fascinating anomaly that was Peter Marduk and blessed the old man with a kind smile.

When the door closed, a thick atmosphere of testosterone and distrust overwhelmed the occupants of Dr. Fritz’s office. There was not only one Alpha here, but each man knew something the other lacked knowledge of. Sam started eventually.

“Let us make this snappy, shall we? I have a very urgent concern to attend to after this. Dr. Fritz, I need you to send Dr. Nina Gould’s test results to Mannheim before we sort out whatever you have sinned,” Sam ordered the doctor.

“Nina? Dr. Nina Gould is alive?” he asked in awe, letting out a sigh of relief and crossing himself like the good Catholic he was. “That is wonderful news!”

“Small woman? Dark hair and eyes like hellfire?” Marduk asked Sam.

“Aye, that would be her, no doubt!” Sam smiled.

“I’m afraid she took my presence here wrongly too,” Marduk said, looking sorry about it. He decided not to share that he had slapped the poor girl when she had made trouble. But when he told her she would die, he’d only meant that Löwenhagen was at large and dangerous, something he did not have time to explain all over now.

“That’s alright. She is like a bite of hot pepper to just about everyone,” Sam replied while Dr. Fritz drew Nina’s hard copy folder and scanned the test results into his computer. Once the document with the awful material was scanned in, he asked Sam for the e-mail of Nina’s doctor at Mannheim. Sam furnished him with a card containing all of the details and carried on clumsily putting a fabric plaster on his brow. As he winced, he cast a glance toward Marduk, the man responsible for the cut, but the old man pretended not to see.

“There,” Dr. Fritz exhaled long and hard, relieved that his patient was still alive. “I’m just elated that she is alive. How she got out of here with that poor eyesight, I’ll never know.”

“Your pal led her all the way out, doctor,” Marduk enlightened him. “You know, the young bastard you gave the mask to so that he could wear the faces of the people he killed in the name of greed?”

“I did — not — know!” Dr. Fritz seethed, still sour at the old man for the throbbing headache he was suffering.

“Hey, hey!” Werner stopped the ensuing argument. “We’re here to resolve this, not fuck it up even more! Now, first I want to know what your, ” he pointed straight at Marduk, “involvement with Löwenhagen is. We were sent to apprehend him and that is all we know. Then, when I interviewed you, all this mask business came out.”

“As I told you before, I do not know who Löwenhagen is,” Marduk insisted.

“The pilot who crashed the plane is Olaf Löwenhagen,” Himmelfarb replied. “He burned in the crash, but somehow survived and made it to the hospital.”

There was a long pause. Everyone waited for Marduk to explain why he was chasing after Löwenhagen in the first place. The old man knew that, if he told them why he was pursuing the young man, he would have to reveal why he had set him alight too. Marduk took a deep breath and started shedding some light on the crow’s nest of misunderstanding.

“I was under the impression that the man I pursued from the blazing fuselage of the Tornado fighter plane was a pilot named Neumand,” he said.

“Neumand? That can’t be. Neumand is on leave, probably gambling away the last of his family’s coins in some back alley,” Himmelfarb scoffed. Kohl and Werner nodded approvingly.

“Well, I chased him from the scene of the crash. I pursued him because he had the mask. When I saw the mask I had to exterminate him. He was a thief, a common thief, I tell you! And what he stole was too powerful for any foolish imbecile like that to handle! So I had to stop him the only way a Masker can be stopped,” Marduk said anxiously.

“A Masker ?” Kohl asked. “Man, that sounds like a horror movie villain.” He smiled, patting Himmelfarb on the shoulder.

“Grow up,” Himmelfarb grunted.

“A Masker is one who assumes the face of another by using the Babylonian Mask. It’s the mask your evil friend made away with along with Dr. Gould,” Marduk explained, but they could all see that he was reluctant to clarify more.

“Go on,” Sam sniffed, hoping that his guess as to the rest of the description would be incorrect. “How does one kill a Masker?”

“By fire,” Marduk replied, almost too quickly. Sam could see that he just wanted to get it off his chest. “Look, to the modern world this is all old wives’ tales. I don’t expect any of you to understand.”

“Never mind that,” Werner dismissed the angst. “I want to know how this is possible, to put on a mask and have your face change into someone else’s. What part of that is even rational?”