Black Order/Chapter 5

Painter learns from Lisa that many people were dead. Painter processes the information as they wound deeper into the subterranean root cellar.

Weaponless, they fled into the cellars to escape the flames of the monastery.
Getting clothes, he needed to improve his health, given his sickness, something that is needed for his given slight illness.

The two worked their way into the cellar. Dr Cummings mentions horizontal nystagmus, a possible blow to the head.

Painter tells more.

He was staying at one of the outlying villages when, during the middle of the night, in which Painter Crowe learned of the changes. At night, he had observed strange lights in the mountain skies, causing everyone in the village to wake up with headaches and nausea. An elder of the village had attributed it to ghosts and spirits. He sought help and had some tea, blacking out and was locked in a room for three days before being woken up. Lisa Cumming was curious what he did. He told her he works for DARPA and Sigma Force was contacted by Ang Gelu to investigate an illness.

Conversation between the two reveal that the attack was methodicla and planned in advance, and that they would know about the tunnels and eventually search there. They had to wati for the fire ablaze above to die down.
They walked to the corridor slowly. A door opened and closed. It was the assassin. He had shot the monks to silence them. He was here to clean up the mistakes. Duty as one of the last surviving Snnoekonige and Knights of Suna. He sees some hay and kicks it. Trap.

Cameras flashed everywhere, searing his eyes nad blinding him. Someone came on top of him and hit him. A stab wound entered his thigh, but he knocks the attacker back, only to realize his strength sputter out of him. It was a syringe with drugs. The syringe only slowed him.

Painter and Lisa escpae and keep the trapdoor trapped. They walk through the fires of the monastery to leave. They see the village was firebombed to leave no witnesses.

## 1:25 A.M. Washington D.C.

Monk crossed the Capitol Plaza with Kat at his side. Logan Gregory's call brought them out of their tiredness. While going, they decide to keep silent about Kat Bryant's pregnancy. Once they reach the command of Sigma Force, Logan Gregory briefs them. Kat is in intelligence and stays in command to deal with it while Monk is told to go to Denmark.

## 12:15 P.M. Himalayas

Lisa follows Painter.

They travel far away from the monastery. Painter says that two explorers found Shang-ri La. It was a monstrously deep gorge in the himalayas and it was tucked under a mountain spur, a place that failed to shw up on satellie maps. It was a substropical paraidse with waterfalls, fir and pine trees, meadows full of plants, streams and wiled garden landscape.

Lisa pulls out the camera she had used. The shots taken of the man did not capture much due to movement. , brush brow, and prominent jaw.

The final picture was related to the sad story of the head of the monastery Lama Khemsar. It was a script different. Reaching a point, they sleep.

Hours later, Painter wakes and Lisa is cautious. Ghost lights.
As Painter watched, the frozen waterfall flared again with a shining and deadly brilliance. The ghost lights had returned.

## Chronology

* Previous \*Black Order/Chapter 4
* Next Black Order/Chapter 6