Hunt for the Holy Grail

by Preston W Child

  She nodded.

  “Please.”

  —

  Tom told her on the phone that the cop, Steve Garner, was still at large. The sheriff growled, even mad at himself.

  “I have assigned two cops to you, Olivia. They’d follow you to work and back. They’d stand guard at your door too, all night.”

  Olivia thanked him.

  “One more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You have to let them check the apartment before you go in, every goddamn time, and before you go to bed!”

  “Tom, do you think it’s necessary—”

  “Olivia, you know what Tom Cooper knows now, you are a target. You’ve got to do whatever you need to do now.”

  “The autopsy reveal anything yet?”

  “Yeah, I was going to tell you that—they found a roll of paper in the body, swallowed, in a small plastic bag.”

  “Anything was written on it?”

  “An address, in Rome.” Tom added, “I took it off the list, no one knows about it, just you and me.”

  Olivia said it was good judgment to keep the information from other parties.

  He sighed.

  “I have to go to the hospital now.”

  “Give Betty my love.”

  —

  Everyone wore the expressions of a suspect. Olivia was on the verge of paranoia. She wore her sunglasses to hide her suspicions.

  Rob Cohen was waiting for her manuscript when she walked into the Miami Daily in the morning. Olivia looked around the office, searching the faces for any traces of danger. In Cohen’s office, there were fresh flowers on his table.

  Noting her inquiring glance, Cohen reminded her it was his birthday.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Olivia narrated the events of the previous night.

  “Damn,” Cohen said quietly. “It's true then.”

  “Yeah, and the cop is still at large.”

  “Miami police is keeping it under wraps. That’s one hell of a story, Olivia.”

  “We can’t print this story now, Rob,” she said. “This goes deeper than I thought, and one man is dead already.”

  “If you need a place, my flat—”

  “No, Rob. I need to infiltrate the Miami police.” Olivia looked straight in Cohen’s eyes.

  “The sheriff is your friend—”

  “I want someone outside the loop,” said Olivia.

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “I’m protecting him.”

  Cohen nodded as he tapped a pen on his table. He squinted his eyes at Olivia. Then he exhaled.

  “What do you want?”

  “Ted Cooper’s personal computer.”

  Cohen raised his eyebrows. He stopped tapping his pen and froze for a moment. He started shaking his head in refusal. “We’ll have to break into the evidence room to get to that place, Olivia.”

  “It doesn’t have to leave the evidence room.”

  Cohen squinted his eyes again. “What do you have in mind?”

  Olivia laid her plan out for Cohen.

  —

  Olivia and Floyd drove into the Miami police department parking lot that evening in a rented Toyota. She had placed a call to the police desk asking to speak to Tom Garcia, the sheriff, ten minutes before they arrived.

  The thin voice of the woman who answered said the sheriff was out and would not be in until 9:00 pm. Then Olivia had called Tom on his cell, and the sheriff had told her he was at the hospital with his wife. The time was 7:00 pm.

  They met a harried police officer whom Rob Cohen told them would be waiting with the package at 7:50 pm in the parking lot by Ha, the fire exit. The cop was named Eddie Fuller, and he was wearing black work clothes, just like he said he would.

  Olivia smiled, thinking the disguise was unnecessary. She sighed, reminded that Tom would throw fits to find her doing this.

  Eddie Fuller was small, almost bald, he had grey eyes that searched inside the car, and a smile that went nowhere near the eyes. He placed his hands on the door, looked Floyd over.

  “Who’re you?”

  Floyd stammered, “Erm, I, um, am a reporter.”

  “You have fifteen minutes,” the cop said. A scowl replaced the smile.

  “Cohen says thirty.”

  “Who is Cohen?” he asked, handed the package over, and walked away.

  Floyd looked at Olivia and asked what that was all about. Cops and no names, she thought. Olivia’s eyes probed the area. Only cars, no humans. Air vents hummed above; traffic sounds filtered down from the street. Eddie, the cop, must have done something to the lighting here because it was dark where they were. Two fluorescent tubes illuminated the entrance area.

  Olivia unwrapped the package from the creased brown paper bag. She pulled out a black Dell laptop; it was greasy on the back with so much touching. Olivia gave it to Floyd. The nerd licked his lips, his eyes huge orbs behind his thick bifocals.

  “Careful with that, you could catch a cold from touching it.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” Floyd rubbed flushed palms together. “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything 'Holy Grail.' Come on, we have fifteen minutes.”

  “I need five.”

  “Sweet.”

  Floyd went to work.

  —

  Eight minutes later, Floyd waved a flash drive in Olivia’s face.

  “We’re all set here.”

  “You kidding me?” She pouted.

  “I literally shrunk the stuff in the laptop and dumped it here, but don’t worry, everything Holy Grail is cached so you’d have no trouble finding it.”

  Olivia peered into the gloom looking for the cop. He appeared from the side of a police truck carrying with him a toolbox. He took the package from Olivia, the same way it was given, and walked away silently.

  “Thank you…cop Eddie,” she said in a small voice.

  Olivia nosed the rented car towards downtown.

  —

  Someone had probably wiped Ted Cooper’s laptop clean of leads.

  The only reference to the Templars she found was a short thesis on the Order, covering their activities from the 12th to the late 13th century. It was purely scholarly, rather than expository.

  Rob Cohen called her, eager to hear a follow-up. “Hit me.”

  “Nothing to hit you with, Rob,” she said. “Some took a thresher to it before we got there.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, it’s zilch leads here.”

  Cohen told her to keep her posted if she found something new, and hung up.

  Olivia scoured the website of the Holy See; she found a directory and an email. She sent off a letter making an inquiry about some Father Andre, half expecting nothing in return.

  Ten minutes later, she received a reply from the See. There was no such cleric in the Vatican, did she need assistance in speaking with another cleric, perhaps she would like to make confessions?

  She ignored the email.

  Meanwhile, she searched more about the Templars.

  The Templars were extremely religious people. They’d die protecting the temple of their god. They’d faced enemies with the brute of barbarians but with the skill of Norse.

  Olivia thought, though, that there was little difference between the two tribes—the barbarians and the Norse.

  The files that Floyd helped pilfer from Ted Cooper’s computer indicated that the Templars that claimed ownership of the Holy Grail were no different from the ancient ones. They’d build an underground laboratory just to hide a powerful relic.

  Like many such Orders, old ways bred discontent in some members, and resentment was the mother of sects.

  In the late 13th century, a group of Templars organized themselves into a breakaway body. They called themselves the Dissenters.

  The Dissenters were as ruthless as the broader organization from which they pulled out, but their goals were more in alignment with the times. They were created for times like the
se—to stop a contaminated Templar Order from bringing humanity to ruin.

  Two weeks ago, the Templars lost the Holy Grail in Rome, to a filibuster, a Catholic father named Andre. It had been taken off the carrier on its way to the Half-face, the man who, supposedly, would bring the apocalypse.

  Now all she had to go on was practically empty computer storage, a cleric’s name, and the address that Cooper had swallowed. The address didn’t turn up any location in Rome, either.

  Olivia reasoned, “If this Half-face guy is here, in Florida, what was the relic doing in Rome?”

  “This is America,” Tom said. “If he’s gonna take over the world, I guess he’ll start here.”

  Olivia’s hand paused over the keys of her laptop, where she had been writing a preliminary manuscript for the Holy Grail story. Rob Cohen had asked her to after exacting a promise from her that she stayed in his flat, or took Tom’s offer of accommodation. “I don’t want to hear about a dead journalist on CNN, that’s embarrassing,” he had quipped over the phone.

  Olivia sat back, hands behind her head. She stared at the Miami Daily on the table. Matt Brolin's glossy face was grinning back at her. Ted Cooper had told her not to trust anyone.

  Then her phone started ringing again. It was Rob Cohen.

  “Brolin’s giving a speech in Cypress Hall at the University of Florida tomorrow,” he rushed without preamble. “I need you to cover it.”

  “Send Marybeth.”

  “Olivia, I’m not telling you, I’m asking you.”

  “I’m in the middle of—”

  “Besides, you don’t know what you might find out there,” he pressed. “Come on, Olivia.”

  “Okay. I’ll go.”

  “And, Olivia, be careful.”

  She said she would. Tom had finished fixing his wife’s IVs. He sat there for a moment to watch his wife sleep. Betty’s chest rose and fell gently. Her color gained more intensity since she left the hospital. Maybe home was enough medicine.

  Tom came to her, scratching the side of his face; his nails left deep red lines. “Where are you going?”

  “The university. Brolin’s giving a speech tomorrow.”

  Tom nodded. He would assign two lovely cops to her.

  Olivia said, “Thanks.” Then she said, “Tom, I need a tiny little favor.”

  The sheriff stopped grazing his face.

  “Can I, maybe, get my car back?” she asked, one of her eyes squinted, and her lips screwed together.

  “You’re too much risk, but I’ll see what can be done.”

  Olivia grinned.

  6

  The small poster advertising the event flapped in the rushing breeze. Olivia held it against the steering wheel. The car radio blared, and she sang along with Rod Stewart’s 1972 “You Wear it Well.”

  Her voice rose hoarsely over the dull hum of the engine and the traffic. She sang into the rearview mirror, checked her dark eyes and hair pulled back and tied with a rubber band. She wore a pink shirt under a blue jacket that was open at the chest.

  Then she also checked to make sure that the two cops, Richards Molina and Bobby Topeka, followed not too far off. Olivia had followed their evasive instructions. She had made two circuitous drives by Third and Fourth Streets, one stop at the Texaco gas station by Joslings & Rigger, then back to Fourth Street.

  It had been annoying at first, all the driving around, not to mention how much gas expenditure that cost. Olivia had bantered with the cops on the radio that she was given to cool her nerves.

  Richards Molina said he was busy driving, and Topeka was reading a sex book.

  “He’s got this behemothic crush on you, ma’am,” Richards had said, his speech heavy with an Italian accent.

  “Fuck you, Richards,” came Topeka's Brooklyn drawl.

  Both men were relatively new in Miami. It was why Tom put them on Olivia’s detail.

  As she drove towards the university, she turned on the radio and shut the cops off. She cried against the roof, “You wear it well, a little old fashioned, but that’s all right…”

  The parking lot was almost filled up but she found space between a scooter and a news van and parked carefully. Her radio squawked to life again.

  “We’ll be right behind you,” came Topeka’s voice. “Left, right, and topside.”

  “Can I get a gun?”

  “No, you can’t.”

  Olivia fixed her police-issued earphones and followed the throng of peaceful Florida citizens up a hanging step that seemed to go up forever. She went through glass doors, where two guards on each side stood watch. Olivia lingered in front of a plaque on the wall. This hall was built in 1976, and was commissioned by President Francis Gary Odner, it read.

  When it became apparent that the two cops watching her had decided to make themselves invisible, she went to find herself a seat.

  “You okay, Miss?”

  “There you are, I thought I lost you guys,” she said under her breath.

  “I am in the third row in front,” said Richards Molina.

  “And I’m just behind you.”

  Olivia turned around and saw Topeka wearing a white t-shirt. Welcome to Miami was written on it in bold blue letters. When Topeka smiled, he looked like a shark with a wig on.

  The program began. The young anchor looked like an undergrad student. He wore a flat cap, a tweed jacket and jeans, and white Nike shoes. He enunciated glibly.

  Speakers climbed the stage and jumped off, each talking about how much America needed a man with vision, a man like Matt Brolin. Then the congressman himself swaggered up to the stage in a white polo and brown chinos. He wore golf shoes that made thudding sounds as he walked on the floorboards.

  He waved, took off his baseball cap, and settled on the podium. He was handsome, clean-shaven, and from this range, Olivia thought he could have been easily shot.

  Wicked thought, she mused. Especially when she could easily be blown away by an assassin’s rifle. She looked around at the folks; regular people, all of them.

  She started doing what she had come to do, to make notes about Matt Brolin and his electoral ambition.

  —

  The political chants staged, the questionings and ersatz posturing came to an overwhelming conclusion. Olivia checked her notes—two medium-length paragraphs’ account of the event, and her conception of the next senator for the state of Florida.

  She started moving with the crowd through the aisle when she stopped in her tracks in surprise.

  Frank Miller was grinning from ear to ear, shuffling through the crowd in her direction.

  “Miss Newton.” Frank Miller took Olivia’s hand.

  Bobby Topeka was instantly beside her, his hand on the Beretta in his belt. Richards Molina hung behind the billionaire, a hard look on his face. They hung back without making contact, as Olivia embraced the tall man.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Miller?” She brightened.

  “I go where I’m needed.”

  “How nice of you. You’re a friend of Brolin?”

  “Old friend, yes. Plus, I have interests in Florida to care for.” He guided Olivia through the main entrance into the warmth outside. “I’m sorry about Cooper. My condolences, he was such a fine man.”

  “Oh, he was?”

  Miller looked at her without offense. They walked in the direction of the parking lot. Olivia noted that Frank Miller was alone; he was dressed like a household equipment salesman in a sloppy turquoise blue blazer, and the Florida t-shirt underneath. His leather shoes were obviously expensive.

  As they neared Olivia’s red Corvette, Frank Miller’s attitude became ponderous and wary. The rich and wealthy never had peace, Olivia had heard in church, back when she still attended.

  Molina and Topeka watched from both sides of the parking lot.

  “Something I have to tell you, Miss Olivia.”

  “You knew I was coming here.”

  Olivia stared at the man, unflinchingly. Miller's attitude became even
more anxious. He acted like he expected to be ambushed at any moment. The two cops sensed his agitation too, and they moved in closer.

  “Yes, I did,” he answered.

  Olivia grimaced, her stomach knotted in anger and fear. “How?”

  “That is not what matters now, Ms. Olivia. I have come to tell you that we are both in danger. Assume that your phone and computers are all being monitored now. That is how much power the new Templars have—”

  “Stop, please!”

  Olivia looked around the place. People clustered around. On the far end of the parking lot, several TV crews had mounted cameras on tripods. A blockade of reporters hedged Brolin in. No one seemed to pay Olivia and Miller any mind. No one except her police protection.

  “You knew about Cooper?”

  “Yes, I am a Dissenter, so was Cooper,” Miller confessed. “He came to me first, but I didn’t move fast, or Cooper was too impulsive for his own good. And he had orders to specifically not talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  “You have been through too much in the recent past, and this business is too dangerous, as you now know.”

  Olivia was sweating in her clothes. Her throat felt parched, her temples throbbed from recollection.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “I’m putting our old team together. I want you on it, I need your intuition—”

  “We lost Friedman the last time, now Cooper is dead. What makes you think we can succeed now?”

  “Friedman, I regret losing, more than you know,” the man said. “Cooper knew exactly what he was getting involved with, he made his choices—”

  “He made a choice to speak out!” Olivia snapped.

  “Yes, but he did without a team. None of us can survive what’s coming on their own. The team is ready, Ms. Olivia. And we have to move fast. I need the address.”

  “What address?” Olivia took two steps back.

  From the corner of her eyes, she saw the two cops close the gap. She bumped into a car; the car alarm blared. Miller made no move.

  “The one Cooper swallowed, the autopsy—”

  “How’d you know about that, no one else knows…who told you?”

  “Ms. Olivia, I assure you I mean no harm, but I need that address—”

  Olivia stumbled around the news van; her feet tangled as she turned to the other side. She peeped at Miller through the windscreen of the van to make sure the billionaire didn’t follow her.