The Sword of the Templars t-1

by Paul Christopher

  Even though it was late, the quarter was still busy, and the little street was crowded with tourists and de liverymen balancing huge trays of fruit and bread on their heads. The air smelled of hot stone and spices, and a dozen kinds of music could be heard over the chatter of voices speaking half a dozen languages.

  Take away the rock and roll and add a few donkeys and it could have been two thousand years in the past. Halfway back to the Damascus Gate Holliday could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising. He tensed, then gripped Peggy’s elbow.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “We’re being followed.”

  23

  “You’re sure?” Peggy said.

  “Certain,” answered Holliday. “He was outside the restaurant, smoking a cigarette. Waiting. Dark hair, jeans, sneakers, and one of those zip-up hoodie things, dark blue.”

  “He could be a student.”

  “He looks like a cop. Moves like one, too.”

  “Why would cops be following us?”

  “I have no idea, but I’m going to find out.”

  They reached the corner of Souk El-Khanka and turned right, heading south down Bab Khan El-Zeit, a busy market street, well-lit and with lots of stalls and shops still open.

  “This isn’t the way back to the hotel,” said Peggy. “We should have turned the other way, back toward Damascus Gate.”

  “I know that,” said Holliday.

  “So what are we doing?”

  “Finding out what’s going on, once and for all.”

  Holliday turned again onto a narrow side street called El-Khayat that ran behind. It was darker here, lit only at the entry to the alley. They went down a short flight of old stone stairs and kept on walking. A few seconds later, the man in the hoodie appeared and turned down the alley, as well.

  “Is he still behind us?” Peggy asked nervously.

  “Yes,” said Holliday. “That proves it; he’s on our tail.”

  “Now what?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Maybe we should just go back to the hotel,” said Peggy, “ask Raffi about it tomorrow.”

  “You ask him,” said Holliday. “I want answers now.”

  “You’re sure he’s a cop?”

  “I’m not sure of anything. He could be just a mugger, but I don’t think so.”

  “A mugger in Jerusalem?”

  “They have suicide bombers, why not muggers?”

  “It’s creepy, like pickpockets in Bethlehem. It’s just not right.”

  They reached the end of the street and turned south again, this time onto a slightly wider street called Christian Quarter Road, once more filled with strolling tourists and lined with shops and restaurants. A lot of the folding wooden shutters were closed, and half of the sky was blotted out by wooden, shelf-like awnings that jutted out over the paving stones. Every few yards the dark, shadowy entrance to a narrow laneway loomed.

  As they reached the corner of Christian Quarter Road and David Street Holliday saw another figure smoking a cigarette and leaning against a wall. This one was wearing an old Rolling Stones Tattoo You tour T-shirt from 1981. The T-shirt was so old the lolling tongue had faded to light pink.

  Holliday stopped in front of some kind of pottery store and watched an enormously fat woman in a straw hat and sweatpants with JUICY in big letters across her straining buttocks bargain for a pot in booming New Jersey-accented English. Maybe the Muslims were right, thought Holliday, trying not to stare: some women’s improperly covered bodies were an offense to God.

  Out of the corner of his eye he watched Tattoo You in conversation with the man in the dark blue hoodie. Blue Hoodie nodded and then walked away, heading back down Christian Quarter Road.

  “We’ve been handed off,” said Holliday.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Blue Hoodie just passed us on like a relay runner. The guy on our tail now is wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt.”

  “Is that important?”

  “It means they’re organized,” answered Holliday. It also meant they had enough resources to scatter men around the Old City and that they had some way to communicate, probably earpiece radios. Cops or better; he doubted that Kellerman’s people could put together something that sophisticated that quickly, especially in Israel.

  They moved away from the pottery store and turned left. Ahead of them, in the distance and glowing splendidly in a bath of brilliant light, was the Dome of the Rock, the mosque occupying the historic site of King Solomon’s Temple, the near-mythic source of the Templar Knights’ original wealth.

  The actual dome was covered in a hundred and seventy-six tons of gold donated by King Hussein of Jordan shortly before he died. They crossed El-Lahamin Street and walked to Bab-Alsilsileh, the Dome of the Rock like a fabulous beacon ahead of them rising from the rabbit warren of limestone buildings surrounding it. There were even more tourists here, heading for the Dome of the Rock or to the Wailing Wall, built by Herod to enclose and support the original Temple Mount.

  Even from blocks away Holliday could see the blaze of strobing flashes from people taking pictures of the famous holy place, one more treasured trophy shot so that JUICY from New Jersey could prove to her Bergen County buddies that she’d been there and they hadn’t.

  Among the tourists Holliday could spot at least half a dozen Catholic priests, a black-robed Greek Orthodox priest, a flock of Mother Teresa nuns in their distinctive tea-towel blue and white striped habits, and several big-hatted, long-bearded rabbis.

  Instead of following them, Holliday and Peggy ducked down a narrow winding alley that led them south again. Behind them, Tattoo You followed at a discreet distance. The T-shirt was at least one size too big, and the man tailing them wore it loose, not tucked in, probably to hide a weapon on his belt. The man was no more than thirty, with muscular biceps and an athletic look; even without a gun he’d be more than a match for Holliday. No confrontations here, that was for sure.

  The alley was leading them to the west, into the Armenian Quarter. Like all the street signs in Old Jerusalem there were three languages: Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The signs were bolted or inset into the walls at every street corner. The directions in the ancient city were easier to follow than the superhighways.

  Holliday still wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do, but he knew he didn’t want to just scurry back to the hotel and play possum. It wasn’t in his nature to run from a fight, but by the same token he knew better than to take on insurmountable odds. The question still remained, however: what would interest Israeli cops, local or otherwise, in their activities?

  They turned down yet another narrow street, this one called Tiferet Yisrael. Once again it took them farther west, with the Dome of the Rock at their backs now. The streets were empty of tourists, and the only footsteps other than their own were the ones of the man behind them.

  “Let’s get him off our tail,” said Holliday, finally exasperated and just a little tired of the prolonged game of cat and mouse. They slipped off Tiferet Yisrael down a stony little crack between two rows of anonymous buildings. The pathway was too narrow even to have a name.

  They reached the end of the shortcut and turned back the way they’d come, following a street broken into long, wide steps leading north. The sign on the wall said they were on Hakraim Gilaad. The street eventually took them back to Tiferet Yisrael, where they paused. There was no sign of Tattoo You.

  “Did we lose him?” Peggy asked.

  “Looks like it,” said Holliday, looking around. The little street was empty, all the shutters drawn against the evening chill.

  “So what was that all about anyway?” Peggy asked. “If you saw them like that they couldn’t have been very good at their jobs.”

  “Intimidation, I think,” said Holliday. “Just letting us know we were being watched.”

  “Do you think there’s any connection to whoever was down in those tunnels today?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should ask you
r friend Raffi tomorrow, like you said.”

  “Let’s not start that again,” said Peggy.

  They turned and headed back along the length of Tiferet Yisrael, heading to El-Lahamin Street and the way back to the Damascus Gate. A man dressed entirely in black came out of a doorway and turned toward them, walking casually. Holliday noticed a flash of white at his collar. A Catholic priest. Red-haired, red-cheeked, and wearing half-glasses. A man in his fifties. He wore a baggy black suit jacket over a regulation bibbed black shirt.

  The priest nodded to Holliday and Peggy as they passed. Holliday nodded back. In the one brief glance Holliday noticed something in the priest’s eyes. Something hard. He shook off a vague feeling of unease and walked on. From behind them he heard a short, metallic sound and turned. The noise had been familiar: the slide of an automatic pistol snapping into place.

  The priest stood less than ten feet away, his baggy jacket swept back, revealing a sling holster. In his hand he held a folding stock Czech Skorpion machine pistol, the short barrel fitted with a fat, black sausage suppressor. There was no time to react; the man lifted the gun to chest level, his finger already squeezing the trigger. There was no way out; they were dead where they stood.

  There was a sound like a huge hand slapping a door. For a split second Holliday thought he saw the priest’s jacket riffle, suddenly fanned by a rush of air. Then the red-haired man crumpled to the ground, falling forward on his face, the machine pistol dropping out of his extended hand and clattering onto the cobbled street.

  From the dark entrance to the alley they’d just come out of, Tattoo You appeared, a black polymer Jericho automatic pistol in his hands, the one they called a “Baby Eagle” back in the United States. He looked at Holliday and Peggy briefly, then holstered his weapon underneath his shirt again.

  “Get out of here, quickly,” said Tattoo You. He turned and disappeared into the darkness of the alley.

  Holliday stepped forward a few paces and knelt down beside the corpse of the priest. Blood was oozing beneath the left arm. Tattoo You had shot him through and through, perfect center of mass, the bullet blowing out the heart and lungs together.

  He felt around in the inside pocket of the dead man’s jacket and found a wallet and a passport. The passport had a red cover with the miter and crossed key insignia of the Holy See stamped in gold. He flipped open the Vatican passport and checked the I.D. page.

  The dead man’s name was Brendan Jameson, born October 22, 1951 in Mount Kisco, New York, presently a resident in Rome, Italy. His occupation was listed simply as “priest.” A priest with the Czech version of an Uzi? He slipped the passport back into the man’s inside pocket and checked the wallet. The I.D. in the wallet matched the passport. He replaced the wallet and climbed to his feet. In the distance Holliday could hear the approaching warble of sirens.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?” Peggy said.

  “They’re on the way. Someone must have heard the shot.”

  “Shouldn’t we stay and explain?”

  “Explain what? Why we’re standing here with a dead priest? I can’t explain it to myself let alone the cops. I’ve killed people in England and Germany. In most countries they call that murder. And don’t give me the innocent until proven guilty stuff; justice only works on Law and Order.” He took Peggy by the arm, turning her away from the priest’s dead body. “Come on.”

  Twenty minutes later, the Old City behind them, Holliday and Peggy reached the American Colony Hotel on the Nablus Road and stepped into the small, multi-arched lobby. A stout man with a horseshoe of curly dark hair and dressed in a wrinkled gray suit stood up from one of the old red brocade couches and approached them. As he walked Holliday could see that he was wearing a shoulder holster. He tensed. The fat man smiled pleasantly, extending his hand.

  “Colonel Holliday? Miss Blackstock, yes?”

  “Who wants to know?” Holliday asked.

  The smile on the fat man’s face faltered just a little.

  “I am Prakad… Chief Inspector Isidor Landsman of the Israeli Police Department.”

  “Yes?” Holliday said.

  “You are Colonel Holliday?”

  “Yes.”

  “There has been an accident. Your friend Dr. Wanounou of the university.”

  “Accident?” Holliday asked.

  “What happened?” Peggy asked. “Is he hurt?”

  “Dr. Wanounou was very badly beaten. He is at the University Medical Center. I can take you to him if you wish.”

  24

  They didn’t actually get to see the professor until early the following morning. According to Wanounou’s doctor at the Hadassah University Medical Center, a middle-aged man named Menzer, the archaeologist had suffered a fractured skull, a broken nose, a broken arm, several broken ribs, and assorted cuts, bruises, and contusions. If the fracture had been any worse he would have died.

  “In other words, they kicked the crap out of him,” said Menzer, eyeing them a little skeptically, wondering if they knew why this had happened to an innocent archaeology professor working late in his laboratory.

  Isidor Landsman had looked at them the same way. On the drive up Cheil Handasa to Mount Scopus Hospital on the university campus, the police detective had asked Holliday and Peggy why, according to the security log in the Archaeology building, they had been the only names listed along with Wanounou’s. What was their relationship? Why were they with the professor in his lab? Where had they been before arriving at the university? Where did they go after they supposedly left the professor alive and well? And over and over again: did they know of anyone or any reason why professor Wanounou would wind up being beaten within an inch of his life and left to die alone on his laboratory floor?

  Holliday and Peggy stuck to the same basic story: They’d come to Israel on the advice of Professor Steven Braintree of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. They wanted to consult with Wanounou regarding the provenance of an artifact that had been part of Henry Granger’s estate. The fact that Holliday was a decorated active soldier and a teacher at West Point seemed to mollify the chubby cop, but it didn’t stop him from continuing to ask questions. In the end he’d left them with the classic warning: don’t leave town.

  At seven thirty in the morning they were finally allowed into Wanounou’s room. It looked like every other hospital room that Holliday had ever seen. The floors were dark vinyl tile, the walls were cream-colored, and the door was big enough to maneuver a gurney through.

  There was an ominous blue panic button on the wall with white lettering that read simply CODE. There were two beds. The one nearest the door was empty but obviously in use. Wanounou was in the bed by the window, up five floors with a view of bright blue sky. The room smelled like rubbing alcohol and floor wax. People moved quietly up and down the halls carrying bouquets of flowers and peeping in doorways.

  The professor looked like hell. Both eyes were black and swollen three-quarters shut. His lips were swollen and the color of eggplant. He had a plaster skullcap and a plaster bandage on his nose. He had a cast on his left arm and wires and tubes everywhere.

  Machinery clicked and hummed all around the room. Things dripped into him, and things dripped out. The nurse, a skinny thin-faced man named Joseph with some kind of Slavic accent and a thick scar on his chin, told them they had exactly half an hour to visit. He looked like he meant it.

  Wanounou was conscious and a little groggy from assorted medications he’d been given. He gave them a puffy-lipped smile as they stepped up to the bed. Two of his front teeth were broken, their ends jagged. He lisped a little when he talked.

  “I’d kiss you, but it might be too painful,” said Peggy, pulling up one of the visitor’s chairs and sitting down. She extended her hand and let it rest on the professor’s sheet-covered leg. Wanounou’s smile broadened. It looked as though his lips were going to split open. Holliday winced.


  “Feeling better now,” said the professor. “A bit hungry though.”

  “That’s a good sign,” said Peggy.

  “What happened?” Holliday asked.

  “I was working on the scroll. It was about ten thirty or so. Three guys came into the lab. One of them had an attachй case. He took the sections of the scroll, and the other two started beating me. One of them had a piece of pipe with duct tape wrapped around it. The other one just used his fists.”

  Peggy winced.

  “What did they look like?” Holliday asked.

  “Ordinary, but like they went to the gym a lot.”

  “Military?”

  “Maybe. They didn’t have particularly short hair, except the one with the attachй case. He was bald.”

  “Tattoos?” Holliday was thinking about the sword and ribbon symbol he’d seen on the killer’s wrist at Carr-Harris’s summer house.

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Accents?”

  “They didn’t talk much.”

  “Anything?”

  Wanounou thought for a moment. The machinery ticked, dripped, and wheezed.

  “The one with the attachй case.”

  “What about him?”

  “He was a Christian.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He had a little crucifix on a chain around his neck. Gold.”

  That really didn’t mean much these days.

  “Anything else?”

  Wanounou thought again.

  “One thing. Silly.”

  “What?”

  “One of the guys kicking me. Before I passed out.”

  “What?”

  “His boots. Motorcycle boots, you know? The ones with a buckle.”

  “Okay.”

  “They were Rogani Bruno e Franco. I know the brand. Pricey. I’ve always wanted a pair. They make beautiful street shoes, too.”