Sword of the Templars

by Paul Christopher

  “I read you the translation of the Latin over the telephone,” said Holliday. “Did it mean anything to you?”

  Bernheim smiled broadly and took another drag on his cigarette.

  “Not at first. My Latin is sparse to say the least; it was never my subject even years ago. I think perhaps your translation was a little . . . rough, as well.”

  “I’ll grant you that.” Holliday nodded.

  “So,” continued Bernheim, “it did not sonner les cloches, yes? Ring the bells?” He shrugged again. “So I thought, I smoked a few cigarettes and thought some more. Fanum cavernam petrosus quies. So I did what my old teacher Monsieur Forain instructed. I, how do you say it, decomposer la phrase?”

  “Parse,” said Holliday.

  “Yes, parse,” nodded Bernheim. “I parsed the phrase. Fanum. Shrine. Holy Place. Cavernam. Cave. Hollow place. Petrosus. Rock. Stone. Quies. Resting place.”

  “Bells rang?” Peggy asked.

  “Indeed, yes, they rang loudly because I also remember Monsieur Forain telling us that Latin is often a matter of the turn of phrase. What are the phrases that we have here?”

  “Fanum cavernam and petrosus quies,” responded Holliday.

  “Quite so, les phrases descriptives, the descriptive phrases ‘holy cave’ and ‘rock of quiet.’ Then I see it. A pun, or perhaps even a code. Quies, a place of safety. A harbor perhaps. The Harbor of the Rock, yes?”

  “Is there such a place?” Peggy asked.

  “Certainly,” nodded Bernheim, triumphantly crushing out the fuming end of his cigarette. “Roger de Flor’s home port: La Rochelle, the harbor of the rock.”

  “And the holy cave?” Holliday said.

  “Saint-Emilion,” said Bernheim.

  “I thought that was a wine,” said Peggy.

  “Also a town not far from La Rochelle. Also a monolithic church carved out of the limestone where the hermit St. Emilion had his home. In a cave beneath the church. The Harbor of the Rock. The Holy Cave, n’estce pas?”

  “It could be,” nodded Holliday.

  “I am sure of it,” said Bernheim. “Go to see this person in La Rochelle.” He sat forward and scribbled something on a notepad. He tore it off the pad and handed it to Holliday. A name and address: Dr. Valerie Duroc, Université de La Rochelle, 23 avenue Albert Einstein, La Rochelle, France. “She will be your guide.”

  They left the museum and crossed the Seine on the Pont d’Iéna by the tour boat landing stage. They turned and walked along the quayside, enjoying being in Paris once again. Peggy had been there on assignment several times, and when Holliday had done a brief stint at NATO headquarters in Belgium, Paris had been his favorite go-to place for R&R.

  Paris. Arrogant, self-involved, pompous to the point of buffoonery, and populated by roughly six million elitist snobs forever looking down their noses at everyone else in the world, including the rest of their fellow Frenchmen, Paris was without a doubt still the most beautiful city in the world and one of the most fascinating. You could hate Paris for all its shortcomings, but at the same time you could have a wonderful time meeting the challenges the old bitch has got waiting for you around every corner.

  They eventually reached the Quai d’Orsay and turned down the boulevard Saint-Germain, heading toward their hotel. Saint-Germain was in full summertime riot gear, selling everything from Armani suits to ten-thousand-dollar cufflinks and solving the problems of the world over coffee and a sandwich jambon in any number of cafés that ran the length of the long, tree-lined grand boulevard.

  Half the store windows announced a grande vente to lure in the tourists, and the other half had signs in their windows warning of the dreaded fermeture annuelle, the city’s classic July-August vacation when all Parisians make their once-yearly trek to the country or the seaside and pretend to enjoy it.

  As Holliday and Peggy made their way down the street to their pension-hotel on the rue Latran they heard a dozen different languages being spoken and saw tour buses rolling by from at least that many countries. It was hardly the Left Bank of Hemingway’s time, but it was still a great show, complete with striped jerseys, berets, old Citroëns, and les flics, the smiling pillbox-hatted policemen twirling their nightsticks and caressing the nasty little automatic pistols holstered on their hips. Here and there Bosnian beggars lurked, often with landmine-blasted arms and legs, rattling paper cups in hand.

  They bought mustard slathered sausage rolls from a street vendor and continued down to the hotel, a six-story run-of-the-mill pension with no particular amenities other than the fact that, for a city like Paris, it was relatively cheap. Holliday and Peggy trudged up the narrow stairs to the second floor, said their good-byes in the hallway and retreated to their separate rooms. Neither one of them had slept since Jerusalem.

  The room was classic third-rate Paris. The bed was cast iron with a mattress so soft it almost hit the floor. The chest of drawers had survived two World Wars and had the scars to prove it, and the bidet was ridiculously crammed between the bathroom door and the window, which overlooked a back alley. The view was just as classic: chimneypots on rooftops that drifted down to the Seine and a corner of Notre Dame if you hung out over the fire escape like an acrobat.

  Holliday stared. The room had been completely trashed. The mattress looked as though someone had gone at it with a butcher knife; there were feathers and shreds of ticking everywhere. The drawers in the bureau hung open like lolling tongues, and clothes were scattered all around the room. His overnight bag had been torn to ribbons and the lining hacked out.

  He paused. A sound? His heart hammered in his chest; the smart thing would be to turn around and run. Instead he went across to the closed door of the bathroom, wincing as a floorboard creaked under his foot like a rifle shot. He paused again at the door and listened.

  Breathing, or the sound of a breeze blowing down the alley outside? Water dripped in the bidet. Holliday thought about the knife that had torn up the room. He stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm. He pushed open the door. The bathroom was empty.

  He turned back into the room, but something was nagging him. The shower curtain had been drawn around the bathtub. He was sure it hadn’t been like that when he left the room. He whirled. A knife razored past his shoulder, and he had an image of a slim, lean-faced man in a white shirt with the tails out. His head smashed against the doorframe, and he reeled back as the man lunged toward him.

  Holliday scuttled backward through the open doorway. His assailant tried to bring the knife up under his ribs, but he managed to twist away, the long stiletto blade slicing through his shirt and grazing his skin. Holliday managed to launch a sharp kick to the man’s groin.

  The intruder screeched and dropped one hand between his legs. Holliday staggered back, tripping over the slashed remains of the mattress. Suddenly the man was on top of him, straddling his chest, his free hand coming up underneath Holliday’s jaw, pushing his head back, leaving the throat open to attack.

  Holliday bucked frantically as the knife arced down toward him. He tipped the other man off his chest and slammed him into the iron bed, his knife hand snagging on the metal springs. Holliday ground his knee into the other man’s cheek, putting his weight into it.

  There was a wet cracking sound, and the man with the knife let out a muffled, choking scream. Holliday reached up and grabbed the man’s arm, pulling the wrist back over the edge of the iron bed, almost bending it back double on itself. The man let out a desperate groan, and the knife dropped out of his hand, clattering onto the floor.

  Somehow the man twisted out of Holliday’s grip and staggered to his feet. He was a lot larger than Holliday had originally estimated, and there was a frighteningly feral look about him. He was an attack dog, and even with a broken cheekbone and a nose gushing blood he looked as though he was in his element; this kind of thing was his business.

  A quick glance told Holliday that the knife was now behind him; to make a play for it would mean turning his back on the man in front. He also noticed that the man’s hands had a hard lin
e of callus on the outer edge of the palm. He knew what that meant; Turner, one of the martial arts instructors at the Academy, had hands like that. The kind of hands that could slice through a three-inch board or a concrete block. Or crush an esophagus. This guy didn’t need a knife at all.

  Things suddenly got even worse. The man smiled through the mask of blood covering the lower half of his face, the teeth like dirty little yellow pearls.

  “Connard,” he murmured.

  His right hand swept back under his shirt and came out with a stubby little Beretta Tomcat, a mini-pistol from the late seventies. It sounded like a rat sneezing and was only .32 caliber, but a .32-caliber hole in your forehead was a hole nonetheless. He stepped forward, still smiling, bringing the gun up, his finger tightening on the trigger.

  From the right side Peggy swept in under Holliday’s arm, the long-bladed stiletto underhanded in her fist. She drove it like an uppercut up under his chin, the stainless steel spike cutting through throat, tongue, and soft palette, eventually lodging deep in the man’s midbrain.

  Peggy let go of the blade. The man collapsed like a venetian blind. He fell forward, his cheek resting on Holliday’s shoe. Peggy was shaking, her eyes like saucers.

  “Is he dead?” she whispered.

  “You’re kidding,” answered Holliday. “He couldn’t get any deader.” He shifted his foot. The man’s head thumped lightly against the floor. He was barely bleeding at all.

  “Oh, God,” groaned Peggy. “I killed him.”

  “About a millisecond before he was going to kill me,” said Holliday. He put his arm around her, squeezing hard. “You saved my life, kiddo.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  They both stared down at the body.

  Holliday crouched down and turned the man over on his back. He checked the man’s wrist. There was a tattoo: the same sword and ribbon insignia he’d seen on the man in England.

  “One of Kellerman’s people,” said Holliday. He checked the man’s wallet. His carte d’identité said his name was Louis Renault, a citizen of Morocco, born in Casablanca. There was also a small leather folder that identified him as a captain in the elite Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale. “He’s a cop,” said Holliday. “Antiterrorist squad. We just stepped in it big time, I’m afraid.”

  26

  “How can he be a cop?” Peggy said, her eyes still glued to the body on the floor. The room was starting to smell like a slaughterhouse. It was high summer. The flies would be next. “You said he was Kellerman’s. He was trying to kill you.”

  “He’s still a cop.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Get out of here as quickly as we can. The desk clerk downstairs has our passport numbers. They know whose room this is.”

  “The old guy sits down there like a vulture. He sees everyone going in and out.”

  “He probably saw our cop come in. Kept his mouth shut about him being in the room. Took a bribe. We can’t let him see us leave.”

  “How do we manage that?”

  “Go back to your room. Get your things. I’ve got an idea. Meet me back here.”

  Peggy left. Holliday took the man’s gun, his wallet, and his identity card. With nothing on him it might slow down the identification process and buy a little more time. Peggy returned with her bag over her shoulder. Holliday led the way out of the room and back down the stairs.

  Instead of going through the lobby he stopped on the second floor and turned in the other direction. There was a window at the far end of the hall that looked out onto the alley. Ten feet below the window there was a small lean-to shed for keeping the wheeled plastic garbage bins used by the hotel. Holliday boosted Peggy up onto the windowsill. She turned and dropped onto the little shed, then down to the ground. A few seconds later Holliday joined her.

  “Now what?”

  “We get away from here.”

  They tidied their clothes, then walked down the little alley and out onto the rue Latran. Nobody paid them the slightest attention; it was as though nothing had happened, which of course it hadn’t at least as far as the people on the street were concerned.

  Peggy and Holliday walked down to the rue Saint-Jacques, then turned right and headed for the Seine and the Petit Pont. They walked past rue de la Huchette and reached the bridge. On the other side was the immense block of the Prefecture of Police and across from it the familiar shape of Notre Dame Cathedral.

  Halfway across the bridge Holliday stopped and looked upriver. There were bookstalls set up against the stone embankment to his left. Down below on the quai by the river half a dozen homeless people huddled. A glass-topped tour boat slid under the bridge and headed west. A few fluffy clouds rolled peacefully through a mid-afternoon summer sky. Without a dead body decomposing in his hotel room, it would have been a perfect day to be in Paris.

  “Somebody’s on our tail,” said Holliday.

  “Who?” Peggy asked, gripping her shoulder bag and trying not to look nervous.

  “We’re being double-teamed. They’re almost certainly with Renault,” answered Holliday. “There’s a guy back there in a leather bomber jacket even though it’s about ninety degrees out, and there’s another one who’s supposed to be a tourist, but he just doesn’t look right.”

  “Most tourists don’t look right,” said Peggy. “I’ve taken a million pictures that prove it.”

  “Tourists in Hawaiian shirts and fatigue hats with cameras around their necks don’t usually travel alone. They come in groups, pairs at least. And he’s too young for the whole Ugly American outfit.”

  “More cops?”

  “Cop or not, Monsieur Renault back there was working for Kellerman. We have to assume these two mooks are his men, too.”

  “How do we get rid of them?”

  “You know Paris better than I do. East and west, where will the subway get you?”

  “The RER, the regional express, can get you out to Poissy and Cergy le Haut in the west, Chessy in the east—that’s Disneyland.”

  “And the regular Metro?”

  “La Défense in the west, Porte de Vincennes and the Paris Zoo in the east.”

  “Where’s the closest Metro interchange, where the most lines cross?”

  “Châtelet, just across from here. A few blocks away. All the main lines cross there, including the RER.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll lose them,” said Holliday.

  The Châtelet Metro station was built in 1900, and over the next century it expanded and grew up, down, and sideways, connecting the four main lines of the original Metro plus the high-speed lines of the RER located below the main lines.

  The station has eleven access points, stairs, elevators, escalators, and even two moving sidewalks called “tapis roulants” or rolling carpets. You can go north, south, east, or west, get to the airport and any one of four major train stations, including the TGVs into Europe and under the English Channel to England, buy everything from condoms to croissants, have a glass of wine, eat pommes frites, or buy any one of a dozen newspapers.

  At any one time during an average day in the summer there are between five and eight thousand people moving through the intricate web of platforms, corridors, and gateways into the station. Trains pull in, trains pull out, horns sound, recorded voices make announcements, beggars beg, and licensed chamber musicians play Johann Pachelbel’s entire Canon. Rock ensembles do all seventy-four minutes of Tommy, the rock opera by The Who.

  With Peggy in the lead they slipped into the Metro at one of the three entrances on avenue Victoria, bought a carnet of tickets next to one of the turnstiles, and started up and down a dizzying array of walkways and corridors, trying to leave their surveillance behind.