Templar 09 - Secret of the Templars

by Christopher, Paul

  “What exactly is it that you want from me, Cardinal?”

  “What you’ve always done and done so well, Sir Henry. I want you to help me dispose of the works in our vaults by using your connections with Customs and Excise. And I want you to tell us where we can find Holliday and the missing scroll, of which I am sure you’ve heard.”

  Maxim stood. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “No, you’ll do as I say. Your reputation and perhaps even your life depend on it.”

  Without another word Maxim turned on his heel and left the suite. The cardinal took the last bite of his éclair and then sipped his espresso. He frowned. The coffee had gone cold.

  * * *

  Foster and the rest of his team reached the same ridge where Holliday and Lazarus had been captured. It was almost fully dark now, and the men could just barely make out the compound.

  “This is insane,” Black said, staring down at the shadowed buildings. “They could have a hundred men down there.”

  “But they don’t,” said Foster. “All the satellite intel shows this place as deserted. There were even a few drone flybys that showed no activity at all.”

  “Then why the hell is it there and why is it on every intel file the Company has on the mullah?”

  “Because it’s all we’ve got,” said Foster. Foster turned to Streeter. “How many rounds do you have for that RPG on your back?”

  “Three,” said Streeter. He unslung the missile launcher and pulled a single bulbous round from his ragged backpack. He slid the small missile into the front of the launching tube and twisted once. “What am I firing at?”

  “Two places,” said Foster. “Do you see that small narrow dark spot in the mountain, rising up above the compound?”

  “Yes,” said Streeter.

  “The cave is target number two. The compound is target number one. I’m pretty sure the compound is a decoy, but there is no sense in taking chances.”

  “You’re the boss,” said Streeter. He armed the trigger mechanism and fired.

  The detonation of the high explosives hidden in the middle of the compound’s main building was so enormous that it lit up the sky like daylight for a brief moment, and then, because of the lack of oxygen, the massive explosion sucked in on itself and blew out in concentric shock waves so strong they sent all four men on the ridge tumbling backward. They crawled back up the ridge.

  Streeter fired the rocket-propelled grenade a second time, aiming at the mouth of the mountain cave. Another explosion bloomed in the darkness and then faded.

  “There’s no way to climb up to that cave in the mountain, so there must be a tunnel leading from the compound. If we find the tunnel, we find Omar,” Foster said with a smile. “That is, if North’s second shot hasn’t blown him to Allah land.”

  The five men ran down to the compound, Foster keeping his eyes on the mouth of the cave, where small fires were still burning.

  The mouth of the tunnel was remarkably easy to find. Since the epicenter of the explosion had been in the room with the trapdoor, the hole in the ground was obvious. The four men pulled glow sticks out of their backpacks, snapped them to life and then dropped them down the hole. They went down the metal ladder one after the other, then marched through the long, narrow tunnel that led to the cave. Foster called Streeter forward.

  “Load your RPG and fire it straight upward.”

  Streeter did as he was told and the round from the RPG traveled straight upward, trailing smoke and fire. A few seconds later there was a ripping explosion that made their ears ring. They waited a few moments and then, with Foster leading, climbed up into the cave. Each man reached into the other’s pack and drew out a nine-inch rubberized Maglite. They switched on the LED beams and swept them around the entrance to the cave.

  The whole front section of the cave had been completely destroyed. The cubicles were nothing more than smoldering piles of cloth and the entire small herd of goats had been blown to pieces. Entrails were splashed against the floor and walls of the cave.

  “Did we get ’em? Is the mullah here?” Smart asked nervously.

  “I don’t think so,” said Foster.

  “What about the scroll? We have to get the scroll,” said Smart.

  An object slightly smaller than a football came sailing through the air and landed at Foster’s feet.

  “Mother . . .” was all Foster could manage before his body turned to atoms.

  Rusty Smart and the others didn’t have even that much time.

  * * *

  At the other end of the cave, Omar and others stood together for a brief instant and then made their way down the long tunnel that led to the end of the cave. Decades, perhaps even centuries ago a pathway had been carved down the side of the mountain to a steep canyon.

  Staring out of the opening, Holliday could see an old Toyota, and behind it a string of donkeys and a small herd of goats. Standing at the entrance, Omar put his hand on Holliday’s shoulder.

  “We are both men of great patriotism, each in our own way. But of all the men I have met who desire the scroll, you are the only honest one.” He handed over the mailing tube containing the scroll and Holliday slung it over his shoulder.

  “Thank you, Mullah Omar, for your trust in me.”

  “You have a great deal of power now,” said the mullah. “Be sure you use it well. As-salaam alaikum.”

  “Wa alaikum salaam,” replied Holliday.

  The mullah smiled. “Perhaps we shall meet each other again under happier circumstances, my friend.”

  “I hope so,” said Holliday.

  They began the long trek down the side of the mountain.

  27

  Most members of the DGSE would have been happy to have been invited for lunch in one of the private dining rooms above Maxim’s. But René Dubois knew better than that. To accept such an invitation was more like a rat being politely asked to accept the cheese in the middle of a rattrap. Dubois, however, realized that the invitation was, in fact, an order.

  Dubois arrived at Maxim’s ten minutes before the time requested and was escorted to the second floor by an extraordinarily polite maître d’. He was not surprised to find François Picard, the deputy foreign minister, waiting for him with lunch already ordered. It consisted of vichyssoise, trout meunière, braised oxtail with seasonal vegetables and a cheese plate. There were two bottles of wine already opened on the linen-covered table.

  Dubois sat down and Picard poured him a glass of wine. The men ate in silence for a few moments. Picard put down his spoon and tapped at his lips with a napkin.

  “I have the pleasure of informing you that your position within the service has been elevated to full director. You will now have a full bureau at your command.”

  “You do me a great honor,” said Dubois. He had studied the pay grades of various positions within the DGSE and realized that he could now afford the country house he and Marguerite had dreamed about ever since their children had moved away.

  They ate for a few more minutes before Picard chose to speak again.

  “I am afraid you still have the problem of Colonel Holliday to deal with.”

  The food turned to ashes in René Dubois’s mouth. He put his knife and fork down and pushed himself slightly away from the table.

  “As far as I know, Colonel Holliday left France some time ago.”

  “True enough.” Picard nodded. “Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon the government of France to find him.”

  “Might I ask why?”

  “You may ask, but I fear you will not get a satisfactory answer. Find Holliday and bring him to France.”

  Both Dubois and Picard were well aware of the so-called action teams that had been created by DGSE back in the time of De Gaulle and the Algerian crisis. They still existed, now predominantly used as antiterror commandos.

  “In
effect, Dubois, you are merely being requested to finish a job you left undone.”

  In other words, the government needed a scapegoat, and he was it.

  “That’s hardly fair, sir. Nobody knew about Holliday’s connection with Peter Lazarus. They flew out of Paris on an Interpol flight, which, as I am sure you are aware, does not have to go through passport control or customs. If I had had the proper intelligence instead of being required to give daily reports to a collection of infighting bureaucrats, perhaps I could have captured him.”

  Picard sighed. He poured himself another glass of Château Latour, even though it was entirely inappropriate with the fish dish in front of him. He took a long swallow.

  “I realize that you are very angry, Dubois, but I am afraid things are beyond my control. Not only do I have my own minister to deal with, but the cardinal of France is putting terrible pressure on as well.”

  “Might I have some vague clue of where Holliday might be?” Dubois asked.

  Picard flushed. He took another long sip of wine and stared at companion, his features sagging. “I’m afraid he was last seen in Afghanistan.”

  “Merde,” whispered Dubois.

  * * *

  Holliday and Lazarus continued walking for two days in a roughly easterly direction toward what they hoped was the Pakistan border. They seemed to be moving slightly downward, as though going down a long incline between the towering mountains that surrounded them. The weather also seemed slightly warmer. On the morning of the third day the skies above them darkened, threatening rain.

  “We should have already crossed the border, according to the mullah’s directions,” said Holliday, looking down at the handheld GPS unit.

  “We don’t seem to be anywhere at all,” said Lazarus. “Any border has got to be purely hypothetical, no more than an arbitrary line drawn on a map.”

  At that moment it began to rain.

  “Goddamn,” said Holliday.

  Within minutes the rain began to fall increasingly harder, and he could see no more than a few feet in front of them. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rainfall stopped, leaving both men soaked to the skin. They moved on down the long, widening valley that lay before them. Within moments their feet were thick with fresh mud.

  Holliday paused.

  “What’s wrong?” Lazarus asked.

  “I’m not sure,” said Holliday. All he knew was that something was not right, something at the edge of his senses. He turned to Lazarus. “Throw away everything you have that doesn’t fit two peasants from the mountains. The rifle, the canteen, your knife—anything you can think of.”

  Within seconds the two men had thrown away everything incriminating, with the exception of the scroll hidden under Holliday’s jacket. They walked on for another mile before Holliday stopped again. That strange psychic itch that had saved his life so many times before was raising the hairs at the back of his neck. Holliday reached into the pocket of his jacket, withdrew the leather strap from the mailing tube, hitched up his jacket and dropped his pants.

  “Bloody hell,” said Lazarus.

  “Get over here,” said Holliday.

  He tossed Lazarus the leather strap from the mailing tube and took the scroll out of the inside of his jacket.

  “Strap this to my upper thigh as high as you can and make sure it won’t slip off.”

  Lazarus did as he was told and Holliday pulled up his pants, securing them with his fabric belt.

  “Listen,” said Holliday. “Do you hear that?”

  “It sounds like thunder,” answered Lazarus. “More rain, I suppose.”

  “That’s not thunder,” said Holliday.

  The thunder became a howl and then three large Mil Mi-17 helicopters bristling with weaponry appeared around a curving rock wall in the mountain to their right. A spray of machine-gun fire hit the muddy wet ground ten feet in front of them, and Lazarus and Holliday stood stock-still. One of the big Russian helicopters landed within twenty feet of both men, who had their hands raised above their heads in surrender, while the other two Mils hovered above the one that had touched down on the ground.

  Five men in Pakistani commando uniforms burst out of the helicopter and ran toward Holliday and Lazarus, gesturing that both men should drop to their knees, which they did. Three of the commandos stood by, armed with AK-47s, while the other two searched Holliday and Lazarus. The two men jerked them to their feet and pushed them through the mud toward the waiting helicopter.

  The commandos climbed back into the chopper, pushing their new captives into the belly of the big dark green machine. Within seconds, they rose into the air, swung around and headed eastward down the long, wide valley.

  * * *

  It was Saturday, Marguerite’s day to sleep in. But twenty-five years of waking at the same hour had chained René Dubois to his own internal clock. He rose quietly, dressed in a pair of old corduroys, a shirt and his favorite jacket and quietly left the apartment, his notebook in hand.

  He walked up the street to La Tourelle and took a table. The flower stalls were going up in the market across the way, making the air wonderfully fragrant. By noon the whole area would be alive as people browsed through the neighborhood picking up fresh fruit, meats and flowers for the week ahead.

  For now, however, it was quiet and Dubois could think in peace. Two old men sat nearby enjoying their cups of hot chocolate. Every now and again one of the men would tear a piece from a fresh baguette and dunk it in the chocolate before popping it into his mouth. Neither man spoke a word during this morning ritual. Dubois ordered himself a croissant au jambon and a café au lait. His breakfast arrived and as he chewed on the ham-filled pastry he thought about his quarry, Colonel John Holliday.

  When he had originally been given the task of tracking down Holliday, the various deputy ministers, including Picard, had been vague about their real intentions. You simply did not arrest a man for owning a notebook that might lead you to an ancient treasure. As far as Dubois could see, Colonel Holliday was innocent of any crime committed in the Republic of France. The incredibly complicated manhunt in Paris, which had cost a policeman his life, had been ill-advised and poorly executed, especially since there had been a complete lack of intelligence about Peter Lazarus and his connection to Interpol.

  Dubois opened up his notebook, took out a pen from his jacket, and began to make a few notes.

  It was unlikely that he would find Holliday and his friend Lazarus by simply sitting in the embassy in Islamabad. The last intelligence they had concerning Holliday and Lazarus was that they had boarded a flight to Mumbai. One way or the other Holliday would have had to cross the India-Pakistan border at some point. But would they have been brazen enough to do so by flight? Would they have gone by bus, or train? Indeed the two men would probably have approached someone capable of smuggling them across the border.

  Without more information, there was no point in even leaving Paris.

  * * *

  The Russian helicopter thundered down the valley for about twenty minutes, twisting and turning along the edge of the mountainous terrain. It had begun to rain again, even harder than before. A few minutes later the helicopters began to drop down to the ground, and Holliday realized where they were: somewhere in the Swat Valley.

  The Swat Valley had once been a tourist attraction and a place for tired bureaucrats to take their holidays. It had been a verdant district once, but all that had vanished with the coming of the Taliban. With the enforcement of their strict Sharia law, tourism had all but fled overnight and the place had become a battleground between American forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani armed forces. No one fished its rivers or plowed its fields anymore, and its minerals lay untouched within the ground. It was nothing more now than a sea of aggression.

  The helicopter carrying Holliday and Lazarus touched down on the muddy ground, followed by the other two Mils. The car
go door slid open and they were pushed out onto the ground.

  Through the slashing rain, Holliday could see that they had arrived at some sort of Pakistani firebase. There was a high platform carrying a nest of old Russian antiaircraft guns, a sandbagged emplacement for a Strela 2 missile launcher and another smaller tower carrying a basic radar array. Between the weapons was a stockade enclosed with heavy wiring. There appeared to be one small gate for entrance. It was apparently unguarded.

  Holliday allowed himself and Lazarus to be pushed toward the stockade. One of the men from the helicopter opened the gate and pushed them into the crowded enclosure beyond. There had to be close to a hundred people in the stockade, all of them drenched to the bone, some of them sick or starving to death.

  Holliday grabbed Lazarus by his jacket and dragged him toward a relatively quiet corner. The rain kept beating down, turning the mud to a thick, soupy consistency inside the enclosure. There was nowhere to sit and barely room to stand.

  “Where the hell are we?” Lazarus asked.

  “Somewhere is the lower Swat Valley,” replied Holliday.

  “What are they going to do with us?” Lazarus asked. One of his stockade-mates crashed into him, moaning something and clawing his way into Lazarus’s jacket. Holliday grabbed the man and pushed him back into the crowd surrounding them.

  “It’s a firebase,” said Holliday.

  “It’s also some kind of short-stay internment camp for people they find trying to sneak into Pakistan during their patrols. They’ll probably hand us and the rest of this bunch over and we’ll be taken to a proper camp where we’ll be questioned. We’ll most likely also be searched a little more thoroughly and we can’t let that happen.”

  “How do we avoid it?” Lazarus asked.

  “I’ve got a plan,” said Holliday. “All we have to do is wait for nightfall.”

  They kept their fellow stockade prisoners at bay and waited for darkness. During this time, the rain never ceased. At one point in the late evening guards brought in a cauldron of boiled rice and handed it out in clay bowls to the people inside the stockade. Holliday and Lazarus didn’t even bother to get their share. They watched as a man squatted a foot or so away, spooning the thin gruel into his mouth using two fingers. They were glad that they were not partaking in dinner.