Templar 09 - Secret of the Templars

by Christopher, Paul

  Darkness fell and lights went on surrounding the antiaircraft platform and the radar tower. One small spotlight occasionally scanned the stockade.

  “Did you ever see the movie The Great Escape?” Holliday asked.

  “At least half a dozen times,” said Lazarus. “I love escape films.”

  “You remember the role that Steve McQueen played?” Holliday asked.

  “Sure,” said Lazarus. “His name was Hilts, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Early on in the movie he and the little Scotsman Archibald ‘Archie’ Ives decide to make a blitz out of the camp.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Lazarus.

  “It’s the only way,” said Holliday. “This fencing probably doesn’t go deeper than five or six inches. We dig down through the mud and then head outward, pushing the goop behind us.”

  “In the movie they had little folding metal tubes to push out into the air so they could breathe,” said Lazarus. “I don’t see anybody handing out little metal tubes.”

  “How long can you hold your breath?” Holliday grinned.

  As the men around them tried to sleep in the assaulting rain, Holliday and Lazarus got down to work. Putting themselves directly beside the wire of the fencing, they dug down into the mud, piling the muck up all around them. Holliday had been right. The wire went down no more than eight inches and they dug their hole another eight inches below the wire before they made their move.

  Holliday went down first, squeezing through the mud, pushing the muck from the face of the little tunnel behind him. Lazarus did the same, effectively plugging the hole behind them. After two minutes, Holliday’s lungs were beginning to burn. By three minutes it had become intolerable. He pushed upward through the mud, finally reaching the surface a few seconds later. He immediately flattened and turned, extending both hands down into the hole.

  As Lazarus made his way toward the surface, Holliday gripped his wrists and pulled the gasping, gagging, mud-covered man upward. Neither man said anything as they tried to regain some sort of a normal breathing pattern. They lay in the muck outside the stockade for what seemed an eternity.

  At least they had made their exit without being noticed. Staying on their bellies, Holliday and Lazarus made their way into the outer darkness and disappeared.

  28

  Under heavily armed guard by the Vatican Police, a dozen transport trucks had left the Vatican City, driving cautiously through the streets of Rome to Fiumicino Airport, where they were briefly stored in a large warehouse. All of the trucks were under Vatican seal and the armed guard remained with the transport trucks for the next two days.

  On the third day, fifty large cargo containers were delivered to the warehouse and the armed guards were dismissed, only to be replaced by a dozen men in Italian military uniforms. The seals on the trucks were cut, and using several waiting forklifts, men in soldiers’ uniforms unloaded the trucks and filled the large metal cargo containers.

  No one commented on the fact that each of the large wooden crates was stamped with the eagle and swastika emblem of the Third Reich. When all of the containers were loaded, they were driven out to a waiting Alitalia Boeing 777 cargo plane. Twenty minutes later the big aircraft was given the okay to take off and it lumbered into the air.

  * * *

  Sir Henry Maxim sat in Cardinal Secretary of State Ruffino’s office. His cell phone rang and he spoke into it for a few seconds before handing it across the desk to Ruffino. Ruffino listened and snapped the phone closed and handed it back to Maxim.

  “I’ve done everything you asked, Your Eminence,” said Maxim. “Now I’d like the file.”

  Ruffino reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the familiar file.

  “The shipment will reach Heathrow in three hours,” said Maxim. “I hope that’s convenient.”

  “Quite convenient.” The cardinal nodded. “We both have identical copies of the inventory. I will keep in touch about the materials’ resale onto the open market.”

  “You do that,” said Maxim. He picked up the file, slid it into the zippered case on his lap, then stood and left the room.

  The cardinal leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The threat of the Vatican being found with stolen Nazi art had finally been removed, along with the horrifying scandal that went along with it—something that had nagged at him for his entire tenure as Vatican secretary of state.

  He heard small shuffling footsteps entering his office and opened his eyes, sitting forward. It was a man dressed in a priest’s garb carrying a large pile of newspapers. He laid them down in front of the cardinal and backed away a step.

  “I didn’t ask for these,” scolded Ruffino, turning his head toward the priest, who was slightly behind him. At that moment, the priest let the fully loaded syringe fall into his right hand. He plunged the needle into Ruffino’s right carotid artery and emptied the contents of the syringe.

  Ruffino drew a horrified breath and stared blankly at the man who had just taken his life. His last thought before the drug took him into darkness was how strangely the priest’s eyes glittered behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.

  Ruffino fell back against his chair, looking like a man without a care in the world, simply napping.

  * * *

  By the time Sir Henry Maxim’s private jet reached Geneva, the Alitalia cargo plane had already been unloaded. A car took the operations director of the MI6 to the warehouses where the cargo cases were now being unloaded by his men.

  Six hours later the looted art had been safely taken to the large secure vaults of a bank that Maxim had done business with for many years.

  * * *

  Holliday and Lazarus spent four days moving south through the lower Swat Valley and into the lowlands of central southern Pakistan. They had no sense that anyone was following them. It was more than likely that their absence had never been noticed. And even if it had been, the men at the firebase weren’t willing to expend the time or the energy to recapture them. They walked for a great part of the way, but eventually they were able to catch a ride in a truck loaded with turnips. They caught another ride a hundred miles south, and two days after that they arrived again at the border city of Chaman and the warehouse of Haji Ayub Afridi. They knocked on the door and Afridi himself let them in, guiding them through the shadowy warehouse and into his office.

  “I’m surprised to see you, my friends,” said Afridi. “I was certain that Afghanistan or the Mullah Omar would have dealt with you by now.”

  “Afghanistan tried its best,” said Holliday. “But Omar and I have more in common than our blind eye. In fact, he saved our lives.”

  “His men also make quite a good goat stew,” said Lazarus.

  Afridi looked the two men up and down. “Perhaps you would like a shower and new clothes?”

  “What a delightful thought,” said Lazarus.

  Afridi took them out the rear door of his office and down a hallway to what must have been his living quarters. There was a kitchen and an iron bed, and a door leading into the bathroom. Lazarus bathed first, followed by Holliday. By the time they were finished, Afridi had found them new clothes and had even managed to get them something to eat.

  As the two men dressed, Holliday was careful to keep the scroll out of Afridi’s sight. He had removed it from around his thigh soon after they had escaped from the stockade, keeping it tucked away beneath his mud-crusted jacket.

  Refreshed, they sat down to eat with Afridi. It was some kind of chicken and rice combination that turned out to be quite tasty.

  “There is something you should know,” said Afridi, mopping up a mouthful of rice with a piece of torn chapati. “People have been asking about you two.”

  “What kind of people?” Holliday asked.

  Afridi chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “At first, it was people in my business, or on
the fringes of it.” He paused. “People who would not be referred to as law-abiding citizens. You understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “I do not like people prying into my business when it is none of theirs,” said Afridi. “I prefer to keep things as unobtrusive as possible.”

  “Did it stop there?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Afridi. “In my business, it helps to have good connections of one kind or another. I got in touch with a friend in the local constabulary to see where all this interest had suddenly arisen. He told me that it was political and that the local police were being pressured from Islamabad. The man they are referring to in Islamabad is Amit Singh, who is as corrupt as any policeman in the country. He buys and sells information to anyone with the money to pay him. As it turns out, the man paying him is also a policeman—a member of French intelligence.”

  “French? What the hell do the French want from us now?” asked Lazarus.

  “They missed us last time,” said Holliday. “Maybe they’re trying to make up for it now.”

  “Whatever it is, my friends, I suggest you get out of Chaman as soon as you possibly can. In a few days every policeman in Pakistan will be looking for you.”

  “Can you offer us any transportation to the border?” Holliday asked.

  “I have a shipment crossing the border at Lahore. It leaves tonight. Would that suit you?”

  “Yes,” said Holliday.

  At nightfall, they climbed into the cab of a large old Ford stake truck and began their journey. Afridi watched them leave before closing the doors of his warehouse. He took out his cell phone and called.

  “Singh?” Afridi asked.

  “Speak,” said a distant voice.

  “They are crossing the border just below Lahore. They should reach the crossing at dawn.”

  * * *

  René Dubois sat in the counterintelligence control room at the embassy in Islamabad. He’d heard from his contact Amit Singh, a colonel in the DGI&I—the Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation—who had informed him that Holliday and his companion would be attempting to cross the border below Lahore in the early hours of the morning. Dawn was just breaking when Dubois’s phone rang.

  “Dubois.”

  “Colonel Singh, they outsmarted us. They must not have trusted Afridi. We had a sighting two hours ago. They’re on a train bound for Mumbai. I managed to get three members of the railway police on board before they crossed the border.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Colonel Singh. It is most appreciated. I’ll handle it from here.”

  Dubois punched in the extension for communications and ordered a diplomatic jet to take him to Mumbai as soon as humanly possible.

  Holliday had slipped through Dubois’s net once again.

  * * *

  Holliday and Lazarus, still dressed in peasant outfits, sat in their sweltering compartment on the Mumbai train surrounded by the chattering of families, the sound of chickens in open crates and the smell of everything from curry to rotting fruit.

  Across from them, an extremely fat woman in a full-length dull brown sari carved chunks from a watermelon and fed them to her three grandchildren, all of whom stared a few feet across the compartment at Holliday and Lazarus. The old woman cooed at her grandchildren as she fed them. Occasionally she cut a piece of watermelon for herself, pushing the pink flesh into her mouth, grunting like an animal. When she finished with her chunk, she gathered up the seeds in her mouth and spit them on the floor at her feet. She kept a continuous smile on her face, occasionally lifting one enormous buttock off the wooden seat to exude gas.

  Hospitably, she had offered Holliday and Lazarus dripping chunks of the watermelon, but, smiling, they had both shaken their heads. Above them they could hear singing and chanting and a variety of other noises from the hundreds of people unable to afford tickets for the train who had climbed onto the swaying roof of the car.

  “I’m going for a walk,” said Holliday, standing.

  “You’re not leaving me here alone, are you?”

  “Come along if you’d like, but our seats will probably be gone when we get back.” Holliday left the compartment, his senses swirling. He made his way through one chaotic car after another. The toilets reeked and were overflowing, the air was full of smoke from a thousand hand-rolled cigarettes and the occasional scream of the train’s whistle only added to the madness of the scene.

  Holliday had walked three cars down before he saw the men approaching. They stood out in the crowd like diamonds in a bag of coal, wearing shoes instead of sandals and suits instead of light-colored cotton pants and shirts. He could smell cop on them even through the stench of the train. He turned on his heel and made his way back to their compartment, aware that the two men’s eyes were pinned to his form.

  He sat down beside Lazarus and spoke quickly.

  “Cops. Get ready, and follow my lead.”

  A few moments later the door to the compartment slid open and the two policemen were standing there in front of them. Both men were large and burly, obviously hired for their size and not their brains. They flashed their ID at the people across from Holliday and spoke one word in Pashto: “Out!”

  The old woman and her children didn’t question the order for an instant. They packed up their parcels and bags, including the remains of the watermelon, and scurried out of the compartment, their eyes wide and fearful.

  The two policemen immediately stepped into the compartment. One reached into his jacket and took out a 9-millimeter automatic. But the train lurched slightly as it went around a narrow curve, and the man with the gun was forced to reach out to support himself on the doorframe. At that instant, Holliday unexpectedly slid off the seat and onto his knees, driving an uppercut hard into the man’s testicles. Simultaneously, Lazarus came off his seat and hit the second policeman by slamming his back into him.

  As the man with the gun doubled over in agony, Holliday brought both hands together in a single fist and drove up under the man’s jaw, snapping his head back and breaking his neck in a single motion. The man Lazarus had hit was still struggling. Holliday climbed to his feet and hammered the man’s Adam’s apple with the blade of his hand. The second policeman began to choke and Holliday sped the process along by pinching his trachea and his vocal cords between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. The man’s eyes bulged, and a few seconds later he was dead.

  Holliday climbed to his feet and pulled down the old canvas roller blinds over the windows in the door to the compartment.

  “Now what?” said Lazarus.

  “We strip them,” answered Holliday.

  They spent the next fifteen minutes stripping off both men’s outer clothing, taking their shoes, guns and wallets as well. With that done, Holliday tugged hard and pulled the windows downward. One at a time they heaved the dead bodies up onto the compartment seat and pushed them through the open window. The whole thing had taken less than half an hour.

  Dressed in the policemen’s clothing, they then headed out into the corridor and walked through the crowded cars toward the rear of the train. There was no doubt now that they had to get off the train. If they were supposed to look like Indian policemen, there was no way they would be able to pull it off. Five cars toward the end of the train, they saw walking toward them what appeared to be the twin brothers of the two men they had just killed.

  “Shit,” said Holliday. “There were four of them, two at the front and two at the back.”

  There was nothing they could do but bluff it, or find a way to incapacitate the men in some way. Holliday had a horrible image of the four of them shooting it out in a crowded railway car. The two policemen kicked a crouching urchin out of their way and proceeded forward. As they passed the ragged boy, he reached under his filthy coat and withdrew a long, curved dagger from its cardboard sheath. Crouching, he slash
ed across the back of the two men’s knees, slicing their tendons. Both men collapsed simultaneously, screaming as they went down to the floor. Holliday and Lazarus followed the ragged boy as he ran helter-skelter toward the rear of the train. They made it through the rear door of the last car and stood on the small platform.

  “My name is Vijay, sirs. I have been waiting for your arrival for quite some time. If you will follow me, the train will slow at a junction and will wait there for the signal to proceed into the station. This is the place you will jump. If you have seen motion pictures or television of people jumping from aircraft, that is how you must land—rolling and tucking your head. Do you understand?”

  Before they had time to answer, the train began to slow. Without another word, the ragged boy climbed down to the bottom of the steps and then jumped. Holliday and Lazarus weren’t far behind him. As Holliday went into his tuck and roll he saw that they were in the distant suburbs of Mumbai. Then his shoulder smashed into the gravel of the old coal clinkers that lined the embankment.

  Vijay was the first to jump to his feet. He dusted himself off with a laugh as Holliday and Lazarus came sliding down the embankment and gathered themselves together.

  “You do that very well, Colonel Holliday. You have jumped out of airplanes before?”

  “Once or twice,” said Holliday. “Would you like to tell me how you knew my name?”

  “I was instructed to wait at the junction at Kalyan and ride every train going into Mumbai Passenger Terminal,” said Vijay. He grinned. “It was not too hard to find a tall white man with an eye patch.”

  “And who gave you these instructions?”

  “The man I must take you to now,” said Vijay.