by Gregg Loomis
4
Cardou
“You best make your shot before he jabs that needle in,” the man said to the sniper. “I’d wager it’s full of nasty stuff.”
The shooter didn’t move the scope. “Nothing nastier than the slug Reilly gets in the head should I hurry and miss.”
The man bit back a retort. He knew placing a bullet in exactly the desired place from this distance was a skill depending equally on metrology, mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology.
The longer the shot, the more the slightest breeze must be considered. The propellant of the projectile, gunpowder, had to be of the exact quality anticipated to burn at the rate calculated and provide precisely the power needed. Too little and the shot falls short. Too much is likely to overflatten the trajectory, resulting in overshooting the target. Either way, the velocity of the bullet would not be as anticipated, making it more subject to the other variables such as the weight and speed of the slug.
The shooter had to have the physical attributes required to breath in rhythm with the shot, inhale, exhale, hold, slowly exhaling until just enough air was in the lungs to keep the hands steady but not enough to cause the slightest tremor. The tiniest, most minute error, a single centimeter at this range, would send the bullet wide by several feet.
Gravity also affected the trajectory, depending on whether the shot was up or downhill. The variation made precise scope adjustment necessary.
If it were easy, anyone could do it.
He kept his impatience to himself.
5
Cardou
1042 hours
At first, Lang thought the man with the needle was going to pray. His knees bent to the kneeling position so slowly that it wasn’t until the crack of a shot seconds later that Lang realized something unexpected was happening. The echo was still circling the mountainsides like a startled pigeon as the Templar slumped face-first to the ground, exposing blood and brain matter where the back and top of his head had been.
With one movement, Lang snatched himself free of a grip loosened by surprise, grabbed the copy of the letter and dove for the ground, landing hard enough on the rocky surface to nearly knock the wind out of his lungs. He rolled downhill, trying to ignore the cuts from sharp stones, until he was behind a boulder big enough to hide him from the sight of the three remaining Templars.
A deafening silence is not an oxymoron. The fitful breeze seemed to have quit rattling sand against stone. There was no noise of cars from the distant road. It was so quiet even the memory of the shot’s sound was beginning to fade like a dream. It was as if Lang had gone deaf or sound had ceased to exist.
He could imagine the Templars quietly hiding behind rocks of their own. The flat crack of the shot, almost like a hand clap, announced that the shooter had fired from a distance. He would be peering through a scope, waiting.
For what? Lang was fairly certain he hadn’t been the target. If he had, he wouldn’t be here behind this rock. For that matter, it would make no sense for the Templars to catch him in the act of violating their secret and then kill him before they found out how he had discovered it and to whom the letter had been sent.
Then who?
Lang gave up. It didn’t matter. If only the shooter could keep the Templars’ heads down while he slipped from rock to rock downhill to the car . . . And why not? He wasn’t any good to the Templars dead; they’d never find out what they wanted. So, if the mysterious rifleman intended Lang no harm and the Templars wanted him alive . . .
Lang wasn’t willing to risk his life on the logic.
Good thing, too.
When Lang lunged for another boulder, one of those Heckler and Koch MP10s barked a short burst and rock splinters stung Lang’s face like bees. He had no weapon, not even a penknife. He would have felt less naked standing nude in downtown Atlanta. Safer, too.
Lang was trying to figure out exactly where the most recent shots had come from when he heard something other than their fading echo, something crunching in the sandy soil. Someone was moving towards him, moving slowly and deliberately on the soles of those expensive Italian shoes. No doubt whoever was approaching was also trying to keep his head down from the unknown man with the rifle.
Lang put the copy of the letter on the ground, wedging it under the massive stone. If he were captured, its location might become a bargaining chip. Moving around the boulder, Lang kept it between himself and whoever was out there. He picked up a white rock that fit neatly into his palm. It was no match for an automatic weapon, but it was better than no weapon, at all.
Maybe.
6
Cardou
1042.30 hours
“Now what?” the man demanded. “You’ve made them all go to ground.”
The sniper was still intent on whatever was to be seen through the scope. “We wait.”
“Wait? For how long?”
“For as long as required.”
7
Cardou
1043 hours
Unlike the shoes creeping up on him, the rubber of Lang’s Mephistos cushioned any movements he made. Even so, he could play ring-around-the-rock only so long. Assuming these guys had even a modest grasp of tactics, one of them would be circling the rock while another waited for Lang to literally walk into his sights. The unknown was the sharpshooter. They, the Templars, would have to move while screened from the rifle and Lang was going to have to assume it wasn’t him the shooter was after.
The toe caps stopped on the other side of the rock before moving slowly to Lang’s left. Lang took a couple of steps to his right, still clutching the stone he had picked up. Another couple of steps and Lang would be exposed to the place he had left the Templars. His imagination conjured up the vision of one of the remaining fat-neck twins looking down the stubby barrel of his Heckler and Koch, waiting to center it on his back.
The one thing they wouldn’t expect would be for Lang to go on the offensive. Sticking the stone under his belt, he felt for a handhold on the boulder, anything he could grab. His fingers found a small crevice and he pulled himself up, trusty Mephistos pushing against the rock.
The top of the boulder was maybe twenty feet high, ten feet across, pointed at the far end and ridged too deeply for Lang to lie completely flat but not deeply enough to provide cover. He could only hope that the Templars would look for him on the ground and that he wasn’t the sniper’s target. Those two hopes were more of a gamble than Lang would have preferred but no one was giving him a choice of odds.
A sound below. Lang squirmed over and looked down. He hadn’t noticed one of the Templars had a bald spot. He was edging around the boulder, the collapsible stock of his weapon pressed to his shoulder.
Lang wiggled the stone out of his belt and pulled into the lowest squat he could manage. He was going to have to jump on the guy, not crawl, if he wanted to surprise the Templar with his full weight.
Something made Lang glance over his shoulder just before he leapt. He was looking at one of those Heckler and Koche’s about thirty yards away. Lang knew the weapon wasn’t particularly accurate at that range but with a thirty-round clip, marksmanship was purely a bonus.
Lang had no time to be certain he was going to land on the Templar below him. He could only spring and hope.
Lang took one last glance as his head and shoulders rose to the ledge that had been sheltering him. Even at thirty yards, Lang was certain he could see the Templar grinning at the sure kill.
The man with the Heckler and Koch aimed at Lang stood clear of the rock to get the perfect angle. It was a fatal mistake.
The guy’s head dissolved in a pink mist.
Lang jumped into space just as the rifle’s second crack of the day bounced from hillside to hillside like a trick shot on a billiard table.
The sound made the man below look up. He moved but not quickly enough to avoid the force of Lang’s weight. The impact knocked the breath out of both men and they went down in a heap. The Templar was struggling to bring
his gun to bear. Lang slipped an arm under one of his opponent’s and snaked a hand over the man’s shoulder to cup the back of the head, giving Lang leverage to force him sideways so the weapon pointed harmlessly at the ground.
With his other hand, Lang had the rock up, ready to pound the Templar’s skull.
“That’s quite enough, Mr. Reilly.”
The words connected with Lang’s consciousness simultaneously with cold steel against the back of his neck. He recognized the feel of a gun’s muzzle as well as Silver Hair’s voice. That had been it, then: one Templar to keep the shooter occupied while the other made himself bait with Silver Hair right behind, both men screened by the boulder between them and the rifleman.
Lang had been had.
“Drop the stone and clasp your hands behind your head. Slowly, now, stand.”
Lang did as he was told.
The man Lang had jumped on got to his feet slowly. His sleeves and trousers were shredded and one of his jacket’s inseams was torn open. He’d never wear that suit again. That was the only good news, that plus the fact that two of the murderous bunch would never kill again.
Silver Hair kept the weapon, whatever it was, pressed to the back of Lang’s skull as he spoke a few words in a language Lang didn’t understand. The other man turned his back to Lang.
“Put your hands on his shoulders, Mr. Reilly,” Silver Hair ordered.
Lang did as ordered and the trio began a slow walk down the mountainside. With Lang sandwiched between the two Templars, whoever had killed the other two couldn’t shoot without a better than even chance the bullet would penetrate two bodies, Lang’s included. Clever.
8
Cardou
1047 hours
“Shit!” The man stood, staring through his binoculars. “They’re getting away.”
For the first time in hours, the sniper looked up from the scope. “Not all of them.”
The man grunted disapproval. “Whatever. They’re taking Reilly. We should follow and see if you can’t bag the other two.”
“And risk killing him? Unless they are sick, crazy, they will keep him between them like ham in a sandwich.”
“I’m sure he’d be amused at the simile,” the man muttered, “but they’re getting away.”
“Not true. They will not stay around here and when they leave, we will know where.”
9
Cardou
1103 hours
They were on the other side of Cardou when Lang and the two Templars came to a Range Rover parked between two outcroppings so large that the vehicle was invisible until they were almost on top of it.
“In the back,” Silver Hair said.
Lang was climbing in when he felt a pinprick in the back of his neck. Before he could get into the seat, the interior of the car began to ripple as though he were seeing it through water. His arms and legs were heavy, too heavy to move. Lang knew what had happened, that he should fight the effect of the drug.
But it felt too good to complain.
Then everything went black.
Part Five
CHAPTER ONE
1
Location unknown
Time unknown
When he regained consciousness, Lang had no idea how long he had been out or where he was.
Of course, they wouldn’t have wanted him to know, not if they were planning extensive questioning. They were succeeding. All he knew was that he was lying in an unusually uncomfortable bed, staring up at what appeared to be an old-fashioned canopy. And that his shoulder still hurt like hell where his arm had been wrenched upwards on the hillside.
Lang’s Agency training taught total disorientation as an effective interrogation tool. Keeping a captive ignorant of day or night, the date or the hour upsets the internal clock just like jet lag. Jet lag, though, goes away once the body accepts the new schedule. To question someone effectively, you make sure nothing is done at the same time twice. Likewise, not letting the subject know where he is may open up all sort of anxieties the questioner can put to use.
Also the lights. You keep the subject in a place without windows and at the same light level twenty-four hours a day. Intensely bright light if sleep deprivation is part of the plan; low light, too dim to see well, if not.
The talk about truth serum had been just that, talk. Outside of some old spy novels, drugs are usually little help. Sodium pentothal, scopolamine, narcotics like that, inhibit the brain’s ability to fabricate, to make up lies, but they also are risky. Too little and you still get lies; too much and the subject is either sound asleep or dead. Whatever the drug makes them babble is going to be incomprehensible.
Plain old-fashioned torture was less than reliable, too. It worked for confessions for the same reason it doesn’t work to get information: a man will tell any lie just to stop the pain. Lang very much hoped the Templars realized that.
Lang had been taught that modern interrogation consists of simply wearing your subject down, breaking his will. A less polite word for it is a species of brainwashing.
Lang slid out of bed to the floor, some three or four feet down, and walked the perimeter of the small room. The bowed exterior wall made him curious as to the outside appearance of the building. The single window was shuttered and, no doubt, barred on the outside. The only door was fitted with a intricately cast brass lock plate. When he bent over, closed an eye and squinted through the keyhole, he saw nothing. The key had been left in the outside of the lock.
The dim overhead light cast few shadows because, other than Lang and the bed, there was nothing in the room. No pictures on the walls, no window treatment, no rug, nothing. Had it not been for the hand-pegged hardwood floor and the ornate and undoubtedly expensive wall paper, he could have been in a jail cell.
Except . . . He looked for a door he might have missed, an entrance to a toilet. There was none. Bending over, he saw the porcelain jar under the bed. At least he wasn’t going to be the guy that had to deal with emptying that. At this point any good news was welcomed.
On his second lap around the room, he counted the pegs in the floor. Keeping the mind occupied was the best defense against disorientation.
Sixty-two pegs later, a key scratched in the lock and Lang raced for the bed, lay down and pretended he was still out cold.
“Come now, Mr. Reilly,” an all too familiar voice said. “The sedative we gave you has worn off some time ago. Playing possum, as I believe you Americans call it, will do you no good.”
Lang opened his eyes and gawked in surprise. He could have gone back in time. Silver Hair stood in the doorway wearing a suit of chain mail over which was a white surcoat open at the sides with a red Maltese cross emblazoned on the front. Pointed shoes of steel covered his feet.
“Don’t tell me,” Lang said. “You’re on your way to ask the wizard for a heart.”
The Templar looked at Lang blankly. “I beg your pardon?” Then he scowled. “I gather you are referring to my attire,” he said stiffly. “Templars dress traditionally when in the temple.”
Temple? Had Lang been kidnapped by mad Shriners? He wished.
Silver Hair stepped aside. Behind him was another man, this one in what looked like a monk’s cassock. Bare ankles were visible above the flip-flops. He was holding a plate from which came the unmistakable aroma of food. Lang suddenly remembered he hadn’t eaten since breakfast of whatever day it was that he had been taken prisoner.
Silver Hair said, “You are hungry, no doubt. The cellarer had something brought up from the refectory. It is humble fare, a local dish of salt cod, but you will find it nourishing.”
The man in the monk’s outfit set a wooden platter on the bed. It smelled even better. White meat swimming in vegetables.
“Go ahead, eat,” Silver Hair entreated.
Lang looked from him to the man who had served me. “Got a fork?”
Silver Hair shook his head. “The fork was not used until the sixteenth century. We use only the knife, as did our predecessors.
We try to eschew the vanities of the modern world.”
That explained the chamber pot.
“Okay,” Lang said, eyes on the wooden trencher with the wonderful fragrance, “we won’t tell Miss Manners.”
The man in the brown habit set the food in front of Lang.
“Afraid you’ll have to do the best you can without eating implements, Mr. Reilly,” Silver Hair said. “I think you can understand our reluctance to furnish you a knife.”
Lang was hungry enough not to care. He scooped up a piece of the fish in his fingers and plopped it into his mouth. He hadn’t eaten many things that had tasted so good. He was nearly finished as Sliver Hair and his companion backed out of the room.
“Until later, then,” he said as the door closed.
A second later the lock clicked.
Lang was draining the liquid from the platter when the room began to spin. The outlines of the corners got fuzzy and the planks in the floor lost definition. His head was suddenly too heavy to hold up. They had seasoned dinner with something besides herbs.
But why, Lang wondered as his world again grew dim. They could hardly interrogate him if he was asleep.
And he was too sleepy to care.
2
Location unknown
Time unknown
Only his still-full stomach told Lang he had not been unconscious more than a few hours. A bright light was shining in his eyes. Although awake, he was lethargic, and his head weighed a ton.
“Back with us, I see,” said a voice from behind the light. “Time for you to answer a question or two.”
Lang struggled to get up to a sitting position. “I get to make one phone call before my final answer, right?”
There was no response. Clearly Silver Hair had better things to do than watch American TV.
“I want to know two things, Mr. Reilly: How did you find our secret and to whom did you send that letter?”
“Right,” Lang said. “And as soon as I tell you, I walk out of here. Wherever ‘here’ is.”
