The Last Templar ts-1

by Raymond Khoury

  The interesting part is that there are also needle marks on his neck. The drug was used to numb his vocal chords, so he couldn't call for help."

  The monsignor stiffened a little at Reilly's report, seeming equally appalled. Also there were the main players in the METRAID investigation: Jansson, Buchinski, Amelia Gaines, Aparo, Blackburn, and two of his ASACs, as well as a young techie who was manning the A/V commands.

  The report wasn't particularly reassuring.

  "We also found freeze-branding equipment at the stables," Reilly continued, "which Petrovic could have used to disguise the markings on the horses they used in the raid. All of which means one of two things. Either whoever's behind this is having his foot soldiers wiped out, or one of the gang's decided to keep it all for himself. Either way, we've got one, and potentially two, more

  horsemen looking like possible targets. And whoever's doing this isn't exactly a slacker."

  De Angelis turned to Reilly. "You didn't recover any of our missing pieces from the stables?"

  "I'm afraid not, Father. They're being murdered because of them."

  De Angelis took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with his sleeve. "And what about those extremist groups you were interested in? Have you had any luck with your inquiries there?"

  "Not as yet. We're looking at a couple of them in particular, groups that have recently voiced anger at the Church for the way it's been critical of them. They're both in the Midwest, so our field offices there are pursuing it. They don't have a conclusive link yet, just a lot of threats."

  De Angelis put on his glasses again, frowning. His disquiet was obvious, but he tried not to show it.

  "I suppose we just have to wait and see."

  Reilly looked around the table. He knew they weren't making any great progress in getting to the bottom of the case. So far, they were reacting to events, rather than initiating them.

  "You want to mention that Templar thing?" Aparo asked.

  De Angelis turned to Aparo, whose gaze led him to Reilly. "Templars?"

  Reilly hadn't expected his partner to bring it up. He tried to downplay it as best he could. "It's just a thread we're following."

  De Angelis's quizzical look prodded him on.

  "One of the witnesses at the Met, an archaeologist . . . she felt there may be a link between the Templars and the raid."

  "Because of the red crosses on the knights' mantles?"

  At least it's not that far off the chart, Reilly thought. "Yes, that and other details. The knight who took the encoder said something in Latin which is apparently a marking on a Templar castle in France."

  De Angelis studied Reilly with the hint of a bemused smile. "And this archaeologist, she thinks the raid on the museum was the work of a religious order that ceased to exist almost seven hundred years ago?"

  Reilly felt all the eyes in the room boring into him. "Not exactly. It's just that given their history and their cult status, the Templars could conceivably be the inspiration for a bunch of religious fanatics who idolize them and who may be acting out some kind of revenge or revival fantasy."

  De Angelis nodded to himself, pensively. He seemed rather disappointed as he stood up and gathered his papers. "Yes, well, that sounds very promising. I wish you continued luck with your investigation, Agent Reilly. Gentlemen, Agent Gaines," he said as he glanced at Jansson before leaving the room quietly, leaving Reilly with the uncomfortable feeling that the Templars' lunatic stigma didn't only apply to academics.

  Chapter 30

  M itch Adeson knew that if he had to stay holed up in this dump much longer, he would go stir-crazy. But it would be just as crazy to stay in his own place, and the streets there were likely to be more dangerous. At least here, in his dad's apartment in Queens, he was safe.

  First Gus, then Branko. Mitch was smart, but even if he'd been as dumb as Gus Waldron, he would've figured out that someone had a list, and that it was a racing certainty that not only was he on it, he was next in line.

  It was time to move on to safer pastures.

  He looked across the room at his deaf and barely continent father who was doing what he always did: staring at the fuzzy picture on the TV, tuned as always to an endless succession of trashy talk shows at which he constantly spewed abuse.

  Mitch would have liked to check up on the guy who'd hired him. He had wondered if that man was the one to look out for, then decided he couldn't be. He'd handled himself well enough on a horse, but he wasn't someone who could've killed Branko, and he sure as hell couldn't have laid a glove on the mountain that was Gus Waldron. It had to be someone higher up the food chain. And to get to whoever it was and beat him to the punch, Mitch knew he had to go through the guy who'd originally approached him, the one who'd first told him about this crazy scheme. The only problem was, he had no way of contacting him. He didn't even know the man's name.

  He heard his father break wind. Christ, he thought, I can't just sit here. I need to do something.

  Daylight or not, he had to make a move. He told his father that he would be back in a few hours.

  The old man ignored him but then, as Mitch pulled on a coat and crossed to the door, he groaned out, "Beer and cigarettes."

  It wasn't far short of being the longest sentence his father had spoken to him since the early hours of Sunday morning when he had gone there straight from Central Park, after they had stripped off the armor and gone their separate ways. It had been his job to stow the props in a panel truck that he had dropped off in a lock-up garage two blocks away from his own place. The rent was paid in advance for a year, and, until then, he wouldn't go near it.

  He went out of the apartment and down the stairs where, after taking his time checking for anything suspicious, he stepped into the darkening street and headed for the subway.

  ***

  It was raining by the time Mitch moved cautiously through the alley at the back of the grimy seven-story building in Astoria that housed his apartment. He had a paper bag with a Coors six-pack and a carton of Winstons for his old man under his arm, and he was soaked. He hadn't intended on going near his own place for a while yet, but he had decided to take the risk to get some of his gear if he was going to pull a disappearing act.

  He stood motionless in the alley for a couple of minutes before reaching up and pulling down on the balanced girder of the fire escape. He always kept it oiled, just in case, and it was pleasingly silent as it slid down. He hurried upward, casting nervous glances at the alley below. Outside his bedroom window, he stood the paper bag on the ladder and raked with his fingers into the gap between the escape and the wall, easing out the steel strip he kept there. Moments later, he had jimmied the window latch and was climbing inside.

  He didn't put on a light, feeling his way around the familiar room instead. He dragged an old duffel from the shelf of the closet, then felt his way around the back and pulled out four cartons of shells that he piled into the bag. He then went into the bathroom and fished out a nylon bag from the water tank. In it was a big oilskin-wrapped package, which he opened and from which he took out the Kimber .45 and the small Bersa 9mm. He checked them, loaded the Bersa, which he stowed in his belt, and put the Kimber in with the shells. He grabbed some clothes and a favorite pair of work boots. That would do.

  He climbed out the bedroom window, closed it behind him, shifted the duffel onto his shoulder, and reached down for the paper bag.

  It was gone.

  For an instant, Mitch froze, then carefully eased out his gun. He stared down into the alley. He couldn't see any movement. In weather like this, not even the cats were on the prowl, and, from this height, the rats were invisible.

  Who had taken the bag? Kids? Had to be. If someone was after him, they wouldn't dick around with a six-pack and a carton of smokes, but he wasn't in the mood for testing theories. He decided to go up onto the roof, where he could step across to another building and work his way down to street level a hundred yards away. He'd done it before, but not with die
rooftops wet with rain.

  He began to climb slowly and silently upward until he reached the roof. He was nipping around a ventilation shaft housing when his foot slid on one of the dozen or so lengths of tubular steel scaffolding left there by a careless maintenance crew. It sent him flying forward to land, facedown, in a pool of rainwater. Scrambling back to his feet, he raced for the thigh-high parapet. Reaching it, he swung one leg up, then felt a sharp pain as someone suddenly kicked him behind the knee on his other leg, which promptly gave way.

  He dived for his gun but the man grabbed his arm and twisted it. The gun flew from his hand and he heard it clatter down the sloping roof. He jerked against the grip with all his strength, felt himself break away from the man, and experienced a moment of elation before he overbalanced and went over the far side of the parapet.

  Fingers desperately grasping for anything within reach, he managed to latch on to the rough stone capping with both hands. Then his attacker clasped his arms, just above the wrists, holding on and preventing him from slipping away to certain death. Mitch stared upward, saw the man's face, and didn't recognize him.

  Whatever the guy wanted, he decided, he could gladly have.

  "Pull me up," he wheezed out. "Pull me up!"

  The man slowly did what he asked, until Mitch was sprawled, facedown, half on and half off the capstone. He felt the man release one of his arms, then he saw something reflecting the light. For an instant, Mitch thought it was a knife, then he realized what it was: a hypodermic needle.

  He didn't know what the hell this meant and tried to squirm free but, before he could move, he felt a sudden sharp pain in the taut muscles that stretched up from his shoulder toward his skull.

  The man had just jabbed the needle into his neck.

  Chapter 31

  A s he stared at the vidcap print before him in the privacy of his room, De Angelis fingered the golden, diamond- and ruby-encrusted statuette of a rearing horse.

  Privately, he thought the antique was quite vulgar. He knew it was a gift from the Russian Orthodox Church to the Holy Father on the occasion of a papal audience in the late nineteenth century, and he also knew that it was priceless. Vulgar and ugly, but nevertheless priceless.

  He studied the image more closely. It was the one Reilly had given him at their first meeting, when the agent had inquired about the importance of the multigeared encoder. The sight was still one that made his heart race. Even this grainy print managed to reawaken in him the sheer exhilaration he felt when he first witnessed the moment on the surveillance footage he'd been shown at Federal Plaza.

  Knights* in shining armor pillaging a Manhattan museum in the twenty-first century.

  Such audacity, he thought. Truly remarkable.

  The picture showed die rider, who De Angelis now knew to be the fourth horseman, holding up tiie encoder. He stared at die man's helmet, trying to burrow through the ink and the paper and into die horseman's

  thoughts. The image was a three-quarter view, taken from the rear left side. Smashed display cabinets lay all around die knight. And in the top left corner on the shot, peeking out from behind a cabinet, was a woman's face.

  A female archaeologist who overheard the fourth horseman say something in Latin, De Angelis thought. She had to be close enough to hear him, and, staring at the picture, he knew it had to be her.

  He focused on her face: taut witii fear, frozen. Absolutely terrified.

  It had to be her.

  He set the picture and the jeweled horse down on his bed next to the pendant, which he now picked up. It was made of rubies and set in silver, a gift from the Nizam of Hyderabad. Worth a prince's ransom, which is what it once had been. As he twirled it, he scowled at the dead end he had reached.

  His quarry had covered his tracks well; he would have expected no less from a man of such daring.

  The gang leader's minions, the desperate lowlifes that De Angelis had found, questioned, and dispatched with such ease, had proven useless.

  The man himself still eluded him.

  He needed a fresh tack. A divine intervention of sorts.

  And now this. An annoyance.

  A distraction.

  He looked at her face again. He picked up his cell phone and hit a speed-dial key. Two short rings later, a gravelly, hoarse voice answered.

  "Who's this?"

  "Just how many people have you given this number to, exactly?" The monsignor fired back tersely.

  The man exhaled audibly. "Good to hear from you, sir."

  De Angelis knew the man would now be putting out a cigarette butt, while instinctively reaching for a fresh replacement. He had always found die habit repugnant, but the man's other talents more than made up for it.

  "I need your help on something." As he said it, he frowned. He had hoped he wouldn't need to involve anyone else. He stared at Tess's face again. "I need you to access the FBI's database on METRAID," then added, "discreetly."

  The man's answer came quickly.

  "Not a problem. It's one of the perks of die war on terror. We're all in a caring, sharing mode. Just tell me what you need."

  Chapter 32

  Veering away from one of the many winding roads of the cemetery, Tess was now walking along a gravel path.

  It was just past eight in the morning. The spring bulbs were in bloom all around the headstones, and the nearly clipped grass around her was wet from last night's rain. The small rise in air temperature had generated a coiling mist that shrouded the tombstones and trees.

  Overhead, a lone monk parakeet flew by, breaking die serene setting with a haunting call. Despite the temperature rise and the cover of her coat, Tess shivered a little as she went deeper into the cemetery. Walking through a burial ground was uncomfortable at the best of times, and being here today made her think of her father and of how long it had been since she had visited his grave.

  She stopped and checked the map she had printed out in the kiosk at the huge, gothic entrance. She thought she was headed in the right direction, but now she wasn't that sure anymore. The cemetery was spread out over more than four hundred acres. It was easy to get lost, especially as she wasn't driving. She had taken the R from midtown to die Twenty-fifth Street station in Brooklyn, walked a block east, and entered die cemetery from its main gate.

  She looked around, trying to get her bearings, and wondered if coming here had been such a good idea after all. It was practically a lose-lose situation. If Vance was here, she'd be barging in on a hugely private moment. And if he wasn't here, then her trip would have been a waste of time.

  She pushed her doubts to the back of her mind and kept on walking. She was now in what was obviously an older part of the cemetery. As she passed an elaborate tomb topped by a reclining granite angel, she heard a sound off to one side. Startled, she peered into the mist. She could see nothing except the dark, shifting shapes of the trees. Uneasy now, she walked at a slightly brisker pace, realizing that she was plunging even deeper into the recesses of the cemetery.

  Checking the map quickly, she saw that she must now be close. Convinced of her current location, she decided to take a shortcut across a small knoll and hurried over the slippery grass. She stumbled on a moldy stone surround, her fingers clutching at a crumbling marker to save herself from falling.

  And then she saw him.

  He was about fifty yards away, alone, standing solemnly in front of a small headstone. A bouquet of carnations, dark red and cream colored, lay before it. His head was bowed. A lone gray Volvo was parked on the drive nearby.

  Tess waited a moment before deciding to approach him. She walked toward him slowly, quietly, and glanced at the headstone, spotting the words "Vance" and "Martha" on it. He still hadn't turned when she got to within ten feet of him, even though they were the only ones around.

  "Professor Vance," she said hesitantly.

  He stood rigid for a moment before slowly turning to face her.

  She was standing before a changed man.

  Hi
s hair was thick and silvery gray, his face gaunt. Although he was still slender and tall, the athletic build had receded, even displaying a slight stoop. His hands were in his coat pockets, and he wore a dark overcoat, its collar turned up. Tess noticed that it was threadbare at the cuffs and had a couple of stains on it. In fact, she was embarrassed to notice, his whole appearance was rather shabby. Whatever it was he did now, it was clearly several rungs below the position he had once enjoyed. Had she passed him in the street today, a decade after she last saw him, she doubted that she would have recognized him, but here, under the circumstances, she had no doubt.

  He looked at her, his expression cautious.

  "I'm really very sorry to intrude," she stumbled, "I hope you'll forgive me. I know this is an extremely personal moment for you and, believe me, if there was any other way to contact you ..."

  She stopped, noting that his face seemed to brighten ever so slightly with what seemed like recognition.

  "Tess. Tess Chaykin. Oliver's daughter."

  She breathed in deeply and let out a low sigh of relief. As his face relaxed, his piercing gray eyes brightened, and she saw hints of the charismatic force he had been when they'd last met, all those years ago. There was clearly nothing wrong with his memory, because he said, "Now I know why you look different. You were pregnant when we met. I remember thinking that the Turkish wilderness wasn't a good place for you then."

  "Yes." She relaxed. "I have a daughter. Kim."

  "She must be . . ." He was working out how long it had been.

  "She's nine," she offered helpfully, then her eyes darted away in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I ... I really shouldn't be here."

  She felt a sudden urge to retreat and slip away when she noticed that his smile faded. His whole face seemed to darken as he glanced toward die headstone. His voice soft, he said, "My daughter Annie would have been five years old today."

  Daughter? Tess looked at him, thrown, and turned to the headstone. It was elegant in its simplicity, white, witxi the inscription carved out in letters that were maybe two inches high: