Lost City of the Templars

by Paul Christopher

  Holliday closed his eyes and felt the soft fragrant breezes sifting in through the shuttered windows, and suddenly none of it mattered anymore. He realized that for years now he’d been following everybody else’s dreams and fears, living other people’s secrets and lies, and he realized how tired he was of it all.

  From the day Peggy had found that hidden sword in his uncle Henry’s house so long ago, his world had changed irrevocably and sent him down a rabbit hole into an underworld of conspiracies and secret societies he’d never even known were there.

  If questioned, most people would tell you that the Templars had been a force for good during the Crusades and were now no more than a memory of what it meant to be loyal, truthful and kind.

  The world had turned upside down—lies were truth; laws meant nothing if you had money enough to bend them or change them or just pretend they didn’t exist. Promise was an empty word and greed was the only god.

  And here it didn’t seem to matter.

  That night he slept and sleeping, dreamed; not something he did much of anymore. It was a long time ago and he was on his only real vacation. They went down the coast of the Irish Sea from Dublin and stopped in Wicklow Town. Amy was still painting then, anything that caught her incredible eye; it was as though she could see everything in anything or anyone she painted, what had made it what it was and the aura that stood around it.

  On that distant afternoon they picnicked on a high hill above the town. Afterward Amy set up her folding easel and she began to paint while he dozed off, the smell of clover rich in his nostrils. Two hours later he awoke to find the watercolor almost finished.

  A seascape with the ruins of the Black Castle of Bryne, Cromwell’s last conquest before taking the whole of Ireland, in the foreground and Wales a dark line of dangerous gray on the horizon. In the center was the hard, cold expanse of the Irish Sea, reflecting pewter light up into a cloudless pewter sky. To the far right of the painting as though at the end of vision, there was a faint blue patch of sea lit by an invisible sun. He suddenly knew exactly what the painting was about:

  Attend all ye who list to hear our noble England’s praise

  I tell of the thrice-famous deeds she wrought in ancient days,

  When that great Fleet Invincible against her bore in vain

  The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain.

  “The Spanish Armada,” said Holliday. “Just before they appeared on the horizon.”

  “Something like that.” She smiled.

  “And you see all that?” Holliday asked.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” Amy smiled again.

  He woke with the dawn with tears streaming down his face, but his heart was fuller than he thought it could ever be again. He had not dreamed since the night of her terrible passing, and the dream he’d just had was a gift beyond words. Holliday had held her in his heart and in his mind for more than a decade now, and seeing her smile and laugh, he knew that he was whole once again and knew that death had no power over him. As Dylan Thomas said in his famous poem, “Though Lovers be lost, Love shall not and Death shall have no dominion.”

  Amy would be his forever.

  • • •

  Eddie, Holliday and Harrison Fawcett sat on the wide steps leading into the magical gorge at the bottom of the tepui known as the Mountain of the Gods and watched as in the distance King Hiram led Peggy and Rafi on a tour. Peggy was snapping pictures and Rafi was taking samples, and they both seemed completely enthralled.

  “They seem very happy here,” said Holliday. “It reminds me of Lost Horizon.”

  “Shangri-la?” Fawcett smiled. He nodded. “They have a lot in common. All forms of utopia have their flaws.”

  “The locals all grow old as soon as they leave here?” Holliday smiled.

  “Not quite that bad, but they seem to sicken greatly and are very prone to infections, especially to the lungs and upper respiratory tract.”

  “The hyperoxgenated atmosphere?”

  “Presumably, over the centuries the DNA of Hiram’s people, and through intermarriage, many of the other familial strains living here have mutated. It probably also has something to do with the diet, as well. The Fawcett genes are only a very recent addition, so those mutations haven’t occurred in my genetic structure. It’s complicated.” He paused, then smiled. “You dreamed last night, didn’t you?”

  “We both did,” said Holliday.

  “Good dreams?”

  “The first I’ve had in many years. I was with my wife again. I saw her as clearly as I see you.”

  “I dreamed of being a child again,” said Eddie. “So curious, so strange. I used to run through Habana in the middle of the night with no clothes on. Everyone called me El Vampiro. I have never felt so free again.”

  “This place is like that,” said Fawcett. “Maybe it’s the air or just the magic of the mountain. I’ve never quite known which.”

  “I feel like I could stay here forever,” said Holliday. “Perhaps then I could find peace.”

  “Not if the Devil finds you first, and I’m afraid he’s coming. For all of us.”

  19

  Francisco Neri arrived in St. Gallen, Switzerland, from Zurich on board a four-passenger Eurocopter AS350 Ecureuil owned by Biomedix A.G., whose headquarters were a large white glass and steel building on the outskirts of the small northern Switzerland town. St. Gallen had been named after the famous monastery of St. Gall, but in the twenty-first century the monastery was no more than a tourist attraction and her main economic life was provided by high-tech start-up companies like Biomedix.

  A private car took him to the Biomedix headquarters at 95 Rorschacher Strasse, and ten minutes later he was sitting in the company’s conference room. There were three people in white coats at the conference table with him: Dr. Franz Heller, director of Project Andromeda, Dr. Jurgen Wolff, head of the paleobotany division, and Dr. Dragova Krilencu, evolutionary biologist and primate geneticist.

  “I’ve come for your latest report and the documentation that comes along with it,” said Neri, getting immediately to the point.

  “And the payment?” Franz Heller said, equally curt.

  “I would like a simple progress report and if that is satisfactory I shall give you the funds and you will give me the full documentation,” Neri responded. “Presumably that would be satisfactory?”

  “Certainly,” said Heller. He nodded toward Jurgen Wolff, a heavyset man in his fifties with a streaked, dark beard. Wolff folded his hands across his belly and began to speak as though he were giving a lecture at a university podium.

  “Yes,” said Wolff. “So far the environment has been established as being just under two kilometers in depth with a barometric pressure that shows oxygen concentrations as being almost twice that under normal air pressure at sea level, thus in all probability ensuring the survival of the flora and fauna we have discovered in the sinkhole. It is in effect a time capsule, and such material that has risen to the surface of the tepui or table mountain seems to include a wide diversity of both plant and animal life that could no doubt be set in the early to mid stages of the Cretaceous period some sixty-five million years ago, give or take a million.” He paused, perhaps expecting some laughter at his little joke, and received none. Clearing his throat, Wolff went on. “Some of the plant life includes the St. Helena heliotrope the prehistoric olive, the dwarf ebony and the dwarf cabbage tree. Thirty-eight variants of Cinchona, currently used in the manufacture of quinine, and one hundred and seventy-two other plants that, through examination of the DNA from the spores collected by the low-altitude scoops, show clear and exciting evidence of medicinal use.”

  “Far more to the point, Signor Neri,” said Krilencu, “is the discovery of hair follicles from the Solimoea acrensis, a prehistoric cousin of the spider monkey. The primate, like his modern counterpart, has a long prehensile tail for extra mobility. It also has one other asset that the modern versions lack—the ability to regenerate its limbs.
As a primate, Solimoea acrensis has a great deal in common with human beings, and we have been able to isolate the genes that cause the regeneration.”

  “Is there any proof of this?”

  Krilencu reached into the left-hand pocket of her lab coat, took out a sealed petri dish and slid it across the table to Neri. Neri stared down at the table. Inside the dish was a three-quarters-grown adult thumb rising from the flesh-colored gel of the petri dish.

  “The tissue was taken from a hospital patient who had lost his thumb in an industrial meat slicer,” said the woman. “When fully grown it will be reattached. Since it is created from the man’s own tissue, reattachment will be much easier. Our next experiment shall be to regenerate an entire limb while the rest of it is still in place. This presents some serious difficulties, but we project three years before we can bring the technology to market. Given the wars, traffic accidents and other situations needing tissue replacement of one kind or another, the patent will be worth billions.”

  “And the stock options should I choose to participate?”

  “A six percent bonus now and three percent per year as well as a base block of stock at today’s price, as we discussed,” said Heller.

  Neri smiled. “Then perhaps we should get down to business.”

  • • •

  James Calthrop, the assassin hired by “Constantine,” sat in his rental car and watched Neri emerge from the Biomedix headquarters and climb into a black Mercedes limousine. He headed back into town and Calthrop followed. They eventually arrived at the Raddison Blu out by the autoroute leading to Lake Constance and the Austrian border. It was the town’s only four-star hotel and it also included a franchised Swiss casino. According to Neri’s file, his favorite games were baccarat, chemin de fer and American-style blackjack, or vingt-et-un as it was called in Europe.

  Neri checked in at the front desk, was given a swiped key card and went up to his room, which turned out to be on the twelfth floor. Once again Calthrop followed. He watched Neri enter room 1223 and close the door behind him. Calthrop returned to the lobby and waited. Forty-five minutes later Neri reappeared in the lobby in evening dress and went into the restaurant. From there Calthrop assumed the Italian would spend at least an hour or two in the casino.

  Calthrop went up to the twelfth floor, found 1223 and paused in front of the door. He felt for the small outlet at the base of the lock and plugged in the palm-sized card reader he had in his jacket pocket, and the light above the lock turned green. Calthrop opened the door, stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Like all the rooms in the hotel, Neri’s was done in a décor of pale yellows and whites, the furniture all ultramodern. Calthrop fetched a bottle of Perrier from the minibar, opened it and sat down on the couch to wait. Neri might take hours to return to the room, but Calthrop didn’t mind; he’d always been a patient man.

  • • •

  In fact, it was well past midnight before the gentle click of the lock announced Neri’s return. He came into the living room already undoing his bow tie and unbuttoning his vest. Seeing Calthrop, he stopped dead in his tracks, a sudden look of both fear and desperate understanding on his face.

  “Chi diavolo siete?” Neri blustered.

  “I am an emissary from the bank,” answered Calthrop.

  “What bank?”

  “Don’t be silly, Signor Neri. I am an emissary from the bank from which you embezzled two hundred million euros.”

  “What madness are you talking about?”

  “Come, come, signor, it really won’t do. You know why I’m here and you know very well who sent me.”

  “Assassini,” said Neri, his face draining and his voice dull. He flopped down onto an upholstered chair.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s who they are, although they’ve distanced themselves from you through a middleman, of course. They wanted me to make it look like an accident.”

  “Accident?”

  “Yes. All those American television dramas aside, it’s quite easy to murder someone and have it look like an accident. Coroners and medical examiners are far too reliant on technology these days, which makes it even easier. Using a fine-grade needle to inject pure distilled water into the carotid in the neck or the femoral artery in the thigh gives the effect of a massive cerebral hemorrhage or stroke—certainly a possibility for a man of your general health and age.”

  “Then why haven’t you killed me? Do you enjoy your little game of cat and mouse? Are you some sort of sadist?”

  “I thought we might have a chat,” said Calthrop. “I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about our present situation. It bears discussion.”

  “What does an assassin think?”

  “In this case he thinks about both his employers and the man he is employed to kill.” Calthrop paused, watching the prominent vein in Neri’s forehead slow its pulsing. “Would you like a drink, signor?”

  “Tuaca,” said Neri.

  Calthrop went to the minibar, found a bottle of the orange-brown liqueur and poured a small scoop of crushed ice into a double shot glass. He poured in the Tuaca and handed it to Neri, then sat down again. The Italian took a large swallow and gave a little sigh.

  “Go on,” he said, taking a small sip.

  Calthrop took out his cigarettes and offered one to Neri, who shook his head, then lit one for himself. “There is no question who my employer is simply because you are who you are, Signor Neri. You are chairman of the Vatican Bank and as such one of the few people who is in a position to embezzle two hundred million euros from that institution. Logically that means that my employer is someone within the Vatican.”

  “I can think of several,” said Neri, a slightly acid tone in his voice. “But I fail to see your point.”

  “The point is, Signor Neri, that above all else the Vatican is a business. Businesses tend to be practical and there is nothing at all practical about revenge. So why do they want you dead?”

  “You speak theoretically, I suppose,” replied the Italian, finishing his drink. He set the empty glass down on the black lacquered table beside the chair.

  “Not at all,” said Calthrop. “It makes no sense. You have the money and they know they’re not going to get it back, but they did seem very interested in where it was going.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither did I for quite some time,” said Calthrop, “but it finally dawned on me that the money was of no interest at all. Their interest lies in you and who you’re affiliated with outside of the bank.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What is Biomedix?” Calthrop said.

  Neri looked stunned. “How do you know about them?”

  “I followed you, of course; my own life is at stake here, as well.”

  “Why your life?” Neri said, perplexed.

  “That should be obvious; when I discover where the money is being placed or who it is being given to, and when I report that fact to my employers, I go from being an asset to a threat. I know too much. They’ll have me killed by an independent contractor who has no idea what my mission was.” Calthrop paused. When he spoke again his voice had hardened. “Biomedix.”

  “They’ll kill me,” Neri said.

  “And if you don’t tell me I’ll kill you first, and it definitely won’t look like an accident.” Calthrop reached under his jacket and took out a SIG Sauer Mosquito, a Swiss-made automatic pistol. He reached into his side pocket, took out a six-inch suppressor and screwed it onto the end of the .22’s threaded barrel. In a hotel room firing the weapon would sound no louder than a champagne cork.

  “Biomedix is doing research into rain forest plants and animals for potential medical use.”

  “The money was given to them?”

  “Yes, for a voting share, a position on the board of directors and stock options.”

  “On whose instructions did you do this?”

  “They’ll kill me.”

  Calthrop sighed. “Let’s not get on that r
oundabout, shall we?”

  There was a long pause and then Neri spoke, the words grudging. “Lord Adrian Grayle. White Horse Resources.”

  “Were you acting on the company’s orders or is this somehow connected with the White Glove?” Calthrop said.

  “You know about that?”

  “I am an assassin by trade, Signor Neri, not by education. I chose this job because it paid much better than being an Oxford don with several useless degrees in history. So, which was it?”

  “The White Glove.”

  “You are a member?”

  “My family has been in the order for more than nine hundred years.”

  “And why is the White Glove interested in Biomedix?”

  “They’re not, but part ownership will act as a cover for what they’re really doing in Brazil.”

  “Which is?”

  “I haven’t been told. Only that it’s a religious artifact of some kind. There are rumors in the Vatican about their efforts, as well.”

  “That’s all you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where were you going after you left here?”

  “Paris. I have a place there under the name of Nazorine. Ten Avenue Foche, St. Mandé. It’s hidden behind some flats. It’s a house in the courtyard.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “Why does any man have such a place in Paris?”

  “Is there anyone occupying it now?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” said Calthrop. He nodded to himself, picked up the silenced pistol and shot Neri three times, twice in the chest and once in the head. Then he went out of the room and began to run the bath.

  20

  Calthrop had never had his fingerprints taken, but by both nature and inclination he was a careful man. He slipped a pair of surgical gloves on, then crossed the room. He emptied out the melted ice from Neri’s glass into the bar sink, wiped it off with his handkerchief, then pocketed the tiny two-ounce bottle of Tuaca along with its screw top.