by Rachel Lee
According to the writer, that association had eventually helped bring about the fall of the Templars. The men who had undertaken to give everything to their God and protect pilgrims coming to the Holy Land had somehow gone astray, becoming wealthy beyond belief, making friends among the Muslims—even, it was said, reading the Koran. They had briefly placed a "king" in Jerusalem, a man who was said to have descended from the line of Davidic kings.
Ahmed snorted at that. The sons of Ishmael had lived in that land longer than the sons of Isaac. The Arab claim was far older.
The Templars, he learned, had come to nearly control Europe through their wealth. They had virtually created international banking, and any king, prince or duke who wished to wage war was beholden to them for loans. Eventually, every royal house in Europe was indebted to them, many so deeply that they were little more than Templar puppets.
Then he read of their downfall, when the king of France and the pope had conspired to wipe out the order and take their treasure. But the Templar fleet had vanished, and with it the untold wealth that had for so long financed Europe.
Ahmed sat back in his chair, rubbing his chin and thinking. The wealth had disappeared. Or had it?
He thought of the huge sums of money that had come his way to fund his plan, and he began to see how he might be a cog in a larger plan, a much older plan. One that didn't care about God or Allah at all. One that had betrayed its very foundations.
If the Templar wealth had not disappeared, then where would it have gone? Who had inherited the true role of the Templar Order, that of banker to the princes of Europe? The nexus of international banking had been Frankfurt for over two centuries, until, by the time of the First World War, every major participant was borrowing money from the same group of men. The war devastated Europe, but the bankers grew ever wealthier.
Armed with this information, Ahmed called his contact in the Saudi national bank. It was time to find out where the money for Black Christmas had originated and what projects those men were investing in next.
He was through with running a step behind.
20
Guatemalan Highlands
The volcano rumbled twenty-four hours a day. By night it cast an orange glow on the mountains and slopes surrounding it, and sometimes, in the perpetual cloud that seemed to hover over it, bursts of orange light could also be seen. So far no lava had poured down its slopes, no lava bombs spat out to ignite the forests below. So far the mountain remained a seething cauldron that raged only with showers of ash.
But Miguel knew better than to count on the mountain remaining restrained. Worse, he had to make his way through the sea of ash on its slopes before it rained, for then he would be caught in a mire that would wash him away.
And he knew the mountain could make its own rain. Whatever the educated people might say, Miguel knew the lore, the treasured knowledge of his Mayan people. He knew the mountain was a living, breathing beast, and he knew there was no way to placate it once it woke. It would have its way, and a puny man scrambling over its slopes could not withstand its force.
It could pour fire from the sky or cause rain. That was its great power. And either one would be equally destructive. Or it could send silent killers down its slopes, the ghosts of jaguars that would grab men by the throat and choke them to death.
He kept a bandana tied over his nose and mouth, hoping to escape the power of the ghostly jaguars. More, he prayed every step of the way that the mighty mountain would take no notice of him. And on every other breath he sent a plea to the Christian god to protect him.
By the night glow he followed the Hunter. He had no idea why the man had killed Paloma, nor did he care. For that alone the stalker must die, and Miguel called on the power of the jaguar to aid him.
Miguel knew, as the Hunter he pursued had evidently surmised, that there was another way out of those caves. During the time the mountain had shaken like a cat trying to shrug off some pest, he had lain watching the man, watching him search the opening to the cavern, watching him emerge again as if he thought it was all over.
The man had stood for a long time, braced against the quaking earth, and for a while Miguel thought that his quarry was going to descend toward him, to meet the end that Miguel so longed to give him.
But then it was as if the man had another thought, and he began to struggle around the side of the mountain, through deepening ash, grabbing trees for support. Only when he had vanished did Miguel climb to the cave to learn what he could about his family.
It was there that Miguel had found Paloma. A great cry had risen in his chest, but he had swallowed it. While rock shook free from the walls and ceiling of the cave and threatened to crush him, he had stood over the frail body of the curandera and prayed that her return to the heavens would make her happier than this life had.
Then he bent and took the small pouch she wore around her neck. It was a medicine pouch, she had said, and the contents were to be sprinkled over her when she died.
She had told them all, and no one had questioned her. No one would ever have dared question Paloma. She was too well loved. Too well respected.
Opening the pouch, he had found a fine white powder that glowed faintly. For a moment he could only stare in amazement, but then another rock fell, this one too close, recalling him to the present.
Carefully he had pinched the shining powder from the pouch and sprinkled it over the old woman. Another pinch to complete the job. It had glowed where it fell, seeming to cover her with light.
He had thought about pouring the rest of the powder over her, but something stayed his hand. Instead, he had tightened the drawstring on the leather bag and tucked it into his pocket. She would want the padre to have it. Somehow he knew this as if she had told him.
Then he had turned and hurried swiftly out of the dangerous cave. Behind him, Paloma's body shimmered in the darkness.
For days he had continued to follow the Hunter, had watched him find the other cave entrance, and finally, just this night, had seen him pick up the trail of the refugees in the valley below the rumbling mountain.
Now the hunt would move more swiftly, for the Hunter had scented his prey. On impulse, Miguel pinched a bit of the shiny powder from Paloma's bag and ate it. Dimly he remembered that she had given him some once when he was a very small and very ill child. It had strengthened him almost immediately. He prayed it would do the same now.
Because if he didn't get to the Hunter first, the man would probably kill the rest of the refugees.
And Miguel was not going to allow that to happen. No matter what.
Rome, Italy
Renate's senses went on high alert as the train pulled into the Termini Station. Its graceful, modern appearance, rather like a ladies' fan spread out over the arrival area, belied a danger she had come to know only too well in the past three years. Pickpockets and baggage thieves, often aided directly or unwittingly by begging children, phony taxi cab drivers and other assorted miscreants, prowled the station grounds in search of unsuspecting tourists.
Lawton had arrived in Rome earlier, having taken an overnight train from Frankfurt. Renate had stayed with Niko and Assif until morning, surviving on coffee and adrenaline, hoping that Assif's legendary cryptography skills would yield more information from the intercepted e-mails. Finally, convinced that she would have to wait for further decryption and having been summoned back to Rome by Jefe himself, she had boarded the train. She had slept for much of the fifteen-hour journey, but she did not feel rested. She had begun to wonder if she would ever feel rested again.
Perhaps it was her eyes darting about at the ragged edge of exhaustion, or perhaps it was her usual heightened state of alert when walking through Termini Station, that tipped her to the presence of the man walking a few meters to her left and one step behind her. At first she dismissed him as a routine pickpocket, but something about the way his eyes continually swept between her and the down escalator toward which she was walking sent a cold chill d
own her back. If he was indeed a pickpocket, she knew she was the only target he had in mind. And pickpockets looked for targets of opportunity, not specific people.
She glanced around, quickly estimating the most likely sites for an attack. It would be the escalator, where even at this hour people were standing in close quarters, with their attention distracted by panels displaying directions and posters advertising the city's attractions. That would be where she would attack, up close and personal. A knife or ice pick, probably. Done correctly—and she doubted the Brotherhood would hire an amateur—she would be collapsed at the foot of the escalator, with him on his way to a train, before anyone noticed. Her death would be written off as random street crime, a tragic story of a Dutch national killed by a mugger, with perhaps a brief story in la Repubblica, or perhaps not even that.
Just as she expected, he began to close in as they neared the escalator, pacing himself so that he would be a step behind her. She knew this was no place for a fight. He would be above and behind her, with leverage, giving her no freedom of maneuver. Clicking her tongue as if she had forgotten something, she turned and headed back toward the main entrance to the station. Jefe would have to pay for a taxi. At least the broad, semicircular cabstand in front of the station would give her a greater opportunity to defend herself.
She heard him turn to follow and went through a mental inventory of her weapons as she quickened her pace. As a rule, she didn't carry a handgun in Europe, especially not when traveling. Europeans had adapted to the threat of terrorism far earlier and far more than their American counterparts. Gun laws were strict—and strictly enforced. Even as a BKA agent, she had not been authorized to carry a gun except for specific assignments, and Office 119—which did not officially exist—could not authorize her, regardless.
That left her keys, potentially lethal if she could get in close, but to do so would also expose her to whatever weapon her attacker had. Apart from that, she was armed only with her wits and her training, and she had no doubt that he was her equal in both regards.
As she stepped through the front door of the station and approached the row of taxis, she slipped one hand into her purse and grasped her keys, the key ring in her palm, the keys protruding between her fingers, just beneath the knuckles. It was not much, but it was all she had. That, and the knowledge that he was there, perhaps not suspecting that she was aware of him.
She walked up to a taxi, speaking rapid-fire Italian, her eyes flicking between the driver's face and the muddled reflection in his less than spotless passenger window. She saw only a shadow approaching, blocking the bright lights of the station entrance, but it was enough.
Turning her hips to the left, she pushed off on her right foot, her right hand rising at her side, shoulders squaring, left hand in a defensive position, lunging onto her left leg, her right arm extending fully with the entire force of her body behind it. For the first time, she got a clear view of the man's face as she felt the keys gouge deeply into the soft flesh of his throat.
His eyes widened in shock for an instant, before his face contorted in pain. His hands rose to his throat, and she caught the dull gray glimmer of something falling to the ground. The Polizia would later establish that it was a stiletto, the blade blackened ceramic, a combat knife used by special forces operatives worldwide, available in any of a number of military equipment catalogs.
But Renate could not take note of such things. Instead, her focus was on finishing what she had begun, and she drove her left fist into his solar plexus, hearing the rush of breath as he doubled over. Her third strike, again with her key-studded right fist, slashed into the side of his head, just beneath the ear, penetrating skin and muscle before shredding his carotid artery.
Behind her, the cab driver gasped as a fountain of blood erupted from the side of the man's neck, spraying across the sidewalk. Renate stood over her attacker as he collapsed to the ground, her vision crystalline clear, the coppery scent of blood strong in her flaring nostrils, her muscles tingling in anticipation of actions that would never happen.
The taxi driver would later tell the police that seconds seemed to stretch into hours before the blond woman realized what she had done and slumped against his taxi, hands trembling, trying to catch her breath, her eyes still wide in terror.
But he would be wrong. It was not terror that her eyes radiated with almost searing intensity. It was rage.
* * *
Renate, Lawton and Margarite sat in Jefe's office, Renate still simmering with an anger that hung in the air like a cloud. If ever human eyes had looked feral, hers did. This was not the woman he had met in Idaho, Lawton thought, the woman whose face had borne the shocked and horrified look of someone who has just taken a human life. There was no shock or horror in her now. She wanted more of the Brotherhood's blood.
Jefe looked up from the police report that a source had obtained. He appeared tired, his Latin features sagging as if the weight of the world lay upon his shoulders.
"The Polizia are saying it was self-defense," he said. "They will report it as an attempted robbery of a tourist. But it wasn't, was it?"
"No," Renate said. "He was no street mugger. He was an assassin."
"There's no question now," Lawton said. "They know she's alive."
"I agree," Jefe said, nodding. "The question then is, how much do they know about the rest of us? Has Office 119 been compromised?"
"He might have spotted her in Frankfurt," Lawton said, with more confidence than he felt. "The Brotherhood knows her and knows what she looks like."
"Maybe," Jefe said. "Regardless, we must assume the worst. The Brotherhood is an organization with a worldwide reach and a worldwide agenda. They can communicate using one of the most secure networks there is. I always thought it was a bit foolish to assume that no one would ever suspect our existence."
"Maybe not," Renate said, her voice cold and firm. "The Brotherhood has been after me for years. They knew I was alive, or they wouldn't have killed my parents. They don't have to know about Office 119 to know about me."
"But how did they track you?" Jefe asked. "How did they know you would be on that train, arriving at that time? You were supposed to have traveled with Law, the night before. Staying overnight was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I didn't even know about it until Law got here."
Lawton drew a breath. "Somehow, they picked her up in Frankfurt. There's no other way it could have happened. Think about it. If they were onto us, there's no way I could have gotten into Berg & Tempel. If they were onto the whole team, they'd have taken us all out in Frankfurt."
"But consider this," Renate said. "Even if they were just watching me, they probably spotted the rest of the team. That means Niko and Assif…"
"Relax," Jefe said, holding up a hand. "That was my first thought. As soon as we heard what happened, I sent a message to Niko and Assif. And I have a three-man security team on the way there now."
"That's a lot of resources," Renate said. "And all because of me."
"Well," Jefe said, "for the time being, I can spare them. With these new EU Department of Collective Security operators all over the place, I had to order our European teams to stand down."
"What's the deal with that?" Lawton asked. "I heard about the riots, but now they raided a mosque in Nice?"
Jefe nodded. "The word is that General Jules Soult, the new deputy director for intelligence, has a private security firm under contract."
"Mercenaries," Margarite said.
"Yes, exactly," Jefe agreed. "It's all legal, but I still don't like it. Anyway, Soult said he had good intel that an Al Qaeda cell was operating out of that mosque, so he sent a team in."
"Yeah," Lawton said, shaking his head. "Four dead, seven wounded, including six kids. That's going to go a long way toward stopping terrorism. Did we have any intel on the target?"
Margarite shook her head. "Not a thing. We had static about another mosque in Nice, but we couldn't confirm it. Nothing on that one, though."
&nb
sp; "Is our French intelligence that bad?" Renate asked.
Margarite looked at her, anger simmering in her eyes. "No, it is not. That mosque was clean. As the raid showed."
"Prickly," Renate said, a flicker of a smile crossing her features for the first time since her arrival.
Margarite ignored her. "I have known of Jules Soult for years. He is a political opportunist from a family of political opportunists."
"Is he one of those Soults?" Lawton asked, dimly remembering his Napoleonic history.
"The very same," Jefe said. "Great-great-bunch-of-greats-grandfather was a Marshall of France."
"And not a very good or honorable one," Margarite said, the tone of her voice leaving no room for debate. "General Soult—the current one—commanded the Foreign Legion in Chad for several years. There were rumors."
"What rumors?" Renate asked.
"That he was a man who would spare no blood in the defense of France," Margarite replied. "Not his soldiers' blood. And certainly not his enemies' blood. When it was rumored that a terrorist cell was training in a mountain village outside Goz-Bieda, he went in and took it out. Not just the camp. The entire village. According to the rumors, when his superiors asked why, he said 'They knew, or should have known.'"
"That's…ruthless," Lawton said.
"Yes," she replied. "But by the time he left Chad, terrorist activity had all but ceased. So any excesses were swept away. That he would raid a mosque, on minimal intelligence, is not out of character."
"Regardless," Jefe said, "with Soult's operatives fanning out all over Europe, we don't have a lot of room to operate. So I can spare a security team in Frankfurt. Now, with that out of the way, tell me about these messages to Washington."
Lawton spoke. "I contacted Miriam Anson. You remember her from the Bureau. The contact was indirect, via our man at U.N. headquarters. She's going to try to find out who the messages were meant for."