The Templar Cross t-2

by Paul Christopher

  "Emil and I can go," said Holliday softly. "You don't have to come."

  "Better not to," agreed Tidyman. He reached out tentatively and touched Rafi's arm. "Some pain should not be endured, or should at least be borne by others, and not alone."

  "No," said Rafi. "I have to see."

  A few minutes later Moustafa managed to maneuver the low-hulled torpedo boat close enough to the wreck of the Khamsin for the men to simply step off onto the awkwardly tilting deck. Both armed, Holliday and Rafi went below to check the hold while Tidyman made his way up to the ruins of the wheelhouse.

  They bypassed the headless watchman in the hatchway and made their way down the steeply canted ladder into the main hold. The ship's interior was silent except for the creaking of the dying hull and empty of life. A ghost ship.

  Once upon a time the small area had probably been used to carry supplies or spare equipment, but now it had been subdivided into plywood-partitioned stalls, each one no bigger than a coffin and lined with straw. In each of the subdivided areas a woman was shackled to a large ringbolt welded to the hull. There were thirty stalls and thirty women, or at least what was left of them. Each of the prisoners was naked and filthy.

  They were all dead, some torn to ribbons by the rounds from the helicopter chain guns, others flailed by flying shrapnel. Some of them were very young, no more than eleven or twelve. The majority of them appeared to be Berbers, some with traditional tattoos on their hands and faces. There seemed to be no fear in their faces, as though they'd died in their sleep. Holliday was reasonably sure they'd been drugged for their sea voyage to keep them quiet.

  "Who are they?" Rafi asked. "How did they get here? Not by choice surely."

  "Probably from Mauritania," said Holliday, looking down at the pitiful remains of the women. "Chattel slavery is big business there. The men work on farms or in the mines, the women and girl children are sold as sex slaves. Alhazred is just a middleman between the slave dealers in Mali and the Sudan and the end users from La Santa."

  "How could any normal human being be involved in something like this? This is madness."

  "No, just business," said Holliday, his voice cold with barely contained fury. "It's not much different from privately run prisons in the U.S. The inhumanity is irrelevant; in the end it's only the bottom line that counts." He shook his head. "There's nothing we can do here," he said at last. "At least Peggy wasn't on board."

  "Thank God for that," said Rafi.

  "I don't think God is part of the equation here," muttered Holliday. "Come on."

  They made their way back up to the deck again. Tidyman was waiting for them.

  "Did you find anything?" Holliday asked.

  "The only chart still intact at all was for the Tyrrhenian Sea."

  "Naples?" Holliday said. "Not Corsica?"

  "Maybe Naples, maybe somewhere else." He held up a shattered piece of electronic gear. "What's left of a Garmin deck unit. If we're lucky I'll be able to figure out what charts they had loaded into it." He glanced quickly at Rafi and then back to Holliday. "Any luck?"

  "Peggy wasn't on board," said Holliday. "At least there's no sign of her. There was a cargo of women belowdecks. Sex slaves. They're all dead. Some of them are just kids."

  "What shall we do?"

  Holliday looked up and down the deck. The wreckage hadn't sunk much lower in the water since they'd come aboard. The boat could easily stay afloat for days. He thought about the bodies down below.

  "Those women deserve a little dignity," he said. "Let's give them a proper burial at sea."

  Ten minutes later Moustafa put off a dozen yards, well away from the remains of the foundering tugboat. This time it was Holliday who carried the familiar weight of the rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder. He aimed for the open forward hatch, sent up a brief, heartfelt prayer, then pulled the heavy trigger.

  There was a sharp cracking sound as the round took off, the recoil throwing him back on his right leg. The high-explosive charge detonated deep in the hull of the old boat and there was a thunder-clap of sound as the fuel tank exploded.

  A gout of flame tore up out of the hold and there was a ghastly wrenching sound as the ancient tug broke her back, the massive oak keelson twisting, then finally splitting along its length. Almost immediately the Khamsin began to sink, rolling once before slipping under the dark swell of the sea, leaving nothing behind but a few flaming pieces of wreckage and a spreading slick of bunker oil. In a little while even that would be gone.

  Holliday stood alone on the forward deck of the torpedo boat, staring at the spot where the tug had been only moments before. Briefly he had one of those moments when the past comes back so hard it leaves you breathless, remembering his own father's funeral and seeing his cousin Peggy on the other side of the grave, crying, even though he could not.

  Later that day his uncle Henry had taken Holliday aside and reminded him that when he was gone Peggy would be the only family left to him, and that above all else it was Holliday's job to protect her from harm, to keep her safe and see her happy. He'd vowed to do all those things and now he'd failed her. She was somewhere out there, desperate and afraid. It was his job to find her and bring her home.

  Rafi appeared beside him on the deck. He held his peace for a moment. Finally Holliday turned to him.

  "What?"

  "Emil figured out the GPS unit. The Khamsin was headed for the island of Ponza, on the Italian coast."

  "How far?"

  "Moustafa says he can have us there by sunrise."

  21

  The island of Ponza is a five-mile-long and one-mile-wide crescent-shaped spine of volcanic rock rising out of the ocean fifty miles or so southeast of Rome and an almost equal distance northwest of Naples. The closest port offering ferry service is the coastal town of Anzio. The island, named in honor of the infamous Pontius Pilate, was a favorite holiday haunt for Romans in ancient times, a onetime penal colony and a summer resort for the seventeenth-century Bourbon kings of Naples and Sicily. During World War II it was used as an internment camp for troublesome Royalist families and briefly as a place of exile for Mussolini himself. During the twenty-first century, it had reverted to the past and was a summer haven for city-weary Romans during the months of July and August.

  Moustafa knew the island well; it had been a haven for pirates and smugglers for the last five thousand years and there wasn't much difference between smuggling wine into Pompeii to avoid customs duty two thousand years ago and smuggling small arms and cigarettes into Anzio and Naples now. There were a thousand caves and hidden beaches where goods could be dropped or transshipped, and there were so many small pleasure boats at anchor in the pretty island's bays and coves to make the job of the maritime Carabinieri and the Guardia Costiera a nightmarish, next to impossible task. According to Moustafa there was as much Lebanese hashish and Marseille heroin in the luggage of people on the return ferry from Porto Ponza as there was dirty laundry.

  As easy as it was to smuggle in and out of the volcanic resort island, it also didn't do to flaunt it in the face of officialdom. The Guardia Costiera patrolled the jagged coastline of the little island in half a dozen Defender-class inflatables, so it wouldn't do to have a seventy-two-foot dazzle-camouflaged speedboat rumble into the crowded harbor at Porto Ponza. Instead, Moustafa sold them his own bicycle-patched twelve-foot inflatable, then pointed them in the right direction and dropped them off at extreme radar range in the first gray light of dawn.

  The timing was perfect. Using Moustafa's ancient British Anzani 18-horsepower outboard they made it to the clear amethyst waters of Luna Beach on the west side of the island just as the sun began to rise above the crags and cliffs that divided the beach from the town.

  They drew the inflatable up onto the dark sand beside a row of rental paddle boats chained in a row, then walked through the quarter-mile-long tunnel dug five hundred years before Christ beneath the cliffs. They came out on the town side of the gloomy walkway just as the fir
st blunt-nosed hydrofoil ferry arrived from Naples.

  "Now what?" Rafi asked as they came out through the tunnel's seawall exit.

  "Moustafa told us to find a taxi driver named Al," said Tidyman, blinking in the sudden sun.

  "Al?" Holliday said.

  "He's from Brooklyn," answered the Egyptian.

  They found Al at an open-air cafe farther down the promenade. He was drinking coffee from a huge foaming mug, eating a cannoli and smoking a Marlboro. As he ate, smoked and drank he complained about his breakfast.

  "You know how difficult it is to find sausages and eggs on an island without chickens or pigs?" He shook his head. "Almost impossible, that's how hard. An egg is worth its weight in gold in this town. The only meat they eat here other than fish is rabbits they raise to make their cacciatore."

  Al's full name was Alphonso Fonzaretti but he preferred Al to Alphonso and Fonz to Fonzaretti. He was thirty-two years old and favored I Love New York T-shirts in red and yellow. Al's people were originally from Ponza and immigrated to Dover Plains, New York, with half the population of the town just after the war. Al came over to drive a cab during the summers while his cousin Mario switched places and visited relatives in Dover Plains. It seemed to be an equitable arrangement for both of them. Mario made hard currency in the States working in the Fonzaretti garbage business and Al got an Italian vacation and a chance to pick up nice girls and practice the mother tongue. After all, what was family for, capisce?

  "So what can I do for Moustafa's friends today?" Al asked when the preliminaries were over.

  "Girls," said Holliday bluntly as Al popped the last piece of gooey pastry into his mouth.

  "You don't seem the type of guys who'd be looking for girls," said Al, speculatively. "You don't have that collegiate look, capisce? None of that Brotherhood of the Traveling Panty Hound look you sometimes get here, know what I mean?"

  "We're looking for the people who might deal in girls as a commodity," said Holliday.

  "Business," said Al, nodding, getting the idea.

  "Business," agreed Holliday.

  "Not my thing," Al said with a shrug. "I'm strictly small-time. Bit of booze, bit of weed, maybe even some blow if you get really hard-core, but that's as far as I go. Like to keep a low profile, right? Flying under the radar, yeah? The Fonz has a good thing going here." Al gave them a hard look. "Got the family reputation to protect as well, right?"

  "But you know what I'm talking about," said Holliday.

  "Sure."

  "And you are connected," added Holliday.

  "But you're not," answered Al flatly.

  "No," agreed Holliday. "But believe me, Al, my friends and I can be dangerous."

  "That some kind of threat?" asked the young man, bristling slightly. He stubbed out his Marlboro and lit another.

  "More like a warning," said Holliday. "We're going to find out what we need to know one way or the other; you can either help us or hinder. It's up to you. These people kidnapped my cousin, my family, Al. We're going to get her back even if other people get hurt in the process. Capisce?"

  Al took a long drag on his cigarette and stared at Holliday.

  "How'd you lose the eye?"

  "Afghanistan," said Holliday curtly.

  "Army?"

  "Rangers."

  "You saying it's Axis or Allies?"

  "Something like that."

  "Italians could have saved themselves a lot of trouble, they'd gotten rid of Mussolini in the first place."

  "Agreed."

  "Guy you're looking for has a place in Le Forna, up the road. Runs a dive shop. Good-looking, forty, forty-five. Gray hair, expensive sunglasses."

  "What's his name?"

  "Conti. Massimo Conti."

  Le Forna was a sleepy little village on the upper horn of the island's crescent, and like Ponza Town it clung to a series of stone terraces carved out of the tuffa cliffs millennia before. Al drove them in his Fiat Idea Minivan, following the twisting narrow road along the spine of the island, heading north.

  "Conti's not a local," said Al, from behind the wheel. "I think he's from Naples. There was a hotel for sale in Le Forna and he bought it. Just appeared one day and started spending money in the town. Hotel one summer, then the dive shop, then an air charter service. Turbo Otters from Rome for the glitterati. Seems to be paying off."

  "Naples," said Holliday. "Camorra?"

  "Who knows from Camorra?" Al shrugged. "Mario Puzo time. Everyone wants to be a Soprano." The young man made an unpronounceable sound like a badger clearing its throat. "It's all bull." The young man paused. "He does have some kind of juice though, that's for sure. Two years and half the town is his."

  "How does he handle the women?"

  "It's a way station. Any talent that actually works here are imports from Rome. Classy stuff, not the raw meat you're talking about. Word is he parks the goods in the old abandoned prison on Santo Stefano, then brings them to the mainland when he's ready. Doesn't crap in his own nest so to speak. Uses his dive boats as cover and transportation."

  "Where's Santo Stefano, and what is it?"

  "An island twenty-five miles east, closer to the coast. It's a rock, maybe half a mile across. The prison's about four hundred years old. They used it right up to the sixties."

  "What else is there?"

  "Nothing. There's another island, Ventotene, about a mile and a half away with a few hundred people on it, but that's it."

  They arrived in Le Forna. Al found them another cafe high on the cliffs above the harbor. He ordered coffee and rolls for everyone, then pointed out Conti's dive shop far below them. It was no more than a shack on an old seawall that looked as though it was part of a Roman ruin. As they watched, a big cabin-decked inflatable was being hauled down a long stone ramp into the clear, sparkling water. The aluminum boat's inflatable collar was bright orange and the upper deck and cabin were red and white.

  "Two hundred grand a pop with a pair of Honda 225s," commented Al. "And he's got six of them." The young man snorted. "Like I said, juice from somewhere."

  "Color scheme's interesting," commented Holliday. "I saw one just like it back in the harbor at Ponza."

  "Noticed, did you?" Al laughed. "Same as the Guardia Costiera. You can bet he's got some sticky signs around that say just that."

  "I take it he's bringing in more than women," said Holliday, watching as the inflatable was rolled into the water. There were half a dozen tourist types watching from the pier as scuba tanks were loaded on board.

  "There's places on the island you could unload a small freighter, no problem," Al said and nodded. "I've seen it for myself. Bales of dope, crates of weapons. He's got a whole black market going. Anything people buy, Massimo Conti and his people sell." The Brooklyn taxi driver nodded toward the shack on the ancient pier below them. "Speak of the devil," he said quietly.

  A middle-aged very fit-looking man in Gucci sunglasses and an eighty-dollar haircut appeared. He stood by the small group of tourists on the pier, chatting as their dive boat was prepared. He clapped one of them on the back and they headed down the old stone ramp. He watched for a second, then stepped back into the shack.

  "That was him?" Holliday asked.

  "Yup." Al nodded.

  "You know anything about his schedule?"

  "Wednesdays he goes out on his boat. Big Dalla Pieta 48 he keeps in Ponza. Comes back Fridays. Says he's diving on an old destroyer that was sunk off Anzio, the HMS Inglefield."

  "You don't believe it?"

  "Not his kind of thing. Look at him. George Hamilton with pecs. Mr. Adventure. He'd go for a Roman wreck maybe, something with class, but not a rusty old piece of tin from the Second World War." Al lit another Marlboro. "Besides, friends of mine have seen him in Ventotene on Thursdays, partying."

  "What's wrong with that?" Rafi asked.

  "Nowhere near Anzio," said Al. "Opposite direction."

  "Think he's supervising a pickup or a drop?" Holliday asked.

  "Cou
ld be," said Al.

  "Tomorrow's Wednesday," said Rafi.

  "So it is," said Al.

  "Can you get us to this Santo Stefano by tomorrow night?" Holliday said.

  "Sure," said Al. "Hookers is one thing, white slavery's something else." The young man grinned. "Kinda thing gives organized crime a bad name, capisce?"

  22

  Al's uncle Paolo, Mario the cousin's father, had a twenty-four-foot Toyo trawler named Sofia that he used for fishing when he wasn't busy raising rabbits for the hotels. Uncle Paolo was perfectly happy to rent Holliday Sofia for a price as long as he promised faithfully to bring the boat and his American nephew back to him in one piece-emphasis on Sofia rather than the nephew, Uncle Paolo being a practical man, after all.

  Peggy would have called Sofia "cute." To Al she was "smart." To Holliday she seemed just a little silly, almost a toy. The plywood semidisplacement hull looked like a lifeboat with a telephone booth perched on the back and was painted white with a nice sky blue stripe down the gunwales.

  The forward hold, lined with zinc, was big enough to carry a hundred and forty cubic feet or a little more than a ton of shrimp, caught using what Al referred to as a single Dutch seine rig towed behind the boat at a depth of about eighty to a hundred feet along the muddy and sandy bottom of the offshore area between the islands.

  A ton of shrimp with its inevitable by-catch of hake and juvenile bluefin tuna during the high season was just about enough to keep the Ponza hotels going for a single day of the lunchtime trade, so the local pescatori switched their favorite fishing grounds and times to share the wealth. It took Al a few hours to negotiate the grounds between Ventotene and the prison island, but by midafternoon, properly attired in jeans, fresh T-shirts and sneakers, they chugged out of Ponza Harbor in Sofia and headed east at a steady eight knots, the old 35-horsepower Perkins diesel coughing and belching happily as they chugged their way onto the open sea.