TEMPLARS QUEST: GHOST KILLER (TEMPLARS QUEST CHRONICLES Book 1)

by Thomas H. Ward

  Iron Coat asked, “Are you going to kill them?”

  “Yes, they’re here to steal the sword and possibly kidnap Adam. Everyone hold your ears.”

  “If you can kill the ghosts, I will name you, Ghost Killer.”

  Canfield was pointing at us on top the hill. I doubted he could see us and saw only our truck. Then he pulled out binoculars and gazed at the hill. Observing him while he was scanning the hill was chilling, to say the least. Little did he realize a bullet would soon rip into him.

  Then he looked directly at us. I told Adam to wave at him. Canfield did a double take and then the fool waved back. While he looked at us, I squeezed the trigger. KABOOM, the rifle recoiled, and I pulled back on target for another shot.

  I didn’t need it because my round flew straight and true, hitting the target, cutting him almost in half. His white robe turned blood red. The rest of his men ducked for cover. I spotted another man sticking his head up on the other side of the black truck, from behind a door. I fired again, KABOOM. The superman bullet went through the door and killed him. The other trucks started to quickly back-up trying to get out of range.

  I let them go for now, knowing that come morning we may have to fight our way out of this mess. I had to come up with a plan tonight.

  Quanah said, “I have never seen a white man kill another white man.”

  “Believe me Chief, I’ve killed many bad white men over the years.”

  “I believe you, Ghost Killer.”

  It was going to be a long night. I posted Adam, with my M4, to watch the dirt trail on the east side. Maggie was assigned to the west side of the hill along with Freda.

  The Chief was sitting in the truck so he could watch the south. I wasn’t worried about the south because it had a 30 foot drop off. I gave him my Glock 17 to use just in case. He smiled at me when I handed him the gun and told him, “If you see any ghosts shoot them.” He laughed a little and nodded.

  I covered the north side of the hill with Adolf by my side. If they were going to attack us this was the most likely direction they would come from, because the terrain was almost flat.

  I wondered, how in the hell did these guys find us. The only thing I could think of was there had to be a GPS bug hidden somewhere. Then it hit me. The most likely place would be in the sword case.

  Sitting there, I thought about using my satellite phone to call Baldwin. Maybe he could get a GPS fix on our location and come to our rescue. I turned it on, but with the thick cloud cover I couldn’t receive a signal. It was dark now, and the clouds blocked out the moon. A fog was starting to descend on us.

  I hunkered down, next to a big stone, with Adolf. He glanced at me, so I rubbed his damp head, and said, “I need to make a plan. Adolf, you got any ideas?”

  If they attacked us I guessed it would be early in the morning, about 4am.

  It was sometime after midnight and the fog, which now covered the top of Ghost Hill, created a light cold mist. As it slowly moved down the hill, visibility was reduced to a hundred feet, making it almost impossible to see a damn thing.

  I told Adolf, “Sit, guard.” Giving him that order, he would not fall asleep; he would sit there all night on full alert. Those command words made him raise his ears and visually scan the area. His nose was sniffing the air for the scent of any human.

  Adolf, my German Sheppard guard dog, doesn’t miss a thing. With him by my side I knew no one could come within fifty yards of me. I sat down next to him and pulled my collar up to keep the wet chilly mist from going down my neck.

  My friend Rick and I rescued Adolf and three other dogs from a kennel, not far from Tocabaga. The trainer and owner, an old German man named Klaus, was murdered by someone and the dogs were running loose. It was just plain luck that we went to his house to purchase a couple of trained guard dogs and found him. Klaus had been a friend of Rick’s for five years. Anyway, we saved the dogs and they became valuable allies for us. By the way, we also found the body of a man that the dogs had apparently killed. We assumed it was the same person who murdered Mr. Klaus, because there was a gun in his dead hand.

  Pulling a pack of smokes out of my vest pocket, I noted there were only three left. I lit one up to take off the edge, took a few drags, and then snuffed it out with my fingers to save the butt for later. If I ran out of smokes it would piss me off. I know smoking is bad for you, but when your number is up, it’s up. That’s the way I look at it. No one can live forever.

  I’m not worried about dying because we all die, and I believe there is life after death. I guess that’s why I’m not afraid to get into gun fights. I never think about getting killed because if you do, then you will get killed.

  There were about fifteen men in the convoy of cars down the trail. Fifteen men against four, doesn’t give us very good odds. Our options were: sit here, wait for an attack, and build a defensive line of some kind. Leave the hill tonight, head west on the old trail, and try to out run them, or scout them out and attack them first. We could snipe them off one by one.

  Pondering our options, I thought, leaving the hill tonight was just asking for trouble on the mud-slick narrow trail. We could wind-up sliding off the road into a ditch. Then we’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere.

  The smartest thing to do is to build some type of defensive line. Picking them off one by one could be the best choice. Yes, it’s dangerous but it could put enough fear into them to leave. They had no idea how many men we have on top the hill.

  I decided to use two of the options. We’ll make a defensive line and snipe off as many as possible. I rubbed Adolf’s head. It was soaking wet. He looked at me to give him a command. I said, “Good boy. Sit, guard.” He didn’t seem to mind a little rain. Every now and then he’d get up and shake off the water.

  To snipe these guys without getting caught, I would need a silencer. I had one for my M4, so I needed to get my gun from Adam. That, however, would leave him without a weapon. It occurred to me that Maggie had a pistol with her, so I’d have to run over and obtain it for Adam.

  I looked at Adolf and pointed my finger at him. “Sit, guard, stay.” Adolf understood my command and didn’t follow me as I jogged over to Maggie’s position.

  I couldn’t even see her in the foggy mist. She was well hidden. I shouted in a loud whisper, “Maggie, it’s Jack.”

  After a few calls, she peeked her head out from behind a rock. “Over here,” Maggie replied, in a soft tone.

  I scooted behind the big rock, sitting down next to her. “How you doing?”

  “Ok, just cold and wet.”

  I explained my plan to her. She said, “I got a better plan.”

  Surprised, I said, “Ok, tell me.”

  “We’ll leave the two dogs with Adam. He knows how to control them. Adam and the Chief can guard the truck; we’ll leave them our pistols. You and I sneak down the hill and kill these guys.”

  I thought about it for a minute. “Ok, I agree. My guess is these guys are just sitting in their cars waiting for daylight, trying to stay warm and dry. Meet me at the truck. I have to get Adolf.”

  I figured that two of us going would be better than just one. We could cover each other and it would double our fire power if we got into a fire fight.

  Meeting Maggie at the truck, we informed Adam of our plan. He was a little concerned about us leaving him and Quanah alone. I was also a little worried about leaving a thirteen-year-old kid to guard old Mr. Quanah. But, I knew the old Templars were not really after us. They wanted the Sword of Jerusalem and possibly Adam, because he could read the Latin writing.

  I unscrewed the flash suppressors on the M4s and put on the silencers. We would have to make head shots to drop our targets quickly before they could fire a round or yell out a warning. Like all snipers say, ‘one shot, one kill.’ If we could kill five or six of them I’d be a happy camper, or should I say a happy sniper.

  Leaving both dogs with Adam, I advised him to use the big rock near the truck for cover. If he saw anyone, then
order the dogs to attack. If they get by the dogs, then shoot as many as you can. He had Maggie’s Glock, and we gave him twenty magazines.

  I woke up Quanah. “Chief, we need your help.”

  He rubbed his eyes and replied, “What do you need?”

  “I need you to stand guard with Adam while Maggie and I go on a scouting mission.”

  “You are going to leave us here?”

  “Yes, for a short time. The wolf dogs will stay with you.”

  Adam spoke up, “Don’t worry, Mr. Quanah, I’m a good shot.”

  Quanah Iron Coat laughed and said, “That is good, Wolf Boy. Ghost Killer, how long will you be gone?”

  As Maggie and I checked our gear, I said, “Maybe two hours. If we hear any gunfire we’ll scamper back here fast.” I could tell that Quanah was uneasy about us leaving him alone with Adam for protection. He didn’t know that Adam was a trained deadly shot. I spent the last six months training him four hours per day the necessary combat shooting skills.

  Maggie and I had on our normal black SWAT-like combat gear. Our BPV’s could stop an AK round. The M4s have FLIR night vision scopes which allow us to see the body heat of our enemies in the fog and darkness. The main problem is these scopes greatly reduce the distance you can clearly see due to a lack of resolution at over 200 yards. We’d have to be within 50 yards to make a good head shot.

  The one item we didn’t have with us was our tactical radio gear, which would permit us to communicate quietly over a distance. This meant we would have to maintain visual contact with each other. I suggested we keep no more than twenty to thirty feet apart. I would take the point and Maggie would protect our backsides.

  We slowly walked to the north side to make our way down the hill. My plan was to flank them from the north. At the bottom of the hill, the terrain was rocky but mostly flat, covered with small trees, bushes, and knee high prairie grass.

  Before proceeding down the hill, we knelt down and scanned the entire area with our night vision for about 10 minutes. I saw a couple of animals, one in a tree, and another on the ground. It looked scary peering into the fog not knowing what the hell was out there.

  Satisfied that the bottom of the hill was clear, we slid down the steep wet slope and stopped to scan around again. Maggie and I mudded up our faces, so no white skin was showing. Standing there waiting for Maggie, I took a deep breath and a voice in my head said, ‘Go ahead. There is nothing to be afraid of.’

  I calculated we would have to travel east about one klick or 1000 meters, which is 0.62 miles. I would pace that off counting my steps. It’s common practice to use 110 paces to equal 100 meters on flat ground. When we reach 1,100 paces we would turn south, towards the old trail where the enemy was located.

  Proceeding forward, I checked the compass to make sure we were heading due east. We were moving east, parallel to the trail, and were probably a quarter mile north of it. Maggie was thirty feet behind me. I estimated we could only see about fifty to a hundred feet in front of us because of the thick dense fog. It was slow going because I halted every 10 paces to look and listen for a minute. I kept count of my paces so we wouldn’t get lost in the fog.

  Finally, after almost an hour of walking, I heard voices. I raised my hand signaling Maggie to stop, and waved her up to me.

  We heard one man say, “You guys finish turning around the trucks so we can get out of here. I gotta take a leak.”

  Peering through our scopes we spotted him walking towards us. Ducking down into the thick mist and high grass, behind a bush, we watched him approach. He stopped right on the other side of the bush we were hiding behind. He was so close we could hear the sound of his urine splashing the ground.

  As soon as he was finished, he turned around to walk back to his men. I silently stood up, took aim through my scope, and fired one round into the back of his head. He dropped dead as a doornail. Grabbing him by his feet, I dragged him back into the high grass, about 40 feet away, while Maggie kept a look-out.

  Another man yelled, “Hey Marco! Hurry up.”

  Since Marco couldn’t reply, I knew someone would come looking for him.

  Maggie and I made ready to pop the next jerk. We spread out, about 50 feet apart. Whoever was closest to bogey would take him out.

  He yelled again, but his voice was closer this time. “Marco, what the hell are you doing?”

  As he came into view, Maggie had the shot. He was less than thirty feet from Maggie when she popped him. His body stood still, but he didn’t fall. Maggie fired again popping him in the melon and so did I. He dropped like a box full of rocks.

  We moved forward to obtain a view of the trucks. All the men were inside the vehicles, and the headlights were on. Maggie was on my right flank as we laid in the high grass about fifty feet away from the targets. I whispered, “If anyone else gets out of the trucks shoot them.”

  Sure enough, a third man climbed out of the last truck, and started shouting for the two we had just killed. I gave the signal to fire. We both started firing short bursts on full auto and he fell dead next to the truck. Another person yelled, “Someone’s shooting at us! They just killed Eddy. Let’s get the hell out of here!” We kept peppering the trucks with short bursts hoping to kill a few more.

  “What about Marco and Greg,” another shouted, as they fired wild shots into the foggy night, some of which zipped over our heads. They had no idea we were so close to them.

  The last thing I heard was, “We can’t help them. Let’s get the hell out of here before we get killed!”

  They started to pull away and we ceased fire. They didn’t have the stomach for a gun battle. As we watched the trucks quickly pull away I thought, how lucky we were. Or was it luck?

  Maggie and I stood on the trail watching their taillights fade away into the fog and darkness. We turned around without saying a word to each other and started back up Ghost Hill.

  Halfway up, Maggie said, “Mission accomplished. I need a shot of JD when we get back.”

  Out of breath I said, “Me … too.”

  “I’m glad they’re gone.”

  “Yeah it was almost too easy. We haven’t seen the last of them,” I replied. “I’m sure … we’ll see a couple of their trucks … in the ravine, on our way back.”

  We slowly trudged back up the steep hill. Near the top, I shouted, “Adam, we’re coming in! Don’t shoot!”

  Adam and the dogs ran over to greet us. “You guys ok?” he asked.

  “Yeah, they left when we started shooting them.”

  Quanah asked, “Did you kill more Ghosts?”

  Maggie replied, “Yeah, but it was no big deal, Chief.”

  I said, “I gotta eat something to get my energy back.”

  Maggie broke out the portable stove and started to heat some MREs up for everyone. We had gone all day and night with no grub. While she was cooking, we each had a couple shots of JD.

  Maggie handed an MRE to the Chief. He smelled it and asked, “What is this?”

  Adam said, “It’s Army food.”

  “It smells like dog food.”

  “Hold your nose and eat it. It’s good for you,” Maggie told him. “See the dogs like it.” Both dogs had gobbled down the MREs before we even had taken a bite.

  Changing the subject, I said, “Ok, here’s the plan. We’ll eat and rest here until the sun comes out and dries up the trail a little. I wanna leave by noon.”

  POWER OF THE SWORD

  APRIL 28, 2026

  The sun was just starting to rise and the sky was clearing up. It looked like it was going to be a nice day.

  We cleaned our weapons and were in the process of getting ready to move out, when Maggie spotted some vehicles heading our way. I looked at them using the Cobb 50 scope. To my surprise, it was two of our Humvees coming to the rescue.

  Half an hour later, Captain Baldwin, Black Horse, and Walker climbed out of the first truck. I greeted them all with a hand shake. “Boy, I’m glad to see you guys. How did you find us?”<
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  Baldwin said, “Oh, we have our ways. When you didn’t come back yesterday, I figured something must have happened.”

  “Did you see any other trucks on your way here?”

  “No, why?”

  “Well, we had a little run in with the old Templars last night.”

  “What happened?”

  “I killed Canfield and another guy. Then Maggie and I sniped them, killing three more. Then they left. End of story. Maybe with Canfield dead, they’ll stop chasing us for the sword.”

  Baldwin shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. We have to find out how they’re tracking us.”

  “Thanks for reminding me. Adam, bring me the sword. I wanna check the box for a GPS bug.”

  Adam said, “Ok, but there’s no bug in it. I know every little thing about that box.” Adam got up and went to remove the box from under the back seat of the truck.

  He came running over to me. “Something is wrong.” He placed the sword box on a rock and opened it. We looked inside and were shocked to see a wooden branch along with a note written in Latin.

  Adam read it out loud. “The treasure belongs to those who find it.”

  “They got the sword and this note means they can read Latin,” I exclaimed, while looking at Adam. “How in the hell did this happen?”

  “I don’t know, Grandpa.”

  Quanah said, “I know, maybe a ghost took it.”

  I inquired, “Did you see anyone, Chief?”

  “I saw no one.”

  “Where were you at, Adam?” I asked.

  Adam hung his head down. “It must have happened when we took the dogs for a little walk around the hill top.”

  “Shit, these guys sneak right into our camp and steal the most important item we have.” I was upset because I thought Adam would know better than to leave the sword unguarded. On the other hand, it was also my fault for leaving Adam and Quanah alone.

  I carefully felt around inside the silk-lined wooden box. Running my fingers over the cloth, on all sides, and feeling the corners. In one corner, I felt a bump the size of a quarter. “I think the bug is here.”