Templar Throne

by Paul Christopher

  Who the hell wore black life jackets?

  23

  Not life jackets. Bulletproof vests.

  “Get down!” Holliday yelled. He grabbed Meg by the arm and dragged her off the chair and onto the floor. The big window looking out onto the lake shattered, and the kitchen erupted in a hail of silent lead. The man on the deck was torn to ribbons by automatic fire even before he had a chance to stand up.

  More fire came from the trees around the cottage. The water-ski boat had just been a distraction. They were coming from all sides. Quince was on the floor, facedown, arms spread, his right forefinger still hooked into the delicate handle of the ornate china cup he’d been drinking his coffee from. Most of the back of his head was missing. Moira’s plum jam was everywhere. The gunfire muffled by silencers continued in an unbroken stream.

  “Who’s shooting at us!?” Meg screamed.

  “Quince’s competition!” Holliday yelled back. Still hanging on to Meg’s arm, he crabbed across the floor, dragging Meg along. He huddled under the stairs. It was probably the safest place in the house. They found their knapsacks tossed into the little alcove, probably searched while they were knocked out then cast aside.

  “What are we going to do?” Meg asked. Her voice was a frightened panting sound. Holliday was in the groove. This was combat. Familiar territory. The rule book said always attack from the higher ground, but going up onto the second floor of the cottage would be suicide. The rule book also said that with insurmountable odds the best option was to make an orderly withdrawal—army talk for retreat. But they were in George Armstrong Custer territory now, surrounded on all sides.

  “Grab your pack and put it on,” instructed Holliday, more to keep her occupied than anything else. He needed to think and she was on the verge of losing it, which wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  Meg lifted her pack off the floor and slipped it on while Holliday peeked around the corner of the stairway. The guard outside was bleeding all over the Adirondack chair and the men in the black life jackets were coming up the steps. Six of them, armed with various brands of riot guns and automatic weapons. They had thirty seconds at the outside.

  Holliday felt Meg tugging at his sleeve. He turned to her, irritated.

  “Not now!”

  “Look,” she insisted. She’d swept his knapsack aside. Outlined on the floor he could see a trapdoor or a hatch. It made sense. A crawl space. The cottage was built on a slab of bedrock so all the plumbing would be under the floor. There’d have to be some way of getting at it for maintenance. Not that it mattered. It was the only option now.

  Holliday shrugged on his own pack and pulled on the brass ring inset into the floor. The hatch pulled upward, revealing three roughly made steps. He smelled stone and cedar. Gunfire exploded around them, chewing into the wood of the stairs behind them. Windows exploded and fist-sized holes appeared in the walls. Even silenced, that much ordnance was making a racket outside. Eventually someone was going to call 911, but it would almost certainly be too little, too late; a myopic summertime cottage cop with maybe a .38 on his hip.

  “I’ll go first,” said Holliday.

  Meg nodded, eyes like saucers, wincing and jerking as each bullet struck the walls around them. He went down the steps. There was barely enough room between the floor joists and the ground to duckwalk forward.

  He looked around. It was impossible to move to the back of the cottage; the rock sloped away toward the deck and the crawl space narrowed to barely a foot-high crack. Most of the fire seemed to be coming from the steps leading down to the dock.

  He looked back over his shoulder. Meg was right behind him. Under the floor the ground was covered in old rotting construction litter and decaying leaves. There were spiders above them and dark slithering things below. It occurred to Holliday that the best horror movies came out of basements and attics. Most people didn’t have the slightest idea of what was going on within the walls of their own houses. Domestic nightmares.

  Holliday reached the edge of the cottage and paused, peering out into the open. Sun dappled down. There was about a thirty- foot clearing between the side of the cottage and the wall of surrounding trees. As he knelt, looking outward, someone emerged from the tree line in full combat fatigues and a dark green balaclava. The man’s hands were covered with Camtech camouflage makeup. He was carrying an Atchisson AA- 12 assault shotgun with a twenty-round drum magazine and a Glock or something similar in a waist holster.

  The Atchisson had been developed for close-quarters combat. It fired a Magnum shell that could kill a Kodiak bear or an elephant. It could blow a man in half from thirty yards away and drill a through-and-through hole in the cottage from one side to the other.

  The man with the shotgun paused for a split second at the edge of the trees and then raced forward. Ten points off in a tactical exercise exam at West Point, Holliday thought. He should have approached his target in a crouch. If he had, he might have seen Holliday lurking in the shadowed crawl space. The man in the camo gear ran forward, then paused next to the house. From the position of his feet Holliday guessed he was going to sidestep along the wall to a window. The feet were encased in sand-colored standard-issue two-pound Belleville combat boots.

  Barely thinking about what he was doing, Holliday reached out with both hands, grabbed the man’s ankles and pulled as hard as he could. Caught completely off guard, the soldier toppled backward, his head smacking into the rock and the shotgun flying out of his hands. Holliday heaved on the man’s feet hard and dragged him under the cottage. The dazed man struggled but Holliday jammed his elbow hard into the man’s wind-pipe and leaned on it with his full weight. Something in the soldier’s throat cracked. He made a choking, gurgling sound and then stopped moving, blood streaming from his mouth.

  Holliday hauled the body even farther under the cottage and stripped the soldier of his sidearm and an ammo pocket full of 9mm magazines. Two more drums for the Atchisson in a canvas pouch over his shoulder. Holliday slipped the pouch off and put the strap over his own head.

  There was also a sheathed Ek Commando knife, like the one Holliday had used in the Rangers. Holliday took the weapon and slipped it under the gun belt. Easing the body to one side, he edged forward and peered out into the sunlight.

  Somebody blew a whistle. A split second later there were explosions from inside the cottage: flash-bang stun grenades of the type used in hostage situations. Suddenly the air was filled with yelling voices and smashing wood. There was more gunfire, this time from above. Quince’s people making a last stand on the upper floor. This was the push.

  Holliday heard booted feet tramping hard as the assault team pounded across the deck at the side of the cottage facing the lake. This was the moment—all the attention was going to be inward; no one would be watching the perimeter. Holliday grabbed Meg by the wrist and dragged her forward as he scuttled out from under the cottage.

  “Keep your head down and follow me.” He rushed across the thirty-foot opening between the cottage and the trees. A two-second count to the shotgun, which he scooped up, and another three seconds to the woods. He dropped to the ground, turning back the way he’d come. Meg dropped down beside him. He peered toward the cottage.

  Smoke was billowing out of the windows on both floors, or maybe it was tear gas. There was intermittent gunfire and then silence. Holliday could hear the sounds of the assault team clearing each room. He edged backward, keeping his eyes on the cottage while moving deeper into the trees, Sister Meg following suit. Finally he stood. They were in full cover now, safe for the moment. He pulled the slide bolt on the top side of the shotgun. A shell popped out onto the ground. Bright green. A fragmentation round, a room cleaner.

  “Come on,” he whispered harshly, easing backward, deeper into the shadows.

  “Where are we going?” Meg asked.

  “Away,” said Holliday.

  They made a long arc through the trees, moving steadily downward, picking their way through the cedars and the big
slabs of granite, moving downward toward the rocky shore below. A minute or two later they reached the edge of the trees at the shoreline and Holliday realized just how big the lake really was. He could just see the other side, a vague sense of a hazy farther shore. Sailboats skittered in the distance, sails bright in the hot sun. There were the faint sounds of voices calling across the water and the mosquito buzz of invisible motorboats.

  He looked to the left. He was standing on a shallow cliff edge about twenty feet above the actual water. The cottage was clearly quite isolated—there was no other dock in sight. No wonder the cavalry hadn’t arrived. He looked right. The Quince cottage dock was fifty yards away jutting out into the crystal- clear lake. He could see the water-ski towboat tied up and the old runabout on the other side.

  The towboat looked like an old Bayliner, a little battered but perfect for what these guys had needed: room to cram at least half a dozen men in the forward cabin and another half dozen on deck with the twin outboards to provide the power. There was only one person visible—a man in a black wet suit—the decoy water skier. Holliday glanced out over the water. Where were they? He tried to remember his high school geography. They’d had at least one lecture on the Great Lakes.

  Toronto was on Lake Ontario, and his uncle’s place in upstate New York was on Lake Erie. So what was north of Toronto that you could see across? Some vague bell rang in his head—the abolition of slavery even before the British Empire. Then he had it, Lake Simcoe, one of the biggest freshwater lakes in the world. It didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the guy in the wet suit off the boat before his friends came back.

  “Stay here,” he whispered to Meg. She nodded silently, shrinking back into the trees. “When you hear shots, come running. No hesitation. You either make it snappy or I leave you here.”

  Holliday slipped forward toward the dock, keeping within the band of shadows at the tree line, choosing his steps, careful to keep from treading on a noisy branch or a clattering patch of gravel. He reached a spot perhaps ten feet above the moored towboat and paused.

  The water skier was alert, focused on the steps leading up to the cottage. He was seated at the controls of the boat, the door to the forward cabin low and to his left. One hand was on the wheel and the other held a blocky handgun. Another Glock.

  The cottage at the head of the steps was silent. He didn’t have a lot of time. He crouched down, put the AA-12 onto the soft ground, then opened the holster on the Glock he’d taken from the dead soldier under the cottage. He chambered a round and stepped into the light.

  Seeing the movement, the man on the boat looked up. No time for fair play. Holliday fired a three-shot tap into the man’s chest, toppling him out of the boat and into the water. He stabbed the Glock back into the holster, picked up the shotgun, then skittered down the steep slab of granite to the dock.

  He flipped the selector on the shotgun to single shot and put half an earsplitting magazine into the hull of the old Chris-Craft. The fragmentation rounds bit into the varnished stringers, chewing the bottom of the fine old speedboat to splinters. The boat began to sink instantly.

  Holliday turned away and undid the lines holding the Bayliner to the dock, dropped down into the towboat and made his way forward to the blood-spattered controls. He twisted the ignition key and the big outboards rumbled to life.

  Seeing something out of the corner of his eye, Holliday turned. Sister Meg, pack slapping against her back, came sliding down the granite rock face and half fell, half jumped directly down into the boat, crashing into Holliday and almost knocking him over. There was another flicker of darker movement to the left. Regaining his balance, Holliday lifted the shotgun and fired a blind spray of the lethal rounds toward the stairs, empty shells flinging out of the ejection port in a steady stream, the weapon barking with a sound like the hounds of hell.

  Without waiting to see the effect of the fire, Holliday turned and rammed the twin throttles full forward. The Bayliner leapt away from the dock with a huge rooster tail of spray rising behind. A hundred yards out he risked a look back over his shoulder. The cottage on the rocky rise above the dock was wreathed in smoke and he could see a few dark figures milling around on the dock.

  Holliday took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his hand gripping the wheel of the boat, his other hand easing back slightly on the throttles. Another few seconds back there and it would have been too late; they’d made it out just in the nick of time. His stomach was churning as the adrenaline drained out of his system.

  He glanced at Meg. She looked remarkably calm as she stood beside him, her green eyes focused on the huge lake’s far horizon, as though the hell they’d just left behind them was nothing more than a bad dream, her concentration fixed only on what lay ahead. For the first time since meeting the enigmatic nun it occurred to Holliday that the so-called True Ark she was looking for must have some basis in fact—enough for men to kill. Enough for men to die.

  24

  Halifax, Nova Scotia, is known for two things: During World War One it was the largest convoy center in North America, and on December 6, 1917, the whole city blew up when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, exploded in the harbor, killing two thousand people outright, causing a tidal wave, obliterating buildings for miles around, starting a hundred fires and basically destroying the city. The Halifax Explosion is still rated as the largest nonnuclear explosion ever.

  Halifax is also known as the birthplace of English Canada, which is ironic since it was originally called Louisburg and was colonized by the French. At the time Nova Scotia itself was referred to as L’Acadie, or Arcadia, the name eventually becoming simply Acadia. The British, being who they were, decided they wanted what the French had, specifically a deepwater harbor in the New World even better than New York.

  They attacked the French colony in an effort to gain hegemony over all of Canada and kicked out the “Acadians”; most of the Acadians settled in the coastal states of Maine and New Hampshire, while others returned to France and a hardy few, about three hundred, migrated to the French-speaking areas of Louisiana, becoming the people now known simply as Cajuns.

  For Holliday and Meg it had been remarkably easy to get to. After arriving without further incident on the shores of Lake Simcoe at a place called Jackson’s Point, they caught a bus back to Toronto, arriving just before noon. Maxing out his credit and debit cards, Holliday gathered enough money for two train tickets to Montreal and ongoing accommodation on the Ocean Limited , the through train to the Maritimes.

  Nobody seemed to raise an eyebrow at Holliday’s use of cash, and no ID display was required. Apparently Homeland Security hadn’t arrived in Canada yet and there were no obvious armed security personnel prowling around the echoing old Union Station. The high-speed train out of Toronto was modern and fast, complete with meal and bar cars. They arrived in Montreal with enough time for a little shopping in the underground malls connected to the train station and then boarded the Ocean just before it left at six thirty that evening.

  The train was surprisingly sophisticated, made up of old Budd Streamliners like the old 20th Century Limited. The dining cars had real tablecloths and linen napkins, and there was even a domed observation car. If he hadn’t been a fugitive wanted on two continents the trip might have been a pleasant little adventure. As it was he spent all his time alone in his private roomette trying to figure out just what was really going on. He barely saw Meg except for meals, and they both avoided talking about Quince and the events surrounding their kidnapping.

  There was almost no doubt that the men who’d attacked the cottage were more of the mysterious Blackhawk Security bunch, but according to Quince he was just a hired gun as well. But groups like Blackhawk were usually hired by governments, or at the very least by giant multinational corporations. In fact, they were usually owned by multinational corporations.

  So what multinational was interested in a piece of Middle Ages mythology to the extent that they’d send in people like Quince an
d his heavies or the Blackhawk people? It just didn’t make any sense.

  Someone had been on their tail since the bald guy who’d followed them all the way from Mont Saint-Michel to Prague. It was almost as if they knew more about the so-called True Ark than he and Meg did.

  He wrestled with the problem all the way across the Canadian provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia, but couldn’t figure out a reasonable solution. By the time they arrived in Halifax at three thirty the following afternoon, the only conclusion Holliday had reached was that somewhere along the line he’d overlooked something, the missing puzzle piece that solved the problem.

  Halifax itself had left behind much of its maritime past and now concentrated on being a government center and a modern, well-heeled tourist trap complete with menus without prices, obsequious waiters who gave you their first name before they took your order, a variety of city tours in assorted double-decker buses, and even a fleet of Vietnam War Lark amphibians that lumbered across the city and into the waters of the harbor, their aluminum hulls painted with bright green and yellow frogs.

  Unfortunately, real frogs would never survive in the harbor. Eighty-two million gallons of raw sewage was pumped into the water each day due to a malfunctioning water treatment plant, and giant deodorant pucks were now being used to control the rank odor that regularly swept across the revitalized waterfront, complete with its hotels and casinos.

  Eventually Holliday and Meg found what they were looking for on the other side of the wide harbor channel in the town of Dartmouth, Halifax’s industrial heart and the Atlantic home of the Canadian navy. Dartmouth had always been the rough edge of Halifax, far from maritime society, such as it was. There were no tourist attractions or tony restaurants in Dartmouth, but there were plenty of seafaring men who worked the docks and the navy yards and more than a few waterfront bars to slake their thirst after a long day of work.