The Last Templar ts-1

by Raymond Khoury

  "Go!"

  The agent nearest the door rapped firmly with his fist and yelled, "FBI. Open up!"

  The reaction was virtually instantaneous. Gunshots ripped out through the door, spitting splinters of teak across the hallway.

  The FBI shotgunner returned the compliment, racking his weapon in a blur of action, blasting away until he had torn several head-sized holes through the door panel. Even with the earplugs she wore, Amelia Gaines felt the jarring shock waves in the confined space.

  More shots erupted from inside, splintering the door jambs and punching through the plasterboards across the hallway. The fourth man moved forward, flicking the stun grenade through the opening blown in the door. Then the shotgun took out the rest of the central door panel and moments later the two men with the H&Ks were inside.

  A momentary pause. Echoing silence. A single shot. Another pause. A voice called out, "Clear!"

  More "Clears" followed. Then a casual voice said, "Okay, party's over."

  Amelia followed the others into the apartment. It made the word "plush" sound cheap. Everything about it reeked of money. But as Amelia and the unit leader checked the place out, it quickly became apparent that this particular reek was of drugs.

  The occupants, four men, were swiftly identified as Colombian drug traffickers. One of them had a serious gunshot wound in his upper body. Elsewhere in the apartment, they found a small hoard of drugs, a pile of cash, and enough leads to keep the DEA happy for months.

  The tip-off, an anonymous phone call, had spoken of money to burn, weapons, and several men speaking in a foreign language. All of that was right. But none of it had anything to do with the museum raid.

  Another disappointment.

  It wouldn't be the last.

  Disheartened, Amelia looked around the apartment as the other Colombians were handcuffed and led out. She compared this place with her own apartment. Hers was pretty nice. Tasteful, classy, if she said so herself. But this one was simply stunning. It had everything, including a great view of the park. As she looked around, she decided that overstated opulence was not her style and she didn't envy any of it. Except maybe the view.

  She stood at the window for a moment, looking down into the park. She could see two people riding horses along a track. Even at this range, she could see that both the riders were women. One of them was having trouble; her horse looked to be high-spirited or maybe it had been spooked by the two Rollerblading youths gliding by.

  Amelia took another look around the apartment, then left it to the tactical unit leader to wrap things up, and headed for the office to deliver her somber report to Reilly.

  ***

  Reilly had been busy scheduling a succession of low-key visits to mosques and other gathering points for the city's Muslims. After a brief preliminary discussion with Jansson on the politics of this side of die investigation, Reilly had decided that these visits would all be exactly that. Simple visits, by no more than two agents or cops, one of whom was, as often as possible, Muslim. Not the merest hint of them being raids. Cooperation was what they sought and, mostly, cooperation was what they got.

  Computers at the FBI offices at Federal Plaza had been spilling out data nonstop, adding to the rising tidal wave of information coming in from the NYPD, Immigration, and Homeland Security.

  Databases that had mushroomed after Oklahoma City were awash with names of homegrown radicals and extremists; those following 9/11 were overflowing with names of Muslims of many nationalities. Reilly knew that most of them were on those lists not because they were suspected by the authorities of terrorist or criminal acts or tendencies, but simply because of their religion. It made him uneasy; it also made for a lot of unnecessary work, sifting out the few possibles from the many who were innocent of everything except their beliefs.

  He still felt the bubba route was the way to go on this, but one thing was missing. The specific grudge, the link between a group of heavily armed fanatics and the Roman Catholic Church. To that end, a team of agents was scouring manifestos and databases for the elusive common thread.

  He took in the open floor, absorbing the ordered chaos of agents working their phones and their computers before making his way to his desk. As he reached it, he spotted Amelia Gaines coming toward him from across the room.

  "You got a minute?"

  Everyone always had a minute for Amelia Gaines. "What's up?"

  "You know that apartment we hit this morning?"

  "Yeah, I heard," he said cheerlessly. "Still, it did buy us some brownie points with the DEA, which isn't a bad thing."

  Amelia shrugged the notion away. "When I was in there, I was looking out the window into the park. A couple of people were out riding. One of them was having some trouble with her horse and it got me thinking." '

  Reilly pushed a chair over to her and she sat down. She was a breath, of fresh air in the male-dominated Bureau, where the percentage of female recruits had only recently risen to the lofty height of ten percent. The Bureau's recruiters made no secret of their wish for more female applicants, but few applied. In fact, only one female agent had ever reached the rank of SAC, earning herself the mocking nickname Queen Bee in the process.

  Reilly had worked with Amelia a lot over the last months. Amelia was a particularly useful asset when it came to dealing with Middle Eastern suspects. They loved her red locks and freckled skin; a well-timed smile or a strategic flash of skin often got more results than weeks of surveillance.

  Although no one at the Bureau went out of their way to hide their attraction to her, Amelia hadn't incited any cases of sexual harassment; not that it was easy to imagine anyone victimizing her. She was raised in a military family where she had four brothers, she was a karate black belt at the age of sixteen, and she was an expert markswoman. She could pretty much take care of herself in any situation.

  Once, less than a year ago, they had been alone at a coffee shop and Reilly had come close to inviting her out to dinner. He had decided against it, knowing that there was a good chance, in his hopeful mind anyway, that it wouldn't end with dinner. Relationships with coworkers were never easy; at the Bureau, he knew, they simply didn't stand a chance.

  "Keep going," he now said to her.

  "Those horsemen at the museum. Watching the videos, it's pretty obvious that those guys weren't just riding the horses, they were skillfully controlling them. Riding them up the steps, for instance.

  Easy for Hollywood stuntmen, but in real life that's a pretty hard thing to do."

  She sounded as if she knew; she also sounded uneasy.

  Amelia saw his glance and smiled tightly. "I can ride," she confirmed.

  He immediately realized she was onto something. The connection with horses glared at him. He'd had an inkling in the first few hours when he'd thought of how Central Park Precinct officers used horses, but he hadn't developed the thought. Had he done so, they might've been onto this sooner.

  "You want to look into stuntmen with rap sheets?"

  "For a start. But it's not just the horsemen. It's the horses themselves." Amelia moved a touch closer.

  "From what we heard and what we've seen on the videos, people were screaming and shouting and there was all that gunfire. And yet those horses weren't panicking."

  Amelia stopped, looking across to where Aparo was picking up a phone call, as if unwilling to add her next thought.

  Reilly knew where she was going. He made the uncomfortable connection for her. "Cop horses."

  "Right."

  Damn it. He didn't like this any more than she did. Cop horses could mean cops. And nobody liked to contemplate the possibility of the involvement of other law enforcement officers.

  "It's all yours," he said. "But go easy."

  She didn't have time to answer. Aparo was rushing over.

  "That was Steve. We've got something. Looks like the real deal this time."

  Chapter 15

  A s he turned into Twenty-second Street, Gus Waldron began feeling jitte
ry. Okay, so he'd had the jumps since Saturday night, but this was different. He recognized the signs. He did a lot of things on instinct. Betting on the horses was one of them. The results? Lousy. But other things he did instinctively sometimes worked out for the best, so he always paid attention.

  Now he saw that there was a reason for his jitters. A car, plain and ordinary. Too plain, too ordinary. Two men, looking carefully at nothing in particular. Cops. What else could they be?

  He counted off the steps and stopped to look in a window. Reflected in it, he saw another car nosing around the corner. Just as unremarkable, and as he risked a quick glance over his shoulder he saw that two men were in this one as well.

  He was boxed in.

  Gus immediately thought of Lucien. He flashed on any number of gruesome ways he would end the miserable French prick's life.

  He reached the gallery and suddenly dived for its door, storming in fast and rushing across the floor to where a startled Lucien was now rising out of his chair. Gus kicked the table aside, sending the big ugly clock and a can of cleaning fluid crashing to the floor, and smacked Lucien hard across the ear.

  "You ratted me out to the cops, didn't you?"

  "No, Gueusse—"

  As Gus raised his hand to hit him again, he saw that Lucien twisted his head, his eyes popping as he looked toward the rear of the gallery. So the cops were out back too—then Gus realized that he could smell something, gasoline maybe. The can he had knocked off the table was leaking onto the floor.

  Snatching up the can, Gus pulled Lucien off the floor and thrust him ahead toward the door, where he kicked him behind the knees, sending the skinny weasel down again. Keeping him down with his boot, he tipped the can over Lucien's head.

  "You know better than to mess with me, you little shit," he barked as he kept on pouring.

  "Please!" The Frenchman sputtered, his eyes burning from the liquid when, too fast for the terrified man to resist, Gus yanked open the door, picked Lucien up by the scruff of his neck, pulled out a Zippo, ignited the fuel, and booted the gallery owner into the street.

  Flames flared blue and yellow around Lucien's head and shoulders as he stumbled across the sidewalk, his screams mingling with yells from shocked onlookers and a sudden blare of car horns.

  Gus emerged close behind him, eyes darting left and right, fixed like a hawk on the four men, two at each end of the block, rushing out of their cars now and with guns, and all more concerned with the burning man than with him.

  Which was exactly what he needed.

  ***

  Reilly knew they'd been spotted as soon as he saw the man bolt off the street and dive into the gallery. Yelling, "He's made us. We have a go, I repeat, we have a go!" into the mike tucked into his sleeve, he chambered a round into his Browning Hi-Power handgun and scrambled out of his car with Aparo emerging from the passenger side.

  He was still behind the car's door when he saw a man stagger out of the gallery. Reilly wasn't sure he was seeing straight. The man's head seemed to be on fire.

  ***

  As LUCIEN STAGGERED ALONG the street, his hair and shirt ablaze, Gus followed him out, keeping close enough so that the cops wouldn't risk shooting.

  Or so he hoped.

  To make them think twice about getting too close, he loosed off shots in both directions. The Beretta was fucking useless for this kind of action, but it sent the four men diving for cover.

  Windshields shattered and screams of panic echoed in the street as the sidewalks emptied.

  ***

  Reilly saw him raise the handgun in time to duck behind his car's door. The shots thundered in the street, two bullets crunching their way into a brick wall behind Reilly, a third lodging in the left headlight of his Chrysler in an explosion of chrome and glass. Darting a glance to his right, Reilly 37

  spotted four bystanders crouching behind a parked Mercedes, clearly terrified out of their wits.

  Reilly could tell they were looking to make a run for it, which was not a good idea. They were safer behind the car. One of them looked his way. Reilly made an up-and-down gesture with an open palm, yelling, "Get down! Don't move!" The nervous man nodded his shocked acceptance and curled away out of sight.

  Reilly turned, leaned out, and tried to squeeze off a shot, but the man he knew as "Gus" had crept up right behind the gallery owner. He was too close to him. Reilly couldn't get a clear shot. More urgently, he couldn't do anything about the gallery owner who had now fallen to his knees, his cries of agony reverberating across the now deserted street.

  Just then, Gus moved away from the burning man, firing a couple of rounds in the direction of the other agents. Time seemed to slow down as Reilly saw the opportunity and grabbed it. He held his breath and popped up from behind the car door, cradling his Hi-Power in a two-handed, straight-armed stance, and, in a split second, he lined up the front post and the rear notch on the gun and pulled the trigger in a smooth, even motion, using steadily increasing force. The bullet thundered out of the Browning's barrel. A red splatter burst out from Gus's thigh.

  Reilly scrambled to his feet to rush to the burning man. Gus tried to cut short the heroic plans the agent was formulating when a delivery van chose that moment to come lumbering into the street.

  ***

  Lucien was rolling around, arms flailing, desperately trying to quash the flames. Gus knew he had to make a run for it when something hit him in his left thigh, sending him staggering sideways. He felt the area of the wound, his hand coming up dripping with blood.

  Sonofabitch. The cops had got lucky.

  Then he saw the van and, blasting away at both sets of cops, he used it as cover and made his move.

  He limped around the corner and now it was his turn to get lucky. A cab had pulled over, dropping off a fare, a Japanese businessman in a pale suit. Gus shouldered the man aside, snatched open the door, reached in, and dragged the driver out onto the street. Scrambling behind the wheel, he put it in gear, and then felt something hit him on the side of the head. It was the driver, out to reclaim his car, yelling in some unintelligible language. The dumb fuck. Gus shoved the muzzle of the Beretta out the window, squeezed the trigger, and popped a bullet into the man's furious red face. Then he was away, hurtling down die street.

  Chapter 16

  Flooring the black department Chrysler, Reilly ramped it over the sidewalk and past the delivery truck, catching a glimpse of a cluster of people leaning over the dead cabdriver.

  On the radio, Aparo was talking and listening as Buchinski was organizing backup and roadblocks.

  Too bad this had been rushed. They should have had the street totally sealed off, but then, like Buchinski had said, they might have scared away the big man before he even reached the gallery if the normally busy street had been unnaturally quiet. He thought about the blazing figure he had seen stagger from the shop, and the cabdriver blown backward from a head shot. Maybe it would have been better if scaring off the suspect was all that we'd done.

  He glanced in his rearview mirror, wondering if Buchinski was with them.

  No. They were on their own.

  "Watch the road!"

  His attention snatched back by Aparo's interjection, Reilly jinked the Chrysler through a chicane-like cluster of cars and trucks, most of them already blaring angry horns at the cab that had flashed past them. Now the cab spun into an alley. Reilly followed through a swirling cloud of trash, trying but failing to get his bearings.

  "Where the hell are we?" Reilly yelled.

  "Heading toward the river."

  A big help that was.

  As the cab burst from the alley, it pulled a screaming right and moments later Reilly did the same.

  Cars thundered past, seemingly heading in all directions. There was no sign of the cab.

  It was gone.

  Reilly darted looks left and right while trying to avoid the rushing traffic.

  "There," Aparo yelled, pointing.

  Reilly rapiered a look, hit the h
and brake, hung a tire-smoking left into another alley, and there was the cab. He floored the gas pedal as they bounced down the narrow street, swiping past garbage Dumpsters, which sent sparks flying down the side of tfie car.

  This time, when they came out into a street, it was crowded with parked cars and he heard the screech of metal on metal as the cab ripped fenders and hubcaps from other vehicles, the impacts fleeting, but enough to slow die cab's progress.

  Another right turn and this time Reilly could see signs announcing the Lincoln Tunnel. More to the point, they were closing in on the cab. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Aparo had his gun on his lap.

  "Don't risk it," Reilly said. "You might get lucky and hit him."

  Causing the cab to crash at that speed on this street could be a disaster.

  Then the cab turned again, scattering pedestrians who were ambling over a pedestrian crossing.

  Reilly saw something emerge from the driver's window of the cab. Couldn't be a gun. A man would have to be stupid to drive and shoot at the same time. Stupid or certifiable.

  Sure enough, a flash and smoke blossomed.

  "Hang on," Reilly said.

  Swinging the wheel, he swerved the Chrysler into a lumbering fishtail, spotted a gap where a building had been torn down, and drove into it, ripping through chain-link fencing and raising a cloud of dust.

  Seconds later, the Chrysler was spinning out of the vacant lot and was once again on the trail of the taxi. So far as Reilly could see, the driver's arm and gun were no longer sticking out of the window.

  Aparo yelled, "Watch it!"

  A woman walking a black terrier tripped, cannoning into a delivery man wheeling a stack of beer crates that tumbled into the Chrysler's path. Reilly jerked the wheel, narrowly avoiding the people, but not the crates, one of which bounced up and over the hood, smashing into the windshield, which held but was now spiderwebbed all over.