Gold of the Knights Templar

by Preston W Child

  "We are so close," Olivia said.

  "And hopefully the Templars gold is there too," Liam added.

  Diggs glared at Liam Murphy.

  "You don't suppose he logs it around, do you?"

  "There's no telling."

  "We have to be prepared for surprises."

  "Yeah, like what if they get to this guy before we do," Liam asked, "what then?" Olivia shrugged and said, "then, maybe I'll never see Andrew again."

  Diggs rolled up the map into his bag. He got his gun, a Smith and Wesson, enormous and menacing and cocked it.

  The rest of the team did the same.

  Olivia stepped forward.

  "Alright guys, this is it. We step outside, and there's no turning back. It looks like the Financier is trying to double-cross us, he's sent people to kill us, there's an assassin on our tail. You guys have been awesome, we are gonna get the Templars gold, and then we are gonna get Andrew back."

  She pushed her gun into her belt and covered it with her jacket.

  "Let's do this!"

  "Wait, wait," Liam raised his hand, "what was that speech for? You talk like we're gonna die out there, I mean—"

  "Shut up, Liam," Anabia said.

  They filed out of the tunnel and into upper-level Rome.

  —

  It was though the bogeyman sniffed him.

  He picked the lock, barged in, raced through the living room —the guitar box broke open, and his rifle jumped in his hand. He caught the running man's shadow as he went out of the window. The man was fast too.

  By the time the bogeyman got to the window, the runner had dropped on the street and sprinting.

  The bogeyman got the running man in his sight and squeezed twice on his trigger. The first bullet went through the glass windows if a store, the second missed Andrew Gilmore's head because he sucked in time. That bullet sunk into the helmet of a parked bike.

  Andrew was gone.

  The bogeyman cursed.

  —

  Diggs walked past Olivia and walked across the street.

  "Diggs?"

  But the former CIA agent was already stopping a red Audi and paying the young man driving with a wad of American money to let him have the car. There was a girl in the passenger seat squinting at Diggs, yammering at her boyfriend in Italian.

  The boy grinned sheepishly, he waved at Olivia and said, "hi, I speak English, a little bit."

  Diggs got in and told the girl to get out, "togliersi!"

  The team jumped in. The car zoomed off as the girl shouted, "America feccia! La fiorata!"

  "What did you tell him?" Olivia asked Diggs as the man sped along the narrow Roman street.

  "I bought the car off him."

  "Oh, that figures."

  They turned three corners and doubled back twice, each time, Diggs checked the side view mirror. And the rearview too. There seemed to be no tail.

  —

  The bogeyman stood rooted to the front of the Paruchieri Balduina when he saw the brown-haired man accost the red Audi. Then the woman appeared from the other side of the street, with her were the other men. They entered the car and zoomed past him. They turned the corner and went up the way he had come, up the curve of Via Lattanzio.

  He wasted no time in making his decision. He would get the running man later, but the woman was on to something. They were on the trail of the Templars gold and must be closing. Their body language said it all.

  The bogeyman lashed out suddenly at an approaching Suzuki bike, the rider flipped over and fell in the middle of the road from a blow to the neck. The assassin ripped the helmet off the head and jumped on the bike.

  He gunned the bike up the street.

  —

  Andrew Gilmore had a place, a refuge for when things got nasty and hot such as it was now. It was in another part of the city. It was a place he hardly went to because the circumstances that brought the place into his possession was such that he seldom liked to think about. And no one knew of the apartment except him and the former owner, who was now dead.

  The street there was quiet. Cobblestoned road and narrow story buildings with small windows. Clotheslines floated in the air, and clothes of various colors flapped in the wind.

  He flattened against the wall, in-between two houses. No one came up or down the road. The apartment he watched was on the second floor. He hadn't been there in months because he didn't have to. The flower pots on the window flourished with gladiolas. The blinds were as he left it. He watched the street for about three minutes, then he disappeared back through the alley and was gone.

  He reappeared two streets again away in Via Filippo Nicolai. The payphone there was a red box beside Hao Restaurante Roma. He walked under the purple awning and counted to ten before entering the payphone.

  On the second ring, Olivia answered.

  "Hello?"

  "This is Andrew Gilmore."

  —

  Olivia gasped, the color left her face.

  "How is this possible, how did you get—?"

  "I called Tom Garcia, the sheriff. He gave me this number."

  "No, I mean, how did you get out?"

  "You knew I was kidnapped?"

  "Andrew, where are you, I'm coming to get you—"

  *No, Olivia, stay right where you are, it's not safe, a man is trying to kill me. You have to get out of the city as fast as you can."

  Olivia caught her breath. She closed her eyes and saw red dots and shapes like crystals float in the darkness. When she opened her eyes, four anxious faces were gazing at her face. Two Italian police cars screamed by. Diggs pulled into the curb.

  "Olivia listen to me carefully, I was abducted by some guys, I don't know what they want yet, I had to call to know if you're okay—"

  "It was because of me."

  "What?"

  "Yes, they took you to make me do something, the Templars gold, they want me to find it, then—"

  "Exchange it for me?"

  "Yes."

  Andrew sighed, a swish like waves coming in.

  "Can you get out of town?" Olivia asked him.

  "No, I can't, they'll always find me. This guy, an assassin, he's got his sights on me. I'm a walking target. He's just been to my apartment, and I don't know how he keeps finding me every damn time."

  Olivia looked at Diggs, "they put a bug on him."

  "Get his location," said Diggs as he put the car back in the ignition.

  "Andrew, they planted a bug on you, that's how they can find you every time. Diggs is going to find it and take it off. Find a crowded place and wait for us."

  "I'll be by the rotunda at Chiesa di Santa Maria, you know it?"

  "We'll find it!"

  —

  It didn't seem likely to the bogeyman that the woman and the runner are in communication. He was eager to make sure the situation remained that way. But if they were meeting, then he'd congratulate himself on the possibility of killing two birds with one stone.

  The runner was on the move again on the bogeyman's tracker.

  "Interesting…"

  He turned the stolen bike around. The map mounted on the bike showed him there were two shortcuts to the direction, and that the most likely point he was headed was a church.

  How fitting for a renegade priest to die on the grounds of a church.

  —

  The basketball court in front of Chiesa di Santa Maria was crowded with raucous youngsters, adrenaline and sweat raised the low temperature of approaching evening. The sound of the ball hitting the ring and swishing through it was music to his ears. He felt a tingling in his feet and around his arms.

  He has forgotten how to live until now. Watching the life happening before him, Andrew Gilmore questioned —something he rarely did— the path he had chosen for himself.

  He had changed his clothing a second time. Now he wore black sport wear, a white baseball cap, and blue jogging shoes; he kept in the crowd on the other side of the road. There was a sprinkling of people th
ere too, enough people to shield him from probing eyes. He pulled the cap lower; he checked the cellphone he just bought, too. The time was 3:50 pm. The sun was descending low on the top of the Chiesa church.

  He picked a place on the concrete between a group of people playing a card game and students having a chemistry discussion.

  He waited for Olivia and her people.

  The red car drove slow. It was them, he knew.

  The muscles of his feet twitched. Andrew Gilmore listened to the droll of med school from the kids around him. With honest interest, he asked, "what's that?"

  The kid with the large textbook, the size of an encyclopedia, was an albino. Sharp blue eyes poked at him.

  "What's what?" he asked.

  Gilmore smiled and asked what nucleotides were. The kids looked at each other, with naked curiosity at the strange man's question.

  "Well…" the boy's carried for such a small body. He'd probably teach the subject to others someday.

  Andrew Gilmore wasn't listening, though.

  His eyes scanned the crowd, the road, and the church area, looking for his nemesis.

  He called Olivia, "you can reach me on this number, but give me a moment, I may have been followed."

  "Good, call me when the coast's clear."

  A dog barked to his left at the edge of the parking lot, and Gilmore looked that way. He saw a woman holding the hand of a girl. The woman looked pale, her hair was caught low, but upon a closer look, he saw she was going bald, and there were pink rings around her eyes. Cancer, maybe. The girl wire a red pinafore, long hair, and a beautiful smile. A man was playing with the dog. The man wore a black sweatshirt and boots.

  Gilmore frowned. She felt hotness around his neck.

  It was the assassin.

  He was not carrying his guitar box but, he saw the outline of his a big gun on under his underarm.

  Gilmore breathed. The voice of the albino student came back to him. Gilmore's eyes met the boy's own.

  "Do you understand?"

  Gilmore nodded slowly, suddenly alarmed that all the people here may be in danger. He thanked the students for their time.

  "Why don't you go back to your discussion, okay."

  "Si, are you a priest?" the boy asked.

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Because you look like the priest, my sister always talks about, father John."

  Gilmore's heart teetered.

  "I use to be a priest."

  "Didn't know you could stop."

  Gilmore shrugged and smiled. His mind was in turmoil. How to get all these people to get out of here, even though he had chosen the place because he was sure a crowd could provide cover for him.

  "Just stay in school, okay," he said and rose slowly.

  He walked off to the middle of the lot. There were more card games and singing. He joined the people standing there; he watched the assassin say goodbye to the kid and her dog. His face died again, and the smile was replaced with dark ice.

  Now he was looking at the screen of a device. That's how he's been tracking me, thought Gilmore.

  But I changed my clothes. They must have injected me with it. Damn it.

  Now he would have to meet Olivia and her people and put them in danger. He had no other options.

  Gilmore joined the card players, cross-legged, but angled so he could see the assassin coming in his direction.

  He called Olivia again.

  "He's here."

  "Shit, what's he wearing?" Olivia asked, and there was venom in her voice.

  "Parking lot on the left. Black tee-shirt, boots. He's holding something, like a cellphone, I don't know. But I'm gonna make a run for it, draw him out."

  "No, Andrew, wait!"

  "Get ready!"

  He clicked off and steeled himself.

  —

  Olivia jumped out of the car. Frantic eyes searched the parking lot. There were too many people, and it was difficult to see through the layers of bodies.

  "He's here!"

  "Who's here?" asked someone.

  She buried her gun in the corner of her denim, "Andrew and the assassin."

  "We need a plan," Liam blustered.

  Diggs pulled the hand brake and looked at him, "we are the plan, now get the fuck out of the car."

  "Yeah, let's do this."

  Diggs scanned the people across the road with his field glasses. "I see someone, it's him."

  "Who do you see?" Olivia asked.

  "Both of them, we need to move fast. The bogeyman is going for Andrew."

  Olivia frowned, "Bogeyman?"

  "Yeah. That's what everyone calls the man. The bogeyman, he was special operations, CIA for ten years. He's the one they sent when there's no one mad enough to go."

  Olivia shivered. She looked at the Diggs weathered face. Somehow Olivia believed him. But she thought something was afoot about this man who's been with her three times through her adventures.

  "How about you?" she asked him.

  But Diggs was already moving. Two big guns slung from his hands. He walked straight, as bold as death itself.

  Miller joined Olivia, "Lawrence Diggs is the one they sent to kill the Bogeyman."

  "Yeah."

  —

  They walked behind Diggs in a tight circle. Each with his own gun, cocked and ready. Olivia and Miller walked side by side. On both sides were Anabia Nassif and Liam Murphy. Victor Borodin took the rear with a shotgun hanging from a string in his large leather coat.

  "Easy guys," said Miller, "hang loose. Ther are too many people here. Let's not be unnecessary."

  "We'll be as sufficient as we can," Liam said.

  Anabia glanced at him, frowned, then he shook his head and went on walking.

  The assassin put his device in his pocket. He had already made his quarry in the ring of card-players on the floor. Andrew Gilmore had turned his back. He was looking forward. Andrew suddenly picked himself up and started walking off to the side.

  Everyone broke off their tangent and followed.

  Olivia saw as the assassin shook his hand a gun with a silencer materialized in his hand. He walked faster.

  Andrew got off the concrete of the parking lot and started towards a building in the far right. It was dirt and dusty there and fewer people too. Then he stopped and turned to the assassin.

  The assassin stopped, too; he hesitated. He sensed he had just walked into a trap.

  He turned suddenly, gun raised and spitting.

  "Break!" Olivia shouted.

  The group split in two as bullets zing passed and hit lost targets in the nearby building. Glass windows shattered.

  Diggs dropped on the floor, his guns up and blasting. He caught one of the assassin's legs; blood sprayed the brown sand. The killer tumbled away from Diggs's target. Diggs rolled away too and took cover behind a parked utility car. The assassin hung behind a tree.

  Andrew was free and running for the building opposite. People were running away from there. Behind them in the parking lot, they just left, people crowded and watched, confused. A few cellphones were up, recording the spectacle.

  In the distance, Olivia heard inbound police sirens.

  It is on, she thought.

  "Frank, I'm going around, I have to find Andrew."

  Miller said, "yeah, I'll cover you, go!"

  Liam saw Olivia crawl off and said to Anabia, who hunkered beside him, "is it just me, or does Olivia love violence?"

  "I think you and I, we're just two pussies, and you know it," Anabia groaned.

  "Diggs got the guy, right?"

  "I think he did."

  —

  The assassin made a run for it. He sprinted into the building that Andrew had gone to. Diggs followed him, shooting, more windows smashed, frenzied screams rang inside the building.

  The assassin dove through a gaping window. He was up again instantly and shooting, a bullet scraped Diggs on the cheek and shoulder, he ducked and rolled off to the side, hitting the rear tires of a car.


  Behind him, Liam screamed and fell. Anabia jumped behind the car Diggs was hiding behind. Miller hissed, "Liam, get up, come in!"

  But Liam wasn't moving.

  Anabia cursed, "fuck, Liam! Are you alright?"

  Liam was face down on the dirt, a pool of blood was forming around his lower body. He coughed once and moved his right hand. His gun was inches from it. Anabia looked at the window where the assassin was hiding and saw the dark eye of the silencer.

  Shit, Anabia's mind screamed, he's gonna finish him off.

  He brought his own gun up, it was a Glock he hated using, had barely shot with since they came out. He squinted his eyes and took in that eye in the window, he squeezed twice and blew the eye of the edge of the window.

  Diggs turned sharply.

  "Damned good shot that was!" he said and bounded off to the building.

  Anabia rushed over to Liam. He turned him over and cursed again, "God damn!"

  —

  Olivia heard a crash on the right. It had to be the assassin. A fit of blistering anger filled her. She could not explain. She fought the urge to go through that office door and blast the assassin to hell. But she knew too well she was not a match.

  So she veered off quickly before the bogeyman came out and found her floundering in the hallway and kill her.

  The place was some sort of office building. Maybe a consulate or something. Olivia passed several open doors, she saw a desk and chair or two. In one, a woman knelt under a desk, sniveling.

  Olivia put a finger to her lips, "shush!"

  There seemed to be no exit back here. Several more offices faced Olivia, many of the doors shut. Andrew had to be in one of them. As she went by a hall, she felt movement behind her. Then a hand grabbed her from behind.

  "It's me, Olivia, shhh!"

  —

  Diggs plastered his back against the wall. He listened for movement, none came.

  I'd he went round, and the assassin was still in the room, Diggs would be endangering his friends. So he did the unthinkable. He pointed his gun in the window. There was no one there except the chewed wood where the bullet from Anabia's gun had hit.

  The office was empty. Shards dangled from the top of the window; two huge eyes stared at Diggs from below a desk. The man’s suit was torn in the armpit, his breath was coming out of him in asthmatic wheezes. The door was open.

  “Dov’è adesso?” where is he?