Templar Conspiracy

by Paul Christopher

  “I was stationed in Helsinki for a while. My people had this crazy idea to get assets out of St. Petersburg using iceboats like these across the Gulf of Finland. We never tried it but I learned the basics.”

  “How are we supposed to catch up with a snowmobile in a sailboat?” Lockwood said. “I’ve seen guys racing these but not at that kind of speed.”

  “Top-end record for one of these boats is close to a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour,” said Holliday. “You ride shotgun up front and I’ll see if I can get you within range of the guy who’s screwing with your town.”

  “How do we get this thing rolling?” Lockwood said.

  Tritt slowed the snowmobile, then pulled to a halt and checked the big dial on his watch. The wind was worse than he’d expected and he was going to be late. Not that it mattered; no one was waiting. But punctuality had always been a professional watchword with him and a point of personal pride. He remembered and abided by his German grandfather’s favorite platitude: “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” He checked the GPS locator taped to the handlebars and made a slight adjustment.

  Tritt was old enough and came from a time when GPS, satellite phones and most kinds of twenty-first-century technology were still things to be marveled at and not taken for granted, so he pulled out his old-fashioned Bézard military marching compass and checked that the electronic data from the GPS unit was accurate, which it was. He wound up the throttle of the snowmobile, then switched it off, suddenly aware of a strange sound coming from somewhere behind him. He lifted off his helmet and listened, then put one booted foot onto the windblown, virtually black surface of the ice.

  Something. A distant, hollow rumbling. Not any kind of tracked vehicle like his snowmobile. The tone rose and fell erratically, the sound of it even vibrating through the ice. He didn’t have the faintest idea what was producing the far-off, odd-sounding roar, but he knew that it didn’t belong and for that reason alone he didn’t like it. If he had to guess it sounded like somebody dragging a heavy wooden box across the ice at high speed. He looked at his watch again. It was a little too early but he decided to make the call anyway. He took the satellite phone out of his pocket and switched it on.

  The silent snowmobile appeared in front of them without warning as Holliday struggled with the wheel, trying to keep the rushing, daggerlike iceboat under control. He had no idea how fast they were going, but up until a few seconds before they’d been trying to follow the sound of the snowmobile when it suddenly stopped. Whatever speed they were going the rush of the wind and the blowing snow made it impossible to communicate with Lockwood, hunched in the tiny forward cockpit, his big Bushmaster jutting toward the front of the boat.

  Tritt turned at the sound of the boat, his eyes widening in his snow-rimmed, balaclava-covered face. He reached down with his right hand and brought up a squat little MP5 submachine gun. Lockwood fired, the shot from the big-caliber rifle striking the forward nacelle of the snowmobile and sending up a shower of sparks.

  Holliday hauled on the wheel and tightened the sail line simultaneously, veering away in a sliding arc as the bullets from the MP5 stitched into the side of the boat and clanged off the long forward blade as it lifted into the air.

  Holliday put the boat into a scraping, one-bladed turn, almost turning the craft over, but by the time they swung back in Tritt’s direction the snowmobile was on the move again. Following him, Holliday hammered on the side of the hull to get Lockwood’s attention. The cop turned in his seat and gave Holliday a death’s-head grin and an okay sign. He hadn’t been hit and apparently nothing vital to the operation of the boat had been hit, either.

  Tritt was moving in a straight line now, gathering speed and pushing the snowmobile to its limits. In the distance Holliday could see the darker line on the night horizon that marked the far shore of the lake. Once on land Tritt would be lost. The snowmobile could travel over the snow-covered ground, but when the ice ran out the boat could go no farther.

  Holliday saw one of Tritt’s hands dropping off the handlebars to dig into the pocket of his parka. Initially he expected some kind of weapon, but then he saw the heavy rectangular shape of what had to be a satellite phone. Winter Falls was almost out of time. Holliday twitched the line, stiffening the sail, and the boat gathered even more speed. He could hear Lockwood firing but it was no use—there was too much movement and the shots were going wide.

  Ahead of them Holliday could see Tritt twisting slightly in the saddle, driving one-handed, the other hand gripping the satellite phone. Behind the balaclava Holliday knew damn well the assassin was smiling. Holliday pulled the line through the pulleys even more tightly, his speed increasing once again. As the iceboat came up behind the snowmobile Holliday let go of the tugging wheel and let the boat have its head, the whole thing rising off the ice like a yacht heeling over in a high wind.

  As the boat rose into the air so did the sharpened, three-and-a-half-foot-long bronze-and-steel blade. Holliday dragged the wheel around farther and the iceboat swung behind the snowmobile at close to a hundred miles an hour, the blade lifting even higher as they swung around the back of the speeding vehicle, turning in a single, sharp tack back onto its original course. The blade sliced into Tritt’s body just above his bent hips, tearing through his down jacket, cutting through the spine and belly, severing trunk and torso in an instant. Blood gushed into the air and froze, dropping like tiny scarlet hailstones onto the night-black ice.

  The snowmobile, the lower portion of Tritt’s dismembered body still in the saddle, roared off into the snowy darkness. Holliday let the mainsail halyard loose and the boat luffed, settled and then stopped. He turned back in his seat, waiting for the distant roar of explosions and fireballs rising from behind them that would mark the destruction of Winter Falls. Ten long seconds passed. Then twenty. Then thirty.

  Nothing.

  “We did it!” Lockwood hooted.

  Holliday closed his eyes and let out a long steaming breath.

  They’d won.

  38

  Winter passed. Over the previous weeks a number of events had occurred abroad, particularly in the United States. As things turned out, the wound incurred by the new vice president had been much more serious than they’d first thought and he’d been forced to resign his position in favor of a healthy candidate better able to serve his country. A grateful president had given Richard Pierce Sinclair the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the Oval Office in absentia, the medal received instead by his mother, Kate Sinclair. William Sinclair was thought to be recuperating at his mother’s vineyard estate in Switzerland.

  Jihad al-Salibiyya fell out of the news cycle and was never heard from again. Wilmot DeJean, putative leader of a fringe militia group known as Maine’s Right Arm, was found dead of a heart attack in his room at the Brac Beach Resort in Cayman Brac. According to several of his disgruntled followers DeJean had fraudulently embezzled most of the organization’s “war chest.”

  Angus Scott Matoon disappeared on a helicopter hunting trip in northern Alaska. His body was never found. Randy Lockwood retired as Police Chief of Winter Falls shortly after testifying at a closed Senate hearing on the somewhat unorthodox activities of Lieutenant Colonel John “Doc” Holliday and Peggy Blackstock, although there was a rumor that he’d be running for mayor during next year’s election. Following the Senate hearing all three were invited to the White House for a private lunch with the president and his wife.

  The explosion that occurred during the president’s nostalgic trip back to the town of Winter Falls was later discovered to have been caused by a man foolishly lighting a cigarette while topping off the heating tanks at a local shopping center. The resulting explosion destroyed the nearby electrical substation, plunging the town into blackness. The president was successfully evacuated and, according to White House sources, was never in any danger.

  In the Bahamas Mary Breau, the real estate agent, had several people inquire after the Lyford Cay property belonging
to Mr. William Tritt, but she was having a great deal of difficulty getting in touch with the owner.

  Spring came to the Vatican. Gentle breezes rustled through the olive trees and citrons along the garden pathways. The rush of Rome’s frenetic traffic was a dull, distant roar behind high stone walls. For the moment all was calm in the home of St. Peter’s Church.

  Cardinal Secretary of State Antonio Niccolo Spada and Father Thomas Brennan, head of Soladitum Pianum, the Vatican Secret Service, strolled through the Giardini Vaticani, the famous Vatican Gardens, enjoying the warm sunshine, the plaintive, understated call of the common redstart coming from the branches of the trees around them, a single, predatory kestrel flying high above them, its dark wings like a skirling warning of things to come. Passing a lemon tree, Spada plucked one of the small yellow fruits and held it to his nose, breathing in the rich, tart scent.

  “So in the end very little has changed,” said the cardinal, his long robes brushing the gravel of the pathway as he walked.

  “We have something of what we wanted.” The black-suited priest shrugged, the rancid odor of his fuming cigarette in harsh contrast to the lush, earthy perfumes of the gardens around them. “At least we have a new Pope.”

  “And a tractable one, as well,” murmured Spada. “Unlike his predessessor. He was coming far too close to secrets that were none of his concern.”

  “Sinclair didn’t get the notebook,” Brennan said quietly.

  “And neither did we,” snapped the cardinal. “While the world watches our moral compass disintegrate into a tawdry sex scandal, the Holy See is on the verge of bancruptcy.”

  “Better to have the distraction of a sex scandal than an auditor’s report,” answered Brennan.

  “Holliday neither uses nor abuses the wealth of the Templars, wealth that rightfully belongs to the Church, not a single man.”

  “He sees himself as no more than the steward of the treasure, not its owner,” said Brennan. “Like the monk Rodrigues before him.”

  “I couldn’t care less about Colonel Holliday’s perception of himself; I want what is rightfully ours.”

  “Kate Sinclair would say the same,” reponded the black-suited priest. “For her this has been a single battle in a longer war.”

  “A war that we must win,” said Spada. “Whatever it takes, get me the Templar notebook!”

  Doc Holliday discreetly unbuckled his seat belt and gazed out the window as the big El Al 747 lumbered into the sky over Kennedy Airport and headed east. He settled back into his comfortable first-class seat, sipped his glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and turned to Peggy Blackstock, who occupied the seat next to him.

  “So, tell me again why I’m coming back to Israel with you?”

  “Because we both need a rest, because they fired you from your temp job at Georgetown University for missing too many classes and because Rafi found something on his trip to darkest Africa that he thought might interest you.”

  “Great,” said Holliday. He finished his juice, put down the glass, eased his seat back lower and closed his eyes. “Just as long as it’s warm, there’s a beach and I can get a little peace and quiet.”

  “I guarantee it,” said Peggy.

  “Famous last words,” muttered Holliday, and then he was asleep.

  Read on for a special preview of Paul Christopher’s next thrilling novel,

  THE TEMPLAR LEGION

  Coming in June 2011

  1039 A.D.

  The Nile River at Karnak

  100 leagues from Alexandria

  His name was Ragnar Skull Splitter and his ship was the Kraka, named for the daughter of a Valkyrie and a Viking chief. Gracing Kraka’s wooden bow was the carved image of the lady herself, her eyes closed in dreaming sleep, her long hair covering her naked body. It was said that Kraka, like her mother before her, had the power to interpret dreams and see the future. Ragnar fervently prayed that it was so and that once more she would guide him home with her prophesies. For the past ten days he had traveled a river that seemingly had no end, and for five of those days he had traveled through what he now knew, despite the blistering heat from the relentless sun, was nothing less than Niflheim, the dark and eternally frozen Land of the Dead.

  Ragnar was cousin to Harald Sigurdsson, the head of the Varangian Emperors Guard in Miklagard, the Great Walled City, or Constantinople, as the local people called it. Ragnar was Harald’s greatest warrior, and before setting out from that wondrous city at the neck of the world he had vowed to his cousin that he would not return until he had found the secret mines of the ancient king and taken their vast riches in Harald’s name.

  If he failed, it would not be for the lack of a good ship and good men to sail her. From his position on the steering platform at the high end of the stern he proudly looked down Kraka’s length.

  She was eighty feet from the carved effigy of her namesake in the bow to the high, elegantly curved line of her sternpost. She was eighteen feet wide and barely six feet deep from the gunwales to the keelson that ran the length of the ship. She was made of solid oak from the shallow slopes of Flensborg Fjord, and her clinker-built hull was created by overlapping planks attached to the heavy ribs with more than five thousand iron rivets rove between each plank with tarred rope. The planks became progressively thinner as they rose toward the gunwales, making the boat light, strong and flexible. She drew less than three feet and could be rowed right up onto the shallowest beachhead.

  At sea with her big sail set, Kraka could easily sail at ten knots and could travel more than fifty leagues in a single day. Here, on a river as black as night, its waters populated by swimming monsters of dizzying variety, she could barely do two knots and travel six or seven leagues before her thirty-two rowers could no longer lift the ponderous eighteen-foot oars.

  Ragnar looked fondly down at his men from the steering platform. Like Ragnar, they were stripped to the waist, the muscles of their backs and shoulders gleaming with sweat as they pulled the ship through the ominous waters. Also like Ragnar, each of them wore their linen head coverings bound with strips of cloth the local people called nemes.

  In the bow, on a smaller version of the steering platform, stood the strange, high-ranking negeren court slave pressed on him by Harald. Next to him stood the slave’s even stranger companion, a gigantic eunuch named Barakah who took care of the negeren’s personal needs as well as recording their whereabouts with fantastically detailed maps, sketches and drawings made at his master’s order. The black man’s name was Abdul al-Rahman, and it was he who suggested that Ragnar and his men adopt the nemes after two of the warriors collapsed over their oars, stunned and terribly sick from the sun’s heat.

  Just below the steering platform, Aki, the last oarsman on the starboard side, called out the cadence with an old Kenning chant:Most men know that

  Gunnbjorn the captain

  lies long buried in this mound;

  never was there

  a more valiant traveler

  of the wondrous wide ground of Endil

  his tale told proudly and with honor

  in the Skalds

  ’til Njörðr, God of Oceans

  Drowns the land.

  Ragnar turned to his steersman, a gruff, powerful man named Hurlu who’d been steersman on Kraka long before Ragnar had become her captain. “How long have the men been rowing?”

  “Since the morning daymark.” Hurlu squinted up at the sun, which was now almost directly overhead. “Six hours at least. Too long.”

  Ragnar nodded. He’d done his time at the oars often enough and knew the weight of the heavy blade digging through the water. His shoulders ached at the memory. “We should pull into shore,” said Ragnar. “Let the men rest.”

  “I agree,” said Hurlu.

  Ragnar let it pass. From a younger man it would have been an insubordinate response, but Hurlu was as old as the planks in Kraka’s bilge, and he’d been piloting ships since Ragnar was playing with balls of yarn in his mother’s lap
.

  “We’ll need shade,” said Ragnar. He looked out at the bleak, arid land on either side of the river. There was nothing to see but bare rock and high ridges of sandstone baking in the relentless sun.

  Hurlu made a brief sound of disgust and spit over the sternpost. He nodded toward the bow. “Ask your pet monkey up there; maybe he’ll know where we can find some.” Hurlu had a superstitious mistrust of the black man and made no bones about it to anyone, including Ragnar.

  Ragnar whistled shrilly, and when al-Rahman looked back, he gestured for the black man to join him in the stern. Al-Rahman said something briefly to Barakah, his servant, who nodded; then he stepped off the little platform down onto the narrow plank gangway that ran the length of the ship. As he moved, his long white robes swirled elegantly around his ankles.

  Al-Rahman had the grace of a dancing girl, but he was no simpering rassragr; Ragnar had seen evidence enough of that when they were loading stores in Alexandria. That same dancer’s grace had turned to a warrior’s brutally agile fury when a gang of cutpurses had confronted him in an alley and demanded payment for passage to the street beyond. Al-Rahman had sliced all four ragged men to ribbons in a few seconds, a short, curve-bladed Saif appearing magically in his right hand from beneath those swirling robes.

  “Aasalaamu Aleikum, Ragnar; you wished to speak with me?”

  “Wa-Aleikum Aassalaam, Abdul,” said Ragnar, using the response he’d been taught by Al-Rahman. Beside him, Hurlu scowled and spat over the side again, just as Ragnar knew he would. Ragnar grinned; he enjoyed getting the older man’s goat whenever the opportunity presented itself. Al-Rahman’s ornately tattooed face broke into a smile as well. He knew just what the tall, blond Dane was thinking. They were a strange pair: Ragnar as broad as an oak, al-Rahman as slim as a willow, but both equally strong, each in his own way. They were too different ever to become real friends, but during their time together they’d developed a mutual trust and respect.