Chapter One

 

Nicoya, Costa Rica - Tuesday March 17

The thin, olive-skinned man focused on the filleting knife in the bartender’s hand. It slipped through the limes, each piece falling against the other, all lined up by the time the knife worked its way to the end of the lime. He looked up at the woman on the other side of the bar, bit his lower lip, then glanced back at the flashing knife. The juice ran down the cutting board when the bartender swept the slices off the board with the blade, wiped it on a towel, and guided it to open another lime. His eyes locked on the blond woman in the wet, white bikini top circling her tongue around the rim of her glass, pretending not to look, and leaning her breasts on the bar. Then he looked back to the knife opening the lime. The bartender moved off to another customer, and Rashid grabbed a slice of lime from the cutting board, then slipped the wet knife up his sleeve.

When the American dropped the second gin and tonic into the pool, the woman next to him hitched up her white bikini top, crushed her pack of cigarettes in her fist, bent close to him, and very quietly hissed, “You’ve embarrassed me for the last time today. If all you wanted to do was drink, you could have stayed in Toledo. I’m so goddamned sick of you.” She looped a small wallet around her neck, composed her face, slid off the bar stool, and waded through the waist deep water to the steps leading out of the pool.

Rashid peered over the tops of his aviator shades and carefully appraised her retreating figure as he had for several days. Her initial excitement at this beautiful, tropical paradise slowly changed into a bitter resentment and rage. Each day she and her husband emerged from their room like any normal couple on a holiday ready to enjoy the sunshine and surf. Then the day wore on, the drinks kept coming, the abuse began, and she finally left with whatever tattered dignity remained. But Rashid would treat her better, much, much better. He knew she wanted him. They all did.

 “Toledo! Ohio! Buckeyes! Go, Buckeyes! Yeah! One more for the road for me, yeah.  And give her one for the ditch. The ditch for the bitch, yeah!” shouted the American. He turned sideways, watching her leave, leaned an elbow on the wet bar, and crooked a finger at the bartender. “A double gin and tonic for me, and a flagon of your finest hemlock for the lady!” She didn’t look back. He fished a wet US hundred dollar bill from the pocket of his flowered shirt and slapped it down. 

The Costa Rican bartender quietly replaced the house phone and paid especially close attention to a customer ordering on the far side of the oval bar. The bar was a shaded island in the pool, with a fake thatched roof, granite top, and calypso music to set the mood. Guests waded or swam up to it and ordered tall tropical drinks in frosted glasses with orange slices, straws, stir-sticks, and little umbrellas.

“Garcon, a drink, my kingdom for a drink!” The American threw his arms straight back over his head, fell slowly into the pool, then hauled himself back up on the barstool and shook his head. “Oh, yeah! That’s a wake-up call. Yes!” He snorted, coughed, and waved a finger at the honeymoon couple a few stools away. “Ok to swim in, but don’t never ever drink it. No way, not never.” He turned and leaned toward the couple and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial leer. “You know what fish do in water, don’t you?”

The woman reddened and looked down, and he howled, “Yeah! Yeah! You know. You know. Little fishies…” He held one hand on top of the other and wiggled them together. “Leeetle feeshies…”

The man stood up and faced the American, but his wife grabbed at his elbow. “No, Chuck, let’s just go. Come on, honey, let’s just get out of here. Please?” The couple left, both red-faced, one with embarrassment, the other with anger.

“Mr. Nelson, good afternoon, Sir.” The assistant manager of the hotel had donned a pair of swim trunks and stood in the water next to the American. The American swayed at the edge of the bar and tried to focus on him. “Tequila, Garcon. Tequila with a worm for my friend the village bellhop in his… yeah… in his native loincloth!”

The assistant manager flipped on his professional smile. Business everywhere had been slow, and they needed every guest. “I’m sorry, Mr. Nelson, but the bar is closed now. But I’m sure we can have room service bring some gin and tonics to your room. Compliments of the house, of course.” He leaned close and whispered, “It’s the bartender, Sir. We think he’s skimming, and the police will be here soon. Help us out, and don’t let on that you know. Just pretend everything’s normal. We may need your testimony.”

The manager shifted his eyes back and forth. “You know how these people are. You know? Indians?” He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “I’m sure you know what I mean.” The bartender overheard the conversation, rolled his eyes at the manager, and went back to polishing glasses on the other side of the bar.

“Hmmm, yeah, I spotted him. Made him for a skimmer. Was going to tell you.” The American leaned on the manager and slipped off the stool. The manager caught him and used the slip to ease him toward the pool steps. “Hope Jungle Boy here gets what’s coming.” He hooked a thumb at the bartender. “I knew he was bent first time I saw him.”

When he dragged the American out of the pool, the manager looked back at the bartender and scowled.  The grinning bartender gave him two thumbs up.

Rashid checked his Rolex. Right on time. That was all anyone would see of Mr. Nelson until sometime tomorrow. Mrs. Nelson, as usual would eat alone, and watch the sunset. But tonight would be special for her, very special.

 

*     *     *

Callahan fell flat on his back on top of the bed when they reached the room.  By then, “Mr. Nelson” had become dead weight the manager had to heave through the door toward the bed. He snorted through his nose, hung his mouth open, inhaled huge snores, and then even that shallowed out to a deep, rhythmic rasping.

For three days he had played that drunken Mr. Nelson with such a nice and attractive wife. What, the other guests had thought, was such a nice girl doing with him? He spent about five minutes on the bed, heard nothing, then stripped off the gin soaked clothes, threw them in a corner, and headed for the shower. It wasn’t easy spilling all that gin and tonic while pretending to drink it. When this was done, he swore he’d never even go near gin for the rest of his life.

But he had to admit it really was a great spot for a vacation. The beach, surf, fishing, and diving were everything he could ask for. It was all there. So, what was he doing? He spent all day playing the drunken buffoon.

He had changed into cargo pants and a T-shirt when Marie knocked on the door. Three raps, followed by two raps, followed by one. He turned the bolt and his “long-suffering wife” entered their room.

“God, it stinks in here,” she laughed. “Maybe it’s time for you to switch brands.”

“Tell me about it. You think being the town drunk is easy? If Zurich ever sees the bar bill, they’ll flip.”

“Here, eat something.” She handed him a white bag with cheeseburgers, fries, and a Coke. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Thanks.” He stuck a hand in the bag. “How’s our friend looking?”

“Well, he was sure looking today,” Marie said. “He had his eyes all over me at the bar. Threw me a few smiles. I snuck some looks at him and got caught looking, batted my baby blues a few times, did the wet bikini thing. You know? The frustrated American whore begging to be bedded by a real man. You know how these guys think.” She flipped her hair. “Especially if a girl has dyed blond hair and blue contact lenses.”

“Well,” said Callahan, “say what you want about him, he does have good taste in women.”

“Just doing my job, remember that. We all have our talents, and do what we have to.”

He held up his hands defensively. “I know. I know. So, what do you do when you’re not on a job like this?” Callahan asked. They hadn’t worked together before, and had been on purely professional footing for the last few days.

“I’m with the Kruger Institute in Zurich. On the public side, I’m curator of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century collection. On the private side, I work with the Chief Archivist in the Templar Archives down below. There’s always a seminar somewhere, or some collection to visit. It lets me get around. You know? For things like this.”

Turnabout is fair play, she thought. “How about you?”

“Computers. Security systems for computers and buildings with security controlled by computers. Usually with Triad International. It lets me get around a lot without too many questions.”

“Triad? That’s a pretty big outfit. They did our security system at the Kruger.  I didn’t know it was Templar.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t know the Kruger Institute was Templar, either.  I suspect there is a whole lot that’s Templar that we don’t know about. Zurich likes it like that.”

“Strange life.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I get the idea they think we are robots. Just work with someone without knowing anything about them.”

“Tonight?” he asked, getting back to business.

“I think so. I’ve done everything but send him an invitation on a little silver plate.”

“Hey,” he looked at her, “this guy is no joke. He’s flat out deadly. He’s good.  Real good. The best the Hashashin have. He was behind the attack on the Vatican last year, and they would have killed the Pope if one of those Swiss Guards hadn’t taken the bullets himself. He killed one of our guys a few years ago and got away from the others. And he ran the job that blew up that airliner with three-hundred people over the Atlantic. Don’t let your guard down for a second.”

“Yeah, I know. Take a look at this. It came in while you were still spilling your gin all over the bar.” She opened a laptop on the desk, hit a few keys, and pointed to the screen. “Zurich thinks the Hashashin or their Al Qaeda franchise have another Vatican attack coming up. I’m not sure how they know, but our guy Rashid did the last Vatican attack, and they think he’s a big player in a new one. Zurich sent a bunch of new questions for him. I copied them so you can wipe the message when you’re finished.”

Callahan leaned over the desk and read the message. “I wonder what Zurich is up to. Under the Concordat, Templars have to keep hands off the Vatican and the Church at least until this Pope dies. And that means they stay completely away. You know how they hammer us that the Church is strictly off-limits while this Pope lives.”

“Well,” Marie said, “Templars might have to keep hands off, but that doesn’t mean Zurich can’t gather intelligence. They might know the complete attack plan, but still not tell the Vatican because of the Concordat.”

“That’s the world we live in. So, I guess we’ll see just how much Rashid knows. And don’t underestimate him. He’s not just an armchair planner who…”

“I know, I know. I’m a big girl.” She cut him off. “He’s a bad one. But that just makes taking him off the board more satisfying. I’ve been a Templar since my father died, and I intend to have a long and eventful life and peacefully die in bed.  No Death in Battle for me.” She turned serious and sat down on her bed. Callahan started to speak, but she held up a hand. “But you’re right. Everything we know about Rashid says he’s one of their best. I really don’t intend to tangle with him.”

She saw doubt in his face. “Callahan, get your head screwed on straight! I’ve done this before. So have you. Remember, I do the same thing you do. This isn’t a frontal attack. Not with a guy like this. Not for either of us. If we just follow the plan it will all work out. Believe me, these clowns think every woman on the planet is panting for them.” She took a breath and gave him a hard look. “This guy makes my skin crawl, but I know you have my back.” Then she smiled.  “Be cool.”

 

*     *     *

Marie had changed into a white tropical dress and sandals and sat alone in a wicker chair on the hotel terrace watching the Pacific. She crossed her legs, dangled a sandal off one foot, held a tall iced tea in one hand, and fingered a strand of pearls with the other.

“A beautiful sunset, isn’t it?”  Rashid had come up next to her. His Oxford accent held just a trace of his native Arabic.

“Oh, I love it here in the evening,” she said without looking up. “The breeze, the trees, the smell of the salt air, the waves. What more can you ask for?” She bounced the dangling sandal, looked up at him, and smiled sadly. “The sun, look at it.  I’ve heard there is a green flash sometimes just as the sun disappears. Just one. One sudden, intense, emerald flash. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

Look at her, he thought. She’s begging. Tossing her hair around, top buttons carelessly left open. Slut. A wasted life, he thought, wasted until now. He smiled down at her, down her perfect body, down to her tanned legs, and saw the potential, saw what she could become. Only an artist could see it. And Rashid was truly an artist. He was one of a kind. Unique.

She removed her sunglasses and looked directly into his eyes. “I’m Teresa Nelson,” she said and extended her hand. Rashid took it, felt the life in it, felt the softness, felt the potential, moved a thumb over a firm vein on the back of the hand, held it a moment too long, and quickly pulled a chair over. He thanked the lord for his luck, and wondered just how the evening would unwind. He knew how it would end.

 

*     *     *

“It must be beautiful down there,” she said.

“Where?” asked Rashid.

“The beach. Look how beautiful it is. I’ve wanted to walk in the surf at night ever since we came here.”

“Why don’t you?

She looked down. “I’m afraid to go out there alone at night… and… well… my husband… you know… won’t wake up until morning…” Her dangling sandal brushed against his leg and she wore an impish smile.

“Well, let’s go,” said Rashid. “I’m sure it’s perfectly safe.” And then, he thought, we can go back to the perfect safety of my room.

She bounced up like a little girl and grabbed his hand. “To the beach, my kind sir.” She tossed her hair and laughed. “To the beach.”

They walked down the pebbled path that led from the terrace to the beach, passed deserted cabanas, palm trees, and shrubbery. Rashid took off his shoes and rolled up his white pants and Marie swung her sandals from a finger.

“Look,” she said, pointing back behind them and walking backward. “Look how the surf wipes out our footprints. It’s like we were never here. Invisible. This is what I have always imagined. A moonlit beach, surf, sand…” She looked down, then up into his eyes, “And a strong, handsome man.” She bushed a finger down his cheek.

Rashid pulled her to him, but she put her hands on his chest and looked up and down the beach. “There’s nobody here,” he said. “Just us.”

“I know,” she whispered softly, “but…” She leaned her head on his chest. Let him lead. Don’t push it.

Blood surged to his temples and his neck felt hot. Balance. Art. Perfection. Patience. No. Not here, he thought, not here. Discipline. Strength. Resolve. Purity. Art, not graffiti. Remember who is the artist and who is the slut. The artist does not compromise for the slut. The artist excises the slut and leaves divine beauty.

In control of himself again, he said, “You look lovely, Teresa.” He held one of her hands in both of his, looked around and said, “Do you think there may be too many people down here? It’s a nice night, and I’m afraid people will come walking by. And, well… you know…” He squeezed the hand a bit and looked into her eyes.

She looked down and traced a finger up his arm. “I’m… well… my room… my husband, he’s…”

He put a finger on her lips, and said, “It’s Ok. I have a very nice room.”

 

*     *     *

Callahan watched the small screen on his GPS and heard the three beeps in his Bluetooth earpiece. Marie had squeezed her phone through her small handbag, signaling they were on the move to Rashid’s room in case he hadn’t been able to hear the conversation. But he had heard every word of the conversation and continued listening as predator and hunter circled each other.

He could also see her GPS position on the screen. It was the same technology as the GPS units in autos, except it was adapted to hikers and could transmit the location of one person to the screen of another. Superimposing her location on top of a Google Earth picture of the hotel complex allowed Callahan to follow her progress. The Templars controlled the Taiwanese company that manufactured these units, and had run a customized order for their own field operatives.

He knew she would dawdle and delay enough for him to get into Rashid’s room before they arrived, but he wasted no time running up the stairs and slipping through the corridors to room 715. A bellboy had traded a pass key for ten American hundred dollar bills, more than he made in a year, so getting into Rashid’s room was no problem.

He scanned the room and closet, and took a seat at the desk. He quickly inventoried the equipment he carried in the roomy pockets of the cargo pants, moving a hand to each pocket in turn. Silenced .22 caliber Beretta.  Fifty-thousand volt Taser that could drop a man at twenty feet. Two-foot length of cord. Handcuffs. Duct tape. Wire garrote.  Folding knife. Zippered leather pouch with several color-coded syringes and small bottles of drugs. 

The GPS showed Marie entering the beachfront lobby of the hotel. He moved back into the closet. The Bluetooth earpiece let him hear the conversation between Rashid and Marie, and she inserted words into the conversation that helped him track their progress.

 “Let’s get through the lobby,” she giggled, “there are too many people here.” On Callahan’s screen, the blip moved across the roof of the hotel over the lobby, since the Google map was a top-down view of the hotel. That meant the blip traversed the roof above Marie’s actual position in the hotel.

At the elevator, she complained, “These elevators take so long.” Now the blip on the roof was above the elevators. They had practiced this, and he knew where she was.

When they entered the elevator, she said, “Now I have you all alone for the first time.” The blip centered over the elevators. Rustling of clothes indicated some fast foreplay.

He heard more giggling in his earpiece and the blip moved across the roof toward the room where he hid. They were coming down the hall toward him. When they entered, Marie would pull Rashid down on the bed on top of her, and when she was ready for Callahan to move, she would say, “This is sooo wonderful.” Callahan would come out of the closet, toss the drug kit on the other bed, loop the garrote around Rashid’s neck, and hold him until Marie could get the syringe into his butt.

The GPS showed them almost at the door. He could hear them in his earpiece, but he heard nothing outside the door to the room. In the earpiece he heard the keycard in the lock, but heard nothing in the real lock, no clicking, no latch turning, no door opening. Now the GPS showed them in the room with him.

But he was alone in the room. In the earpiece, he heard Marie say what a nice room Rashid had. What’s going on? Then it hit him. Rashid had two rooms. Callahan was in room 715, but Rashid and Marie were in another of the rooms directly above, or directly below him. The hotel had eighteen floors. It was one of those resort hotels designed with a cookie cutter. Each room was identical, stacked one on top of the other for eighteen floors. They could be in 315, 815, 1115, or 1415. Guest rooms started at the third floor, so they were in any of fifteen other rooms in the stack. The GPS unit simply showed the blip on the roof above any of fifteen rooms.

Damn. He cursed his own stupidity, but felt a cold chill listening to Marie playing the vixen for the terrorist. She didn’t know there was a problem, and she thought he was right there in room with her, hiding in the closet with a gun and drugs. She felt safe. She knew a Templar had her back.

He was on the seventh floor, so there were eleven possible rooms above him, and four possibles below. He sprinted to the stairway door, banged it open and took the metal stairs up three at a time to the next floor. When he reached room 815, he shoved the keycard in the slot as quietly as he could and quickly moved into the room. Empty.

In his earpiece, he heard Marie gasp, “Well, you sure seem ready, my stallion.”

Up another floor, and down the hall. Room 915 had a couple in bed watching TV. “Sorry, wrong room.” He backed out and raced for the stairs.

“I’ve waited four whole days to get you in bed,” Marie cooed, “and now that I have you, I’m not letting you go.” The earpiece played it all for Callahan.

On the next floor, 1015 was empty. Back on the stairs, he crashed into the concrete block inside the stairwell,  pumped his legs, and pulled himself up with the railing.

“This is sooo wonderful,” said Marie. The signal. That was the signal. She had pulled him down on top of her on the bed. She was calling Callahan to come out of the closet and grab this guy. Again he heard the signal, but a bit louder, “Hmmm, soooooo wonderful!”

Room 1115 was a party, and when he entered a very large woman immediately thrust a drink at him. “Party Pooper!” she shouted after him.

Now Marie knew something was wrong, terribly wrong. She glanced toward the closet. Nothing.  And something else was wrong. Rashid had expertly twisted her over on her front, looped an arm around her throat, and cut off her air supply. The pressure of his arm on the sides of her neck and his other hand pushing her head down had also cut off the vital supply of blood through her carotid arteries to her brain. Her last thought was it only took four seconds without blood for the brain to lose consciousness.

Racing up the stairs, Callahan heard nothing in his earpiece, nothing at all. How many more floors? He had just left eleven. That meant six more, or was it seven? One minute per floor? Seven minutes? Or was it thirty seconds per floor? Three minutes? Or four minutes? Math wasn’t working. He raced out the stairwell door and down the hall to 1215. Two naked men on the bed gaped in surprise, and laughed madly when he left and ran back to the stairwell.

Now the sing-song humming came through the earpiece, not Marie, but Rashid.

Marie came awake to Rashid’s face hovering above her. “You’re Ok,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. Just a momentary interruption of blood flow so we could get more comfortable. There. Now I think we can really get to know each other.”

She tried to sit up, but both arms were stretched out above her head and she couldn’t move. The same with her feet. She swiveled her head around and saw both arms and legs were securely tied to the sturdy bedposts.

 “What? What’s going on? Why… I’m… I’m tied up? What is this?” She was stammering, and knew she had to regain control. Callahan wasn’t going to come to the rescue, and she had to do it alone. Calm. Control. Think. She giggled. “Is this a game, my stallion? Tie my hands, tie my feet, and I’m yours? Mmmm, this is soooo wonderful.” She moved her hips in a beckoning way, and forced a seductive smile through the sick terror gripping her body.

Tied? Tied? He had her tied up? Callahan hit another empty room. What’s going on here? Did Rashid know she was a Templar? Had they been made?

Rashid turned back to Marie with the bartender’s long-bladed filleting knife in his hand. “A game, my American whore? Yes. I suppose it is. It’s a game. A wonderful game, and it begins now.” He grabbed the hem of her skirt and easily slit it up to her waist. Then he continued, slicing off each button, gingerly hooking each side of the split dress with his knife tip, and flipping it to the side.

He stood back with his hand on his chin, appraising her. “Very nice, very nice. You do me honor, slut. Tonight, my dear, we will make great art.” He leaned over and traced his fingers across her forehead and down the line of her jaw. “Great art. I am the artist, and you are the… what shall we say? You are the slut? No, the slut is the canvas. And this,” he held up the knife, “this is my expressive tool, transferring muse to the medium.”  He waited for the scream. Nothing. Damn. Some people are no fun. He sighed and jammed a wadded sock into her mouth. Marie gagged and struggled for air through her nose.

He doesn’t know anything about the Templars, Marie thought. He really does think I’m the silly wife of an American drunk from Toledo. He’s just a serial killer who targets women when he’s not blowing up airliners. He’s supposed to be a bomb throwing terrorist! Jihad and all that. Why didn’t we know this? Why didn’t we know this? Who the hell? Where is Callahan? Where? Where? Where? Did Zurich know? Panic rose again but she refused to surrender. Make him talk. Make him talk. Talk? Talk? With a gag in my mouth? Look for a way out of this. Think. Anything.

Callahan also felt the panic. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. This was taking too long, and Marie was paying for it. He was supposed to be there, in the closet with the gun and drugs. Rashid should already be in a peaceful, drugged coma. Marie should be safe by now.

Rashid slowly cut her panties and sliced the bra in the middle, again using the knife tip to precisely fold the pieces back on each side. “You are a lovely woman,” he said, “but you will now become infinitely more lovely, a vision of pure beauty, with a purity that will wash all the filth of the Americans from your soul. A fitting gift to God? Yes. To God to God to God we go, from slut to art, oh humdeedoo…”

Callahan hit the top floor. A dining room, and a waste of time. Nowhere to go but down. He had guessed wrong. Marie and Rashid were in 315, 415, 515, or 615. Where had he started? Room 715? That meant three or four rooms to check? What if he missed a floor? Are floors printed on the stairwell doors? If he had gone down first, rather than up, he would have found them by now. Why had he gone up?

At each landing on the way down he jumped, with one foot landing on the middle stair below him, and the next on the landing. Grab the railing. Swing around to keep the momentum. At the sixth floor, he crashed down the metal stairs and tasted blood running down his face.

Marie tried to calm herself, seeing nothing but death ahead now. Other Templars had faced the same for nine-hundred years, and they had faced it like warriors. If this was her time, this was her place, and this was how it would happen, she would go out like a warrior. This would be her finest hour. Death in Battle.

Room 615 yielded only Spanish curses from a huge man who charged Callahan when he opened the door. The last thing he needed now was to get tied up in a fight with this guy.

Rashid’s insane singing and bragging about what a masterpiece he would make of Marie was all that came through the earpiece now.  Masterpiece? Damn! Too slow!

Rashid held the handle of the knife lightly between two fingers, letting it barely touch her skin, and watched the thin red line follow the blade from below her navel to her sternum. He touched the tip of the blade to his tongue. “Exquisite.” She never flinched, and she never broke eye contact.

“But I’m afraid I’m getting ahead of myself here. My apologies. I’m not properly dressed for the occasion.”

Room 515 was a slumber party for teenage girls who all screeched when Callahan entered. Had anyone called security when he broke into their room? Would they intercept him before he got to her?

Rashid put the knife between his teeth and slowly removed his shirt for the slut. Let her appreciate the art.  He flexed his pecs, stiffened his triceps, unbuckled his belt, and tossed it over a shoulder. Look at her eyes. She loves this. He let his zipper down and eased his trousers over his hips, lifted one leg to free it… and the door burst open. What? Who? When he turned toward the door, a man with a bloody face lifted a pistol, shot twice, and kept coming. The knee that was supporting him exploded in pain, buckled under the impact of the small bullet, and he collapsed in a tangle of legs and trousers against the night table.

Rashid grabbed the knife from his teeth and tried to rise, but stopped when he looked directly into the barrel of Callahan’s Beretta. Callahan dug in the pocket of his cargo pants, pulled out the Taser, and shot Rashid from a distance of five feet.

Rashid twitched on the floor when the two Taser barbs buried themselves in his bare stomach and delivered their 50,000 volts. Callahan kept the trigger depressed, and Rashid continued to twitch on the floor. He pulled his own knife, cut a rope holding Marie’s arm to the bedpost, and tossed the knife to her.

Marie cut the other three ropes, pulled the sock out of her mouth, and jumped off the bed. She opened the leather pouch Callahan handed her, and took out the syringe with the yellow tag. When she had the syringe positioned over Rashid, Callahan cut the power to the Taser barbs, and she jammed the syringe deep into Rashid’s hip, pushed the plunger home, and watched the nerve agent paralyze the man in five seconds.

She looked at the gash from Callahan’s fall down the stairs. “You’ll live,” she said.

Callahan noticed the paper-thin cut up Marie’s torso. “Let me look at that,” he said.

She looked down at the cut. “It’s OK, I think. Shallow and thin. Should heal up without even a hint of a scar.” She pointed down at the paralyzed Rashid. “Him. He’s an artist.”

Rashid’s body breathed on its own, and he could move his eyes. But every other muscle was paralyzed.  He could see, hear, and feel, but couldn’t move a muscle.

Callahan took another syringe from the kit, filled it from the blue bottle, and carefully injected Rashid. The eyes closed. “That should keep him out for about two hours,” Callahan said. He snapped a handcuff on one wrist, dragged Rashid to the air-conditioning unit on the wall, looped the cuffs around a pipe, and locked it to the other wrist.

“He’s paralyzed, unconscious, and locked up. That should give us about two hours to get our act together.”

“Can you go get me some clothes?” Marie asked quietly.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll be right back.” He handed her the pistol.

“You better clean all that blood off your face first.”

When he left the room, she went into the bathroom, leaned on the sink, and stared into the mirror.  She replayed everything in her mind.  It seemed like she had been watching someone else. Someone else was choked, someone else tied, someone else cut, and someone else trussed up for slaughter by a madman. She had faced death in battle, just as Templars before her had. She had faced it alone, and she had faced it with honor.  And that wasn’t someone else. She did it. Nobody else knew, but she knew, and that’s all that mattered. Then she vomited.

 

*     *     *

Callahan brought jeans and a sweatshirt for Marie, and they figured out where they had screwed up. Neither thought that Rashid would have another room, and if Marie had been paying attention, she would have known Rashid had taken her to the fourth floor instead of the seventh. She could have alerted Callahan by just mentioning the room number. And he had relied on toys.

But nobody knew Rashid was a psycho killer. That was the big problem. They knew about the bombs, kidnappings, assassinations, and terrorism, but knew nothing about his much deeper and more private psychosis. If they did, they would never have set up Marie to trap him like that.

“Makes you wonder how many women he has killed over the years,” said Callahan.

“Hmph, what we do know is that he’ll never do it again,” she replied. “Wonder how many we’re saving.”

She stood up and tied her hair back with a scarf. “Ok, we did something stupid. Forget about it. But we got the bastard, and now all we have to do is get the info from him that Zurich wants. Then he can go to artists’ heaven.”

Marie stayed with the unconscious prisoner while Callahan went back to Rashid’s room, the first room, the one he initially had waited in. He didn’t expect to learn much from searching the room, but it had to be done. Most of the breaks they got in the business came from mistakes. Rashid had made a big one with Marie, so maybe he had become too comfortable and made some more.

And, after the mess he had made of tonight, something had to go his way.

Rashid had been off the Templars’ radar for nearly a year, ever since he had engineered the destruction of 345 people and an airliner flying from London to New York.  The British MI6 had rolled up the rest of his cell in London, killing half in the process, but never realized the brains behind the attack had been sent by the Hashashin to oversee the locals in London. The Templars knew, but for whatever reason had chosen to withhold that item from the Brits. 

Before that, he had staged a daylight attack on the Vatican in an attempt to kill the Pope, then, after escaping, promised to return to finish the job.  When a Templar Watcher on vacation had spotted Rashid on a cruise ship from Cabo San Lucas to Costa Rica, a team had been sent. The Watchers memorized hundreds of faces, but it was only blind luck and a Watcher sipping a Pina Colada that had found Rashid.

Rashid’s cell phone and Rolex had been with him, and they would go back to Templars in Zurich for analysis by experts, but Callahan did a quick sweep of Rashid’s room, looking for any other items that may be important. He found Rashid’s soft-sided suitcase and packed everything into it.

With all of Rashid’s belongings in the suitcase, he lifted the mattress, looked inside lamp shades, checked under drawers, behind dressers, and fluffed the extra pillows and blankets on the closet shelf. Nothing. He could check through the stuff in the suitcase later, but it didn’t look like any clues remained in the room.

He pulled the sliding door to the small balcony shut, then saw a pool towel neatly folded over a chair to dry. He grabbed it, too, and noticed a pair of swim trunks hanging on the balcony rail by their drawstring. He untied the knot, and felt a distinct clank as something in the trunks struck the iron posts of the railing. Maybe their luck was still with them. When he left with the suitcase, the room looked ready for its next guest.

 

*     *     *

Zurich had specific information they wanted from Rashid, and had provided a list of detailed questions. Interrogation had always been a cat-and-mouse game, but the Templars now had a great advantage, modern drugs. Their secret financial interests in drug companies gave them access to research and drugs that would never make it into doctors’ offices and hospitals. Many were just too dangerous for general use, but the Templars weren’t interested in general use, and the dangers to the patient didn’t matter.

When Rashid regained consciousness and the paralyzing agent had worn off, he found himself taped, fully dressed, to a straight-backed chair in the middle of the room. An IV tube ran from his arm up to a floor lamp positioned next to his chair. He looked over at Marie and said, “I know you wanted it. You know it, too. Now you’ve ruined it.”  Neither Callahan nor Marie said a word.

Rashid had been expecting torture, and even looked forward to it. Great art came in many forms. Torture could make him both the art and the artist. But a syringe? He was furious. That was a syringe in Callahan’s hand!  Marie jammed a sock in his mouth when he started screaming, the same sock he had used on her.

Callahan stuck the first syringe in Rashid’s IV tube, and they waited the prescribed five minutes before asking the questions several times. Callahan asked the questions, and Marie recorded the answers. Who did he report to? Where? Who reported to him? Where were the safe houses in Paris? How did they fund European operations? Who led their organization in America? What front organizations were controlled by Hashashin? He gave accurate answers to all the test questions.

When is the Vatican attack? Where? Who is involved? What kind of attack? Where is it being planned? What is the escape plan? Do they have any inside source? Why are you in Central America?

Thirty minutes after giving the first drug, he administered the second drug, waited five minutes, and asked the same questions again. Same answers.

Thirty minutes after giving the second drug, he stuck him with the third. Same questions. Same answers.

Marie looked at the answers. “Well that was easy. Are we done with him now?”

“Yeah. No reason to keep him around. Time for Mr. Nelson to do some more partying.”

Callahan grabbed an open wine bottle and spilled some down the front of his shirt. They cut Rashid’s tape, and stood him up. He reflexively leaned on Callahan as they moved out the door and down in the elevator. He limped on the bandaged bad leg, but the drug cocktail killed the pain. When they reached the lobby, Callahan stumbled and let everyone know his opinion on the current American president. “Damn egghead is what he is,” he slurred, holding Rashid’s chin in his hand and speaking directly to him. “An egghead who doesn’t know enough to pour piss out of a boot with the directions printed on the bottom! Oh yeah…”

He steered Rashid on a crooked path toward the beach door, waving the bottle and announcing that the National Football League was fixed. Rashid took a drink when Callahan put the wine bottle to his lips. “Fixed is what they are. All grubby little bitches. Little bitches patting each other’s butts are what they are.” The few people in the lobby at midnight detoured around them and avoided eye contact.

A few hundred yards down the beach when they were away from the hotel’s lights, Callahan kicked off his shoes and led the drugged-sotted Rashid into the gentle surf.  When it was waist high Callahan stopped, held Rashid’s head underwater, waited for all movement to stop, then kept him down for another two minutes. He put Rashid in a standard lifeguard’s carry, towed him out to sea with the tide, let him go, then fought the tide back to the beach. The outgoing tide would take the body miles offshore.

 

*     *     *

When Callahan returned to their room, Marie was on the laptop making two separate files from the interrogation recording. She would send the recording of the original questions and answers to Templar Intelligence, but the questions about the Vatican would go straight to the Templar Marshall.

She made the files, disconnected the recorder, and listened to the Arabic coming from the computer. The drugs worked wonders, but most subjects responded in their first language. The Marshall insisted that all Templars be fluent in Arabic. “You can kill any damn fool,” the Marshall preached, “but you can only defeat them if you can understand them.”

Marie took the earpiece from her ear and frowned. “Listen to this, Callahan. What’s that word? Does it mean ‘treaty,’ like between nations, or is it just ‘agreement,’ like anyone can make an agreement? Does Arabic reserve a special word for ‘treaty?’” She pushed the play button on the laptop and Callahan cocked an ear to the machine.

When the clip finished, Callahan said, “Yeah, I remember him babbling about that. I’m almost sure the word means ‘treaty’ between nations. That’s how Arabic refers to the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.”

“Ok,” said Marie, “so what’s the Treaty of Tuscany? Tuscany’s in Italy, north of Rome. I never heard of it.” She waved at the computer screen. “And there’s nothing on the Internet about it.”

Callahan shrugged. “Look, if you never heard of it, do you think I have? History is your turf. You know? I do computers and you do history.”

“Remember how he was almost gloating every time he mentioned it? Like they had really pulled one over on us? But he didn’t know the details when we questioned him about it.”

“Well.” Callahan smiled. “He did seem in love with himself, but I’d have to say he was especially pleased with that treaty. Maybe Zurich knows.”

Callahan leaned over the Blackberry he had retrieved from Rashid’s room. Some of the messages were in clear text, some in code, and others unopened. He paged through the open messages that were in plain text, and sat back at the last one.

“Whoa. Here it is again.”

“What?” she asked.

“This message. It says they will have to wait for the treaty. That’s all. Doesn’t say what has to wait, just that it has to wait for the treaty.”

“Is that plain text? Uncoded?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you get into the other ones? The coded ones?” She lifted her palms. “I mean, you’re the computer guy. Computers are your turf. You know? I do history and you do computers.”

Callahan winced. “Touché. But you’re right. Computers are my thing, and I’m not going near those coded messages. I don’t have the stuff I need. They might have a tampering trap that will destroy everything.”

    He carefully removed the Blackberry’s battery and wrapped the unit in a small towel. “This goes back to Zurich with us. They have the equipment to deal with it.”

“Can you believe that stuff about the Vatican? These guys are going for broke here.”

“I’ll believe anything about the Hashashin.”

“Ok,” she said. “Almost done. I’ll add a line to our message telling the Marshall about the Blackberry.”

 

*     *     *

In the morning Callahan reddened his eyes with grapefruit juice, then the Nelsons checked out of the hotel and took the limo to the airport for a Miami flight. The desk clerk noticed they weren’t speaking.

Two days later the hotel accountant charged Rashid’s American Express card for his stay. He had skipped out without settling his bill. He was pleasantly surprised when the charge cleared.

 

Zurich - Wednesday, March 18

The Marshall of the Knights Templar leaned over on his thick forearms and listened intently to the interrogation of the Hashashin.  Halfway through, he could already see one problem piling on top of another. Coded messages, uncoded messages, Blackberrys, Vatican attacks, and wholesale confusion all competed for attention. And Callahan had killed the guy, so they couldn’t ask any more questions. But that’s what happened, so he had to deal with it.  When he finally heard the entire message, he tipped his sturdy wooden chair back on two legs and stared at a tapestry on the wall showing a white shield with a red Templar Cross. And the Treaty of Tuscany? What was that? This one had to go upstairs right now.

His office was a windowless cube three floors beneath one of the oldest banks in Zurich. It was actually much older than most people thought since it had cycled and recycled through hundreds of years of reorganization, dissolution, rebirth, mergers, hibernations, acquisitions, and partnerships, all in an effort to disguise its true identity and heritage. So far, the strategy had worked for seven hundred years. While few of the general public knew it even existed, in the international banking community it was both respected and feared, but none knew it represented the Knights Templar.

The Marshall scowled, grabbed his yellow pad and laptop, left his plain wooden chairs, fluorescent lighting, computer and telephone on a metal desk, and briskly moved through a maze of concrete-floored corridors to the stairs. He took the stairs two at a time to the second floor above ground, and emerged into a hushed hallway with inlaid paneling, deep carpeting, recessed lighting and a general air of secrecy, discretion, and security that reassured the bank’s nervous customers that nothing was too expensive, too subtle, or too exclusive for them. 

He followed the understated opulence through the Master’s outer office, nodded to Andre, his Templar secretary, and stood in the doorway.

The Templar Master took one look at the Marshall and waved the accountants out.  This was serious. In the forty years they had worked together, since they had both been young men in the field, the Master had learned to recognize trouble when it was standing there in front of him. The face staring back at him told him to pay serious attention. He turned away from the computer screens flashing the major global markets and the day’s financial headlines and motioned him to a chair.

The Marshall frowned at the fleeing accountants, made them walk around him, then glided across the deep pile carpet to a chair in front of the antique mahogany desk, moving much more gracefully than one would expect for a man of his size and age. He slid down into the soft leather, dropped the yellow pad on his laptop, gripped the arms of the chair with large, broken hands, and waited.

The Master pushed a button on a depressed console next to his desk and an electronic lock snicked into place in the office door. Both sides of the door were polished oak, but the core was quarter-inch steel.

“This is bad, isn’t it? You’re here as Templar Marshall rather than Vice President for Bank Security. Right?” asked the Master. 

“Bad,” replied the Marshall. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Very bad. This has a rotten stink to it. I just know it.”  He put the laptop on the Master’s desk and tapped a few keys. “Listen. Remember that Watcher who spotted Rashid Al Bahsar on that cruise ship going to Costa Rica?  I sent Callahan and Marie Curtis after him.”

The Master frowned. “Marie I understand. She’s the best. But why Callahan? Did you want to sink the whole ship? Destroy Costa Rica?”

 “Oh, come on. Don’t underestimate Callahan. US Marines recon, loaned out to the CIA, Delta Force. He’s done lots of work for the Americans, and good work for us, too. Loyal as they come, and as good as they come.”

“It’s not his skills or loyalty I question, it’s his judgment.”

The Marshall bit back a response and just stared across at him.

The Master said nothing, just returned the stare. Finally, he held his palms up in a question and said, “And?”

“And what? Just listen to the damn thing.” He pointed at the laptop on the Master’s desk. “That’s what Callahan and Marie found out. Just an hour ago. Thought you might want to know. Listen to it for yourself here, or wait for CNN.”

The Master ignored him, clicked the PLAY button on the laptop, and leaned back in his chair. He listened to the Arabic interrogation twice, made some notes, looked over his glasses, then waved at the laptop and asked, “You think this is real?”

“I’m leaning that way, strongly,” said the Marshall. “When Callahan gets here… he should be here tomorrow… he’s bringing Rashid’s Blackberry with some encoded files. Marie says the clear text Blackberry messages confirm the interrogation. But, if it is true, we have a big problem. I don’t think Rashid knew we had a team on him, so the Blackberry isn’t a plant, and we know the drugs work.”

“What’s this Treaty of Tuscany thing he’s bragging about? You ever hear of it?”

“No idea. You’re going to have to ask Patrick about that.” The Marshall hooted. “Good luck. I know the soft spot he has in his heart for you.”

“I know, I know.” The Master rubbed his forehead. “But if Marie knew, she would have given us a heads-up. She puts a question mark after it on the message. So it’s pretty arcane stuff if she doesn’t know about it.”

The Marshall was enjoying this. “Well, in that case, you just have to consult the guy who knows everything.”

The Master shook his head. “Yes I do. It wouldn’t be so bad except I think he really does know everything. Damn all Irishmen.” He pointed at the laptop again. “So, we got all this from Rashid, and his Blackberry confirms it?”

“Yeah. They got the info we needed from Rashid with those whizbang drugs, and Rashid’s dead. But he talked up a storm before he died and Callahan and Marie got it all. Everything we asked for. Then I guess they found the Blackberry on Rashid or in his room. Callahan’s headed back here with it. As soon as we get it, I’ll give it to the Intel geeks so they can take it apart.”

“Wait a minute,” the Master waved a finger and interrupted. “He got the Blackberry before or after he questioned Rashid?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t say.”

“So, he might have had both the Blackberry and a living and breathing Rashid in his hands at the same time?”

“I suppose so, but can’t say.”

“Like I said, judgment, not skill…”

“You’ve been behind that damned desk too long!”

They both stopped, glared at each other, and silently decided to renew their long truce.

“So what do we do now?” The Master closed the Marshall’s laptop on the desk. He pulled out a file drawer, put a foot up on it, leaned further back, and stared at the ornate gilded ceiling.

“Do? We do nothing,” the Marshall blurted. “The Concordat forbids it. That’s the agreement we have with the Vatican. Pope Pius rejected an alliance under the Concordat. That means we stay out of Vatican business. They’re on their own. Out means out. That’s what the Concordat says, and that’s what the Templars are bound to. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how it works. It’s never been pretty, and it’s going to get uglier now.”

The Master frowned and shot back, “Do nothing? What are you talking about? We’ve already violated the Concordat by getting our man in as second-in-command of Vatican Security. Mancini is a Templar. That’s a Templar in the Vatican. Big as day, my friend. A Templar.”

The Marshall drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “That’s intelligence gathering. Just keeping an eye on things. What’s one man?”

The Master scorned the idea with a wave of his hand. “A Templar in the Vatican is a Templar in the Vatican. Like a turd in a punch bowl. Think the Pope knows he’s a Templar? Invites him for afternoon tea to talk over fine points of theology and old Inquisitions?”

The Master rubbed an old scar above his eye. “We need to take this to the Council. We put Mancini in the Vatican on our own, but this new stuff?” He rapped the laptop with a knuckle. “This belongs with the Council. If the two of us do anymore on our own, we’re going too far out on a limb. With the Hashashin going after the Vatican again, this has to be a decision of the Order. And that means the Council.”

The Marshall shrugged. “Ok. Let’s do it.”

The Master unlocked the door, hit a few buttons on the desk console and Andre appeared. “Call a full Council, Andre. Get the other five. Special meeting. No agenda. As soon as possible. ”

“Live or video, Sir?”

“Live, damn it! If I want to choke someone I need a neck handy.”

“Yes, Sir,” Andre retreated and the two men resumed their staring match.

“One more thing,” said the Marshall.

“Yeah. I know. There’s always one more. Now what?”

“I don’t want to leave Mancini down in the Vatican all alone. If it all hits the fan, it would be nice to have someone else around.”

“I have a feeling I won’t like this.”

“You probably won’t. I don’t care. That’s life.” The Marshall paused, leaned forward on his elbows, and cracked his bent knuckles. “We’re already in violation of the Concordat with Mancini. I’ll grant that.  Let’s stick another Templar from Ops down there. Nothing says one of our guys can’t visit Rome and take in the sights.”

“You think I’m an idiot? If you want to send Callahan, just say so. That’s what you want to do since he’s the only one besides us who knows about this. And Marie Curtis knows, too, doesn’t she?”

“Curtis? Of course she knows. They were both there. But she’s as safe as they come.”

“Safe?” He snorted.  “None of us are safe anymore. Right now you, me, Callahan, and Marie know. That’s already four too many. After the Council meeting, eight or nine will know. If the Council honors the Concordat, and keeps quiet about the attack, that makes it a secret that could potentially ruin us.”

“They’re all sworn Templars,” the Marshall shot back.

“Sworn Templars? I don’t care if they tap dance naked on Lake Lucerne. All the Hashashin or the CIA or the KGB has to do is grab someone. I don’t care if they’re sworn Templars or not. Shoot them up with that new joy juice, and they’ll blurt out everything, everything they know, chapter and verse. They’ll sing like castrated canaries.”

The Marshall shrugged.

“And you know all this. Don’t waste my time. That’s why you want to send Callahan to help Mancini. So we don’t have to let anyone else in on this. Callahan knows, so Callahan goes. Right?”

“Great minds think alike.” The Marshall spread his fingers and studied his hands.  “And I’ll even grant you Callahan’s not the best. He’s not a Steinhaus or a Creole. But he is very good. Besides, what choice do we have? I think both of us know what the Council will decide.”

“Steinhaus or Creole?” the Master said. “If we were talking about them, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem. But we’re not talking about them, are we? We’re talking sending Callahan down there.”

“Good point, good point,” said the Marshall. “But let’s not forget it was Steinhaus who recruited Callahan away from the Americans. I always said Steinhaus had good judgment.”

“Go to hell.”

 The Master pointed to the laptop. “Who has heard this thing? Anyone else? Code clerks? Programmers?”

“It came directly to me, and I decoded it myself. The other stuff they got from Rashid? That came in through normal channels. I’m the only one who got the Vatican stuff.” He gave an evil grin. “Thank God for Callahan’s good judgment.”

“Crap.”

“So, do we send Callahan to keep Mancini company?” The Marshall stood up. “And do we let him tell Mancini what he knows?”

The Master got up and stared out the windows at the mountains. Now, why wasn’t he up there at his cabin and not here?

He gave a hard spin to the old globe that showed the boundaries of the world prior to World War I, and turned back to the Marshall. “Anyone with half a brain in the Vatican knows they are under a threat of attack from Al Qaeda. They probably don’t know about the Hashashin, but an attack is still an attack.  I guess they just do what little they can with that idiot Pope in charge. The message from Callahan and Marie says there will be an attack. That’s not news. But it says it’s imminent and the countdown has started, soon enough that Rashid Al Bashar was being recalled for the new phase of the struggle. That is news. Big news.”

He turned back to the globe and waited until it stopped turning on the well-oiled bearings. He clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the other side of the globe and looked across it at the Marshall. “Callahan can tell Mancini there will be an attack, that he found that message. They know that. But he cannot tell them it will be soon. He can’t let Mancini or anyone else know. The Council can always overrule me on that. In some ways I wish they would. It meets in two days.”

 

Zurich - Wednesday, March 18

The Master’s secretary said, “Sir, I have the Chief Archivist.”

Great, thought the Master. Just what I need now.

“Hello, Patrick, how are you today?”

“How am I, my ass. When did you ever give a shit? We’re in the shitter and we have to talk.”

“Can it wait?” asked the Master. “We’re busy with a few things now. Maybe you noticed, things like…”

“Sure, it can wait,” the Archivist cut him off, “and the longer we wait, the deeper we sink into the shitter. We can wait if I can stand on your shoulders. You best pay attention here. When’s the last time I called you and said we were in the shitter?”

“You never did.”

“Well then you better pay attention, don’t you think?”

 

*     *     *

The Templar Master sat in the back of his armored limo and thought about the Treaty of Tuscany. Twenty minutes after the Marshall left his office, the Templar Archivist had essentially summoned him.  So what on Earth was the Treaty of Tuscany, and what’s so important about it? The Templar Archivist might be a pain in the ass, but he was the smartest man the Master had ever known. If he was sounding the alarm, then he better pay attention.

His driver turned in to a driveway to an old stone building on the edge of the university campus, adjacent to the university, but not on the campus itself. More modern structures were off to one side, but the old stone defined it. The Kruger Institute was one of the premier private research libraries in the world. Its origins were a bit murky, intentionally murky, but an endowment from a Templar company in the late 1800s, plus astute management of the endowment by another Templar company, allowed it to maintain its independence and become a destination for scholars from all over the world.

When the car stopped in the back parking lot next to the staff entrance, a silent young man held the library door for the Master and escorted him to the Archivist.

 “Well, well, well, come in. Come in. What a surprise.” A short, wiry man looked up from a desk piled high with books and papers. “Wonderful to see you.”

“You called me this morning, Patrick, so let’s drop the crap.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. I seem to remember something like that way back in this addled brain and broken body that is no longer fit for field duty.”

The Chief Archivist of the Knights Templar shuffled around from behind his desk.  Wire spectacles sat on his forehead, and his old cardigan sweater hung nearly to his knees. This would be another difficult meeting. They had all been difficult since the Master had taken the old man off the active field roster after sixty years as a Templar.

“Well, have a seat, and let’s see what you want. I presume you are here to pursue learning? The French are so backward.” The Archivist pointed to a set of matched armchairs. The instant the Master reached to help him into the chair, he knew he had made a mistake.

“Get your skinny claws off me,” hissed the small man. “I can still sit in a chair under my own power, and I expect to be doing it long after you’re moldering in the dust. I’ve been doing it for eighty-five years, and it’s not something that takes a lot of practice. You, you might forget, but not me. And you might remember it was me who pulled your sorry French carcass from the clutches of the Saracen fiends. Not the other way around.”

The Master recalled being injured and trussed up in a Beirut cellar many years ago after a particularly stupid move on his part. The man in front of him had bounded down the cellar stairs with a bloody knife in each hand, cut his bonds, and carried him out to safety. On the way out, they passed his three guards piled in a bloody heap with their throats cut. Well into his eighties, the Archivist still taught knife technique in training.

“Yes,” replied the Master, “and good afternoon to you, too, Patrick. And once again, I thank you for my worthless carcass. I’m always grateful for the good cheer you bring to my otherwise miserable life.”

“Ok. Now, what do you want?” asked the Templar Archivist. “What do you want? I’m busy, and don’t have time to waste on nonsense.”

“What do I want? I want to know about the Treaty of Tuscany. You’re the one who called me about it. What is it?”

“Tuscany? The Treaty of Tuscany? Oh, yes.” The Irishman cocked an eyebrow and the Master swore he could see new life leap into the small man. “Now, Tuscany? Nobody knows about Tuscany. But just this morning, our own Marie Curtis calls up out of the blue. She calls in from Costa Rica and asks about it because she ran across it while having high tea with one of our Hashashin friends.”

“Let’s not play games, Patrick. Not today.”

The Archivist seemed lost in his own thoughts.

The Master waited. “Patrick? Do you know? What is it?”

“Know? Of course I know. At least I know more than anyone else knows.” He sprang up with surprising agility and darted to the door. He looked back at the Master. “Well, are you coming or not? I thought you wanted to learn about the treaty.”

He led them down the corridor to an unmarked door, pressed his palm against the scanner, and scampered down two flights of stairs. The old fraud, thought the Master, he’s infirm when it suits him, and can dance on a high wire when he wants. Something to remember.

An armed guard behind a bulletproof glass admitted them, and they passed through a second door leading to a large room with aisle after aisle of shelves and cabinets. “The Templar Archives,” said the Archivist. “One day, maybe this can all be moved upstairs, but not yet. Hmmph, it would be nice to let the world know what really started the French Revolution, what Henry VIII and the Pope were actually doing, who shot Kennedy. But not yet, not yet.”

The Archivist tapped a keyboard and ran his finger down the screen. Then he slowly moved down an aisle, lightly dragging his fingers across the books, and pulled a large, leather-bound volume from a shelf.

He took a seat and paged through the volume. “Yes, yes… this is it… hmmm…”

The Master waited, then asked, “Well? What is it?”

“First off, understand we don’t have the treaty. Don’t even have a copy of it. Nobody does.”

The Archivist turned his chair sideways to the table, crossed his ankles, settled back in the chair, and folded his hands in his lap. “Simply put, the treaty is the stuff of legends, and mostly forgotten legends. But don’t forget legend is usually born in fact. I haven’t heard mention of it for fifty years. We have some Templar documents from the early Fifteenth Century that refer to it, but they don’t tell us much. One of my predecessors as Chief Archivist, Hugo Deboge,” he tapped the volume on the table, “he wrote about it in 1540 when he tried to gather all the information he could into a short history. I’m sure he did quite a fine and complete job. Unfortunately, we don’t have his complete work, and the manuscripts he references have disappeared into history’s dustbin.”

The Archivist bent over the book again. “And we don’t know why he was interested, either. Something had to prompt him… hmmm… but there’s no hint here.”

He lifted his glasses onto his forehead. “So, the treaty. Now mind you, what I’m telling you isn’t based on anything close to verifiable history. It’s a mix of conjecture, legend, hearsay, and probably a heavy dose of crap, but it’s all we know, or all anyone knows.”

The Master just nodded.

“Ok. Just before the Third Crusade, let’s say about 1190, which was a horrible disaster for the Europeans, and well after our Order had been founded in 1122, the Pope got the big three kings of Europe to sign onto an eternal campaign to wipe out every vestige of Islam.  Not just secure Jerusalem, keep pilgrims alive, and plant the Pope’s flag, but go way beyond that. Way, way beyond. Think about it. We have the Pope and the kings signing a document that pledged them to rid the world of the Islamic menace and ensure Christian dominance forever.

“And it wasn’t just for the Third Crusade. No, not at all.  It committed them and all their descendants to the task. All of Europe, and all of Christendom forever. Let’s say they were taking the long view of history. Get rid of Islam. Get rid of Muslims. Kill ‘em all. Rend ‘em limb from limb. Accept the gentle Lord Jesus Christ as universal love, or die! Heathen scum! Infidels! All good, peace loving Christians, of course.”

The Master raised his cane. “And they wrote it all down? Isn’t that a bit strange for the times? After all, how many could even read?”

“Who knows why they wrote it,” answered the Archivist. “Maybe the Pope wanted to have a stick to use against the next generation of kings when he wanted to shake them down for men and money for some future Crusade. I don’t know. They were all half-mad. Who knows?”

“Ok,” said the Master, “go on.”

“Now, one of the sketchier things about all this has to do with the authority the Pope invoked to get it all done. And this is by no means verifiable, since nobody has ever seen the treaty, if it even existed.”

He stopped and twisted around. “Could you perhaps fetch an old man a bottle of water? I’m afraid I can’t make it on my own.”

Fetch? The Master refused to give him the satisfaction of objecting. He simply got up and grabbed a bottle of water from a small cooler.

“Much better,” said the Archivist, twisting the cap off the bottle. “Have to keep this dried-up old wreck of a body hydrated or I might just blow away with the dust before I finish my story.”

The Master sat silently.

 “Alright, back to the Treaty of Tuscany. Apparently, some folks thought the Pope invoked the magisterial teaching authority of the Church in demanding the obliteration of Islam.  In today’s terminology, that means it’s an infallible teaching. Infallible. Can’t be wrong because the Pope speaks for God and God says so. Can’t be changed because God doesn’t change his mind. That would be admitting error, and God doesn’t screw up in the first place. Can’t be questioned, because one does not question the Lord Thy God. And it binds every Christian to the end of time. How’s that for a great, fine mess?”

The Archivist sat back and cackled. “And if it’s real and if it’s in play? And if our Hashashin friends have the ball? Oh, we’ve been tipped into the shitter now. Love to get a look at it. Love to know exactly what it says.”

The Master was silent for a few moments, then raised his head and asked, “And you are getting all this from that old Templar Archivist? The one in the Sixteenth Century?”

The Archivist frowned. “In a nutshell, that’s right.” He tapped the book again. “Maybe a few references before his time, but those are included in what he wrote. There’s stuff he referenced that we don’t have, and there’s stuff he referenced that we do have. But there’s nothing since this 1540 summary he wrote. In fact, I doubt you’ll find any reference to the treaty anywhere but in our own Templar archives. It’s essentially lost. But now it’s being chatted up by the enemy?”

“I presume this wouldn’t be of any use unless someone had the original?”

“Yes, yes. Something like this, something that has essentially been lost and forgotten? You have to come up with the real thing to make any kind of claims.”

“The real thing? Ok, where is it?”

“Where is it? Now how would I know? It isn’t here, if that’s what you want to know. It could be anywhere, tucked away in some dusky corner. Remember, the kings of England, France, and Germany were in on it. That means it can be in any of those countries. It could be in Rome, Jerusalem, or Antioch. It could be anywhere.”

“Could they forge it?”

“Not today. With the new laser analysis for manuscripts, anything older than four hundred years gets you a date within twenty years. Now, if you had a piece of Twelfth Century parchment sitting in your supply room, I suppose you could forge it. But there isn’t any. We don’t have any blank Twelfth Century paper just fluttering about. Without that, they can’t cook up a forgery. It would be exposed immediately.”

“That means if they plan to do anything with it, they need the original.”

“Excellent. You’re coming along nicely.”

The Master paused and flipped a few pages in the old volume the Archivist had been consulting. “Does Marie Curtis know about the treaty?”

“No. She hasn’t a clue. I told her nothing.”

“Good. Let’s keep it quiet for now. At least until we decide how to proceed. We may have to bring her in on it. Probably will. She works for you. You know better on that. So, I’ll leave you to it, Patrick.”

“If there’s anything to be found, we’ll find it. Yes, we’ll find it. I’ll have them burning the midnight oil tonight. We’ll be humming the Anvil Chorus in three-part harmony round the clock. Send our people scurrying through libraries all over Europe.”

The Master turned as he was leaving. “Do your best Patrick. You probably know better than anyone how damaging this could be.”

“I’m on it. I’m on it. He shuffled back to his table. “Infallibility. Hmmph. Whoever dreamed up that doozy should choke on his own pride.”

 

Zurich - Friday, March 20

Wednesday morning, an hour before the seven members of the Council of the Knights Templar were to meet, the Marshall and the Templar Chief of Intelligence presented themselves before the Master’s secretary in the outer office. The Marshall inclined his head toward the locked office and raised an eyebrow.

“Deputy Commissioner of Banking for Switzerland, and a heavy hitter from the Bank of England,” whispered the secretary.

“How long?”

“They’ve been in there about an hour. Do I need to break it up?”

“No. But hit the button. Hit it hard. We’ll be in there.” The two men walked into a small conference room and closed the door.

The Master saw the purple light flashing below his desktop. Unusual. He quickly ran through the closing pleasantries, escorted the bankers to the door, and turned them over to a young woman who would usher them into their waiting limos.

“In there.” The secretary pointed at the closed door.

The Master entered the room and sat opposite the Marshall and Intel Chief. “Ok. What is it?”

The Intel Chief looked up and said quietly, “We cracked the Blackberry code. The one Callahan got from that guy in Costa Rica.”

He passed a sheet of paper to the Master. He silently read it, then placed it face down on the table.

The Intel Chief pointed at the paper. “Those are the encoded messages that Rashid hadn’t opened yet. Since he hadn’t opened them, he didn’t know those details when Callahan and Marie interrogated him. He just never knew. Couldn’t have.”

“Who decoded this? Who else knows? Any way Callahan could have read this? Marie?”

“Nobody else. I did it myself. Callahan and Marie had the Blackberry with the clear message, nothing else. Our computers took a while to crack it. New code. So those two sure didn’t figure it out with a pencil on the back of an air-sick bag.”

“Crap. Crap. Crap. So, Callahan and Marie know an attack is coming soon, but not these specifics. My God, what a mess this is.” The Master looked at his watch. “I think we have a Council meeting to go to. I’m afraid it will be a long one. A very long one.”