Templar 09 - Secret of the Templars (11 page)

Bapat wiped his lips and chin with a large linen
napkin that was tucked into the top button of his shirt. He took a swig of beer, wiped his lips again and gave an enormous closed-mouth belch, which Vijay thought sounded like he was choking to death. Bapat's small eyes squinted. He was nearsighted but refused to admit it.

“Who's this, Bobby? Looks like a piece of rubbish you picked up off the streets,” Bapat said.

“His name is Vijay Sen, sir. He was the one who killed the night watchman and opened the gates at the scrapyard last night.”

Bapat took a bite of his sandwich and spooned up some of the butter chicken. He ate noisily, then swallowed. He drained the bottle in front of him and flipped the cap off a new one, then drank deeply. He put the bottle down and leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the little creature standing on the other side of the table.

“Has he not been paid?”

“Yes, sir,” said Dhaliwal.

“Does he want more?” Bapat asked. In point of fact the street urchin deserved far more than he had been given. Not only had the attack on the scrapyard been a small dagger in Raman's thigh, but Bapat had also managed to remove three excavators and four dump trucks from the yard. He was sorry the dog had been killed. He liked dogs, especially big ones.

“Then why is he here?” asked Bapat.

“He came on his own,” said Dhaliwal. “He said he had something to tell you.”

“And what would that be?”

Vijay shook himself free of Dhaliwal's grip and stepped forward. “I came to tell you that Mr. Kota Raman has paid me ten thousand rupees to spy on you.”

Bapat eased himself against the back of his chair, the street urchin's face a blur in front of him. His mind twisted through all the implications of the child's simple statement. Was the child just trying to extort more money from them? Was he telling the truth or was he telling him what Raman had told him to say? It was all very confusing. Bapat sat forward and grabbed his bottle of beer. He took a long, thoughtful swallow and then sat forward again.

“You're a liar!” Bapat yelled.

Vijay held his ground. “I am not lying.”

“Prove it,” said Bapat.

Vijay pulled a thin folded wad of well-circulated orange-and-red thousand-rupee notes from somewhere inside his pants and placed it carefully on the desk in front of him. Bapat reached out and picked up the greasy packet of notes and counted them. “There are only nine here,” said Bapat.

“I put one of the notes in a safe place on the chance that you might take it all.”

“Why do you tell me all this?” Bapat asked.

“Because I thought it was important for you to know.”

“And why is that?”

“Because everyone knows that you have now grown stronger than Raman. I want to be on the winning side in this great battle.”

Bapat's heart swelled at the little slumdog's statement. If street thieves now thought of him as the stronger, then perhaps it was time to truly put himself at war with the Raman family. Why should he be content with what he had when he could have it all?

“So what can you do for me?” Bapat asked Vijay.

“I can spy on Raman's movements and tell you his intentions.”

“And how much would you like to be paid for these services?”

Vijay shrugged. “Mr. Raman paid me ten thousand rupees,” Vijay said, an unassuming tone in his voice.

Bapat sat back in his chair and bellowed with laughter.

“This little thief will go far in this world,” Bapat said to the man in the red leather jacket and sunglasses.

Dhaliwal frowned. Praise received by another was praise not received by him.

“Would fifteen thousand rupees do?” Bapat asked.

“I suppose,” Vijay said, sighing.

“All right, then—twenty thousand a month. Good enough?”

“A week,” said Vijay firmly.

“Every two weeks,” said Bapat.

“Every ten days,” Vijay countered.

“Done!” Bapat said and let out a huge laugh.

Holliday and his companions gathered yet again in a hotel suite, this one in the Miami Hilton. The living room of the suite was pleasant, a mixture of classic and modern: the inevitable flat-screen TV sitting above a large black credenza, the walls golden yellow, the couch a long blue rectangle, the carpeting matching the walls. It was all very nice. There were papers strewn everywhere, the booty they'd mined from their assault on the Bingham Gallery. Holliday, Lazarus and Kruger were each working their way through separate piles of paper. In Holliday's case, that meant the two ledgers.

“It's crazy,” said Holliday. “Bingham is dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars but none of it seems to stick for very long. It comes in and it goes out. There are inventory codes that probably match individual works of art. The same
numbers are paired on the opposite page with amounts of money, but the inventory numbers show that the works of art are moving along another chain of buyers and sellers. If a forensic accountant ever saw these, he'd have a field day.”

Lazarus held a bundle of pages in his hand. “There seem to be two major sellers, one named Fone and another one called Leonardo. Together they sold more than half a billion dollars of art in the last eighteen months alone. What the hell does ‘Fone' mean?”

“I think I have a pretty good idea,” said Holliday. “It's not ‘Fone'; it's ‘F One.'”

“Which means?” Lazarus asked.

Holliday smiled grimly. “F One: Francis the First. It's these people's code for the Vatican.”

“And Leonardo is those
sukiny deti
who've been running me,” Hannah said, her face a black scowl.

Holliday sat back on the boxy blue couch and tried to see the big picture. It came to him relatively easily. “It's a gigantic money-laundering scheme,” he said thoughtfully. “They're running around buying and selling and legitimizing everything through Blackthorn and Cole.”

“If that's the case,” said Hannah, “what do they need me or any of the other forgers for?”

“Because you provide the real cash. Your
paintings replace the real ones thus allowing the originals to be sold on the black market. Without you and your friends, the scheme wouldn't work.”

“Ohooiet!”
Hannah snarled. Holy fuck!

“It also answers a question that's been bothering me for the last two years,” said Lazarus. “I've been noticing a gradual decline down to almost nothing at all in the independent smuggling market. I'll bet the small guys are frightened of getting knackered by this juggernaut. It's beginning to make sense.”

“Food for thought,” said Holliday, slapping his knees and standing up. “I'm hungry. Let's get something from room service.”

Both Holliday and Lazarus had giant sirloin cheeseburgers with fries, while Hannah settled on a small Cobb salad.

“I don't want to be walking down the street one day and watch my arteries explode in front of my eyes,” she said, eyeing the large, dripping pieces of meat skeptically.

“It's the American way of death,” said Holliday, speaking around a forkful of thick-cut French fries.

“We must all follow our own appetites,” said Lazarus happily, crunching his way through one of the burger's pickle slices.

They got back to it and by midafternoon the
whole process didn't seem to be getting ahead at all. At just after three Lazarus paused and looked up. “Doesn't this ring a bell?” he said. “‘The King of the Jews is dead. The Messiah is risen in the East.'”

“That was on the wall of the cave at Qumran where Peggy and Rafi died,” said Holliday, his voice tensing.

“Well, it's in the letter here,” said Lazarus. “It refers to ‘our friend in Mumbai' and gives a final offer of sixty-five million U.S. dollars. The letter is from Jean-Pierre Devaux, Poste Restante, Paris Twelve, France.”

“Who is the recipient?”

“Post Office Box 3829, Crystal City, Virginia.”

Holliday went to the minibar, got another can of Red Bull and took a swallow. “They're talking about the scroll,” said Holliday. “Bingham is playing middleman to the people who actually have it. Crystal City sounds like it might be someone or some interior organization within the CIA. I know for a fact they maintain all sorts of covert operations and safe houses there.”

Crystal City was a forest of modern, bright white high-rise buildings sprouting on Jefferson Davis Highway, close to the Pentagon and Washington D.C. It was also just a short hop to Ronald Reagan Airport. Its office buildings and its maze
of tunnels weren't solely the province of the CIA. The Department of Defense, Defense Intelligence, off-site Pentagon offices, defense contractors and off-site offices of the National Security Agency also occupied the anonymous collection of buildings. It might as well have been called Acronym City.

“There is something a bit off there,” said Hannah Kruger. “If you assume that the owner of the Crystal City post office box is the seller and ‘our friend in Mumbai' is the buyer, then who is the person in Paris? If Bingham is brokering the deal, how does Jean-Pierre Devaux come into the whole thing?”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Holliday. “It's like playing a shell game or three-card monte.”

“So where is the damn scroll?” Lazarus asked.

“Give me the letter,” said Holliday, holding out his hand.

Lazarus handed it over and Holliday looked at it. The letter was on ordinary paper, typed and printed on a laser printer. The salutation was “My dear friend” and the closing was “Hopefully, Yours.” In other words, it was absolutely anonymous. “It doesn't tell us much.”

“It's got a lot number,” said Lazarus. “Ergo, it's an auction.”

Holliday shook his head. “Not a lot number
that's carried on either Bingham or Blackthorn and Cole's books.”

“So which one do we go after?” Hannah asked.

Holliday pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his good eye and leaned back into the couch. A few moments passed. He sat forward and nodded to himself.

“Let's think this through logically,” said Holliday. “Mr. Mumbai is making an offer, so he doesn't have it. Mr. Crystal City has mentioned that the Frenchman has just come up with the line ‘The King of the Jews is dead. The Messiah is risen in the East.' I'd say we go after the Frenchman.”

*   *   *

They drove the rental down to Key West, into the parking lot of the somewhat pompously named Key West International Airport. They chartered a Vulcanair P68 twin-engine high-winged monoplane. From Key West they flew to Lynden Pindling Airport in Nassau and from there flew to London Heathrow on British Airways. From Heathrow they flew a final leg to Geneva via a Swiss shuttle flight.

They checked into the Kempinski Hotel, ate a little and then all had a good night's sleep. In the almost ten years since Holliday had discovered
the hidden Templar sword he'd been on long treks like this many times, but neither Lazarus nor Hannah was used to it. He let them sleep in and when they finally woke early in the afternoon he gave them their instructions. They were to disguise themselves by changing their hair color and purchasing plain cosmetic eyeglasses.

While they were busy with that, Holliday went to one of several private banks he used in Geneva. He retrieved one hundred thousand euros in large denominations and took four blank passports, all current, from the stack in his safety-deposit box. Holliday returned to the hotel. They all had their passport photos taken; then Hannah and Lazarus returned to their rooms at the Kempinski.

Holliday took the passport blanks to a man he had used several times before. All Holliday really knew about the man was that his name was Marcel and he was remarkably discreet. Marcel worked out of a small set of basement rooms beside a backstreet garage. The sign above his door read “Photo Marcel” and nothing else.

Holliday went down three steps and knocked on the heavy, slightly pitted dark green metal door. There was a peephole in the door and Holliday knew that he was being watched. A few seconds later the door opened. A small elfin figure
appeared with a broad smile on his face. Marcel looked remarkably like a garden gnome. He was short with a round face and red cheeks, a round belly and short legs. His hair was snow white and cut overly long. He wore a very old suit, long out of style, and bedroom slippers on his feet. Around his head was a metal band with a swing-up optical loupe attached to it.

“Ah, Mr. Smith,” said Marcel, his voice quiet and pleasant. “Do come in.” He stepped back and let Holliday into his little lair. The outer room was surrounded by dozens of filing cabinets. There was a small desk for doing business with a high magnifying lamp clamped to one end. Marcel sat down behind the desk and Holliday seated himself in front of it.

“You're looking well, Marcel,” Holliday said.

“Gerta tells me I drink too much schnapps, but I get along.”

Without saying anything, Holliday took out the four passport blanks and the passport photographs.

“British, German, Canadian.”

“Which is which?” asked Marcel, holding up the strips of photographs.

“I'm the German. My name is Max Shulmann. The British goes with the other man, whose
name is Paul Andrews, and the Canadian goes for the woman, whose name is Helen Manning. I'm a businessman returning to my French office after an eye operation. Paul Andrews is a travel writer and Helen Manning is a university professor.”

Marcel nodded, making notes, and then inserted the strips of passport photos into the appropriate blanks.

“Are you going to have trouble with mine?” Holliday asked.

“Not at all,” said Marcel, smiling. “As you know, passport photographs are all digitized. I will simply digitize yours, take the left side and flip it over to join with the right side, and your face will be perfect. Presumably you will have a large bandage on your bad eye.”

“That's what I was thinking,” said Holliday. He paused. “What about the plastic veneer?”

Marcel smiled again. “These days passport photographs are printed directly onto the passport, which is exactly what I will do. I then add a two-micron-thick secondary veneer, which the scanners won't pick up. It's really quite simple.”

Holliday reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and brought out the money he'd taken from his safety-deposit box. He counted out fifty
thousand euros and placed it on Marcel's desk. Marcel watched, his small, thin lips moving silently as he counted along with Holliday.

“Half now, half later?” Holliday asked.

“Perfect,” said Marcel. “When do you want them?”

“Is tomorrow too difficult?”

“Not at all,” said Marcel. “Come in the early afternoon.”

Holliday shook hands with the little man, then turned and left the studio. Instead of flagging down a taxi on one of the main streets, he decided to walk back to the hotel.

As he walked, he thought about Peggy and Rafi but mostly he thought about Eddie. He had wondered ever since his friend's death whether that had been some sort of sign that his own time was drawing near. Now there were two others he had taken into his very dangerous way of life. There was no doubt in his mind that the deaths of Peggy, Rafi and Eddie were all his responsibility. Perhaps even the old monk Rodrigues, when you got right down to it. If he hadn't been following the endless trail his uncle's sword had started him on, would Rodrigues be dead? If he hadn't gone to that tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic, would he have still watched as
Rodrigues's blood seeped out onto rain-spattered ground? Would he have taken the notebook from the dying man, spurring him even farther along the road to where he was now?

He found himself thinking, once again, that with Eddie's death perhaps he should stop this seemingly endless adventure. But somewhere deep within his true heart he heard Amy's soft voice from long ago saying to him: “Of course you can't, sweetheart; you must keep on going to the end.”

A single line of tears flowed down his cheek as he made his way back to the Kempinski Hotel.

*   *   *

They booked a flight to Orly. Orly, being almost entirely a domestic European facility, had considerably less stringent security in place, and was much less risky than Charles de Gaulle.

They arrived at Geneva's Cointrin Airport an hour ahead of time and lined up in front of the EasyJet ticket desk. They had separated by this time, with Holliday somewhere between Hannah and Lazarus. Holliday watched Hannah reach the head of the line and offer up her passport and her ticket. The girl behind the counter tapped out a few things on her computer, turned, smiled and handed Hannah back her passport, ticket and
boarding pass. Hannah turned away from the counter.

Out of the corner of his eye Holliday saw a nondescript man wearing a raincoat with his hands in his pockets striding forward quickly.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, but he was too late. The man ran into Hannah and then quickly turned away, losing himself in the crowds of the busy airport. Hannah looked stunned and Holliday saw a huge spreading flower of blood on the chest of her blouse. She fell to her knees. Holliday bolted out of line and ran to her. The blade was still in her chest. It looked like a Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife and the stab was a fatal one. Holliday saw her eyes widen and the life drain out of them.

She spoke.

“Get away from me,” she whispered. “We're not supposed to know each other.”

And then she slumped over dead onto the floor.

With his heart pounding but sticking to his role, Holliday yelled,
“
Rufen Sie einen Krankenwagon!”

The line in front of the EasyJet counter had fallen back in horror. Holliday moved away from Hannah's body and took his place again as security police, airport medical staff and stretcher
bearers arrived and took Hannah away. By that time Holliday and Lazarus had passed through the line, and with boarding passes in hand they headed to their flight. They took their separate seats on the Airbus A320 and stonily endured the flight to Paris, where all of this had
begun.