The Templar Cross t-2 Page 3

Rafi shrugged. A blond flight attendant in a natty suit and kerchief asked him if he wanted a drink. He shook his head and she shimmered off. "Okay," he said. "So all these companies, or at least their financing, all have their origins with the Templars. That was then. This is now. What does it mean in the present? I mean, so what?"

  "I ran through a hundred of the interconnecting companies for the first five names on that list. The majority share holdings of all one hundred companies are held by Pelerin and Cie, Banquiers Prives. Does that name ring a bell?"

  "Castle Pelerin in Israel. Where we found the Silver Scroll."

  "The very one," said Holliday grimly. "It is, or was, a private bank. Private banks are owned by individuals and they don't have to declare their assets. Pretty good cover if you're trying to hide old Templar money. There are only three people on the board of directors of Pelerin and Cie, none of whom I had ever heard of: Sebastien Armand, Pierre Pouget and George Lorelot. Between them it looked as though they controlled about a hundred billion euros in assets. That's a whole hell of a lot of euros, pal. And that's enough to kill for."

  "You used the past tense-'it looked as though' they controlled a hundred billion euros."

  "That's because all three people on the board of Pelerin and Cie are dead. Armand in 1926, Pouget in 1867, and Lorelot in 1962. The only thing they have in common is that they're in the same row in a cemetery in the village of Domme in the Aquitaine district of France."

  "So Pelerin and Cie is a front?" Rafi asked.

  "I don't know yet. The estates of all three men are handled by an avocat-a lawyer in the village named Pierre Ducos. It took almost eight months to track Ducos down after I started trying to decipher the notebook. He's the person we're going to see in France."

  "You think he'll be any help?"

  "I think he's the only lead we've got."

  4

  Driving a rental Peugeot 407, Holliday and Rafi rolled across the Dordogne River on the centuries-old stone bridge at Cenac-et-St.-Julien and found themselves in a landscape that had changed very little since the time it had been the realm of Richard the Lionheart's mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, eight hundred years before. It was early afternoon, a day after their arrival in Paris, and the sun shone down from a perfect blue sky. Summertime in the south of France was a story-book come to life.

  With the exception of the odd highway here and there the valley of the Dordogne was the same patchwork of fields that had existed since the Middle Ages, dotted about with walled villages, hillsides dark with forest, the earth itself as black as pitch and capable of growing almost anything.

  Ahead of them the steep cliff rose from the banks of the winding river, cloaked in a protective skirt of evergreens. At the top of the cliff on a long angular plateau they could see the walls and the castle keep where more than seventy Knights Templar were imprisoned after the sudden dissolution of the Order in 1307.

  Just before the little village on the far side of the bridge they turned sharply to the right. The fields and the river were lost to view as the car plunged into the forest and began the long switchback climb up the escarpment. Craning his neck and looking up through the windshield, Rafi could barely see the base of the old city walls. In the twelfth century any attack on the fortified village would have been next to impossible without a long siege and the complete deforestation of the hillside.

  "Strange to think what the world was like when this place was built," Rafi said as they continued upward.

  "Full of violence and superstition," said Holliday from behind the wheel. They had been driving since leaving their Paris hotel early that morning, going due south for the better part of three hundred miles, making only bathroom stops and a half hour halt just outside Limoges for a quick sandwich-and-coffee-to-go lunch at an Autogrill on the highway. "For all the talk of knights in shining armor, I wouldn't give you five cents for life in the Middle Ages. Smokey rooms, bad hygiene, rotten teeth and the plague. Not my idea of a good time." They drove on in silence, the forest on both sides dark and gloomy.

  "I'm still not sure that this isn't all a waste of time," said Rafi, finally. It had been a theme he'd been harping on ever since they'd arrived in France, and his chafing arguments were starting to irritate Holliday. "I can't see how talking to this Pierre Ducos is going to get us any closer to finding Peggy." The Israeli shook his head. "We should be talking to the police in Alexandria."

  "That and five dollars at Starbucks should be just about enough for a cup of coffee in Egypt," Holliday answered, negotiating yet another hairpin turn on the tree- covered hillside. The Peugeot was beginning to strain and he dropped the transmission into low. "You really think the Egyptian authorities are going to give much time and energy to an Israeli and his American friend trying to track down a bunch of Catholic priests?" He glanced over at his companion. "Or do you have friends in the Mukhabarat that I don't know about?" he asked, referring to the Egyptian version of the CIA.

  "I've told you a hundred times, Doc: I went to school with a guy who works for Mossad now. As far as I know he does something with computers. That's my only connection with spooks and spies, really." He shook his head again, his expression tense with worry. "If I had pull with Israeli Intelligence I would have used it by now, believe me."

  "Whatever," Holliday answered wearily. "We'll see what Ducos has to say and take it from there."

  "What makes you think he'll even talk to you?" Rafi asked.

  "I know the secret handshake," replied Holliday.

  They made a final turn and drove through the twin-towered, high-arched gate in the fortress wall that surrounded the town. The streets were narrow, stone buildings on either side almost a thousand years old, windows shuttered, roofs slate, doors with iron strap hinges. There wasn't a modern building to be seen. They found the French lawyer's office in a small building next to a bistro named Godard with a sign showing a plump goose waddling across a village street. Directly across from the office there was a tiny hotel called the Relais des Chevaliers. The street was so narrow Holliday had to park the car with the offside wheels up on the sidewalk to give another vehicle space to pass.

  "Built for horses and carts, not cars," commented Holliday. He knocked on the heavy wooden-planked door and waited. Nothing happened.

  "Maybe he's not there," Rafi said.

  Holliday rapped harder. Still nothing.

  "Maybe he doesn't exist," said Rafi, his tone a little acidic.

  Holliday ignored the comment. He tried the latch and the door opened. He stuck his head into the doorway. The interior of the building was dark and cool. Holliday stepped into a cramped, low-ceilinged hallway. Rafi followed. The walls were plaster, mottled with age. There was a wrought iron chandelier above them that looked as though it had been designed for candles. "Hello?" Holliday called out. Somewhere there was a rasping cough.

  "Viens," called out a thin voice. Come. The voice echoed from behind a door on the left side of the hallway. Holliday opened the door and stepped inside the room, Rafi on his heels.

  The office was from another time, like something out of Les Miserables.

  An ancient case clock ticked away loudly in one corner. Rows of wooden file cabinets lined one wall and a spindly-looking secretary's desk with pigeonhole cubicles above it stood against another. Light leaked into the room through cracks in the shutters over the large window, dust dancing in the broad beams of sun. The floors were wide yellow oak planks worn smooth of any varnish. Looking out from across an enormous desk, a large man with wavy snow-white hair sat in a high-backed velvet chair. There were two identical chairs on the other side of the desk.

  The man appeared to be in his late seventies or early eighties, fat but well preserved. His skin had the faintly translucent look of parchment. His nose was a beak and the eyes were large and gray behind half-lens reading glasses framed in bright blue plastic. He was wearing a wide-lapel blue suit that had gone out of style half a century ago.

  The front of the jacket was speckled wi
th bits of ash from the fuming curved stem pipe held between the large man's lips. From where Holliday stood it looked as though the pants were drawn up almost to his elbows. The shirt was as white as the man's luxurious head of hair and obviously starched.

  "Mr. Ducos?" Holliday asked.

  "Oui," said the fat man. "Je suis Ducos."

  "Do you speak English?"

  "Of course," said Ducos. "Several other languages as well, including a little Hebrew." He smiled pleasantly at Rafi.

  "I didn't know it showed," said the archaeologist.

  "It doesn't," said Ducos. "But I'm well aware of who you are, Dr. Wanounou, and you as well, Colonel Holliday."

  "And how's that?" Holliday asked.

  "On the telephone you said you knew Helder Rodrigues, Colonel," said Ducos. "That is sufficient to catch my attention."

  "You knew him?" Holliday asked. The south of France was a long way from the remote island in the Azores that had been the old man's home.

  "For many years." Ducos paused. "Do you know what I seek?" he asked obscurely.

  "You seek what was lost," answered Holliday. Rafi gave him a long look.

  "And who lost it?"

  "The King lost it."

  "And where is the King?"

  "Burning in Hell," said Holliday with a smile.

  "Do you mind letting me in on your secret?" Rafi asked. "I'm feeling a little bit out of the loop."

  Ducos explained. "After the dissolution of the Templars under the aegis of King Philip in 1307, fugitive members of the Order needed a way of recognizing each other safely. They devised a number of secret exchanges."

  "The secret handshake," said Holliday.

  "That particular one was used between Father Rodrigues and myself," Ducos continued. "It was written in the back of the notebook he kept." He looked at Holliday. "You have it?"

  "Yes." He took it out of the inside pocket of his jacket and slid it across the desk toward the old man. Ducos's large, age- gnarled hand reached out and he laid his palm over the notebook. Holliday saw that a tear had formed in the corner of one eye. Ducos made no move to wipe it away.

  "His blood?" Ducos asked.

  "Yes. He died protecting the secret of the scrolls," said Holliday. "He died in my arms."

  "So Tavares told me," Ducos said and nodded. Manuel Tavares, the captain of the fishing boat San Pedro and the other gatekeeper of the Templar hoard on the island of Corvo.

  "We have a problem," said Rafi urgently.

  "Do you refer to the disappearance of Miss Blackstock in Egypt or the recent attempt on the life of Colonel Holliday?" Ducos asked.

  "You know about that?" Holliday said, startled. "It's barely been forty-eight hours."

  Ducos took the pipe out of his mouth and smiled, the thin lips opening to reveal a neat row of large, pure white and obviously false teeth, made in some long-ago era.

  "One of the advantages of belonging to an order that has been in existence for close to a thousand years is the number and the extent of the ears to the ground which are available," said the old man.

  "The man who tried to kill me isn't important now; we have to find Peggy. Quickly," replied Holliday.

  "Tell me everything you know," said Ducos.

  In the end it wasn't very much. The Frenchman listened to what there was, leaning back in his chair and puffing on his pipe. When Rafi was finished, Ducos asked Holliday a few questions about the attack at West Point, then fell silent, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. Finally he spoke, the words measured and precise.

  "The man who attempted to kill you was almost certainly a member of La Sapiniere, the French arm of Sodalitium Pianum, the Vatican Secret Service. They were first written about in fiction by the late Thomas Gifford and more recently by your Mr. Dan Brown in his Da Vinci Code. The tattoo is sure evidence of this-it is the sigil, or crest of Pope Pius X, who instituted the original group in the early nineteen hundreds. They are also known as the Assassini and sometimes as the Instrument of God. They are willing to sacrifice their very souls as martyrs to a higher cause."

  "But why try and kill me?" Holliday asked. "What's their motive?"

  "And what does it have to do with Peggy's disappearance?" Rafi asked angrily. "We're sitting here talking about theological voodoo and she's in danger. What possible connection is there?"

  "I suggest that the shared motive is a sense of imminent danger. The Vatican obviously sees Colonel Holliday as a threat. I would say the same holds true for Miss Blackstock. Either she alone or the expedition as a whole discovered something that the Brotherhood of Isis perceives to be a threat as well. The connection is quite clear. Brasseur must have triggered La Sapiniere's interest while he was doing his research at the Vatican and whatever he found in the Templar documents in the Secret Archives led to the kidnapping of the group in the desert."

  "That's insane," argued Rafi. "It's oil and water. Islamic terrorists and the Vatican?"

  "Oil and water indeed," said Ducos calmly. He paused for a moment, took a kitchen match from the pocket of his ancient suit jacket and scratched it alight on one yellowed thumbnail. He relit his pipe, sucking noisily and blowing clouds of smoke into the air, swirling into the broad sunbeams coming through the shutters. "Oil and water indeed," he repeated. "And since oil and water do not usually mix, Doctor, as a scientist I would suggest that you search for an emulsifier, some common cause."

  "Could it be something as simple as territory?" Holliday asked. "The expedition crossed into the Brotherhood's turf?" He shrugged. "Maybe they were affronted by a bunch of Catholic priests defiling their sacred land or something."

  "Possible but unlikely, Colonel. I was born much closer to the nineteenth century than the twenty-first but I have kept up with events, I think. There are few true believers anymore. Terrorist organizations are like political campaigns-they're always in need of money and volunteers. There are the cynical among us who believe, with good reason, that 9/11 was nothing more than a publicity stunt by bin Laden to raise his stature among his peers. In the nineties all he could be blamed for was a failed assassination attempt and some complicity in the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi embassy bombings. Instead of being the rich, favored son of an Arab sheik he was a nobody and a poor one at that. Just prior to 9/11 his family had cut off his seven-million-dollar-a-year allowance. He needed a fund-raiser. The Brotherhood are no different."

  "Then Doc is right-it's really all about money," Rafi said.

  "The Brotherhood is a small group and it has no real backer," Ducos said. "With Qaddafi in America's bed once more they have been cast adrift. The Brotherhood's territory ranges from Qare on the edge of the Qattara Depression to Jaghbub on the far side of the border."

  The old man levered himself upright, wincing as he did so, palms flat on the desk. He lumbered over to the filing cabinets, opened one of the drawers and withdrew a buff-colored file. He brought the file to his desk, sat down again with a little sigh and pulled an eight- by-ten photograph out of the folder. He slid it across the desk to Holliday.

  The photograph showed a young man in sunglasses wearing shorts and a black T- shirt that read I Was There: Solar Eclipse 2006-03-29. Directly behind him two turbaned men were talking beside a battered Toyota Land Cruiser. On the right edge of the picture Holliday could see some pale-colored ruins of what might have once been stone huts.

  "This photograph was taken by a Canadian tourist chasing the 2006 eclipse. It was taken at the ruins at the small oasis of Tazirbu in the central Sahara. The two men talking in the background are Sulaiman al-Barouni on the left and Mahmoud Tekbali on the right." Holliday looked closely. Al-Barouni looked much older than his companion. His face was drawn and deeply lined, skin drawn tightly over his bladelike cheekbones. Tekbali was younger, his face darker, his eyes covered by expensive Serengeti Driver sunglasses.

  "Exactly who are they?" Rafi asked, looking over Holliday's shoulder.

  "Tekbali is a senior officer in the Brotherhood, second in command to Mustafa Ahmed Ben
Halim, the founder and leader of the group."

  "So what's the significance of the photograph?" Holliday asked.

  "It is significant because Sulaiman al-Barouni is the chief go-between for a man named Antonio Neri. Neri is the boss of an Italian criminal organization known as La Santa. Neri's specialty is smuggling women, drugs and valuable artifacts. Contrary to the Great Leader's press releases concerning the satanic evil of the American drug culture, Libya has long been an alternative location for the Marseilles morphine labs. As well there is always a supply of village women looking for broader horizons, and Libya and Egypt have been doing a thriving business in tomb raiding and artifact smuggling for thousands of years." The old man lifted his sagging shoulders in a Gallic shrug. "The Vatican. La Santa. The Brotherhood."

  "Oil and water," said Rafi.

  "A common cause," said Holliday.

  "Indeed," said Ducos, and smiled.

  5

  It was like stepping into a Humphrey Bogart movie; any minute now you expected a sloe-eyed Lauren Bacall to appear with a cigarette in her hand, looking for someone to light her up. The interior of the Bar Maritime in the Vieux Port of Marseilles was all brown wood and thirties- style, down-at-the-heels and I-don't-give-a-damn decor complete with a sleepy bartender and just as sleepy patrons nodding on their high stools over their pastis and Stella Artois, with hungrier patrons chowing down on escargots or petit quiche or a big bowl of local steamed mussels, the coquillage that formed the mainstay of the bouillabaisse that was the foundation of every menu on the Azure Coast.

  Holliday and Rafi Wanounou were sitting at a small round table at the front window, soaking up the atmosphere. The remains of lunch were still on the table as well as their coffee cups. Seated with them was Louis Japrisot, a captain in the Police Nationale de France, formerly known as the Surete. Japrisot was short and stocky with a broad, jowled face, a lot of gray-stubbled five o'clock shadow and a bristling salt-and-pepper Stalin mustache, of the soup strainer variety. He appeared to be in his late fifties.