Judgment Day (Templar Chronicles Book 5) (16 page)

For a moment, it was all Cade could to just breathe.

His heart was jack-hammering in his chest so hard that he thought he might break a rib or two and his body was trembling uncontrollably from the massive dose of adrenaline that had poured into his system. Worse yet, he was having trouble sorting out his memories from those that his psychometry had forced him to experience. Images kept flooding his mind and with them all the sensory perceptions that had gone along with them and yet he knew, somewhere deep in his mind, that he hadn’t physically lived through a single one of them.

It was enough to drown a man in a river of madness.

If he hadn’t had years of practice dealing with his Gift he might have lost himself then and there, might have drifted into a world of unrealities without any means of finding his way back and spent the rest of his days as a gibbering idiot.

Thankfully, after several minutes of effort, he got his thoughts and his body back under control.

Looking down at his hands, he saw that his gloves had been removed, most likely while he’d been unconscious. Nor were his gloves the only things; his clothing had been taken from him and replaced with an orange jumper, just like the kind they issued to all of their long-term prisoners.

Cade was furious, both for the loss of his gloves – which he needed if he was going to get out of this place - and for the loss of his clothing, but he didn’t let either show on his face.

He could feel Johannson standing there, watching him from outside the door, but Cade ignored him for the moment, turning his attention instead to figuring out where he was.

The room they had him in was small – no more than eight by eight, he guessed – and was devoid of any kind of furnishings except for a chemical toilet in one corner. Cade recognized the room immediately as one of the temporary holdings in the basement of the commandery. It was missing the usual meager cot that they provided to the inmates, but the foot-thick reinforced glass door that provided the only entrance and exit to the cell and the toilet were dead giveaways.

He’d put more than his fare share of monsters – human or otherwise – in cells like this over the last seven years and knew exactly how difficult they were to break out of. He was going to have to be patient and wait for them to take him somewhere else before trying to escape.

Unfortunately patience was not one of his virtues.

He looked over at the Preceptor, still standing outside the door, and thought,
Maybe there’s a quicker way out.

Cade walked over and stood in front of the door. A narrow slot, no more than two inches high and eight inches wide, set into the door at chest height allowed him to converse with anyone standing outside his cell.

Cade decided to go on the offensive.

“I don’t know what your game is, Johannson, but I suggest you open this door and let me out immediately.

“No, I don’t think so,” the other man said.

“Your men attacked a senior commander in the Order; the Seneschal, never mind that the Grand Master will not be pleased to hear it.”

Johannson laughed. “On the contrary, the Grand Master will be quite pleased.”

He reached inside the suit coat he was wearing and removed a piece of paper. He unfolded it and then held it up so Cade could read it.

“You might find this of interest,” he said with a wink.

One glance was all it took for Cade to recognize it as a formal proclamation from the office of the Grand Master; he’d seen enough of them during his years in the Order, after all. He skipped past the legalese at the top and jumped down to the meat of the order.

Words jumped out at him.

Former Knight Commander Cade Williams.

Conspiring with the enemy.

Excommunicated.

Considered armed and highly dangerous.

He didn’t bother reading any further.

“It’s all bullshit and you know it,” Cade said, trying not to show how much it had rattled him. Now the Seneschal’s unwillingness to get involved made more sense; anyone who associated with an excommunicated individual was at risk for the same. Cade’s faith might be on rocky ground – despite all he’d seen and done – but for many of the troops it was the solid bedrock beneath them and the very reason they stayed in the fight. Even his staunchest allies would be hard pressed to support him at this point.

“Bullshit? Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that very much,” the Preceptor said. “But we’ll know for sure soon enough.”

The words were out before Cade could catch them. “What does that mean?”

“That depends on you, I guess. Are you willing to talk?”

Cade didn’t hesitate. “Sure,” he said, “what do you want to know?”

Johannson frowned; it wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting, apparently.

“Don’t think you can fool me, Williams. You’re going to tell us what you and the Adversary are planning one way or another, so why make it difficult on yourself? Tell us what we want to know and I’ll see to it that your prison time is at least comfortable.”

Cade nearly laughed.

How stupid did this idiot think he was?
The Templar code made it perfectly clear about what happened to those who actively conspired with the enemy. Prison time was not one of the options. With the Grand Master declaring him persona non grata, they were just as apt to drag him in front of a firing squad as listen to anything he had to say in his defense.

Still, he’d play along. If he could get out of this cell he might be able to make a break for it. He’d worry about clearing his name later; right now, the clock was ticking and he needed to get to Venice.

“Fine,” he said. “You’ve got me dead to rights. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” He waved his hand at the cell around him. “There’s no need for this; take me somewhere civilized and let’s discuss it like men.”

Johannson wouldn’t be fooled that easily, however. “I don’t believe you,” he said to Cade, “but that’s fine. You don’t have to convince me anyway. My people will get to the truth. We can talk about what you need to do to atone for your sins once you’ve had a chance to chat with them. I’m sure you’ll be in a more receptive state of mind at that point anyway.”

Cade wanted to reach through the slot and knock the smile of satisfaction off of Johannson’s face, but he knew that wouldn’t get him anything but momentary satisfaction. He’d still be here, locked in up a cell, and Johannson would be pissed off instead of smug.

Smug was less dangerous.

Still, he couldn’t let the Preceptor’s challenge – and it was a challenge, for Cade knew exactly how the Inquisitors got their information – go unanswered.

“By all means, bring them on down. I’ve got all day to sit around and talk,” Cade said with a belligerent smile. “You might want to make sure you have enough men this time, though, given how my last “chat” with your people went.”

Johannson answered Cade’s smile with one of his own.

“Oh, I think I have all the men I’m going to need,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”

Johannson then reached out and slid the cover over the slot, cutting off anything else Cade might have been about to say. Still smiling, he waved to someone down that hall out of Cade’s line of sight.

Sweet dreams?

Given its source, the usually pleasant phrase had a decidedly ominous tone to it and Cade knew in that second that he’d missed something.

Something important.

He turned away, dismissing the Preceptor with seemingly casual indifference, but inside his thoughts were whirling. Johannson clearly thought he had the upper hand. Maybe that was just because he was out there and Cade was in here, but he didn’t think so.

There was more to it than that.

From the corner of his eye he could see that Johannson was still watching him, as if waiting for something to happen, so Cade began to think that whatever it was, its arrival was rather imminent.

What was it Johannson said? Sweet dreams?

He glanced around the room, but didn’t see anything beyond the sink and the chemical toilet. Certainly nothing that could be a danger to him. There were a couple of scuff marks on the floor where the bed had been, but that was all.

What the hell…?

As he turned his gaze swept over the slot in the door in front of him, the slot that Johannson just closed from the outside, effectively isolating Cade’s cell from the rest of the facility.

He froze.

Almost unwillingly his head turned slightly and his gaze swept up the wall next to the door, all the way to the top where narrow ducts had been set into the wall just below the point where it met the ceiling.

Ducts that were part of the cell’s state-of-the-art air filtration system.

If a prisoner got too unruly, they could lower the amount of air getting to that individual cell or, if they had to take someone down fast, they could pump in a gas-based sedative and let nature take its course. Once the prisoner was too weak to put up a fight, a squad of guards could be sent in to deal with the situation without any fuss.

Suddenly Johannson’s “sweet dreams” made a hell of a lot more sense.

Cade stopped and listened. It took a moment, but once he shut out the sound of his pounding heart, he could make out a slight hissing sound at the edge of his hearing.

He didn’t envy the thought of being knocked unconscious for the third time in as many days.

The Preceptor was still watching him, no doubt waiting for him to start panicking, but he’d be damned if he would give the man a show. He was reasonably confident they wouldn’t kill him – they still thought he had information to provide. So short of an accidental overdose they would probably just gas him unconscious in order to move him to an interrogation room without putting themselves in danger.

It was the smart thing to do, after all, and a procedure that Cade himself had put into place for all such facilities in the Templar network three years earlier.

Not that it mattered; he was still pissed that they were using it on him.

Rather than wait for the gas to knock him on his ass, Cade walked to the center of the room and laid down on the ground. To be sure his bare hands didn’t touch anything when he passed out, he stuck them as deep into his pockets as he could manage.

After that, there wasn’t much to do but listen to the hiss of the gas and wait.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Getting to Scotland turned out to be easier than Riley thought it would be.

After making up his mind, Riley returned to his quarters and logged onto his computer. He wasn’t the tech whiz that Olsen had been, but he’d learned a thing or two from his former squad-mate that he put to good use now. When he was done, he printed out what he needed and then sent the rest of it winging its way through cyberspace to its final destination. It wouldn’t hold up to a forensic search, but it would certainly do the trick for the time being.

He quickly packed a bag and headed for the heliport where he tracked down one of the Blackhawk pilots he was friendly with and had him ferry him over to John F Kennedy airport, where the Order maintained a small selection of aircraft operated under the Vatican flag. A cargo plane was getting ready for a flight to Edinburgh, so Riley concocted a story about needing to be at the commandery before dawn and managed to secure a seat in the back with the cargo for the passage over. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable overseas trip he’d ever had, but it served its purpose and Riley had long ago given up any pretensions that comfort was a right that everyone was guaranteed. He knew better; he was a Templar, after all.

He did his best to catch some sleep which bouncing around on the bench seat in back and arrived in Edinburgh just over seven hours after boarding the plane in New York. He quickly made his way to Immigration and Customs, his Vatican-issued passport whisking him through the process without hassle or delay. Ten minutes later he was behind the wheel of a rental car, headed south toward the village of Roslin and the sprawling underground complex that housed the Templar world headquarters in the hills just beyond.

He entered through the De Molay Gate, named after the famed Grand Master who had been burned at the stake in 1307 for refusing to divulge the whereabouts of the Templar’s vast treasure to Pope Innocent and his ally, the King of France. The treasure had, in fact, been stored in the very first iteration of the very facility he was entering and Riley always tried to take this route when he could, if only to honor the man who had preserved their Order with both his foresight and his bravery. He left the car with one of the motor pool attendants, logged his entry into the commandery as was required, and then headed for the administrative wing in hopes of scoring an audience with the Seneschal.

It was late in the evening so the halls were empty for the most part and it didn’t take him long to get to his destination. To his surprise, and relief, he found the Seneschal’s aide still at his desk. He stepped up, identified himself, and asked for an immediate audience with the Seneschal.

“It is literally a matter of life and death.”

But the aide wasn’t moved. “I’m sorry, Captain Riley, but the Seneschal is in a meeting at the moment and won’t be done for several hours.” He glanced at his computer screen. “I can fit you, um, say mid-morning on Thursday?”

Riley wanted to laugh. He’d walked in the door saying it was a matter of life and death and this flunky wanted him to settle for an appointment seventy-two hours from now? Not going to happen.

“As I said, it’s rather urgent. I’ll wait for him to finish his meeting.”

Riley took a seat and settled in, over the aide’s protests. There wasn’t much the man could do short of calling security and Riley highly doubted that was going to happen. Riley was beginning to discover that there was a certain amount of prestige that went along with being head of the Order’s special combat teams and it wasn’t beyond him to throw his weight around a bit to ensure he got what he wanted or needed for his men.

He was going to see the Seneschal about Cade and that was that.