The Templar Concordat (26 page)

Kill her? He could kill her, but the Old Man had specifically forbidden that. If he went back to the Old Man for permission, he would have to admit there was a problem, and how long would he live after that? The Old Man would take the treaty and plant him in the desert.

Accidents? People died every day from unexpected accidents. Traffic? Falls? Mountain-climbing? Ski? Sky-dive? Scuba? He had no idea, and didn’t have to time to find out. A million euros wasn’t enough for the greedy bitch. The greedy Western mind again.

The more he considered the alternatives, the less he liked them. Every option was bad, with no clean way out of this, not with the Old Man’s peculiar habit of getting rid of people when the people or circumstances displeased him.

An accident was risky, but offered him the best chance of surviving the Old Man’s suspicions and succeeding in his mission.  And there would have to be a clean-up so no trace of the treaty was found by family or authorities. He pulled a novel off the shelf, flipped through it until he found the number in the margin, and called Beirut.

“Marhaba, Jamilah, I have something that needs special attention.” Maybe she could solve his problems.

Dhahran – Thursday, April 2

Even telling the Old Man about a great success was something Hammid dreaded, but it had to be done.

“Sheik, the tests of parchment of the Treaty of Tuscany we have in our possession show it was manufactured between 1160 and 1200.  The treaty is dated 1189.”

“Is there any further test the West could demand?”

“No, Sheik. The laser spectrographic analysis is the best that has been developed.”

“In that case, wait until the new Pope is elected and has been in office a bit longer. Wait until the news surrounding the bombing, his election, and the novelty of the new Pope falls off the news cycle. I want this to hit when there is no other news coming from the Vatican. The media hates the Church, and will be drooling at the chance to slam it after all the sympathy from the bombing and the interest in the papal election. Never forget, the news people are our strongest allies. They are so stupid they don’t even know it, but we aren’t that stupid.”  He broke the connection.

Hammid’s hand shook with excitement and fear as he clicked his phone off. The exciting thing was the world would soon know the treacherous roots of the West’s core religion. It would learn who was the aggressor in the struggle between the East and West, and the West would see itself reflected back in that dark, oily mirror of the treaty. TV news and newspapers would do most of the work, but they had to be guided. Just give them some excuse to hate themselves and they would jump at the chance.

The fear was for his own life since he had just turned Jamilah loose on Jean Randolph. That was a risk, but what choice did he have? If he lost, it would be a sudden shot in the back of the head or a dagger to the brain stem. In either case, he’d never even know it. But, the Old Man wouldn’t be certain either, and would he upset an operation on the way to success? How did he know how the Old Man thought?

But now he had the order to proceed. He almost ran to Zahid’s workroom. But Zahid wasn’t back from London yet.

London - Saturday, April 4

London was a great big belly-laugh of a city, a round-the-clock whirlwind of life, love and good cheer. Jamilah had been to most of the world’s great cities, but none could match London. It wasn’t the biggest, tallest, richest, or most beautiful, and its weather was terrible, but it had a strength and vitality she found nowhere else. The grin spread across her face as soon as she glimpsed the shores of Britain and felt the Airbus bank for its gradual descent into Heathrow.

She had boarded at King Fahd near Dhahran after meeting with Hammid at his estate. His plan was unbelievable. Hammid was the new Saladin, riding a big white horse and uniting all the Arabs behind his banner? Stranger things had happened. But she had never seen him so nervous. It was nothing she could put her finger on, but he was always tightly controlled and operated behind a mask that hid the true man. But she sensed something was wrong, that he was worried.

He explained what she had to do, the information she had to get out of Jean, and even showed her the treaty. She didn’t think anyone would care much about what some old fools had written hundreds of years ago, but that was Hammid’s problem, not hers. What she did know was he was paying her very well.

When she boarded the British Airways plane in Dhahran, she was dressed just like the other forty Arab women traveling to London, wrapped in a head-to-toe black abaya with a headscarf concealing her long black hair and everything but her face.

When the seatbelt sign went off minutes out of Dhahran, she joined the line of stoop shouldered women trudging to the back of the plane to remove their abayas and revel in the freedom the rest of the race enjoyed every day. They returned to their seats in Western clothes, strutting, smiling, and holding their heads high. Jamilah had seen it every time she had flown out of the Kingdom, and she still felt satisfaction each time she joined in defying the silly custom.

*     *     *

She slept on the plane and had a quick breakfast at her hotel, the Dorchester, since the credit card she used went to Hammid’s account, then geared up for a day of power shopping. Harrods? Carnaby Street? God, she loved this. She wore tight jeans over black boots, a blue oxford shirt, and a black leather jacket.  With her thick black hair held loosely by a red band, she returned pleasant smiles to both the admiring looks from the men and the daggers from the women.

Her light step, innocent smile, and quick giggle put her at about twenty-one, far younger than her real age.  She attributed it to good genes, skin care, and exercise, and her targets never suspected her long record of successful kills. How could they? She looked like somebody’s daughter, not an assassin.  

When she had two full shopping bags it was time for the boring shopping. She took a taxi to a pharmacy in Knightsbridge, and asked the Lebanese pharmacist about mint-flavored Egyptian cough medicine. He said nothing, just reached under the counter and gave her a package with two syringes, two bottles, and a small box of latex gloves.

She walked to a sporting goods shop in the same neighborhood and bought a coil of light-weight climbing rope and two knives, one four-inch folding knife with a thumb open, and one sheath knife with a double-edged three-inch blade.

Her last stop was an art supply house in Soho, where she purchased paints, canvases, turpentine, several bottles of solvent, silver wire, a small melting pot, jewelers’ tools, and an artist’s propane torch.

Now she was loaded down, but she did have a job to do, and the sooner she finished it, the sooner she could get back to shopping and London nightlife. She had a strict rule. No partying until the job was done. No exceptions. That kept her focused. She had to have a clear head for her work since her life really did depend on it.

Before she left Dhahran, she had ordered an Internet set of lock picks to be delivered to the hotel. When she got back to her room, she saw the package lying on the bed. Ok. Now she had everything she needed. Tomorrow would be the day. She couldn’t help giggling.

She traded the fashionable shopping clothes for a dark outfit that alternated between tight and loose fitting items, smeared on dark eye shadow and black lipstick, laced up black construction boots, hung silver lightning bolts from her ears, stuck seven rings on her fingers, wrapped a chain around her waist, and stuck her hair up under a black cap. She looked in the mirror and was genuinely pleased at the horrid transformation that stared back. People would be able to describe the outfit, but not the person. Great.

She took the elevator to the parking level of the hotel and walked out the driveway into the early evening. Time to go get a look at Professor Jean Reynolds house, and with luck, she might even get a glimpse of the target herself.

London - Sunday, April 5

“Do you think Zurich will ever make up its mind about this thing? They have the treaty pictures Jean took. They know exactly what the treaty says.” Callahan was leaning back in the corner of a booth in the Dorchester café, skimming the newspaper propped on the edge of the table.

“Oh, I’m sure they will, but I bet there is one hell of a fight in the Templar Council right about now.” Marie leaned over and took his last chocolate cookie.

“What are they fighting about?”

“Templars take a very long view of history. They don’t think this fight with the radical Muslims will be over in a few years, or a few decades. They expect it to go on for hundreds of years. It’s already been going on for a thousand years. You know that. So, they’re trying to figure out which alternative will give them the long-term advantage. Maybe it is best to let that treaty become public, or maybe now’s not the time.”

“So they can make it public sometime down the road? On their own timetable? When it’s more to their advantage?”

“Exactly.” She leaned both elbows on the table and searched his plate for any remaining cookie bits.  “The Church probably has the longest view of history, and then come the Templars. And let’s not forget the Hashashin. It’s hard to put yourself in that frame of mind. We live to be what? Eighty or ninety if we’re lucky? You have to step out of that life span and pretend you’re going to live a thousand years. That’s what I figure the Council is doing right now.”

“Well, that means the probability is they will want to grab the treaty and keep it secret for now. And that means we’re going to have to take Jean Randolph pretty soon.”

“Why’s that?” She lifted her ice cream bowl and gestured to the waiter for another.

“Look at it like this. If we’re looking at the best time over, say, the next hundred years? It’s unlikely that this moment is the best. And if they get hold of the treaty, then they can plan some upcoming campaign and include it in that plan. If you take the long view, and you have the treaty locked up in the Templar Archives, then that would figure into how you operate in the future. It’s just very unlikely now is the best time to let it out of the bag.”

“My God, Callahan, now you’re starting to sound like the Chief Archivist.” She swirled her new ice cream around the bowl. “You know, we should probably plan a way to take her. We never know when Zurich will give the word.”

“How to take her? We let ourselves into her place when she’s out. Wait for her to come back. Stick her in the butt with a needle and take her to a safe house.” He gave her a quick look. “You said you have the drug kit, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I have it in a pocket of my suitcase. I suppose you’re right. Just go in and wait for her to come home. Surprise!”

“Yeah, and that brings us back to our present predicament.” He tapped the headlines in the Guardian and read from it. “Carnage Spreads Across Europe In Wake Of Vatican Bombing.” The story detailed the rash of killings across all of Western Europe, starting in Rome. All of the victims were Middle Eastern men, all of the killings were execution style, and none of the killers had been apprehended. “It says civil rights groups are strongly protesting this savage attack on peaceful immigrants from the Middle East, and demand the government protect these innocents and apprehend the perpetrators immediately. And this idiot in Parliament says it must be the CIA.”

He read down the column in the Guardian, and whispered, “Look at this. They even got five in London while we’ve been chasing paper. Right under our noses.”

He folded the paper and smacked it down on the table. “The Templars have gone to war, and we’re lunching in the café of the Dorchester having an extended dessert of cookies and ice cream. Doesn’t really bring ‘Death in Battle’ to mind, does it? It feels like I’m missing in action.”

“Speaking of missing in action, what’s the word on my good friend Professor Zahid?” she asked.

Callahan shook his head. “We’re being punished by God.”

“That bad?”

“Worse. He’s toying with us.”

Marie held a hand over her heart and said, “Oh, no. He’s not making fun of your whizbang computer gadgets, is he?”

“I’m afraid so. Remember that tracker the Zurich guys put in his laptop? The gizmo that called them each time he got on the Internet?”

“Yeah.”

“The same one that dialed the local cell phone system and gave them his GPS coordinates every hour?”

“Yeah, I’m not going to like this, am I? You’re going to tell me I set all this up for you and your gizmo doesn’t work? You geeks blew it?”

Callahan sat up. “No. Of course it works. It’s just that when he stopped for a day in Cairo to visit with his family, he left the laptop there, with his daughter, the twelve-year-old. But all isn’t lost. Now we get to follow her adventures in FaceBook, and read emails about the cute boy in math class, a kid named Akhom. And we even know her exact GPS location to within two meters all day. The Americans could drop a cruise missile right on top of her.” He shrugged. “If it matters, she’s been to school, a shopping mall, and a few friends’ houses in the past few days.”

She tapped her spoon lightly on the table top. “And Zahid? The guy who was going to lead us to the treaty? Where did he go?”

“Zahid got back on a plane from Cairo to Dhahran.”

“And?”