The Templar Concordat (29 page)

“We have about fifteen minutes left, then you will have access to toilet facilities, food, and drink.”

“Where are we? I…” she blurted before catching herself.

The strip of duct tape cut off any more conversation. That was stupid, she thought. How long had they been driving? She didn’t hear any traffic or city noise, no horns or music, and the vehicle wasn’t making any turns, so they were probably on a highway somewhere.

A woman had attacked her in bed, but a man spoke to her now. How many were in on this? Had the woman been an Arab? She remembered grabbing thick black hair, but that’s where memory began to blur. Damn.

*     *     *

The door closed gently, but firmly behind her, and she heard a lock clicking into place. They had silently placed her sitting on the floor and had cut the tape binding her hands.

She carefully pulled the duct tape off her eyes, mouth, and ankles, and looked around the room. A single light fixture hung from the ceiling, a futon with clean linen was on the floor, and a heavy table with an equally heavy bench was opposite the futon. She wouldn’t be lifting either table or bench to use as a weapon. She saw a toilet, washbowl, and shower stall in an alcove, but no door for privacy. Worst of all, there were no windows.

She slowly stretched the painful joints. What time was it? Where was she? How long had they had her? She listened intently for the slightest sound or vibration. Nothing. Cameras blinked from the ceiling in two corners, and she refused to look in the alcove with the shower and toilet.

It was a cell, more comfortable than most, but still a cell, and she was the prisoner. A familiar suitcase and purse were on the table, familiar because they were hers. She opened the suitcase and found her own casual clothes, hair dryer, brushes, makeup, and lotions. A woman must have packed this. The book she had been reading when the woman attacked her in bed was next to the suitcase.

She rooted through the purse and found everything but her cell phone, and the cash and credit cards from her wallet, and her keys were gone. That made sense since she had a small knife and teargas spray on the key ring. Was this her captors’ attempt at some psychological play? What did they call it? The Helsinki effect? Or Stockholm syndrome? It was something like that.

A knock on the door, a door with no knob on the inside, interrupted her inspection. A male voice told her to move to the far corner of the room. When she did, the door opened and a hand placed a tray of food on the floor. The door closed and locked again.

The food was good, two excellent roast-beef sandwiches and two flimsy bottles of water, but there were no utensils. No knife, no fork, no spoon. She wondered if they would ever be serving Jello.

Well, there wasn’t much to do. And to hell with the cameras. She showered and got ready for bed, walking around naked more than necessary. Was she playing the game, too? What if they were pointing and laughing?

She felt surprisingly tired. Maybe an after effect of the drugs? She fell asleep with an old Patrick McGoohan TV show playing in her head. What was it? The Prisoner…

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia - Monday, April 6

Hammid clicked from one London Internet site to another. All the daily papers had the story about Professor Jean Randolph’s tragic death in a fire at her Kings Crossing flat. The Daily Mail even had a half-screen picture of the fire gutted three-story building. He could always count on Jamilah. She did good work.

The message Jamilah had sent last night confirmed that Jean Randolph not only had a sample of the treaty parchment, but also a series of pictures. The stupid cow was writing a scholarly article so she could be the first to publish when Hammid released the treaty to the world.

But Jean Randolph wasn’t a problem anymore. Neither were her pictures, samples, or articles. Jamilah had seen to that. He imagined that with her work done, Jamilah was probably dancing on tables in some club. Good for her.

The Old Man might have his suspicions, but Hammid doubted he would do anything. Jean, and whatever threat she posed, had been eliminated. And even if the Old Man found out what he did, he’d have to admire it enough to let it go.

Salisbury - Monday, April 6

Callahan and Marie watched Jean exercising on the monitors. She did pushups, crunches, running in place, and whatever else could be done in a closed room, then looked up at the camera and said, “I’m going to take a shower. Can I have breakfast, or maybe it’s lunch, or dinner? I don’t know, maybe in about fifteen minutes?” She waved, stripped down and stepped into the shower.

“She do anything unusual, Ted?” Callahan asked the Templar who had been watching Jean until he and Marie arrived from London.

“No. Cool as they come. She slept for eight hours, and woke up about 8:00 am. Ate everything last night. No screaming, crying, or banging on the door. We haven’t told her anything, and she hasn’t said anything.”

“I don’t want her to see me,” said Marie. “It’s better to hold that in reserve.”

Callahan opened the outer sound-proof door and knocked on the inner door. “Back in the corner.” Ted glanced at the monitor and nodded to Callahan.

He opened the door and entered with the tray. Jean stood quietly in the corner with hands folded in front. He put the tray on the table, gestured for her to sit, and stepped back.

“Thank you.” She sat.

“You should know some things, Jean,” he said. “First, last night your partner Hammid Al Dossary sent someone to kill you. The plan was to kill you and burn down your house to destroy any evidence of the Treaty of Tuscany.”

Now he had her attention. The glass of orange juice in her hand shook, and she put it down. “What are you…?”

 “Quiet.” He cut her off. “I’m providing information you need to know. We already know it.” He paced in front of the table. “The world thinks you are dead. Your body was found last night in the burned-out husk of your building. The people on the upper floors escaped. Even the cat… Elliot.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulder at her. She had frozen in position, holding the edge of the table and staring at the orange juice.

“Eventually, your Al Qaeda friends may find you’re not dead. Burned bodies are hard to identify, and the body was in your bedroom, in your big T-shirt, in your bed. Maybe some enterprising coroner or cop pushes too much. I don’t know. Maybe they get a tip.  It’s hard to say.” He shrugged. “You know how it goes. Then they’ll kill you again.

“Now, the Church also has a beef with you since you killed the Pope and a thousand people, not to mention the two thousand injured. You’re a historian. You know how the faithful treat folks like that.

“The Italians want you for that guy who got shot at your table in the café in Rome.

“In fact the whole world is after you. They don’t know it’s you, but they are after the guys who blew up all those people in church.”

She stood up. “I didn’t know…”

“Shut up! Sit down! I talk. You listen.” She sat slowly.

“I represent an interested organization and we have already passed sentence on you. You’re a terrorist. It’s simple. Death. We don’t mess with the legal niceties.”

He leaned against the wall and watched her for thirty seconds.

“And your Swiss bank account at Steiner Strasse Bank? We took all the money. Well, not all. We left eleven euros as a maintenance balance.” He pulled out an index card and flipped it on the table. “This is the account I’m talking about.”

She picked up the card and saw her account number, plus the three passwords necessary to withdraw or transfer funds. That really got to her, he saw.  He didn’t tell her she had such bad luck she deposited her funds in one of the Templar private banks.

“Get the picture? You’re broke. Your house is smoking cinders. The world thinks you’re dead. If anyone found you were alive, you’d be explaining forever. Suppose we let the authorities and newspapers know what we know? Now Al Qaeda knows. And everyone wants you dead. You can’t work in any university. You can’t get a regular job. All you can do is hide in the shadows hoping nobody finds you. Ever thought of becoming a hooker? It’s a cash business.”  He gave her an appraising look. “Hmm, medium grade… a few good years left, but I hear those are really hard years.”

He walked to the door and turned. “And all for an old piece of blank paper. Sorry, parchment.” He shook his head. “That was really dumb.”

*     *     *

Marie and Ted were staring at the three monitors and Callahan moved to look over their shoulders.

“Well, how did I do?” he asked.

“Wait, just wait,” said Marie, pointing at the screen. Jean sat at the table with her elbows on her thighs and her hands pressed between her knees. Then she slammed both fists down on the table, grabbed the tray and hurled it down on the floor.

“Looks to me you did real good, Callahan,” Marie turned back toward him. “Didn’t I say you two would make a great couple? I think you just had your first fight, or maybe she did.”

Ted’s partner came in the house and tossed the Daily Mail, Telegraph, and Guardian to them. They all had pictures of the fire and stories about the unfortunate demise of Jean Randolph, well-regarded professor of medieval history. The Daily Mail had a half-page picture on page three.

Callahan folded each to the page with the story of Jean’s death, and headed to her room.  She was sitting in the far corner with her arms wrapped around her knees. He just laid the papers on the table, said nothing, and left.

*     *     *

Jean spent most of the day on the futon staring at the ceiling. The newspapers had indeed shown her burned-out house, and gave a brief biography of the victim, her biography. And the body found in her house? Who was that? The woman who attacked her? Or just someone off the street? Was it Marie? And who held her prisoner? Who was that guy who told her everything she had done? How did he know about Hammid?

When the man returned, he had a laptop computer. He set it up, and connected to a WiFi wireless network. “I suggest you access your Swiss account to check the balance. I already know the codes, so there’s no worry about confidentiality. No need to trust me. You check.”

    What more could go wrong, she thought? She accessed the account, typed in the passwords, and stared at the eleven euro balance. Who the hell could pull off something like that? At a Swiss bank?

“Logoff the bank,” said Callahan. She clicked the button and slumped back in the chair. What to do now?

Callahan closed the laptop and left.

*     *     *

“Ok. What do you want from me?” It was 4:00 pm and Jean had been in the room for almost seventeen hours.

“Yes!” Marie turned from the monitor and punched the air. “Our gal has seen the light! She’s dead. No friends. No money. Everyone wants her dead. Who does she have but us?”

“Let her sit for another hour or two,” said Callahan from his lounge chair. “We’re not jumping whenever she calls.”  He went back to reading his Economist.

She repeated the question several times over the next hour, then retreated to a fetal position on the futon. “Well,” Callahan stretched after getting up from the lounger, “let her ask one more time. Then we give her an answer.” He popped the top on a Coke. Almost on cue, Jean stood up and faced the camera.

“I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me.”

“Now, that’s the spirit,” Marie twirled a finger over her head and pointed at Callahan. “It’s show time. Go get ‘em, big boy.”

Callahan closed the door and put the cold Coke on Jean’s table. “What we want? Simple. Answer all our questions truthfully and fully. Enthusiastically cooperate. Don’t ever cross us.”

“Cross you? I don’t even know who you are!” She plopped down on the bench and took a deep breath, “Ok. Ok. Ask your questions.”

He said nothing, just left her alone.

*     *     *

“What were your plans for the blank piece of Twelfth Century paper?” Callahan resumed his usual pacing.

“Plans? I didn’t have any. I never even dreamed something like that would fall into my lap.”

“Why did you test it at the British Museum?”

“I wanted to make sure it was good, and I wanted to find out soon, a few years before using it. I couldn’t wait to test it in a few years, then follow up with a manuscript that would be tested at the same place. The profiles would be the same and someone might get suspicious. If I tested, then waited a few years, nobody would remember the first test, and I would also be testing legitimate things in between times.”

“How many other things have you forged?”

That was the question, thought Marie, watching the interrogation on the screen. That’s the big one. What else had she done? Give it up, Bitch.

“Eleven or twelve. I’m not sure.”

“Where did you do the work?”

“At my place.” She shrugged.  “You don’t need that much.”

He went on for another hour after she admitted to the forgery, asking about Hammid, how she met him, how she was paid, who else was involved, and how much she knew about the St. Peter’s bombing. Then he gave her a pen and a pad of paper and told her to write the details of each meeting with Hammid, what she remembered about the contents of the treaty, and the details of each of her forgeries, including what it was, who bought it, how much she got, and who turned a blind eye.