By the time they reached New York it was all over the news. Senator Richard Pierce Sinclair stood on the broad steps of the Capitol and made his announcement.
"It has come to my attention that the various intelligence agencies in this great country of ours have been withholding information that is fundamental to the safety of our citizens, and those citizens have a right to know where the danger lurks, believe you me." Here the senator paused and gave the cameras one of his patented scowls.
"According to my sources the people responsible for the assassination of the Holy Father in Rome are yet another organization of fundamentalist fanatics hell-bent on destroying the very fabric of our democratic society and the moral standards set by the founding fathers. The name of this group is Jihad al-Salibiyya, the 'Enemies of the Cross,' and I have it on good authority that this group of madmen intends to strike here, at the heart of America-and soon."
"Cat's out of the bag," said Holliday, staring at the monitor in the Avion Airport bar. "We don't have much time."
9
General Angus Scott Matoon sat across from Kate Sinclair in the baronial living room of her immense vineyard estate at Chateau Royale des Pins just outside the town of Aigle, Switzerland. Instead of the red wine bottled at the vineyard, the general sipped from his favorite Wood-ford Reserve Bourbon, a case of which the elder Sinclair always kept on hand especially for him. Matoon was supposedly attending a NATO conference in Brussels, but Belgium was less than an hour away by private jet and Chateau Royale des Pins had its own landing strip. He could have his meeting with the crazy old bitch and be back in Brussels before the evening session began.
The general wasn't at all sure that Kate Sinclair's hare-brained scheme was going to work, but both her connections and her money were good, and he would need them in the near future. The defense industry was going down the toilet with the present wishy-washy administration in power, and there weren't many prime jobs left for an aging and not particularly noteworthy member of the Joint Chiefs. Sinclair had already paid him well for his cooperation and promised him a top security job if things went as planned.
"The name of the terrorist group has been leaked, just as you requested," said the general.
"Excellent," said Sinclair. "The stage is set; now the public has an identifiable bogeyman."
"You really think Holliday will come out of the woodwork?"
"Certainly," said Sinclair. "Despite the foolishness in Washington, at the very least the name al-Salibiyya will let him know the Templars are involved."
The general took a healthy belt of the smoke-and-honey-flavored Bourbon and put the glass down on the coffee table between them. "Look, I don't like this guy any more than you do," said Matoon. "But isn't it sort of like poking a rattlesnake with a stick? Maybe it'd be smarter for us just to whack the guy before he can cause us more trouble."
Sinclair's eyes narrowed. "He was responsible for my daughter's death," the old woman said, her voice full of barely contained fury. "Because of him she felt she'd failed our sacred cause. Because of him our plans for the future were shattered. I do this for her as much as I do it for our great country. Holliday must be found and brought to me before this ends."
The general nodded. He'd heard this rant before. He'd also met Sinclair's daughter, the late Sister Margaret Emily. The redheaded nun had always seemed a few bricks short of a load, and she'd had that faraway look in her eyes he'd seen on guys who'd spent way too much time in a combat zone. The fiasco at the Rex Deus conclave had put her over the edge. He wasn't surprised when she drank herself into a stupor and drove one of the family cars into a brick wall.
"There is also the question of the notebook," said Kate Sinclair, her fury tightly controlled now. The general smiled. Trust Kate Sinclair to reel it in and get back to the practical side of things-namely money.
"The one the monk supposedly gave him?"
"The monk's name was Brother Helder Rodrigues, and the notebook is not supposed, it is very real; that much is fact. It holds the ancient secret of the Templar Knights, the key to their fortune, a fortune that rightfully belongs to the inheritors of the true bloodline of Christ, to Rex Deus, not some half-baked history teacher who stumbled on the secret."
"Your security people found this out?"
"They tracked down a man Holliday talked to in France."
"And?" General Matoon asked, already knowing the answer.
"Let's just say that enhanced interrogation techniques only begin with waterboarding."
"And you think Holliday has it?"
"Or at least knows where it is." The old woman leaned closer. Matoon could see the madness boiling in her eyes. Not for the first time he found himself having second thoughts about his decision to ally himself with the Sinclair cause. It was starting to look like he'd made a deal with the devil, and the devil, it seemed, was right out of her mind.
"So what are you going to do about it?" asked Matoon.
"Breau, our contact in the Bahamas, said they're on their way. They've been through Tritt's place. I think they may be expecting to beard the lion in its den."
"What are you talking about?" General Matoon said warily.
"I have no doubt they'll wind up on our doorstep sooner or later."
"You'll hit them here?"
"Don't be silly, General. As my father always told me, don't piss where you eat." The old woman shook her head, eyes glinting wildly. "I have other plans for our little school teacher."
10
After ten hours in the air and plane changes in three different airports, they arrived at the newly renovated Geneva International. Through the dubious magic of time zones they lost most of a day traveling, and by the time they arrived in the Swiss capital it was sunset again. In only three days Tritt would strike again, and somehow they had to stop him.
"I don't think we can pull this off," said Peggy as they rode the airport shuttle into the city, only a few miles away. Snow was a blanket, piled in drifts beside the airport road. The windows of the bus were crazed with curlicues of frost. "There just isn't time."
"So what do you think we should do?" Holliday asked. "Give up?"
"Tell someone," answered Peggy. "The authorities."
"What authorities would those be, dearie?" Brennan said. "The rogue CIA group that's probably running this whole operation? The FBI, which has no jurisdiction outside the United States?"
"The president," grumbled Peggy. "He's the one Tritt's gunning for, after all."
Holliday shook his head. "We don't have any real proof of that. Even if we had a way of getting to him, what would we bring to the Secret Service to convince them? They'd laugh us off the front porch at the White House. And who's to say that Mama Sinclair doesn't have a mole in the presidential detail, anyway?"
"What about the stuff we found at Tritt's place last night? Is that a bust, as well? Did we waste our time going out there?"
Holliday sighed. "We found three phone numbers in Europe and a CD-ROM full of information about some corn-fed town in Kansas that no one's ever heard of; Tom's Hill or something. Nothing that means anything to anybody." He shook his head. "We're it, Peg. Either we get some hard facts about an assassination conspiracy or the president is a dead man."
The rest of the trip into Geneva was completed in silence. The bus took them to La Gare de Cornavin, the city's main railway station. From there they took a taxi to the Mandarin Oriental, a modern, upscale hotel on the banks of the Rhone River. They booked themselves a trio of adjoining rooms, then reconvened in Rasoi, the Indian restaurant on the main floor.
The entire hotel, restaurant included, was a shrine to the ultramodern, everything black granite, shining chrome and mirrors everywhere. The restaurant itself had the theatrical look of a modern Phantom of the Opera set, full of dark shadows and brilliant pools of light. It was a place to be seen and to see others. The food was supposed to be "revolutionary," but it was hard for everyone to get their heads around the idea that they were eating tandoori chicken and tikka for breakfast.