Peggy Blackstock had a pretty good idea of where they were, at least in general terms, even though their captors had pushed blinding cloth bags over their heads once they were in the truck. Neither she nor Brennan had been Tasered by the phony cops, although the threat was there if they decided not to cooperate. The truck with the Chinese lettering on the side had driven for about an hour when she heard the sound of airplanes low overhead, which almost certainly meant the Geneva airport. After that they definitely were going uphill, the road twisting and turning enough to throw them around in the truck's interior. They were in the mountains outside Geneva, the Haute Savoie-the French Alps. The way the truck slowed, then speeded up, Peggy could tell that they were going through one alpine village after another. Baptieu, Les Contamines-Montjoie, maybe La Chapelle. Wherever they were, it was up one of the long, narrow, glacial valleys: ski country.
Another hour, and then the rich scent of pine. The road was narrower with no traffic at all. They had to be climbing steeply because the truck engine was straining in its lowest gear. They were being taken to some out of the way spot in the mountains. But who was doing the taking? Fake cops, or bribed ones, plus access to private places in the Alps implied that whoever it was had a great deal of money. She'd dealt with everyone from Al-Qaeda to the Taliban to the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, and most of their headquarters were in caves, mountain camps or jungle clearings; she'd never done a photo story about Swiss terrorists. Maybe Doc was right, and Jihad al-Salibiyya was an invention of Rex Deus, or-God save America-the Central Intelligence Agency.
Across from her she could hear Brennan muttering under his breath. It was too Byzantine to think that the church was involved, but she'd made that mistake before. Brennan could be up to his neck in the whole thing. The little Irishman was certainly capable of cooking up any number of plots within the church hierarchy. He'd been party to at least a dozen murders that she knew about-he was hardly a trusted ally. The only people she could trust were Doc and Rafi.
She felt a dull ache in the pit of her stomach at the thought of her archaeologist husband. He'd been so good to her after she'd lost the baby and he was even willing to give up his Africa expedition to stay with her. The ache grew worse, but it wasn't in her stomach; it was in her heart. He'd wanted a child so badly and she hadn't been able to give him one.
"We've got all the time in the world," he'd soothed, but she knew it wasn't true. Another few years and she'd be in dangerous waters when it came to pregnancy, and she was goddamned if she was going to go through the infertility hell she'd seen some of her friends dealing with. Maybe they could adopt, cliche or not. She laughed briefly at the thought; Rafi had enough love for a dozen children. Maybe they could become the Israeli version of Brangelina.
"You find this amusing?" Brennan asked as they continued to rattle up the mountain road.
"I wasn't thinking about now," she answered quietly. "I was thinking about the future."
"The way things stand right now, I'm not sure the future looks very bright, dearie," said the priest, a sour note in his voice. "We're tied up with bits of plastic in the back of a truck. On top of that, your uncle's been spirited off. We'd better start thinking about the immediate present because I'm afraid we're on our own." Suddenly the truck jerked and stopped. They'd reached their destination. The doors banged open noisily and Peggy felt herself being lifted down out of the truck. There was gravel beneath her feet, and then as she was pushed forward, the gravel changed to something softer. Grass, maybe. The air was fresh and clean and even through the bag she thought she smelled snow. They were definitely in the mountains.
She stumbled up a short flight of wooden steps with Brennan right behind her, if his colorful swearing was any indication. Suddenly her nostrils were filled with the definite smell of cedar. A chalet of some kind. She was brought up short by a hand on her shoulder. Two voices began a heated discussion in Italian and then a third joined in. Finally one of the voices, clearly someone in charge, judging by the tone, commanded quiet. Peggy was pushed forward, and a few seconds later Brennan came stumbling after her. The bag was removed from her head and she caught a brief glimpse of a man's face, and then the door in front of her was slammed shut. A key turned in the lock.
There was absolutely no furniture in the room.
"Fecking hell!" Brennan's voice boomed. "What in the name of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is going on here?" His hood was still on; presumably Peggy was supposed to remove it, so she did.
"I didn't think priests were allowed to swear or take the Lord's name in vain," Peggy said with a grin.
"Vanity has nothing to do with Jesus, Mary or Joseph, and the word 'feck' isn't swearing in the Republic. Little children say it."
"Little children say it in America, too, believe me," said Peggy, laughing.
"I don't find any of this funny at all. I don't," said Brennan, his Irishness growing with his anxiety. "You don't speak Italian, now, do you?"
"Ciao, bella is about the extent of it," replied Peggy. "Why?"
"Our captors were having a discussion just before they threw us in here."
"I heard," said Peggy.
"The question of the day was whether they should slit our throats now or later. Thankfully they chose later. We're being held hostage until your uncle tells them what they want to know."
"Which is?"
"The location of a certain notebook." Brennan eyed her closely. "Do you have any idea what notebook they're talking about?"
"Not the slightest," lied Peggy. She'd seen the bloodstained notebook put into Doc's hands by the dying monk, Helder Rodrigues, on the tiny island of Corvo in the Azores-a notebook that contained the secrets of the immense Templar fortune lost to the world centuries before.
"You're absolutely sure of that, are you?"
"Perfectly," said Peggy, not liking the sudden, feral look in the old priest's eye. She walked to the high, small leaded window and looked out into the purple light of dusk.
"On top of everything else we don't have the foggiest idea where we are," muttered Brennan. He tried the door handle, but it was futile. They'd been locked in a room about the size of the average bathroom. It wasn't much bigger than a walk-in closet.
"I know exactly where we are. We're in the French Alps, facing east. We're about nine miles south of Chamonix and about three thousand feet directly above the resort town of Les Contamines," said Peggy.
"And just how did you arrive at such a detailed conclusion?" Brennan said skeptically. "You're friends with that MacGyver fellow, are you?"
"That's the west face of Mont Blanc," said Peggy, looking out at the high, spiny mountain looming above them. "I actually climbed it doing a photo shoot for National Geographic Traveler. A lot easier going up than coming down, believe me. Especially if you're in the middle of a blizzard, which we were."
"Fascinating, I'm sure. But we're still trussed up like poultry ready for the oven, and these people are going to kill us as soon as they get what they want from your uncle-and they will; believe me."
"I wouldn't be quite so quick to count Doc out if I were you," Peggy warned. "He might surprise you."
15
He dreamed of blood and war and the death of his wife, Amy, so long ago now. And then surprisingly he dreamed of baseball and the smell of pine tar.
And then he woke up. There was a dull pain dead center in his back where the first Taser had hit him and a second dull ache high on his left shoulder where the other cop had zapped him through Peggy's broken window.
That was no ordinary cop stop, he thought, his senses focusing again. Holliday opened his eyes. It was dark but he could see well enough to know that he was in what looked as though it might have been a cell-like servant's bedroom. At the end of the narrow bed he was on there was a small TV set with rabbit ears on a chest of drawers, and a straight-backed chair next to it. A single small window was covered by chintz curtains with a blue flower pattern. There were no pictures on the walls.