The only other occupant was a lone researcher who lived in a makeshift shack and studied the strange ecology of the island. Visitation was banned without a permit and the only way on or off the island was via a special soft-tired small plane that landed on the beach. Any unauthorized approach resulted in a fine.
The few people who did visit were usually ecotourists there to see the feral horses on tours organized by the Sable Island Trust. It didn't quite fit the description of a desert island since there were several brackish ponds and small lakes, the largest being Lake Wallace close to the center of the sandbar. Without the fresh water, the ponies, about four hundred of them, would have been unable to survive.
Although no one was quite sure of the horses' origins, the best historical guess was that they were the result of the Great Expulsion of Acadians in the early seventeen hundreds. The horses were booty, their transportation to Sable Island organized by Thomas Hancock, uncle to the much more famous John Hancock, signer of the Declaration of Independence, a fact that seemed to interest Meg a great deal.
"We have to go," said Meg urgently. "As soon as possible. The ark is there, I know it."
"Hold on for a minute. We're not running a race," said Holliday.
"You'll have to sneak in," warned Braintree. "You could land in jail."
"We're past that, I'm afraid," said Holliday.
"It is intriguing," mused Braintree, sitting back in his chair and putting his feet up on a rickety stack of books. "The True Ark is one of those juicy medieval urban legends that probably has at least its big toe based in fact. Maybe more."
"It's quite real," said Meg firmly.
"So is the Shroud of Turin," Braintree said and smiled, "except it's a fake along with all those bits and pieces of the True Cross and miraculous vials of the True Blood you can find in cathedrals all over the world. If you put it all together the cross would have been as big as a skyscraper and Christ would have bled enough to fill a supertanker."
"You're not a believer, are you?" Meg said.
"I'm a medieval scholar," Braintree said with a shrug. "I believe in history and what it can teach us."
"You don't believe in God?"
"I didn't say that."
"You don't believe that the word of God is true as it is written."
"I've never seen anything God wrote," Braintree said and smiled, obviously enjoying the argument. It was only irritating Holliday. Somehow tracking down an old Templar knight had taken him from the frying pan into some sort of murderous fire yet again, and now his companion was having a theological debate. On top of everything else, he wasn't sure he liked the slightly fanatical tone in Sister Meg's voice, or the true believer's gleam in her eye. He'd seen the same look coming from Taliban suicide bombers in Afghanistan and Hutu machete killers in Rwanda.
"You don't believe that the Gospels are the word of God?"
"They might be somebody's interpretation of what that somebody thought was the word of God, but that's as far as I'd go."
"And isn't history just 'interpretation,' as you call it?"
"Of course," Braintree said and laughed. "In real terms neither the past nor the future exists, only the single ever-changing instant of the immediate present, so everything is open to interpretation."
"There's that word again," said Sister Meg, as though she'd scored some sort of point. "Interpretation."
"Why are we having this discussion at all?" Holliday said finally, standing up.
"The True Ark is real," said Meg firmly, almost as though she was trying to convince herself. "It exists! The Grail, the Crown, the Shroud and the Ring."
"There's only one way to find out for sure," said Holliday. "Let's go and look for the damn thing and leave poor Professor Braintree to his Chaucer."
"Let me know how it all turns out," said the long-haired young man as they said their good-byes. "Nothing I like better than being proven wrong."
They took the old cage elevator down to the main floor and went through the heavy oak doors and into the bright sunlight. They went down the wide granite steps to the sidewalk.
Holliday saw the setup in a split second and knew there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. Two men at the corner walking toward them, both dressed in dark suits, dark shoes and dark glasses. Two more just like the first pair coming from the other direction.
At the curb a dark blue Econoline blocked their way to the street, a man standing at the open sliding door with his hand tucked into the pocket of a windbreaker far too warm for the sunny summer weather. A man in jogger's clothes coming down the steps behind them, hand in a fanny pack in front of him and what looked like an iPod earbud in one ear but was most likely a radio. He came up behind them fast, blocking their way back.
"Into the truck, Colonel Holliday. You and the woman. Any arguments, any conversation at all and I'll Taser the hell out of you. Got it?"
"Got it," said Holliday.
The man behind them herded Holliday and Meg toward the open door of the Econoline. The man standing beside the sliding door took a step to the side. Six men and a truck, but no obvious show of official muscle. One of those quiet hijackings nobody noticed until they saw it on the news the next day.
Three more steps and it would be too late. Who were they? Not cops. Cops were never this quiet about their work. The Blackhawk people? Maybe, but they were taking one hell of a risk. Canada might be America's best friend, but it was still a foreign country and it wouldn't take kindly to paramilitaries operating on sovereign soil.
"What do we do?" Meg whispered, obviously frightened.
"We do what we're told," said Holliday. "We get into the truck."
Which was exactly what they did.
22
"Hello? Is anybody there?" Meg's voice came out of the darkness, croaking and dry from whatever drug they'd been given after getting into the van.
"I'm here," answered Holliday. His voice was just as scratchy as hers. He had a splitting headache and his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. The room was pitch dark. He had no idea how much time had passed since they'd been picked up off the downtown Toronto street.
The back of the van had been dark and smelled of gasoline. Somebody had been waiting for them inside, and the man standing at the door had climbed in after them. They'd each been given a shot. Holliday had fought it off for long enough to hear voices speaking and somebody say, "Four-oh-one to four hundred and then north." Directions obviously, but he had no idea where to. Presumably somewhere north of the city.
"Doc?" Meg's froggy voice again.
"I'm here."
"Where are we?" There was a rattling sound. Holliday tried to move his arms and heard the scrape of metal on metal. He was handcuffed to a bed. From the sound of her voice Meg was about ten feet away.
"Are you handcuffed to a bed?"
"Yes, I think so," she responded, her voice clearing a little.
Holliday inhaled. Cedar, without a doubt, and lots of it. Overhead, forming vaguely out of the darkness, he could see roof beams. Outside there was a distant sound. Slapping water. A high-pitched whine. A boat? Water-skiing?
"I think we're on a lake or a river somewhere," said Holliday. "Maybe a cottage. I can hear a motorboat."
There was a pause and then Meg's voice again. "I can hear it, too."
Holliday turned his head left and right. To the left there was a faint, square outline of light. A boarded-up window perhaps. To the right, almost out of his line of sight, was a bright red dot of light. He tried to move his arms. Nothing but the metal sound and the harsh pinch of his wrists against steel. These weren't joke- shop cuffs-they were the real thing; the only way out was going to be a key. Even so, somebody was being very careful-two sets of handcuffs per person. The same somebody who'd cuffed him knew his record. He could have done a lot of damage with even one free hand.