Paul Christopher - The Templar Legion

“And he acted on this?”

“The very next day, sir, along with the man’s wife. In a fifty-gallon drum, as I understand it.”

“He’s mad, then,” said Matheson.

“As a hatter, sir.” Faulkener nodded.

“Oh, well,” said Matheson. “I suppose he really will have to go; there’s no other option.” He stared down at the maps. “What about Harris, by the way?”

“He dealt with Ives, but as the Americans say, he’s dropped the ball. Witnesses who have to be dealt with. The Israeli archaeologist who put us onto the whole thing in the first place, as a matter of fact.”

“He’s out of it, then?”

“I’m afraid so, Sir James, unless he suddenly gets very lucky.”

“Then find me someone else to deal with Kolingba,” said Matheson quietly. “And do it quickly. Too many people know about this already.”

“Yes, sir.”

Oliver Gash-the former Rwandan refugee turned Baltimore narcotics kingpin, turned secretary of state and foreign affairs for an insane African king-hadn’t risen to his exalted position by being stupid. Even as a runner for the gangs in McElderry Park he knew the value of good intelligence. The cops used paid informers, so he did, too, except he paid his people better. By the time he was moving real weight through the I-95 corridor he was using encrypted satellite phones, GPS, social networking sites with peepers and listeners on his payroll from the state’s attorney’s office to the police garage. If something was going down he wanted to hear about it before it happened. As Solomon Kolingba’s second in command, if somebody was even thinking about doing something he wanted to know about it first.

Right from the start he’d had trouble with the whole Limbani thing. In public Kolingba insisted that Limbani died in a cell in Ouanda Djalle prison three years ago. Nobody was about to call Kolingba a liar but there had been persistent reports of the doctor’s survival almost from the beginning. At first Gash had put it down to wishful thinking and mythmaking, but now he wasn’t so sure. Only a few moments ago one of his “listening posts”-a man named Aristide Lundi who operated a banana beer and palm wine stand in Bangara village-reported that a half dozen men in camouflage fatigues had appeared out of the jungle. Two of them had gotten drunk and told Lundi that they were members of CALA, the Central African Liberation Army led by Amobe Limbani. Their hope, of course, was that Lundi would give them their beer out of fear but Lundi also reported that the six men were definitely members of the Yakima minority and spoke the Dendi dialect common to those people.

Bangara was almost a hundred miles away from Fourandao, but it was also on the Kotto River-too close for comfort as far as Gash was concerned. It was the fifth time in ten months that he’d heard about the phantom Central African Liberation Army, but it was the first time he’d heard Limbani’s name attached to it.

He listened to the sound of snoring coming from Kolingba’s office next door. He was having his “refresher,” the long afternoon nap that allowed him to stay up until all hours of the night expounding on everything from Galileo’s fundamental errors of mathematics to the proper way to cook hyena meat. An evening with King Kolingba was usually as exhausting as it was boring, but they had to be endured. Gash stood up, strapped on the holstered.45 automatic that went with his colonel’s uniform and went across the plaza to the hotel. He needed a good stiff drink and a moment to think about Dr. Limbani and his liberation army.

Konrad Lanz got out of the cab in front of the address he’d been given, paid the driver and watched as the cab drove away. There were spotlights in the shrubbery, aimed upward at all five stories of the Cheyne Walk town house. His prospective client clearly had a great deal of money-always a good sign. Lanz pushed open the wrought-iron gate, went up three steps and rang the bell. He could faintly hear chamber music coming from inside. Brahms’s Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 101. A good choice for entertaining a German mercenary. The door was opened by a butler in full livery and the music got louder. Lanz could tell that the music was live. Piano, violin and cello. As a child, he’d heard a recording of his grandfather performing the piece. The old man had unfortunately been first violin for the Berliner Philharmoniker under the Nazi Wilhelm Furtwangler. He’d been killed during a bombing raid in March 1944.

“Yes?” the butler asked.

“Major Faulkener asked me to come,” said Lanz in unaccented English. “My name is Lanz.”

“Of course, sir. The colonel is in the study. Please follow me.”

Lanz stepped into a marble-floored foyer. Under the sound of the Brahms he could hear the chattering of conversations and clinking glasses that suggested a cocktail party down a hall and to his left. The butler went to the right around a flight of centrally positioned stairs and paused in front of a closed door. The butler knocked, opened the door and stood aside. Lanz stepped into the study.

The room was large and masculine. The ceiling was paneled in dark oak, and waist-high built-in bookcases ran around the room, interrupted by a pair of tall windows on one end and an ornate wood-burning fireplace at the other. There was a Georgian kneehole desk to the left of the fireplace with a matching secretary beside it serving as a wet bar. A gigantic Oriental carpet covered almost the entire floor. The rest of the furniture was dark green leather, and the gilt-framed paintings above the bookcases were all oils. Lanz recognized several military paintings, including a portrait of Lawrence of Arabia by Augustus John. Money and good taste-a rare combination in the twenty-first century. A man in a dark suit with a full head of silver hair and a well-trimmed mustache sat in one of the leather club chairs smoking what Lanz assumed to be an expensive cigar. There was a crystal glass of some sort of amber liquid sitting on a lacquered end table. Presumably this was the mysterious Major Faulkener, the man who’d sent him the ten thousand euros as an enticement to get him off his Tuscan farm.

“You’d be Lanz,” said the man.

“That’s right.”

“Faulkener. Drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Have a seat.”

Lanz sat down across from the silver-haired man.

Major Allen Faulkener did a quick assessment of the man who’d just sat down opposite him. Konrad Lanz was dressed like a Tuscan farmer, which he professed to be. He wore a slightly worn but quite expensive linen shirt, a narrow suede tie and a creased, chocolate-colored leather bomber jacket that looked as though he’d had it for years. The shoes were expensive but thick-soled and practical.

Lanz looked to be in his early fifties, with the rough, tanned look of a man who spent a great deal of time outdoors-once again, the image of a Tuscan farmer. Except the creases, lines and permanent tan didn’t come from life under a benevolent Italian sun. The weathering on this man’s face was equatorial and harsh, the parchment crinkling around the cold, ice blue eyes coming from squinting down the barrel of a gun. Even in his sixth decade the man’s belly looked flat and hard and there were thick cords of muscle in his neck. The scarred, sinewy hands looked like they could crack walnuts or splinter teeth. According to the pedigree Faulkener had assembled, Konrad Lanz had fought as a mercenary in every African war since the Congolese Kisangani Mutinies in the late sixties, starting as a wet-behind-the-ears eighteen-year-old looking for adventure. He’d found it.

“How is Tuscany?” Faulkener asked pleasantly.

“Hot,” answered Lanz.

“You’ve lived there a long time?”