Paul Christopher - The Templar Legion

“What the hell was that?” She gasped.

“ Capsicum annuum , African piquin pepper.” Eddie grinned. He pointed with his knife at a densely branched plant with big purple flowers that was growing in a patch of foliage on the other side of the fire. “It grows all over here.”

“She’s used to the stuff that comes in little bottles on the restaurant tables.” Holliday laughed.

“Phooey,” said Peggy. She tore off another chunk of fish from the piece on her broadleaf plate and ate it. They sat in silence, eating the fish and looking out toward the river half-hidden in the mist.

“We have to make a decision,” said Holliday, finishing the meal and licking his fingers one by one.

“About what?” Peggy asked.

“About going on,” he answered.

“I don’t understand,” Rafi said.

“This is no wild-goose chase anymore,” said Holliday. “It’s serious.”

“I always thought it was serious,” retorted Rafi.

“We were looking for King Solomon’s Mines, Rafi. That’s like looking for Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat or the Holy Grail behind the rose-red walls of Petra. All archaeological expeditions are wild-goose chases when you get right down to it, but this goose has become too dangerous to track down anymore. People are trying to kill us.”

“Not for King Solomon’s Mines,” said Rafi.

“No, they’re after something else and we’re getting in the way. And they’re serious. Ask the late Mr. Archibald Ives about that.”

“So we just give up?” Rafi said.

“It’s not a matter of giving up, Rafi; it’s about getting out of the line of fire,” answered Holliday. “These people are firing air-to-ground missiles at us. We’re being given a warning. I think it’s one we should heed.”

“?Silencio!” Eddie barked, suddenly alert, his head tilted toward the river, his eyes closed.

“What is it?” Peggy said.

“Listen!” Eddie hissed. “And keep your heads down.” He scooped a double handful of earth up and dropped it on the fire, covering it. He dumped another load down and tamped it with his hands.

“There,” whispered Holliday. “I hear it now. Upriver from us.”

Eddie scuttled across the little clearing and down to the reeds. Holliday followed him.

“Stay here; stay out of sight,” he cautioned. Rafi nodded.

“It’s getting closer,” said Eddie, peering through the reeds as Holliday joined him.

Voices in the mist, strange, high-pitched like a children’s choir. And then a heavy echoing sound like the muffled beating of a giant wooden drum.

“It is the Guenmilere , I think,” said Eddie, listening.

“The what?”

“The Guenmilere , it is a thing from Santeria, a canto .”

“A chant?”

“Yes, a chant.”

There was a few seconds of silence.

“?Cono!” Eddie whispered.

The source of the strange voices came into view, two massive pirogues, or river dugouts, each made from the straight, heavy trunk of a single ash tree, each sixty or seventy feet in length and fitted with a large banana-shaped outrigger. In each of the long, narrow boats forty paddlers worked, all boys between the ages of eight and twelve, each with a very adult Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle strapped across his back. In the center of each boat was a pile of supplies tied down under tarpaulins.

And they were singing, the familiar song turned into sinister cadence, each brief line punctuated by a grown man in the bow of the boats beating on the hull with a long, heavy club. As the adult beat the side of the boat he let out a heavy, drawn-out grunt:

Onward Christian Soldiers

HUH!

Marching as to war,

HUH!

With the cross of Jesus

HUH!

Going on before.

HUH!

Christ the royal Master

HUH!

Leads against the foe;

HUH!

Forward into battle

HUH!

See his banners go.

The two boats slipped through the current, surging with each stroke of the paddles, the children bowed over as though weighed down by the AK-47s on their backs and chained like slaves by the hammering beat of the clubs.

“Child soldiers,” said Holliday. Children torn from their families and forced to watch and perform atrocities, and then enlisted in an unholy army and turned from children into savage, monstrous killers. He’d seen them in Somalia and in ones and twos in Afghanistan, where they were usually more orphan than soldier, but never in numbers like this, uniformed and well armed. “Who are they?”

“Lord’s Resistance Army,” answered Eddie. “Out of Uganda originally, led by a demente named Joseph Kony.” They watched as the huge dugouts moved downstream, vanishing into the mist again.

“What are they doing here?” Holliday asked.

“Who knows,” replied Eddie. “They fight for anyone now if the price is right. I do know one thing, though, mi coronel . Those two pirogues are just the vanguard. There will be more behind them. On the river and through the jungle. You have no choice anymore.”

“Choice?”

“There is no turning back now, Senor Holliday. If we are to live we must go on.”

The living room of the flat was white and very modern. A white leather couch, several matching club chairs and a glass-and-steel coffee table sat in front of the white brick hearth of the fireplace. Above the fireplace was a large triptych of Francis Bacon paintings commemorating the death of Bacon’s lover, George Dyer. Bacon’s stark representation of a man writhing and twisting on a beach had been purchased at Sotheby’s for sixty-seven million dollars.

Although he’d owned the painting through the Bambridge Trust for the past three years, Sir James Matheson had never seen it before. He decided that he rather liked it, probably because it so blatantly illustrated violent, passionate emotions that the billionaire industrialist was reasonably sure he didn’t have. Being his father’s son and spending thirteen years in the English public school system had taken care of that.

With Matheson were Konrad Lanz, Major Allen Faulkener and the guest of honor, Francois Nagoupande, fully outfitted in the uniform of a general in the Royal Army. The left side of his chest was weighed down with as many service ribbons and medals as Faulkener could find, including the French Croix de Guerre, the India General Service Medal, the Naval Fleet Reserve Medal, the Victoria Cross, the George Cross, the Order of St. Michael and St. George, the Distinguished Service Medal, the South African Pro Patria Medal, and a very handsome Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Roman Eagle of which Benito Mussolini had been a proud member until his death in 1945. Nagoupande, who now insisted on being introduced as Brigadier General Francois Nagoupande, didn’t have the slightest idea what any of the decorations meant and he didn’t care. As long as he had more medals than Kolingba he was happy.

During his time in London, Faulkener had seen to it that a numbered account was established for him at the Gesner Kantonalbank in Aarau, Switzerland, with a million-dollar deposit as a retainer for Nagoupande’s services as a consultant. Nagoupande was provided with several bodyguards and a satellite television to keep him occupied during the day, as well as several attentive young women to keep the despot-to-be happy during the evening hours. Except for his fitting at Gieves amp; Hawkes, he had not left the confines of the safe house rented in Belgravia. Food was brought in by the bodyguards from various pubs and restaurants in the area.

Faulkener carefully went through the basic plan of action outlined by Lanz in a typed forty-four-page report.

“At twenty-four hundred hours on the day of the incursion,” Faulkener began, “half the four-hundred-man force will land at the Fourandao airport using a Vickers Vanguard aircraft leased from Lebanese Air Transport out of Mopti Airport in northern Mali, which is the assembly point for the entire force. Two of the companies at the airport will be referred to as Vanguard One and Vanguard Two, one hundred men to each company.