Paul Christopher - The Templar Legion

Saint-Sylvestre nursed several pints, then left the noisy pub and took up a station in the outdoor cafe of the Rendezvous Mayfair casino a little farther up the road. Grantham Place itself was blocked by the rear wall of an apartment block on Brick Lane, so if they exited the building he was sure to see them.

At eleven thirty Nagoupande and his bodyguards left Grantham Place, minus Mr. X. Lanz was next to leave half an hour later, and fifteen minutes after that the Rolls-Royce appeared and Mr. X and Sir James Matheson departed. By rights the flat should have been empty, but Saint-Sylvestre waited another half hour to be absolutely sure. At a quarter to one he finally left the cafe, walked half a block and turned down Grantham Place.

He knew there was a porter’s lodge halfway through the porte cochere on the Old Park Lane side, but at the Grantham Place entrance there was a ten-foot-tall scrolled and spiked wrought-iron gate instead, the original iron locks replaced by modern Yales. Saint-Sylvestre took his tubular electric pick and a torsion bar out of his pocket, looked around and then fitted the torsion bar into the lock, pressing down the tumblers.

He then inserted the pick on the end of the electric unit, hit the button three or four times to get the pins lined up, then twisted the torsion bar to the left. The gate swung open. Saint-Sylvestre put the electric pick and the torsion bar back in his pocket, pulled the gate open fully and stepped through into the empty interior courtyard. He walked across to the interior door and repeated the process with the pick gun when he was sure the way was clear.

Pocketing the little device, he climbed three steps and turned down a short hall that led to the elevator lobby. There was a sleepy-looking security guard behind an elegant reproduction Louis Quinze desk reading the Daily Mirror. As Saint-Sylvestre appeared the man’s head came up out of the paper and stared.

“His lordship forgot his reading glasses,” explained Saint-Sylvestre with a smile. The security guard nodded and went back to his paper. Saint-Sylvestre climbed into the empty elevator and rode up to the second floor. A few moments later he had successfully bypassed the lock on flat six and let himself inside.

The flat was expansive, just the way the floor plan had indicated, furnished in an anonymous ultramodern style that reflected nothing about the people who occupied it. All there was to show that it had recently been occupied was a fresh cigar butt in a huge cut-glass ashtray in the living room and a collection of used drink glasses piled into the dishwasher in the kitchen.

Presumably the cleaners would be in to give the place the once-over before it was used again. It looked as though his efforts had been wasted. He checked every room and came up empty-handed. Then he pulled open the louvered doors on the coat cupboard in the entrance hall and found a single object out of place, along with the scent of an expensive aftershave.

If memory served, the aftershave was a scent developed by the Sultan of Oman back in the 1960s-Amouage Die Pour Homme, probably purchased in an effort to impress Nagoupande, since it cost something like two or three hundred dollars an ounce. But the object that had caught his interest was a business card: Leonhard Euhler, Gesler Bank, 11 Rathausgasse, Aarau, Switzerland.

They paddled west, letting the current do most of the work. The dugouts were tethered bow to stern using the horizontal slots normally used for making portages overland down steep grades. As the current increased in speed it seemed to Holliday that the river narrowed, the banks stony rather than the low muddy beaches that had been the norm up until now. There were fewer eddies and backwaters and no crocodiles at all; the water was too swift and there was little for them to eat.

Even the sound of the river was different, deeper and louder, the roar echoing off the hills that were beginning to rise from the jungle. As the sun rose behind them on the morning after seeing the child warriors, Holliday saw the shimmering magic light of a rainbow in the distance.

“Waterfall ahead,” he called, turning back to warn Rafi and Peggy in the trailing dugout. “Next time I spot a likely place we’ll get off the river and take a look.” There was no way of telling on which side they’d make landfall, so Holliday and Captain Eddie kept them centered in midriver, feeling the strengthening of the current with each stroke of the paddle.

Fifteen minutes later Eddie called out and pointed to the starboard shore with his dripping paddle. “?Ahi!” There .

Two hundred yards ahead on their right-hand side Holliday saw the spot Eddie had pointed out, a tiny patch of light green, a little paler than the surrounding foliage. Holliday jammed his paddle on the left and the bow of the lead dugout swung around, taking them out of the current at a shallow angle. He and Eddie paddled hard, Rafi and Peggy following suit. Just as they approached the little beach Holliday reached back and pulled the quick release on the tether that bound the two crude boats together. Both dugouts made it to a barely visible swirl of calmer water and they drove the boats up onto the rough sand.

Holliday and Eddie stepped out of the lead dugout and pulled it even higher out of the water. Then the two men dropped down onto the sand for a much-needed break. From where they sat they could hear the steady distant thunder of the waterfall.

“We are not the first to stop here,” said Eddie, reaching into the long grass at the edge of the tiny strip of sand as Rafi and Peggy pulled their dugout completely out of the water. The Cuban held up a crushed green tin of Sparletta cream soda.

“The kiddie soldiers?” Peggy said.

“?Los ninos? Si.” Eddie nodded.

“Who are they going to fight for, I wonder,” said Holliday.

“Presumably Kolingba, or someone against him.” Rafi shrugged.

“It could be that they are only on a raid,” said Eddie. “Borders mean nothing to them. They could be, how do you say, reclutamiento , recruiting. They go to the villages, take the children. If the parents object they kill them. Sometimes they kill them anyway.”

“I don’t care what they’re doing,” said Holliday. “The question is, How do we get ourselves out of their way? Right now we’re trapped. They’re ahead of us and behind us.”

“We could hide the boats and wait for the ones behind us to go past, then go back upriver,” suggested Rafi.

“They’ll have scouts on land as well as in boats. The jungle is their home. They would almost certainly find us,” said Eddie.

“There’s no way of telling how far ahead they are,” said Holliday. “Or if they’ve already arrived at their destination.”

“How would we know?” Peggy asked.

“First we must portage the boats below the falls. Maybe they will have left some sign?” The Cuban held up the can. “A trail of Sparletta, like the two children of la bruja and her casa de pan de jengibre. ”

“ ‘ Hansel and Gretel.’ ” Peggy laughed.

“Si.” Eddie nodded. “They cook her in the oven, yes?”

“Yes,” said Holliday grimly. “And that’s what those kids with the AK-47s will do if they catch us. Rafi and I will see how far it is to the fire. Peggy, you stay here with Eddie and watch our backs. Maybe unload some of the gear from the boats to make them lighter.”

“Will do,” said Peggy.

Holliday and Rafi followed the narrow trail into the jungle. It had clearly been used as a portage for a very long time: logs, some old and rotten, lay half buried in the dark, rich soil at six- or seven-foot intervals to make it easier to slide the dugouts overland. As they made their way down the pathway the trees around them broke into chatters and screams of animals warning one another of the approach of possible predators. Beyond those warning calls there was the normal chaotic sound track of the jungle: the shivering whisper of breezes through the high canopy, the eerie singing of insects calling to prospective mates and the barely audible slip and slide of other creatures, climbing, twisting and digging their way through ground and trees.