Paul Christopher - The Templar Legion

Neither woman had ever worked, although both were longtime volunteers for various women’s causes. For no good reason in particular, Betty was prochoice and Margie was antiabortion; Betty was a theoretical Marxist while Margie was an enthusiastic supporter of monopoly capitalism.

Saint-Sylvestre dialed the phone number he had found in the directory and after seven rings a small, slightly distressed-sounding woman’s voice answered.

“Yes?”

The voice was thin, brittle and quavering: an elderly woman who received few calls and when she did get them they were usually bearing bad news. He could imagine a little old lady in a housedress, sitting in a hallway filled with dusty oil paintings of old family members and lit by low-wattage bulbs to save on the electricity bill.

“Miss Brocklebank?” Saint-Sylvestre replied, trying to keep his voice as unthreatening as possible.

“This is Betty Brocklebank; who is speaking, please?”

Saint-Sylvestre was ready for the question. “My name is Wolfgang Gesler, Miss Brocklebank. I represent the Gesler Bank of Aarau, Switzerland. I am here in your beautiful city on behalf of my father, Herr. . Mr. Horst Gesler, the president of the bank. This is concerning the disposition of your stock in the Silver Brand Mining Company, of which you and your sister are the majority shareholders.”

“Now, isn’t that strange,” answered Betty Brocklebank. “We had a telephone call from a representative of your bank only yesterday.” Her voice brightened. “He’s picking us up in a limousine and taking us to the Sylvia for tea this afternoon to discuss the situation.”

Shit! Saint-Sylvestre thought. It hadn’t occurred to him that Matheson’s people would get to the sisters first.

“No, no, it’s not strange at all, Miss Brocklebank,” said Saint-Sylvestre, trying to put a laugh in his voice and only barely succeeding. “My father mentioned that the business of your shares was important enough to require two representatives from the bank. We seem to have gotten our wires crossed, yes?”

“Apparently,” said Betty Brocklebank.

“I wonder if you could tell me which of our people he sent along to help me out?”

“A Mr. Euhler,” said the Brocklebank sister. “If that’s how you pronounce it.”

“Your pronunciation is excellent, Miss Brocklebank,” soothed Saint-Sylvestre. “And Leonhard was an excellent choice, a very good man. Did he leave a telephone number, by any chance? I’d feel a bit of a fool if I had to phone my father and ask.”

“He’s staying at the Hotel Georgia, room eleven twenty-four. I think they call it the Rosewood Georgia or the Georgia Rosewood now. Margie and I rarely get out these days, you see. Frankly she’s gone a bit dotty, if you ask me. I’m afraid I spend most of my time picking up after her and reminding her that her precious Siamese cat died years ago. . if you know what I mean. Margie can be something of a trial.” She pronounced her sister’s name oddly, with a hard G so that it came out Mar-ghee .

“How unfortunate,” said Saint-Sylvestre. “Did Mr. Euhler say when he was coming for you?”

“Three,” said Betty Brocklebank promptly. She suddenly made a startled little sound. “Good Lord, look at the time. I’ll have to start getting us ready.” There was a brief pause. “He did say a limousine,” said the Brocklebank sister firmly.

“Of course,” answered Saint-Sylvestre. “Not a problem at all, Miss Brocklebank. Until three, then.”

“Until three,” she answered. “Good-bye, Herr Gesler.”

He hung up the phone and thought for a moment, then dialed the concierge desk in the main lobby.

“Two questions,” he asked when the female concierge answered. “Can you tell me where the Rosewood Hotel Georgia is located, and where can I order a limousine on short notice?”

The Rosewood Hotel Georgia turned out to be within easy walking distance, only a few blocks away from his own hotel. After ordering a limousine from a local service, Saint-Sylvestre walked up Burrard Street and turned right onto Georgia Street. The sun was shining and to the north a wall of mountains stood crisply against a bright blue sky.

For the most part Vancouver seemed to be a very young city; none of the buildings the policeman saw were more than a hundred years old, and except for something that looked like a half-scale version of the British Museum that turned out to be the Vancouver Art Gallery, even though it was called the Courthouse, glass and steel seemed to be the order of the day.

The Rosewood Hotel Georgia was an older twelve-story building at the corner of Georgia and Howe streets, its bricks freshly acid-washed and a doorman under the canopy of the main entrance. The lobby, all reds and golds and deep browns, had that freshly renovated look that was a little at odds with the somewhat old-fashioned 1920s exterior. Saint-Sylvestre wasn’t even slightly interested.

He rode the elevator alone up to the eleventh floor and found 1124. He reached into his jacket pocket, took out the same surgical gloves he’d used in Euhler’s apartment and slipped them on. He knocked and then took half a step to the left. There was a moment of silence and then a muffled voice.

“Yes.”

“Fax, Mr. Euhler.” Room service could be denied and housekeeping refused, but a fax would almost certainly open the door.

Calling him Euhler was a risk, but a calculated one. Betty Brocklebank had given him the room number, but if she’d called back for some reason asking for a Mr. Euhler and the man wasn’t registered at the hotel under that name, flags might go up.

Saint-Sylvestre heard the chain come off and the lock click. He let the steak knife from breakfast drop down into his right palm as the door opened, and moved forward, concentrating all his attention on the man’s diaphragm.

There was no hesitation; with the knife’s serrated edge turned upward, Saint-Sylvestre drove the steak knife into the man’s body with all his strength, penetrating flesh just below the xiphoid process, where the ribs joined the sternum. The stainless-steel blade plunged into the right ventricle and straight up through the pulmonary artery and the aorta, virtually slicing the organ in half.

The policeman pushed forward into the short hallway, kicking the door shut behind him. Saint-Sylvestre saw the first blood begin to gush from the man’s mouth and nose as five and a half liters of fluid began to flood into his chest cavity, and he pushed forward one last time before taking a step back and simultaneously releasing his grip on the knife.

The man fell backward and Saint-Silvestre moved away quickly, making sure the door was completely closed. He turned the lock and put on the chain before turning back to his victim. There hadn’t been a sound except for the man hitting the beige broadloom carpeting when he dropped dead. A check in the hallway mirror confirmed that Saint-Sylvestre hadn’t gotten a spot of blood on him except for the fingers of the right surgical glove.

He knelt on one knee, wiping the blood off on the carpet but leaving the glove on for the moment.

The body was lying at a slight angle, halfway into the room proper with its legs in the hallway. The man was tall, gray-haired and had what used to be called a military mustache. He was wearing a white shirt, the front of which was now covered in blood, pin-striped suit pants and highly polished, expensive-looking lace-up shoes. He wore a signet ring with a powder horn dangling from a rosette and encircled by the Latin motto Celer et audax - The swift and the bold . If memory served, once upon a time the man he’d just killed had been an officer in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.

There was nothing else of interest on the corpse and Saint-Sylvestre doubted the man was the type to keep his wallet in his rear pants pocket, so he didn’t bother rolling him over. Instead he stepped over the dead man and entered the hotel room proper.