Paul Christopher - The Templar Legion

“You and I?”

“You don’t speak Russian. According to him I am to be your translator. He asked if I trusted you. I said yes. He asked if I trusted you with my life. I said yes.”

“That’s all very nice,” said Holliday, “but just where is it he wants us to go?”

“A church,” said Eddie. “In Constantinople.”

“Istanbul?” Holliday said. “That’s just plain nuts. For one thing they don’t speak Russian in Istanbul.”

“He told me you’d say that.” Eddie nodded. “He asked me to give you this.” Eddie handed the slip of paper to Holliday. He stared down at the spidery, oldman’s handwriting.

Helder Rodrigues

He remembered it all in an instant. The dying man’s blood on his hands, the tiny island in the Azores, the notebook with a thousand years of secrets on its bloodstained pages. What had Rodrigues said, dying in his arms? Iacta alea est. Vale, amici. The torch is passed; goodbye, my friend. And then with his last breath before life fled him in the middle of that terrible storm, those awful, awful words: “Too many secrets. . too many secrets.”

“He said there was a flight in twenty minutes.” Eddie raised an eyebrow. “He said something else. I think it is Latin. ‘Ferrum Polaris.’ ”

Dear God. Ferrum Polaris. The Sword of the North.

Holliday crumpled the little scrap of paper in his hand and stood up.

“We might just make it if we run.”