Paul Christopher - The Templar conspiracy

"Where does that put you?"

"Onto the lecture circuit with a seven-figure book deal, kemo sabe. That's where it puts me."

They both laughed for a moment. The president leaned dangerously far back in his chair, a habit they used to take bets on back at Yale Law. Finally, almost sadly, the president spoke.

"Can you imagine him in the Oval Office?"

"No, but that's not the point. Nominate him for vice president and it gives us a bit of breathing room to find a real candidate come election day. A candidate who'll reflect your legacy."

The president stared out Morrie's window. The view was pretty much the same as the one from the Oval Office, but here it wasn't obscured by drapery and thick, bulletproof glass. "You know what I really hate?" the president said finally.

"Bad Chinese food? Those creepy vampire books the First Lady reads?"

"Funerals. They depress the hell out of me."

"Get drunk on the trip home," suggested Morrie.

"You know I'm not much of a drinker."

"Sorry, kemo sabe, this one you can't cut. It's not like Tank Gemmil's Latin class back at the Abbey." There was another silence. The president folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. Morrie found himself thinking about the bottle of Glenlivet in his desk drawer. Was it half empty or half full? An alcoholic's philosophical conundrum. One way or another the problem was always solved the same way and the bottle was eventually completely empty.

"It's the fortieth reunion in a few weeks," murmured the president.

"It's been that long?" Morrie said. The fact was enough to make him take the bottle and its accompanying shot glass from his drawer and pour himself a wee dram.

"I'll go to the funeral if you'll come with me to the game," said the president, opening his eyes.

"The game?" Morrie said. And then he remembered. "Not the Abbey School-Winter Falls High game?" The chief of staff groaned.

"Glory days," the president said with a grin.

"For you, maybe," said the chief of staff. He snorted. "You were the star, the captain of the team. I was a third-string goalie because I had weak ankles."

"It'll be fun," said the president.

"Shannon O'Doyle," said Morrie. He poured himself another shot.

"Shannon O'Doyle." The president nodded, remembering the Winter Falls Snow Queen as though it was yesterday. All that long blond hair and the whisper of her panty hose when she crossed her legs.

"You sure you want to remind the electorate you went to a fancy prep school?"

"What have I got to lose?" the president said.

They woke early, asked for a car to be delivered from Hertz, had a quick breakfast and were on the road to Aigle by nine. They took Highway 1 out of Geneva and headed north, staying close to the shoreline of the long, silt-colored lake. They were almost halfway to Aigle before anyone spoke.

"Remind me why we're going to this place," said Peggy.

"Aigle is the area code on that number on the back of Tritt's desk. When I called the number it was for a vineyard called Chateau Royale des Pins. I did some checking on the computer; it's about two miles outside the town. Apparently they make a nice Chablis."

"Never cared much for white wine," said Brennan from the backseat.

"It sounds like a bit of a wild-goose chase," said Peggy. "If there's anything to find it will be at that private garage on the French side." She shook her head and stared out the window at the passing landscape. There was a dusting of snow on the ground and a cold wind was blowing in gusts, pushing a flotilla of sailboats around the lake. "We should be in Rome," she grumbled softly. "That's where the action's going to be."

"That would be your veritable needle in a haystack." Brennan laughed. "There's two and a half million people in Rome. How do you propose we track him down?"

"You got a picture of him in that file from your friend in counterintelligence, didn't you?" Peggy said.

"Tritt must know there's a CIA file on him at the very least," said Holliday. "It's easily a decade old. He'll have changed his look since then." The photograph in the computer file showed a handsome, narrow-faced man with aristocratic features and neatly parted honey blond hair. If he was an actor he could have played the part of an Oxford student or the ne'er-do-well son of an English lord.

"Still, it's a photograph of the bastard; it's something to go on."

Holliday couldn't fault Peggy's enthusiasm, but after half a lifetime in intelligence he'd learned that enthusiasm, intuition and hunches had little to do with it. Finding and identifying Tritt would be a matter of hard, slogging work, assembling small pieces of information like a jigsaw puzzle until the whole picture took shape. Privately he gave them one-in-a-million odds on finding the assassin before the president arrived. They simply didn't have enough time.

Even though traffic was fairly light, it took them the better part of two hours to make the fifty-mile trip around the lake to Aigle at the head of the Rhone valley. The town was a quaint little Alpine village of eight thousand, named for the eagles that circled on the upward air currents of the valley below, looking for rabbits taking shelter under the camouflaging grapevines in the summer months and foxes in the winter.

Aigle had been the seat of government for the canton since the eleventh century. Still the seat of municipal government for the district, now the town relied heavily on tourism and the vineyards in the area. They stopped at the Place de la Gare in the center of town to ask for directions and were told to follow the Chemin du Fahey to its end two and a half miles east of the town.

Fifteen minutes and two wrong turns later they reached Chateau Royale des Pins. Less a chateau than a full-blown castle, it sat at the summit of a large, flat-topped hill. It was surrounded by pruned grapevines that made it look like a gigantic military cemetery filled with makeshift, gnarled crosses, dark against a recent fall of fresh snow.

They parked in the lot at the bottom of the hill and trudged up the narrow path to the top, snow crunching under their shoes. They reached the old gatehouse at the entrance to the huge stone building. Left and right were turrets and arrow slits in the heavy walls. Here and there Holliday could actually see rusted cannonballs embedded in the walls that probably dated back to Napoleonic times. They went through a pair of imposing oak, iron-strapped doors and stepped into the castle.

They found themselves in a large foyer with La Boutique de Chateau on one side and the requisite suit of armor on display to the right. The boutique was really nothing more than a souvenir shop selling castle key chains, wine-bottle key chains, bottle-opener key chains, eagle key chains, assorted postcards, a Swiss Post Office first-day cover of a stamp to commemorate the castle and View-Master slide sets that looked as though they'd been on the shelves, untouched, for decades.

Feeling the beady eyes of the concierge staring at him suspiciously, Holliday bought a wine-bottle key chain and gave the woman, a faint mustache distinguishable on her lip, a smile. The woman took his money and didn't smile back.

A bored-looking tour guide who was probably the concierge's husband levered himself up off his stool and started giving them the tour, not bothering to see if they were following. Finally he turned and spoke.

"English?"

"American," answered Holliday.

The man nodded. "American. Of course," as though it should have been obvious to him.

Holliday spent the next hour learning far more about Chablis than he ever wanted to know; it was made from high-altitude Chardonnay grapes that were slightly more acidic than the grapes grown in a warmer, lower valley environment. He also learned that Chateau Royale was a traditional winemaker, storing the wine in oak casks rather than the more modern stainless-steel tanks. When Holliday asked a simple question about Chateau Royale's ownership he was basically told it was none of his business.