Paul Christopher - The Templar conspiracy

The tour was confined to the main floor, which contained the shop and a viticulture museum, and the old dungeons in the basement, now used as the actual manufacturing, fermentation and storage area. The upper floors of the castle held the private apartments housing the owners, who demanded strict privacy.

Holliday began thinking that Peggy had been right-the whole thing was a waste of time. He didn't see how he was going to find any proof of a connection between whoever owned Chateau Royale and William Tritt, the onetime CIA assassin.

The tour finally ended with a quick run through the museum and a brief history of the Chateau Royale label, carefully skirting the whole matter of ownership. The little group exited the suite of expansive rooms that made up the museum and stepped out into the looming entrance hall with its inlaid marble floor and tapestries on the walls.

As they headed back to the shop, Holliday thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned slightly. He recognized the man instantly. The last time they'd met Holliday had elbowed him in the throat hard enough to crush his windpipe.

He tried to keep his expression neutral and carefully turned his face away. The man kept on coming down the stairs, then turned and went into the museum. Five minutes later the trio was back out in the cold again, heading down the steep path to the parking lot.

"Well, that was a bust," said Peggy.

"I thought it was quite educational myself," said Brennan. Peggy shot him a look to make sure she wasn't being mocked.

"I found out exactly what I needed to know," said Holliday, dropping his little bombshell.

"Which would be?" Brennan said.

"As we were going out in the main hall, did you see the man coming down the stairs?"

"Big man. Jowls, distinguished-looking. Gray tips at the temples. Maybe seventy or so," answered Peggy.

"That's the one." Holliday nodded.

"And who would he be to us?" Brennan asked.

"His name is Angus Scott Matoon," explained Holliday. "He's one of the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon. He's also Rex Deus. He was at that meeting where I was supposed to play pet archaeologist. I hit him pretty hard when I made my unceremonious exit from Sinclair House."

"Did he see you?" Brennan asked.

"I don't think so," said Holliday, shaking his head. "And if he did, he didn't recognize me."

"You'd better hope not," said Brennan. Holliday got behind the wheel.

"Where to now?" the priest asked.

"France," answered Holliday. "Thonon-les-Bains."

Kate Sinclair sat in the baronial hall that passed as a living room in the castle's private apartments, drinking coffee and staring out through the three churchlike arched windows at the panorama of the Alps, rising only a few miles distant to the north. Pacing up and down across the giant Tabriz carpet that covered the cold stone floor, General Angus Scott Matoon sipped from a snifter of Dudognon Heritage Cognac and scowled as though the expensive brandy had gone sour. He looked somehow diminished out of uniform, thought Sinclair.

"Did he see you?" the brittle woman asked.

"I saw him, so I'm assuming he saw me," answered Matoon.

"Excellent," said the elderly woman.

"You're sure that leaking Crusader is a good idea? Holliday was only a lieutenant colonel but he's got some very heavy connections in the intelligence business. He could be big trouble."

"For God's sake, get some spine! You're one of the Joint Chiefs! We're far too wealthy to have big trouble. We simply have problems we have to surmount," said Sinclair. She let out a smoker's coughing laugh and lit another cigarette. "Quit worrying about Holliday. It'll be taken care of." She paused for a moment. "When they left, which way were they going?"

"North," answered the general. "I had Jean-Pierre follow him for a while like you asked. He says they turned west, heading for the border on the coast road."

"France," murmured Sinclair. She took a deep drag on her cigarette, then let the smoke dribble out through her aristocratic nostrils. "They're going to Thonon-les-Bains."

"What's there?" Matoon asked.

"Bad news for the colonel and his friends, I'm afraid."

Thonon-les-Bains is a town of eighty thousand, about halfway down Lake Geneva on the French side. The old Roman baths have long since lost their cachet and the town now relies on tourism for the better part of its income. It didn't take them long to find the self-service garage used by William Tritt. There were only two in the city: Auto Express, which was a too upscale and open concept for Tritt by a long shot. The second was more his speed-a run-down, narrow, tin-roofed warehouse at the end of a narrow street, its twenty or so cubicles roughly divided by rotting canvas curtains hung on thin steel frames. There was a pneumatic lift, a workbench, an assortment of tools and a canvas flap over the rear of the cubicle that afforded some privacy. The place was called Paulie's Garage and it was Paulie himself who oversaw the place, seated on a creaking, old wooden office chair behind an invoice-piled desk. Paulie was immensely fat. He sweated profusely even with a fan blowing directly over him. He wore bib overalls with the bib section dropped around his waist. Underneath he wore only a sagging, stained wife-beater undershirt. His English was fluent.

Holliday took out the photocopy of the picture Potts had given him. "You ever seen him?"

"Maybe yes; maybe no."

Holliday put a hundred-euro note on Paulie's desk.

"Seen him?"

"Maybe yes; maybe no."

Holliday added another hundred euros.

"Seen him?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"He has a booth here."

"Which one?"

"Nineteen, down at the end, a main gauche. The left side."

"Mind if we look around?"

"I feel bad letting you go through another man's things."

Holliday laid another hundred on the pile. "Feel better?"

"Much better, monsieur." The big man scooped up the money and stuffed it into his overalls. "My conscience is clearing as we speak."

"What kind of car does he drive?"

"Audi A8. Black. Brand-new."

"Nice car," said Holliday appreciatively.

"At a hundred and fifty thousand euros, it better be nice," said Paulie, laughing like a large barnyard animal clearing its throat.

"What kind of thing was he doing to a brand-new car? You'd have thought it would still be under warranty."

"One would think so, oui, m'seiur."

"So why did he need to rent a cubicle from you?"

Paulie just shrugged his big, fleshy shoulders.

"You don't know or you're just not talking?"

"I am having, how you say, moral doubts."

"Losing the doubts?" Holiday asked, laying another hundred-euro bill on the desk.

"They are completely gone, as quick as magic," said Paulie, sweeping up the bill and slipping it into his pocket with the others.

"So, what was he fixing?"

"It had something to do with the exhaust system."

"How could you tell that?"

"Because he came in here two days ago with a complete left-hand side, after-market set of mufflers and pipes. That would leave me to assume that he was working on the exhaust system, n'est-ce pas?"

"When did he leave?"

"Very late that same night."

"You're sure of that?"

"One in the morning. I have rooms in the back."

"And did the car sound quieter?"

"If anything it sounded louder." Paulie shrugged.

"Show us his cubicle."

"That wasn't the bargain you made."

"Which would you rather have?" Holliday bluffed. "Your guts turned into tails for your best tuxedo or a nice hot cup of battery acid?"

"I don't have a tuxedo," whined Paulie.

"Try to imagine it," said Holliday. "Just like the John Lennon song."

"And if you can't imagine that, imagine us stuffing your private parts down your mother's throat," offered Brennan mildly. "A revelatory vision, I am sure, my son." He took the little Beretta Storm out of his black clerical jacket and aimed it at the big man's sweaty forehead. "As is this," Brennan added with a smile.