Paul Christopher - The Templar conspiracy

"Viens m'enculer," said the garage owner, eyes widening, horrified by the sight of a parish priest with a gun in his hand.

"The man, which booth did he work in again?" asked Holliday. "Show us."

Paulie stumped down the center aisle of cubicles to the last one in the row. The fat man pushed open the grimy canvas curtain. Inside, the cubicle was as neat as a pin. It looked as though every surface had been washed down with some ammonia solution, which it probably had. Set out on a workbench were a series of what appeared to be brand-new baffles for a muffler. Holliday spotted a small slip of paper caught behind the bench and grabbed it. It was a receipt for something incomprehensible from a place called Activite Audi on the Chemin Margentel.

"Where is this place?" Peggy asked.

"Three blocks from here."

"Who owns it?" Holliday asked.

"An encul from Marseille. He runs-comment… how do you say it?-a chop shop. Sometimes he will steal a car to order for you. His name is Marcel."

"Call him. Tell him you have three customers who want to see him."

"He'll tear my face off if he finds out I set him up."

Brennan brought an old-fashioned switchblade out of his jacket pocket, flicked it open and held it to Paulie's neck.

"And I'll slit your throat if you don't call him."

Paulie called. He spoke for a moment, then hung up the phone.

"He's expecting you."

Brennan used the switchblade to slice through the line of the rotary telephone on Paulie's desk.

"Warn him and I'll come back and slit more than your throat," said the priest.

Paulie nodded mutely.

It took them less than five minutes to walk the three short blocks. The district was full of places like Paulie's and a scattering of small, anonymous warehouses, small windows painted over on big sliding doors, and hasps hung with sturdy locks.

There was a plain sign made of stick-on, fake bronze letters on the narrow door that read ACTIVITE AUDI. Beside the narrow door was a big, windowless roll-up. From behind it they could hear the faint echoing sounds of cutting torches, hammers and drills.

Holliday hammered his fist on the small door. It looked as though it had about fifty coats of paint on it, each color some pastel variation of yellow, blue, red or green. There was no response, and he knocked a second time, even harder. Eventually the door opened a few inches revealing a tall, skinny man in a blue boiler suit and a leather workman's apron. He appeared to be in his fifties. He had a heavy wrench in his right hand.

"Qu'est-ce que tu veux?" asked the man. Holliday noticed a long, thin scar that ran from the man's eye socket down to his chin, pale against the stubble on his cheek. Once upon a time someone had opened up his face with a very sharp knife or a razor.

"We're here to see Marcel. Paulie sent us."

"Paulie is a pig. Why do you want to see Marcel?"

"To ask him about a car he worked on."

"Who are your friends?" He nodded toward Brennan and Peggy.

"Colleagues."

"You a real penguin?" the man asked Brennan, nodding toward his collar.

"Yes," said the priest.

"What car are we talking about?"

"A black Audi A8. Owned by an American."

"Sure, I know it."

"You're Marcel?"

"Yes." He stepped out onto the narrow, crumbling sidewalk, closing the old door behind him.

"What did you do for him?" Holliday asked.

"What's it worth for you to know?"

"Five hundred euros," Holliday said.

"A thousand."

"Six hundred," said Holliday.

"Seven fifty," said Marcel.

"Done," said Holliday.

"Cash," Marcel demanded.

Holliday took out his wallet and counted out the money. "Talk."

"He wanted to know if it was possible for me to bypass one set of headers on the exhaust system and run them through a single pipe."

"Plain language, please," asked Holliday.

"The A8 has twin pipes. He wanted one of them to be a dummy."

"Why would someone want that?"

"He also told me he wanted the baffles removed. He wanted a stash."

"How big?"

Marcel held his hands about a yard apart. "A meter, maybe a little more."

"How wide?"

"Twenty-five, maybe thirty centimeters."

"Ten inches."

"Enough for half a dozen kilos of heroin." Marcel smiled.

"He told you he was smuggling heroin?"

"He was pretty clear about it," Marcel said. "He knew the right names, anyway."

"When did you do the job?"

"Four days ago. He picked up the car yesterday. Paid extra for the rush."

Holliday couldn't think of anything else. He thanked Marcel for the information.

"Anytime. Bring money." The man in the leather apron grinned and slipped back into his shop.

They walked back to the rental car, then found a place to stop for lunch in Thonon-les-Bains.

"Why would he be smuggling heroin?" Peggy asked.

"He wouldn't," said Holliday.

"Then the false muffler was for something else?" Brennan asked.

"Presumably." Holliday nodded.

"Then it's a riddle," said Peggy, using her chopsticks to sort through the small delicacies in the bento box she'd ordered. "What's a yard long and ten inches in diameter?"

"Some sort of weapon, perhaps?" Brennan said.

Something tickled the edge of Holliday's memory. Something about America's first foray into the impossible country called Afghanistan.

"It's your town," said Holliday to Brennan. "What airport would Air Force One use?"

"Pratica di Mare Air Force Base, southwest of the city. It's a little bit out of the way but it can be absolutely secured. The Holy Father uses it."

"So that's how all the foreign heads of state would arrive?"

"Almost certainly."

"What route would they use to get into the city?"

"The Pope uses the Via Cristoforo Colombo. A highspeed auto route where you can control access and there are no tall buildings until you get into the city proper. Even for our assassin it would be an impossible target. Kennedy's limousine was traveling at something like eleven or twelve miles per hour when Oswald shot him. The Holy Father's limousine generally travels at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour-roughly seventy miles per hour. No assassin in the world could make a shot like that."

"He could if he had the right weapon," murmured Holliday. He poked thoughtfully at the tiny salad on his plate.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Peggy asked.

"He knows security around the Vatican is going to be fierce. He knows that there will be countersnipers, dogs, dozens-if not hundreds-of highly trained Secret Service types from every major nation in the world. Trying to kill the president in an environment like that would be suicide. Somehow I don't see our man as a martyr to the Rex Deus cause. He's going to do the job efficiently and he's going to get away with it unless we stop him."

"You said something about the right weapon," prompted Brennan.

"I once saw a man named Emil, dressed in rags and rubber-tire sandals, destroy a Russian Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter from two miles away." He turned to Peggy. "It's the answer to your riddle, Peg. What's a yard long and ten inches in diameter? A portable Stinger missile. Just about the only one-man device capable of opening up the presidential limousine like a tin of sardines."

Driving out of Thonon-les-Bains, they headed west, back toward Geneva. There were trees and small villages scattered along the busy strip of two-lane highway as it meandered along a few miles inland from the lake.

"If you're right about the Stinger, we have to go to the cops; there's no choice anymore," said Peggy.

"What cops?" Holliday asked grimly. "The FBI, the Italians, Homeland Security?"

"How about the ones hanging off our back bumper?" Brennan said, looking out through the rear window. A dark blue police cruiser with its light bar flashing had cut in behind them, its two-tone siren suddenly blaring.