Paul Christopher - The Templar throne

"Our chariot awaits," said Holliday.

"Where's the owner?" Meg asked. "We can't just steal it." She paused. "Can we?"

"I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth," said Holliday. He went quickly along the narrow sea-wall and jumped down into the boat. There were bow and stern lines looped around cast iron rings set into the blackened, railway-tie-sized beams. "Cast off the lines," he said.

Meg didn't hesitate. She undid the twin lines, tossed them inboard and jumped into the deck well herself. While Holliday figured out how to start up the Casanova, she picked up a long gaff hook and pushed them away from the wooden breakwater.

Holliday examined the rudimentary controls. There was a single throttle connected by a cable to the outboard. The ignition switch looked as though it had come out of an old car, but instead of a key there was a yellow-handled Phillips screwdriver jammed into the mechanism. It was a wonder that the boat hadn't been stolen long before this, thought Holliday.

He twisted the screwdriver. There was a preliminary whine and cough from the engine and then it caught, the full-throated sound of the big outboard shattering the somber calm and quiet of the church and the cemetery beyond.

Holliday notched the throttle into the forward position and spun the wheel, taking them away from the island. Directly ahead of them was the much larger island of Murano. To the port side Holliday could see the dark line of the train bridge connecting Venice to the mainland.

He closed his eye briefly, trying to recall the simple map he'd seen back at the hotel. On the far side of Murano was open water and Marco Polo Airport. Twenty minutes across the bay and they'd be home free. He ratcheted the throttle a little farther forward and the decaying old boat started bouncing over the small waves, the deck beneath his feet as springy as a trampoline.

As a child he'd often gone fishing with his uncle Henry on Canadaway Creek a few miles inland from Lake Erie in upstate New York. Every now and again, just for the hell of it, his uncle would take their flat-bottomed rowboat down to the lake and let the little twenty-five-horsepower trolling engine rip. They'd go flying over the lake, skipping like a stone across the water, the bottom of the boat thumping and jumping just like the Casanova was now. Remembering his uncle and missing him, Holliday let out a whoop of pleasure to his memory as they pounded across the bay; luck was with them once again.

It was a wonder that the boat hadn't been stolen long before.

Holliday had a sudden, vivid image of the shower scene from Psycho. He'd had recurring nightmares for weeks after he'd seen the film one afternoon while playing hooky from the Christian Brothers Parochial School.

For a while he'd even believed his confessor, who'd told him the nightmares were divine retribution for the sin of cutting classes.

The screwdriver in the ignition.

Casanova III had been stolen.

"Oh, crap," groaned Holliday, putting it together. The hairs on the back of his neck rose in warning, giving him a split-second advantage as the flimsy cabin door burst outward and Antonin Pesek hurtled through the opening, a dark flat automatic already raised in his hand.

Instinctively, Holliday threw the wheel hard over and the flat-bottomed boat slewed drunkenly to port, throwing the assassin off balance, the pistol flying out of his hand as he fought to stay on his feet. The weapon spun across the deck, lost in the clutter of equipment around the transom.

The killer barely paused, a broad-bladed knife appearing almost magically in his right hand. Pesek lunged and Holliday backed against the gunwale as the lethal instrument slashed across his belly. Another quarter inch and Holliday would have been gutted like a fish.

Somehow Pesek had been one step ahead of them. He'd seen Holliday and Meg get on the tour boat and managed to get to the Misericordia marina before them. He'd stolen the cabin cruiser and reached the cemetery island before the lumbering tour boat, lying in wait, knowing that Holliday and the nun would be desperate to get off the island and to the mainland. The Casanova had been a baited trap and Holliday had stepped into it like an amateur.

The Casanova was swerving wildly now, reacting to the slightest swell or wave, the wheel spinning freely. If they weren't thrown overboard they'd be swamped or they'd hit another boat.

They were in the middle of the shipping lane from the east, and out of the corner of his eye Holliday could see a massive red-and-black-hulled oil tanker bullying its way across their bow less than a quarter mile ahead, the sheer side of the ship tall as a cliff and getting closer with each passing second.

Pesek lunged again. Behind him, Sister Meg thrust the gaff hook toward his ankles. The assassin's feet went out from under him and he stumbled forward, cursing and giving Holliday a chance to spin out of his way, one hand clamping the killer's wrist and dragging him into a close embrace, probably the safest move in a knife fight.

The boat lurched across another wave and Holliday rammed his knee into Pesek's groin. The killer twisted to one side, taking the blow on his hip, and brought the knife up again, slashing at Holliday's eyes, forcing him back against the gunwale again.

The oil tanker now completely filled Holliday's field of view; another few seconds and they'd be nothing but splintered plywood wreckage spread across the water. An earsplitting air horn blasted as someone on the tanker's bridge saw the approaching cabin cruiser.

As Pesek came after him again, Holliday dropped to the deck, then rolled back toward the transom, scrabbling for the gun.

"Grab the wheel!" Holliday bellowed to Sister Meg. His fingers found the hard weight of the weapon and he rolled onto his back just as Pesek's boot smashed down toward his face.

Suddenly the Casanova went into a wide lurching turn, the hull hammering into the enormous wave thrown up by the tanker's bulbous, half-submerged bow. Pesek's foot came down into a tangle of rope and Holliday squeezed the unfamiliar trigger of the compact, Czech-made 9mm automatic, firing upward. The round took Pesek under the chin and drilled up into his brain, killing him instantly. He folded silently, like a suit of clothes without a body to hold it up.

Holliday clambered to his feet and lurched toward Meg as the boat virtually surfed along the hull displacement wave of the tanker. High above them a small group of spectators had gathered at the ship's rail to take a look at the idiots who'd almost powered into them.

Holliday reached around Meg and took the wheel, his hands covering hers. She turned her head, eyes wide and flashing. They broached the churning wake of the tanker and headed into open water. Directly ahead of them a mile or so distant Holliday could see a jumbo lifting off from one of the two runways that ran parallel to the water.

"Is he dead?" Meg asked, turning to look over her shoulder.

"Very," answered Holliday.

"Good!" said Meg, a savage note in her voice. She sagged back against Holliday, slipping her hands off the wheel, glad to give up control.

"An eye for an eye?" Holliday said, enjoying the feel of her body against his, every altar boy fiber of his adult body screaming "sacrilege!"

"Something like that," said Meg. She wasn't making the slightest attempt to wriggle out of Holliday's embrace. He stepped back, taking one hand off the wheel to let her go before the situation got too complicated.

Suddenly embarrassed, Meg ducked out from beneath Holliday's enclosing arm. She stared at Pesek, crumpled on the garbage-strewn deck a few feet away. Holliday followed her glance. The entry wound under his chin was totally hidden and there was no exit wound; the bullet was still lodged somewhere in the dead man's brain. He looked oddly peaceful, eyes open as he stared up at eternity and the blue sky overhead.