Paul Christopher - The Templar throne

Patchin caught a glimpse of Mike Harris, his deputy director. He was standing in his wife's glass conservatory-greenhouse attached to the side of the house. The lanky man was dressed in cargo shorts and a Tommy Bahama shirt over a white tee. There was a Toronto Blue Jays cap crammed down onto his head. He'd taken the "casual dress" note on the invitation a little too seriously. Patchin's craggy-faced second in command was deep in conversation with an Agency "gnome," one of the faceless horde of CIA worker bees, whom Patchin vaguely recognized. He thought for a moment. Toby something or other from the Italian Desk down on Five.

A few seconds later the conversation ended, the gnome turned and headed back into the house, and Harris stepped out of the conservatory and onto the patio. He took enough time to light a cigarette then started walking toward his boss. Patchin turned his attention from the barbeque and met him halfway.

"I saw you with the gnome, what's up?" Patchin asked.

"Somebody lit the fuse on that Rex Deus thing you asked me to look into."

"How's that?"

"Looks like the Pope's team brought in a heavy hitter, Antonin Pesek, a contract killer. Ex-Statni bezpecnost out of Prague."

"The weird husband-and-wife team?"

"That's the one."

"What about him?"

"It looks like he tried to whack Holliday and his new nun friend. Holliday whacked him first. They found him in an old cabin cruiser run up on the beach close to Marco Polo Airport. Venice."

"I know where Marco Polo Airport is, Harris," said Patchin.

Harris took a drag on his cigarette, knowing perfectly well that Patchin wouldn't have admitted not knowing it was Venice Airport even if you pulled out his fingernails with red-hot tongs. Patchin was the kind of man who had to know everything, whether he knew it or not.

"Yeah, well," Harris went on. "Holliday's bad luck. Couple of kids looking for a good fishing hole found Pesek while he was still warm. One in the throat from very close range. Looks as though they were duking it out and Holliday got the upper hand. According to his file Holliday was something of a whiz at unarmed combat. We logged Holliday and the nun getting onto a flight to London an hour later. We'd already had a passport advisory posted worldwide. We knew about it right away. It also looks like there's a connection to a murder at the Venice Archives. A clerk was killed and an old book was damaged."

"Where is Holliday now?"

"He and the nun just stopped in a place called Marazion in Cornwall. It's on the coast, near Penzance."

"And you know this how?" Patchin quizzed.

"They rented a car from Hertz. All the Hertz cars have Tracker units."

"Tracker?"

"English version of LoJack."

"Ah." Patchin nodded. "Any idea about where they're going? I mean, what's in this Marathon place?"

"Marazion," corrected Harris.

"Whatever."

"Mount St. Michael is about half a mile offshore. Presumably that's their destination."

"I thought Mount St. Michael was in France."

"That's Mont Saint-Michel," explained Harris. "This is the English version, kind of like twin cities."

Patchin took a thoughtful sip of his virgin vodka tonic. "I see," he said, not seeing at all. Neither did Harris.

Harris took another drag off his cigarette. He could smell the hot dogs and the hamburgers grilling. He looked around at the crowd. Bureaucrats and lawyers, a lot of them from the AG's office. The rest were D.C. power players. He looked back at Patchin and wondered if Patchin knew who was screwing his wife these days, or if he cared.

Being one of Karin's little trophies was something he'd avoided. That kind of pillow talk was currency in Washington and you didn't want to become an ear in the blond woman's network of jungle drums. It was like a sexually transmitted disease: you had no idea who was going to be the ultimate recipient of your unfortunate whispers. This city was like that, and so were Chevy Chase parties like this one. Harris wouldn't be surprised to discover that the patio lanterns and the trees themselves were wired. Suddenly, out of nowhere he remembered a stanza from a book of poetry he'd found in a Princeton bookstore a long time ago. It was a chant, maybe the first rap song. The epitome of gossip: Walk with care, walk with care, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Beware, beware, walk with care, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.

"Pardon?" Patchin said, frowning.

Harris blinked, abruptly aware that he'd quoted the poem out loud. "Sorry. A verse from my misspent youth."

"What the hell does that have to do with Holliday and Rex Deus?"

"Nothing, I suppose."

"You're sure it was the Vatican that sicced Pesek on Holliday?"

"I can't think who else it would be," Harris said with a shrug. He looked around for somewhere to butt his cigarette but there was nothing nearby. He had an urge to put it out in Patchin's drink but thought better of it.

"What about the shadow we had on him?"

"Lost him and the nun in Prague. Our man said that it looked as though Holliday made him."

"You'd think with all these unemployed commie spies around that we could hire better help." Patchin sighed.

"It's the recession," said Harris, managing to keep a straight face.

"Do we have anyone in the neighborhood? Someone a little more subtle than our fat ex-Stasi friend?"

"We used to have a couple of babysitters in that area," answered Harris. "Toby's checking into it right now." A babysitter was exactly what it sounded like, a freelance or occasional Agency asset sent into an operation to covertly protect a warm body that the Agency was interested in.

"That's not the only problem," said Harris. "Holliday left fingerprints everywhere. The AISI goons in Rome already had a file on him."

"What the hell is AISI?" Patchin said. "It sounds like something you get from a toilet seat."

"Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna," replied Harris. "The Italian FBI. They'd like to talk to Holliday as a 'person of interest.' They've already called the Home Office in England. Holliday's going to have cops all over him before you know it."

"Shit," said Patchin succinctly.

"Exactly," said Harris. There was a hoot of laughter from the pool. The first guest of the afternoon had tripped and fallen in. It was going to be that kind of party. Patchin felt a headache growing like a time- lapse tumor.

"Get someone on them as fast as you can," said Patchin. "I don't want the Holy Father or anyone else to have their way with our Colonel Holliday until we find out just what the hell it is he's doing."

St. Michael's Mount lies four hundred yards off the southern end of Cornwall, connected to the mainland by a narrow granite causeway, geographically making the round, high-topped and craggy island a tombolo, or tied, landform.

St. Michael himself was said to have liked such places for their strategic military value-their isolation and high ground made them easy to defend from the demons and dragons he specialized in smiting with the sword of the Lord. Originally, the island had been the center of the Cornish tin and copper trade and was known as the Grey Rock. St. Michael's was founded as a religious sanctuary by an Irish cult of the vengeful "Warrior Archangel" in the ninth century.

The island stronghold was first occupied by a simple chapel, then a monastery, and was eventually fortified. A small harbor was built at the foot of the cliffs surrounding the monastery and became a favorite watering place for ships from the European continent on their way to the Irish ports of Cork, Galway and Dublin.

With the Norman Conquest of 1066 by King William of Normandy, the Benedictines from Mont Saint-Michel built a monastery there, eventually turned into a fortress by Henry VIII. In 1659 the entire island was purchased by Colonel Sir John St. Aubyn, the eldest son of the High Sheriff of Cornwall and a staunch supporter of Charles II against the wily republican Oliver Cromwell. St. Aubyn then began the process of transforming the old church, the abbey and the castle into a single enormous family house on the summit of the island. The island has been in the family ever since and is still occupied by them, although vested ownership of St. Michael's Mount is in the hands of the National Trust.