Paul Christopher - The Templar throne

There was three hundred euros in cash and several credit cards, all of which Holliday took. He stood up and threw the wallet and the rest of its contents as far into the marsh as he could. He put the mousegun and its holster against his own spine, slipped into the gun sling and reattached the MAC 11 to the straps. Finally he shrugged on the black windbreaker and slung the binoculars over his shoulder.

"Help me drag the body behind that patch of gorse," said Holliday, pointing toward a mound of low shrubbery a few yards away to the right. Meg took one of the boy's wrists and Holliday took the other, and together they dragged the body facedown through the spongy mud and turf, then made their way back to the path. They were both soaking wet, but the steady downpour would hide any evidence of a struggle within a moment or two.

"You seem so calm," said Meg, a note of bitterness in her voice. "As though killing children comes naturally to you."

Holliday gritted his teeth, her words unlocking a memory so vivid and fresh it could have been yesterday. "I happened to be at the Assassin's Gate in Baghdad one morning when a nine-year-old girl came through the checkpoint. The Iraqi soldier with me said it was rare for kids that young to wear the full burqa, complete with a veil. The Iraqi soldier told the kid to stop where she was but the kid began to run right at us. The Iraqi soldier shouted at her again but the little girl kept on coming. I was carrying an old.45-caliber automatic as a sidearm. The Iraqi soldier was hesitating so I shot the kid in the chest."

"Did it make you feel better?" Meg said coldly.

He could almost feel the talcum powder sand on his skin, the kind that had made him feel grimy ten minutes after he showered.

"The kid was maybe fifty feet away when I hit her. The suicide vest she was wearing under the burqa blew a crater in the road ten feet across and three feet deep. Bits and pieces of shrapnel from the vest killed the Iraqi soldier. Two women running a fruit stall outside the gate were killed by the explosion, as well. I was blown out of my combat boots by the blast. So don't tell me about killing children, sweetheart."

For a second it looked as though the red-haired nun was going to say something in reply but then she thought better of it.

"So what do we do now?" Meg said finally, standing there in the rain, her long hair hanging in stringy tangles around her face.

"The kid wasn't a killer," said Holliday. "He was a delivery boy."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He was taking us to someone," answered Holliday. "I intend to find out where and to whom."

"I knew it," said Holliday angrily. He was looking through the big Steiner military binoculars he had taken off the dead kid. He and Sister Meg were lying on the stony bluffs above the Bay at the Back of the Ocean, the rough, curving beach that ran along the western shore of Iona.

He handed the binoculars to Meg, pointing and keeping his head low just in case someone was watching. It was still raining and they'd both given up any thought of drying out a long time ago. Drawn up on the beach itself was an old red-painted dory, its bow turned toward the flat, featureless ocean, the stern pulled up on the sand, a big old Mercury outboard flipped up on the transom.

An unidentified man was huddled in the back of the boat, protected by a small tarpaulin that was probably meant for the motor. From their vantage point Holliday could see that the man in the dory was wearing a black windbreaker that was a mate to the one they'd taken off the body in the swamp. Presumably another employee of Blackhawk Security, which was something else to think about: Who the hell was Blackhawk Security and why were they trying to kill him?

"Sean," said Meg, surprise in her voice as she looked through the binoculars. "That's the Mary Deare."

Holliday nodded, his jaw set in anger. "If Sean is his real name," he said, looking out to sea. Without the binoculars the little ship was nothing more than an indistinct blob on the rain-filled horizon. With the Steiners he could make out individual patches of rust and primer paint on the hull. The Mary Deare was lying about a mile from shore anchored fore and aft, waiting. For what? The only logical answer was that O'Keefe's old ship had left the little port on the east shore of Iona and come around to the west shore for a rendezvous with the red dory.

The red dory, on the other hand, was waiting in the pouring rain for Ian Andrew Mitchell to arrive with his freshly captured prisoners. Somebody had it all neatly planned out. But why go to all the trouble? Why not simply wait until they returned to the ship on their own? It wasn't as though they had anyplace else to go.

"I don't understand any of this," said Meg, passing back the binoculars. Holliday took them from her and slipped them back into their case.

"Somebody's trying to stop us any way they can," said Holliday. "Your boyfriend O'Keefe is working for whoever's got us targeted. Odds are we were supposed to go back aboard the Mary Deare without anyone seeing us. Whoever was waiting on board would torture us to find out what we know and then drop us into the ocean."

"Sean is not my boyfriend, and I find it hard to believe he'd do a thing like that," said Meg.

"You can have whatever the hell kind of fantasy you want," said Holliday. "The harsh reality is sitting in that red dory wearing the same Blackhawk Security windbreaker as I am," he added. "And he already has done a thing like that."

"All right," answered Meg. "What are we supposed to do about your so-called harsh reality?"

"Fake it," said Holliday.

They argued back and forth for five minutes and then Holliday and Meg stood up in full view and walked slowly down the shallow-sided dune below the higher bluff, Meg in the lead, Holliday close behind her. Seeing movement on the bluff, the man in the red dory looked up and peered into the gray curtain of rain. He stood, the tarpaulin around his shoulders, one hand shielding his eyes. Holliday and Meg reached the bottom of the sloping dune and walked toward the boat drawn up on the shore. As they walked both Meg and Holliday kept their heads down.

"You promised you wouldn't hurt him," reminded Meg, keeping her voice low as they stepped toward the boat, their feet digging into the wet, gritty sand.

"Not unless he tries to hurt me first," said Holliday, wishing the nun would shut up and let him concentrate on the next few seconds.

"You really are some kind of bastard," said Meg bitterly.

"Hey!" the man in the dory called out. "There was supposed to be two of them! Where's the other one?!"

Holliday and Meg kept on walking toward the boat. All he needed was another ten feet or so.

"Hey!" the man in the dory yelled again. He swept back the tarpaulin and reached for the sling under his windbreaker. He was armed just like the first one.

Holliday used his left arm to sweep Meg out of the way. She stumbled and fell to her knees. He fired the little Beretta.380 through the slit he'd made in the pocket of the windbreaker with the Swiss Army knife, trying for the left shoulder and arm, hoping to immobilize the shooter. The Beretta had an eight- round, single-stack magazine and one in the chamber, nine rounds in all. Holliday kept firing until the man fell down, dropping forward over the transom of the dory and flopping out of the boat and onto the beach. Any blood was invisible against the black of the windbreaker. The man was writhing on the sand, his left hand clutching his right elbow. He wouldn't be signing any contracts for a while but he'd live if they got him to a hospital within the next half hour. Holliday had fired seven rounds and hit the man with four, one in the elbow, one in the meat of the upper arm and two in the shoulder. Three out of the four were through and through; the fourth was still lodged in his biceps. His face was pale and his teeth were chattering. He was going into shock.