Paul Christopher: The Templar Cross

"He's gone to bed," said Rafi, a note of anger in his voice.

"I think perhaps you are right," said Japrisot.

Rafi snorted.

"So we spent half the day following a guy all the way along the Riviera delivering fish and this is what it amounts to? Watching him get ready for sleep?"

"Police work is mostly waiting," answered Japrisot. "And very boring. I'm afraid you must be patient."

"Rafi's right," said Holliday finally. "My cousin has been taken hostage. We don't have time for staking out some low-level smuggler. We need information. Now."

"Stakeout?" the French cop said. "You mean comme le bifteck? Une barbeque?" Japrisot lifted his caterpillar eyebrows and winked. Holliday scowled, realizing that he was being teased.

The headlights of an approaching car washed through the rear window of the Peugeot.

"Attendez," said Japrisot, and hunched down in his seat. Holliday and Rafi did the same. The car went past, then parked between a pair of wrought iron stanchions at the curb in front of the dark, deserted restaurant. There was an old-fashioned streetlight on the corner and Holliday could see the car clearly. It was a dark blue Audi Quattro. Two people got out: a well-dressed man with a Vandyke beard and a highly attractive woman in a short black cocktail dress.

"That's the couple I saw at the casino," whispered Holliday. "What are they doing here?"

"As they say in my country, Colonel Holliday, Tout vient a point a qui sait attendre. Good things come to those who wait."

They watched as the couple from the Audi walked back along the sidewalk in front of the restaurant and paused in front of Felix Valador's store. There was an intercom box high on the left-hand side of the doorframe. The man with the Vandyke reached into his jacket and took something out of the pocket.

"What's that?" Holliday asked, squinting.

"Gants de latex, je pense," said Japrisot. "Surgical gloves, I think."

The man with the beard deftly snapped the gloves onto his hands, then pressed a button on the plastic intercom box and waited. A few seconds later there was a loud buzzing sound and the bearded man leaned forward to speak. His companion kept her back to the door, looking up and down the street. Without the film festival, nighttime in Cannes was relatively quiet. The sidewalks were deserted.

There was a second buzz from the intercom, and then a heavy clicking sound Holliday could hear from halfway down the block. The door opened and the couple from the blue Audi disappeared inside the store. A moment later the light came on behind the shutters over the front windows.

Japrisot took a small notebook and a gold-plated automatic pencil from his sagging suit coat pocket and climbed out of the Citroen. He walked down the street and wrote down the license number of the Audi. Thirty seconds later he slipped back into the car.

"AHX 37 45," he said. "Czech. I think 'A' is for Prague."

"What do the Czechs have to do with any of this?" Rafi asked.

Japrisot turned in his seat.

"Maybe nothing, maybe everything." The policeman shrugged. "Prague was once the European end of the old Silk Road. It is still a central point for smugglers. You can find anything you want in Prague from beautiful Russian girls to heroin from Bangkok. Why not stolen artifacts?" He held up a finger. "Moment." He dug a cell phone out of his jacket pocket and let out a burst of rapid-fire French. He snapped the cell phone closed and returned it to his pocket. "Now we wait again."

No more than two minutes later the lights in the store went off. Almost immediately the woman from the Audi stepped out and stood by the door, wiping her hands on a tissue. She looked up and down the street, then turned and spoke through the open doorway behind her. The man with the Vandyke stepped out, carefully closing the door behind him, then stripped off the latex gloves and slipped them back into his pocket. He stood for a moment, then reached into his other pocket and brought out a flat gold cigarette case. He took out a cigarette, put the case away, then pulled something from his lapel and began delicately poking at the filter.

"What the hell is he doing?" Holliday asked.

"I know precisement what he is doing," said Japrisot with a grimace. "He is putting pinholes in the paper of the cigarette. It is something longtime smokers do to convince themselves they are being healthy."

"That's crazy," said Rafi from the backseat.

"Bien sur," replied Japrisot. "Of course. Smoking is for crazy people, yes?"

They watched as the bearded man brought out a heavy-looking gold lighter and lit his cigarette. Then the couple walked back up the street to the Audi and got in. The engine started, the headlights came on and they drove off. They turned right on rue Louis Blanc and went up the hill.

"They were in there for less than three minutes," said Rafi. "I timed it."

"Not very long," said Holliday. "What kind of business can you do in three minutes?"

"Bad business," said Japrisot. He stared out the window at the darkened storefront. He slapped the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. "Je suis une connard! Nique ma mere!" He swore under his breath. "Something is wrong."

The Frenchman sat for a moment, his features grim.

"M-e-r-d-e," he breathed, drawing out the word. Finally he reached across the console, popped open the glove compartment and took out an ancient and enormous Manhurin-73 revolver with a wooden crosshatched "blackjack" grip and a huge five-inch barrel.

"Big gun," commented Holliday, impressed. The revolver was chambered for.357 rounds. It was the French version of the weapon used by Dirty Harry.

"Yes," said Japrisot. "And it makes very big holes in people, which is why I like it." The grizzled policeman looked at Holliday severely. "Stay in the car, please." He got out of the Peugeot and approached Valador's shop, the heavy pistol held at his side.

"We going to stay in the car?" Rafi asked.

"Mais non," said Holliday. "Not a chance."

They got out of the vehicle, keeping their eyes on Japrisot. The policeman turned and saw them. He scowled, gesturing them back, then turned to the door once again and raised the revolver. He spread his fingertips on the door and pushed gently. It opened slightly. He toed it with his foot and it opened wider. Japrisot took a hesitant step forward, arm raised and elbow locked, the long barrel of the big pistol leading the way.

Holliday and Rafi held their breath as Japrisot stepped inside the store. A few moments later the lights went on and a few moments after that Japrisot appeared in the doorway, the revolver by his side again. With his free hand the cop waved them forward.

The interior of the shop looked more like something out of a Dickens novel. There were antiques and collectibles piled everywhere in no kind of order: wooden filing cabinets, a thirties-style leather couch, a sunburst mirror from the fifties, armoires, religious paintings, eighteenth-century gas lamps, a Louis Sixteenth Bergere confessional chair, chandeliers, figurines, an old-fashioned Bakelite wall phone between two plaster columns, lamps, picture frames, a giant clock face, granite garden lions, a pair of Pallisandre armchairs, a dozen faux wax fruit clusters in bell jars, three holy water fonts, seven ornately framed copies of Edgar Degas's Two Dancers in Blue, a giant stuffed peacock staring into a long cheval glass beveled mirror in a tilting stand and a Minnie Mouse ventriloquist's dummy laid over the leather saddle of a battered and faded carousel horse. Ten of the fifty-kilo fish boxes were piled up in front of the merry-go-round figure. There was no sign of Felix Valador.

Japrisot was standing in the middle of it all, the big pistol stuffed haphazardly into the sagging pocket of his jacket. He had a handkerchief in one hand and a bemused look on his face.