Paul Christopher - The Templar Cross

"I wasn't aware that we had any business," said Father Thomas. He spent a few seconds preparing himself a little side plate of olive oil and balsamic vinegar from the little vinaigrette decanters on the table, then tore a piece of bread in half and wiped it through the mixture. He popped the chunk of bread into his mouth and followed it up with an olive.

"You have my cousin Peggy. We want her back."

"Ah, yes," the priest said and nodded. "Dr. Wanounou's paramour." He smiled at Rafi, then dipped another piece of bread into the oil-and-vinegar mixture.

"We're offering the gold for her return," said Holliday. "You get Rauff's bullion in exchange."

"How do I know you have the gold?" Father Thomas asked.

"I never said we had it. I said we knew where it was."

"How do you know we haven't found it already?"

"It wasn't in the camp. If you'd managed to take Alhazred alive after your little raid he would have told you by now and you wouldn't be sitting here bargaining with us."

"The Church has plenty of money, Colonel Holliday. Why should we need your so-called bullion?"

"Number one, I'm not so sure that the Church has as much money as you'd have us think; you're much the same as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler; you're trying to sell an inferior product and people just aren't buying anymore. Number two, even if the Church has money, I'm willing to bet your budget isn't what it once was. And number three, if any word of the Church's involvement with Rauff and that gold became public it would put the last nail in the coffin of your continued existence. You have to get that gold back before it starts leaking onto the open market. That's why you had Pesek and Kay kill Valador in Cannes; he was skimming. You need to get those bars re-smelted and erase any connection between Rauff and the Church. A German Pope who was in the Hitler Youth is bad enough; the Church in bed with the man who invented the modern gas chamber would be a disaster."

"As you suggest, Colonel Holliday, gold is probably the easiest currency to launder. Yesterday's gold incisor is tomorrow's wedding band. But the question is irrelevant; Standartenfuhrer Rauff made an agreement with us in 1944. Through our organization he received aid and documentation allowing for his escape from prosecution. In return he promised us his hoard of Tunisian gold. We kept our part of the bargain and even posthumously he will keep his. The gold is ours by right."

"Release Peggy and you'll have it," said Holliday.

There was a pause in the conversation as the waiter reappeared with the wine, followed by a man in a chef's high hat carrying two large flattish bowls piled high with clams, mussels and seafood in an aromatic broth. The waiter set down the wine, the man in the chef's hat put down the bowls and a few seconds later a plump, pleasant-looking woman in a flowered dress appeared carrying two more bowls of the zuppa di pesce and then withdrew with a beaming Buon appetito!

The priest lifted his fork, picked out a mussel on top of the pile in his bowl and surgically removed the meat from its dark shell. He savored the morsel, then washed it down with a little wine. Nobody else at the table had touched either food or drink. Father Thomas gave a little sigh and put down his glass.

"I think perhaps you should disabuse yourself of any thought that our meeting is in any way a negotiation, Colonel Holliday. You are out-gunned, outnumbered and outmaneuvered. You have nothing to bargain with. Should you decide not to tell me about the whereabouts of the gold I shall have Father Damaso here defile your cousin in ways you could not imagine in a thousand years. Should you continue to guard the secret of the bullion's whereabouts Father Damaso will execute Miss Blackstock, slowly and painfully. And he will enjoy himself doing it, Colonel.

"Father Damaso, I might add, has been trained by some of Augusto Pinochet of Chile's most experienced torturers, and they of course were trained by the man of the hour, Standartenfuhrer Rauff. From what Father Damaso leads me to understand, Herr Rauff's methods would even have impressed the tribunals of the Spanish Inquisition."

Father Thomas picked up another clam between his fingers, sucking the muscle wetly out of the shell and into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed.

"So there you have it, Colonel Holliday. Not a negotiation, an ultimatum." The priest took a small square card and a Mont Blanc fountain pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He unscrewed the cap of the pen and wrote briefly on the card, then handed the little square of cardboard across the table to Holliday. It was a phone number.

"Call me," said Father Thomas. "You have twenty-four hours to make up your mind." He glanced meaningfully toward the bald man, who still had neither moved nor said a word. "After that things will no longer be within my control." The priest smiled pleasantly. "Now eat up before your food gets cold."

"I think I'm going to puke," said Rafi. He pushed back his chair, the legs scraping noisily on the tile floor. He stood, glared down at the bald priest Damaso, who had begun to eat his zuppe. "I'll kill you if you so much as touch her."

Damaso looked up from his bowl, a little juice dripping down to his sharp chin. His lips barely moved when he spoke.

"You could try, Jew boy," he said quietly.

Rafi stormed out of the restaurant.

"Your friend appears to have lost his appetite," said Father Thomas. "Perhaps your Egyptian colleague watching us from across the street would like to finish Dr. Wanounou's meal; he must be hungry by now." He pointed his fork toward Rafi's place at the table and the steaming bowl of aromatic seafood soup. "It would be a shame to see it go to waste."

Holliday stood up.

"I'm not hungry, either," he said.

"As you wish, Colonel Holliday, but you're missing a culinary treat." He took a sip of wine. "Twenty-four hours."

Holliday followed Rafi out of Piacere Molise.

The priest watched him go, then turned his attention back to the food before him.

Half an hour later Rafi sat fuming in one of the armchairs in the sitting room of their suite at the Alimandi Hotel. On the other side of the small elegant room Holliday sat waiting by the telephone. Through the open doors leading out to the balcony came the buzzing sound of the waspish little Vespa scooters whizzing through the traffic on the Viale Vaticano.

"Did it work?" Rafi said.

"Hold your horses," said Holliday. "We'll know in a few minutes."

"We should have heard by now. And why hasn't Tidyman called?"

"Relax," said Holliday.

"How am I supposed to relax? That bastard was talking about torturing Peggy," said Rafi hotly. "If this plan of yours doesn't work, we're screwed."

The phone rang. Rafi jumped. Holliday picked up the receiver and listened.

"Thank you," said Holliday. "Send him up." He hung up the phone and turned back to Rafi. "He's here."

"It's about time."

Holliday rose and went to the door of the suite. A few moments later there was a knock. Holliday opened the door. It was the waiter from Piacere Molise, minus the long apron and carrying a paper bag in his hand. He was grinning broadly. Holliday led the young man into the room.

"You two haven't been introduced. Rafi, this is an old student of mine, Lieutenant Vince Caruso, class of '06. I gave him a C minus, if I remember correctly. He works for the military attache here." Caruso sat down on the couch and put the paper bag on the coffee table.

"Pleased to meet you," said Rafi.

The young lieutenant opened up the bag and took out the tall pepper grinder he'd left on their table in the restaurant. He unscrewed the bottom of the grinder and eased out a flat FM microphone with a dangling wire. He reached into the bag and put something that looked like a small cassette player on the table alongside the little microphone.