Paul Christopher - The Sword of the Templars

“Get out of here, quickly,” said Tattoo You. He turned and disappeared into the darkness of the alley.

Holliday stepped forward a few paces and knelt down beside the corpse of the priest. Blood was oozing beneath the left arm. Tattoo You had shot him through and through, perfect center of mass, the bullet blowing out the heart and lungs together.

He felt around in the inside pocket of the dead man’s jacket and found a wallet and a passport. The passport had a red cover with the miter and crossed key insignia of the Holy See stamped in gold. He flipped open the Vatican passport and checked the I.D. page.

The dead man’s name was Brendan Jameson, born October 22, 1951 in Mount Kisco, New York, presently a resident in Rome, Italy. His occupation was listed simply as “priest.” A priest with the Czech version of an Uzi? He slipped the passport back into the man’s inside pocket and checked the wallet. The I.D. in the wallet matched the passport. He replaced the wallet and climbed to his feet. In the distance Holliday could hear the approaching warble of sirens.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?” Peggy said.

“They’re on the way. Someone must have heard the shot.”

“Shouldn’t we stay and explain?”

“Explain what? Why we’re standing here with a dead priest? I can’t explain it to myself let alone the cops. I’ve killed people in England and Germany. In most countries they call that murder. And don’t give me the innocent until proven guilty stuff; justice only works on Law and Order.” He took Peggy by the arm, turning her away from the priest’s dead body. “Come on.”

Twenty minutes later, the Old City behind them, Holliday and Peggy reached the American Colony Hotel on the Nablus Road and stepped into the small, multi-arched lobby. A stout man with a horseshoe of curly dark hair and dressed in a wrinkled gray suit stood up from one of the old red brocade couches and approached them. As he walked Holliday could see that he was wearing a shoulder holster. He tensed. The fat man smiled pleasantly, extending his hand.

“Colonel Holliday? Miss Blackstock, yes?”

“Who wants to know?” Holliday asked.

The smile on the fat man’s face faltered just a little.

“I am Prakad… Chief Inspector Isidor Landsman of the Israeli Police Department.”

“Yes?” Holliday said.

“You are Colonel Holliday?”

“Yes.”

“There has been an accident. Your friend Dr. Wanounou of the university.”

“Accident?” Holliday asked.

“What happened?” Peggy asked. “Is he hurt?”

“Dr. Wanounou was very badly beaten. He is at the University Medical Center. I can take you to him if you wish.”

They didn’t actually get to see the professor until early the following morning. According to Wanounou’s doctor at the Hadassah University Medical Center, a middle-aged man named Menzer, the archaeologist had suffered a fractured skull, a broken nose, a broken arm, several broken ribs, and assorted cuts, bruises, and contusions. If the fracture had been any worse he would have died.

“In other words, they kicked the crap out of him,” said Menzer, eyeing them a little skeptically, wondering if they knew why this had happened to an innocent archaeology professor working late in his laboratory.

Isidor Landsman had looked at them the same way. On the drive up Cheil Handasa to Mount Scopus Hospital on the university campus, the police detective had asked Holliday and Peggy why, according to the security log in the Archaeology building, they had been the only names listed along with Wanounou’s. What was their relationship? Why were they with the professor in his lab? Where had they been before arriving at the university? Where did they go after they supposedly left the professor alive and well? And over and over again: did they know of anyone or any reason why professor Wanounou would wind up being beaten within an inch of his life and left to die alone on his laboratory floor?

Holliday and Peggy stuck to the same basic story: They’d come to Israel on the advice of Professor Steven Braintree of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. They wanted to consult with Wanounou regarding the provenance of an artifact that had been part of Henry Granger’s estate. The fact that Holliday was a decorated active soldier and a teacher at West Point seemed to mollify the chubby cop, but it didn’t stop him from continuing to ask questions. In the end he’d left them with the classic warning: don’t leave town.

At seven thirty in the morning they were finally allowed into Wanounou’s room. It looked like every other hospital room that Holliday had ever seen. The floors were dark vinyl tile, the walls were cream-colored, and the door was big enough to maneuver a gurney through.

There was an ominous blue panic button on the wall with white lettering that read simply CODE. There were two beds. The one nearest the door was empty but obviously in use. Wanounou was in the bed by the window, up five floors with a view of bright blue sky. The room smelled like rubbing alcohol and floor wax. People moved quietly up and down the halls carrying bouquets of flowers and peeping in doorways.

The professor looked like hell. Both eyes were black and swollen three-quarters shut. His lips were swollen and the color of eggplant. He had a plaster skullcap and a plaster bandage on his nose. He had a cast on his left arm and wires and tubes everywhere.

Machinery clicked and hummed all around the room. Things dripped into him, and things dripped out. The nurse, a skinny thin-faced man named Joseph with some kind of Slavic accent and a thick scar on his chin, told them they had exactly half an hour to visit. He looked like he meant it.

Wanounou was conscious and a little groggy from assorted medications he’d been given. He gave them a puffy-lipped smile as they stepped up to the bed. Two of his front teeth were broken, their ends jagged. He lisped a little when he talked.

“I’d kiss you, but it might be too painful,” said Peggy, pulling up one of the visitor’s chairs and sitting down. She extended her hand and let it rest on the professor’s sheet-covered leg. Wanounou’s smile broadened. It looked as though his lips were going to split open. Holliday winced.

“Feeling better now,” said the professor. “A bit hungry though.”

“That’s a good sign,” said Peggy.

“What happened?” Holliday asked.

“I was working on the scroll. It was about ten thirty or so. Three guys came into the lab. One of them had an attachй case. He took the sections of the scroll, and the other two started beating me. One of them had a piece of pipe with duct tape wrapped around it. The other one just used his fists.”

Peggy winced.

“What did they look like?” Holliday asked.

“Ordinary, but like they went to the gym a lot.”

“Military?”

“Maybe. They didn’t have particularly short hair, except the one with the attachй case. He was bald.”

“Tattoos?” Holliday was thinking about the sword and ribbon symbol he’d seen on the killer’s wrist at Carr-Harris’s summer house.

“Not that I saw.”

“Accents?”

“They didn’t talk much.”

“Anything?”

Wanounou thought for a moment. The machinery ticked, dripped, and wheezed.

“The one with the attachй case.”

“What about him?”

“He was a Christian.”

“How do you know?”

“He had a little crucifix on a chain around his neck. Gold.”

That really didn’t mean much these days.

“Anything else?”

Wanounou thought again.

“One thing. Silly.”

“What?”