Paul Christopher: The Sword of the Templars

Holliday stepped back, pulling the sword out of the man’s body with a light twisting movement to break the inevitable suction. There was a ghastly sucking sound as the blade slid out of Kellerman’s chest. The dead man slithered to the ground. Holliday dropped the sword and turned, trying to wipe the rain out of his eyes.

Peggy was on her knees, one hand cradling her bruised shoulder, staring at the corpse of the blond thug, the blood from his wound diluted by the rain into a spreading pink puddle on the rocky ground.

“Are you all right?” Holliday asked, bending over her.

“Just fine,” she said quietly, staring vacantly at the man she’d just blown out of his socks. “Peachy.”

Tavares sat on the ground, cradling Rodrigues’s head in his lap, the steady rain soaking them both. Holliday knelt beside them.

“He is my friend,” whispered Tavares, weeping, the words catching wetly in his throat. He stroked Rodrigues’s forehead soothingly. “My dear, dear friend for all these years. I cannot let him die.”

Rodrigues opened his eyes, blinking them hard against the rain.

“We all die, Emmanuel,” murmured the ex-priest.

He made a small sighing noise, managing to lift his hand and grip Tavares’s broad, hairy wrist. He turned his head slightly so that he could see Holliday above him.

“Keep Manuel close. He is brother to my soul and knows about everything. He has been my eyes and ears in the world of men for a long time.”

“I will,” promised Holliday, feeling his own eyes dampen, trying to tell himself it was the rain.

“Kellerman is dead?”

“Very,” nodded Holliday.

“Good enough,” murmured Rodrigues. “Good enough.” He sighed again. “Then the torch is passed. Iacta alea est. Vale, amici.” The ex-priest lifted his head from Tavares’s lap. His eyes stared up at the dark sky, seeing nothing now. “Too many secrets,” he whispered. “Too many secrets.” He made one last, small sound, closed his eyes, and died.

The rain crashed down in long, weeping curtains all around them in the bowl of the island crater.

Peggy rose, turned away from the two dead men, and put her hand on Holliday’s shoulder.

“We never really knew him,” she said sadly, looking down at Rodrigues.

“And now we never will.”

“What was that he said at the end?”

“Iacta alea est. It’s what Julius Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon and entered Roman territory, defying the Senate and starting civil war.”

“What does it mean?”

“ ‘The die is cast.’ There’s no way to turn back from destiny now. He meant for you and for me.”

“And the last ‘Vale, amici’?”

“ ‘Farewell, friends,’ ” said Holliday softly.

Two hours later they sat in the snug cabin of the San Pedro, wrapped in blankets, a kettle whistling on the small gas stove. Peggy got up from the little table and began making tea. With Holliday and Peggy in the San Pedro bobbing gently at anchor in the tiny harbor, Tavares was dealing with the embarrassment of dead bodies back at Rodrigues’s little cottage. The rain still thundered down, hammering on the cabin roof of the old Chris-Craft, and, according to Tavares at least, making his job much easier. They would stay aboard the San Pedro tonight, and tomorrow the rotund captain would take them across the narrow strait to Flores and a flight back to civilization.

Holliday sat at the table, leafing through the fat little notebook Rodrigues had insisted he take from his pocket. Aos, Sword of the East, cleaned and dried, lay on a folded towel in front of him. Peggy put two mugs of hot sweet tea on the table and slid down the upholstered bench beside Holliday. Rain streaked against the cabin window behind her, and she snuggled down into the blanket, pulling it around her more tightly. She shivered and took a sip of the tea.

“What’s in the book?”

“Names and addresses,” said Holliday. “Hundreds of them. People all over the world. Something called the Phoenix Foundation and some sort of special prefix number I’ve never seen before. Figures and letter codes that look like they might be bank accounts.”

“Is Raffi in the book?”

“No.” He smiled. “I haven’t seen it so far.”

“But you checked, didn’t you, Doc?”

“Of course.” He grinned.

“Still suspicious?” Peggy asked.

“Always,” said Holliday.

“I’m going to see him when we get out of here,” she said, a little defensively. “See how he’s doing in the hospital. See if he could use some help.”

“Bring him a box of candies?”

“Maybe even flowers.” She smiled. “Guys never get flowers.”

“Give him my best,” said Holliday. “I mean that.”

“Thanks, I’ll tell him.”

There was a long pause. They sipped their tea and listened to the raindrops rattling on the cabin roof, both wondering how they’d come from here to there and back again, wondering what was coming next. Finally, Peggy spoke.

“It’s not over yet, is it, Doc?”

Holliday glanced at the gleaming sword on the table, bright steel forged an eon ago in the desert sun of Damascus, reaching across time to slay its enemy.

“No,” he answered, flipping the pages of the little book. “I don’t think it’s over, not for us, not by a long shot.”

It was late September now. There was a chill in the air, and Holliday had laid kindling in the little tiled hearth of the fireplace in his living room. It was blazing well, the flames making flickering shadows dance across the book-lined walls. Time to add a log or two and then relax after a long day of teaching.

The reinforced FedEx box from Josй de Braga’s shop in Quebec City was leaning up against the armchair by the fire. A glass of Ardbeg Lord of the Isles single malt stood waiting for him on the side table. But he wasn’t ready for either the box or the drink just yet.

Holliday went to the window at the front of the room and stared out into the gathering night. Through the trees and down the hill he could see the modern brick bulk of Eisenhower Hall. Beyond it the Hudson River wound its dark way toward Manhattan and the sea.

A thousand miles or so farther were the Azores, where Rodrigues and Kellerman had both died and where his life and Peggy’s had changed forever. After Peggy had gone back to Jerusalem to be with Raffi, Holliday had returned here to West Point.

Everything seemed as it should be. A thousand fresh-faced and earnest plebes, triumphant survivors of Beast Barracks, back from six weeks of basic-training hell and willing to learn-even if it was just history. A thousand ring-thumpers who were sure they knew everything, but who really didn’t know anything at all about what waited for them in the real world. And him, Lieutenant Colonel John “Doc” Holliday, who was starting to think that he’d fought one too many battles and seen one too many good people die for no good reason. Gung ho! and Huah! were Hollywood, but it would take these kids a long time to learn that. Too long for some of them, and some wouldn’t have time to learn at all.

He let out a long breath and turned away from the window. He went back to the armchair and tore open the heavy box. He drew out the restored weapon from the famous swordsmith’s shop and examined it in the glimmering light of the fire.

De Braga had done a wonderful job; the gold wire with its coded message had been perfectly rewound over the tang, and the silky, iridescent sheen of the yard-long Damascus blade had been polished to an almost magical brilliance. Somewhere, four thousand miles and almost a thousand years away, a dead knight smiled in his grave. Hesperios, the Sword of the West.

Holding it carefully in both hands Holliday took the sword to the fireplace and eased it onto the slotted wooden pegs that awaited it above the mantel. He stood back. It looked as though it belonged. But for how long?