C. Palov - Templar's Code

“Not entirely unexpected,” Caedmon said calmly, taking the news in stride. “I’ll need to get some items out of the boot.” He cleared his throat, giving Sinclair ample opportunity to offer them a ride. When no invitation was forthcoming, Caedmon, a tight smile on his lips, said, “Would it be too much of an inconvenience to drive Miss Miller and me to the airport at Providence?”

Sinclair pulled his car keys out his pocket. “You paying for the gas?”

CHAPTER 40

Kologameio!

A total butt-fuck!

Sobbing, barely able to pull breath into his lungs, Saviour collapsed on the ground, the tinder-dry foliage crunching beneath him.

Deeply humiliated, he hugged his knees and rocked back and forth. Still able to smell the smoldering nylon jacket that he’d flung aside. Uncomprehending . He’d been on the verge of taking down his quarry when the wounded animal reared up and . . . and the boutso gliftie, the cocksucker, nearly set him ablaze. And while he flapped about like a bird on fire, the Brit and his woman escaped. The two of them jumping into the river.

Angry tears scorching his cheeks, Saviour gave vent to his rage. Kologameio! He pounded the leaf-strewn soil with his balled fist. A moment later, he gulped a deep breath. Then another.

Focus .

He needed to check his emotions at the door and focus.

Christos! There is no door! He was in the dark forest. A forest that reeked of cedar and wild olives. No! That was another forest. On the island of Panos. He’d been so scared. So certain that once Evangelos Danielides’s arrow-riddled body was discovered, the servants would set the Argentine mastiffs loose on him. Terrified, he ran from the archery range and took refuge in the forest that bordered the villa. He hiked through the cedar and wild olive groves to the service dock on the far side of the island. Where the supplies were weekly delivered on a motor launch from the mainland. Evangelos’s Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes. Crates of Ouzo. Feta. Tomatoes. Fresh octopus and slabs of tuna. A godsend! He could sneak on board. He didn’t care where the vessel was headed. It didn’t matter. Somehow he would find his way to Thessaloniki.

It took a week of blow jobs and picking pockets on the docks of Piraeus before he could purchase a train ticket.

Afraid he would be hunted for Evangelos Danielides’s murder, he’d kept to the shadows. He became so skittish that he’d physically lurch when he heard a siren or a police whistle. Even a barking dog. To his surprise, there was no mention of the murder in the Greek newspapers. Although he read that an elaborate funeral was held in Athens, the cause of death officially reported as cardiac arrest. A cover-up. He didn’t even shoot the bastard in the heart. Obviously, the powerful Danielides family didn’t want their son’s predilections made public. Nonetheless, he feared that same powerful family would seek revenge for the murder of their only son.

Like a fugitive on the run, Saviour spent his nights roaming the Leoforos Nikis for quick pickups and hiding out in Thessaloniki’s churches during the daylight hours. The last place the guns hired by the Danielides family would look for him. As though it were fated, at the Agía Sophía, the Church of Holy Wisdom, he met his savior, the man who would alter the course of his life in a profound and wondrous way.

A beautiful memory.

Revived somewhat, he used his sweater sleeve to dry his face. He had to get a grip. Another American phrase. Shoving himself upright, he walked over to the stone slab where the English boutso gliftie and his bitch had held court before the attack. In a hurry to escape, they left one of their packs. As well as a small laptop computer.

What are they doing with a computer? he wondered, struck by the oddity of seeing a high-tech device in the middle of the dark forest. He picked up the computer and, with the tap of a finger, took it out of hibernation mode.

Christos!

There on the screen was a reservation confirmation: airline tickets for two to London, including a three-night stay at the St. Martin’s Lane Hotel.

Overjoyed, he threw back his head and merrily laughed aloud.

Truly a gift from the gods.

CHAPTER 41

When you have one of the first brains of Europe against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities.

“A first brain! The Englishman is vlakas, I tell you! An archimalakas! The chief of assholes!”

While Mercurius could not say whether Caedmon Aisquith merited the damning praise that Sherlock Holmes had heaped upon his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, it was obvious that the man was no idiot. Far from it.

“Do you want me to go to London?”

“And confront the powers of darkness?” he countered, injecting a touch of humor into his voice.

“You often tell me to look to the Light.”

“So I do,” he murmured.

You must always remember, little one, that you were named for the Bringer of the Light.

Do not fear the Light, Merkür. For it will lead you to your life’s purpose.

Faced with a conundrum, Mercurius said, “Let me think on this, amoretto . I will call you back in a few minutes.”

Hanging up the telephone, Mercurius wandered into the kitchen.

For sixty years, he’d been haunted by the parting remarks of his father, Osman de Léon, and his milk brother, Moshe Benaroya. And because he’d been haunted, when he was sixty-five years of age, he finally returned to the city of his birth, Thessaloniki. To confront the horror of that spring night when the Nazis loaded the two men onto a train bound for Auschwitz.

From the grungy window of the airport taxi, he’d caught his first glimpse of the city, disappointed to see that it had changed greatly in the intervening years. Where once there had been graceful cypress trees, there were now garish billboards that advertised everything from yogurt to motorcycles. And blocks of hideous postwar apartment buildings. To someone who’d grown up with the lavish architecture of the fin de siècle, it seemed relentlessly dreary.

Although once he arrived in the city, there were familiar sights and sounds. Modiano Market with tables piled high with oranges, figs, tomatoes, and fresh-cut flowers. The bouzouki music that emanated from the tavernas. The clusters of men with their newspapers and clacking worry beads.

The first two nights he stayed at a downtown hotel where he endured the constant roar of traffic outside his window. Needing his sleep, he checked out of the pricey hotel and headed for the old Turkish quarter near the Byzantine walls. There, he rented an unadorned flat in a whitewashed building. He slept blissfully that night, awaking the next morning to a breakfast of feta cheese, olives, and crusty bread. Refreshed of mind and body, he set off to find the house where he’d lived the first seven years of his life.

He found it easily enough, taken aback to see a crone mopping the marble stoop. Black shawl. Black hose. Black shoes . White hair. So much like their old housekeeper, Cybele, that he nearly called out her name . Instead, he respectfully doffed his beret—an affectation he’d adopted as a much younger man—and introduced himself, explaining that his family once owned the house.

The crone eyed him suspiciously, then said curtly, “Did you know the Jew named Moshe Benaroya?”