The Sword of the Templars

25

The Musйe National de la Marine is located in one wing of the 1930s Palais de Chaillot and looks out across the Champ de Mars. When you see a photograph of Hitler with the Eiffel Tower in the background during his whirlwind visit to Paris after the city fell, the Fьhrer is standing on the terrace of the Marine Museum.

Maurice Bernheim was in his early forties, bluff and hearty and full of laughter. When he saw Holliday his first comment was about how easily a man with a patch on his eye could be a pirate. Bernheim was comfortably chubby, brown-haired, wore a lovely Pierre Cardin suit and expensive-looking shoes, and smoked a particularly foul-smelling brand of cigarettes known as Boyards. Holliday hadn’t known you could still get them, and the only reason he remembered them at all, other than once choking on one, was because, oddly, they were the only brand of cigarette anyone smoked in the movie Blade Runner. They smelled like old sneakers that had somehow caught fire.

Bernheim’s office was a lavish room with the same view that Hitler had gotten, French doors leading out to the same terrace, paintings of ships where there were no bookcases, and ships in bottles on the few shelves that had no books. The furniture was expensive, leather and comfortable. Bernheim’s desk was huge, carved, and very old. The carpets on the floor were Isfahan Persian and beautiful. Either Bernheim was independently wealthy or he had a lot of juice in his job.

“Ah, yes,” said Bernheim, leaning back in his chair. Smoke writhed up from the corn-paper cigarette in the big, cut-glass ashtray, already overflowing with butts from previous brushfires. “The infamous Roger de Flor. I know him well.”

“Why infamous?” Holliday asked.

“He was something of a bad boy, you know. An adventurer and a mercenary. Sometimes he would rise up against his employers and take them over. He was like his Templar friends-far too successful. A great sailor by all accounts.”

“Why did the scroll we found refer to him as Rutger von Blum?” Peggy asked.

“That was his name,” said Bernheim with a very Gallic shrug. He picked up his cigarette, and it found its way to the corner of his mouth. He sucked, then puffed, excreting a cloud of smoke up toward his high ceiling. “He was born in Italy where his father was royal falconer in Brindisi. Blum means flower in German. De Flor was nothing more than political expediency… When in Rome and all that, yes?”

“How did he connect with the Templars?” Holliday asked.

“He was a second son, which in those days meant his father didn’t know what to do with him. It was either the priesthood or the sea. When the young Roger came of age he was indentured to a Templar galley of which he later became captain. Like that.” He took a puff of his Boyard. “He eventually built up a fleet of warships and cargo ships for hire. His flagship was the Wanderfalke-the Peregrine Falcon, a caravel. Two hundred tons; quite large for the time.”

“I read you the translation of the Latin over the telephone,” said Holliday. “Did it mean anything to you?”

Bernheim smiled broadly and took another drag on his cigarette.

“Not at first. My Latin is sparse to say the least; it was never my subject even years ago. I think perhaps your translation was a little… rough, as well.”

“I’ll grant you that.” Holliday nodded.

“So,” continued Bernheim, “it did not sonner les cloches, yes? Ring the bells?” He shrugged again. “So I thought, I smoked a few cigarettes and thought some more. Fanum cavernam petrosus quies. So I did what my old teacher Monsieur Forain instructed. I, how do you say it, decomposer la phrase?”

“Parse,” said Holliday.

“Yes, parse,” nodded Bernheim. “I parsed the phrase. Fanum. Shrine. Holy Place. Cavernam. Cave. Hollow place. Petrosus. Rock. Stone. Quies. Resting place.”

“Bells rang?” Peggy asked.

“Indeed, yes, they rang loudly because I also remember Monsieur Forain telling us that Latin is often a matter of the turn of phrase. What are the phrases that we have here?”

“Fanum cavernam and petrosus quies,” responded Holliday.

“Quite so, les phrases descriptives, the descriptive phrases ‘holy cave’ and ‘rock of quiet.’ Then I see it. A pun, or perhaps even a code. Quies, a place of safety. A harbor perhaps. The Harbor of the Rock, yes?”

“Is there such a place?” Peggy asked.

“Certainly,” nodded Bernheim, triumphantly crushing out the fuming end of his cigarette. “Roger de Flor’s home port: La Rochelle, the harbor of the rock.”

“And the holy cave?” Holliday said.

“Saint-Emilion,” said Bernheim.

“I thought that was a wine,” said Peggy.

“Also a town not far from La Rochelle. Also a monolithic church carved out of the limestone where the hermit St. Emilion had his home. In a cave beneath the church. The Harbor of the Rock. The Holy Cave, n’estce pas?”

“It could be,” nodded Holliday.

“I am sure of it,” said Bernheim. “Go to see this person in La Rochelle.” He sat forward and scribbled something on a notepad. He tore it off the pad and handed it to Holliday. A name and address: Dr. Valerie Duroc, Universitй de La Rochelle, 23 avenue Albert Einstein, La Rochelle, France. “She will be your guide.”

They left the museum and crossed the Seine on the Pont d’Iйna by the tour boat landing stage. They turned and walked along the quayside, enjoying being in Paris once again. Peggy had been there on assignment several times, and when Holliday had done a brief stint at NATO headquarters in Belgium, Paris had been his favorite go-to place for R amp;R.

Paris. Arrogant, self-involved, pompous to the point of buffoonery, and populated by roughly six million elitist snobs forever looking down their noses at everyone else in the world, including the rest of their fellow Frenchmen, Paris was without a doubt still the most beautiful city in the world and one of the most fascinating. You could hate Paris for all its shortcomings, but at the same time you could have a wonderful time meeting the challenges the old bitch has got waiting for you around every corner.

They eventually reached the Quai d’Orsay and turned down the boulevard Saint-Germain, heading toward their hotel. Saint-Germain was in full summertime riot gear, selling everything from Armani suits to ten-thousand-dollar cufflinks and solving the problems of the world over coffee and a sandwich jambon in any number of cafйs that ran the length of the long, tree-lined grand boulevard.

Half the store windows announced a grande vente to lure in the tourists, and the other half had signs in their windows warning of the dreaded fermeture annuelle, the city’s classic July-August vacation when all Parisians make their once-yearly trek to the country or the seaside and pretend to enjoy it.

As Holliday and Peggy made their way down the street to their pension-hotel on the rue Latran they heard a dozen different languages being spoken and saw tour buses rolling by from at least that many countries. It was hardly the Left Bank of Hemingway’s time, but it was still a great show, complete with striped jerseys, berets, old Citroлns, and les flics, the smiling pillbox-hatted policemen twirling their nightsticks and caressing the nasty little automatic pistols holstered on their hips. Here and there Bosnian beggars lurked, often with landmine-blasted arms and legs, rattling paper cups in hand.

They bought mustard slathered sausage rolls from a street vendor and continued down to the hotel, a six-story run-of-the-mill pension with no particular amenities other than the fact that, for a city like Paris, it was relatively cheap. Holliday and Peggy trudged up the narrow stairs to the second floor, said their good-byes in the hallway and retreated to their separate rooms. Neither one of them had slept since Jerusalem.

The room was classic third-rate Paris. The bed was cast iron with a mattress so soft it almost hit the floor. The chest of drawers had survived two World Wars and had the scars to prove it, and the bidet was ridiculously crammed between the bathroom door and the window, which overlooked a back alley. The view was just as classic: chimneypots on rooftops that drifted down to the Seine and a corner of Notre Dame if you hung out over the fire escape like an acrobat.

Holliday stared. The room had been completely trashed. The mattress looked as though someone had gone at it with a butcher knife; there were feathers and shreds of ticking everywhere. The drawers in the bureau hung open like lolling tongues, and clothes were scattered all around the room. His overnight bag had been torn to ribbons and the lining hacked out.

He paused. A sound? His heart hammered in his chest; the smart thing would be to turn around and run. Instead he went across to the closed door of the bathroom, wincing as a floorboard creaked under his foot like a rifle shot. He paused again at the door and listened.

Breathing, or the sound of a breeze blowing down the alley outside? Water dripped in the bidet. Holliday thought about the knife that had torn up the room. He stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm. He pushed open the door. The bathroom was empty.

He turned back into the room, but something was nagging him. The shower curtain had been drawn around the bathtub. He was sure it hadn’t been like that when he left the room. He whirled. A knife razored past his shoulder, and he had an image of a slim, lean-faced man in a white shirt with the tails out. His head smashed against the doorframe, and he reeled back as the man lunged toward him.

Holliday scuttled backward through the open doorway. His assailant tried to bring the knife up under his ribs, but he managed to twist away, the long stiletto blade slicing through his shirt and grazing his skin. Holliday managed to launch a sharp kick to the man’s groin.

The intruder screeched and dropped one hand between his legs. Holliday staggered back, tripping over the slashed remains of the mattress. Suddenly the man was on top of him, straddling his chest, his free hand coming up underneath Holliday’s jaw, pushing his head back, leaving the throat open to attack.

Holliday bucked frantically as the knife arced down toward him. He tipped the other man off his chest and slammed him into the iron bed, his knife hand snagging on the metal springs. Holliday ground his knee into the other man’s cheek, putting his weight into it.

There was a wet cracking sound, and the man with the knife let out a muffled, choking scream. Holliday reached up and grabbed the man’s arm, pulling the wrist back over the edge of the iron bed, almost bending it back double on itself. The man let out a desperate groan, and the knife dropped out of his hand, clattering onto the floor.

Somehow the man twisted out of Holliday’s grip and staggered to his feet. He was a lot larger than Holliday had originally estimated, and there was a frighteningly feral look about him. He was an attack dog, and even with a broken cheekbone and a nose gushing blood he looked as though he was in his element; this kind of thing was his business.

A quick glance told Holliday that the knife was now behind him; to make a play for it would mean turning his back on the man in front. He also noticed that the man’s hands had a hard line of callus on the outer edge of the palm. He knew what that meant; Turner, one of the martial arts instructors at the Academy, had hands like that. The kind of hands that could slice through a three-inch board or a concrete block. Or crush an esophagus. This guy didn’t need a knife at all.

Things suddenly got even worse. The man smiled through the mask of blood covering the lower half of his face, the teeth like dirty little yellow pearls.

“Connard,” he murmured.

His right hand swept back under his shirt and came out with a stubby little Beretta Tomcat, a mini-pistol from the late seventies. It sounded like a rat sneezing and was only.32 caliber, but a.32-caliber hole in your forehead was a hole nonetheless. He stepped forward, still smiling, bringing the gun up, his finger tightening on the trigger.

From the right side Peggy swept in under Holliday’s arm, the long-bladed stiletto underhanded in her fist. She drove it like an uppercut up under his chin, the stainless steel spike cutting through throat, tongue, and soft palette, eventually lodging deep in the man’s midbrain.

Peggy let go of the blade. The man collapsed like a venetian blind. He fell forward, his cheek resting on Holliday’s shoe. Peggy was shaking, her eyes like saucers.

“Is he dead?” she whispered.

“You’re kidding,” answered Holliday. “He couldn’t get any deader.” He shifted his foot. The man’s head thumped lightly against the floor. He was barely bleeding at all.

“Oh, God,” groaned Peggy. “I killed him.”

“About a millisecond before he was going to kill me,” said Holliday. He put his arm around her, squeezing hard. “You saved my life, kiddo.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They both stared down at the body.

Holliday crouched down and turned the man over on his back. He checked the man’s wrist. There was a tattoo: the same sword and ribbon insignia he’d seen on the man in England.

“One of Kellerman’s people,” said Holliday. He checked the man’s wallet. His carte d’identitй said his name was Louis Renault, a citizen of Morocco, born in Casablanca. There was also a small leather folder that identified him as a captain in the elite Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale. “He’s a cop,” said Holliday. “Antiterrorist squad. We just stepped in it big time, I’m afraid.”