Templar's Quest

19

Paris, France

4 August, 0848 hours

‘Before we blow this joint, I need to lay down some ground rules. First of all, we’re not on a French wine-tasting tour. This is a search and destroy mission. Period. The end. That said, you will stay close to me at all times; you will obey every order given to you; and you will not question my authority. Am I making myself clear?’

Topsails slack, Kate nodded silently. In that instant, it occurred to her, yet again, that Fate was not merely capricious, but threw a mean sucker punch.

She hitched the knapsack strap a bit higher on her shoulder and lengthened her stride. Several minutes ago they had disembarked from the high-speed Eurostar, Finn now in a ‘big-ass hurry to put the mission op into play’. A one-man assault on the City of Love.

At this hour of the morning, the cavernous Gare du Nord train station brimmed with hundreds of travellers rushing pell-mell in every direction. Overhead, the departure board loudly click-clacked, yellow letters and numbers flipping past at a dizzying speed, like a slot machine run amuck. Kate averted her gaze, the rolling tabs inciting a nauseous churn. To add to the chaos, a strident female voice incessantly announced the arrivals and departures on the PA system.

Finn inclined his head in her direction. Although his lips moved, the ensuing remark was completely drowned out.

‘You’ll have to repeat that,’ she told him, cupping a hand to her ear.

Coming to a halt, Finn leaned towards her, his cheek brushing against hers. ‘Just outside the station, I see a line of cabs.’

Taken aback by the combination of warm breath, warm body and prickly stubble, Kate recoiled, hit with an unexpected jolt of sexual awareness. Something that had been happening with an unnerving frequency over the last few days. When they’d shared an office suite at the Pentagon, she’d been intimidated by Finn’s sheer physicality, the man taller, broader, more muscular than most. Now, for some inexplicable reason, she found herself strangely attracted to those very qualities.

Baffled by her reaction, particularly since Finn McGuire wasn’t her type, Kate wondered if she might be suffering from a variant form of Stockholm Syndrome. Like a hostage with her captor, was she attracted to Finn because she was so completely dependent on him to keep her safe?

‘Hey, soldier, you okay?’ A concerned look on his face, Finn gently squeezed her hand.

Even though Kate knew it was his way of bolstering the troops, it caused another spasm in the base of her spine. Wordlessly, she stared at him. At that close range, she could see each individual whisker that covered his lower face, the five o’clock shadow making him appear dangerously sexy.

‘I’m fine,’ she lied, fearing the frantic, non-stop pace was finally starting to catch up with her. ‘Would it be possible to grab a cup of coffee? There’s a café over by the –’

‘Later,’ Finn interjected, letting go of her hand. ‘We need to hit the road.’

She suppressed a groan. For the last two days, they’d been pounding the pavement. Hard.

Travelling under the radar, they’d left the houseboat in Washington and headed straight to a storage facility in Arlington, Virginia. Much to her surprise, Finn maintained a rental unit well-stocked with guns, ammo, a metal box full of cash and a Harley Davidson ‘Fat Boy’. Offering no explanation as to why a sane person would go to such extreme lengths, he’d packed what he called a ‘Go Bag’ – a heavy-duty canvas satchel with a leather strap reinforced with a stainless steel cable. He wore the Go Bag bandolier-style across his chest, having yet to take it off.

Leaving the storage unit, they’d travelled to Annapolis, Maryland, Kate clinging to Finn’s waist, terrified she might jettison off the back-end of the twin-cam motorcycle. Again, giving no explanation for his actions, Finn stopped at a public photo booth where they each had their picture taken. From there, they went to a 24-hour FedEx office, the photos placed in an overnight envelope. The next stop was the Wal-Mart superstore. New clothing and a few basic toiletries were purchased, Finn insisting that she stick with neutral colours. ‘The object is to blend into the scenery.’ Hoping a roadside hotel would be the final port-of-call, she was bewildered when they instead headed to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Which is when the trip took a very strange and surreal turn.

Met at one of the gates by a uniformed airman named Barry DeSoto, an ‘old buddy’ who owed Finn an outstanding gambling debt, they were surreptitiously ushered on to a C-5 plane that was in the process of being loaded. Destination: Mildenhall Royal Air Force Base in England. Happy to discharge the three-thousand-dollar debt, Airman DeSoto arranged for her and Finn to stow away in the hull of the plane, wedged between stacked wooden crates and oversized metal containers.

No sooner did they touch down on English soil than another ‘old buddy’ met them on the tarmac. Finn gave the man a wad of cash and, in return, was handed two forged Dutch passports, a his and a hers, emblazoned with the photos that had been taken on the other side of the Atlantic. Newly dubbed ‘Fons’ and ‘Katja’, they’d crossed the Channel on the Eurostar.

Still mentally adjusting to the fact that she was actually in Paris, Kate followed Finn through the sliding glass doors as they exited the train station. Per his earlier instructions, she stayed directly on ‘his six’ as he headed towards the cab stand.

A few moments later, seated in the back of an idling taxi, Kate told the hirsute driver, ‘Amenez-nous à rue de la Bûcherie, s’il vous plaît.’

‘D’accord,’ the cabbie replied with a nod as he manoeuvred the Mercedes Benz cab out of the queue.

It had been decided ahead of time that their first stop would be L’Equinoxe, the bookstore owned and operated by her friend Cædmon Aisquith.

‘Any idea what time the bookstore opens?’ Finn slid his dark sunglasses to the top of his head. Given their proximity, Kate could see the crow’s feet radiating from the corners of his brown eyes. Obviously, the man had never heard of sun block. Although she had to admit that he wore his wrinkles well.

‘I’m not certain. Most shops in Paris open for business at ten o’clock. Although it’s my understanding that Cædmon maintains a flat in the back of the bookstore.’

‘Wanna call what’s-his-name and give him a head’s up?’

‘Um, I don’t think that’s necessary.’ It’d been sixteen years since she’d last spoken to Cædmon. A fact that she’d purposefully refrained from mentioning to Finn. Several months ago, she’d bumped into an old Oxford chum who’d informed her that Cædmon currently owned the bookshop in Paris. Until that accidental meeting, she’d had no idea what had happened to ‘what’s-his-name’ after he left Oxford.

Finn glanced at his commando watch. Altimeter. Barometer. Thermometer. Digital compass. The timepiece had more features than some cars.

‘It’s a few minutes shy of oh-nine-hundred,’ he informed her. ‘Your buddy Engelbert Humperdinck ought to be up and at ’em by now.’

‘How many times do I have to tell you? His name is Cædmon Aisquith.’

‘Whatever.’

On the verge of informing her travelling companion that she despised that dismissive expression, she instead gazed out of the window. It’d been nearly two decades since she’d last been in Paris, fabled city of wine, art, gargoyles and some of the best darned ice cream she’d ever eaten. Although she seriously doubted that a trip to the Berthillon ice-cream shop was on Finn McGuire’s itinerary.

As their taxi made its way along the heavily trafficked Quai de la Tournelle, Finn craned his neck to peer out of the side window. His first sign of interest in the passing scenery.

‘Is it just me? Or do those flying buttresses make the old dame look like a carcass that’s been picked clean by the buzzards?’

‘Are you always so irreverent?’ Kate retorted, wondering if there was anything that Finn McGuire deemed sacred.

‘I don’t laugh at funerals, if that’s what you’re asking.’

It wasn’t.

‘I asked the question because you seem immune to the beauty of Paris,’ she clarified. ‘Most people are rendered awestruck at seeing Notre-Dame for the very first time.’

Clearly not one of those people, Finn shrugged. ‘I boogie to my own tune. So why Japan?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ She shook her head, wondering if something had got lost in translation.

‘You mentioned that your folks had taken a trip to Japan.’

‘I mentioned that two days ago. You’re only now getting around to asking the follow-up question?’

The retort elicited another shrug. ‘What can I say? Been busy.’

‘To answer your belated question, my parents are participating in the annual Shikoku Hachijuhakkasho.’

‘What the hell is –’

‘It’s a Japanese pilgrimage,’ she interjected, beating him to the punch. ‘It’s a two-month-long walking tour of eighty-eight different Shingon Buddhist temples. When I was a kid, we used to go every summer.’

His big shoulders noticeably shook, the man barely able to contain his mirth. ‘So let me make sure I got this straight: you fly in an airplane more than five thousand miles so you can walk for sixty days. And I thought we had it bad at Catholic Teen Retreat.’ Finn’s umber-brown eyes twinkled merrily.

‘I never said I enjoyed it. In fact, every summer I pleaded with my folks to go to Disneyland.’ But she always ended up on Shikoku Island, attired in white cotton garments and a straw sedge hat, the traditional garb of a Shikoku pilgrim.

‘I take it your folks are Japanese?’

‘My mother is half-Japanese.’ The product of an interracial marriage at a time in America’s history when the Japanese were persona non grata.

‘So, you’re – what? – a Buddhist?’

‘I used to be a Buddhist.’

Disinclined to answer any more ‘follow-up’ questions, Kate swung her knapsack on to her lap and busied herself with rummaging through its contents. As she did so, she quietly counted her breaths, focusing on each inhalation and exhalation. Right concentration. Refusing to let her mind wander to that horrific night when her Buddhist beliefs regarding ‘acceptance’ were utterly and irrevocably shattered, when she learned firsthand that there are some things that the heart can never accept.

‘Hey, Kate. You okay?’ Reaching across the seat, Finn lightly grasped her by the wrist. ‘You look like you just chugged a glass of sour milk.’

‘I’m fine.’ Although it sounded like her voice, it was as if someone else was speaking the words for her.

‘Well, you don’t look fine.’

The cabbie peered over his shoulder. ‘C’est rue de la Bûcherie. Quelle est l’addresse?’

Grateful for the diversion, Kate said, ‘Je ne sais pas. Arrêtez-vous ici.’ Turning towards Finn, she translated the exchange. ‘Since I don’t know the exact street address, I told him to let us out here.’

Fare paid, they got out of the taxi. Peering over the top of her blue-tinted granny glasses, she could see that the Left Bank neighbourhood was a medieval warren of tiny one-way streets.

Finn glanced up from the Paris street map that he’d earlier purchased at the train station. ‘The rules for survival in the city are no different than those for the jungle, or the mountains, or the desert. Blend in with the environment. And no sudden moves. If you see a cop, hear a cop, or smell a cop, act natural. Don’t give ’em a reason to question you.’

Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Wh-why would the police want to question us?’ she stammered. ‘Do you think the authorities have tracked us to Paris?’

‘No, I don’t think that. But it’s always good to be cautious, right?’

About to nod her head, she caught herself in mid-motion, uncertain if a nod constituted a ‘sudden move’.

They’d gone approximately one block when Kate spotted a brightly painted shop sign with the name ‘L’Equinoxe’ in gold lettering. Beneath that was an image of the Fool, the first card in the Tarot deck. The age-old symbol for infinite possibilities.

‘There’s Cædmon’s bookstore, just a few doors down.’

Several moments later, standing at the entryway, Kate frowned. A small white placard with the word ‘Fermé’ hung crookedly on the other side of the glass door. Behind that, a green curtain had been drawn, preventing her from seeing inside the shop. Turning the door knob, she verified that the shop was, indeed, closed.

‘Do you wanna come back when the bookstore opens?’

Unsure, she glanced at her Seiko watch: 9.26. Local time.

‘Actually, I think it’s best if we seize the bull –’ she banged on the wooden door frame with a balled fist – ‘by the proverbial horns.’

Several moments passed. Again, Kate banged on the door. A bit more forcibly this time.

‘The bookshop is closed!’ a distinctly English voice boomed from the other side of the locked door.

‘It’s important that we speak with you,’ Kate said through the glass.

‘Je m’en fou! La librairie est fermé! Casse-toi maintenant! ’

Worriedly biting her lower lip, she glanced at Finn. ‘He insists that the shop is closed.’ She didn’t bother to translate the profane preface and postscript that bracketed the announcement.

‘Are you sure that’s even Engelbert standing on the other side of the door?’

‘Oh, yes, I’m sure.’ She’d recognize that well-articulated voice anywhere. Refusing to call retreat, Kate again rapped on the pane. ‘Cædmon, please open the door. It’s important that I speak with you.’

The entreaty worked, the deadbolt lock was released and the shop door swung open. A man, nearly as tall as Finn, with shoulder-length red hair, filled the entryway. Not only was his stained shirt completely unbuttoned, the tails limply hanging against a pair of corduroy trousers, but his feet were bare.

‘Kate? Is that you?’

‘Hello, Cædmon.’ She pasted a cordial smile on to her lips. A vision of grace under pressure.

Blood-shot blue eyes narrowed. ‘You have some bloody nerve, showing up on my doorstep.’