Templar's Quest

66

Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

0408 hours

Kate placed a restraining hand on Finn’s arm. ‘If you kill Doctor Uhlemann, you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. If that happens, you’ll never be able to apprehend the Dark Angel.’

Finn glared at the white-haired man huddled on the floor, the muscles in his arm piston tight.

‘Please, for my sake,’ she whispered. Desperately hoping to get through to him, she was afraid to break eye contact. Worried that if she did, he’d pull the trigger.

‘The old bastard knew they’d show up,’ Finn rasped. ‘He’s just been sitting there biding his time. Waiting for ’em to kick down the door.’

‘Actually, I’ve been trying to persuade you to come to your senses,’ Dr Uhlemann declared in a noticeably weakened voice. ‘Play your cards right and you can become a member of the most elite military force in history. I am offering you a chance to not only save your life, but to improve your lot in life. All you have to do is hand over the Montségur Medallion.’

‘Fuck you!’

‘If you insist on behaving like a fool, Sergeant McGuire, you will die an inglorious death. On that, you have my word.’

‘News flash: I plan on getting out of here alive.’ Finn took a menacing step in the older man’s direction. ‘But I’m gonna need a human shield.’

Kate spared their captive a quick glance. Face drawn, brow beaded with perspiration, Ivo Uhlemann was clearly in a great deal of pain. Although the man was a monster, he was an ailing one. ‘We can’t take him; he’s too frail. Just look at him. He’ll only slow us down,’ she added, hoping that would sway Finn.

‘You just cut a break, you damn Nazi bastard,’ Finn muttered under his breath as he unzipped his Go Bag. Retrieving the Taser, he unceremoniously shoved it in Kate’s direction. ‘If you have to fire it, make sure you’re within fifteen feet of the target. Slide the safety back and hold the trigger for at least three seconds. You’ll only have the one cartridge so make sure your aim is true. Got it?’

‘I understand.’ Kate wiped her sweaty hand on her trouser leg before taking the Taser from him. It was the first time in her life that she’d ever held a weapon. It felt like a foreign object. The fact that it looked like a child’s toy made her all the more nervous.

Still muttering angrily, Finn slapped a piece of grey duct tape over Dr Uhlemann’s mouth before restraining the older man’s wrists and ankles. That done, he rejoined Kate at the porthole window.

‘On the count of three, we’re going to bolt out of this mausoleum, hang a Louie and run like the wind.’ Instructions issued, Finn flung open the heavy iron door.

‘Three!’ arrived so suddenly that Kate’s legs and feet involuntarily moved of their own accord, her brain playing catch-up as they charged through the gloom. Because of the glut of burial crypts, monuments, tombstones and funerary statues, it was impossible to ‘run’. Instead, they managed a fast trot as they wended their way through the jumble.

‘Be careful,’ Finn whispered, cinching a hand around her elbow. ‘The cobbles are slippery.’

Knowing that an answer wasn’t necessary, or even desired, she nodded breathlessly.

They’d gone approximately a hundred yards when Kate started to lag, her shin muscles painfully protesting against the uphill trek. Lungs on fire, she strained to draw breath, her rucksack smacking against her spine with each plodding stride.

Still holding her by the elbow, Finn headed for an enormous marble statue of a seated woman garbed in classical robes. Morta. The Roman goddess of death.

Kate wedged herself into the protective crevice between Morta and the iron portcullis that marked the entrance to a Roman-style crypt. Legs wobbling, she gratefully slid to her haunches.

Finn dropped on bent knee beside her. ‘We’ll rest here for a few moments while I figure out how the hell we’re gonna elude the bad guys.’

‘Not only do we have to contend with the hilly terrain, but it’s like a big marble maze,’ she huffed.

‘That’s the least of our worries. The only way out of here is through the same gate we entered. All of the other gates are locked until nine o’clock when the cemetery opens to the public.’

‘Do you think our assailants are aware of that fact?’

Grim-faced, Finn nodded. ‘And I guarantee they’ve got at least one sentry posted at the open gate.’ He shoved his hand into his Go Bag and removed a pair of night-vision goggles. Pivoting on his heel, he raised the goggles to his eyes and peered in the direction of the mausoleum where they’d left Dr Uhlemann. ‘I count a total of four unfriendlies.’

Oh, God!

‘Damn it!’

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked anxiously.

‘One of the uglies is using a walkie-talkie. That means there’s more than four of ’em prowling about.’ He stuffed the NVGs into his bag.

‘Do you think we even have a remote chance of getting out of here alive?’

Several seconds slipped past, the question hanging between them. Unanswered.

Raising a hand to her face, Finn gently brushed aside a hank of flyaway hair that had snagged in the corner of her mouth. ‘Ready to move out?’

Kate gamely nodded. ‘I’m ready,’ she told him, scrambling to her feet. Heart thumping erratically, the brave front was all for show.

Finn set a brisk pace, holding on to her upper arm as they dodged between crypts and monuments. To her right, on the eastern horizon, dark clouds were plastered to the skyline like a well-worn suit.

Several minutes into the trek, Finn thrust a fist into the air, signalling Kate to a halt. He then motioned for her to get behind a chipped marble ledge.

‘On the double quick,’ he mouthed.

Biting back a fearful yelp, she ducked behind the low-slung wall. Finn squatted beside her. The iron gate that they’d earlier driven through was fifty yards away. A sentry paced back and forth in front of it.

Leaning close, Finn placed his mouth against her ear and whispered, ‘I’m going to soft-foot up to the guard and take him out.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ she whispered back at him.

‘Stay here while I take care of business. When you hear a high-pitched whistle, that’ll be your signal to haul ass through the open gate. There’s a subway station about a block to the northwest. Assuming we get out of here undetected, that’ll be our next rallying point.’

‘Be careful, Finn. And, please, no do-or-die theatrics.’

‘Roger that.’

Clutching the Taser to her chest, Kate watched as Finn dashed towards the gate in a crouched zigzag pattern. A few seconds later, he faded into the shadows.

A few seconds after that, a striped tabby cat nimbly jumped on to the ledge in front of her. About to shoo the kitty aside, Kate caught a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye. She automatically turned her head.

Even in the murky light, she instantly recognized the diaphanous blonde halo.

The Dark Angel!

No more than twenty-five feet away.

Hit with a burst of fear, she accidentally dropped the Taser.

Frantically swiping her hand across the dew-dampened grass, Kate grabbed hold of the plastic weapon. The cat, thinking it a game, batted at her hand with its paw. Bumbling, unable to see what she was doing on account of the frisky feline, she tried to locate the trigger.

Got it!

Wrist shaking, fingers trembling, she took aim and fired.

To her horror, nothing happened.

Realizing that she’d forgotten to deactivate the safety, Kate hurriedly slid the shield cover. A red laser light immediately appeared, frenetically bouncing off a nearby tombstone. She lurched upright. Committed, she re-aimed the Taser and pressed the trigger.

Two thin electric wires blasted through the air … before harmlessly dropping to the ground.

‘If you have to fire it, make sure you’re within fifteen feet of the target.’

‘Oh, God,’ Kate moaned. She’d just made a costly and, more than likely, deadly mistake.

Standing approximately twenty feet away, the blonde-haired woman raised her right arm in Kate’s direction. In her hand, she clutched a sinister-looking weapon.

‘Guten tag, little mouse.’

Kate dropped the Taser, this time on purpose, and raised both hands.

Casually sauntering towards her, the beautiful leather-clad Dark Angel smiled coldly as she aimed the gun directly at Kate’s heart.