The Lost Crown of the Knights Templar

18 Unlikely Fellows

“Your doctor has some solid advice for you there, Sam,” a woman said on approach, having broken from the group of shouting journalists. “You really should start minding your own business.”

Sam did not hide his annoyance. He sighed, “You may well think on taking that advice for yourself, Harris. It might get you killed one day.” His dark eyes narrowed at the sight of the woman who could vex him without even uttering a word. “Oh, and I hope it does.”

Jan Harris hastened toward him, looking smug as always. She had somehow bribed her way through the police barricade to address Sam.

“Who the hell is this?” Dr. Lindemann asked Sam under his breath.

“Avoid ever speaking to this bitch, doc. Remember when you thought what you know about Patient Whatever would get you murdered? Well, letting this one even know your name is damning enough, geddit?”

“If you need any more treatment, Mr. Cleave,” the doctor spoke loudly as he rose to leave, “please feel free to come in for a check-up. Good night.” With a nod to Jan Harris, he walked right past her to disappear in the group of police officers.

“So, I see you have an uncanny way of showing up where catastrophes strike, Sam,” she sneered, holding her cell phone up at him. “Or is it that you — cause — them?”

“Fuck off, Harris,” Sam recited the only mantra he deemed worthy of her.

“You had better play really nice from now on,” the conniving harpy sang happily. Her shrill, housewife-like jingle made him want to shove his fist through her teeth, but that could compromise his already teetering reputation for violence. Holding her phone up to his face came across as a juvenile display of mockery. “Why do you not answer your phone, Sam? I’ve been calling you incessantly since last we spoke, to warn you — and make you a deal.”

“I don’t make deals with losers, Harris,” Sam replied. “Knowing that destroying my phone keeps me from hearing your grating little squeak makes everything worthwhile.” He smiled at her, looking decidedly hostile.

“Now see, that attitude is precisely why you never get to the root of your personality problem, pal,” she lectured. “Did it ever occur to you that your general contempt for people, like, say, me, is causing you to miss important information? And that information,” she waved her phone from side to side, “could prove to be lethal enough to kill your career, obliterate any overrated reputation you have, or even cost you the rest of your life in prison?”

Sam’s heart stopped. His instincts told him that whatever Jan Harris had on him was on her phone and that her so-called proposition entailed blackmail. He was not a renowned investigative journalist for nothing. Years of dealing with snakes, masked demons, and low lives had taught him how to smell out a rotten offer.

He elected to play dumb and go with the flow — for now.

“What do you have there?” he asked plainly. “I guess it has something to do with what you want to strike a deal for.”

She grinned. Sam had to clench his teeth. As she leaned in to whisper, he felt his muscles beg for action, but Sam was smart enough to restrain himself. Her perfume was like the stench of a rapist’s breath as she drew close. “I think you know what I have here. Someone you pissed off sent it to me to expose you. But since I’m such a merciful opponent, I’ll give you a chance to redeem yourself before I run this on my next slot.”

Sam didn’t look her in the eye. He kept his eyes straight ahead into the red and blue flashing lights and the chaos of the crowd. He was afraid that if he gazed upon her repulsive semblance, h’d lose control. “Tell me where the woman is, and I will instead run the clip he sent you and expose him — he gave it to me to prove that you did not comply. Hey? Hey? In turn, I will dispose of the footage where you are involved in the cold-blooded murder of eight Muslim men in an apparent xenophobic attack in Barking.”

His heart slammed like a trapped animal in a cage, but his face remained without change. She had him by the balls. That, he could not deny. Instead of losing his temper at her craven opportunism, Sam simply turned to face her and answered calmly. “Do you know who that bloke is, by the way?”

“I might,” she teased. “Where is the woman?”

Sam had an idea. As long as Harris thought he had information on the woman’s whereabouts, he could stall his exposure until he knew more. As long as he played along, Harris had something to lose, and the man on the video clip had to wait before sending someone to kill him again.

“I can’t talk here. I’ll take you to her if you give me that bloke’s name. Let’s start with that simple exchange,” Sam suggested. Harris was too eager to refuse. By having dealt with her before, Sam knew that she was a vulture, a preying parasite, feeding off the hard work and information of others. She would do anything to boast more intel than another reporter. His consideration, his needing her knowledge, was a miniscule stroke of her ego.

“His name is Amir, from what I heard his associate call him. There were a few people in the background, but that is all I could hear regarding his identity. He’s, of course, an illegal stirring things up in our country with their Islam and their hatred,” she answered.

“Funny, don’t you think?” Sam frowned. “To me, his accent sounds nothing like Arabic or any of the similar dialects of practicing Muslim people. I might be completely off, but Amir sounds quite continental to me.”

Jan Harris did not take well to Sam’s deviation from what she had already labelled in her one-track mind. For a split second, she contemplated Sam’s approach, but she could not be proven wrong at any cost. “You know the new generation, Sam,” she grabbed at straws. “They adapt. They evolve with the media and the times to assimilate before causing trouble. Of course this young man will not want to sound like a harsh, desert-dwelling Muslim with camel breath and rotten teeth, wearing robes.”

Sam scoffed at the stereotypical description, but held in his need to chuckle. “Naturally,” she said as she continued her disgraceful assumption, “he will have been educated in western schools and taught to speak European English so he could deceive people into thinking his organization is broad-minded and contemporary.”

“Alright,” Sam agreed, if only to not rock the boat yet by correcting her on every point. “So did Amir tell you where to meet him?”

“No,” she sneered like a teenager. “I am to get you to deliver the woman. By the way, her name is Toshana, he says. Smoke?” According to Sam Cleave, Jan Harris had only done one thing right in her entire life, and that was the very thing she had just done — offer him a much desired fag.

“Ta,” he said, taking the weak brand he only smoked for the sake of mock bonding and the urge to start sucking on the police van’s exhaust. His lungs hated him for the crappy tasting tobacco, but he was not about to bail on a free smoke. “Toshana, you say. Toshana who?”

“Don’t know,” Jan Harris groaned as she exhaled. They watched the crowds clearing and fewer people leering at them for smoking on hospital grounds. “That was all he said.” She mimicked the man called Amir with a deep voice and a rocking head, for effect. “Tell Sam Cleave we want Toshana, and if he refuses to tell you, air the video clip of the car bolting through the men in the street and Sam’s face as he gets in to flee.” She took a long drag of her bad cigarette and looked up at the sky before pinning Sam with her eyes, as if she were saying, “Now, tell me where she is.”

Jan Harris’s cell phone rang, the vibration drilling through Sam’s head under the juvenile jingle she had for a ring tone. ‘Saved by the bell’, as they say, Sam thought in immense relief. In truth, he had no idea how to tell Jan that he had been playing her for information. Then again, being such a stout professional as she surely deemed herself, she should have known that the vocation of her choice had more back stabbings than a Shakespearian tragedy.

He finished the cigarette and extinguished the butt in the sand next to him, not even trying to eavesdrop on her conversation. Something about the call had to be supremely engaging, because of the manner in which Jan Harris reacted. She looked at Sam, but did not see him, her mouth agape, her eyes gleaming with excitement — the true look of a vulture upon discovery of carrion. Sam knew that look. It was the face of calamity, the likes of which dripped with the cursed honey that leeches would suckle like babes.

“New story?” he asked, as she hung up the phone and gestured to her cameraman to get in the car. Jan Harris looked suspicious of his interest, but again, she could not resist knowing more than he, and rubbing it in. It was a childish trait that persisted in her personality, but Sam used it every time to manipulate the superficial woman and her know-it-all ignorance. “I was just informed by my people,” she bragged, “that there was an incident down at the Nirvana Morgue in Barking. Apparently corpses were stolen and a woman on duty there was kidnapped in the early hours of this morning.”

Sam was relieved that Jan Harris was distracted from her initial threat to him, but his own interest was sparked. He could, however, never let her know that he was intrigued or else she would make sure that he did not get in on the details. “Looks like this whole area is just brimming with crime lately,” Sam sighed, looking at the mangled filter of the cigarette between his fingers.

“Don’t think I am leaving here without Toshana’s whereabouts,” she reminded him sternly.

“You know, the longer you stand here bitching at me, the more likely it is that some other reporter is stealing your scoop over there,” Sam replied smoothly, trying not to laugh at the good fortune circumstance and coincidence exhibited for him. Jan Harris was in too much of a hurry to bother with analyzing the psychological basis of Sam’s banter.

Come on, Harris. Be a good greedy bitch and take the bait, Sam thought. Take me with you.

Harris weighed up the importance of a new scoop with Toshana’s location and found that neither could be sacrificed for the other. She knew that Sam was right — she had no time to lose.

“You’re coming with me, mister,” she snapped, hands on her hips in a desperate claim to authority.

Yes! Sam cried in his mind, elated.

“Because I’m not letting you disappear again until I got what I need from you,” she continued in self-righteous assertion. “In return,” she hesitated somewhat, “you can accompany me on the new story.”

Playing along splendidly, Sam feigned reluctance before pretending to give in to her demands. “Alright,” he said, “but we can’t stay for long. I still have to take you to Toshana.”

“We’ll stay as long as is needed, Cleave,” she commanded. “God, I thought you knew how this worked.”

Behind her, Sam grinned as they hurried to Harris’ SUV opposite the road. Christ, Harris, you are easier than a drunken, jilted fresher.