The Templar Conspiracy

10

After ten hours in the air and plane changes in three different airports, they arrived at the newly renovated Geneva International. Through the dubious magic of time zones they lost most of a day traveling, and by the time they arrived in the Swiss capital it was sunset again. In only three days Tritt would strike again, and somehow they had to stop him.

"I don't think we can pull this off," said Peggy as they rode the airport shuttle into the city, only a few miles away. Snow was a blanket, piled in drifts beside the airport road. The windows of the bus were crazed with curlicues of frost. "There just isn't time."

"So what do you think we should do?" Holliday asked. "Give up?"

"Tell someone," answered Peggy. "The authorities."

"What authorities would those be, dearie?" Brennan said. "The rogue CIA group that's probably running this whole operation? The FBI, which has no jurisdiction outside the United States?"

"The president," grumbled Peggy. "He's the one Tritt's gunning for, after all."

Holliday shook his head. "We don't have any real proof of that. Even if we had a way of getting to him, what would we bring to the Secret Service to convince them? They'd laugh us off the front porch at the White House. And who's to say that Mama Sinclair doesn't have a mole in the presidential detail, anyway?"

"What about the stuff we found at Tritt's place last night? Is that a bust, as well? Did we waste our time going out there?"

Holliday sighed. "We found three phone numbers in Europe and a CD-ROM full of information about some corn-fed town in Kansas that no one's ever heard of; Tom's Hill or something. Nothing that means anything to anybody." He shook his head. "We're it, Peg. Either we get some hard facts about an assassination conspiracy or the president is a dead man."

The rest of the trip into Geneva was completed in silence. The bus took them to La Gare de Cornavin, the city's main railway station. From there they took a taxi to the Mandarin Oriental, a modern, upscale hotel on the banks of the Rhone River. They booked themselves a trio of adjoining rooms, then reconvened in Rasoi, the Indian restaurant on the main floor.

The entire hotel, restaurant included, was a shrine to the ultramodern, everything black granite, shining chrome and mirrors everywhere. The restaurant itself had the theatrical look of a modern Phantom of the Opera set, full of dark shadows and brilliant pools of light. It was a place to be seen and to see others. The food was supposed to be "revolutionary," but it was hard for everyone to get their heads around the idea that they were eating tandoori chicken and tikka for breakfast.

"I called all three of the numbers we found," said Holliday. "The first one, and the oldest by the looks of it, was for the Gamma Bank on the Quai du Seujet."

"Tritt's ill-gotten gains, presumably," said Brennan.

"Presumably." Holliday nodded.

"The others?" Peggy asked.

"Another is for a vineyard in Aigle, and the last one is a private garage in a town called Thonon-les-Bains. Wherever that is."

"A bank, a vineyard and a garage. What's that all about?" Peggy mused. "It doesn't make any sense."

"I don't know about the vineyard and the bank, but the garage is easy enough to figure out."

"Do tell," said Peggy.

"Switzerland is just about the only country in Western Europe that's not a member of the EU. Once he's in Thonon-les-Bains, he never has to go through customs again."

"Thonon-les-Bains," said Brennan. "Sounds like a spa town. Lots of them on the French side of Lake Geneva, places like Evian. From there it's just a skip and a jump to Rome."

"A staging base?" Peggy asked.

"Could be," said Holliday. "It's the only number written in ink. It's not a place he's used very often."

"What about the vineyard?" Brennan asked. "Where does that fit in the great scheme of things?"

"The only way to find out is to go there and see," said Holliday.

"I still think it's a waste of time," said Peggy. "As far as I can see none of this has anything to do with your friend Kate Sinclair. The only connection we have is between the CIA and Tritt, and even that's pretty thin. When you get right down to it we have nothing. We're not even sure about Tritt. All we have is the opinion of your friend Philpot."

"All the more reason to check out the only leads we have, which are those phone numbers."

"Maybe he has a rotten memory," Peggy said.

"Then why hide the numbers on the back side of a drawer?" Holliday said. "If he's got nothing to hide, why did he hide them?"

"Time is running out," said Peggy. "I still think we should tell someone."

"So do I," said Holliday. "Once we have something to tell them."

Peter Van Loan had been on the Presidential Protective Detail for eleven years and a Secret Service agent for twenty. This was the third president he'd worked for, and as presidents go, he was a bit of a wimp. Of course, his job was not to reason why; it was but to do or die and all that. But sometimes the Man was worth taking a bullet for, and for others you'd hesitate just a tad, perhaps.

Eleven years was a long time to be on any detail within the Secret Service, but Van Loan was well-liked, always willing to accept even the boring assignments, like taking the kids to school or standing forever on post for interminable meetings. At fifty-four he was getting a little long in the tooth for the wear and tear on the nerves and of being constantly on the alert, not to mention the fact that his knees were starting to give out, his blood pressure was too high and his bank account was too low for someone as close to retirement as he was. He had a few more years left to cash in by working in private security and he was seriously thinking about taking the early retirement option.

Tab Hartmann, head of the detail and senior agent, was empathetic enough to throw Van Loan the occasional bone, such as being on the advance squad that vetted locations the Man was about to visit. Today it was Rome. This time Hartmann wasn't taking any chances. He'd doubled the size of the advance team from six to twelve. The assassination of the Pope less than a week ago had everyone on edge.

Not that Van Loan was unduly worried. Presidential security was always tight, but for this trip there'd be enough security to protect God himself. The president of Russia's Federal Protective Service was already prowling around the Eternal City, as were Canada's RCMP Protective Services Section, the United Kingdom's MI6 and France's GSPR (the Groupe de securite de la presidence de la Republique, or the Security Group of the Presidency of the Republic) and the German Bundespolizei.

On top of that there were smaller contingents from thirty other countries and the personal bodyguards for more than three dozen celebrities and bigwigs from Bill Gates and Arnold Schwarzenegger to George Clooney and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Van Loan had been on dozens of junkets like this, including one for the death of the previous Pope, and he knew he could do the whole thing with his eyes closed.

This is how it would go. Sometime just before midnight tomorrow two U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transports would arrive at Pratica di Mare Air Force Base, just south of Rome. The first would carry two identical presidential limousines while the second would be carrying six heavily armored Cadillac Escalades for use by the Secret Service.

The main vehicles would be followed by White House staff and support personnel traveling in locally rented Chevrolet Suburbans and the whole procession would be headed and tailed by a dozen motorcycle police on their customized blue and white BMWs.

Long before the arrival of Air Force One the following morning, Van Loan, as chief of the advance team and acting with the advice of the State Police, would have chosen the fastest and most discreet routes both to and from the Vatican, as well as two primary escape routes and one alternate in case of emergencies. Manhole covers would be temporarily spot welded shut and all refuse bins, newspaper boxes and mailboxes along the chosen route would be removed.

An Italian State Police AugustaWestland AW109 helicopter would act as aerial surveillance; it was also fitted out as a medevac unit. Trauma rooms at three local hospitals had also been reserved for the president. Nothing was too good for the Man and nothing was too mundane for his chief gofer.

Procedures at the Vatican itself were relatively easy to deal with. All guests, regardless of their VIP status, would be funneled through metal detectors and sniffer units programmed to detect any explosive residue. Women's purses would be checked for concealed weapons. As the requiem Mass began, the heads of state and other dignitaries would be asked to leave St. Peter's and wait on the steps. Eventually the Pope's plain cedar coffin would be brought out and carried to the center of Saint Peter's Square for the final funeral rites and the liturgy. With that completed, the coffin would be taken to the grottoes beneath the immense basilica and laid to rest with his predecessors.

For Van Loan and the other Secret Service agents, the period when the president was waiting on the steps of St. Peter's was critical. The crowd gathered in the square would be processed through several security checkpoints, but for almost an hour the Man would be vulnerable. Whoever had assassinated the Pope the previous week had done so at a great distance. This time there were armed Italian Special Forces teams in every tower and on the roofs of tall buildings for a mile and a half around the basilica.

It was this measure that led to the discovery of the sniper's nest in the bell tower of the Chiesa Nuova on the Via dei Filippini, an incredible thirteen hundred yards away. The fact that the nest, the weapon and the Arabic coin had been discovered by accident only the day before didn't do much for Van Loan's already low expectations of Italian security measures.

He'd rented a limousine from a local agency and made the trip from the air base to the Vatican twice, instructing the driver to proceed at a steady sixty miles per hour while Van Loan carefully processed each likely ambush spot along the way, seeing nothing that really looked like a weak spot. A sniper taking out a seated figure like the Pope was one thing; hitting an armored limousine traveling at sixty miles per hour was something else again. The moving target was the one thing that had always bothered him about the Kennedy assassination. Shooting downward at such an extreme angle was difficult, but hitting a perfect head shot while the moving target negotiated a curve was virtually impossible for anyone except a very experienced and talented sniper. By the end of the day, Van Loan was satisfied that all the bases had been covered. He went back to his hotel for a well-earned drink and a decent meal.

The man who called himself Hannu Hancock, back in Rome after his meeting with his employer in Switzerland, stood atop the air-conditioning unit on the roof of the condominium building on the Viale America. Through a pair of binoculars he looked out over the reflecting pool to the Piazzale dello Sport, searching for a marker on the Via Cristoforo Colombo. He finally settled on a set of wide marble stairs leading up to the stadium parking lot.

The point of entry into Rome had been well chosen by the Secret Service. The four-lane roadway was split around the stadium, the nearer side stretching south, the farther side heading north into the city. Dividing the one-way strips was a deep, heavily treed berm of earth to cut traffic noise.

By his estimation, the range was about eight hundred meters, or a thousand yards, well within the weapon's eight-thousand-meter range, but he didn't need any accurate reading since the weapon ranged and sighted itself automatically.

His own escape plan was relatively straightforward. A well-dressed man in an Armani suit and driving a black Audi A8 luxury sedan certainly didn't fit most people's profile of a terrorist assassin. Just in case, he packed the trunk of the automobile with a large sample case of upscale Swiss jewelry findings, and of course he carried the proper ID to back up the facade. By his estimation it would take the police the better part of forty minutes to establish roadblocks around the city; by then he'd be long gone. At an average highway speed of seventy miles per hour he could easily be back in Switzerland by the late evening and out of the country on the red-eye to New York by midnight.

Standing on the rooftop and staring out over the prospective killing ground, he went over the plan of attack in his mind one more time. He saw no serious flaws. All he needed now was for his employer's people to provide him with the final detail and the small piece of equipment necessary to making the whole thing work. Satisfied, he dropped down from the top of the air-conditioning unit, then went down the utility stairway to the elevators on the top floor.