The Templar Conspiracy

13

Thonon-les-Bains is a town of eighty thousand, about halfway down Lake Geneva on the French side. The old Roman baths have long since lost their cachet and the town now relies on tourism for the better part of its income. It didn't take them long to find the self-service garage used by William Tritt. There were only two in the city: Auto Express, which was a too upscale and open concept for Tritt by a long shot. The second was more his speed-a run-down, narrow, tin-roofed warehouse at the end of a narrow street, its twenty or so cubicles roughly divided by rotting canvas curtains hung on thin steel frames. There was a pneumatic lift, a workbench, an assortment of tools and a canvas flap over the rear of the cubicle that afforded some privacy. The place was called Paulie's Garage and it was Paulie himself who oversaw the place, seated on a creaking, old wooden office chair behind an invoice-piled desk. Paulie was immensely fat. He sweated profusely even with a fan blowing directly over him. He wore bib overalls with the bib section dropped around his waist. Underneath he wore only a sagging, stained wife-beater undershirt. His English was fluent.

Holliday took out the photocopy of the picture Potts had given him. "You ever seen him?"

"Maybe yes; maybe no."

Holliday put a hundred-euro note on Paulie's desk.

"Seen him?"

"Maybe yes; maybe no."

Holliday added another hundred euros.

"Seen him?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"He has a booth here."

"Which one?"

"Nineteen, down at the end, a main gauche. The left side."

"Mind if we look around?"

"I feel bad letting you go through another man's things."

Holliday laid another hundred on the pile. "Feel better?"

"Much better, monsieur." The big man scooped up the money and stuffed it into his overalls. "My conscience is clearing as we speak."

"What kind of car does he drive?"

"Audi A8. Black. Brand-new."

"Nice car," said Holliday appreciatively.

"At a hundred and fifty thousand euros, it better be nice," said Paulie, laughing like a large barnyard animal clearing its throat.

"What kind of thing was he doing to a brand-new car? You'd have thought it would still be under warranty."

"One would think so, oui, m'seiur."

"So why did he need to rent a cubicle from you?"

Paulie just shrugged his big, fleshy shoulders.

"You don't know or you're just not talking?"

"I am having, how you say, moral doubts."

"Losing the doubts?" Holiday asked, laying another hundred-euro bill on the desk.

"They are completely gone, as quick as magic," said Paulie, sweeping up the bill and slipping it into his pocket with the others.

"So, what was he fixing?"

"It had something to do with the exhaust system."

"How could you tell that?"

"Because he came in here two days ago with a complete left-hand side, after-market set of mufflers and pipes. That would leave me to assume that he was working on the exhaust system, n'est-ce pas?"

"When did he leave?"

"Very late that same night."

"You're sure of that?"

"One in the morning. I have rooms in the back."

"And did the car sound quieter?"

"If anything it sounded louder." Paulie shrugged.

"Show us his cubicle."

"That wasn't the bargain you made."

"Which would you rather have?" Holliday bluffed. "Your guts turned into tails for your best tuxedo or a nice hot cup of battery acid?"

"I don't have a tuxedo," whined Paulie.

"Try to imagine it," said Holliday. "Just like the John Lennon song."

"And if you can't imagine that, imagine us stuffing your private parts down your mother's throat," offered Brennan mildly. "A revelatory vision, I am sure, my son." He took the little Beretta Storm out of his black clerical jacket and aimed it at the big man's sweaty forehead. "As is this," Brennan added with a smile.

"Viens m'enculer," said the garage owner, eyes widening, horrified by the sight of a parish priest with a gun in his hand.

"The man, which booth did he work in again?" asked Holliday. "Show us."

Paulie stumped down the center aisle of cubicles to the last one in the row. The fat man pushed open the grimy canvas curtain. Inside, the cubicle was as neat as a pin. It looked as though every surface had been washed down with some ammonia solution, which it probably had. Set out on a workbench were a series of what appeared to be brand-new baffles for a muffler. Holliday spotted a small slip of paper caught behind the bench and grabbed it. It was a receipt for something incomprehensible from a place called Activite Audi on the Chemin Margentel.

"Where is this place?" Peggy asked.

"Three blocks from here."

"Who owns it?" Holliday asked.

"An encul from Marseille. He runs-comment… how do you say it?-a chop shop. Sometimes he will steal a car to order for you. His name is Marcel."

"Call him. Tell him you have three customers who want to see him."

"He'll tear my face off if he finds out I set him up."

Brennan brought an old-fashioned switchblade out of his jacket pocket, flicked it open and held it to Paulie's neck.

"And I'll slit your throat if you don't call him."

Paulie called. He spoke for a moment, then hung up the phone.

"He's expecting you."

Brennan used the switchblade to slice through the line of the rotary telephone on Paulie's desk.

"Warn him and I'll come back and slit more than your throat," said the priest.

Paulie nodded mutely.

It took them less than five minutes to walk the three short blocks. The district was full of places like Paulie's and a scattering of small, anonymous warehouses, small windows painted over on big sliding doors, and hasps hung with sturdy locks.

There was a plain sign made of stick-on, fake bronze letters on the narrow door that read ACTIVITE AUDI. Beside the narrow door was a big, windowless roll-up. From behind it they could hear the faint echoing sounds of cutting torches, hammers and drills.

Holliday hammered his fist on the small door. It looked as though it had about fifty coats of paint on it, each color some pastel variation of yellow, blue, red or green. There was no response, and he knocked a second time, even harder. Eventually the door opened a few inches revealing a tall, skinny man in a blue boiler suit and a leather workman's apron. He appeared to be in his fifties. He had a heavy wrench in his right hand.

"Qu'est-ce que tu veux?" asked the man. Holliday noticed a long, thin scar that ran from the man's eye socket down to his chin, pale against the stubble on his cheek. Once upon a time someone had opened up his face with a very sharp knife or a razor.

"We're here to see Marcel. Paulie sent us."

"Paulie is a pig. Why do you want to see Marcel?"

"To ask him about a car he worked on."

"Who are your friends?" He nodded toward Brennan and Peggy.

"Colleagues."

"You a real penguin?" the man asked Brennan, nodding toward his collar.

"Yes," said the priest.

"What car are we talking about?"

"A black Audi A8. Owned by an American."

"Sure, I know it."

"You're Marcel?"

"Yes." He stepped out onto the narrow, crumbling sidewalk, closing the old door behind him.

"What did you do for him?" Holliday asked.

"What's it worth for you to know?"

"Five hundred euros," Holliday said.

"A thousand."

"Six hundred," said Holliday.

"Seven fifty," said Marcel.

"Done," said Holliday.

"Cash," Marcel demanded.

Holliday took out his wallet and counted out the money. "Talk."

"He wanted to know if it was possible for me to bypass one set of headers on the exhaust system and run them through a single pipe."

"Plain language, please," asked Holliday.

"The A8 has twin pipes. He wanted one of them to be a dummy."

"Why would someone want that?"

"He also told me he wanted the baffles removed. He wanted a stash."

"How big?"

Marcel held his hands about a yard apart. "A meter, maybe a little more."

"How wide?"

"Twenty-five, maybe thirty centimeters."

"Ten inches."

"Enough for half a dozen kilos of heroin." Marcel smiled.

"He told you he was smuggling heroin?"

"He was pretty clear about it," Marcel said. "He knew the right names, anyway."

"When did you do the job?"

"Four days ago. He picked up the car yesterday. Paid extra for the rush."

Holliday couldn't think of anything else. He thanked Marcel for the information.

"Anytime. Bring money." The man in the leather apron grinned and slipped back into his shop.

They walked back to the rental car, then found a place to stop for lunch in Thonon-les-Bains.

"Why would he be smuggling heroin?" Peggy asked.

"He wouldn't," said Holliday.

"Then the false muffler was for something else?" Brennan asked.

"Presumably." Holliday nodded.

"Then it's a riddle," said Peggy, using her chopsticks to sort through the small delicacies in the bento box she'd ordered. "What's a yard long and ten inches in diameter?"

"Some sort of weapon, perhaps?" Brennan said.

Something tickled the edge of Holliday's memory. Something about America's first foray into the impossible country called Afghanistan.

"It's your town," said Holliday to Brennan. "What airport would Air Force One use?"

"Pratica di Mare Air Force Base, southwest of the city. It's a little bit out of the way but it can be absolutely secured. The Holy Father uses it."

"So that's how all the foreign heads of state would arrive?"

"Almost certainly."

"What route would they use to get into the city?"

"The Pope uses the Via Cristoforo Colombo. A highspeed auto route where you can control access and there are no tall buildings until you get into the city proper. Even for our assassin it would be an impossible target. Kennedy's limousine was traveling at something like eleven or twelve miles per hour when Oswald shot him. The Holy Father's limousine generally travels at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour-roughly seventy miles per hour. No assassin in the world could make a shot like that."

"He could if he had the right weapon," murmured Holliday. He poked thoughtfully at the tiny salad on his plate.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Peggy asked.

"He knows security around the Vatican is going to be fierce. He knows that there will be countersnipers, dogs, dozens-if not hundreds-of highly trained Secret Service types from every major nation in the world. Trying to kill the president in an environment like that would be suicide. Somehow I don't see our man as a martyr to the Rex Deus cause. He's going to do the job efficiently and he's going to get away with it unless we stop him."

"You said something about the right weapon," prompted Brennan.

"I once saw a man named Emil, dressed in rags and rubber-tire sandals, destroy a Russian Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter from two miles away." He turned to Peggy. "It's the answer to your riddle, Peg. What's a yard long and ten inches in diameter? A portable Stinger missile. Just about the only one-man device capable of opening up the presidential limousine like a tin of sardines."