The Templar Conspiracy

18

"Fools rush in, Colonel Holliday, and there's no doubt that you're a fool," said Pat Philpot, overflowing a plain chair beside Doc's hospital bed. A big Starbucks cup and a pastry box full of fat cannoli sat on the night table beside him. The rotund CIA analyst took alternating sips and bites. Powdered sugar from the cannoli dusted his several chins.

It was hard for Doc to remember back when the two of them used to jump out of airplanes into war zones together. Then again, it was hard for him to remember much at all except for the gigantic pain in his chest. It felt like someone had ripped out his heart and lungs and then forgot to put them back again. The anonymous hospital room wasn't much help to his memory; aside from a simple crucifix that hung over the bed, it was the same as every other civilian hospital he'd been in. It was a Catholic hospital, which meant that he was probably still in Italy. But why was Pat Philpot sitting beside him? Where were Peggy and Brennan?

Philpot read his mind. "We don't know where your niece and her priest friend are. At the moment." He took a slurp of coffee, eyed a half-eaten cannoli in the box and then thought better of it. "If it wasn't for the fact that Ms. Blackstock almost certainly has a photograph of a known Company operative firing a Russian Igla missile at the presidential limousine, we'd have conveniently put a bullet in your brain and buried you in an olive grove by now."

Holliday cleared his throat. "You're telling me that olive groves are the equivalent of the New Jersey Meadowlands here?"

"Quit being a smart-ass, Holliday. You're in a lot of trouble; don't make it any worse."

"Then tell me what happened, why I'm here."

"Billy Tritt fired a Soviet Igla 'needle' missile at the lead limo in the motorcade and blew it all to hell and gone. He fired a Glock.40 at you, but you were smart enough to be wearing the wop equivalent of a bulletproof vest."

"He killed the president?"

"The VP and the secretary of state. It should have been the A car, but the Secret Service flipped at the last second because of the warning."

"How did Tritt know?"

"Because there was a big X on the roof of the lead car."

"And nobody noticed?"

"Nobody. The X was some clear coating and UV sensitive. Nobody could see it except for Tritt."

"You're talking about an inside job, then," said Holliday.

"I'm talking off the record, just like before. You mention any of this and you really will wind up in an olive grove."

"Off the record, then."

"Thank God it was an Igla and not a Stinger. It muddies the water some. On the other hand, some unfriendly colleagues of mine have an unregistered Beretta in their possession with your prints all over it. They also have evidence connecting you to a pair of homicides in Rock Creek Park a week or so ago. They can tie you to a conspiracy to assassinate the president without breaking a sweat. Get the picture?"

"You're telling me there really is a rogue section of the Agency?"

"I'm not speaking to you at all," said Philpot. He stuffed half a cannoli in his mouth and inhaled the sweet cream at its center, then savored the outer layers of flaky, butter-rich pastry. "In fact," he said, methodically licking his fingers, "this is so off the record that I'm not even here; I'm sitting at my desk in MacLean, picking my toes and wondering who's going to win the Super Bowl."

"The Giants," said Holliday.

"Bah, humbug." Philpot scowled. "It'll be the Steelers again."

"So, what are you trying to tell me, Pat, seeing as how you aren't here?"

"I'm telling you to find your pretty Peggy and get out of Dodge, pronto. There are people out there who want you dead and have the ability to make it happen."

"We're talking about the so-called Jihad al-Salibiyya?"

"We're not talking about anything. I'm not here, remember? Have a cannoli."

Chief Randy Lockwood, head of the Winter Falls Police force for the last thirty years, strolled down South Main Street bundled up in an official Winter Falls Wolves jacket. The cold weather had creaked and blustered its way down from Canada, putting an even thicker layer of ice on Big Cache Lake. The iceboats were whizzing around, practicing for the races to be held the following month, and he could see half a dozen fishing boats already set up. It was all part of the Falls' somewhat limited attempt at turning itself into a winter wonderland as well as a summer resort.

He reached Gorman's Restaurant, the unofficial divider between South Main Street and North Main Street. He pulled open the steel door with one leather-gloved hand and stepped into the overheated diner. His booth in the back next to the kitchen's swinging doors was empty, a glass of water and a copy of the Trumpet, Winter Falls' only newspaper, laid out on the Formica. At eleven in the morning, Gorman's was packed with the inner circle of Winter Falls' gossips and flapjaws, including Sandy Gorman, who was standing behind the counter and wrangling a huge pile of bacon that was being precooked for the all-day breakfasts that were one of the favorites. Beside the bacon was an equally huge pile of hash browns and beside the hash browns was Reggie Waterman, frying and scrambling eggs, turning sausages and even taking care of a few burgers and the French fry baskets.

Randy, Sandy and Reggie had all been stars of the 1964 Winter Falls High School football team and they'd all gone off to serve in Vietnam two years later. Sandy Gorman had come back minus half a leg, and stumped around behind the counter on a prosthetic; Reggie Waterman scrambled eggs with a fork clamped to the hook that had once been his right arm. Randy returned with nothing but a Silver Star and a white streak of hair above his ear where a Vietcong bullet had creased his skull. In the years since, it had gradually earned him the nickname "Streak."

Winter Falls, New Hampshire, was a resort town and always had been. It was one of a half dozen towns that stood on the edge of Big Cache about sixty miles west of Portland, Maine, the closest city of any size. In winter the Falls had a population of a little more than six thousand. In summer it blew up to twice that, the number of parking tickets growing exponentially with enough revenue to pay the salaries of the entire sixteen-man, two-woman Winter Falls Police Department. There hadn't been a murder, rape or violent crime since the Hartwell twins' bizarre double suicide twelve years ago, and one missing person back in the mid-nineties that Streak Lockwood figured for a runaway. Pete Mc-Googan was a mean bastard living in the backwoods around Front Bay with a dull-witted wife and a beautiful sixteen-year-old who could have been a movie star. Her old man always had a strange, proprietary look on his face when he was around her, and if Streak had been in Cindy McGoogan's shoes he would have split for the big city himself.

Whatever it all was it amounted to Winter Falls being voted number one of the top-ten safest towns in America by Time magazine for the fourth year in a row. There were about a hundred copies of the issue in Zeke's Smokes and Sundries down the way, but Cyrus Dorchester at the Trumpet pretended that no one in town had heard and had a huge headline announcing FALLS #1 AGAIN!!!

The lake was just beyond Gorman's back-door patio and a sudden wind rattled the entire rickety, two-story clapboard building, the freezing air chattering through cracks in the joints and around the heavy double-pane storm windows. If it wasn't for the grill, ovens and fryers being fired up from dawn to dusk, the place would be as cold as the inside of a freezer.

Lockwood dropped down into his booth, his back to the wall under a 1974 Boston Bruins calendar turned to February so it eternally showed the rampaging Phil Esposito grinning with his front teeth out, Sandy Gorman's favorite, even if Esposito was a Canuck.

Reggie Waterman came out from behind the counter and slid onto the bench opposite Lockwood, a plate clamped in his steel claw and a cup of coffee in his good hand. He set the food down in front of his old friend and leaned back against the cracked green vinyl of the booth.

"Poached eggs on dry toast, one slice of bacon, no home fries and a cup of decaf coffee that tastes like brown water. You're letting that woman destroy your golden years, Streak. Booze, broads and bang."

"Sadly, Reg, those days on Duc Do Street are long gone. We're old men now."

"Yeah," snorted Reggie, waggling his bright steel claw in the hair. "I'm not half the man I used to be."

"And Maggie Irish is my doctor, not my wife," answered Randy. "Booze, broads and bang are harder on your cholesterol than any wife could ever be." There was an awkward pause. Reggie and Sandy had lost body parts in Vietnam, but Randy's wife, the former cheerleader Dory Cramer, had aborted the baby they'd conceived just before Randy shipped out, and ran off to be a big star in Hollywood. Nobody had ever seen her again. She was a year younger than the rest of them, which meant she was sixty now-probably playing grand-mothers in Depends ads if she was doing anything at all. More likely she'd hit the skids and died of an overdose decades in the past. Forever young; forever the thief of his child that was never allowed to be. It had always struck him as odd that he could hate someone so thoroughly who had disappeared from the face of the earth so long ago, and love someone so thoroughly who had never existed. How could you hate a ghost or love a shade?

"So how was Christmas, Streak?" Reggie asked.

"A positive love fest," said Lockwood, carving a dripping chunk of egg and toast away from the plate and popping it neatly into his mouth.

"Yule logs and chestnuts roasting?" Reggie asked.

"Something like that," said Lockwood. More like a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew over the sink and endless reruns of Home Alone and It's a Wonderful Life. Once upon a time he'd liked the idea of Turner Classic Movies, but now they just made him think about other Christmases he'd rather not reminisce over. He'd tried to ignore the sappy holiday films, but everything else on cable depressed him even more. CNN was a constant stream of first the Pope getting blown out of his miter and then the attempt on the president. Fox News was full of Glenn Beck weeping along with that cracker idiot named Sinclair, who just happened to be the junior senator from New Hampshire, babbling about the "festering sore of domestic terrorism about to appear like the plague in America if something isn't done quickly." Yeah, Christmas had been a blast.

"So, you going to run for mayor?" Reggie asked. He waved his claw in the air and one of the harried waitresses brought him a mug of coffee. He sipped it and sighed happily.

"Why?" Lockwood smiled. "Just because Time magazine says I'd be a shoo-in? No, thanks."

"I'd get to call you Your Honor." Reggie grinned. "Better than the Blanchette woman."

"Snotty" Dotty Blanchette was in her sixties, unmarried and hard as nails. She'd started off as secretary to a town councilor and clawed her way up the municipal ladder. In a Republican town, she was all Democrat.

"Mayors come and mayors go," said Lockwood. "Even Dotty Blanchette." He broke his single strip of crispy bacon in half and popped it into his mouth. "Besides, nothing ever happens here. All I have to do is sit in my office, rescue cats from trees and eat doughnuts all day. The mayor has the real job."

There was a howl of freezing wind as the front door opened and shut. Streak Lockwood looked up and saw that it was a stranger. A tall, lean man in a long leather coat. He had longish dark hair and eyes half hidden behind tinted sunglasses. The only really odd thing about him was his out-of-season tan, and it didn't come from Sun-N-Go from up on Porter Street, either. Lockwood took a mental snapshot of the man and then got back to his poached eggs and his conversation with Reggie.

Billy Tritt found a space at the counter and sat down.