The Templar Conspiracy

22

Mike Harris, deputy director of operations for the CIA, sat in the darkened bunker of the Homeland Security Predator Ground Control Station. The bunker was a windowless, half-buried blockhouse on the edge of the Grand Forks Air Force Base, just outside of Grand Forks, North Dakota. A glass wall separated the control room from the pilot's positions below. There were three drones flying today, one over the British Columbia-Washington-Idaho-Montana border looking for "humpers" carrying in loads of marijuana, another one cruising in a regular pattern over the Great Lakes from Duluth on Lake Superior to Rochester on Lake Ontario, and the third flying circles at 44,000 feet over the town of Winter Falls, New Hampshire. At that height the gray-blue, pilotless aircraft were invisible to the naked eye and even to binoculars. The drones were too small to show up on radar, turboprop operated to avoid being attacked by heat-seeking missiles and made out of carbon fiber rather than aluminum for further stealth.

General Angus Scott Matoon sat with Harris in the upper control room, smoking a cigar and watching the relay screens from the pilot's positions on the console in front of them. He'd been given a report by Major Neville, his adjutant, earlier that morning and he was feeling quite pleased. The prairie fire had been extinguished via a hiking accident in a State Park in the Catoctin Mountains. It had barely made the back pages of the Washington newspapers, and besides a single clip on Channel 4, there had been no TV coverage at all.

"Do you ever catch anything?" Harris asked. "I've seen them used as hunter-killers in Pakistan and Afghanistan but that's a whole different kettle of fish."

"All they get is smugglers out west. Most of the terrorist types feel uncomfortable in that kind of environment. Camping in the woods isn't for towel heads."

Harris sighed. Matoon really was a bit of a stereotype, but the gruff, heavyset general was Sinclair's man, so he really didn't have any choice in the matter.

"We've picked up one or two persons of interest coming across the lakes, but it's mostly cigarette smuggling out there. The rag heads don't have too much experience with water, either. If you ask me the whole bunch of them are just a little on the lazy side. They fly over to Canada, which lets anyone into their stupid country, and then they try to fly into the States. That's how the 9/11 Arabs got in. They gotta know that any brown-skinned guy with a name like Yusef or Achmed's going to get pulled out of the line. The real stupid ones try to take the bus to save money. There's about three thousand miles of open border they could cross on foot, perfectly safely, carrying an A-bomb but they always do it the hard way."

The 9/11 terrorists had not entered through Canada, despite the myth. They'd entered the country through New York, L.A. and Miami with U.S. documentation, but that was beside the point. Fiddling with the joystick to the left of the screen he could zoom, pan and tilt like any film camera, completely independently of the operator on the floor. Matoon watched him play, a smile on his jowled face.

"My grandson plays Avatar with a stick like that; makes people fly, guns fire, people move. It's all beyond me. The kid's eight years old and he could probably fly one of these better than the guys down there at the controls."

"How many people in the town?" Harris asked, watching the monitor. He was flitting around like Peter Pan at rooftop level now. It was almost vertigo inducing. He could see the tops of people's heads as they trudged down the sidewalks in their winter clothes. A cop car drove down the main drag.

"About two thousand this time of year."

"What do you figure as the collateral damage?"

"Couldn't tell you," said Matoon, blowing a smoke ring. "High, I expect. The whole idea is to scare the living crap out of the entire country, not just tell them the sky is falling."

"How many cops in Winter Falls?"

"Eight on any shift. Shifts are twelve hours, so there're eighteen active officers. Eight are patrolmen on each shift. We know where all the off-duty officers live. He'll take care of them first."

"What about the county sheriff?"

"Eleven miles away. Not a problem. Two roads into town. Pick the right weather situation and it's a lockdown."

"So the whole thing is going down?"

"You having second thoughts?"

"No, not really," said the CIA man.

"Sure you do. Anybody would think twice about what we're doing. This is the big time. We do this, we save the country." The general made a snorting sound. "Our president's a pussy. America's going down the toilet. We can't let that happen. We need a strong hand in the White House."

"It's not far from being a coup d'etat," said Harris. "And we're talking about a lot of casualties."

"How many people died in 9/11?" Matoon said.

"Twenty-eight hundred," answered Harris.

"About the same here."

"You know this is different."

"Why? Because of how your asset is going to do it? Don't be a fool. There are always civilian casualties in war-it's a given, no matter how those casualties are inflicted."

Harris stared at the monitor. He could see people ice fishing on the frozen lake, kids making a snowman on a lawn. Students at the Abbey School playing hockey. He'd read the reports, studied the dossiers, knew the town inside out even though he'd never set foot in the place.

"You realize if we stop him and 'uncover' the plot at the last minute, we'll be heroes."

"Sure." Matoon grinned. "The prez would give your boss a medal, but it wouldn't get anything like the coverage if we go through with it." The general reached over and patted Harris on the shoulder. "Like another president once said, 'Stay the course,' Mr. Harris. We're doing this to make America great again."

"You're sure this is going to work?" Peggy asked. They were driving yet another rental car, this one picked up at Montreal-Trudeau International after their arrival from Zurich. Holliday was behind the wheel, piloting the big Ford Explorer down the eight-lane, snow-blown freeway. They were more than an hour outside of Montreal, traveling due west, the St. Lawrence River a quarter mile away on their left. It might as well have been Antarctica for all they could see. It was only two o'clock in the afternoon but they were driving with all their lights on, halogen fog lamps included.

"It's the only chance we've got," Holliday answered. "Homeland Security will have our passports, prints and pictures on file. We try to fly in and we'll be picked up in ten seconds. All the border crossings will have our names in their computers. That's why I picked up the Explorer from that little local company. No U.S. affiliates, so they can't be scanned by the Men in Black."

"Couldn't we have just waited out the weather in Montreal?"

"This is just the kind of weather Harry likes for this sort of thing," said Holliday, peering down at the odometer. The vehicle had almost two hundred thousand kilometers on the dial and was seven years old. The only speed for the wipers was intermittent, and the only heat came from the defroster keeping the windshield clear. Both Holliday and Peggy had bought down ski jackets and winter boots in the little town by the airport, but despite bundling up, Peggy's teeth were still chattering.

"Almost there," said Holliday. Through the thumping windshield wipers moving melting slush from one side to the other Holliday saw an exit sign for MacEwan Boundry Road and eased the Explorer into the far right lane. There was hardly any traffic on the highway, but even in a four-wheel drive vehicle one wrong move could be a disaster. The exit came up and he slowed even more, going around the small cloverleaf and passing over the wide, straight highway they just left. Holliday drove slowly along a two-lane blacktop that was now perfectly white.

"This is a blizzard," said Peggy nervously.

"This is Canada in the winter," said Holliday.

"This is life threatening," said Peggy. "Why are we meeting this friend of yours at a Subway in the middle of nowhere? And just who exactly is this mysterious Harry?"

"He's a Mohawk Indian."

"So?"

"He and I were in the Rangers together. When he retired he went back to the rez, settled down, opened a business, got married, had two kids-the whole thing."

"Is he Canadian or American?"

"Both. The reservation straddles the river, so he claims both nationalities. He likes to fight, so he joined the Rangers."

"That still doesn't explain why we're meeting him in the middle of a blizzard at a Subway."

Holliday laughed. "He loves subs. That's all he used to talk about when we were in the bush. Meatballsubs. As soon as he saved up enough money he bought a franchise."

"And this has to do with our present predicament how?"

"He set up a little boatbuilding business for local fisherman, as well. Sold outboard motors, too."

"So?"

"He sells snowmobiles in the winter."

"Why am I getting this sinking feeling?" Peggy said. The familiar black-and-yellow sign of a Subway restaurant appeared through the whirling snow. Holliday pulled into the recently plowed parking lot. At the far end of the lot was a new-looking Land Rover Defender with a plow attachment.

"Nice ride," commented Peggy. "I didn't think there was that much money in cold-cut combos and Ski-Doos."

"Harry has other sources of income," said Holliday. He climbed out of the Explorer and pushed his way through the snow to the brightly lit entrance of the Subway. Peggy reluctantly followed him through the cold.

The inside of the sandwich shop was brightly lit and toasty warm. There were two men behind the long, high counter. One was an adolescent, mouth set in a constant teenage sneer, his chubby cheeks set into a square serious face. He was wearing a paper hat and smoking a cigarette. The other man was in his fifties, hard-faced, his long black hair gathered into a ponytail. He had a wrestler's body, and like the boy he was wearing a silly paper hat. He was sitting on a stool and reading a copy of the Cornwall Standard Freeholder. He jumped up when he caught sight of Holliday.

"One Eye!" He grinned. He came across the room and slapped Holliday on the back, and the two men went through a complicated ritual handshake.

"Act like two old geezers at a Masonic meeting," grunted the teenager, scowling and sneering simultaneously.

The man with the ponytail tuned away from Holliday and gave Peggy a long, appraising look. "You must be Peggy." His smile broadened. He had two eyeteeth capped with gold, which made him look like a wealthy vampire. "I'm Harry Moonblanket." He cocked a thumb in the direction of the chubby-cheeked teenager. "The lump there is my American nephew, Kai-entaronk-wen."

"What he means is, my name is Billy Two Rivers." He turned to his uncle, the sneer still intact. "Screw you, Chief Wears Depends."

"Mouth like a rat trap," said Harry proudly. "Chip off the old block."

"Hippie," grunted Billy.

"You ready, One Eye?" Harry said, turning his attention to Holliday.

"I thought we were going to wait for nightfall. No moon and all that."

"This is better," said Harry. He removed his paper hat, took a fur-lined hooded parka down from a hook and shrugged it on. "Nighttime, they fly helicopters with searchlights. Weather like this, they're deaf, dumb and blind." He pointed toward the ceiling. "Even the big eyes in the sky can't see anything." He came out from behind the counter, turning once to give his instructions to Billy. "We get any customers, give them their subs at half price. Meatball subs on special, two for one."

"Anybody who travels in this weather just to get a sub is out of his friggin' mind," Billy responded.

"Just mind the store, kid."

"Onen, Uncle. Good luck," said Billy

"Onen and Nia-wen, Nephew." Moonblanket took Peggy by the elbow. "We'll take the Rover. You ride shotgun, sweetheart. Nothing like a pretty girl beside you for good luck." They headed out the door.

"Where are we going?" Peggy asked.

"To a place where the streets are paved with gold, my dear-twenty-four carat."