The Templar Conspiracy

3

"What makes you think that?" Holliday asked calmly. Every intelligence officer he'd ever dealt with had something of the paranoiac in him. James Jesus Angelton, counterintelligence head of the CIA at one time-whom Holliday had worked for briefly-was one of the worst, conducting a search for a mole within the CIA for twenty years and never finding one, and tearing the very fabric of the agency to shreds in the process. Holliday doubted Brennan was any different.

"Our source is a priest," said Brennan. He stared down into his empty glass. Holliday took the hint, stood up and fetched the bottle of Jameson. He poured a generous amount into the glass and set the bottle down on the priest's side of the coffee table. Brennan took another hefty swallow.

"Who is he?"

"Father John Leeson."

"This is like pulling teeth, Brennan. Who is Father John Leeson?"

"He was a visiting priest at St. John's Church in MacLean, Virginia. Old Dominion Drive. Father Connelly was off taking care of his ailing mother; Father Leeson was filling in. He normally worked at the office of the bishop."

"Okay, we've got the domestic background. Let's get to the assassination."

"Father Leeson was doing confessions after late Mass."

"And?"

"It makes me a little uncomfortable discussing matters of the confessional," muttered Brennan.

"Bull," answered Holliday. "I was born and raised in the faith, Brennan. The confessional is only sacrosanct to people who aren't priests. It's one of the best control and intelligence mechanisms the Church has. Subtle blackmail on an enormous scale. We know all your secrets but you don't know any of ours, including which of your children we're sodomizing."

"That's not fair, Colonel. The Church has done enough great works in its time to mitigate its foibles."

"The only group who have started more wars and killed more people in the name of their god was Genghis Khan's armies. Now, what about this confession your priest heard?"

"A parishioner entered the confessional but Father Leeson didn't recognize his voice. But why would he? He'd only been there a few days." Brennan hesitated.

"Go on," urged Holliday.

"According to Father Leeson the man was either drunk or on drugs. He was babbling about killing 'our father' and then the 'poor doomed bastard in the White House,' and there was nothing anyone could do about it now that the Crusader was in play. Then he said something very odd. He said the killing of the Holy Father was nothing but the thimblerig. For the entire project."

"What did this Father Leeson say to him?"

"He gave him absolution, of course. What else could he do? He thought the poor man was hallucinating. Whatever the case, he was terribly anguished." Brennan took another sip of his drink. "And then John telephoned me."

"In Rome?"

"Yes."

"Why would he do that?"

"We were old friends. We used to know each other. He knew what I did for the Church. He trusted me."

Holliday thought for a moment and then it dawned on him.

"He was one of yours, wasn't he? Once in, never out-isn't that it?"

"What are you talking about?" Brennan said.

"You were a mole in the IRA. You were working for Rome even then. What-the eighties, the seventies, even earlier?"

Brennan was silent for a long time, looking out at the falling snow, remembering. He poured more of the Irish whiskey into his glass, then sighed and finally spoke.

"I was already in before I was ordained," he said. "I was just a stupid boy with rocks in my pockets and in my head, as well. When you live on Dairy Street just off Falls Road all you can think about is getting a job in America, and failing that, climbing the ladder in the IRA. I had no one to go to in America, so I joined the Republicans and that was that."

"And then you became a priest?" Peggy asked.

"They asked me to. There were a lot of squeals in the Belfast priesthood in those days. Patriots, as well. They wanted me to find out who was who."

"Instead the priests turned you," Holliday said.

"They offered me a way out. I took it."

"And Leeson works for you?"

"We were at St. Malachy's together. Then we transferred to the college in Rome. We were both ordained in St. Peter's. There are a lot like him in America and around the world. In the Mossad he would be called a 'sayan,' a volunteer helper."

"All right, so he phones you, tells you about the weird confession. When was this?" Holliday asked.

"Three days before the assassination."

"Before? And you didn't say anything?"

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing, Colonel Holliday, but what was I supposed to say and to whom? He was a drunk parishioner four thousand miles away in a Virginia suburb, babbling about killing His Holiness. It made no sense."

"But now you think it had something to do with the killing of the Pope?" Peggy asked.

"A thimblerig is the old-fashioned name for the shell game, three-card monte," said Holliday. "'Crusader' sounds like some sort of code name. And that suburb in Virginia is where the CIA has its headquarters."

"It gets worse, I'm afraid," murmured Brennan.

"How's that?" Holliday asked.

"Father Leeson was murdered Christmas Day."

"Murdered?"

"Two bodies were found in a car in the ditch on the Dolly Madison Parkway, late on the night of the twenty-fifth. The one in the passenger's seat was unidentified. Father Leeson was behind the wheel. The unidentified body had been shot in the face. There was a.45 automatic in Father John's lap. He'd been shot in the right temple. There was a note on the dashboard that said, 'Apart in Life; joined in Death.' They're calling it a gay murder-suicide."

"Maybe that's exactly what it was," suggested Peggy.

"Except that John wasn't gay."

"You're sure about that?" Holliday asked skeptically.

"Perfectly," nodded Brennan.

"How?" Peggy asked.

"Because I'm gay, God damn you!" said Brennan, his face flushed from the drink. "I'd have known."

"How did you find out about all this?" Holliday asked.

"The FBI called me very late last night. They said I was the last number he'd called on his cell phone. My name was in his address book."

"What did you tell them?"

"Nothing. I said he'd just phoned up to ask about old times. I said he sounded a bit maudlin. Depressed. I played right into their preconceptions."

"Why didn't you tell them the truth?" Peggy asked.

"By then the Holy Father was dead. I'd figured out that the man confessing meant the Holy Father when he was talking about 'our' father. Anyone who can organize the assassination of the Pope is certainly capable of tapping John's phone and mine. I had to speak to you face-to-face. I took the red-eye to Washington from Rome. I got in two hours ago."

"Why me, and why now?" Holliday said.

"A lot of your background is in intelligence," answered Brennan. "You have contacts that I don't. And you know something about crusaders, certainly."

The priest downed the last of his drink and stared across the coffee table at Holliday. "While the attention of the world is focused on Rome and the events taking place there, this Crusader organization will be planning their next attack somewhere else, and we've only got five days to find out exactly where and what that attack will be."

"I still don't understand why you came to me. There are lots of other medieval historians in the phone book."

"I think Crusader is nothing more than a front for something else. Something much more sinister."

Holliday sighed. "Get to the point."

"The supposedly unidentified man in the car with Father Leeson was someone named Carter Stewart."

"This is getting a little Byzantine," commented Peggy.

"Who is, or was, Carter Stewart?" Holliday asked.

"He was one of ours," said Brennan.

"Vatican Secret Service?"

"Yes. A lay operative. Like the Israeli Mossad's sayanim."

"And why is this important?"

"Because he'd managed to infiltrate the office of an American senator."

"Which one?"

"Richard Pierce Sinclair, Kate Sinclair's son. I think Crusader is actually Rex Deus."