The Templar Conspiracy

34

William Tritt had dispatched small units of Maine's Right Arm in their National Guard uniforms to the homes of all off-duty members of the Winter Falls Police force, all members of the Carroll County Sheriff's Department who lived within a twenty-mile radius of the town and the homes of all off-duty firemen in the area. By now those potential threats would either be bound and gagged or dead if they gave any resistance.

The remainder of his small force was dispatched to the woods surrounding the Abbey School. It was virtually a suicide mission, of course, but he'd spun enough tales of the population rising up in sympathy that the men of Maine's Right Arm were positive of their success.

Tritt, of course, didn't give a damn; he was doing a job that he was getting paid for. What happened after the job was done was none of his affair, nor did he want it to be. Until the detonation occurred there, they were to keep anyone and everyone from exiting the rink. For his own part, Tritt was in his room at a local bed-and-breakfast on South Main Street, his laptop open on the bed, waiting for the confirmation that the last payment had been deposited into his Swiss account. He had no intention of being near any of the fireworks when they went off. In fact, he intended to be some miles away.

Dean Crawford piloted his cruiser through the falling snow, doing his regular run up North Main along the lake up to Goose Corner, then back again, winding up at the shopping center where he'd Code Seven for a meal at Denny's and then do it all over again until the end of his shift.

Tonight everyone was getting hot and bothered by all the security around the president's visit, but Crawford had been a cop for far too long and in far too many places to care. Red Balls were something to be avoided no matter what form they took. A tour to Iraq during the Gulf War plus a decade on the Miami-Dade force, then the Baltimore force, had taught him that. Even marriage was a Red Ball, as he knew only to well after three wives had left him. Not that he wasn't a good cop. He was; he prided himself on it, in fact, but you had to slow down eventually.

No, for now at least he was perfectly happy just to do his regular shift up to the sewage plant and around again, keeping his eyes out for the bad guys that never showed up at this time of year. For the most part crime was seasonal in Winter Falls, just like it was most other places. Crooks don't like the cold any more than they like it too hot. On a night like tonight the worst he was going to get was a stalled-out car in a snowbank or a DUI, and that was just fine with him. He'd book out at the end of his four-to-midnight, go back to his little bungalow on the pond and catch a little late-night TV with a beer or maybe two. Alone. Quiet. Peaceful.

Crawford turned the cruiser off Willow onto Crooked Pond Road then turned into the shopping center parking lot. Just about everything was closed except the P amp;C and Denny's. Everything else was dark. The snow was coming down heavily now, the wind off the lake sending it into whirls and eddies that caught in the yellow vapor lamps like bizarre, miniature tornadoes. A big Sunoco tanker was servicing the P amp;C, and Crawford found himself wondering if the drivers of those hulking things got extra bucks for night work or for driving through blizzards. Probably, the lucky bastards. The way the chief made it sound you were supposed to take the occasional midnight-to-eight shot if you were unmarried and you were supposed to do it without overtime.

On the other hand, he'd had worse bosses than Lockwood. If nothing else the old graybeard knew what combat was like, which was a plus. Coming back from any war wasn't easy. It did things to you and did them to you young, things most people who hadn't done it couldn't understand. Lockwood did, so the occasional temper flare or sour mood was taken with more than a grain of salt. He also understood that sometimes a man had to put himself to sleep with something stronger than a beer or two to keep away the dreams and that was a bonus, too.

Crawford parked the cruiser in front of Denny's, then coded himself out with dispatch. He made sure the bulky Motorola portable PDA was tucked into its little holster on his belt, then climbed out of the car. He took a few seconds to stretch, then trudged through the soft, deepening snow and stepped inside the restaurant. The place was almost empty except for a couple way in the back and two or three more customers hunched at the counter like regulars at a neighborhood bar. Workers coming off shift; maybe the driver of the Sunoco truck. Who knew? Most of the locals were at the hockey game-a game he could take or leave.

A bored-looking waitress came around with a menu, but he ordered from memory what he had every night on this shift: country-fried steak and eggs with hash browns and coffee. There was a copy of the New Hampshire Gazette on the bench seat of the booth he was in and he browsed through it until the big plate with his dinner came.

The waitress put it down in front of him, and for a while he read while he ate. Halfway through an editorial on setting a Robin Hood tax on the banks he stopped eating and put his fork down. Coming down Crooked Pond he'd seen a car with rental plates and a JFK Hertz license holder going in the opposite direction. He even remembered the number: ABC 2345, like a kid had chosen it. Why would somebody renting a car at JFK come to northern New Hampshire on a day like this? There were a hundred legitimate reasons, of course, but his cop sense was twitching and his appetite was gone. He took out his PDA, typed in a Code Five wants-and-warrants request and got an answer back almost instantly.

"Son of a bitch," he whispered.

"Pardon?"

Crawford looked up. The waitress was standing there with a pot of coffee in her hand. He dropped ten bucks on the table. He looked at the PDA screen, took a deep breath and switched the machine off. "I gotta run," he said. Who'da thought, a goddamned Red Ball in Winter Falls, New Hampshire. He put the PDA back into its little holster and stood, his meal forgotten. He headed out of the almost-empty restaurant at a run.

They drove down Sugar Hill Road on the outskirts of Winter Falls with Holliday behind the wheel. They'd spent most of the day searching for some evidence of Tritt, but had come up empty. What they had seen was a town crammed with Secret Service. Holliday had even seen what appeared to be National Guardsmen here and there, which he thought might be a little extreme. He headed the rental car toward South Main Street and the highway out of town. Kessler had been wrong; there was no threat here.

"I can't believe the press swallowed that whole Jihad al-Salibiyya thing. Don't they have investigative reporters anymore?" he mumbled in frustration.

"It's all blogs and opinion these days." Peggy shrugged, shivering in the seat beside him. The car's heater had died long ago. "The Internet bled newspapers dry and real journalism dried up with it. The news cycle is all about razzmatazz, not story. An autistic kid getting found in a swamp or a guy hiding under the pulpit of his church, surviving a hurricane, outrates the outbreak of a foreign war or a disaster somewhere else killing tens of thousands. Live outside the United States like I have and you start to realize what a bunch of navel-gazers we are." Beside Peggy, Holliday suddenly tensed. "What's the matter?"

"I think that's a cop car behind us."

"Maybe it's nothing. There are cops everywhere in this town tonight." Suddenly the cop car's flasher came on and his siren whooped once.

"He wants us to stop."

"Can we outrun him?"

"In a Ford Escort?"

"We've got ID."

"Let's hope Pyx did his job right," said Holliday. He pulled over and stopped. Behind him the police car did the same. Nothing moved; no cop climbed out of the cruiser.

"What's he doing?" Peggy asked.

"Something's wrong."

"FREEZE!" said a bullhorn voice out of the snow-white darkness.

And then all the lights in the world came on.