The Templar Conspiracy

35

"I'm getting too old for all this," Holliday said with a sigh. He and Peggy were sitting handcuffed on opposite sides of a metal desk in an interrogation room not much larger than a toilet cubicle. It smelled that way, too, pine disinfectant not quite masking the tang of old urine, passed gas and drunkards' vomit.

It appeared that Winter Falls liked its interrogations straight and to the point. There was a retro video camera with a built-in mike looming down from a bracket in the corner and a piece of one-way glass that was so old the aluminum film was wearing off and you could see a ghostly image of what passed for the Winter Falls PD squad room.

The scene on the road leading into town had been like something out of a Bruce Willis movie. Cops of all shapes and sizes pouring out of cars and vans, some in uniform, some plainclothes, and some very definitely Feds of one kind or another. At one point they were standing handcuffed, freezing in the falling snow, while Homeland Security, the New Hampshire State Police and the FBI argued over jurisdiction.

Finally a cop in a dress uniform appeared, bundled them into a Winter Falls cruiser and gave everyone at the scene the hairy eyeball before he whisked them off to the station. It was a show of very large and very brass cojones, and no matter what the interrogation room smelled like, he found himself if not liking, at least respecting the grizzle-haired cop. Holliday was willing to bet that there was either the Marine Corps or the Rangers in the man's background.

"Now what?" Peggy asked.

"We get quizzed by the locals and then passed up through the chain of command until we get to the big guys. Either that or we get sent to Gitmo."

"I thought it would be closed by now."

"Hard to keep a good idea down," said Holliday.

"You know anyone who can get us out of this?"

"I know lots of people." Holliday shrugged. "I just don't know which side anyone is on anymore." He looked around the room. "We'll just have to wait it out, I guess."

"I've never been in jail before. Don't we get a lawyer or something?"

"We're way past lawyers, kiddo. We are now deep in the swamp of National Security."

The cop in the dress uniform appeared, minus his brass-buttoned jacket. He shut the door behind him and sat down in the only other chair in the room.

"Comfy?" asked the policeman. He looked irritated.

"Peachy," replied Holliday.

"Which one of you can tell me why I'm not sitting with the President of the United States, watching a hockey game and having my picture taken?"

"Because something terrible is about to happen to your town if you don't get really busy right now," Holliday said bluntly.

"Is that right?" the cop said.

"That's right."

"Explain."

"A man I know named Max Kessler, who has been an adviser to every president all the way back to the first Bush, said your town was the likely target for a major domestic terrorist attack, which is actually a front for an eventual takeover of the presidency and the country itself by Kate Sinclair; her son, the vice president; and Army Chief of Staff General Angus Scott Matoon, all of whom are members of a semisecret religious organization known as Rex Deus. They were also behind the assassination of the Pope by an American triggerman."

"You've got to be kidding me," said the cop. "That's a Dan Brown novel. Tom Clancy on steroids."

"Not even a little bit," said Holliday. "It's very real. All of it."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"No," said Holliday. "Which doesn't change the fact that it's true. Lots of people didn't believe Paul Revere, either."

The cop sighed and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Cop body language for "Now we get down to business." Holliday burst out laughing. It wasn't the reaction Lockwood had expected.

"What's so funny?"

"I was right."

"About what?"

Holliday nodded his head at the ribbon-and-death's head tattoo on the man's forearm. "Rangers lead the way," he said.

"I was First Battalion," said Lockwood.

"Lurp," said Holliday. Which meant LRRP, or Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol.

"Where?"

"Chu Lai, Ah Shau Valley. Those nice beaches at Nha Trang."

"Same here. You must have known Nyguen Coung, then."

"Kit Carson Scout-one of the best. Sure, I knew him."

Peggy was lost.

"You're the real thing, then," said the police chief.

"I am," said Holliday. "Sua Sponte and all that. Eighteen and full of beans."

"So, then, what's this about you and your friend here being tagged as all sorts of terrorists and killers? Bodies everywhere. Shoot on sight; federal warrants."

"Long story," said Holliday.

"I don't have time for long stories. The Feds are going to come barging in here any minute now and I'll have to hand you over. No choice. Just give me a condensed version and I'll see what we can do."

"You ever hear about a guy named Billy Tritt?"

Malcolm Teeter had seen the cop bolting out of the Denny's and he didn't wait around to see who he was going to take down. As quietly as he could he climbed down out of the cab and booked out of the neighborhood. There was no doubt he was deserting his post and that he'd catch hell from that guy Barfield, but he knew perfectly well that this was just a dry run, anyway, so what did it matter? The first ass you saved was your own.

When nothing happened after ten minutes, he started to rethink his position, huddled as he was in somebody's backyard behind a fence, freezing half to death and smoking his last three cigarettes. He knew there was a pack of Luckies in the glove compartment and in the end that's what took him back to the truck, not fear of Barfield's wrath.

He got real lucky then. He'd just eased himself back into the seat when the cell phone rang. If he'd waited another minute he would have missed the call. He let out a long, relieved breath, picked the phone up off the dash and flipped it open.

Twenty-two and a half inches from the back of Malcolm Teeter's head, the cell phone-activated initiating explosion ignited the twenty-seven tons of ANFO, turning the tanker truck into an enormous grenade that vaporized Teeter before he had a chance to say hello.

The shock wave expanded exponentially, flattening the supermarket and the rest of the shopping center within less than a second. Shrapnel from the blasted stainless-steel truck leveled trees and cut through the surrounding houses like mutilating scalpel blades, killing anything alive within a thousand feet of the detonation.

A monstrous fireball blossomed like some brilliantly colored tumor, suddenly erupting from the snow-covered ground as the secondary blast wave expanded. The sound was like a crack in the world, a freight train rushing into a tornado, Joshua's trumpet at Jericho shattering windows for a mile in every direction. The earth literally shook. The two-way mirror in the interrogation room at the Winter Falls Police Station cracked from side to side and then crashed to the floor as the entire building shook.

"Christ!" yelled Lockwood, who'd almost been thrown from his chair. "What the hell was that?"

The overhead light dimmed, flickered and died. Everything went dark.

"The beginning," said Holliday, out of the blackness. "Now get us out of these cuffs before it's too late."