The Templar Conspiracy

7

"I don't get it," said Peggy. "How is killing the president going to help the Sinclair woman?"

"You were barely a toddler when Watergate happened, but even before that Nixon already had a scandal," said Holliday. "His vice president, Spiro Agnew, was charged with accepting bribes when he was governor of Maryland. Agnew resigned and Nixon appointed Gerald Ford out of Congress. Then Nixon resigned and Ford became president. Ford in turn appointed Nelson Rockefeller, who had been governor of New York State. That meant that neither the president nor the vice president were elected. They were both appointed."

"If the president is assassinated the vice president automatically takes over and then appoints his choice for VP," said Brennan.

"And you can bet that Kate Sinclair's got that all locked up. It'll be her son the senator, Richard Pierce Sinclair, one of those 'Pry my gun from my cold, dead hands' types."

"How does she manage that?" Peggy asked.

Holliday lifted his shoulders. "Lots of ways. Blackmail for some past sin, favors owed, contributions. It's a lame-duck administration. The VP will have a shot at the nomination."

"I don't think so," said Brennan. He plucked an errant fleck of tobacco off his lower lip. "I just don't think that Sinclair would expend the amount of money she has or take the risk just for a shot at the nomination. She strikes me as the kind of person who bets only on a sure thing." The priest shook his head. "At least she'd want better odds. As it stands now she'd have to make sure everything went exactly according to plan. I think we're missing something."

"Well," said Holliday, "as our Scots friend Robbie Burns once said, 'The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley.'"

"What does that mean?" Peggy asked.

"It means we follow in William Tritt's footsteps and look for mistakes."

"Shouldn't we warn someone?" Peggy insisted.

"Who'd believe us?" Holliday replied. "When you get right down to it we do sound like Internet wackos. And who's to say we're not telling someone with a direct pipeline back to Kate Sinclair? Think about it. I talk to Potsy at McDonald's and a few hours later a giant truck tries to run us down."

"Your rogue CIA unit?"

"Or Kate Sinclair."

"Or they're one and the same," offered Peggy.

Holliday turned back to the laptop and booted up Expedia. com.

"There's a US Airway red-eye to Nassau in the Bahamas leaving from Ronald Reagan in an hour. If we hurry we can just make it."

The three-hour flight got them into Nassau's Lynden Pindling airport just after midnight. They picked up a cab outside the main and only terminal and booked themselves into the old Royal Bahamian on West Bay Street. After renting a car for the next morning they all retired to their rooms and tried to sleep, slowly acclimating themselves to the hot, humid weather.

They met up at breakfast on one of the sea-view terraces. Biting into a freshly baked scone and sipping her excellent Jamaican coffee Peggy looked out over the turquoise ocean.

"I could get used to this," she said, eyes hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans. Lloyd, their white-jacketed waiter, appeared just as the first sterling silver pot was running out and replaced it with a fresh one. From somewhere farther into town there was the massive booming of an air horn. Peggy could have sworn the tune it was playing was the first four bars from "When You Wish upon a Star."

"What the hell is that?"

Holliday laughed.

"That, madam," said Lloyd the waiter, "is the Disney Magic."

"Which is?"

"A ship, madam. A rather large one," replied Lloyd. "It warns us of its arrival by sounding its wretched horn that way. You can hear it on the other side of New Providence. Its passengers rarely come here."

"I thought ships were always feminine," said Holliday.

"There are exceptions, sir," intoned Lloyd. He made a little shivering gesture. "The Disney Magic is most certainly one of them. They have their own private island where Captain Hook takes you on tours in full costume."

"It sound awful," said Peggy.

"It is well past awful, madam. 'Appalling' is a somewhat better word, I think." Lloyd went off to find more scones.

"Where exactly is this place, Lyford Cay?" Peggy asked.

"The western tip of the island."

"On the plane you said it was a gated community," said Peggy. "We don't even know which house is his, let alone how to get past security."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," said Holliday.

"In other words, you don't have the faintest idea," said Peggy.

"That about sums it up," said Holliday.

Mary Breau Luxury Real Estate was located on the floor above the Bank of Nova Scotia at 404 West Bay Street, deep in the heart of Nassau, roughly equidistant from both the harbor and Government House. People often remarked that most of the banking in the Bahamas seemed to be divided between the three major Canadian banks: Nova Scotia, Royal and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

There was no mystery about this. During prohibition the majority of bootleggers and smugglers, including the legendary rum runner Bill McCoy, purchased much of their product from Canadian distilleries, ferried it from Nassau to Bimini and then across the narrow fifty-mile strait to Florida. At one point there was so much cash stored in the fortresslike Royal Bank just down the street that people began to worry about the structural integrity of the building.

Mary Breau herself ran a one-woman show, and hers was the only real estate ad in the local yellow pages that had the gall to say that she specialized in Lyford Cay houses. She was coal black, spoke with a faintly British accent, wore floral-print dresses and had enormous breasts that dominated her physical presence almost as much as her charming, broad smile.

"What can I do for you nice people?" Mary asked, looking at them, one to the other. Holliday could see that she didn't know how Brennan fit into the structure of their relationship, but instead of being suspicious she was curious. A smart woman and a shrewd judge of character. They had to watch their step with this one.

"We're looking for a place at Lyford Cay," Holliday replied, after making the introductions.

"Rent or buy?" Mary asked crisply.

Holliday gave her the answer he knew she wanted.

"Buy," he said. The real estate agent brightened visibly, her eyes shining with the prospect of a fat commission. Holliday threw in the kicker. "Bill Tritt recommended you."

"You know Mr. Tritt?" Mary Breau asked, her voice softening.

"Sure, known him for years. We've visited him a few times and we all love the place."

"Any reason you're buying now?" Mary asked, jotting the information down on a yellow pad.

Holliday nodded in Brennan's direction. "Uncle Thomas has decided to step down from his chairmanship at the bank and put things into the hands of someone a little younger. Me." Holliday beamed proudly.

"Bank?" Mary asked.

"Texas Oilman's Trust," said Holliday without a pause. "Mainly we finance wells and invest the profits."

"Well," said Mary, her chest heaving a little with excitement. "I'm sure we can find something to suit your needs."

"A pool," said Brennan. "We'll want a pool, and perhaps some grounds. We'll be giving some garden parties, I expect."

"And a dock," put in Peggy.

"Yes, a dock," said Brennan. "We have a boat, you see."

"How big?" Mary asked, jotting away on her pad.

"Sixty-two feet," said Holliday.

"Nice," said Mary, nodding approvingly.

"Maybe you could take us by Bill's place. I'd like to drop in and tell him we're going to be neighbors," said Holliday.

"Is he there?" Mary asked. "He's often gone on business."

"I'm not sure," said Holliday, shrugging as offhandedly as he could manage.

"Why don't we call him?" Mary beamed. She pulled out a bulging Rolodex and began skimming through it.

"Let's make it a surprise," said Holliday. "We're probably the last people he'd expect to drop in out of the blue." True enough, he thought.

"All right." She smiled. The cardinal rule of real estate: please the buyer when you're with the buyer and the seller when you're with the seller. "You're car or mine?"

"We left our rental back at the hotel and walked," said Peggy, playing her part in the little script. "Your office is only a few blocks from the Royal Bahamian."

"Nothing's very far from anything in Nassau," Mary said with a laugh. She turned up the wattage on her smile even more. "I've got the Land Rover parked in the back. Why don't you meet me out front?"

The Land Rover looked brand-new, silver paint gleaming. It projected confidence, success and good taste, and hinted at adventure and imagination. A surgeon driving a Mercedes usually elicited thoughts of greed and gouging, but a vehicle like Mary's was a mark of her success.

The real estate agent wheeled the big car around, narrowly missing one of the little, privately owned jitney buses and headed west down Bay Street. At the corner of Charlotte Street they stopped for a horde of adults and children wearing Mickey Mouse ears and led by a tall, young, black man dressed as Captain Hook and looking terribly embarrassed about it.

The Mickey cluster was taking digital snapshots of everything they could see and clogging up the sidewalks. Nobody seemed to mind, which wasn't surprising, since according to Mary a single cruise ship in harbor for twenty-four hours could leave behind as much as half a million dollars, not including docking fees.

They drove down Bay Street past the low, yellow building that housed the U.S. Embassy, then turned sharply and passed by the Royal Bahamian. After the big hotel the town quickly disappeared, replaced by dense, lush foliage on one side and the ocean on the other, the inshore water an impossible translucent green.

They continued past fish-fry shacks and scattered stucco residences, past low-rise condominiums, corner stores, gas stations and liquor outlets, Saunders Beach, one of the few public beaches for native Bahamians and finally reaching the "golden mile" of the major hotels on Cable Beach, just past Goodman's Bay.

In the middle distance, standing on one heavy leg in the shallow water like a stork, was a building that looked as though it came right off The Jetsons cartoon show. According to Mary it was a defunct tourist attraction meant be an underwater fish observatory.

Past the hotel, restaurants, clubs and open-air native markets they went around the long, sweeping curve that took them toward the south or "hurricane" side of the island. The farther along Bay Street they went the more the landscape changed. The houses grew larger, were set back farther from the road and had more junglelike foliage and coconut palm groves between them.

Just as the street curved again, they turned left off Bay Street and headed for the coast along Clifton Bay Drive to a long, narrow peninsula with the ocean visible on both sides. There had been a security booth at the Clifton Bay Drive entrance to the community, but Mary had barely paused as the man in the bright white uniform with the old-fashioned, white English bobby's helmet had waved them through with a smile as wide as Mary's own.

Mary Breau turned the Land Rover to the left and they followed the road toward the end of the peninsula. The houses here were much smaller than the others, more like the kind of neat cottagelike structures you found in suburban Dublin or Galway.

"E. P. Taylor Drive," said Mary. "Taylor was a Canadian billionaire who originated the idea of the gated community. At one time he owned and developed all of Lyford Cay. Just for fun he bred racehorses. Northern Dancer, the greatest sire in the history of thoroughbred racing, was his."

"You sound like a fan," said Brennan.

"I get over to Hialeah every chance I get." She smiled. "My not-so-secret vice." They pulled up in front of a neat, yellow stucco bungalow with a short, crushed-stone drive. Through the palms they could see the open ocean and a small stretch of private beach. "Here we are," said Mary.

Holliday, Peggy and Brennan climbed down from the Land Rover and made a show of knocking on the glass-paned double doors. Holliday cupped his hands and peered through the glass. No telltale blinking red light of a security system visible, but that didn't mean much. The alarm panel could just as easily be in the closet to the left of the door. He turned back to Mary, who was waiting patiently in the Rover.

"Maybe he's round the back," he called out. Mary nodded.

They all trooped around the side of the house to the back lawn and the patch of white sand beach. He checked the back door. It was much like the front except here it was a single door, not a double. It would be a snap to open. There was a small lanai with lawn chairs and a round table, a furled umbrella rising out of the center of it.

"You better have some sort of plan, Doc," warned Peggy. "Or we're in big trouble. That security guard isn't going to have a big smile for us the way he did for Mary."

Holliday looked from the open ocean, then back to the house. No more than 150 feet from the house on the left of the beach with a pile of old paving stones that might have been a breakwater or a private pier once upon a time.

"No problem," said Holliday. "I've got a perfect plan."

"Famous last words again," answered Peggy.