The Templar Legion

22

There was a knock on Sir James Matheson’s office door.

“Enter!”

Allen Faulkener stepped into the lavish office and stood in front of Matheson’s desk. “Leonhard Euhler is dead,” he said stiffly.

“Christ!” Matheson said. “How?”

“Some sort of homosexual tryst, as far as the Swiss police are concerned. Love letters, suicide note.”

Matheson sat rigidly behind his desk, palms spread on its smooth empty surface. He thought for a moment, then leaned down, pulled open the humidor drawer of the desk and took out a Romeo y Julieta Short Churchill Robusto.

He closed the drawer carefully, then took a gold Dunhill cutter-punch combination out of his waistcoat pocket and prepared the cigar for smoking. He sat back in his chair and lit the cigar with a matching Dunhill lighter, all the while trying to maintain his composure in front of Faulkener. It didn’t do to let the hired help see the master afraid, and for the first time in a long time that was exactly what Sir James Matheson was-afraid.

Matheson wasn’t much of a believer in luck or happenstance. Whatever evidence the Swiss police had in hand he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that Euhler would pick this particular moment to snuff out his lights for some idiotic love affair. He could sense the first small cracks in his plan, but if his intuition was right, who was responsible, and how did he stop the cracks from getting worse?

“No signs of foul play?”

“Apparently not. Pills, the love letters, as I mentioned. The man who wrote the letters died in a car accident.”

“Recently?”

“Six years ago.”

Why would a man, poof or not, kill himself over the death of a lover six years ago? It was making less and less sense. Everything was pointing to the Kolingba operation.

“I’ll want to see the autopsy report, the police file and any surveillance tapes that were made.”

“I’ve already checked, Sir James. There were no cameras at his residence but there are interior and exterior cameras at the bank.”

“Speak to Herr Gesler personally; tell him that since Euhler was handling some delicate business for us I would very much appreciate receiving copies of the tapes as soon as possible. If he balks, lean on him a little; remind him of the dossier on his personal affairs that is in our possession. Get the tapes for the day before the man’s death and for the day after.” Matheson paused. “He was supposed to get the proxies on the mining company you found; did he do so?”

“Not that I am aware of, Sir James.”

No, of course not; there’d be no point in killing him if the proxies had been exchanged. Someone else was trying to get them. But who? Nagoupande? He didn’t have the brains of a gnat, and Matheson seriously doubted that the man would be able to imagine such a conspiracy, let alone orchestrate it.

Kolingba was probably incapable as well, but his personal Rasputin, this Oliver Gash, might, although he doubted it somehow; Gash’s dossier portrayed him as a criminal with a criminal’s shrewdness and without the real sophistication to manage a massive short-selling stock fraud. It simply wasn’t his thing. He took another puff on the cigar, enjoying its rich, sweet flavor for a few brief seconds. Time to get down to brass tacks. The proxies.

“Find out the position of the proxies. If Euhler did not have them signed you will go to British Columbia yourself and obtain them. I have copies here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have we heard from Harris and Mrs. Sinclair’s hooligans in Africa?”

“No, sir. Not a word.”

“Then presume that he’s been wiped off the slate and that Holliday and his archaeologist friend are still at large. We’re looking at far too much media exposure if they’re allowed to survive. Find someone better than Harris to stop them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How much longer for our Austrian friend Lanz?”

“The new moon is next week.”

“His minders are keeping an eye on him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, get me those tapes and find out about the proxies. Without them I might as well be investing in a dustbin full of ashes.”

“Yes, sir.” Faulkener left the room.

Matheson sat back in his chair. He was breaking half the securities and exchange laws in this country and any others where he expected to trade Silver Brand Mining, and if he was caught at it they’d put him behind bars for the rest of his life. His financial crimes made Bernie Madoff look like an amateur. On top of that he could be charged with conspiring to commit murder both before and after the fact, not to mention toppling a foreign head of state and bribing his replacement. To make things worse it now looked like there was some mysterious competitor for Kukuanaland’s spoils.

His smile widened and he pulled heartily on the stubby little Churchill Robusto. He hadn’t been this sick with fear and this excited since he’d lost his virginity to his father’s mistress at the age of fourteen. He took the sweet-tasting cigar out of his mouth and blew a plume of aromatic smoke toward the ornate plaster ceiling of his office. These were the moments a man lived for!

A single figure stepped out of the jungle, his face covered by an ornate wooden mask, its edges trimmed with stiffened gold rattan like a lion’s mane, a round cockerel crest topped with rigid bristle, bloodred like that of a helmet worn by a Roman centurion.

The red wooden eyes of the face bulged and the mouth was a boxy square, wooden bars where the teeth should be, much like a gladiator’s protective head covering. He wore the same white cloth kilt as the others, complete with a short quiver full of darts, but this man’s skin was coal black. His feet were covered in heavy sandals, leather strips crisscrossed almost to his knees.

In one hand he carried one of the long blowgun tubes and in his right hand he carried something very much like the crook and flail of an Egyptian pharaoh: sacred signs of power, divinity and kingship. Like the scepters found in King Tutankhamen’s arms, these were also solid gold. A heavy gold arm ring was set with enormous uncut diamonds and emeralds.

As he approached Holliday and the others the man in the ornate mask slipped the gold flail and crook into the waistband of his kilt and raised his hand to remove the mask. As he did so one of the lighter-skinned men stepped forward, head bowed, and took the mask from him almost reverentially. Like the flail and crook, the mask, too, was clearly some sign of high office.

The face of the man, now unmasked, was dark eyed and intelligent. He smiled, and as he did so Holliday could see an old-fashioned silver amalgam filling in his left bicuspid. Whoever he was, this man was no jungle savage.

He stopped in front of Holliday and extended his hand. “Good afternoon, Colonel Holliday, my name is Dr. Amobe Barthelemy Limbani. Perhaps you could introduce me to your friends.”