The Templar Legion

24

They had been marching through the jungle for most of the day, and now the sun was dropping low, the light filtering down on the broad trail going from dappled greens to copper and gold. The monkeys screeched their complaints and every now and again flights of angry egrets flew up squawking from patches of wetland as they passed by.

The trail moved almost due west, roughly following the line of the river, which they could sometimes catch glimpses of in the distance to the south. According to Limbani the trail was all that remained of an elephant walk, a migratory pathway that had not been used for decades or perhaps even longer.

They reached the head of a narrow valley between two low, jungle-shrouded hills and Limbani raised a hand and stopped. Holliday looked back over his shoulder and saw that all of the paler warriors had stopped on his signal as well. Directly behind him Peggy looked as though she were about to speak but Holliday shook his head. He heard a sharp whistle from somewhere well ahead and Limbani visibly relaxed.

“The point men will check out the way ahead,” Limbani said.

Holliday smiled at the exotically dressed man using such a modern military term for his forward scouts. Limbani raised his fist into the air and Holliday watched as the pale warriors stood at ease along the trail behind them.

“We can rest here for a few moments,” Limbani murmured quietly. He squatted down under a high-crowned tree covered with thin, waxy leaves and heavy with a blue, pear-shaped fruit.

“They look like Japanese eggplants,” said Peggy, dropping onto the ground beneath the tree.

“Dacryodes edulis,” said Limbani, smiling. “Sometimes called safou, African pear or the bush butter tree.”

“Edible?” Rafi asked.

“Very. Pick one,” said Limbani. “The bluish color means they’re ripe. They taste like slightly acidic plums, if you’re looking for a comparison.” He shook his head. “Kolingba could have employed thousands of people to work plantations of these trees. The fruit is excellent both raw and cooked, the oil content of the fruit is higher than virtually any other organic species and if planted properly it could outdo sunflower oil as a crop. Even the wood is salable: an excellent substitute for mahogany and much more sustainable.” Rafi stood, stretching his arms up to pluck the dangling fruit from the lowest branches.

Limbani suddenly winced and clutched his side as though he had a cramp. The spasm passed and the tension seemed to ease as his pain receded. It occurred to Holliday that Limbani must be in his late sixties by now and he’d been setting a much younger man’s pace as they trekked through the jungle to their destination, wherever that was.

“Much farther?” Holliday asked.

“Another day.” Limbani pointed at the hills ahead of them. “They are called the Crocodile’s Eyes. We will camp on the right eye tonight,” the older man said. Holliday let his own eyes go out of focus and he could see the similarity-two low humps rising above the surface of the river. Limbani spoke again. “As well as being a convenient place both to camp and to make an ambush, the Eyes mark the eastward limits of the territory of my people, the Umufo omhloshana. Isikaya indawo.”

Holliday glanced at Eddie and the Cuban gave him the translation.

“The home place,” he said. “The place of our fathers, okay?”

Rafi had picked enough fruit for all of them and handed them around. Holliday took a bite. Limbani was right-it tasted like a combination of a plum and a pear. Juicy, too. He took another bite, then wiped his sleeve across his mouth.

“You still haven’t told me how you knew our names,” said Holliday.

“You saw the mask,” said Limbani with a wistful little smile. “Perhaps I am a griot-a witch doctor.”

Peggy let out a dry laugh. “A witch doctor with a degree in tropical diseases from the Universite de Paris. That’s one well-educated witch doctor.”

“So you know something about Amobe Limbani,” said the black man, a glimmer of humor in his tired old eyes. “What do you think you know from what you have seen of him?”

“I think he’s really good at changing the subject,” said Rafi, biting into his fruit. “Why don’t you answer Doc’s question?”

“Doc?” Limbani said quizzically. “You are also a doctor, then? You move very much like a trained soldier.”

“You’re doing it again,” said Holliday, laughing.

“Doing what?” Limbani said, eyes wide and innocent.

“Changing the subject,” said Peggy.

“What was the question?”

“You know what the question was,” said Holliday. “How did you know who we were?”

“That question? The answer to that question is very simple.” Limbani shrugged. “I had a spy.”

“Who?” Holliday asked.

“Think about it for a moment,” said Limbani. “It will come to you.”

It was a basic lesson he’d taught to his lieutenants in his days at West Point; sometimes you got so involved with the day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute tactics of a focused situation you lost sight of the overall strategy, the big picture that was going to win you the battle or even the war.

Ever since they’d landed at Umm Rawq the big picture had faded into the background as they dodged bullets and blowguns downriver. When he actually gave himself a moment to think about it, the identity of Limbani’s spy was pretty obvious.

“Mutwakil Osman,” said Holliday. “He’s your spy.”

“The floatplane guy?” Peggy said.

“The floatplane guy.” Holliday nodded.

“Quite right,” said Limbani. “He has been friend to the Umufo omhloshana since he first began flying upriver. A firm believer in leaving people alone, of letting them make their own destinies. He has brought medicine to us and some other necessities from time to time, but most important, he gives us an eye on what is going in the outside world that could impact us.”

“Things like Archibald Ives.”

“Precisely,” said Limbani with a sigh. “A mineral engineer and prospector on this land could very well signal the end of these people, the end of everything here.”

“That may have started already,” said Holliday. “In case you aren’t already aware of it, Ives has been murdered and Sir James Matheson is interested in the land here. He owns one of the biggest resource development companies in the world.”

“I know who he is,” said Limbani.

“He’s also interested in us,” said Rafi. “He’s become aware that we were interested in the area as well, but for different reasons.”

“I know your reasons, too,” said Limbani, sighing again and looking every inch the old man that he was. “King Solomon’s Mines, the queen of Sheba, perhaps even Mansa Musa and Timbuktu. A great Technicolor fantasy of history that belongs with George Lucas and Indiana Jones. Cowboy science.”

Holliday waited for Rafi’s usual short-tempered answer to critics of his slightly more narrative and intuitive attitude toward archaeology but Rafi was remarkably polite.

“I assure you, Doctor, it’s less about the mines and the legends than it is about the extraordinary people who followed those old stories. A tomb in Ethiopia led us here, not some ‘Secrets of the Rosetta Stone’ tract they give away for free on the Internet. The tomb was that of a Templar Knight named Julian de la Roche-Guillaume who searched for something that a Viking had searched for five hundred years before and which a Roman legionnaire had died for a thousand years before that. The stories and the legends get told and told again for a thousand years or two, but there’s always a little truth left, just enough truth sometimes for the dreamers to believe in. Heinrich Schliemann read Homer, another dreamer, and found Troy.” Rafi shook his head firmly. “I’m far more interested in the dreamers than the dream, Dr. Limbani.”

Limbani gave him a slightly skeptical look, then shrugged. “A very nice little speech,” said the older man. “How often have you recited it?”

“Once, to you.”

Limbani scrutinized the young archaeologist for a long moment, then spoke. “If that is true, Dr. Wanounou, then you are in for a great surprise when we reach our destination, a very great surprise indeed.”

The Brocklebank property was enormous, hidden behind a gated ten-foot-high stone wall and sitting on at least five acres of gardens. The house itself was a massive combination Tudor and Arts and Crafts-style brick-and-plank mansion with twelve thousand feet of living space, eleven bathrooms, three kitchens, sixteen bedrooms, eight of which had their own wood-burning fireplace, and one hundred and sixteen leaded-glass windows, some with colored panes and some without.

As the limousine drove through the gates and up the drive after being buzzed in, Saint-Sylvestre was astounded to see how well the gardens had been tended. Either the Brocklebank ladies had an army of gardeners or they were obsessively compulsive about flowering plants.

The limousine went down the long drive and pulled up in front of the covered entranceway. Saint-Sylvestre leaned forward and spoke over the seat to the uniformed driver. “Wait here; I doubt if I’ll be more than twenty minutes, tops.”

“Whatever you say, sir,” said the limo driver.

Saint-Sylvestre grabbed the attache case, stepped out of the limo, went up the flagstone steps of the covered entranceway and rang the doorbell. Inside he could faintly hear the echoing sound of Big Ben. A full minute later he heard the clicking of heels and the door opened. The old woman who stood there looked shocked and surprised at seeing the color of Gesler’s skin, but she recovered swiftly. A woman born in times when people of Saint-Silvestre’s skin color came to the back door, not the front.

“Herr Gesler?” she asked. Her face was creased and pink with powder, her gray hair done up in a swirling bun that would have looked perfectly all right on a woman with a bustle dress and a big floppy hat. She was wearing half-heeled dark pumps and a perfectly tailored dark blue suit with white piping that had to be Chanel from the fifties. She had an enormous patent-leather purse over her arm. She bore a close resemblance to the late queen mother. No little old lady in a housedress here; this one was dressed to the nines.

“Miss Brocklebank?” Saint-Sylvestre responded, with a little bow. He thought about kissing her outstretched hand but decided it would be a little over the top, but not by much. He shook it instead.

“Indeed,” she said. “My sister, Margaret, is in the library; shall I fetch her?”

“It occurred to me that we could finish up our business before we went to tea, Miss Brocklebank. We could make it a small celebration afterward, without any pressure.”

“Well,” said the old woman, “I wouldn’t want us to be late. . ” She didn’t sound eager to be denied her pleasure; the Brocklebanks were obviously not used to being told no, even when it was going to put large sums of money into their pockets.

“Ten minutes is all it will require; I promise you,” said Saint-Sylvestre firmly. “I only need to countersign the check and have you initial and sign the agreements again.”

“I thought we’d already done that-the agreements, I mean.”

“You have,” said Saint-Sylvestre, purposely adopting the slightly condescending tone often used with the elderly and infirm. The old woman got the “a little forgetful, are we?” tenor of his voice immediately. She bristled but backed off.

“If you insist, Herr Gesler,” she said, her voice brittle, then stepped aside.

“I’ll make this as painless as possible, Miss Brocklebank,” he said, stepping into the house.

Betty Brocklebank led him across a short foyer and into the grand hall, all glowing inlaid wood and parquetry with a gigantic fieldstone fireplace beside the twisting stairway, the severed heads of a number of North American game animals hanging from the walls, glass eyes staring at nothing. The floor was covered by an enormous Persian carpet that was obviously the real thing.

They turned right into a large room, floor covered by smaller throw rugs, two walls covered by built-in oak bookcases, the third wall holding another big fireplace, this one gas, and the fourth wall taken up by a picture window of leaded panes that looked out onto the front gardens.

The outer row of windowpanes framed the view, with stained glass showing what had to be the Brocklebank coat of arms: a complicated device of swans, coronets and swords in blue, green, purple and gold.

The furniture was colonial India or Siam with huge wicker fan chairs and bamboo side tables. A second old woman sat on a curving rattan couch set under the window and upholstered in a dark blue fabric set with huge, colorful magnolia blossoms.

The old lady looked exactly like Betty except for her hair, which was permed into tight curls, the white shaded slightly blue, pink scalp showing underneath. Her suit was the same as Betty Brocklebank’s, the colors reversed, white with blue piping.

“Margie,” said Betty Brocklebank, “this is Mr. Gesler from the bank in Switzerland. Mr. Gesler, my sister, Margaret Brocklebank.”

“She was born three and a half minutes before me, which makes her the elder, so she thinks she’s also the wiser, Mr. Gesler.” Margie Brocklebank gave him a curious look. “I didn’t know they had Negroes in Europe now. I don’t remember seeing any there before the war.”

“My mother was from Alexandria in Egypt. She met my father at the University of Zurich. He was taking mathematics; her degree was in physics,” Saint-Sylvestre said blandly, pulling the lies out of the air like plucking cherries off a tree.

“I see,” said Margie Brocklebank, obviously not seeing at all. A black man in her living room was difficult enough to fathom; a black woman taking a degree, let alone getting it, was too far out of the box for her to conceive. Saint-Sylvestre sat down in one of the fan-backed chairs opposite the couch, a bamboo-and-glass coffee table between them.

“I’ll fetch the papers, then, shall I?” Betty Brocklebank said. She didn’t wait for an answer and left the room, her footsteps clattering as they crossed the parquet between the carpets.

“I was valedictorian at Crofton House, you know,” said Margie Brocklebank, whispering. “Betty was only salutatorian.”

“Is that so?” Saint-Sylvestre said. He didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about.

“Yes, it is,” said Margie Brocklebank.

Betty Brocklebank came back into the room with an accordion file in her hands. She sat down on the couch beside her sister and put the file case on the coffee table. “Has she been telling you her ‘I was the valedictorian’ story, Mr. Gesler?”

Saint-Sylvestre said nothing. Margaret Brocklebank blushed. Her sister removed her hat, smiling triumphantly.

“Of course she was,” said Betty Brocklebank. “It’s her favorite except for the one about Mickey Hill standing me up at the Crofton House-St. George’s Prom.”

“Well, he did stand you up.” The younger sister pouted.

“At least I was invited,” said Betty Brocklebank sourly. She turned to Saint-Sylvestre. “Shall we get down to business, Mr. Gesler?”

“Of course,” said Saint-Sylvestre. He lifted the attache case onto the coffee table, unsnapped the locks and opened the case. He reached inside, took out the H amp;K P30 and shot both women twice in the chest. True to his word he’d made his business as painless as possible.

Never one for half measures, he stood up, went around the coffee table and shot the women again, one round to the head each. He wiped down the pistol carefully using the hem of Betty Brocklebank’s skirt and laid it on the coffee table. When they ran the pistol’s serial number it would slowly but inexorably lead back to Allen Faulkener, and from there to Matheson, hopefully putting the cat among the pigeons. That done, he emptied the contents of the accordion file into the attache case, closed the case up and got down to work. The entire fate of Silver Brand Mining was now in his hands.

Fifteen minutes later Saint-Sylvestre stood on the covered porch of the Brocklebank house and breathed in a lungful of fresh air. In another fifteen minutes, with the gas jets wide-open and the pilot lights snuffed out in the kitchen and the fireplaces throughout the house, the simple cigarette-and-matchbox fuse he’d left behind would turn the entire downstairs of the old house into an inferno. It would take the local fire department another ten minutes to answer the call, and ten minutes after that for the news stations to receive the news.

This gave him a forty-minute window to take the limousine back to the Hotel Vancouver and get a taxicab to the airport. If everything went reasonably well the limousine driver wouldn’t connect his last passenger to the fire on the Crescent for at least an hour or so, and by then the inimitable Leonhard Euhler would have been put to rest for good.

By the time Saint-Sylvestre reached the bottom of the steps the limousine driver was out of the car and standing beside the open rear door.

“Thank you,” said Saint-Sylvestre.

The limo driver dipped into his pocket and handed the policeman what appeared to be a fairly clean, crumpled tissue.

“Got a spot of something on your tie,” said the man.

“Thanks again,” said Saint-Sylvestre. He dipped his head and sat down, the limo driver closing in behind him. Saint-Sylvestre lifted his tie and wiped the small gelatinous blob of Margie Brocklebank’s brain tissue off the silk with the tissue. The limo driver climbed behind the wheel and they headed off.