The Templar Legion

EPILOGUE

Eddie and Holliday stayed with Peggy and Rafi for almost three months. It was fall by the time they left Kukuanaland, flown out to Khartoum by the inimitable Mutwakil “Donny” Osman on his rattletrap Catalina. Neither man knew where they were going or what the future held, but the few hours as warriors for a cause again had shaken both men deeply, arousing some strange wanderlust that they both thought it was unlikely they’d be able to satisfy. One thing was sure enough: Holliday wanted to go back to the States for a while, maybe consider teaching again, and even though Eddie could probably get refugee status, especially with Holliday’s sanction, the Cuban was still Cuban enough not to want to give up his passport. He told Holliday what he’d been saying for years, even though he knew it was a lie-“Maybe when Fidel is gone, maybe then it will be better.”

They sat in the very new glass-and-white-marble departure lounge at Khartoum International Airport drinking complimentary coffee and waiting for their flights, Holliday’s to New York via Paris and Eddie’s to the Amazon via a half dozen stops along the way.

“You really think you’ll find work there?” Holliday asked.

“It’s a river, and I’m a river pilot, mi amigo. It’s what I do.”

“I’m wondering now if we should have stayed a little while longer with Limbani and his people. You’ve got to admit, it was fascinating.”

“But not for us, Doc,” said Eddie. “It is Peggy and Rafi’s passion, not ours. There’s enough to keep them there for years, maybe for the rest of their lives.”

“Maybe we’re getting too old for passion,” said Holliday.

“Saying that is the beso de la muerte,” said Eddie. “The kiss of death.”

“These old bones are starting to ache.” Holliday shrugged. “Maybe I should just retire.”

“Pah!” Eddie snorted. “You are only as old as you think.”

“And I think I’m pretty damn old!” Holliday laughed.

A tall, very distinguished-looking man had been hovering close to their seats in the lounge for the last few minutes and Holliday was wondering when he’d make his move for a few coins or bills. From the neck up he looked like a university professor, right down to the wire glasses and the badly knotted tie. The rest of him was on the slide, a cheap blue suit half a century out of style, frayed at the pockets lap and cuffs. The shoes might have been made of cardboard.

Finally he stepped forward. “Excuse me,” he said, speaking to Eddie in heavily accented English. “I think you are Cuban?”

“Si.” Eddie nodded.

“I speak very little Spanish. Do you perhaps speak Russian?”

“Da.” The Cuban nodded.

“Otlichno!” The man beamed happily. Holliday presumed it meant good, or excellent. The man began to babble away at breakneck speed, plucking at Eddie’s sleeve and finally drawing him a few feet away and muttering softly into his ear, then gave him a small slip of paper, folding it into Eddie’s hand. At first Eddie seemed confused but eventually he shrugged, patted the man on the shoulder and went back to sit beside Holliday. The Russian-speaking gentleman peered at them anxiously.

“Now, what was that all about?”

“I didn’t get all of it. He says his name is Victor Ostrovsky and he’s a curator at the Hermitage. Something about the Romanov jewels and the Faberge royal eggs. He says that something terrible has happened and he insists that you and I go with him immediately.”

“You and I?”

“You don’t speak Russian. According to him I am to be your translator. He asked if I trusted you. I said yes. He asked if I trusted you with my life. I said yes.”

“That’s all very nice,” said Holliday, “but just where is it he wants us to go?”

“A church,” said Eddie. “In Constantinople.”

“Istanbul?” Holliday said. “That’s just plain nuts. For one thing they don’t speak Russian in Istanbul.”

“He told me you’d say that.” Eddie nodded. “He asked me to give you this.” Eddie handed the slip of paper to Holliday. He stared down at the spidery, oldman’s handwriting.

Helder Rodrigues

He remembered it all in an instant. The dying man’s blood on his hands, the tiny island in the Azores, the notebook with a thousand years of secrets on its bloodstained pages. What had Rodrigues said, dying in his arms? Iacta alea est. Vale, amici. The torch is passed; goodbye, my friend. And then with his last breath before life fled him in the middle of that terrible storm, those awful, awful words: “Too many secrets. . too many secrets.”

“He said there was a flight in twenty minutes.” Eddie raised an eyebrow. “He said something else. I think it is Latin. ‘Ferrum Polaris.’ ”

Dear God. Ferrum Polaris. The Sword of the North.

Holliday crumpled the little scrap of paper in his hand and stood up.

“We might just make it if we run.”