The Templar Salvation

Chapter 34

Reilly was moving fast, as fast as his tired legs could carry him. He was finding it a bit easier, now that the steep, uneven trail down the mountain had given way to a flatter and smoother dirt road. Still, he was barely managing to stay on his feet. The nearest town, a small cluster of houses at the base of the volcano, was still half a mile away. He needed to find some kind of transportation that would give his muscles a rest if he didn’t want his body to shut down in protest at the appalling treatment it was getting. And he had to do it fast.

The drone, he knew, was long gone.

Every second counted.

He cleared a low ridge and spotted something moving a couple of hundred yards ahead. Someone, riding something. The sight gave him a small boost. As he closed in on it, Reilly saw that it was an old man sitting astride a haggard-looking horse. The scrawny animal had two huge straw baskets slung on either side of its rump and was trudging ahead lazily, oblivious to the fleet of flies that were circling it.

Reilly picked up his pace and shouted, “Hey,” waving his arms frantically. He saw the man turn his head nonchalantly, without slowing down. “Hey,” he shouted again, and again, and this time, the man pulled on the reins and the horse stopped.

“Your horse,” Reilly told him, pointing and gesturing wildly, his panting making him sound even more incoherent to the confused local. “I need your horse.”

The man’s weathered face suddenly tensed up as his eyes fell on the weapon in Reilly’s waistband. But instead of going all fearful and panicky, he started shouting at Reilly, seemingly berating him for his affront. Young or old, strong or frail, the men Reilly was encountering didn’t seem to be easily cowed. Reilly shook his head and spread his arms out calmingly, doing his best to get the man to ease back.

“Please, just listen to me. It’s not like that. I need your help, okay? I need your horse,” he told him, making all kinds of gestures that he thought could signal humility and respect.

The man was still eyeing him suspiciously, but after a moment he calmed down a touch.

Reilly remembered something and reached into an inside pocket. He pulled out his wallet.

“Here,” he told him as he fished out all the cash he had in it. It wasn’t much—but it was still more than he suspected the tired old horse was worth. He held it out to the man. “Please. Take it. Come on. Don’t make me reach for the gun.” He knew the man wouldn’t understand that last bit.

The man studied him curiously for a beat, then muttered something and relented. He climbed off the horse with surprising ease and handed Reilly the reins.

Reilly smiled at him, the gratitude on his face clearly coming through. The man’s expression softened up. Reilly looked into the baskets. They were filled with grapes.

“Here, you keep these,” he told him as he loosened the ties that held them in place and helped the old man set them down by the side of the road. He then climbed on the tattered blankets that were there in lieu of a saddle, pulled out Tess’s map, and studied it.

He thought of asking the old man to confirm his heading, but he knew the Jandarma’s backup would soon be crawling all over the mountain and he didn’t want to give them a head start. Instead, he used the sun’s position to orient himself. The road from his location to the target area Tess had marked up, somewhere called the Ihlara Valley, was a circuitous one. That would be the road the bomber would be taking. A more direct route across open terrain, as the proverbial crow would fly, was far shorter and didn’t seem to be intersected by any major obstructions such as a river or a mountain range. And given that his steed wasn’t exactly a Thoroughbred, Reilly decided that any gain in distance that needed to be covered was a gift he couldn’t turn down.

He put the map away, gave the man a parting nod and wave, and spurred the horse forward, leading it off the road and into a wide open field, and hoping the poor animal wouldn’t die on him before he got to where he needed to be.