The Templar Salvation

Chapter 59

RHODES, GREECE

Endaxi, tower. Clear takeoff, runway two five, wilco. Request maintain fifteen hundred feet to alpha to take a good look at your beautiful island, Niner Mike Alpha.”

“Fifteen hundred feet to alpha is approved. Enjoy the view.”

Steyl smiled and throttled forward. “Roger. Efkharisto poli.”

He nursed the Cessna Conquest off the runway and into the early morning sky. It felt good to be airborne again. He had been getting antsy, sitting idle at Rhodes’s Diagoras International Airport, refueled and ready, unable to venture far from his aircraft while he waited for Zahed’s signal. He’d been fast asleep when the call had finally come in, late into the night. Then he’d gone back to sleep for a few hours before setting off at first light.

He was flying southwest, headed for another island—a much smaller one this time, the island of Kassos, his official destination. It was in the opposite direction to where he needed to end up, but it was the most suitable foil, given that its tiny airport didn’t have a control tower and that procedures had to be followed rigorously if he didn’t want to raise anyone’s suspicion. Which he wouldn’t. Finding holes in the procedures, no matter how rigorous, was second nature to Steyl. He knew what he was doing, probably better than anyone in the business.

He reached the approved altitude in less than a minute and radioed the tower again, and was instructed to switch over to the approach controller’s frequency. He did so, got cleared to stay at fifteen hundred feet all the way to Kassos, and was told to switch over again, this time to Athens Information, for the rest of his journey. Which he did. But he also did something else. He switched off his transponder. Without it, the plane’s transponder code, altitude, and registration wouldn’t appear on the tower’s radar. It would only show an anonymous blip.

He kept up the pretense and stayed on his announced heading for another minute while gently descending to an altitude of five hundred feet. He contacted the tower again, but got nothing back. Which made him smile. They couldn’t hear him. He was out of radio contact—which also meant he was outside the radar’s sweep.

He could now go anywhere he liked, undisturbed.

He banked left to head south and passed the southwestern tip of Rhodes. He maintained that heading for another ten kilometers over open water, then pulled the plane sharply around to a northeasterly heading, toward his real destination: a remote location just under three hundred miles away, deep inside Turkey.

The visibility that low was lousy. A light wind and high barometric pressure had generated a light mist that squatted ominously over the water. Steyl couldn’t see Rhodes anymore because of it, which was good. It meant no one could see him from land. His only remaining risk was being spotted by a ship. So he switched on his weather radar, which would show any vessels ahead of him. He’d have plenty of time to skirt around any that happened to crop up and continue on his stealthy voyage.

At low altitude, he’d get there in a little over an hour. He didn’t plan on spending more than a few minutes on the ground, so the round trip would take around two and a half hours, total. Which was fine for a low-altitude, sightseeing trip to a small island that didn’t have a control tower. He wouldn’t be missed.

He checked his watch, then pulled out his satphone and called Zahed. He informed him of his progress, then settled back and took in the view as the Conquest’s twin turboprops reeled in the Turkish coast. If all went well, he anticipated parting company with the Iranian by the end of the day. He’d then head back to his villa in Malta, where he would lie on his sundeck with a cold beer in his hand and figure out how to spend his latest chunk of easy money.

ZAHED WAITED ON THE EDGE of the salt lake and watched as the sun tore itself from the far side of the water’s pristine, flat surface.

By mid-morning, it would look like an infinite expanse of white under a radiant blue dome. Right now, the low sun was bathing it with a crisp, bronze-like wash. It looked like a dull metal sheet that stretched out from right under his feet all the way to the horizon. Another insane landscape, he thought. He’d seen more of them in the last few days than he thought possible. The entire cursed region seemed to him like it had been cut and pasted from another planet. He took comfort from the thought that he’d soon be out of it. Back into comfortable, familiar, earthly settings. Back home. Where he’d be feted for achieving the impossible.

For bringing back his prize.

The early morning air was still and cool and reeked of salt. It helped with his dizziness, but not with his throat, which felt as parched as the dry lands that were spread out before him. He was also shivering. He’d lost a lot of blood, and despite the painkillers, he was still hurting badly. The shakes were also getting worse. He needed medical attention, and soon. He knew his hand was bad. He knew it might never work properly again, knew he might lose it altogether. Either way, it would have to wait. He had to get out of there, fast. The American woman had managed to escape. She would have alerted the Turks. His hand was a huge price to pay, but it was still cheap when compared to his freedom and, quite probably, his life.

His phone beeped. He reached for it and turned to face the opposite direction and concentrate on the horizon. It wasn’t long before he spotted the tiny dot, streaking in low and fast, the low sun glinting off its windshield. He confirmed to Steyl that everything was clear, then gave his men a nod and took a step back for a wider view. The engines of two SUVs, which were parked a hundred meters apart, one behind the other, rumbled to life. Then their lights and their flashers came on, two distinct sets of red and yellow beacons against a perfectly flat copper backdrop.

Zahed watched the plane line up along the axis made by the two SUVs and studied the makeshift runway beyond them. It looked perfect. Dry and hard, flat as a football field, not a ripple as far as the eye could see. The lake’s name, Tuz Golu, simply meant “salt lake.” Which is what it was. A massive, six-hundred-square-mile pool of shallow, saline water that dried up and turned into a gargantuan bed of salt every summer. Two-thirds of the salt that ended up on dining tables across Turkey came from there, but the mines and processing plants that made it happen were farther north or on the other side of the lake. The area Steyl had chosen was, as the pilot had predicted, deserted. It was also less than an hour’s drive from Konya. Yet more feathers in the pilot’s peacock tail of a cap. And yet more confirmation for Zahed that he had chosen well.

Moments later, the faint buzz of the aircraft cut through the silence. It was barely audible at first, then it turned into an earsplitting roar as the plane swept low over the parked cars, its inertial separators open to direct any salt powder away from its engines. Its undercarriage virtually skimmed the front car’s roof before touching down flawlessly. Zahed was already moving, clambering into the lead car as Steyl engaged the engines’ reverse thrust and braked hard up ahead.

The two SUVs accelerated heavily and chased after the aircraft. Less than seven hundred meters later, they were parked alongside it.

The transfer didn’t take long. With the plane’s turboprops still beating the air, the boxes of codices were loaded up first, stacked behind the backs of the two rear seats. Then it was the human cargo’s turn.

Reilly.

He was hustled up to the plane and dumped behind a partition at the very back of the cabin.

Still unconscious. But alive.

Which was how the Iranian wanted him.

Less than four minutes after touching down, the Cessna was airborne again. An hour and eleven minutes later, it was back on the ground at Diagoras. It didn’t spend more than twenty minutes on the tarmac. The handling agent who drove up to the plane was the same man that Steyl had dealt with when he’d first landed in Rhodes. He didn’t need to check the plane again. Zahed sat out the formalities silently huddled behind the partition, alongside the inert Reilly. Steyl filed his flight plan and signed the forms, got the all clear, and took off again.

Iranian airspace was less than three hours away.