The Pegasus Secret (39 page)

The magazine fell to the floor as the guard snatched up the AK-47 and sprang to his feet.

There was only a split second before the Templar realized the source of his distraction and turned around. In a single motion, Lang shoved the door wide and lunged. His sudden weight on the other man’s back knocked him down, the rifle clattering against the plank flooring. With one hand, Lang dropped the looped strip of linen over the guard’s head, past his chin, and twisted it tight, stifling the yell that was beginning in his throat.

Lang’s other hand stuffed the wadded cloth into the man’s open mouth, giving the embroidered garotte another turn. The keeper was clawing at his throat, trying to loosen the crushing pressure on his air supply, when Lang brought up a knee to put between the man’s shoulder blades and pushed down as hard as possible. The human upper esophagus is a muscular tube, hard to close completely,
but the keeper’s weakening efforts told Lang he was succeeding.

The Templar was limp when there was the sound of approaching footsteps.

Sintra, Portugal
2340 hours

From across the winding, tree-shaded street, they had been watching the top two floors of old limestone that could be seen over the wall. The building’s windows were tightly shuttered as though the occupants wanted none of the gentle breeze from the ocean ten or so miles distant. The structure could have been described as a castle or palace simply based on its size and the generous acreage upon which it sat. In fact, it was not much grander than its neighbors, all of which were large enough to be regal residences instead of summer homes. Indeed, three dwellings of royal origin had been built on the hillside of this small town.

In the early 1800s, Lord Byron had fallen in love with the area as had a significant segment of Europe’s nobility and wealthy. In the last century, increasingly dreary socialist governments and the taxation necessary to implement the illusion of social equality had forced the sale of many of these exquisite vacation homes to the world’s new elite: multinational corporations, usually those headquartered in tax havens with corporate anonymity.

Only two people were in sight tonight, ambling with careful indifference along the sidewalk as they gawked at the opulence of what was illuminated behind protective walls. They had stopped in front of one.

“Not a lot of traffic,” the sniper observed. “Haven’t seen the first tourist today, either.”

“You won’t,” the other person said, studying that part of the facade visible above the razor wire-topped wall. “What few there are come in by bus, eat lunch at one of those restaurants we saw in the town square this afternoon, and leave. After touring the palaces, there’s not a lot for ’em to do. The hotels are priced out of the average budget and you have to have recommendations from some pretty obscure people just to get a room.”

The marksman frowned. “I’d never even heard of the place until you tracked Pegasus here. How did you do that?”

By unspoken agreement, they both turned as though to resume their stroll as a large Mercedes slowed for one of the road’s many turns and effortlessly accelerated up the hill.

“You did. You got someone to hack into the Froggies’ air traffic control computer. Only one flight from Toulouse-Blagnac by private aircraft yesterday, the one to Lisbon.”

“But this isn’t Lisbon.”

“No, but it’s less than twenty kilometers away. This town, Sintra, has always been a place for those who would just as soon not be officially noticed. I called a Portuguese solicitor I know, had him check the tax records and, presto! Up come the chaps at Pegasus.”

The Mercedes disappeared behind yet another wall as it followed the curves of the narrow street. The pair resumed their interest in the building.

“So,” the marksman said, “you think he’s in there, that round tower sort of thing.”

It was not a question.

“Why else bring him here?”

The two hesitated a few moments before continuing the slow pace of sightseers.

“High voltage as well as the concertina wire on top of the wall,” the marksman said. “And I will wager you there are motion detectors in the yard. Probably also dogs.”

The other verbalized the obvious. “The two of us aren’t going to get him out with a frontal assault. We’re going to have to watch the place and wait for a chance.”

“And if there isn’t one?”

He shrugged as he dug in his pockets. “We can only do our best and hope.”

The marksman frowned, unhappy with the obvious truth of the answer. “They could kill him before we . . .”

The sniper’s companion turned back in the direction from which they had come. “For all we know, they might have already. But I doubt they would bring him all the way here just to kill him. I would imagine they’ll be wanting to know how he discovered their secret first. He’ll know his life will last only as long as he can keep that information. He’s tough; they won’t have gotten it yet.”

Both moved deeper into the shadows cast by the limb of a huge oak overhanging the wall opposite the gate of the building that held their interest.

“If he does get out,” one said, “it’s bloody unlikely he’s going to just walk through that big iron gate. Maybe we’d better gather our things from the car and make such preparations as we can now.”

“Better yet, call for reinforcements,” said the other.

London
0123 hours the next morning

Inspector Fitzwilliam hated late night calls even more than those that interrupted his evening routine. Although he would never admit it, he was annoyed by the fact that the phone’s ring had no effect on Shandon, his wife. After thirty-two years of marriage, the intrusion rarely even provoked her into rolling over.

This particular call made the detective forget his pique.

When the caller gave a name, he sat upright as though on a spring.

“Who?”

The name was repeated. He had heard correctly the first time.

“Where?” he asked, frowning as he heard the answer. “Hold on.” He reached into a bedside table for the pen and pad he always kept there. “Repeat those directions, please.”

The caller did so and the phone went dead.

Sintra
0527 hours

Lang sprang for the rifle and snatched it up from the floor. Slinging it over his shoulder, he dragged the guard’s body into the room and shut the door. The close smell of death and the thought that he had killed again made him gag. If there had been time, he would have felt a cold fury for these men who had not only murdered but had made him a killer, too.

The corpse felt heavy beyond its apparent weight as he dragged it to the far side of the bed. Trying to breathe only through his mouth, he stooped and tugged loose the rope at the guard’s waist and pulled the robe over the still head.

Even through the thickness of the door, Lang could hear voices tinged with surprise at finding the sentry gone. He tried to move faster.

Dipping into resources of strength he didn’t know he had, Lang managed to dump the limp body onto the bed and throw a sheet over it. The door was opening as he lifted the robe over his own head and let it settle over him
like a large white bird coming to roost. There was only time to pull up the hood and hide the rifle under his habit before Silver Hair and another man were in the room.

Silver Hair asked something in a language Lang couldn’t understand, again Slavic-sounding.

Guessing at his meaning, Lang pointed to the body under the sheet and mumbled.

The Templar asked again, this time with an edge to his tone.

Again Lang nodded, moving around the bed toward the door.

As soon as he was between the two men and the exit, Lang whirled and lunged into the hall, slamming the door behind him. As he had hoped, the key was still in the lock. He felt, rather than heard, two bodies slam into the heavy wood on the other side as the lock’s bolt clicked into place. Lang took deliberate care in putting the key in the robe’s pocket.

In the hall was a small cart, the sort of thing an auto mechanic might use to carry around a car battery. That was what was on it: the battery with wires and alligator clips. The sight brought Lang’s mind back to the pain he still felt and he fought the urge to go back into the room and fry someone else’s balls.

Instead, he made sure the hall was empty before taking the rifle out from under the robe and checking the clip. Full with all thirty-six rounds. Too bad the guard hadn’t had an extra magazine. Ammunition, Lang mused, was like cash on a vacation: no matter how much you brought, it was never enough.

He risked taking off the cassock long enough to sling the AK-47 muzzle down under his right arm so that, if need be, he could bring it up, firing through the cloth. He wasn’t going to get any points for marksmanship that way, but the Russian-designed weapon was intended more for rapid
fire at relatively close range than for competition shooting.

Keeping close to the wall, Lang sauntered down the hall as though he knew where he was going. At the intersection, both directions looked the same: dimly lit, with curving walls and regularly spaced doors that, absent the outside latch, were identical to the one he had just locked.

Right or left?

Lang chose left so the rifle was on the outside. If he had to use it, he preferred not to have to fire across his body. Shortly, he came to an arch framing a staircase beneath an arched window, the glass black with night. The steps only went down. Lang was on the top floor.

The stairs were marble. Like the tower of Blanchefort, there was a depression worn in the middle where centuries of feet had passed that way. Also like the old castle, the risers were short, made for short legs. The steps radiated from a center column in a spiral tight enough to make him slow his descent to ease a faint sense of vertigo.

There were landings on each of the two floors he passed, each similar to the others, each with a window. He saw the color of night and an occasional streak of light shimmering through the waves of the hand-blown glass.

A sound floated up the tight circular stairway, so faint Lang was surprised that he had been unconsciously listening for some time. The further down he went, the more distinct it became until he recognized it as a Gregorian chant, Latin sung without tune, but still pleasingly melodic.

Still too distant to make out the words, Lang came to yet another landing. The stairs continued down, but through the window he could see trees, their branches limned against a streetlight. He thought he could make out a wall, too. He stopped. This place—this weird, round building—probably had at least one basement, no doubt complete with dungeons. If Lang was seeing what he thought he saw outside the window, this must be the ground floor.

He stepped into another circular hallway, this one with a ceiling vaulted twenty feet. The cold gray of stone walls was abated by tapestries, their figures life size and mostly gory. In silent agony, martyrs bristled with arrows, sizzled over fires and were devoured by lions. Between the gruesome pictures, suits of chain mail held swords, empty helmet slits squinting into the dim light.

The main floor.

Like the men in the lifeboat in the lawyer joke, he knew where he was but not where that was.

Steps echoed from the stone floor. Lang grasped the rifle under the robe with one hand and tugged the hood down further over his face with the other. There was no need. Like a ghost in his white habit, a figure floated past on the other side of the hallway. His hands clutched rosary beads and he was mumbling what Lang supposed was a prayer.

Once the Templar was out of sight, Lang felt like saying one of his own.

The chanting grew louder until Lang was at its source. To the right, a huge circular room was filled with men in white robes or chain mail armor. In the center of the circle, another man in robes stood before a carved marble altar faced by the standing congregation.

Just as Pietro had described the chapel at Blanchefort.

Past the chapel was what Lang guessed was the door to the outside. To call it massive hardly did it justice. Reaching almost to the ceiling, two single panels were held closed by an iron bar as thick as Lang’s thighs. The hinges, shiny brass, were three or four feet in height.

Lang considered making a dash for it but quickly discarded the idea. Two men, one on each side of the door, stood guard, their AK-47’s anachronisms against the white surcoats with the red crosses.

They did not appear to be purely decorative.

Both watched with little interest as Lang approached.

Their reply to his motioning for them to open the door was a question in the same Slavic tongue he had heard before. Lang gave an exaggerated shrug to say that he didn’t understand. With the international character of Pegasus, surely not everyone spoke the same language, at least not this language.

The man on the left pantomimed reading something and held out his hand, a clear signal that he expected a document or writing of some sort. Apparently the good brothers had to get a hall pass to leave.

The man on the right was staring at Lang’s feet. The Mephistos. After throwing the one, Lang had put the pair back on. Everyone here wore the armored solleret or Jesus shoes.