Templar 09 - Secret of the Templars by Paul Christopher Page B

running out of Langley headquarters.
    â€œThey’re in Rome. Carrie shot the Cuban but he managed to kill her anyway. Holliday and his new friend found them and tried to keep the stink away,” Rusty Smart said.
    â€œWhat about Nardi?” Streeter asked.
    â€œWe managed to find him but we were too late. Holliday and his new friend had gotten to him first.”
    â€œSo now what do we do?” Harris asked.
    â€œWithout the old place, they’re going to have to find a new bolt-hole,” Smart said. “First we find the bolt-hole and then we follow them. If they were talking to Nardi, they know about Huff and his train. But if we don’t get Holliday’s notebook, this whole thing is going to fall apart.”
    â€œI don’t get it,” said Harris. “This isn’t our kind of thing. You make Holliday sound like some kind of boogeyman. Why is he important anyway? I’ve gone over the file, and there is nothing strategic about him, or world-shaking. So what goes?”
    â€œThis group, or one like it, has existed inside the U.S. intelligence community since Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services back in World War II. Holliday’s connection is through his uncle, who was a liaison officer between the OSS and British military intelligence. He found a Templar sword at Berchtesgaden, which turned out to be part of a code that led to the collected wealth of the entire Templar system. Holliday’s initial investigations into the sword led him to one of the last true Templar monks, who, on his deathbed, gave Holliday the notebook containing every code and account number for Templar funds throughout the world. There are a lot of other people whohave been chasing the notebook, including the Vatican. Our group’s thinking is that there is some connection between Huff and the Vatican and between the Vatican and Holliday. The notebook is the key to all of it for some reason. And we have to find out what that reason is before the shit hits the fan.”
    *   *   *
    Holliday and Lazarus found rooms in a cheap flophouse hotel on Via dei Serpenti. They found a local secondhand store, outfitted themselves and headed off to the Via di Monte d’Oro, a side street off Mercato delle Stampe. Holliday followed Lazarus down the narrow street to a four-story granite building with a plain black-and-gold sign above the door that read “Saxon Peck Rare Books, Maps, Charts and Collectibles.”
    Lazarus opened the door with the old-fashioned spoon-handle mechanism and they went inside. The interior smelled of exactly what the sign had said. Rich scents of old leather, brass and books in addition to the wonderful smell coming from the espresso machine at the rear of the shop.
    The long shop was divided into two parts, with books dominating the floor-to-ceiling oak casesand rarer objects behind glass and display tables that ran in three aisles. At the rear of the store was a small area of peace and quiet, with three leather chairs arranged around an ornate four-legged circular table, almost certainly seventeenth century and definitely British. To the left, a black cast-iron spiral staircase ran up to the floor above.
    On one of the railed wooden ladders sliding down each of the bookcases a short, heavy-set man with snow white hair was rearranging books on the upper shelves. Eventually he ran out of books to rearrange and came down the ladder. He turned and saw Lazarus. His ruddy-bearded face suddenly beamed.
    â€œPeter, my boy! I haven’t seen you in years. Still looking for old paintings and such?”
    â€œQuite a number of them, actually, Lord Peck.”
    Peck’s gaze fell on Holliday. “And you must be Colonel Holliday, the man I’ve been hearing about for so long.”
    â€œToday is the first day I’ve ever heard your name,” said Holliday.
    â€œI knew of you through your uncle Henry. He and I were classmates at Oxford and