The Templar Conspiracy by Paul Christopher Page A

whichever way the wind was blowing, and whichever way suited the aggrandizement of his own career. There had been a number of articles over the years about his mother’s influence over his voting, but none that had ever done him serious damage.
    The “Itinerary” file was just as Philpot had described it, but with more detail, including flight numbers, airlines and an annex that turned out to be security camera video clips that showed Tritt leaving one place and arriving in another. The only ones of these not in the file were the clips showing the assassin’s arrival and departure from Rome.
    “There’s nothing here that implicates Tritt as the Pope’s killer,” said Holliday. He shrugged. “All we have is the name Crusader and its association with the Sinclairs, and that could just as easily be coincidence.”
    “That truck with the snowplow was no coincidence. Whoever was driving it was trying to squash us like a bug,” said Peggy.
    The vague doubts he’d had about Philpot at the Mc-Donald’s scuttled across his mind again. What was it he’d said? Something that didn’t fit. The thought began to sink into his subconscious again. Then he had it.
    “Philpot,” he said.
    “What about him?” Peggy asked.
    “He said, ‘This is worse than it looks, Doc. Stay out of it.’”
    “What did he mean, d’ya think?” Brennan asked.
    “He was playing me, but Potsy’s not one to betray his old friends. It was as close as he could get to warning me off.”
    “But what is worse than it looks?” Peggy asked. “And why is counterintelligence playing you?”
    “Potsy’s under orders,” said Holliday. “And I don’t think it’s the NCTC, either. The National Counterintelligence Center is joined at the hip with the CIA. It’s really nothing but an excuse for the Agency to do business domestically.”
    “You think the CIA conspired to hire Tritt to kill the Holy Father?” Brennan said. “Why on God’s green earth would they want to do that? The risks would be enormous.”
    “Like I said before, forget about motive. The facts all add up. The man who confessed to Father Leeson was CIA, Tritt was CIA and so was Philpot. There’s been talk of a rogue CIA faction since the Kennedy assassination. Why not a CIA faction involving Rex Deus? Why couldn’t Sinclair’s people have a foothold in the Agency?”
    “I don’t believe it,” said Peggy. “Now you really are talking like some loony Internet conspiracy theorist.”
    “Look,” said Holliday grimly. “I sat around a conference table in Kate Sinclair’s house with a televangelist, a member of the Joint Chiefs, two congressmen, one congresswoman, and I think a presidential national security adviser from the previous administration. There were half a dozen others present. Why couldn’t one of them have been CIA?” He shook his head. “Sometimes there really are conspiracies out there.”
    “Do you have any proof that one of them was CIA?” Peggy asked, still playing devil’s advocate.
    “There’s no proof that one of them wasn’t with the Agency, either,” answered Holliday. “It’s a theory that fits the information we have.”
    “Actually it’s a hypothesis. A theory has to be proven,” said Peggy, her voice prim. “And we’re just going around in circles now.”
    Holliday gave her a withering look but Peggy just smiled.
    “I’m still not entirely sure why your friend Philpot or the organization he works for want you involved,” said Brennan.
    “Like I said before,” stated Holliday, “they want to distance themselves from Tritt. I can’t prove that, either, but they could sure as hell prove that I’ve got a history with Kate Sinclair. If there is a rogue group within the Agency they’ll almost certainly warn their pet assassin. I think Philpot’s people are using us as a Judas goat to bring him out in the open and then take him out with the minimum of fuss.”
    “We’re bait?”
    “Something like that,” Holliday said