The Last Templar - Страница 19

Reilly's face clouded over. "Hold on, you think they were blackmailing the Vatican? I thought they were soldiers of Christ? Doesn't it make more sense that they found something that really pleased the Vatican, and the pope decided to reward them for their discovery?"

Her face scrunched inward. "If that was the case, wouldn't they have announced it to the world?"

She eased back, seeming a bit lost as well. "I know, I'm still missing a piece to this puzzle. They did go on to fight for Christianity for two hundred years. But you've got to admit, it's pretty intriguing."

She paused, studying him. "So do you think there's anything in it?"

Reilly weighed the information she'd so eagerly laid out for him. Regardless of how ridiculous it all sounded, he couldn't simply dismiss it entirely. The attack at the Met was clearly symptomatic of something frighteningly warped; there was more behind its extreme staging than a simple heist, that much everyone agreed on. He knew how radical extremists latched onto some mythology, some core belief, and how they made it theirs; how gradually that mythology got twisted and distorted until its devotees completely lost touch with reality and went off the deep end. Could this be the link he was looking for? The Templar legends certainly seemed rife with distortion. Was someone out there so infatuated with the terrible fate of the Templars that they identified with them to the point of dressing up like them, taking revenge on the Vatican on their behalf, and perhaps even trying to recover their legendary treasure?

Reilly's eyes settled on her. "Do I think the Templars were the keepers of some big secret—good or bad—relating to the early days of the Church? I have no idea."

Tess glanced away, trying to smother any visible signs of her dismay, when Reilly leaned in and continued. "Do I think there's a possible link between the Templars and what happened at the Met?"

He let it hang for a moment, nodding almost imperceptibly, before a faint smile crossed his lips. "I definitely think it's worth looking into."

Chapter 22

Gus Waldron was definitely not having one of his best days. He remembered waking up a while ago. How long, he couldn't tell. Hours, minutes—and then he'd drifted off again. Now he was back, a little more alert.

He knew he was in bad shape. He winced as he remembered the crash. His body felt like it had taken more pounding than a veal chop at Cipriani's. And the irritating, incessant beeps from the monitors around him weren't helping either.

He knew he was in a hospital—the beeping and the ambient noise were clear indications of that. He had to rely on his hearing, as he couldn't see a goddamn thing. His eyes stung like hell. When he tried to move, he couldn't. There was something around his chest. They've got me strapped to the bed. Not real tight, though. So the strap was there for hospital reasons, not cop reasons. Good. His hands moved over his face, feeling bandages and finding other things. They had him stuck full of tubes.

There was no point in fighting it, not right now. He had to know how bad he was hurt, and he would definitely need his eyes back if he was to get out of there. So until he knew the score, he would try to cut a deal with the cops. But what did he have to offer? He needed something big, because

they wouldn't like the fact that he'd chopped the head off that fucking guard. He really shouldn't have done that. It was just that, riding up there, dressed like Prince-fucking-Valiant, he had gotten to wondering what it would be like to take a swing at some guy. And it had felt real good; there was no denying it.

What he could do was rat out Branko Petrovic. He was already pissed off at that dick for not telling him the name of the guy who had hired him, rambling on about how cool it was, this idea of blind cells. Now he saw why. He'd been hired by Petrovic, who'd been hired by someone else, who'd been hired by some other asshole. Who could tell how many blind fucking cells there were before you reached the guy the cops were out to nail?

The hospital sounds rose slightly for a moment, then fell again. The door must have opened and closed. He heard footsteps, squeaky on the floor, as someone approached his bed. Then whoever it was lifted Gus's hand, fingertips resting on the inside of his wrist. Some doctor or nurse taking his pulse. No, a doctor. The fingers felt rougher, stronger than a nurse's would. At least the kind of nurse he would fantasize about.

He needed to know how badly hurt he was. "Who's that? Doc?"

Whoever was there didn't answer. Now the fingers were lifting the bandages where they went around his head and over his ears.

Gus opened his mouth to ask a question but as he did so he felt a strong hand clamp down over his mouth and immediately there came a searingly painful jab in his neck. His whole body jerked against the restraint.

The hand covered his mouth tightly, turning Gus's shouts into a muffled whine. There was a hot feeling spreading inside his neck, around his throat. Then, slowly, the hand pressing down on his mouth released its hold.

A man's voice, very soft, whispered close to his ear. He could feel his hot breath on him.

"The doctors won't allow anyone to question you for a while. But I can't wait that long. I need to know who hired you."

What the fuck . . . ?

Gus tried to sit up, but the strap held his body and a hand pressed against his head kept him in place.

"Answer the question," the voice said.

Who was that? It couldn't be a cop. Some shithead trying to cut himself in on some of the stuff he'd taken from the museum? But then why ask about who'd hired him?

"Answer me." The voice was still very quiet, but sharper now.

"Fuck you," Gus said.

Except that, he didn't say it. Not really. His mouth formed the words, and he heard them in his head.

But no sound came out.

Where's my fucking voice gone?

"Ah," the voice whispered. "That's the Lidocaine's effect. Just a small dose. Enough to numb your vocal chords. It's annoying in that you can't talk. The upside of it is that, well, you can't scream either."

Scream?

The fingers that had felt so gentry for his pulse landed on his left hip, right where the cop's bullet struck. They rested there for a moment before suddenly bursting alive and pressing in. Hard.

Pain seared through his body like he was being branded from the inside, and he screamed.

Silently.

Blackness threatened to overwhelm his brain before the pain receded slightly and saliva pooled at the back of his throat. He thought he was about to throw up. Then the man's hands touched him again and he flinched, only this time the touch was gentle.

"Are you right- or left-handed?" the soft voice asked.

Gus was now sweating profusely. Right- or left-handed? What the fuck difference does that make?

He lifted his right hand feebly, and soon felt something being placed between his fingers. A pencil.

"Just write the names down for me," the voice told him, guiding the pencil toward what felt like a notepad.

His eyes bandaged shut and his voice gone, Gus felt completely cut off from the world and alone, more so than he'd ever imagined. Where is everybody? Where are the doctors, the nurses, the fucking cops, for Chrissake?

The fingers seized the flesh around his wound and squeezed again, this time harder and for longer.

An excruciating pain shot through him. Every nerve in his body seemed to ignite as he bucked against the strap, screaming in silent agony.

"This doesn't have to take all night," the man stated calmly. "Just give me the names."

There was only one name he could write. Which he did.

"Branko . . . Petrovic?" the man asked softly.

Gus nodded hurriedly.

"And the others?"

Gus shook his head as best he could. That's all I know, for fuck's sake.

The fingers again.

Pressing in, harder, deeper. Squeezing.

The pain.

The silent screams.

Jesus fucking Christ. Gus lost track of time. He managed to write the name of a place where Branko worked. Other than that, all that he could do was shake his head and mouth, No.

Over and over and over again.

Eventually, thankfully, he felt the pencil being taken away from him. At last the man believed that he was telling the truth.

Now, Gus could hear small sounds he did not recognize, then he again felt the man's fingers lift the edge of the bandage in the same place. He cringed, but this time he hardly felt the needle prick.

"Here's some more painkiller for you," the man whispered. "It'll ease the pain that you're feeling and help you sleep."

Gus felt a slow, rising wave of dark weariness flow through his head and start down his body and with it came relief that the ordeal, the pain, was over. Then a terrifying realization descended on him: that the sleep into which he was helplessly plunging was one from which he would never awaken.

Desperate now, he tried to move but couldn't, and after a moment it seemed as though he didn't want to move. He relaxed. Wherever he was going, it just had to be a better place than the sewer in which he had spent his entire miserable life.

Chapter 23

Reilly climbed out of bed, pulled on a T-shirt and looked out the window from his fourth-floor apartment. Outside, the streets were deathly quiet. The city that never sleeps only seemed to apply to him.

He often didn't sleep well for a number of reasons. One was simply his inability to let go. It was a problem he'd had more and more frequently over the last few years, this incessant mulling over leads and data relating to whatever case he was working on. He didn't really have a problem falling asleep. Sheer exhaustion usually took care of that. But then he'd hit that dreaded four a.m. threshold and suddenly find himself wide awake, his brain churning away, sorting and analyzing, searching for the missing kernel of information that might save lives.