Assassin's Code (25 page)

“Stay here,” he told his servant. “Stay alert and sober.”

With that, Sir Guy dismounted and walked down the sloping sand toward the rock. When he was ten yards away he called out in perfect Arabic.

“
As-sal
ā
mu ‘alaykum
.”

“
Wa-laikum as-salâm
,” replied a voice from within the featureless shadows at the foot of the rock. There was movement and the lamp was once more unshielded, revealing in its glow the thin and ascetic face of a bearded Saracen. Sir Guy went forward to meet the other man and they shook hands warmly.

“Come, my friend,” said the Saracen, “I have food and a warm fire inside.”

Together they passed beyond the tapestry and entered a cave which cut nearly to the heart of the towering rock. Inside, the cave was comfortable, furnished with a rug for the floor, pillows, a low brass tray piled high with cooked meats and dried fruits, and a tall pitcher of clean water.

“You look well, Ibrahim,” said Sir Guy as he warmed his hands over the flame.

Ibrahim al-Asiri was a tall thin man with a hawk nose that had been broken and badly set, giving him a villainous look that was at odds with his role as diplomat and counselor to Sal
ā
h-ed-D
ī
n Ayy
ū
bi. Like Sir Guy, his counterpart in the politics of the wars here in the Holy Land, Ibrahim was a scholar, but, unlike the Frenchman, the Arab was also a mathematician of some note and the author of complex books on engineering, geometry, and algebra.

While they ate, the two men picked up the thread of a conversation that had occupied them over many previous secret meetings.

“I am taking the matter to a priest,” said Sir Guy. “One of the Hospitallers of my order. An old friend of the family. He is a wise and subtle man, and I think he will see the logic of our plan.”

Ibrahim frowned. “What will happen if he does not agree with us? What will he do?”

“Do?” laughed Sir Guy. “He would denounce me and I would be lucky to escape being publically whipped to death. My lands and fortune would be seized and I would be excommunicated.” The Frenchman waved a hand at the expression of alarm on Ibrahim’s face. “No, no, my friend, that’s what could happen, but I do not think that it
will
happen. I know this man.”

“So far,” Ibrahim said, “this has all been nothing but an intellectual exercise, a discourse of a philosophical nature. Once you speak to this priest, it becomes something else.”

“I know. With the first words I say to the priest it becomes treason and heresy.”

They thought about that for several moments, each of them staring through the flickering fire at the future.

“We could turn back,” suggested Ibrahim. “Now, I mean. We could finish our meal and you could ride back to your camp and I to mine, and we could never speak of this again.”

“We could,” agreed Sir Guy.

“If we do not, then we are irrevocably set on a course that will wash the world in blood and pain and destruction from now until the ending of time.”

“Yes.”

“We must be sure.”

“I am sure,” said Sir Guy. “If you were not a heathen of a Saracen then we would drink wine together to seal the bargain.”

“And if you were not an infidel deserving of a jackal’s death we would spit on our palms and shake upon it.”

They smiled at each other.

“Let us do this, then,” proposed Sir Guy. He sat forward and took a knife and held the edge of the blade in the heat of the fire. The steel grew hot very quickly. “Since flame and steel and blood are the things with which we will prove our allegiance to God and with which we will preserve His holy name here on earth, then let it be with flame and steel and blood that we seal our agreement.”

“Our Holy Agreement,” corrected Ibrahim.

Their eyes met across the flame.

“Our Holy Agreement,” said Sir Guy.

He removed the smoking blade from the fire and opened his left hand. “The Crusades and the armies of the church are the right hand of God. We will be His left hand.”

He cocked an amused eye at Ibrahim, “And don’t tell me that your left is the hand you wipe your ass with, for I know that. No one will look there for proof of your fealty. And every time I see it I’ll laugh.”

“You are a whore’s son and the grandson of a leper,” replied Ibrahim, but he was laughing aloud as he said it.

Their laughter and smiles ebbed away as the edge of the blade turned from flat gray to a hellish red gold.

“Swear it, my brother,” said Ibrahim, nodding to the blade.

“I swear to defend the church, and to preserve it, and insure that it will endure forever. By my heart, by my hand, by my honor, and by my blood I so swear.” He set his teeth and pressed the flat of the blade into his palm. The glowing blade melted his flesh with a hiss and a curl of smoke. Sir Guy growled out in agony and then turned his cry into a ferocious prayer. “By God I swear!”

Gasping, gray-faced, he pulled the knife away and handed it to Ibrahim, then slumped back against the pillows. Ibrahim held the blade in the flames until the fading glow flared again. Then he, too, swore by his faith and on his God as he burned his promise into his skin. Then he dropped the knife into the heart of the fire where it would eventually melt into nothingness.

The smell of burning meat filled the tent.

The faces of the two diplomats were greasy with sweat.

Ibrahim held out his burned hand to his friend. “The left hand of God,” he said.

Sir Guy grunted and leaned forward, reaching out to clasp hand to hand.

“The left hand of God.”

They shook and it seemed to them that all around them the world itself trembled.

Chapter Forty-Six

The Hangar

Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

June 15, 2:30 a.m. EST

“I say we pull him,” growled Aunt Sallie. She flung herself into the leather guest chair across the desk from Mr. Church. “Pull him now before he screws everything up.”

“Why?” asked Church. He sat back, his elbows on the arms of his chair, fingers steepled, eyes unreadable behind the tinted lenses of his glasses. “Beyond your general dislike of Ledger.”

“He can’t handle the knights and you damn well know it.”

“He survived one encounter.”

“Because some psycho bitch with a sniper rifle bailed him out. Pure luck.”

“Ledger
is
lucky, Auntie. You have to admit that.”

She snorted. “He may be, but the people around him sure as shit aren’t.”

“That’s not entirely fair.”

“Isn’t it? Grace Courtland? Marty Hanler? Sergeant Faraday? I could keep going.”

“How are any of those his fault?”

“Come on, Deke, we both know his history. Everyone who’s ever been close to him has gotten killed or hurt.”

“Again, that’s not a fair assessment.” Church took a Nilla wafer and pushed the plate across the desk. Aunt Sallie took one and snapped off a piece with her sharp white teeth; then she pointed the other half at Church. “If we’re being fair here … then you tell me how it’s fair to leave him in play? You actually
like
that ass clown. Do you want to see him torn apart?”

“No.”

“Do you remember what happened in Stuttgart? In Florence? In—”

“I remember, Auntie.”

“No, I think you need to refresh your mind on what happened, Deke. The knights are tougher than they ever were. Someone or something has amped them up. They tore apart an entire Mossad team. Sixteen trained agents. Dead.
Drained
. Is that what you want to do here? Feed your boy Ledger to those
things
?”

“Of course not. The Mossad team had no idea what they were up against.”

“Does Ledger?” snapped Aunt Sallie, her eyes blazing.

They regarded each other across Church’s broad desk. Aunt Sallie cocked an eyebrow.

“That sniper chick,” she said.

“Violin? What about her?”

“She’s with Arklight, isn’t she?”

“Possibly.”

“‘Possibly,’ my ass. The number of woman snipers is pretty small, and the number of those who work the Middle East is a lot smaller. You do realize that she fits a certain profile.”

“Yes,” he said, “that has occurred to me.”

“Does that mean you’re going to call the Mothers?”

“Do you think I should?”

“If one of their gals is involved in this thing, I think you damn well better. I mean … who knows the knights better than Lilith and her secret society of psycho bitches?”

Despite everything, Church smiled. “I may actually tell her you said that.”

Aunt Sallie shrugged. “I’ve called her worse things over the years.” She leaned forward, forearms resting on her knees.

Church pressed a button on his phone. “Gus? Pack a go-bag and meet me on the roof. The situation in Iran is going south on us.”

As he sat back, he caught Aunt Sallie’s cocked eyebrow.

“You going over there to hold Ledger’s hand?”

“Hardly. I want to have a face-to-face with Lilith.”

“Wear armor.”

They regarded each other for a moment, sharing without word all of the implications that were unfolding before them.

“Have you told Ledger?” asked Aunt Sallie quietly. “Have you told him what he’s really facing over there?”

Mr. Church’s eyes were flat and dead behind his tinted lenses.

“No,” he said. “He’s scared enough as it is.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

On the Streets

Tehran, Iran

June 15, 11:04 a.m.

The call with Church did not exactly have the effect I was looking for. I wanted support, some fresh intel, and a clear direction. Instead he tried to scare the crap out of me—and maybe succeeded more than I’d ever let him know.

I sat on the floor of the deserted living room and checked Ghost again. He was not severely injured, but he probably needed at least a full day to shake off that Taser. So far I hadn’t given him ten minutes.

When I got to my feet and clicked my tongue for him to follow, he looked at me with huge eyes filled with equal parts hurt and disgust.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I told him. “We’re fugitives. No rest for the weary. Miles to go before we sleep, and all that.”

Nothing.

“Cobbler wouldn’t sissy out on me.” Cobbler was my aging house cat. He and Ghost had failed to bond. Spectacularly.

As Ghost finally hauled himself to all fours he gave me a look that could have chiseled my name on a tombstone.

I smoothed my clothes and ran my fingers through my hair, but I knew I still looked like crap. We slipped out the door and began heading toward the CIA safe house.

Even with a clean face and shirt, I looked like a street person, and I had a limping dog with blood on his fur. Not exactly the definition of nondescript, but as I walked I muttered to myself, reciting snatches of popular Persian songs and occasionally twitching my face and shoulder muscles. Even here, where suspicious characters are often questioned, no one likes to initiate contact with a disheveled man who is speaking to himself while twitching. People tend to pointedly ignore you, which is what I wanted. When anyone came too close I asked them for money, which usually guarantees that they quicken their steps while pleading poverty. A few threw blessings at me, which, hey … I took, all things considering. Twice people gave me money.

It’s a weird world.

Ghost and I kept moving.

Interlude Two

Jaffa, The Holy Land

September 1191 C.E.

Sir Guy LaRoque waited while the little priest read through the document. They stood in a shaded courtyard of the Jerusalem hospital that was the local headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller. No other of the knights were around. Their only company was a sun-drowsy wasp that drifted through the shadows under the fig trees.

Finally the priest smiled as he sharpened his gaze on Sir Guy.

“Have you considered the consequences of what you are asking of me?”

Sir Guy half bowed. “I have. But weighed against what we stand to gain, now and in future years, I—”

The priest held up a hand to halt a repeat of the argument.

“You come here, to a sanctified and sacred hospital dedicated to the treatment of those wounded in God’s own Crusade, and ask me, a priest, to willingly break the seal of the confessional.”

“No, Father, that is not what I ask. To break the seal would be to share with another person that which was said to God through you, the confessor. I do not want to know the secrets of my brother crusaders. I would not ask such a thing. I ask only that you consider what you have heard, and to balance it against what needs to be done to protect our holy church. I ask that these insights guide you in the selection of men—righteous Christian men—who will join with us in this
new
crusade.”

“You propose a crusade of secrets and lies.”

“They are only lies if you disagree with our viewpoint. We have discussed this many times, Father, and each time you
did
agree with me. Do you say now that you lied before? Or has fear stolen away your faith in your own opinion?”

The priest turned, not quickly, not in anger, but slowly and with a calculated deliberation that was far more threatening. As he did so, his eyes seemed to change and Sir Guy nearly took a backward step. The color seemed to shift from gray to a swirl of greens and browns. It was certainly a result of the priest’s movement through the sunlight and shadow, but it was momentarily unnerving.

“Softly now,” said the priest, “for there are snares and nettles in the grass around your feet. Do not let ill-chosen words lead you to take a painful misstep.”

Sir Guy placed a hand over his heart and bowed again. A deeper bow this time, held longer, the demonstration of apology and humility. “Have I offended, Father, then I am truly sorry. Before God and your holiness, I beg forgiveness for rude and rash words, poorly chosen and hastily spoken.”

He felt a touch on his head. The priest’s thin fingers caressed the brown curls that twisted out from under the silk cap.

“Peace, my son,” murmured the priest. “Look at me.”