The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (16 page)

‘You American?’ the second boy inquired.

Tucking the
tire iron under his arm, Caedmon reached for his wallet. ‘I’m English,’ he told them, extracting the stipulated amount plus another twenty. Both boys’ eyes lit up with an entrepreneurial gleam. ‘There’s twenty for each of you, but only if you tell the truth. Did a man with a moustache pass through here a few moments ago?’

In concert, the boys eagerly nodded.

‘What was he wearing?’ Caedmon next asked, the question a set-up to gauge the pair’s veracity.

‘Black clothes,’ the shorter one said.

‘Just like his friends,’ the other one supplied, unasked.

‘Ah! So the man with the moustache has a few friends, does he? Do you know how many?’

The taller boy held up two fingers.

Alarmed to learn of an unholy trinity,
Caedmon asked the follow-up: ‘By any chance, did he meet his two friends just now?’

The question elicited simultaneous shakes of the head.

‘And lastly, do you know where the man with the moustache is staying?’

Again, it was the taller lad who took the lead. ‘Follow me.’

Caedmon did, the boys navigating a labyrinth of winding lanes and narrow alleys. The maze ended at a two-story guest house. A dilapidated colonial vestige, the building featured two covered patios on the ground floor and two balconies above. Without being asked, the taller boy silently pointed to one of the patios.

Got you, you bastard!

Their fee earned, Caedmon handed each boy twenty rupees.

‘Good buy!’ the smaller one enthused.

‘Indeed.’

Caedmon
waited until the two urchins had disappeared back into the maze before approaching the patio. His senses tightly calibrated, he soft-shoed towards the tawdry guesthouse. As he did, he eyed the peeling paint, mismatched curtains and rotting garbage.
My compliments. Lovely accommodations.

In the far distance, a pair of dogs contentiously barked. In the near distance, he
heard muffled footsteps. Someone scurrying home while there was still a bit of daylight left. In a matter of minutes the sun would conclude its westward glide, twilight waiting in the wings.

Moving with a predator’s slow, deliberate gait,
Caedmon stepped over the low railing that bordered the patio and took up a position near the French doors. The lights were on inside the room, enabling him to peer into the jackal’s lair. At a glance, he could see that there were two unmade beds and a narrow cot. Empty beer bottles and containers of takeaway were scattered about. An unidentified dark-skinned man was sprawled on one of the beds, a plastic shopping bag clutched in his hand.

A door suddenly opened on the other side of the shabby guestroom, spilling garish light as the Bête Noire stepped out of the bathroom. He glanced at the prone man’s plastic bag and frowned. ‘I told you not to drink the water.’

‘Fuck you, Hector. My belly aches from the food not the water.’ Wincing, the other man gingerly sat up. ‘Shit, man! Everything I eat now turns to water.’

Hector.

At last Caedmon had a name; the irony of which made him smile humorlessly.
Had anyone ever been so inappropriately christened?
Hector, the firstborn son of King Priam, had been ancient Troy’s most stalwart warrior, famed for his courage and honor. During the Middle Ages, Hector was esteemed as one of ‘The Nine Worthies’, a legendary figure who personified the chivalric ideal.

‘So, where the hell have you been anyway?’

‘That English
cabrón
ambushed me,’ the misnamed brute informed his crony.

A
rms moving in a herky-jerky motion, Hector spewed a venomous litany, going into great detail about the ‘ambush’. Most of his soliloquy was in English with the odd word of Spanish.
Caedmon had been to Gibraltar where a similar mash-up of English and Spanish was occasionally spoken. But these two men weren’t Europeans. The idioms and macho body language strongly suggested that they were Americans. Probably first or second generation, their families having immigrated from Mexico or Central America.

An uneasy dread gripped
Caedmon’s lower belly, none of the puzzle pieces fitting together.
How did these two thugs find out about the
Evangelium Gaspar
?
By no stretch of the imagination were they academics. Hired muscle, more than likely.

Still fuming,
Hector peeled off his T-shirt and tossed it on to the floor. When, an instant later, he turned round to retrieve a duffel bag, Caedmon’s eyes opened wide – the man’s entire back, from his waist to shoulders, was covered in an elaborate and colorful tattoo of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. Impeccably rendered, the Virgin was garbed in a bright green cloak and limned in a brilliant halo of golden light. Crowned with roses and a ghoulish
calavera
,
a Mexican skull, she stood atop a twining serpent. A New World variation of ‘a woman cloaked with the sun’ from the Book of Revelation.

Seeing th
e religious icon was further confirmation that the Catholic Church was somehow involved in Anala’s kidnapping.

‘Jesus, my gut is killing me,’ the unnamed man groaned. Clutching his belly, he flopped backwards on to the bed.

Showing a noticeable lack of sympathy, Hector snatched a bottle of deodorant from the dresser and, removing the cap, slathered each armpit. He then tugged a dark brown T-shirt over his head. Retrieving a leather wallet from his hip pocket, he took a quick tally. ‘That should be enough.’

The other man raised his head off the mattress. ‘Where you going, homie?’

‘There’s a whorehouse down the street.
Mi chorizo
needs a lil’ curry sauce,’ the lout snickered, cupping his crotch. It was an affectation that Caedmon found annoyingly tiresome. A vulgar twist on girding one’s loins.

‘Hey, man, y
ou promised G-Dog that you’d control yourself.’

G-Dog?
Caedmon’s ears instantly pricked. An alias, obviously, he wondered if G-Dog was the mastermind behind the abduction.
If so, were G-dog and Irenaeus, the individual who sent Gita the ransom demand, one and the same?

‘
I only promised G-Dog that I would play it safe.’ Shoving a hand into his jeans pocket, Hector pulled out a length of wrapped prophylactics. ‘Never leave
la casa
without them,
amigo
.’ He grinned, proving that he was one of those beasts who actually enjoyed wallowing in the mire. ‘Bitches are the same the world over. They lie on their back and show me their crack and usher me to paradise.’

‘
After which, you pay them the going rate,’ the other man said pointedly.

Still grinning, the bastard shrugged and said, ‘
Heaven doesn’t come cheap. Although I bet the blue-eyed Sanskrita that we bagged for G-Dog would have given it to me for free.’

The blue-eyed Sanskrita.
Did he mean Anala?

The bastard!

Licking his lips, Hector smashed a balled fist into an open palm while he humped the air with his hips.

Watching the lewd pantomime, an incendiary rage surged up
Caedmon’s spine. In that molten instant, images flashed across his mind’s eye: Anala’s ransacked room; Anala’s ‘proof of life’ photo, bound and gagged; Gita’s tear-stained face
.
Images that blurred around the edges. Congealing into a stone-cold fury. The kind of fury that incited a savage desire to slay one’s enemy. To kick in the French doors and inflict blood-drenched bodily harm.

He drew a ragged breath. Then another.
I need to stay calm
.
To collect as much intelligence as possible. To learn the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses before launching an attack.

The man sprawled on the bed gestured to the laptop computer on the nearby table. ‘We’re supposed to Skype G-Dog in a little while.’

‘Stop nagging. It’s just gonna be a quick fuck-and-go. I don’t particularly like dark meat, but a man needs his sustenance,’ Hector said over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

‘
Qué cabrón
,’ the bedridden man muttered sourly as the door slammed shut.

Unmoved,
Caedmon watched as the other man suddenly sat up and vomited into his plastic bag. The weak animal in the herd, he had no idea that a predator lurked. Waiting to take him down.

Caedmon
slid his hands over the tire iron.

He knew right from wrong. Knew how tenuous the sliver of space between them could be.

Was he willing to cross that line to save a child he’d never met?

Yes.
Absolutely.

‘
Well, that’s that,’ he whispered, ready to make his move.

Caedmon
waited until the lone man went to the bathroom.

Seizing his chance, he used the
tire iron to pop the lock on the French door. Hurriedly, he slipped across the threshold, the loud blare from the television in the neighboring guest room muffling the break-in.

At a glance, he could see that the accommodations were even more dingy and cramped than they’d appeared from the other side of the glass, the walls covered in a gr
ay, dirt-laden veneer. As with any cheap hotel, the beds sagged and the amenities were almost non-existent, consisting of only a scarred wooden table and two chairs. Surveillance photos of Anala and Gita were tacked haphazardly on to the wall adjacent to the table. Momentarily stopped in his tracks, Caedmon stared at the dozen or so photographs.

Seething
, the bile rose in his throat.

S
ecuring a hand around each end of the tire iron, he stormed over to the closed bathroom door. On the other side, he heard a prosaic flush. Now wasn’t the time to debate the situational ethics of the intended act. Now was the time to act.

With that thought in mind, he kicked in the flimsy door.

The round-faced man stood in front of the sink, the water still running. In that split second when the door flew open, their gazes met in the mirror.

Brown eyes opened wide. The shock absolute.

‘Who the fuck –’

Caedmon
rushed forward, squelching the query midstream. Looping the tire iron over the shorter man’s head, he yoked it around his neck. He then pulled with all his might, yanking the man backward. Legs spread wide, he pulled the other man against his chest. With the iron pressed to his quarry’s windpipe, Caedmon proceeded to cut off the lout’s airflow.

Grabbing at the iron, violently twisting and turning, the other man tried to break free.
Caedmon refused to let go. Teeth bared, he tightened his grip. The tiled bathroom was barely large enough to turn round in, let alone wage gladiatorial combat. Flailing wildly, his adversary grabbed the only weapon within reach – the metal towel rack – and yanked it free of its moorings, sending chalky wads of plaster flying through the air.

Weapon in hand, he tried to clout
Caedmon in the head, swinging the chrome length over his shoulder.

Caedmon
instinctively recoiled, the makeshift bludgeon missing the mark. Worried the other man might actually knock him out, he released his left hand from the tire iron. At the same time, he forcefully swung his right arm downwards, smashing the iron into his adversary’s shins.

The jackal bleated, instantly crashing to his knees.

He kicked the towel rack out of his opponent’s hands, the metal length clattering against the shower stall. Then, for good measure, he struck his foe in the kidneys, causing the man to bleat even louder.

His demons barely
restrained, Caedmon grabbed the man by the head and – straddling his shoulders – slammed his face into the toilet bowl. Water sloshed liberally in every direction. An obstinate brute, the man braced his hands on the porcelain rim, endeavoring to heave upwards, trying to hurl Caedmon off him.

In an uncharitable mood,
Caedmon pushed down that much harder. Refusing to waver.

‘If you don’t cease and desist, I
will
send you to a watery grave,’ he grated. Ultimatum issued, he shoved his kneecap against the man’s tenderized kidney and applied painful pressure.

Burbling into the water, the other man –
finally!
– sagged against the porcelain bowl.

Caedmon
released his grip and stepped back, giving the man enough room to rise to his feet. Worried that the surrender might be short-lived, he menacingly raised the tire iron, ready to pummel his adversary into full submission.

To his surprise, the other man suddenly lurched back towards the toilet, retching violently.

‘Which merely proves that there are no swans in the cesspool,’ Caedmon muttered dispassionately.

A few moments later, panting, barely able to draw breath, his conquered foe glared at him.
A wet rodent put to rout, water sluiced off his temples, ears, nose and chin.