Assassin's Code Page 20

  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.”

  Sir Guy slowly straightened, almost afraid to see that unnatural swirl of colors in the cleric’s eyes, but what he saw was the same golden brown he had known for years.

  “Thank you, Father.”

  “My son … this undertaking … it is with the consent and cooperation of the infidel and heretic Ibrahim al-Asiri? Cousin and private advisor to Saladin, enemy of God? You have made a preliminary bargain with a representative of the Antichrist on earth?”

  “He is a Saracen, to be sure, but—”

  “Yes or no, my friend?” asked the priest. “Did you enter into an agreement with Ibrahim al-Asiri?”

  “I did. In the name of God and for my love of the Church, I did.”

  The priest took his hand and patted it. “I just wanted you to say it aloud. Plain and not couched in the twisted language of diplomacy which, I must admit, often sounds like the mutterings of the devil. Tell me the truth, Sir Guy, for much hangs on it. If I were to say no—if I threatened to do the terrible things that we both know I can do and indeed should do to a man who has brought this to me and asked of me what you have asked—would you be willing to kill me?”

  Sir Guy said nothing.

  “Speak now or I will call the guards.”

  “Yes,” croaked the diplomat, though he knew that he could never do such a thing. He could kill an uncle or brother before he killed a priest.

  “Then tell me one more thing. If you escaped; if you fled this hospital and the city, if you took a boat to Spain or some other port, if you changed your name and lived forever in hiding … would you still want this plan of yours to go forward? Does the substance of this agreement matter more to you than titles, land, wealth, or your own name? Does this agreement matter more to you than your own life?”

  “Yes,” Sir Guy said again. His throat felt like it was filled with shards of broken pottery.

  The priest stepped closer, his face as severe as one of the saints of antiquity. “If I were to call my guards in here and have them strike you down and cut off your head and scatter the worthless pieces of your body to the vultures … would you even then want this agreement to move forward?”

  Tears broke from Sir Guy’s eyes and he buckled slowly to his knees. He drew his sword and let it clatter to the flagstones. His dagger clanged as he dropped that across the sword. Sir Guy bowed his head.

  “Yes,” he said in a voice that was filled with passion but without hope.

  The tears dropped from his face onto the toe of the priest’s shoe. A moment later the priest raised his foot and touched the tearstained toe to the tip of the dagger. It lay almost parallel to the sword, but the priest nudged it slowly until it sat crosswise so that the dagger formed the bar of a cross. Or the hilt of a sword. How often Sir Guy had noticed how similar cross and sword were to one another.

  “Look at me.”

  Sir Guy raised his eyes and saw that the priest was smiling. It was not a nice smile. It was like looking at a snake smile, and as his seamed faced wrinkled with the smile, the priest’s eyes once more seemed to be as much green as brown. Like the mottled skin of a toad.

  “Swear to me, Guy LaRoque, knight of the Sacred Order of Hospitallers. Swear that you will live according to this agreement, now and for all of the days of your life. Swear that you will do everything in your power—everything that your faith and your imagination and your will demands—to insure that the substance of this agreement comes to pass. Swear that to me, now, on your knees, before God.”

  Sir Guy bent forward and caught a fold of the priest’s robe and kissed the hem. “I swear,” he said, the words as much a vow as a plea. “I swear before God, to the end of the world and the redemption of my sinner’s soul … I swear.”

  “Then rise, Sir Guy LaRoque, knight of the holy Hospital of Jerusalem, protector of the Holy Land, soldier of God. I bless you and sanctify this Holy Agreement and all of its precious secrets. I bless it and God blesses it. Amen.”

  Sir Guy wept and kissed the priest’s hem again before he climbed to his feet. “Thank you, Father. Thank you!”

  The priest waved away the gratitude and the tears.

  “What do you call this crusade of yours—of ours—my son?”

  “In truth I have not yet thought of a fitting title. Ibrahim has already given his order a special name. The Tariqa. It is the Sufi word for ‘the path.’ He will be its first Murshid, its first guide along that path.”

  The old priest nodded. “We will have to do the same, for you know that you cannot use the name of the Sacred Order of Hospitallers for this cause.”

  “I confess that I’ve come up dry on that and—”

  “Ordo Ruber,” said the priest.

  “Father?”

  “The Red Order. We are born in the blood of Christ, are we not? And it is the blood of sacrifices and martyrs that shall sanctify our cause.”

  Sir Guy murmured the name, feeling how the words and all of their many possible meanings fit in his mouth. “Yes,” he said. “That is
perfect. The Red Order.”

  They stopped in the archway, both of them bathed in purple shadows. Sir Guy’s heart was swelling with love and gratitude. He took the priest’s hand, bent and kissed the blood red ruby of his ring.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I thank you with all my heart, Father Nicodemus.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The Hangar

  Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

  June 15, 2:50 a.m. EST

  Aunt Sallie and Church were still in his office when the phone rang with an overseas call. “Well, well,” he said and showed the display to Aunt Sallie.

  Auntie smiled like a happy cat in a canary store. “This should be interesting as all hell.”

  Church activated the scrambler and speaker.

  Without preamble, Lilith demanded, “Have you talked to your agent, Ledger, today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know that he met with Jalil Rasouli?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he on or off the leash?”

  “He has my trust.”

  “Okay. Good to know, I suppose,” she said. Her tone was icy and scalpel sharp. “Word is that Rasouli gave something to Ledger. Care to tell me what it was?”

  “Why do you need to know?”

  “Because I think Rasouli is playing a game.”

  “And that would be different from his normal behavior in what way?”

  “Don’t try to be cute,” Lilith said tersely. “Do you know that the new Scriptor of the Red Order is trying to recruit Rasouli as the new Murshid of the Tariqa?”

  Church cocked an eyebrow at Aunt Sallie. She shook her head and began tapping keys on the MindReader interface.

  “I was not aware of that,” admitted Church. “Until today the Order has been off the radar since Baghdad. I am rather surprised to learn that they are active again.”

  “They never really stopped. The new Scriptor—Charles, the last of the LaRoques—took over after we took his father off the board.”

  “So that was you.”

  Lilith ignored that. “The Order slowed down for a bit until they could build a list of candidates for a new Murshid. Rasouli’s been on the top of that list for a couple of years now.”