CHAPTER NINETEEN

Getting to Scotland turned out to be easier than Riley thought it would be.

After making up his mind, Riley returned to his quarters and logged onto his computer. He wasn’t the tech whiz that Olsen had been, but he’d learned a thing or two from his former squad-mate that he put to good use now. When he was done, he printed out what he needed and then sent the rest of it winging its way through cyberspace to its final destination. It wouldn’t hold up to a forensic search, but it would certainly do the trick for the time being.

He quickly packed a bag and headed for the heliport where he tracked down one of the Blackhawk pilots he was friendly with and had him ferry him over to John F Kennedy airport, where the Order maintained a small selection of aircraft operated under the Vatican flag. A cargo plane was getting ready for a flight to Edinburgh, so Riley concocted a story about needing to be at the commandery before dawn and managed to secure a seat in the back with the cargo for the passage over. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable overseas trip he’d ever had, but it served its purpose and Riley had long ago given up any pretensions that comfort was a right that everyone was guaranteed. He knew better; he was a Templar, after all.

He did his best to catch some sleep which bouncing around on the bench seat in back and arrived in Edinburgh just over seven hours after boarding the plane in New York. He quickly made his way to Immigration and Customs, his Vatican-issued passport whisking him through the process without hassle or delay. Ten minutes later he was behind the wheel of a rental car, headed south toward the village of Roslin and the sprawling underground complex that housed the Templar world headquarters in the hills just beyond.

He entered through the De Molay Gate, named after the famed Grand Master who had been burned at the stake in 1307 for refusing to divulge the whereabouts of the Templar’s vast treasure to Pope Innocent and his ally, the King of France. The treasure had, in fact, been stored in the very first iteration of the very facility he was entering and Riley always tried to take this route when he could, if only to honor the man who had preserved their Order with both his foresight and his bravery. He left the car with one of the motor pool attendants, logged his entry into the commandery as was required, and then headed for the administrative wing in hopes of scoring an audience with the Seneschal.

It was late in the evening so the halls were empty for the most part and it didn’t take him long to get to his destination. To his surprise, and relief, he found the Seneschal’s aide still at his desk. He stepped up, identified himself, and asked for an immediate audience with the Seneschal.

“It is literally a matter of life and death.”

But the aide wasn’t moved. “I’m sorry, Captain Riley, but the Seneschal is in a meeting at the moment and won’t be done for several hours.” He glanced at his computer screen. “I can fit you, um, say mid-morning on Thursday?”

Riley wanted to laugh. He’d walked in the door saying it was a matter of life and death and this flunky wanted him to settle for an appointment seventy-two hours from now? Not going to happen.

“As I said, it’s rather urgent. I’ll wait for him to finish his meeting.”

Riley took a seat and settled in, over the aide’s protests. There wasn’t much the man could do short of calling security and Riley highly doubted that was going to happen. Riley was beginning to discover that there was a certain amount of prestige that went along with being head of the Order’s special combat teams and it wasn’t beyond him to throw his weight around a bit to ensure he got what he wanted or needed for his men.

He was going to see the Seneschal about Cade and that was that.

Riley had a bit more patience than Cade did, but only a little; both were men of action and sitting around and waiting for someone else to take the necessary action was not something that sat well with either one of them. The current Echo Team commander managed the first half-hour without too much trouble, but as that began to sink into an hour and beyond, his boredom began to turn to annoyance.

To get his point across, he took to staring directly at the aide for long periods of time, refusing to look away whenever the man looked up. Eventually he got so flustered that he jumped out of his seat, excused himself, and disappeared into the Seneschal’s inner office.

Riley was tempted to follow him inside, but resisted the urge, knowing the Seneschal was a bit of a stickler for proper decorum and Riley didn’t want to damage his chances of talking to the man by being pushy.

The aide was only gone a few minutes. When he returned he handed Riley a folded piece of paper with a decidedly relieved look on his face before returning to his seat at his desk.

Riley unfolded the piece of paper and saw that it was a handwritten note.

Captain Riley, it began.

I admire your dedication and support of our mutual friend but I have done all I can for the time being. Enjoy your stay in Scotland; I understand the chapel restoration looks particularly spectacular in the morning sunlight.

It was signed, Ferguson.

When he was finished reading, Riley folded the note up and stuffed it deep in his pocket. He thanked the aide for his help and then left the Seneschal’s office at a brisk walk.

Ferguson’s barely-veiled request to meet him at the chapel in the morning certainly wouldn’t be hard for anyone else to suss it out should they stumble upon the message, but then again, it didn’t really matter if it was well-hidden or not. The note had come from the Seneschal and, if pressed, he could say that it meant exactly what it seemed to say – that Captain Riley should take the time to see the Rosslyn Chapel restoration before leaving. To suggest otherwise, to question the validity of the Seneschal’s word, would be a tact that only the most foolish would pursue.

At least one thing was clear; the Seneschal was not abandoning Cade to his fate. At least Riley didn’t think so. If he was, he simply would have told Riley that Cade was on his own. The fact that Ferguson was arranging for a clandestine meeting with Riley seemed to suggest that Cade still had some allies within the Templar hierarchy.

That was a good thing, a very good thing indeed.

A glance at his watch told him that it was getting pretty late, so he decided to grab a sandwich from the galley and secure a room for himself in the visiting officer quarters for the night.

He was headed down the hall to his assigned room, munching on a turkey sub as he went, when he heard someone call his name from behind.

“Captain Riley! A word, if you please?”

He turned to see Preceptor Johannson beckoning to him from the doorway of an office he’d just passed. The Preceptor did not look very happy to see him.

Shit, Riley thought as he turned and retraced his footsteps. Johannson was the last person he wanted to run into, but now that he had he needed to play it cool. Thankfully he’d prepared in advance.

He dumped his sandwich in a nearby trash can and kept his expression neutral as he stepped up to the office door.

Game time, he thought.

Johannson had already retreated into the room by the time Riley reached it. Looking in from the doorway he could see that it was one of the temporary offices used by visiting staff. It had minimal furnishings – a desk, an office chair, a desktop computer and printer on a nearby shelf. There were two chairs arranged in front of the office, but Johannson didn’t offer him a seat as he told him to step into the room and close the door.

Riley did as he was told without comment, but one word kept reverberating around in his head as he did so.

Asshole.

Johannson’s next comment did little to relieve him of his opinion either.

“What in hell are you doing here, Captain? Are you so incompetent that you think the Adversary has taken to hiding in the halls of this commandery?”

“Sir, I...”

“Relieving you of command of the search wasn’t enough for you? Do I need to assign you to guard duty to get you to focus on the mission you’re assigned?”

Riley tried again. “With all due respect, sir,”

He didn’t get any further as Johannson cut him off again. “I’m beginning to think that your friendship with that traitor Williams has deprived you of all of your common sense. First you have that fiasco on the bridge, then you allow him to escape custody, it’s like a bad...”

Riley withdrew a folded piece of paper from inside his jacket and, stepping forward, laid it without a word on the Preceptor’s desk.

Johannson stopped in mid-sentence and stared at it.

“What is that?” he asked, his nostrils flaring as if he’d smelled something putrid.

Riley had to work to hold in his laughter. It wasn’t easy.

“My orders, sir,” he said quietly.

“Orders?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Preceptor snatched up the piece of paper, opened it, and read what was printed there.

Riley could practically hear the Preceptor’s irritation growing by the word.

When he was finished, Johannson brandished the paper in front of him like a weapon, his fury exploding into the room. “Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell is this?!”

Without waiting for an answer, he pulled the computer keyboard closer to him and began pounding on the keys.

Riley didn’t need to see the screen to know that Johannson was pulling up the system that kept a record of all of the personnel orders issued across the Templar network and looking for the digital version of the set that Riley had just handed him. Orders that demanded Riley’s immediate presence in Rosslyn to discuss the Cade Williams situation. Orders supposedly issued by Seneschal Ferguson.

They weren’t, not really. Riley knew that because he’d hacked the system and issued them in Ferguson’s name. It would take a solid forensic investigation to prove that it hadn’t been issued by Ferguson, however, and Riley was confident that wasn’t going to happen in the near future. He cast a silent prayer heavenward to his old friend, Nick Olsen, for teaching him that particular trick; damn, but he missed him.

Johannson clearly wasn’t happy with what he found on the screen, for his face went a darker shade of red and there was now a thick vein throbbing visibly on the side of his head. Riley made sure to look away before he glanced up; the thousand yard stare over his shoulder was a tool every good noncom cultivated and he hadn’t lost his skill at it just because he’d been promoted to an officer.

The Preceptor sat fuming at the computer screen for a moment and then finally found his voice. “I don’t know what this is all about but I won’t stand for it. I am countermanding the Seneschal’s request and ordering you back to Ravensgate immediately to resume the search for the Adversary.”

Johannson simply didn’t have the authority to do what he was suggesting, but Riley didn’t think now was the best time to bring it up. He opted for an alternate tactic.

“The evening’s last flight has already left Edinburgh, sir. The next one isn’t until mid-morning.”

Johannson stared at him for a moment, then picked up his phone and called Operations, asking if there were any more flights to the States that evening.

Riley bit his tongue to keep him from saying anything and waited until the duty officer told Johannson the exact same thing – the last flight had left half an hour before and Edinburgh was closed for the night.

Johannson slammed down the phone. “I don’t know what bullshit you’re up to, Riley, but mark my words, if you cross me you will regret it. Now get out of my office and make sure you’re on that first flight out of here in the morning. That’s an order.”

This time Riley caught the man’s stare and held it, saying everything with his eyes that he couldn’t say with his mouth. When Johannson looked away first, Riley allowed a small smile to cross his face.

“Understood, sir,” he said and then turned and left the room, closing the door behind him as he went.

Asshole, he thought, as he headed off down the hall.

Orders or no orders, he had no intention of being on that flight.

# # #

When Cade came to, he found himself tied to a chair alone in an empty room.

His ankles were strapped to the chair’s legs while his wrists had been secured to the arms in similar fashion. His bare hands hung off the ends of the arm supports, but he couldn’t bend them back far enough to reach the knot just below his wrist on either side. Last but not least, a thick strap was wrapped several times around both his chest and the back of the chair.

He gave a few experimental tugs but whoever had done the work had done it properly. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Turning away from his bonds, he gave the room around him the rest of his attention.

The walls and the floor were bare stone and the only light came from a portable lamp that was hanging from an ancient-looking sconce set in the wall. An iron grate was set in the floor a few feet in front of him and it didn’t take much to imagine the kinds of things that had been sluiced between its bars over the years.

A wheeled cart was backed up against the wall directly in front of him. Several items were laid out for display across its top, which reminded Cade of some torturer’s cart from a B-grade horror flick. Except that instead of knives and saws and devices intended to maim and kill, these particular items were completely benign, in some cases even innocuous.

A hair brush.

A child’s doll.

A man’s ring.

A fist-sized rock.

There were a few more, but Cade lost interest at that point. His head was pounding, no doubt a holdover from whatever they’d gassed him with, and he didn’t know how long he was going to be alone, so he didn’t have time to worry about a cart full of junk. He needed to start thinking of a way to get out of here.

He considered and then just as quickly discarded the idea of shouting out for help. For one, it might simply bring his captors running and two, given the room in which he found himself, he seriously doubted anyone other than Johannson and his flunkies were close enough to hear.

There was a door across the room at his back, which was apparently the only way in or out. If he could get free of his bindings, he might be able to slip away down the hall before anyone knew that he was missing.

He put his feet flat on the ground and tried to push himself upright to a standing position. If he could hobble over to the nearest wall he might be able to smash the chair against it enough times to bend it out of shape, loosening his bonds in the process and giving him a way to free himself.

His captors were a step ahead of him, though, for the legs of the chair were bolted to the floor. No matter how hard he pushed, he couldn’t get them to come free.

Cade sat there fuming for a few seconds and then forced himself to refocus. The clock was ticking; every minute he spent tied up here meant he wasn’t out there helping Gabrielle. He needed to find a way out.

Unfortunately, despite another ten minutes of careful consideration, he couldn’t come up with any way of getting free of his bonds without outside help.

Looked like he was going to have to sit and wait for an opportunity to come to him.

It didn’t take long. The door behind him opened and then clanged shut. A few seconds later the Preceptor came into view, with another man in tow. Cade didn’t know the second man, but he recognized the cold indifference on the guy’s face.

Things were about to get ugly.

The Preceptor didn’t waste any time.

“Where is the Adversary?” he asked.

Cade didn’t bother to look at him, never mind answer the man.

“What is your relationship with the Adversary?”

He kept his eyes on the other guy instead, knowing instinctively that he was a much bigger threat than the Preceptor.

“You secured various relics on behalf of the Necromancer, Simon Logan. Why?”

And so it went. Question and question, with Cade refusing to answer any of them.

Eventually, Johannson tried a new tact.

“I’m glad you don’t want to do this the civilized way. What happens next will be much more interesting. For me, at least.”

Dismissing Cade, he turned to the interrogator and told him to proceed.

Cade didn’t want to be tortured any more than the next guy would and he felt his heart kick into overdrive as his mind flooded his body with adrenaline, readying him for the fight ahead. He intended to head butt Hughes as soon as the other man drew close enough to do so and he would be more than happy to do the same to Johannson if given the chance.

Once again, the Preceptor surprised him however.

“Start with the ring, please,” Johannson said.

Hughes picked the object up off the table and approached. Cade watched him come, expecting the interrogator to slip the ring onto his own finger so that he could do more damage when he began punching Cade in order to ‘soften him up’, so to speak, and was surprised when it didn’t happen. He was even more surprised when Hughes reached out and began trying to pry Cade’s left fist open.

That’s when it hit him.

The Preceptor knew about his Gift!

Cade clenched his fist as tight as he could, but he was weakened from everything he had been through up to this point and was no match for the beefy interrogator. As Hughes pried open his fingers, Cade screamed in defiance.

A scream that quickly changed to one of horror as the memories attached to the ring began playing out in his mind’s eye.