The Templar Legion by Paul Christopher

Author:Paul Christopher
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Thrillers, Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 9780718159771
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Grantham Place was a pricey cul-de-sac off Old Park Lane, and number nine was a large block of Victorian brick flats pierced on three sides by porte cocheres that led into an inner courtyard. It looked very much like a brick version of the Dakota in New York City, a building Captain Jean-Luc Saint-Sylvestre of the Kukuanaland secret police was quite familiar with, being a fan of both Roman Polanski and John Lennon. Of course, in Kukuanaland, the assassin Mark David Chapman would have been summarily executed on the spot and then torn limb from limb.

Flat six was on the second floor; that was easy enough to discover by visiting the English Heritage head office in Holborn, as was the original floor plan for the flat, a six-bedroom monster with two maid’s rooms and four bathrooms.

The long-term lease was held by something called the Bambridge Trust and was represented by a law firm in Edinburgh, Scotland, which paid the rent in full on January 1 of each year. They also paid for regular cleaning and maintenance, and contributed ten thousand pounds a year to English Heritage—beyond which the English Heritage partners knew nothing about the Bambridge Trust, nor did they wish to know anything.

At six thirty p.m., dressed in a well-cut Savile Row suit, Saint-Sylvestre rode the tube to the Hyde Park Corner station, then walked down Piccadilly to Old Park Lane and returned to the main entrance to the Grantham Place building. Nothing had changed since his first visit. He bent down, pretending to lace up his shoe, then turned back down Old Park Lane and stepped into a pub unimaginatively called the Rose and Crown. He took a table with a view through the big bow window to the street. He ordered a Heineken and a steak-and-kidney pie with chips, then settled down to wait.

At six forty-five the parade began with his Mr. X and none other than Francois Nagoupandé in tow dressed in a brigadier general’s uniform. Two bodyguards rode along with Mr. X and the ex–lieutenant governor under Amobe Limbani. Twenty minutes later a black Rolls-Royce Phantom whispered down the narrow street, and, craning his neck, Saint-Sylvestre watched as a figure recognizable from the London Times as well as Country Life and the Wall Street Journal appeared. Sir James Matheson, CEO of Matheson Resource Industries and one of the richest men in the world.

Twenty minutes later a cab dropped off Konrad Lanz at the Grantham address. An interesting assortment of witches around the Kukuanaland cauldron, thought Saint-Sylvestre. Of them Nagoupandé was the most interesting. Kolingba inevitably underrated him, but ever since Kolingba had seized power Saint-Sylvestre had spent a great deal of effort trying to track him down, to no avail. For the man Kolingba called a blundering bureaucrat and a buffoon, Nagoupandé was surprisingly clever at keeping himself hidden.

Nagoupandé’s attendance at this evening’s meeting confirmed everything that Saint-Sylvestre had been thinking. Matheson had found something in the hinterland and he was willing to pay whatever it cost to overthrow Kolingba and install Nagoupandé to get it.

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