Lost City of the Templars Read Online Free PDF Page B

been used by F.D.R. in the Oval Office and a number of presidents who came after him. It had cost Peace a fortune.
    “Being at the center of power is a requirement of the business,” answered Peace, “and I like to see my enemies coming.” Peace was older than Grayle, with dark hair in a widow’s peak. A pair of neon red half-frame bifocals was perched on the end of his nose.
    “As I told you on the telephone, Mrs. Sinclair suggested that I see you before I returned to England about helping to solve my current problem.”
    “Yes, she mentioned you’d be calling.” Peace smiled thinly. “What exactly is your problem?”
    “I assume you know I’m the chairman of White Horse Resources, and I’m sure you also know that we have invested several billion dollars in the Itaqui Dam Project in northern Brazil.”
    “I know something about the project. I understand you’re having problems with the locals.”
    “Forty-eight hundred assorted Hupda Indians and a territory that has recently been internationally recognized as a nature conservancy and also as a reserve for the Hupdas.”
    “How does the Brazilian government feel about these people?”
    “Noncommittal. They’d like to see them go away as much as I would.”
    “We could probably arrange something,” said Peace.
    “It can’t be something as overt as President Belaúnde napalming the Matsés in Peru back in the ’sixties,” Grayle cautioned. “That would sink the Itaqui Project on the spot. The whole world can look over your shoulder these days.”
    “In which case you show them something acceptable,” said Peace calmly.
    “I’m not sure I understand,” said Grayle.
    “Pallas controls a company called Firebreakers. It provides water bombers to countries all over the world as well as domestically. It owns one hundred and twenty Canadair CL-215 aircraft.”
    “What does this have to do with my problem?”
    “Twenty of those aircraft are held in reserve for the aviation arm of our security division. Those twenty aircraft have been retrofitted to drop something other than water.”
    “Such as?” Sir Adrian asked.
    “The quickest and most effective you have already mentioned—napalm—but the aircraft can also be fitted with tanks of liquid cow manure infected with
E. coli
O157: H7, an enterohemorrhagic strain. The manure would be dropped into the water supply, whatever river the group was closest to. All their children would be dead within twelve days, as would any pregnant woman. The entire village would be infected and most elders would die, as well.” Peace coughed lightly into a closed fist. “If you’re looking for a near-one-hundred-percent kill rate, there is always anthrax, of course.”
    “Good Lord,” murmured Grayle.
    “Well, Sir Adrian, which is it going to be?”
    “I’ll have to think on it for a bit, I think, perhaps consult my board.”
    “Take as long as you want, Sir Adrian, but you know the saying—time is money.”
    “I’m well aware of the fact,” said Grayle. “Speaking of which, how are things going with our other project?”
    “Andromeda?”
    “Yes.”
    “We have the satellite imaging you requested. I thought that we could meet at the lab in St. Gallen in a week or so to go over the lower-altitude scoops.”
    “The initial experiments have been most encouraging,” said Grayle.
    “I’m pleased,” said Peace. “As a long-term income stream, it may replace everything. It will certainly change the face of medicine, not to mention war.”
    “All right,” said Grayle. “Have your people call me when you have the results and I’ll arrange things with Neri from the bank.”

5
    The floatplane had been drawn up on the muddy beach of the old port using a pair of heavy skids and a hand-cranked chain winch. The aircraft was large, single engined and high winged with a fuselage that appeared to be fabric stretched over some sort of interior skeleton or frame. It had obviously been painted a number of times and