Templar 09 - Secret of the Templars Read Online Free PDF Page B

Holliday’s known acquaintances in Paris. His name is Spencer Boatman.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œRive Gauche.” Teal paused and spoke into her headphone. “Put it on the grid. I want video and audio and boots on the ground ASAP. Boundary is Quai de Gesvres on the north, Saint-Germain on the south, Pont Neuf on the west and Pont d’Arcole to the east. Cover all the Métro entrances and report every five minutes into Central.” Tealturned her attention back to Foster. “Ten minutes and we’ll have him in the bag.” The woman frowned. “Although I’m still not sure why we want him so bad.”
    â€œAbove your pay grade, Maggie. Just get him.”
    â€œConsider it done.”
    *   *   *
    The disposable in Holliday’s pocket buzzed. It was Carrie, her voice urgent. “Get out of there—they had a tag on your friend. You’ve got about six minutes before the net starts to close.”
    â€œWhat about you and Eddie?”
    â€œAlready moving. Get to the Saint-Michel Métro entrance and then get a train at Châtelet to Nation. Walk to the open-air farmers’ market at Saint-Mandé. We’ll meet there. Go. Right now.”
    Holliday stuffed the phone back in his pocket. “We’ve been rumbled. You go any way except the direction you see me going in.”
    Boatman looked stunned and began to speak but Holliday wasn’t listening. He picked up an empty wineglass, wrapped it in a linen napkin, then stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket. He crossed Rue de la Huchette and slipped into the narrow alley across from the bistro. Lost in the shadows, he could see all the way down to the Seine.
    Over its thousand-year history, theeight-foot-wide space had gone from being a drainage ditch for human waste to an alley and eventually achieved its final nomenclature as a bona fide
rue
. It had been a home to slit purses and petty thieves, a shortcut for Picasso from his studio on the quai and a way for resistance fighters to disappear during World War II.
    Suddenly Holliday’s view of the Seine was blocked. There was someone else in the alley coming toward him from the north. A coincidence? Highly unlikely. He took out his linen package and smashed the goblet against the old stone wall beside him. There was a muffled shattering sound as the goblet broke, but Holliday felt the stem firm in his grip. He dropped the linen, and any pretense of being a passerby vanished. An ordinary person walking up the alley, seeing a man approaching him with a broken glass in his hand, would have fled, but this man continued toward him. So much for coincidence.
    When he was twenty feet away, the approaching man reached threateningly into the inside pocket of his jacket. A normal reaction would have been to pause, but instead Holliday sprinted forward, the broken stem of the glass raised to the level of the man’s crotch. The man’s eyes flickered and suddenly Holliday lunged forward, stabbing at the man’s exposed throat. Thesplintered stem dug into the stretched skin and then swept over the right carotid, gouging through the thick, rubbery artery.
    Holliday pushed harder, setting the stem in the man’s windpipe. With his free hand Holliday gathered up the cloth of the man’s jacket and turned him against the left side of the alley, flattening him against the wall, keeping him standing with the force of his hip as the man bled out against the ancient stone. He let go of the broken glass, pushed his hand under the man’s jacket and pulled a pistol out of the hidden shoulder holster.
    He stepped back and looked down at the weapon before stuffing it into his pocket. It was a SIG Pro, standard issue for the French secret police. He found the man’s wallet in the left inside pocket of his suit jacket, and an ID folder in one of the sleeves identified the man as Paul Richard, a detective in the DST—Direction de la