The Templar Concordat Read Online Free PDF Page A

The Templars controlled the Taiwanese company that manufactured these units, and had run a customized order for their own field operatives.
    He knew she would dawdle and delay enough for him to get into Rashid’s room before they arrived, but he wasted no time running up the stairs and slipping through the corridors to room 715. A bellboy had traded a pass key for ten American hundred dollar bills, more than he made in a year, so getting into Rashid’s room was no problem.
    He scanned the room and closet, and took a seat at the desk. He quickly inventoried the equipment he carried in the roomy pockets of the cargo pants, moving a hand to each pocket in turn. Silenced .22 caliber Beretta.  Fifty-thousand volt Taser that could drop a man at twenty feet. Two-foot length of cord. Handcuffs. Duct tape. Wire garrote.  Folding knife. Zippered leather pouch with several color-coded syringes and small bottles of drugs. 
    The GPS showed Marie entering the beachfront lobby of the hotel. He moved back into the closet. The Bluetooth earpiece let him hear the conversation between Rashid and Marie, and she inserted words into the conversation that helped him track their progress.
     “Let’s get through the lobby,” she giggled, “there are too many people here.” On Callahan’s screen, the blip moved across the roof of the hotel over the lobby, since the Google map was a top-down view of the hotel. That meant the blip traversed the roof above Marie’s actual position in the hotel.
    At the elevator, she complained, “These elevators take so long.” Now the blip on the roof was above the elevators. They had practiced this, and he knew where she was.
    When they entered the elevator, she said, “Now I have you all alone for the first time.” The blip centered over the elevators. Rustling of clothes indicated some fast foreplay.
    He heard more giggling in his earpiece and the blip moved across the roof toward the room where he hid. They were coming down the hall toward him. When they entered, Marie would pull Rashid down on the bed on top of her, and when she was ready for Callahan to move, she would say, “This is sooo wonderful.” Callahan would come out of the closet, toss the drug kit on the other bed, loop the garrote around Rashid’s neck, and hold him until Marie could get the syringe into his butt.
    The GPS showed them almost at the door. He could hear them in his earpiece, but he heard nothing outside the door to the room. In the earpiece he heard the keycard in the lock, but heard nothing in the real lock, no clicking, no latch turning, no door opening. Now the GPS showed them in the room with him.
    But he was alone in the room. In the earpiece, he heard Marie say what a nice room Rashid had. What’s going on? Then it hit him. Rashid had two rooms. Callahan was in room 715, but Rashid and Marie were in another of the rooms directly above, or directly below him. The hotel had eighteen floors. It was one of those resort hotels designed with a cookie cutter. Each room was identical, stacked one on top of the other for eighteen floors. They could be in 315, 815, 1115, or 1415. Guest rooms started at the third floor, so they were in any of fifteen other rooms in the stack. The GPS unit simply showed the blip on the roof above any of fifteen rooms.
    Damn. He cursed his own stupidity, but felt a cold chill listening to Marie playing the vixen for the terrorist. She didn’t know there was a problem, and she thought he was right there in room with her, hiding in the closet with a gun and drugs. She felt safe. She knew a Templar had her back.
    He was on the seventh floor, so there were eleven possible rooms above him, and four possibles below. He sprinted to the stairway door, banged it open and took the metal stairs up three at a time to the next floor. When he reached room 815, he shoved the keycard in the slot as quietly as he could and quickly moved into the room. Empty.
    In his earpiece, he heard Marie gasp, “Well,