The Templar Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Holliday.
    “She’s retired,” said Brennan. “On the surface it would appear that Rex Deus is in ruins, but I’m not so sure.”
    “Is she still at that Hickory Hill place or whatever it was called?”
    “Poplar Hill,” corrected Brennan. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s got a private island in the Bahamas, a country place called Edinburgh House in Scotland, a huge spread in Colorado and some sort of estate in Switzerland. She’s usually in one place or the other.”
    “But why would she want to assassinate the Pope?” Peggy asked. “What does she get out of it?” She shook her head.
    “Forget about motive for the moment,” said Holliday thoughtfully. “And forget her delusions of grandeur about her blowhard son. Let’s look at some basic facts.” He turned to Brennan. “Have the cops in Rome figured out anything ?”
    “They’ve narrowed the search for the sniper’s position to somewhere on the Capitoline Hill. It’s the closest area that has the elevation for a clear line of sight to St. Peter’s.”
    “What’s the range?” Holliday asked.
    “At least nine hundred meters—a thousand American yards. Possibly more.”
    “Then he’s a pro, just like I thought,” said Holliday emphatically. “Military or private. You can pretty much guarantee he was military at one time or another; it’s really the only way to get that kind of training. I’m also willing to bet that he’s under forty. Much past that and the eyes and the hands start to go. You don’t have the reflexes anymore. Carlos Hathcock did all his best work in his mid-twenties.”
    “Who is Carlos Hathcock and what was his work?” Peggy asked.
    “He was a sniper in Vietnam. He killed people,” answered Holliday. “I met him once, years later.”
    “Nice friends you’ve got, Doc.”
    Holliday ignored the comment. “The longest successful shot in modern times was by a Canadian at a mile and a half, but our guy is probably an American, Russian or a Brit. There’s probably no more than twenty or thirty men in the world who could have shot the Pope from that distance and been sure of success. Whoever hired him would have gone for the best. He shouldn’t be hard to track down.”
    “Then why haven’t the Italian cops already found him?” Peggy asked.
    “Because they don’t believe such a shot is possible,” answered Brennan. “Their ballistics experts tell them a thousand yards, but they think the shots came from much closer. Initially the medical examiner assumed the round had been a line-of-sight shot from straight ahead, so they concentrated their search to the east, assuming that the assassin had fired from some high ground like Castel Sant’Angelo. The bullet disintegrated on impact so the wound was a mess, but the examiner eventually found a concentration of fragments behind the left scapula—the shoulder blade.”
    “Which means the shot hit at an angle from right to left. Southwest, not east at all,” said Holliday.
    “Which means the range was a thousand yards,” sighed Brennan. “The Italians love to complicate things.”
    Across the coffee table Holliday could see Brennan’s eyes begin to flutter. The priest was fighting jet lag and a six-hour time difference. It seemed he’d collapse where he sat any minute.
    “There’s a guest room on the second floor,” offered Holliday. “Turn left at the top of the stairs; it’s the last door at the back.”
    “No, no, I couldn’t impose,” said Brennan. “I’ll just find a little hotel for the night.”
    “I insist,” said Holliday, thinking about the strangeness of bringing an old enemy into the house. “It’s bad luck to kick a priest out of your home on St. Stephen’s Day.” He smiled. “Besides, a ‘little hotel’ on M Street will cost you close to five hundred bucks a night.”
    “Good Lord,” said Brennan. He stifled a yawn and got to his feet. “All right, Colonel, I’ll accept your kind offer. No more than a few hours,