The Templar Prophecy Read Online Free PDF

he’s become one of those nutters who thinks the CIA is after him? Or the Internal Revenue Service? Or the Child Support Agency? I haven’t seen the man for thirty-six years, Amira, so I really don’t know. He’s calling himself Roger Pope, according to Clive. Well, at least the bastard has a sense of humour.’
    â€˜John. Stop joking please. You joke about everything.’
    Hart closed his eyes. He let out a ragged breath. ‘My father is dying. Clive tells me he phoned my mother and told her he needs to see me. Urgently. To pass some kind of message on to me. Something of crucial importance that has only recently come to light. And my mother, being my mother, promised him that I would go.’
    â€˜And she’s sure that it was him?’
    â€˜She’s not that far gone, Amira. She was married to the man for seven years.’
    â€˜And you’re planning to go?’
    Hart shrugged. ‘Yesterday, before that stuff happened in the square, I’d have said no. That nothing on earth would get me out of Syria. That my father could go fuck himself. But suddenly, for the first time in years, I’m a man with noassignment. And no cameras.’ Hart made a phantom pass towards his chest, as if he was responding to some ancient muscle memory known only to photojournalists. ‘Staring down the barrel of that pistol has shaken me up. Last night I dreamt of the kid we might have had together. That he was talking to me. Urging me towards something. But I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Maybe my father feels the same way about me? Maybe he has the same nightmare? Maybe he wants to apologize for leaving me when I was three? I suppose I should be grateful that he didn’t persuade my mother to have me aborted.’
    Amira grasped Hart’s arm. Her face was ashen. ‘I had to abort our baby, John. You know that. I’ve told you over and over why I never wanted to bring children into this filthy, stinking world. Why I never wanted to be a mother.’ She struck her chest with her fist. ‘I’m a journalist. And a good one. That is who I am. Nothing else. My career is the whole of me. You knew that right from the start. I thought we were agreed on that? That the rest was just icing?’
    â€˜You might have asked me. About our baby.’
    â€˜I know what you would have said.’
    â€˜And what’s that?’
    Amira turned her face away from him and refused to answer.

SEVEN
    The Hitlerbunker, Reich Chancellery, Berlin
    29 APRIL 1945
    â€˜We’re dead.’
    Inge von Hartelius stared at her husband. ‘What do you mean?’
    â€˜I mean that we’re dead.’ The colonel held out the palm of his hand. Two blue ampoules nestled in the valley formed by his headline, his lifeline and his mound of Venus. ‘The Führer gave these to me. He assures me that he has had them tested out on his Alsatian, Blondi, and that they work. Actual tears sprang into his eyes as he told me. Now he’s handing them around to his people as if they are lollipops.’ Hartelius gave an involuntary shudder, as if someone, somewhere, had just walked over his grave. He glanced up at the ceiling of the anteroom and raised his voice. ‘It is a great honour to be asked to die with the Führer.’ He lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. ‘They’re potassium cyanide. Two hundred milligrams. Bite one and you lose consciousness in seconds.’
    â€˜How…’
    â€˜Heart attack.’
    â€˜I mean how long will it take for us to die? If we’re desperate enough, or stupid enough, or frightened enough to bite on one of these things?’
    Hartelius pocketed the pills. He reached for his wife’s left hand, squeezed it in both of his own, and kissed the ring finger. It was a long-standing ritual, and each recognized its significance. ‘The actual time span is irrelevant, Schatzi , because we will no longer be