The Templar Legion

you’re looking for a comparison.” He shook his head. “Kolingba could have employed thousands of people to work plantations of these trees. The fruit is excellent both raw and cooked, the oil content of the fruit is higher than virtually any other organic species and if planted properly it could outdo sunflower oil as a crop. Even the wood is salable: an excellent substitute for mahogany and much more sustainable.” Rafi stood, stretching his arms up to pluck the dangling fruit from the lowest branches.

Limbani suddenly winced and clutched his side as though he had a cramp. The spasm passed and the tension seemed to ease as his pain receded. It occurred to Holliday that Limbani must be in his late sixties by now and he’d been setting a much younger man’s pace as they trekked through the jungle to their destination, wherever that was.

“Much farther?” Holliday asked.

“Another day.” Limbani pointed at the hills ahead of them. “They are called the Crocodile’s Eyes. We will camp on the right eye tonight,” the older man said. Holliday let his own eyes go out of focus and he could see the similarity-two low humps rising above the surface of the river. Limbani spoke again. “As well as being a convenient place both to camp and to make an ambush, the Eyes mark the eastward limits of the territory of my people, the Umufo omhloshana. Isikaya indawo.”

Holliday glanced at Eddie and the Cuban gave him the translation.

“The home place,” he said. “The place of our fathers, okay?”

Rafi had picked enough fruit for all of them and handed them around. Holliday took a bite. Limbani was right- it tasted like a combination of a plum and a pear. Juicy, too. He took another bite, then wiped his sleeve across his mouth.

“You still haven’t told me how you knew our names,” said Holliday.

“You saw the mask,” said Limbani with a wistful little smile. “Perhaps I am a griot-a witch doctor.”

Peggy let out a dry laugh. “A witch doctor with a degree in tropical diseases from the Universite de Paris. That’s one well-educated witch doctor.”

“So you know something about Amobe Limbani,” said the black man, a glimmer of humor in his tired old eyes. “What do you think you know from what you have seen of him?”

“I think he’s really good at changing the subject,” said Rafi, biting into his fruit. “Why don’t you answer Doc’s question?”

“Doc?” Limbani said quizzically. “You are also a doctor, then? You move very much like a trained soldier.”

“You’re doing it again,” said Holliday, laughing.

“Doing what?” Limbani said, eyes wide and innocent.

“Changing the subject,” said Peggy.

“What was the question?”

“You know what the question was,” said Holliday. “How did you know who we were?”

“That question? The answer to that question is very simple.” Limbani shrugged. “I had a spy.”

“Who?” Holliday asked.

“Think about it for a moment,” said Limbani. “It will come to you.”

It was a basic lesson he’d taught to his lieutenants in his days at West Point; sometimes you got so involved with the day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute tactics of a focused situation you lost sight of the overall strategy, the big picture that was going to win you the battle or even the war.

Ever since they’d landed at Umm Rawq the big picture had faded into the background as they dodged bullets and blowguns downriver. When he actually gave himself a moment to think about it, the identity of Limbani’s spy was pretty obvious.

“Mutwakil Osman,” said Holliday. “He’s your spy.”

“The floatplane guy?” Peggy said.

“The floatplane guy.” Holliday nodded.

“Quite right,” said Limbani. “He has been friend to the Umufo omhloshana since he first began flying upriver. A firm believer in leaving people alone, of letting them make their own destinies. He has brought medicine to us and some other necessities from time to time, but most important, he gives us an eye on what is going in the outside world that could impact us.”

“Things like Archibald Ives.”

“Precisely,” said Limbani with a sigh. “A mineral engineer and prospector on this land could very well signal the end of these people, the end of everything here.”

“That may have started already,” said Holliday. “In case you aren’t already aware of it, Ives has been murdered and Sir James Matheson is interested in the land here. He owns one of the biggest resource development companies in the world.”

“I know who he is,” said Limbani.

“He’s also interested in us,” said Rafi. “He’s become aware that we were interested in the area as well, but for different reasons.”

“I know your reasons, too,” said Limbani, sighing again and looking every inch the old man that he was. “King Solomon’s Mines, the queen of Sheba, perhaps even Mansa Musa and Timbuktu. A great Technicolor fantasy of history that belongs with George Lucas and Indiana Jones. Cowboy science.”

Holliday waited for Rafi’s usual short-tempered answer to critics of his slightly more narrative and intuitive attitude toward archaeology but Rafi was remarkably polite.

“I assure you, Doctor, it’s less about the mines and the legends than it is about the extraordinary people who followed those old stories. A tomb in Ethiopia led us here, not some ‘Secrets of the Rosetta Stone’ tract they give away for free on the Internet. The tomb was that of a Templar Knight named Julian de la Roche-Guillaume who searched for something that a Viking had searched for five hundred years before and which a Roman legionnaire had died for a thousand years before that. The stories and the legends get told and told again for a thousand years or two, but there’s always a little truth left, just enough truth sometimes for the dreamers to believe in. Heinrich Schliemann read Homer, another dreamer, and found Troy.” Rafi shook his head firmly. “I’m far more interested in the dreamers than the dream, Dr. Limbani.”

Limbani gave him a slightly skeptical look, then shrugged. “A very nice little speech,” said the older man. “How often have you recited it?”

“Once, to you.”

Limbani scrutinized the young archaeologist for a long moment, then spoke. “If that is true, Dr. Wanounou, then you are in for a great surprise when we reach our destination, a very great surprise indeed.”

The Brocklebank property was enormous, hidden behind a gated ten-foot-high stone wall and sitting on at least five acres of gardens. The house itself was a massive combination Tudor and Arts and Crafts-style brick-and- plank mansion with twelve thousand feet of living space, eleven bathrooms, three kitchens, sixteen bedrooms, eight of which had their own wood-burning fireplace, and one hundred and sixteen leaded-glass windows, some with colored panes and some without.

As the limousine drove through the gates and up the drive after being buzzed in, Saint-Sylvestre was astounded to see how well the gardens had been tended. Either the Brocklebank ladies had an army of gardeners or they were obsessively compulsive about flowering plants.

The limousine went down the long drive and pulled up in front of the covered entranceway. Saint-Sylvestre leaned forward and spoke over the seat to the uniformed driver. “Wait here; I doubt if I’ll be more than twenty minutes, tops.”

“Whatever you say, sir,” said the limo driver.

Saint-Sylvestre grabbed the attache case, stepped out of the limo, went up the flagstone steps of the covered entranceway and rang the doorbell. Inside he could faintly hear the echoing sound of Big Ben. A full minute later he heard the clicking of heels and the door opened. The old woman who stood there looked shocked and surprised at seeing the color of Gesler’s skin, but she recovered swiftly. A woman born in times when people of Saint-Silvestre’s skin color came to the back door, not the front.

“Herr Gesler?” she asked. Her face was creased and pink with powder, her gray hair done up in a swirling bun that would have looked perfectly all right on a woman with a bustle dress and a big floppy hat. She was wearing