The Templar Salvation (2010)

side, away from the dozen or so smaller, single-engined aircraft of the L’Aquila Aero Club that were lined up alongside the short asphalt runway. The beefy gateman set down his pink-paged Gazetta Dello Sport newspaper and greeted him with a lethargic wave. Zahed waited as the unkempt, potbellied man pushed himself out of his cratered woven-cane chair and lumbered over to the car. Zahed explained that he needed to drive in to drop off some luggage and other supplies to the plane. The gateman nodded slowly, padded over to the barrier, and settled his meaty arm on its counterweight. The barrier tilted up just enough for Zahed to be able to drive through, which he did, with a courteous wave of gratitude to the perspicacious guard.

The gateman didn’t ask him about the drowsy man with the dark sunglasses who was half-asleep on the passenger seat. Zahed hadn’t expected him to. In a quiet, out-of-the-way airfield like this—kudos to Steyl, again— security wasn’t anywhere near as important as the latest football scores.

Zahed drove up to the plane and pulled up alongside it. Steyl had cleverly positioned it so that its cabin door faced away from the other planes, the flying club’s hangar, and, farther afield, the simple yellow-and-blue structure that housed the facility’s offices and its modest control tower. The precaution was probably unnecessary. There was no one else around.

The pilot, a tall, sinewy, bearded man with slicked-back ginger hair and deep-set gray eyes, emerged from the cabin door and helped Zahed with Simmons, who was sedated to the edge of uncousciousness. They guided the archaeologist up the steps and settled him into one of the wide leather seats. Zahed checked him out. Behind the dark shades, Simmons’s eyes were staring blankly ahead, and his mouth was slightly open, a small gob of drool pooled at the edge of his lower lip. The American would probably need a top-up before they landed in Turkey.

“Let’s get out of here,” Zahed told Steyl.

“We’re ready to rumble,” the South African replied. His tone was gruff, but Zahed knew that was just the man’s way. “Leave the car by the edge of the taxiway so as not to draw attention to it. I’ll start the engines.”

Zahed did as the pilot suggested and abandoned the rental car by the side of the hangar. The Cessna’s turboprops were whining to life as he headed back to the plane, and just as he reached it, he spotted a man in a white T-shirt, a wide pair of black trousers held up by braces, and big, heavy boots emerge from the tower structure. The trousers seemed to have a reflective stripe going down the side of each leg. He had some papers in his hand and looked like he was in a rush. More than that, his body language was giving off a hint of fluster as he climbed onto an old bicycle and started pedaling, heading their way.

Zahed reached the plane before him and climbed in. He found Steyl in the cockpit, flicking switches as he ran through his preflight checklist. He pointed the man out through the pilot’s side window. “Who’s this guy?”

The pilot glanced out. “He’s a fireman. They have to have them around at all times to justify charging us for them. And since the odds of them actually having to deal with a fire are virtually zero, they usually double as paper pushers and help out the guy in the tower with the paperwork. This guy’s a bit of a fusspot, but not too much of a pain as long as you flash the cash.”

Zahed tensed up. “What does he want?”

Steyl studied the man curiously. “Damned if I know. I already paid him the landing fee and gave him our flight plan.”

They watched as the man pulled up in front of the plane, raised his right hand up, and moved it horizontally in a slicing motion, across his throat—the international marshaling sign for the pilot to kill the engines. Steyn nodded and complied.

“Get rid of him,” Zahed said.

Steyl stepped out of the cockpit area. Zahed followed him back to the cabin door.

The fireman, a balding, middle-aged carnival of twitches, climbed onto the retractable steps and peered into the cabin. He stank of cigarettes, and his T-shirt had big sweat stains on it. He looked all hot and bothered and a bit dazed as well, as if someone had roused him by shouting into his ears. In his hand were some documents that he was waving at Steyl.

“Mi scusi, Signore,” the man wheezed in between gulps of breath. Beads of sweat were trickling down his forehead. “I apologize for the trouble, but,” he continued, straining to find the right words, “as you know, there was a big terrorist attack in Rome yesterday. And now we have to check the passports of everyone flying in or out of this airport and fill out these papers.”

Steyl eyed him thoughtfully for a second, then slid a sideways glance at Zahed before giving the fireman a wide smile. “It’s not a problem, my friend. Not a problem at all.” He turned to Zahed. “This gentleman needs to see your passport, sir.”

“Of course,” Zahed replied politely.

Steyl then pointed toward the cockpit and addressed the fireman slowly and with exaggerated enunciation, as if he were trying to explain something to a Martian infant. “I’ll just get my passport from my flight bag, all right?”

The man nodded and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Grazie mille.”

Zahed stepped back into the cabin, found his briefcase, and fished out the passports—both fakes. The one he picked out for himself, from a handful of passports of different nationalities, was Saudi. The one he’d had hastily crafted for Simmons had him as a citizen of Montenegro, like the ones he’d had made for Tess Chaykin and for Beyrouz Sharafi, courtesy of a boxload of blank passports previously acquired from a corrupt employee of that country’s interior ministry. Zahed hadn’t needed the documents on the way in. Two days earlier, after landing at the airfield, Steyn had locked up the aircraft, disembarked alone, and casually trudged over to the tower to deal with the landing formalities. He’d then returned to the plane with the rental car later that evening and helped Zahed smuggle his sedated companions under cover of darkness. This was getting more complicated, which Zahed had somewhat expected. And as he glanced at the fireman, he saw that the man’s gaze had settled on Simmons, who was just sitting there, facing forward, immobile and expressionless, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Zahed felt a twinge of unease, and shielded from Steyn and the fireman by the seat back, he reached into his case, pulled out his lightweight Glock 28 handgun, the one with the expanded nineteen-round magazine that he favored, and tucked it under his belt at the small of his back.

He and Steyl rejoined at the cabin door, passports in hand.

“Your friend—he is okay?” the fireman asked.

“Him? Oh, he’s fine,” Zahed shrugged as he handed the Italian the passports. He gave him a complicit wink. “A bit too much of your local Montepulciano last night, that’s all.”

“Ah,” the man relaxed as he flicked through the passports.

Zahed eyed him carefully, his muscles taut, his senses on edge.

The harried fireman was struggling to keep Zahed’s passport open while he filled out one of the forms on his knee. He completed it, moved it to the back of the pile, opened Simmons’s passport, then set it aside as he flicked through the clutch of papers in his hand, evidently looking for something. He looked up at Zahed and Steyn with embarrassment and gave them a sheepish smile, then went back to his sheets—then one of them snagged his attention. He flicked past it, then stopped, did a double-take and went back to it. He pulled it out of the pile and studied it curiously. And then he did what he shouldn’t have done: he glanced at Simmons. A glance that wasn’t casual or accidental. A furtive glance, one that was loaded with information. A glance that made Zahed reach behind his back and, in a calm and fluid motion, pull out the handgun and aim it at the fireman’s face.

Zahed moved his other hand to his own face, index pointed up and tapping softly against his lips, signaling the fireman to keep quiet. Then he stretched that hand out toward him and gestured for him to hand over the bundle of papers and the passports that were in his hand. The fireman’s face clenched up further and his eyes did a nervous left-and-right flick, again telegraphing the options he was thinking about. Zahed gave him a calm “no-no” gesture with his finger before the man nodded his understanding and handed him the documents.

Zahed’s eyes left the fireman for the briefest of moments as he said to Steyl, “Help our friend into your plane, won’t you?”

Steyl hesitated, then said, “Sure thing.” He bent down and clasped his hand around the man’s forearm. The fireman nodded nervously and climbed into the cabin. He stood there, sweating even more profusely now, fear flooding his face, his puffy body all hunched up by the open cabin door in the low-ceilinged fuselage.

Zahed flicked through the paperwork and found the sheet that had caused the problem. It was the all ports alert. A picture of Simmons was on it. Interestingly, Zahed noted, there was no photo of him. He deduced that none of the vidcaps from the Vatican’s CCTV footage had been clear enough—which was good news. He had to make sure it stayed that way.