“Now, what was that all about?”
“I didn’t get all of it. He says his name is Victor Ostrovsky and he’s a curator at the Hermitage. Something about the Romanov jewels and the Fabergé royal eggs. He says that something terrible has happened and he insists that you and I go with him immediately.”
“You and I?”
“You don’t speak Russian. According to him I am to be your translator. He asked if I trusted you. I said yes. He asked if I trusted you with my life. I said yes.”
“That’s all very nice,” said Holliday, “but just where is it he wants us to go?”
“A church,” said Eddie. “In Constantinople.”
“Istanbul?” Holliday said. “That’s just plain nuts. For one thing they don’t speak Russian in Istanbul.”
“He told me you’d say that.” Eddie nodded. “He asked me to give you this.” Eddie handed the slip of paper to Holliday. He stared down at the spidery, oldman’s handwriting.
He remembered it all in an instant. The dying man’s blood on his hands, the tiny island in the Azores, the notebook with a thousand years of secrets on its bloodstained pages. What had Rodrigues said, dying in his arms?
Iacta alea est
.
Vale, amici
.
The torch is passed; goodbye, my friend.
And then with his last breath before life fled him in the middle of that terrible storm, those awful, awful words: “Too many secrets . . . too many secrets.”
“He said there was a flight in twenty minutes.” Eddie raised an eyebrow. “He said something else. I think it is Latin.
‘Ferrum Polaris.’
”
Dear God. Ferrum Polaris. The Sword of the North.
Holliday crumpled the little scrap of paper in his hand and stood up.
“We might just make it if we run.”
Read on for a special preview of Paul Christopher’s next thriller,
RED TEMPLAR
Coming from Signet in 2012
The bearded man stumbled out of the kitchen entrance of the enormous house, blood and vomit streaming from his open, gasping mouth. The snow was blinding and he beat at it furiously, desperately trying to see where he was going. The pain in his upper back was excruciating and his right ear had been torn to shreds by Felix’s second shot. The bearded man brushed a bloody hand across his face. His eyes were almost swollen shut from the beating he’d taken but if he could only make it home, home to his little girl, Maria, he would be all right.
He heard muffled footsteps in the snow behind him, the footsteps of a running man. It had to be Rayner, Felix’s sodomite friend from Oxford. Despite the awful pain welling up in his stomach and the blood draining from the stab wounds in his back, the bearded man increased his pace, his heaving lungs on fire, his bleary eyes searching for the steps that led down to the frozen canal. If he could cross to the other side he could disappear into the maze of streets and alleys and, if he was very lucky, reach safety.
He gritted his broken teeth and forced himself onward through the blizzard, silently cursing the cowards who would so savagely attack a man of God. He had never wanted anything more than to bring his knowledge and his powers to the world but to them he was a danger: light to their darkness, good to their whispered evil, his courage to their cowardice.
Somehow he managed to find the steps and staggered downward, his left hand gripping the cold metal railing. He risked a quick look back over his shoulder. There was no sign of Felix or his foppish, smooth-faced friend. His heart beat faster. There was hope! Of course there was hope, for wasn’t he one of the chosen of God, with nothing less than the healing faith of the Xristos coursing through his hands? He had brought a sick and dying prince back to his mother’s arms; there must be hope for him as well; certainly Saint Seraphim would not abandon him now.
The bearded man reached the ice of the canal, then slipped and slid toward the bridge two hundred yards away, where he knew there was another set of steps. There would be lamplight on the bridge and perhaps even a policeman. Here and there the ice was black and thin, cracking beneath his feet. He skirted those areas, his eyes on the snow-shrouded span of the bridge.
The bearded man reached into the pocket of his dark, heavy coat and felt the heavy oval object deep in the fleece lining.... This at least he could keep from them, their foul crucible, their blasphemous secret. Such things were monumentally dangerous and could change the world if revealed by those without the understanding to deal with them. The proverb learned by the bearded man from his friend Spiridon Ivanovich still held true—“For upright men there are no laws”—and if he was nothing else in this frozen hell of a city on the edge of the world, he was an upright man.
The terrible pain deep within his chest caught him by surprise. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared downward. There had already been bloodstains on his white cotton shirt from the beating and the stabbing, but this was something else. This was blood from a spigot splattering out in thick, gouting splashes, deep red, heart’s blood.
The bearded man looked up. Across a narrow patch of dark, thin ice he could see a figure with a large pistol in his hand. The man was slender, with a tweed overcoat over his uniform. Oswald Rayner, George Buchanan’s man from the old Saltykov Mansion on the Neva.
“
Вы убили меня!
You’ve killed me!” said the bearded man, his accent that of a peasant. He fell to his knees, his hands cupping the blood still streaming from his chest.
“Eще я не имею,”
said Rayner. “Not yet I haven’t.” He raised the big Webley again, aimed it at the bearded man’s face and pulled the trigger. A large circular hole was punched in the man’s forehead, and the back of his head turned into a fountain of blood, bone and brains spraying back for several yards along the ice-covered canal. “
Now
I’ve killed you,” said the young lieutenant. He stuffed the Webley back into the pocket of his overcoat. The body of the bearded man sagged forward and then struck the ice. The ice cracked and then broke under the weight of the body. The remains of the bearded man slid instantly into the black, freezing water. The Mad Monk was gone at last.
Grigori Rasputin was dead, taking his secrets with him.
New York Times
bestselling author
THE TEMPLAR CONSPIRACY
In Rome, the assassination of the Pope on Christmas Day sets off a massive investigation that stretches across the globe. But behind the veil of Rex Deus—the Templar cabal that silently wields power in the twenty-first century—the plot has only just begun.
When retired Army Ranger Lt. Col. John Holliday uncovers the true motive behind the pontiff’s murder, he must unravel a deadly design to extend the Templar influence to the highest levels of power.
S0186
New York Times
bestselling author
THE TEMPLAR THRONE
In the 14th century, Templar knight Jean de St. Clair was tasked with piloting the order’s treasure-laden fleets off the coast of France. To this end, he used the Jacob’s Staff—a nautical instrument supposedly developed in his own time. But retired Army Ranger Lt. Col. John Holliday possesses a Staff he found in the hands of a 4,000 year-old Egyptian mummy. Holliday suspects that St. Clair may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of the ruthless, enigmatic Templars.
But there are those who believe that some questions should remain unanswered. And that the answers Holliday seeks should go with him to the grave...
S0153
The
New York Times
bestseller
THE TEMPLAR CROSS
Paul Christopher
Retired Army Ranger Lt. Col. John Holliday has reluctantly settled into his teaching position at West Point when young Israeli archaeologist Rafi Wanounou comes to him with desperate news.
Holliday’s niece—and Rafi’s fiancé—Peggy has been kidnapped. Holliday sets out with Rafi to find the only family he has left. But their search for Peggy will lead them to a trail of clues that spans across the globe, and into the heart of a conspiracy involving an ancient Egyptian legend and the darkest secrets of the Order of Templar Knights.
Secrets that, once known, cannot be survived...
S0077
New York Times
bestselling author
THE SWORD OF THE TEMPLARS
A mystery that spans the past.
A conspiracy that lives on in the heart of
an ancient order.
Army Ranger Lt. Col. John Holliday had resigned himself to ending his career teaching at West Point. When his uncle passes away, Holliday discovers a medieval sword—wrapped in Adolf Hitler’s personal battle standard. But when someone burns down his uncle’s house in an attempt to retrieve the sword, Holliday realizes that he’s being drawn into a war that has been fought for centuries—a war in which he may be the next casualty.
S0010
Also by Paul Christopher
Michelangelo’s Notebook
The Lucifer Gospel
Rembrandt’s Ghost
The Aztec Heresy
The Sword of the Templars
The Templar Cross
The Templar Throne
The Templar Conspiracy