The Templar Reprisals (The Best Thrillers Book 3) Read online

  “Thank goodness. I wouldn’t want that to be a daily occurrence.”

  “Are you and Patricia all right?” Walsh asked.

  “Yes, thanks for asking. My truck has seen better days, however.”

  “Who were they?”

  “We don’t know yet, but they were professionals. Caucasians. A hit job with a well thought-out plan. My routines and habitats had been observed. I doubt it was someone the department sent to prison.”

  “Paris?”

  “That’s where my mind went. How do you want to handle this?”

  “Marcia should be in your office momentarily. She’s got the lead.”

  “Understood.”

  “Okay, keep me informed. By the way, smart move to hand the investigation over to the sheriff. It will make both our lives easier.”

  Before Evarts could acknowledge, she had hung up. Marcia Moore was the mayor’s spokesperson. Evarts felt relief that she would handle the media. He wanted to concentrate on who sent a hit team to his house.

  As promised, Moore soon walked purposely into his office. He handed her the stack of media call messages. His assistant had already reserved an interview room for her to use as a temporary office. Moore asked for his version of what happened, and Evarts gave it to her in less than sixty seconds. After he finished, she nodded her head for several moments without speaking.

  Finally, she said, “How about we position this as a vendetta against you by the Santa Maria street gang you fought last year?”

  It wasn’t really a question. Moore reported directly to the mayor and shifting blame to another city had probably already been discussed. Wouldn’t want tourists to get the idea that Santa Barbara was unsafe. Last year, Evarts had encountered a marauding mob during a catastrophic flood. A deadly gunfight had ensued, and the drug gang had noisily threatened retribution. The highly publicized incident presented a nice fit, but their neighbor to the north wouldn’t take the slur against their fine town without protest. On the other hand, the plausibility would please the CIA, Army Intelligence, and other anti-terrorist agencies.

  He nodded approval and Moore disappeared through the doorway.

  He dialed General O’Brian’s cell phone. His message had been next in line.

  After O’Brian answered, Evarts said, “How did you find out so fast?”

  “It’s nearly eleven o’clock here. We’re halfway through our workday.”

  “Nice deflection, but it didn’t answer the question. How did you find out about a small-town shooting three thousand miles away?”

  “How do you think?”

  “You have a source or an agent in my town.”

  “Are you and Patricia unharmed?”

  “We are. And a second deflection.” Evarts laughed. “I guess I have my answer.”

  “IDs?”

  “Working on it. Fake licenses used to rent the cars with pre-paid debit cards. Professional hit.”

  “How professional?” O’Brian asked.

  “They surveilled me, knew where I lived, chose a night when I would be at a city council meeting so I’d get home at a predictable time after dark, didn’t try to breech my security system, had fake drivers’ licenses that could pass muster, used identical handguns, and devised an excellent plan to hem me into a crossfire. If I had been a fraction of a second slower to respond, I wouldn’t be talking to you now.”

  “You aren’t describing a jihadist attack. Their planning is shit, execution worse, otherwise we’d have ten times the number of terrorist attacks. Their MO is to come in hot with automatic fire, a bomb vest, speeding truck, or airplane.”

  “Not the ones in Paris,” Evarts corrected. “They had a good plan, well executed.”

  “Yeah.” A small pause. “That worries us.”

  “But generally, you’re right. These looked like hitmen with military training. It was a surgical strike … like a Seal Team assault.”

  “Nothing like a Seal Team strike,” O’Brian said testily. “If it were, you’d be dead.”

  Evarts ignored his protest and asked evenly, “Can you assure me that my government was not involved?”

  “I can assure you that Army Intelligence was not involved and tell you it’s ludicrous to think another agency ordered a hit on you.”

  “The CIA debriefed Trish. You colluded with—”

  “Criticism accepted. I apologize for not being forthright. You know the reason.”

  That took the gas out of Evarts’ righteous indignation.

  He mentally shrugged away his irritation. “What’s the CIA interest?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “I been trying to figure out why those hitmen ambushed me. Maybe I learned something in Paris I’ve underestimated or haven’t consciously grasped. Maybe French higher-ups are complicit. Maybe the Templars don’t want me blabbing about their existence. Maybe these so-called Templars have infiltrated our security services. Or maybe these guys are affiliated with the terrorists.”

  The phone went silent.

  “We need to talk in person,” O’Brian finally said. “How soon can you get to Washington?”

  “Again?”

  “Again.”

  “I need to do another interview with the sheriff … and I could use a day of rest.”

  “All right. That’s all you get. I’ll see you bright and early Friday.”

  O’Brian hung up.

  Chapter 15

  Evarts sat on a breakwater boulder and watched the light play on the waves as the sun rose behind him. He had gotten up before dawn to clear his head. As was his habit, he had stepped out onto the patio to gauge the wind and felt a stiff breeze. Instead of going back to bed, he threw on some sweats in the hope that the wind would slacken at sea level. Bad plan. The surf was junk. Small and windblown. The wind wasn’t blowing hard enough for whitecaps, but it was strong enough to make sloppy waves. He considered going out for the exercise but didn’t want to struggle into his wetsuit to paddle around in choppy water, so he sipped coffee from a Yeti and watched the ocean.

  The attack at his home didn’t make sense. The assailants weren’t jihadists seeking revenge for Paris. Who were they? The other car apparently got away, so they had no detainees to question. It was possible they still might resurface, but Evarts’ gut told him they were long gone. Worse, his detectives had not yet identified the two he had killed.

  Santa Barbara was not a high crime community. He had been a policeman for over a decade, and no one had even tried to draw a gun on him within city limits. The kind of criminals they arrested generally served short sentences for property or white-collar crimes. The occasional homicide was quickly resolved and almost always involved a spouse. Although they would check past cases, Evarts doubted that the attack related to police work.

  It had to be Paris.

  He let the waves and sea breeze calm him. After a few minutes, a couple of teenagers gingerly made their way down the rock break wall to the water. In his youth, he would have gone out as well, but as he got older, he became pickier. He had a near full thermal cup of coffee and a protein bar in his pocket. He was content to watch the kids as he ate his ersatz breakfast. In a few minutes, one of the teens caught a wave and did an exceptional job of making the most of it. Evarts was impressed.

  Surfing was an odd sport. If you competed in games that used a ball, the conditions were normally identical to the last time you played. A court didn’t move around and change with the weather. Outdoor sports, except for football, were normally not played in inclement weather.

  Surfing, on the other hand, changed every outing. Sometimes in the same day. Unlike a plank floor or a grass field, the ocean undulated with wind, tide, and swells. A ball game was local to the court or field, but good waves were generated thousands of miles away and traveled to a shoreline at seven to ten miles an hour. The size of the waves depended on the strength of the storm that created them. Where you chose to surf made a difference. A wave breaking on a beach was different from the exact s
ame wave expending itself on a point of land that jutted into the ocean. The angle of the shoreline compared to the direction of the surf made a difference in wave size and the way it broke. The further away waves were generated, the greater the interval between waves and the better the surf. Local wind was another factor. If calm, the waves were smooth. The harder it blew, the more chopped the waves. It also mattered the direction of the wind. Surfers preferred the wind coming from the land side, blowing against the waves to hold them up so they lasted longer.

  No other sport compared. Skiing came close. He laughed. For the first time, it occurred to him that skiing was another water sport, one where weather also affected the experience. But skiing had changed since his youth. Now, excessive grooming had made skiing fairly predictable. No wonder helicopter skiing had become the rage. Popular for the well-off, that is. A lift ticket might be expensive, but a helicopter ride to a mountain peak was outlandish.

  Evarts sighed. Surfing was simply different—different every time you went out.

  The two surfers had ridden several waves as he had mused, but the first had been an outlier. Neither of them got another good ride. That made Evarts feel better. He had made a correct choice to remain on shore.

  He swallowed the last of his coffee and checked his watch. He needed to shower, dress, and get to work. He stood, brushed off his rear, and stretched. Better get going. The sheriff awaited.

  As Evarts walked the short distance to his van, he felt calm, relaxed, and refreshed. But still perplexed. The attack still made no sense.

  Chapter 16

  Friday morning, Evarts was escorted into General O’Brian’s office in the Pentagon. Evarts had worked in this building and a few friends continued to work here. He felt a twinge of nostalgia, but it faded when he remembered the politicking in these halls. He smiled to himself. He had it good. A small pond, but he was the chief honcho. Here, he wouldn’t even be a cog. At least not for another ten years.

  O’Brian’s assistant immediately led him into the inner office. The general sat behind an imposing desk writing intently. Instead of taking a chair in front of his desk, Evarts took a seat at a small conference table. O’Brian could come to him.

  Signing a final document with a flourish, O’Brian handed the sheaf of papers to his assistant and told him to close the door on his way out.

  As he rose from behind his desk, O’Brian said, “Okay, deck cleared. We have an hour. Coffee?”

  After they each had in hand a mug of army coffee, Evarts asked, “Why in person?”

  “You used to work in this department, you know why. Hell, you never know who’s listening to electronic communication.” He smiled slightly. “Maybe even my own people.”

  Evarts looked around. “Tidy office.”

  “It’s clean of bugs, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Evarts settled back into his chair. “Okay, why am I here?”

  “First, any developments in the case?”

  Evarts sipped his coffee. He decided to be open with O’Brian unless something made him reconsider.

  “The driver licenses were genuine. All the security features in place. Only the names were fake. Probably issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles after being presented with other forged documents.”

  “What does that tell us?”

  “A lot, as you know. There wasn’t enough time after Paris to secure official licenses in this manner. It reinforces the idea that they were hired assassins. Professionals constantly work to augment their tools of the trade. Good ones have numerous fake IDs at the ready. Or … it could be a black ops team with access to official government documents.”

  “What else?”

  “We’ve concluded that the assailants were probably not foreign nationals. Fake ID mills in most other counties tend to be shoddy. Cobbling together the first set of false papers required knowledge and research. Our byzantine government record systems are hard enough for citizens to figure out. So … most likely Americans … with time on their hands.”

  “Not jihadists?”

  “Unlikely, but that can’t be ruled out. Yet. Could be homegrown.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing’s popped on fingerprints or facial recognition, which means they’ve never been convicted or applied for government work … unless they’re shielded behind a government security firewall.”

  Evarts said this last to gauge O’Brian’s reaction. He remained stoic.

  “What about the second car?” O’Brian asked.

  “Gone without a trace. The car seems to have disappeared, along with its occupants.”

  “Odd. The only freeway was covered within minutes. How about CCTV?”

  “Nada,” Evarts answered.

  “How do you think they escaped?”

  “Secondary surface road. Probably state route 192 through the foothills.”

  O’Brian thought. “That would require reconnaissance.”

  “Yes.”

  “What else?”

  “Guns and ammunition clean. The dead both carried Kahr Arms – CW40s and all the shots fired were .40 caliber. We think all four were fitted up identically.”

  O’Brian nodded. “Not exactly weapons favored by jihadists or Saturday Night Specials. What about the car?”

  “Clean of cigarettes, candy wrappers, all other foreign material other than threads identified as coming from Levi’s. For the olive drab obsessed, Levi is a popular brand of denims.”

  O’Brian ignored his attempt at humor. “Anything else?”

  “No. Now, what do you have for me?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “You asked if French higher-ups were complicit, if the Templars don’t want their existence exposed, or if Templars have infiltrated our security services.”

  O’Brian took a sip of coffee for dramatic affect.

  “The answer is yes … to all three.”

  Chapter 17

  Evarts left O’Brien’s office troubled. The general had explained that the Templars Knights did exist and their vigilantism real. Their society was secret, and no western intelligence service had succeeded in infiltrating the organization, mostly because the Templars accepted new members only after years of vetting. Despite centuries of rumors, Templar affiliation with Freemasons remained unverified. Masons officially recognized three degrees: Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. Scottish chapters recognized thirty-three degrees, but the Scots insisted that only three degrees mattered and their higher number of degrees merely granularized the official three. O’Brian alleged that a covert fourth degree did exist, and the name of this degree was Templar Knights. American intelligence services estimated that worldwide there were about a thousand Masons who had attained the status of Knight, however, the question remained whether Templar Knights continued to be part of the Freemasons. Some intelligence officials theorized that Templar Knights had ascended to an elite clandestine society that operated independently from the Masonic Fraternity.

  O’Brian had explained other theories and conjectures. Some believed the Templar Knights had integrated with the Scottish Masons around 1307, when the persecuted Templars had fled France in a fleet of eighteen ships. The ships had supposedly sailed to Scotland and the Templars had found shelter within a masons’ guild, eventually taking it over. The Scottish Masons slowly evolved away from masonry to a quasi-secret society that adopted many Templar rituals and beliefs. As the centuries passed and Masons expanded worldwide, the original meanings of their rituals faded, their heritage became muddled, and most lodges had no inkling of a Templar legacy. Not so with an inner circle of Scottish Masons. That group never lost sight of their purpose, but they remained quiescent until the establishment of Israel in 1948. The once ceremonial secret society took the emergence of a Judeo nation in the Holy Land as a sign that they were to become operational again. They reestablished their quasi-military arm to help protect Israel and combat Islamic terrorism worldwide.

  After their allotted hour had been consu
med, they had agreed to meet again for dinner. Evarts had been mulling this over on the short taxi ride to his hotel. As he entered the lobby, a man approached, called him by name, and offered his hand.

  Without extending his own hand, Evarts asked, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  “Jim Lewis. I see you’re a traveling man.”

  This was one of the code phrases that Masons used to identify each other. Evarts gave the correct response and shook hands in the appropriate fashion. Evarts was wary. The man was in his late fifties to early sixties with a paunch that hung over his trouser belt. He appeared innocent; the type of hearty goodfellow that he had found in every Mason lodge. Except Evarts didn’t believe in coincidence and he wondered how the man knew his name before introductions.

  “How did you recognize me?” Evarts asked.

  “I attended a lodge meeting in Santa Barbara a few years back. I was surprised to spot you all the way across the country in the lobby of a Pentagon City hotel. Here on business?”

  Evarts had made his own arrangements and chose a Ritz-Carlton near the Pentagon. He didn’t expect to stay more than the night.

  “Yes. Short visit.”

  “Me too. Perhaps I can buy you lunch.”

  “I’m still on West Coast time, so I’m not hungry yet,” Evarts answered. “I was going to walk to Arlington Cemetery to work up an appetite and pay my respects.”

  “Perfect. May I join you.” He patted his stomach. “I need a little exercise and I’m free until a dinner appointment.”

  Evidently Lewis was not to be gotten rid of easily. It didn’t matter. Evarts needed to find out why this supposed accidental meeting had been staged. He attended his lodge meeting irregularly, but he did attend. It was possible that he and Lewis had met a couple years ago, and the man hadn’t made a strong impression. Possible, but unlikely. He had a policeman’s memory for names and faces, and guests from other lodges were introduced with fanfare.

  “I’m done with business for the day and was heading to my room to change into casual clothes. Why don’t we meet back here in fifteen minutes?”