The Templar Map Read online

  Copyright 2017

  Kevin R. Hill, all rights reserved

  Amazon Edition

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  The people in this book exist solely in the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to person or persons, living or dead, is a coincidence and not intended by the author.

  Copyright 2018

  Kevin R. Hill, for two chapters of The Killer Trap,

  All rights reserved.

  Amazon Edition

  To Katherine and Rosemary,

  with a special mention to Starbucks, for the coffee that kept me going,

  and the electricity that kept the laptop humming.

  The Templar Map

  Book one, The Detective Series

  K.R. Hill

  Table of Contents:

  A Note About Reviews:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Book Two, The Killer Trap, Chapter 1

  The Killer Trap, Chapter 2

  A link to post a review:

  A Notice About Reviews:

  For writers like myself, getting your review means the world, even if that review is only a few words. Please take a minute to review this book on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078MCJZ6Z#customerReviews

  Thank you.

  K.R. Hill

  Chapter 1

  Cologne, Germany

  Uri turned the corner and noticed the tall white van parked with two of its wheels up on the curb. He touched his coat to make sure his weapon was there, stepped between the van and the car behind it, and reached for the rear door.

  The instant he touched the handle, someone shoved a pistol against his neck.

  “Who are you?” asked the gunman, and moved a scanner over Uri’s hand. “Lieutenant Uri Dent,” he read. “I am sorry. They are waiting for you.”

  Uri climbed inside and sat on a bench with three men. The four of them jumped to their feet and saluted when the gray-haired man in the passenger seat turned.

  “At ease,” he said, motioning the group to sit. He was in his sixties, with deep lines on his face, a well-trimmed, sharp line mustache, and shoulder length hair that hung around a stern face.

  “Men,” continued the older man. “I hand-picked you for this mission. You are the Vatican’s best. We take our orders from his Eminence himself—no other. An artifact stolen from the Vatican has surfaced. Our mission is to capture and return it. We traced it here, to Cologne. The man carrying it is Yosef Jobani. He’s in the bar to our right and should have it with him.”

  He showed them a tablet. On the screen was the image of a rectangular, metal object, covered with strange writing.

  “What is it?” asked one of the men.

  “It is Solomon’s Key.”

  The men looked at one another.

  “That’s a children’s story about treasure and a map.”

  “This is no myth, gentlemen. Excavated beneath Solomon’s temple in 1129 by the Knights Templar, and acquired by Pope Honorius II, it was Vatican property for two hundred years. A priest, made bold by Martin Luther, smuggled it out of St. Peter’s during construction. It disappeared until now.”

  “What sort of metal–”

  “Listen!” snapped the commander. “Our Scholars believe it is a map to Solomon’s mines, and the greatest treasure the world has ever seen. We are to secure it by any means. Do you understand?”

  “Yes sir,” said the men, almost in unison.

  The commander sorted through a folder and removed a photo. “This is the target, Dr. Yosef Jobani. We believe he is meeting a buyer. Here is the layout of the bar.”

  The old man unbuttoned his coat. “Our intel says you have four minutes before the exchange. We can’t risk the Key getting away. Go!”

  A light rain touched the back of Uri’s neck as he climbed from the van. The other men hurried to the bar. One of them bumped him and said, “He’s sitting in the far corner with two bodyguards. The place is packed with people.”

  A group of students stepped out of the bar laughing. One of them was singing loudly.

  “Okay, men,” said Uri. “Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds. I’m taking point.” He touched the knife on his belt.

  The men checked their weapons and nodded approval.

  “You,” snapped Uri to one of the men. “You’re at the back door. No one comes out.”

  “No one,” agreed the thin-faced man. He pulled on a black beanie and rushed away.

  Uri tapped an index finger against the chest of one of the other men. “You. You’re backup at the front door. If I fail, you stop the guy. The commander said do what it takes. You know what that means.”

  “It means war.” The man removed his weapon from a pocket, pulled back the action and let it snap back into place, injecting a bullet into the firing chamber.

  ***

  In a corner booth sat the man Uri was looking for, a young Egyptian with a beard, a Palestinian scarf around his neck.

  The man looked right and left and tried to stand. One of his no-neck bodyguards shoved him into the seat.

  The instant Uri moved into view, one of the bodyguards saw the threat, shouted and jumped to his feet. Uri launched himself forward, but the bodyguard blocked his punches and wrapped him in a headlock. Then the other bodyguard attacked.

  Uri fought to reach his knife. Several blows landed on his face and chest. Then he found the knife and stabbed the man who was holding him in the thigh. With a shout, the bleeding man leaned sideways, and that small shift of weight was all Uri needed. He moved a few inches and shoved the knife into the man’s side, twisting the blade between the bodyguard’s ribs, tearing them apart.

  The grip around his neck went slack. The man holding him dropped to the floor.

  “The item is on the move,” shouted Uri, as Jobani climbed onto his seat and stepped onto the table, kicked beer glasses and ash trays out of his way, and leaped to the next table.

  “Gun!” shouted a bar patron.

  The students crowding the floor moved as one toward the exit.

  “Gun, gun,” shouted several drinkers as they their way through the crowd jamming the exit. Beer glasses shattered on the floor. Customers pushed over tables and tried to jump over the crowd at the door. Men shouted. Women screamed.

  Uri followed Jobani while still fighting the second bodyguard, a trained boxer. He was all punches, rapid flurries of jabs and hooks. His punches knocked Uri back. Blood flowed into Uri’s eyes, and he kept wiping them to clear his vision. Through the blur he saw the guy with Solomon’s Key climbing to his feet near the exit. He screamed, “Backup, get the package!”

  Uri fought and punched, tried to sweep the boxer’s leg with a kick to his knee, but nothing stopped the guy. Then he used his last move. Uri dropped to his knees and lunged forward, getting beneath the boxer’s defenses, a
nd slashed his thigh, severing the femoral artery. The man punched a few more times, but the punches were weak, as though the boxer’s batteries were dead.

  Uri ran to the exit.

  Jobani, the doctor, tried to fight, but was not trained. There was no power in his swings. In fifteen seconds, Uri had him against a table, a knife pressed under his chin.

  “Did you get it?” One of Uri’s men shouted.

  The professor stopped fighting. “You’ll never get it,” he laughed, shaking his head from side to side.

  “Where is it? Tell me or die.” Uri pressed the knife against the professor’s throat so hard that it cut the skin, and blood ran down his neck.

  “It is gone. Your Vatican will never have it.”

  Uri searched Jobani, then looked on the seat where he had been sitting, and beneath the table.

  “Did it get past you?” Uri asked the agent at the door.

  “I don’t know. I can’t check everyone. Fuck!” The man kicked the bar.

  The professor rolled off the table onto the floor, and jumped up with a jagged beer glass.

  Uri slit his throat and wiped the knife across the professor’s chest as an afterthought, turned and walked into the falling rain.

  ***

  The windshield wipers slapped up and down as the engine started and the lights came on. Uri climbed inside the van and sat down.

  “Where is number four?” asked the commander, turning in the passenger seat. “Did we lose a man?”

  One of the men spoke. “He was taken. A group of Brits, some kind of sports team, must’ve seen his weapon and attacked him. They were calling the police when I passed.”

  “You allowed one of my men to be taken into custody?” The commander didn’t miss a beat. He raised his weapon and shot the offender in the chest. The man slumped sideways and fell against Uri’s feet.

  “That means we’re compromised.” The commander opened an envelope and pulled out several passports, opened each one, looked at the photograph, and handed it to the correct man. “Get rid of your weapons and everything connected with this operation. Get out of Germany today. Follow protocol. While you were inside, we got word that Jobani visited a symposium of archeologists. He may have passed the Key to one of the American professors.”

  “So,” said Uri, “what now?”

  “We are going to the United States. We’ll search through the data, analyze video footage, and track the professors. If one of them has it, we’ll find him.”

  Chapter 2

  Two months later, Long Beach, California:

  Jason Dalton walked up the stairs and onto the old marble landing that was worn into a bowl under his feet. “Demontey,” he said. “You coming to my class this afternoon?”

  Three black school kids stopped in the corridor and pulled up their baggy pants and looked Dalton up and down. One of them twisted his cap around so the brim was over the side of his face.

  “Momma say don’t talk to no white police.” Demontey slung his pack over a shoulder and motioned with a nod for his buddies to continue walking.

  “I’m not a cop.” Dalton pointed to his office door. “You see there,” he said, underlining one of the words on the glass, “that says Private detective. That means your momma can come and pay me to find you. The police work for the city. I work for the people.”

  Demontey marched over. “If I come, you gunna teach me to fight the way you did wit’ my momma’s friend when you mashed his head into the wall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you ask Momma if I can come?”

  “Yes.”

  The boys pushed and laughed as they hurried past, hopping and jumping down the stairs. Dalton chuckled and watched them for a moment, then pushed open his office door and walked in.

  “Hey, hold this thing, would you?” asked Nick, standing on a ladder, shoving a bubble surveillance camera into a hole in the ceiling. Bits of plaster speckled Nick’s red hair and the carpet. A drill sat on the old librarian desk. “Take that shovel and hold it.”

  Dalton picked up the shovel that was leaning against the wall, and pressed the handle against the bubble.

  The ladder creaked as Nick shifted his stance. “Okay, it should stay now, if you don’t move. Hold still.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “If you’d stop moving, it might stay.”

  “We can’t pay the electric bill, but you had to go and buy a camera?”

  Nick batted the handle out of the way and hurried down the ladder. “I got it at Costco for $29.99. Wanna know why I bought it?”

  “Yes.” Dalton set the shovel down and took off his jacket and threw it over the back of the wooden chair, pulled off his shoulder holster, and placed it in the bottom drawer of the old desk.

  “Because of these.” Nick tucked his red hair over one ear, and held up a glass of water.

  “Is that ….” Dalton took the glass and held it up in the sunlight that flooded the office through the window.

  “Two bugs; one’s a listening device. The other one’s a tracker. That’s what scares me: That tracker has a limited range, so whoever’s after you is close. You been messing with any married women?”

  Dalton set the glass on the desk and dropped into the chair.

  “Is there a case you’re not telling me about?” said Nick.

  “No, nothing.”

  “Look, I’m just the computer geek, but some of the people we investigate kill people. I need to know what’s going on so I don’t get shot,” said Nick as he grabbed the edge of the desk.

  “I don’t know where those bugs came from.”

  “Boss, if you’re working a case without–”

  “I’m not. If I was taking more cases, we wouldn’t be in this dump building.”

  A knock made Dalton look up. Two figures moved about outside the opaque glass door. He pulled his gun from the drawer.

  CHAPTER 3

  Uri Dent gripped the knife as he crept along the alley. The falling snow of Chicago collected on his lashes and pricked his scalp like tiny needles.

  At a warped and peeling door, he sucked in a deep breath and swept his gaze over apartment windows. He turned right, then left. From his pocket he removed a pair of surgical gloves. They made rubbery sounds as he pulled them on.

  “In and out in ten minutes,” said the commander. “Find out if he has the Key. It has to be this Professor Urtsen.”

  Uri shut off the phone in his ear with a tap of his finger and slowly turned the doorknob. When the latch clicked, he opened the door three inches, grabbed the warning bell, and entered the hallway, crouching and staring into the darkness, his pulse a drum-beat in his head.

  Down the hallway he saw a muslin curtain. From the other side of the curtain, he heard a man’s voice. A woman answered and giggled. Uri paused and shook his head, took out a photograph from his shirt pocket, looked through the curtain to verify that the man on the bed was the man in the photograph.

  And then he heard a growl, deep and vicious.

  He gasped and seized the knife, grinding his teeth and panting. His knife hand shook from side to side.

  With lowered head, the Great Dane moved into view, ears back, fangs exposed, eyes flashing. Its legs quivered as it turned its head, about to leap.

  Uri jumped back and flinched, ready for the pain and blood, ready for those massive jaws to clamp down on his leg and shred the flesh. But instead of attacking, the animal whined, and he knew it was not fully grown. The puppy in it wanted to play.

  He almost dropped to the floor, holding his body upright with a hand on his knee, shaking his head. After a moment, Uri wiped sweat from his brow and held out his hand.

  “Come on, big dog,” he whispered and led the dog to the bathroom and closed it inside.

  His eyes never moved from the curtain in the doorway ahead. Two yards from it, he heard feminine yelping noises and moved the tips of his shoes to within an inch of the fabric. The white muslin rippled as he leaned close.r />
  Across the room stood a four-poster bed. A young blond woman, wearing a leather corset and fishnet stockings, smiled and strained in the fur-covered hand cuffs that held her bent over the bed.

  “Oh, Daddy, hurry back and give it to me,” pleaded the woman, rolling her head about.

  Through a doorway across the room, a shadow moved about. Now was Uri’s chance. He could get in and get past the woman without the man being alerted.

  Uri rushed through the curtain. He didn’t get more than a foot before he heard the popping, crackling sound of a stun gun.

  He felt a red-hot sword shoved into his brain.

  ***

  He woke to voices in a fog.

  “Oh Daddy, feel his muscles,” said the woman, balancing on her knees while clamping his wrist to the headboard with handcuffs.

  “Should I zap him again, baby?” asked Prof. Urtsen.

  “Oh no, let him wake up. We’re going to have fun with this one.” The woman opened his belt.

  Uri didn’t have time to think. He had to get his body working and moving. If the woman got handcuffs on his other wrist, he might be kept here for days. With all the force left in his body, he twisted at the waist and kicked. His shin connected with the woman’s neck and knocked her against the wall. She crashed to the floor with a shriek.

  But he couldn’t be happy with that. He had to move again. Only one of the threats had been neutralized. The second one was coming around the bed with that crackling stun gun in his hand.

  Uri rolled off the edge of the bed and tugged on the handcuff again and again, jerking the bed about the floor, lifting it off the carpet. He pulled and jerked and shouted. Saliva shot out of his mouth.

  The maniac with the stun gun was almost on him when a section of the headboard broke loose. Uri shoved it at the professor.

  The old professor tried to reach Uri with the gun, but he couldn’t.