“But she cannot see me, you understand,” Sam reasoned, blinking profusely as his mind formulated a thousand possibilities and solutions. “Harris!”
“Yes?”
“Can you contact Ayer? Tell him we have Toshana,” Sam told her.
“Um, what?” the annoying media vulture asked, making it clear by her body language that she was not in favor of Sam’s idea. “You’re just going to give her up and then they can kill us all.”
Father Harper listened, but he said nothing. Purdue and Toshana made their way toward the threesome. The priest was giving them a welcoming smile, while the other two were in heated debate.
“Listen to me,” Sam seethed, “for once! Let him know we have her. Tell them to come to Jerusalem, but don’t let them know where we are before they bring Nina and have her speak to us on the phone, savvy?”
“Oh God, Cleave,” she quivered.
“Just do it, for Christ’s sake!” Sam ordered, violently grabbing Harris by both arms and bending her over. As loud as he could, he shouted, “Just hold on, Harris! I’ll help you get to the restroom. Please, just don’t throw up here, okay? Come. Come, I’ll help you.” And with that, he swiftly ushered the bent over woman out of the dining hall as quickly as he could, just as Toshana and Purdue reached the priest.
“Father Harper,” Purdue smiled. “So good to see you again!”
“You as well, my friend,” the big man in his black cassock smiled as he shook Purdue’s hand, locking his other hand over. “I must say you look amazing. Since I last saw you you’ve actually reversed your aging, it seems.”
“You’re too kind, Father,” Purdue said. “Let me introduce you to my lovely companion, the Countess Baldwin, Toshana.”
Father Harper held his poise very well, leaving no indication that he knew who she was. However, Toshana was very reluctant to shake hands with the priest.
“This is the man who saved my life a year ago, Father Harper,” Purdue told his lady. To keep up her charade, Toshana quickly shook Father Harper’s hand and let go promptly. Purdue found her behavior bewildering, as if touching the priest repulsed her.
“Lovely to meet you, Countess Baldwin,” Father Harper said, feeling sick to his stomach at her presence. Both of them played their roles convincingly for the sake of Purdue.
“Where’s Sam, Father?” Purdue asked. “And who is the lady? I thought Nina would be here?”
The priest thought it best no to share too much information about Nina, or about the Militum members and what he and Sam had discussed before leaving Oban. Toshana made him cringe, and he was not about to spill the whole lot in front of her.
“Nina unfortunately couldn’t make it. She is… tied up… in something, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing her soon,” Father Harper told Purdue. “The lady with us is a friend of Sam’s. From work. She’s been feeling a bit under the weather.”
“Who is Nina?” Toshana asked.
“The historian I usually hire to join us on excursions, my dear. She would have been such a help during this search,” he told his new lover amicably. He tried to make Nina sound like nothing more than a colleague, but inside he was very unhappy that she hadn’t made it. The things that Sam had reported to him on the Skype session simply did not occur to him, even though he had heard them perfectly.
Father Harper could see Purdue’s inner turmoil. It reminded him of a battered spouse siding with their attacker, even while they were in peril and sorrow. The billionaire was trapped in the thrall of the striking woman, willing to appease her at all costs. But somewhere in his eyes, the priest could see the man’s common sense struggling to comprehend his own actions.
Jan Harris came walking across the dining hall, wiping the corners of her mouth gracefully. Father Harper introduced her formally, but she refrained from shaking hands and simply nodded. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said, her eyes resting a beat too long on Toshana’s beauty.
So this is the hussy we’re all going to get killed over, she thought to herself as she scrutinized Toshana’s features.
“Where is Sam, Miss Harris?” Purdue asked. “I haven’t seen the lad for months and now he pulls a disappearing act.”
“Um, he did ask me to apologize on his behalf, but he said he’ll join us at the Temple Mount later,” she told everyone, keeping her tone docile and oblivious. Toshana, however, couldn’t take her eyes off Harris. She stared at the professional looking woman without reservation.
“Do I know you?” she asked Harris.
Father Harper’s heart skipped a beat.
“I don’t think so,” Harris smiled falsely. “If we’d ever met, I know I would have remember you, ma’am.”
“Oh, call me Toshana, Janet. I’m not one of your elders, am I?” Toshana smiled, but her friendliness was cold and affected, leaving the reporter dumbstruck. Only people who watched her on television news knew her as Janet. Toshana looked at Father Harper. “So, why are we going back to the Temple Mount, Father Harper? I think David has been quite clear that the object we seek is not there.” She smirked condescendingly, mocking the priest, “Unless you wish to eat the soil of your god’s broken house.”
An old reflex of the priest’s bolted through his body, one from when he used to be one of the Militum sect. It was a need to grab the bitch and throttle her until her breath abandoned her lungs, making her limp and cold. But he was not to react like that anymore. Now he was required to allow the lashes of the devil and not to lose his composure in the face of evil’s ridicule.
“Had you done your research correctly, madam, you may have learned that the crown was hidden there by a Second World War chaplain,” he retorted with a soft tone that was deadly serious, “and that his daughter was the only person who knew of its removal. It is her we have to find to locate the crown, of course, and that clue lies inside the premises, where only I know to look. Only those who buy their way to divinity will bite the dust of the Templars’ tracks.”
27
Too Much Information
Purdue could feel the tension between the priest and Toshana. He did not want to displease either of them, especially since Father Harper was predominantly there to assist him in appeasing his beloved. Having one there to please the needs of the other placed Purdue in a bit of a tight spot, but he was David Purdue, a smooth talker who could sell the Bible to the Devil if he used his charm.
“Father, shall we check you in at the desk?” Purdue said cordially, interrupting the unholy pissing contest.
“Oh, no need, Mr. Purdue,” Harris smiled, “we already checked in at a quaint little B&B in the Old City. We thought we’d stay there while we investigate the site Father Harper is referring to. We fail to see why we should spend exuberant amounts for a bed and a cup of tea,” Harris jested, evoking a hearty chuckle from Purdue and the priest. Her remark, however, did not amuse Toshana.
“Bed and a cup of tea,” she scoffed, hooking her arm into Purdue’s. “Thankfully, our suite has a shower as well.”
“Father,” Purdue almost hollered, “we shall meet you at the Temple Mount in say, thirty minutes?”
“Certainly, David,” Father Harper smiled.
“I assume you know that non-Muslims enter through the Gate of the Moors, right? I mean,” Purdue snickered sheepishly, “you are a man of the cloth after all. I suppose you know just about everything about the Temple Mount.”
The priest glanced at the piercing eyes of the Countess and smirked, “Oh, I know it intimately.”
Purdue and his mistress turned on their heel with a quick salute from the billionaire, and as they walked away, Harris could feel the tension lift. “Fucking hell! What a bitch.”