Hillary Read online

  “You’ve heard of the Knights Templar? Ever since Sir Walter Scott wrote Ivanhoe, the Templars have been used to pack the pages of novelists with tales of secret societies that have kept alive down through the centuries something no one else was supposed to know. It’s all nonsense, of course. The Templars weren’t formed to keep secret some esoteric knowledge; they were formed to be what someone called ‘the sword arm of the Church in defense of the Holy Land.’ What we forget, what most of us still don’t know, is that the Crusades were at first a great success. Jerusalem was conquered, recaptured from the Muslims who had taken it from the Christians.

  “The Templars were motivated by what today we would call religious fanaticism. A Templar was part of a religious order. He took a vow of obedience, which meant that he obeyed without question, and without hesitation, any command he was given. He also took a vow of abstinence and poverty; he gave up both sexual intercourse and all his worldly belongings. These were men, all of them from the families of the aristocracy, who gave up everything for the chance to die for Christianity. Because they could not marry, could not have children, and could not keep any of their wealth for themselves, the Order of the Templars, like the Church itself, eventually became quite rich. They were formed to defend the Holy Land, but the headquarters of the two thousand Templars in France was a fortress in the middle of Paris, a fortress which at the start of the fourteenth century held the largest treasury in northern Europe. This was the beginning of their undoing, because, you see, the King of France, Philip the Fair, was at that time desperate for money.”

  Pearce chuckled. His small eyes lit up with mischief. Suddenly, without warning, he slapped the top of his desk with the flat of his hand and sprang to his feet. For a moment he stared out through the glass wall, out beyond the park toward the far horizon and the dark orange sky and the falling red ball sun.

  “Philip the Fair,” he repeated, the glow of amusement more pronounced on his cheek. “They had such wonderful names.” He turned back to Hart, sitting cross-legged in his chair. “My favorite was an English monarch of about that same era: Ethelred the Unready. Madison Avenue could work for years and never come up with something as devastating as that. What if we did that now, gave names like that to politicians?”

  “We have,” Hart reminded him. “We called Lincoln ‘Honest Abe’; Coolidge was ‘Silent Cal.’”

  With his hands clasped behind his back, Pearce stared down at the floor.

  “No, we would have had to come up with things like ‘Abraham the Magnanimous,’ ‘Woodrow the Intransigent.’” He began to warm to the subject. His eyes darted all around. “‘Herbert the Helpless,’ for Hoover and the Depression. ‘Richard the Reckless,’ for Nixon and Watergate. And for Constable…?”

  “Robert the Dishonest,” suggested Hart with a grim, satisfied smile.

  “Yes, precisely,” agreed Pearce. “And if Constable had read any history—any serious history—if he had known anything about the Knights Templar and the Crusades, he would have secretly envied Philip the Fair and the ruthless way he went about his business. The difference, of course,” added Pearce as he came around the desk and settled back in his chair, “is that if he had lived then he would have lacked the courage to do anything that decisive. His wife, on the other hand….”

  He let the possibility of what Hillary Constable would have done, how far she would have gone, linger unanswered in a way that left no doubt what the answer would have been. He went back to the story he had started to tell. Like most of the things that get passed down through the generations, most of what history deems it valuable to record, this was all about violence, but violence, that because it happened so long ago, could be viewed with all the detachment of inevitability.

  “Philip the Fair needed money. It was as simple as that. His kingdom depended on it. The Templar fortress was seized and, on that same night, every one of the Templars in France, all two thousand of them, were arrested. Nearly all of them were executed. That was in 1307. Four years later, in 1311, Philip reached an agreement with the Church. At the Council of Vienne, the Templar’s Order was abolished and its property transferred to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, an order originally created to provide care and sustenance to those injured in the Crusades but that now took on the same militant function as the Templars. They in turn paid over to Philip the debt he claimed he was owed from the Templars.

  “Two hundred fifty years pass, an enormous period of time from our perspective, but only a brief interval in the chronology of a family that traces its origins back to the beginning of France: the Knights of St. John defeat the Muslim leader, Suleiman II, at the siege of Malta. The leader, the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John that day in 1565, was named Jean de la Valette. Now imagine that instead of an American who—and I think this is true of most of us—can’t name all his great-grandparents, you were the direct descendant of a family like that, raised in a country whose history is measured in thousands of years. What do you look up to, what are you taught to remember? What is it you use to measure success? A better job, a better house, a more distinguished career than that of your father and his father before him? Or something that will once again change history and the world?”

  By nature shy and retiring, Austin Pearce spent his days poring over statistical charts and graphs, tracking the movements of the world’s markets, and his evenings reading the histories that fewer and fewer people seemed to care about. He could act with speed and decision when the occasion required it, and he could deliver a speech that was sharp and incisive, but in private conversation, when he wanted to speak nothing but the truth, he sometimes, like most of us, found it difficult to give adequate expression to what seemed so clear in his mind. He had been trying to explain to Bobby Hart, one of the few men he knew who could look past the usual time-worn categories and grasp the essence of things, why he believed Jean de la Valette was potentially a very dangerous man and all he had managed to do was describe a rich eccentric.

  “He’s a dangerous man!” he blurted out in frustration, slamming his hands on the arms of his chair, and then laughing in bewilderment at what he had done.

  “More dangerous than you know.” Hart said this with such a serious expression that Pearce’s laughter died in the air.

  “What do you mean—more dangerous than I know?”

  “You know about Frank Morris? You know what happened?”

  “Yes, of course. He was killed yesterday in prison. Terrible thing. But what does that have to do with…?”

  “Morris knew about The Four Sisters. He was taking money from them, but he didn’t know until much later what they were doing. The strange thing is that it wasn’t what you just told me. According to Burdick—”

  “Quentin Burdick, the reporter? What did he know about this?”

  “Damn near everything, as it turns out. He started working on a story about The Four Sisters months ago.”

  Astonished, Pearce gave Hart a puzzled look.

  “Burdick has a nose for things like this,” explained Hart. “He has a sense when something isn’t right. There were always rumors about Constable and money, where it came from, what Constable might have done to get it. That was the story, or the start of it, but Burdick didn’t have anything, nothing he could use. Then he stumbled on the name The Four Sisters, and as soon as he had that, Constable, who had been dodging him, suddenly wanted to talk. The night before they were supposed to meet was the night the president died. That’s why Burdick went to see Frank Morris, on the chance that Morris might know something and, because he had nothing left to lose, might be willing to talk. Morris was willing to talk, all right, but it wasn’t quite for the reason Burdick thought.”

  Hart was still troubled by what he had learned from Burdick just hours earlier; troubled, also, by the new dimension that had now been added by Austin Pearce. The fading sun behind him cast the remnant of his own shadow across the glistening hard surface of the desk that had stories of its own to tell. Hart h
ad the feeling as of time running out, of things happening beyond his grasp, of a danger he could not quite define. He had to tell Pearce about the president.

  “Constable did not die of a heart attack, Austin. He was murdered.”

  Pearce’s face turned ash gray.

  “Murdered? How? By whom?”

  Hart quickly shook his head. His eyes were immediate, determined.

  “I need to tell you about Morris first. Burdick went to see him out in California, in prison, and Morris told him everything. He did not know about Constable, he didn’t know how he had died, but he was almost certain that he had been killed and that it was because of The Four Sisters. Morris had taken money, not the bribery that got him convicted—that was a set-up, a frame. No, the money Morris took involved a lot more than anything they said he had done. Then Morris found out that The Four Sisters was not just interested in getting rid of obstacles to foreign investment; it was a conduit by which foreign governments could acquire a controlling interest in certain American companies, governments that wanted to influence what, as Morris put it, what we read and what we watch—books, newspapers, television, movies, everything. Morris never said anything about what you just told me: that The Four Sisters was using money from our government to finance a private war.”

  Pearce grasped immediately what had happened.

  “We caught it at different ends, the thread that runs through everything. It makes perfect sense. The Four Sisters uses money from a foreign source, or a set of sources, to do certain things here—buy into a company, get a controlling interest. Then it uses money it gets here—from the government, but also, perhaps, sometimes from those same companies—to do something in the Middle East someone doesn’t want the world to know about.”

  Pearce narrowed his eyes into a look of concentration that with each passing moment became more intense, until his expression had changed entirely, become bitter, bleak, the look of someone close to losing faith in everything.

  “He was murdered? The president of the United States? Robert Constable managed to put himself—managed to put the country—into a position where a thing like this could happen? But how did Frank Morris know, how did he find out it was murder?”

  “He didn’t,” replied Hart. “He guessed. It was the only thing that made sense. When Morris found out what The Four Sisters was doing, he went to the president. Constable was the one who had first suggested that he talk to some of their people. He told him that even if it meant the end of his career, he was going to stop it, go public with the story if he had to, but stop it any way he could. Constable told him not to worry, that everything was going to be all right, that—and this drove poor Morris crazy—they hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Why Morris trusted Constable, even Morris did not know. Maybe he just wanted to believe—maybe it was the only thing he had left to hang onto—that the president of the United States, even if it was Robert Constable, would not let anyone put the country at risk. But the next thing Morris knows, he’s under indictment and on his way to prison. He knew then that if he talked, the chances were that no one would believe him and that he might get killed. He talked to Burdick because he knew it was his last chance to set things straight, and because he knew he was dying of cancer and had only a few months left to live. They killed him just hours after Quentin Burdick’s second visit. That’s what convinced Burdick that Morris was correct in his suspicion that Constable did not die of a heart attack, that he was murdered instead. I told Burdick he was right.”

  “You told Burdick that he was right? But how could you…?” There was a new interest and, more than that, a sudden intuition, in the Pearce’s eyes. “She told you, didn’t she?—Hillary Constable.” Pearce caught the slight movement, the subtle change of expression that revealed Hart’s dilemma: that he would not lie and could not tell the truth. “It’s all right,” Pearce assured him. “I understand. But she must have told you for a reason. She obviously doesn’t want anyone else to know. The whole country thinks he died of a heart attack; the only question whether he was in bed alone the night he died,” he added with a distinct look of disapproval. “The way he lived, a rumor like that had to spread.”

  He started to say something more along that line: the conduct, notorious, flagrant, that would have barred someone like Constable from office in an earlier time, but which in the age of tabloid television had only added to his celebrity. The fact of what Hart had said suddenly came home to him in all its naked, twisted consequence. Like any second, delayed reaction, it hit with greater force.

  “Murdered! My God, someone murdered the president of the United States and no one knows about it? No one is doing anything about it?” Then he realized what he had missed. He looked at Hart in a different light. “You’re doing something about it, aren’t you? That was the reason she told you. But how did she…? No, never mind. The Four Sisters…Burdick—you both think…?”

  Pearce banged his hands down hard on the arms of the chair and leaped to his feet. He began to pace back and forth, three steps in one direction, three steps back, moving quicker with each step he took. He stopped abruptly, swung around, and faced Hart directly.

  “It’s possible. If Morris was murdered because he talked to Burdick—and Morris was a prison inmate serving a sentence for bribery, someone it wouldn’t be too difficult to dismiss as a liar and a thief. But the president! If he talked—and he was scheduled to see Burdick the next day…. But why would he talk? Yes, of course: because he thought Burdick knew more than he did, that he knew all about The Four Sisters and not just the name.”

  Pearce was still not satisfied. Something did not add up. He stood at the corner of the desk, looking down at the deep shining surface as if the longer he looked the more hidden layers he would discover beneath it, each one changing the meaning of all the others.

  “It wasn’t the money,” said Pearce with a certainty that to Hart was inexplicable. “If The Four Sisters—if Jean de la Valette—is involved in this, if he’s responsible for two murders, if he ordered the murder of the president of the United States, it was not because he was trying to keep Constable or Morris from talking about the money they might have been paid. Burdick said he didn’t have anything, nothing he could use, until he stumbled on the name—right? But it would have been almost impossible to trace whatever money was given to Constable back to Valette. With all those companies, all the various enterprises, all the ways money can be moved from one account to another—No, it wasn’t the money; it was something else, something that The Four Sisters, that Valette, could not afford to have known; something he was planning, and is probably still planning, to do. But kill the president? What could be worth that kind of risk?”

  Chapter Ten

  Bobby Hart was annoyed and, more than that, perplexed. First he was told that Clarence Atwood was out of town and would not be back until sometime the next week; then, when he made it plain that he would not be put off, that it was a matter of some urgency, he was told that someone would get back to him by the end of the day. No one did. That night Hart called Hillary Constable. An hour after they finished talking, Clarence Atwood finally called.

  “Sorry, Senator, this is my fault. With all changes going on—the vice president taking over—my staff has become a little overprotective. I’ll be glad to meet with you whenever you like.”

  He said this in an even tone of voice, calm, unflappable, exactly what one would expect from a man in his position. Hart told him he would like to see him the next morning. At first, Atwood seemed to hesitate, but finally agreed that they would meet at ten o’clock in his office. And then, just before midnight, Atwood called Hart at home and asked if he would be willing to meet the next night instead of the next morning, and at his apartment instead of at his office. He did not offer a reason and, after giving Hart his apartment number at the Watergate, did not wait for a reply. “I’ll see you then,” was all he said before he ended the call.

  Hart got off the elevator, glanced at t
he piece of paper on which he had jotted down the apartment number, and headed down the hallway. The door opened before he had a chance to knock. Without a word of welcome, Clarence Atwood pulled Hart inside, stuck his head out just far enough to look both ways down the empty corridor, and then quickly shut the door. Hart was wearing a sports jacket and a shirt open at the collar, but Atwood was still dressed in a dark suit and tie, the nondescript clothing of a Secret Service agent trained to blend in with the crowd.

  “Anyone follow you?” he asked as he led his guest into the living room. The curtains were drawn. There was nothing, not even a magazine, on the coffee table in front of the sofa that, along with two end tables and a single leather recliner, was the only furniture.

  “Did anyone follow me?” asked Hart, more puzzled by the minute. “Why would anyone be following me?” But even as he said it, he knew. “You think whoever did this knows someone is looking into it? But even if they knew that, why would they think I knew anything about it?”

  Atwood looked at the sofa, then at the chair, as if he were trying to decide exactly where to sit.

  “This isn’t your apartment, is it? This isn’t where you live?”

  Atwood ignored him. He gestured toward the sofa as he sat down on the recliner, but he sat too far back and had to push himself forward to the front edge of the chair. Tall and gangly, nothing seemed to fit him right. His suit pants were just a trifle short, the sleeves on his jacket just a shade too long. Everything about him seemed discordant and uneven; everything except his face, which was for the most part a perfect blank expression, the triumph of either a severe self-discipline or the successful purge of all emotion. He had a way of looking at you that almost made you doubt your own existence.