Valley of the Templars by Paul Christopher Read Free Book Online Page A

“He is my friend, Leonid, and be polite. Speak English.”
    “Who are you?” Maximenko asked Holliday, wetly clearing his throat.
    “A friend of Eddie’s.”
    “You sound American.”
    “I am.”
    “You fought in wars, yes? You look like you fought in wars.”
    “A few.”
    “What happened to your eye?”
    “Afghanistan,” said Holliday, not bothering toexplain the idiotic accident that had taken the sight from his right eye. Besides, with the scar from the attack at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, the wound looked much fiercer than it really was.
    Maximenko grinned around the fuming cigarette and used one hand to pull the Cuban shirt up over his expansive belly. The Tokarev didn’t waver in his other hand. A thick keloid scar snaked through the wiry gray hair from his navel halfway to his armpit. “Fucking mujahideen and those Stinger missiles you gave them,” he said, smiling. “A piece of the Flying Tank I was sitting in did that,” he said almost proudly. “An illiterate peasant with a goat for a wife shoots down the most sophisticated helicopter gunship in the world.” He pulled down his shirt. “The Taliban are still using them.” He laid the Tokarev on the table beside the bottle as though the comparison of war wounds had made them friends. “What is your name?”
    “Holliday. My friends call me Doc.”
    Maximenko nodded sagely. “The dentist gunfighter with tuberculosis. Best episode of
Star Trek
ever. ‘Specter of the Gun,’ twenty-five October 1968, Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon. Very surreal, like a Chekhov play. You see it?”
    It was Holliday’s turn to smile. “In reruns a hundred times. I was in Vietnam when it aired originally.”
    “Vietnam!” Maximenko said with a barking laugh.“In 1776 the Americans are the guerrilla fighters and the British are the imperialist colonial war machine. Two hundred years later the war is fought again but with the Americans as the imperialists and the Vietcong as the guerrillas. We never learn, do we?”
    “It seems that way,” said Holliday.
    There was a short silence. Finally Maximenko spoke up. “You didn’t come to this shit hole to talk to me about old war wounds and tell stories. Why are you seeing Leonid Maximenko in his retirement home?”
    “Domingo,” Eddie answered.
    “Domingo is an idiot,” said Maximenko.
    “You were KGB in Cuba until 1989—you know people,” Eddie insisted.
    “I defected,” said Maximenko. He poured another glass of Aguardiente and swallowed it down noisily as though he were drinking mouthwash. He butted his cigarette and lit another. “I retired. I saw the handwriting on the wall, but I saw it too late—call it what you want, but I cannot help you now. I’m too old. I’m out of touch.”
    “What do you know about the Ten Families, about the Knights of the Brotherhood of Christ?” Holliday asked.
    “I know enough not to say their name too loudly,” the Russian answered.
    “My brother has disappeared, Leonid. I must find him,” pleaded Eddie.
    “Forget Domingo. Forget he ever existed,” said Maximenko. “Believe me, it would be better for all of us.”
    “You know I can’t do that, Leonid. I must find him. You worked with him at the Ministry of the Interior. You worked with him at that place in El Cano…you must know something.”
    “What were you doing, listening at keyholes? No one was supposed to know about the El Cano unit.”
    “I was only a
niño
. No one paid attention to me, but I had ears. And none of this matters. What matters to me is my brother, Domingo. I must find him.”
    “I cannot help you.” The Russian shrugged.
    “Can’t or won’t?” Holliday said. Maximenko threw him a dark look, then turned back to Eddie.
    “All I can tell you is this—his last job at the ministry was as bodyguard and driver for Deborah Castro Espin.”
    Eddie looked horrified.
“La madre que te parió!”
    “Who’s she?” Holliday asked.
    “I tell you later,
compadre
,” answered