The Templar Salvation (2010) Read Online Free Page A

control of his body long enough to eke out a few words.
    “What do you want from me?”
    “The same thing you want, Professor. I want to find it. The trove that the letter refers to. I want it.”
    Behrouz’s mind was drowning in a sinkhole of unreality. He struggled to sound coherent. “I’m trying to find it, but—it’s like you said. I’m having trouble figuring it out.”
    The stranger turned to face him only briefly, but his hard stare felt like a physical blow. “You have to try harder,” he told Behrouz. Facing forward again, he added, “You have to try as if your life depended on it. Which, in this case, it does.”
    He swerved off the main road and turned into a narrow street that was lined with shuttered storefronts, where he pulled over. Behrouz gave the surroundings a quick scan. There was no one around, and no lights from the buildings above the shops.
    The stranger hit the start/stop button to kill the engine and turned to face Behrouz.
    “I need you to know that I’m serious about this,” he told him, still with the infuriatingly smooth tone. “I need you to understand that it’s very, very important to me that you do everything possible— everything —to complete your work. I need you to fully grasp how crucial it is to your well-being, and to that of your wife and daughter, that you devote all your time and energy to this matter, that you dig deep into any untapped resources inside you and figure this thing out for me. From this point onwards, you should be thinking about nothing else. Nothing.”
    He paused to let his words sink in. “At the same time,” he added, “I also need to make sure you understand that acting on any silly fantasies you might have about going to the police for help would be, frankly, catastrophic. It’s vital that you understand this. We could walk into a police station together right now and I guarantee you the only one of us who would suffer any consequences would be you—and they would be, again, catastrophic. I need to convince you of this. I need you to have absolutely no doubt about what I’m prepared to do, what I’m capable of doing, and how far I’m prepared to go, to make sure that you do this for me.”
    The stranger palmed the key fob and clicked open his door. “Maybe this will do the trick. Come.”
    He climbed out.
    Behrouz followed him, exiting the car on wobbly legs. The stranger walked around to the back of the car. Behrouz glanced upward, looking for any sign of life, wild notions of making a run for it and yelling for help swelling and bursting inside him, but he just joined his tormentor, walking listlessly as if he were in a chain gang.
    The stranger hit a button on the key fob. The trunk of the car clicked open and hovered upward.
    Behrouz didn’t want to look in, but as the stranger reached in, the professor couldn’t rein in his eyes. The trunk was mercifully empty, except for a small travel case. The stranger slid it closer to the edge of the trunk, and as he unzipped it, a putrid smell accosted Behrouz’s nostrils, causing him to gag and falter back a step. The stranger didn’t seem to mind it. He reached into the bag and casually pulled out a mess of hair, skin, and blood that he held up for Behrouz without the merest trace of hesitation or discomfort.
    Behrouz felt the contents of his stomach shoot into his throat as he recognized the severed head the stranger was holding up.
    Miss Deborah. His daughter’s favorite teacher.
    Or what was left of her.
    Behrouz lost hold of his body, retching violently as his knees buckled. He collapsed to the ground, gagging and spewing and gasping for air, unable to breathe, one hand clamped across his eyes to block out the horror of it.
    The stranger didn’t allow him any respite. He bent down to his level, grabbed the professor by the hair and yanked his head up so he couldn’t avoid being face-to-face with the hideous, bloody lump.
    “Find it,” he ordered him. “Find this trove. Do