Lost City of the Templars by Paul Christopher

window at the mud.
    “Because we’re going to need this little bird when we come back this way and I want her to be here when we do,” said Rogov. “We’ll tie the old bird up, get out our goods and then find a place to hit Holliday and his friends.”
    •   •   •
    Francisco Garibaldi, playing the part of Lord Jonathon Gibbs, third Baron Vauxhall, sat in the dining hall of Stonehurst Hall perfectly dressed in evening clothes, as were the other guests around the table, most of whom had come for the grouse shooting the following day. The women were equally well dressed, including Grayle’s dark-haired and extremely aristocratic-looking wife, the Duchess Caroline, who, by Garibaldi’s estimation, appeared to be at the top of the social heap among the women, all of whom were the wives of earls, viscounts, marquises and a few barons and baronets at the bottom of the heap. The priest was glad he’d studied up on terms of address on the plane in from Rome; one misstep and he would have been exposed as the imposter he was.
    The meal, served by assorted footmen, with Beamish, Lord Grayle’s butler, pouring the wine, was a little extreme for Garibaldi’s slightly more plebeian taste: oysters, watercress soup, shrimp mousse, filet mignon, rack of lamb or roast squab, all with asparagus vinaigrette and pâté de foie gras, followed by a fruit and cheese plate and a variety of pastries. Each course was served with the appropriate hock, burgundy, Chablis, sherry or port.
    Eventually all good things came to an end. The women withdrew to the drawing room, leaving the men to their brandy and their cigars. After half an hour of discussion, mostly about the relative qualities and differences between Purdey Doubles and Holland & Holland Over-and-Unders, the men “went through” and joined the women. Grayle hung back.
    “A word?” Grayle said to Garibaldi.
    “Certainly, Your Grace,” the priest replied.
    “In the library, then,” said Grayle, ushering Garibaldi through a pair of ornate doors and into a large room. The walls were covered with books that looked as old as some of the ones in the Vatican Library. The high, ornate ceiling featured a central frieze that seemed to depict the Battle of Waterloo in excruciating detail.
    “Whiskey?” Grayle asked, half filling a crystal tumbler at a drink stand off to one side.
    “No, thank you,” said Garibaldi.
    “Do sit,” said the duke, indicating a comfortable club chair. The priest did so and Grayle followed suit, sitting across from him. “Now, then,” said Grayle, taking a swallow from his glass. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
    “Certainly,” said Garibaldi.
    “The last time we met, you said you had something you wanted to show me. What is it?”
    Garibaldi reached into the pocket of his dinner jacket and took out a single large, uncut and unpolished diamond. He leaned forward and placed it on the burled walnut table between them. Grayle picked up the stone and hefted it in his hand.
    “Twenty carats in the rough,” he said. “And it’s not alluvial. It’s from a kimberlite pipe.”
    “That’s right,” said Garibaldi.
    “South Africa?”
    “No, Your Grace. Brazil.”
    “I don’t believe you. There are no pipes large enough to mine this size in Brazil.”
    “Yes, there are,” said Garibaldi. “This diamond was mined there four hundred years ago.”

11
    Holliday and the others arrived at the Gardens of Babylon in the late afternoon of the following day. They found the small cove and the broad brown sand beach exactly the way Fawcett had described it in his secret journal. Above the beach was a large shelf of slatelike stone. In the journals, Fawcett wrote that he had decided to camp there. Beyond the shelf of rock, the jungle began.
    “If it was good enough for old Percy,” said Peggy, “I guess it’s good enough for us.”
    They pulled the Zodiacs as far up the beach as possible, then drove pegs deep into the sand and tied the