Templar 09 - Secret of the Templars by Paul Christopher Page B

Rome out of his jacket pocket.

    *   *   *
    Rupert Sheridan was on the phone before Lazarus reached the elevators. “I need to see Mr. Blackthorn immediately. We have a problem.”
    Michael Cole, grandson of founder Isaac Cole, had died unmarried and with no heir in 1962. Under the terms of the original partnership agreement, in such a situation the living partner left inherited his share. David Blackthorn had one child, Harrison. The elder Blackthorn and his wife, Sylvia, had died together in a plane crash from Charles de Gaulle to JFK, leaving Harrison as the sole owner of Blackthorn and Cole.
    Harrison Blackthorn kept the same small office on the third floor that his father had used, with the same elegant furnishings. There was a narrow window behind the Georgian desk and a beautiful old coal-burning fireplace on the far wall. The office had dark oak wainscoting and worn silk wallpaper above. The wallpaper had most likely originally been a dark red, but time had faded it to a pale pinkish hue. To some people entering the office, it was like looking into another time.
    Harrison Blackthorn was a somewhat severe-looking man in his mid-fifties. His crisply cut short hair was graying at the temples. He had hisfather’s hawklike nose and deep creases on either side of his large mouth. He was broad shouldered and thickening with age but he had obviously been a strong and active man in his youth.
    When Rupert Sheridan burst into Harrison Blackthorn’s office, the older man immediately stood up and went to the small bar made from a converted writing desk. He poured the flustered appraiser two inches of vodka and handed it to him.
    â€œSit down, drink this and pull yourself together.” Sheridan drained the glass in a single swallow.
    â€œYou said we had a problem,” said Blackthorn. “What it’s all about?”
    Sheridan spent the next ten minutes explaining the Interpol agent’s sudden appearance and his use of Hannah Kruger’s name.
    â€œDid he say anything about anyone else?” Blackthorn asked.
    â€œNo,” said Sheridan. “But if he knows about the Kruger woman, he must know everything.”
    â€œNot necessarily,” said Blackthorn. “But we’ll have to take a few precautions. We’ll have to talk to Bingham in Palm Beach and Scott in Miami. Call them now and tell them that I expect them in this office by ten tomorrow morning.”
    â€œWhat about the Leonardo committee?” Sheridan asked.
    â€œI’ll deal with them myself,” said Blackthorn. He stood up, went to the bar and poured himself a glass of Scotch, dropping two ice cubes into the glass. He lifted the vodka bottle, gesturing toward Sheridan. “A little more?”

12
    At precisely nine thirty the next morning Rupert Sheridan, Eric Bingham and his partner William Scott, who operated the Miami branch of the Bingham Gallery, sat in Harrison Blackthorn’s office on Madison Avenue.
    â€œI have been in touch with Leonardo and they are not pleased with the situation. On the other hand, we have a little more information to work with now. Lazarus is in fact an Interpol investigator. He was recently in Paris and is connected to Colonel John Holliday. There is a further connection in Rome that leads to Hannah Kruger. The result is that the whole arrangement—the entire existence of Leonardo as well as our own—is now in jeopardy.”
    â€œDo we have any options?” Bingham asked.
    â€œIn the first place, all movement of our ‘special’ inventory is to cease immediately. In the secondplace, records of the inventory must be either destroyed or removed from your premises. So far only the East Coast seems to be involved. The rest of the country is still in operation. However, in the interim, that will be closed down as well. Paul Roth’s operation in Chicago was the only one in the Midwest who actually used the Kruger woman. If we can