The Templar Prophecy by Mario Reading Page A

streetlamps. The chrome glistened like shot silk.
    â€˜And how do you know my real name? Tell me that? How do you know I’m not called Pope? I’ve told no one that here. I’ve just let them make their own assumptions.’ Hart realized that he was sounding petulant and needy, like a fatally compromised man in a street brawl trying to act tough.
    The Lincoln drew up behind Colel Cimi and its driver got out. He was wearing a white Guayabera shirt and a simple pair of dark trousers, not the chauffeur’s uniform, peaked cap and polished boots Hart might have expected given the immaculate condition of the car. He held the rear door open, his expression indicating that he didn’t much care whether Hart got in or not.
    Hart allowed Colel Cimi to help him to his feet. He was shaking like a man with the ague and was thus far too weak, or so he now managed to persuade himself, to effectively resist her ministrations. The truth was that he found her presence – and her offer of unfolding secrets relating to his father’s life – tantalizing.
    Hart sank back onto the rich burgundy leather seats. Despite the twitches and jerks emanating from his central core, Hart’s photographer’s eye noted that the seat covers were not original but had been installed at some later date. As had the leather on the dashboard console and the French polished walnut inlays. Money had been lavished on this car.
    The chauffeur reached across and tucked a blanket, patterned with geometric Maya designs, around Hart’s legs. It, too, was a work of art.
    Hart noted that Colel Cimi did not help tuck him in. Maybe she thinks that what I have is catching, he told himself. Or maybe she lacks the maternal touch? There was something about the woman that was as icy cold and polished as the black jade pendant that she wore around her preternaturally elegant neck.
    The car started out of town. Hart decided that he no longer cared what happened to him. Kidnap? Extortion? Murder? It was all the same in the end.
    His shakes were getting worse. He began to pitch and buck against the seatback as if he were tackling Niagara Falls on a lilo.
    â€˜Take one of these, Mr Hart. It will calm you down.’ Colel Cimi inclined towards him. In her hand was a pill and an open bottle of mineral water.
    â€˜No, thanks. I never take pills from strange women.’
    â€˜As you wish.’
    Hart clutched his knees. He began cursing his runaway body. What was wrong with him? Had his system decided to take a nosedive after twenty years of accumulated tension? Or had the shock of his father’s unexpected death finally flipped his off switch for good? He had a sudden image of himself as a drooling, juddering, straitjacketed zombie being forcibly sectioned inside an asylum for bewildered photojournalists.
    â€˜I’m okay, you know. Really. It’s probably only a touch of malaria.’
    â€˜I thought you said you’d been drinking?’
    â€˜I lied. I wanted to put you off. I thought you were playing the Good Samaritan.’
    â€˜Hardly that.’ She laughed. ‘Hardly that.’
    The rest of the journey was conducted – apart from the occasional litany of curses from Hart – in silence. By the time they drew up at the back of Colel Cimi’s isolated ranch house, Hart’s shivering was in temporary remission. He staggered out of the car with the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders. Despite the residual heat of the day, he felt chilled to the bone.
    â€˜You have sweated though your clothes, Mr Hart. Would you like to put on something of your father’s? He was about the same size as you.’
    â€˜I’d rather not.’
    â€˜Ah. “I’d rather not.” I recognize the quote. It is from Herman Melville’s Bartleby, The Scrivener . One of your father’s favourite stories.’
    Hart stared at her in horror. ‘I never knew my father, Señora Cimi. So I