The Templar Inheritance

by Mario Reading

  ‘What? You don’t mean that stunningly photogenic twenty-seven-year-old Kurdish woman whose life you so heroically saved and whose photos you’ve been bombarding my editor with?’ Amira raised her eyebrows dramatically. ‘The one who was no doubt oozing with gratitude towards you once she’d managed to pull herself together after you shot the bomber. New girlfriend, John?’

  ‘She’s engaged to be married. So no. She’s not my girlfriend. Nor is she ever likely to be.’

  ‘Not for want of trying, I’m sure.’

  Hart slid the parchment back inside its protective cover. ‘Not even that. If you knew more about her life, you’d understand. She’s got no reason to be grateful to men for anything. And certainly not to me. In fact, to all intents and purposes, it was she who saved my life, and not the other way round. If she hadn’t known about the Red Interrogation House, we’d both have been mown down in the street during the first ten minutes of the attack.’

  ‘So why are you showing me this gobbledegook now?’

  ‘Because it’s not gobbledegook. Because in it my ancestor talks about a thing called the Copper Scroll. Something historians know for a fact existed, and which was believed by the Templars to hold the key to the secrets of the Temple of Solomon. Also of where to find Solomon’s hidden treasure, with which the Temple was to be funded.’ Hart jabbed his finger at the parchment in frustrated emphasis. He understood exactly who he was dealing with. Amira put work first and relationships second. In that way she was entirely predictable. And doggedly consistent. ‘Johannes von Hartelius knew he was going to die when he wrote this. He had nothing left to lose. So he left this parchment to posterity, knowing it would be sealed inside the Holy Spear by his executioners as a warning to others. In it he tells how he succeeded, where no one else had, in getting the scroll translated by the Yazidis in Lalish. It also tells us how and where he managed to hide it before the Hashshashin got their hands on him.’

  ‘The Hashshashin? Copper Scrolls? The Yazidis in Lalish? You can’t be fucking serious?’

  ‘I’m perfectly serious. The scroll, which was considered the greatest treasure of the Templars, went missing in 1198. Which coincides exactly with the dating of Johannes von Hartelius’s deathbed confession. Boreas 1198.’

  ‘Boreas? What’s that?’

  ‘It means winter. Boreas was one of the Anemoi. He was the Greek God of the freezing north wind that heralds winter. His other name was the Devouring One. He had snakes instead of feet, and he conjured up the wind by blowing through a conch shell. They say he could turn himself into a stallion and father colts simply by getting his mares to turn their hindquarters into the wind. Without the actual need for coition, in other words.’

  ‘Sounds ideal. I wish there were more men like him.’

  Hart refused to be derailed. ‘He lived in somewhere called Hyperborea. Which is the place beyond the north wind. A place of exile. A place beyond the pale. Which also happens to be where Hartelius hid the Copper Scroll.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ Amira rolled her eyes. ‘He hid the Copper Scroll in a place beyond the pale? And it says all that here? On this itsy-bitsy scrap of parchment? Extraordinary.’

  Hart threw himself back in his chair. Amira wasn’t the easiest person to convince of anything. Her first instinct, when offered unsolicited information, was to doubt it. It was what made her a first-class journalist. ‘Not the Boreas bit, no. Frau Erlichmann found all that out for me last year. But listen to this. I emailed a photograph of the new text you’ve got in your hands to Frau Erlichmann’s grandson, Thilo, and he took it straight over to his grandmother’s house.’

  ‘Frau Erlichmann?’

  ‘Oh come on, Amira. You remember Frau Erlichmann. The old lady who took me under her wing in Germany last year? The one who gave me her father’s malfunctioning First World War pistol? Well, she translated the manuscript for me from the Old German. I received Thilo’s reply containing her translation on the plane coming home. If the scroll is still where Hartelius says he left it, its discovery will be the biggest story since the Dead Sea Scrolls were stumbled upon by three Bedouin shepherds back in 1947.’

  ‘And where did Hartelius leave it? I assume he went into a little more detail than simply “beyond the pale”?’

  Hart laughed. ‘Ah. That’s the tricky bit. He left it in a place called Solomon’s Prison. The Zendan-e Soleyman.’

  ‘And where’s that? No. Don’t tell me. You haven’t got the faintest idea.’

  ‘Wrong, Amira. I’ve got a very good idea. It’s a hollow mountain in a precise geographical location. Legend has it that Solomon used it to incarcerate his prisoners – one myth has it that he even imprisoned monsters in there. There’s no way in but over the lip. And then there’s an immediate drop of nearly eight hundred feet to the bottom, which is entirely sealed off by sheer walls. No other way to enter or exit but down the vent. I suppose the prisoners were fed – if they were fed, that is – via a basket let down over the side. I’ve confirmed from the Internet that the mountain really exists. And hardly anyone ever visits it. And no one, as far as I can tell, has ever been allowed to climb down the funnel.’

  ‘You’re joking. A place like that will be oozing with climbers and risk-takers and pot-holers, or whatever they’re called.’

  ‘No, it won’t.’

  ‘So where is it then? Don’t keep me in suspense. North fucking Korea?’

  ‘No. But you’re closer than you think. It’s on pretty much the same latitude, both politically and geographically. It’s in Iran.’

  THIRTY

  Amira gave a vehement shake of the head. ‘They don’t let foreign journalists into Iran any more, or hadn’t you heard?’ She stared down at her iPad. ‘Yes. Here it is. Just as I thought. We kicked the Iranians out of their London embassy in November 2011, after the riots in Tehran in which the British Embassy was ransacked. Now any non-journalistic UK citizen who wants to visit Iran has to apply through their Dublin embassy, where they charge Britons a penalty fee of 180 euros apiece just for being British, and go through every application with a fine toothcomb. And if they can find any possible excuse to do so – like an ‘I’m off to your country to plunder the Copper Scrolls from Solomon’s Prison’ declaration – they refuse you an entry visa. According to gov.uk, individual travel is discouraged anyway – too difficult for the Iranians to police. And I can’t see you travelling over there with a tourist party, somehow, and breaking away from your group for the afternoon to go clambering down an eight-hundred-foot-deep pothole.’

  ‘I’m sure I can get around all that.’

  ‘I’m sure you can, Superman. But you’re forgetting one other thing.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘You’re a celebrity now.’

  ‘You have to be joking.’

  Amira struck her forehead with the heel of her hand. ‘You know, I always forget that you’re not a real journalist, John, but just some snapper who happens to have the word “journalist” tacked onto the end of his job description.’

  ‘Nicely put.’

  ‘Your name and face have just been splashed across half the world’s newspapers, or don’t you remember? You killed a suicide bomber, John. It’s something of a one-off. MI6 will probably be waiting at your flat to interview you. In fact I’m stunned they weren’t at the airport to greet you.’

  ‘You probably scared them off.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it. It’s something people tend to remember. You’ve no idea of the fuss you caused.’

  ‘But that was in Iraq, not Iran. Why should the Iranians give a shit about what I did in another country?’

  Amira rolled her eyes. ‘Because it is the Iranians who were almost certainly behind the bombing in As Sulaymaniyah.’

  Hart blew out his cheeks. In moments like this he wished he had done his homework a little better in terms of filtering through the news – but his profession consisted in supplying images to other people’s content, not in supplying that content hims
elf. That was Amira’s job. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Who else wants to undermine the creation of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan?’

  ‘The Iraqi state?’

  ‘Hole in one. And the Iraqi state is predominantly made up of Shia Muslims. Same as the Iranian state. And Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia are fighting it out to the death on Iraqi soil for influence and control of the Iraqi oil fields. And where are most of the richest Iraqi oil fields located? In Sunni Kurdistan. And what region, beyond Turkey, has the longest natural border with Iraqi Kurdistan? Iran. So it’s a welcome player in the anti-independent-Kurdistan league.’ Amira drew herself up. She stared across the table at Hart as if she were addressing a madman. ‘If the Iranians so much as sniff the fact that you might be entering their airspace, John, they will unleash their dogs of war. You won’t even make it past the airport transit bus. In my opinion they’ll put you directly on trial as a Western spy. A good show trial always cheers people up. If you’re lucky you’ll get life imprisonment. But I suspect they’ll want to dispose of you quicker than that. Their favourite method these days, as you no doubt know, is hanging enemies of state by crane in a public square.’ She moved behind Hart and yanked at his shirt collar. ‘Go look on Facebook. Or YouTube. You can see lots of clips of recent hangings. It’s not particularly edifying, I can assure you. Wait. Here. I’ll even summon one up for you on my iPad. There’s nothing like a good execution for livening up one’s day.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  Hart felt sick. The sequence of public hangings he had just watched had turned his stomach. He’d heard about them of course, but he’d never seen one. A crane hanging wasn’t like a conventional hanging, in which the condemned man’s neck snapped thanks to the drop. In a crane hanging the victim was slowly strangled by his own body weight. In some of the worst hangings, people from the crowd would run out and grab hold of the hanged person’s feet to add a little extra weight to the proceedings. He’d just seen one of those, thanks to Amira’s privileged access to some otherwise prohibited websites.

  ‘Then I’ll use my Johannes von Hartelius passport. The one I used in Germany last year.’

  ‘But it’s a fake.’

  ‘It got me out of England and onto the continent. And no one questioned it.’

  ‘But it’s still a British passport, not a German one. The Iranian Embassy in Dublin will check it out big time.’

  ‘What can they do if they find it’s a fake? Get in touch with MI5? Hardly. All they’ll do is keep it, and I won’t be any the worse off then, will I?’

  ‘Oh God.’ Amira paced round the room like a lioness in a cage. ‘I can’t believe you’ve been in this profession for nearly twenty years and I still have to change your nappies. You’re all heart and no head, John. It’ll be your downfall one day.’ She stopped her pacing and stared at him. ‘No. The Iranians won’t get in touch with MI5 and hand you in. They’re not that stupid. They will okay your visa and lie in wait for you at Teheran Airport. . .’

  ‘Tabriz.’

  ‘Tabriz Airport then, and take you straight into custody, knowing they have a complete fool on their hands whose story they can manipulate in any way that pleases them. You’ve just been to Iraq, where you killed a man, albeit in self-defence. Then you try to enter Iran using a false passport. Clearly you work for MI6. You will be gifting the Iranians a massive propaganda coup against your own country. Not that I give a damn about MI6, but I do give a damn about you. . .’

  ‘Thank you, Amira.’

  ‘. . .and so I want you to give up on this stupid obsession you have with your family’s distant past, and your ancestor’s even more dubious role in it, and do something sensible with your life. I’ve just told you that you can write your own ticket now. Get in touch with my editor and propose something to her. She’ll commission you like a shot. Star photojournalists with name recognition are few and far between. Believe me. I know. We’ll even collaborate on something again. You take the shots and I’ll write the story. It’ll be like old times. Except that you’ll get the double-page byline this time, and not me. That should make up for all those years you spent in the doldrums – and pander to your male vanity to boot. A double whammy.’

  Hart stood up. He gave Amira an abrupt nod. He felt both angry and subdued at the same time – as if he’d just missed being gored by a wounded buffalo thanks to his own crass stupidity in following it into the undergrowth. ‘Cheers for the meal, Amira. And the advice. And the offer. And the fascinating but gruesome PowerPoint presentation. But I’m dog-tired. So I’m going to head back to the Frontline Club, like I said, and use the room I have booked there to get some rest in. I’m due at my mother’s tomorrow.’

  ‘And you’re not going to Iran?’

  ‘Probably not, if all that you say is true. But I am going back to Iraq. I have unfinished business there. I need to find out, on the ground, if there is still some halfway rational way I can get across the border and check out my ancestor’s story about the Copper Scroll.’

  There were moments in her relationship with John Hart when Amira felt like wailing out loud. When God invented obstinacy, she decided, He must have used John Hart, or someone very much like him, as His template. ‘But the stupid bastard wrote on that piece of parchment eight hundred years ago, John. Eight hundred fucking years. And even a thirty-year time gap would be too long. What do you think this scroll of his will look like now? If you even find it, that is.’

  ‘It was made of copper, Amira, so it won’t have rusted. It will only have oxidized and then turned green. And the verdigris corrosion may well have protected it. Look at the Statue of Liberty.’

  ‘The Statue of Liberty is barely a century old.’

  ‘A century and a quarter, actually.’

  Amira stifled a groan. ‘I can see that nothing I say or do is going to change your mind.’

  ‘Nothing. No. By rights I should have died over there in Iraq. It was a miracle that I didn’t. And it’s not the first time such a thing has happened to me. I think God may be trying to tell me something. Something important. About priorities maybe.’ Hart collected his overnight bag and coat from the one uncluttered table in the hall. ‘I need to go back there. I need to work things through.’

  ‘Then at the very least will you promise me that you’re not going back there to get inside your cute little translator’s pants?’

  Hart rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘I am not going back to Iraq because of Nalan Abuna.’

  ‘Promise me.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Right then. I don’t really know why I’m doing this. But I’ll approach my editor on behalf of both of us. See if I can get you on the payroll for a piece about you and your piss-arse ancestor. And we’ll interleave the story of your close shave into it. I started this whole thing, so I’ll finish it. Do yourself one favour, though. Take some shots of the Red Interrogation House while you’re over there. And the place where you killed the terrorist. Bloodstains and suchlike. The shell of the blown-out cafe where you were when the bomb went off. Maybe even the skeleton of the car that contained it if it’s still there. Fill the thing in a bit. With you and Miss Dinky-pants in some of the pictures. And when you’ve got the whole sorry mess out of your system and you’re ready to talk to me, call me over, and I’ll write your story for you. Do we have a deal?’

  Hart hesitated. He knew Amira far too well not to suspect some subtext behind her sudden change of heart. But he also knew that she was first and foremost a journalist, and that this fact coloured everything she did.

  He nodded. ‘We have a deal.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Erbil, Iraq

  WEDNESDAY 8 MAY 2013

  Scarcely six days had passed since Hart had said goodbye to Nalan Abuna for what he had supposed would be the final time. But he had thought about her constantly in the days that followed – days in which he had tried, but failed, to focus his mind solely on the deterioration of his mother’s Alzheimer’s, and o
n the increasing mental fragility of her long-time partner and carer, Clive.

  His solemn promise to Amira that he was not returning to Iraq because of Nalan had been somewhat cavalier, therefore. But Amira’s jealousy made it next to impossible to deal with her rationally. After all, Hart told himself, they’d been living apart for nearly a year now, but Amira clearly felt she owned a part of him. Still tried to punch his ticket whenever she could. It wasn’t reasonable. It wasn’t acceptable. But it was there. Still. There were moments in life when a man had to move forwards, and this was one of them.

  Hart had every intention of searching for the Copper Scroll if it was humanly possible to do so – the very thought of its existence created a void in his stomach that he knew he would need to fill or go mad. But the prospect of seeing Nalan again, even though she was explicitly promised to another man, overrode whatever passed for stable logic in his mind. One thing bled into another, as it were. No Copper Scroll without Nalan – and without Nalan his search for the Copper Scroll would be a pointless exercise anyway. He would as soon be capable of landing unassisted on the moon as he would be of getting into Iran unaided. So, after a certain amount of prevarication, he had phoned.

  Nalan had seemed surprised to hear from him again so soon. But he had swiftly reminded her of the manuscript he had shown her in the Red Interrogation House cellars, and explained the bare bones of the translation to her, and of how his newspaper was unexpectedly commissioning him to take the thing a step further. As a result of this he would be able to pay her well above the daily market rate for her continued assistance, with an added bonus at the end of their collaboration if the story actually led anywhere. Surely this would help her with her imminent marriage plans? No? After a little more persuasion, Nalan agreed to go back on the payroll.

  Hart’s first suggestion had been that she should meet him at Erbil International Airport, but for some reason Nalan had rejected that idea out of hand. They had finally arranged to meet inside the 7,000-year-old Citadel of Erbil, at the place where the guided tours generally started. Nalan was a registered guide as well as a qualified translator, and so this would not seem out of the ordinary. Hart had no idea why she was being so cautious, but he was sufficiently up on Arab and Kurdish customs to know that things were done differently in Iraq than they were in London. There were parameters. Bridges one couldn’t cross. Hart sensed that he would need to keep everything on a very formal level indeed, despite the unprecedented intimacies that he and Nalan had shared as a result of the bombing.