Treasure Templari

by David S. Brody

  “Yes. She thinks the tower might be the hiding place. It turns out there are lots of tower clues in this mystery.”

  Bruce squinted through the rising sun out to the open sea, as if the answers lay out there someplace. “Well, it can’t be both places. Can you take a harder look at Utrecht? Maybe eliminate it as a possibility?” He paused. “Or is it possible the treasure started in Utrecht and then was brought to the Neversink area?”

  “It’s also possible some of the treasure was put in both places,” Cam replied.

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Good point.”

  “One more thing, Bruce.” Cam waited, proceeding only when Bruce remained silent. “It’s also possible we’re seeing elephants in the clouds with all this. It might be that there is no map, no treasure. I mean, think about all the great treasures in history—El Dorado, Montezuma’s, Oak Island, King Solomon’s mines, Blackbeard’s. Not to mention the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. None of them has ever been found. You have to wonder: Did they ever really exist?”

  Bruce normally didn’t get philosophical. But when he did it was usually while sitting on a boat, the sun on his face. He thought back to what Bertrand had said, at the Hunebedden site in the Netherlands, just before the Mossad arrived to take a finger. “I’m not sure it matters if they’re real or not. All that matters is what people believe. When it comes to treasures, people chase the dream, not the reality.”

  In fact, Bruce was counting on it.

  Sitting in a rental car sipping coffee, Gus waited outside Bruce’s Harbor Towers condominium complex. Christ, he remembered when these concrete towers were built as affordable housing in the 1970s, as a way to get people to move to the abandoned waterfront. When they were converted to condos a decade later, you could pick one up for less than a hundred grand; today you couldn’t touch a decent-sized unit for less than a million. Bruce, of course, had bought on the cheap. Gus sniffed. All those fucking Monopoly games had trained him well.

  There. Bruce’s royal blue Corolla pulling out of the condominium garage. Gus had been sitting here almost two hours and had seen a steady stream of luxury sedans and SUVs. It spoke to Bruce’s maturity that he drove the old clunker and didn’t care what the neighbors thought. The Bruce who Gus had grown up with had been obsessed with the appearance of affluence; it was when he stopped caring what others thought that Bruce had found himself. And broken off their partnership. Well, Gus was back in Bruce’s life now, like it or not.

  He followed Bruce south along the surface road, from which Bruce exited onto the Mass Pike heading west. Gus had missed most of the Big Dig while in jail. But for all the criticism and cost overrun, he had to admit that burying the main north-south highway had made the city both more navigable and more attractive. Not to mention doubling the value of waterfront real estate. Gus shook his head. Bruce sure was a lucky bastard. And he knew his real estate, a fact Gus was banking on.

  Gus settled in a few cars behind Bruce, who cruised the middle lane at 65. Gus resisted the urge to tailgate the car in front of him; even while trailing someone, going this slow drove him crazy. He lit a cigarette. “Christ, Bruce, you drive like a fucking old lady.” Twenty miles west of the city Bruce exited in Framingham, weaved his way into an office park and stopped. Gus slowed enough to make sure he knew which office Bruce entered, then drove past and waited.

  Twenty minutes later, Bruce exited and returned to his car, carrying a large manila envelope. As he drove away, Gus jogged to the office, some kind of science lab. At the reception area he glanced at his watch and put on his most charming smile. “I think I’m late. I was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago for a meeting with Bruce Arrujo.”

  The receptionist, heavy-set and over-perfumed, chewed gum and tapped a pen nervously on the desk. I’d be nervous too if I were that fat, Gus thought. What kind of guy is going to want her? And, honey, the perfume is not going to help.

  “I’m sorry. He just left.”

  “So I missed the meeting?” Gus let his shoulders fall.

  “It wasn’t much of a meeting. He and Mr. Nettles just talked out here in the reception area.”

  Back in his rental car, Gus found the company web page and pulled up a picture of Nettles. He checked his watch. Late morning. Well, at some point the son-of-a-bitch would have to come out for lunch. And then Gus would find out what was in that envelope.

  Bruce phoned Norman as he cruised down the Mass Pike back to Boston, the manila envelope in the seat next to him. He had scanned the report with his phone, just in case something crazy happened, like the envelope blew out the window or something. “Bad news. That sword came back as 1700s.” Bruce had shown the pottery to an expert as well. “The pottery also. Colonial era.”

  Norman exhaled. “Post-contact. I was afraid of that. Well, that was my Hail Mary pass.”

  “Sorry.”

  Norman let out another long sigh. Bruce actually felt bad for him, knowing how much he had invested, both financially and emotionally, in the resort. “Okay then. Foreclosure is Monday.”

  “You want me to come down for it?”

  “Really? You’d do that?”

  “I need to be in New York again next week anyway; I’ll see if I can juggle my schedule. And, like I said, I used to do foreclosure work. Sometimes there’s some funny business going on at those auctions.” Bruce, in fact, had himself sometimes been behind the shenanigans. “I’d be able to keep an eye on things for you.”

  “I won’t be able to pay you.”

  “That’s fine, I don’t want to be paid.” Last thing Bruce needed was to have some kind of attorney-client relationship with Norman; the tightrope he was walking was precarious enough. “You owe me one, just leave it at that.”

  “Thanks, Bruce. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

  Bruce ended the call. “No. Actually, you don’t.”

  A bright November sun shone as Cam drove to the Registry of Deeds in Lowell for a closing. As he drove, he replayed in his mind this morning’s conversation with Amanda. When explaining things to her, he had been pretty sure he had figured out the mystery of the Just Judges panel: Navigational coordinates had been embedded in the landscape buildings of the original painting; these coordinates led to a site in the Catskills Mountains; the coordinates were confirmed by a second, secret cave map; this site matched a settlement believed to have been occupied by the Templars in the late 12th century, where the Templars had purportedly secreted some kind of treasure. Seemingly in validation of this conclusion, the painter of the 1930s reproduction copy of the Just Judges had altered the landscape buildings to hide these coordinates, probably in an effort to keep the Nazis from following the clues and finding the treasure. It made sense and, more to the point, it was exactly the type of encoding that both van Eyck and the Templars would have employed.

  So why was Cam still wrestling with this mystery?

  The voice of his old law school professor echoed inside his head: When building your case theory, you need to use every piece of evidence. If there is a piece of evidence that doesn’t fit, chances are you have the wrong theory. Along those lines, how did the Dom Tower in Utrecht fit in? Amanda had done some excellent research, identifying the tower as a key part of this puzzle. Were her findings mere coincidences? He bit his lip. No. He didn’t believe in coincidences. And neither, apparently, did Bruce, who was also uncomfortable with the Utrecht loose end.

  So, again, how did the Dom Tower fit into all this?

  And then it hit him. This was not a legal investigation, in which every piece of evidence was important and needed to be accounted for. This was a riddle, a mystery, a puzzle. And even the most rudimentary puzzles were designed to trick the solver, to throw them off course. Was that what Utrecht was? A red herring, an obvious solution meant to lead searchers in the wrong direction? The more Cam thought about it, the more he believed it to be so. Amanda had done meticulous historical research to identify the Dom Tower and connect the tower to the Duke of B
urgundy through his illegitimate son, David. But she had done so looking through the fog of history. In the early 1400s, when the Just Judges had been painted, these would have been obvious clues. Most people would have recognized the Dom Tower, much as people today recognize the Washington Monument. And most people would have known of the relationship between a powerful king and his acknowledged, albeit illegitimate, son. In other words, looking at this mystery through the eyes of a 15th-century problem solver, the Utrecht solution would have been the obvious one. In fact, Cam now believed, too obvious.

  Gus studied the science lab employee, Nettles, on his lunch break, watching as he pulled a premade sandwich from the Cumberland Farms display case, grabbed a store brand orange soda, and carefully counted his change. This was a man on a budget.

  Gus met him in the parking lot. “We can do this easy, or do it hard,” Gus said. He handed him five twenties. As he did so, he made sure Nettles saw the shiv in the sheath on his wrist. “I need a copy of the report you gave to Bruce Arrujo earlier today.”

  The man eyed him carefully. “I agree. We can make this easy or hard. Another hundred makes it easy.”

  Gus nodded. “I’ll be waiting outside your office. You get the rest of the money when I get the report.”

  Twenty minutes later Gus tore open a manila envelope. He wasn’t sure what to expect, though a metallurgy report was not high on the list. An old sword, found during a construction project in the Catskills. Really old, in fact—dating to the 12th century. What was that doing there? And, more to the point, what was Bruce up to? Gus located the property on Google maps. Nice land, along the river. He did more research. A resort. In fact, being foreclosed on, according to an auctioneer’s advertisement he found.

  Gus sat back and lit a cigarette. A foreclosure? Given Bruce’s history? Okay, then. Game on.

  Bruce took a deep breath and shuffled into a pizza place in Medford, not far from Tufts University. Mid-afternoon, so empty other than a couple of college coeds huddled over a basket of French fries and gravy. At least they weren’t meeting in the car wash bay again.

  Salvatore ambled in after him and nodded to the owner behind the counter. Through the front window, Bruce could see his Lincoln double-parked, a pair of goons leaning against it with their faces turned to the sun. As long as they stayed outside, and Bruce stayed in, he figured he’d be able to walk away from this meeting. Which he would count as a victory.

  “Your friend weaseled away.”

  Bruce nodded. Gus was a survivor.

  “You didn’t warn him, did you?”

  “Why would I? I’m the one who gave him up.”

  Salvatore held his eyes. “Whatever.” He pushed a slip of paper across. Written on it was the number ‘8513114.’

  “Is that a phone number?” Bruce asked.

  “No, it’s not a fucking phone number. It’s what you owe me. Eight million and change.”

  Bruce swallowed. “I don’t understand.”

  “That bust you stole from me? It cost me forty grand. Thirty years, eighteen percent interest, compounded monthly. Feel free to check my math.” He smiled. “Einstein called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world.” Leaning forward, the smell of pepperoni on his breath, he continued. “And I’m giving you a break on the interest rate. As you may know, counselor, eighteen percent is the maximum allowed under Massachusetts law. I wouldn’t want to be accused of breaking the law, you know?”

  Bruce straightened. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

  Salvatore stood. “Of course you don’t. So make me an offer. I’ve been asking around. I’ve heard you’re pretty resourceful. Nice little business, good connections in the art world. Not to mention a sailboat and a sweet waterfront condo and a classy broad.” He turned as he pulled open the door. “You’ve got a lot to live for. You’ll figure it out.”

  The phone call had come in earlier in the day, just as Jonas was opening the gym in Randolph, south of Boston. From Detlef, relaying a message from Katarina, which made it akin to a commandment from the Almighty himself. Or, in this case, herself.

  It had not taken Jonas long to gather together a team. Four women, all aspiring mixed martial arts fighters. And all, of course, of Aryan heritage. Nobody was stupid enough to try to train at the gym if they didn’t have at least one blue-eyed parent. And everyone knew that, in exchange for the state-of-the-art equipment and minimal membership fees, they were expected to help out a couple of times per month at rallies or other special projects. Like this one.

  “Change into workout clothes, like you were going for a run,” he instructed. “Then hop in the van. I’ll brief you on our mission during the drive.”

  Heidi was first to the van. Not surprisingly, she jumped into the front next to Jonas. Freshly perfumed, her blond hair fluffed and lipstick applied, she smiled broadly at him. “Road trip, eh?” Her accent was Dutch; she had come to the States for chiropractic school and never returned. “May we stop for ice cream on the way home?”

  “If the mission goes well, there’ll be no time for stopping.”

  She made a pouty face “And if we fail, you’ll want to punish us.”

  He couldn’t help but smile in response as three more woman piled into the back—a pair of big-boned sisters from a farm in Idaho who had come to the city to find husbands, and a former Olympic volleyball player married to a German banker stationed in Boston. There were two problems with Heidi. First, he found her attractive. Second, she knew it. Which meant one more strike and he was out. He would not—could not—mix business with pleasure. But were he to do so, she would be his choice. She wasn’t perpetually angry like so many others in their group, and he thought her tight, compact body would be a good match for his lithe frame. And, worst of all, he actually liked her, found her company pleasant. Wait. Was that the third strike?

  He shook the thought away. It didn’t matter. He had a mission to complete and, strikes or not, he would complete it.

  Amanda finished her lunchtime workout on the elliptical and stood at the refrigerator trying to decide between orange juice and cranberry. In the end she shrugged and mixed them together, the sweet and bitter blending together nicely. If only the rest of her world would come together so neatly.

  Cam had phoned from his closing, explaining that he thought the Dom Tower clue was a feint, a red herring. “It would have been too obvious to people back then,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  He had laughed. “With the Templars, nothing is certain. What was it Churchill said about the Russians? They’re a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. We can talk more about it when I get home.”

  But she remained unconvinced. The Dom Tower clue had not been so obvious—the tower image had been cut off two-thirds of the way down, for one thing, masking its real identity. And something else gnawed at her, something about the Duke of Normandy and his illegitimate son who had been made bishop, something from way back in her schoolgirl days…

  Before showering, she decided to spend a few minutes trying to grab the thread of the thought that eluded her. It took longer than she expected, but sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop, she happened upon the history of one Henry Beaufort. Beaufort, a contemporary of both Jan van Eyck and the Duke of Burgundy, was an English prelate and statesman known for his arrogance, greed and financial acumen. Like the Duke of Burgundy’s son David, Beaufort was an illegitimate but recognized child from a royal family, in his case being the grandson of King Edward III. What made Beaufort important to Amanda’s analysis was that he held positions simultaneously in both the church and state, serving as both Lord Chancellor of England and Catholic Cardinal. For this he was criticized, marking one of the earliest debates about the separation of church and state. It was this separation of power issue which had gnawed at Amanda—the Duke of Burgundy had, by appointing his son as bishop, effectively extended his power over the church as well as the state. The Duke was, of course, hardly unique in doing so—many monarchs
pursued a similar strategy. But it prompted Amanda to return her attention to the odd placement in the Ghent Altarpiece painting of the side-by-side Just Judges and Knights of Christ panels. Representatives of both the state (the judges) and the church (the monastic knights) were approaching the central Adoration of the Mystic Lamb panel. Yet, curiously, the outlawed knights were given the more prominent placement, closer to the sacred scene unfolding at the altar. And something else gnawed at her about the Knights of Christ panel: Why had the monastic knights been carrying the banner of Utrecht? If they truly were Knights of Christ, which was a Portuguese order, they should have been carrying a Portuguese flag, not that of a Dutch city.

  There was a lot here, a lot of questions and only a few answers. She refilled her glass with juice and returned to the table. On a whim, she entered the name Henry Beaufort along with Ghent Altarpiece in a Google search. Voila. A European art historian had identified the front judge in the Just Judges panel as none other than Henry Beaufort.

  Could this be a coincidence, or was van Eyck sending another coded message? She dug further, and what she found eliminated any possibility of coincidence. Van Eyck, it turned out, had painted Beaufort’s portrait in 1431 while visiting England, before completing the Ghent Altarpiece.

  According to the same art historian, what was especially noteworthy about the portrait (and Amanda never would have recognized this herself) was the odd hairstyle van Eyck had given Beaufort, who was normally portrayed with the long hair of his day. The artist had shortened Beaufort’s front hair with a sharp, razored line.

  Amanda did a quick Google search and could not find a single other portrait from this era with a similar hair style. The unique hair style exposed and highlighted two features of the English statesman’s face—1) his temple, and 2) his ear. This represented another of van Eyck’s famous word plays, another of the secret clues embedded in his paintings: By combining the words ‘temple’ and ‘ear,’ the painter communicated to the viewer the word ‘temple-ear’ or, when condensed, ‘Templar.’ The word play, in fact, worked in both the English and Dutch languages.