The Isaac Question: Templars and the Secret of the Old Testament (Templars in America Series Book 5)

by David S. Brody

  “Bloody hell,” she said. “How many other sites are there out there that we don’t know about?”

  “And how many have been plowed over or destroyed?”

  Amanda wandered to the narrow end of the teardrop and dropped to her knees, peering back toward the three larger stones. “Cam, I think there are some raised shapes in the ground in the middle of the circle.”

  He joined her. “You’re right. They’re not very high, but I think I see a circle and also maybe a crescent.”

  “That’s exactly what it is, Cam—sun and moon symbols.” She stood, straightened her denim skirt and wiped the dirt and grass from her knees. “Do you have a pen and paper? I want to sketch this.”

  He handed her his rucksack. “Okay, but while you sketch, take off your shoes.”

  “Nice try, cowboy.” She shook her head. “But I’m not going to rut with you here in a park, even for a chocolate chip cookie.”

  He chuckled. “When on Druid Hill, do as the Druids do.”

  “Um, no.”

  “Trust me. Take off your shoes. They say you can feel the earth’s energy here.”

  Amanda tilted her head. “Not a bad line, I have to admit. Okay then.” She kicked off her flats. “Do I need to remove my panties also?”

  He grinned back at her. “These sites,” he said, “were almost always built along lines where the earth’s energy was concentrated.”

  As he spoke, she walked slowly in a circle. “These energy lines were called ley lines,” she said.

  “Of course they were,” he smiled. “What better place for the Druids to get laid?”

  Amanda began to draw while he paced around, now barefoot himself. He thought he felt a tingling along the soles of his feet, but that could have just been him thinking about Amanda casting aside her panties.

  A few minutes later Amanda handed him her drawing.

  Druid Hill Stone Circle, Lowell, MA

  “Nice,” Cam said, folding it carefully. “Looks like we’re going to be busy on the summer solstice—we need to check out both this site and our chamber, sunrise and sunset.”

  She took his arm. “I’m looking forward more to our chamber.” She leaned into him, her breast against his bicep. “It offers much better privacy.”

  After their lunch at Druid Hill, Amanda returned home while Cam continued on to the office. She had an hour before Astarte got off the bus, which she planned to fill with more Baphomet research. The large manila envelope in their mailbox changed those plans.

  The envelope was addressed to her, with thick, red-inked handwriting across the bottom: “PERSONAL and CONFIDENTIAL.” She ripped the envelope open with some trepidation. A handful of photos tumbled out. What the …?

  She shuffled through the pictures. Cameron seated at a bar with a young woman with long red hair. Cam and the woman, this time with their hands touching. This time shot from behind, walking arm-in-arm down a hotel hallway. Cam inserting a key card into a door with the red-haired woman leaning against the doorframe, cleavage a few inches from Cam’s face.

  Blood rushed to Amanda’s cheeks as she unfolded the single piece of notebook paper that had encircled the photos. Her hands shook as she read the note. “I had my girlfriend followed last weekend because I thought she was cheating on me. These pictures were taken at a hotel near Reagan Airport last Saturday night.” Amanda’s vision blurred; she blinked and refocused. “I identified the guy based on the credit card receipt at the bar. I found his name in her college yearbook—they went to school together. Then I found you on the Internet. I thought you should know.”

  She put a hand against the wall to steady herself and sank to the floor in the front hallway. At some point Venus arrived to snuggle her chin on Amanda’s lap, but a cold darkness had clenched Amanda’s heart and the heart, in turn, had pumped the numbing gloom through her body like deadening venom. Time passed as if in a dream. Finally reality returned, and with it the icy feeling in her chest. This. Is. Not. Happening. Eyes closed and fists clenched, she exhaled a long, bitter breath and forced herself to focus and analyze.

  Had Cam really cheated on her? She gathered the photos, which had scattered when she dropped them, and peered at them again. No doubt the man at the bar was Cam. And he had indeed been at an airport hotel in Washington Saturday night. She had never suspected him before, but what other explanation could there be? She knew he had been a bit of a player before she met him—had old habits been hard to break? And if it happened once, had it happened before? No way could she marry a man she did not trust. Thoughts of her mother, and what her father had done to her in Marrakech, filled her mind…

  And then it hit her. Could she have been such a fool? Had Cam used the Superfund mess as an excuse to delay the wedding? Maybe he wasn’t ready yet, wasn’t sure he really wanted to get married. Her eyes pooled. Is that what this was all about? In a world where nothing seemed to make any sense, even the outlandish became possible…

  “Bloody hell,” she sobbed. “I never thought I’d become that woman.”

  The sun on his face, Bartol stood on his ladder, slathering paint on the roof soffit and planning his next moves as he stared at the Norumbega stone tower in the distance. Friday was turning out to be no different than Wednesday. After killing a Mossad agent on Thursday, that was probably a good thing.

  But things were different, no doubt. He had entered the battle, eliminated an enemy soldier. Which meant he was now in danger himself. He had poked a particular nasty nest of wasps—the Mossad would not rest until Raptor’s death had been avenged.

  They had probably found the agent by now. Wearing gloves to avoid leaving prints, Bartol had hoisted Raptor’s lifeless body into the trunk of the Israeli’s car, kicked dirt over the puddle of blood, driven the car to a nearby office park (being careful to stay far from any security cameras), jogged back to retrieve his landlady’s vehicle, and—driving within the speed limit—returned to the North End by early afternoon with a few bags of groceries and a full tank of gas. It would be difficult to tie him to Raptor’s death. In many ways, he did not even exist.

  But that was not good enough. Bartol himself would now be among the hunted, which meant he needed to keep moving. The Mossad might somehow track his landlady’s car; he needed to be long gone if they did. And, if he was going to fight for Thorne, he needed to be closer to him. The city of Lowell was close to Westford and might offer the needed urban anonymity, but it would take a few weeks to find the right situation. In the meantime he would need shelter. Someplace private and secluded, where he could leave his belongings during the day and return at night.

  He knew the perfect place. A place where the energy of his ancestors flowed, where the memory of their greatness screamed out to the world even today. And it was only fitting that Thorne provide housing for his soldier.

  Cam arrived home Friday late afternoon to a quiet house. Even Venus, who usually greeted him at the door, seemed to be absent. Only after he closed the door and yelled out did the dog slink out to greet him.

  “What’s wrong, girl? And where’s Amanda and Astarte?” His neck tingled. Amanda’s car sat in the driveway. He pushed through the house and looked out on the rear deck. Nothing. “Amanda?” he called.

  Venus nosed him and began to trot away, looking back to see if he was following. The dog led him upstairs to the master bedroom, lights off and shades drawn. In the shadows he made out the shape of Amanda sitting on the floor, her back against the far wall of the room.

  “Amanda,” he stammered. “Are you okay?” He rushed toward her, freezing halfway at the coldness in her reddened eyes.

  “No, Cameron, I most certainly am not.” She tossed a few photographs at him. “And please, no lies.”

  “What?” Confused and alarmed, he dropped to his knees to examine the photos. Himself at a bar. Some woman with long red hair next to him. The two of them walking down a hotel corridor, another of them together by a hotel door. “Amanda, honey, I don’t know what to say,” he stammered
.

  “There’s a note with it,” she said, tossing it over.

  He read the ugly words, his face flushing. He was under attack again. Just like with the deed to the Superfund property. But these attacks were not physical, they were psychological. Attacks on his happiness, on his psyche, on his family.

  He dropped to a sitting position, took a deep breath and focused his eyes on Amanda’s. “I don’t know where these pictures came from. I think I recognize the woman at the bar from the Washington hotel last weekend. But no way did I bring her back to my room. I barely even talked to her—she reached over one time, tapped me on the wrist and asked me to pass her a napkin. But that was it. I had one beer, watched the hockey game on the TV and went up to bed.” He sighed. “Alone, obviously.”

  Amanda pointed her chin at the photos. “She’s with you, Cameron. Twice. And the boyfriend says you knew each other from college. Is this some old girlfriend?”

  He shook his head. This can’t be happening. “No. I have no idea who this woman even is.” Cam knew trust was a big issue for Amanda, based on the stories she had told about her father’s behavior in Marrakech. He studied the photos again, desperately. There. “Look, in both these shots in the hallway you can’t even see my face.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “It’s the same bloody clothes, Cam. Same shirt, blue jeans, same shoes.” She again jutted her chin at the photos. “I know. I’ve been studying the blasted things for the past hour.”

  A wave of panic constrained his chest; he fought to breathe. I can’t lose her. “Amanda, listen, that’s not me.” He gasped. “Someone must have set me up. The photo’s been doctored, or maybe they used a body double. But that’s not me.”

  “I so much want to believe you, Cameron,” she said, eyes closed and shoulders slumped. “More than I’ve ever wanted to believe anything in my life. But, well … you know,” she sobbed.

  He nodded, exhaled and slid toward her, tears pooling in his eyes. She froze him, again, with a sharp glance.

  “I’m not a bloody fool,” she breathed. “Look. At. These. Pictures.”

  He lowered his voice. This shouldn’t be so hard—they were both in love and they both wanted the pictures to be fakes. “I swear, Amanda, they’re fakes. That’s not me in the hallway. I’m not going to betray you—”

  She interjected. “This has nothing to do with my parents, Cam. This has to do with you. With us.”

  Cam began to argue the point but caught himself.

  She sniffled. “You’re always talking about Occam’s Razor, that the simplest solution is usually the correct one.” She raised her chin. “But now you’re asking me to buy into some convoluted conspiracy theory involving body doubles and unseen enemies and—”

  He cut her off. “That’s right. The same unseen enemies who deeded me a Superfund site.”

  “So what is this, some kind of blackmail?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I think it is.”

  “Then you’re not thinking straight,” she said, glaring at him. “How is this blackmail? They sent the pictures to me, not you.”

  He swallowed. She had a point. A blackmailer would have sent them to him, with a note threatening to share them with Amanda if he did not comply with their demands.

  They sat together, a few feet apart, the only sound being Amanda’s quiet sobs. His heart hurt to see her like this. He slowly reached his hand out toward her knee, but she jerked away.

  “I need time,” she said. “And distance.”

  How could this be happening? A week ago they were planning a wedding, as happy as any couple could be. Now his world was crumbling. “How much distance?” he stammered.

  She shook her head three or four times, her chin on her chest. “I don’t know. You should sleep in the basement. And that might not be far enough.”

  He had almost drowned once as a boy, the water numbing him as it filled his lungs and ears and pores. He felt the same way now, a heavy, stifling, deadening weight closing in on him from all directions. “Amanda,” he whispered, in what he sensed was his last chance to reach her. “I can prove to you I’m innocent. But to do that I need to figure out who these unseen enemies are, who sent these pictures, who it is that wants to stop our research. And to do that I need your help—I can’t do it myself. I know you feel like a victim here … and I get that … but without your help I can’t do this.”

  She looked up at him, her green eyes narrowed in anger. “I’m supposed to help you prove to me that you didn’t cheat on me.” She half-laughed. “That’s rich.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. And he didn’t have any idea who could have sent the goddamn pictures.

  It didn’t take Cam long to realize he and sleep would be strangers that night. He put Venus on her leash, grabbed a six-pack of Sam Adams from the fridge, threw on a sweatshirt, and shuffled out to the end of the dock.

  Normally the lake soothed him, but tonight it seemed like just another unseen adversary. The waves lopped against the shore, eroding the foundation of his once-solid life. The spring breeze bit into him, bringing with it an odd, swampy smell. And the stars stared down at him like millions of enemy spies, each planning a sneak attack. Even Venus, normally so loyal, seemed to be eyeing him with questioning eyes, wondering if he had indeed betrayed Amanda…

  He chugged a beer. But even that didn’t help. Instead of numbing him it just gave him the hiccups.

  Stripping to his boxers, he dove off the end of the dock, the frigid waters jolting him. He descended, forcing himself to stay underwater, allowing the lake to wash away his misery and the cold to clear his head. He surfaced twenty yards from the dock to the sound of Venus’ concerned bark. At least she still cares.

  But as he turned toward the dog, he realized she was not looking at him. Rather she sniffed at the air, her nose pointed to the wooded area next to his house. Cam peered into the darkness himself. Another unseen enemy, or just a stray cat?

  He cursed. Either he was getting paranoid, or—as the cliché went—someone truly was out to get him.

  Chapter 6

  The better part of a week had passed, with Cam and Amanda settling into an unsettled existence. She had reluctantly agreed to help him solve the mystery of the Superfund sting which, hopefully, would reveal who sent the pictures. “I owe you the chance to prove those pictures are fake,” she had said, the morning after confronting him. “And I owe it to myself, and to Astarte, to try to keep this family together if at all possible.”

  But it had been a tough six days, the only benefit being that he had plenty of time to organize and outline his research during his exile to the basement. Today, Thursday, he was stuck in Boston, sitting around a conference room table on the thirty-second floor of a high-rise, missing Astarte’s soccer game while a team of environmental litigation attorneys ordered take-out dinner on his dime. It was a strange custom in the practice of law—lawyers charging hundreds of dollars an hour routinely also billed their clients for meals. As if they wouldn’t have eaten were it not for the case they were working on. Even worse was the time they were wasting discussing the dinner order. Cam tried not to watch the clock: The partner billed at $450 per hour, the associate at $275, and the paralegal at $90. They had spent seven minutes perusing the menu which, Cam calculated in his head, had just cost him a hundred bucks. And that was without even paying for the food.

  At this rate they would eat through the $20,000 retainer he had given them before the month was out. Not that Cam had any real choice. There were only a few firms in the city with the experience to battle the EPA, and none of them was cheap. In the end it probably didn’t matter—he could pay the lawyers, or he could pay the government, but either way he was unlikely to walk away with anything.

  They finally placed the order and refocused on his case. Cam and Nina, the partner, had worked together at a buttoned-down large firm as a first job out of law school fifteen years ago. Nina, a lesbian activist, had fit in like a giraffe grazing with a her
d of cattle. Cam had been one of the few young lawyers to befriend her; they both left the firm after a few years, but had remained friends since. Nina turned to the associate, a heavy-set Asian man in his late twenties. “Jimmy, did you hear back from your sister?” His sister worked for the EPA as an analyst, and Nina was hoping to use the connection to appeal to their sense of fairness in this case.

  “She called an hour ago. I didn’t have much luck. For some reason they’re playing hardball on this one.”

  Cam tossed his pen onto the table. “So much for professional courtesy.”

  Nina ran a hand through her long, dark, curly hair. “All right then. Hardball it is. I think our strongest defense is the one you came up with, Cam.”

  He had done more research into One Wing Industries. As a foreign corporation, the entity was required to register to do business in Massachusetts with the state’s Corporations Division. But it had not done so. Technically, therefore, none of its actions had been legal. “You think you can set aside the land conveyance?” Cam asked.

  “Honestly, no. You’re the real estate expert, but my understanding of the law is that this clouds your title to the property, but does not void it.”

  Cam nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  “But it does give us some leverage. If they think you might walk away completely, that might make them stop acting like a bunch of assholes.”

  “Okay. Let’s file suit to set aside the conveyance.” It felt good to have some kind of plan of action. Everything in his life was in complete turmoil; at least filing suit might eventually lead to some kind of resolution.

  “It’s not going to be cheap, Cam.”

  He shrugged. “At this point, either you guys get my money or the government gets it. In fact, feel free to make them think you’re overcharging me.” He smiled ruefully. “Maybe they’ll start to negotiate once they see you driving a flashy new car.”