The Templar Concordat

by Terrence O'Brien

  “I’m going to tell the truth, and the truth is we never heard of it, and neither has anybody else. There’s not much more to say.”

  “But the University of Cairo says it’s real.”

  “Yeah, they do. So go ask them about it, because nobody else knows anything.”

  Vatican spokesman Father Jacques Girard today told CNN International the Holy See had no knowledge of the Treaty of Tuscany, reported to be an 1189 agreement between the Vatican and the European kings to eliminate Islam from the world.

  John Kendell has been following the story in Giza. John?

  Thank you, Peter. We’re here at the huge University of Cairo, here in Giza, Egypt, one of the largest universities in the world with over 200,000 students. Last week researchers announced the discovery of a long-lost treaty between the Vatican Popes and the three most powerful kings of Europe… just prior to the Third Crusade… in the year 1189, Peter. If true, it raises troubling questions about the role of organized Christianity and the Vatican in its struggle to achieve world domination.

  Peter, we interviewed Professor Hosni Zahid earlier this morning…

  CNN: What can you tell us about this Treaty of Tuscany, Professor Zahid?

  Zahid: Well, it is an extraordinary find, the kind of thing we seldom find anymore, and it provides an interesting perspective on the relations between the European and Arab worlds.

  CNN: What is the most striking thing about the treaty?

  Zahid: Simply put, the treaty binds all Christians to work for Christian domination and the elimination of Islam as a competing faith. I realize that is a harsh assessment, and those were harsh times. But that’s what it says.

  CNN: Have you seen this treaty?

  Zahid: Oh, yes. I have examined it.

  CNN: And you consider it to be authentic?

  Zahid: Oh, yes.

  CNN: Where is the treaty now, Professor?

  Zahid: It is in a safe place, a very safe place.

  CNN: Can you tell us where that is?

  Zahid: No, Not at this point. Not yet.

  CNN: When will we be able to see this treaty?

  Zahid: We must first be absolutely certain of what we have, so there isn’t the slightest doubt of its authenticity. None at all. We owe that to all the peoples of the world.

  So, there we have it, Peter. The University of Cairo is claiming the treaty is in their possession, the Vatican denies any knowledge of it, and we are all waiting to see it.

  This is John Kendell in Giza.

  Vatican - Friday, April 17

  “Eminence?” Agretti’s secretary hung back in the door to his office.

  “What is it, Antonio? Speak up.”

  “I have a man in the outer office, Eminence, a large man with white hair and a broken nose. He says he has a long-standing appointment with you. You have nothing on your schedule, and he refuses to give his name.”

  Agretti didn’t need this. That’s why he had a secretary. “Well, call security and get rid of him. Do I have to do everything myself?”

  “Yes, Eminence…” The secretary hesitated.

  “What? What is it?” Now Agretti was angry. The new Pope, the Conclave that had ended in disaster for him, a horrid treaty, and now the survival of the Church was on his shoulders alone. He didn’t need these petty interruptions.

  “He said this was confirmation of his appointment, Eminence. I… I’ve really never seen anyone so frightening.” The secretary passed an envelope sealed with red wax. Agretti saw the Templar Cross embossed in the red wax, ran a finger over the seal, and dropped it on the desk.

  “Where is he now, Antonio?”

  “Standing in my office.”

  Agretti slit the envelope without breaking the seal, and removed a single white card embossed on one side with the red Templar Cross. The other side had a simple handwritten message, “Concordat of Nocera.”

  So, they were back, he thought. It had been twenty years since he had convinced the last Pope to rebuke these apostates and heretics, and now they were back. That damned Concordat. He stood up, smoothed his cassock and centered the pectoral cross. What more could go wrong?

  “Please send him in, Antonio, and make sure I am not disturbed. That means even if the Pope calls, I’m not here.”

  “The Pope?

  “Now, Antonio, now.”

  Agretti’s practiced eye studied the man when he entered, assessing strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and opportunities, looking for the slight advantage that might give him the edge he needed. This one was relaxed, stood six-foot-three, maybe two hundred pounds, flat stomach, broken nose, scar extending up through one eye and into a shock of snow-white hair, and the thick rough hands of a dock worker. He wore a pin-striped suit and a red tie with a very small pattern of Templar Crosses. Very clever.

  Agretti stood with his hands clasped behind his portly frame and willed himself to ignore the much taller man’s extended hand. The man stared and left his hand extended. Agretti hesitated, reached out and clasped it. Damn.

  “Good morning, Cardinal Agretti. I am the Chief Marshall of the Knights Templar. I am here to see Pope Dominic under the terms of the Concordat of Nocera.” He spoke in English, gave a slight bow from the waist in the Prussian style, then straightened to his full height. German, thought Agretti, definitely German.

  “Yes, yes…” said Agretti, trying to recover. “You want to see the Pope, but I presume you appreciate his schedule is a nightmare now. Perhaps next week some time?”

  The Templar looked down on him and gave a hint of a smile. “I hope you realize, Cardinal, that my visit to you is a courtesy not required under the Concordat. We are quite capable of arranging our own meeting with the Pope. It might be easier if you were present, easier for the Pope. It’s become a tradition. But we don’t require it if you don’t.”

  This one was just as arrogant as the last Templar twenty years ago. Agretti felt control slipping.

  “And just what did you want to discuss with the Holy Father?” asked Agretti.

  “Thank you for your time, Cardinal.” The Templar turned and grasped the doorknob.

  “Wait. Wait.” Agretti put up a hand. “I can arrange a meeting for the three of us. This evening.”

  The Templar handed Agretti a card. “Tonight will be good. Here is my number. Anytime tonight. Let me know.”

  * * *

  Agretti felt out of his depth for the first time in many years. The Mexican Pope and the German Templar circled each other like gladiators in the Coliseum, each taking the measure of the other, and each looking for a fight or a friendship. My God, thought Agretti, they are the same. At the core of their beings, they were both predators. Who is our Pope?

  After the introductions, the Pope gestured for the Templar to have a seat at the cheap Formica table he had installed in his office “to get some real work done.”

  The table horrified Agretti. The office of had been fine-tuned over hundreds of years. Furniture, art, leaded glass, and sculpture from Europe’s masters spoke to the majesty of God’s representative on Earth. And now a cheap table, two laptop computers, a tangle of cables, and six orange chairs sat on its priceless carpet.

  The Templar walked around the table and took a chair in the middle. The Pope sat opposite him. Equals? Agretti didn’t know where to sit, since neither of the other two paid him the least bit of attention. He started to sit next to the Pope, but stopped when the Pope pointed to a chair at the head of the table. That was all wrong and an obvious violation of protocol, but he did as he was told.

  Agretti’s eyes darted from one man to the other. A great deal was happening in their silent exchange, but he was shut out of it. Each man wore a slight smile and a mildly amused expression. He didn’t know if they would leap at each other’s throats or clasp hands across the table.

  The visitor wore a light-weight blue jacket, gray slacks and no tie, very different from the three-piece suit he had worn this morning, but probably appropriate for a 10:00 pm clandestine
meeting. But the Pope defied all Agretti’s expectations with blue jeans, a common laborer’s light blue work shirt, and black cowboy boots. Cowboy boots?

  The Pope broke the silence. “Would you care for something to drink? Whatever you want. It seems we have everything here.”

  “Thank you, a glass of water would be fine.”

  “Carlos!” His assistant rushed in. “Water for me and my guest, and whatever Cardinal Agretti wants.”

  The silent dialog resumed until Carlos returned with the drinks.

  “Carlos, this gentleman is under our protection. Mexican rules.”

  Mexican rules? Protection? Carlos immediately left, went to his own office, took a 9mm Beretta from a drawer, chambered a round, and stuck it in his cassock under his belt. Then he moved a chair in front of the Pope’s door, waved the guards back twenty feet, and sat.

  “So, we have business, very old business, I understand,” said the Pope. “Cardinal Agretti,” he nodded down the table, “has explained the Concordat of Nocera to me, I have read it myself, and have inspected the endorsements of various Popes and Templar Masters. Now I would like you to explain it to me.”

  The Marshall simply and deliberately moved through the details of the Concordat and its history. He stressed that each Pope and Templar Master had the opportunity to forge an alliance, and if they do it remains in effect for the duration of the Pope’s reign. If either party declines, there is no alliance, and they revert to simple nonaggression.

  The Templars, he said, were offering an alliance with the Vatican until the Pope’s death.

  “But you are not the Templar Master,” the Pope said flatly.

  “I am not the Templar Master. I am the Marshall, and tonight I speak for the Order of Knights Templar.”

  “And Templars have survived and thrived all these years, and nobody knows it? How?” The Pope steepled his fingers and cocked his head sideways.

  “We learned from the mistakes, big mistakes, we made in our first two hundred years. Those mistakes ended our public life. Like the Church, we have a long institutional memory, and value the lessons of the past.” The Marshall spread his large hands. “And… we prayed for luck.”

  “Pray? Pray?” Agretti could hold still no longer and stood at the head of the table, pointing toward the Marshall. “Idolaters and Satan worshippers. Apostates and heretics. Followers of Baphomet. I implore you, Holiness, do as our last Pope did and banish these hooligans.”

  The Marshall and Pope exchanged glances, then looked at Agretti. “Later, Alberto, we’ll talk later.” The Pope held up a hand to silence him.

  The Pope stood and began to circle the room. “Let’s be sure I understand this. You have me at a disadvantage here since I just learned about Templars today.” He looked squarely at Agretti, who studied his hands.

  “You,” he pointed at the Marshall, “are a Knight Templar. In fact, you’re the commander of Templar operations, a powerful man, I understand, and a member of a warrior order that everyone thinks died out in 1307 when the Pope and the French king got together, killed them off, and burned the last Templar Master at the stake. Right?”

  “Correct.”

  “But that wasn’t really the end of the Templars because they got away with their fleet, and all their gold and treasure. The younger knights got away, and only the older ones got caught. And then they just continued their operations underground using a bunch of different fronts. Right?”

  “Essentially.”

  “So, the Templars had pretty much established all the banking in Europe when the Pope and the king went after them, and they kept that business going, got into a lot more, financed all kinds of exploration and trade, amassed a huge fortune, and they also kept the warrior part going by hiring out as mercenaries under various names. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all this continues right down to today?”

  “Yes.”

  “And nobody knows anything about it? Strange.”

  “Well, most of our interests are held in holding companies, trusts, interlocking boards, cartels. Most of the people who work for us don’t even know it. Banking remains the core, and has been for a very long time. It finances everything else.”

  “Heretics,” mumbled Agretti. “Heretics and blasphemers, then and now.”

  “Now this Concordat thing.” The Pope pointed to the ancient manuscripts in front of Agretti. “The Pope and the king conspire to eliminate the Templars in the early 1300s, but forty years later, another Pope Clement finds the Templars and asks for help against the Germans. He doesn’t want anybody to know since everybody back then was sticking a knife in everybody else’s back. The Templars help him out, presumably in exchange for some favors. But then the next Pope tries to stick it to them again.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the following Pope wants their help again?”

  “Yes.”

  “That makes it an on and off thing with the Popes using the Templars?”

  “Yes,” the Marshall nodded.

  “Now Pope Urban VI comes along and needs some muscle for his struggle with the anti-Pope in Avignon and the Western schism, but can’t really use the other kings of Europe since half of them are lined up with the anti-Pope. He doesn’t want to use his own troops since he doesn’t trust them, and they don’t trust him. Besides that, history calls him the Mad Pope. Nice guy. So he goes looking for a bunch of Ninjas? And comes up with the Templars. Right?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Ok, but this time, the Templars and the Pope come up with an agreement, a Concordat, that says each Pope and Templar Master will decide if they want to ally. If not, then they leave each other alone. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  The Pope looked from the Marshall to Agretti. “This sounds crazy. Are you guys sure about all this?”

  “Unfortunately, Holiness, it is true,” sighed Agretti. He tapped the leather folder. “All true.”

  “So, each time there’s a new Pope, somebody like you,” he pointed at the Marshall, “comes along to make a deal on behalf of the Templars? But only if the Templars like the Pope? Both sides have to agree?”

  “Essentially.”

  The Pope took his chair again and asked, “And it’s been going on like this since 1385?”

  Agretti could keep quiet no longer. “And the last Pope, our beloved Pope Pius, who gave his life… his life… for his Church in St. Peter’s… on Easter… that Pope refused any deal with the Templars.”

  The Pope ignored him and continued. “Ok, I get the history, but what I don’t get is what are the Templars getting out of all this? I can see how it works for the Pope, but what do the Templars get? They have a pile of money, a successful banking operation, mercenaries for hire. They’re the secret conspiracy everyone keeps searching for. What can the Pope do for them? That’s what they had five hundred years ago, and who knows what they have by now.”

  “Sir, the Templars have far-ranging interests, and take a very, very long view of history. Much like the Church does. Remember, we are almost 900 years old now. While we have lost the clerical aspects of a religious order we once had, we have a keen appreciation of the symbiotic relationship between the Templars and the Church. When the Church prospers, the Templars prosper. And the Templars believe the Church is vital to the survival of Western civilization. We appreciate that each helps the other. Where they once defended Christianity, their focus has shifted to a general defense of Western culture. That’s the culture we come from, and it’s the culture we need for our survival.”

  “Symbiotic relationship? Western culture? Bullshit,” said the Pope, tossing his pen on the table. “Do I look like I was born yesterday? Just tell me what I have to do for the Templars. If this is a give-and-take, exactly what do I have to give?”

  Now the Marshall leaned back. “Yes. Yes.” He could like this Pope. “The Church is all over the world. It has sources of information everywhere. It has its fingers in everything. When they need it, the Templ
ars will ask for information. They will ask for the use of various Church properties. They will ask for assistance from clergy. They will ask the Church to assist in recruiting Templars from various Catholic religious orders. They will ask the Church in different countries to support Templar organizations and interests. They will ask for assistance in financial transactions. They will ask for help manipulating political situations. They will ask for protection.”

  “You ask for quite a lot. You ask me to compromise the integrity of a Church I am sworn to protect and lead. Quite a lot. And exactly what do I get in return?”

  The Marshall took a breath and continued. “In return, you may call on the Templars to assist you much like one of the national intelligence networks. Similar to the CIA, MI6, or the KGB. And believe me, the Templars are a match for any of them. We can do whatever they can, and do it better.

  “Right now, there is no organization in the West that knows Islamic terror networks better than the Templars. We have battled them nonstop since 1122. The fight that began in 711 when the Muslims crossed the Straits of Gibraltar has never stopped. The latest attack is right out there in St. Peter’s. Islamic terror is at war with the Vatican, the Church, and all of Western civilization. Not Islam as a whole, but a faction that has always tried to force itself on the whole world, including Muslims. Nobody knows them better, nobody has fought them longer, and nobody has beat them more than the Templars.

  “Beyond that, the Templars will volunteer information when we know something of value to the Church. We will also act on our own when we see the interests of the Church threatened. You will have full deniability.”

  “Deniability? This is nuts. And if I refuse?” asked the Pope.

  “If you decline, the Knights Templar wish you luck for your papacy, and I will immediately leave the Vatican. The Templars will have no further contact with the Vatican while you live. Nothing. To put it bluntly, pray for luck because you’re on your own.

  “In any case, here’s something for free,” the Marshall said. “A very powerful and patient organization has been trying to destroy the Church for a thousand years. Not just the Church, but all the West. The Hashashin. They were founded as assassins to fight the Crusaders. And believe me, they are very good. We have been battling them since we were founded in 1122. You won’t hear about them because they don’t want you to, but you will see their fingerprints all over most of the terrorist organizations in the Middle East, and many in Europe.”