The Last Templar

by Raymond Khoury

  Knights in shining armor pillaging a Manhattan museum in the twenty-first century.

  Such audacity, he thought. Truly remarkable.

  The picture showed the rider, who De Angelis now knew to be the fourth horseman, holding up the encoder. He stared at the man’s helmet, trying to burrow through the ink and the paper and into the horseman’s thoughts. The image was a three-quarter view, taken from the rear left side. Smashed display cabinets lay all around the knight. And in the top left corner on the shot, peeking out from behind a cabinet, was a woman’s face.

  A female archaeologist who overheard the fourth horseman say something in Latin, De Angelis thought. She had to be close enough to hear him, and, staring at the picture, he knew it had to be her.

  He focused on her face: taut with fear, frozen. Absolutely terrified.

  It had to be her.

  He set the picture and the jeweled horse down on his bed next to the pendant, which he now picked up. It was made of rubies and set in silver, a gift from the Nizam of Hyderabad. Worth a prince’s ransom, which is what it once had been. As he twirled it, he scowled at the dead end he had reached.

  His quarry had covered his tracks well; he would have expected no less from a man of such daring. The gang leader’s minions, the desperate lowlifes that De Angelis had found, questioned, and dispatched with such ease, had proven useless.

  The man himself still eluded him.

  He needed a fresh tack. A divine intervention of sorts.

  And now this. An annoyance.

  A distraction.

  He looked at her face again. He picked up his cell phone and hit a speed-dial key. Two short rings later, a gravelly, hoarse voice answered.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Just how many people have you given this number to, exactly?” The monsignor fired back tersely.

  The man exhaled audibly. “Good to hear from you, sir.”

  De Angelis knew the man would now be putting out a cigarette butt, while instinctively reaching for a fresh replacement. He had always found the habit repugnant, but the man’s other talents more than made up for it.

  “I need your help on something.” As he said it, he frowned. He had hoped he wouldn’t need to involve anyone else. He stared at Tess’s face again. “I need you to access the FBI’s database on METRAID,” then added, “discreetly.”

  The man’s answer came quickly.

  “Not a problem. It’s one of the perks of the war on terror. We’re all in a caring, sharing mode. Just tell me what you need.”

  Chapter 32

  Veering away from one of the many winding roads of the cemetery, Tess was now walking along a gravel path.

  It was just past eight in the morning. The spring bulbs were in bloom all around the headstones, and the neatly clipped grass around her was wet from last night’s rain. The small rise in air temperature had generated a coiling mist that shrouded the tombstones and trees.

  Overhead, a lone monk parakeet flew by, breaking the serene setting with a haunting call. Despite the temperature rise and the cover of her coat, Tess shivered a little as she went deeper into the cemetery. Walking through a burial ground was uncomfortable at the best of times, and being here today made her think of her father and of how long it had been since she had visited his grave.

  She stopped and checked the map she had printed out in the kiosk at the huge, gothic entrance. She thought she was headed in the right direction, but now she wasn’t that sure anymore. The cemetery was spread out over more than four hundred acres. It was easy to get lost, especially as she wasn’t driving. She had taken the R from midtown to the Twenty-fifth Street station in Brooklyn, walked a block east, and entered the cemetery from its main gate.

  She looked around, trying to get her bearings, and wondered if coming here had been such a good idea after all. It was practically a lose-lose situation. If Vance was here, she’d be barging in on a hugely private moment. And if he wasn’t here, then her trip would have been a waste of time.

  She pushed her doubts to the back of her mind and kept on walking. She was now in what was obviously an older part of the cemetery. As she passed an elaborate tomb topped by a reclining granite angel, she heard a sound off to one side. Startled, she peered into the mist. She could see nothing except the dark, shifting shapes of the trees. Uneasy now, she walked at a slightly brisker pace, realizing that she was plunging even deeper into the recesses of the cemetery.

  Checking the map quickly, she saw that she must now be close. Convinced of her current location, she decided to take a shortcut across a small knoll and hurried over the slippery grass. She stumbled on a moldy stone surround, her fingers clutching at a crumbling marker to save herself from falling.

  And then she saw him.

  He was about fifty yards away, alone, standing solemnly in front of a small headstone. A bouquet of carnations, dark red and cream colored, lay before it. His head was bowed. A lone gray Volvo was parked on the drive nearby.

  Tess waited a moment before deciding to approach him. She walked toward him slowly, quietly, and glanced at the headstone, spotting the words “Vance” and “Martha” on it. He still hadn’t turned when she got to within ten feet of him, even though they were the only ones around.

  “Professor Vance,” she said hesitantly.

  He stood rigid for a moment before slowly turning to face her.

  She was standing before a changed man.

  His hair was thick and silvery gray, his face gaunt. Although he was still slender and tall, the athletic build had receded, even displaying a slight stoop. His hands were in his coat pockets, and he wore a dark overcoat, its collar turned up. Tess noticed that it was threadbare at the cuffs and had a couple of stains on it. In fact, she was embarrassed to notice, his whole appearance was rather shabby. Whatever it was he did now, it was clearly several rungs below the position he had once enjoyed. Had she passed him in the street today, a decade after she last saw him, she doubted that she would have recognized him, but here, under the circumstances, she had no doubt.

  He looked at her, his expression cautious.

  “I’m really very sorry to intrude,” she stumbled, “I hope you’ll forgive me. I know this is an extremely personal moment for you and, believe me, if there was any other way to contact you…” She stopped, noting that his face seemed to brighten ever so slightly with what seemed like recognition.

  “Tess. Tess Chaykin. Oliver’s daughter.”

  She breathed in deeply and let out a low sigh of relief. As his face relaxed, his piercing gray eyes brightened, and she saw hints of the charismatic force he had been when they’d last met, all those years ago. There was clearly nothing wrong with his memory, because he said, “Now I know why you look different. You were pregnant when we met. I remember thinking that the Turkish wilderness wasn’t a good place for you then.”

  “Yes.” She relaxed. “I have a daughter. Kim.”

  “She must be…” He was working out how long it had been.

  “She’s nine,” she offered helpfully, then her eyes darted away in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I…I really shouldn’t be here.”

  She felt a sudden urge to retreat and slip away when she noticed that his smile faded. His whole face seemed to darken as he glanced toward the headstone. His voice soft, he said, “My daughter Annie would have been five years old today.”

  Daughter? Tess looked at him, thrown, and turned to the headstone. It was elegant in its simplicity, white, with the inscription carved out in letters that were maybe two inches high:

  Martha & Annie

  Vance

  May their smiles brighten up

  A better world than this

  She didn’t understand at first. Then it hit her.

  His wife must have died in childbirth.

  Tess felt her face flush, deeply embarrassed now at her thoughtlessness in tracking this man down to his wife and daughter’s graveside. She looked up at Vance and saw that he was looking at her, the sadness etchin
g deep lines into his face. Her heart sank. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, “I didn’t know.”

  “We had already chosen names, you see. Matthew if it had been a boy, and Annie, of course. We chose them the night we were married.”

  “What…how did they…” She couldn’t finish her question.

  “It happened just over halfway into her pregnancy. She’d been under close observation from the start. She was—well, we both were—rather old to be having our first child. And her family had a history of high blood pressure. Anyway, she developed something called preeclampsia. They don’t know why it happens. I was told it was pretty common, but it can be devastating. Which it was in Martha’s case.” He stopped and took a deep breath, looking away. It was clearly painful for him to talk about it, and Tess wanted him to stop, she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her and avoid having him relive it through her selfish presence. But it was too late.

  “The doctors said there was nothing they could do,” he continued mournfully. “They told us Martha would have to have an abortion. Annie was too young to have any hope of surviving in an incubator, and Martha’s chances of surviving the pregnancy herself were getting slimmer with each passing day.”

  “The abortion didn’t…”

  His gaze turned inward. “Normally, it wouldn’t even have been an option for us. But this was different. Martha’s life was at risk. So we did what we’d always done.” His expression hardened perceptibly. “We asked our parish priest, Father McKay, what we should do.”

  Tess cringed as she guessed what had happened.

  Vance’s face tightened up. “His position, the Church’s position, was very clear. He said it would be murder. Not just any murder, you understand, but the most heinous of all murders. An unspeakable crime. Oh, he was very eloquent about it. He said we’d be violating the written word of God. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ He said this was a human life we were talking about. We’d be killing a human being at the very beginning of its life, the most innocent murder victim possible. A victim who doesn’t understand, a victim who can’t argue, who can’t plead for its life. He asked us if we would do it if we could hear its cries, if we could see its tears. And if that wasn’t enough, his closing argument clinched it. ‘If you had a one-year-old baby, would you kill it, would you sacrifice it to save your own life? No. Of course you wouldn’t. What if it was one month old? What if it was just one day old? When does the clock really start ticking for a life?’” He paused, shaking his head at the memory. “We heeded his advice. No abortion. We put our faith in God.”

  Vance looked at the grave, a cocktail of grief and anger visibly swirling in his veins. “Martha held on until she went into convulsions. She died of a brain hemorrhage. And Annie, well…her little lungs never even got a chance to breathe our filthy air.”

  “I’m so, so sorry.” Tess could barely speak. But it didn’t really matter. Vance seemed to be in a world of his own. As she looked into his eyes, she could see that any sadness had now been overwhelmed by a fury that was rising from deep within.

  “We were fools to put our lives in the hands of those ignorant, arrogant charlatans. It won’t happen again. Not to anyone. I’ll make sure of that.” He gazed at the emptiness around them. “The world has changed a lot in a thousand years. Life’s not about the will of God or about the malice of the devil. It’s about scientific fact. And it’s time people understand that.”

  And in that instant, Tess knew.

  Her blood froze as it hit her with absolute certainty.

  He was the man in the museum. William Vance was the fourth horseman.

  Images raced through her mind of the panic at the museum, the knights charging, the gunfire, the mayhem, and the screams.

  “Veritas vos liberabit.” The words just stumbled out of her mouth.

  He looked at her, his gray eyes boring into her with rage and realization.

  “Exactly.”

  She had to get away, but her legs had turned to lead. She was utterly rigid and, in that moment, she thought of Reilly.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here,” was all she could say. She thought of the museum again, about the fact that people had died because of what this man had done. She looked around, hoping to see other mourners, or any of the tourists or bird-watchers who frequented the cemetery, but it was way too early for that. They were alone.

  “I’m glad you did. I do appreciate the company, and you, of all people, should appreciate what I’m trying to do.”

  “Please, I…I was only trying to…” She managed to will her legs back to life and hesitantly took a few steps backward, darting nervous glances around, desperately trying to figure out an escape route. And at that moment, her cell phone rang.

  Her eyes turned to saucers as she looked at Vance and, still stumbling backward, with Vance advancing slowly toward her, she held out one hand as her other hand dived into the bag for the phone, which was still ringing.

  “Please,” she pleaded.

  “Don’t,” he said. And that’s when she realized he was holding some kind of gun in his hand. It looked like a toy gun, with yellow stripes on its short, squared-off barrel. And before she could move or cry out, her fingers grasping at the cell phone in her bag, she watched him pull the trigger, and two probes came flying out through the air. They struck her chest, and she felt burning waves of unbearable pain.

  Instantly, her legs buckled; then she was paralyzed, helpless.

  Falling to the ground.

  Spinning into unconsciousness.

  FROM BEHIND A NEARBY tree, a tall man whose dark clothing reeked of stale cigarettes felt a surge of adrenaline as he saw Tess get hit and fall to the ground. Spitting out a wad of Nicorette gum, he pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed-dial button, his other hand diving for the Heckler & Koch USP compact in the holster behind his back.

  De Angelis was quick to answer. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m still at the cemetery. The girl—” Joe Plunkett paused, watching her as she lay there on the wet grass. “She met up with some guy, and he’s just zapped her with a Taser.”

  “What?”

  “I’m telling you, she’s down for the count. What do you want me to do? You want me to take him out?” His mind was already laying out a plan of action. The Taser wouldn’t be a threat. He wasn’t sure about whether or not the silver-haired man standing over the girl had any other weapon on him, but it wouldn’t matter either way; he’d be able to overwhelm him before the man had a chance to react, especially since the older man seemed to be out here on his own.

  Plunkett waited for the order. His heart was already priming itself for the rush, and he could practically hear De Angelis’s mind whirring away. Then the monsignor spoke with a calm, subdued voice.

  “No. Do nothing. She doesn’t matter anymore. He’s now your priority. Stay with him and make sure you don’t lose him. I’m on my way.”

  Chapter 33

  A gale of dread blew through Reilly as he listened, his ear glued to his phone. “Tess? Tess!” His calls remained unanswered, and then the line abruptly cut off.

  He immediately hit the redial button, but after four rings, her recorded voice came up and asked him to leave a message. Another redial produced the same result.

  Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong.

  He’d seen that Tess had called, but she hadn’t left a message and had already left the office by the time he’d tried calling her back. He wasn’t sure about how far he wanted to push her Templar angle anyway. He had felt awkward, almost embarrassed to have brought it up at the meeting with the rest of the team and the monsignor. Still, he had called her office bright and early and spoken to Lizzie Harding, her secretary, who had told him Tess hadn’t come in that morning. “She called to say she might be coming in late,” was how she’d put it.

  “How late?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  When he had asked for her cell-phone number, he was told they didn’t give ou
t personal information, but he decided it was about time he had the number, and the Institute’s position was quickly reversed once he explained that he was with the FBI.

  After three rings, her cell phone had clicked through but she hadn’t said anything. He had heard only a shuffling noise, like when someone accidentally triggers a speed-dialed call from a cell phone in their handbag or pocket; but then he had heard her say “Please,” in a tone that was disturbing. She had sounded scared. Like someone pleading. And then there was a succession of noises he was racing to make sense of: a sharp crack, then a couple of small thumps, what sounded like a brief, muffled cry of pain, and a much louder thump. He had shouted “Tess” into the phone again, but didn’t get an answer, and then the line went dead.

  Staring at his phone now, his heart was pounding. He really didn’t like the way that “Please” had sounded.

  Something was definitely, horribly wrong.

  His mind racing, he dialed the Institute again and got through to Lizzie.

  “It’s Agent Reilly again. I need to know where Tess”—he quickly corrected himself—“where Miss Chaykin is. It’s urgent.”

  “I don’t know where she is. She didn’t say where she was going. All she said was that she’d be coming in late.”

  “I need you to have a look at her diary, check her e-mail. Does she keep an electronic calendar, maybe a program that’s in sync with her PDA? There’s got to be something there.”

  “Just give me a minute,” she said, sounding edgy.

  Reilly could see his partner now looking at him with concern.

  “What’s going on?” Aparo asked.

  Reilly cupped the mouthpiece with one hand and scribbled down Tess’s cell-phone number for Aparo with the other. “It’s Tess. Something’s happened. Get a fix on her cell.”

  ACROSS THE EAST RIVER, a gray Volvo was slowly making its way up the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge.