The Last Templar

by Raymond Khoury

  Rassoulis scowled at the converging weather fronts, clearly evaluating whether or not the Savarona could afford to hang around the wreck site.

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” Vance persisted. “Bring up the falcon and I’m done here. You can have anything else that’s down there.”

  Rassoulis cocked a curious eyebrow. “That’s all you want? The falcon?” He paused, scrutinizing Vance. Tess watched him and felt like she was intruding on a major poker game. “Why?”

  Vance shrugged, and his expression became distant. “It’s personal. Call it a matter of…closure.” His eyes hardened, settling back on Rassoulis. “We’re wasting time. I’m sure we can do it if we move quickly. And after that, it’s all yours.”

  The captain seemed to consider his options for a few seconds, then nodded and stepped away, hollering orders at Attal and the other crewmen.

  Vance turned to Tess, his face jittery with nervous energy. “Almost there,” he murmured, his voice crackling. “We’re almost there.”

  “HOW MUCH FURTHER?” De Angelis yelled to the captain.

  Reilly could feel the bridge of the Karadeniz reverberating heavily, much more so than it had before. For over an hour, they’d been cutting diagonally through waves that were stampeding toward their starboard side and pummeling the patrol boat’s hull with increasing ferocity. With the wind shrieking in and the engines straining against the swell, they were having to shout to make themselves heard.

  “Just under twenty nautical miles,” Karakas replied.

  “What about the chopper?”

  The skipper consulted his radar operator, then shouted back, “Contact estimated in just under five minutes.”

  De Angelis breathed out heavily, stewing with impatience. “Can’t this damn thing go any faster?”

  “Not in this sea,” Karakas answered tersely.

  Reilly stepped closer to the skipper. “How bad will it be by the time we reach them?”

  Karakas shook his head, his expression grim. He didn’t shout his answer, but Reilly heard it anyway.

  “God knows.” He shrugged.

  TESS WATCHED THROUGH RAPT eyes as Attal’s fingers coaxed Dori’s manipulator arm to attach the last of the harnesses to the falcon figurehead. Despite the difficult conditions, the crew had worked fast and with military precision in equipping the ROV with the necessary recovery equipment before sending it back into the churning water. Attal had performed his magic at the joystick, guiding the ROV down and positioning the retrieval netting with disarming efficiency. All that remained was to pull it back, use the remote control to trigger the simultaneous inflation of the three lift bags, and watch as the figurehead floated gently up to the surface.

  Attal nodded his readiness. “We can bring it up, but…” He let out a Gallic shrug, his eyes glancing toward the windshield, which was buffeted by the howling wind.

  Rassoulis frowned, staring out at the maelstrom raging around them. “I know. Getting it on board once it surfaces won’t be easy.” He turned to Vance, his expression dour. “We can’t put a Zodiac down in this sea, and I don’t want to risk sending divers in either. It’s going to be hard enough getting the ROV back, but at least it’s tethered and mobile.” He paused, evaluating the rapidly deteriorating conditions, before seemingly making up his mind. “We won’t be able to bring it up today. We’ll leave the floats down there and come back for it when the storm clears.”

  Vance looked incredulous. “We have to bring it up now,” he insisted. “We might not get another chance.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rassoulis shot back. “No one’s going to come out here and steal it from under us in this weather. We’ll come back for it as soon as the weather allows it.”

  “No!” Vance burst out angrily. “We have to do it now!”

  Rassoulis cocked his head back, surprised by the tone of Vance’s outburst. “Look, I’m not risking anyone’s life over this. We’re heading back, and that’s it.” His eyes bored sharply into Vance’s for a second before he turned to Attal. “Bring Dori up as quickly as you can,” he snapped. But before he could issue any more orders, something attracted his attention. It was the familiar, guttural thumping of helicopter blades. Tess heard it too, and, from Vance’s scowl, it was obvious he had as well.

  They grabbed some Windbreakers and stepped out onto the narrow deck outside the bridge. The wind had risen to a full gale, and sheets of rain were now sweeping in with it. Tess shielded her eyes with her hand as she scanned the turbulent sky, and she soon spotted it.

  “There,” she yelled, pointing at it.

  It was skimming the water, heading straight for them. Within seconds, it was on them, bathtub white and with a wide diagonal red stripe, thundering over their heads before arcing up and banking for another pass. It slowed as it neared the ship, then hovered in place alongside the Savarona’s port side, fighting the wind, its rotor wash blasting the sea and kicking up a swirling plume of water off the crests of the foaming waves. Tess could clearly make out the Turkish Coast Guard markings on its fuselage and could see the pilot talking into his microphone as his eyes moved over the vessel.

  He then pointed at his headset, gesturing vigorously for them to pick up their radio.

  ON THE KARADENIZ’S BRIDGE, Reilly saw De Angelis’s face light up. The report from the helicopter confirmed the contact to be a diving ship. Despite the gravely worsening conditions, it was holding position. The pilot could see activity on the deck around the crane, indicating the imminent recovery of a submersible of some sort. He had also spotted the two target figures on its deck, and their descriptions clearly left no doubt in the monsignor’s mind.

  “I’ve asked him to establish radio contact with them,” Karakas told De Angelis. “What do you want me to tell them?”

  De Angelis didn’t hesitate. “Tell them they’re about to get hit by a storm of biblical proportions,” he answered flatly. “Tell them they should get out of there if they want to live.”

  Reilly studied De Angelis’s face, and it only confirmed the uncompromising threat he had read into the monsignor’s reply. The man was determined not to let them escape with what they had come for, at any cost. He’d already shown his callous disregard for human life when it came to protecting the Church’s big secret. Everyone’s expendable, he had stated in no uncertain terms back in Turkey.

  Reilly had to step in. “Our first priority should be their safety,” he countered. “There’s a whole diving crew out there.”

  “My point, exactly,” De Angelis calmly replied.

  “They don’t have too many options,” Karakas pointed out. He studied the radar screen, which showed the numerous blips clearing out of the area. “The storms have them boxed in from the north and the south. They can either head east, where we’ve got two patrol boats waiting to pick them up, or they can come west toward us. Either way, we’ve got them. I doubt they’d have much luck trying to outrun us in that.” His smile wasn’t particularly humorous. It occurred to Reilly that Karakas might actually relish a chase, which, combined with De Angelis’s sanguine predisposition, didn’t bode well.

  He glanced toward the foredeck and the 23mm automatic cannon mounted there and felt a surge of unease. He had to alert Tess and those with her as to what they were up against.

  “Let me talk to them,” Reilly blurted out.

  De Angelis glanced at him, nonplussed by his request.

  “You wanted me to help,” Reilly pressed on. “They don’t know we’re out here. They also might not be aware of the full scale of the storm that’s about to hit them. Let me talk to them, convince them to follow us to shore.”

  Karakas didn’t look like he cared, either way. He looked at De Angelis for guidance.

  The monsignor held Reilly’s gaze with cold, calculating eyes, then nodded his acquiescence. “Give him a mike,” he ordered.

  TESS’S HEART LEAPED INTO her throat when she heard Reilly’s voice on the ship’s radio. She grabbed the microphone from Ra
ssoulis.

  “Sean, it’s Tess.” She was breathless, her pulse pounding in her temples. “Where are you?”

  The helicopter had long since peeled off and headed back, disappearing quickly into the dark, rain-swept sky.

  “We’re not far,” Reilly’s voice came crackling back. “I’m on a patrol boat, about fifteen nautical miles west of you. We have two other boats to your east. Listen to me, Tess. You need to drop whatever you’re doing and get the hell out of there. The two storm fronts are about to collide right on top of you. You need to head west right now on a course of,” he paused, seemingly waiting for the information before coming back with, “two seven zero. That’s two, seven, zero. We’ll meet you and escort you back to Marmaris.”

  Tess noticed Rassoulis looking uncertainly at Vance, who grew visibly riled. Before she could answer Reilly, the captain took the mike from her. “This is George Rassoulis, the captain of the Savarona. Who am I talking to?”

  Some static followed, then Reilly’s voice came back. “My name’s Sean Reilly. I’m with the FBI.”

  Tess saw Rassoulis’s expression darken as he shot a dubious look at the professor. Vance just stood there, immobile, before turning away and taking a few steps toward the back of the bridge.

  Without taking his eyes off Vance, the captain asked, “What’s the FBI doing warning a Greek diving ship about a storm in the middle of the Mediterranean?”

  Vance answered for him, his back still turned. “They’re here for me,” he said with surprising indifference. When he turned, Tess saw that he was holding a handgun aimed at Rassoulis. “I think we’ve heard enough from our friends at the FBI.” And with that, he fired two shots into the radio. Tess screamed as sparks and debris came arcing out of it. The static coming from the speaker instantly died out.

  “Now,” he hissed, his eyes seething with barely contained rage, “can we all get back to the business at hand?”

  Chapter 76

  Tess’s entire body went rigid. She felt as if her legs were nailed to the floor of the cockpit and could only stand quietly in her corner and watch as Vance took a few menacing steps toward Rassoulis and ordered him to initiate the recovery sequence for the figurehead.

  “It’s pointless,” the captain argued. “I’m telling you we can’t get it on board, not in these conditions.”

  “Hit the damn button,” Vance insisted, “or I’ll do it for you.” He glowered at Attal, who was still sitting at the command console of the ROV, his fingers frozen against the joystick.

  The engineer glanced at his captain, and Rassoulis relented, nodding slightly. Attal nudged the controls. On the monitor, the image from Dori’s camera grew smaller as the ROV receded, then, one after another, the orange lift bags started to inflate, blowing up to full girth within seconds. At first, the falcon didn’t seem to move, stubbornly resisting the upward pull of the large floats. Then all of a sudden, in a burst of sand, it rose up like an uprooted tree trunk, trailing a swirling cloud of the sediment that had settled around it over the centuries. Attal guided the ROV up in a parallel climb, keeping the hazy, otherworldly image of the rising figurehead on-screen.

  Tess heard the door to the pilothouse rattle as a crewman stepped in from the gangway. She noticed Vance break his concentration and tear his entranced eyes away from the screen to glance over at the commotion. Abruptly, Rassoulis lunged at Vance and began wrestling with him for the gun. Tess stepped backward, screaming, “No!” Attal and another engineer rose to their feet to help the captain when, deafeningly loud in the enclosed space, the gun went off.

  For a moment, Vance and Rassoulis stood, locked together and immobile, before Vance pulled away and the captain slumped to the floor, blood spilling from his mouth as his eyes rolled upward and out of sight.

  Horrified, Tess stared down at the captain’s body, which convulsed slightly before going limp. She glared at Vance. “What have you done?” she yelled as she sank to her knees by Rassoulis, unsure of what to do, then listening for a breath, feeling for a pulse.

  She found none.

  “He’s dead,” she cried. “You’ve killed him.”

  Attal and the other crewmen were frozen in disbelief. Then the helmsman snapped into reflex action, hurling himself at Vance, clawing for the gun. With surprising speed, Vance clubbed him across the face with a blow from the butt of his handgun, sending him crashing to the floor. For a brief moment, Vance appeared to be in a daze, then his eyes focused and his expression hardened.

  “Get me the falcon and we can all go home,” he ordered. “Now.”

  Hesitantly, the first mate and Attal went about the recovery preparations, blurting orders out to the other crewmen, but the words blew by Tess in an indecipherable haze. She couldn’t stop staring at Vance, whose eyes had taken on a life of their own. They didn’t belong to the erudite professor she’d first met all those years ago, nor to the driven, broken man with whom she’d embarked on this misguided journey. She recognized the cold, detached harshness she saw in them. She’d first seen it at the Met, on the night of the raid. It had scared her then, and, right now, with a dead man on the floor beside her, it terrified her.

  Looking again at Rassoulis’s body, a sudden realization hit her: that she might very well die here. And in that instant, she thought of her daughter, and wondered if she would ever see her again.

  REILLY SNAPPED BACKWARD AS Rassoulis’s voice disappeared and the radio’s speaker erupted into a loud, static hiss. A shiver of dread raced down his spine. He thought he’d heard what sounded like a gunshot through the radio, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “Captain? Tess? Anyone?”

  There was no answer.

  He turned to the radioman beside him, who was already fiddling with the console’s controls, shaking his head and reporting back to the skipper in Turkish.

  “The signal’s gone,” Karakas confirmed. “It looks like they’ve heard all they want to hear.”

  Reilly stared ahead angrily out through the whirling windshield wipers that did nothing to improve the visibility. The Karadeniz was straining hard, battling the increasingly ferocious waves. All of the chatter on the bridge was in Turkish, but Reilly picked up that the gunboat crew seemed to be more focused on the raging sea than on the other boat, which still appeared to be stationary. Although the Savarona was now theoretically in visual range, the lashing rain and the high seas meant that it came into view only every now and again, as the surging swell beneath both boats peaked simultaneously. As Reilly caught a glimpse of it, all that he could make out was a blurred distant shape. He felt a fist swell in his throat as he thought of Tess being out there on the battered vessel.

  Reilly saw Karakas and the first officer exchange a few clipped words, then the skipper turned to De Angelis, deep ridges of concern lining his leathery forehead. “This is getting out of hand. The wind’s almost at fifty knots, and, in these conditions, there isn’t much we can do about forcing them to follow us.”

  De Angelis seemed strangely unfazed. “As long as they’re out there, we keep going.”

  The skipper breathed heavily. His eyes darted to Reilly, looking for some insight into De Angelis’s state of mind but not finding any. “I don’t think we should stay out here much longer,” he stated flatly. “It isn’t safe anymore.”

  De Angelis turned to face him. “What’s the matter,” he said indignantly, “can’t you handle a few waves?” He jabbed an angry finger toward the Savarona. “I don’t see them turning tail and running. They’re clearly not afraid to be out here.” His mouth twisted oddly. “Are you?”

  Reilly watched as Karakas stood there, his pulse visibly quickening at the taunt. The skipper glowered at the monsignor before barking some orders at his nervous first officer. De Angelis nodded, shot a quick glance at Plunkett, and turned to stare ahead, and, just from his profile, Reilly could tell that the monsignor was grimly pleased.

  TESS STOOD NEXT TO VANCE, staring out, the spray raking the windshield like buckshot as rainsqualls
hurled themselves at the wheelhouse from all directions. Great patches of foam were blowing in dense white streaks all around them, and the Savarona’s decks were awash with water.

  And then they appeared.

  Three orange lift bags, off to the boat’s starboard side, thrusting out of the water like breaching whales.

  Tess’s eyes strained, trying to cut through the lashings of rain, and then she spotted it, a large, dark balk of rounded timber bobbing between the floaters. Despite the wear of centuries, it was unmistakably carved in the shape of a bird and strongly evocative of its former glory.

  She glanced at Vance and saw his face light up. For the briefest of moments, she felt a sudden thrill, a surge of excitement that eclipsed all the dread and horror she’d been feeling.

  And then it all came rushing back.

  “Get the divers in,” Vance yelled at the first mate, who was tending to the helmsman’s bloodied cheek. Seeing the hesitation in the man’s eyes, Vance extended his arm and thrust his handgun into the terrified man’s face. “Do it. We’re not leaving here without it.”

  Just then, a large wave slammed into the ship’s stern. With the Savarona slewing heavily to one side, the helmsman staggered up to his feet and took over from the overwhelmed crewman, fighting the wheel to keep the ship from broaching and rolling over as he maneuvered it out of danger and closer to the floating lift bags. Expertly defying the waves, he maintained the battered vessel’s position while two other crewmen got into gear and reluctantly dived off the deck, heavy recovery cables in their clutches.

  Tess watched nervously as the divers struck their way to the rig, tense minutes ticking by agonizingly before a glimpse of a thumbs-up signaled their success. The first mate then hit a switch, and, out on deck, the winch cranked noisily to life, straining against the roll of the ship and the pounding of the waves. The figurehead, still harnessed to the lift bags, rose out of the foaming water and swung over, headed for the ship’s waiting deck.