The Templar Legacy: A Novel

by Steve Berry

  “That’s what Dad thought, and I agree. Saunière seemed unable to resist sending messages. He wanted the world to know what he knew, but it was almost as if he realized that no one in his time would understand. And he was right. No one did. Not until forty years after he died did anyone ever notice.” Mark looked over at the ancient church. “The whole place is one of reversals. The stations of the cross are hung on the wall backward from every other church in the world. The devil at the door—he’s the reverse of good.” Then he pointed to the Visigoth pillar a few feet away. “Upside down. Notice the cross and the carvings on the face.”

  Malone studied the face.

  “Saunière inverted the pillar before carving Mission 1891 at the bottom and Penitence, Penitence along the top.”

  Malone noticed a V with a circle at its center in the bottom right corner. He cocked his head around and envisioned the image inverted. “Alpha and omega?” he asked.

  “Some think so. Dad did.”

  “Another name for Christ.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why did Saunière turn the pillar upside down?”

  “No one has come up with a good reason.”

  Mark stepped away from the garden display and allowed others to surge forward for pictures. He then led the way toward the rear of the church, into one corner of the Calvary garden where a small grotto stood.

  “This is a replica, too. For the tourists. World War Two took the original. Saunière built it with rocks he would bring back from his forays. He and his mistress would travel off for days at a time and return with a hod full of stones. Odd, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Depends on what else was in that hod.”

  Mark smiled. “Easy way to bring back a little gold without arousing suspicion.”

  “But Saunière seems a strange sort. He could have just been toting rocks.”

  “Everybody who comes here is a little strange.”

  “That include your father?”

  Mark appraised him with a serious countenance. “No question. He was obsessed. He gave his life to this place, loved every square foot of this village. This was his home, in every way.”

  “But not yours?”

  “I tried to carry on. But I didn’t have his passion. Maybe I realized the whole thing was futile.”

  “Then why hide yourself away in an abbey for five years?”

  “I needed the solitude. It was good for me. But the master had bigger plans. So here I am. A fugitive from the Templars.”

  “So what were you doing in the mountains when that avalanche came?”

  Mark did not answer him.

  “You were doing the same thing your mother’s doing here now. Trying to atone for something. You just didn’t know folks were watching.”

  “Thank heaven they did.”

  “Your mother is hurting.”

  “You and she worked together?”

  He noticed the dodge. “For a long time. She’s my friend.”

  “That’s a tough nut to crack.”

  “Tell me about it, but it can be done. She’s hurting bad. Lots of guilt and regrets. This could be a second chance for her and you.”

  “My mother and I parted ways long ago. It was best for both of us.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I came to my father’s house.”

  “And when you arrived you saw that somebody else’s bags were there. Both our passports were left with our stuff. Surely you found them? Yet you stayed.”

  Mark turned away and Malone thought it an effort to hide a growing confusion. He was more like his mother than he cared to admit.

  “I’m thirty-eight years old and still feel like a boy,” Mark said. “I’ve lived the past five years within the sheltered cocoon of an abbey governed by strict Rule. A man I considered a father was kind to me, and I rose to a level of importance I’ve never known before.”

  “Yet here you are. Right in the middle of God-knows-what.”

  Mark smiled.

  “You and your mother need to settle things.”

  The younger man stood somber, preoccupied. “The woman you mentioned last night, Cassiopeia Vitt. I know of her. She and my father sparred for several years. Should she not be found?”

  He noticed that Mark liked to avoid answering questions by asking them, much like his mother. “Depends. She a threat?”

  “Hard to say. She seemed to always be around, and Dad didn’t like her.”

  “Neither does de Roquefort.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “In the archives, last night, she never identified herself and de Roquefort didn’t know her name. So if he has Claridon, then he now knows who she is.”

  “Isn’t that her problem?” Mark asked.

  “She saved my hide twice. So she needs to be warned. Claridon told me she lives nearby, in Givors. Your mother and I were leaving here today. We thought this quest over. But that’s changed. I need to pay Cassiopeia Vitt a visit. I think alone would be best, for now.”

  “That’s fine. We’ll wait here. Right now I have a visit of my own to make. It’s been five years since I paid respects to my father.”

  And Mark walked off toward the cemetery’s entrance.

  11:05 AM

  STEPHANIE POURED HERSELF A CUP OF HOT COFFEE AND OFFERED more to Geoffrey, but the younger man refused.

  “We’re allowed but one cup a day,” he made clear.

  She sat at the kitchen table. “Is your entire life governed by Rule?”

  “It’s our way.”

  “I thought secrecy was important to the brotherhood, too. Why do you speak of it so openly?”

  “My master, who now resides with the Lord, told me to be honest with you.”

  She was perplexed. “How did your master know me?”

  “He followed your husband’s research closely. That was long before my time at the abbey, but the master told me of it. He and your husband spoke on several occasions. The master was your husband’s confessor.”

  The information shocked her. “Lars made contact with the Templars?”

  “Actually, the Templars contacted him. My master approached your husband, but if your husband knew that he was of the Templars, he never revealed it. Perhaps he thought saying it might end the contact. But surely he knew.”

  “Your master sounds like a curious man.”

  The younger man’s face brightened. “He was a wise man who tried to do good for our Order.”

  She recalled his defense of Mark hours earlier. “Did my son help with that endeavor?”

  “That’s why he was chosen seneschal.”

  “And the fact that he was Lars Nelle’s son had nothing to do with that choice?”

  “On that, madame, I cannot speak. I only learned who the seneschal was a few hours ago. Here, in this house. So I don’t know.”

  “You know nothing of each other?”

  “Very little, and some of us struggle with that. Others revel in the privacy. But we spend our lives together, close as in a prison. Too much familiarity could become a problem. So we’re barred by Rule from any intimacy with our fellows. We keep to ourselves, our silence enforced through the service of God.”

  “Sounds difficult.”

  “It’s the life we choose. This adventure, though.” He shook his head. “My master told me I’d discover many new things. He was right.”

  She sipped more coffee. “Your master was sure that you and I would meet?”

  “He sent the journal hoping you’d come. He also sent a letter to Ernst Scoville, which included pages from the journal that related to you. He hoped that would bring you two together. He knew Scoville once didn’t care for you—he learned that from your husband. But he realized your resources are great. So he wanted the two of you, together with the seneschal and myself, to find the Great Devise.”

  She recalled that term and its explanation from earlier. “Does your Order truly believe that there’s more to the story of Christ—things t
he world doesn’t know?”

  “I have, as yet, not achieved a sufficient level of training to answer your question. Many decades of service are required before I’ll be privy to what the Order actually knows. But death, at least to me and from what I have been taught so far, seems a clear finality. Many thousands of brothers died on the battlefields of the Holy Land. Not one of them ever rose and walked away.”

  “The Catholic Church would call what you just said heresy.”

  “The Church is an institution created by men and governed by men. Whatever more is made of that institution is also the creation of man.”

  She decided to tempt fate. “What am I supposed to do, Geoffrey?”

  “Help your son.”

  “How?”

  “He must complete what his father started. Raymond de Roquefort cannot be allowed to find the Great Devise. The master was emphatic on this point. That’s why he planned ahead. Why I was trained.”

  “Mark detests me.”

  “He loves you.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “My master told me.”

  “He would have no way of knowing that.”

  “My master knew all.” Geoffrey reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew a sealed envelope. “I was told to give this to you when I thought appropriate.” He handed her the crinkled packet, then stood from the table. “The seneschal and Mr. Malone have gone to the church. I’ll leave you alone.”

  She appreciated the gesture. No telling what emotions the message might stir, so she waited until Geoffrey had withdrawn to the den, then opened the envelope.

  Mrs. Nelle, you and I are strangers, yet I feel I know much about you, all from Lars, who told me what troubled his soul. Your son was different. He kept his torment inside, sharing precious little. On a few occasions I managed to learn some, but his emotions were not as transparent as his father’s. Perhaps he inherited that trait from you? And I do not mean to be flippant. What is surely happening at the moment is serious. Raymond de Roquefort is a dangerous man. He is driven by a blindness that has, through the centuries, affected many of our Order. His is a single-mindedness that clouds his vision. Your son fought him for leadership and lost. Unfortunately, Mark does not possess the resolve needed to complete his battles. Starting them seems easy, continuing them even easier, but resolving them has proven difficult. His battles with you. His battles with de Roquefort. His battles with his conscience. All challenge him. I thought that joining the two of you together could prove decisive for you both. Again, I do not know you, but I believe I understand you. Your husband is dead and so much was left unresolved. Perhaps this quest will finally answer all your questions. I offer this advice. Trust your son, forget about the past, think only of the future. That could go a long way to providing peace. My Order is unique among all Christendom. Our beliefs are different, and that is because of what the original brothers learned and passed on. Does that make us less Christian? Or more Christian? Neither, in my opinion. Finding the Great Devise will answer many questions, but I fear that it will raise many more. It will be to you and your son to decide what is best if and when that critical time comes, and hopefully it will, for I have faith in you both. A resurrection has occurred. A second chance has been offered. The dead have risen and now walk again among you. Make good use of that miracle, but a warning: Free your mind from the prejudices in which it has grown comfortable. Open yourself to conceptions more vast, and reason by more certain methods. For only then will you succeed. May the Lord be with you.

  A tear streaked down her cheek. A strange feeling, crying. One she could not remember since childhood. She was highly educated and possessed the experience that decades of working in the top levels of the intelligence business offered. Her career had been spent handling one difficult situation after another. She’d made life-and-death decisions many times. But none of that applied here. She’d somehow left the world of good and bad, right and wrong, black and white, and entered a realm where her innermost thoughts were not only known, but actually understood. This master, a man to whom she’d never spoken a word, seemed to precisely comprehend her pain.

  But he was right.

  Mark’s return was a resurrection. A glorious miracle with endless possibilities.

  “Do the words sadden you?”

  She looked up. Geoffrey stood in the doorway. She swiped the tears away. “In one way. But in another they bring happiness.”

  “The master was like that. He knew both joy and pain. Much pain, though, in his final days.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Cancer took him two nights ago.”

  “You miss him?”

  “I was raised alone, without the benefit of family. Monks and nuns taught me about life. They were good to me, but none ever loved me. So hard to grow up without the love of a parent.”

  The admission struck her heart.

  “The master showed me great kindness, perhaps even love, but most of all he placed his trust in me.”

  “Then don’t fail him.”

  “I won’t.”

  She motioned with the paper. “Is this mine to keep?”

  He nodded. “I was only the deliveryman.”

  She grabbed hold of herself. “Why did Mark and Cotton go to the church?”

  “I sensed that the seneschal wanted to talk to Mr. Malone.”

  She stood from the chair. “Perhaps we, too, should—”

  A knock came at the front door. She tensed as her gaze darted to the unlocked latch. Cotton and Mark would have simply walked in. She saw Geoffrey likewise come alert and a gun appeared in his hand. She stepped toward the door and peered through the glass.

  A familiar face stared back.

  Royce Claridon.

  DE ROQUEFORT WAS FURIOUS. FOUR HOURS AGO HE’D BEEN INFORMED that, on the night the master died, the archival security system had recorded a visit at eleven fifty-one PM. The seneschal had stayed inside twelve minutes, then left with two books. The electronic identification tags affixed to every volume identified the two missing tomes as a thirteenth-century codex he knew well and a marshal’s report filed in the latter part of the nineteenth century, which he’d also read.

  When he’d interrogated Royce Claridon a few hours ago, he’d not made known his familiarity with the cryptogram contained in Lars Nelle’s journal. But one was included in the prior marshal’s report along with the location where the puzzle had been found—in the abbé Gélis’s church located in Coustausa, not far from Rennes-le-Château. He recalled from his reading that the marshal had spoken to Gélis shortly before the priest was murdered and learned that Saunière had also found a cryptogram in his church. When compared, the two were identical. Gélis apparently solved the puzzle and the marshal was told the results, but the solution was not recorded and was never found after Gélis’s death. Both the local police and the marshal suspected that the murderer was after something in Gélis’s briefcase. Surely, Gélis’s decipher. But was the murderer Saunière? Hard to say. The crime was never solved. Still, given what de Roquefort knew, the priest from Rennes would have to be included on any suspect list.

  Now the marshal’s report was gone. Which might not be all bad since he possessed Lars Nelle’s journal, which contained Saunière’s cryptogram. Yet was it, as the marshal reported, the same as Gélis’s? No way to know without the marshal’s report, which was certainly removed from the archives for a reason.

  Five minutes ago, while he’d listened through a microphone stuck to a side windowpane as Stephanie Nelle and brother Geoffrey bonded, he’d learned Mark Nelle and Cotton Malone had walked to the church. Stephanie Nelle had even cried after reading what the former master had written. How touching. The master had clearly planned ahead and this whole matter was rapidly spinning out of control. He needed to yank the reins tight and slow the momentum down. So while Royce Claridon dealt with the occupants at Lars Nelle’s house, he was going to see about the other two.

  The transponder still attached to
Malone’s rental car had revealed that Malone and Stephanie Nelle returned to Rennes from Avignon in the wee hours. Mark Nelle must have come straight here from the abbey, which was not surprising.

  After what happened last night with the woman on the bridge, he’d thought Malone and Stephanie Nelle were no longer important, which was why his men had been instructed only to subdue them. Killing a current and a former American operative would surely bring attention. He’d traveled to Avignon to discover what secrets the palace archives held and to capture Claridon, not to attract the interest of the entire American intelligence community. He’d accomplished all three objectives and managed to obtain Lars Nelle’s journal as a bonus. All in all, not a bad night’s work. He’d even been willing to let Mark Nelle and Geoffrey go, since away from the abbey they were a far lesser threat. But after learning about the two missing books, that strategy had changed.

  “We’re in place,” a voice said in his ear.

  “Stay still until I call for you,” he whispered into the lapel mike.

  He’d brought six brothers with him and they were now scattered around the village, blending in with the growing Sunday crowd. The day was bright, sunny, and characteristically windy. While the Aude River’s valleys were warm and calm, the summits surrounding them were perpetually raked by mountain winds.

  He strolled up the main rue toward the Church of Mary Magdalene, making no effort to mask his approach.

  He wanted Mark Nelle to know he was there.

  MARK STOOD AT HIS FATHER’S GRAVE. THE MEMORIAL WAS IN good condition, as were all the graves, since the cemetery now seemed an integral part of the town’s growing tourist industry.

  For the first six years after his father died, he’d personally tended to the grave, visiting nearly every weekend. He’d also tended to the house. His father had been popular with Rennes’ residents since he’d treated the village with kindness and Saunière’s memory with respect. That was, perhaps, one reason why his father had included so much fiction about Rennes in his books. The embellished mystery was a money machine for the entire region, and writers who trashed that mystique were not appreciated. Since precious little was known for sure about any aspect of the tale, lots of room for improvisation existed. It also helped that his father was regarded as the man who brought the story to the world’s attention, though Mark knew that a relatively unknown French book by Gérard de Sède, Le Trésor Maudit, published in the late 1960s, was what first ignited his father’s curiosity. He’d always thought the title—The Accursed Treasure—apt, especially after his father suddenly died. Mark had been a teenager when he’d first read his father’s book, but it had been years later, while he was in graduate school, honing his knowledge of medieval history and religious philosophy, that his father told him what was really at stake.