Thief on the Cross: Templar Secrets in America (Templars in America Series Book 2)

by David S. Brody

  “Two reasons. First, everyone likes Klinger.”

  “Klinger?”

  “Yup. From M*A*S*H. Because of him Americans like the Lebanese. They don’t think of them as Arabs or towel heads or terrorists. And that includes the Americans here at the Agency.”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Second, who always loses when there’s a war in the Mid-East?”

  “The Jews. Even when they win, they lose because everyone hates them.”

  “Correct. And who else?”

  “The Lebanese. We end up getting caught in the middle. Usually our homeland is the battle field.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I picked you. You have a horse in this race—the last thing you want to see is another war in the Middle East. And you won’t be perceived as biased or paranoid like some Jewish agent might be. People will trust you, like they trust Klinger.”

  “I don’t have to wear a dress, do I?”

  McDevitt had responded with a rare smile. “So. The Clairvaux Codex. It’s supposedly a medieval document, though nobody’s seen it in almost half a century. The Nazis were obsessed with it. And if the Nazis wanted it that badly, there must be some pretty good stuff in there. Templar stuff. The Nazis had a whole unit researching the Templars and their secrets.”

  Hayek lifted the manila folder, leaned back in his chair and recalled McDevitt describing the interview he had conducted with the young German clerk in 1945:

  “First of all, I always wore a big Jewish star when I was questioning those Nazi bastards. Scared the shit out of them—they didn’t know I was an Irish-Catholic kid from Boston. This one Kraut was young, maybe 20 or 21. Just a simple clerk. Whole life ahead of him. But afraid of what we were going to do to him, of course. He had been stationed up in northwest Italy in a place called Seborga. Seborga is one of those principalities, sort of like Monaco—it’s part of Italy, but they have their own government and currency. When the war ended, the kid hiked over to France and surrendered.”

  The young Nazi clerk had explained to McDevitt how his unit had been sent to that area of Italy to search for Templar artifacts—specifically, documents and religious relics the Templars may have discovered while excavating beneath King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem in the 12th century, during the Crusades. “Apparently the nine original Templar knights had gathered at the Cistercian monastery in Seborga before crossing to Jerusalem in the early 1100s,” McDevitt had recounted. “It was one of their key strongholds. So it made sense that Templar secrets would be hidden there. One thing in particular caught my attention: The kid said there was some kind of document that would undermine the foundations of Western religion.” He had tapped a tobacco-stained finger on the manila folder. “That would have been a big deal for the Nazis—getting rid of religion, and replacing it with Nazism, was a fundamental part of Hitler’s plan. The state would become the new religion. That’s why so many Catholic priests ended up in concentration camps. So they were interested in anything that would undermine Christianity.”

  But according to McDevitt the Nazis never found what they were looking for. They tortured a nun into admitting she had seen a leather-bound folio containing medieval writings. She had heard that the folio told of an ancient parchment scroll hidden in a cave many weeks sail west of Europe. An old priest had fled with the manuscript into the hills before the Germans arrived, and the war ended before the Nazis tracked down the priest.

  The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the late 1940s had prompted McDevitt to occasionally update the file with a few newspaper clippings, but otherwise the file had remained dormant for 60 years. Until now.

  Hayek fingered the short report Judith had filed early this morning, summarizing the Spencer woman’s activities. Almost in passing Judith mentioned that January possessed some medieval writings he called the Clairvaux documents—it was nothing more than dumb luck that he had assigned the young agent to January in the first place, based on some threats January had made when the Mormon leadership refused to support his theories about ancient Mormon history. Now it looked as if January had found the ancient manuscript the Nazis had hunted. If so, had he also found the ancient scroll the Nazis believed would bring down the Western religions?

  McDevitt was long since dead, but his instructions echoed inside Hayek’s head. “Documents like that have a way of bubbling up at the worst times. Keep an eye out for anything about Clairvaux and the Templars. Someday those papers will turn up again. And it’ll be your job to bury them.”

  Cam killed half an hour answering questions from the Pequot deputy police chief, a sixty-something guy whose gruff, street-smart demeanor was softened by a pair of dark, caring eyes. A detective from the state police force took notes. They had moved to January’s dining room table, Cam snacking on an apple from January’s kitchen. He and the deputy chief sat across from each other while the cop who originally investigated Amanda’s disappearance from the museum stood nearby also taking notes. They were on Pequot land so the tribe police had jurisdiction.

  Cam kept it simple—January shot himself. No need to get into the whole light switch and electrical outlet machinations; nobody seemed to notice the burn marks on January’s thumb and finger. And Cam’s story checked out. Still, nobody seemed to want to take responsibility for letting him go. Cam stood. “Look, if you think I took the guy’s gun, pried his mouth open and blew his brains out, all without anyone hearing a commotion, then arrest me. Otherwise I’d like to be done with this.”

  The cop from the museum responded. “You had a motive. The guy kidnapped your fiancée.”

  “Really? According to you, she just got cold feet.”

  “And you have blood splattered on your clothes.”

  “Like I said, I dove across the table to try to stop him. Check the gun—you won’t find my fingerprints on it.”

  “Maybe you wore gloves and then later put the gun in Mr. January’s hand.”

  “Maybe you’ve been watching too much TV.”

  The officer took a step toward Cam.

  “Enough,” the deputy chief spat. He kicked at the carpet and studied his shoes, as if he could find the truth in the creases of the leather like some kind of carnival palm reader. Finally he sighed. “Mr. Thorne, you can go.”

  Cam didn’t give them time to reconsider. He grabbed his coat and jogged to the car. Amanda and Astarte were throwing a tennis ball to Venus in the parking lot. A woman whom Cam had been told was January’s sister watched them from a picnic table on the lawn between the garage and January’s house. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get out of here,” he said to Amanda.

  “Definitely,” Amanda responded. She took Cam’s hand and turned to Astarte. “It’s time for us to go, love.”

  The girl frowned. “Can’t I come with you?”

  Amanda shook her head. “You belong here, with your Aunt Eliza.” January’s sister had gotten off the picnic bench and was walking briskly toward them. “But I promise to come back for a visit.”

  “Is Uncle Jefferson dead?”

  Amanda dropped to her knees, her eyes level with Astarte’s. “I’m afraid so.”

  The girl sagged. “I was afraid that would happen.” The little princess hugged Amanda, resisting Eliza’s efforts to pull her away. “All the people I love end up dying,” she sobbed. “First my mommy. Then Uncle Jefferson.”

  Amanda stood and released the girl to her aunt. Two seconds later a gunshot echoed through the compound, the reverberation a haunting exclamation point to the little girl’s prophecy.

  CHAPTER 9

  Georgia had been a CIA operative for almost 20 years and only once before, immediately after 9/11, had she been ordered to drop everything and head straight to Washington for an urgent meeting. Even though it was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, she had little trouble finding a flight; D.C. was one of those places people flew out of rather than into during the holidays.

  She landed at Reagan National late morning and hailed a taxi. These meetings
always made her uncomfortable. She understood politics and politicians—it was all about spin and messages and news cycles. Form over substance. But the intelligence community didn’t work that way. For them substance—data and information—was everything. The problem was that, as an operative, she was rarely given enough context by her superiors to understand how the information she obtained fit into a bigger picture. It was like working on only a small portion of a jigsaw puzzle.

  A half-hour later the cab dropped Georgia off in front of a modern, X-shaped building in Tysons Corner, a northern Virginia suburb of Washington. It was her first visit to the new ODNI headquarters—the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had been created after 9/11 to oversee and coordinate the nation’s various intelligence communities. She crossed a dark blue industrial carpet into a large conference room overlooking a parking lot and the highway in the distance. She wasn’t surprised to see half a dozen staffers seated around the table; typically the FBI, Homeland Security and Defense Department, along with the CIA, would be represented in any ODNI operation. But she was surprised to see the stern, square-jawed face of Trey Buckner from the Mormon campaign group staring back at her—she had assumed he answered to Salt Lake City, not Washington. Maybe it was both. So this must somehow involve the Governor’s Presidential campaign. Or perhaps Jefferson January.

  Apparently the group had been waiting for her. A tall, paunchy man with olive skin, tightly curled dark hair and puffiness under a pair of dark brown eyes sat at the head of the table. No doubt he had once been handsome; in fact, with a little sleep and a few visits to the gym he still could be. As he cleared his throat and took a puff on a cigarette, she squinted at his badge—‘Jabil Hayek.’ She recognized the Hayek name as a prominent Lebanese one. He was perhaps ten years younger than Georgia, making him almost a contemporary; most of the others in the room looked young enough to be her children.

  He didn’t bother with the formalities. And the fact he was smoking in a government building indicated he ruled this little fiefdom. “We have a situation that has been festering for a number of years. Our job is to make sure things don’t begin to rot.” He turned to Georgia. “Perhaps you recall the advice you gave to the campaign group up in Massachusetts?”

  It seemed that Trey had already briefed the group. “Regarding Jefferson January?”

  “Yes.” His tone was matter-of-fact, not warm but not unkind either.

  “I believe my exact words were to do whatever was necessary to bury January and his artifacts.”

  “Well, the first part is taken care of. January shot himself in the head earlier this morning.”

  “Shot himself?” It was a bit too convenient.

  Hayek snorted. “Believe it or not, yes. But not before he took a number of steps to ensure the continuation of his mission or quest or prophecy or whatever he calls it.”

  Georgia’s mind raced. She hadn’t even realized they had January under surveillance. Apparently not her corner of the jigsaw.

  Hayek explained how a woman had gained access to the artifacts housed in January’s underground bunker. He looked at his notes. “Her name is Amanda Spencer.”

  Georgia interrupted. “The one who’s doing all the research on the Templars in New England?”

  Hayek looked back at her blankly. “I’m, um, not aware of her background.” He glared at a young male assistant.

  “The Spencer woman and a guy named Cameron Thorne are part of a group that has been studying a bunch of runic inscriptions and other artifacts that seem to tell the story of the Knights Templar coming to America in the late 1300s.” She had attended a conference they spoke at in Newport, Rhode Island last spring, and even shared a spiced rum with them at the bar afterward. Nice people. They had even paid for her drink.

  “Wait,” Hayek said. “What’s this about the Templars in America?”

  Georgia knew they had gone off on a tangent, but her superior seemed interested so she continued. “The theory is the Templars came over to escape the Church, both for economic and religious reasons. They make a pretty compelling case that the Templars were actually worshipers of the Goddess.”

  “What goddess?” Hayek asked.

  “You know, Mother Earth.”

  “You mean they were pagans?”

  Georgia bit her tongue. “I suppose you could use that word. Others would say they were looking for a duality in the godhead, a balance of both male attributes and female attributes. Obviously the Church during medieval times was about as patriarchal as you can get. The Templars may also have been protecting the bloodline, the offspring of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.”

  “Did they ever mention anything about an ancient scroll, or about a Cistercian abbey in Clairvaux?”

  She shrugged. “Not that I ever heard.”

  Hayek waved the Templar discussion aside. “Back to the issue at hand, Ms. Spencer’s expertise in the Templars might explain why she was at January’s compound.” He lowered his voice. “At some point—in fact, only about ten minutes ago—our agent targeted Ms. Spencer.”

  “Wait. Your operative took a shot at Amanda Spencer? Just because she, what, saw some carved stones?”

  Judith threw the backpack over her shoulders and raced toward the rear staircase, the Remington still warm in her hand. The 15 pounds of metal felt like an anchor as she took the stairs three at a time and then leaped the final six. But she would need the rifle both to survive in the woods and as protection against those pursuing her. Assuming she survived, she would then have to go underground and somehow reinvent herself, give herself a new identity, start a whole new life.

  All because she couldn’t bring herself to fire the bullet that would turn Mary Poppins’ skull into Humpty Dumpty.

  She pushed through the hole in the fence and trekked perhaps a mile into the woods. Would it be enough of a head start?

  The police would of course want to catch the sniper.

  And her CIA superiors would want to know how—or more importantly why—she missed her target. If they even bothered to ask.

  Cam’s mind clicked through the images as if turning the pages of an old superhero comic book. A gunshot ringing off the side of the car. Voices screaming. Amanda diving into the back seat. Himself crawling to the driver’s side door. Police running from January’s house with guns drawn. Screeching out of the compound. Crashing through the metal security gate. Bam. Whack. Pow. Screw the cops. He wasn’t going to stick around and serve as target practice.

  He gulped some air as they reached the main road, his fingers white against the black steering wheel. “Amanda, you okay?”

  Her trembling hand squeezed his shoulder. “We’re fine. Just frightened to death.”

  “Who was shooting at us?” He tried to control his breathing, forcing himself to inhale only through his nose.

  “I have no idea. But I heard it whiz by my ear. I’m still shaking.”

  Amanda’s earlier comment echoed back to him. “Wait, did you say ‘we’ are fine?” He looked in the rearview mirror to see a pair of cobalt eyes peering back at him.

  “I dragged her into the car. Bloody certain I wasn’t going to leave her out there.”

  “Of course.” He accelerated, one eye on the side mirror as he sped along the state highway. Nobody seemed to be pursuing.

  Amanda put her arm protectively around the girl. “It’s obviously not safe for her back at the compound.”

  “Agreed. We’ll have to bring her to the police or social services or something.”

  The young princess whimpered. “But I want to stay with you. I’m afraid.” She stared at Cam in the mirror, her eyes wet and beseeching. “I need a prince to rescue me.”

  Georgia repeated the question. “Your operative took a shot at Amanda Spencer?”

  “Fortunately, she missed,” Hayek said.

  Georgia seemed to be the only one who noticed Trey’s sharp intake of breath. “Missed?” she asked. “Completely?”

  Hayek nodded. “Yes.” Hayek
leveled his brown eyes on Georgia’s. “And I want to make it clear that I issued no such order. To do so would be a clear violation of U.S. law.” She couldn’t decide if he was telling the truth or just trying to cover his ass. “But our agent knew we did not want the Spencer woman prancing out of the compound with January’s artifacts and papers. Apparently the agent got a bit overzealous and made an attempt to … incapacitate … Ms. Spencer. But she was acting on her own.”

  Incapacitate. One of the reasons ODNI was created was that it operated in a gray area, answerable to the President and empowered to take actions on domestic soil that were otherwise forbidden. Actions such as assassination. But how could it be necessary in this case? “What in the world would make your agent think it was necessary to kill an innocent civilian over some carved stones?”

  A few younger staffers shifted; apparently they were not used to anyone questioning Hayek. And any of them with half a brain knew this talk of assassination could put them in front of a Congressional inquiry. Or worse. “I’m not at all sure she thought that. Again, my guess is she just panicked. But this all happened only minutes ago; I just got off the phone with the local police.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “According to one of the security guards, in the commotion Ms. Spencer and this Cameron Thorne fellow you mentioned—he is now apparently her fiancé—ended up fleeing with a suitcase full of artifacts. More importantly, they also ended up with a medieval document from January’s collection.” He sucked on his cigarette. “The Nazis were searching for this document during World War II. They believed its contents could undermine Western religion. It is called the Clairvaux Codex.”

  Trey cleared his throat. “Which artifacts did they take?”

  Georgia wished he had not interrupted; she wanted to hear more about this Clairvaux Codex.