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

by David S. Brody

  What Hayek didn’t know was that Trey had spent his entire career in the intelligence community angling and maneuvering and strategizing to put himself squarely at the center of the Burrows Cave mystery. The cave was a birthright, its secrets passed down through generations of the Buckner family for well over 100 years. He would work for Hayek, and he would even work with Georgia Johnston, but in the end his loyalty would be to his forefathers. And to the legacy he and his Aunt Eliza safeguarded.

  Salazar had done his job well. Just as dusk arrived, Cam pulled into the driveway of a Village Colonial-style home on a small lot in Boston’s working-class Brighton neighborhood and punched the security code into a keypad mounted on a fencepost. The garage door opened, the sophisticated security belying the commonplace appearance of the property. Inside an envelope taped to a plain oak door at the rear of the garage Cam found a key and a short note from the property owner: “Your friend has arranged payment. Stay as long as you want. For privacy, the door in the rear of the garage leads to a path which exits to a park. The apartment has WiFi. Call if you have any questions.” The owner signed his first name and left a phone number. Clean, anonymous, efficient.

  The oak door opened to a staircase leading to a suite of rooms above the garage. Amanda kept Astarte busy by exploring and unpacking while Cam checked out the path behind the garage. As the note said, the path—sheltered by thick shrubbery—led to a park containing a rusty swing-set and some benches. The park looked to be rarely used, which meant they’d be able to come and go without neighbors noticing. A three-minute walk brought him to a half-block retail area. He ordered a pizza and ducked into the CVS to get some insulin; while the pizza cooked and they filled his prescription he grabbed some snacks and breakfast food along with three prepaid cell phones. He also bought an elastic wrap and ice packs for Amanda to treat her rib injury and iodine to clean the cut on her wrist. He paid cash for everything and returned to the apartment.

  “Pizza was Uncle Jefferson’s favorite,” Astarte sighed.

  “Then we shall have it in honor of him,” Amanda exclaimed, handing out slices. She was doing a good job not allowing the girl to wallow in her sadness.

  “And I got ice cream for dessert,” Cam said. He couldn’t help but like the girl. She was earnest and sweet and sharp. And lonely. She had also caused a ton of trouble, but that wasn’t her fault. Of course liking her was not the same as wanting to keep her, nor was liking her a valid legal defense to a charge of kidnapping. This would all be a conversation for later tonight, after the girl fell asleep. “I also got you a cell phone in case of emergency.” He handed it to her. “Do you know how to use it?”

  “Of course. I have my own at home. Uncle Jefferson taught me how to text also.”

  “Apparently January was a bit of a gadget freak,” Amanda explained.

  After dinner they found a Disney movie for Astarte on the bedroom television. “Will she be okay alone?” Cam asked.

  “I think she’ll be fine for a bit. I’ll peek in on her.”

  Using his new disposable phone, Cam dialed Salazar’s number. He had hoped to be done with the mercenary once they rescued Amanda. But now it seemed they needed his help more than ever. Cam put him on speaker and placed the phone in the middle of the round kitchen table.

  “Something strange is going on,” Salazar said. “You raced off with an eight-year-old girl seven hours ago right in front of the police and there’s just … nothing. No Amber Alert. No news flashes. Nothing. It’s like it didn’t happen.”

  Cam’s mind raced. Did they—whoever they were—want Astarte to be kidnapped? It made no sense.

  “Another thing. I know a cop in Connecticut. He made some calls. The official word is that the sniper shot was a stray bullet from a hunter. No investigation. No crime. Again, like it didn’t happen.”

  “So how do you explain it?” Amanda asked.

  “It has to be the feds. CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, someone like that. They’re the only people who can make stuff like this just disappear.”

  “The feds?” Cam said. “Why would they care about January and his artifacts?”

  “No idea. But you guys better figure it out quick. Next time, I doubt Amanda is going to be so lucky—those guys usually don’t miss when they shoot.”

  Cam and Amanda stared at the phone for a few seconds after Salazar hung up, Cam’s arm around her shoulder.

  “What in the world is going on?” she asked.

  He replayed the events of the past few days in his head. “Crazy as it sounds, there must be something in these artifacts, or in the Clairvaux Codex, that affects national security.”

  “Well, if they’d bother to ask we’d be bloody happy to return the whole lot to them.”

  “I don’t know if that’s going to do it. What if we know too much already? They can’t erase our memories, can’t change what we know.” He tried to keep his voice steady, as if they were talking about what to eat for breakfast.

  “Oh, but they can. By eliminating us.” She locked her green eyes on his. “I don’t know how we got to this point. But it seems our only hope is to make the secret no longer a secret. Then eliminating us would be pointless.”

  Amanda was always good at cutting to the core of a problem. “What you say is logical. Hopefully we’re dealing with logical people.”

  Cam pulled the notebook containing the translation of the Clairvaux Codex from his bag. January’s stone artifacts, including the devil’s rock Amanda stole, could wait—the document seemed key to understanding the man’s quest.

  “January said the original parchment was carbon-dated to the twelfth century,” Cam said as Amanda checked on Astarte and closed the blinds in their Brighton safe-house.

  “Can I watch TV out here, with you?” the girl asked.

  “Of course honey.” Amanda found the movie, sat down on the couch next to Astarte and turned to Cam. “While you were out shopping I did a quick web search on Seborga, where the Codex was found. It’s on the Italy-France border, near the French Riviera. Fancy this. The first nine Templar Knights, before they went to Jerusalem in 1118, were all ordained there.”

  “Not in Rome?”

  “No. And over the next two hundred years, fifteen of the Templar Grand Masters were also given the titles of Prince of Seborga. That’s more than half of them.”

  “And they kept this journal secret for over 800 years, hidden in some church. Can you imagine how much history is buried in these old churches?”

  Cam read aloud from January’s translation, with Amanda taking notes. As January had summarized, the document detailed the journey of the noblewoman Marie-Claire, her husband Aragon, their 13-year-old son, and five other Templar Knights across the Atlantic. Interestingly, the group traveled from southern Europe first to Norway before crossing the ocean.

  “Likely because the Norsemen knew the best route to America,” Amanda observed.

  “Makes sense. They probably island-hopped their way across the North Atlantic, just like the Vikings and Prince Henry did.”

  Cam continued reading. “Hey, listen to this. It says they departed from the north coast of Wales. I wonder why they didn’t go straight from Norway.”

  “Maybe they had to get supplies. Does it say where exactly in Wales?”

  “Hold on.” Cam scanned the page. “The modern translation is a place called Colwyn Bay.”

  Amanda repositioned herself on the arm of the couch. “That’s where Prince Madoc departed from.”

  “Really?” Cam put the notebook down. Again, too much coincidence. “Same date, same departure point. Maybe the Madoc legend was based on fact, based on the Templar trip.” He let his mind drift. “Is it possible one of the Templar Knights was actually Madoc himself?”

  “Could be. Many noblemen of the time were Templars. But one problem is that the Madoc legend has Madoc building forts along the Alabama River and further up into Tennessee. According to your document our Templars ended up in New York.”

  �
��Good point.”

  Amanda slapped the back of the couch. “Blimey. I forgot. The Madoc legend says he crossed the ocean and then returned to Wales to get more men for a second visit. So perhaps he journeyed with the Templars to New York before later exploring more to the south. I wish I had grabbed the Madoc stone from January’s devil’s rock collection,” she sighed. “But I just grabbed a random marble piece.”

  Amanda came over to the table and typed in a series of Google searches on her laptop, chewing her lip as she concentrated. “Okay. Listen to this: In 1782 the Governor of Tennessee, a chap named Seiver, reports he had a conversation with a Cherokee chief asking about the ancient fortification works in the area. Here’s what the chief said: ‘It is handed down by the Forefathers that the works had been made by the White people who had formerly inhabited the country… They were a people called Welsh, and that they had crossed the Great Water and landed first near the mouth of the Alabama River near Mobile.’”

  “This all makes sense,” Cam said, pacing now. The idea that no Europeans set foot in America during the 500-year gap between the Vikings and Columbus strained credulity. No reason the Welsh couldn’t have made the trip, with or without the Templars.

  “Wait,” Amanda interrupted, “I have more.” Her eyes scanned the screen as her fingers worked the keyboard. “You’re going to love this mural.” She turned the screen toward him.

  MADOC STOKE DRY MURAL

  Cam studied a mural of a white-skinned, crowned figure being pierced by arrows shot by naked, dark-haired assailants, one of whom was wearing a headdress. “That looks like some European monarch being attacked by Native Americans.”

  “Precisely. It was uncovered during renovation of a church in England in the 1970s. The mural dates back to 1280.” She paused. “I believe it shows Prince Madoc being killed by your natives.”

  He studied the image. How would the so-called experts explain this? Either the Europeans had traveled to America, or the Native Americans had crossed the Atlantic and attacked England.

  “And get this,” Amanda continued. “The church is in the town of Stoke Dry. Stoke Dry means ‘Fatal Blow.’”

  Cam grinned. “That’s pretty cool.” His mind sifted the evidence, trying to sort all the information. The words came slowly as his brain worked through the problem. “But if it was the Welsh who were here, and they were the ancestors of the Mandan people, then January’s whole theory that the Mandan descend from Jesus’ niece is bogus.”

  Amanda nodded as she followed his line of thinking. “Not necessarily. The stories are not mutually exclusive. Madoc and his Welsh friends could have settled in with the Mandans once they arrived here. If the Mandan remembered their history they would have been thrilled to have cousins visiting from across the pond. Especially ones who claimed to follow the teachings of their ancestor Jesus.”

  Cam smiled. “Cousins visiting. That’s pretty much how this whole country was settled. But that doesn’t explain why January hid the Madoc artifact away with the other so-called devil’s rocks.”

  “Perhaps in his mind the Madoc legend muddies the waters unnecessarily.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged. “So back to the Clairvaux Codex. According to January, the Templars buried some artifacts up in the Catskills. January found some of them, and he has a bunch of clues and maps leading to others, but he was too sick to get them. They also hid some ancient scroll, but January hadn’t found that yet either. That seems to be the thing he was most interested in.”

  “So that’s our job.”

  Cam nodded. “If we decide to pursue this, that’d be our first stop.”

  She took his hand. “I don’t see that there’s any ‘if’ here, Cam. I don’t think we have any choice.”

  “You’re probably right. And I think Salazar agrees with you. But then what do we do about Astarte? We can’t drag her along.”

  Amanda sat straight in her chair. “And we surely can’t dump her on the side of the road.”

  “Of course not. But we could drop her off at the local police station.”

  She took a deep breath. “Cameron, whatever secrets I learned Astarte knows as well. She’s just as much a threat to these people as we are. Perhaps more. Whatever January was working on, whatever secrets he was intent on revealing, she’s a crucial part of his plan—she’s the Fortieth Princess. Can we be sure she’d be safe?”

  Would they murder a little girl, whoever ‘they’ were? Probably not. But then again Cam never would have expected them to try to murder Amanda. And he also would have expected Aunt Eliza to have reported Astarte missing and for her face to be plastered all over the nightly news. Nothing seemed to add up. Until they understood the full ramifications of January’s discovery it was impossible to predict what ‘they’ might do. “No, I can’t guarantee that.”

  “Then it’s settled. She stays with us.”

  “Any sign of them?” Georgia asked. She and Trey were holed up in connecting rooms at a Holiday Inn outside of Hartford, Connecticut. One of her earliest memories was of a family vacation, her parents allowing Georgia and her sister to share a connecting room at the Howard Johnson’s. Looking back, it was probably because her parents wanted to fool around. She, on the other hand, would be lucky to get a smile out of the tightly-wound Trey Buckner.

  “Nothing.” Trey sat in front of a desk, one hand working an iPhone and the other a laptop mouse. “We’ve been monitoring all the financial databases—no credit cards, ATM withdrawals, nothing. And he ditched his rental car. They must have someone helping them.” Somehow his white shirt was still fresh and wrinkle-free after a long day of travel. As soon as the meeting with Hayek ended they had jumped in Trey’s government-issued SUV and driven the six hours from Washington to Hartford, Trey using blue police lights mounted on the grill to weave through rush-hour traffic in Baltimore and otherwise cruise the left lane at 85. No doubt Hayek had made a call to clear their path.

  “Do you think they’re headed to the Catskills?” she asked. They were flying in the dark here—nobody had seen the Clairvaux Codex, so nobody knew what it said. All she had been able to glean through Internet searches was that January had hinted at artifacts he had found in the Catskills. They had chosen Hartford as a base of operations because it was essentially equidistant from Foxwoods, the Catskills and the Boston suburb of Westford, where Amanda and Cameron lived.

  He shrugged her question aside and focused on his gadgets. He was the field agent—it was his job to track and deal with Spencer and Thorne. Georgia was an analyst, on board to interpret the artifacts and use them to try to anticipate their quarry’s next move; she had no experience being out on a mission. Which meant for now she was pretty much useless.

  “I’m going downstairs to get some food,” she said. And a cocktail. “Want me to bring anything back for you?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Okay. Call my cell if you hear anything.”

  She found an open stool at the bar and ordered a turkey wrap and a martini. The down time gave her a chance to muse about the possible Templar connections to this mission. She hadn’t expected Jefferson January’s artifacts to be tied to the Templars in any way, but it was possible—and in fact even likely—that all ancient explorers of North America had been following the same maps and were some way related to each other. So she shouldn’t have been surprised. There always seemed to be connections, as if secret knowledge was handed down through the generations and centuries. Perhaps the Templars and other related groups like the Freemasons really did have their roots in ancient times and really did possess secret knowledge shielded from the masses.

  Which led her to focus on the primary issue she had been wrestling with lately: What was it the Templar knights found in Jerusalem in the early years of the 12th century that allowed them to become so powerful so quickly? They must have returned to Europe with something truly extraordinary—some artifact or treasure or secret writing or ancient knowledge—that enabled the Order to become the most powerful en
tity in all of Christendom for almost 200 years. Some scholars believed it was the Ark of the Covenant, or the Holy Grail, or the treasures of King Solomon. But Georgia rejected these possibilities—these items would have been extraordinary finds, but whatever the Templars found gave them not only unsurpassed wealth and fame but more importantly unequaled power. Power to demand that Church leaders grant the Order complete autonomy and sovereignty at a time when the Church controlled almost every aspect of European society. And there was only one way to get that kind of power over the Church in medieval times: blackmail.

  Which meant whatever they found must have been pretty damn earth-shattering. And perhaps heaven-shattering as well.

  Had Jefferson January somehow stumbled onto the trail of this secret? And, if so, was it still as radioactive?

  The buzz of her cell phone interrupted her musings. It was Trey. “I’ve got something. A couple of hours ago Thorne filled a prescription for insulin at a drugstore in Boston.”

  There was something unsettlingly Big Brother-ish about the government knowing when you bought birth control pills or herpes medication or Viagra. No doubt Thorne’s name was in some electronic data base the pharmacist tapped into to fill the prescription. “Are we heading up there?” She eyed her cocktail.

  “No. I don’t want to race east and find out they passed us going west out to the Catskills. I’ve already got someone on the ground in Boston—he’ll be at the drug store when it opens in the morning. Maybe someone will remember seeing him.”

  Georgia nodded. Once Amanda and Cameron reached the Catskill Mountains it would be difficult to track them—there were literally hundreds of trails covering dozens of peaks in the area. The best bet would be to intercept them on the way.

  She sipped again at her cocktail. This was exactly the type of operation that would have slipped through the cracks before ODNI had been created. January had committed no crime, so the FBI had no reason to monitor him. The CIA might have viewed his research and artifacts as a threat to national security, but they had no authority to operate domestically. And Homeland Security would have ignored him since he was not a terrorist.