Amanda and Astarte had found a take-out restaurant serving Thanksgiving dinner. In many ways Amanda missed England and hadn’t really taken to American culture. And she found the Thanksgiving holiday a bit insensitive to Native Americans. But she enjoyed the emphasis on family and giving thanks. Plus she was a glutton for the stuffing.
Astarte refused to eat until they had said grace, so Amanda took the girl’s hand and Cam’s as well and closed her eyes. “We offer thanks this day to Mother Earth for supplying us with food and sustenance, and for sharing her bounty with our fellow citizens and the animals of the world. And we promise to protect our environment for future generations. Amen.”
Astarte opened one eye and whispered. “Aren’t you going to thank God?”
“I just did.”
“No, you thanked Mother Earth.”
Amanda smiled. “True. Let me explain. Some people believe Mother Earth and God are the same thing.” Amanda had never verbalized this before, but it was a concept that had been fermenting inside her ever since she and Cam began studying the Templars and concluded that the monastic warriors secretly worshiped the Goddess, or Mother Earth, as an equal partner to the male godhead in the hierarchy of the heavens. Amanda was a bit surprised to hear herself describe her beliefs in a way that reflected a pagan or even Wiccan mind-set, but she didn’t choke over the words as they escaped her mouth.
“But God is in heaven. And Mother Earth is … in the ground.”
Cam jumped in. “Maybe another way to think about it is that God and Mother Earth are partners, sort of like a husband and wife.” Amanda squeezed his hand. “Mother Earth gives life to the world, just as the mothers of all species give life to their young. The female is the giver of life—what would a male god rule over if there was nothing living?”
“So that’s why you thank Mother Earth for the food, because it comes from the earth?”
Close enough. It was not fair to the little girl to try to change her religious beliefs. “Yes,” Amanda said. “But we can also thank God for creating the world if you would like.”
Astarte closed her eyes and held her hands together in prayer. She was obviously trying to think of a correct prayer. She sighed. “Thank you God for helping Mother Earth give us this food.”
Amanda bit back a smile. “Amen,” she responded.
Astarte worked on a jigsaw puzzle they had bought while Cam cleaned up after their makeshift Thanksgiving dinner. “How’s your head?” Amanda asked.
“It throbs.” He bent over slowly to pick up a napkin off the floor. “And sometimes I get dizzy. But at least I can function.”
Amanda took his hand. “Come. Sit with me.” She guided him to the room’s only easy chair and sat on his lap, avoiding his injured knee and positioning herself so she could twist toward him without straining her cracked rib. “We need to figure out what to do next.”
“You mean other than get X-rays?”
“Yes, other than that.” She kissed him, lingering with her lips on his for a few seconds.
He sighed. “I guess it’s the same choices we’ve always had. Choice one is to turn ourselves in.”
“To whom? Not the feds, obviously.”
“Probably the New York City police; they’re probably as sophisticated as any.”
“I’ve been considering that,” she said. “But here’s what the feds are going to tell the locals: First, we kidnapped a young girl. Second, you blew up their SUV in the Catskills. Third, you fired a shot at their agents on the mountain. And that’s just the true stuff; who knows what else they might fabricate? How long do you think it will take for the locals to hand us over?”
“Good point. Within 24 hours we’d probably find ourselves on some water-board in Guantanamo Bay.”
“So what’s our second option?”
“Go to the press with the scroll and hope the publicity protects us.”
“And I’m tempted by that. But the problem is that we need to convince some reporter to convince some editor that this is a legitimate story. And then the editor needs to convince his publisher to run with it, despite knowing the government wants it stifled. It might take weeks. Do you think we can remain hidden that long?”
Cam shook his head. “No. A couple of days, maybe. Not a couple of weeks. Especially because we’d have to expose ourselves to make contact with the press.”
“So we have choice number three--”
“Go to Montreal. Find the bones, or whatever it is that’s buried at Notre Dame Basilica.”
She played along. “Very well, but how does that help us? Won’t we just be having this same conversation again in a couple of days?”
Cam blinked, weighing his response. “Well, for one thing we’ll be in Canada, which might give us some protection. It might be a little tougher for U.S. agents to assassinate innocent people across the border. Also, if we have the bones of Jesus … well, we could call a press conference and get a ton of publicity right away. The bones of Jesus are different than some scroll, no matter what it says.”
She played the devil’s advocate. “But who’s to say the bones are authentic?”
“They don’t have to be. Just claiming to have them is enough of a news story to get press attention that day. Especially if we have the scroll and the IN CAMERA stone to back up the story. Look at all the attention the Discovery Channel special about Talpiot Tomb got.”
She had reached a similar conclusion. Finding the bones would improve their odds, even if that meant improving only from a long-shot to an underdog. “Okay, I agree. Montreal is our best bet. Now we just have one problem: How do we cross the border?”
Cam smiled. “That’s actually an easy one.”
Cam sat on the bed and studied a map of Lake Memphremagog from a road atlas Amanda had borrowed from the front desk. He had spent many boyhood summers boating on the lake, which straddled the Vermont-Quebec border. The area possessed a long history of contraband smuggling, and as a teenager he and his cousin often snuck into Quebec to buy fireworks and beer to try to impress the local girls. As long as the old trails hadn’t changed, and as long as he could secure a boat, crossing the lake into Quebec should be fairly simple….
Amanda interrupted. “Have a look at this.” She had repacked the scroll in its clay canister and double-sealed the canister in a pair of large Ziploc bags. She angled the laptop screen toward him. “It came up when I did a Google search using the words Templars and Catskills.”
Cam leaned in and read a chat room message: “Wondering if anyone knows anything about a Templar document called the Clairvaux Codex. Also interested in knowledge of Templar artifacts in the Catskill Mountains. Perhaps related to Burrows Cave artifacts, and also to pieces held by collector JJ. A and C, I have a feeling you can help with this. And I can help you as well. Here is my email if you prefer privacy.”
Cam whistled. “When was this posted?”
“This afternoon. By a woman named Georgia Johnston.”
“Who is she?”
Amanda turned the screen back to herself. “Let’s find out.”
She tapped the keyboard as Cam contemplated the message. Obviously it was not random—the details were too specific. But who was the writer and what kind of game was she playing?
“Okay,” Amanda said. “This Georgia Johnston is a political consultant. An older woman, based on her photo. Looks like she’s working on the Presidential campaign.”
“Her candidate is a Mormon. Just a coincidence?”
“You know I don’t believe in coincidence. This must somehow involve January.” She scanned a few more websites. “But I can’t find anything more about her.”
“Wait. Salazar saw Buckner sitting with an older woman the other night at a restaurant in Phoenicia. He took pictures of them and showed them to me so I could recognize anyone following us.”
Amanda angled the computer screen toward him. “What do you think?” she asked.
“Bingo. That’s her. So the political consultant thing i
s just a front. She’s a fed, probably trying to trick us into coming out of hiding. I say ignore it.”
Amanda cocked her head. “I don’t know. There’s something about the message that rings true. Mind if I give her a little test?”
Cam shrugged. “Okay. It’s not like we have a lot of options.”
Amanda flexed her fingers over the keyboard. She typed a response to Georgia’s post: “What did people in Phoenicia eat during Thanksgiving?”
Cam studied it before Amanda hit send. “Sort of cryptic. But I like it. It gives her the chance to be honest with us. Any chance it can be traced back to us?”
“I don’t see how. I’m just posting to the website.”
The response came a minute later: “When they had to work, they ate Italian. Then they watched some fireworks. Of course, the thanks they give is to Baal and Asherah.”
Amanda chuckled. “Well played. The fireworks are a reference to your little trick in the parking lot of the hotel. So she’s admitting she’s working with the feds. And the reference to Asherah, which is another name for Astarte, tells us she is a student of ancient religions. So she’s not just some goon sent to track us down. She’s a scholar.”
“But the question remains, can we trust her? Or is this just a ruse?”
“I have an idea. Presumably she’s in the Catskills still. I’m assuming you want to head up to Montreal first thing in the morning?”
“Actually I’d like to leave tonight. I’ll need time and daylight to get us across the border tomorrow.”
“Okay. Here’s my plan.” She typed a response to Georgia.
“Meet us midnight in middle of O’Neill Plaza, Boston College campus. Come alone. Wear no hat and carry 2-liter soda bottle.”
Cam arched his neck. “I don’t follow.”
“Have a look,” she said. She turned the laptop screen toward him again. “This is the Boston College webcam; it runs 24-7. The campus is empty tonight because of Thanksgiving. But it’s still lit, and the moon is bright, so we can see the entire area surrounding the plaza.”
“I get it. We can watch the plaza from now until midnight. If she calls in back-up, we’d be able to see them getting into position. Which means we can’t trust her.” It was simple but ingenious. He smiled. “Remind me never to try to cheat on you.”
She rolled her eyes. “As if.”
“Okay, why the soda bottle?”
“So we can be sure it’s her. The image isn’t great at night. I want to make sure we’re not watching some janitor or something.”
Cam checked his watch. “It’s just after eight. Assuming she’s still in the Catskills, she can get to Boston by midnight if she leaves right away. But that’s a long drive just to get stood up.”
“Yes, well, I’ve got a cracked rib and you’ve a concussion and torn up knee and nasty gash on that pretty face of yours that makes it hard for me to kiss you. I’m not feeling particularly sorry for her.”
Georgia resisted the urge to push 90 on the interstate; she would make Boston by midnight even at 75. But her heart was racing, and somehow the Grand Am she had commandeered from Trey Buckner wanted to race with her.
It had been relatively easy to make her exit. She had convinced Hayek that she would be of more use in Boston with all her reference materials, and Trey—still sulking over losing his prey in the Catskills—was happy to be rid of a stodgy academic who couldn’t even stand guard over a few cars in the hotel parking lot.
She had been fairly certain Amanda and Cam would grab for the lifeline she had cast them—they might not trust the captain of the rescue boat, but their only other choice was to drown. That they wanted to meet in Boston meant they must have returned to familiar ground after their escape from the Catskills. Perhaps they were holed up near Westford, north of Boston, where they lived.
Just before 11:00 she hit the Charlton toll plaza, 45 miles outside Boston. She ran in and purchased a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke and some trail mix. Finally she would be doing something productive, something worthwhile. She wanted to help Amanda and Cam not just because it was the right thing to do, but because the history they had uncovered fascinated her.
The one problem she hadn’t yet solved was what to do with her intrepid historians once she had gained their trust. For a day or two Hayek would not suspect her of harboring them. But at some point the truth about what they had discovered would need to come out, preferably before Hayek charged her with treason.
What they had discovered. That was the most fascinating part of this. Did the Templars discover something that convinced them the teachings of the Church were a lie, that the entire religion was built on legend and bluster? She couldn’t help but picture the scared little man behind the curtain proclaiming his greatness and power to the citizens of Oz. Were Amanda and Cam about to pull the curtain aside?
CHAPTER 17
Amanda drove, following the Connecticut River north through Vermont on Route 91. She and Cam had shared the overnight drive while Astarte slept in the back with the stuffed bunny. Cam reclined in the passenger seat, an ice pack wrapped around his knee and a warm compress on the back of his neck. They discussed the ramifications of the hidden history they had uncovered as the first glow of dawn brightened the sky out Cam’s window.
Cam said, “I think the Templars saw Jesus as important because he was part of the kingly bloodline of David, and also a kind of prophet. They probably even venerated him. He just wasn’t a deity.”
“Jesus not a deity.” Amanda chuckled. “We say it so matter-of-factly.” She glanced to the sky. “I’m surprised lightning bolts haven’t smitten us.”
A good theory often provided explanations for unanswered questions. “This also explains why the Templars always fought in the name of the Virgin Mary,” Amanda said. “It never made sense to me before—why not fight for Jesus?”
Cam nodded. “Getting back to the thief thing: Isn’t there some story in the New Testament about a pair of thieves being crucified with Jesus?”
“Yes. When I first Googled thief and Jesus and cross that’s what came up.” She had actually been thinking about this while Cam napped. “And it fits the pattern perfectly of the Church co-opting local legend, modifying it slightly and incorporating it into the ‘official’ record. It’s like Christmas.” The December 25th holiday originally marked the rebirth of the sun after the winter solstice. Early Church leaders co-opted the pagan festival and turned it into a celebration of Jesus’ birth—never mind that Jesus was really born months later. Amanda sipped at a Diet Coke. “In this case, there must have been contemporary accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion in which Jesus was described as the thief on the cross. The Church dealt with it by adding a pair of new thieves to the story, just to fog things up. Jesus was not the thief, the new story goes; the men crucified next to him were. It’s really quite brilliant. Hide the lies deep inside the truth.”
In St. Johnsbury, fifty miles from the Quebec border, they found a truck stop for an early breakfast. While they waited for their food Amanda emailed Georgia Johnston: “Sorry to miss our meeting. Thanks for coming alone. You have gained our trust. More later.” Amanda felt a bit guilty standing the woman up—she had waited, alone in the abandoned plaza, huddled against the night air. When they left their Greenwich Village hotel at 12:30, the operative was still pacing in a small circle in the courtyard of the abandoned college campus.
By 7:00 A.M. they had freshened up in the restrooms and were heading north again. “Are we going to swim to Canada?” Astarte asked. She must have heard Cam talking about crossing the lake.
“Actually, only Amanda is going to swim. You and I will be using a boat.”
It took the girl only a second to realize Cam was teasing. Amanda said, “Tell Mr. Thorne you think he is the one who is all wet.”
The girl grinned and repeated the words. She really was a bright, sweet kid. Amanda opened her window. It would be an unseasonably warm November day. “Actually not a bad day for some boating.”
“Are you certain you’ll be able to find a boat?”
He nodded. “My uncle keeps his bass boat in the water until the ice comes, usually mid-December. And if he pulled it out already, I’ll just drop it back in. They’re away for Thanksgiving, visiting my cousin in Boston.”
“Yes. If I recall correctly we had plans to join them for dinner tonight in the North End.”
“I had forgotten. Seems like a different lifetime.”
“Or a different life.”
Hopefully Cam’s family wasn’t worried about them, but there was no way they could risk a call or email. He took a local exit to Newport, Vermont. “Newport, huh?” Amanda smiled at him. She had followed him to Newport, Rhode Island when they first met.
“Maybe it’ll bring us good luck again.”
Cam followed the local highway into Newport, the road hugging the western shore of the lake. The lake, shaped like a backward comma, ran north-south with only the southern tip within U.S. borders. “My uncle’s place is a few miles up. It’s usually pretty quiet up here this time of the year, especially on the American side where most of the properties are summer homes.”
Five minutes later he turned down a dirt road. They bounced along for a couple hundred feet through the woods. “Any chance they might track us here?” Amanda asked.
Cam shrugged. “I doubt it. I haven’t been here in probably five years. Besides, we’re not staying long.”
He pulled into a clearing and a stone, A-frame chalet rose up to meet them. “How quaint,” Amanda said. “It looks like something you’d see in the Alps.”
“Actually, the guy who built it is from Austria. He came over to teach skiing in Vermont and kept busy in the summer building ski chalets. Wait till you see the deck in the back.”
Cam parked and found the key his uncle kept hidden under a bird bath. “Go on in. But don’t disturb anything; I don’t want them to know anyone was here.”
Thief on the Cross: Templar Secrets in America (Templars in America Series Book 2) Page 24
