The Templar Key, By Number One Author (Peter Sparke Book 3)

by Scott Chapman

  “Well, I guess that’s game over. Game over for you, at least.” said Tilly. “Want to head back?”

  “If this was Scotland I would tell them to get stuffed. But, I get the feeling that shouting at government officials in Turkey might not be a smart move.”

  Tilly looked down at Sparke’s collection of electronic gadgets on the ground between them.

  “How does this work?” she said.

  “You’re not going in?” he said. “You are going to go in, aren’t you?”

  “No court orders against me. If we find anything even faintly interesting I’ll pass it on to a Turkish university. If we find nothing, then no harm done.” Tilly looked at Sparke. “Or we can pack up and be back in the city in time for dinner?”

  Sparke did not even pretend to consider the options.

  “It’s really easy to operate,” he said, picking up the scanner.

  It took Tilly less than two hours to scan every room and chamber in the complex. As she went from room to room, she took more time to look at the remnants of furnishings that were scattered around. Many were broken, but not all. The complex had been looted, but not stripped. There were no signs of fire damage and little wanton destruction.

  “Here’s your clever little machine,” she said, handing the scanner back to Sparke.

  “Now, that machine is just clever. But this one is genius,” he said pointing to a camping stove with a tiny espresso machine perched on the top.

  Sparke downloaded the data from the scanner onto his laptop as Tilly enjoyed the luxury of good coffee. The screen on Sparke’s computer lit up with the outline of the rooms Tilly had scanned. Sparke spun the 3D image so that they could view the complex from any angle.

  “Looks like a skeleton,” said Tilly, sipping her coffee. “What are you looking for?”

  “Don’t know, “said Sparke. “Logic, I suppose. Every building follows some sort of logical process. This one starts down at the edge of the water pool, then goes up in a rough spiral until it stops up here at the cliff face.”

  “All of these chambers here,” said Tilly, pointing to a group of shapes clumped together, “have windows to the outside, so they must be close to the outer rock face.”

  Sparke turned the image so that it corresponded to their own viewpoint.

  “What’s this big room here?” he said.

  Tilly peered at the screen.

  “That one looks like a chapel, big altar thing there. This one off to the side has more furniture than the others. A desk, some shelves, that sort of thing. Must have been an office. Maybe a study.”

  Sparke became lost in the image, trying to understand the relationship between the rooms and the natural rock it was carved out of. He picked up the scanner and began reading from its tiny screen.

  “What did you see between here and here?” he said, pointing at a blank space in the diagram.

  “Nothing, just a stretch of walkway. Here, I have a picture.”

  Tilly flicked through the images on her camera until she found one showing the stone gallery. It was a bare walkway, with no doorways.

  “I didn’t miss anything, you know,” she said.

  “My guess is that there was nothing to miss. Look, these chambers all lead off from the walkway. There seems to be about a meter of rock between each room, enough to support the rock above.”

  Tilly leaned closer to the screen, her head almost touching Sparke’s.

  “Except here,” she said, pointing at a gap between the chapel and the nearest room. It had the look of a missing tooth.

  “Let me finish this lovely coffee and I’ll go take a closer look. Where’s your James Bond thing that can see through solid rock?”

  Sparke grinned and reached over for the ultrasonic scanner. As he was powering the unit up, a tiny icon appeared on his computer screen, a mail from his own office. His head of HR had sent him a high priority message marked ‘Private and Confidential’. Heads of HR never send high priority messages bearing good news, especially not ones marked ‘Private and Confidential’.

  “Here,” said Sparke, handing the scanner to Tilly. “Try it on that rock.”

  He opened the email.

  “Dear Peter, this is to confirm that the name of the company may not be used in any way with any external activities you may engage in, nor may any intellectual property, company equipment or facilities be used in any way which are not directly related to the performance of your role with the company.

  “Please review and sign the attached document confirming that you have received this email and that you undertake not to use the name, equipment or facilities in any way which may cause the company to come into disrepute.”

  The email was from a woman he had worked closely with for ten years. She had, in effect, been his partner in setting up the new subsidiary. As far as he was aware, they were pretty much friends. The text of the mail had been written by a lawyer, not HR. Sparke glanced up at the several other people it had been copied to. The first name he saw was that of the person whose job it was to guard the company from dangerous behavior by staff members: Dieter from Compliance.

  Sparke had rarely been in trouble, but it had happened often enough that he recognized it when he saw it. He was in trouble. His only path was to pack up everything, head back to Munich as fast as possible and, in the language of his corporate culture, ‘get aligned with Compliance’, a modern term for groveling. The idea of putting his lifestyle at any sort of risk was too appalling to consider, especially for a stupid hobby.

  “Hey, this James Bond shit works,” said Tilly, holding the ultrasound scanner against Sparke’s head. “Your skull is absolutely empty.”

  Sparke looked up at Tilly, standing on a sunlit stone ledge outside a medieval building, finishing her coffee with one hand and playing with a ten-thousand-dollar piece of equipment like it was a child’s toy. Then he thought of home and the email from HR.

  Of all the hundreds and hundreds of decisions he made, he knew without thinking that few of them were about his private life. Those that were, he now saw, were just logical weighing of options, not real decisions that impacted his life. But then, it was the only life he had.

  “I’ve just had an idea,” he said, as Tilly was clipping the power pack for the headset onto her belt.

  “What’s the great idea?”

  “My idea is that you stop arsing around with all those toys and go find out what’s behind that wall.”

  Decision

  Bastian’s father sat alone in the study of the big house staring at the fire in the hearth. Despite the fine weather, he nearly always felt cold now. Since his stroke he had become used to other people doing things for him, but it was only after Bastian returned from the Navy that he had seen his role as head of the family being fulfilled by someone else. Before the war he had felt he was still a young man, and with three sons and a thriving business, he had nothing to prove to the world. Now, he was not even an inconvenience to those around him. If Bastian wanted to get him up through the High Pass to the Monastery, he simply ordered a custom made motorcycle from England and hammered his way up over the unmade roads. When the old monk reached out his hand in friendship, it was to Bastian, not to him.

  He was a grandfather now, but he would only be able to watch as the boy grew. He could take no part in showing him the world. He was an observer in his own family.

  “Are you all right, Papa?” said Bastian.

  “Bastian,” said his father, “I am wallowing in self-pity just at the moment. It’s a despicable practice. Avoid it at all costs.”

  Bastian looked at his father, realizing again that he was watching him change into an old man.

  “Things seem quiet in the city,” he said, coaxing his father into conversation. “The Turkish troops are well-behaved, from what I see.”

  “This isn’t our war,” said Bastian’s father. “Anyway, they need us here. Without the foreigners there is no Smyrna. Half the Turks in the city work for foreign companies. H
ow are things with our Greek friends?”

  “They keep sending cables offering to sell the company back to us,” said Bastian. “They’re nervous, to say the least.”

  “How is the harbor?”

  “Quiet so far,” said Bastian. “Most of the businesses are open, but the streets are quiet. The Turks have put troops around the Greek and Armenian quarters to keep everyone separate while things adjust.”

  “It’ll be fine. Things will change and things will still go on.”

  The city was already filled with refugees from the countryside. Whole families were camped out with their belongings around the harbor waiting for the ships to start sailing again. Many of the Greeks wanted to leave and the Turks seemed content to let them.

  Bastian had never lost the feeling of looking at the foreign population as being, somehow, in his care. Ever since he had come ashore as the Navy’s Civil Liaison Officer four years ago, he had been in the habit of paying social calls to some of the leading lights of the international population.

  “Are all your people safe and accounted for?”

  He was talking to Miss Barnes, the young but imposing teacher in the American School located in the suburb of the city called, strangely, ‘Paradise’.

  “All’s well in Paradise, as we always say.”

  She smiled weakly.

  “I’ll pop around tomorrow if you don’t mind,” said Bastian.

  The Americans, of all the nationalities, had the most reason to feel secure. They were relatively untainted by association with the Greek invasion, unlike the French, British, and Italians. Their President, Woodrow Wilson, was seen by most people as the great adjudicator, trying to ensure peace and justice in the post war world.

  “The first few days will be difficult,” said Bastian, “but things will settle down.”

  Despite the air of calm, Bastian could not keep back the feeling that things had not reached any sort of resolution. He had seen the smoke rise from Turkish villages burned and looted by retreating Greek troops and he saw the tense, guarded behavior of the Turkish troops as they eyed the hordes of Greek and Armenian refugees waiting by the quayside.

  When he went home that night, he continued his quiet preparations. One bag was packed for each member of the family, a few critical documents were gathered and placed in his father’s old cashbox, and he checked his guns.

  For Bastian and his family the end began at dawn the next day. The quiet of the house was shattered by someone battering at the main door. Bastian was the first to the hallway, barefoot, his pistol in his hand. He peered through the window near the door to see Miss Barnes, tousle-haired, her face smeared with soot. Behind her, in the direction of the harbor, he saw thick plumes of smoke rising from several locations.

  “They are burning everything,” she said.

  Her voice was steady, but clearly she was in shock. Bastian drew her into the house, closing the door behind her.

  “I saw a fire coming from one of the houses near the Institute and went to look. I saw with my own eyes a Turkish officer enter the house with tins, it looked like petroleum or benzene, and in a few minutes the house was in flames.

  “Our teachers and some of the girls saw Turks in regular soldiers’ uniforms, sometimes in officers’ uniforms, using long sticks with rags at the end dipped in a can of liquid and carried into houses.”

  “The school is safe?” said Bastian.

  “Yes, there are soldiers everywhere, but they have put guards at the gate. I want to get everyone out of the city.”

  “Bring them here.” said Bastian. “If we can get them through the city, of course.”

  “Can you talk to the soldiers, get them to agree?”

  “Let me dress,” said Bastian.

  As he spoke, his wife and mother appeared at the top of the stairs. After one look at Miss Barnes, Bastian’s wife ran towards the nursery.

  Leaving the school’s old Ford at the house, Bastian and Miss Barnes climbed aboard the motorcycle and they headed, carefully, into the center of the town.

  On the outskirts, they passed groups of Turkish troops, mostly standing around with the idle demeanor that bored soldiers everywhere possess. Despite this air of inactivity, smoke was now clearly visible in many parts of the city. The Greek and Armenian areas were thoroughly ablaze.

  Bastian stopped the machine near the old fruit market and listened intently. There was no sound of traffic, but there was a dull roar of noise which he had never heard before. It was the sound of a city starting to burn and, through the noise, he could hear the short, dull pop of gunfire.

  Room

  “Hello, hello, can you hear me?”

  “I can hear you. Can you hear me?”

  “Hello, one, two, three, four, hello.”

  Tilly’s voice came through Sparke’s computer with surprising clarity.

  “Can you hear me now?” said Sparke.

  “I’ve got you. Say something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “OK, that’s good. Right, I am on the main walkway now, just going through into the chapel.”

  “Can you see clearly?”

  “Sure, this flashlight is amazing. Where do you get all this cool stuff from?”

  “I told you, we have tons of clever toys in the office.”

  “Hope they don’t mind you borrowing it,” said Tilly.

  Her comment sent a shudder through Sparke’s body as he imagined Dieter from Compliance reading pages from the company handbook out loud to him.

  “Look on the wall to your left. Start about a meter or so from the edge.”

  “How about I look behind that big altar instead?”

  “Better to be methodical.”

  “Uh huh,” said Tilly. “Maybe I’ll just start with the altar.”

  For several seconds Sparke heard silence.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’m checking every half meter or so. Nothing, nothing, still nothing.”

  “Are you recording where you are measuring?” said Sparke.

  “No. Nothing, nothing again, looks like we are coming up blank, nothing.”

  “Try…”

  Sparke was cut off by Tilly.

  “Oh, that’s interesting. Got something. There are bars showing on the wee screen. Two bars, three bars. I’m at the edge of the altar, on the right hand side, four bars. There looks like a narrow gap on this side of the altarpiece. Five bars. Hold on a sec.”

  The line went silent, except for the sound of Tilly’s breathing.

  “Is there something?” said Sparke. “What can you...”

  “Bloody hell.” Tilly’s voice changed, suddenly she was no longer joking. “Peter?”

  By the time she had spoken, Sparke had abandoned his computer and began racing through the Monastery, his flashlight bouncing off the walls. In the chapel, a thin line of light came from behind the altar.

  “I thought you weren’t allowed in here?” Tilly said as Sparke squeezed through the narrow gap.

  “I’m not here,” he said, looking at the wall of the passageway.

  In the harsh electric light, they could see that what looked like a rough stone wall was, in fact, a mass of carvings, a chaotic frieze of shapes and images.

  “Pre-Christian,” said Tilly. “Not my area, but definitely BC.”

  “What, Roman?”

  “These are definitely Roman, see the numerals here, but this stuff here,” she said pointing lower on the wall, “these are probably Greek.”

  She stood back and directed the light at the ceiling.

  “No idea what that is, though.”

  The ceiling had been carved into a series of long, curving loops and circles. At the center of some of the shapes were human faces.

  “What about this?” said Sparke, pointing his flashlight at the floor, where there was a long strip of polished black stone, heavily inscribed.

  “That is a sanctum threshold,” said Tilly. “You see them in all sorts of temples and shrines. They normally mark t
he start of some sort of inner sanctum. A secret place.”

  Slowly, both Tilly and Sparke swiveled their lights towards the end of the passageway. At first, it looked like a dead end, but as they walked towards it they could see that it was a door, a wooden door, strengthened by a thick lacework of heavy iron bands. As they reached it, Tilly lifted her hand and put her finger into a gap in the wooden surface.

  “Keyhole?” said Tilly.

  Sparke shrugged.

  Tilly reached into the cargo pocket in her shorts and pulled out what looked like a cosmetics bag. Wrapped inside was the key.

  “We can’t come all this way and not even try,” she said, raising the key to the gap.

  “Probably won’t even fit,” said Sparke. “Might as well give it a go.”

  The key slid into the hole, making a solid click as it reached the lock. Tilly looked at Sparke, and then gently turned it.

  The mechanism moved smoothly, but heavily, and it took all of Tilly’s strength to turn the key until the lock responded with a deep clunk.

  “Don’t go rushing in,” said Tilly. “Last thing we need is a pair of your hiking boots tracking dirt over things.”

  Sparke nodded, and they both placed their hands on the surface of the door.

  “Ready?” he said.

  They both pushed carefully and the heavy door swung back, the hinges filling the passageway with the scream of grinding metal.

  The two stood at the threshold of the room, staring mutely inside.

  “Oh my, my,” said Tilly, finally.

  Escape

  The sudden noise of running feet broke the comparative silence around Bastian and Miss Barnes. Two young men ran out of an alleyway next to the fruit market. One stopped briefly when he saw the motorcycle, then, deciding they were not a threat, followed the other man around the corner. Seconds later there was a shout from behind them. A young boy of perhaps thirteen was shouting and pointing to the place where the two men had run.