The Templars' Last Secret

by Martin Walker

  “All this seems to have begun with a sudden spate of rumors about the Testament of Iftikhar and the fall to her death of an Israeli woman called Leah Wolinsky,” said Bruno, his eyes on the street.

  “You may know her as Leah Ben-Ari, supposed to be a Peace Now activist who was living with a Palestinian historian called Saïd al-Husayni.” Bruno’s tone was thoughtful, not accusing. “The two of them were blackmailed or threatened to join Mustaf and his group in France, and somehow she believed that the testament was connected to Commarque. She and al-Husayni went to interview her old teacher, a medieval scholar who was later tortured by Mustaf’s gang, just as Horst was starting his excavations at Commarque. And there’s a story in this morning’s paper about the new cave and secret tomb Horst and his team have found there. I’ve been slow about putting all this together, but now I’m worried enough to have called Isabelle to send us some reinforcements. And I’ve been very slow about you, Yacov. I should have realized when the brigadier authorized you to carry a weapon. And now Jack Crimson just confirmed it. You’re with Mossad.”

  Yacov shrugged. “If you’re right about Mustaf’s gang coming here, maybe we should move that table and glasses into the tunnel. We’ll need everything we can to slow them down.”

  “Good idea,” said Bruno, turning to the two barmen. He told them to start moving the bar under Yacov’s direction before resuming his watch. Across the street, the mairie door opened, and Louise reappeared wearing her flak vest, her holster now around her waist. Bruno and she had done the annual firearms refresher course at the Périgueux range together, and he knew she was a competent shot. Louise paused, looking up the street where a white van had come into view and drove slowly down toward the museum. On the side of the van was the logo of one of the local catering firms. Of course, he thought, they would be preparing the wedding dinner.

  Louise stepped into the center of the road and put up her hand, then pointed to the turnoff to the entrance to the museum. Then she seemed to start in surprise and began to reach for her gun. The man in the passenger seat was faster, put a long-barreled gun out of the window and fired twice, two soft coughs that were lost in the sound of chatter and clinking glasses on the balcony.

  Chapter 30

  Bruno craned over the railing and saw a face inside the van look up in his direction and at the crowd of people against the balcony railings. The van accelerated up the short lane and over the shallow steps that led to the glass frontage of the museum and then drove straight through it, the sound of breaking glass at last alerting the crowd on the terrace that something was wrong. As the van jerked and stalled, trying to push its way through the tangle of glass and metal, its rear doors opened. Two black-clad figures wearing headbands jumped out carrying what looked like Kalashnikovs and darted into the museum. They looked bulky, as if wearing flak jackets, and they were carrying something else slung around their necks that he couldn’t identify. Bruno recalled that another two men, one at the wheel and the other who had shot Louise, had been in the driver’s cabin.

  The distance was too far for his handgun, so Bruno shouted an alert to Yacov and Crimson, quickly phoned Isabelle and said, “They’re here and have already shot a cop. We need help now and an ambulance.”

  “Emergency!” he shouted, closing his phone. “Everybody back through the tunnel. Right now.”

  Yacov and Crimson were trying to struggle back toward him through the crowd blocking the tunnel, the space even more cramped with the table and glasses. A tall figure emerged and began bringing order out of chaos, guiding people through the gap and pushing them forward, and then began examining the wooden doors folded back to the tunnel sides.

  “I presume you’d want these closed,” he called to Bruno. It was Manners. Bruno took up a position, sheltered by the wall, from where he could fire at anyone coming up the final spiral of the staircase. Now Yacov was by his side.

  “Empty champagne bottles,” he said. “Toss them into the well of the stairs there, it could slow them, trip them up.”

  “Go ahead,” said Bruno, keeping his position as Yacov threw bottles. “I think they’re wearing flak jackets. We might have to get them with head shots.”

  “Merde,” grunted Yacov. “This is a new gun for me.”

  Then Crimson arrived, panting, his weapon drawn. “Keep an eye on that elevator doorway,” Bruno told him, pointing to the two metal doors. “Put your ear to it and you’ll hear if it starts working. Shoot anyone who comes out.”

  “Everybody’s on the rear terrace,” Manners called from the tunnel mouth, now almost closed by the wooden doors. “Have you a spare gun for me?”

  “Not unless someone else there has a weapon. Can you lock those tunnel doors?”

  “Not that I can see. We’ll try to barricade it with the bar table. Perhaps one of you three with guns could wait behind the doors. You’ll need cover, Bruno, if you have to run back.”

  “We’ll try to stop them here,” Bruno shouted back. He turned to Yacov. “We’ll hit them from here with a volley, and when I say go, you retreat to the tunnel doors and give me cover when I join you.”

  “Any sound from the elevator?” he called to Crimson, whose ear was pressed against its metal doors.

  “Not yet. Maybe they don’t know about it.”

  Now Bruno could hear footsteps on the staircase and shouted commands in Arabic.

  “They’re coming up the stairs,” he called to Crimson. “Leave the elevator, get back into the tunnel and, as soon as Yacov and I come in, be ready to hold the doors. If we go down, seal the tunnel anyway and hold as long as you can. Help is on the way.”

  Mon Dieu, he thought as Crimson ran back, if they break through they’ll have a hundred hostages. Then he heard voices again, much closer, the sound of a bottle being kicked aside and then a gun barrel was poked out from the side of the spiral stairs and sprayed three quick bursts of automatic gunfire, shockingly loud. The shots went wild.

  Another longer burst followed, and two figures jumped out from cover and began climbing the stairs, firing as they came.

  Bruno fired two snap shots at the first figure, but too low, hitting only the chest, and then two more a little higher, and the man went down, falling into the second figure who then lost his footing on an empty bottle and tumbled back down the stairs. An arm snaked out and pulled him to safety. Then the arm reappeared, tossing something up to the terrace.

  “Grenade,” Bruno shouted, and ducked behind the wall. But there was no explosion, just a hissing, and Bruno suddenly understood that what they had been wearing around their necks were gas masks.

  “They’ve got gas,” he called to Yacov. “Get back to the tunnel and give me cover.”

  Bruno fired two more shots down into the well of the staircase, seeing the sprawled figure of the man he had shot. He was moving, sliding back down the steps, but he’d dropped his gun. Bruno, getting the first acrid taste of tear gas, fired twice more into the man’s hips, beneath the protective flak vest. Then he fired twice again to keep the others’ heads down, held his breath and ran back to slip through the gap in the double doors. Ten shots fired, he told himself, counting automatically.

  Manners slammed them closed, and Bruno and Yacov pushed the bar table onto its side as a barricade for the wooden doors. Bruno sniffed the air, which was clear, and took a deep breath.

  “I’ve got people trying to topple that stone statue to help block the door, but it’s too firmly fixed,” Manners said. He kicked a thick shard of glass from a broken bottle under the bottom of the door to help jam it in place.

  “See if you can break into that storage house at the end of the terrace,” Bruno said, crouching low. As Manners left, Bruno shouted after him, “Ask Clothilde if there’s anything in there we can use for a barricade. Any furniture would be good, old chairs piled upside down, or if you find any flints, stuff them into any sacks or boxes you find.”

  “Better keep down low, below the table,” said Yacov. “Do you want to hold them here
at the doors or from the far end of the tunnel?”

  “The far end; the tunnel makes a natural killing ground and they won’t see much for the glare.”

  “But they can throw more tear gas down here and force us back, then rush us in the smoke,” Yacov said.

  Bruno was about to reply that Yacov was right when a burst of gunfire hit the thick wooden doors above them, and half-a-dozen little holes began leaking sunshine into the tunnel. Soon there would be gas seeping through.

  “Can you get us a couple of wet napkins to cover our faces against the tear gas?” Yacov called back to Crimson as Manners appeared with Gilles, the count and the baron and some other men, pushing and dragging something heavy along the ground.

  “The warehouse had these boxes filled with flints, good protection,” Manners announced, ducking behind them and starting to push them up against the wooden door as two more bursts of gunfire opened more holes in the doors, much lower this time.

  “No, leave them at the tunnel entrance,” Bruno called. “These doors won’t hold long.” Then to Yacov, “Go back and help place those boxes, they’ll give us good cover. Leave gaps for us to shoot through when we take shelter behind them. Then look for another position further back.”

  Horst and one of his German friends appeared, and to Bruno’s disbelief he saw they had lost their trousers and were carrying bone-tipped spears. “It’s a treasure trove in that storage house,” Horst said. “We’ve got the rest of the men bringing more boxes of flints to build a barricade. We’ve got flint knives, axes.” Horst’s eyes were bright and he looked almost cheerful.

  “What about your trousers?” Bruno asked.

  “Clothilde, Pamela and Amélie have the women tying trouser legs together and ripping up shirts to make a rope they can climb down onto the rooftops below and get away,” Horst replied. Despite the situation, Bruno grinned and nodded approval, knowing he should have thought of that.

  At the far end of the tunnel, behind the boxes of flints, Bruno saw Barrymore manhandling into place the wax model of a Stone Age hunter with his spear poised to launch. Bruno approved. It would be the first thing Mustaf would see when he broke into the tunnel and would be the first target to attract his fire.

  Something heavy slammed into the wooden doors above Bruno’s head, some kind of battering ram Mustaf must have found in the museum. It slammed in again, and a crack opened as the glass shard beneath the door shrieked against the cobblestones. Bruno fired three quick shots through the door at waist height. There was no cry of pain, but the battering stopped. Bruno knew it was time to go. He crawled back along the floor to join Yacov and Crimson behind the boxes of flints, ejected his old magazine and slipped in a new one.

  “Where do those steps go?” Yacov asked, pointing to his left.

  “Up to the next floor of the old château, where the rooms used to house exhibits for the old museum,” said Bruno, remembering that there were windows overlooking the terrace where Mustaf was now planning his next move.

  “Thanks for reminding me. You hold on here, and I’ll go up and try for a quick shot.”

  The steps were guarded by a locked iron gate, but Bruno holstered his gun and climbed over it and up the steps. The door into the exhibit rooms was locked, but he leaned back and kicked hard at the lock. The wood beside the door lock cracked but didn’t give. He tried again and it swung open, revealing an empty room, full of dust that caught the light from the mullioned windows.

  Bruno crept forward, staying in cover behind the stone wall and then peeking out to see three figures at the wooden doors below. He pushed his gun through one of the tiny panes and fired twice. He saw one of the men go down, twisting and pointing his weapon to shoot back, but Bruno had already ducked away. By the time a burst of automatic fire came through the window Bruno had moved to the next window in line and fired again twice. The return fire stopped.

  Four bullets gone, eleven remaining and one full magazine. In the silence Bruno heard the distant sound of a helicopter. Help must be on the way.

  For the first time, Bruno began to think they might just survive this as he went back down the stairs to the barricade of boxes where Yacov waited alone, crouching behind a box of flints.

  “Where’s Crimson?”

  Yacov jerked his thumb back. “See that little stone turret, like a pulpit on the corner. He’s in there. There’s a small hole in the stone, just big enough to aim and shoot through. The women have started going down the rope.”

  To Bruno’s left, just behind the angle where the tunnel opened out, Manners was standing, a spear in his hand. He gave Bruno a grin.

  “The Seventh Cavalry appears to be on their way,” he said, pointing down the valley where the clattering sound of a helicopter was growing louder, but it could not yet be seen, maybe hidden by the overhang.

  “Whose idea was it to make the rope?” Bruno asked.

  “Pamela, Clothilde, my wife, that black girl who sang—they just began to organize everybody back there. I thought at first it was just something for them to do to fend off panic, but the rope line seems to be working.”

  A helicopter swooped into sight about fifty yards away from the rock overhang and hovered, a machine gun pointing menacingly from the open side door. Bruno stood to give a thumbs-up just as Mustaf fired again. Ducking hastily, Bruno pointed to the far side of the tunnel, and the chopper backed away, rose and then moved gingerly forward and swooped again, its gun chattering.

  That was when Mustaf came through the door, very low, two gas grenades preceding him, followed by a second man crouching and giving covering fire. Pushing the table before him for cover and firing short bursts the length of the tunnel, Mustaf kept coming despite Bruno’s and Yacov’s fire.

  Bruno spun away with a yelp of pain as something hit his forehead. He clapped his hand to it and it came away bloody, but he was still conscious. It couldn’t have been a bullet, maybe a chip from one of the boxes of flints. Blood was flooding into his left eye and his right eye was watering so much from the tear gas that he couldn’t see. He felt rather than saw the box of flints being pushed back into him, a volley of shots spraying just above the level of the box. He heard a cry and felt Yacov crumple against his legs. He lost his balance and fell to the floor.

  He half rose, lifted his gun above the box and began firing blindly, hoping for a hit. The automatic fire stopped. Mustaf must be changing magazines. Bruno began to rise when he sensed a movement to his left where Manners had been standing. Dimly through his tears he saw the Englishman lunge forward. And then the menacing figure before him, one hand on his gun and the other on his fresh magazine, jerked and screamed in pain as the long bone point of the spear ripped into his neck.

  Mustaf dropped his gun and put his hands to the spear to pull it out. Barely able to see, Bruno jammed the muzzle of his own weapon hard into Mustaf’s gas mask and fired.

  Epilogue

  The bandage around Bruno’s forehead had been replaced with a small Band-Aid, just big enough to cover the stitches that would be removed later in the week. Horst and Clothilde stood before him, hand in hand, and Amélie had come down from Paris especially for the opening of the cave. The count stood beside the American cameraman from the Discovery Channel as the engineers checked the tension of the hawsers. Finally they were ready, and with a wave from the project director to the operator the giant winch engaged, the steel hawsers tightened and the great boulder began to move.

  They stopped the winch at once, checking the impact of the boulder’s movement on the roof and side walls, and then one of the engineers signaled again to the winch operator. This time the boulder moved perhaps five centimeters before they stopped again to use the camera on the end of the flexible cable to check the roof inside the cave. Once more they checked the walls and the position of the rollers that would help the giant stone to be inched out from the cave it had sealed for centuries.

  Engineers held Horst and Clothilde back as they tried to be the first in. The project director
used the remote camera again and then sent in the workmen with the hydraulic props that would reinforce the roof. He then went in himself, tapping gently with a small hammer on the walls and roof before he pronounced it safe. The cameraman went in first to record the moment when Horst, Clothilde and the count entered the cave and began looking around them in wonder.

  “I can’t wait,” Amélie squeaked, gripping the count’s arm. “When are they going to open the tomb?”

  She had come down from Paris for the opening, but she had also come each weekend to visit Yacov, still in hospital in Sarlat after taking two bullets in his chest and another in his shoulder. His arm had been saved, but he would not have much use of it in the future. Bruno had been to see him three times, but only during the third visit had Yacov recovered sufficiently to talk and ask about the final moments of the attack after he was gunned down. Bruno explained that none of the wedding guests had been hurt. And by the time the French commandos had landed from the helicopter and reached them, all the women had escaped down the rope of clothes.

  On the cupboards on each side of Yacov’s hospital bed were two large bouquets of flowers. Bruno had looked at the cards. One was from Maya, Yacov’s grandmother. The other was signed simply, “Well done, Yossi.”

  “Yossi Cohen?” Bruno had asked. “I presume he’s your boss.”

  Yacov did not reply. Bruno continued, “I’ve been wondering whether Mustaf had been right about Leah when he called her an Israeli spy. I can see why you’d want to have someone planted inside Peace Now, someone close enough to the Palestinians that a lot of them trusted her. And I can’t work out why else she’d have wanted to set up a fake identity and bank account. But it was a lovely operation that Leah ran, helping circulate that rumor about the Testament of Iftikhar, panicking the jihadists and running the scheme all the way to Commarque. I hope Yossi sent some flowers to Saïd al-Husayni.”