THE LOST CROWN OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR
Order of the Black Sun - Book 19
Preston William Child
Tasha Danzig
Heiken Marketing
Contents
1. Bad Things Happen When Good Men Do Nothing
2. For the Love of God
3. Patient #1312
4. Pilate’s Basin
5. Secrets Scribed in Skin
6. The Rowback
7. Cutting the Wrong Bait
8. Quest for Facts
9. The Meeting
10. Nina Gets a New Gig
11. Wake Up Call
12. Emergency Procedure at the King George
13. Mysteries in the Mist
14. Getting to know the Dead
15. Purdue’s Genie
16. Revelations of Masks Removed
17. Magnet for Malice
18. Unlikely Fellows
19. The Voice from the Ether
20. The Mephistopheles Phenomenon
21. The Enemy of my Enemy
22. Canto in the Dark
23. The Call
24. Illustratio Antiquis
25. Revealing the Hidden
26. Collision Course for the Temple Mount
27. Too Much Information
28. Dragon’s Breath
29. Evil Deeds with Good Intentions
30. The Knight’s Valor
31. In Hoc Signo Vinces
32. A Duet for the Dirge of Deception
33. Hell Hath No Fury
34. Like Thieves in the Night
35. Breach of Contract
36. Residue
1
Bad Things Happen When Good Men Do Nothing
One by one, the men cast rocks, broken bricks, and even pieces of concrete at Toshana. All she could do was cower away from their inescapable ruck, while praying out loud for salvation from under her burka. Her back was bleeding. She could feel the warm wetness seep from where the pain came, slowly painting the inside of her black garment and making it stick to her skin. She hid her face under cover of her forearms, but she knew it would not save her.
Another large brick struck the side of her skull and her ears hissed under the sound of her screams. All she could hear outside of herself were the hateful cries and vulgar accusations hurled at her like the very stones she was being lapidated with.
“Zina! Zina!” they shouted in between their spitting and condemnation. They called her a fornicator, whore…filthy bitch, at least when she was able to hear above the barbaric grunts among them. Toshana clutched her head, opening up her ribcage to the boots of those who stood to her right. Trampling the woman, a hail of boots came down on her back and scuffed down her sides, cracking a few ribs. Her weeping profited her nothing, yet it was all she could do.
Around the group of attackers, only a few passers-by glared in terror, not daring to film it on their cell phones. Even with the atrocity unfurling before them, they were reluctant to help the dying woman for fear of persecution or even arrest.
“My God, this can’t be happening!” one man said to another as they hastened to their vehicles parked under a nearby freeway. “For fuck’s sake, this is London, not Babylon!”
“Ignore it. Just now we’re the ones under the stones, Gerold,” his colleague warned. “Let them sort out their own shit. Do you want them to torch our cars like they did to those French tourists last week? I don’t think so.”
“But we have to do something,” the man insisted, being tugged hard by his colleague to move on swiftly. “Are we just going to watch a woman being murdered?”
“Jesus Christ, Gerold! What do you want to do? Do you have a gun? Do you have backup? There are easily twenty of those animals over there. They’ll kill you!” his colleague growled, shoving him forward as the pack of refugees rained down rocks on the defenseless female on the concrete. The blood from her burka was smearing the cement around her as she tried to move out under their onslaught, but it only excited their odium.
The two men raced for their cars as the evening sky darkened over the decrepit buildings outside the Barking business center, still hearing the clatter of stone on concrete among the furious cries. Putting the chaos behind them, they pulled away and didn’t as much as glance in their rear view mirrors where the woman was now lying motionless in the deserted street.
As Gerold turned onto the freeway, he could not help but feel horribly guilty for his inaction. Without thinking it through, he turned his SUV around and headed back to the scene of the terrible execution. He was feeling an unfamiliar fire rapidly fueling his racing heart.
“You are insane,” he told himself as the group of men came back into view at a small distance away. “What are you going to do? Think, think!”
Just run them over, his inner voice suggested nonchalantly. Just put down your foot and flatten them all. Come on. Run them all down and carry on driving. They’ll never catch you and you will have done something – something – to equalize the wrong that the goddamn governments allow while countless people perish at the hands of evil bastards like these.’
While Gerold and his Ford Expedition idled a block away, contemplating his morals in the funhouse mirror of impotent laws that served everything but justice, a figure appeared from between two tenement buildings. He perked up to see what was about to happen, catching sight of a powerfully built man charging out into the street about half a block from the black heap of a victim the pack had left bleeding. His hands held two grenades that he promptly flung at the celebrating assemblage of killers as they walked away from the woman’s broken body.
One was a stun grenade, detonating with a thunderous bang that punched Gerold in the ribs even at this distance. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed as the group of men grabbed their ears and fell about, disorientated and blinded by the potent flash. The man slipped on a gas mask just before releasing the second hell upon the already scampering group. Gerold revved his car in excitement and the lone man with the mask hastened through them to get to the woman.
Effortlessly he lifted her limp body in his arms and made for the alleyway. But another group of refugees responded to the unholy clap they mistook for a bomb. They came from the direction in which the masked man was trying to escape, trapping him in the street where he had just rescued the woman.
Now, Ger, now is your chance to make a difference! the voice urged.
“What if I fail? If I get arrested…my family…my wife will…,” he stammered, swallowing hard at the dryness in his throat. You always see this shit on the news and shake your head, remember? the voice persisted. You shake your head and remark about the lack of testicular fortitude men suffer these days to take back their country, civility, and justice, Ger. Now, prove it. Prove that not all men have gone soft, lapdogs of an ass-backwards system, the bitches of political correctness! Is what happened here right or wrong?’
“Wrong,” he said aloud.
Right then, bollocks to the rest. Do what is right, for once! it commanded. Remember, bad things happen because good men do nothing. But it was what Gerold saw next that slammed his foot down. The other group of men had assembled around the masked stranger and were moving in on him.
Aimlessly, he turned to find a way out with the black shape of the woman still in his arms, but they had him surrounded. Suddenly a speeding SUV came from nowhere, roaring as it came speeding at the congregation. Without warning or relent the huge V8 charged through them, sending most hurtling through the air before they fell on the hard
concrete like puppets released by the hand of their master.
While some had recovered and stumbled toward the vehicle, Gerold opened his passenger door to the masked man. “Get in! For Christ’s sake, get in the car! Hurry!”
The man threw the woman’s body onto the back seat as gently as he could before propelling himself into the car and slamming the door just in time as force-flung rocks started pelting the back windshield.
“Christ, mate! You saved my life just then!” the masked man panted heavily, tearing off the heavy rubber mask and discarding it on the floor. “Thank you.”
Gerold smiled, although he was pretty certain he had just soiled himself. “You’re welcome. Couldn’t let that escalate while there was help at hand, you know.”
“Aye,” the exhausted stranger said. “The very sentiment I shared at witnessing this mobbing. She needs to get to an ER or she’s not going to make it.”
Gerold gasped, “She’s still alive?”
“Aye. Breathing, but just,” the response came.
The battered SUV turned into the King George Hospital emergency area, where the stranger jumped out to summon help from the staff. Promptly, emergency personnel rushed out to collect the battered woman, virtually dead.
“Will you please fill out some details for us?” the nurse asked.
“Oh, we don’t know this woman,” Gerold asserted. “We just…found her like this and brought her in.”
“I understand, sir, but we just need one of you to give us some particulars so that we can treat her, you know, the site and circumstances of her assault and so on?” the nursing sister persisted. The two men reluctantly exchanged glances, then Gerold’s passenger laid a hand on his shoulder.
“You go on. I’ll take care of the paperwork,” he winked. Gerold was beyond relieved, shaking the stranger’s hand. “Thanks a mill, mate,” he said. “The coppers…my wife…must never know what happened tonight or I’ll be up shit creek, hey.”
“I figured as much. Look, here is my card. Please call me within the week. I would like to interview you, anonymously of course, for a story I’m covering regarding the recent uprising in the area,” the stranger told Gerold. “And again, thank you.”
As the rugged man walked into the emergency reception area Gerold looked down at the card and read, “Sam Cleave.” The name rang a bell far off in Gerold’s head, but he was more of a sports man than a news man, so he shrugged it off as some reporter who could seal his fate if he did not grant the requested interview.
2
For the Love of God
Oban, Scotland
Father Harper sipped a dry sherry from the vigil of his office at St. Columbanus Church. Staring from the stained glass window, he regarded the melting sun, barely coloring the ocean that consumed it. His arm was in a sling, but apart from that small injury, he was healthy and strong. It had been several weeks since an intruder from his past had attempted to kill him under command of a sinister individual by the name of Joseph Karsten, a man that since had allegedly gone missing.
In his absence, Karsten had been relieved of duty as the head of British Intelligence, pending an investigation into claims that he had been abusing his position to put in place a global catastrophe that would have enabled his organization to plummet the world into ungovernable chaos. Father Harper had become a target only after he’d been involved in a rescue mission saving Karsten’s nemesis, David Purdue, from Karsten’s order.
With a troubled sigh he lapped up the sweet burn of the sherry, his stern eyes looking over the coastal town of Oban. He felt liable. He felt responsible for the people here, more than ever since he had been privy to the darker world some of its citizens frequented. Father Harper felt needed, a keeper of the people of Oban.
“I like that,” he muttered to himself as his gaze caressed the beauty of the ocean on the other side of town. “The Keeper of Oban.” Father Harper smiled at the moniker, pleased with the image it instilled. “Now only to get it to catch on,” he said with a smile.
It was a Friday evening and a fresh sea breeze was dressing everything in cool serenity. The priest watched in silence as people went about their plans, excited to meet up and kick back after the week’s work. Distant were the memories of his own stint as a regular Joe twenty odd years ago, when he still considered the mundane things important. Long before he’d discovered that the world was layered like skin, getting stickier and more raw the deeper it went, he’d been just like the blissfully unaware people of Oban he was watching.
All Father Harper hoped for them was that they would never delve into the darker recesses of existence, because down there things became complicated. Down there, the networks of sinew, nerve, tissue and vein were a twisted mass of highways that lead to a myriad of destinations. He sighed and adjusted his collar, checking the time on the mantle clock. With a start he realized that he’d been standing at the window for almost an hour.
“Dr. Beach!” he gasped. “I can’t be late.”
The tall priest locked his office and went to his small home in the back yard of the church grounds to change into plain clothes. On his way out, he encountered Mr. Hayes, the verger-come-sexton-come-general keeper of St. Columbanus. The frail old man smiled and lifted his open hand in greeting.
“Father,” he acknowledged the priest. “Where are you running to as if the devil were chasing you?” Choice words.
“Mr. Hayes, how are you this evening?” Father Harper inquired cordially, trying not to show his haste for fear of coming across as impolite. “Just off to lay a fresh wreath on the Beach’s tombstones before dark. Did you get the package?”
“No, no, still has not arrived, Father,” the old man sighed, running his hand through his thick head of grey hair. His oversized blazer made him look like a pauper, and a hungry one at that. There was no substantial flesh on his bones anymore, which did not look strange, given he was only five feet tall.
“I’m sure it’s just held up somewhere, Mr. Hayes,” Father Harper reassured him with a hand on his shoulder. “Children are sometimes tardy with such things. They have such hectic lives these days.”
“Even the thirty-five-year-olds?” Mr. Hayes asked wearily.
Father Harper chuckled, “Even the thirty-five-year-olds, aye. Don’t fret about it. It should get here before your birthday. Just have faith.”
“Oh, yes. Faith,” Mr. Hayes muttered as he nodded gratefully for the empty reassurance given about his son’s promise to send him a birthday parcel from Perth. He smiled as he made his way up the back steps into the church vestry. “Have a good evening, Father.”
“You too, Mr. Hayes. Don’t lock up too late,” Father Harper said as he skipped onto the smooth green lawn towards his home. Under his breath he added, “And stay out of my sherry.”
On his way across the grass, he couldn’t help but cast a rapid glance at the daffodil patch in the garden under the wych elm trees to the right of his cottage. Most of his parishioners praised his newfound affinity for gardening, but a few of the older male congregates reminded him that his heterosexuality would be challenged by this new-found flower planting hobby.
This had Father Harper in stitches for so many reasons. His sexual orientation was hardly pertinent in his vocation, but even if it were, his appearance was certainly masculine enough for the whole notion to be put out as humor. The moist soil yielded beautiful foliage, especially with the rich nutrients often associated with decomposing matter. But that was not a matter to be dwelling on right now, and the priest entered his cottage to shower and change clothes.
While under the soothing hot water trickling from the showerhead, he closed his eyes and tried not to be too concerned about his recent bed of flowers and what was never to be discovered beneath. Father Harper was no stranger to the ways of the world. His religious duties had never blinded him to the cruel reality of society and the underworld that waited like a trapdoor spider to jolt up and snatch the unsuspecting and the naïve. And with being perfectly aware th
at the majority of creatures on this earth were predatory in nature, his oath to God never strayed to obligatory falsehoods to preserve the dogma.
Father Harper did what he had to do to save lives, to maintain order, to prevent malice to innocent people, and he did not once second-guess his methods. It was his duty as keeper of the flock to destroy all threats to his people, regardless of the techniques he needed to employ to conserve their peaceful oblivion.
When Joseph Karsten sent his assassin to kill the Beaches, he made the mistake of thinking he could get rid of the priest shortly after dispatching the late Dr. Beach and his lovely wife. It was one thing to shock Oban with the deaths of its prominent couple, but it was quite another thing to leave their children orphans. In his recollection, Father Harper figured that the latter was the primary motive he had for wasting the killer when he showed up in the church office to do the same to the priest.
Murder was sometimes a necessary evil perpetrated by good men for the sake of justice. If anyone ever confronted Father Harper about the hypocrisy in his acts, he would surely remind them that history was filled with such paradoxes. Did the church not kill countless people under the pretense of witchcraft or heresy or for not converting? If genocide could be justified in the name of God, why could a man of the cloth not commit murder to save the lives of his brothers and sisters?
“You know that is a twisted argument, don’t you?” he mumbled in the rush of the water, chastising himself for the admittance of his deeds and the clandestine motives of the religion he served. He opened his eyes and almost jumped at his own reflection in the hazy mirror. Looking back at him was not the man all the people here knew. That chaste, kind, patient man was absent in the face of the real Harper. Features of hardship and scars of experience reminded him of where he had come from, and why he had become a priest so many years ago. Father Harper was not fussy about the church he served, as long as he could serve his god. That need was what took him to Ireland, where he completed seminary and served as deacon until he was sent to Scotland to preside over St. Columbanus in Oban.
The Lost Crown of the Knights Templar (Order of the Black Sun Book 19) Page 1
