For decades the Consortium had walked a fine line, promoting the legend of Prince Henry the explorer while suppressing the Templar and Jesus-bloodline back-stories. They championed a simple narrative, one that school children could embrace—a noble, courageous explorer braving the icy northern Atlantic in 1398 to discover the New World, a land rich with timber and fish and fertile ground, so that his impoverished lieges could live in comfort. This was the Prince Henry tale they advanced, whitewashed of any reference to a traitorous enemy of the Church fleeing Europe to escape the Pope, laden with treasure and religious artifacts plundered from the Temple of Solomon. The Church and the American political establishment would never allow the latter version of Prince Henry to be glorified; they would label him a plunderer and heretic and relegate him to a small, ugly footnote in history.
She took a long drag on her cigarette. Somehow Amanda and her lawyer friend had put themselves on a collision course with history. If they were not somehow derailed, Prince Henry—good, brave, noble Prince Henry—would become forever reviled as an enemy of Christianity. A Judas.
She slipped into the ladies room, glared at a young secretary-type applying eyeliner in the mirror. The girl scurried away, leaving Beatrice alone. She dialed a number with an Argentina area code.
“Señora Yarborough. A pleasure to speak with you again.” The voice was smooth, syrupy, designed to get bees with honey.
She preferred vinegar. “You have failed. The two … problems … are still outstanding.” It hadn’t been hard to figure they’d find their way to the NEARA conference. Aside from herself and a few other members of the Consortium, nobody knew more about the Prince Henry sites than the NEARA folks.
“Yes. Unfortunately we momentarily lost their trail. But we have located them again.”
“The situation is far worse than we believed. They are aware of the Hooked X and its Sarah symbolism.”
The man clucked his tongue. “That is most unfortunate.” He spoke in a saliva-filled manner, as if his tongue was too big for his mouth. Spanish was a beautiful language as spoken in parts of Spain. In Latin American it often sounded like cows chewing their curd.
“It is beyond unfortunate. They are on the verge of exposing the Roman Catholic Church for the fraud that it is.” And, more tragically, taking Prince Henry and Sir James down with it at the same time.
“Now there is no reason to make statements like that, Señora.”
“Listen to me. My statements are the least of your problems. I strongly suggest you do what needs to be done.”
“My men are on the job. God’s will be done. And God be with you, Señora Yarborough.”
* * *
Just after hanging up with Brandon, Cam’s TracFone rang. Eric Forsberg. “I miss you guys already,” he joked.
Cam laughed. “We’re just packing up. Going on another road trip.”
“I’m calling because I just talked to Scott Wolter.” Wolter was Forsberg’s fellow researcher in Minnesota. “I told him about the triangular hole you found on the Tyngsboro Map Stone. He mentioned he found a reference once to a triangular hole in one of the boulders at America’s Stonehenge also. He thinks there are probably others around. They’re potentially important pieces to this puzzle. You’re not by chance heading toward Maine are you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Machias Bay, way up north.”
“Well, I think you should take a detour to Spirit Pond.” He gave Cam the GPS coordinates for the exact location where the Spirit Pond Rune Stones were found. “My gut tells me you’ll find a stone hole nearby.”
Cam laughed. “Nothing would surprise me any more.”
CHAPTER 11
[Wednesday Night]
Cam had been driving for almost five hours, the Subaru alone in the middle of the night in the middle lane of the Maine Turnpike sporting a license plate he had swiped from a rental car in the hotel lot. The NEARA conference would go through the weekend—by the time the rental car made it back to the rental lot and somebody noticed the missing plate he and Amanda would be long gone.
She slept peacefully in the passenger seat, an olive green fleece blanket draped over her. He studied her face for a second—even asleep it captivated him, somehow radiating both warmth and vivacity, heat and light. She sensed his eyes on her, shifted in her seat and turned toward him a bit and sighed contentedly. Her movement dislodged the blanket and he reached over and pulled the plush fabric gently back over her shoulders. He smiled. It probably wasn’t practical to just drive around New England with Amanda in the passenger seat for the next ten years.
An SUV in the left lane closed on him quickly. Tensing, he slowed to allow it to pass. They seemed to have successfully evaded their pursuers for now but he needed to remain vigilant. These people, whoever they were, were not likely to just give up and go away. The SUV zipped past, a couple of young women smoking cigarettes in the front seat. He relaxed back into his seat.
Amanda breathed rhythmically, her mouth curved into a small smile. She seemed to trust his driving. Perhaps she had been observing him, assessing how he dealt with stress and pressure and adversity. Apparently he had passed this test. Not that it brought him any closer to solving this mystery. But it was nice to know nonetheless.
For the umpteenth time he mulled over Forsberg’s Hooked X conclusions. A few days ago he and Amanda were working in the dark, the cover of the jigsaw box hidden from them, two puzzlers blind to the image they were trying to reconstruct. They had joined together the border sections of the puzzle and had even connected a few obvious pieces in the interior. But the knowledge that one tree is adjacent to another is a far cry from understanding life in the forest. With the Hooked X revelations, larger blocks of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place. There were still plenty of holes but they now discerned the gestalt, the overall pattern.
Amanda awoke, reached over and squeezed his hand. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. How’d you sleep?”
She rubbed her face. “Quite well, actually. Shall I drive for a bit?”
“Maybe later. I’m fine now—my mind is racing.”
Her faced clouded. “I’m bothered that I cannot reach Beatrice.”
“Why don’t you try again?”
She looked at her watch. “It’s five o’clock in the morning in London. I’ll wait a bit.”
She bit her lower lip, which he had learned meant she was deep in thought. “Cam, how does this all end?”
“What do you mean by this?” Was she referring to their relationship?
She read his thoughts, smiled and touched her fingers to his shoulder. “It’s a tad early for that conversation. I was referring to this … this quest of ours.”
“When you say quest, I think of crazy old Don Quixote, riding off to joust with windmills.”
She smiled. “Stone windmills, or wooden ones?”
“Very funny.”
“In any event, I don’t mean quest in that sense. But, to continue the Don Quixote analogy, we don’t really know who our enemies are. We believe a fringe Vatican faction is involved but we’re not even certain about that. Short of bringing down the Catholic Church, how does this end, how do we win?”
He didn’t have a great answer. “I guess I’m hoping it ends when we reveal whatever secrets they’re trying so hard to hide. They want certain things kept buried and they’re willing to maim and kill people to get their way. But once everything is out in the open, what will they give a damn about you or me or Brandon or Eric Forsberg? I mean, they won’t canonize us but it does them no good at that point to kill us. The truth is their enemy, not us.”
“Then we simply go back to our lives and they leave us be?”
He reflected on the priest sex abuse case. The Church’s lawyers—presumably acting pursuant to their client’s instructions—ruthlessly attacked the accusers, planted false stories in the press, besmirched their reputations. All in an attempt to cover up the truth, to protect the Church. But once the case was
settled, these same accusers were welcomed back into the flock. Organized crime groups and gangs punished informants and rats as a deterrent to others. And the radical Muslims called for the death of people like Salman Rushdie for the same reason. But the Church was different. It was almost as if it never expected to be in the wrong again and therefore saw no need to send a message of deterrence. He explained his theory to Amanda. “It’s like they still think of themselves as this benevolent institution, the embodiment of Jesus’ teachings. They can justify killing us for the greater good. But being vindictive? That’s beneath them, that’s the old medieval Church.” He shrugged. “So, yes, hopefully they’ll just leave us alone.”
Amanda found a jazz station and then dozed off again, leaving Cam alone with his thoughts. One thing didn’t make sense: How could a group of Scandinavians make their way to Minnesota in the 14th century? It was almost two in the morning; he dialed Eric Forsberg’s number anyway.
“Shit, man, I just fell asleep. We closed the bar.”
“Sorry. But I have a question. How did your guys make it all the way to Minnesota?”
“Probably up the St. Lawrence River. We’re not sure why they weren’t killed on the way. One possibility is they made friends with the natives. Maybe traded with them, maybe convinced them they were gods or something.” He paused. “Hold on a sec. It’s hot as hell in here—let me turn on the air.”
Cam listened as Eric stumbled over to the controls and cursed as he stubbed his toe. A few seconds later a dull whir kicked on, humming over the phone lines.
“Eric, you there?”
Eric’s phone made a thud as if it had fallen to the ground and bounced a couple of times. “Eric?”
The only response was a muffled cough and the sound of a metallic echo, as if someone were knocking against a piece of sheet metal. Was Eric banging against one of those climate-control units mounted below the windows of hotel rooms? A cold wave of fear passed over Cam.
“What’s happening?” Amanda asked.
“I don’t know. It’s almost like Eric fell down or something.”
“Is he unconscious?”
“I don’t think so. I hear him knocking against something metal. Eric, can you hear me?” he shouted. “Eric?”
The whirring of the motor ceased, replaced by the scratchy noise of a phone being dragged across the ground. A muffled gasp and weak cough followed. “Poi-son,” came the croaked, raspy response.
“Eric? Eric, can you hear me?” His heart pounding, Cam swerved into the breakdown lane. The two syllable reply, barely audible, assaulted him like a two-by-four. “Shit, Amanda, he’s been poisoned!”
“What? What’s going on?”
“I think something in the air conditioner.”
“Hang up and call for help.”
“Hang up?” It was like untying a lifeline. But Amanda was right—they only had one phone. “Eric, I need to hang up and get help. Hang in there.”
Amanda was one step ahead of him. “The NEARA program will have the hotel phone number.”
She unclipped her belt, leaned into the back seat and read the number out. Hands shaking, he jabbed the buttons. “This is an emergency.” He tried to keep his voice calm. “Please listen to me. I just received a call from Eric Forsberg, a guest in your hotel. He’s in room 332. Please call 911 and send someone up to check on him right away.” He grimaced. “I believe he’s been poisoned.”
Not knowing what else to do, and feeling totally helpless, Cam put the Subaru back into gear and continued north. As he drove, he imagined Eric’s ordeal, the images haunted by a Holocaust documentary he had once watched showing tortured gas chamber scenes: Eric stumbling toward the window and finding the controls to the heating and cooling system. Peering at the knobs in the dim light. Stabbing at the buttons. A motor whirring. A wet mist moistening his face. The taste of something bitter and almond-like filling his mouth. His breath catching in his throat. Feeling light-headed and weak. Falling to the ground….
But Eric was strong, healthy, vibrant. He would fight. Adrenaline would have kicked in. He would have clawed at the control panel’s off button, torquing his body against the metal climate unit as the cold, deadly mist assaulted him. He would have tried to crawl away, keeping his nose and mouth low even as his lung muscles refused to constrict. Cam remembered stepping off a ski gondola once, recalled the feeling of panic and helplessness as an icy gale filled his airways and blocked the flow of air both in and out. Eric would be feeling that, fighting it, perhaps fumbling for his cell phone on the carpet of the darkened room in a final grasp at life. And if not life, at least defiance—somebody would know he had been poisoned, would alert the authorities, would perhaps even avenge his death.
Cam shook the visions of a writhing Eric from his head. Ten minutes had passed. A baleful voice in his head insisted that a trained paramilitary group would know enough to use a lethal, fast-working poison. He began to dial Forsberg’s cell number. Amanda reached over, stopped him. “You can’t, Cam. Surely the police are in the room. What shall you tell them when they answer? You can’t give them your name; you’re already wanted for questioning in the McLovick murder. You’d just be distracting them from searching for the culprits.”
“I guess you’re right.”
He put the phone down and tried to focus on the road. But visions of Forsberg’s face, purple and distorted and frothing at the mouth, filled his imagination. He pounded the steering wheel. “Damn it! This is my fault. Eric didn’t deserve this. But I dragged him in, and now he’s probably dead--”
The TracFone chirped, interrupting. Amanda grabbed it, looked at the display. “It’s Eric’s line.”
Reaching for the phone, he took a deep breath. “Hello.”
“Who is this?”
“You called me. Who is this?”
“Officer Reilly. Fitchburg Police.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Do you know a Mr. Eric Forsberg?”
He hesitated. “Why do you ask?”
The policeman’s tone turned aggressive. “Because he’s dead. And because you called his cell about fifteen minutes ago. And because my guess is that you’re the guy who called the hotel clerk. Now stop playing games.”
Cam swallowed, trying to remove the knot from his throat. He described for the officer his conversation with Eric, the commotion on the line after Eric asked him to hold while he turned on the air conditioning. “When he came back on the line, all he said was, ‘poison.’ Then I called the hotel. I’m sorry, officer. I really am. But that’s all I know.” He paused. “One more thing. Contact Lieutenant Poulos from the Westford police. This is related to something he’s working on.” He ended the call and pulled into the breakdown lane again.
“He’s dead.” He leaned onto Amanda’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He thought about Brandon, about Pegasus, about Eric Forsberg. Pain and sorrow, fed by fear and anger, built within him, suddenly erupting in a spewing torrent of fierce, violent sobs. Who were these animals who killed so thoughtlessly, so casually? And were he and Amanda next?
He had a vague sense of Amanda holding him, of stroking his head and humming into his ear, of removing Pegasus’ collar from his pocket and forcing it into his clenched fist. But she knew better than to try to offer words of comfort.
* * *
Standing on the periphery of the crowd inside the hotel lobby, Salazar watched as the paramedics wheeled Forsberg’s body out the door and into the ambulance. The poison was quick-working; he suffered very little. And he left no children to grieve over his loss. His wife would be traumatized, no doubt. He would pray for her soul to heal.
Moving away, he phoned Reichmann. “It’s done.”
“Excellent. What about Thorne and the girl?”
“Gone. They left before your men arrived.” Another lie. Reichmann’s back-up team made it in plenty of time but Salazar didn’t want anyone else tracking his quarry.
“Do you have any idea where they are going?”
Salazar glanced at the screen on his tracking device showing them heading north into Maine again, relieved they hadn’t run to the airport to catch a plane out of the country. “No.”
* * *
Beatrice Yarborough took the call on her satellite phone in her room at the Copley Plaza hotel in Boston as she watched the moon rise over Trinity Church. For some odd reason the church decorations included a number of Jewish stars. Nobody had been able to explain it to her.
“Mr. Forsberg has been eliminated.”
Out of habit, she reached for Orkney, ready to stroke the cat’s neck. “I assume you questioned him first.”
“You assume incorrectly.” The man cleared his throat. “There was no time to develop an elaborate plan to abduct Mr. Forsberg. The danger of him disclosing the Hooked X secrets to others was too great.” He had discussed the rune itself during his presentation, but it appeared only Amanda Spencer and her solicitor friend were privy to the rune’s Jesus bloodline implications. “We chose to eliminate him immediately.”
Beatrice ground her Gauloises cigarette into the bottom of a bar glass—not only did the damn American hotels ban smoking, they didn’t even put ashtrays in the rooms. They were fortunate she didn’t use the desktop.
“Are you planning to murder everyone with whom he might have shared his conclusions?” Presumably Forsberg had discussed his findings with his wife and fellow researchers as well.
Another sigh. “If necessary, yes. But we are hopeful that Forsberg’s death will deter others. We have sent appropriate warnings to his confidantes.”
The Hooked X revelation did not concern her—it did not impact directly on Prince Henry and Sir James. Her Argentine cohort could bump off Forsberg’s friends and family or not. She cared only about Thorne and Spencer. “Your threats may deter others. They will not deter our young irritants in the Subaru.”
“I agree. They, too, will have to be eliminated. Unfortunately, they remain … elusive.”
CHAPTER 12
Cabal of The Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower (Book #1 in the Templars in America Series) Page 22
