Cabal of The Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower (Book #1 in the Templars in America Series)

by David S. Brody

The bottom edge of the opening was chest-high, a simple maneuver for an ex-gymnast. She hopped through and Cam handed her a flashlight. “What do you see?” he asked.

  Crouching, she pushed aside some cobwebs and peered into the opening. “It’s another tunnel, same direction as the first.” Probably heading toward the cemetery.

  “Your turn, Thorne.”

  Cam passed his flashlight and bag to Amanda and hoisted himself up.

  “Now, both of you move back, away from the opening. I want you at least 10 feet away from me and I want you each to continue talking. If I hear either of your voices getting close as I climb through, I won’t hesitate to shoot.” They moved back as Salazar crawled in, gun raised. The cat jumped in after.

  Cam was starting to get used to the gun. Salazar probably didn’t want to kill them yet; he still might need their help finding the treasure. On the other hand, if he did decide to kill them, it might be another 600 years before anyone found their bodies. He crept ahead without waiting for Salazar’s instructions; this tunnel was tighter than the first, about four feet high, and the stonework was rougher. A number of the stones had dislodged and fallen and the tunnel, in a few areas, bowed. There was no way to know for sure but it looked like this tunnel had been built first and the rotunda and synagogue passageway added later, probably by the Jewish Masons in the 1700s as a way to secretly access the older tunnel and whatever secrets it housed.

  Feigning a slip he reached down and, using Amanda’s body to shield Salazar’s view, palmed an apple-size rock and slid it into his waistband. Salazar was probably four or five inches taller than him but in the low tunnel that might play to his advantage.

  “Well done,” Amanda breathed into his ear.

  About twenty feet ahead his flashlight revealed another void. “That’s right about where the cemetery would be,” he whispered

  Amanda took his hand. “Your placeholder theory was correct.”

  “Yeah. Dead-on.”

  “Not the best choice of words.”

  The tunnel opened into a square crypt. Slabs of white and pink quartz covered the walls, ceiling and floor, giving the room a glowing, ethereal look. On the far wall an archway rose above a raised, recessed alcove. Cam shone his light inside: the niche housed a sandstone-colored tomb, its front face marked by a series of engravings.

  He dropped to his knees and, starting at the top, brushed aside the dust from the carvings. Amanda quickly joined him, removing her water bottle, squirting the area with water and rubbing the area clean with her sleeve. Salazar was smart enough to let them work, watching intently.

  It became quickly apparent that an engraving of a medieval knight, complete with helmet, sword and shield, dominated the front face of the tomb. Cam’s heart raced as he peered through the particles of cave dust illuminated by his flashlight. “This looks a lot like the Westford Knight carving,” he said.

  “That was the custom at the time when burying a knight. The Temple Church in London is chock full of knight effigies.”

  “Yeah, but that’s London. This is America.” He focused on the top of the tomb face where a series of runic letters captioned the carving of the knight figure, presumably identifying the tomb’s occupant. “I don’t suppose you read runic?” he asked.

  “Sorry, no,” Amanda said distractedly as she rubbed at the knight’s shield area. “But I do recognize this.” She shone the light on an engrailed, or scalloped, cross in the center of the shield. “This is the Sinclair family crest.” She squeezed his arm. “We found it, Cam. We found him. Prince Henry.”

  They stared at the effigy. So it was true. Beneath the crust and mold and sludge of history, they had found evidence of a remarkable expedition, led by a remarkable man, hoping to accomplish remarkable things in a new world. Cam barely cared that a gun was aimed at his back.

  A number of other markings were inscribed near the bottom of the tomb face, beneath the Sinclair effigy. They rubbed at them, Salazar leaning in and even offering his water and a small towel. Three human-like figures appeared, one smaller than the other two. “Can you make anything out?” Cam asked.

  “No,” Amanda said. “But turn off your torch for a second.”

  “Wait,” Salazar barked, grabbing Cam’s arms and yanking them behind his back. “Just in case you have any stupid ideas.”

  As Cam winced, Salazar lessened his grip a bit. “Right,” he sighed. “Your shoulder.” He allowed Cam to shift his hands in front of his waist instead and quickly bound them in plastic cuffs. He also took Cam’s heavy steel flashlight from him and handed him a small plastic one instead. “Okay now.” Salazar flicked off his light.

  Holding her flashlight off to the side, Amanda illuminated the carvings at a flat angle. The images practically jumped off the stone: A bearded man, a woman with long hair and a child also with long hair, all holding hands, the child in the middle. Amanda gulped a breath. “Look at the man’s sharp, narrow features. I think it’s Jesus. With Mary Magdalene and their daughter.” If she was right, Prince Henry wasn’t leaving much doubt he believed in the bloodline.

  “How can you tell?” Salazar asked.

  “It looks much like the carving in Royston Cave in England. I have a photograph the Monsignor gave us in my bag.” Salazar nodded his assent and she removed the photo, explaining the cave was a secret 14th –century Templar meeting spot with walls covered with Templar carvings and imagery.

  Cam leaned closer, comparing the carving with the Royston Cave image. “Look. These figures have crosses on their robes just like Royston Cave.”

  “I wonder what else we have,” Amanda said as she continued to rub away at the carvings below the images. They were like kids on Christmas ripping through their presents. A series of shapes revealed themselves: a spiral, a rose, a five-sided star. Amanda squinted, turned her head. “These are all symbols of fertility.”

  “I don’t get it,” Salazar said, obviously wondering where the treasure was.

  Amanda ignored him. “Bloody amazing! Here’s a Hooked X. And this is the Sinclair family crest again.”

  “There’s one more image below that,” Cam said. “Jesus again?”

  She angled the light toward the cave floor. “No, I think not. That’s not hair.”

  Cam smelled the mint gum on Salazar’s breath as the operative leaned in and spoke. “It’s a headdress. Worn by a Native American chief or sachem.” They looked at Salazar. “I’m a Narragansett Indian,” he explained.

  “I think he’s correct, Cam. There’s a similar image carved on one of the Spirit Pond stones.”

  She sat back, widening the light beam to focus on the entirety of the images. They studied the carvings in silence. Amanda spoke first, her voice little more than a whisper. “It’s a genealogy.”

  “But there are no names.” Cam said.

  “No. But the pictures convey the information. Working down, below the effigy, the first thing we have are Jesus and Mary Magdalene and their daughter Sarah. Below them are symbols of fertility, telling us that their bloodline continued to procreate. Next is the Sinclair family crest and the Hooked X, indicating that the Sinclairs are carrying the bloodline and marking their journey to the New World with the Hooked X. And the Native American sachem, well, apparently this is telling us the bloodline flows through him, whomever he is.”

  “Probably Prince Henry’s son,” Cam said.

  Salazar shifted and his eyes widened. “Wait a second. You’re saying Native Americans are part of the Jesus bloodline?”

  “I’m not saying it,” Cam responded, “these pictures are saying it.”

  “But didn’t Sinclair have other children?” His grip on Cam’s shoulder relaxed.

  “Yes. But apparently he wanted to make it clear that another branch of the bloodline flowed here in America. Probably with the Narragansett tribe, since that’s who lived here.”

  Salazar whistled softly. “Holy shit.”

  * * *

  Cam, Amanda and Salazar sat quietly in the cave, st
udying the carvings on the tomb. For Salazar, the revelation that Jesus’ blood flowed through his veins was oddly … disturbing. His grandfather told him he descended from a long line of Narragansett chiefs. Which meant it was almost certain he had some of the Sinclair Jesus blood. But he had long ago rejected Catholicism, the religion of his mother, in favor of Narragansett spiritualism and its emphasis on nature. Was it possible he could unite the two beliefs, have the best of both worlds? And what about Rosalita, being raised Catholic by her grandmother? How do you tell a little girl that she descended from God? Perhaps that was a greater legacy than any treasure he could ever find. Not that it would pay for college.

  Which brought him back to the present. What was the next step? He was ten feet underground with a secret that would change world history. Not to mention being a step or two away from some ancient treasure. And he was stuck here with a couple of people who knew he had committed murder.

  Amanda solved the problem for him. She had rolled away and begun to examine the rest of the crypt. “My goodness, Cam, look.” She focused her beam on an archway above the alcove. Salazar scrambled to his feet.

  * * *

  Amanda reached up and rubbed at the arch’s keystone with a wet cloth before refocusing her light beam on it. She forced herself to blink, just to be sure her eyes weren’t playing a trick on her. The beam illuminated a multicolored slab of agate, its orange and pink and purple bands brilliant even in the dim light of the crypt. A triangular plate of gold, the size of a billiards rack and imbedded within the agate slab, glowed yellow in the dusty light. Dozens of gemstones were recessed into the gold, arranged to form four Hebrew letters—the tetragrammaton, the not-to-be-spoken name of God.

  Cam brushed more of the dirt and grime away, fingering the jewels awkwardly, his hands still cuffed. “I can’t believe we found the Delta of Enoch.”

  Her body tingled. “Do you realize that if this is authentic it predates Noah’s flood? We’re talking more than 5,000 years old. Older than the pyramids.”

  A quick glance at Salazar extinguished her excitement. He was studying the arch, probing the stonework with his hands. If he could manage to remove the keystone without the ceiling falling on his head, he would not hesitate to do so. If not, he’d make certain the keystone was here when he returned for it. In either event it was clear he valued the artifact for more than just its historical significance.

  Cam hadn’t yet deduced Salazar’s intentions. He managed to extract his camera from his pack and snap a few pictures. “Who knows when we’ll get back down here again,” he said.

  Salazar snatched the camera away. “Or if it will be here when you return,” he said quietly.

  * * *

  Amanda sat cross-legged on the stone floor in front of the niche. “Cam, what do you notice about that triangle?” She kept her voice low, hopeful that Salazar would be too focused on his treasure and the problem of extracting it to be bothered by anything she said.

  Cam stood next to her. “It’s equilateral.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not really.”

  “Men.” She pulled him down. “Let’s try this. Draw a triangle in the dirt.” Squatting, he did so, his hands still cuffed. “Which way does it point?”

  “Up.”

  “As do most triangles, correct?” She waited for him to figure it out.

  He shifted forward. “I get it now. The Delta of Enoch triangle is pointing down. And the upside-down triangle is the womb, the pubic area—a symbol for the Sacred Feminine.”

  Just as the upward-pointing triangle symbolized the phallus, the blade, the male. “And why do you imagine the Delta might be pointing down?” She stood, urged him along with her hands. “Really, it was built by a chap who actually viewed the face of God.” Sometimes our core values are so ingrained, so hard-wired, that they prevent us from reaching even the most obvious conclusions. “Don’t you see, Cam? Enoch didn’t choose a square or circle or oval. Or even a tablet like the Ten Commandments. He chose a feminine triangle, the Yoni Yantra, to proclaim and record God’s true name.”

  His eyes widened. “Of course. That’s the big secret, the mystery. The thing the Church was fighting so hard to suppress, is still trying to suppress. That’s what the Templars and Prince Henry really believed, the reason for the big split with the Vatican.” He shook his head. “They believed God is a woman.”

  She leaned down and kissed him. “Hallelujah.”

  * * *

  Salazar allowed himself to become distracted for a moment from the task of extricating the keystone. His eyes drank in the beauty of the agate and the jewels, the purity of the solid gold plate. He did some quick calculations: the plate itself probably weighed 50 pounds; at 900 dollars an ounce, that was almost a million dollars, not even including the diamonds and rubies and sapphires. But even as he completed his calculations, he realized the mistake he had made. And it wasn’t a mistake of arithmetic.

  * * *

  Cam slid the rock from his waistband and edged around behind Salazar. Amanda nodded in agreement—Salazar was a killer. There was no way they could count on him letting them out of the cave alive.

  He wished he had a bigger rock. Raising his cuffed hands high, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he thrust the rock downward, aiming for a spot on the back of Salazar’s skull.

  He must have exhaled or grunted as he swung his arms, because Salazar turned and ducked at the last second. Cam adjusted his aim but the cuffs on his hands restricted him and the best he could do was deliver a glancing blow to the area above Salazar’s ear. He tried to maintain his balance and follow up with another blow but the momentum of the attack propelled him sideways, out of range. Salazar groaned and staggered away, waving his gun unsteadily. He mumbled a couple of unintelligible syllables and blinked a few times, then dropped to his knees, swaying side to side. Before he could recover, Cam charged him again.

  The Glock shrieked, flooding the crypt with the thunderclap of echoing gunfire. The bullet seared Cam’s left upper arm as he flew through the air, pinwheeling him sideways. Amanda screamed and scrambled to the corner as he skidded across the floor. Salazar held the gun menacingly, tried again to speak. “Dumb. Move.” Cam crawled away, a fire raging in his arm, and prayed Salazar would control his anger.

  Salazar rubbed his head, examined the blood on his fingers and leaned against the crypt wall, blinking. Amanda edged over to Cam and held the light to his wound. “We must get him to a hospital. I can see shattered bone.”

  Salazar ignored her. The cat loped to him and licked the wound on his head. Eyeing them, he reached into his pocket and pulled a piece of cheese. The act seemed to calm him; his eyes regained their focus and he took a deep breath. “Like I said, dumb move. Now, here’s the deal. I’m not leaving this crypt until I get my treasure. That means you two aren’t leaving either.”

  “Rubbish. We need a doctor.” She ripped a strip from Cam’s shirt and bandaged his arm. “He’s bleeding quite badly.” She lifted his arm as high as she could and rested it on his pack to try to reduce the bleeding.

  Salazar ignored her again. “One choice is to try to get that keystone out of the arch. But I don’t like our chances—the whole thing would probably fall on our heads.”

  “What’s the other choice?” Cam forced the words out, his hands still cuffed. He had scalded his hand on a wood stove once; the pain had been excruciating for a few seconds. The pain from the bullet wound was just as bad. But it wasn’t fading.

  “We figure out the Money Pit mystery.”

  Amanda looked up. “What’s to figure out. The treasure is here.”

  “I think there’s more.”

  “What, a 5,000-year old slab of gold embedded with jewels is not enough treasure for you?”

  “Actually, it is. But, as I said, it’s stuck in that arch. Here’s the thing: They didn’t build that Money Pit for nothing. Something’s buried there. And I think you two are the ones to help me figure out how to get to it. I have
a theory.”

  “If we assist you, will you allow me to bring him to a hospital?” Amanda asked.

  “Yes, as long as I believe you are putting forth your full efforts. I have no interest in seeing either of you suffer.” Salazar summarized his conclusion that the Pit was meant to replicate Enoch’s crypts, that the flood tunnels were actually a clue as well as a booby-trap. “But I can’t put it all together.”

  Cam tried to focus but the pain made it difficult. Amanda stared at the crypt walls, obviously deep in thought. “When the Pit floods, how high does the water get?”

  Salazar pulled a file from his bag and thumbed through some papers. “About 30 feet below the top.”

  She nodded. “That confirms it.” She reached for her bag. “I’m going to remove the Tower model, okay? Not a weapon.” Salazar nodded. She showed him the replica. “During your Revolutionary War, British troops blew a couple feet off the top of the Tower. It used to stand about 30 feet tall, the same depth as the Money Pit when filled with water.”

  “And?”

  She pointed to the Delta of Enoch. “That’s the key. The Sacred Feminine.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Open your mind. Consider life and fertility and the womb. Here, I’ll make it simple for you: What does the Pit represent, at its most base, symbolic level?”

  Cam’s head spun; Salazar looked at her blankly.

  “Come on, guys. Even I’ve heard the old joke—the monument to Martha Washington is a 600 foot hole in the ground.” She paused. “So what does the Pit represent?”

  “The womb?” Cam said, the words coming out soft and weak.

  “Precisely. And the most precious thing of all—life itself—is found in the womb.”

  “All right, I get that,” Salazar said. “The treasure is in the Pit, in the womb. But how do I get it out?”

  “Well, how would one extract life from a womb?”

  He shifted from one foot to the other. “By seeding it.”

  “And just how does one do that?”

  “I guess it starts by inserting a penis.”