The Last Templar ts-1

by Raymond Khoury

  ***

  The knights stormed out through the doors of the museum and into the glare of the television floodlights. Despite the sobbing of the frightened and the moaning of the injured, it was suddenly a lot quieter and around them came shouts; men's voices, police mostiy, with random words identifiable here and there: ". . . hold your fire!" ". . . hostage!" ". . . don't shoot!"

  And then the four horsemen were charging down the steps and up the avenue, the knight with the hostage protectively bringing up the rear. Their movements were brisk but not urgent, contemptuous of the approaching police sirens sawing at the night, and in moments they had disappeared back into the marled darkness of Central Park.

  Chapter 4

  A t the edge of the museum's steps, Sean Reilly stood carefully outside the yellow and black crime scene tape. He ran a hand over his short brown hair as he looked down at the outline where the headless body had lain. He let his eyes drift down lower, following the trail of blood splatters to where a basketball-sized mark noted the position of the head.

  Nick Aparo walked over and peered around his partner's shoulder. Round-faced, balding, and ten years older than Reilly's thirty-eight, he was average height, average build, average looking. You could forget what he looked like while you were still talking to him, a useful quality for an agent and one he had exploited very successfully during the years Reilly had known him. Like Reilly, he wore a loose-fitting, dark-blue Windbreaker over his charcoal suit with big white letters, FBI, printed on the back. Right now, his mouth was twisted in distaste.

  "I don't think the coroner's gonna have too much trouble figuring that one out," he observed.

  Reilly nodded. He couldn't take his eyes off the markings of where the head had lain, the pool of blood leading down from it now dark. Why was it, he wondered, that being shot or stabbed to death didn't seem quite as bad as having your head chopped off? It occurred to him that official execution by beheading was standard procedure in some parts of the world. Parts of the world that had spawned many of the terrorists whose intentions had the country gripped by heightened alert levels; terrorists whose trails consumed all of his days and more than a few of his nights.

  He turned to Aparo. "What's the word on the mayor's wife?" He knew she had been dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the park, along with the horses.

  "She's just shaken," Aparo answered. "She's got more bruises to her ego than to her butt."

  "Good thing there's an election coming. It'd be a shame to see a good bruising go to waste." Reilly looked around, his mind still coming to terms with the shock of what had taken place right where he was standing. "Still nothing from the roadblocks?"

  Roadblocks had been set up at a ten-block radius and at all bridges and tunnels leading into and out of Manhattan.

  "Nope. These guys knew what they were doing. They weren't waiting around for a cab."

  Reilly nodded. Professionals. Well organized.

  Great.

  As if amateurs couldn't do as much damage these days. All it took was a couple of flying lessons or a truckload of fertilizer, along with a suicidal, psychotic disposition—none of which were exacdy in short supply.

  He surveyed the ravaged scene in silence. As he did, he felt an up-welling of utter frustration and anger. The randomness of these deadly acts of madness, and their infuriating propensity to catch everyone off guard, never ceased to amaze him. Still, something about this particular crime scene seemed odd—even distracting. He realized he felt a strange detachment, standing there. It was all somehow too outlandish to take in, after the grim and potentially disastrous scenarios he and his colleagues had been trying to second-guess for the last few years. He felt as if he were stuck outside the big tent, distracted away from the main event by some freakish sideshow. And yet in a disturbing way, and much to his annoyance, he felt somewhat grateful for it.

  As special agent in charge heading up the field office's Domestic Terrorism Unit, he had suspected the raid would end up in his corner from the moment he'd gotten the call. Not that he minded the mind-boggling job of coordinating the work of dozens of agents and police officers, as well as the analysts, lab technicians, psychologists, photographers, and countless others. It was what he always wanted to do.

  He had always felt he could make a difference.

  No, make that known. And would.

  ***

  The feeling had crystallized during his years at Notre Dame's law school. Reilly felt that a lot of things were wrong in this world—his father's death, when he was only ten, was painful proof of that

  —and he wanted to help make it a better place, at least for other people, if not for himself. The feeling became inescapable the day when, working on a paper involving a case of race crime, he attended a white supremacist rally in Terre Haute. The event had affected Reilly deeply. He felt he had been witnessing evil, and he felt a pressing need to understand it more if he was going to help fight it.

  His first plan didn't work out quite as well as he'd hoped. In a youthful burst of idealism, he had decided to become a navy pilot. The idea of helping rid the world of evil from the cockpit of a silver Tomcat sounded perfect. Fortunately, he turned out to be just the kind of recruit the navy was looking for. Unfortunately, they had something else in mind. They had more than enough Top Gun wannabes; what they needed were lawyers. The recruiters did their best to get him to join the Judge Advocate General Corps, and Reilly flirted with the idea for a while, but ultimately decided against it and went back to focus on passing the Indiana bar exam.

  It was a chance meeting in a secondhand bookstore that diverted his path again, this time for good.

  That was where he met a retired FBI agent who was only too happy to talk to him about the Bureau and encourage him to apply, which he did as soon as he passed the bar. His mother wasn't too thrilled with the idea of his spending seven years in college to end up as what she called "a glorified cop," but Reilly knew it was right for him.

  He was barely a year into his rookie stint in the Chicago office, logging some street duty on robbery and drug-trafficking squads, when on the twenty-sixth of February 1993 everything changed. That was the day a bomb exploded in a parking lot underneath the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring over a thousand. The conspirators had actually planned to topple one of the towers onto the other while simultaneously releasing a cloud of cyanide gas. Only financial limitations had prevented them from achieving their objective; they simply ran out of money. They didn't have enough gas canisters for the bomb that, apart from being too meager to fulfill its nefarious purpose, was also placed alongside the wrong column, one that wasn't of critical structural importance.

  The attack, although a failure, was nevertheless a serious wake-up call. It demonstrated that a small group of unsophisticated, low-level terrorists with very little funding or resources could cause a huge amount of damage. Intelligence agencies scrambled to re-allocate their resources to meet this new threat.

  And so less than a year after joining the Bureau, Reilly found himself working out of the Bureau's New York City field office. The office had long had the reputation of being the worst place to work because of the high cost of living, the traffic problems, and the need to live quite a way out of the city if one wanted anything more spacious than a broom closet. But given that the city had always generated more action than anywhere else in the country, it was the dream posting of most new, and naive, special agents. Reilly was such an agent when he'd been assigned to the city.

  He wasn't new, or naive, anymore.

  As he looked around, Reilly knew the chaos surrounding him was going to monopolize his life for the foreseeable future. He made a mental note to call Father Bragg in the morning and let him know he wouldn't be able to make softball practice. He felt bad about that; he hated to disappoint the kids.

  If there was one thing he tried not to allow his work to trespass, it was those Sundays in the park.

  He'd probably be in the park this Sunday, o
nly it would be for other, less congenial reasons.

  "You want to have a look inside?" Aparo asked.

  "Yeah." Reilly shrugged, casting one last sweeping look at the surreal scene around him.

  Chapter 5

  A s he and Aparo stepped carefully over the scattered debris, Reilly's gaze took in the devastation inside the museum.

  Priceless relics lay strewn everywhere, most of them damaged beyond repair. No yellow and black tape in here. The whole building was a crime scene. The floor of the museum's Great Hall was an ugly still life of destruction: chips of marble, slivers of glass, smears of blood, all of it grist to the crime scene investigators' mill. Any of it was capable of providing a clue; then again, all of it could fail to offer a single damn thing.

  As he glanced briefly at the dozen or so white-suited CSIs who were working their way 15

  systematically through the debris and who, on this occasion, were joined by agents from the ERT—the FBI's Evidence Response Team—Reilly mentally checked off what they knew. Four horsemen.

  Five dead bodies. Three cops, one guard, and one civilian. Another four cops and over a dozen civilians with bullet wounds, two of them critical. A couple of dozen cut by flying glass, and twice that number bruised and banged about. And enough cases of shock to keep rotating teams of counselors busy for months.

  Across the lobby, Assistant Director in Charge Tom Jansson was talking with the rail-thin captain of detectives from the Nineteenth Precinct. They were arguing over jurisdiction, but it was a moot point. The Vatican connection and the distinct possibility that what had happened here involved terrorists meant that overall command of the investigation was promptly transferred from the NYPD to the FBI. The sweetener was that, years earlier, an understanding had been reached between the two organizations. When any arrest was to take place, the NYPD would publicly take credit for the collar, regardless of who actually made it happen. The FBI would only get its share of the plaudits once the case went to court, ostensibly for helping secure the conviction. Still, egos often came in the way of sensible cooperation, which seemed to be the case tonight.

  Aparo called over a man Reilly didn't recognize, and introduced him as Detective Steve Buchinski.

  "Steve's happy to help us out while the dick-measuring contest's sorted out," Aparo said, nodding over to the ongoing debate between their superiors.

  "Just let me know what you need," Buchinski said. "I'm as keen as you are to nail the sons of bitches who did this."

  That was a good start, Reilly thought gratefully, smiling at the blunt-featured cop. "Eyes and ears on the street. That's what we need right now," he said. "You guys have the manpower and the networks."

  "We're already running it down. I'll borrow a few more shields from the CPP, that shouldn't be a problem," Buchinski promised. The precinct adjoining the Nineteenth was Central Park; horseback patrols were a daily feature of their work. Reilly wondered briefly if there might be a link and made a mental note to check on that later.

  "We could also use some extra bodies for the follow-up interviews," Reilly told the cop.

  "Yeah, we're up to our eyeballs in witnesses," Aparo added, motioning up at the Grand Staircase.

  Most of the offices above were being used as makeshift processing rooms.

  Reilly looked over and spotted Agent Amelia Gaines coming down the stairs from the gallery.

  Jansson had put the striking, ambitious redhead in charge of interviewing witnesses. Which made sense, since everybody loved talking to Amelia Gaines. Following her was a blonde who was carrying a small replica of herself. Her daughter, Reilly guessed. The child looked like she was fast asleep.

  Reilly looked again at the blonde's face. Usually, Amelia's alluring presence made other women pale into insignificance.

  Not this one.

  Even in her current state, something about her was simply mesmeric. Her eyes connected briefly with his before looking down to the clutter under her feet. Whoever she was, she was seriously shaken.

  Reilly watched as she headed for die door, picking her way through the debris with unease. Another woman, older but with a vague physical resemblance, was close behind. Together, they walked out of the museum.

  Reilly turned, refocusing. "The first sort-through's always a huge waste of time, but we've still got to go through the motions and talk to everybody. Can't afford not to."

  "Probably more of a waste of time in this case. The whole damn thing's on tape." Buchinski pointed at a video camera, then another. Part of the museum's security system. "To say nothing of all the footage from the TV crews outside."

  Reilly knew from experience that high security was all very well for high-tech crimes, but no one had allowed for low-tech raiders on horseback. "Great." He nodded. "I'll get the popcorn."

  Chapter 6

  From his seat at a large mahogany table, Cardinal Mauro Brugnone glanced around the high-ceilinged room that was located close to the heart of the Vatican, studying his fellow cardinals.

  Although, as the only cardinal-bishop present, Brugnone outranked the others, he deliberately avoided sitting at the head of the table. He liked to maintain an air of democracy here, even though he knew that they would all defer to him. He knew it and accepted it, not with pride, but through pragmatism. Committees without leaders never achieved anything.

  This unfortunate situation, however, called for neither a leader nor a committee. It was something Brugnone would have to deal with himself. That much was clear to him from the moment he had seen the news footage that had been broadcast around the world.

  His eyes eventually settled on Cardinal Pasquale Rienzi. Although he was the youngest of them all and only a cardinal-deacon, Rienzi was Brugnone's closest confidante. Like the others seated at the table, Rienzi was speechlessly engrossed in the report before him. He looked up and caught Brugnone's eye. The young man, pale and earnest as always, promptly coughed gently.

  "How could something like this happen?" one man asked. "In the heart of New York City? At the Metropolitan Museum . . ." He shook his head in disbelief.

  How foolishly otherworldly, Brugnone thought. Anything could happen in New York City. Hadn't the destruction of the World Trade Center proved that?

  "At least the archbishop wasn't harmed," another cardinal stated somberly.

  "It seems the robbers escaped. They don't yet know who is behind this . . . abomination?" another voice asked.

  "It's a land of criminals. Lunatics inspired by their amoral television programs and sadistic video games," another answered. "Their prisons ran out of room years ago."

  "But why dress as they did? Red crosses on white mantles . . . They were masquerading as Templars?" asked the cardinal who had spoken first.

  There it is, Brugnone thought.

  That was what had set off his alarm bells. Why, indeed, were the perpetrators dressed as Knights Templar? Could it be simply a matter of the robbers seeking a disguise and fastening onto whatever happened to be available? Or did the apparel of the four horsemen have a deeper, and possibly more disturbing, significance?

  "What is a multigeared rotor encoder?"

  Brugnone looked up sharply. The question had been asked by the oldest cardinal there. "A multi . . .?" Brugnone asked.

  The old man was peering short-sightedly at the circulated document. " 'Exhibit 129,' " the old man read out. " 'Sixteenth century. A multi-geared rotor encoder. Reference number VNS 1098.' I've never heard of it. What is it?"

  Brugnone feigned studying the document in his hands, a copy of an e-mail that contained a provisional list of items stolen during the raid. Again, he felt a shiver—the same shiver he felt the first time he spotted it on the list. He kept his face impassive. Without raising his head, he flicked a quick glance around the table at the others. No one else was reacting. Why should they? It was far from common knowledge.

  Sliding the paper away, he leaned back in his chair. "Whatever it is," he stated flatly, "those gangsters have taken it." Glancing at Rie
nzi, he inclined his head slightly. "Perhaps you will undertake to keep us informed. Make contact with the police and ask for us to be kept abreast of 17

  their investigation."

  "The FBI," Rienzi corrected, "not the police."

  Brugnone raised an eyebrow.

  "The American government is taking this very seriously," Rienzi affirmed.

  "And so they should," the oldest cardinal snapped from across the table. Brugnone was pleased to see that this elder appeared to have forgotten about the machine.

  "Quite," Rienzi continued. "I've been assured that everything that can be done will be done."

  Brugnone nodded, then motioned to Rienzi to continue with the meeting, his gesture implying, wind it up.

  People always had deferred to Mauro Brugnone. Probably, he knew, because the way he looked suggested a man of great physical strength. If it were not for his vestments, he knew that he looked like the burly, heavy-shouldered Calabrian farmer he would have been had the Church not called him more than half a century ago. His rough-hewn appearance, and the matching manner he had cultivated over the years, first disarmed others into thinking he was just a simple man of God. That he was but, because of his standing in the Church, many proceeded to another assumption: that he was a manipulator and a schemer. He was not, but he'd never bothered to disabuse mem. It sometimes paid to keep people guessing, even though in a way, that was in itself a form of manipulation.

  Ten minutes later, Rienzi did as he asked.

  ***

  As the other cardinals filed from the room, Brugnone left the meeting room by another door and walked along a corridor to a stairwell that took him out of the building and into a secluded courtyard. He made his way down a sheltered brick pathway, across the Belvedere courtyard and past the celebrated statue of Apollo, and into the buildings that housed part of the Vatican's enormous library, the Archivio Segreto Vaticano—the secret archive.