The Last Templar ts-1

by Raymond Khoury

  Other things that bothered him were now resurfacing. Over the years, he had become aware of unspoken apprehensions within the Order. He knew, from snatches of conversations accidentally overheard, that there was friction between the Order and the Church. Where he drought there should be close bonds and trust, he sensed dissent and suspicion. So much so that the Church had not cooperated with recent requests for additional men. By the Church's refusal to help, die fate of the garrison at Acre had been sealed. Had the Church deliberately placed the Temple in jeopardy?

  He shook die thought away. Surely not.

  Then there were die secret meetings William of Beaujeu had held with just a few senior members of the Order. Meetings from which they returned grim-faced and taciturn. Senior members like Aimard of Villiers, whose openness and honesty were among die qualities tiiat so endeared him to Martin. There was the ornate chest, the cryptic words between Aimard and the grand master just before they boarded the Falcon Temple. And now this.

  Was he not to be trusted?

  "Martin."

  Startled, he turned to face Aimard, whose face was contorted with pain, his tone lowered to a guttural grumble.

  "I know what you must be thinking. But believe me, when I tell you . . . There are things you must know, things you need to know, if our Order is to survive. William entrusted me with the knowledge and the task, but . . ." He broke off, coughing, then wiped his mouth before resuming, slowly. "My journey ends here, we both know that." He raised a hand to fend off Martin's protests.

  "I must entrust this knowledge to you. You need to complete the task that I have barely begun."

  Martin felt a rush of guilt at his own unjust thoughts.

  "Sit with me," Aimard said. And after a few moments during which the older man caught his breath, he began.

  "For many years, a secret has been known only to a small number of our Order. In the beginning, it was known to just nine men. Never have more than that number been privy to this knowledge. It lies at the core of our Order, and it is the source of the fear and envy of the Church."

  Aimard talked through the night. At first Martin was disbelieving, then he felt a growing sense of shock, of outrage even, but given that it was Aimard telling it to him, he knew in his heart that this tale could not be fantasy. It could only be the truth.

  As Aimard pressed on, his voice frail and quivering, a realization dawned on Martin. His anger turned to awe, and then to an almost overwhelming sense of nobility of purpose. Aimard was like a father to him, and the older knight's earnest dedication held a lot of weight in Martin's eyes.

  Gradually but surely, it was seeping into him, embedding itself into his soul with Aimard's every word.

  They were still talking when the sun rose. When Aimard finished, Martin was silent for a while.

  Then he asked, "What is it you want of me?"

  "I've written a letter," Aimard told him. "A letter which must be taken to the grand master of the Paris Temple. No one else must see it." He handed the letter to Martin, who couldn't read it. Aimard nodded at the geared device by his side. "It's in code ... in case it should fall into unfriendly hands."

  Aimard paused to glance out toward the others. "We are in enemy territory, and there are only four of you left," he said. "Stay together only for as long as you must, then divide into two pairs. Take different routes to Paris. I've made a copy of the letter. One for each pair of you. Impress upon the others the importance of your mission, but do not, I beg of you, reveal the truth that I have told you here unless you are convinced your own death is imminent."

  Martin studied his old friend carefully, then asked, "What if we should all die along the way? What happens to our Order?"

  "There are others," Aimard told him. "Some in Paris, some elsewhere. The truth will never be lost."

  He paused, catching his breath. "Some of what is in the letters is known only to me, although I think Hugh must have guessed. But he won't ask questions. He may not be a brother, but he's a man of 108

  unshakable loyalty. You can place your trust in him, just as I place my trust in you."

  Reaching into a pocket inside his jerkin, Aimard brought out two packages, each wrapped in oiled skin. "Take them now. And hand one to the other pair."

  "To Hugh?"

  Aimard shook his head. "No. He's not a member of our Order, and there may come a point when the grand master of the Paris Temple will only listen to a true brother. In fact, I think Hugh should be the one to travel with you."

  Martin nodded thoughtfully, then asked, "What about you?"

  Aimard coughed and wiped a hand across his beard, and Martin saw more blood in his spittle. "So far, we've been fortunate, but more dangers will come your way, without a doubt," Aimard said.

  "Your journey can't be slowed for the sick and wounded. Not later, and certainly not now. As I said, this is my journey's end."

  "We can't leave you here," Martin protested.

  Cringing with pain, Aimard touched his fingers to his ribs. "After the accident on the ship," he said,

  "I'm lucky to have reached this far. Take the letters and go. Somehow, you must reach Paris. A lot rests on your shoulders."

  Martin of Carmaux nodded, then, reaching out, he clasped his friend and mentor in his arms. He then rose and walked away to where the others and their mounts waited.

  He spoke briefly with them and they all turned to look at Aimard of Villiers, who held their eyes for just a moment before rising laboriously to his feet and walking unsteadily to the well. The geared device was in his hands. Martin watched in rapt silence as his old friend smashed it against the stone wall and, piece by piece, dropped its broken fragments into the well.

  "May God be with you," Martin said softly. "And with us all." Taking the bridle of one of the horses, he swung up into the foreign saddle. Soon, the line of four horsemen was filing through the ruins of the village, their spare mounts trailing behind, before they began to head northwest, uncertain of their fate, unaware of whatever dangers might lie before them on their long journey to France.

  Chapter 48

  Tess's mind was still roaming the Mameluke hinterland when Jans-son's voice interrupted her medieval sojourn and yanked her right back down to earth.

  "We have to assume Vance has translated this too by now," he stated gruffly.

  Reilly nodded without hesitation. "Absolutely."

  She remembered where she was and, still clutching the printout, she studied the faces around her.

  They didn't seem as caught up in the sublimity of the moment as she was. It was different for her.

  This extraordinary and private insight into the lives, actions, thoughts, and deaths of these legendary men touched her deeply. On another level, it was also confirmation of everything her instincts had been harping at since the night of the raid. Her whole body was tingling with anticipation. This could be her Troy, her Tutankhamen. She wondered whether any of those sitting there were at all galvanized by what the printout in their hands hinted at, or whether they were simply interested in the letter because of how it might help them solve a particularly vexing case.

  Jansson's expression left no doubt as to which one it was. "Okay, so we still don't know what we're talking about here," he went on, "apart from the fact that whatever it is, it's small enough to be carried around in a shoulder pouch—but at least we know where he's going. Vonsalis Jansson flashed Kendricks a questioning look.

  "Sorry," Kendricks answered somberly. "Can't help you there. I've got a bunch of guys working on it, but so far they're hitting a wall. We haven't found any records of it anywhere."

  Jansson frowned, clearly annoyed. "Nothing?"

  "No. Not yet anyway. We're talking thirteenth-century Europe here. They didn't exactly have MapQuest back then. Mapmaking was a very crude, primitive exercise, and, as it is, very few charts from the period have survived, to say nothing of written texts. We're working our way through whatever writings we have from then onward, everything up to this day—letter
s, journals, that kind of thing. It's gonna take time."

  Tess watched Jansson sink back into his seat and run a hand up the back of his head. His face clouded. The man clearly didn't take kindly to being thwarted on anything having to do with hard, researchable data.

  "So maybe Vance hasn't figured it out yet either," Aparo offered.

  Tess hesitated before stepping in. "I wouldn't count on it. It's his area of expertise. References to somewhere like that may not come up in widely published works that you might have in your database. They're more likely to be found in some obscure manuscript of the time, the kind of rare book that someone like Vance would know where to find."

  Jansson studied her, seemingly mulling it over for a moment. Seated next to him was De Angelis.

  His gaze was locked on her. She couldn't read him, though. Surely, of all the people in the room, he had to appreciate the value of what they'd just had the privilege of participating in. But he hadn't shown any signs of wonder and hadn't said a word throughout the meeting.

  "All right, we need to figure this one out if we want to catch this guy," Jansson grumbled. He turned to De Angelis. "Father, your people can probably be a big help here."

  "Absolutely. I'll make sure our best scholars work on it. We have a huge library. It's just a matter of time, I'm sure."

  "Time we may not have." Jansson turned to Reilly. "The guy's definitely going to be on the move, if he hasn't left the country already."

  "I'll make sure the CBP gives this top priority." The Bureau of Customs and Borders Protection was in charge of keeping track of whom and what entered and exited the country. "Wherever it is, it's got to be in the eastern Mediterranean somewhere, right?" He turned to Tess. "Can we narrow down the possibilities of where he's headed?"

  Tess cleared her throat, thinking about it. "It could be anywhere. They were blown off course so radically . . . Do you have a map of the area?"

  "Sure." Kendricks leaned over, pulled the keyboard over to him, and tapped in a few keys. A world map soon appeared on the huge plasma screen facing them. He punched in a few more keys and the screen shifted, zooming in on the map several times until it displayed the eastern Mediterranean.

  Tess stood up and walked over to the map. "According to his letter, they left Acre, which is right here in what is now Israel, just north of Haifa—and sailed for Cyprus. They would have sailed north before crossing west, but the storm hit them before they could get anywhere near it. . ." She considered tlie map some more and couldn't help but let her mind drift a little, conjuring up images of their perilous journey that seemed so real that, for a moment, she felt she had actually been there with them. She mustered her thoughts, concentrating on the task at hand. "It all depends on which way the storm took them. Did it push them east of the island—in which case they could have washed up anywhere along the Syrian coast, or the southeastern Turkish coast along here ..." She traced the route with her finger. "Or did they pass to the west of Cyprus, in which case we're talking about this area here, the southwestern coast of Turkey, from the Gulf of Antalya to Rhodes."

  "That's a pretty big target area," Jansson noted vexedly.

  "The landscapes along that whole coastline are pretty much the same," Tess said. "There's nothing in the letter that would suggest one or the other. But I can't imagine they were that far off the coast if they managed to spot it in the middle of a huge storm."

  Reilly nodded, studying the map. "We can start by alerting our people in Turkey and in Syria."

  Jansson's brow furrowed in apparent confusion. "So what's this Vance thinking? That whatever they buried is still out there waiting for him? The letter eventually seems to have made it to France. How does he know the Templars didn't send people back to recover it?"

  Tess thought back to Vance's story. They say the man never smiled again. "The timing is key.

  Vance said the old man who showed the manuscript to the priest, remember, the one who turned white at the news— he said the old man was one of the last surviving Templars. De Molay and the others were burned at the stake in 1314. His dying Templar had to come after that. And that's more than twenty years after the ship sank. I guess Vance is hoping that if they hadn't been able to recover it by then, there was no one else left to do it after that."

  The room fell silent. This was a lot to take in, especially for the others in the room who weren't as well-schooled as she was in making sense of the distant past. Kendricks, who was probably the closest to her in appreciating the historical value of what they were considering here, spoke up.

  "We'll run some simulations of the ship's route. Factor in seasonal winds, currents, that kind of thing. See if any details in the text match up to the geography of the land and try and get you a handle on its whereabouts."

  "Might be a good idea to cross-check with any wrecks found in the area. Who knows, one of them could be this Falcon Temple.'' Jansson's impatient body language indicated the meeting was over.

  He turned to De Angelis. "You'll keep us posted?"

  "As soon as I hear anything." The monsignor was as calm and unmoved as ever.

  Reilly walked Tess to the foyer by the elevators. No one else was waiting there. She was about to hit the down button when she turned to face him with a curious look on her face.

  "I was kind of surprised you asked me to come in for this. After that whole 'you've got to let go of this thing' speech the other day."

  Reilly grimaced, massaging his brow. It had been a long afternoon. "Yeah, and I'll probably be kicking myself for bringing you in on it." His face turned more serious. "To be perfectly frank, I was in two minds about it."

  "Well, I'm glad the less boring one won the toss."

  There and then, he decided he really liked that mischievous grin. Everything about her was drawing him in. He thought back to the exhilaration that beamed across her face when she saw the replica of the encoder in the conference room. It was intoxicating; this woman could still find intense, genuine, unabashed pleasure in life, something that seemed to elude most people and had certainly eluded him for as long as he could remember.

  "Look, Tess, I know how big this must be for you, but—"

  She pounced on the brief pause. "What about you? What does it mean for you?"

  He flinched; he wasn't used to being probed about his motives. Not when he was working a case. It was a given. At least, it usually was. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, is locking Vance up all you want out of this?"

  He thought the answer was simple. "For the time being, I can't afford to think beyond that."

  She was on fire. "I don't believe that for a second. Come on, Sean," she pressed. "You can't tell me you're not intrigued by this. They wrote a coded message, for God's sake. About something their whole future depended on. They were burned at the stake for it, wiped out, eradicated. Aren't you in any way curious to know what's buried in that grave?"

  Reilly was finding it hard to resist the enthusiasm radiating from her. "Let's get him first. Too many people have died for this already."

  "More than you think. If you include all the Templars that died back then."

  Somehow, her comment brought it all home for him in a way he hadn't considered before. For the first time, the magnitude of what they were dealing with was dawning on him. But he knew the bigger picture would have to wait. His priority had to be to close the METRAID case file. "See, that's why I didn't want you involved in this anymore. It's just got too strong a hold over you, and that worries me."

  "And yet you called."

  There it was. That playful grin again. "Yeah, well ... it does look like we could use your help right now. With a bit of luck, maybe we'll pick him up at some border crossing, but, in the meantime, it would be nice to have some of our people waiting for him at Fonsalis, wherever it is."

  Tess hit the down button. "I'll put my thinking cap on."

  He looked at her, standing there, the corner of her mouth curled up just a touch, her green eyes glinting mischievously
. He shook his head imperceptibly and couldn't help but let out a little chuckle. "I didn't know you ever took it off."

  "Oh, it's been known to happen." She glanced at him, coyly. "On rare occasions."

  Two discreet tones chimed as the elevator doors slid open. The cabin was empty. He watched her step in. "You'll be careful?"

  She turned, holding the doors open. "No, I intend to be totally, wantonly, inexcusably reckless."

  He didn't have time to answer her as the elevator doors slid shut and she disappeared from view. He stood there for a moment, the image of her beaming face still etched in his mind, before the familiar ping of an arriving elevator snapped him back to his grinding reality.

  ***

  The curl at the edge of her mouth was still there as Tess walked out of the building. She knew something was definitely going on between her and Reilly, and she liked what she felt. She hadn't danced the dance for quite a while, and the early stages of it, as in her work, had always been the most enjoyable—at least, in her experience. Trust me to find a parallel between archaeology and men. She frowned at the realization that, as in archaeology, the surge of anticipation early on in a relationship, the mystery, the optimism, and the hope, never quite fulfilled their promise.

  Maybe this time would be different. On both fronts.

  Yeah, right.

  As she walked in the crisp, spring air, the one notion she couldn't beat into submission was De Angelis's suggestion that the hidden secret had to do with alchemy. It kept hounding her, and the more she considered it, the less credible it seemed. And yet, the Vatican envoy had seemed so confident about it being that. A formula to turn lead into gold. Who wouldn't go to great lengths to hide it from rapacious eyes? And yet, something about it simply didn't compute.

  Most intriguing of all was that Aimard had thought that the storm had been a display of God's will.