The Last Templar ts-1

by Raymond Khoury

  That He was willing the sea to swallow whatever it was they were carrying and bury it forever.

  Why would he think that? And then there was the issue of its size. A reliquary. One small chest.

  What could it possibly hold that men would die, and kill, for?

  Fonsalis.

  She had to figure it out if she was going to stay in the game.

  She decided that a few sleepless nights were in the cards. And she would make sure that her passport was in order.

  She knew she would also have to face a tough phone call with her mother, in which she'd tell her that it would be more than just a couple of days before she would be joining them in Arizona.

  ***

  De Angelis had returned briefly to his room at the hostel. Preoccupied with the potential problems at hand, he sat on the edge of the hard bed and called Rome. He spoke directly to a colleague far removed from Cardinal Brugnone's circle. This was decidedly not the moment to be faced with probing questions.

  Aware that the edge he had, when tracking down the four horsemen, was now long gone, and similarly conscious that being close to the foundering investigation no longer served any useful purpose, he knew that he would soon have to go his own way. He gave orders that would ensure that everything was in place so that, when he did choose to move, he could do so swiftly.

  That done, he pulled out a sheaf of photographs from his briefcase, fanned them out on the bed, and examined them one by one. Tess coming in and out of Federal Plaza. Leaving and returning to her home in Mamaroneck. Her office at the Manoukian Institute. Long shots, mediums, close-ups. Even in two grainy dimensions, she exuded the confidence and determination she showed in real life. She had also proved herself to be imaginative and eager. Unlike the FBI, she had quickly thrown off the constraints of thinking that all of this was mere theft.

  Her background knowledge, her acquaintanceship with Vance before his attack on her, all helped to make her a useful ally and a dangerous opponent.

  He touched one of the photos, tapping his finger in the center of her forehead. Clever girl. Clever, clever girl. If anyone was going to figure this one out, his money was on her. But he also knew she wouldn't be one to share her discovery.

  It would have to be prized out of her.

  Chapter 49

  Tess had lost track of time, but, from the accumulation of coffee cups on her desk and the amount of caffeine rushing through her veins, she knew it must have been many hours since she had logged onto her computer at the Manoukian Institute.

  The office was empty. Outside, the pigeons and sparrows were long gone, and the garden was bathed in darkness. Another long, frustrating night beckoned.

  The last couple of days were a blur. She had stayed at Columbia University's Butler Library until she'd been virtually kicked out of there when they had closed at eleven. She'd made it home sometime shortly after midnight with a stack of books in tow and had worked her way through them, finally succumbing to sleep as the sun was making its appearance outside her bedroom window, only to be cruelly jolted back to consciousness ninety minutes later by her alarm clock/radio.

  Now, bleary-eyed and at her desk, she was still trawling through a small mountain of books, some she'd brought in with her, others from the Institute's vast collection. Occasionally, something would jump out at her and she would excitedly fire off Internet searches, blessing Google for the

  hours it was saving her and cursing the search engine whenever it failed to deliver the goods.

  So far, the cursing was winning hands down.

  She turned away from her desk, glancing out her window, rubbing her tired eyes. The shadows in the garden blended confusingly into each other. She found she couldn't focus properly; her eyes were rebelling. She didn't mind. She could use the break. She couldn't remember the last time she'd read as much in such a short period. And one word was seared into her retinas, even though she had yet to find any reference to it.

  Fonsalis.

  Staring out into the night, her eyes were drawn to the big willow tree looming over the garden. It sat there, its wispy boughs swaying in the slight evening breeze, silhouetted against hints of streetlights that bounced off the towering brick party wall behind it.

  She looked at the empty bench underneath the tree. It looked so out of place, here in the heart of the city, so quiet and idyllic. She wanted to step outside, curl up onto it, and sleep for days.

  And that's when an image flashed across her mind.

  A confusing one.

  She thought of the brass plaque mounted on a small post by the base of the willow tree. A plaque she had read a hundred times.

  The tree had been imported with great fanfare over fifty years ago by the Institute's Armenian benefactor. He'd had it shipped over from his ancestral village in memory of his father who, along with two hundred other Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, had been murdered in the first days of the genocide of 1915. The Turkish Interior Minister had, at the time, bragged that he would give the Armenian people "such a staggering blow that they will not be able to get on their feet for fifty years." His words had proved to be tragically prophetic; the nation of Armenia suffered one tragedy after another, a dark era from which it is only just starting to emerge.

  The tree had been, appropriately, chosen for its tearful symbolism. Weeping willows were commonly found in burial grounds stretching from Europe to China. The association dated back to the Old Testament, in which the tree's boughs were said to have drooped from the weight of harps hung there by the exiled people of Israel. Arabian storytellers, much later, described how two angels had appeared before David, after

  he had married Bathsheba, and convinced him of his sin.

  Racked with grief, David was said to have thrown himself to the ground and lain there, weeping bitter tears of penitence for forty days and forty nights, during which time he was deemed to have wept "as many tears as the whole human race would shed on account of their sins, from then on until the Day of Judgment." The two streams of tears were said to have flowed out into the garden, where, with time, two trees then sprang up: the frankincense tree, constantly distilling tears of sorrow, and the weeping willow, its boughs drooping with grief.

  Tess's mind raced to the writing on the brass plaque. She could visualize the inscription on it. She remembered that it described the tree as belonging to the broader genus known as Vitisalix.

  She also remembered that the plaque further mentioned the more specific taxonomic classification for the weeping willow.

  Salix Babylonica.

  It was staring her in the face.

  Chapter 50

  T he next morning, Reilly and Aparo were both working the phones from their desks at Federal Plaza. Reilly was getting updated by Kendricks. The news wasn't good. The brain boxes at the NSA were still stumped by the Fonsalis reference. Kendricks warned him that the progress from here on would be much slower. Phone calls to friendly experts around the world had failed to enlighten them, and electronic searches of relevant databases had long been exhausted. The analysts were now working their way through tomes of literature in the traditional way, physically reading through them, searching for any reference to the grave's location.

  Reilly wasn't holding his breath.

  From across his desk, Aparo shot him a grim nod before he ended his own conversation. Reilly could tell that whatever bad news his partner had, it seemed to at least have some urgency to it.

  Aparo soon confirmed it. The call was from Buchinski. A man's body had been found earlier that morning in an alley behind an apartment building in the Astoria section of Queens. The relevance of the find was that the dead man had traces of Lidocaine in him. He also had telltale puncture marks in his neck. The victim's name was Mitch Adeson.

  Reilly felt a deepening unease that the case was slipping away from them. "How'd he die?"

  "Fell from the roof. Fell, jumped, got pushed—take your pick."

  Reilly leaned back, rubbing his eyes wear
ily. "Three out of four. One to go. Question is, will he pop up with a needle mark in his neck ... or is he already halfway to Europe?"

  Glancing around the room, he noticed the monsignor emerging from the double doors that led to the elevator foyer. The fact that he was here in person could only mean that he didn't have any breaks to report.

  The somber look on his face as he sat with Reilly only confirmed it.

  "I'm afraid my colleagues in Rome haven't been successful yet. They're still searching, but ..." He didn't seem optimistic. "I take it . . . ?" He didn't need to continue.

  "Yeah, we're still drawing blanks here too, Father."

  "Oh, well." Then he managed a hopeful smile. "If neither our scholars nor your experts have been able to find it so far . . . perhaps he's also having a hard time figuring it out."

  Deep down, Reilly knew this was only wishful thinking. Pictures of Vance had been circulated to all the major libraries from D.C. to Boston, and so far none of them had reported any sightings.

  Vance either already knew where he was headed, or he had his own resources, which the FBI wouldn't have access to. Either way, it didn't augur well.

  The monsignor was silent for a moment, then said, "Miss Chaykin. She seems to be very . . . resourceful."

  Reilly couldn't suppress a tired grin. "Oh, I'm sure she's racking her brains looking for it as we speak."

  This seemed to confirm De Angelis's guess. "Have you heard from her?"

  "Not yet."

  De Angelis nodded quietly. Reilly could tell something was troubling the man, that he was holding something back.

  "What is it, Father?"

  The monsignor looked slightly embarrassed. "I'm not sure. I'm just a litde concerned, that's all."

  "What about?"

  The priest pursed his lips. "Are you sure she would call? If she found out?"

  Coming from De Angelis, this surprised Reilly. He doesn't trust her? He leaned forward. "What makes you say that?"

  "Well, she seems to be rather driven, it's her field after all. And a discovery like this . . .

  careers have been made from far less. If I were to put myself in her shoes for a moment, I wonder what my priorities would be. Catching this Vance ... or discovering something any archaeologist would give his right arm for. Would I inform the authorities and risk losing the credit and the glory ... or would I go after it myself?" His tone was soft-spoken but irresistibly confident. "She comes across as a very ambitious lady, and ambition ... it can often lead one to choose the less, shall we say, magnanimous path."

  De Angelis's words stayed with Reilly long after the priest had left.

  Would she call? It hadn't even crossed his mind that she wouldn't. But then, what if the Vatican envoy was right? What incentive did she have to call? If she did figure it out and gave the FBI its location, agents would be flown out to try and intercept Vance, local law enforcement agencies would be drafted in, and the situation would quickly get out of hand; there would be little room, or consideration, for her quest. The priority, as far as the authorities were concerned, was to apprehend a fugitive. The archaeological discovery was of little consequence.

  Still, she wouldn't be so reckless ... or would she? What's she going to do, fly out there by herself?

  A surge of trepidation rushed over him. No, that's insane.

  He reached for the phone and dialed her home number. There was no answer. He let it ring until her answering machine picked up, then hung up without leaving a message. He quickly tried her cell phone. It rang five times before diverting to her messaging service.

  With rapidly swelling unease, Reilly hung up and called up the internal operator. Within seconds, he was patched through to the officer parked outside Tess's house. "Have you seen her today?"

  The officer's reply was stolidly assured. "No, not since she got home late last night."

  His internal alarms were blaring. Something felt very, very wrong. "I need you to go up to her front door and make sure she's okay. I'll hang on."

  The officer sounded like he was already getting out of his car. "You got it."

  Reilly waited anxiously as the seconds ticked by. He visualized the officer crossing the road, walking up the path across her front yard, climbing up the three stone steps, and ringing the bell. It would take her a few more seconds to come down if she were upstairs. Right about now, she'd be opening the front door.

  Nothing.

  His discomfort grew alarmingly as the seconds dragged on. Then the officer's voice crackled back through his handset. "She's not answering the door. I had a look out back and nothing's been disturbed, there's no sign of forced entry, but it doesn't look like she's around."

  Reilly was already scrambling into action. "Okay, listen to me," he fired back as he gestured urgently to Aparo, "I need you to just get in there right now and confirm to me that the house is empty. Break in if you have to."

  Aparo was rising out of his seat. "What's going on?"

  Reilly was already reaching for another phone. "Get onto Customs and Borders." Cupping the phone with his hand, he looked at his partner, frustration and anger in his eyes. "I think Tess might be doing a runner."

  Chapter 51

  Standing in line at the Turkish Airlines check-in desk at JFK, Tess stared at the display on her cell phone. The screen didn't show who the caller was, and she decided not to answer it. She knew the call was probably originating from some routing switchboard, and none of die likely callers were particularly welcome right now. Not Leo from the Institute; Lizzie would have relayed the cryptic, confused explanation for her absence by now. Not Doug, calling from L.A.—no qualms there. But Reilly . . . that was the one that stuck in her throat. She hated doing this to him. It was one of the toughest decisions she'd ever had to take; but, now that she was going through with it, she couldn't afford to talk to him. Not yet.

  Not while she was still in the country.

  Stuffing the phone back into her jacket pocket, she finally reached the desk and embarked on the arduous check-in procedure. Once she was done there, she trailed the signs to the departure lounge and a much needed coffee, going by way of the newsstand where she picked up a couple of paperbacks she'd been aiming to read when she had the time; whether or not she could rein in her galloping imagination enough to concentrate on even lightweight fiction, given everything that was going on, was another matter.

  She went through the passenger checks and reached the departure lounge, where she sank into a chair.

  She couldn't believe she was actually doing it. Sitting there with nothing more to do other than wait for the flight to be called, her mind finally had a chance to wind down, take a step back, and consider the recent events more carefully, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. The last twenty-four hours, from the time she knew she was onto something to the actual moment she made the discovery, had been an adrenaline-induced haze. Now, alone and waiting to fly off into the night, she fell prey to a litany of fears and misgivings that came crawling out from deep within.

  What are you thinking? Going out there, up into the Turkish backcountry— alone? What if you bump into Vance out there? What about all the other creeps you could run into? It's not exactly the safest country in the world. An American woman, alone in the Turkish outback. Are you nuts?

  The panic attack about her physical well-being soon gave way to something that troubled her even more.

  Reilly.

  She'd lied to him. Again. A lie of omission, maybe, but a pretty serious one nevertheless. This was different from driving off with the manuscript and not alerting him about Vance waiting for her at home. She knew something was going on between them, something she liked and wanted to nurture, even though she sensed there was something holding him back that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She'd wondered if she had ruined any chance they had of getting together. She thought she'd gotten away with it at the time; there were extenuating circumstances and he was very understanding—in fact, he'd behaved wonderfully. And now,
here she was, screwing up again.

  How much does this mean to you, Tess?

  She snapped out of her unsettled reverie when she sensed the harsh glow of the fluorescent lighting interrupted and felt the presence of someone standing there, blocking it. She opened her eyes.

  It was Reilly. He was standing there, looming over her, and he didn't look thrilled.

  Hugely pissed off was probably closer to the mark.

  Reilly broke the pregnant silence. "What do you think you're doing?"

  She wasn't sure about how to answer that. Just then, a nasal voice echoed down from the overhead PA system, announcing the opening of the gate for boarding. Passengers all around them rose from their seats and formed a couple of messy lines that converged on the gate's counters, buying her a welcome respite.

  Reilly glanced at them and visibly mustered some self-control before plunking himself down beside her. "When were you planning on telling me?"

  She took a breath. "Once I got there," she said sheepishly.

  "What, were you going to send me a postcard? Damn it, Tess. It's like nothing I've said meant anything to you."

  "Look, I'm—"

  He shook his head, raising both hands and cutting her off. "I know, you're sorry, this is a big deal for you, a once-in-a-lifetime thing, a career-defining moment . . . We've been through this before, Tess. You just seem hell-bent on getting yourself killed."

  She breathed out in frustration, mulling over his words. "I can't just sit back and let it slip away.

  Besides, until this thing is sorted out, one way or another, I'm not going to feel safe, Kim's not going to be safe. . . . He was in our house, Sean. I'm part of this, whether I like it or not." She paused, almost afraid to ask. "You said there were things I didn't know about? Other deaths?"

  Reilly nodded, then darted a discreet glance around before lowering his voice. "The other three horsemen from that night—they're dead. And they didn't exactly die in their sleep."

  Tess edged forward. "You think Vance killed them?"