by Alex Lukeman
"Pretty slick. And here I thought credit cards were a modern development."
"The King of France owed the Templars a lot of money he'd borrowed for his wars. He made a deal with the Pope and accused them of heresy so he could get out of paying."
"I hate to say this, but that sounds pretty modern, too. Like the banks making a deal with the government and blaming the little guy for going in debt."
"Anyway. The Order was disbanded. The leaders were tortured and burned at the stake. They had a large treasure but the King never found it. The Ark may have been part of that."
"Who was the king?"
"Phillip. He was called Phillip the Fair."
They both thought of it at the same time.
"The Fair King in the quatrain," Nick said. "Remember?"
"Yes." She pulled up the quatrain on her laptop.
That which was sought was not found
Fire and death no tongue would loosen
In the land of the fair king
The Pale Rider reigns supreme
"It makes sense," Nick said. "Nostradamus is talking about what happened to the leaders and the Templar treasure. Nobody told the king where it was, even when they were tortured."
''The pope and the king died not long after the heresy trials," she said. "Jacques de Molay predicted their deaths as they lit the flames under him."
"The Pale Rider reigns Supreme," Nick said.
"That manuscript is like a sentence of death for anyone who has it. There are a lot of people who want that treasure. Not to mention the Ark."
"We're the ones who have it now."
"You had to say that." She pushed hair away with the back of her hand.
"People will keep after us until we find the Ark or prove it doesn't exist. You said you found something. What is it?"
"The Templars had branches all over Europe, especially in England and France. I came across a medieval reference to a place called the House of Five Trees. It's a chapel in Normandy."
"Another tourist attraction?"
"No. I had some trouble locating it. It's off the beaten track and it was never an important site, not like some of the Templar buildings. It's just a small chapel in ruins, not much to see."
"Another stamp for the passport. I'll call Harker."
On the second ring she picked up.
"Yes, Nick."
"We need to go to France." He told her what Selena had discovered. "The chapel is in the countryside near Cherbourg."
"All right. Do it as soon as you can."
"There's an Air France flight to Paris tomorrow."
"Try to stay out of trouble."
"Roger that." He hung up.
"How about a glass of wine?" Selena said. She held up a bottle. "Chardonnay."
"I'll get some ice. There's a machine in the hall. It'll just take a minute."
Nick picked up the ice bucket and went into the hall. The machine was at the end of the corridor, set back in an alcove. The hall was carpeted in a floral pattern. It was a big hotel. Rows of doors marched down both sides of the corridor.
He got to the machine and slid the lid open and reached for the scoop. As he scraped the ice into the scoop, he heard a soft sound.
Something hit him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Nick opened his eyes. He was dizzy. The room moved, his vision blurred. He was lying on his side on carpet. His hands were bound with duct tape. Something sticky had trickled down over his ear. Pain pounded behind his eyes. He was in one of the hotel rooms. It was dimly lit. He could see four legs in long pants and two pairs of feet, two sets of brown shoes with thick, quiet rubber soles.
Suckered. His hands felt numb. The tape was cutting off circulation. Why didn't I sense them?
"He's awake."
"Get him in the chair."
American accents. How long has it been? The others will be looking for me.
The chances they would find him weren't good.
Someone grabbed him under his armpits and lifted him onto a straight back wooden chair. Duct tape went around his body, pinning him to the chair. His vision cleared. The headache got worse, like nails being pounded into his skull.
The man who had taped him to the chair was short, stocky, with a face that looked like it had been in more than a few bar fights. Nick could smell his breath, loaded with garlic and something unpleasant. He spoke with the sound of the street.
"He don't look so tough," he said.
"You're not getting paid to think about how he looks." The voice was cultured and came from behind him. Nick had heard it somewhere. Then he remembered. Anderson, the attaché at the Embassy.
As if reading his mind, Anderson stepped in front of him, letting himself be seen. It meant they were going to kill him. Nick's adrenaline kicked in.
"You're thinking your friends will find you in time," Anderson said. "That isn't going to happen."
"What do you want?"
"Come on, Carter, you know what I want. Where is the Ark?"
"I don't know where it is. If I did, I wouldn't be here, would I?"
Anderson squatted down in front of him and looked Nick in the eyes. "Let me tell you what's going to happen. You're going to tell me what you know. We can do it the easy way or the hard way."
"You don't have a better line than that?"
"This is Willy," Anderson said. He gestured at the other man. "Willy likes to hurt people. Right, Willy?"
"Yes, Mister Anderson."
"The first thing he'll do is break your fingers."
"Fuck you, Anderson."
"Now who needs a better line?"
They hadn't bound his legs. Nick ducked his head and launched himself at Anderson, still squatting in front of him. The back of the chair caught him over the nose. It was a satisfying sound. Anderson went down like a stone. Nick rolled over him and slammed into Willy's legs. The man fell down, flailing. Nick tried to get up, but Willy was quicker. Nick saw the shoe coming at him but couldn't get out of the way in time. Everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Selena knew something was wrong when Nick wasn't back in a few minutes. She called Ronnie and Lamont. Now the three of them stood at the end of the hall by the ice machine.
"They can't have taken him far," Ronnie said. "How long's it been? Ten, fifteen minutes?"
"That's time enough." Lamont paced back and forth. "Look, I was down in the lobby. If they'd gone out the front, I would have seen them."
"Plenty of other ways. Back entrance, the laundry, through the kitchen."
"That would cause a stir," Selena said. "You know he wouldn't go without finding a way to stop them."
"If they had a gun in his ribs..." Ronnie said. "No, he'd find a way around that."
"They had to knock him cold," Lamont said. "If he'd been conscious there'd be signs of a fight."
"Hard to go unnoticed if you're dragging someone through the kitchen," Ronnie said.
"Maybe he's still in the hotel," Selena said.
"If he is, they couldn't take a chance on being seen in the elevator." Lamont stopped pacing. "Either the stairs or he's still on this floor."
"It would have to be a room close to the ice machine," Selena said. "Same reason. They wouldn't risk dragging him down a long hall like this. Someone might see it."
"If they've got him out in the city we won't find him," Ronnie said. "'Our only shot is if he's still here."
He looked at the long row of doors. "Selena, take the right. Lamont, you take the left, I'll go down the middle. Look for marks, anything. If they dragged him it might show up on the rug."
They began working their way quietly down the corridor. Ten doors down on the right, Selena held up her hand. She gestured at the floor. There was a soft indentation, barely visible, where something had been dragged across the threshold. She knelt down. There was tiny drop of blood on the carpet. She took out her gun and placed her ear against the door. Ronnie and Lamont came over, pistols in hand. There was a m
urmur of voices inside.
"That son of a bitch."
"You all right, Mister Anderson?"
"No, I'm not all right."
"What do you want to do?"
"We're wasting time. Wake him up and hurt him. He'll talk."
Selena stood and whispered in Ronnie's ear. "In there. At least two."
Ronnie nodded. He stepped back and wound himself around like a discus thrower and slammed his foot into the door. The frame splintered. He kicked again and the door flew open.
Selena took in the scene. Nick was unconscious, slumped over and bound to a chair with silver tape. A stocky man had a gun in his hand. A second, taller man stood near, reaching under his jacket.
Lamont fired first, past Selena's ear, the noise of the shot deafening. She felt the heat as the gun fired. She fired at the tall man, twice. He had a pistol in his hand and was bringing it up as she pulled the trigger. The bullets struck him in the chest and drove him back across the bed.
The stocky one got off a shot. Lamont grunted. Ronnie fired, three quick shots. The man staggered back against the wall and fell to the floor.
The room stank of gunpowder and sweat and blood. The tall man lay on the bed, leaking blood. He wasn't moving. His eyes were open. The man Ronnie had shot was crumpled against the wall, dead. Selena went over to Nick.
Lamont slid down in the doorway. He coughed and blood came out of his mouth. He clasped his hand across a bloody hole in his chest. Air whistled between his fingers, an unpleasant, sucking sound.
Ronnie knelt beside him. "Hold on, Lamont. Hold on."
Shit! Selena thought. She pulled out her phone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Elizabeth couldn't remember being this angry. Lamont was in critical condition. Nick had a bad concussion. The Jordanians were in an uproar. It didn't help that one of the bad guys was accredited to the US Embassy and worked for Langley. It had the makings of a full blown diplomatic incident.
Earlier, she'd briefed the President. Rice had been calm, but incidents like this jeopardized the existence of the Project. Jordan was technically an ally in the Middle East, and there were few enough of those. He'd agreed to put pressure on the Jordanians to get her team airlifted to Ramstein AFB in Germany, where there was American medical care. She was on thin ice with the White House and she knew it.
All because of an artifact that might not even exist and an arrogant bunch of privileged narcissists who had never made it past their adolescent fantasies of power and imperial glory. A secret society, for God's sake. Maybe they had a big tree house somewhere, too. Sometimes she wondered how America had managed to get as far as it had, with people like them running things. It bothered her, a lot. She believed in her country, but these men were a cancer eating away at the foundation of everything she believed in.
Still, she had a job to do. Americans needed protection from the forces that wanted to destroy their way of life. If Cask and Swords was any indication, they needed protection from some of their own leaders.
Stephanie came into Elizabeth's office.
"The President came through," she said. "I just spoke with Selena. The Jordanians have declared everyone Persona Non Grata. They've been escorted to a Jordanian Air base. A C-130 is picking them up as we speak."
"'How is Lamont?"
"Not good. He took one through a lung."
"Steph, whatever else happens, I'm going to take these bastards down."
"I don't think you'll get any argument from the others."
"This banker. Harrison. He seems to be a key figure in Cask and Swords. I want full surveillance on him."
"What about the legalities?"
"Put a smoke screen around it. Use the National Security ploy and that judge in Alexandria. Do it by the book, but get it in place."
"And if we can't do it by the book?"
Elizabeth looked out at the flowers. She knew what her father would say, if he were alive.
You're on a slippery slope, Elizabeth. What about the rules of law? You can't break the rules just because there are others who don't follow them. If you act illegally because you think it's justified, you're no better than the criminals. Law is the foundation of our Republic.
The problem was that the foundation had been undermined by people like Harrison. People who felt safe because they knew those who believed in the rule of law were constrained by it.
"Elizabeth?" Stephanie waited for her answer.
"Do it anyway."
Stephanie started to say something, then thought better of it. "What about the team? Do you still want them going to France?"
Elizabeth picked up her pen and began drumming on the desk.
"What do you think?"
There was a reason Elizabeth had made Stephanie her deputy. She was smart and savvy enough to take over if she had to. Elizabeth respected her opinion.
"They're high profile now," Steph said. "Everyone is watching them. It might be a good idea to let things cool off some."
Elizabeth set the pen down. "These people have been ahead of us all the way. If there's something in France, they've probably found it. If they haven't, it doesn't matter. I'm going to bring the team home."
"Nick won't like it. He's pretty upset about Lamont."
"He'll get his chance. But now isn't the time to get even. Rice is keeping his distance. This has caused a lot of trouble for him. I can't risk another incident overseas. Not yet."
"What about the CIA connection? Are you planning to talk to Hood?"
Clarence Hood was DCI, head of the Central Intelligence Agency. He and Elizabeth had a good working relationship.
"Yes, but I don't think Anderson was acting under Langley's orders. He was Cask and Swords, class of '99. They're the ones behind it. This man, Harrison. I'm sure he's involved."
"How do you know?"
"Call it intuition."
Stephanie nodded. "That'll work."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The flight from Jordan to Ramstein took four hours. An ambulance waited on the runway to take Lamont to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and straight into surgery. He was out of their hands. At the base, they were assigned rooms reserved for officers passing through.
They met in the Officer's Club for dinner.
Ronnie looked around the room. "Not bad," he said, "but the NCO club is friendlier."
Nick had a black eye and swollen face from being kicked in the head. He had flashes of dizziness and a low grade headache. The doctors had told him it was a concussion, as if he didn't already know that. It wasn't the first time.
"What's the plan, Kemo Sabe?" Ronnie sipped a coke.
Nick had an Irish whiskey in his hand. He wasn't supposed to drink, but he didn't give a damn what the doctors said. He took a swallow. It hit him with a soft burst of warmth in his stomach.
"Harker wants us home. She thinks things are too hot right now."
"What about France?" Selena said.
"What about it? That chapel isn't going anywhere. Harker figures Ahmed would have told someone about what we found at Petra and the bad guys already know about it. If they don't, it can wait."
"And Lamont?" Ronnie asked.
"We won't leave until we know he's stable. It shouldn't be more than a day or two. Once he's out of danger, they'll fly him to Bethesda. He's tough. He'll be all right."
"I talked with Stephanie," Selena said. "Elizabeth is really angry about this. She thinks she knows who is behind it."
"Whoever he is, he'd better watch out," Ronnie said. "You don't want Harker mad at you."
Nick smiled. "No, you don't."
Later, back in her temporary quarters, Selena was getting ready for bed. Nick's room was in another part of the building.
She wrapped herself in a white robe and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, drying her hair. There were deep shadows under her eyes, lines of fatigue on her face. She ran her fingers through her hair. The Jordanian sun had brought out red highlights, rose red like the rocks in Pe
tra, mixed with the blond.
Her 35th birthday was coming up. Not exactly over the hill, but the stress of the job was beginning to show. There was tension in her face that hadn't been there a year ago. Still looking good, though, she thought. At least that's not a problem. Not yet.
She let the robe fall open. She ran her fingers over the puckered scar low down on her abdomen where a bullet had nearly killed her. She let the robe slip to the floor and turned, looking over her shoulder. The scar where the bullet had exited was a rough, red ripple on her skin, next to a white line that reached to her buttocks and marked where the surgeons had gone in to repair her spine.
The weight she'd put on after being shot was almost gone, now that she could work out again. Physically she felt a lot like her old self. The mental part was a different story.
Something had changed. The jacketed round that almost paralyzed her had done more than put her in a hospital. It had left her with a sense of vulnerability that hadn't been there before. Before Mexico she'd felt she could handle anything, even after the close calls that had filled her life since she'd joined the Project. She was strong. She was skilled. She could kick ass. And now she knew that she could die just as quickly as the weakest person on the planet. Worse, she could be crippled for life. All it took was a well-placed bullet.
She wasn't like Nick and the others. Maybe it was their military background, some male thing. Whatever it was, the idea they might get killed didn't seem to bother them. They never talked about it. They didn't seem to worry about it.
Since Mexico, she worried about it. She covered her feelings up with flip remarks or black humor. Come to think of it, that was what they did, Nick and Ronnie and Lamont. She remembered Nick had told her black humor helped, back when she'd first joined the team. So maybe they felt the same way she did, they just didn't talk about it. Like her.
The thought was comforting, somehow.
She turned out the light.
She wished Nick was lying next to her.
Sleep wouldn't come.
