Diggs said, "if we are going back there, we are going to need a plan, and guns, lots of guns."
"Let's get them," Miller said.
—
That night a truck with the BBC inscription on it drove Shugborough, past the Shug and Bar and on to Shugborough Hall. Two guards quickly stopped the van.
"What is this?" asked the first guard.
The driver of the van wore a black blazer, a flat cap, and glasses. Tufty hair poked from the corners of his thin lips.
"A follow-up television crew from the BBC, "the driver said.
"And who's that?" he asked, referring to the woman beside the driver.
The woman was beautiful. Her red hair fell on her shoulder in a generous flourish. She wore huge glasses; her huge breasts forced themselves against her emerald studded gown. She looked somewhat prepared for a ball than for a TV interview.
The driver looked at the woman as though she just appeared there.
"Oh, this here is reporter Diane Duvall," the driver drawled.
"Why do you have in the back?"
"Cameras, prop equipment, Santa and Bigfoot."
The guards didn't think it was funny. They were going round to see for themselves when a tall man appeared in the driveway. He wore a coattail and a bowler hat. He looked like he came straight out of 1940s movies.
"John, let them through," the man called.
The driver smiled, he saluted, "bonjour!"
The van came to a stop behind a white sports car. More guards paraded the grounds beside the magnificent building; the driver counted four. Two more guards walked about the large hall in there. They all carried light weapons.
The woman stepped out. She looked exquisite. She walked up the steps and gave her hand to the man in coattails. He kissed it. The woman smiled confidently.
The driver also came down from the van and went to the back. Three pairs of eyes stared at him, all of them dressed in armless jackets with the BBC insignia on the chest. There were cameras in the back, and there were guns too, lots of guns.
The three men stepped out with two cameras and three tripods, two exposure umbrellas for the lighting.
Cautious guards watched them go up the steps. The guards went back to keeping watch, satisfied that this was another night at Shugborough Hall.
—
Nearby, detective Blake Camden was in the Shugborough Trust building, where there was a medium-sized library. The library was divided into two compartments; there was the museum with its sculptures and a wall of a gallery featuring old paintings. The other half housed the library of two shelves filled with mostly old books —town history, memoirs of famous dead people, and those bulky catalogs of family trees.
He had one of those catalogs opened in front of him, and he was thumbing through the paragraphs of a chapter on the history of Shugborough Hall, genuinely intrigued and shaken.
The estate was once a part of the legend of the Knights Templar. Now, though, it was protected by some cultural laws. And the Knights Templar were, in turn, some soldiers who had come into huge wealth. It was logged around for a time, and now, the loot is lost. Others think the treasure was broken into bits, the bits shared among the Knights, and for was known, some of that Templar gold may just be sitting somewhere on the estate.
He looked across the tables at the partition of polished wood. On the other side were some students from the University of Essex. He had seen two girls from the group go into the shelves and picked volumes, which she hailed over to the table.
To the making of books, there is no end.
Blake wasn't much of a religious man. He pretty much kept off the churches and holy books. Still, that quote always made him fill tight around the neck, especially in libraries.
He closed the book and returned it. He had seen enough. Besides, it was getting late. He checked his time.
8:40.
He sucked fresh air when he came out. To his left was Shugborough Hall. The pillars were magnificent. A truck was parked by the entrance, it's back turned to him. He saw men whom he had heard were guards.
Shugborough Hall, according to the catalog he'd just checked, was nothing else but a tourist attraction.
If that were so, how are there guards here brandishing guns? What was here that needed to be protected? And from whom did it need protection?
He walked across the lawn and jumped over a short stretch of hedgerows. A strong breeze blew, his trousers flapped around his feet, he pulled his jacket closer around his body.
The hedgerow went on straight to the gardens. Blake had read about them too. And the monuments.
"Hey, where are you going?"
Blake turned to see a guard walking towards him; he wore a cap low on his face. A gun was slung across his body. He was medium height. Blake figured if it came to it, he'd deck the guy in ten seconds.
He flipped his badge instead.
"Detective Blake Camden," he said without taking his eyes off the van, "what's that?"
The guard looked at the van, "TV people."
"Yeah? I want to see them. Where are they from?"
"You can't—"
"What?" Blake wheeled around.
The guard flinched. Another guard was walking over; he was big too. All the guards were huge guys, probably mercenaries.
Blake saw the BBC insignia on the van and relaxed. He checked the driver's seat, it was empty. Blake kicked the front tires; he looked up at the Hall. Two men stood guard by the huge doors, grim-faced.
He decided then the BBC was none of his business. This was a tourist center, hence the publicity.
His car was parked on the road opposite the Mansion Tea Room, an elite bar for seniors suffering from wealth and other terminal diseases. To get to it, he could cut through the garden where those monuments are. He'd love a view of the monuments even though it must be quite dark out there.
The moon followed him as he went by. The illusion of the moving moon warmed him more than the music coming from a nearby parish.
The monuments looked like tombstones, white block teeth sticking out of the grasses.
He was halfway through the expanse, bright electric light from the Hall illuminated a portion of the field around the garden where the stones were. He saw shadows move in the light.
Blake stopped walking and looked across the garden, past the row of hedges he had just walked by, behind them were the monuments.
He squinted in the darkness, he could make out the shapes of people. In the dark, shapes often become distorted, so he could not be sure how many people were crouching by the monument. But he was quite sure people were there.
Blake looked back at the Hall.
"What the hell is going on," he murmured to himself.
He bent forward and followed in the direction which he'd seen the shadows. He came out on the other side of the hedges and saw three men. They were crouching before a monument covered in creeping plants.
One of the men was cutting off the creepers from the top of the monument with a pocket knife. Another was kneeling before the monument, leaning forward with a small torchlight. The third guy had something that looked like parchment and his demeanor. The way he looked from the parchment to the face of the monument, he was in charge.
"Yeah, that's it, shit, that's it!" Blake murmured. "These guys…" Blake hunkered down when the man with the parchment suddenly looked his way.
Thick branches pricked his face. Cricket cry rang in his head, and people were talking behind him; he dug deeper into the flowers. He looked at the Hall and saw an attractive woman with a tall man in tailcoats; the woman held a microphone in her hand. The cord was attached to the camera on the shoulder of the cameraman beside her.
Blake frowned. The woman was beautiful, a face that stuck out in a crowd of other women. She wore a red gown. Why wear a red gown like that —as if for a party— to an interview?
He frowned again because he had seen that face before. And Blake never forgets a face.
—
>
"My God…"
Liam Murphy sat on down heavily on his rear. The others were as stunned as he was. Anabia Nassif was touching the side of his face, rubbing his five days growth.
Miller said, "come on, guys. We don't have time to admire. Let's get this thing over with."
With the creepers off, the monument was the same as the one in the painting. There presence there, the three of them, was like a replica of the art.
"Wait, look at this, did you guys notice this?" asked Liam.
Liam pointed at the spot on the painting. There, the two men's hands almost touched in front of the monument.
"Look at this, it isn't exactly a replica of the monument," Liam said, "on the painting, the hands together formed a triangle, see?"
The others said they saw.
"Right, now, here on the monument, it is different, see?"
Miller said, "no, I don't."
Anabia shook his head.
Liam picked a stick and broke it in three places. He kept one and gave the rest to Miller and Anabia each.
"Look at this," he said and placed the stick on the spaces between the two men's hands on the painting. It formed a fair image of a triangle.
"Yeah, that's a triangle," said Miller, "what's your point?"
"My point is this, see what happens here on the monument."
Liam placed his stick on the spaces between the hands on the monument, Anabia and Miller did the same.
"That's not a triangle," Anabia said.
Miller frowned, "Liam, what's your point?"
"My point is the people in the pictures are the clues, they are saying something, with their gestures, their hands, do you see?"
"I'm afraid I don't."
Miller turned sharply. He looked across the dark garden. It was a good thing that there were no lights on the grounds. Olivia was coming out of the Hall with Lawrence Diggs, followed by Lord Valon.
He heard another sound from across the field to the right of them, by the hedgerows. He squinted at the darkness there but saw nothing or no one.
"We may have company, come on guys let's hurry up!"
A piece of white paper appears in Liam's hand, Miller gave him a pen. Liam sketched their findings. He looked at it and smiled at his work. It was a decent representation of a triangle and a shape not so triangle.
Finally, and which was a grave mistake, Anabia took Olivia's camera and took a photo of the now exposed monument. Miller tried to stop him at the last second, but he was too late.
The flare of the camera was bright enough to draw even God's attention in heaven.
—
"We can have the interview here, please come."
They followed Lord Valon as he walked stately into a large room shaped like a triangle. Red curtains covered two sides of the wall, and the other was lined with shelves of books. It smelled like a library of old books. There was a fireplace below the shelves. There were two doors where curtains were drawn. One of the doors was slightly open.
Olivia saw the noble's eyes glance at the slightly opened door. Diggs had seen it too.
Lord Valon took his seat in a high-backed chair; Olivia sat on a couch opposite him. The valet appeared with tea for the guest. Lord Valon and the valet shared a look after the valet saw the door. The nobleman nodded, and the valet went over to the door. He pulled it shut, but not after a heavy sound came through.
Once again, Olivia looked at Diggs, convinced it must be Dean Anson.
Lord Valon smiled, "shall we begin?"
Olivia beamed, "O yes."
—
Olivia and Diggs, with the nobleman, were out on the steps outside about ten minutes after.
"What was that?" asked Lord Valon.
His eyes flashed in the direction of the gardens. Olivia was complementing the noble man's excellent cooperation with the BBC on an epic program that's going to expose the beauty of Shugborough even more. She didn't look in the direction of the garden, she glanced at Diggs —her cameraman— instead.
Diggs wore khaki shirts over a white best that Olivia had handprinted the acronym BBC on. His camouflage shorts exposed thick hairy legs. He looked like a safari explorer than a member of a TV crew.
"You see something?" Olivia asked casually.
"Yes, I thought I saw…a light," he looked across the drive. "Guards! Someone go check the gardens, there's something out there."
Then he smiled at Olivia, "excuse me please, we've had certain disturbances. Treasure hunters."
"Treasure hunters?"
"Yes, unfortunately, there are still people who believe the Knight's Templars' gold is somewhere here, on these grounds. Can you believe that?"
Olivia said, "as a matter of fact, I wanted to ask you about that."
"Oh, for God's sake, don't believe everything you read in the news. There's nothing like a Templars Gold, at least, not here."
"Then why do you need the guards and the guns?"
Lord Valon looked from Olivia to the cameraman. He became tight-lipped, and his face colored a little.
"Well, we don't want people just walking in and plundering the monuments."
"Of course."
Lord Valon was still staring at the woman's face. Even the nobleman can tell that there was something familiar about the face. And that the hair did look fake. He'd seen those eyes before, for sure.
"Wait, what did you say your name was…?" then recognition showed on the noble man's face.
He looked back at the garden. Two guards were already making their way out there, getting swallowed by the darkness.
When the nobleman looked back again, the reporter and her cameraman were running towards the parked BBC van.
"Hey!! Come back here! Stop them!"
—
Blake saw the woman running for the van and understood immediately that he was looking at the woman he had been searching for. The woman who killed those men on Clapham. Of course, she had the help of these men and that cameraman.
He pulled his gun and started around the hedges.
"Freeze!"
Anabia ducked back into the shadow of the monument, instinctively. Liam said, "shit!"
Frank Miller raised his hand. He expected interference, but not by the police. His mind was racing. This wasn't the police, however. English bobbies wore black uniforms and goofy hats; this one had all the aspects of a detective.
"Guys, be calm," he murmured.
The detective called, "let me see your hands up, let me see them, now!"
Liam raised his hands, the piece of paper in the air. Anabia joined him too. The detective gestured with his gun at the piece of paper flapping in the breeze.
"What have you got there?"
"Er, a paper," Liam said.
"I know it's a paper, but what is it for, what the hell are you people doing near that..." he came nearer and looked at the stone, "the monument?"
Miller did the unusual.
He kicked the detective in the gut. It was so sudden that detective Blake yelled a surprise exclamation. Though he held on to his and gun and tried to whip Miller with it, Liam grabbed the cop's left hand and pulled. Blake yelled again, overpowered. He fell into the grass.
By the time the detective recovered, the three men were halfway through the garden, running.
"Oh, bollocks!"
—
Gunmen were coming out of the woodwork from every corner of Shugborough Hall. They converged on the van. Diggs was behind the wheel, Olivia sat beside him. Lord Valon was going mad with the embarrassment of the deceit.
Diggs threw the van in reverse and three guards approaching from behind got hit, they rolled away in the sand. The van shot towards the garden where the rest of the crew were.
Bullets showered the van, shattered the windows. The van bumped into the garden, crushed through hedges, Diggs broke speed to pick up the other men, but the gunfire had to be waited out.
So they did.
"Take the wheel," he said to Olivia.
&nbs
p; He jumped into the back and opened fire into the night from the back of the van, providing cover for Miller and the other men. They jumped into the back of the van as more guards joined the fray.
"Did you get something?" Diggs yelled.
"There's a cop back there!" Shouted Miller.
"Shit."
Olivia drove the van through the garden.
The faster she went, the more distant she put between them and Shugborough Hall gunmen.
Detective Blake cut through the garden the opposite way and hot to his car. He drove around the Hall and came out on the other side of the road so that he was head-on with the van.
"Who the hell is this?" Olivia queried.
The men crowded behind her.
"That's the cop," said Miller.
"Wait, is he…," Anabia stammered, "is he going to ram into us?"
The detective was driving straight for the van, daring it to stop. Olivia stepped on the gas, her hand on the gear, and her teeth clenched.
“Olivia…” someone said behind her.
The detective's car was just thirty feet away.
Miller grabbed her shoulder, “Olivia, come on!”
Ten feet and closing. At five feet, Olivia leaned on the wheels, pulled the gear, and veered off the road. The van left the road and crashed back into the hedges on the side of Shugborough Hall. Olivia drove towards the hall again.
Shocked, the guards jumped out of the way. The cop's car was lost back there on the road.
“What are you doing!!” Liam screamed.
“Dean Anson is in there,” Olivia screamed back, “we have to get him!”
“But we got what we wanted!”
“We have to save him!”
Former agent Diggs was already strapping himself up with weapons in the back of the van. Miller, Borodin, and Anabia joined him. Olivia nosed the van towards the back of the building.
She drove around, chased by the guards who kept shooting.
Some rooms in the building were invisible from the road. But back here were low windows to several rooms. Olivia drove past two more windows, she was confident the door she and Diggs had seen led to a room in the back here. As Olivia rounded the building, she saw a shadow in the last window, the curtain there was half of the window, and there was a face there, feet kicking at the pane.
Gold of the Knights Templar Page 12
