Gold of the Knights Templar

by Preston W Child

  “Oh, it’s easier than I imagined,” she said.

  Olivia plays around with the bus a little, hitting men into the row of flowered nearby.

  Lord Valon came around the corner, with him were three gunmen, shooting at the van. The windshield shattered, what was remaining of it, that is.

  Diggs opened the back door of the van, he and the others opened fire, and the gunmen jumped out of the way. Olivia rammed the back of the van into the window.

  There was the whine of metal meeting bricks, glass, and wood breaking. Diggs jumped through the hole and into the room.

  Dean Anson was on the carpet. He was tied to a chair, gagged and bloody; Diggs hurled him over with the chair.

  “Get us out of here!” miler hollered.

  Two men appeared in front of the van with AKs. She ducked just as the last of the windshield exploded on the dashboard and her hair.

  Olivia pumped the gas without raising her.

  “Go, go, go!” screamed Liam Murphy.

  The rankling noise of police sirens filled the street. As the van came from the side of the building, the detective's car skidded right behind the van. Blake’s face poked out to the window.

  “Police, pull over, pull over now!”

  British cop cars were coming up the road. The only way out was driving into a packed territory; Olivia asked Diggs for advice.

  “Get off the main road, take the next exit,” said Diggs.

  The next exit came on seconds later, and Olivia turned into it. It was a long narrow street, houses on both sides. One or two residents standing outside gawked with English cluelessness.

  The detective was still in the van. Several other cop cars were behind too.

  “We need to lose the guy behind us, how can we do that?” Olivia asked.

  The street ended in an intersection, two broader roads going opposite ways.

  “Go right!” said Diggs.

  The right was a mistake. The right was a dead end. Olivia drove the van into fallen trashcans, she missed a dumpster thereby an inch and parked in front of it.

  Diggs said to Dean Anson, “this is your city, make us disappear!”

  “Follow me,” the man said.

  The end of the street was a wooden fence. The fence was missing one slat; Dean Anson broke one of the boards.

  “Come on,” he said.

  —

  Detective Blake’s car shrieked into the close seconds after.

  “Suspect's van is parked in a close here in Huxley Street, I’m approaching van now,” he said into his radio.

  He poked his gun in the back of the van. It was empty. So was the driver’s side. He rushed to the fence and went through the broken gap there.

  There was a lake there. Blake looked around and told himself they could have gone around.

  He went back to his car.

  —

  7

  Olivia watched with the men as the detective stalked back down the street. The ruse worked just as Anson said.

  They followed him down another quiet street. Dean took them past several back roads until they came upon a crumbling house at the end of twenty minutes walk.

  “You must hide here tonight until things settle.”

  “How about you?” asked Olivia.

  “I can manage after you have gone.”

  The apartment looked like one from a Harry Potter movie. Miniature chairs and tables and books on low shelves. A small kitchen was at the end of a short hallway. Olivia took charge of it for a minute, where she made coffee. There were crispy bread and peanut butter in the cupboard.

  They went to work quickly, examining the find from Shugborough Hall.

  Olivia spread the half-burnt painting again. They compared, Anabia maintained that the letters meant nothing.

  Olivia said she didn’t think so.

  Anabia shrugged and said, “it is obvious the individual inscriptions are not replicas.”

  “And what do the triangles mean?” asked Miller.

  “They must be symbols, I think the rest of the set of symbols are in the other locations.”

  Olivia looked at Dean Anson. The man had a pleasant smile on his angular face. He drank his coffee silently, crumbs of bread hung on his shirt. He wiped peanut butter smear from the corner of his lips.

  “Dean?”

  All eyes were on the man.

  “Surely you know something about this?”

  Dean came over quietly. He looked at the diagram Anabia had made. He smiled; he glanced at Anabia. The diagram looked like a convex – a quadrilateral with four unequal sides.

  Frowning, he asked him, “what do you think about the painting?”

  “That the letters are put there to distract. The people in the painting are the clues,” he explained, “those guys aren’t pointing at the wall, they are just standing there, their gestures are just…”

  Dean looked at the painting again, “they are touching hands?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it truly seems so,” Dean agreed.

  “You must know something else about the Templars Gold that we don’t, we need your help—” said Olivia.

  “But I’m just a…”

  “I need your help.”

  Dean Anson exhaled. He looked at the faces of the men who’d just saved him. He went back to sit.

  “Well, there are facts, and there’s tradition. You have to know the difference,” Dean explained. “According to tradition, the Templars were soldiers who got donations from the populace, they lived on the goodwill of the people they protected.”

  “But that’s a fact,” Olivia pointed out.

  “Yes, but tradition became facts, while some traditions remained so, yes.”

  Liam said, “that makes sense.”

  Dean Anson continued. “Now, this I’m about to say is as factual as the truth, but it stayed in the status of tradition; the Templars became some of the most sagacious businessmen you would ever meet. They protected traders on the road. They went on to learn from these men and women. They started accepting gold as payment, they accepted gold instead of food. Before long they traded in gold themselves—”

  “There’s nothing like that in the history books, I mean how can we verify what you say?” Anabia asked.

  “Let him speak, Anabia,” Miller said.

  Dean nodded, “some events never made it into the history books. The gold piled up in the caves. There was a pope whose power the Templars threatened. He pronounced death on the Order, that’s history, yes?”

  “Uhuh,” said Olivia.

  “Good, history doesn’t say the Templars had wives and children, does it?”

  “Bullshit,” Liam breathed.

  “It’s the truth,” Dean came back to the table, he pointed at the painting, “there are those of us who believe these alphabets are the first letters of the name of each family.”

  They all looked at the painting again.

  Dean looked at Anabia, “your theory does sound plausible, but not very likely. The Templars weren’t just hiding their treasure from others, they also needed to be able to find it. Their descendants also need to be able to find the cache.”

  Olivia and Miller were nodding.

  “Do you know how many families there were?” asked Olivia.

  “Yes.”

  They all looked at Dean Anson. Liam asked if he was kidding. Dean asked what that meant.

  “How many?” Olivia asked.

  “It isn’t hard to guess now, is it?”

  Liam grabbed the painting again and counted the letters. The others crowded around him.

  “There are eight alphabets,” Liam said, “and there’s this other two, what does it mean?”

  Dean looked around, “this house, the family who owned it, were originally from the lineage of an old English family, the Ainsley’s. Families often came together with to keep their share of the treasure in the same cave —or as we came to have it years later, with the same bank. There is a further tradition; spent
of these families took their share and disappeared, or squandered it. If there is a treasure somewhere, it represents only a fraction of the Templars Gold. So if you find the names of the other families, and the location of their monuments—”

  “Wait, every family has its monument?” asked Olivia, her heart beating fast.

  “Of course, people die, but monuments didn’t. But I can assure you more than half the monuments are long destroyed or buried under civilization. I know there are two remaining monuments; Shugborough Hall and another in Rome—”

  “The church of San Lorenzo,” Olivia whispered.

  “Yes.”

  —

  A moonless dome of the black sky covered the world. Diggs had gone back to the van in hopes that the crew might leave in it. It had been moved, likely by the police. He stole a truck from a driveway in the neighborhood.

  The crew roads in it half the way out the town of Hixon.

  The police had mounted a roadblock before the bridge. Diggs was driving, and he had gotten too close to go back when he saw the headlights of cop cars.

  “I guess you folks will have to walk the rest of the way, and I’ll take the truck from here out,” Anson said, “there’s a shallow side on the northwest side of the river before the bridge. You’d find a boat moored there. Take it, let the river take you down a mile then row across.”

  The crew stalked through the low grass of the surrounding fields. Dean touched Olivia’s hand.

  He said, “the Templars gold is anything now. It is hidden in plain sight, in a form unexpected.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “In the summer of 1307, just before the Templars went into hidden obscurity, the most prominent of the Templars was a Roman. He transferred his riches to a son he had out of wedlock by a woman who was old English. I heard his descendants are scattered about the earth, but only one may know where the cache is.”

  “Where is this child now?”

  “It is unknown if this story is true.”

  Olivia left Dean Anson with legs heavy as lead.

  —

  Detective Blake Camden was going to make sure they never left the soils of the empire. He stared at the photos of five four men and a woman. All wanted by the Roman police around the previous year, all American except the Russian who seemed to have a clean record before he joined the group the past year.

  Blake was riding in the back of an unmarked sedan. With him were three cops. They were on their way to a private airfield.

  Blake was looking at the face of the woman, she’s pretty, with strong features. If the circumstances were different and he wasn’t a cop, he’d have liked her acquaintance. And the other man Blake knew. Billionaire Frank Miller.

  The cop beside him gave him another file.

  Blake read with more profound interest. Olivia Newton was a journalist. She’d lost her lover sometime before she began hunting down artifacts. She exposed the secret German lab in Antarctica.

  Blake was troubled. Something didn’t add up; Olivia Newton was looking for something. What was it? What was in Shugborough Hall that interested her so much?

  He was about to find out.

  —

  Olivia watched as the truck stopped before the blockade. Policemen looked like tiny toy soldiers around the truck, Dean Anson came out with his hands up.

  “Come on, Olivia, we have to go,” said Anabia, “Anson’s gonna be alright.”

  “Yeah.”

  They found the boat exactly where Dean Anson said it would be. It was big enough for twice their number. It was missing an oar. Borodin found the second oar buried in the mud and a plastic bag beside it.

  “Guys?”

  He pulled the bag out of the mud.

  “Looks like someone left something for us here.”

  When it was opened, they found guns and ammo in it. There was also a smaller plastic bag with a key. The key had a number attached to it: 13.

  On the back of the envelope, the words were written in waterproof ink.

  “Staffordshire train station, locker number 16, a gift from the house of Ainsley.”

  They boarded the boat and rowed off.

  It was 4 am when the boat hit the silts on the other side of the river.

  Dawn was coming.

  —

  Haywood police station.

  Dean Anson sat in a room like the ones he had seen in spy movies. Windowless, grey walls, a table, and two chairs. The cop that would come in now would probably sit in the extra chair.

  The man who came to see him an hour after didn’t look like a cop. He looked like a car salesman. He also looked like he could use some sleep.

  “I’m detective Blake Camden,” he said. Then he placed photos on the gable. “I believe you know where these people are.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Their prints are all over your house.”

  Anson looked away.

  “This woman killed several people yesterday, she was with these men,” Blake thumbed the photos, “ they were at Shugborough Hall. You’ve seen them.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “They broke you out of Shugborough Hall, Mr. Anson.”

  “Indeed.”

  “What were they looking for in Shugborough Hall, they were at a monument there?”

  “Why don’t you ask them yourself?”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “They’d be long gone before you find them.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  —

  They stuck out in the streets of Castletown. Mud caked on their shoes. Their clothes were soiled from all the action. Olivia’s clothes smelt like they’ve been slept in for a week. Grimy from lack of regular baths.

  They ate breakfast in an out of the way café while Diggs went out to find a hotel. An hour later, washed and refreshed, the team was on their way in a truck Diggs broke into in the parking lot.

  —

  They make a detour around police blocks waiting for them. This slowed their progress. In time the town of Essex appeared on the horizon. Surprisingly, there was no roadblock on the bridge.

  “Slow down,” said Olivia.

  Diggs asked why.

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Shit, nothing ever feels right with the English,” Liam complained.

  Diggs stopped the truck in the middle of the lonely road. The moors of the Essex spread all about on both sides of the road. The bridge was a short ten meters across. The trunk of Bud Chapman’s jaguar was visible across the bridge where it was parked under a tree. It seemed empty.

  They approached the car, guns drawn. Diggs was leading, behind him, followed Miller.

  There was a body by the car, the boot looked like the one Bud Chapman had worn the last time they saw him.

  “Oh shit.”

  Diggs went down to the body of the M16 agent. He touched the body.

  “He’s been dead for some time,” said Diggs, “two days, I think. Shot in the head.”

  There was a bullet hole in the forehead. Diggs pulled the body out of the way.

  “We can’t just leave him out here,” Olivia said, distraught.

  “What do we do with him?”

  “Diggs, we have to take him with us, he was here because of us.”

  “I know, but think of the cops, what are we gonna tell them if they find the body of an M16 agent in our car?”

  Miller touched Olivia’s shoulder. “Diggs is right, Olivia. We can’t take the body with us.”

  “And we’ve got to get going, like right now,” said Diggs checking his gun, “the assassin would be back to see who’s moved his kill.”

  “Assassin?” Liam asked.

  Diggs and Borodin moved the body farther down the plain, away from the road.

  “Yes,” said Diggs. “The shot was professional. It’s the job of a killer who’s been doing the job all his life. He kills for a living.”

  Diggs got the truck from where they left i
t.

  They drove into Essex.

  —

  Detective Blake arrived at the bridge ten minutes after Olivia, and her team left. He went around the jaguar with his gun drawn too. He checked the empty car, the glove compartment was empty except for meaningless papers.

  The car had no plates. His confusion was mounting by the minute. A cloud of flies attracted his attention down the slope. Then came the smell. It was faint, but Blake was no stranger to dead bodies, and he knew how a fresh one smelled.

  He went down to see the body of Bud Chapman.

  He radioed it in.

  —

  Hixon.

  The cottage had been broken into. Olivia looked at the lock and told Diggs it looked okay.

  “To you, it is.”

  Olivia turned the knob again, it felt stiff.

  “The assassin was here first,” Diggs said.

  Back in the truck, they drove around Essex till they found a hotel by the water. They took an upstairs room overlooking the water. The bridge was a shadowy line on the water dozens of miles away.

  Diggs and Borodin rigged the hallway with tripwires.

  “What are you doing?” Liam asked.

  “We’ll know when he comes.”

  “Are you serious? You said he’s a professional, we are not professionals.”

  “I am,” said Diggs.

  Olivia put her Colt in the hip of her denim.

  —

  —

  The assassin came. How he found them confounded Olivia. She got a glimpse of the man whom Bud Chapman had told them about that night.

  It was 2 am in the night. The team had waited, and they had fallen asleep after some time, although she wasn't sure that the man Lawrence Diggs ever slept.

  The man was indeed a professional. He came through all the tripwires. Like a snake, he slithered up to the window, then he was at the door. That was when Olivia woke from a dream she couldn't recall.

  The doorknob was turning, ever so slightly.

  Olivia gripped the side of the sofa, she felt her insides turn to mashed potatoes. Her head suddenly felt hot. Visions of Bud Chapman's body steaming in the field, rotting and decaying flashed before her eyes.