The Last Templar Read online

  The mention of Vance came two-thirds of the way into his presentation. In it, the historian mentioned in passing how he had even heard the ridiculous notion, from Vance, that Hughes de Payens may have been a Cathar, simply because the man’s family tree indicated that he was originally from the Languedoc.

  Tess reread the passage. The founder of the Templars, a Cathar? It was an absurd suggestion. Templarism and Catharism were as contradictory as could be. For two hundred years, the Templars had been the unflinching defenders of the Church. Catharism, on the other hand, was a Gnostic movement.

  Still, there was something intriguing about the suggestion.

  Catharism had originated in the middle of the tenth century, taking its name from the Greek katharos, meaning “the pure ones.” It was based on the notion that the world was evil and that souls would be continually reborn—and could even pass through animals, which was why the Cathars were vegetarians—until they escaped the material world and reached a spiritual heaven.

  Everything the Cathars believed in was anathema to the Church. They were dualists who believed that, in addition to a merciful and good God, there had to be an equally powerful but evil God to explain the horrors that plagued the world. The benevolent God created the heavens and the human soul; the evil God entrapped that soul in the human body. In the Vatican’s eyes, the Cathars had sacrilegiously elevated Satan to God’s equal. Following this belief, the Cathars considered all material goods evil, which led them to reject the trappings of wealth and of power that had undeniably corrupted the medieval Roman Catholic Church.

  More worryingly for the Church, they were also Gnostics. Gnosticism—which, like Cathar, is derived from a Greek word, gnosis, meaning higher knowledge or insight—is the belief that man can come into direct and intimate contact with God without the need for a priest or a church. Believing in direct personal contact with God freed the Cathars of all moral prohibition or religious obligations. Besides having no use for lavish churches and oppressive ceremonies, they had no use for priests either. Religious ceremonies were simply performed in homes or in fields. And if that wasn’t enough, women were treated as equals and were allowed to become “parfaits,” the closest thing the Cathari faith had to a priest; since physical form was irrelevant to them, the soul residing within a human body could just as easily be male or female, regardless of outward appearance.

  As the belief caught on and spread across the south of France and northern Italy, the Vatican got increasingly worried and ultimately decided that this heresy could no longer be tolerated. It didn’t only threaten the Catholic Church, it also threatened the basis of the feudal system in Europe, as the Cathars believed oaths were a sin, given that they attached one to the material—hence, evil—world. This gravely undermined the concept of pledges of allegiance between serfs and their lords. The pope had no trouble enlisting the support of the French nobility to put down this threat. In 1209, an army of Crusaders descended on the Languedoc, and, over the next thirty-five years, proceeded to massacre over thirty thousand men, women, and children. It was said that blood flowed ankle deep in the churches where some of the fleeing villagers had taken refuge, and that when one of the pope’s soldiers complained about not knowing whether he was killing heretics or Christian believers, he was simply told to “Kill them all; God will know his own.”

  It simply doesn’t make sense. The Templars went to the Holy Land to escort the pilgrims—the Christian pilgrims. They were the Vatican’s storm troopers, its staunchest supporters. The Cathars, on the other hand, were the Church’s enemies.

  Tess was surprised that someone as learned as Vance would advance such a wild proposition, especially when it was based on the flimsy premise of one man’s provenance. She wondered if she was barking up the wrong tree, but what she really needed, Tess knew, was to talk to him in person. Regardless of such an academic faux pas, if there were a connection between the Templars and the robbery, he would probably nail it in a flash.

  She dialed Columbia University again and soon got through to the History Department. After reminding the secretary of their previous conversation, she asked her if she’d had any luck in finding anyone at the department who knew how to reach William Vance. The woman said she’d asked a couple of professors who taught there at the same time as Vance, but they’d lost touch with him after he’d left.

  “I see,” Tess said wistfully. She didn’t know where else to turn.

  The woman picked up on her dismay. “I know you need to reach him, but maybe he doesn’t want to be reached. Sometimes, people prefer not to be reminded of, you know…painful times.”

  Tess snapped to attention. “‘Painful times’?”

  “Of course. And after what he went through…it was all so sad. He loved her very much, you know.”

  Tess’s mind was racing, trying to think of whether or not she had missed something. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to. Did Professor Vance lose someone?”

  “Oh, I thought you knew. It was his wife. She fell ill and passed away.”

  This was all news to her. None of the sites she’d looked at mentioned it, but then, they were purely academic and didn’t delve into personal matters. “When did this happen?”

  “It’s been a few years now, five or six years ago? Let’s see…I remember it was in the spring. The professor took a sabbatical that summer and never came back.”

  Tess thanked the woman and hung up. She wondered if she should forget about Vance and concentrate on getting in touch with Simmons. Still, she was intrigued. She went online again and clicked onto the New York Times’s Web site. She selected the advanced search function and was relieved to find that the archive went back to 1996. She entered “William Vance,” ticked the obituary section, and got a hit.

  The brief article announced the death of his wife, Martha. It only mentioned complications after a brief illness, but gave no more details. Casually, Tess noticed where interment had been scheduled to take place: the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. She wondered if Vance was paying for the upkeep of the grave. If he was, it was likely that the cemetery would have a record of his current address.

  She thought about calling the cemetery herself, then decided against it. They probably wouldn’t release such information to her anyway. Reluctantly, she found the card Reilly had given her and called his office. Told that Reilly was in a meeting, Tess hesitated about telling the agent on the line anything and decided she’d wait to speak to Reilly in person.

  Glancing back at her screen, her eyes fell on the obituary, and suddenly a flash of excitement struck her.

  The secretary was right about Martha Vance’s death having occurred in the spring.

  It had happened exactly five years ago tomorrow.

  Chapter 29

  “The autopsy confirms Waldron was also murdered,” Reilly stated as he looked around at the others seated at the table in the Bureau’s viewing room. The only outsider present was Monsignor De Angelis. “We found traces of lidocaine in his blood. It’s an anesthetic, and it wasn’t administered by anyone looking after him at the hospital. The high dose triggered his heart failure. The interesting part is that there are also needle marks on his neck. The drug was used to numb his vocal cords, so he couldn’t call for help.”

  The monsignor stiffened a little at Reilly’s report, seeming equally appalled. Also there were the main players in the METRAID investigation: Jansson, Buchinski, Amelia Gaines, Aparo, Blackburn, and two of his ASACs, as well as a young techie who was manning the A/V commands. The report wasn’t particularly reassuring.

  “We also found freeze-branding equipment at the stables,” Reilly continued, “which Petrovic could have used to disguise the markings on the horses they used in the raid. All of which means one of two things. Either whoever’s behind this is having his foot soldiers wiped out, or one of the gang’s decided to keep it all for himself. Either way, we’ve got one, and potentially two, more horsemen looking like possible targets. And
whoever’s doing this isn’t exactly a slacker.”

  De Angelis turned to Reilly. “You didn’t recover any of our missing pieces from the stables?”

  “I’m afraid not, Father. They’re being murdered because of them.”

  De Angelis took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with his sleeve. “And what about those extremist groups you were interested in? Have you had any luck with your inquiries there?”

  “Not as yet. We’re looking at a couple of them in particular, groups that have recently voiced anger at the Church for the way it’s been critical of them. They’re both in the Midwest, so our field offices there are pursuing it. They don’t have a conclusive link yet, just a lot of threats.”

  De Angelis put on his glasses again, frowning. His disquiet was obvious, but he tried not to show it. “I suppose we just have to wait and see.”

  Reilly looked around the table. He knew they weren’t making any great progress in getting to the bottom of the case. So far, they were reacting to events, rather than initiating them.

  “You want to mention that Templar thing?” Aparo asked.

  De Angelis turned to Aparo, whose gaze led him to Reilly. “Templars?”

  Reilly hadn’t expected his partner to bring it up. He tried to downplay it as best he could. “It’s just a thread we’re following.”

  De Angelis’s quizzical look prodded him on.

  “One of the witnesses at the Met, an archaeologist…she felt there may be a link between the Templars and the raid.”

  “Because of the red crosses on the knights’ mantles?”

  At least it’s not that far off the chart, Reilly thought. “Yes, that and other details. The knight who took the encoder said something in Latin which is apparently a marking on a Templar castle in France.”

  De Angelis studied Reilly with the hint of a bemused smile. “And this archaeologist, she thinks the raid on the museum was the work of a religious order that ceased to exist almost seven hundred years ago?”

  Reilly felt all the eyes in the room boring into him. “Not exactly. It’s just that given their history and their cult status, the Templars could conceivably be the inspiration for a bunch of religious fanatics who idolize them and who may be acting out some kind of revenge or revival fantasy.”

  De Angelis nodded to himself, pensively. He seemed rather disappointed as he stood up and gathered his papers. “Yes, well, that sounds very promising. I wish you continued luck with your investigation, Agent Reilly. Gentlemen, Agent Gaines,” he said as he glanced at Jansson before leaving the room quietly, leaving Reilly with the uncomfortable feeling that the Templars’ lunatic stigma didn’t only apply to academics.

  Chapter 30

  Mitch Adeson knew that if he had to stay holed up in this dump much longer, he would go stir-crazy. But it would be just as crazy to stay in his own place, and the streets there were likely to be more dangerous. At least here, in his dad’s apartment in Queens, he was safe.

  First Gus, then Branko. Mitch was smart, but even if he’d been as dumb as Gus Waldron, he would’ve figured out that someone had a list, and that it was a racing certainty that not only was he on it, he was next in line.

  It was time to move on to safer pastures.

  He looked across the room at his deaf and barely continent father who was doing what he always did: staring at the fuzzy picture on the TV, tuned as always to an endless succession of trashy talk shows at which he constantly spewed abuse.

  Mitch would have liked to check up on the guy who’d hired him. He had wondered if that man was the one to look out for, then decided he couldn’t be. He’d handled himself well enough on a horse, but he wasn’t someone who could’ve killed Branko, and he sure as hell couldn’t have laid a glove on the mountain that was Gus Waldron. It had to be someone higher up the food chain. And to get to whoever it was and beat him to the punch, Mitch knew he had to go through the guy who’d originally approached him, the one who’d first told him about this crazy scheme. The only problem was, he had no way of contacting him. He didn’t even know the man’s name.

  He heard his father break wind. Christ, he thought, I can’t just sit here. I need to do something.

  Daylight or not, he had to make a move. He told his father that he would be back in a few hours. The old man ignored him but then, as Mitch pulled on a coat and crossed to the door, he groaned out, “Beer and cigarettes.”

  It wasn’t far short of being the longest sentence his father had spoken to him since the early hours of Sunday morning when he had gone there straight from Central Park, after they had stripped off the armor and gone their separate ways. It had been his job to stow the props in a panel truck that he had dropped off in a lock-up garage two blocks away from his own place. The rent was paid in advance for a year, and, until then, he wouldn’t go near it.

  He went out of the apartment and down the stairs where, after taking his time checking for anything suspicious, he stepped into the darkening street and headed for the subway.

  IT WAS RAINING BY the time Mitch moved cautiously through the alley at the back of the grimy seven-story building in Astoria that housed his apartment. He had a paper bag with a Coors six-pack and a carton of Winstons for his old man under his arm, and he was soaked. He hadn’t intended on going near his own place for a while yet, but he had decided to take the risk to get some of his gear if he was going to pull a disappearing act.

  He stood motionless in the alley for a couple of minutes before reaching up and pulling down on the balanced girder of the fire escape. He always kept it oiled, just in case, and it was pleasingly silent as it slid down. He hurried upward, casting nervous glances at the alley below. Outside his bedroom window, he stood the paper bag on the ladder and raked with his fingers into the gap between the escape and the wall, easing out the steel strip he kept there. Moments later, he had jimmied the window latch and was climbing inside.

  He didn’t put on a light, feeling his way around the familiar room instead. He dragged an old duffel from the shelf of the closet, then felt his way around the back and pulled out four cartons of shells that he piled into the bag. He then went into the bathroom and fished out a nylon bag from the water tank. In it was a big oilskin-wrapped package, which he opened and from which he took out the Kimber .45 and the small Bersa 9mm. He checked them, loaded the Bersa, which he stowed in his belt, and put the Kimber in with the shells. He grabbed some clothes and a favorite pair of work boots. That would do.

  He climbed out the bedroom window, closed it behind him, shifted the duffel onto his shoulder, and reached down for the paper bag.

  It was gone.

  For an instant, Mitch froze, then carefully eased out his gun. He stared down into the alley. He couldn’t see any movement. In weather like this, not even the cats were on the prowl, and, from this height, the rats were invisible.

  Who had taken the bag? Kids? Had to be. If someone was after him, they wouldn’t dick around with a six-pack and a carton of smokes, but he wasn’t in the mood for testing theories. He decided to go up onto the roof, where he could step across to another building and work his way down to street level a hundred yards away. He’d done it before, but not with the rooftops wet with rain.

  He began to climb slowly and silently upward until he reached the roof. He was nipping around a ventilation shaft housing when his foot slid on one of the dozen or so lengths of tubular steel scaffolding left there by a careless maintenance crew. It sent him flying forward to land, facedown, in a pool of rainwater. Scrambling back to his feet, he raced for the thigh-high parapet. Reaching it, he swung one leg up, then felt a sharp pain as someone suddenly kicked him behind the knee on his other leg, which promptly gave way.

  He dived for his gun but the man grabbed his arm and twisted it. The gun flew from his hand and he heard it clatter down the sloping roof. He jerked against the grip with all his strength, felt himself break away from the man, and experienced a moment of elation before he overbalanced and went over the far side of the p
arapet.

  Fingers desperately grasping for anything within reach, he managed to latch on to the rough stone capping with both hands. Then his attacker clasped his arms, just above the wrists, holding on and preventing him from slipping away to certain death. Mitch stared upward, saw the man’s face, and didn’t recognize him.

  Whatever the guy wanted, he decided, he could gladly have.

  “Pull me up,” he wheezed out. “Pull me up!”

  The man slowly did what he asked, until Mitch was sprawled, facedown, half on and half off the capstone. He felt the man release one of his arms, then he saw something reflecting the light. For an instant, Mitch thought it was a knife, then he realized what it was: a hypodermic needle.

  He didn’t know what the hell this meant and tried to squirm free but, before he could move, he felt a sudden sharp pain in the taut muscles that stretched up from his shoulder toward his skull.

  The man had just jabbed the needle into his neck.

  Chapter 31

  As he stared at the vidcap print before him in the privacy of his room, De Angelis fingered the golden, diamond- and ruby-encrusted statuette of a rearing horse.

  Privately, he thought the antique was quite vulgar. He knew it was a gift from the Russian Orthodox Church to the Holy Father on the occasion of a papal audience in the late nineteenth century, and he also knew that it was priceless. Vulgar and ugly, but nevertheless priceless.

  He studied the image more closely. It was the one Reilly had given him at their first meeting, when the agent had inquired about the importance of the multigeared encoder. The sight was still one that made his heart race. Even this grainy print managed to reawaken in him the sheer exhilaration he felt when he first witnessed the moment on the surveillance footage he’d been shown at Federal Plaza.