The Last Templar Read online

  Vance examined it further, turning it over carefully, studying the graduations on its outer ring. “This is remarkable. If this is indeed Templar, it predates the ones we’ve seen by over a hundred years.” His voice trailed off. His fingers had found something else in the pouch: a leather wrap.

  Unfolding it, he found a small sheet of parchment.

  Reilly immediately recognized the lettering: it was identical to that on the coded manuscript that had led them here. Only there seemed to be spaces between the words.

  This letter wasn’t in code.

  Tess spotted the similarity too. “It’s from Aimard,” she exclaimed. But Vance wasn’t listening. He wandered off, engrossed in the sheet of parchment in his hands. Tense seconds passed as he read it in silence, away from them. When he finally came back, a look of resignation had clouded his features. “It seems,” he said somberly, “that we’re not quite there yet.”

  Tess fought the nausea rising in her throat. She knew she wouldn’t like the answer, but still managed to ask, “What does it say?”

  Chapter 61

  EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN—MAY 1291

  “Put the longboat to sea!”

  Despite the raging maelstrom around him, the shipmaster’s shout echoed deafeningly inside Aimard’s head. As another wall of water battered the galley, his only thoughts were for the reliquary as he rushed toward the ship’s forecastle.

  I have to save it.

  He flashed back to the first night of their voyage when, after making sure the crew and the rest of his brothers were asleep, he and Hugh had quietly made their way to the forecastle, Aimard clutching the chest entrusted to him by William of Beaujeu. The Templars had enemies everywhere, and, with their defeat in Acre, they were now vulnerable. The chest had to be secured well out of sight, safe from any searches that might befall them. Aimard had shared his concerns with Hugh shortly after leaving Acre; both he and Beaujeu trusted the man implicitly. He hadn’t expected the shipmaster to present him with such a perfect solution.

  He remembered how, when they had reached the ship’s bow, Hugh had raised a flaming torch to expose a deep cavity, slightly larger than the chest, that had been hacked into the back of the bird’s head. Hugh climbed up and sat astride the ship’s figurehead. Aimard took one last look at the ornate chest before lifting it and handing it to the shipmaster, who carefully placed it into the opening. Close at hand, a brazier burned beneath a small vat of molten resin, the surface of which rocked slowly in keeping with the increasingly heavy swell on which the Falcon Temple was riding. With the chest jammed firmly into the hiding place prepared for it, Aimard carefully used a long-handled metal pot to scoop up resin that he handed up to Hugh, who then poured it into the gaps between the chest and the sides of the cavity. After a moment, a bucket of water was dashed over the hot resin, sending up a sizzling cloud of steam. Hugh nodded to Aimard, who then handed him the final stage of the reliquary’s concealment. A piece of thick wood, chiseled to the curve of the figurehead, was laid over the opening. Hugh hammered it into place using wooden pegs, each thicker than a man’s thumb, then all this too was sealed with molten resin that was quickly hardened with water. The task completed, Aimard watched for a moment longer until Hugh scrambled from the figurehead to the safety of the deck.

  Looking around, Aimard saw that no one had observed their actions. He thought about Martin of Carmaux, who was resting down below. There was no need to tell his protégé what he had done. Later, when they reached port, it might become necessary, but until then he would let the whereabouts of the reliquary remain known only to himself and Hugh. As for the contents of the chest—that was something for which the young Martin wasn’t yet ready.

  A lightning bolt snapped Aimard back to his present predicament. He pushed his way through the rainsqualls and almost reached the forecastle when another mountainous wave slammed into the Falcon Temple, its brutal force lifting him off his feet and hurling him back against the chart table, impaling him on its corner. Martin was quickly with him and, despite Aimard’s garbled pleas, the young knight helped him up and dragged him over into the waiting longboat.

  Aimard fell into the barge and, despite the searing pain in his side, righted himself in time to see Hugh clambering over the edge and joining them. The shipmaster was clutching a bizarre circular device, a navigational instrument that Aimard had seen him use, and was busy locking it into position. The knight pounded his fist angrily at the side of the boat and looked on, helplessly, at the figurehead, which stood proudly resisting the remorseless battering of the angry sea before snapping like a twig and disappearing under the foaming water.

  Chapter 62

  Tess’s heart sank as she felt the air leave her lungs. She looked incredulous. “So that’s it? After all this, it’s at the bottom of the sea?”

  She felt a surge of anger. Not again. Her mind was a confused jumble. “So why all the mystery?” she blurted out, grim-faced. “Why the coded letter? Why not just let the Templars in Paris know they’d lost it irretrievably?”

  “To keep up the bluff,” Vance ventured. “As long as it was within their reach, the cause was alive. And they were safe.”

  “Until their bluff was called…?”

  The professor nodded. “Exactly. Remember, this thing, whatever it is, is of paramount importance to the Templars. You wouldn’t expect Aimard to just leave its position unrecorded, regardless of whether or not they could get to it during their lifetimes.”

  Tess heaved a ponderous sigh and plunked herself down on one of the wooden chairs by the table. She rubbed her eyes as images of an arduous, centuries-old journey and of men being dragged to burning pyres flooded her consciousness. She opened her eyes and they settled on the astrolabe again. All this way, all these risks, she thought…for this.

  “They were so close.” Vance was in his own world, examining the navigation instrument more closely. “If the Falcon Temple had only held together a few hours longer, they would have made it to shore, hugged the coastline, and used their oars to reach one of the nearby Greek islands, which were in friendly hands. There, they would have been able to repair the mast and sail on, free from the fear of attack, either back to Cyprus or, more likely, to France.” He paused, then added, almost to himself, “And we’d probably be living in a very different world…”

  Reilly, sitting on a small batch of concrete blocks, couldn’t hold back any longer. The frustration was unbearable. He’d felt he stood a good chance of taking out the Turks and Vance if he moved fast, but he didn’t want to endanger Tess or Rüstem. But there was more to it than just a bruised ego. At the back of his mind, something else was vying for attention. Somewhere, this had evolved from a straightforward manhunt into something far more insidious; he felt personally threatened, but it wasn’t physical. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Deeper, more fundamental questions had been gnawing at him ever since they had decoded the manuscript, and he suddenly felt troubled and strangely vulnerable. “A different world?” he scoffed. “All because of, what, a magic formula to make gold?”

  Vance let out a dismissive chortle. “Please, Agent Reilly. Don’t sully the Templars’ legacy with petty myths of alchemy. It’s a well-documented fact that they gained their wealth from the donations of noblemen across Europe, all of it given with the full blessing of the Vatican. They threw land and money at them, because they were the valiant defenders of the pilgrims…but there was more to it than that. You see, their mission was thought to be sacred. Their supporters believed that the Templars were seeking something that would be of immeasurable benefit to mankind.” A hint of a smile broke through his stern features. “What they didn’t know was that had the Templars been successful, it would have benefited all of mankind, not just the ‘chosen ones,’ as the Christians of Europe arrogantly deemed themselves.”

  “What are you talking about?” Reilly blurted.

  “Among the accusations that led to the Templars’ downfall was that they had gotten close to the othe
r inhabitants in the Holy Land—the Muslims, and the Jews. Our dear knights were said to have been seduced by their contacts with them, to have shared mystical insights with them. On that front, the accusations were actually correct, although they were quickly swept aside in favor of the more colorful ones I’m sure you’re both familiar with. The pope and the king—who was, after all, anointed by God, no less, and was desperate to prove he was the most Christian of kings—were understandably keen to smother that idea, the notion of their champions actually fraternizing with the heathens, than to use it as further ammo in bringing down the Templars, however damning it was. But it wasn’t just about them all sharing mystical insights. In fact, it was far more pragmatic than that. They were planning something incredibly daring, brave, and far-reaching, an act of lunacy perhaps but also one of breathtaking courage and vision.” Vance paused, seemingly moved by the very notion, before his eyes settled on Reilly again and tightened.

  “They were,” he announced, “plotting to unify the three big religions.”

  He looked up at the mountains framing them and waved his hands expansively. “The unification of the three faiths,” he laughed. “Just imagine it. Christians, Jews, and Muslims—all joined in one faith. And why not? We all worship the same God, after all. We’re all the children of Abraham, aren’t we?” he mocked. His expression hardened. “Think about it. Imagine what a different world we’d be living in, if that were the case. An infinitely better world…think of all the pain and bloodshed we would have avoided over the years—today more than ever. Millions of people, none of whom would have had to die senselessly. No inquisitions, no holocaust, no wars in the Balkans or in the Middle East, no planes plowing into skyscrapers…” A fleeting glance of mischief crossed his features. “You’d probably be out of a job, Agent Reilly.”

  Reilly’s mind was racing, trying to make sense of the revelations. Could it be possible…? He flashed to his conversation with Tess about the nine years the Templars spent in seclusion in the Temple, their rapid rise in power and wealth, and the Latin inscription Tess had told him about.

  Veritas vos liberabit.

  The truth will set you free.

  He looked up at Vance. “You think they were blackmailing the Church. You think the Vatican allowed the Templars to gain power at their expense.”

  “They were scared out of their wits. They had no choice.”

  “But…with what?”

  Vance took a step closer, reached out, and fingered the crucifix that hung in the unzipped V of Reilly’s wet suit before suddenly ripping it off his neck. Holding it in his fingers, the chain dangling off the back of his hand, he looked at it with scornful eyes that turned to ice.

  “With the truth about this fairy tale.”

  Chapter 63

  Vance’s words hung over them like the blade of a guillotine.

  His eyes took on a life of their own as they glared at the small, shiny object held in the palm of his hand. Then his expression darkened. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? Here we are, two thousand years later, with everything we’ve accomplished, everything we know, and yet this little talisman still rules the way billions of people live…and die.”

  Sitting in his damp wet suit, Reilly felt a shiver of unease. He darted a glance at Tess. She was looking at Vance with a rapt expression that Reilly couldn’t read.

  “How do you know this?” she asked hesitantly.

  Vance tore his eyes away from Reilly’s crucifix and turned to her. “Hughes de Payens. The founder of the Templars. When I was in the south of France, I found out something about him that surprised me.”

  The French historian’s derisive remarks came rushing back to her. “That he was from there, from the Languedoc—and that he was a Cathar?”

  Vance’s eyebrows shot up and he tilted his head, clearly impressed. “You’ve done your homework.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” she countered. “They originally went out there to escort Christian pilgrims.”

  Vance’s smile remained in place, but now there was an edge to his voice. “They went out there on a mission to retrieve something that had been lost for a thousand years, something that had been hidden by the high priests from Titus’s legions. What better cover for them—and what better way for them to have access to the site they were interested in—than to claim to be diehard supporters of the pope and of his ill-conceived Crusade? You see, they weren’t about to try and fight the Church blindly—not before amassing enough power and wealth to be able to survive such an impossible challenge. The Vatican had a long history of ruthlessly suppressing any challenge to its one and only true faith—entire villages, women and children massacred by the pope’s armies for daring to follow their own beliefs. So they hatched a plan. To bring down the Church, they had to have the weapons—and the influence—to make it happen. And they almost made it. They found what they were looking for. As the Knights Templar, they became hugely powerful militarily and immensely influential. They were very close to coming out of their spiritual closet. What they hadn’t counted on was that they—not just the Templars, but all the Christian armies—would be kicked out of the Holy Land before they’d had a chance to launch their attack on the Church. And when that happened, ending with Acre in 1291, they didn’t only lose their power base—their castles, their army, their dominant position in Outremer—but they also lost their prize, the weapon that would allow them to blackmail the Vatican for two hundred years, the object that would empower them to fulfill their destiny, when the Falcon Temple sank. And from that point on, it was only a matter of time before they were wiped out.” He nodded slightly before framing them with a fervent stare. “Only now, with a bit of luck, we may be in a position to finish their work.”

  Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a loud and terrifying crack as the head of one of Vance’s men suddenly exploded outward, the force of the impact tearing his body back off its feet and throwing him against the ground in a bloody mess.

  Chapter 64

  Instinctively, Reilly lunged toward Tess, but Vance had already seized her by the waist and was pushing her to safety behind his pickup truck. More bullets whizzed by and exploded around Reilly as he dived for cover behind the Pajero, while instinctively concentrating on trying to isolate the echo of the report to get a handle on where the shooter was. Three shots blasted into their SUV, ripping through the hood and into the engine block and shredding the right front tire while giving him a very rough angle on the sniper’s position: somewhere to the south, in the tree line—and hopelessly out of pistol range.

  An uneasy silence descended on the forest, and, after a tense moment’s respite, Reilly leaned out to survey the damage. The Pajero wasn’t going anywhere. He looked over toward the upturned table, where they’d been sitting. The wiry, balding Turk was huddled behind it and looked terrified. Reilly noticed a movement to his side, by the shed, a flash of blue as Rüstem emerged with a rifle, another small-caliber weapon, something he probably used for hunting rabbits. The old man stood there, scanning the distant trees, bewildered, looking for a shot. Reilly waved and yelled out to him frantically, but, before the man could react, two more rounds came from the sniper, one ricocheting off the concrete pipes stacked on the ground, the other spinning into the old man’s chest, slamming him back against the shed like a rag doll.

  From behind his Pajero’s tailgate, Reilly saw Vance reaching up to yank open the door of the pickup before pushing Tess in ahead of him and scrambling in behind her. He started up the engine and cranked the car into gear. The wiry Turk managed to clamber onto the Toyota’s flatbed just as it swung around and headed for the gate of the compound.

  Reilly had no choice. He also had no time to retrieve his Browning from the Pajero. Looking up at the hillside nervously, he decided to risk it. He emerged from behind the SUV and darted after the disappearing pickup.

  Two more shots crunched into the side of the Toyota as Reilly caught up with it by the gate and grabbed onto its tailgate. The pickup cr
ashed through the side pole of the gate before lumbering on down the craggy trail. Reilly hung on with pained fingers, his legs dragging on the rough ground, then his left leg slammed against a protruding rock, pain shooting up into his spine like a white-hot spike. Every muscle in his body was ablaze, and he felt he was about to let go.

  But he couldn’t.

  Tess was in the truck. He couldn’t lose her. Not here, not now.

  He looked up and glimpsed a handle on the inside on the sidewall. He drew on every ounce of strength left inside him and kicked the ground with spinning legs while lunging for the handle with his left hand. His fingers flew off the tailgate and clasped onto it, and he pulled on it, levering himself upward and dragging himself onto the flatbed.

  The Turk was lying low against the sidewall, clutching his rifle, peering anxiously over the side. He turned and saw Reilly climb aboard. Alarmed, the man swung the rifle stock at him, but Reilly seized the barrel and thrust it upward, hearing the report and feeling the recoil as the man squeezed the trigger. Reilly spun his legs around and smashed his boot into the Turk’s groin before lunging at him. As they struggled, Reilly spotted something and looked over the cab of the pickup. Less than a hundred yards ahead, a beige Land Cruiser was parked across the dirt path, blocking their way. The Turk saw it too, and there was no falloff in the engine’s whine. Vance wasn’t backing off. Reilly shot a glance through the back window of the cab and his eyes met Tess’s. She looked frightened as she reached forward and braced herself against the dashboard.

  Reilly and the Turk both grabbed onto the top of the cab as the pickup sloped off the edge of the track, juddered on the rough, rocky soil, and squeezed through between the edge of the hillside and the parked Land Cruiser, ramming the front of the big SUV. It plowed through in an eruption of glass and plastic and raced on.