The Last Templar Read online

  Reilly glanced around the table before chiming in. “This one’s more complicated. The first thing that pops to mind is a shopping list.”

  Art thefts, especially when the objects were well known, were often either stolen to order or presold to collectors who wanted to own things, even if they could never allow them to be seen by anyone else. But from the moment he had arrived at the museum, Reilly had pushed this angle to the back of his thinking. Shopping lists almost always went to smart thieves. Riding horseback along Fifth Avenue wasn’t the action of smart people. Neither was the mayhem and least of all the execution.

  “I think we’re all on the same page on this,” he continued. “The profilers’ prelims also concur. There’s more behind this than just grabbing some priceless relics. You want to get the pieces, you choose a quiet, rainy Wednesday morning, get in before the crowds, pull out your Uzis and grab what you want. Lower visibility, lower risk. Instead, these guys chose the busiest, most heavily guarded moment possible to stage their heist. It’s almost like they wanted to taunt us, to embarrass us. Sure, they got the booty, but I think they were also out to make a statement.”

  “What kind of statement?” Jansson asked.

  Reilly shrugged. “We’re working on it.”

  The ADIC turned to Blackburn. “You guys agree?”

  Blackburn nodded. “Put it this way. Whoever these guys are, they’re heroes on the street. They’ve taken what all these coked-out jackasses fantasize about when they’re plugged into their PlayStations and actually gone out and done it. I’m just hoping they don’t start a trend here. But, yeah, I think there’s more going on with these guys than cold efficiency.”

  Jansson glanced back at Reilly. “So it looks like it’s your baby after all.”

  Reilly looked at him and quietly nodded. Baby wasn’t exactly the first word that sprang into his mind. It was more like a two-thousand-pound gorilla, and, he mused, it was indeed all his.

  THE MEETING WAS INTERRUPTED by the arrival of a slim, unassuming man wearing a brown tweed suit over a clerical collar. Jansson got out of his chair and offered his huge paw to shake the man’s hand.

  “Monsignor, glad you could make it. Please, have a seat. Everybody, this is Monsignor De Angelis. I promised the archbishop we’d let him sit in and help out in any way.”

  Jansson proceeded to introduce De Angelis to the assembled agents. It was highly unusual to allow outsiders in on a meeting as sensitive as this, but the apostolic nuncio, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, had made enough well-placed phone calls to allow it.

  The man was in his late forties, Reilly guessed. He had neatly trimmed dark hair that receded in perfect arcs at the temples, with flecks of silver around the ears. His steel-rimmed spectacles were slightly smudged, and his manner was affable and quietly unobtrusive as he acknowledged the agents’ names and positions.

  “Please, don’t let me interrupt,” he said as he sat down.

  Jansson shook his head slightly, dismissing the thought. “The evidence isn’t pointing us anywhere yet, Father. Without wanting to prejudice the matter—and I need to stress that this is purely an airing of ideas and gut feelings at this point—we were kicking around our thoughts about possible candidates for the raid.”

  “I understand,” De Angelis replied.

  Jansson turned to Reilly who, although uncomfortable with the idea, continued. He knew he had to bring the monsignor up to speed.

  “We were just saying that this is clearly more than just a museum robbery. The way it was carried off, the timing, everything indicated more at play here than a simple armed heist.”

  De Angelis pursed his lips, absorbing the implications of what was said. “I see.”

  “The knee-jerk reaction,” Reilly continued, “is to point to Muslim fundamentalists, but in this case I’m pretty sure it’s way off the mark.”

  “Why do you think that?” De Angelis asked. “As unfortunate as it may be, they do seem to hate us. I’m sure you remember the uproar when the museum in Baghdad was looted. The claims of double standards, the blame, the anger…That didn’t go down too well in the area.”

  “Believe me, this doesn’t fit their MO—in fact, it’s nowhere close. Their attacks are typically overt; they like to take credit for their actions and they usually favor the kamikaze route. Besides, it would be anathema for any Muslim fundamentalist to wear an outfit with a cross on it.” Reilly looked at De Angelis, who seemed to agree. “Of course, we’ll look at it. We have to. But I’d put my money on another bunch.”

  “A bubba job.” Jansson was using the politically incorrect shorthand for redneck bombers.

  “Much more likely in my opinion,” Reilly nodded with a shrug of familiarity. Individual “lone wolf” extremists and violent homegrown radicals were as much a part of his daily life as were foreign terrorists.

  De Angelis looked lost. “Bubba?”

  “Local terrorists, Father. Groups with ludicrous names like The Order or The Silent Brotherhood, mostly operating under an ideology of hate called the Christian Identity, which, I know, is a pretty strange perversion of the term…”

  The monsignor shifted uncomfortably. “I thought these people are all fanatical Christians.”

  “They are. But remember this is the Vatican we’re talking about—the Catholic Church. And these guys, they’re not fans of Rome, Father. Their twisted churches—none of which is even remotely Catholic, by the way—aren’t recognized by the Vatican. Your people actually make it pretty clear they don’t want to have anything to do with them, and with good reason. What they all have in common, apart from blaming all their troubles on blacks and Jews and homosexuals, is a hatred for organized government, ours in particular, yours by association. They think we’re the great Satan—which, oddly enough, is the same terminology Khomeini coined for us and which is still echoing around the Muslim world today. Remember, these guys bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. Christians. Americans. And there are a lot of them around. We just picked up a guy in Philadelphia who we’ve been after for a long time. He’s part of an Aryan Nations’ spin-off group, the Church of the Sons of Yahweh. Now this guy was previously Aryan Nations’ minister for Islamic liaison. In that role, he’s admitted to trying to form alliances with anti-American Muslim extremists after the 9/11 attacks.”

  “The enemy of my enemy,” De Angelis mused.

  “Exactly,” Reilly agreed. “These guys have a seriously deranged view of the world, Father. We just need to try and understand what insane mission statement they’ve now come up with.”

  There was a brief silence in the room after Reilly finished. Jansson took over. “Okay, so you’re going to run with this.”

  Reilly nodded, unfazed. “Yep.”

  Jansson turned to Blackburn. “Rog, you’re still gonna look at the straight robbery angle?”

  “Absolutely. We’ve got to cover both until something breaks that points us one way or the other.”

  “Okay, good. Father,” he said, now turning to De Angelis, “it would really help us if you could get us a list of what was stolen, as detailed as you can. Color photographs, weight, dimensions, anything you have. We need to get some alerts set up.”

  “Of course.”

  “On that point, Father,” Reilly interjected, “one of the horsemen seemed only interested in one thing: this,” he said, as he pulled out a blowup of a vidcap from the museum’s security cameras. It showed the fourth horseman holding the encoder. He handed it to the monsignor. “The exhibition’s catalog lists it as a multigeared rotor encoder,” he said, then asked, “any idea why one would take that, given all the gold and jewels around?”

  De Angelis adjusted his glasses as he studied the photograph, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know much about this…machine. I can only imagine it to have value as an engineering curiosity. Everybody likes to flaunt their brilliance once in a while, even, it seems, my brothers who selected what should be included in the exhibit.”
/>   “Well, perhaps you could check with them. They might have ideas, I don’t know, collectors who may have previously approached them about it.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  Jansson looked around. Everyone was set. “Okay, folks,” he said, arranging his papers. “Let’s put these freaks out of business.”

  AS THE OTHERS WALKED out of the room, De Angelis edged over to Reilly and shook his hand. “Thank you, Agent Reilly. I feel we are in good hands.”

  “We’ll get them, Father. Something always gives.”

  The monsignor’s eyes were locked on his, studying him. “You can call me Michael.”

  “I’ll stick to ‘Father,’ if that’s all right. Kind of a tough habit to break.”

  De Angelis looked surprised. “You’re Catholic?”

  Reilly nodded.

  “Practicing?” De Angelis looked down in sudden embarrassment. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t be so inquisitive. I suppose some of my habits are equally hard to break.”

  “No problem. And yes, I’m in the fold.”

  De Angelis seemed quietly pleased. “You know, in many ways our work is not too dissimilar. We both help people come to terms with their sins.”

  Reilly smiled. “Maybe, but…I’m not sure you get exposed to the same caliber of sinners we get around here.”

  “Yes, it is worrying…things are not well out there.” He paused, then looked up at Reilly. “Which makes our work all the more valuable.”

  The monsignor saw Jansson looking his way; he seemed to be calling him over. “I have full confidence in you, Agent Reilly. I’m sure you’ll find them,” the man in the collar said before walking off.

  Reilly watched him go, then picked up the vidcap from the desk. As he was tucking it back into his file, he glanced at it again. In a corner of the photograph, which was grainy from the low resolution of the museum’s surveillance cameras, he could clearly make out a figure crouching low behind a cabinet, peeking out in terror at the horseman and the device. He knew from the videotape that it was the blond woman he had spotted leaving the museum that night. He thought of the ordeal she’d been through, of how terrified she must have been, and felt drawn to her. He hoped she was all right.

  He filed the photograph back in its folder. As he left the room, he couldn’t help but think of the word Jansson had used.

  Freaks.

  The thought was not at all reassuring.

  Figuring out the motives when sane people committed crimes was hard enough. Getting inside the minds of the insane was often impossible.

  Chapter 11

  Clive Edmondson was pale, but he didn’t seem to be in too much pain, which surprised Tess as she watched him lying there in his hospital bed.

  She knew that one of the horses had backed into him, driving him to the floor, and, in the ensuing panic, he’d had three ribs broken. Their location was too close to the lungs for comfort, and, given Clive’s age, his general health, and his fondness for strenuous activities, the doctors at the New York–Presbyterian Hospital had decided to keep him under observation for a few days.

  “They’ve got me on a really nice cocktail of stuff,” he told her, glancing up at the IV pouch that was dangling from its stand. “I can’t feel a thing.”

  “Not exactly the kind of cocktail you were going for, was it?” she quipped.

  “I’ve had better.”

  As he chuckled, she looked at him, wondering whether or not to bring up the more pressing reason for her visit. “You up to talking about something?”

  “Sure. As long as it doesn’t involve going over what happened yet again. That’s all everyone around here wants to hear about,” he sighed. “Understandable, I guess, but…’’

  “Well, it’s…related,” Tess admitted sheepishly.

  Clive looked at her and smiled. “What’s on your mind?”

  Tess hesitated, then decided to dive in. “When we were chatting at the museum, did you happen to notice what I was looking at?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “It was a machine, some kind of box with buttons and levers coming out of it. The catalog calls it a multigeared rotor encoder.”

  His forehead creased in thought for a moment. “No, I didn’t notice it.” Of course, he wouldn’t have. Not with her there. “Why?”

  “One of the horsemen took it. He didn’t take anything else.”

  “So?”

  “So don’t you think it’s strange? That of all the priceless stuff that was there, he only took that contraption. And not only that, but when he grabbed it, it was like it was part of some ritual for him, he seemed totally consumed by the moment.”

  “Okay, well, he’s obviously a really keen collector of arcane encoding machines. Get Interpol on the horn. The Enigma box is probably next on his list.” He cast her a wry look. “People collect worse things.”

  “I’m serious,” she protested. “He even said something. When he held it up. ‘Veritas vos liberabit.’”

  Clive looked at her. “Veritas vos liberabit?”

  “I think so. I’m pretty sure that was it.”

  Clive thought about it for a moment, then smiled. “Okay. You don’t just have yourself a hard-core collector of coding machines. You’ve got one that went to Johns Hopkins. That ought to narrow down the search.”

  “Johns Hopkins?”

  “Yep.”

  “What are you talking about?” She was utterly lost.

  “It’s the university’s motto. Veritas vos liberabit. The truth will set you free. Trust me, I ought to know. I went there. It’s even in that awful song of ours, you know, ‘The Johns Hopkins Ode.’” He started singing: “Let knowledge grow from more to more, and scholars versed in deepest lore…” Clive was watching Tess, enjoying her bewildered look.

  “You think…?” Then she noticed his look. She knew that self-satisfied grin. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

  Clive nodded guiltily. “Well, it’s either that or he’s a disgruntled ex-CIA agent. You do know it’s the first thing you see when you step into their building at Langley.” Heading off her question, he added, “Tom Clancy. Major fan, what can I say.”

  Tess shook her head, annoyed at being so gullible. Then Clive surprised her.

  “You’re not far off, though. It fits.”

  “What do you mean?” She noted that Clive’s face was now serious.

  “What were the knights wearing?”

  “What do you mean, what were they wearing?”

  “I asked you first.”

  She wasn’t with him. “They were in standard-issue medieval outfits. Wire mesh, mantles, helmets.”

  “And…?” he teased. “Anything more specific?”

  She knew Clive was baiting her. She tried to recall the terrifying sight of the knights rampaging in the museum. “No…?”

  “White mantles with red crosses. Blood-red crosses.”

  She grimaced, still not with him. “Crusaders.”

  Clive wasn’t done yet. “Getting warmer. Come on, Tess. Nothing special about their crosses? A red cross on the left shoulder, another on the chest? Anything?”

  And it hit her. “Templars.”

  “Final answer?”

  Her mind was racing. It still didn’t explain the significance. “You’re absolutely right, they were dressed as Templars. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It’s the generic Crusader look, isn’t it? For all we know, they just copied the first image of a Crusader knight they happened to come across, and the odds are it would be a Templar. They’ve got the most coverage.”

  “I thought so too. I didn’t attach any significance to it at first. The Templars are by far the most famous, or rather infamous, group of knights associated with the Crusades. But then, your little Latin catchphrase…that changes things.”

  Tess stared at Clive, desperate to know what he was talking about. He stayed quiet. It was driving her nuts. “…Because—?!”

  “Veritas vos liberabit, rem
ember? It also happens to be a marking on a castle in the Languedoc in the south of France.” He paused. “A Templar castle.”

  Chapter 12

  “What castle?” Tess was breathless.

  “The Château de Blanchefort. In the Languedoc. The marking’s right there in plain sight, carved into the porch lintel above the castle’s entrance. Veritas vos liberabit. The truth will set you free.” The phrase seemed to inspire a whole stream of recollections in Edmondson.

  Tess frowned. Something was bothering her. “Weren’t the Templars dissolved—” then cringing at her unfortunate choice of words, “—disbanded in the thirteen hundreds?”

  “1314.”

  “Well then, it doesn’t match. The catalog says the encoder’s from the sixteenth century.”

  Edmondson mulled it over. “Well, maybe they’ve got their dates wrong. The fourteenth century wasn’t exactly the Vatican’s proudest moment. Far from it. In 1305, the pope, Clement V, who was already little more than a puppet of the French king Philip IV, had to suffer the indignity of being forced to leave the Vatican and move the seat of the Holy See to Avignon—where he was kept on an even tighter leash, especially when it came to helping King Philip bring down the Templars. In fact, the Papacy was under complete French control for seventy years—it’s referred to as the Babylonian Captivity. It lasted until Pope Gregory XI found the guts to make a break, drawn back to Rome by the mystic Catherine of Siena—but that’s another story. What I mean is that if this decoder of yours was from the fourteenth century—”

  “—the odds are it didn’t even originate in Rome,” Tess chimed in. “Especially not if it’s Templar.”

  Edmondson smiled. “Exactly.”

  Tess hesitated. “Do you think I’m onto something or am I clutching at straws here?”

  “No, I think there could definitely be something there. But…Templars aren’t exactly within your area of expertise, are they?”