Grand Master (12 page)

“The Templars were motivated by what today we
would call religious fanaticism. A Templar was part of a religious
order. He took a vow of obedience, which meant that he obeyed
without question, and without hesitation, any command he was given.
He also took a vow of abstinence and poverty; he gave up both
sexual intercourse and all his worldly belongings. These were men,
all of them from the families of the aristocracy, who gave up
everything for the chance to die for Christianity. Because they
could not marry, could not have children, and could not keep any of
their wealth for themselves, the Order of the Templars, like the
Church itself, eventually became quite rich. They were formed to
defend the Holy Land, but the headquarters of the two thousand
Templars in France was a fortress in the middle of Paris, a
fortress which at the start of the 14th century held the largest
treasury in northern Europe. This was the beginning of their
undoing, because, you see, the King of France, Philip the Fair, was
at that time desperate for money.”

Pearce chuckled. His small eyes lit up with
mischief. Suddenly, without warning, he slapped the top of his desk
with the flat of his hand and sprang to his feet. For a moment he
stared out through the glass wall, out beyond the park toward the
far horizon and the dark orange sky and the falling red ball
sun.

“Philip the Fair,” he repeated, the glow of
amusement more pronounced on his cheek. “They had such wonderful
names.” He turned back to Hart, sitting cross-legged in his chair.
“My favorite was an English monarch of about that same era:
Ethelred the Unready. Madison Avenue could work for years and never
come up with something as devastating as that. What if we did that
now, gave names like that to politicians?”

“We have,” Hart reminded him. “We called
Lincoln, ‘Honest Abe;’ Coolidge was ‘Silent Cal.’”

With his hands clasped behind his back,
Pearce stared down at the floor. “No, we would have had to come up
with things like ‘Abraham the Magnanimous,’ ‘Woodrow the
Intransigent.’” He began to warm to the subject. His eyes darted
all around. “’Herbert the Helpless,’ for Hoover and the Depression.
‘Richard the Reckless,’ for Nixon and Watergate. And for
Constable…?”

“Robert the Dishonest,” suggested Hart with a
grim, satisfied smile.

“Yes, precisely,” agreed Pearce. “And if
Constable had read any history - any serious history -, if he had
known anything about the Knights Templar and the Crusades, he would
have secretly envied Philip the Fair and the ruthless way he went
about his business. The difference, of course,” added Pearce as he
came around the desk and settled back in his chair, “is that if he
had lived then he would have lacked the courage to do anything that
decisive. His wife, on the other hand….”

He let the possibility of what Madelaine
Constable would have done, how far she would have gone, linger
unanswered in a way that left no doubt what the answer would have
been. He went back to the story he had started to tell. Like most
of the things that get passed down through the generations, most of
what history deems it valuable to record, this was all about
violence, but violence, that because it happened so long ago, could
be viewed with all the detachment of inevitability.

“Philip the Fair needed money. It was as
simple as that. His kingdom depended on it. The Templar fortress
was seized and, on that same night, every one of the Templars in
France, all two thousand of them, were arrested. Nearly all of them
were executed. That was in 1307. Four years later, in 1311, Philip
reached an agreement with the Church. At the Council of Vienna, the
Templar’s Order was abolished and its property transferred to the
Knights Hospitalers of St. John, an order originally created to
provide care and sustenance to those injured in the Crusades but
that now took on the same militant function as the Templars. They
in turn paid over to Philip the debt he claimed he was owed from
the Templars.

“Two hundred fifty years pass, an enormous
period of time from our perspective, but only a brief interval in
the chronology of a family that traces its origins back to the
beginning of France: the Knights of St. John defeat the Muslim
leader, Soliman II, at the siege of Malta. The leader, the Grand
Master of the Knights of St. John that day in 1565 was named Jean
de la Valette. Now imagine that instead of an American who - and I
think this is true of most of us - can’t name all his
great-grandparents, you were the direct descendant of a family like
that, raised in a country whose history is measured in thousands of
years? What do you look up to, what are you taught to remember?
What is it you use to measure success? - A better job, a better
house, a more distinguished career than that of your father and his
father before him? Or something that will once again change history
and the world?”

By nature shy and retiring, Austin Pearce
spent his days pouring over statistical charts and graphs, tracking
the movements of the world’s markets, and his evenings reading the
histories that fewer and fewer people seemed to care about. He
could act with speed and decision when the occasion required it,
and he could deliver a speech that was sharp and incisive, but in
private conversation, when he wanted to speak nothing but the
truth, he sometimes, like most of us, found it difficult to give
adequate expression to what seemed so clear in his mind. He had
been trying to explain to Bobby Hart, one of the few men he knew
who could look past the usual time-worn categories and grasp the
essence of things, why he believed Jean de la Valette was
potentially a very dangerous man and all he had managed to do was
describe a rich eccentric.

“He’s a dangerous man!” he blurted out in
frustration, slamming his hands on the arms of his chair, and then
laughing in bewilderment at what he had done.

“More dangerous than you know.” Hart said
this with such a serious expression that Pearce’s laughter died in
the air.

“What do you mean - more dangerous than I
know?”

“You know about Frank Morris? You know what
happened?”

“Yes, of course? He was killed yesterday in
prison. Terrible thing. But what does that have to do with…?”

“Morris knew about The Four Sisters. He was
taking money from them, but he didn’t know until much later what
they were doing. The strange thing is that it wasn’t what you just
told me. According to Burdick -”

“Quentin Burdick, the reporter? What did he
know about this?

“Damn near everything, as it turns out. He
started working on a story about The Four Sisters months ago.”

Astonished, Pearce gave Hart a puzzled
look.

“Burdick has a nose for things like this,”
explained Hart. “He has a sense when something isn’t right. There
were always rumors about Constable and money, where it came from,
what Constable might have done to get it. That was the story, or
the start of it, but Burdick didn’t have anything, nothing he could
use. Then he stumbled on the name, The Four Sisters, and as soon as
he had that, Constable, who had been dodging him, suddenly wanted
to talk. The night before they were supposed to meet was the night
the President died. That’s why Burdick went to see Frank Morris, on
the chance that Morris might know something and, because he had
nothing left to lose, might be willing to talk. Morris was willing
to talk, all right; but it wasn’t quite for the reason Burdick
thought.”

Hart was still troubled by what he had
learned from Burdick just hours earlier; troubled, also, by the new
dimension that had now been added by Austin Pearce. The fading sun
behind him cast the remnant of his own shadow across the glistening
hard surface of the desk that had stories of its own to tell. Hart
had the feeling as of time running out, of things happening beyond
his grasp, of a danger he could not quite define. He had to tell
Pearce about the President. “Constable did not die of a heart
attack, Austin: he was murdered.”

Pearce’s face turned ash gray. “Murdered?
How? By Whom?”

Hart quickly shook his head. His eyes were
immediate, determined. “I need to tell you about Morris first.
Burdick went to see him, out in California, in prison, and Morris
told him everything. He did not know about Constable, he didn’t
know how he had died; but he was almost certain that he had been
killed and that it was because of The Four Sisters. Morris had
taken money, not the bribery that got him convicted - that was a
set-up, a frame. No, the money Morris took involved a lot more than
anything they said he had done. Then Morris found out that The Four
Sisters was not just interested in getting rid of obstacles to
foreign investment; it was a conduit by which foreign governments
could acquire a controlling interest in certain American companies,
governments that wanted to influence what, as Morris put it, what
we read and what we watch - books, newspapers, television, movies,
everything. Morris never said anything about what you just told me:
that The Four Sisters was using money from our government to
finance a private war.”

Pearce grasped immediately what had happened.
“We caught it at different ends, the thread that runs through
everything. It makes perfect sense. The Four Sisters uses money
from a foreign source, or a set of sources, to do certain things
here - buy into a company, get a controlling interest. Then it uses
money it gets here - from the government, but also, perhaps,
sometimes from those same companies - to do something in the Middle
East someone doesn’t want the world to know about.”

Pearce narrowed his eyes into a look of
concentration that with each passing moment became more intense,
until his expression had changed entirely, become bitter, bleak,
the look of someone close to losing faith in everything. “He was
murdered? - The President of the United States? Robert Constable
managed to put himself - managed to put the country - into a
position where a thing like this could happen? But how did Frank
Morris know, how did he find out it was murder?”

“He didn’t,” replied Hart. “He guessed. It
was the only thing that made sense. When Morris found out what The
Four Sisters was doing, he went to the President. Constable was the
one who had first suggested that he talk to some of their people.
He told him that even if it meant the end of his career, he was
going to stop it, go public with the story if he had to, but stop
it any way he could. Constable told him not to worry, that
everything was going to be all right, that - and this drove poor
Morris crazy - they hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Why Morris trusted Constable, even Morris
did not know. Maybe he just wanted to believe - maybe it was the
only thing he had left to hang onto - that the President of the
United States, even if it was Robert Constable, would not let
anyone put the country at risk. But the next thing Morris knows,
he’s under indictment and on his way to prison. He knew then that
if he talked, the chances were that no one would believe him and
that he might get killed. He talked to Burdick because he knew it
was his last chance to set things straight, and because he knew he
was dying of cancer and had only a few months left to live. They
killed him just hours after Quentin Burdick’s second visit. That’s
what convinced Burdick that Morris was correct in his suspicion
that Constable did not die of a heart attack, that he was murdered
instead. I told Burdick he was right.”

“You told Burdick that he was right? But how
could you…?” There was a new interest and, more than that, a sudden
intuition, in the Pearce’s eyes. “She told you, didn’t she? -
Madelaine Constable.” Pearce caught the slight movement, the subtle
change of expression that revealed Hart’s dilemma: that he would
not lie and could not tell the truth. “It’s all right,” Pearce
assured him. “I understand. But she must have told you for a
reason. She obviously doesn’t want anyone else to know. The whole
country thinks he died of a heart attack; the only question whether
he was in bed alone the night he died,” he added with a distinct
look of disapproval. “The way he lived, a rumor like that had to
spread.”

He started to say something more along that
line: the conduct, notorious, flagrant, that would have barred
someone like Constable from office in an earlier time, but which in
the age of tabloid television had only added to his celebrity. The
fact of what Hart had said suddenly came home to him in all its
naked, twisted consequence. Like any second, delayed reaction, it
hit with greater force.

“Murdered! My God, someone murdered the
President of the United States and no one knows about it? No one is
doing anything about it?” Then he realized what he had missed. He
looked at Hart in a different light. “You’re doing something about
it, aren’t you? That was the reason she told you. But how did she…?
No, never mind. The Four Sisters….Burdick - you both think…?”

Pearce banged his hands down hard on the arms
of the chair and leaped to his feet. He began to pace back and
forth, three steps in one direction, three steps back, moving
quicker with each step he took. He stopped abruptly, swung around
and faced Hart directly. “It’s possible. If Morris was murdered
because he talked to Burdick - and Morris was a prison inmate
serving a sentence for bribery, someone it wouldn’t be too
difficult to dismiss as a liar and a thief. But the President! If
he talked - and he was scheduled to see Burdick the next day….But
why would he talk? Yes, of course: because he thought Burdick knew
more than he did, that he knew all about The Four Sisters and not
just the name.”

Pearce was still not satisfied. Something did
not add up. He stood at the corner of the desk, looking down at the
deep shining surface as if the longer he looked the more hidden
layers he discovered beneath it, each one changing the meaning of
all the others. “It wasn’t the money,” said Pearce with a certainty
that to Hart was inexplicable. “If The Four Sisters - if Jean de la
Valette - is involved in this, if he’s responsible for two murders,
if he ordered the murder of the President of the United States, it
was not because he was trying to keep Constable or Morris from
talking about the money they might have been paid. Burdick said he
didn’t have anything, nothing he could use, until he stumbled on
the name - right? But it would have been almost impossible to trace
whatever money was given to Constable back to Valette. With all
those companies, all the various enterprises, all the ways money
can be moved from one account to another - No, it wasn’t the money;
it was something else, something that The Four Sisters, that
Valette, could not afford to have known; something he was planning,
and is probably still planning, to do. But kill the President? What
could be worth that kind of risk?”