The Cleric's Vault (21 page)

“Neil
Armstrong the Astronaut?” Sean seemed impressed.

“Yep,”
Joe confirmed then continued on.
 
“In the riddle from the stone we found in Georgia, it mentioned some rivers.
 
We think that the contents of the
cleric’s vault in Cuenca are part of the greater collection mentioned on the
stone.
 
If that is the case, it
would make sense that the rivers they are referring to are not far from his
church. Seems like Father Crespi’s collection has been returned to one of the
caves there along a nearby river, but there are several within a hundred miles
of Cuenca. Of course, a lot of other people have gone looking for it, too.”

Sean
eyed his old friend suspiciously.
 
“You think you know where it is, don’t you?”

Mac’s
eyes grew narrow as he grinned.
 
“Maybe.
 
See, the problem
with that area is that there are lots of caves and lots of rivers.
 
Some of the caves are completely
flooded now.
 
So it is anybody’s
guess which cave is the right one.
 
Obviously, Armstrong and Hall never found it.”

“What
makes you so confident?” Adriana asked cynically.

“Because
I know something they didn’t.”
 
He
let the moment build up as he eyed them carefully.
 
“I think the old priest left clues at his church that point
the way.”

Chapter 39

Nevada Desert

“Things,”
Lindsey began, “have been put back on track.”
 
He peered at Mornay and Carrol.
 
He’d ordered them back to their meeting room late in the
afternoon to update them on the fact that he’d effectively cleaned up their
mess.

“What
do you mean, back on track?”
 
Mornay sounded dubious.

Mornay was such an irritation,
Lindsey thought.

“Wyatt
and his friends have found the next pieces.
 
It is only a matter of time until they lead us to the second
chamber.”

“How
long are you going to let them keep going?
 
If you don’t reel them in now, we may lose another treasure
like we did with the last chamber.”

Carrol
shifted uneasily in his chair while Mornay spoke to the Imperator.

“We
have to let them lead the way, Albert,” he said the name with disdain.
 
“They have no idea what they are really
looking for.
 
And with the fools
from the IAA running the show, things will happen much faster.”

“Yes
but what happens when they figure it out?
 
It’s only a matter of time, Alex.
 
If they’re smart enough to figure out a way to solve the riddles then
they will eventually learn the truth about the golden chambers.”

Mornay
was right, as much as it annoyed him.
 
But it was true.
 
Eventually, Wyatt and his friends would learn of the true nature of
their search.

“I
don’t believe we have a choice,” he paused, selling the line of thought.
 
“We must let them lead us to the
chamber.
 
Then, we will kill them
all.”
 
The serious tone of the
statement left an ominous energy hanging in the room.

In the shadows of one of the room’s alcoves, a figure stood in hidden
in the dark, listening as he’d been instructed to do.
 
Lindsey spoke as if the man wasn’t there.
 
The other two could not know of his
presence or what he was about to do.
 
They had to be led to believe that the only course of action was to
allow the fools from IAA to lead them to the destination.
 
The man in the shadows, though, was the
ace up his sleeve.
 
And the game
was about to change.

*****

“A
map?” Sean was intrigued by what Joe was insinuating.

“Maybe.
 
I’m not really sure what it is,” Joe
explained.
 
“See, Crespi was
extremely fond of Archaeology.
 
As
I mentioned, he spent a lot of hours reading and researching ancient
civilizations and cultures.
 
That
was one of the reasons the people brought him so many of those pieces.
 
And while he was grateful for the
gifts, he longed to know exactly where they had come from.
 
If I had to guess, I’d say that Padre
Crespi recognized that most of the artifacts brought to him could not have been
found in the western hemisphere.
 
So, he searched for the location.
 
And I believe he discovered it.

“The
Vatican had been pestering him for years about the items in his vault.
 
Not only was it financially valuable,
the collection may have had some kind of historical significance.
 
The priest knew the Vatican would like
to get their hands on his relics for a number of reasons.
 
That’s why he arranged for every single
piece to be returned to its origin.
 
But he was a crafty fella’.
 
He’d found the way to the secret caves by following an ancient set of
clues.
 
Crespi felt it only proper
to leave the clues the way he found them but with one addition:
 
his map.”

“So,
where is this map?” Sean asked, fearful he already knew the answer.

Joe
and Tommy both smiled at him.

“Well,
old buddy,” Joe said, “where do you think?
 
It’s in Cuenca.”
 
He laughed as he said it.

“You
couldn’t bring it here first?” Sean asked sarcastically.

McElroy
shook his head as he leaned over and smacked Wyatt on the back.
 
“Nope.
 
Heck, I don’t even know what the thing looks like.
 
You’re going to have to go to Crespi’s
church to see for yourselves.”

“The
plane will be ready to head out to Ecuador tomorrow morning around ten,” Tommy
announced.

“I
guess we better get some rest then,” Sean stated. “I’ll call Mauricio and let
him know we’re coming.
 
That’s his
neck of the woods.”

Emily
stood, ready to leave.
 
“You guys
have fun.
 
I have to get back to
the office.
 
While I’m there I’ll
try do see what else I can dig up about our new friends from Golden Dawn.”

“That’s
probably a good idea.
 
Dangerous
bunch, those,” Joe warned.
 
“Secret
groups the public knows about aren’t the ones that scare me.
 
It’s the ones that are still a secret
that I’m concerned about.”

Adriana
spoke up, “I’m coming with you, Sean.”

He
smiled.
 
There was something about
that woman that he liked.
 
Maybe
there were a lot of things.
 
She
was certainly beautiful, even after the events of the day and the night before,
she had managed to look stunning.
 
But there was something adventurous about her that kept his curiosity
piqued.

“You
can stay at my house,” he said.
 
Then added, “I have plenty of guest space.”

“I’ll
see you two at the plane in the morning,” Tommy interrupted.
 
“Mac, I guess you won’t be coming with
us on this one.”
 

 
“Sorry fellas.
 
I gotta sit this one out.
 
I’m still in the dog house back home and with my arm still
in this contraption I’m pretty sure I’d be more hindrance than help.”
 
He raised the sling up slightly to
emphasize his point.
 
“I’m always
here to help, though.
 
All you
gotta do is call.”
 
Mac gave a huge
grin, which made his eyes squint.

“What’s
the story on the golden leaves?” Sean asked.
 

“I’m
not sure,” Tommy answered.
 
Mac and
I have a theory but it’s pretty far fetched.
 
We doubt it’s a viable explanation at this point.
 
Mac, you want to tell them?

Mac
nodded.
 
When he spoke, it was a
different, more serious tone than he’d been using the last few minutes.
 
“I don’t think it’s something we should
even really consider at this point, but it is possible, given who seems to be
chasing after the same prize.”

Tommy
accented Mac’s thought.
 
“There’s a
book written by a man named Adam Clark. He wrote it in the late 1700s.
 
Clark was a very pious man and moved to
the colonies to help start up a new religious order, one of purity and
righteous values, much like many others did during that time.
 
His book was meant to be a guide or
concordance that could help church followers through the Bible in a way they
could understand.

“He
tells the story of how Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden and
that God put an angel with a flaming sword at the gates of the garden so that
humans could not enter it.
 
Specifically, the angel was put there to guard the way to the tree of
life so that man could not eat of it and live perpetually in sin.”

Joe
nodded and continued for Shultz, “Clark’s book then, oddly, warns anyone
reading the book not to search for the Tree of Life for it could not be found
and had been hidden by God Himself.
 
He goes on to say that eternal life can only come through the grace of
Jesus Christ.”

Sean
was intrigued.
 
“So you’re saying
that these Golden Dawn guys are looking for the tree of life?”

“Yeah,”
Mac confirmed, “but like we said, probably not viable.”

Sean
unwrapped one of the objects and picked it up.
 
He looked over it reverently.
 
When he spoke, it was mostly to himself.
 
The Tree of life.
 
Now that’s a very interesting theory.”

Chapter 40

Atlanta, GA

“What
happened in the lab?”
 
The man’s
voice sounded oblivious.
 

“What
do you mean?
 
The part where you
didn’t show up or the part where someone started shooting at me?
 
I’m assuming that wasn’t you.”
 
Will was irritated

“I
couldn’t find anything, so I got out of there.”

“You
obviously didn’t look hard enough,” Will walked down the hall that led to his
apartment.
 
He lowered his voice
out of habit.

Will
was playing a very dangerous game.
 
He’d hired the man on the phone without Lindsey’s consent.
 
At first, it had seemed like a good
idea.
 
Having an extra pair of eyes
and ears could always help.
 
But
the guy had been sloppy.
 
He was
supposed to have taken care of the Georgia Tech professor and retrieved the
information.
 
Instead, he’d fouled
up, which required that Will take Tommy to the scene.

Alexander
Lindsey was paying Will a great deal of money to make sure Tommy Schultz
discovered the four golden chambers.
 
The archaeologist was not to be harmed until the final chamber had been
discovered.
 
At which point, he was
to be disposed.
 
The Prophet had
promised an enormous reward for the completion of the mission, more than half
of the treasure.
 
And after seeing
the first golden chamber in Georgia, Will was convinced.
 
He just had to make sure that nothing
else got in his way.
 

“Jennings
has been asking questions,” the voice said through the earpiece.
 
“Something’s got him nervous.”

Will
was afraid that would happen.
 
Jennings had been careless, a real liability looming over the
mission.
 
Still, the man wasn’t
completely stupid, but he had too many loose ends.
 

“What
do you want me to do?”
 
The voice
on the other end startled Will from his thoughts.

The
man he’d hired to retrieve the solution to the code from the Georgia Tech
professor had simply made a mess of everything. “Meet me in one hour in
Piedmont Park.
 
Same place we met
before.”

“Sounds good.
 
I’ll see
you there.”

*****

Centennial
Olympic Park was lit up brightly with Christmas lights.
 
A large tent on the south lawn of the
park housed a temporary ice skating rink.
 
The city wanted to put the Christmas decorations up a little early.
 
The park was empty, for the most
part.
 
Most of the patrons were
likely at home getting ready for bed

Hunter
Carlson had found his way out of the cavern in New Mexico.
 
He was frustrated that the men he
followed had escaped.
 
He knew
where they would end up, though.
 
So, he decided to lay low and see if he could find out what they would
do next.
 

He
listened in to Will’s phone conversation from inside his black Mercedes, trying
to look inconspicuous.
 
Thanks to
the darkly tinted windows, no one would really take notice of him.

Will
Hastings seemed to have several irons in the fire.
 
Carlson heard him mention Jennings.
 
If he was working for Eric Jennings,
that could present new issues.
 
Will had also told one of his assets to meet him in Piedmont Park on the
other side of town.
 
It would be a
surprise if a body didn’t turn up the next morning in that area. That was one
thing assets were generally stupid about.
 
They just followed the money trail, doing as they were told, often times
right up to the end of a gun barrel.

Carlson
thought briefly about his own team.
 
He’d executed a few of them without regard.
 
They were easily replaceable, which was a good thing in his
line of work.
 
He’d considered the
idea of going it alone.
 
However,
Hastings had proven to be more difficult than he’d anticipated, as had the
archaeologist.

His
wiretaps at IAA headquarters were working perfectly.
 
Just half an hour ago, he’d been listening to the
conversation regarding Wyatt and Schultz’s next destination.
 
It seems, there was a map somewhere in
Cuenca.
 
Good thing he never went without a passport on him.
 
That was where he would make his next
move.
 
He had a team in South
America he’d worked with on a few other missions that would be easy to put
together on short notice, but something told him this one needed to be played a
little closer to the chest.

A
delivery truck rumbled up next to him for a moment and paused as if deciding
whether or not they should back in to the loading dock behind them or just
double park on the street.
 
After a
few moments, the awkward looking vehicle backed in to the building next to
where Hunter was parked.
 
The
annoying beep that trucks signaled for backing up faded off as they entered the
tunnel of the building.
 

The
phone in his pocket suddenly began ringing.
 
He eyed it for a moment then answered.
 
“Hello.”

“We’ve
been waiting for you to call.”
 
The
voice on the other line said.

The
two men who’d hired him were annoying.
 
One was a sniveling subservient, the other overly domineering, probably
to mask a great deal of insecurity and lack of intelligence.
 
It had been easy to see which one was
pulling the strings and why.

“I’m
sure you have.
 
But I wanted to
have more information before I contacted you.”

There
was a pause.
 
“Well, what do you
have?”
 
The voice continued,
irritating and pushy.

Carlson
let out a sigh.
 
When this was all
over, he’d have to consider taking out his two contractors as well, just for
the pleasure of it.
 
He decided to
just tell the man everything he knew for the time being.
 
“They are heading to Ecuador, Cuenca to
be exact.
 
There is a map that an
old priest left there that supposedly leads to a cave where they think the
treasure is.
 
Sounds like they are
going to head out tomorrow.”

“What
are you going to do?”

“I’ll
let them lead the way to the map then intercept it when they’re done.
 
A few missing tourists won’t be a big
deal in South America.
 
It happens
all the time.
 
Once they are out of
the way I’ll forward you the location.”

“Good.
 
See to it that you do.
 
We have taken a great risk in this
venture, one that could cost us everything.”
 

“Look,
your boss bought the whole Las Vegas fiasco, didn’t he?
 
He thinks that was your only move.
 
I guarantee you no one knows who I am
or who I’m working for.
 
So
relax.
 
I have it under control.”

The
voice on the other end went silent, apparently contemplating what had been
said.
 
“Fair enough, Mr. Carlson,”
he finally replied and ended the call.
 

Hunter
looked quizzically at the touch screen of his smart phone.
 
“Thank you, Mr. Mornay,” he said to
himself as he stuffed the device into his pocket.