The Templar Cross (2 page)

But now, things had changed. A view of history could be upset as easily as a placid pond by a tossed pebble or a simple act of birth. Or, in Holliday’s case, a sword.

Discovering
Hesperios
in Uncle Henry’s house in Fredonia had altered not only his own history but others’ as well. If he hadn’t found it, good people and bad he’d never known would still be alive, some dead now by his own hand. Uncle Henry’s past had changed as well as Holliday uncovered the circumstances and secrets that led to the sword being in his possession.

His understanding of Templar history had also changed. Once upon a time he’d taught his students at the Point that the ancient brotherhood was no more than an interesting footnote in the chronicles of medieval times, a group that had seen a ragged assembly of less than a dozen unemployed knights transform themselves from
routier
highwaymen on the Pilgrim Road to Jerusalem into an economic force that spread itself over thirteenth-century Europe like a cloud.

He’d also taught his cadet students that all of that had come crashing down in a single day, Friday, October 13, 1307, as Philip of France and Pope Clement’s order for the arrest of all Templars in France and the confiscation of their property and wealth was carried out.

Every other country in Europe soon followed suit, seeing an easy way to rid themselves of crippling royal debt to Templar banks. According to accepted history the Templars had simply disappeared, erased from history, a brief phenomenon that had come and gone. Holliday had taught all that as fact. And he’d been totally wrong.

On that particular day in 1307 King Philip’s bailiffs cut off a thousand Templar heads, but Philip forgot that there were also a thousand Templar tails. The knights, or at least most of them, were gone, but the accountants, many of them Cistercian monks, survived. By the end of World War II Germany was a rubble-strewn wasteland, but when the smoke cleared it was the same men running the trains, policing the streets and teaching the children. In the United States, presidents came and went every few years like a revolving door, but the bureaucrats remained. So it was with the Templars.

Long before King Philip sent out his edict, the lower echelons of the Templar Order saw the potential for disaster and took steps to avoid it. Deeds and testaments were quietly rewritten, titles to properties changed and notes in hand for enormous sums were transferred to supposedly innocent hands in distant places, far from the clutches of Philip and his English cousins. It was no accident that the man who invented double-entry bookkeeping was a monk. The concept of keeping two sets of books wasn’t far behind.

When Philip arrested the Templars he confiscated their visible wealth but their
invisible
wealth had long since been spirited away. As Jacques de Molai, the last official Grand Master of the Templars, said shortly before he was burned at the stake in 1314: “The best way to keep a secret is to forget that it exists.” And that was precisely what the Templars did.

For the better part of seven hundred years, under scores of different names and identities, the Templars’ hidden assets had grown to almost unbelievable proportions, doubling and redoubling over time, diversifying into every walk and facet of everyday life in virtually all the nations of the earth.

Consolidated into a single force, the power of that much wealth would be almost overwhelming, capable of toppling governments with ease. Forged into a mighty hammer the influence of the Templar fortune was capable of doing enormous good or unspeakable evil. It was the key to the kingdom of heaven or to the burning gates of hell.

And the key lay in the small, blood- spattered notebook now locked in a desk drawer in Lieutenant Colonel John Holliday’s study. The notebook was the gift of an ex-priest named Helder Rodrigues, dying in Holliday’s arms on the island of Corvo in the distant Azores.

The gift came with a codicil, however: use it wisely, use it well or use it not at all. The Templar treasure Rodrigues had revealed to Holliday and Peggy that day in the furious rain had been great enough; the secret revealed within the bloody notebook was a million times greater. The neo-Nazi Axel Kellerman had forfeited his life for it, run through by
Aos
, Sword of the East. The anonymous assassin from the Vatican’s Sodalitium Pianum had died for it on the narrow midnight streets of Jerusalem.

All of which lay behind Holliday’s decision to leave West Point. He knew the menace inherent in the notebook from Rodrigues wasn’t over and there was no way he was going to imperil the cadets or anyone else at the Point; if there was danger ahead, it would be his alone.

Holliday dozed, warmed by the fire, then fell into a dreamless sleep. When he awoke it was almost dawn, the first pink light creeping up over the trees along Gee’s Point and the Hudson River. The fire had burned to cold ashes in the grate and Holliday’s joints ached after a night of sitting up in the chair. Something had awakened him. A sound. He blinked and raised his wrist, checking the old Royal Air Force Rolex he’d inherited from his uncle Henry. Ten to six. Too early for reveille by forty minutes.

He levered himself out of the armchair and crossed the room to his front window. There was a blue Academy Taxi from Highland Falls idling on the street in front of the house. A figure climbed out of the taxi and started up the walk. He carried only a flight bag for luggage.

Holliday recognized the handsome dark- haired man immediately. It was Rafi Wanounou, the Israeli archaeologist he and Peggy had befriended in Jerusalem. From this distance he looked fit and well, and the only evidence of the savage beating he’d taken on their behalf in Jerusalem was a slight limp. The expression on his face, however, was grim. He climbed the steps, favoring his right leg. Holliday went to the front door and threw it open.

“Rafi,” he said. “This is a surprise. What on earth are you doing here?”

“She’s gone,” the archaeologist said. “They’ve taken Peggy.”

“Talk,” said Holliday, busying himself by making a fresh pot of coffee. Rafi sat slumped at the kitchen table. His face looked pale and exhausted. He made a little groaning sound and sat a little straighter in his chair.

“You knew how it was between us,” Rafi started tentatively. It was almost a question.

Holliday shrugged. “You were a couple,” he said. “She went back to Jerusalem after we were in the Azores and she stayed there.”

“That’s right,” Rafi said and nodded. “At first it was so she could take care of me after I got out of the hospital, but later . . .” He let it dangle.

“Later it turned into something else,” said Holliday.

“Something like that,” said Rafi.

Holliday found two mugs in the cupboard above the counter, then went to the refrigerator and brought out a container of cream. He kept his hands working, fetching spoons. He’d never felt comfortable talking about his own relationships, let alone anyone else’s, particularly Peggy’s. With Uncle Henry gone, he and his much younger cousin were orphans together. It was a special bond. Now this young archaeologist was in the mix.

“Did you have a fight or something?” Holliday asked, taking a stab in the dark. He took a handful of coffee beans and poured them into the little grinder on the counter. The machine whirred for a few seconds and the dark, rich aroma of the freshly ground beans filled the air.

“No,” said Rafi, shaking his head. “No fight. Nothing like that. In fact we were talking about making things a little more . . . permanent.”

“Marriage?” Holliday asked, surprised. Peggy was a self-described serial monogamist, a committed bachelorette, or spinster, or whatever the hell the politically correct term for it was these days. It seemed out of character.

“We were getting there,” said Rafi bleakly.

“So what happened?”

“She got a call.
Smithsonian
magazine. They had an assignment for her. They knew she was in Jerusalem, so she seemed like the obvious choice.”

“They wanted a photo story?” Holliday asked. He dumped the coarse ground coffee into the Bodum French press on the counter and poured in boiling water from the kettle. The cowboy coffee on the stove was for himself; the Bodum was for guests.

“A photo story and a written one as well. A journal of the dig. She liked the idea of writing; she’d been thinking about it for a while. This was a break for her, or that’s what she thought,” added Rafi bitterly.

“What dig?” Holliday asked.

“The Biblical Archaeology School of France in Jerusalem had underwritten an expedition into Egypt and Libya. One of their senior people, a man named Brother Charles-Étienne Brasseur, had stumbled onto a cache of old Templar texts while he was doing research in the Vatican Archives.”

“The Vatican? The Roman Catholics had the order disbanded and the last grand master burned at the stake,” said Holliday.

“The texts Brasseur discovered had been confiscated by King Philip’s marshals during the dissolution,” replied Rafi. “They came from an obscure abbey called La Couvertoirade in the Dordogne region of France.”

Holliday pressed down the plunger in the Bodum and poured out two mugs. He brought them to the table and set one down on the table in front of his friend, then took a seat himself.

“What was in the texts that set this Dominican Brasseur off?” Holliday asked.

Rafi took a grateful sip from the mug. He was visibly unwinding, sitting straighter in his chair and looking more alert as the strong brew seeped into his system.

“The texts were written by a Cistercian monk named Roland de Hainaut. Hainaut was secretary to Guillaume de Sonnac, the grand master who led the Templars at the Siege of Damietta in 1249.”

“Where’s Damietta?” Holliday asked.

“The Nile Delta, east of Alexandria.”

“Okay, I’m with you.” Holliday nodded, visualizing a map of Egypt and the fan-shaped delta of the Nile not far from Cairo, which lay just below it.

“According to Hainaut he traveled to a Coptic monastery somewhere in the desert, and while he was at the monastery he heard rumors about the location of Imhotep’s tomb. Imhotep was a polymath, sort of a Leonardo da Vinci of his era. Imhotep was the man who invented the pyramid and founded the art of Medicine.”

“I know who Imhotep was,” said Holliday. “Does this story have an ending or should I be thinking about fixing us dinner tonight?”

“Sorry,” said Rafi. “It’s complicated and I’m tired.”

“Go on,” said Holliday.

“Anyway, the Hainaut text gave fairly clear directions on how to get to the monastery but said nothing more about the tomb’s location. The expedition was supposed to make a preliminary test dig at the monastery location. Finding the tomb would be an extraordinary coup all by itself, but this archaeologist, Brother Brasseur, has some kind of wild theory that Imhotep was the archetype for Noah and the biblical flood. In my opinion it’s a little thin scientifically, but the press was eating it up and the expedition got financed.”

“So what happened?” Holliday asked. He got up, brought the Bodum coffeemaker back to the table and divided what was left in the pot between them. Rafi continued.

“They set out from Jerusalem and rendezvoused in Alexandria, where the outfitters met them with their vehicles, supplies and hired help. Somewhere between El Alamein and Mersa Matruh they were kidnapped by a group called the Brotherhood.”

“Who the hell is the Brotherhood?” Holliday asked sourly, an ugly sensation curling in his gut and putting bile in his throat.

“Their full name is the Brotherhood of the Temple of Isis. According to them they’re the Muslim version of the Templars and they were around long before them. Supposedly they date back to the cult of Imhotep at Memphis on the Nile around 600 B.C. The Brotherhood worship Imhotep as the god Ptah. Ptah was the god of craftsmen and of reincarnation. He was immortal. In other words a carpenter who comes back to life and lives forever. The Christian parallels are obvious. The Brotherhood feels that the Christians, particularly the Roman Catholics, hijacked Imhotep as Jesus Christ. They also cite themselves as the direct descendants of both the Copts and the Assassins, or
Hashasheen
, a sect of drugged-out Shia Muslims and the original fedayeen—‘freedom fighters’ in their terminology.”

“Terrorists,” said Holliday.

“Lunatics,” Rafi said and shrugged.

“Same thing. And these are the people who’ve got Peggy?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago did this happen?” Holliday asked.

“What’s today?”

“The twenty-sixth. Monday.”

“Thursday, then. Four days ago.” Rafi ran his fingers through his wiry hair and yawned.

“What are their demands?” Holliday asked.

“They haven’t made any,” said Rafi. “At least they hadn’t when I left from Ben Gurion yesterday.”

“That’s not good,” said Holliday.

“No,” said Rafi. “That’s what my friends in the Mossad said.” He gave another jaw-cracking yawn.

“When was the last time you slept?” Holliday asked.

“On the plane. What I need is something to eat.”

“Let’s get you some breakfast, then.” Holliday stood up. “You up for a walk?”

“After fourteen hours sitting in the cheap seats of an El-Al 777? Sure, I’m up for a walk. Where to?”

“Grant Hall. The cafeteria’s open this early. You need kosher?”

“Right now I’d eat a bacon sandwich with a side order of more bacon,” answered the archaeologist.

“Hang on,” said Holliday. “I’m going to change and then we can get going. Bathroom’s down the hall if you need it.”

Rafi headed for the bathroom and Holliday went to his bedroom. Five minutes later he reappeared dressed in a worn, comfortable set of chocolate-cookie camouflage BDUs that dated back to the First Gulf War. Five minutes after that a freshly scrubbed Rafi reappeared and they left the house. The morning air was cool and pleasant as the sun rose over the trees. It was going to be a nice day. As Holliday locked up the cannon thundered on Trophy Point half a mile down Washington Road. He paused and snapped a quick salute as reveille sounded, the rat-a-tat bugle notes echoing across the entire installation.