Templar Cross Read online

  “Catching a ride to JFK,” said Holliday, standing up and putting their garbage on a tray. “We’re going to France.”

  They returned to Holliday’s quarters, and Rafi waited while Holliday quickly packed a bag and retrieved the precious notebook the monk Rodrigues had given to him. Then they called a cab and headed into Highland Falls. Rafi rented a car there in his name and Holliday drove to New York City. They left the car at the Avis Park and Loc behind Penn Station on Thirty-first Street, then took a shuttle to JFK. By four in the afternoon they were boarding an Air France Airbus 330 direct flight to Paris. They went through security and passport control without incident, which meant that so far no one back at West Point had noticed their departure.

  They sat in the rear AB seats on the port side of business class just in front of the galley. There were only two other passengers in their section—an overweight man in an expensive suit who broke wind in his sleep and an icy cold woman in a Chanel outfit and four-inch Prada heels who drank white wine steadily from the moment it was offered. Beside him Rafi dozed, fighting off jet lag that was in the process of reversing itself. For the first two hours of the flight Holliday stared out the window, watching as the Atlantic Ocean unrolled beneath the big wide-body’s wings.

  “I’m an idiot,” he muttered finally.

  “What?” Rafi said blearily.

  “I’m an idiot,” repeated Holliday.

  “Why would that be?” Rafi asked, stretching and yawning.

  “Motive,” answered Holliday. “I should have been thinking about motive.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Why was this Brother Brasseur of yours doing research into Templar texts in the Vatican?”

  “I have no idea. Probably doing research into the Templar invasion of Egypt. He’s an archaeologist.”

  “A year ago an assassin from the Vatican attacked Peggy and me in Jerusalem. Now a tattooed freak tries to kill me at West Point.”

  “Your point?”

  “Why? What’s the motive? I’m a history teacher. Peggy’s a photographer. Why us?”

  “Your connection to the Templar sword. The treasure trove of scrolls you found in the Azores.”

  “This isn’t some whacko story about religious conspiracies and whether or not Jesus had a sex life. People don’t kill each other over bits and pieces of history, no matter how historically valuable.”

  Rafi shrugged. “Okay. Why?”

  “Money,” said Holliday firmly. “This whole thing has been about money right from the start.”

  “Explain that.”

  “We followed the trail of the sword from my uncle Henry’s house all the way to that cave on Corvo in the Azores. Rodrigues showed Peggy and me a hundred thousand gold-cased scrolls from the Library at Alexandria and half a dozen ancient storehouses. A wealth of history, enough to keep scholars happy for a hundred years. Longer. A treasure.”

  “The treasure of the Templars,” agreed Rafi.

  “For years now I’ve taught my students that the Templars, at least initially, were really no more than an organized troop of highwaymen, preying on pilgrims more than protecting them. Carrying the banner of the Templars was an excuse to kill and plunder in the name of Christ. They were thugs; gangsters in shining armor.”

  “And you were wrong.”

  “No. I was right. Dead right, and I should have remembered that. The scrolls in that cave on Corvo weren’t the treasure at all.” Holliday reached into the inside pocket of his sports jacket. He took out the thick notebook given to him by Helder Rodrigues as the old man lay dying in his arms. It was a tan, suede-covered, 240-page moleskin notebook with a tattered strap. It looked very old. There were water stains on the cover and spatters of dried blood: the blood of the dying ex-priest. “This was the real treasure,” said Holliday, handing Rafi the notebook. “A thousand names and addresses that Rodrigues copied down sometime back before World War Two and kept updated until he died. Companies, families and individuals all with allegiance to the original Templar fortune dating back to the thirteenth century. Templar Incorporated. This is what the killer in Jerusalem was after. This was what Kellerman and his Nazis were after, and the assassin at West Point as well.”

  “AstroEur,” said Rafi, reading the first name on the list.

  “Hotels all over the world, four thousand of them. Catering for every major passenger rail company in Europe. Three billion euros a year.”

  “Atreal et Cie?”

  “Real estate all over Europe and Southeast Asia. Even bigger.”

  “Breugier Telecom. Cell phones?”

  “And cable TV,” added Holliday.

  “Crédit Alliance SA?”

  “The second-largest retail bank in France.”

  “And these are all Templar operations?”

  “One way or another. I’ve barely touched the surface but it’s pretty clear how it works. A dozen small companies, companies that no one would ever notice, invest in a larger company, eventually securing a majority control. I took a company called Aretco, a huge multinational, and traced it all the way back to a company called Veritas Rochelle, a shipping insurance underwriter going back to the early nineteenth century. Veritas Rochelle was owned by a single Cistercian monastery in the Dordogne region. According to the head of the monastery, ownership of the company had been willed to the monastery by one Guy d’Isoard de Vauvenargues, a count from Aix-en-Provence. As it turns out the Count de Vauvenargues family on his mother’s side goes back to Robert de Everingham, one of the early Norman Templars in England. It’s like a huge, endless jigsaw puzzle.”

  Rafi shrugged. A blond flight attendant in a natty suit and kerchief asked him if he wanted a drink. He shook his head and she shimmered off. “Okay,” he said. “So all these companies, or at least their financing, all have their origins with the Templars. That was then. This is now. What does it mean in the present? I mean, so what?”

  “I ran through a hundred of the interconnecting companies for the first five names on that list. The majority share holdings of all one hundred companies are held by Pelerin and Cie, Banquiers Privés. Does that name ring a bell?”

  “Castle Pelerin in Israel. Where we found the Silver Scroll.”

  “The very one,” said Holliday grimly. “It is, or was, a private bank. Private banks are owned by individuals and they don’t have to declare their assets. Pretty good cover if you’re trying to hide old Templar money. There are only three people on the board of directors of Pelerin and Cie, none of whom I had ever heard of: Sebastien Armand, Pierre Pouget and George Lorelot. Between them it looked as though they controlled about a hundred billion euros in assets. That’s a whole hell of a lot of euros, pal. And that’s enough to kill for.”

  “You used the past tense—‘it looked as though’ they controlled a hundred billion euros.”

  “That’s because all three people on the board of Pelerin and Cie are dead. Armand in 1926, Pouget in 1867, and Lorelot in 1962. The only thing they have in common is that they’re in the same row in a cemetery in the village of Domme in the Aquitaine district of France.”

  “So Pelerin and Cie is a front?” Rafi asked.

  “I don’t know yet. The estates of all three men are handled by an avocat—a lawyer in the village named Pierre Ducos. It took almost eight months to track Ducos down after I started trying to decipher the notebook. He’s the person we’re going to see in France.”

  “You think he’ll be any help?”

  “I think he’s the only lead we’ve got.”

  4

  Driving a rental Peugeot 407, Holliday and Rafi rolled across the Dordogne River on the centuries-old stone bridge at Cenac-et-St.-Julien and found themselves in a landscape that had changed very little since the time it had been the realm of Richard the Lionheart’s mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, eight hundred years before. It was early afternoon, a day after their arrival in Paris, and the sun shone down from a perfect blue sky. Summertime in the south of France w
as a story-book come to life.

  With the exception of the odd highway here and there the valley of the Dordogne was the same patchwork of fields that had existed since the Middle Ages, dotted about with walled villages, hillsides dark with forest, the earth itself as black as pitch and capable of growing almost anything.

  Ahead of them the steep cliff rose from the banks of the winding river, cloaked in a protective skirt of evergreens. At the top of the cliff on a long angular plateau they could see the walls and the castle keep where more than seventy Knights Templar were imprisoned after the sudden dissolution of the Order in 1307.

  Just before the little village on the far side of the bridge they turned sharply to the right. The fields and the river were lost to view as the car plunged into the forest and began the long switchback climb up the escarpment. Craning his neck and looking up through the windshield, Rafi could barely see the base of the old city walls. In the twelfth century any attack on the fortified village would have been next to impossible without a long siege and the complete deforestation of the hillside.

  “Strange to think what the world was like when this place was built,” Rafi said as they continued upward.

  “Full of violence and superstition,” said Holliday from behind the wheel. They had been driving since leaving their Paris hotel early that morning, going due south for the better part of three hundred miles, making only bathroom stops and a half hour halt just outside Limoges for a quick sandwich-and-coffee-to-go lunch at an Autogrill on the highway. “For all the talk of knights in shining armor, I wouldn’t give you five cents for life in the Middle Ages. Smokey rooms, bad hygiene, rotten teeth and the plague. Not my idea of a good time.” They drove on in silence, the forest on both sides dark and gloomy.

  “I’m still not sure that this isn’t all a waste of time,” said Rafi, finally. It had been a theme he’d been harping on ever since they’d arrived in France, and his chafing arguments were starting to irritate Holliday. “I can’t see how talking to this Pierre Ducos is going to get us any closer to finding Peggy.” The Israeli shook his head. “We should be talking to the police in Alexandria.”

  “That and five dollars at Starbucks should be just about enough for a cup of coffee in Egypt,” Holliday answered, negotiating yet another hairpin turn on the tree- covered hillside. The Peugeot was beginning to strain and he dropped the transmission into low. “You really think the Egyptian authorities are going to give much time and energy to an Israeli and his American friend trying to track down a bunch of Catholic priests?” He glanced over at his companion. “Or do you have friends in the Mukhabarat that I don’t know about?” he asked, referring to the Egyptian version of the CIA.

  “I’ve told you a hundred times, Doc: I went to school with a guy who works for Mossad now. As far as I know he does something with computers. That’s my only connection with spooks and spies, really.” He shook his head again, his expression tense with worry. “If I had pull with Israeli Intelligence I would have used it by now, believe me.”

  “Whatever,” Holliday answered wearily. “We’ll see what Ducos has to say and take it from there.”

  “What makes you think he’ll even talk to you?” Rafi asked.

  “I know the secret handshake,” replied Holliday.

  They made a final turn and drove through the twin-towered, high-arched gate in the fortress wall that surrounded the town. The streets were narrow, stone buildings on either side almost a thousand years old, windows shuttered, roofs slate, doors with iron strap hinges. There wasn’t a modern building to be seen. They found the French lawyer’s office in a small building next to a bistro named Godard with a sign showing a plump goose waddling across a village street. Directly across from the office there was a tiny hotel called the Relais des Chevaliers. The street was so narrow Holliday had to park the car with the offside wheels up on the sidewalk to give another vehicle space to pass.

  “Built for horses and carts, not cars,” commented Holliday. He knocked on the heavy wooden-planked door and waited. Nothing happened.

  “Maybe he’s not there,” Rafi said.

  Holliday rapped harder. Still nothing.

  “Maybe he doesn’t exist,” said Rafi, his tone a little acidic.

  Holliday ignored the comment. He tried the latch and the door opened. He stuck his head into the doorway. The interior of the building was dark and cool. Holliday stepped into a cramped, low-ceilinged hallway. Rafi followed. The walls were plaster, mottled with age. There was a wrought iron chandelier above them that looked as though it had been designed for candles. “Hello?” Holliday called out. Somewhere there was a rasping cough.

  “Viens,” called out a thin voice. Come. The voice echoed from behind a door on the left side of the hallway. Holliday opened the door and stepped inside the room, Rafi on his heels.

  The office was from another time, like something out of Les Misérables.

  An ancient case clock ticked away loudly in one corner. Rows of wooden file cabinets lined one wall and a spindly-looking secretary’s desk with pigeonhole cubicles above it stood against another. Light leaked into the room through cracks in the shutters over the large window, dust dancing in the broad beams of sun. The floors were wide yellow oak planks worn smooth of any varnish. Looking out from across an enormous desk, a large man with wavy snow-white hair sat in a high-backed velvet chair. There were two identical chairs on the other side of the desk.

  The man appeared to be in his late seventies or early eighties, fat but well preserved. His skin had the faintly translucent look of parchment. His nose was a beak and the eyes were large and gray behind half-lens reading glasses framed in bright blue plastic. He was wearing a wide-lapel blue suit that had gone out of style half a century ago.

  The front of the jacket was speckled with bits of ash from the fuming curved stem pipe held between the large man’s lips. From where Holliday stood it looked as though the pants were drawn up almost to his elbows. The shirt was as white as the man’s luxurious head of hair and obviously starched.

  “Mr. Ducos?” Holliday asked.

  “Oui,” said the fat man. “Je suis Ducos.”

  “Do you speak English?”

  “Of course,” said Ducos. “Several other languages as well, including a little Hebrew.” He smiled pleasantly at Rafi.

  “I didn’t know it showed,” said the archaeologist.

  “It doesn’t,” said Ducos. “But I’m well aware of who you are, Dr. Wanounou, and you as well, Colonel Holliday.”

  “And how’s that?” Holliday asked.

  “On the telephone you said you knew Helder Rodrigues, Colonel,” said Ducos. “That is sufficient to catch my attention.”

  “You knew him?” Holliday asked. The south of France was a long way from the remote island in the Azores that had been the old man’s home.

  “For many years.” Ducos paused. “Do you know what I seek?” he asked obscurely.

  “You seek what was lost,” answered Holliday. Rafi gave him a long look.

  “And who lost it?”

  “The King lost it.”

  “And where is the King?”

  “Burning in Hell,” said Holliday with a smile.

  “Do you mind letting me in on your secret?” Rafi asked. “I’m feeling a little bit out of the loop.”

  Ducos explained. “After the dissolution of the Templars under the aegis of King Philip in 1307, fugitive members of the Order needed a way of recognizing each other safely. They devised a number of secret exchanges.”

  “The secret handshake,” said Holliday.

  “That particular one was used between Father Rodrigues and myself,” Ducos continued. “It was written in the back of the notebook he kept.” He looked at Holliday. “You have it?”

  “Yes.” He took it out of the inside pocket of his jacket and slid it across the desk toward the old man. Ducos’s large, age- gnarled hand reached out and he laid his palm over the notebook. Holliday saw that a tear had formed in the corner of one e
ye. Ducos made no move to wipe it away.

  “His blood?” Ducos asked.

  “Yes. He died protecting the secret of the scrolls,” said Holliday. “He died in my arms.”

  “So Tavares told me,” Ducos said and nodded. Manuel Tavares, the captain of the fishing boat San Pedro and the other gatekeeper of the Templar hoard on the island of Corvo.

  “We have a problem,” said Rafi urgently.

  “Do you refer to the disappearance of Miss Blackstock in Egypt or the recent attempt on the life of Colonel Holliday?” Ducos asked.

  “You know about that?” Holliday said, startled. “It’s barely been forty-eight hours.”

  Ducos took the pipe out of his mouth and smiled, the thin lips opening to reveal a neat row of large, pure white and obviously false teeth, made in some long-ago era.

  “One of the advantages of belonging to an order that has been in existence for close to a thousand years is the number and the extent of the ears to the ground which are available,” said the old man.

  “The man who tried to kill me isn’t important now; we have to find Peggy. Quickly,” replied Holliday.

  “Tell me everything you know,” said Ducos.

  In the end it wasn’t very much. The Frenchman listened to what there was, leaning back in his chair and puffing on his pipe. When Rafi was finished, Ducos asked Holliday a few questions about the attack at West Point, then fell silent, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. Finally he spoke, the words measured and precise.

  “The man who attempted to kill you was almost certainly a member of La Sapinière, the French arm of Sodalitium Pianum, the Vatican Secret Service. They were first written about in fiction by the late Thomas Gifford and more recently by your Mr. Dan Brown in his Da Vinci Code. The tattoo is sure evidence of this—it is the sigil, or crest of Pope Pius X, who instituted the original group in the early nineteen hundreds. They are also known as the Assassini and sometimes as the Instrument of God. They are willing to sacrifice their very souls as martyrs to a higher cause.”

  “But why try and kill me?” Holliday asked. “What’s their motive?”