The priest, transformed into a tourist wearing a ball cap, looked exactly like a thousand others on the teeming Manhattan streets. As he walked toward the subway station at 53rd and Lexington a pedestrian jostled him and he felt a little sting on his arm. As he reached to rub it, he stumbled and fell to the pavement. He began convulsing as people moved aside. One yelled, “I think he’s having a seizure!”
One concerned passerby dialed 911. But it was too late. The perpetrator of the Fifth Avenue bombing was dead.
Later that day, a continent away a man watched the news report and smiled. One score settled, two to go.
Chapter Two
Rome, two years ago
It is well known that the Vatican has what is termed the “Secret Archives,” an area where Popes over hundreds of years have deposited written material of interest to the Church or otherwise historically significant. Today there are over 35,000 such documents of various types including correspondence between pontiffs and ruling monarchs of England and France. Properly vetted researchers are occasionally allowed to visit the Secret Archives to study the material.
Few are aware there is another archive, this one truly secret and accessible solely by the Pope. In the depths of the Vatican several floors below the Sistine Chapel, there is a vault. Its existence is known to only a few people – as a new Pope is elected he is told about it. Aside from His Holiness there are generally four others alive who are aware of the place. But only one of those knows the combination to the door behind which lies more than a millennium of secrets – the Pope himself.
For fifteen hundred years, only the Pope has accessed the vault, never anyone else. Many of the pontiffs had no interest in visiting the repository. In fact in the past fifty years only one Pope, Benedict XVI, had decided to go there. His first visit was to place the Bethlehem Scroll in the vault’s secure shelves in 2009 and he had been back a number of times since.
In his position as head of the Knights Templars and a confidant of the Pope, Dominic Cardinal Conti was one of only five people on Earth who knew the vault existed. Among hundreds of other things, many relics and documents relating to the Knights Templars had been placed there over hundreds of years. Even as head of the Templars Conti was not allowed to enter the area but Pope Benedict had one day taken an ancient book out of the vault, brought it to his office and showed it to the Cardinal. It was bound in leather and its pages were chipped and yellowed with age.
Benedict told Conti that this large old musty book was the key to all the artifacts that were secured in the papal vault. It was a register. Line by line a Pope would enter an item’s title or description as he put it there for safekeeping. This book was the master list of everything in the vault.
The Pope commented on the register’s remarkably good condition after fifteen hundred years. He told Cardinal Conti he was going to have the register photocopied so he could refer to the vault’s contents prior to going there, saving time when he was looking for something in particular. The original would of course remain in the vault.
The first entry in that master record was dated 606 AD during the reign of Pope Boniface III. Into the newly constructed underground vault Boniface had placed a decree from Byzantine Emperor Phocas declaring Rome head of all the churches and putting rest to all conflicting claims, especially from Constantinople. In a flourishing hand, Boniface had recorded the document – the first line in a record book that by now ran to over a hundred pages and several thousand entries.
The Pope showed Conti four interesting entries in the register – four manuscripts that were the eyewitness journals of the Knights Templars. These four volumes were in fact diaries, each written at the time the events described in them occurred. They were exciting to the Cardinal. The first book encompassed the years from the Templars beginning in 1118 to the tumultuous time in the early 1300s when the group ostensibly was disbanded.
The pontiff explained to Cardinal Conti that the books were part of a private collection until around 1875 when they were donated by a wealthy Italian family to the papal collection. Pius IX, the Pope at the time, considered them so revealing and so potentially inflammatory that he locked them in the secret vault.
Since he was head of the Templars today, Conti requested to read the manuscripts. The Pope agreed to remove them, one at a time, so Conti could peruse the ancient books. Conti’s excitement grew the day he held the beautifully bound first volume in his hands and read the words on its title page. Opus Militum Xpisti. Translated from Latin, “The work of the soldiers of Christ.”
In this first volume the Cardinal read the fascinating eyewitness account of the Templars’ activities from their very beginning. It was written entirely in Latin, a language well understood by Conti.
The group had been founded on the basest Christian principle – to defend the kingdom of Christ at whatever cost. What started so nobly eventually became the subject of controversy from powerful factions within the Church. Property owned by the Templars was not subject to taxation and they accumulated substantial wealth while conquering infidels across Europe. Much of this booty was handed over to the Pope but some of it inevitably remained with the Templars themselves. They began to receive criticism from high levels.
Without a doubt the Templars accumulated many treasures. Legends grew over the centuries about the relics the Knights Templars found when they occupied the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. From pieces of the cross to skulls of saints, from clothing worn by the Apostles to the Holy Grail, many tales surrounded these crusading warriors for Christ. Dozens of books speculated on the Templar treasure horde while movies such as National Treasure and the Indiana Jones series keep the exploits of the legendary group alive. No one knows for sure what the Templars had, what they delivered to the Church and what they might have kept and hidden.
Eventually all the favors and praise lavished by the Popes on the Templars stirred jealousy and hatred among others in the Church who didn’t receive such attention. High-ranking officials worked behind the scenes to bring down the crusaders who previously had enjoyed the protection and favors of the Papacy. In the early 1300s the Templars were finally defeated, not by enemies without but by those within.
These honorable men were rounded up, horribly tortured and forced to confess to all sorts of vile criminal behavior such as idol worship and sodomy. Over fifty leaders of the Knights Templars were burned to death in 1310 while a weak, spineless Pope stood by doing nothing to stop it. To the world this signaled the end of the Knights Templars. But that was incorrect. The Order continued, secretly carrying on the work of its original members.
Thusly, the first volume of the Templar history ended with the apparent destruction of the ancient Order. Cardinal Conti returned it and received the next one from Pope Benedict. It was interesting, Conti thought, that although the Templars were “destroyed” in the first book, three more manuscripts relating to their history were extant. Since Dominic Conti was now head of the Knights Templars, he knew that they had carried on throughout the centuries. But he had never read the group’s history written by Templar scribes on the scene. It was fascinating.
The fact that Conti was a linguist came in handy as he read page after page. The subsequent manuscripts were written mostly in Latin but also in French or medieval English. In the first book and now in the second, every so often there appeared a page of curious symbols, a coded message of unknown significance. Conti asked the Pope about what these pages might mean.
“Finish the manuscripts, Dominic,” Pope Benedict had said. “Then I have something else to show you that may explain your question.”
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Although the Cardinal devoted much of every day to reading the manuscripts, the laborious translations required six weeks before he was finished with the third volume. He made arrangements to see the Pope and exchange the book for the fourth and last one.
In his office he opened the final volume and began to read. It was quickly obvious that something was wrong. He left a mes
sage with the Pope’s secretary and soon received a call from the pontiff.
“Your Holiness, could there possibly be another volume? The one I just received from you doesn’t chronologically follow the third volume. It begins in the eighteenth century, whereas the last volume stopped around the mid 1400s. There’s a time gap of over two hundred years.”
“I wasn’t aware of that, but also I must admit I’ve never looked at those books. Could it be that some pages are missing from one volume or another?”
“That’s not the answer, Holiness. The books are intact and bound. I’m missing the years between about 1475 and 1700. I think there’s a missing manuscript and I’d like your permission to use the papal resources to look for it.”
“By all means, Dominic. You have my permission to seek it.”
It seemed unusual to Conti that there would be a missing volume in the middle. He wondered if it had been removed because there was something there so important it had to be hidden even from the Pope. Hopeful that it was still in the Church family somewhere, the Cardinal sent out an inquiry to the Catholic churches worldwide. Although unlikely, it was possible that the manuscript could be resting as a relic in one of the far-flung churches. In these times of electronic mail things were far simpler and faster than the old days when a letter to say Africa might take six weeks to arrive and that much longer for a response. Since all the volumes so far looked similar on the outside, Conti included a picture in his email to make it easier for clerics to identify what he was looking for.
Within fifteen days he had heard from all the churches, large and small. None possessed the missing volume.
Back in Vatican City a group of twenty young Jesuit priests was assigned to scour the Vatican itself. This was a daunting task – the palace had at least ten thousand rooms and bookshelves lined the walls of hundreds of them. Although Conti doubted the priests visited every single potential resting place, after two weeks they reported the manuscript had not been found. Reluctantly the Cardinal suspended the hunt for the missing book and resumed the pressing duties of his office.
In January 2013 Conti finished reading the fourth volume. It was easier than the others because it was both in French and more modern English, covering the period from 1700 until 1950. There was nothing of significance in it. The Cardinal returned the volume to the Papal Secretary but was told His Holiness could not see him today. That had been the case for a while, Conti reflected. Benedict seemed to be removing himself from those who had surrounded him.
Pope Benedict had promised the Cardinal he had something else to show him once he finished reading the last volume – something that might shed light on the mysterious coded pages that appeared occasionally throughout the Knights Templars books. Conti tried for a week to arrange a meeting with the Pope, something that would have been simple a month ago, but was denied.
He had almost forgotten about it when in February he received an email from the Archdiocese of New York. When Conti’s original request went out to churches worldwide, the Archbishop had asked his staff to look closely at the books in his Manhattan residence. He wanted to ensure the volume wasn’t among over a thousand other old and musty books that had accumulated over the years. It wasn’t, but one of those who searched for it had come to the Archbishop recently with a newspaper article. The Archbishop read the clipping then told the young staffer to reply to Cardinal Conti’s email.
“Your Eminence,” the email read, “I am writing at the suggestion of the Archbishop. I participated in a search of the residence here in New York in an attempt to locate your missing manuscript. Your email contained a picture of another volume in the series of books, and I believe the enclosed article may refer to the book you’re seeking.”
Cardinal Conti opened the attachment to the staffer’s email and saw an article from an issue of the New York Times a few days ago.
Trove of Ancient Books
Found in Nova Scotia Basement
Halifax, Nova Scotia (AP) A collection of eight books, the earliest dating to the fourteenth century, has been found in a house in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Some of the books are bound in animal skins, others in leather, and all appear to be printed on parchment. Dr. Ralph Painter, an expert in antiquarian books at Halifax’s St. Mary’s University, examined the items. He explained that the use of parchment is an important indicator that the volumes were created for persons of wealth or social standing, even perhaps for use in churches. Dr. Painter estimated the combined value of seven of the tomes at more than US$1,000,000. He added that their remarkably good condition, extreme rarity and collector interest worldwide could cause them to bring even more at auction. He declined to give an estimate on the eighth book, a volume about the exploits of the Knights Templars that was in very worn condition and appeared to be one of a set, the rest of which are missing. Both those factors detract from its value, the expert added.
An invoice found with the volumes shows Antoine Crane, the home’s owner who died in 2000, purchased seven of the books from an antiquarian bookshop in Rome, Italy in 1921 for the equivalent of around US$5,000 in today’s dollars. There was nothing indicating the source of the worn Templar manuscript or how it ended up in Nova Scotia.
The eight volumes consist of three lavishly illustrated bibles from the Middle Ages, the Knights Templars book written mostly in Latin, and four works of literature dating from the 1600s and 1700s.
Brothers Robert and Sidney Crane, the heirs of Antoine Crane, discovered the books three months ago. Both are physicians. They reside in Los Angeles, California and Athens, Georgia respectively. The men visited their father’s house once after his funeral and then left it in the care of a local property manager. The house has been unoccupied from the senior Crane’s death until today.
The Crane brothers said they decided to put the house on the market, which necessitated a thorough cleaning. “Dad was a bit of a packrat so the place was crammed with boxes and file cabinets,” Robert Crane said in an exclusive interview with the Times. “Sid and I would open a box, glance at what was inside and put it either in a ‘keep’ or ‘toss’ pile.” The books, which were in a cardboard box, aroused the immediate attention of the men due to their obvious age.
Antoine Crane was a collector of many things ranging from clocks to music boxes, according to Robert Crane. A recluse in his later years, he had over a thousand books in his home but none was of much value, the sons said. Robert and Sidney Crane are “considering our options on the sale or donation of the volumes,” Sidney Crane said.
Conti’s hands shook as he read and reread the end of the first paragraph. “…a volume about the exploits of the Knights Templar…one of a set…” Could it be? He picked up the phone on his desk and made a call. Within minutes one of his assistants was researching the Internet to find the contact information for one or both of the Crane brothers. Los Angeles was difficult – there were twelve physicians in the metropolitan area who had both “Robert” and “Crane” in their names – but Athens, Georgia proved much more fruitful. The staffer found Dr. Sidney Crane, a neurosurgeon, and handed the doctor’s contact information to Cardinal Conti.
Thanking the young man, Conti reminded him that this job, along with everything else he did every day, was completely confidential. The work of the Church could not be discussed with anyone. Especially the information this young man had given the Cardinal.
Chapter Three
Rome
Tucked away in a side street a couple of blocks from the Spanish Steps is a tiny outdoor trattoria, one of perhaps thousands in the Eternal City. A trim bearded man around seventy years old sipped his second espresso and read the Italian-language newspaper la Repubblica, enjoying the cool morning air and the sunshine. Giovanni Moretti enjoyed his morning paper and appreciated living in one of the world’s great cities. And this café was only two blocks from his apartment on one of Rome’s beautiful avenues. Moretti had selected a table at the edge of the patio and requested no one be seated nearby. As a frequ
ent patron and on a quiet morning, his wishes were easily accommodated.
He waited for the man who had arranged this meeting. They had met several times over the years but lately Moretti always wondered if the next meeting would be the meeting. The one that would end the waiting.
Precisely at ten am Moretti saw a priest wearing the cassock and familiar red zucchetto, or skullcap, of a Cardinal stride briskly toward him. The man was tall and younger than Moretti by perhaps twenty years.
Moretti rose and bowed slightly. “Your Eminence.” He gestured to the empty chair beside his.
“Good morning, Giovanni. It’s good to see you again.” The Cardinal sat as a waiter rushed to his side.
Bowing, the server said, “Your Eminence, may I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Molto bene, grazie. A double espresso for me, please. Nothing else.”
The few other guests on the patio sneaked surreptitious glances at the prominent figure. Even in Rome where officials of the Roman Catholic Church were common sights, a Cardinal was accorded respect and reverence.
The two men leaned closer to each other and conversed quietly in Italian.
“Dominic, how are things with you and with the bank?” Moretti made small talk as he waited for the priest to eventually raise the subject of their meeting. They chatted, as old friends do who haven’t seen each other in awhile.
As far as most people knew, Dominic Conti’s job was to run the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank. It was an important part of the Catholic Church. Although the bank was publicly “founded” in 1942, its roots as the financial arm of the Church dated back hundreds of years, maybe more. Cloaked in secrecy, the bank had only recently begun to issue annual reports of its operations and even then there were always questions about its activities.
Brian Sadler Archaeology 04 - The Bones in the Pit Page 2