by Nick Thacker
Archie’s face fell. Ben could see that the lighting of the library the man was in was dim, set for the nighttime hours. His face seemed weathered, older somehow, the shadowy light playing tricks. “I — I am so sorry, Harvey. I did not mean —”
“It’s okay,” Ben said. “So far today, we remain unexecuted. And as far as near-death experiences go, that wasn’t even the worst one of the day.”
They filled their teammate in on the events leading up to their capture, as well as what they had learned.
“We believe the man working security in the Vatican hotel, Roger Godiva, is not exactly who he says he is.”
“Without a doubt,” Archie said. “He must be involved in whatever faction is trying to overthrow the power structure in Rome. The same faction that kidnapped a colleague of mine yesterday.”
“A faction?”
“Another kidnapping?” Julie asked.
“Yes,” Archie said. “She is a brilliant professor, and she has written numerous papers on the Church and its many secret orders and factions. And when I say faction, I meant like a fraternal order or some other organization. Godiva is listed in my database as a devout Catholic, born and raised in Rome. A member of the Society of Jesus, which is how he knew my name.”
“He’s a Jesuit too, then?” Julie asked.
“Yes, it appears so. But remember — the Jesuit order is a large, international organization. We are many, and we are not always on the same page. I can easily believe that there is a group of Jesuits out there hoping to harm the current Pope, upset at his liberal tendencies and hoping to overthrow the system.”
“They would go so far as to assassinate the guy?”
“It has happened before. Pope John VIII was clubbed to death, and a few were strangled. Pope Clement I was thrown into the sea with an anchor around his neck.”
“Wow,” Ben said. “People get really worked up about religion.”
“Indeed. There have been at least twenty popes who were murdered. Remember the first pope, Saint Peter?”
“Crucified upside-down, if I remember my Sunday school lessons correctly.”
“Yes. And Pope John Paul II was shot and severely wounded in 1981, right in St. Peter’s Square. So, yes, I believe there are plenty out there who intend to harm our Pope, including some within my own order.”
“Do you know Roger Godiva?”
“I do not, but he has played a hand that will now help us track down the other members of his faction, whoever they are.”
“He had four soldiers with him,” Julie said. “Two of them stayed in the tunnels and fought off… whoever else was after us. And the other two…”
Her voice fell, and Ben reached out and grabbed her hand. The wounds on their wrists where they had been handcuffed lined up, a single row of red, blistered skin. “One is in critical condition, but he’ll never be able to talk right again. The other one faced the same fate as Godiva.”
“I see,” Archie said. “So there are at least two factions we are dealing with. The soldiers in the tunnels, likely the same group who brought your plane down in the Mediterranean. And the guards from the Vatican, who are almost certainly a group within the Catholic Church itself.”
“The Catholic group might be the group that wants the Book of Bones,” Julie said.
Ben picked up the thread. “Which means the other group also wants the book, or they just don’t want the Catholics to have it.”
“Yes, that is my understanding as well. And if that theory is correct, Vicente Garza is working under the employ of the Catholics — the group within the Vatican working to overthrow their own Pope. It could also be that Garza is working for another sect within the Church; we simply do not have enough information to know at this point.”
“Is there any way to find out who they are?” Julie asked.
Ben shifted in his seat. “Yes,” he said. “Archie, when I was in the room, getting interrogated by Godiva, his necklace fell out of his shirt. There was a pendant on it with some sort of snake wrapped around it. That pendant had some symbols on it, too. It was something I feel like I’ve seen before, but I couldn’t quite place it.”
“Can you describe it?”
“Actually, I can probably draw it from memory.” Ben reached down to the seat back pocket in front of him and took out a pencil, then reached over to Julie’s tray table and grabbed a napkin.
“It was like an oval. Or an egg. And inside of it was that… that seeing eye thing that’s on our money. And wings, maybe?” Ben scribbled on the napkin, and Julie watched over his shoulder while Archie waited on-screen. “And two pillars, leaning toward one another, but not quite touching. Like they’re holding something up; just a round dot.”
He leaned back, then held up the napkin for Archie to see.
On the iPad’s screen, Ben watched as Archie’s face melted into a ghostly shade of white.
“You recognize it?” Ben asked.
“I do. The elements of it, individually, are instantly recognizable, though I’ve never seen them together. But I know, without a doubt, what they all represent.”
“What’s that?” Julie asked.
“Each of those symbols — the all-seeing eye, the pillars, the shape they’re making together, and the square measure behind it — the upside-down triangle.
“Those symbols are some of the most iconic symbols of the society of Freemasons.”
53
Victoria
The room was round, made of stone. Nothing but a single, round pillar stood in the middle of it. It sat on a raised dais, also made of stone. The entire space was about the size of a small amphitheater, perhaps two- or three-hundred feet from one side to the other. The ceiling stretched far above the line of sight, and Victoria could see the shadowy lines of stone supports running up to the center of it all.
Victoria Reyes shook away grogginess from her eyes. Have I been asleep? She remembered driving to the airport, the car pulling off to an unmarked hangar near the main entrance, and then…
Nothing.
She’d woken up a few minutes ago, told to walk through a door, and then she’d found herself inside this room.
Are we still at the airport then?
Her mind pulled her back to the moment, her senses returning quickly and sharpening. She took in the space, admired its architecture. She’d never seen anything like it. For one, it seemed to have been carved from one massive block of stone, a mountain-sized sculpture. Second, the proportions were off — she’d seen someone enter from a door across from her, and this door was disproportionately tall. The pillar at the center, whatever it was used for, seemed large as well. Too tall to use as a table, too short to be a stand for something, and its diameter was easily fifteen feet across.
“Do you know where you are?” she heard a voice ask.
She shook her head.
“Please speak up for the council, Ms. Reyes.”
She flicked her eyes left and right. If there were others in the room besides the man who’d addressed her, she couldn’t see them.
“I do not,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
She sighed. “A temple? A sacrificial tomb? A preparation chamber for your secret Mason rituals?”
There was a slight chuckle from behind her, then a quick covering cough.
“The Freemasons have always performed rituals as a way to remind ourselves of our history and ancestry. We —”
“I’m a professor, and a published researcher on the intricacies of ancient cults,” she said. “I do not need a lecture about who the Freemasons are.”
“Very well, Ms. Reyes,” the man said. “In that case, you should know that having you, a woman, in this chamber at all is a rare occurrence.”
“Well,” Victoria said. “Assuming this isn’t some bi-annual wives event for your chapter, then yes, this is a remarkable occurrence.”
“We are not a ‘chapter,’ in the traditional sense —”
“But it’s not unheard of
,” Victoria said. “Throughout history, your ranks have debated the number of women who have claimed involvement in the organization. Elizabeth Aldworth, for example, wore the regalia in public after she was admitted into her father’s lodge.
“And Salome Anderson hid in her uncle’s lodge room, learned your secrets, and was admitted in order to swear her to secrecy. And —”
She stopped herself, realizing that now she was the one lecturing.
There was a pause, and then a man stepped out of the shadows to her left. She didn’t recognize him, but he wore an apron, the traditional lodge apron she’d seen many times. This one had the mason’s compass and letter “G,” which stood for geometry, but it also featured the upside-down angel-winged logo she’d seen on the website while talking to Mark, just before her abduction.
“My colleague was correct. You are a special mind, Ms. Reyes. I must apologize for our barbaric form of requesting your help, but —”
“You’re asking for my help? By kidnapping me, taking me here, and — where the hell are we, anyway?”
“You are standing in the temple of my ancestors. Our ancestors.” The man lifted an arm up, and she saw seven more men, each wearing the same lodge apron, step out of the shadows. They were surrounding her, pressing in on her.
She felt threatened once again. “Wh — what is this? Am I some sort of sacrifice?”
There was a heavy silence for a few seconds, and Victoria worried her heart would beat so loud the temple would come down around them.
Then… laughter. The man stepped closer to her, smiling. His eyes were kind, yet serious. Blond hair, grayish skin. She couldn’t tell if he was closer to thirty or sixty, so she guessed somewhere in the middle. “Ms. Reyes,” the man said. “We are the Guild Rite, an ancient sect similar to the Masons, but with a few key differences.”
“You’re Dieter Luthig?” she asked.
“I… am not. But your detective work is nearly as impressive as your intellect. Ms. Reyes, the Guild Rite predates most Rites by an order of magnitude. In fact, we claim our roots extend to before the time of Noah.”
“Noah… that’s antediluvian history. Basically unreliable.”
“Good point,” the man said. “But consider: what was the reason for Noah’s existence?”
“Biblically speaking?” Victoria asked. “To save the world.”
“Correct. How?”
“God tasked him with saving the human and animal races while God stamped out wickedness in the world.” She fell into her lecturing mode once again as she recited text from the Book of Genesis, chapter 6: “’Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.’”
“Yes, and he did this by causing a worldwide flood. One that appears in every civilization’s origin story. An account which is, I would argue, quite reliable.”
“Fine, I’ll concede that,” Victoria said. “But what does that mean? Just because you guys predated Noah means you’re more important than real Freemasonry?”
“No, it just means that our mission, like Noah’s, is as far-reaching as human history itself. Our mission is one that lasts generations rather than lifetimes, millennia rather than centuries.”
“You’re about as cryptic as the brother you sent to kidnap me.”
“Again, we are terribly sorry for the method that was chosen to seek your compliance. But trust me, our battle is nearing its peak, and we truly do wish for your help.”
“How? What is it you need help with?”
“Ms. Reyes,” the man said. “Since the time of Noah, long before and long after, we have been at war. King David warred, as did his son Solomon, where the first Masonic rituals were birthed. His friend, Hiram, was also at war.”
“Men have always been at war,” Victoria said.
“Listen to your words, Ms. Reyes,” the man said. “You know the answer to the question that you seek.”
“And what question do you think I am seeking?”
“You want to know who, exactly, we are at war with.”
54
Julie
“This aligns with what Victoria told me,” Archie said. “She was able to call me back, just before she was apprehended in her office. She left the phone on, and the man who took her — whom I do not believe wishes to harm her — did not take it from her. I was able to hear small snippets of their conversation.”
“You don’t think he’ll harm her?” Julie asked. She looked at the screen, then out the plane’s window. They were cruising at around thirty-thousand feet, and all she could see was a sea of white. She knew they were over water anyway, so if she were able to see through the clouds her view would be of nothing but a sea of blue.
“I do not — he said something about ‘protecting’ her, which could be a lie, but I somehow believe this man thinks he and Ms. Reyes are on the same side of things. That they need her for her mind and knowledge of their shared history.”
“Well, we can’t take the chance that he’s lying,” Ben said. He pressed a thumb and finger against the bridge of his nose. “After we find Garza, get Reggie and Sarah back, and stop whatever this ‘faction’ is doing, we’re going to get Victoria Reyes back as well.”
Onscreen, Archie nodded. “I am proud of your commitment and your desire to right these wrongs, Harvey. But I do fear we are severely outnumbered and outmatched.”
“Never stopped me before,” Ben said.
“Indeed, it has not. But again, this is something that is beyond our expertise. Even if we had Reggie and Sarah fighting with us, I do not think this is a group to trifle with.”
“There will be no trifling,” Ben said.
“You have a plan, then?” Julie asked. “Once we’re in Peru, what are you going to do?”
Ben shrugged. “Find someone to hit.”
“We may be able to get close to them, but I still fear they will be well-protected. If Reggie and Sarah were taken to Peru by Garza, we have his team to deal with. But if Victoria Reyes was also taken there by her captors, we may have an entirely different army to contend with.”
“How do we know he’s taking her there, too?”
“She seemed surprised when the man told her they had been following her work. Specifically a paper she published years ago, but I could not hear the title. But I heard a word — one I recognized — that led me to this conclusion. She said ‘Chachapoyas’ more than once in their conversation.”
“What’s a Chachapoyas?” Ben asked.
“Not what, but who. The Chachapoyas are a tribe of South American people who had resisted Incan power for as long as anyone could remember. Up until the Spanish Conquest, they existed in an isolated valley also simply called Chachapoyas — mostly because we have never been able to pinpoint exactly where it is.”
“So we’re going to a secret valley hidden in Peru that no one’s found for hundreds of years?”
“I have narrowed it down to a two-hundred square mile radius, and I believe I can narrow the search zone further. The Chachapoyas were builders, and they will have erected structures in their valley. My old university has LIDAR-generated 3D maps of the entire Amazonian Basin, including areas surrounding it in Peru, Columbia, and Venezuela.
“If that is where Garza is taking your friends, that is what we will find.”
“‘We?’” Julie asked. “But Archie, you’re —”
“Old?” the man onscreen grinned, the lines running through his face and forehead deepening. “I am old, but I seem to remember a jaunt through the Amazon with your group, and I made it out alive then.”
“Archie, we all nearly died in that jungle.”
“But we did not, and I am here to laugh about it. Harvey, Juliette — you make an exceptional team. But every team, no matter how exceptional,
needs a wise old sage. You never know when you will need to stop ‘hitting people’ and begin thinking through the problem a different way.”
“Touche, old man,” Ben said, smiling. “Happy to have an extra set of brains on board, especially since I rarely can rely on my own.”
“Perfect. I will go now. I must prepare for my portion of this journey, and I have more research I would like to do. I believe we have the pieces now, friends. The puzzle is still quite blurry, but it is coming into focus more and more. I am confident and optimistic.”
Julie wasn’t sure she felt as optimistic, but she was happy to borrow Archibald’s. The man had helped them through more than one terrible situation, and they had come out victorious. He was an asset to their team, no matter his age.
55
Reggie
The next time Reggie woke up, he was cold.
Still strapped to a table, this one made of stone, but somehow the stone felt colder on his back than the metal hospital table had.
He was sweating, but his back seemed frozen. He groaned, feeling a wave of nausea swimming through his insides.
“You okay?”
A meek voice, coming from somewhere behind him. Or… near him. He couldn’t tell — the room was nearly pitch-black, and he was lying on his back in the center of it. He squeezed his eyes closed, then opened them again.
“Who — who’s there?”
“It’s me…”
The voice was faint, nearly a whisper, but it was right behind him.
“Sarah?”
He tried to move, to get up, but he found his feet were once again strapped down. One hand was free, and he used this hand to wipe his eyes. His other was outstretched and secured above his head. A headache seared through his skull as the nausea passed, but he shook both feelings away and tried to focus.
“Yeah.”
“Sarah, it’s me. Reggie. I — I was in… it was like…”