Treasure Templari

by David S. Brody

  Cam nodded. William Sinclair built the iconic Roslyn Chapel in Scotland in the 1450s. He was the grandson of Prince Henry Sinclair, purported to have journeyed to New England in 1399 where he carved the Westford Knight and built the Newport Tower. If any family was connected to the Templars and their treasures, it was the Sinclairs. The fact that William was part of the Duke of Burgundy’s exclusive secret order was not a surprise. Had his grandfather secreted the Templar treasure in America? Cam, like Amanda, believed it entirely possible. “I agree,” Cam said. “The key is the Templars. But they didn’t write much down. So we have to get into their heads. Think like them.”

  “Not too much like them, hopefully.” She wrinkled her nose and chopped on a carrot stick. “They didn’t bathe, and they were celibate.”

  The bathing thing got Cam thinking about other Templar practices. “Did you know there’s a Templar rule against two men sharing a horse? In fact, every knight is guaranteed three horses. It’s written right in their Charter.” He tapped at his phone. “Here it is, Rule 51: To each knight brother we grant three horses and one squire.”

  “So, what’s with all those images showing two knights on one horse?” They both had seen the illustrations, often depicted on Templar seals, dozens of times.

  He nodded, as if agreeing with himself. “Exactly my point.” Most observers opined that the depiction was meant to show how poor the Templar Order was. Never mind that the Order was wealthier than most European monarchies. And never mind that, in reality, Templar knights never shared a horse. “It makes no sense. And weird that it’s the second strange Templar seal I ran across today.” He had already told Amanda about the pagan Abraxas image.

  “Have you looked at any of their other seals? Maybe you’re on to something. You know the Templars—they loved symbolism.” She paused and gestured with her knife. “Figure out those seals. Maybe they’ll help us figure out that painting.”

  Katarina sat at her computer as the lights of Boston’s skyline filtered in through the fourth-floor window of her Back Bay townhouse. But it was the skyline of Jerusalem, not Boston, which had drawn her attention over the past hour

  Spending so much time peering at the Jewish homeland made her feel dirty, almost like watching porn. But she knew of no other way to connect the towers of the Ghent Altarpiece painting with the ancient city’s geography. To make matters worse, nothing seemed to match.

  The problem was that the Ghent Altarpiece was meant to depict Jerusalem at it existed during the time of Christ, not as it existed today or even in the 1400s. King Herod had erected a series of towers in the 1st century AD along the western wall of the Old City near the Jaffa Gate; it was these which were depicted in the painting. But the towers were later destroyed and rebuilt. There was no way van Eyck could have known what the original King Herod towers even looked like, so his rendition of them would hardly be historically accurate. In other words, if the Just Judges painting (assuming she could get her hands on the original) were some kind of map, it was not a particularly detailed one—it told searchers to look someplace near the Jaffa Gate. Might as well expect someone to find a particular pine tree in the forest. It was like having no clue at all.

  She tossed a pen against the window. She would have been better off watching porn.

  Amanda woke with a start. She checked her watch lying on her night table—almost three in the morning. Had she heard a noise? No. It was a voice in her head, not a sound from outside, which had awoken her. The voice had spoken a single word: tower.

  Of course.

  Moving noiselessly, she slipped out of bed, put on her slippers and padded down the stairs. Bruce had focused on the towers in the background of the Just Judges painting as some kind of clue—the towers, apparently, had been altered when the reproduction was made. But perhaps Bruce was being too literal. Perhaps the specific changes—the number of spires and parapets—were unimportant. Perhaps the changes were made to draw attention to the towers generally rather than to flag modifications to some numerical code as Shelby had suggested.

  Amanda dropped into an oversized chair overlooking the lake and covered herself with a blanket. Venus bounded into the room, eyed her curiously, decided nothing was amiss, and curled up alongside. After booting up her laptop, she pulled up both the Adoration of the Lamb and Just Judges paintings. Comparing the backgrounds, she noticed a number of towers depicted in the Adoration painting, but only one in the Just Judges panel. And it was the Just Judges which was believed to be the map. Was that particular tower the key?

  Shifting in her chair, she dug deeper. She took a screen shot of the tower in the Just Judges painting and searched for matches to the tower using a Google image search. Nothing. Was she missing something? Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two paintings. One of the towers in the Adoration painting did, in fact, match the upper two-thirds of the single tower in the Just Judges painting. Had the artist camouflaged the tower by changing its base? She tried another Google image search, this time using the tower in the Adoration painting. Bingo. The tower was almost a perfect match for the 14th-century Dom Tower in the Dutch city of Utrecht. She compared a modern-day image of the tower to the one in the medieval painting:

  This had to be a clue. She dug deeper. Utrecht lay only 120 miles from Ghent, so it was entirely possible van Eyck had visited it—in fact, Ghent and Utrecht were both part of the Duke of Burgundy’s kingdom. And the Dom Tower, part of a massive cathedral complex, was the tallest structure in the Netherlands at the time and one of the most famous towers in all of medieval Europe. Was the Dom Tower, then, the missing clue?

  Amanda continued drilling down, looking for connections between Utrecht’s Dom Tower and the key figures in the Just Judges mystery. More links appeared. The Duke of Burgundy installed his illegitimate son, David, as bishop of Utrecht, giving him control of the Dom Tower. Who better to guard the Duke’s treasure than his own son?

  She found another possible connection as well. The Templar knight in the foreground of the Knights of Christ panel carried a banner matching the coat of arms of the bishopric of Utrecht, a white cross on red background. Though admittedly a white cross was a common theme, could this banner be another clue, tying the Templars and their secrets to the Dutch city and its Dom Tower?

  Scratching Venus’ neck, Amanda stared at the moonlit lake, trying to take herself back to medieval times. How did people back then think? What motivated them? It was not just the centuries that separated Amanda from them—she had little in common with fighting monks from noble families. But human beings were still human beings, with the same impulses and needs, no matter what the era or circumstance. In the case of the Templars and those like the Duke of Burgundy who carried their legacy forward, they were motivated by secrecy and the desire to pass those secrets along to future generations. The more she thought about it, the more sense it made that a tower would play a key part in passing down these secrets. She and Cam had long ago concluded that the Templar belief in the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene—and by extension their belief that the female should play an important role in society—was the predominant cause in the break between the Templars and the Church. The name ‘Magdalene’ derived from the Hebrew word ‘migdal,’ meaning ‘tower.’ The tower was therefore the obvious choice of architecture to honor the woman whose name literally meant, ‘Mary of the Tower.’ So if the secrets the Templar descendants were keeping related to Mary Magdalene in some way, which Amanda believed they did, then a tower would be the appropriate place to hide them. Just as it had been appropriate for the Templars to build a tower—the Newport Tower—here in America around the year 1400 to honor Mary Magdalene.

  Amanda stood and yawned. Was she certain the secrets embedded in the Just Judges painting were hidden in the Dom Tower in Utrecht? No. But it was almost four in the morning, and for the first time since she had attacked this mystery, she felt like she was on the right track.

  Chapter 7

  Cam awoke early on Wednesday for
a 6:00 AM pickup hockey game. Still pissed at the heckler incident, he knew he needed more than just a workout; he needed to let off some steam. He skated hard, backchecking at full speed, barreling into the boards, and even diving in front of a few slap shots. By the end of the hour he was drenched in sweat, covered in bruises, and flushed with adrenaline.

  “Hey, Cam, why the big smile?” His buddy George threw a wad of rolled up hockey tape at him.

  “Because I picked your pocket on that breakaway,” Cam replied, flicking his head to the side as the tape sailed by.

  George shook his head. “Asshole. Who backchecks in a pickup game?”

  “Only one way to play, George,” Cam replied. Thirty years later, he still heard his high school coach’s voice. “The right way.”

  He wolfed down a banana in three bites, scrubbed himself clean in a lukewarm shower at the rink, and raced home to pick up Astarte for school. She usually took the bus, but he liked the chance to chat in the car so he drove her when he could.

  “The Dad bus leaves in five,” he said, walking in the front door.

  “How was hockey?” Amanda asked.

  “Did you punch anyone?” Astarte added.

  “Very funny. No, I did not punch anyone.” He smiled. It was good that they could joke about it. “Probably because I played so well that nobody was heckling me.”

  Astarte didn’t miss a beat. “You probably just couldn’t hear them. Old age.”

  Chuckling, he replied. “Come on, we should leave now. You know how slow we old people drive.”

  “Actually, I’m not going to school today.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mum said it was okay. Some fascist group is trying to blockade the immigration office in Boston.” She sniffed. “They’re just ignorant. Everyone in this country is an immigrant except the Native Americans. We’re going to counter-demonstrate.” She rested her large brown eyes on Cam and spoke matter-of-factly. “Maybe help escort people past them.”

  Cam blinked. His little girl was growing up. But these kinds of things often turned violent. “How about if I come with you?”

  “Mum already offered. But no thanks. I’m going with some girls from my softball team. Adriana—you know, our center fielder—is Dominican. She’s been here since she was a baby, but now they want to send her back. It’s crazy; she did nothing wrong, and this is the only country she’s ever known. Her mom is driving us.” She grabbed an apple. “We’ll be fine.”

  Cam and Amanda exchanged worried glances. Being half Native American, Astarte felt strongly about the hypocrisy inherent in the immigration question. Plus, there was all that prophecy stuff running through her head. It was no surprise that the call of social activism pulled at her like an outgoing tide. And they both knew that if they forbade it, she’d likely sneak off anyway.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Cam said. “You can go, but no escorting anyone. That’s the police’s job. Demonstrate, hold signs, whatever. But no direct confrontation.” Astarte and Cam locked eyes. “Otherwise you don’t go.”

  She rolled her eyes and kicked at the ground. “Fine.”

  “And keep your phone handy,” Amanda added. “And text me Adriana’s mother’s number.”

  “Okay.” A car horn sounded. “That’s my ride.” She kissed them quickly, grabbed her backpack, and scurried through the door.

  Amanda sighed. “You know you’ve been played, don’t you?”

  “How so?”

  “They have no intention of escorting anyone. But she was worried you wouldn’t let her go at all. So she threw that out there just so she could let you negotiate it away.”

  He shook his head and smiled. “Yeah, well, I’m not the only one who’s been played. Soon as I’ve had some breakfast, I’m heading into Boston myself. No way am I leaving her alone with a bunch of white supremacists.”

  Amanda kissed him on the cheek. “Good. Because if you hadn’t said that, I was going in myself.”

  Katarina drove into Boston to meet her brother for breakfast at the Bostonian Hotel, a couple of blocks from the planned demonstration at the John F. Kennedy federal building in Government Center. She found him in a conference room he had commandeered, which looked more like a staging area than the site of any kind of business meeting. Signs, water bottles, granola bars, first aid kits, bandanas, fanny packs, even gasmasks. A couple of college-aged girls sat at a table, signing in protestors and handing out supplies.

  “How very organized,” she said, smiling as she caught his eye. “Corporate anarchy.”

  Tall and even thinner than usual, he wore a dark brown leather bomber jacket, jeans and black boots. He ambled over. “Hello, big sister.” He gestured toward the supplies. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well do it right.” Removing his cigarette from his mouth, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. He led her to a couple of chairs in the corner next to a table with coffee and muffins. “Sorry, this is all I have time for.”

  “Are you expecting a big turnout?”

  “More than a hundred. It’s a good week—not too cold, and midterms for most schools were last week.”

  She nodded. It never occurred to her to plan a rally around the college exams schedule. “How many women?” No revolution could succeed if half the population sat on the sidelines.

  “Maybe twenty-five. Not bad for a work day.”

  “Speaking of which, we could use your help at the office,” she said. They had agreed he’d take a leave of absence from the company while leading the demonstrations; there was no reason to risk a backlash from politically-correct stockholders. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t help out behind the scenes.

  They sat. “I know. But this is important. The Democrats want to open the borders to the scum of society. And once they’re here, it’s ten times harder to get rid of them.” He smiled sadly. “I think it was you who said they were like cockroaches—once they get in, they stay forever. Especially around here, with all this ‘sanctuary city’ bullshit. The cops arrest these maggots, here illegally, and they still get to stay.” His blue eyes held hers; she recalled the earnest little boy begging her to let him play hopscotch with her and her friends. “Can you stay, Kattie?”

  Only he called her that. She shook her head. “Sorry. Hard as it is to say no to you, demonstrations are not my style. Plus, someone has to work to make sure we have money to pay for all this.” She said it with a smile, but she knew he sensed a note of resentment in her tone.

  He took a puff. “Look, this is bigger than you and me, bigger than the company. This country, the world, is at a crossroads. We need to get this right.”

  Squeezing his hand, she replied, “I know. Speaking of which…” She told him what she had learned about the Just Judges painting.

  “It really is a map to some kind of treasure?”

  “Apparently so. But nobody agrees on what the treasure is. Hitler thought it was the Holy Grail. Himmler thought it was the lost technology of Atlantis. The Israelis agree with Himmler, sort of—they think the lost technology is the key to producing cheap energy using hydrogen from salt water.”

  He made a face. “Who cares what the fucking Israelis think?”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Detlef. The Jews know their science, like it or not. Had Hitler not been blinded by his hatred, Germany would have had the bomb before the Americans. Should we make the same mistake again?”

  “No. Of course not.” He tore a corner off a corn muffin and popped it into his mouth. “So, are you going to buy this painting?”

  “Even we don’t have that kind of money. It’ll go for, I don’t know, hundreds of millions, at least.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  She leaned in. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. We don’t need to own the painting, but we do need to see it. But it’s not for sale publicly. In fact, it’s not officially for sale at all—”

  “Because it’s stolen, right?”

  “Yeah. I’m worried someone is going to buy it and k
eep it hidden. Then we’ll never figure out the mystery.”

  “Do you need the original, or is a picture enough?”

  She smiled. “You’re one step ahead of me. A high-resolution picture should do the trick.” She pulled two photographs from her bag. “These are two Americans who just came back from Belgium. We think they’re helping the owner sell the painting. Or at least figure it out. And we caught a lucky break. I ran their faces through a Google image search. Turns out they live right here in Massachusetts. A married couple. They’re experts on the Knights Templar.”

  Detlef studied them for a few seconds. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I assume you have a couple of reliable foot soldiers?”

  He nodded. “A few guys, at least. Ex-military, special forces.”

  “Good.” She took the photos, slid them into a manila folder, and handed the folder to Detlef. “Here’s all the information we have on them. I’m pretty sure they either know where the painting is or are working for someone who does.” She leaned forward. “We need to find that painting. And we need to do so quickly, before it gets sold and disappears for another eighty years.”

  Going against morning rush hour, and driving one-handed because his pinky stub was sore from yesterday’s debugging procedure, Bruce headed west out the Mass Pike. He found himself singing ‘Master of the House’ from Les Miserables as he drove, a vestige of Shelby’s and his late-night drive home from their date in New York City. Today’s destination would be more mundane, a metallurgy lab in an industrial park in Framingham. It wasn’t the best lab, or even the cheapest, but according to people in the art community, its owners were competent and discreet. Bruce was hoping that, for a few extra bucks, they would also be fast.

  He had a contact name, a short, sixty-something man who met him in the lobby. Bruce, eschewing a handshake, took note of the chewed fingernails and threadbare light blue dress shirt too tight around his midsection. Old enough to retire, but not enough in the bank, Bruce guessed.