Treasure Templari

by David S. Brody

  Amanda smiled. “These guys sure loved their secrets.”

  “Same as the Freemasons today. Handshakes, coded knocks on the door, passwords, blood oaths.” He shrugged. “Can’t blame them. It turns out they were right to be careful.”

  “True that.”

  “So the other seals. I took a look at the two men on a horse. It’s the seal everyone knows about. Like we said, it makes no sense because Templar knights never shared a horse. But symbolically, the use of two knights could signify the importance of duality.” They had discussed this concept while on the way to St. Bavo’s Cathedral. The Templars believed in balance. Every aspect in nature had an opposite, and these opposites needed to be in harmony and balance in order to exist in a healthy state. “In the case of the Templars, the two men represent the opposite, seemingly contradictory, missions of the Order. On the one hand, religious monks; on the other, fierce warriors. Complete opposites, yet in balance. Two men, balanced together on one horse.”

  Amanda nodded slowly. “Okay. I can see that. Taking it further, the horse could symbolize nature. Mankind, when in balance, can coexist with nature in a state of mutual benefit. Equilibrium. What else do you have?”

  “Another seal has a crescent moon and the sun.” He handed her his phone. “This is the secret seal of one of the Templar leaders in France, named Frater Robert. It’s from the 13th century.”

  She studied it. “The Phoenicians used to use the moon with the sun above as a symbol also. Just like this.”

  “Right. It’s common in ancient pagan cultures. In Freemasonry, the two pillars when you enter the lodge are named Jachin and Boaz; Jachin is decorated with and represents the sun, Boaz the moon.”

  “So, duality again.”

  “Yes. Balance. Yin and yang. Light and dark. Day and night. Masculine and feminine. Sun and moon.”

  Amanda nodded. “Balance, like you said. I read something once: Even though the sun is 400 times as large as the moon, they appear to be the exact same size in the sky.” She paused to let the point sink in. “What are the odds of that? That’s why the ancient peoples believed they were equal in power. The sun rules the day and the moon rules the night.”

  They crossed the border into Massachusetts. Cam had shown Amanda three secret seals, all featuring symbols representing duality. “The fourth seal features a tower with a Templar cross over it. Just scroll to the next image.”

  “Aha,” she said. “Another round tower. Perhaps symbolizing Mary Magdalene.” She did not need to remind him that the Hebrew root of the name ‘Magdalene’ was ‘migdal,’ meaning ‘tower.’

  “Right. The Templars weren’t known for building towers—they built Gothic cathedrals.”

  “Except, of course, the Newport Tower. But that was built in secret, before any other Europeans came to America.”

  “Right. And the Order is named after the Temple of Solomon, which didn’t even have a tower. So why include a tower on their seal?”

  “Because the tower has a hidden meaning, just like the tower was important for you decoding the Just Judges painting. It’s a shout-out to the Magdalene. And by extension, to the concept of duality. The importance of the feminine to a healthy society. In fact…” She paused, her mind racing. “The tower was often used in old fables and fairy tales as an archetype for the duality narrative. You know, the fair maiden is locked in the tower, the countryside is barren, the land is ruled by a tyrant. But when the noble prince arrives to rescue her, the feminine and masculine are recombined. The sacred union happens at the tower. Duality is reestablished, balance and harmony restored. The kingdom is saved. Everyone lives happily ever after.”

  Cam nodded. “Nice. I never thought of that aspect of the tower. And it makes sense they’d built a tower in America also, in Newport, as part of their new utopia.” He sprayed the windshield and ran the wipers. “The symbolism is clear.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been able to find four secret Templar seals. All with different symbolism. And all relating back to the concept of duality. Abraxas. Two men on a horse. The sun and moon. A tower. They could have picked anything, but they picked these.”

  Amanda nodded. “And with the Templars, nothing was done by accident. So what does it say about the treasure?”

  Cam sighed. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what treasure has to do with duality and balance. The Templars didn’t care about worldly treasures. They cared about esoteric stuff, about saving souls, about doing God’s work. I just have trouble believing that the treasure hidden in the Just Judges painting—the so-called Holy Grail—is a physical treasure at all.”

  “You think we’re on the wrong track?”

  “Maybe. Could be.”

  She peered out the window for a few seconds. “Well, if we’re on the wrong track, we bloody well have lots of company.”

  Menachem and Ezra crept through the woods, the dim lights of Plansky’s trailer on the bluff the only illumination on this cloudy night. Menachem tried not to laugh at the site of his burly friend clad entirely in black. “You look like a bear dressed up as midnight for Halloween.”

  “Halloween?” Ezra grinned, his teeth contrasting with the shoe polish on his cheeks. He pulled a Milky Way bar from his pocket. “That explains why I’m carrying this. Can’t get them in Europe—the ones there don’t have any caramel.”

  They trudged slowly, accessing the resort property from the side so as not to be seen, Menachem pushing aside the brush on a narrow trail with a walking stick. He froze midstride as a flashlight beam swept through the woods. Waiting for it to pass, he whispered to Ezra, “They must have hired security.” He removed a pair of night vision goggles from his pack and peered ahead. They were downwind, so their voice would not carry. “Two of them. Pacing the perimeter of the clearing.”

  “Armed?” Ezra asked, stepping back.

  “Of course. This is America. Even little children have guns.” Menachem slid behind a tree and motioned for his friend to do the same. Not that a single tree would hide Ezra. “Let me watch them for a few minutes. See how close we can get.” As he did so, he said in a low voice, “Explain to me again how learning nothing was a good thing?”

  “Well, for example, the fact that Plansky knows nothing about any treasure indicates it probably hasn’t been found yet. Trust me, this is not a man with an active social life. He sits in his trailer on the bluff in the middle of the property. It is possible that someone could have snuck onto the property in the middle of the night.” He smiled. “Perhaps a couple of old battle horses like ourselves. But nobody could have done any digging without him noticing, even if the security guards were not there.”

  Menachem lowered his glasses and motioned them forward. “So the treasure is still here?” As he spoke, they pushed carefully through the wooded area to arrive at the edge of an irregularly-shaped, bulldozed clearing the rough size of a tennis court. This, apparently, was where the septic system was supposed to be. And where the artifacts had been discovered, stopping the work. Was it possible that a pile of meteorite rocks, taken from Jerusalem two millennia ago, was buried beneath the dirt at his feet?

  Ezra let out a long breath. The guards’ lights danced across the trees at the far side of the clearing. “I didn’t say that, old friend.” He kicked at the ground. “For all I know, there’s nothing here besides arrowheads and used condoms. The treasure is your department.”

  Now that Menachem was at the site, he, like Cameron Thorne, had his doubts. It was a serene, peaceful vista, overlooking the river. But would he bury a treasure here? He always pictured treasures on top of mountains or hidden in caves, guarded by giants or dragons or snakes. But perhaps he had read too many books. Why not hide it someplace inconspicuous? Why not, in fact, hide it within a Native American burial site? As sacred ground, the land would have a high probability of being both guarded and preserved. And if there really was a 12th-century sword buried here, that proved ancient travelers had been on the site. He took a deep breath. “I know you had wanted to go bac
k to New York City tomorrow.”

  “Actually, that’s fine. I think that waitress from lunch took a liking to me.”

  “Good. Because we have more work to do here.” He offered his friend a half smile. “As for that waitress, I think she mostly took a liking to your wallet. That was a nice tip you left her.”

  “Of course it was. She had to stare at your ugly mug for the entire morning. It was the least I could do. And so what if she likes my money?” He stroked his beard and patted his gut. “Do you think women fuck me because of my good looks?”

  Chapter 11

  Seated at the breakfast bar in her condo on a lazy Sunday morning, Shelby kept herself busy with the Globe crossword. She had awoken early and spent a few hours at the Big Sister offices, then picked up the newspaper and a fruit salad on her way home. But her mind kept drifting, her subconscious directing her thoughts back to Bruce. No, not her subconscious. More like her instincts. Something was wrong, she sensed. He was in danger. He had been acting odd—more secretive and furtive than ever, if that was possible. But beyond that, he had not been sleeping well, not exercising, not eating. Normally he was the king of compartmentalization. Nothing bothered him, nothing interrupted his routine. The building could be on fire, yet he would insist on finishing his bench press set before fleeing.

  In short, the precious equilibrium he worked so hard to keep, between the land and the sea, had become unbalanced. He was at sea, in a storm, losing control.

  She dropped the crossword onto the counter. She was not much of a sailor herself, but she could throw a life line or call the Coast Guard or even just help bail. But she could not sit around while the man she loved crashed on the rocks.

  She marched into the bedroom to find her overnight bag, her mind on the list of things she would need to do before heading to New York to join Bruce. Three steps into the room, she stopped suddenly. There was a smell in the room, something humid and organic. She glanced at her bed. The comforter was wrinkled, a pillow askew. Tensing, she crossed the room. The smell grew stronger. With a shaky hand she reached for the comforter and pulled the edge back slowly. The head of a tabby cat, its lifeless green eyes staring up at her, rested on the pillow like a crown jewel on display.

  Covering her mouth, she swallowed a scream. A small envelope rested on the corner of the pillow, her name written neatly across the front in blood-red ink. Her hand still shaking, and trying not to look at the cat head, she snatched the note and pried open the envelope flap. It read: Cats have 9 lives. Humans have 1. You might want to remind your boyfriend of that.

  Cam had made arrangements to meet Menachem on Sunday morning at the base of the east slope of Hunter Mountain along Route 214. At ten o’clock, Menachem and a heavy-set man climbed from a small sedan and ambled over. “Pretty spot,” Menachem said, motioning to the placid lake set in the narrow notch between Hunter and its neighbor, Plateau Mountain.

  “Pretty, yes. Until the landslides and thunder snow come,” Cam said, his voice much improved over yesterday. “The early settlers called this the Devil’s Path because it was so inhospitable.”

  “Speaking of the devil, this is Ezra.” Menachem introduced his companion as a Biblical scholar.

  They shook hands, Cam noticing the slightly bent fingers of a man ready to reciprocate the Masonic secret handshake by pressing his fingertips into Cam’s wrist. Cam was not himself a Mason, but had been present at many Masonic rituals where others assumed he was, and had therefore become familiar with the secret handshake. Cam eyed him. He was not surprised that an Israeli would be a Mason; many Jews in America and Europe belonged. But he was surprised that a member of the Mossad (as he assumed Ezra was since he was working with Menachem) would risk having split allegiances by joining the fraternal group. “A Biblical scholar, huh?”

  The bearded, burly man had a kind face, but there was no mistaking the intelligence in his dark eyes. “Amongst other things,” he replied, hinting that he had sensed Cam’s reaction to the handshake.

  Whoever he was, and whatever his expertise, Cam was glad to have him along. Especially if he was a Freemason. In Cam’s experience with the order, its members almost always acted selflessly. Plus, the more eyes and brains on this mystery, the better. If the Templar journals were authentic, which Cam and Amanda believed them to be, this was the site the Templars first visited and secreted some of their artifacts. Later, those visitors who chose to remain in America resettled further west, along the Neversink River. But this Hunter Mountain site was their original destination. Too many people were descending on the Catskills, all of them intent on cashing in on or taking advantage of the Templar treasure in some way. Bruce. Gus. The neo-Nazis. The Mossad. But none of them gave a damn about the historical importance of the find. There might not even be a treasure, in fact. But, based on the sword, there were Templar-era artifacts. That was the real treasure. The site needed to be professionally excavated, not pillaged and plundered.

  Cam led them to the trailhead where they sat at a picnic table tucked within a copse of pine trees. He was going to tell a story. And like all good stories, good visuals would be needed to make it more believable. Which was why he had wanted to meet here, so his visitors could see the site in person.

  “Okay,” he said. “So this is the spot. If the Templars were here in the late 1100s, this is where they were.” He pointed up at the steep, rugged mountain slope. “There’s a rough trail heading up, following a stream bed, with carvings etched on the boulders as directional markers. I was up there with a group a few years ago.”

  “What kind of carvings?” Ezra asked.

  “Theban letters. Theban is an ancient secret script used by the Templars.”

  “Can we see them?” Menachem asked, standing.

  “Sure,” Cam said. “The first one’s about an hour climb up.” He wasn’t thrilled about making the climb with a sore, stiff neck—any sudden movement sent a jolt of pain down his side. But he’d do it if necessary.

  Ezra held up a hand. “Stop right there. What did you call it, a rough trail? No way is this old body climbing any rough trail. Hell, I’d probably object to an escalator.”

  Menachem glared at him for a second before sighing. “Fine. I suppose we don’t need to see the actual carvings.” He sat back down. “Do you have pictures?”

  “I do, but they don’t show much. Most of the Theban letters are pretty faint.”

  “Don’t bother.” Menachem waved the subject away. “You said there were directional markers. What did they direct to?”

  “I’ll skip the details as to how we got there, but near the top of the slope we found a buried stone with Roman numerals carved onto it. The Roman numerals looked like latitude and longitude readings—”

  Menachem interrupted. “Just like you say you found encoded in the Just Judges landscape.”

  “Yes. Exactly,” Cam said. “That’s actually what gave me the idea to look for navigational coordinates in the painting in the first place. Anyway, here’s a picture of the carved stone. It was buried, so it’s much better preserved than the Theban letters. We call it the “In Camera Stone” because that’s what it says across the bottom. It means ‘hidden’ in Latin.” He smiled to himself, remembering Shelby’s comment about things written in Latin always sounding more important. He held up his phone and showed an image of the stone.

  “Where do the coordinates lead?” Menachem asked.

  “At first glance, nowhere special,” Cam replied. “A wooded area north of Ottawa. But then we realized we needed to adjust for a historically-accurate prime meridian. Greenwich, England only became widely used in the late 1800s. If this is a Templar artifact, as we think it is, the prime meridian they used would have been Paris.”

  “So, you need to move east,” Ezra said.

  “Yes. Two degrees, twenty minutes, to be exact. And that puts us in the heart of the old section of Montreal.”

  Ezra nodded. “Of course. Settled in the 1600s by the Sulpicians, descendants of the original
French Templar families.”

  Menachem looked like he wanted to ask Ezra how he would know such a thing, but instead turned to Cam. “So, if I’m following you, something is hidden, in camera, in Montreal?”

  “We don’t know. It seems clear that, originally, something was hidden here, on this mountain. The next thing we know is that, in 1657, not long after Montreal was settled, a group of Sulpicians, the descendants of the Templar families, came and climbed here, in what they called the mountains north of New Amsterdam. We have a letter to that effect dated 1657.”

  “Why?” Menachem asked. “Why would they come?”

  Ezra answered for Cam. “Because the French didn’t control this area of America. The Dutch did, while the English controlled the rest of New England. The Sulpicians wanted to get their artifacts back.” He looked up the mountain slope and pulled on his beard, thinking. “And it wasn’t just a question of nationality,” he declared. “It was a matter of religious belief. The Puritans, obviously, were very dogmatic. As were the Dutch with their Calvinist intolerance. So the Sulpicians, being Catholic, were not welcome here. They came—probably furtively—to retrieve their treasures and move them north to Montreal, to land they controlled.”

  Ezra had reached the exact conclusion Cam hoped he would. But Cam played it coy. “I suppose that’s one possibility.”

  Ezra lifted his chin. “It is, I suggest, the obvious conclusion.”

  Menachem held up his hands to the sky. “So what in God’s name are we doing here in New York? Shouldn’t we be in Montreal? Thorne, I thought you told me the treasure was in the Catskills.”