The Last Secret of the Ark

by James Becker

  ‘This explains why the encrypted text was included within the Hautpoul papers, because the Aniort and Hautpoul families merged just under five hundred years later,’ Angela said, looking at the plaintext they’d produced.

  ‘Agreed,’ Bronson replied, ‘but I’m not sure it gets us much further. We’d established that the Ark was part of the Cathar treasure of Montségur and was what the four perfecti were carrying when they escaped from the fortress. This text just confirms that. And states that a man named Raymond d’Aniort took possession of the Ark. The end.’

  ‘But we know other stuff, don’t we?’ Angela said encouragingly. ‘Raymond d’Aniort wasn’t just some man. He was deeply involved with the Cathars at Montségur and in negotiating the truce; he was the lord of Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains and one of the most important nobles in the area. We also know he opposed the persecution of the Cathars and did what he could to help them. That implies he supported the Knights Templar, and you could argue that it was the Templars who actually owned the Ark. They’d found and recovered it from the tunnels deep inside the Temple Mount so they had a better claim of ownership than anyone else. It’s called finders keepers because that’s the way it works.’

  ‘But they gave it to the Cathars,’ Bronson pointed out. ‘Or do you mean it was a loan? Something the Cathars borrowed from them?’

  ‘Possibly. We know the Cathars and Templars had links in that part of France and maybe the Templars thought that the Ark would be as safe in Montségur at the top of that volcanic pog as it would be anywhere else. But they certainly wouldn’t have wanted King Louis getting his hands on it, so smuggling it out made perfect sense. If the Cathars had the relic, they couldn’t have carried it down from the castle when the siege ended because the Crusaders would have grabbed it. That was why they demolished the castle when it was all over. They weren’t looking for any old treasure. They were looking for the Ark.’

  ‘That all hangs together really well,’ Bronson agreed. ‘It explains the anomalies about the siege of Montségur, and really only leaves one question that we don’t have an answer to.’

  ‘Yes. What did Raymond d’Aniort do with the Ark of the Covenant?’

  ‘Exactly. And I think that’s a two-part question. What did he do with it immediately, because he would need to keep it somewhere safe, and where did it end up?’

  ‘So where do we need to go next?’ Angela asked. ‘Bearing in mind that we now have a gang of armed men following us, should we go anywhere apart from back to Britain on the next available flight?’

  ‘I don’t think we have a problem with them. We got away from Auch without any sign that we were followed. That was why I stopped in the lay-by close to the city, to check if there were any other cars behind us, and there weren’t. We dumped the two phones in case they were fitted with trackers, so I think we’re safe enough. And I’m still taking precautions.’

  Bronson pointed at the bedroom door, where he’d wedged a chair under the handle so that it couldn’t be opened from the outside without making a hell of a lot of noise; then at his bedside table, where he’d placed the Glock, a dark, compact and utterly lethal final deterrent should anyone break into the room.

  ‘Yes,’ Angela said uncertainly, ‘you are. But if we see any sign that these people’ – she managed to make the word sound faintly obscene – ‘are still following us, I reserve the right to cut and run. Like straight to the nearest airport. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ Bronson said. ‘But I don’t think it’ll come to that.’

  ‘So where do we go next, and why? Where did the Ark go after the perfecti carried it down from Montségur?’

  ‘I think,’ Bronson said, ‘we can make another assumption here. I don’t think Raymond d’Aniort was a Templar himself, but I think he was trusted by the order. If he hadn’t been, they would have had some of their knights waiting for the four perfecti to appear with the Ark at the foot of the pog instead of him. So perhaps he was acting as a courier or agent for the order. As a local lord he and his retinue would have attracted less attention than a group of armoured Templar knights.’

  Angela nodded. ‘You’re right about him being trusted,’ she agreed, ‘because the Aniort family and the Templars were very closely linked. Being the lord of Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains in those days meant that Raymond d’Aniort didn’t just rule those areas, but also owned them. The Aniorts supported the Cathars and were opposed to the Albigensian Crusade, meaning they were also opposed to the French crown, and they were so worried about having their properties confiscated that in 1209 they signed a treaty with the Templars, transferring their assets to the order for protection. Because the Templars owed allegiance only to the Pope, the French crown had no ability to seize or confiscate any property owned by them.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Bronson said. ‘As for what Raymond did with the Ark, I think we can make another assumption, which is that he would have taken it to a place of safe-keeping, not wandered about the countryside with it strapped to the back of a donkey or something.’

  ‘You have somewhere in mind?’

  ‘I’m assuming that’s what the last lines of the text are telling us, but I don’t know what any of it really means,’ he admitted. ‘We’ve got a reference to Solomon and two sets of initials – CSA and COT – and I don’t understand the last bit about the sanctuary for the stranger.’

  ‘Let me put that into better English,’ Angela said.

  She busied herself with her laptop for a couple of minutes, then looked at him.

  ‘That makes more sense,’ she said. ‘The first line claims that the “relic of Solomon” – another name for the Ark – was taken from Montségur to the “place of the castle of the Voisins” for safekeeping.’

  ‘And that would be where?’

  ‘The Voisin family was important in the medieval period in this area and they probably had lots of castles. But as you said, Raymond wouldn’t have wanted to wander about the countryside carrying something as precious as the Ark, so it would be reasonable to assume that this castle, or the place where the Voisin castle was located, which isn’t quite the same thing, was no more than a day’s travel by horse and cart, and that means about twenty to twenty-five miles maximum. And there’s one fairly obvious location that fits those criteria very well.’

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘Rennes-le-Château, obviously,’ Angela said. ‘It’s about twenty-five miles from Montségur. The Templars owned the village – in fact it was quite an important town in those days – because the Aniorts had transferred it to the order in 1209, and Raymond d’Aniort was the local lord. It’s difficult to see where else they could have taken it. The only potential problem was the castle, which was owned by Pierre de Voisin, a supporter of the Albigensian Crusade. But there were plenty of other properties where Raymond and the Ark could have been safely accommodated.’

  ‘So the Ark ended up in Rennes-le-Château, which makes sense now you’ve explained it. Obviously going there must be our next move. Is that the end of the search?’

  ‘No, because of the last two lines of the text. The Occitan phrase santuari a l’estranger doesn’t mean “sanctuary for the stranger”, but “sanctuary abroad”. Maybe the Templars decided to send the Ark back to the Holy Land, to Jerusalem. That sentence reads: “And the relic of Solomon rested in glory at CSA in the dungeon below the bell tower until the doom was upon them and then embarked at COT for sanctuary overseas.” We have to assume that the writer was using initials to refer to places that would have been recognisable to people of that time, like UK or USA would be to anyone today. Or recognisable to people living in the Languedoc. Unfortunately, they mean sod all to us, so that’s something we’re going to have to work on.’

  ‘Well, that’s about as clear as mud,’ Bronson said. ‘Look, I’m knackered. Why don’t we get some sleep and take a look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow morning? Maybe our subconscious minds will work overtime and give us the answer when we
wake up.’

  ‘Yes, and maybe they won’t. But we do need some sleep, that’s for sure.’

  Chapter 30

  Ferrara didn’t want it to look as if they were travelling as a group, so he and Luca Rossi took rooms in a hotel near the centre of Tarbes, while the other three men booked into a budget hotel beside the railway station.

  Rossi knocked on Ferrara’s door just after seven the next morning, his mobile phone in his hand.

  Ferrara was already up and dressed, in case they had to move quickly, and opened it immediately.

  ‘Where are they?’ he asked.

  ‘Exactly where they were last night,’ Rossi replied, showing Ferrara the screen of his smartphone.

  ‘You put another tracker on their car?’

  ‘Another two, and I removed the original so I can charge its battery. Wherever they go, we’ll be able to follow them.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ferrara replied. ‘There’s nothing we can do until they move, so I’ll go and have breakfast. Then I’ll check out and wait downstairs in the lounge. Let me know as soon as the tracker starts moving. Make sure that you have a full tank of fuel in your car and that your other three men have as well. We can’t afford to run out of petrol if the targets decide to take a long drive somewhere. How many cars have they got?’

  ‘Two. Originally there were two of them in each. So we’ve got four vehicles available, which should be more than enough.’

  ‘Good. Can you load your tracker app onto my mobile? In case we get separated.’

  Rossi nodded. ‘I’ll do it now, if you like.’

  Ferrara handed over his personal smartphone, not the burner he’d been given by Caravaggio, and watched as Rossi downloaded an app and fed in the information for the trackers.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, pointing at the screen. ‘And there they are, loud and clear. Enjoy your breakfast. I’ll see you later.’

  * * *

  Bronson and Angela had also got up early. They’d had breakfast in the hotel’s dining room, then returned to their bedroom.

  ‘Right,’ Bronson said. ‘I think you’re right about Rennes-le-Château. They probably went there straight from Montségur with the Ark because it was a place that the Templars and Raymond d’Aniort controlled almost completely. But they didn’t control the castle, so they probably only stayed for a few days – maybe a week or two – and then transported the Ark to a Templar fortress where it could be hidden. Let’s look at that piece of text again.’

  Angela read aloud her translation of the Occitan sentence.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that CSA and COT are places,’ she said, ‘because if they aren’t, it doesn’t make sense. So we need to work out where they are, and we do have a couple of clues.’

  ‘Yes. COT must be on the coast, if the Ark was taken on board a ship, and this CSA place has a bell tower and a dungeon, and was a place where the Ark could be kept safely, so that means it was somewhere fortified.’

  Angela nodded. She was already studying a map of the Languedoc region on the screen of her laptop. She found Montségur and began looking at place names over to the east, between the castle and the Mediterranean coast.

  ‘There’s something I still don’t understand,’ Bronson said. ‘That phrase about sanctuary overseas, and the idea that perhaps they decided to take the Ark back to where it had come from, to Jerusalem.’

  ‘Outremer, Europe overseas, as it was called. So?’

  ‘Montségur fell in March 1244,’ Bronson said, ‘so the earliest the Ark could have been shipped to Jerusalem would have been later that year. But unless I’ve got my dates screwed up, I thought Jerusalem was raided and sacked in July 1244 and abandoned by the Crusaders that same year. So the Templars couldn’t have taken the Ark to Jerusalem because they didn’t control the city any longer. And that expression about the Ark resting in glory doesn’t suggest that it was only at this CSA place for a few days.’

  ‘Now that,’ Angela said, looking up from her laptop, ‘is a very good point, which hadn’t occurred to me. So they must have been heading for somewhere different. Maybe Cyprus? The Templars controlled the island from 1244 until the order was dissolved.’

  ‘Maybe. But if that was what the author of the text meant, why didn’t he write “Cyprus” instead? Or “the Island of Copper” – the name Cyprus is derived from a Greek word meaning “copper”, I think – or something more specific? It’s almost as if he knew the Ark was going to a place of safety, but he didn’t know where because the Templars hadn’t told him. But that makes a nonsense of encrypting the text in the first place. Why bother if it only tells part of the story? What would be the point?’

  ‘Actually, I think we may be missing the point,’ Angela said. ‘I skimmed over it, but that phrase “until the doom was upon them” implies something important. The doom for the Templars must have been King Philip’s men descending on their commanderies throughout France on 13 October 1307 and arresting everybody they could find on trumped-up charges of heresy. So maybe what the writer is telling us is that the Ark stayed at this CSA place until word of Philip’s plan leaked out. And then the Templars moved it to a different place of safety.’

  ‘So it wouldn’t have embarked on a ship until 1307,’ Bronson said. ‘That means it couldn’t have gone to Jerusalem or Cyprus because by then the Templar order had been suppressed and their properties seized in both those places. Perhaps that’s why the text is so vague about what happened. Maybe the writer knew the Ark had been taken somewhere by sea but didn’t know where because the Templars on the ship also didn’t know where it was going to end up.’

  ‘So if we’re looking for the Ark in France, we’re almost certainly looking in the wrong country.’

  ‘That changes everything,’ Bronson agreed, ‘but we still need to identify these two places before we head off in a completely different direction.’

  ‘Let’s start with COT, then,’ Angela suggested. ‘That must be somewhere on the coast and it’s a smaller area to search.’

  They both studied the map on Angela’s laptop. She altered the scale to zoom in and follow the coastline on the screen.

  ‘I’m assuming CSA and COT are abbreviations for place names containing three words,’ she said, ‘because I don’t think any French place name could realistically start with the letters CSA.’

  They found nothing that seemed likely, so she tried a new tack.

  ‘Let’s forget the map for the moment,’ she said. ‘I’ll do a search for Templar port towns or fortresses on that coast.’

  The search was awkward, because she couldn’t find a site that listed all the Templar properties in the region, only sites that discussed a single commandery or fortress. Again she found nothing obvious, but eventually she came up with one place that might fit the bill, though the name didn’t.

  ‘This might be it,’ she said. ‘There’s a town called Collioure. It’s right down near the Spanish border, south-east of Perpignan, but it’s not actually that far from Montségur, only about seventy miles as the crow flies, so at medieval horse-and-cart speeds I suppose it would take about four or five days to do the journey. There’s a Templar castle there, built in about 1207. It was later integrated into what’s now called the Château Royal de Collioure, a huge building. It seems right, but the name doesn’t… Oh, hang on a second.’

  She accessed another website dealing with the town, and then grinned at Bronson.

  ‘It does fit,’ she said. ‘The Occitan name of Collioure is Cotlliure, so there’s the COT link. And there’s something else about it that’s relevant. Although it’s in France today, it wasn’t during the medieval period. Then it was a part of Roussillon and the property of the King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona. So when Philip the Fair blew the whistle on the Templars, the knights living in the castle at Collioure wouldn’t have been affected. Which means they’d have had no trouble loading the relic onto a Templar ship in the harbour.’

  ‘Well done,’ Bronson said. ‘T
hat does work. So now let’s find this town known as CSA.’

  That search took longer simply because they had a much bigger area to cover, but eventually Angela pointed at a small settlement about twenty miles east of Montségur, north of Quillan and close to both Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains.

  ‘Campagne-sur-Aude,’ she said. ‘That fits CSA perfectly. And there was a Templar fortress there. The place was the property of the viscounts of Carcassonne, and in 1147 Roger de Béziers gave the village, and as a matter of fact the villagers as well, to the Templars. He had a big mortgage that the Templars cleared in return for his gift, and he wanted to take part in the Second Crusade, so he needed funds for the journey and to pay for his servants and equipment.’

  ‘So that has to be our next stop after Rennes-le-Château,’ Bronson said.

  Chapter 31

  En route Paris to Languedoc

  While Josef Gellerman, Lemuel Dayan and Aaron Chason constituted part of the front-line operational side of the Zeru group, at their base in Jerusalem the second-line members tended to be of a more academic bent, and they could also call on the services of outside experts in various disciplines, including linguists and historians.

  Although Gellerman had initially been confident he would be able to work out what the decoded text said, he’d quickly got bogged down in it and decided to get one of Zeru’s experts involved instead. He had emailed a copy of it to Jerusalem. The people there, he knew, would turn it into a readable document that he hoped would lead them to their goal.

  In the meantime, he doubted very much if the quest for the Ark of the Covenant would end up in Paris or anywhere nearby. If the Ark still existed, the consensus opinion at Zeru was that it had been hidden somewhere in the southern part of the country, most probably in the Languedoc, because they had detected hints that that was where it had last been seen. So as soon as they’d sent the email, the three men had climbed into their Renault hire car, Gellerman at the wheel, and driven onto the Boulevard Périphérique, the Paris ring road. They headed anticlockwise towards the intersection at Gentilly, where they would pick up the A6a Autoroute du Soleil to drive south out of the city.