The Last Secret of the Ark

by James Becker

  He took off the glasses as soon as he stepped inside the building and then hung well back, watching the two targets carefully while pretending to read from his guidebook and looking around at various features of the church.

  * * *

  Bronson’s attention was immediately drawn to the semicircular end of the church facing them, above the altar.

  ‘That’s more impressive than I would have expected to find in a small church like this,’ he said.

  Stained-glass windows mounted in decorated alcoves contrasted with deep blue paint dotted with tiny silver stars, the roof apparently supported by gold-coloured tapering braces radiating from a central point. In fact, much of the interior was decorated in contrasting shades and colours marked by various small symbols painted in different colours. The decoration gave the place an almost sumptuous feel.

  Angela took some general shots with her mobile and then walked towards the altar. Before she got there, she veered off to her right. In plan, the much-modified chapel resembled a crucifix with the altar at the top – the southern end of the structure, as she pointed out to Bronson.

  ‘So the crosspiece of the crucifix, if you like, is the original Templar chapel and we’re standing at the western end of it. The bell tower is above us and you can see the spiral staircase that leads up to it.’ She pointed at the massive old stones that formed the staircase by the left-hand wall. ‘According to that plan I found, the dungeon was on the opposite side to the staircase.’

  ‘No dungeon here,’ Bronson said, stating the obvious. ‘You don’t know if it was below ground or on this level?’

  ‘That wasn’t specified on the plan. But this was a chapel and I doubt the Templars would have wanted a place of imprisonment inside a place of worship, so most probably they would have dug into the bedrock under our feet. They were very accomplished tunnellers and engineers. But wherever the dungeon was, it’s not here now.’

  There were no indications in that corner of the original Templar chapel of a closed-off staircase or any other kind of structure.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Bronson said. ‘I know we’re looking for something that disappeared seven hundred years ago, so we’re not going to find clues just lying about on the ground. We know that the Ark hasn’t been here for all that time, but I would still have liked to see the place where it was kept. And I was hoping there would be something here that would tell us where it went.’

  Angela nodded, her expression grim and almost resigned. ‘I hate to say it, but I think this has all been a complete waste of time. I don’t think there’s any point in going on to Collioure. We know that all we’d find there would be the old Templar fortress, which is now part of that much bigger royal castle, and a modern version of the harbour where a ship from the Templar fleet turned up to collect the Ark. What we aren’t going to find, either here or in Collioure, is any indication of where it went next or where it is now.’

  ‘So you think this is it?’ Bronson asked. ‘You think this is the end of the trail?’

  ‘You know me. When it comes to this kind of thing I’ll forge right on to the bitter end, but realistically I don’t think there’s anywhere else we can go. The document we decoded sent us to Rennes-le-Château and from there to where we’re standing now. The last place it referred to was Collioure, and all that happened there was that the Ark was loaded on board a ship, probably sometime in 1307 before the Knights Templars were arrested. That vessel could have gone anywhere.’

  ‘Anywhere?’

  ‘Well, not exactly anywhere. I suppose their choices were slightly limited. Most of the Mediterranean was out of their reach by that time. But they could have gone to Portugal, for example. The Templars already had a major presence there and they weren’t persecuted in that country. So if the ship carrying the Ark sailed around the Iberian peninsula to Lisbon or Porto, the relic might well have ended up somewhere like the Convento de Cristo. And it could still be there, locked away in some forgotten chamber.’

  ‘Or maybe it went to Scotland,’ Bronson suggested. ‘We know they had assets there, and in England as well. We also know that when the King’s men entered the Templar commandery in Paris on the morning of 13 October 1307, they found the vaults were virtually empty. All the treasure that Philip himself had seen in the building just a few months earlier had disappeared, as had most of the knights, and we also know why.’

  ‘La Rochelle and the eighteen galleys?’ Angela suggested.

  ‘Exactly. Gérard de Villiers was the Templar Master of France. He was one of eight provincial masters who handled Templar affairs in Europe – the others being the masters of Apulia in Italy, Aragon in Iberia, England, Hungary, Poitiers, Portugal and Scotland – all governed by the Grand Master of the order and his seneschal. Another thing we know is that the Templars had word of Philip’s plan and took precautions. The order comprised isolated communities in their commanderies, literally surrounded by potential or actual enemies. They would have had friends at court and employed spies and informers as a matter of course. So in the weeks before Philip’s men moved against the Templars, Gérard de Villiers and probably at least a dozen senior knights left the Paris commandery with horses and carts and made their way south-west to La Rochelle. And from that port a fleet of eighteen Templar galleys, loaded with most of the Templar assets, sailed into apparent oblivion and were never seen again. I think the most persuasive argument I’ve heard is that the fleet sailed north and made landfall on the Scottish coast just east of Edinburgh, probably at a place called Musselburgh near the mouth of the River Esk.

  ‘One thing that’s always puzzled me about this incident is how many historians claim there was no fleet because the Templars didn’t own any ships. They apparently fail to recognise the fact that the order of the Knights Templar was both a terrestrial and a maritime force. At the height of their powers they had castles in the Holy Land, they owned the island of Cyprus and had establishments in Italy, Spain, England and Scotland. They were forever criss-crossing the Mediterranean and travelling up to the British Isles. Obviously they owned ships. That’s self-evident. They couldn’t have maintained the control they did unless they had a fleet.’

  ‘So you think the Ark of the Covenant probably ended up in Scotland? Is that what you’re saying?’

  Bronson shook his head. ‘Not exactly. I think it probably went to Scotland, either on a vessel travelling independently or perhaps as part of the treasure fleet that sailed from La Rochelle. We don’t know when it was collected from Collioure, or what else the vessel was carrying, so the ship might have sailed around the Iberian peninsula to La Rochelle and then joined with the other ships. Sailing as part of a fleet would have provided an extra layer of security, and since the Ark was one of the most important assets the order possessed, protecting it would have been a very high priority. But what happened to it after the fleet arrived in Scotland is another question altogether.’

  ‘Well it doesn’t look like we’re going to find the answer here, or any time soon, so we might as well find a hotel somewhere, maybe down in Quillan, and then book our flights back to London. I think we’re done here.’

  * * *

  One of the characteristics that is true of most churches is that the acoustics are very good, and the former Templar chapel was no exception. While standing and looking at the altar and the wall and ceiling behind it, Ferrara was able to hear most of what the two targets were saying. Not every word, but enough to get the gist of their conversation.

  And it was not good news, from his point of view.

  It sounded as if they were definitely giving up the search, and as his orders from Cardinal Caravaggio were that he was to find and recover the Ark and kill the Lewis woman, or rather the other way round, that was not what he wanted to hear. At the very least he would need to contact Rome, explain what he had overheard – and why Lewis was still alive despite the cardinal’s most explicit instructions – and find out what they wanted him to do next. If she was giving up the search because
there were no further clues to be found, if the quest really had hit a dead end, what would be the point in killing her?

  Committing murder was not something he ever undertook lightly, not for any moral or ethical considerations but simply because it was the one crime guaranteed to galvanise any police force into a flurry of activity and there was always the danger – small, perhaps, but always present – that he would make a mistake and be implicated in the crime. That was something he was extremely keen to avoid at all costs. He would far rather let Lewis walk, irrespective of what Caravaggio told him to do, than contemplate spending three or four decades locked up in a French prison.

  He saw that Lewis and Bronson were about to leave. He closed his guidebook – which in fact didn’t even mention the church he was standing in – and made his way unhurriedly back to the entrance. He wanted to exit the building before the two targets got outside so that there would be no suspicion that he was following or taking the slightest notice of them.

  After that, he would obviously continue tracking their progress while he waited for a decision from Rome.

  Chapter 41

  About five minutes after Ferrara had driven his Alfa Romeo across the bridge and into the small village, another car made the same journey. Joseph Gellerman immediately recognised the driver.

  ‘That’s Rossi,’ he said, and instinctively checked his pistol was to hand.

  The three Israelis watched as the Italian parked his car about fifty metres in front of them.

  ‘He’s by himself,’ Dayan said. ‘We could walk up to him right now, stick a gun to his head and find out exactly what he knows.’

  ‘We could,’ Gellerman agreed, ‘but it wouldn’t work. Rossi almost never operates alone. He’ll be waiting for somebody else to arrive. If we move on him we’ll be in trouble until we know how many men he has with him. We could be outnumbered and outgunned. So we sit here and watch. And we listen.’

  He turned to Aaron, sitting in the back seat.

  ‘Pass me that camera bag, please.’

  Chason reached down into the footwell, picked up a black fabric bag and passed it forward.

  Gellerman opened it and took out a Sony digital camera and a long black tube with a cable attached. He switched on the camera and plugged in the lead of the shotgun microphone. He put the camera on the dashboard where all three men could see the screen on the back of it and turned it so that the lens was facing Rossi’s car. Then he passed the shotgun mike to Dayan in the front passenger seat.

  The Israeli took care to keep the end of the device at the bottom of the open window where it couldn’t easily be seen, and aimed it straight at Rossi’s car.

  ‘We’ll keep watching,’ Gellerman said. ‘He’s here for a reason and we need to know what it is. I think the Inquisition knows a lot more about the location of the relic than we do. It can’t be here – we already know that – and we also know that it can’t be at Collioure, so maybe Rossi and his men know where we should be looking.’

  ‘Rossi must know that the Ark left France from Collioure, so what’s he doing here?’ Chason asked.

  ‘I don’t know. We can’t make any assumptions about what he knows or doesn’t know. Our people in Jerusalem think the Ark probably stayed in this village for several years, maybe decades, so he might be expecting to find some clue in that church. Some of it looked old and it could have been part of the Templar fortress, so maybe there’s an inscription or something in the building that we didn’t see.’

  A couple of minutes later, another two cars arrived, one driven by a single man and the other with two men in it. The new arrivals parked close to Rossi’s vehicle, and one of the men got out and walked over to the driver’s side of the Italian’s car.

  ‘I told you,’ Gellerman said. ‘He never works alone.’

  He switched the camera to video and started to record the conversation going on in front of them.

  ‘It’s those tourists again,’ Chason said, pointing through the window.

  * * *

  Angela and Bronson walked across the road from the church door to their hire car. They got in and for a few seconds just sat there, both of them staring through the windscreen at nothing in particular.

  ‘This isn’t how I expected it to end,’ Angela said. ‘Sitting here in a car in a microscopic French village knowing that we’ve reached the end of the trail.’

  Bronson nodded and glanced at her, not sure how to respond, then looked around at the dusty street and the old, shabby buildings that surrounded them. Several things attracted his attention, and he looked back at Angela.

  ‘I have a feeling,’ he said after a minute or so, ‘that not all the cars parked in this village belong to either locals or tourists. Or if they do belong to tourists, they seem to be following very similar itineraries to us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Without making it blindingly obvious, if you glance to your right, you’ll see a small white car parked in front of that house on the left-hand side of the road. I’m interested in cars, and I can tell you that’s an Alfa Romeo MiTo and it’s on Italian plates. Bearing in mind that the French always seem to buy their own domestic products, almost every other car here is a Citroën, Peugeot or Renault, so something like that tends to stand out.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So when we were driving out of Rennes-le-Château, I noticed another white MiTo stationary in that car park about halfway down the hill. That was also on Italian plates and, just like the one over there, had a single occupant. I didn’t note the plate number, but I’d be very surprised if there were two single Italian men exploring this bit of France in identical cars. So I think we’re being followed.’

  ‘Oh God. Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Bronson said. Keeping his hand as low as possible, he removed the Glock from his shoulder holster, racked the slide to chamber a round and then replaced the weapon.

  ‘I hope the safety catch is on,’ Angela said.

  ‘Glocks don’t have safety catches, or not in the sense you mean anyway. But don’t worry. It won’t fire until I wrap my hand around the butt and pull the trigger.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not seeing something that isn’t there? I mean, have you noticed anybody following us?’

  ‘A couple of times I’ve seen a white car that could have been a MiTo in the traffic behind us, but apart from that, no. But there’s one thing I forgot to check. When we were in the hotel in Auch, we know we were under surveillance because of what happened. Nobody followed us when we drove to Tarbes, yet here we are, looking at another Italian who’s now popped up at least twice in our near vicinity. I think that when we were in Auch, as well as watching us, that group of Italians also watched our car. It wouldn’t have been difficult to identify. I think that while it was parked, one of them attached a tracker to it, and that’s why we’re seeing that Italian again, if it is the same man. And there’s something else,’ he added.

  ‘More bad news?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve just noticed that over to our left-hand side there are three cars, one on Italian plates and the other two French, containing four men. They weren’t parked there when we drove into the village, so they must have arrived while we were in the church. The Italian I questioned back in Auch told me there were five men in the surveillance team watching us. Now we have one Italian sitting in an Alfa Romeo, another man in an Italian-plated Lancia and three anonymous males sitting in what look to me like a couple of French hire cars. By my reckoning, one plus one plus three equals five, so I think there’s a good chance that right now we’re kind of in the middle of that same surveillance team.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Angela said again. ‘What do you think they’ll do?’

  Bronson smiled slightly. ‘I don’t expect them to do anything except follow us,’ he replied, ‘because that’s what surveillance teams do. Of course, if we’d walked out of that church carrying a box two and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide and one and a half cubits high, I�
��m quite sure we’d have been surrounded by men pointing pistols at us before we’d got halfway back to the car.’

  ‘They’re looking for the Ark, you mean?’

  ‘Why else would they be following us?’

  ‘So what should we do?’

  ‘Go and have a cup of coffee,’ Bronson replied.

  ‘What?’

  He pointed through the car’s windscreen and over to the right, beyond where the Alfa Romeo was parked.

  ‘There’s a little auberge over there with tables and chairs outside. Let’s go and have a coffee there and see what happens. My guess is that the staff at the bar will suddenly find they’ve got four new customers. That’ll be the two of us and two of the men from the cars on our left. They’ll send two men because two men having a beer or a coffee together looks less suspicious than a man drinking alone, and they can sit and talk to each other and at the same time listen to what we’re saying.’

  ‘And what will we be saying?’

  ‘Pretty much the same as we said in the church. The surveillance team may be Italian, but they’ll all definitely speak English; they wouldn’t have been recruited for this job unless they did. So we talk about the trail we’ve followed so far and how we ended up here in this village, and why there’s no point in driving all the way down to Collioure because there’ll be nothing to find there, and how generally pissed off we both are. And then I think I’ll put the icing on the cake by taking out my mobile and booking us a couple of tickets on a flight to London out of Toulouse tomorrow afternoon.’

  Angela nodded. ‘And are you really going to book the flight?’

  ‘Unless you’ve got a better idea,’ Bronson said. ‘I think I might as well, because that’s the reality of the situation. We’ve come to the end of the trail and there really is nowhere else we can go.’