King's Crusade (Seventeen)

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King's Crusade (Seventeen) Page 20

by Starrling, AD


  Jackson raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m surprised an immortal would fraternize with an organization such as the Freemasons.’

  Schmidt grunted. ‘I’m not the only immortal in their ranks. And I happen to like the way they do things,’ he said. ‘Besides, hanging out with immortals gets grinding after a while.’

  Alexa looked at him steadily for silent seconds. ‘You can always walk out of here,’ she said. ‘Pretend this never happened. I won’t tell Reznak about your alliance with the Freemasons.’

  The Crovir Hunter frowned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘If what you’re saying is true, then what’s at stake here goes far beyond the Freemasons.’ He turned to stare at the doors. ‘So, anyone spot some kind of access panel yet?’

  They studied the polished surfaces.

  The doors met each other almost seamlessly. Alexa stepped up to the closest one and skimmed her fingers along the corners and sides. There was nothing to see. She suspected they were as thick as the concrete walls that enclosed the chamber. They would not be able to break into the place by sheer brute force.

  Her gaze shifted to the steel itself. She took a few steps back and stared at the gray, burnished metal at an angle. Seconds later, she went still.

  She could just about discern the suggestion of a faint line on it.

  ‘You see it too?’ murmured Jackson. He was standing three feet from her and gazing intently at the doors, his head tilted to one side.

  ‘Yes,’ Alexa replied in a low voice.

  ‘We need the lights off,’ said Jackson suddenly.

  They turned and inspected the walls. Alexa saw Carrington reach for his gun out of the corner of her eye. Before she could shout out a warning, the Crovir took out three of the lights. The suppressor at the end of the weapon muffled his shots to dull thuds.

  ‘Switch is here, Mr. Crovir,’ said Yonten cheerfully. The monk pointed at a small silver knob near the vestibule.

  ‘Oh,’ said Carrington. ‘Look, it was an honest mistake,’ he added with a sickly grin as he beheld her dark stare.

  Yonten pressed the switch. The corridor was plunged in darkness.

  ‘Holy crap,’ whispered Carrington a heartbeat later, all embarrassment forgotten.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hundreds of bright, glowing symbols covered the metal doors ahead of them. Among the Masonic figures and emblems in the complex arrangement, Alexa recognized the coat of arms of the United Grand Lodge.

  ‘It’s a code,’ said Jackson finally, in a voice filled with wonder.

  She glanced at his dim shadow to her left.

  ‘What do you mean, a “code”?’ asked Schmidt irritably.

  ‘There’s no key. No access panel to break into to open those doors. The only way to get inside that room is to figure out the Freemasons’ code,’ said Jackson animatedly. ‘And I bet we only have one guess.’

  Alexa could tell he was impressed by the intricate puzzle before them. She shifted impatiently; they did not have time for riddles. ‘Can you decipher it?’ she asked.

  ‘I think so,’ said Jackson with a nod.

  ‘Schmidt?’ She turned to the Crovir Hunter.

  Schmidt shrugged. ‘I can give it a go, but I don’t think I’ll be of much use. I suspect only the Grand Master of the Lodge knows the code.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ she ordered.

  Ten minutes later, Jackson’s breath left his lips in a harsh exhale. He was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the marble floor and staring at the symbols, his elbows on his thighs and his chin propped on his fisted hands. Schmidt stood close to him.

  Neither man had made any progress in solving the code.

  Alexa leaned against the rock wall next to the Harvard professor. Her eyes had adjusted to the weak luminescence emanating from the polished steel surfaces, and she could make out the scowl darkening his features.

  Carrington had retreated to the vestibule, while the monk sat perched in a meditative pose on the bottom step of the stairs.

  ‘If I knew I was going to have to decipher a bloody cryptogram, I would have brushed up on my Freemasonry before we came here,’ Jackson muttered. Schmidt glanced at him with a disgruntled expression.

  Alexa looked down at the luminous dials on her watch. She was confident that if anyone could break the code, it would be Jackson. Her only concern lay in the timeframe it might take for him to achieve this; they had been inside the building for almost forty minutes.

  Though the Crovir techs would remain in control of the Hall’s security system for however long she wanted them to, she could not help but think of the sentries inside the Freemasons’ headquarters. She had no doubt there was a security room somewhere in the complex where they were monitoring the camera feeds. It would only take one very astute guard to detect that the footage had been tampered with for the alarm to be raised.

  She was about to suggest they try another method to get inside the vault—one she suspected would involve heavy explosives after all—when Jackson suddenly straightened.

  ‘Yonten,’ he said in a low voice, his eyes not shifting from the mass of symbols that crowded the doors, ‘how many steps do those stairs have?’

  ‘Sixty, Mr. Harvard,’ said Yonten.

  ‘And the number of lights in the vestibule and this corridor?’ said Jackson, his tone rising with barely concealed excitement.

  ‘Nine,’ said Schmidt curiously.

  ‘Three on each wall and three inside the vestibule?’ said Jackson sharply.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Carrington, joining Schmidt. ‘Where are you going with this?’

  ‘There are three degrees of Freemasonry. And Schmidt is right—only Grand Masters would be able to access this chamber,’ Jackson explained. ‘Nine lights on the walls. Sixty steps. They are all multiples of three.’

  Alexa stared at the doors. ‘But there are no numbers among those symbols.’

  ‘There doesn’t need to be,’ said Jackson with a shake of his head. ‘The code is all about heraldry.’ He leapt to his feet and took a step toward the vault’s entrance. ‘The current coat of arms of the United Grand Lodge of England is actually a combination of two arms, namely those of the “Modern” and the “Ancient” Grand Lodges,’ he continued, pointing at various figures and emblems on the steel panels. ‘The “Modern” Grand Lodge was the original Grand Lodge of England, formed in 1717, when four London Lodges met up for the first time. The “Modern” Grand Lodge chose to adopt the three castles and Masonic compasses as their coat of arms. Another Grand Lodge, the “Ancient”, or “Antient” Grand Lodge as it was also called, was formed in 1751 as a challenge to the first Grand Lodge. Its coat of arms featured the man in the crimson robe, the golden lion, the black ox, and the golden eagle. The two Lodges were eventually united in 1813, and the coats of arms were joined, with the addition of the ark crest and the supporting cherubs. The border of golden lions was added more than a century later by the College of Arms and King George V.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Schmidt with a skeptical nod after a short silence. ‘History lesson aside, what’s the code, Sherlock?’

  ‘There are three distinct symbols in the coats of arms on these doors that we need to press in a predefined order to get inside the vault,’ said Jackson, bright eyes scanning the burnished surfaces. ‘Help me find them.’

  Carrington stared at the convoluted network of motifs before them. ‘There are at least a hundred replicas of these coats of arms on here!’ he blurted out.

  ‘There are ninety-nine to be exact,’ said the Harvard professor. ‘Trust me,’ he added in a self-assured tone, ‘three of them will be different.’

  Yonten found the first symbol. On a shield near the far upper corner of the right door, the robed man was without his robe. Alexa spotted an extra golden lion on the border of another shield on the top ou
ter edge of the left door.

  They searched in vain for the third symbol.

  An irritated growl escaped Jackson’s throat. He twisted on his heels, strode toward the stairs, and turned back to face the doors.

  ‘Two Lodges,’ he muttered to himself, glaring at the steel panels as he walked to and fro. ‘The Square and the Compasses. Four sides to the Square and the Compasses. Two…four…three—’ He suddenly stopped pacing.

  Alexa felt a strange shiver run through her at the expression on his face. He had the code.

  The Harvard professor’s eyes shifted to where she and Yonten stood in front of the shields they had each identified. His gaze dropped to the bottom of the doors. ‘It’s a chevron,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘A V-shaped code.’

  She looked at the monk with a faint frown. Yonten shrugged.

  ‘The castle,’ said Schmidt suddenly, his eyes focusing on where Jackson was staring.

  The Crovir Hunter moved to touch a coat of arms near the foot of the right door. The compass on it was ever so slightly skewed and seemed to be pointing at one of three castles.

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Jackson, rushing forward. ‘There’s a fourth symbol!’

  Schmidt’s fingers froze millimeters from the polished steel. ‘You said there were three,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘I was wrong.’ Jackson pointed at the missing joint on the pair of compasses in a blazon at the top of the left door.

  ‘What makes you think you’re right this time?’ argued the Crovir Hunter.

  ‘I’m never wrong twice,’ Jackson retorted confidently. ‘Besides, the pattern needs to be symmetrical.’

  Alexa felt a headache throb at her temples. She could feel the underlying current of machismo running between the two men. She resisted the urge to reach for one of her Sigs.

  ‘So what order do we touch them in, genius?’ said Schmidt challengingly.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ said Jackson in a distracted voice.

  ‘You’ve already had several of those,’ muttered the Crovir Hunter. ‘What?’ he added defensively when Alexa shot him a cold stare.

  Features locked in concentration, Jackson paid no heed to his words. A tiny gasp suddenly passed his lips, and a grin flashed across his face. ‘Okay, I’m first,’ he said excitedly. ‘Schmidt, you’re second. Alexa and Yonten, you’re last.’ He looked at the monk and her intently. ‘The two of you have to touch the symbols at the exact same moment.’

  Alexa glanced at Yonten. The monk smiled beatifically.

  ‘You sure about this?’ asked Schmidt with a scowl.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jackson. ‘Now, on the count of three. One.’ He pressed the missing hinge of the compasses. ‘Two.’

  Schmidt pushed his fingers against the castle.

  ‘And three,’ breathed Jackson.

  Alexa and Yonten depressed the last two symbols.

  For a second, nothing happened. Then, the four symbols flashed to green and retracted almost half a foot inside the doors. They stood back as a series of bolts audibly engaged inside the steel panels. The vault doors finally slid aside with a low, pneumatic hiss.

  Spotlights sprang into life beyond the three-feet-thick threshold and bathed the interior of the chamber beyond in white brilliance. They stepped forward cautiously and stopped just inside the entrance.

  The room was a perfect oval and measured roughly twenty by twenty-five feet. Dozens of manuscripts, faded scrolls, and parchments lay in display cabinets arranged in a circle around the periphery of a marble floor. Bookcases punctuated the gaps between them, while the walls themselves were occupied with glittering artifacts in secured glass frames and stands.

  The air inside was cool and dry. Alexa suspected the environment had been artificially engineered to preserve the priceless contents within. She could see no passive infrared sensors on the walls; the Freemasons obviously felt the coded steel doors would be enough to deter any intruders who ever managed to make it this far.

  She felt Jackson suddenly stiffen at her side. She glanced at him and saw his blue eyes widen and his face blanch. A spasm of alarm darted through her and she tensed as she followed his unmoving gaze.

  On the back wall of the chamber, diametrically opposite the steel access doors, stood a tall plinth hewn out of bare rock. The thick marble had been cleverly cut around the base to preserve the original foundation of the stand. Sitting atop it was a glass case. A thick tablet made of sparkling green stone was propped on metal supports inside. Carved into its surface were complex words that glittered in the light.

  ‘My God! The Tabula Smaragdina,’ whispered Jackson. He crossed the floor slowly and stopped before the stand, his eyes gleaming in the reflection of the light cast off the glass case and the shimmering artifact within.

  ‘The—what now?’ asked Carrington.

  ‘The Emerald Tablet,’ the Harvard professor translated hoarsely.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Alexa recognized his words. She raised her eyebrows slightly. ‘Isn’t that one of the artifacts said to be behind the Magnus Opus?’

  Schmidt startled at her words. He stared at the tablet. ‘The Philosopher’s Stone,’ he said in a low voice.

  Carrington raised a hand. ‘Sorry but, what’s the Magnus Opus?’

  ‘It’s the alchemical terminology for the four-stage process used to create the Philosopher’s Stone,’ said Jackson. He glanced at Schmidt briefly before focusing on the tablet under the glass. ‘This must be what the Rose Croix sect was after. It would explain the Mutus Liber connection. Both those documents were said to have been used for the Magnus Opus.’

  ‘The Philosopher’s Stone?’ repeated Carrington.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jackson. ‘The Elixir of Life.’

  ‘That’s just a myth, isn’t it?’ asked Carrington. No one seemed to want to answer his question.

  Alexa joined Jackson. ‘Can you translate it?’ she said.

  The Harvard professor hesitated. ‘Given time and access to a specialist lab, yes, possibly,’ he finally replied.

  She studied the shimmering words on the green stone. The text was compact and the writing strongly resembled the Sumerian-derived scripts from the walls of scrolls in the cave in Egypt. ‘We have to take it with us,’ she stated firmly.

  Jackson drew a breath in sharply. ‘You want to steal the Emerald Tablet?’

  Alexa shrugged. ‘Do you have a better suggestion?’

  ‘Even though I shouldn’t be saying this, I would rather the tablet end up in the possession of the Crovirs than this Rose Croix sect,’ said Schmidt. ‘Immortals have a better chance of guarding it than the Freemasons.’

  Jackson looked between Schmidt and her. Alexa knew she had won the battle even before he sighed and muttered, ‘All right. Just be goddamned careful with it.’

  Her fingers got to within an inch of the glass case before Carrington called out a warning. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ said the Crovir.

  Alexa turned and looked at him with a frown.

  ‘Although there are no infrared motion detectors in the room, that display case has its own security system,’ said Carrington as he approached the plinth. ‘The tablet is mounted on a pressure and vibration sensitive plate.’ This statement earned him a battery of stares. ‘I used to be a thief in a former life. Before I started working for Reznak, obviously,’ he added hastily at her expression. ‘I’ve kinda kept up with the new technology.’

  She glanced at the artifact. ‘How can you be certain of this?’

  Carrington shrugged. ‘It’s the most valuable item in the place. The Freemasons are not fools.’

  She shifted impatiently. ‘What do you suggest we do?’

  ‘First, we need to lift the case off,’ said Carrington.

  He grabbed the edges
of the glass box on one side and looked at Jackson. The Harvard professor joined him and placed his hands on the opposite end. Together, they slowly lifted the case off the plinth.

  No alarms broke the silence inside the chamber. They released a collective sigh of relief.

  Carrington placed the box on the marble floor and studied the tablet. ‘Now we need to find something of the same weight and size to stabilize the plate.’

  Alexa glanced around the vault. Her gaze fell on a cabinet on the wall to the right. She strode toward it, broke the glass with her elbow, and removed the heavy clock inside. ‘Will this do?’ she asked, staring down their shocked expressions.

  Yonten smiled from where he stood looking at the contents of a bookcase.

  A sigh left Jackson’s lips. ‘That display case could have been alarmed, you know.’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ she said dismissively.

  Carrington muttered something under his breath and took the clock from her. He weighed it thoughtfully in his hands while he stared at the tablet. ‘This will do,’ he finally said gruffly. He turned to Jackson. ‘Our timing needs to be perfect on this.’

  The Harvard professor nodded and wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. His fingers shook slightly as he reached for the tablet. He flexed them once, took a deep breath, and started again. His grip was steady when he finally touched the green stone.

  ‘On three,’ said Carrington. A bead of sweat rolled down the Crovir’s face as he held the clock a millimeter from the edge of the plate.

  Jackson nodded, his gaze not moving from the artifact in his hands. Alexa tensed.

  ‘One…two…three!’ said Carrington. Jackson slid the tablet off the base at the same time that Carrington shifted the clock onto it.

  Everyone’s breathing resumed in the stillness that followed. The Harvard professor stared wide-eyed at the precious artifact in his grasp. Alexa could see the passionate emotion it engendered reflected in his cobalt gaze. Something twisted inside her chest, startling her.

 

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