Thief on the Cross: Templar Secrets in America (Templars in America Series Book 2)

by David S. Brody

  A pair of strong arms bear-hugged Amanda, and a heavy boot kicked her feet out from under her. She landed hard on her hip as Astarte scrambled away. What was happening? Fear washed over her like a cold fog. A meaty hand shoved a rag over her nose and mouth. Amanda gagged, smelling something sweet like Juicy Fruit gum as she tried to turn to see her attacker. Her eyes watered and her fingers and toes began to tingle. Some kind of chemical.

  A second body rushed from another stall, a second pair of strong hands and sharp fingernails grasping her arms. She writhed and lashed out with fists and elbows, but she felt like she was under water, her limbs moving in slow motion through the thick air. The weight of her first attacker stayed on her, collapsing her as the hand dryer and rag muffled her cries for help. Astarte cradled her head, preventing it from crashing to the tile floor as she toppled. And then the world went black.

  Cam watched the little girl lead Amanda away as he explained the situation to the dispatcher. Just over a year ago he had met Amanda; together they had uncovered a series of artifacts and sites scattered around New England that evidenced medieval exploration of America by the vestiges of Templar Knights fleeing Europe in the late 1300s. Since the discovery their lives had been a whirlwind—lectures, documentaries, a book deal. And recently an engagement ring. They had even been contacted by a Hollywood agent who wanted to make an action film chronicling their adventures. “Matt Damon would be perfect to play you, Cam,” the agent had said. “And Emma Watson, with green contact lenses and her hair dyed blond, would be an ideal Amanda.”

  Cam shrugged. Might be fun to make a movie. And at least the agent had suggested someone decent-looking to play him, even though both Cam and Matt Damon were too old for Emma Watson. But for now they were having a great time traveling around the country fleshing out their research; Cam had cut back to three days a week at his uncle’s law firm—he had left his downtown practice—while Amanda’s new job as a reporter for the local newspaper also gave her flexibility to travel. They weren’t getting rich, but he felt extraordinarily well-off.

  Cam glanced at the bathroom door; he would wait another couple minutes before knocking. From his leather shoulder bag he pulled out the strange letter that had brought them to the museum. “Attorney Thorne,” the letter began in a shaky, slanted cursive, as if written by an arthritic lefty. “My name is Jefferson January III, and I am a staunch admirer of your recent efforts to reveal our nation’s long history of European exploration prior to Columbus. But you have only scratched the surface of this topic. I have a personal collection of artifacts that dwarfs what you have seen so far.”

  Though he had read the letter a half dozen times, Cam pulled the paper closer to his face, struggling to decipher the angled scrawl. “I almost died as a young man—during that time I traveled to heaven and back, receiving specific instructions from God as to my mission on earth. My mission, I am certain, will soon become your mission: to prove that America is meant to be God’s New Jerusalem.”

  He smiled as he recalled Amanda’s reaction to the missive. “Just what the world needs—another chap with God on his speed dial. I don’t fancy I’ll be drinking any Kool-Aid if he offers it.” For some reason it seemed like the eccentrics usually ended up with the most interesting artifacts, perhaps because they were more open-minded about ideas that contradicted mainstream teachings. And January had followed up with a series of phone messages and emails, practically begging them to come. So, finally, they had carved out a few days prior to Thanksgiving to view his collection, which he was in the process of donating to the tribe’s glitzy new museum. Cam doubted lightning would strike twice, that they would again stumble upon a series of sites and artifacts that would change the way Americans viewed their history. But he wondered what else existed out there, what other artifacts remained undiscovered or stashed away in private collections….

  One thing had become clear: Thinking of the Atlantic Ocean as a barrier rather than a superhighway was as narrow-minded as medieval mapmakers who portrayed the Atlantic as the monster-laden edge of the world. Plenty of evidence showed that Phoenician navigators, sailing ships far larger than what Columbus navigated, had circumnavigated Africa; Thor Heyerdahl had sailed a reed boat from Africa to Barbados in 1970; and historians acknowledged that South America had been settled by ancient explorers sailing across the Pacific. So why did historians so blindly reject the idea of explorers venturing across the Atlantic before Columbus, both pre- and post-Viking?

  Through a glass panel in the museum atrium Cam watched an ambulance and police car pull into the front drive; a young, fit policeman jogged through the revolving doors toward him as the paramedics grabbed their equipment. No doubt the equipment, like the museum facility, would be state of the art—the casino had almost overnight transformed the Pequot tribe into one of the wealthiest entities on the east coast, and they had built the massive glass- and chrome-faced museum as a repository for Native American culture and history. As a federally-recognized tribe, and therefore a sovereign nation, they also had their own police and fire departments.

  Cam described the situation and pointed to the restroom door. Only a few minutes had passed. “Coming in,” the officer announced as he cracked open the door. “Police.” A hand dryer stopped, allowing Cam to hear the clop of the policeman’s feet as the door swung closed behind him.

  Cam checked his watch; Jefferson January was a half-hour late for their meeting, which seemed odd given how hard he had pushed Cam to make the drive to Connecticut. Cam tried his number and bounced to an answering machine. A few seconds later the policeman emerged from the ladies room. “Sir, are you sure this is the right room?”

  Cam jolted upright. “Of course. I haven’t moved.”

  “Well, there’s nobody in there. It’s empty.”

  “What? Did you look in the stalls?” It was an obvious question, but where else could Amanda and the girl be?

  “All of them. Nobody is in there.”

  “Is there another exit?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.” He studied Cam. “But come on in, have a look yourself.”

  Cam pushed past the officer. The stall doors were all open—there was no place else to hide. “What’s behind this door?” In the corner of the room the outline of a door sat recessed into the wall.

  The officer shrugged. “I assume it’s a closet.” He pulled on a small knob. “It’s locked.”

  “Well, can you get a key? They must be in there.”

  “In the locked closet? Sir, I—”

  “Look, I know it sounds stupid. But can you find a key to that door? I saw my fiancée go in here with a little girl. They didn’t just disappear.”

  Sighing, the officer led Cam back into the atrium. “You guys might as well stick around a few more minutes,” he said to the paramedics. “Wait here,” he ordered Cam as he began to walk away. “I’ll see if I can find a key to that closet.” He stopped and pulled out a notepad. “Actually, before I go, what was your name?”

  Amanda awoke in the back of a darkened van, disoriented. Her head rested on a pillow; a little girl clasped her hand and looked down at her with wide, blue-black eyes. The eyes triggered a memory—a cold numbness spread through her as she recalled the bathroom attack. “Do you feel okay, Miss Amanda?”

  She tried to sit up but a wave of nausea forced her down to the pillow. “Where am I?” The taste of Juicy Fruit gum in her mouth made her want to gag.

  “In my uncle’s van.”

  “Who’s your uncle?”

  “Is she awake?” A woman’s voice carried back from the middle of the van.

  “Yes, Aunt Eliza.”

  A sharp-nosed, chinless woman with graying hair pulled behind her ears leaned over the seat and peered down at Amanda—not the woman who first grabbed her, but perhaps the one with the sharp fingernails. “You’ve met Astarte. My name is Eliza.” She smiled caringly, as if soothing a lost kitten. But her teeth seemed too small for her mouth, and the spaces between them gave her face a
n ominous, rodent-like quality. “Please don’t be frightened. We mean you no harm.”

  “Well then what do you bloody want with me?”

  Sighing, Eliza reached down and touched Amanda’s cheek with a cold hand. “God has sent you to us to help spread his word.”

  Eliza had become adept at wearing her mask. Fellow congregants at the nearby church she and Jefferson attended saw her as a simple Mormon spinster—a devoted congregant who wore high-necked dresses and spent her free time baking for Church luncheons and reading the Book of Mormon. The Spencer woman probably had a similar impression of her as they bounced along in the van. If they only knew.

  Outwardly, the only thing remarkable about her was that she had not married, choosing instead to run the household of her powerful brother. Decades ago she had silenced the whispers by spreading a rumor that as a child she had suffered a kick from a horse that made it impossible for her to bear children, and therefore was an unworthy bride. Not that many men had pushed the issue. Under the tenets of the Mormon religion, being unmarried made her ineligible for heaven. But she was certain she was doing God’s work, assisting her brother Jefferson in ways even he could not imagine. He was a force of nature, storming his way across the country on his mission to change the way the world viewed the Mormon Church. What nobody knew, including Jefferson himself, was that he was guided by weather patterns only Eliza truly understood. Patterns Eliza sometimes even controlled.

  Cam paced, waiting for the police officer to return. He tried Amanda’s cell phone, checked his own for messages and reinspected the restroom for signs of a struggle or anything amiss. He tried to not let ugly thoughts creep into his consciousness, but it was like trying to swat away black flies on a summer night.

  Finally the officer ambled down the hall, no particular urgency in his gait. “That door leads to a closet that also backs into the cafeteria kitchen. It’s for cleaning supplies, stuff like that. You can get in from either side.”

  “Well, that must be where they went.”

  He held up his hand. “I questioned all three people working in the kitchen. They didn’t see any woman or girl or anyone come through there. And they’ve been there for the past hour, getting ready for lunch.”

  “That’s impossible.” Fear churned inside his stomach. “Where else could they have gone?”

  The officer crossed his arms; he was, like Cam, only medium height, but he tried his best to lift his chin and look down at Cam. “Mr. Thorne, is it possible your fiancée does not want you to find her?”

  “What?” Cam took a deep breath, counted to five. Cops rarely responded to raised voices. “Look, if that’s what she wanted, she could just drive away—she has the car keys in her purse.”

  “Well perhaps we should check the parking lot then.”

  What a waste of time. But he didn’t have much choice. “Fine.” Walking as fast as he could without actually jogging, he led the policeman through the revolving doors into the unseasonably warm fall air. They crossed the drop-off area and followed a path to the paved parking lot. Cam stopped short. The Subaru was gone. “Oh, shit.”

  Cam hopped on a shuttle bus heading back to their hotel room. The police officer had allowed him to file a missing person report, but made it clear he had wasted enough of his day on what he believed to be some kind of lovers’ quarrel.

  Cam took a deep breath and pulled out the letter again. January had lured them to Foxwoods, but instead of showing up for their meeting had, apparently, abducted Amanda. But why? He tried Amanda’s cell again, and then January’s. Nothing.

  The bus completed its short trip. “Final stop,” the driver announced. Cam made his way toward the front exit. A couple of twenty-something guys in the front row watched him in the rearview mirror, their eyes darting away when he looked up. He continued past them. Why were they waiting for him to pass before getting off?

  Bounding down the stairs of the bus, Cam took a dozen long strides across the parking lot toward the hotel. He then spun quickly and reversed course, as if he had forgotten something on the bus. The two guys were only a few yards behind him, directly in his path. He didn’t believe in coincidence—if they were following him, it was related to Amanda’s abduction.

  His fists clenched in his pockets, Cam brushed lightly against a balding, pear-shaped man wearing a New York Jets sweatshirt. “Watch out, buddy,” the man hissed.

  Too much aggression for a light brush. Cam pushed it. He needed info. “Chill out. And you might feel better if you found a real football team to root for.”

  The second guy was bigger than the first, unshaven with blond hair and hard, bloodshot eyes. “Fuck you,” he said, grabbing Cam’s shoulder and spinning him around. Cam caught a whiff of last night’s beer, partially masked by this morning’s coffee.

  Cam smiled up at him. He wouldn’t normally have been such an ass, but he wanted to provoke his pursuers. Plus he really hated bullies. “Sorry, didn’t mean to insult your girlfriend.”

  The big guy’s face reddened and he drew back his fist. The guy outweighed Cam by at least forty pounds, but Cam had sparred a bit in the gym in college and he understood leverage and angles. As the thug wound up and lunged, Cam stepped straight at him, surprising him by moving inside the radius of the blow. Before his assailant could react Cam threw a quick right hand, fist landing squarely on nose. A torrent of blood gushed from his face as the man dropped to his knees.

  Cam turned quickly to the Jets fan, ready to engage him as well. The smaller man staggered back. But Cam wanted answers. “Why were you following me? Is it January?”

  The pear-shaped man’s eyes widened and his face blanched. “We … yeah … what are you talking about?”

  Cam moved toward him. “I hope you’re not here to play poker. You’re a shitty liar.” The man was a link to Amanda. If Cam could get him alone he might learn where Amanda had been taken….

  As Cam reached for the man’s collar the bus driver stepped off the bus. “Hey, what are you doing?” The driver pulled out his cell phone; he must have seen the altercation. The last thing Cam needed was another encounter with the tribal police. He snapped the pear-shaped man’s head back with a short jab to the chin, turned and began jogging away. After a few steps he spun. “Tell January if he hurts Amanda, I’ll hunt him down and break his neck.”

  Five minutes later Cam was in his hotel room, his heart still racing. For the fourth time since Amanda disappeared he tried phoning both her and January; again he bounced to voice mail. He opened his laptop, hoping to Google January and learn more about the man. But the Internet connection in the room was down. “Damn it.” He phoned the front desk, waiting six rings before hanging up in frustration.

  Grabbing his laptop and the letter, he jogged down the hall to the elevator bank, waited thirty seconds for an elevator that never came, and finally kicked open the stairway door and ran down four flights of stairs to the lobby. He tried to keep the edge from his voice as he approached the front desk. “Hi. The Internet connection is down in my room.”

  A middle-aged woman with bags under her eyes nodded. “The whole hotel is off-line. A wire went down.”

  What else could go wrong? “Any idea when it will be back?” Had January arranged this also, along with the abduction and the see-nothing cafeteria workers and the car disappearance and the thugs on the bus?

  She shrugged.

  He fought to keep his manners. “Okay, thanks.”

  He couldn’t just sit around waiting for his cell phone to ring. He called information and requested a listing for the local police department. “No, not the Pequot police. I’d like the number for the police in the closest Connecticut town to Foxwoods.”

  A half-hour and a $35 cab fare later Cam entered the Ledyard police department. He explained the situation to an older, grey-haired sergeant with a round face and sun-burned nose. Cam guessed he had probably just come from the golf course. “No disrespect to the Pequot police force, but my fiancée just disappeared and they aren�
�t doing anything about it.” He didn’t mention his altercation outside the bus.

  The sergeant rubbed the nail of his index finger against a cuticle on this thumb. His eyes drifted out the window, probably wishing he were still on the course. “You seem like a bright guy. You ever hear of sovereign immunity?”

  Cam hadn’t mentioned he was a lawyer. He played dumb, but he had been afraid of the sovereign immunity issue. “Not really.”

  “Well, it means a policeman from Canada can’t come into Vermont and make an arrest.”

  “Okay.”

  “And that’s the situation we have over at Foxwoods. Technically, when you go onto Pequot land, you’re going into a different country. That’s why it’s called the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation. It’s a nation, a country. They have their own laws, and their own law enforcement. Now they might invite us onto their land to help investigate a case, but we can’t just go marching in there like John Wayne.”

  “So they can do whatever they want, like ignore a kidnapping?”

  “Now that wouldn’t be particularly good for their casino business, but, yes, pretty much, that’s it. Especially in a case like this where there’s really no evidence. You know that saying, ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’? Well, it’s even more true here—what happens at Foxwoods stays at Foxwoods. The state made a deal with the tribe because it wanted the gambling revenues. A deal with the devil, some say.” He locked eyes with Cam. “Sounds like you might have to make some kind of deal with the devil yourself if you want to find that fiancée of yours.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Amanda lay back on the pillow, analyzing her situation as the van weaved down some country road. Her teeth chattered, probably her body’s reaction to the knock-out chemical. Or maybe just plain terror. Reaching around, her hand shaking, she tried to locate her purse—there was a can of mace tucked inside. No luck. They must have taken it from her, along with her cell phone. The muffled conversation of two men floated back from the front of the vehicle. Presumably the large woman who had first attacked her was in the middle seat with Eliza. Not likely Amanda could overpower them all and escape.