Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet

by Bill Thompson

  Brian gave his approval and returned to Jeffrey. “OK, I’m back. Ready to hear your secret!”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Vatican City

  Dominic Cardinal Conti sat in the same chair at the Pope’s desk where Frederico Messina had interrogated him a few weeks ago. His life was crumbling before his very eyes. He had even vomited in the hallway a few minutes ago as he was being brought here. Some young priests had seen the whole thing – policemen surrounding him, the indignity of throwing up and soiling one’s priestly garb, and the shame of what these young priests would ultimately learn about him. It was all over. Dominic knew that. He just didn’t know what was next.

  After the usual formalities of greeting the pontiff, Conti was told to sit. The three policemen stood at the back of the Pope’s office. The pontiff said, “Dominic, I feel certain you know why you’re here. I’m willing to hear your confession if you feel the need.”

  “I do, Holiness. I have grievously sinned.”

  The Pope asked the officers to wait outside his office. He came around his desk and sat in a chair by the disgraced Cardinal. He held Conti’s hands in his own and the man told him everything. It took almost half an hour, so long that Officer Messina had quietly peeked in the door two times just to be sure everything was all right. Conti had cried real tears, not tears of contrition but tears of remorse…that his life of finery, wealth and stature was over.

  When the confession was finished the officers returned.

  “You’re going to be arrested now, Dominic,” the Pope said gently. “I’m removing you from all your duties in the Church and with the bank. I’m greatly disappointed in you. You’ve disgraced the priesthood and shamed yourself. You’ve cast a stain on the Church. Is there anything else you’d like to say before these men take you away?”

  “There is, Holiness. It’s for your ears only. May I approach you?”

  The officers instantly went on alert, fearful the deranged man might harm the Pope. But the gentle pontiff waved them away and walked around his desk. He spoke soothingly to the obviously agitated, mentally fragile cleric.

  “Come, Dominic. Speak, my child.”

  Conti whispered in the pontiff’s ear. The Pope’s eyes opened wide. He was clearly startled at what Conti had said. “How can you be sure?” he stammered. “Are you sure?”

  The disgraced Cardinal whispered, “It’s true, Holiness. A man named Brian Sadler is going to find what the Templars hid in the pit. The relics. I’ve finally figured out what they are. What they must be. There’s no other answer, given the information passed down for centuries in code.”

  Conti looked in the Pope’s eyes and said again, “The relics in the pit are the bones of Jesus Christ.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  London

  The diary of Simeon Lynds had given Arthur Borland information on his work at Oak Island and his possible ties to the Knights Templars. But Borland apparently hadn’t read the entire volume. It was excruciatingly detailed and tended to be repetitive – the librarian stayed with it to the end only because he felt it might provide a clue.

  And what a clue he had found.

  A dozen pages from the end of the diary was a page that had been inserted into the diary, presumably by Lynds himself. It was full of symbols – the very same ones that appeared throughout the Knights Templars manuscripts.

  “Brian, I can’t tell you how excited I was when I came across this page! I laughed, I cried, I jumped up and down! Thank God no one was here to see me – I was acting like a schoolboy.

  “I immediately went back to the Templars manuscript and confirmed the symbols were identical. To me that means that Simeon Lynds was a Templar for sure. He was there when the author of the Templars diaries wrote some of the entries and he definitely knew how to read the encoded pages. He knew the Most Holy Relics were in the pit because he had decoded the same pages you and I did!”

  “You’ve definitely got my attention, Jeffrey. When do I get to find out what Simeon Lynds’ page of code said?”

  “Soon, very soon. I’m so excited to tell you about this. Let me give you just a bit more background then I’ll reveal the secret!”

  Montfort said he immediately scanned and emailed the page of code to his professor friend at Cambridge for decrypting. Since there was only one page the decoding went very quickly and Jeffrey had his answer within two hours.

  “While you slept, Brian, I read about something you need. Something critical to the project you’re working on at this very moment!”

  Brian waited. Jeffrey’s penchant for the dramatic, especially coupled with his unbridled enthusiasm, could be frustrating at times. But Brian didn’t want to stifle his excitement. The man probably hadn’t had this much fun in years.

  “All right, Jeffrey. Shall we have a drum roll?”

  “Ah, if only we could. I wish I were there with you to see your face…but enough! I know you’re ready to hear what I learned. You of course know that the Money Pit has booby-traps – two tunnels that bring seawater from Smith’s Cove to the pit itself. Whenever a dig gets to a certain level, the pit always floods. It always happens and no syndicate, no matter how much money they spent, ever learned how to stop it. That single thing is the reason no one has ever gotten to the bottom of the pit…and the bottom of the mystery, for that matter.” He laughed.

  “Simeon Lynds was a Templar, and he had secret knowledge about the Money Pit. Why, you say? Because on that one sheet of coded symbols, the sheet he stuck in his diary, he revealed the way to turn off the tunnels that flood the pit.”

  Brian was stunned. This was monumental. With this information they would succeed in finding what was in the bottom of the pit. The Most Holy Relics of the Knights Templars. Whatever they were.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Vatican City

  A brief press release from the Vatican made world news. The two-paragraph statement stated that Dominic Cardinal Conti, head of the Institute for the Works of Religion, had been relieved of all duties by the Pope effective immediately. The Gendarmerie Corps of Vatican City had arrested Cardinal Conti that day. He was charged with misappropriation of funds from the Vatican Bank for the purpose of engaging in criminal activity. An investigation was underway to determine possible links to other crimes, including the Fifth Avenue bombing.

  Back in the Gendarmerie office, Frederico Messina summarized the information he had gathered on the Cardinal’s crimes, including his complicity in the bombing of Bijan Rarities in New York. The notepad Conti had been holding when he was arrested was particularly damning. It showed his future plan to arrange the murders of Brian Sadler, the librarian from London and the Mafia godfather John Spedino. Conti was in serious trouble.

  In addition to removing Conti from his duties with the Bank, the Vatican issued two papal edicts. The first was a decree from the Pope removing Dominic Cardinal Conti from his office as head of the secretive Knights Templars. Secondly, in a sweeping move the Pope directed the Knights Templars be disbanded. Henceforth it would be a crime to assemble in the name of the Order. Interestingly, it was the second time in history a Pope had disbanded the Templars. The last time this happened the Pope had burned them all. This time it was a bit more civilized although the penalty for anyone caught disobeying the pontiff’s order was severe – excommunication from the Church.

  The Vatican has only rudimentary cells for the temporary detention of prisoners. The holding area is usually reserved for unruly visitors who break the rules or fail to respect the property of the Holy See. At the Pope’s order, Dominic Conti sat in one of these cells. Ordinarily he would have been immediately transferred to the City of Rome’s jail to await arraignment but the pontiff wanted to know more about this thing with Jesus’ bones. He wanted to find out what Dominic knew and how he’d found it. So the disgraced Cardinal sat in a tiny cell while his bored guard read a newspaper in the next room.

  -----

  The Pope prayed. It was the same prayer he had offere
d perhaps a hundred times since this distasteful episode with Dominic Conti had reared its ugly head. It was a prayer for guidance.

  The matter of the bones of Jesus was monumental. It would impact Christianity like nothing else ever had. The very basis of this religion was that Jesus Christ was immortal – the actual Son of God. Although he became a man, all Christians believe he died, was resurrected and ascended to heaven to live with his Father.

  There could be no bones of Jesus.

  If there were bones then he wasn’t the Son of God. He was just a man who wasn’t immortal at all.

  Atheists, Muslims, Jews and Christians alike would be interested in this little dilemma, for strikingly different reasons. As leader of the Catholic Church the pontiff had to bear responsibility for handling this affair. No Pope in history had ever faced such a problem. This one prayed once more for guidance. Then he ordered Dominic Cardinal Conti to be brought to his office.

  The men conferred in private for over an hour. Conti told the Pope what he read on the Templars’ encoded pages. He said the American Brian Sadler had read them too and he was going to Nova Scotia to find what was in the Money Pit.

  When they finished Conti asked the Pope what charges the pontiff expected would be filed against him.

  The Pope’s expression changed to one of sadness. “You have committed grievous sins, my child. The blood of many people is on your hands. You have lied, stolen and disgraced yourself and the office with which you were entrusted. Any speculation on my part as to what charges you will face would be just that – speculation. I urge you to pray for forgiveness, Dominic. And if you are a good man somewhere in your heart, you will pray for Christianity itself. You will pray that the bones of Jesus are not in the pit.”

  The Pope had to find out what this man Brian Sadler was doing in Nova Scotia. Something must be done quickly to stop him. Finding the bones would topple the world’s largest organized religion. The pontiff firmly believed this to be true. Brian Sadler could not find the bones of Jesus. He knelt and prayed.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Oak Island

  Sending a rotary drill down the shaft of the Money Pit was easy. A few obstructions were encountered but by noon they had drilled nearly eighty feet. A core sample of the material they removed was laid out on the surface near the pit. Brian and Harold would go through it after lunch.

  Brian hoped to find something at around a hundred feet then again at the bottom of the shaft. At the higher level early boring had indicated wood, perhaps a chest, and bits of metal. At the base of the Money Pit, over 150 feet down, he hoped to find a concrete bunker of some type with the Most Holy Relics secreted inside.

  The radio in Harold Mulhaney’s pickup was on as he and Brian drove back to the cabin for a sandwich and a beer. The noon news was being broadcast from Halifax. Brian caught the end of a story and the words, “charges against the Vatican-based Cardinal include using Church funds to perpetrate a crime.”

  He turned up the radio but that segment was over. Brian grabbed his phone – on CNN’s site he read the story of the removal of Dominic Conti from his duties and the charges against him. The article stated that other charges were being considered, including a possible link to the Fifth Avenue bombing in New York City a few weeks ago.

  Over lunch Brian told Harold how Conti had been connected to the Knights Templars manuscripts and the Money Pit. He had met the cleric only a few days ago in the Vatican to take possession of the manuscript. The volume was missing thirteen coded pages – now Brian figured the Cardinal had deliberately removed them to keep them secret.

  Brian’s mind raced. “And what if Conti was behind the assault on the librarian and me in London? What if it was all about getting that copy of the Templars manuscript so we couldn’t break the code? And if that’s true, go back one more step. What if he was involved in Arthur Borland’s death?”

  The more he thought about it, the more complex this all became.

  “Hold on there a minute, son,” Harold said in his practical way. “I ain’t a churchgoing man but you’re talking about a man who’s high up in the Catholic Church. Don’t you think you’re gettin’ a little farfetched accusing him of assault and murder? He’s a preacher or something. I think you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, myself.”

  Brian had felt that way too but things were looking more and more as though the cleric was right in the big middle of all this. Why a man of the cloth, especially a man of his standing in the Church, would go to these extremes was a mystery.

  Brian amended his settings so he’d get notified if any more news became available about Dominic Conti.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Jeffrey Montfort emailed Brian the decoded sheet from Simeon Lynds’ diary. Brian sat in Harold Mulhaney’s truck and read the entire document. Not only were there detailed instructions showing exactly how to stop the seawater tunnels from flooding the Money Pit, there was a bitter explanation why Lynds himself couldn’t follow his own directions.

  The sheet revealed that Lynds was not only a member of the Knights Templars, he was their appointed leader in the early 1800s. He was a wealthy man from a nearby town who formed the Onslow Syndicate. Lynds used his influence to raise money from other men of means in order to search for the treasure in the Money Pit. He never told his partners he was privy to two Templars secrets. He knew how to stop the pit from flooding and he knew that something called the Most Holy Relics rested at the bottom. He didn’t know what the relics were – he just knew that the Order had guarded them for a thousand years.

  The oath of secrecy Lynds had taken as head of the Templars prevented him from revealing how to turn off the flooding. His partners would have asked questions he had taken a vow not to answer. Instead, according to the sheet in his diary, he planned to let the Onslow Syndicate’s money pay for the excavation of the pit. Once it flooded, as it invariably would, the group would eventually give up. Lynds would retain ownership of the site, return on his own and retrieve the treasured relics by using the secret he’d learned.

  Brian looked at an Internet site showing a timeline of the Money Pit from 1795 to the 1950s. The Onslow Syndicate did in fact disband in 1805 and Lynds remained involved with Oak Island. In fact forty years later a “Dr. Lynds,” probably a relative of Simeon’s, was a major investor in the next treasure-hunting syndicate, the Truro Company.

  The end of Simeon Lynds’ sheet revealed why he didn’t find the relics himself. He had put so much of his personal wealth into the Onslow Syndicate he couldn’t fund the next step – he ran out of money before he could implement the secret of turning off the floodwaters.

  In an unfortunate end to his chapter of the Oak Island mystery, Simeon Lynds died destitute, his dream unfulfilled.

  Two brief paragraphs at the end explained exactly how to block the floodwater tunnels. Brian got cold chills as he thought about men who had passed down these instructions from generation to generation – guidelines from the Templars engineers who built the pit in 1497, written down in code by Simeon Lynds in 1805. The directions were fairly simple; the hardest part would be finding two landmarks that were mentioned. They existed hundreds of years ago – Brian hoped they were still there today.

  At two am while Brian slept a quiet ding on his phone signaled a CNN news alert. Brian slept through it. He didn’t learn until the next morning that a crazed Dominic Cardinal Conti, muttering to himself in a Vatican holding cell, calmly removed the sash from around his clerical robe, knotted it around an overhead pipe, tested it for strength and prayed for forgiveness. Then he hanged himself.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  In 1850 members of the Truro Company syndicate discovered the reason the Money Pit flooded. In Smith’s Cove Truro workers built a rock seawall, a cofferdam, to hold back the tides. They wanted to see the floor of the cove and they found something incredible.

  Simultaneously with construction of the Money Pit someone dammed the cove, drained it and removed a portion of the bed of the c
ove and the beach adjoining it. In an unbelievable engineering feat a solid layer of river stones covered with coconut fibers was placed on the sea floor. Where the area was above sea level the builders put sand over the French drain they had constructed.

  Water flowed easily via gravity to the shoreline. But these early builders weren’t finished. They built two water tunnels, each five hundred feet long, connecting to the French drain at the shoreline. These two tunnels intersected the Money Pit itself at around 100 and 150 feet, respectively.

  The result of this huge project was a simple booby-trap. When anyone attempted to excavate the Money Pit, things went fine until they removed dirt and rock at the hundred-foot level. When that happened a small portion of the wall would collapse into the shaft, driven by pressure from the seawater in the flood tunnel. If they somehow beat this trap another awaited them fifty feet down.

  Since the boys had discovered the pit in 1795 none of the well-financed syndicates had managed to beat the ingenious, unbelievable obstacles created by the builders and engineers centuries earlier. Everyone wondered what group had the capability and the willingness to build this amazing storage pit on an uninhabited island in what is now Canada. And everyone wondered how long ago it was built.

  Simeon Lynds had known the answers to both questions. The Templars had passed it down to him. Now Brian Sadler and Harold Mulhaney knew the answers too. In May 1497 the Knights Templars built the pit to hide the Most Holy Relics. They used complex engineering techniques and created a hiding place that held its secrets to this day.

  Brian and Harold read the instructions from Simeon Lynds’ diary a half dozen times. Leaving the crew to continue excavation of the Money Pit, they walked five hundred feet to the shore of Smith’s Cove.