The Templar Salvation (2010) ts-2

by Raymond Khoury

  We have to make it back, he thought, ruing the wretched upheaval that had been heaped upon him and his brothers without warning. We cannot fail. Not when so much is at stake.

  It was easier willed than done.

  After several days of sluggish progress, Odo’s condition was desperate. They’d managed to remove the arrow and stem the bleeding, but a fever had set in, the result of his infected wound. Everard knew they’d have to stop and find a way to keep him immobile and dry for a few days if he were to have any chance of making it back to their stronghold alive. But with the scouts confirming that their stalkers hadn’t yet given up, they had to soldier on through the hostile terrain and hope for a miracle.

  Which was what they found on the sixth day, in the shape of a small, isolated hermitage.

  They would have missed it entirely, had it not been for a pair of hooded crows that were circling above it and drew the ravenous eyes of one of the forward scouts. A tight cluster of rooms carved out of the rock face, the monastery was virtually undetectable and perfectly camouflaged, high up in the mountains, tucked into the crook of the cliff that towered protectively above it.

  The knights rode as close as they could, then left the horses and the wagon and climbed the rest of the way up the rock-strewn incline. Everard marveled at the dedication of the men who had built the monastery in such a remote and treacherous location—from the looks of it, many centuries ago—and wondered how it had survived in the region, given the roaming bands of Seljuk warriors.

  They approached it with caution, swords drawn, although they doubted anyone could possibly be living in such an inhospitable spot. To their amazement, they were greeted by a dozen or so monks, weathered old men and younger disciples who quickly recognized them as fellow followers of the Cross and offered them food and shelter.

  The monastery was small, but well stocked for a place that was so far removed from the nearest settlement. Odo was comfortably settled into a dry cot, some hot food and drink helping rekindle his body’s worn defenses. Everard and his men then lugged the three chests up the hill and placed them in a small windowless room. Next door to it was an impressive scriptorium that housed a large collection of bound manuscripts. A handful of scribes were busy at their desks, concentrating on their work, barely looking up to acknowledge their visitors.

  The monks—Basilian, as the knights soon found out—were stunned by the news the knights brought with them. The idea of the pope’s army besieging fellow Christians and sacking Christian cities, even given the great schism, was hard to fathom. Isolated as they were, the monks hadn’t been aware of the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin, or of the failed Third Crusade. Their hearts sank and their brows furrowed under the repeated blows of new information.

  Throughout their conversation, Everard had carefully glossed over one tricky issue: what he and his fellow Templars were doing in Constantinople, and what their role had been in the siege of the great city. He was aware that, in the eyes of these Orthodox monks, he and his men could easily be seen as part of the Latin forces that were poised at the gates of their capital. And related to that was an even trickier issue, which the monastery’s hegumen—its abbot, Father Philippicus—finally chose to address.

  “What is it you carry in those chests?”

  Everard could see that the monks had eyed the crates curiously, and he wasn’t sure what to reply. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Your guess is as good as mine. I was simply ordered to transport them from Constantinople to Antioch.”

  The abbot held his gaze, mulling over his reply. After an uncomfortable moment, he nodded respectfully and rose to his feet. “It’s time for vespers, and then we should retire. We can speak more in the morning.”

  The knights were offered more bread, cheese, and cups of aniseed in boiled water, then the monastery fell silent for the night, save for the uninterrupted drumming of a patch of rain against the windows. The light staccato must have helped smother Everard’s unease, as he soon drifted off into a deep sleep.

  He woke up to harsh sunlight assaulting his senses. He sat up, but felt groggy, his eyelids heavy, his throat uncomfortably dry. He looked around—the two knights who’d been sharing the room with him weren’t there.

  He tried to get up, but faltered, his limbs wobbly and weak. A jar of water and a small bowl sat invitingly by the door. He pushed himself to his feet and shuffled over, raised the jar and drained its contents, feeling better for the drink. Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he straightened up and headed for the refectory—but quickly sensed something wrong.

  Where are the others?

  His nerves now on edge, he crept barefoot across the cold flagstones, past a couple of cells and the refectory, all of which were empty. He heard some noise coming from the direction of the scriptorium and headed that way, his body feeling unusually weak, his legs shaking uncontrollably. As he passed the entry to the room where they’d placed the chests, a thought struck him. He paused, then crept into the room, his senses tingling wildly now—a sense of dread now confirmed by what he saw.

  The chests had been pried open, their locks yanked out of their mountings.

  The monks knew what was in them.

  A wave of nausea rocked him, and he leaned against the wall to steady himself. He summoned any energy he could draw on and pushed himself back out of the room and into the scriptorium.

  The sight that swam through his distorted vision froze him in place.

  His brothers were strewn across the floor of the large room, lying in awkward, unnatural poses, immobile, their faces rigid with the icy pallor of death. There was no blood, no signs of violence. It was as if they had simply stopped living, as if life had been calmly siphoned out of them. The monks stood behind them in a macabre semicircle, staring at Everard blankly through hooded eyes, with the abbot, Father Philippicus, at their center.

  And as Everard’s legs shook under him, he understood.

  “What have you done?” he asked, the words sticking in his throat. “What have you given me?”

  He lashed out at the abbot, but fell to his knees before he had even taken a step. He propped himself up with his arms and concentrated hard, trying to make sense of what had happened. He realized they must have all been drugged the night before. The aniseed drink—that had to be it. Drugged, to allow the monks some undisturbed time to explore the contents of the chests. Then in the morning—the water. It had to have been poisoned, Everard knew, as he clenched his belly, reeling from spasms of pain. His vision was tunneling, his fingers shivering uncontrollably. He felt as if his gut had been garroted and set aflame.

  “What have you done?” the Templar hissed again, his words slurred, his tongue feeling leaden now inside his parched mouth.

  Father Philippicus came forward and just stood there, towering over the fallen knight, his face locked tight with resolve. “The Lord’s will,” he answered simply as he raised his hand and moved it slowly, first up and down, then sideways, his limp fingers tracing the sign of the cross in the blurry air between them.

  It was the last thing Everard of Tyre ever saw.

  Chapter 1

  ISTANBUL,TURKEY

  PRESENT DAY

  Salam, Professor. Ayah vaght darid keh ba man sohbat bo konid?” Behrouz Sharafi stopped and turned, surprised. The stranger who’d called out to him—a darkly handsome, elegant man, mid to late thirties, tall and slim, black gelled-back hair, charcoal roll-neck under a dark suit—was leaning against a parked car. The man flicked him a small wave from a folded newspaper in his hand, confirming the professor’s uncertain gaze. Behrouz adjusted his glasses and regarded the man. He was pretty sure he’d never met him, but the stranger was clearly a fellow Iranian—his Farsi accent was perfect. Which was unexpected. Behrouz hadn’t met a lot of Iranians since arriving in Istanbul just over a year ago.

  The professor hesitated, then, egged on by the stranger’s expectant and inviting look, took a few steps toward him. It was a mild early evening, and the square outs
ide the university was winding down from its daily bustle.

  “I’m sorry, have we—”

  “No, we haven’t met,” the stranger confirmed as he extended an inviting arm out, shepherding the professor to the passenger car door he’d just opened for him.

  Behrouz stopped, tense with a sudden, crippling unease. Being in Istanbul had been, up to that very instant, a liberating experience. With each passing day, the looking-over-your-shoulder, worrying-about-what-you-said tensions of daily life as a Sufi professor at Tehran University had withered away. Far from the political struggles that were strangling academia in Iran, the forty-seven-year-old historian had been enjoying his new life in a country that was less insular and less dangerous, a country that was hoping to join the European Union. A stranger in a dark suit inviting him to take a ride had obliterated that little pipe dream in a heartbeat.

  The professor raised his hands, open-palmed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are and this—”

  Again, the stranger interrupted him with the same courteous, non-threatening tone. “Please, Professor. I apologize for this rather sudden approach, but I do need to have a word with you. It’s about your wife and your daughter. They could be in danger.”

  Behrouz felt twin spikes of fear and anger inside him. “My wife and—What about them? What are you talking about?”

  “Please,” the man said without a trace of alarm in his voice. “Everything will be fine. But we really need to talk.”

  Behrouz glanced left and right, not quite able to focus. Apart from the bloodcurdling conversation he was having, everything else seemed normal. A normality that, he knew, would be banished from his life from here on.

  He climbed into the car. Even though it was a new, top-of-the-line BMW, it had an odd, unpleasant smell that immediately pricked his nostrils. He couldn’t quite place it as the stranger got in behind the wheel and pulled out into the sparse traffic.

  Behrouz couldn’t contain himself. “What’s happened? What do you mean, they might be in danger? What kind of danger?”

  The stranger kept his gaze straight. “Actually, it’s not just them. It’s all three of you.”

  The even, unflustered way he said it made it sound even more unnerving.

  The stranger slid a sideways glance at him. “It has to do with your work. Or more specifically, with something you recently found.”

  “Something I found?” Behrouz’s mind skidded for a beat, then latched onto what the man meant. “The letter?”

  The stranger nodded. “You’ve been trying to understand what it refers to, but so far, without success.”

  It was a statement, not a question, and said with a firm assurance that made it all the more ominous. The stranger not only knew about it, he seemed to know about the walls Behrouz was hitting in his research.

  Behrouz fidgeted with his glasses. “How do you know about that?”

  “Please, Professor. I make it my business to know everything about anything that piques my curiosity. And your find has piqued my curiosity. A lot. And in the same way that you’re meticulous about your work and your research—admirably so, I must add—I’m just as meticulous about mine. Some might even say fanatical. So, yes, I know about what you’ve been doing. Where you’ve been. Who you’ve spoken to. I know what you’ve been able to deduce, and what still eludes you. And I know a lot more. Peripheral things. Things like Miss Deborah being your little Farnaz’s favorite teacher at school. Like knowing your wife’s prepared you some gheimeh bademjan for dinner.” He paused, then added, “Which is really sweet of her, given that you only asked her for it last night. But then, she was in a vulnerable position, wasn’t she?”

  Behrouz felt the last vestiges of life drain from his face as panic flooded through him. How can he—He’s watching us, listening to us? In our bedroom? It took him a moment to regain control of his body long enough to eke out a few words.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “The same thing you want, Professor. I want to find it. The trove that the letter refers to. I want it.”

  Behrouz’s mind was drowning in a sinkhole of unreality. He struggled to sound coherent. “I’m trying to find it, but—it’s like you said. I’m having trouble figuring it out.”

  The stranger turned to face him only briefly, but his hard stare felt like a physical blow. “You have to try harder,” he told Behrouz. Facing forward again, he added, “You have to try as if your life depended on it. Which, in this case, it does.”

  He swerved off the main road and turned into a narrow street that was lined with shuttered storefronts, where he pulled over. Behrouz gave the surroundings a quick scan. There was no one around, and no lights from the buildings above the shops.

  The stranger hit the start/stop button to kill the engine and turned to face Behrouz.

  “I need you to know that I’m serious about this,” he told him, still with the infuriatingly smooth tone. “I need you to understand that it’s very, very important to me that you do everything possible—everything—to complete your work. I need you to fully grasp how crucial it is to your well-being, and to that of your wife and daughter, that you devote all your time and energy to this matter, that you dig deep into any untapped resources inside you and figure this thing out for me. From this point onwards, you should be thinking about nothing else. Nothing.”

  He paused to let his words sink in. “At the same time,” he added, “I also need to make sure you understand that acting on any silly fantasies you might have about going to the police for help would be, frankly, catastrophic. It’s vital that you understand this. We could walk into a police station together right now and I guarantee you the only one of us who would suffer any consequences would be you—and they would be, again, catastrophic. I need to convince you of this. I need you to have absolutely no doubt about what I’m prepared to do, what I’m capable of doing, and how far I’m prepared to go, to make sure that you do this for me.”

  The stranger palmed the key fob and clicked open his door. “Maybe this will do the trick. Come.”

  He climbed out.

  Behrouz followed him, exiting the car on wobbly legs. The stranger walked around to the back of the car. Behrouz glanced upward, looking for any sign of life, wild notions of making a run for it and yelling for help swelling and bursting inside him, but he just joined his tormentor, walking listlessly as if he were in a chain gang.

  The stranger hit a button on the key fob. The trunk of the car clicked open and hovered upward.

  Behrouz didn’t want to look in, but as the stranger reached in, the professor couldn’t rein in his eyes. The trunk was mercifully empty, except for a small travel case. The stranger slid it closer to the edge of the trunk, and as he unzipped it, a putrid smell accosted Behrouz’s nostrils, causing him to gag and falter back a step. The stranger didn’t seem to mind it. He reached into the bag and casually pulled out a mess of hair, skin, and blood that he held up for Behrouz without the merest trace of hesitation or discomfort.

  Behrouz felt the contents of his stomach shoot into his throat as he recognized the severed head the stranger was holding up.

  Miss Deborah. His daughter’s favorite teacher.

  Or what was left of her.

  Behrouz lost hold of his body, retching violently as his knees buckled. He collapsed to the ground, gagging and spewing and gasping for air, unable to breathe, one hand clamped across his eyes to block out the horror of it.

  The stranger didn’t allow him any respite. He bent down to his level, grabbed the professor by the hair and yanked his head up so he couldn’t avoid being face-to-face with the hideous, bloody lump.

  “Find it,” he ordered him. “Find this trove. Do whatever you have to do, but find it. Or you, your wife, your daughter, your parents back in Tehran, your sister and her family …”

  And he left it at that, comfortably certain that the professor had gotten the message.

  Chapter 2

  VATICAN CITY

  TWO MONTH
S LATER

  As he strode across the San Damaso courtyard, Sean Reilly cast a weary glance at the clusters of wide-eyed tourists exploring the Holy See and wondered if he’d ever get to visit the place with their casual abandon.

  This was anything but casual.

  He wasn’t there to admire the magnificent architecture or the exquisite works of art, nor was he there on any spiritual pilgrimage.

  He was there to try to save Tess Chaykin’s life.

  And if he was in any way wide-eyed, it was an attempt to keep his jet lag and his lack of sleep at bay and stay clearheaded enough to try to make sense of a frantic crisis that had been thrust upon him less than twenty-four hours earlier. A crisis he didn’t fully understand—but needed to.

  Reilly didn’t trust the man walking alongside him—Behrouz Sharafi—but he didn’t have much choice. Right now, all he could do was run through yet another mental grind of the information he had, from Tess’s desperate phone call to the Iranian professor’s harrowing firsthand account during the cab ride in from Fiumicino Airport. He had to make sure he wasn’t missing anything—not that he had that much to go on. Some jerkweed was forcing Sharafi to find something for him. He’d chopped off some woman’s head to show him how serious he was. And that same psycho was now holding Tess hostage to get Reilly to play ball. Reilly hated being in that position—reactive, not proactive—though as the FBI special agent in charge heading up the New York City field office’s Domestic Terrorism Unit, he had ample training and experience in reacting to crises.