Secret of the Thorns: Political Thriller (Donavan Chronicles Book 1)

by Tom Haase

  Scott backed away from her. He hesitated. She thought he might still want to call the police and tell them about what had occurred in Warsaw. But he also knew they had fled the scene and perhaps with luck no one would ever learn of their involvement. Bridget realized this wasn’t something he had ever thought about doing. This new adventure they would embark on reminded her of a Harrison Ford thriller.

  “Scott, this is our chance to do something and to discover secrets hidden for centuries. We have the means, the knowledge. Are you with me or not?”

  “Okay,” he said. “First, we need to decipher the code to find out where to go for the hiding place. So give, dear sister. What do you know?”

  “It’s simple. All those letters and numbers you translated back in Warsaw combined with your description on the photograph made it easy. The soldier, or whoever he was in that room, was a scholar of some type, not just a common soldier. In the time he spent in there before he died, he cracked the code.”

  “How on earth did you figure it out?”

  “He wasn’t playing chess with himself. He’d solved the mystery of the location on the map of where the treasure rests. Unfortunately, you said the map was unreadable, even you couldn’t see what location it marked. The Arabs invented modern chess, or at least they get the credit for it. The code gives the position of chess pieces on the board to align with the map he had in his hand.”

  “All we have to do is put the map over the correct city, put on the chess pieces, and voila!” Scott exclaimed.

  “What city? Which one?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Go to sleep. On second thought, take a shower.” He held his nose as he said the last part.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hotel Mora, Madrid 8:35 p.m.

  The jihadist network issued an order to find the two Americans when they arrived in Spain. Tefir al Hussan had received the command to find these Americans and report back —surveillance and nothing else. Tefir groaned when he received the order but knew he had to carry it out. In the end someone else would get the glory for killing the two.

  Tefir came from a very poor neighborhood on the outskirts of the Saudi Arabian capital. His Iranian father had died in the crossfire between Israeli troop and the Hezbollah warrior many years before while visiting the Gaza strip. His mother raised Tefir as best she could, but he only had the education provided by the local mosque.

  There the Imam took him under his wing and instilled the values of the Wasabi form of Islam. This led to his willingness to go to Spain as a teenager to help the local Imam with a project involving young men willing to engage in jihad. Tefir loved the study and preparation. He became the brightest and best student in all the various aspect of carrying out attacks that would create fear in the infidels. He became a master of street fighting and using his knife. He acquired the Bowie knife from one of the stupid locals who one night tried to attack him as he left the mosque after evening prayer. The kid suffered the loss of his knife and a permanent scar across his cheek. On his twenty-first birthday, the Imam had elevated him to a position of leadership over all the trainees. Tefir flourished and grew in knowledge and prestige in the organization.

  So when the Imam called him to his office earlier tonight and informed him of his current mission he hurried to the airport to carry out the order.

  Finding the targets proved no difficulty since the airport layout required all arriving passengers to depart from the various gates along the same long aisle. With relative ease, he followed the Americans to the subway and then to Hotel Mora. Now he waited in the wings of the large reception hall, his eyes scanning.

  The Americans had check-in some time ago. He couldn’t follow without being obvious so Tefir waited for an opportunity.

  Then opportunity arrived in the person of a male hotel employee. Tefir approached the employee who had a middle-eastern appearance and greeted him in Farsi, a language he had studied. The man smiled and replied in the same tongue. With coded words, Tefir confirmed the employee was indeed a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Tefir briefed the man on what he wanted, stating that his Imam would consider it a great favor if the assistance requested was rendered. This included a personal meeting with the Imam in the morning in exchange for his help. The man seemed to recognize the name of the Imam and bobbed his head in agreement. The man departed but returned in a few minutes with the information Tefir had requested.

  Tefir believed that the reason he was ordered to trail these two and do nothing was obvious. The ones coming from Warsaw wanted to get the glory of terminating these infidels who had disgraced Islam. He didn’t want that to happen, not after all these years of training and preparation. He knew how to take care of this. He would do it himself and get the glory, show the Imam he was worthy of greater tasks, and achieve the glory himself.

  Forgive me, Allah, oh merciful one.

  The room of the Americans was on the second floor. He went up to scout the area. There were only four rooms on the floor. This was a low class hotel. The walls were thin and the doors even thinner. A new idea formed. Returning to the man who had helped him earlier, he requested another favor. In a few minutes learned the room next to the Americans was empty. He stretched out his hand for the key to the adjacent room. On entering that room, he went to the bathroom. As he suspected, it was a shared bath with doors that locked to keep the other rooms occupants from entering when you were in the bath. This was common in this type of inexpensive hotel.

  His cell rang, and the number showed the Imam called. He didn’t answer it. He texted “Have them in sight, will call with destination.” That should keep the Imam happy for an hour or two.

  Tefir snuck into the bathroom with his shoes off. There he could hear voices in the other room. His understanding of English was poor. Their conversations meant nothing to him. Examining the door to their room, he discovered that the lock on their side was a simple push button in the middle of the knob. No problem. He could use his knife to slide it down the space between the wall and the door an open the lock in a second. After his recce, he returned to his room.

  The door to the bath opened and he heard what he believed was the man relieving himself. Patience, he told himself. They had been running since Warsaw, it was logical that they were tired. He was patient and would wait. He turned off his phone and then rested on the bed.

  He would kill them in their beds while they slept.

  * * * *

  Bridget woke to a dark room surrounding her. A muffled noise came from somewhere and her senses went on alert. She struggled to wake up and slowly became more aware of her surroundings. God, she needed sleep but something was wrong. After listening for a minute, she decided it was probably nothing. Someone in the hall made a noise. Her watch showed three in the morning. Everybody should be asleep.

  Then she heard the something else, not a noise from the hall but a creak, which seemed to have come from inside the room. She switched on the lamp. Scott was still asleep in the other bed. The noise hadn’t come from him. Bridget pushed back the sheet, rose, and went toward the bathroom door. Perhaps the noise had come from there. Probably guests up late relieving themselves. But why not the right noises? No sound of water.

  As she neared the door she thought she heard something on the other side. She paused and waited. The sound came again. She recognized it now in the stillness of the room. It was someone breathing, breathing with loud exhales.

  Better safe that sorry. In her mind there was no way the people in Warsaw had tracked them to this hotel in Spain. She started to breathe too loud so she inhaled and held the exhale. The noise from the bathroom continued. Instinct told her to prepare for a local bandit who might try to rob Americans staying in a cheap hotel, as they might be easy targets. She rushed to the nightstand and ripped the heavy brass lamp from the table. Her actions caused a loud noise as the cord unplugged from the wall. The room turned dark.

  Scott moaned and turned. Sleepily he asked, “What’s up, sis?”

&n
bsp; The bath door burst open at that moment and a man rushed in. The room had enough light from the attacker’s room to see that he was armed with a big knife. No, she thought, not a damn knife. Not again. I hate knives. The man appeared to concentrate on Scott and rushed toward him. Maybe he thought the female would be no problem. As he lunged the knife toward Scott’s supine form, Scott rolled off the bed. The blade plunged into the mattress. The man was stuck in a low bent over position for a second, with the blade embedded. He tried to withdraw the big knife. The attacker had just tried to kill Scott. In the open desert of Iran and Ethiopia there was a suspension of civilization and its laws in many areas, but here in Madrid she didn’t expect to be in a fight to the death.

  Bridget swung the lamp as far back as she could. Then she used a roundhouse swing to get the momentum of the lamp to its maximum velocity. She could hear the wind from the speed of the lamp as it swung past her shoulder. Bridget had all her strength committed to propelling it at the maximum speed she could achieve. The man didn’t see her attack as he concentrated on getting his weapon freed. The lamp contacted at the base of his head where the spinal cord enters the cranium. The thud sent a shock up her arm but Bridget didn’t stop. She swung the heavy base and hit him again in the same area with all her might. No mercy.

  No taking prisoners when someone tries to kill you.

  The attacker crumbled to the floor.

  Scott jumped up from the position he had landed on the floor and hurried to the door. He flipped on the switch. The lower overhead light stunned them both for a few second.

  Bridget approached the form on the floor with the lamp in her hand. She took the knife from the man’s hand and knelt down beside the man. Checked for a pulse. When she looked up at Scott she shook her head. Bile started to come up in her throat. My God, I’ve killed him. She swallowed hard to suppress the awful taste in her throat. She needed to be in control of herself.

  Think soldier, what do you do now?

  “Oh, no,” Scott whined. “Not again.”

  “Get a grip,” said Bridget. “He looks like the ones at the museum. I have to believe that somehow we’ve been found out. The bastards know where we are. We have to assume he reported on us. Get your things. We have to go,” she said as she searched the man and took his phone. There were no papers of identification but she now had no doubt he was part of the group that attacked them in Warsaw. As she searched him she noted that her hands did not shake. That was good. She was in control. This unprovoked lethal attack was all the proof she needed to confirm in her mind that they were being pursued.

  “Where?”

  “To that city, the one you couldn’t figure out last night. Do you know it yet?” She let her eyes bore into him. They grabbed their things and headed for the door.

  “Yes,” he said as they left the room.

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter Nineteen

  January 1, in the year of Our Lord 1492, Monastery in Granada, Spain

  Three hours after evening Compline- 1:32 a.m.

  Matins, the first prayers of the day, would not begin for a few hours. Father Filipo Torres’s duty tonight was to stay awake to ensure all the monks arose for chapel. He paced his small cell to keep warm on this bitter night on the first day of the New Year. He hoped 1492 would be a good year for Spain. He performed his duty on this night as the newest ordained priest in the monastery. All the other brothers and priests would be sleeping soundly after the New Year’s Eve celebrations.

  The Christian army of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile rested outside the city they had besieged for months, but the end was close. Father Filipo decided to go to the main church; once inside, he could walk in longer strides to keep warm in his long vigil.

  Father Filipo’s robes swished as he walked. When he entered the church an unfamiliar noise reached his ears: stone grinding against stone. But in the middle of the night, no sound should be in the cathedral.

  A lantern’s glow appeared.

  As Father Filipo crept up to a column at the rear of the cathedral to the side of the nave, he noted six men around the main altar. They looked like soldiers of the sultan’s army. These intruders wore the garb of the sultan’s guard, with the gold sashes and the baggy pantaloons. The Spanish called the Muslim leader King Ibn al-Ahmar, but the Muslims used the title sultan.

  Father Filipo understood that the recent political tensions had forced the Catholic royals to finally attempt to clear all of Spain of the Muslim invaders. The first Moors and Berbers had arrived in 711 AD. While the so-called dark ages enveloped the main European countries, in Spain, under the Muslims, the candle of knowledge remained lit. Islamic scholars kept the knowledge amassed by the Romans, the Greeks, and the Egyptian civilizations alive.

  The sound of a soldier’s command to move quicker reverberating in the empty church startled Filipo. He realized six armed Muslims had no reason to be in a Christian church. What could he do? He could watch, or better yet, run. No, he had to watch and learn why they were in his church. The cold penetrating his robes no longer concerned him.

  “Come on get the rear of that altar removed,” ordered one. He spoke in the colloquial Moorish tongue Father Filipo understood perfectly. He’d heard it all his life.

  “There are four slabs on the back, but I think I can get one open which should give us access to the cavity,” replied another soldier.

  “Why in the name of Allah are we in a Christian church?” one asked.

  “Quiet and do as you’re told. You three go out and start bringing it in,” the commander said.

  Filipo moved back into the darkest recess in the baptismal area. He watched the three go out and in a few moments they returned carrying sacks. The men hunched over in the effort to carry them.

  “I’ve used the pulley to open the cavity beneath the floor. Bring the gold and put it in here. We’re lucky our engineers found the plans for this place.” He heard on of the sultan’s men say.

  “Hurry, there’s only a few hours before we march out of this town. We can’t carry these things with us. Don’t worry, we’ll come back.”

  No, you will not, thought Father Filipo. After eight hundred years you’re going to leave Spanish soil and we’ll make sure you never come back. I think they’re hiding their gold here since they assume their mosque will be sacked and destroyed. Good thinking on their part.”

  “Sir, two more sacks are outside.”

  “Go get them.”

  When they reentered the church, the two carried the sacks hefted onto their shoulders.

  “What’s that?” asked the man in charge.

  “Don’t know, sir, but it feels like parchments or books. They are light, not heavy like the others and I can hear the paper inside move. Let’s look.”

  “The sultan would have your head for that you idiot. Now put them in with the rest. The sultan didn’t give me his reasons for wanting to hide them, although I saw him take many like these in his personal baggage.”

  Father Filipo stood on his toes and watched as they reset the stone into the floor and replaced the back panel of the altar before the soldiers left the church. He tiptoed around inside the nave of the church after ensuring it was empty. As a priest and a monk he was bound by the vow of poverty. The infidels had deposited a treasure in his church. He needed to think on this and develop a plan to use his knowledge.

  He returned to the cloister where he started to wake the monks for Matins.

  After mass the next morning, the entire monastery went out of the cathedral’s main entrance and witnessed the sultan’s army lined up for what could be a parade. After months of being under siege this seemed strange. The Sultan sat on his white charger and spoke to his men.

  “Soldiers of Allah. This day we have yielded to the King of Spain. We depart this town with our heads held high.” His horse reared, but the Sultan brought him under control. “It will only be a short time before we lead the mightiest army of the Islamic world back here to re-conquer what is
rightfully ours. All of you townspeople, I urge you to protect the heritage we have given you and await our return. It is the will of Allah.” He turned on his steed giving the signal, and with orders barked by his commanders to move forward. The drummers started their cadence and the army departed through the now-opened gate.

  A few minutes after the last Muslim soldier left, a priest, under a banner of a cross, led a column of Christian knights into the city.

  The royal army of Ferdinand and Isabella entered the liberated town. Father Filipo stared in disbelief as he saw him: his own cousin, his dearest friend from childhood, with whom he had played every day on his father’s merchant ships. Astride a magnificent black stallion rode the lead knight, Juan Ponce de Leon.

  Chapter Twenty

  Present day

  Rome, Vatican City - 8:47 p.m.

  Jonathan McGregor arrived at his apartment just outside Vatican City on the Via Borgo Angelico. His window in the front provided a view of the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica. The inside of his top floor unit contained sparse furnishings neatly arranged.

  On entering, he recharged his cell phone and computer. After performing the connections, he picked up the living room phone and dialed the Cardinal.

  “Eminence, I’m back in Rome for a few hours before I catch my flight to Madrid. Have you had any luck in tracking them.”

  “I acquired the address where they’re staying.” He gave the hotel name and location to Jonathan. “I again state that I want you to ensure they don’t have nor are able to keep a copy of any of the documents. If they do, you are to retrieve them any way you can.”

  “I understand.” The line immediately went dead after he responded. He packed some short-sleeved shirts, a pair of jeans and two tan colored slacks, and good walking shoes; he carefully rolled his priest garb and tucked it into the carry on suitcase. This was like going on a mission, he thought, just like any combat mission in the army. He brought along a light jacket, 30 SPF sunscreen, and sunglasses. These preparations should cover any contingencies on a summer trip to the Iberian Peninsula.