He exited the kitchen and walked slowly along the corridor. On first inspection the château seemed deserted, the silence disturbed only by the sound of raindrops falling against the windows and the intermittent sound of thunder from somewhere towards the north. The doors to most of the rooms were closed, as usual, though the door to the dining room was open, presenting an elegant façade typically reminiscent of that found in a European stately home. On entering the room he found it unaltered from its usual appearance and devoid of any other presence. Although there was no evidence that anything was amiss the fact that there was no sign of life disturbed him slightly. At least when he knew where Gabrielle was, he knew that nothing bad would happen to her.
On leaving the room he walked along the corridor in the direction of the stairs, checking every room as he passed. In the distance he thought he could make out the sound of somebody talking, possibly on the phone. As best he could tell it was a woman’s voice, probably Gabrielle’s, but at present he couldn’t be sure who it was or from where the sound was coming. The lack of human presence disturbed him slightly, his senses heightened by the sound of the appalling weather outside. Ever since the day of the discovery of the manuscript the thought lingered that someone was watching them, something that the presence of the biker at Rosslyn and the night at the hotel had intensified. While in reality he considered it far less likely that anything out of the ordinary would happen on a day like today the feeling still unsettled him. As he continued along the corridor he knocked on doors before venturing inside, intent on satisfying that uneasy feeling that lingered at the back of his mind that refused to go away.
After finding no signs of life on the ground floor he headed up the stairs. On reaching the fourth, he paused momentarily. At the end of the corridor the door to Henry Leoni’s study was slightly ajar. Through the briefest of gaps Mike could hear the sound of papers being shuffled and books being stacked, indicating that the Harvard academic was at work within. Turning away from the stairs, Mike walked towards the study and entered, knocking quietly against the door as he did so.
Henry was sitting alone at his desk. A cup of coffee was placed to his lips and a half-eaten piece of toast was on a plate close to the computer screen. A large library bound book was laid out neatly in front of him.
‘Morning,’ he said peering up.
‘Morning,’ Mike returned, walking towards the desk. Two other books were closed, symbols and titles of various meanings and origins decorating their ageing covers, concealing ancient wisdom of various importance: each one seemingly identical in appearance, their calligraphy recognisable only to the trained expert.
‘Where’s your niece?’
‘She’s on the telephone. I think the Vatican have made an offer for some of our shares in Leoni et Cie.’
‘Oh really,’ Mike said, grimacing a smile, unwilling to intrude but keen to clarify his own position. ‘I thought what with everything that’s gone on she might have waited a while.’
‘Neither myself nor Gabrielle are bankers, Mr. Frei,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The time is right. Although, I must admit, it does seem strange. After all, over two hundred years of family heritage survive in that bank.’ He smiled at Mike philosophically. ‘But I don’t think we’ll sell our entire stake. And at least it’ll be taken over by the Church, not just some corporate vehicle.’
Mike nodded, making eye contact with Henry. It was strange. He had only known the man four weeks but something had left a mark.
‘Well, the sooner your business is done, the sooner I’ll be leaving, I guess.’
Henry looked at Mike with interest. ‘Well it’s been very reassuring having you here. The old place won’t be the same without you.’
Mike forced an awkward smile. ‘I’m not sure your niece would see it that way.’
‘You can’t take Gabrielle at face value.’
‘No.’
‘No. That’s just her way.’
Mike sipped his coffee slowly. The taste danced beautifully on his dry tongue. He looked at Henry who continued to smile thoughtfully at him. Maybe he was right. Maybe she wasn’t one to show her emotions. She certainly shouted; that was emotion. She had cried, although not in front of him. Sometimes she seemed so cold and distant, but other times he almost felt she could be kind and caring.
‘Don’t say anything to her yet,’ Henry said. ‘It may upset her more than you think.’
Mike smiled as though he had heard a joke. Suddenly his ears pricked. Soft footsteps were ascending the stairs, becoming ever louder before stopping at the summit. The sound continued, this time along the corridor, seemingly approaching the study. Seconds later the door opened and Gabrielle entered. She was dressed in blue jeans and a black top and carried a relatively modern paperback book in her right hand. Not for the first time she looked fantastic.
‘Who was that?’ Henry asked.
‘Renouf, Anderson and Klose.’
‘What did they want?’ Mike asked.
Gabrielle looked at Mike sternly. ‘Do you always ask what’s not your business?’
‘Sorry.’
Gabrielle turned away, placing her book down on the desk. ‘Since you ask, they are doing the legal work for Leoni et Cie. I’m selling 30% to the Vatican Bank.’
Mike nodded, digesting the information. A peculiar silence engulfed the large ornate study, strangely loud in nature, resembling the moment following a glass or plate dropping to the floor before smashing into a thousand pieces, leaving a fading echo as the pieces come to a standstill. Several thoughts were running through his head.
‘Not that this concerns you,’ she said, turning towards him. ‘Now that my interest in Leoni et Cie is subsiding, that will be the end of you.’
Mike made eye contact briefly, his coffee mug partially shielding his face. ‘I’ll stay until I’m told otherwise.’
‘Right. But the Vatican will no longer need to protect us. When the contract is signed, they can appoint their own permanent chief exec. I’m going to Rome a week Friday as it happens for a meeting of the new bank with the Vatican bankers. We can drop you home.’
Mike nodded, his thoughts focused on the Vatican. At least he would be back with his friends, Mark, Stan, Alessandro.
At the same time he felt strangely sad. He looked at Gabrielle as she walked towards her uncle. There was a sense of despondency about her. Maybe it was about Rosslyn; maybe it was her father; perhaps the decision to sell her shares in her family bank. The thought was credible enough. Out of the corner of her eye she looked at him and instantly looked away.
‘As it happens, this has come at a good time,’ she said, mainly to her uncle. ‘I need to go to the Vatican anyway.’
Henry looked up. ‘Oh?’
‘Does the name Count Poli mean anything to you?’
‘Poli?’
‘Yes. I found this.’
She opened the book to a specific page and passed it to her uncle. He chuckled immediately.
‘Ah yes. The James Jackson account.’
‘What’s that?’ Mike asked.
Henry smiled kindly. ‘Nothing really: just an old wives’ tale. An account from 1836 in this village in Scotland.’
‘It’s no tale,’ Gabrielle said adamantly.
‘You don’t know that.’
‘You don’t know that it’s not.’
Henry relented, smiling in mild amusement. ‘Okay, so suppose it’s true?’
‘What is it?’ Mike asked, walking closer and peering over Gabrielle’s shoulder.
Henry: ‘According to a book, written in 1836, a man named Poli, a descendent of the last Provost of Rosslyn Chapel before the Reformation…’
‘Reformation?’ Mike asked.
‘Yes. Of the Church.’
‘You mean like John Knox and Henry VIII?’
‘That was they,’ Henry said, making Gabrielle smile. ‘Now a man named James Jackson from the village of Penicuik near Roslin writes in 1836 how a man named Poli came to the area two
years earlier, and had in his possession a strange book that described the chapel and castle as they were at the time they were deserted.’
‘And what was this strange book?’ Mike asked. ‘Kinda like your one?’
‘Precisely,’ Gabrielle replied.
Henry shook his head, still smiling. ‘Now, Poli was joined by Jackson, supposedly.’
‘Not supposedly.’
Henry shook his head once more. Resistance was useless.
‘Well, Poli showed him and the rest of the party around the buildings. While visiting the chapel he bemoaned the absence of the “Splendid Tomb” of the early St. Clairs not being present in the vaults.’
Mike edged slightly closer to the desk, reading the book over Henry’s shoulder. Suddenly he was starting to become interested, almost as if everything that had happened so far could be validated. Were they too late? Had they gone to the right place, only after it had been taken? Whatever it was. What had this to do with Al Leoni and the Rite of Larmenius?
‘So…supposedly…’
‘Will you stop saying that!’ Gabrielle snapped.
Mike looked at Henry and laughed. It was as if the professor was in school, a student not a teacher, whereas his niece was the headmistress.
Henry: ‘So, Poli leads these men into the vaults of the castle where the splendid tomb was housed and this legendary treasure was buried. However, it was not gold, nor silver, but books.’
‘Books?’ Mike said.
‘The castle was once used as a scriptorium,’ Gabrielle said.
‘You mean like the Vatican?’
‘Funny you should mention that,’ Gabrielle replied, showing him the page in question. ‘Because the manuscripts were taken to the Vatican and are now in the library.’
‘Now that is a supposedly,’ Henry said.
Gabrielle looked at Henry and then at Mike. ‘And, I looked up that symbol we saw in the vault at Rosslyn – you know the one of the figure with the shield that had an image of a ship on a starry moonlit night. Well, a near exact symbol is found in Westford, Massachusetts which is thought by some to mark the grave of one of Zichmni’s men after they reached America.’
Mike raised his eyebrows, convinced she was clutching at straws. ‘So what do you think is there? What kind of manuscripts?’
‘No one knows for sure. The only one named was a copy of Rota Temporum by Adam Abel.’
‘And you think that book is of relevance?’
‘Probably not. But if we can locate that one then maybe we can locate the others.’
Mike wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked inquisitively at Gabrielle. A smile touched his lips.
‘You think the Vatican is harbouring proof of a Templar survival?’
‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘Name one.’
She stuttered momentarily. ‘I don’t have to. And besides, you’re going home.’
Mike laughed ironically, then for the briefest of seconds he met her gaze. For what seemed like several seconds, Gabrielle looked at him with a despondent look before turning away and leaving the room. She headed along the corridor, continuing until reaching her bedroom. The sound of her footfalls was in keeping with the thundering wind that accompanied the rain. He heard a door slam, echoing momentarily before fading to silence.
In a large office, located on the 15th floor of a Boston skyscraper, the chief executive of the Starvel Group, Louis Velis, pondered the document in front of him. Although he was used to approving corporate loans for major businesses, this one was slightly different to what he expected. $347 million was more than the average loan, but it was not that what struck him most. More surprising was the source of the request.
He looked at the terms for the final time and signed the contract. He would ring the cardinals immediately to tell them the good news.
In a poorly lit chamber somewhere in the Vatican, the senior cardinal and the Scottish Preceptor sat quietly, their eyes focused on the rough Latin text of the ancient chronicle in front of them. Turning yet another irrelevant page, the preceptor scanned it for any sign, any possible clue hidden in the ancient Latin.
Closing the cover, he moved onto the next manuscript, still looking for the missing manuscript. As a professor of history he knew that urban legends were subject to inaccuracy, but also that ancient pages can harbour many secrets.
New truths were being uncovered. These truths must remain secret.
20
Zürich, three days later
The main office of the European law firm, Renouf, Anderson and Klose was situated in the heart of Zürich’s central business district. The building had an attractive glass exterior and was entered via one of two identical automatic doors.
Mike and Gabrielle entered the building at midday. Inside, the tower seemed somehow smaller than it appeared from outside – an illusion of light on glass. A smartly dressed man on reception informed them that eight firms shared the twelve-floor building and that Renouf, Anderson and Klose were on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors, with the office they needed on the ninth. The building took all sorts, and Gabrielle could tell from the notice board on the reception of the ninth floor that this firm would be the same. Renouf, Anderson and Klose employed one hundred and fifty-four lawyers in the city according to their website, twenty-four of which were partners, all concentrating in different areas. One was oil; another was insurance; then there was also property, foreign affairs, litigation and, of course, banking. She caught sight of the name Jurgen Klose as the partner for banking.
Mike had gotten used to the sight of men in suits recently. The waiting area consisted of white walls, countless artificial pot plants giving the false impression of natural environment, and was frequented by men wearing black suits and worried faces with arms attached to perpetually unopened briefcases. There were twelve available chairs, separated into groups of four by two small glass coffee tables offering newspapers and magazines from the New York Times to Heat Magazine. Of the twelve seats, three others were in use. A bald-headed spectacled man in his fifties seemed oblivious to everyone’s existence with his eyes staring with constant attention at the newspaper on his lap, interrupted by the regular glances at the clock. Two seats along a bearded man seemed more interested in Gabrielle’s legs, whereas on the other side of Mike sat a vastly overweight Swiss lady in her forties clearly suffering from stress.
Mike sat down, preparing himself for a lengthy wait. He picked up a motor magazine and began flicking through pages of sports cars. Less than two minutes after their arrival a young associate dressed in a smart suit appeared from a nearby corridor. He smiled at Gabrielle.
‘Ms. Leoni, they are ready for you.’
Jurgen Klose studied the document for the final time and once more found nothing obvious he disliked, at least according to this paper. The accounts were impressive: a customer base of over half a million people worldwide, mostly in Switzerland, central Europe and the US, including a steady clientele of millionaires from St. Gallen. Worldwide assets of over $75 billion, mostly made up of small loans; market capital in excess of $6.5 billion or approximately 6.4 billion Swiss Francs, at current share price, not bad for a bank of that size in the current climate; profit after tax for the last fiscal year just under $334 million; amount owed on financial derivatives contracts just under $1.1 billion was quite acceptable and the 200,000 contracts on put and call options in Japan and Asia were proving quite profitable. Yes, on face value, this was fine.
No one could fail to be impressed by the performance of Leoni et Cie, the former Banque Leoni. What fifteen years earlier had been predominantly a privately owned retail bank, before its floatation and merger with US investment bank, Rosco, with a capital base of $1.5 billion, had now flourished into a real contender. The Glass-Steagall Act had been lifted in the United States in 1999 – the act which prohibited bank holding companies from owning other financial companies – and had that not occurred their recent success would not have been pos
sible. Derivatives, insurance, mergers and acquisitions and even the emerging markets all became obvious targets and success in one seemed to lead to success in another. In two hundred years the fourth oldest private bank in St. Gallen had become one of the top fifty most successful banks in the world, the fourth largest in Switzerland.
By the 1980s the firm’s image was starting to develop. As the decade progressed over one thousand branches had become assembled for their purpose, branches shot up throughout France for the first time in two centuries and even the Canadians had climbed aboard the Leoni et Cie bandwagon. Secrecy was still a passion, as was customary of the Swiss nation, and as growth continued, so did the lending. Every new branch saw the privilege extended to a new generation of happy customers.
It was a combination of Leoni et Cie’s fine financial footing and the religious pedigree of the Leonis that convinced the Vatican Bank to invest in the bank in the early 1990s. The Banco Ambrosiano scandal had rocked the organisation and most in the business had long memories. But Al Leoni was a colossus. Leoni et Cie was alive with activity but without arrogance. It thrived on confidentially and did not advertise strenuously. This suited the Vatican just fine. Marcinkus had left a void that was still growing and the last thing his replacements wanted was to follow the same path. A reputed $1.7 billion had been invested by 1994 and that had more than doubled by 1999. Even the Roman Curia had funds invested there.
What had begun in the 1780s as a private deposit bank had turned into a multinational conglomerate, yet still maintaining the family feel and remaining in private ownership. In 1996 they floated on the SMI, the Swiss Market Index, and the acquisition a year later of another private Swiss bank resulted in even more success. Leoni et Cie was going places.
The Templar Agenda Page 22