Suddenly, out of the rags and tatters of fog and cloud there was an alien sound: the steady drumming beat of an aircraft engine. A few seconds later Holliday and Peggy spotted the source of the noise—a big Cessna Caravan flying low over the caldera, looping south almost directly overhead.
The colors of the aircraft’s livery were green and red, not the simple blue on white of SATA airline; not a scheduled flight—a charter. Holliday looked up uneasily as the airplane droned off into the distance. He tried to shake off the feeling of apprehension; the flight was probably just a group of tourists on a day-tripper outing to the little island. He dropped the motorcycle into gear with a bone-jarring clank, and they headed down into the crater, engine coughing and rattling as they went.
The cottage was small and typically Portuguese: whitewashed lava stone and mortar, gently sloping roof of terra-cotta tiles, shuttered windows bracketing a sun-worn door of bleached planking. A man stood in the doorway, watching them approach, one hand up, shading his eyes.
He was very tall, at least six five and slightly stooped. His shoulders were as broad as a stevedore’s, and he was barrel-chested with heavy arms and massive, stoneworker’s hands. His face was square, the eyes deep-set with dark rings around them. He was clean-shaven, the dark stubble flecked with gray. His hair was thick and white as snow. The man was wearing faded twill trousers and a rough cotton shirt, faded and thin. He wore sandals on his feet. At a guess he was in his early sixties and clearly very fit.
Holliday braked, and the old motorcycle ground to a halt on the dark gravel path in front of the cottage. He climbed out of the saddle, and Peggy levered herself out of the sidecar. The tall man in the doorway smiled and stepped forward, his hand extended. He spoke.
“Doctor Holliday, Miss Blackstock. I’ve been expecting you. Welcome to my home. My name is Helder Rodrigues.”
31
“You know who we are?” Peggy asked, surprised.
“Of course,” said the tall, stooped man. “Very little goes on in Corvo that I am not privy to.”
“You said you were expecting us,” said Holliday.
“Yes, for some time now,” nodded Rodrigues. When he spoke it was without accent, the voice cultured and educated. The white-haired man might live in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, but it was clear that in his time he had traveled the world.
He stepped aside and gestured.
“Please, come in,” he said. “I was just making coffee for us.”
They stepped inside. The interior of the cottage was plainly furnished. An open fireplace stood at one end of the single room, and an old-fashioned trundle bed was fitted into the wall opposite. A very old-looking double-barreled shotgun hung on pegs above the fireplace. In front of the hearth was a large, oval braided rug, the once-bright twisted rags faded to soft pastels. There was a plain wooden table in the middle of the room with four chairs around it. Kitchen things were arranged on a counter under one window and a small desk and a shelf of books beneath the other.
There were a few electrical fixtures, but most of the lights seemed to be glass-chimneyed, oil-fed hurricane lanterns. Holliday hadn’t seen any electrical wires on the road so the cottage had to be powered with a generator. There was no television and no obvious telephone anywhere. A very old-looking dark brown Bakelite radio sat on the windowsill.
Rodrigues indicated that they should sit down, and then busied himself finding cups and pouring coffee from the old enameled pot hanging over the coals in the open fireplace.
“Expecting us for some time?” Holliday said. “How’s that, Father Rodrigues?”
“Not Father, Doctor Holliday, not for many years. Just call me Helder.”
“Why a Dutch name like Helder?” Peggy asked.
The big man shrugged.
“The Dutch and the Portuguese were both great sea-faring nations in times gone by. A Dutch ship in a Portuguese port, a Portuguese ship in a Dutch port. Who knows how the world entangles itself?” He laughed. “Den Helder is a small village in North Holland, that I know. I believe the name comes from the word ‘Helledore,’ which means ‘the Gates of Hell.’ ”
“Interesting,” said Holliday. “But it still doesn’t answer the question of why you’ve been expecting us for some time. I didn’t even know where Corvo was until a few days ago.”
“You don’t need to know where you’re going to get there,” said Rodrigues obscurely with a soft smile. “I knew you would get here eventually because I knew the kind of man you were.”
“And how did you know that?” Holliday asked.
“Because I knew what kind of man your uncle was.”
“You knew Grandpa?” Peggy asked.
“I knew him quite well,” said Rodrigues. “I read him while I was at Cambridge studying Classical Archaeology. I met him later in Madrid, which is where we became friends. We ran into each other regularly over the years. Cairo, Athens, Berlin, even Washington.”
Washington, thought Holliday. So the priest had also been a spy, but for who?
“But why did you expect us in particular?” he asked.
“Because I heard that Henry had died,” answered Rodrigues. “I knew that you would come eventually.”
“How does that follow?” Peggy asked.
“I knew the sword would bring you,” said Rodrigues simply. He sipped his coffee, looking at them over the rim of his cup, dark eyes twinkling.
“You knew about the sword?” Holliday said, stunned.
“Four of them actually,” offered Rodrigues. “Aos, Hesperios, Boreas, and Anatos. The so-called Xiphęphoros Peritios Anemos.”
“East, West, North, and South, the Swords of the Four Winds in ancient Greek,” translated Holliday.
“Quite so,” said Rodrigues. “The benefits of a classical education, I see,” he smiled. “The Swords of the Four Winds. The sword your uncle had was named Hesperios, the Sword of the West. It was carried by a man named the Chevalier Guillaume de Gisors, not to be confused with the man of the same name who is sometimes reputedly referred to as a Prior of Sion. This Gisors was a simple knight in the service of Henry II of Jerusalem. The city of course had fallen long before, but by then Saladin’s treasure had been removed, first to Castle Pelerin and then to Cyprus.”
“Saladin’s treasure?” Holliday asked. “Richard the Lionheart’s Saladin?”
“His full name was Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, a warrior born in what is now known as Iraq. Tikrit to be precise.”
“But how is it his treasure?” Holliday said. “Didn’t the Knights Templar excavate the treasure from the Temple of Solomon?”
“The Templars never excavated anything from Jerusalem,” said Rodrigues. “Saladin was no fool. He knew that he couldn’t hold on to Jerusalem forever. Eventually it would fall again, and given the emotions involved it would probably be pillaged and sacked by whoever held it next.
“Saladin knew bloodshed was almost inevitable, but he knew that the treasure had to be saved above all else. At that point the Knights Templar were the greatest united force Saladin had to negotiate with; on the promise that they would neither reveal the origins of the treasure nor disperse it he secretly let the Templars remove it from the city. Had the negotiations ever come to light it is probable that both Saladin and the Templar leaders would have been executed for treason.”
“This makes no sense at all,” said Holliday. “You’re saying that Saladin, the crusaders’ nemesis, the arch-enemy of Christianity, gave away the treasure to the Templar Knights?”
“He saved the treasure,” said Rodrigues. “Had he not, it would almost certainly have been destroyed. It was the act of a noble and honorable man.” Rodrigues smiled sadly. “Unfortunately it was not an act that ingratiated him to Pope Clement or to Philip of France, both of whom wanted the treasure for themselves.”
“There’s no documentation of this in the historical record,” said Holliday. “Nothing at all.”
“The historical record, as you well know, Doctor, i
s written much later than the history itself. All history is hindsight. It is well-known that the Templars did business with their enemies; trading with the enemy is a fact of life, even now. Standard Oil filled the tanks of submarines sinking British ships during World War Two. IBM facilitated the record keeping of Adolf Eich mann at Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau. American-owned hotels line the beaches of Veradero in Cuba. It was the same during the Crusades. After all, Richard the Lionheart used a sword forged in Damascus.”
“So what happened to the four swords?” Peggy asked.
“The four swords, each with the same message to the Templar hierarchy at Clairvaux, were sent off with four separate messengers, each blade backing up the others in case one or more was lost. None ever reached their destination. Roger de Flor sailed off with Saladin’s treasure and vanished into history, its location a secret.”
“First to La Rochelle, and then here,” said Holliday.
“So some people say,” murmured Rodrigues.
“How does Uncle Henry figure into all of this?”
“There had always been rumors that Boreas, the Sword of the North, had reached Scotland with some of Roger de Flor’s ships. Sir Henry St. Clair was thought to be the Boreas messenger, which is probably how the rumors started. Your uncle became interested in the sword mythology during his time at Oxford, which is of course where our paths begin to cross. It was Henry who discovered the connection to Mussolini and the Hesperios sword, which he eventually traced to Berchtesgaden and Hitler’s lair.”
“The existence of which he kept a secret for the rest of his life,” said Holliday flatly, still finding it difficult to believe that he was having this conversation in the belly of an extinct volcano in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
“Of course he kept it a secret,” said Rodrigues. “To reveal it would have had disastrous consequences. It was the end of the war; the Middle East was in ferment; Israel was barely a dream, and a fragile one at that. The Catholic Church wasn’t in much better shape. Over the years the situation has gone from bad to worse.”
“How does La Sapiničre fit into all of this, the Sodalitium Pianum or whatever it was called?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because one of their people tried to kill us in Jerusalem,” said Holliday. “A priest, like you.”
“I told you,” said Rodrigues, “I am no longer a priest.”
“That doesn’t matter. What interest does the Vatican have in all of this?”
“The same as it did eight hundred years ago,” answered Rodrigues. “Power. Or the lack of it. The Saladin treasure would make the Roman Catholic Church an irrelevancy in one blow if it was revealed. The political machinery that has evolved in the Holy See over a thousand years would come down like Humpty Dumpty off his wall. There would be no way to put it back together again.”
“I don’t get it,” said Peggy. “The Vatican has more money than it knows what to do with. You’re trying to tell me they’d hire killers just to get more?”
“You’d be surprised at what the Church is capable of,” said Rodrigues. “But this is not about money. It never was.”
“What else is treasure about?” Peggy said.
“When is a treasure not a treasure?” Rodrigues responded.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peggy asked, exasperated by the tall man’s roundabout answers.
“I think I see,” said Holliday slowly.
“Well, I sure don’t,” said Peggy.
There was a sound from the road outside the cottage: tires on gravel, and more than one vehicle from the sounds of it. Doors slammed, and they heard the low sound of voices speaking quietly.
Rodrigues stood and went to the window. He looked for a few seconds, then turned away and went to the fireplace. He took down the shotgun, carried it to the desk, and rummaged in one of the desk drawers. He took out a handful of shells, broke the barrels of the shotgun, and loaded it. He snapped the barrels closed and turned to Holliday and Peggy.
“We have visitors,” Rodrigues said. “Unwelcome ones by my estimation.”
32
Through the window, Holliday saw two cars, an old Citroën 2CV and an even older Mercedes sedan, standing on the gravel in front of the cottage. There were six men, all big, blond, and hard-faced. One of them stood at the trunk of the Mercedes handing out weapons to the others. Shotguns and small, brutal-looking machine pistols, Uzis and MAC-10s. Holliday caught the flash of a tattoo on the wrist of one of the men.
“Kellerman’s people,” said Holliday.
“Ordo Novi Templi,” nodded Rodrigues. “The Order of the New Templars.”
“You know about Kellerman?” Peggy asked, startled.
“There have been White Templars and Black since the beginning,” answered the ex-priest. “Ordo Novi Templi is simply one of the Black Templars’ more recent incarnations.” The tall man shook his head. “There is no time to explain further. We must leave this place immediately.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?” Holliday asked. “Those men outside aren’t about to give us a free pass.”
“Vis consili expers mole ruit sua,” said Rodrigues, stuffing the pockets of his trousers with more shotgun shells.
“Horace,” answered Holliday. “ ‘Discretion is the better part of valor.’ You don’t happen to have another weapon by any chance, do you?”
Rodrigues reached under the desk. There was a faint tearing sound: Velcro. He handed Holliday a well-oiled Czech CZ 75 automatic pistol in a belt-clip holster.
“It’s loaded with Smith and Wesson .40-caliber copkillers—Teflon coated.”
“Strange priest,” said Holliday, stuffing the holster into the waistband of his jeans.
“Strange times,” responded Rodrigues. “Follow me.”
Rodrigues stepped quickly to the center of the room and threw back the braided rug. Beneath it was the obvious square and iron ring of a trapdoor set into the floor.
Peggy groaned. “Not this again!”
Rodrigues grabbed the ring and pulled up the trapdoor. Beneath it was a narrow set of stone steps leading downward. The ex-priest motioned them toward the opening.
“Go down. I’ll come after you.”
“It’s dark,” objected Peggy.
“The fifth step down on the right,” instructed Rodrigues. “There’s a switch on the wall.”
“Go,” said Holliday to Peggy.
She eased herself onto the stairs and went downward, feeling her way with one hand against the stone. A few seconds later there was a wash of light, and Holliday heard the distant grumbling of a generator coming from far below.
“Your turn,” said Rodrigues.
“They’re going to follow us, you know,” cautioned Holliday.
“I think I can cool their ardor somewhat.” The ex-priest smiled. “Go.”
Holliday went down the steps, following Peggy. He could see her below him on the stairs carved into the ancient, porous, pumice-like stone at a steep angle. A thick old-fashioned strip of flat cable was threaded through rusty old staples in the roof of the stairway, and bare bulbs hung every ten feet or so, the light pulsing with each cycle of the generator.
The stairway turned sharply at almost right angles and suddenly ended in a low, wide tunnel that looked man-made but wasn’t. Peggy was waiting for him. The tunnel went left and right; the left-hand path was dark while the right-hand path was lit by the same bulbs as the stairway. Holliday stretched out his hand and ran his fingers along the rows of parallel ridges in the frozen stone.
“A lava tube,” he said. Once upon a time molten stone had flowed in a white-hot liquid river down this subterranean path, eventually ending in the sea. Ahead of them Holliday could hear the echoing, out-of-place sound of the generator powering the lights in the ceiling overhead.
“What do we do now?” Peggy asked, staring down the tunnel.
“Wait for Rodrigues,” answered Holliday. He drew the pistol, racked the slide, and waited at the foot of
the steps. The ex-priest appeared a few moments later, his expression tense.
“I’ve been expecting something like this for many years,” said Rodrigues as he stepped into the tunnel, the shotgun cradled in his arms. “Secrets never remain secrets forever. As Shakespeare said—‘the truth will out.’ ”
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