by Rene Fomby
Archie had finished off his second glass of wine, so Sam snagged him a third. “Go on, you were explaining how Sir Richard was the reason you’re here tonight,” she reminded him.
“Yes, yes, of course. But first, let’s try and grab a seat over next to the water. My legs are a bit knackered from a tour I took this morning.”
“I’m with you on that,” Sam agreed, pointing to an open spot a little way away from the crowd.
Once they were settled in, Archie continued his story. “So, as I was saying, we were pretty sure there were many more secret tunnels and rooms lying underneath Acre, but, short of digging around randomly everywhere, hoping to get lucky, how might they be found? That’s when I really did get lucky. I chanced to brush into Prince William a few years ago at a commemorative ceremony of the U.K.’s Blues and Royals regiment. The Prince had once served in the regiment, as had I, and we were both graduates of the University of St. Andrews. Anyway, we were just having a bit of an old chinwag, and I happened to mention the possibility that the Templar Treasure might still be lurking beneath the city of Acre, if only we could find some way to locate more of the secret tunnels. And, to my great surprise, he suggested he might know someone who could help me out with that. Time passed, and I had pretty much forgotten about all that, when lo and behold, I got a call from out of the blue from someone with the American armed forces—a Bob Sanders, if I remember correctly— who offered to look into the matter. And they did. Last December I received the Christmas present of a lifetime, a report detailing the location of four major tunnels, one of them ending in a large underground vault of some sort.”
Sam was intrigued. “How did they pull that off? Did the report say they found anything in the vault?”
“No, the report didn’t really go into much detail. Evidently the Americans have a system of spy satellites with very sophisticated ground-penetrating radar, something they use routinely to search for terrorist tunnels, or, presumably, secret Russian and Chinese military installations. Based upon my request, they simply pointed the radar at a number of locations the department at Cambridge had identified as promising targets for underground structures. I was told they couldn’t show me the actual images that came back, because all that technology is listed as top secret, but they were able to generate a computerized grid map of Acre, enough to tell us exactly where to look.”
“And what did you find out?” Mehmed asked, fully absorbed in the story.
“So far, very little.” Archie took another sip of wine and stared off into the distance, where a long line of columns reflected hauntingly in the still waters of the cistern. “There was one tunnel, though, that seemed to be especially promising. The mouth of the tunnel is a sealed stone wall terminating near the existing secret tunnel, while the rest of it lies embedded deep within the seaward wall of the old Templar fortress, leading to that underground vault I mentioned, some fifty feet or so below the surface. All we would need to do is to open up the walled-up entrance to the tunnel, and we should be able to navigate easily down to the vault.”
“That doesn’t seem all that difficult,” Sam suggested. “If they could dig out the first secret tunnel, tearing down a wall seems like child’s play.”
“It would be,” Archie agreed. “Except that the antiquities bureaucrats have suddenly thrown up their own stone walls on the project. We had professional archaeologists lined up, ready to dismantle the wall stone by stone, to make sure everything was handled appropriately. According to our timetable, that task would have been completed sometime last week, and I would have already led my team underground to see if the Templar treasure was still buried down there, sealed up by the last Christian defenders to escape the city when the invaders poured in over the walls. But just as they were about to start work, somebody back in Jerusalem threw up a red flag, and everything came to a screeching halt.”
“But why would they do that?” Mehmed asked. “There was so much to be gained by the project, at so small a price. Just the loss of a bricked-up entrance.”
“Yes, well, I suspect the culprit is academic jealousy, my friend,” Archie explained. “Why should a British team get all the credit, instead of a local Israeli researcher? And, you know, we’re still having to answer for all of the antiquities that got spirited away from that part of the world so many years ago, now safely in residence in the British Museum in London.”
“What a shame,” Sam said, swigging the last of her Perrier and considering another. “Isn’t there anything you can do to change their minds?”
Archie shook his head. “I don’t personally have any way to force their hand on any of this,” he answered. “But I am hoping that by getting the word out at this conference, we can collectively apply enough academic pressure on our colleagues back in Israel to get them to back off. As a matter of fact, that was the subject matter of my aborted keynote speech, what we were supposed to have discovered in the Templar vault. So there’s clearly a lot of interest in the issue.”
“Well, I wish you good luck with all of this, Sir Archie,” Sam offered. “And you would think that any project that has the blessing of the future King of England could get a sign-off by a low-level bureaucrat in Israel. But, hey, what am I saying? That pretty well sums up just about everything I’m involved with these days. Clear one hurdle, just to wind up facing another, tougher challenge. But I guess that just makes the prize all that much sweeter at the end, right?”
“I guess so,” Archie reluctantly agreed. “But I sure hope we find what we’re looking for down in that vault, because if we don’t, the next wall in front of us in the search for the Templar treasure will be almost insurmountable.”
“Oh, and why is that?” Mehmed asked, rising with the two of them to rejoin the party.
Archie took a long, lingering glance at his now-empty wine glass, and finally decided he’d had enough for the evening. Although he knew the thought of what would happen if the lost treasure wasn’t at Acre could easily drive any sane man to drink. “That would mean tracking down whatever happened to the Last Librarian when the walls all came tumbling down at Acre. The one man responsible for making sure that the Treasure and Solomon’s Library never fell into the hands of the infidel Muslims. Sir Richard of Lys. A man who quite literally fell off the face of the Earth that fateful day. Leaving not a single clue as to where he might have headed.”
74
Istanbul
Sam and Mehmed finally got around the next morning to discussing the mysterious Chi Rho marks that had been popping up seemingly randomly in Turkey and across southern Europe. Meeting over breakfast, Mehmed broke out his laptop to show her his spreadsheet detailing all of the sightings he had found, and a Google maps graphical analysis of exactly where and when they had appeared.
“I took each individual report and marked it on the map, using color to indicate approximately when it was found. The dark blues are the oldest sightings, trending to bright red for the most recent. The result is not perfect, but I think the overall pattern is unmistakable. As you can see, Sam, the starting point for all of this is Istanbul. From there the pattern spreads like a wave across southern Europe, getting redder—or more recent—the further west it goes. Suggesting that someone—or something—is crossing the continent, leaving these little decals in their wake.”
“Decals?” Sam asked, studying the map very carefully. While there were a great many exceptions to the overall pattern, that could easily be explained away by symbols simply escaping notice for some time, or someone seeing them but not reporting them to the listservs until others had also pointed them out.
“Yes. They are all just thin little decals. If you press them onto a surface, they are thin enough to simply blend into the background, making them look like they were painted there. Which makes a great deal of sense. Even as simple as the symbol is, it would still take some time to bend down and paint them, an act that would almost certainly bring a boatload of unwanted attention. So, with decals, the symb
ols can be put in place in about a second, with no one being the wiser.”
Sam pulled away from the laptop screen, now fully absorbed by the mystery. “Okay, I see from the map where the symbols were placed in the macro sense, but is there some pattern as to what specific kinds of buildings they’re showing up in? Are they all churches, or some other religious facilities?”
“No, and that’s the weird thing,” he answered. “Originally I had thought there was a religious connection, because I had first heard about the symbols from a website dedicated to the study of religious structures. But looking at the larger dataset, there’s no real discernable pattern that I can make out at the micro level. Other than the fact that no two marks have been found within dozens of kilometers of each other, and all of the marks seem to be in relatively remote locations. Near large groups of people, but still pretty much off the main thoroughfares. Which suggests, whatever their purpose, it’s something that somebody doesn’t want people to notice right away.”
“A secret message of some sort,” Sam suggested.
“Or more likely some way of signaling that something important is going to happen right there, like sticking a pin in a map. The question remains, though, exactly what is it that’s supposed to happen, and when? And is the purpose nefarious, or is it just a setup for some little marketing trick, or some game that’s about to be launched, like Pokémon GO?”
Sam sipped on her orange juice and studied the screen one last time. “I guess we just need to keep watching, and see what happens. I do notice that the wave hasn’t quite made it all the way across Spain. And it doesn’t seem to be moving north, or across the Mediterranean to North Africa. So, that would suggest that nothing is going to happen until after it hits the Atlantic Ocean in western Spain. Judging from the rest of the sightings, that means we still have another few weeks at least to try and figure this out.”
“Two or three months, at most,” Mehmed agreed.
“Okay,” Sam said, pushing her plate back and getting ready to leave. “I’ve got a flight back to Italy in about two hours. Can you send a copy of this to me, so I can get some other eyes looking into the problem? Maybe there’s something critical here that we’ve missed. And it might not be a bad idea to get the authorities involved somehow. See something, say something, you know?”
“I’ll do that, Sam. And, once again, I really enjoyed getting the chance to show you around my town. I only wish we had a little more time to look into some things that are not in the tourist guides.”
Sam flashed a big smile. “I’d like that, Mehmed. And, by the way, I appreciate all the time you’ve taken away from your busy schedule to show me the ropes. And introduce me to some very interesting people. Plus all this. I asked my assistant to send a small grant in your name to the university. That should help take some of the pressure off you for now, right? Until you can find a school with more relaxed attitudes toward religious tolerance?”
Mehmed blushed bright red. “Sam, I couldn’t—”
“Nonsense. It’s already done. And, really, when you consider what I spend on jet fuel alone for all these little jaunts, funding an academic venture is peanuts. But keep up the effort on these mysterious symbols. They have to mean something, we’re just not seeing it somehow.”
“I will, Sam,” he promised. “And, truly, from the bottom of my heart, thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. As my sweet mother always tells me, just remember to pass it on down to someone else who needs it.”
Mehmed smiled. “Or, in the words of the immortal bard Linda Ronstadt, ‘You give one love, you get back two.’”
75
Istanbul
After her meeting with the Istanbul bankers, Sam was happy to be finally back in the air and headed for home. Or at least what amounted to home for the time being.
It wasn’t as if the loan officers had come right out and said they wouldn’t do the deal. That she could handle, a clear answer, up or down, yes or no. But the way they had hemmed and hawed, refusing to give any indication of what they were thinking, that left her with a firm impression that they were all playing some hidden game, just like the bankers from Ankara. She had even adjusted her presentation to address specifically the issues that had come up before, and offered to lower the price of the tractor company to bring it more into line with traditional ratios, but they acted like they didn’t even notice. So she was left in limbo once again, with the fate of her daughter’s empire riding on the whims of these highly unreliable lenders.
In theory, it was always possible she could turn to one of the other banks in Italy for help, but BancItalia had been the raging elephant in the room for virtually its entire existence, crushing any competition that stood in its way and refusing to acknowledge any regulatory shackles the Italian government tried to cast its direction. Now, however, the elephant was mortally injured, and the other banks in Italy—and, indeed, in all of Europe—were only too glad to stand by like laughing hyenas and watch it die.
Facing these two scenarios, neither of which held the slightest possibility of success, Sam decided it was a good time to tie up all of her troubles in a brown paper bag and toss them out the window for the time being. Take a well-deserved break from it all. She grabbed her tablet out of her briefcase and pulled up her Facebook feed, the first time she had checked Facebook in over a week.
At the top of the list was a message from Harry, posted just a few hours before, what was nighttime the day before back in Houston. As she scanned it, she was delighted to discover that he had passed the bar exam, with grades to follow. Good for you, Hare! Now you’re a full-fledged lawyer! She left a heart for him, then scanned further down, skipping through the usual Facebook drivel. She noticed that a law school colleague had been injured in a drunken driving accident and was now in the hospital, and left a note wishing him a speedy recovery. Then she came across a post by Annabelle, from the weekend before. She hadn’t even remembered Facebook friending Annabelle, but there it was and—Shit!
76
Istanbul
Sam had decided to wait until she was back on the ground and had cleared her head before trying to reach Harry on Skype.
He finally picked up just as she was about to cancel the call. “Sam! What a surprise! I was just getting ready for bed when I heard the computer buzzing.”
She checked her watch. Oops. In her disturbed state of mind, she’d forgotten the time zone difference. “Sorry about that, Harry. I guess I just goofed up. But hey, we can talk tomorrow—”
“No, no, this is great. Annabelle went to bed early, saying she had a headache, so I’m good. I was just working on some new details in the rape case, which has taken on a weird twist. What’s up with you? Is everything okay?”
Sam hadn’t taken the time to plan out exactly what to say, so she went with the obvious. “I was flying back from Istanbul this morning, after the meeting with the bankers, and I decided to check out Facebook. My weekly to biweekly flirtation with social media. Anyway, I saw your big news. Congratulations!”
Harry looked slightly embarrassed. “Yeah, I meant to tell you—”
“That you’re a lawyer! That’s awesome! Have you lined up a judge to swear you in yet?”
A confused look momentarily crossed Harry’s face, then left him grinning. “Yeah, and no. Yeah to passing the bar, no to the judge. They have a mass swearing in thing scheduled in two weeks, but I’ve got too much going on to wait around for that. So I thought I might call the ex-judge who handled my mediation in the burn case. She seemed to be pretty cool.”
“Great idea,” Sam said. “And how about Annabelle? Did she pass, too? Or does she still have to wait for her results?”
Harry hesitated a telling moment. “No, actually, she wound up on the naughty list. Which makes no sense, actually. She was one of the top students in our entire class at Baylor. Even took oil and gas. And wills and estates. She should have passed with flying colors, even without Barbri. But—she d
idn’t. She obviously didn’t even come close.”
“Any idea why?” Sam asked, already suspecting the answer.
Harry looked off to the side before answering, and even then he lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “Just between you and me, I think she intentionally tanked it.”
“But why?” Sam asked. “Now she has to wait six more months before trying again. Six more months before she can finally get her license.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing.” Harry looked off screen again, in a direction Sam had come to understand as Annabelle’s bedroom. “As much as I couldn’t wait to get my license, to be able to finally open my practice as a full-fledged lawyer, I’m starting to get the feeling that Annie has other plans for her future.”
Here was her opening. And still Sam hesitated, knowing that saying something at this particular juncture could easily wind up driving a wedge between Harry and her. Maybe even a permanent wedge. But, friends don’t let friends … “Like the ring.”
Harry’s eyes widened instantly. “You know about—”
“Yeah, I saw Annabelle’s post on Facebook. The ring. Her list of bridesmaids. All of her plans for the honeymoon. It looks like something she’s been planning for quite some time.”
Harry shook his head, buying for time before answering. “I suppose that’s a girl thing. Planning for the royal wedding. She even has a whole file drawer, evidently, all of it filled with ideas she’s been clipping out of magazines for years.”
Sam fiddled with her mouse. Harry’s reaction to the whole ring thing had taken the conversation in a new and unexpected direction. “Now, excuse me for asking, but I get emails from the bank every time money goes in or out of the company IOLTA account, and the check from the burn case still hasn’t cleared. So how did you manage to pay for a ring that—extravagant? What is it? Two carats? Three?”