by James Becker
The other man nodded. “With any luck, we’ll be able to eliminate all of them, the Italians and the English, at the same time as we destroy the archive.”
“You still think we need to do that? The documents could have significant historical importance.”
“I don’t doubt it, but the contents are too dangerous to be allowed to survive. We have to totally destroy them. There is no other option.”
* * *
In fact, shifting the rocks didn’t take quite as long as Mallory had feared, for one very simple reason: what they had assumed, in the light from their flashlights, to be a massive pile of boulders was in fact nothing of the sort.
When he and Robin returned to the cavern that morning, they set their two new lanterns on the lowest available illumination, which was quite bright enough for their purposes in the otherwise total darkness, and would maximize battery life, pulled on the heavy-duty work gloves they had purchased, and started shifting stones. Prudence dictated that they start as near to the top of the pile as possible, because Mallory was concerned that removing rocks near the base might trigger an avalanche of boulders, which would almost certainly be injurious to their health.
He clambered up the rocks until he could reach the boulders at the very top of the pile, and passed each one down to Robin as he freed it from its resting place. When he removed the third one, he paused and stared into the cavity that his action had created. Then he handed her that stone and waited until she’d lowered it to the ground.
“There’s something that looks a bit odd here,” he said. “Can you pass me my flashlight, please?”
“Define ‘odd,’” Robin said as she handed it up to him.
“Give me a second.”
Mallory shone the beam of light into the space where the stone had been, then glanced down at Robin.
“What?” she demanded.
“A bit of déjà vu,” Mallory said. “Obviously once the Knights Templar found a technique that worked, they kept on using it. Remember the cave in Cyprus?”
“I’m not likely to forget it,” Robin interjected.
“Nor me. Anyway, the chests were hidden in a cavity in the floor of the cave. Then they’d covered the opening with heavy wooden planks and put stones on top. Well, it looks like they’ve done exactly the same thing here. Behind that stone I’ve just taken out, I can see the tops of some pretty substantial lengths of timber.”
He climbed down from his perch on the rock pile and stood beside Robin. Both of them stared at the rocks, trying to work out where the timbers must be positioned.
“I think they leaned a sort of platform of really thick wooden beams—they’re much thicker than planks—against the wall of the cave, and then just covered them with a couple of layers of rocks,” Mallory suggested.
“In which case we don’t need to take it down stone by stone from the top,” Robin said. “As long as we stand far enough clear of the path the falling stones will take, we can just lever out some of the rocks near the bottom and then just let gravity do the rest.”
“That works for me.”
Mallory picked up one of the other tools they’d bought that morning, an extendable steel pry bar, essentially a long crowbar, and slid the end of it down the right-hand side of a substantial stone located about two feet above the floor of the cave. He motioned Robin to stand behind him, well out of the path the stone would take when he levered it out of the pile, and then began to apply increasing force to the other end of the bar.
Nothing happened. He changed his grip and slightly altered the position of the bar, then began pushing again, but again without result.
“That one’s obviously jammed in pretty tight,” Robin said.
Mallory nodded, pulled out the bar, and repositioned it to one side and behind a slightly smaller stone located above the one he had first tried to move. This time, almost as soon as he applied pressure to the end of the bar, there was a cracking sound and the boulder immediately began to move.
“Watch out,” he said, then gave a final hard push on the steel bar.
With a sudden loud crack, the stone leaped free from the pile. The steel bar clattered to the ground as Mallory lost his grip on it, and, with a cracking and roaring sound that was almost deafening in the confined space, the boulders above it began to tumble out of position, bouncing off other stones as the force of gravity pulled them inexorably downward. One of the smaller rocks from the top of the pile bounced toward Mallory and Robin, then struck a much larger stone and shattered harmlessly into half a dozen pieces.
“Are you okay?” Mallory asked when the last stone had bounced and crashed and rolled to a standstill.
“Of course,” Robin said, stepping out from behind him. “As you might have noticed, I was using you as a shield.”
Perhaps surprisingly, there wasn’t much dust, presumably because of the general dampness within the cavern. It didn’t take them long to move the fallen stones that were impeding their progress, so that they could see exactly what had been hidden behind the pile of rocks.
“Those are really substantial timbers,” Mallory said, looking at the lengths of wood running almost all the way up to the roof of the cave and leaning at an angle against the wall in front of them. “And they still look to me as if they’re in pretty good condition.”
“They obviously knew, or at least they guessed, that wood wasn’t likely to survive the millennia unless it was dry and properly seasoned to start with, and also pretty massive,” Robin agreed.
Shifting the wood was somewhat similar to moving the stones. Picking up and carrying the individual timbers was not really possible, because of their bulk and weight. But on the other hand, by hooking the end of the crowbar over the top of each length of timber and then pulling, that allowed the wood to topple away from the wall and crash down onto the piles of stone that now covered the floor of the cave. It was a noisy, but fairly quick, way of exposing whatever lay behind them.
And once Mallory had shifted a couple of lengths, he was able to slide through the gap that he had opened up and push the timbers from behind, which was actually an easier way of moving them. Only when the last length of wood had thudded down onto the rocky floor of the cave did Mallory and Robin turn their attention to the gap in the wall that their work had revealed.
It was a high and wide opening, shaped roughly like an arch with fairly straight sides and easily big enough for two people to walk through side by side.
“That must be about nine feet tall at the highest point,” Mallory suggested, “and it’s at least six or seven feet wide.”
“You can see chisel marks on the sides, quite clearly,” Robin said, shining the beam of her flashlight to show the obviously worked stone on both sides of the opening. “There was probably a fissure here already, and they just opened it up wide enough to make access easier for them.”
Beyond them, the blackness of the inner chamber beckoned.
“Shall we?” Mallory asked, and then led the way through the opening, Robin right behind him, their dancing flashlight beams illuminating the way.
* * *
Marco Toscanelli stood beside Mario at the edge of the stand of trees that blocked the wider end of the valley and stared at the twin waterfalls that tumbled down into the wide pool below.
He and another of the Dominican enforcers—a man using the work name Salvatori—had flown in to Geneva late the previous evening and had arrived in Schwyz that morning. In his luggage, protected from customs inspection and scrutiny by his diplomatic passport, were six new and unregistered automatic pistols and four boxes of nine-millimeter Parabellum ammunition, plus half a dozen switchblade knives, so all members of the group were now armed.
“You saw them enter the cave before?” Toscanelli asked.
“Yes,” Mario replied. “As I told you, since they arrived in Switzerland we’ve followed them to a number
of different locations, but all the places they visited had one common feature: they were all blind-ended valleys. Then something seemed to happen—maybe they discovered some new piece of information or for some other reason they changed their strategy slightly—and the next locations were still valleys, but each one also had a stream running into it.”
Toscanelli nodded. “And presumably the first valleys they visited didn’t?”
“Some did, some didn’t, but the last few have all contained streams or rivers. More important,” Mario added, “on the last two they visited, both of them climbed through the waterfall at the end of the valley, so it’s fairly clear that they’re looking for something that’s hidden in a cave that’s concealed by the water.”
“And this is the one they visited yesterday?”
“Exactly. After they left here they went straight back to their hotel. But this morning they went out into the town and bought some tools. We don’t know exactly what, because I didn’t want to send one of the men into the shop in case either of the targets recognized him from the surveillance we’ve been mounting.”
“And now they’re back,” Toscanelli mused, “so they must believe that they’ve found something, something of importance, in that cave.”
“Haven’t our experts in Rome deciphered whatever clues were hidden in those chests?”
“If they have,” Toscanelli replied somewhat sourly, “they haven’t told me yet.”
“So how come these two English amateurs”—Mario almost spat the word—“have apparently succeeded where our order has obviously failed, despite all our knowledge and resources?”
“I have no idea. Maybe they’re just lucky.”
“Bearing in mind they led you to that cave in Cyprus, I think it’s rather more than just luck. We’re still following their trail, dogging their footsteps, and that suggests to me that they’re a lot better at this kind of thing than we are.”
“Perhaps,” Toscanelli said dismissively, “but it won’t matter because we’ll be eliminating them once we’re certain they really have discovered what we seek. I’m looking forward to doing that personally.”
Mario glanced at his watch.
“They’ve been inside for nearly an hour already,” he said. “When do you want to do it?”
“This is as good a time as any. Leave one man in the car, and another here in the trees as a watcher. The rest of us will go in now and end this.”
32
Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland
“Stop,” Robin said, grabbing Mallory’s arm.
He halted in midstride.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s something wrong here. Something that doesn’t fit.”
Mallory looked around the passageway that they were standing in. The stones that formed the walls and ceiling around them were black and very obviously solid, and glistened damply in the light from their flashlight. The floor was more or less level and dotted with occasional puddles, clearly caused by the water trickling down some of the rocks. It all looked normal—or as normal as any hidden underground passageway abandoned for centuries could look—and completely nonthreatening.
Robin peered all around them, the beam of her flashlight tracing a slow path up and down the passageway.
“What is it?” Mallory asked again.
“I was just thinking about the booby traps we’ve encountered,” she said. “The spikes hidden inside the book safe and then the sword blades in those chests we found in Cyprus. But here we’re just walking down a corridor with no sign of even a door to unlock. We know that the Templars protected their property, and this is just too easy. They must have built in some kind of defense system, and it worries me that we can’t see it.”
Mallory nodded and, like Robin, scanned every part of the passageway cut through the rock.
“The only place I can see where they could have created a defensive mechanism,” he said, after a few seconds, “is the ground, the floor of this passage.”
“Now that you mention it,” Robin said, “we’ve been splashing through these shallow pools of water, but just in front of us is a much bigger puddle that covers almost the entire width of the passage. Maybe that’s it.”
They stepped forward cautiously and halted at the edge of the water. They both looked down, their flashlights shining on the still surface.
“It only looks about half an inch deep,” Mallory said, “and I can see the rock under the water quite clearly. Maybe this puddle is just a puddle.”
Robin continued staring down at the water, trying to see any sign of danger. Then she grabbed Mallory’s arm and pointed.
“Look down there,” she said. “That looks like a crack in the rock, running almost from one side of the puddle to the other.”
She traced the line she was looking at with the narrow beam of her flashlight, the reflection from the water lighting up the roof of the tunnel.
“It could be a natural feature,” Mallory said, “only a fissure in the rock, but I don’t feel confident enough that it is to just step on it. We could well be looking at some kind of concealed mantrap.”
“Can we jump over it?” Robin asked, mentally gauging the distance to the far side of it.
“Possibly, but we have to think about getting back as well. If the Templar Archive is hidden somewhere at the end of this passageway, we’ll have to return the same way, and we certainly couldn’t jump over it carrying a chest between us. I think we need to build ourselves a bridge.”
“The timbers we moved?” Robin suggested.
“Exactly. If we bring a couple of those from the cave, they’ll easily span that puddle of water and we’ll just be able to walk across to the other side.”
They quickly retraced their steps to the larger cavern, selected two of the broadest timbers, and between them carried them, one at a time, along the passageway to the shallow pool of water. There, they manhandled them to position the wood more or less over the center of the water. Each piece of wood was eight or nine inches wide, and by pushing them together they formed a wide enough platform to walk over easily.
When they reached the other side, Mallory turned and looked back at the pool of still water.
“I think,” he began, then paused. “Look, this might just be paranoia striking again, but I’d be happier if we lifted those planks of wood off the ground and stacked them on this side of the puddle.”
“You still think somebody’s following us?” Robin asked.
“I don’t know, but I’ve had a sneaking feeling that we’ve attracted attention since we arrived here, and not all of it has been idle curiosity. And if those Italians are on our trail, shifting those timbers might give us a bit of protection, because they’ll have to either step through the puddle and maybe trigger whatever mechanism is hidden there—if we’re right—or do what we did and build a bridge over it.”
“You probably are paranoid,” Robin agreed, “but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Let’s do it.”
They pulled and lifted the lengths of wood and carried them a short distance down the passageway and stacked them on one side, where they were virtually out of sight of anyone approaching from the cave.
“Right,” Mallory said. “That might not be the only obstacle we face, so keep your eyes open and shout out if you see anything you don’t like the look of.”
* * *
Toscanelli led the way down the valley, the three men following him in a loose group a few feet behind, all of them watching the double waterfall in case their targets suddenly and unexpectedly reappeared.
When they reached the pool, they stood over to one side and prepared to enter the cave. Having watched Mallory and Jessop step through the waterfall the previous day, Mario had sent Nico out to buy waterproof outfits that would fit over their normal clothes. He had come back with half a dozen pairs of rubberized overtrouser
s with rubber booties and braces attached, and six waterproof jackets with integral hoods. Nico opened the bulky bag he was carrying, pulled out the packets of protective clothing, and handed them round.
Within a couple of minutes, all four men were ready to go, their spare ammunition put away safely in the pockets of their clothes, along with the compact and powerful flashlights that Nico had also purchased, their outfits protected by the waterproof garments. Each man was holding his pistol, just in case they needed to use the weapons as soon as they stepped into the cave. The brief immersion as they stepped through the waterfall would have no effect upon the efficiency and operation of the weapons.
“Let’s do this,” Toscanelli said. “How did they get inside?”
Mario pointed at the large boulder sticking out of the pool and close to the curtain of falling and tumbling water.
“They climbed onto that rock and then stepped straight through the waterfall,” he said.
“It could be slippery,” Toscanelli said, “so all of you be careful. I’ll go first. The rest of you follow as quickly as you can.”
He cautiously tested the grip his rubberized booties provided on the wet rock, but they were surprisingly good and didn’t slip, and he carefully stood erect. He checked that his pistol was cocked and loaded, with the safety catch on, and grabbed his flashlight with his other hand. Then he took a single stride forward, through the falling water.
The first thing Toscanelli was aware of was the utter blackness within the cavern. Although some light did penetrate the waterfall, because the valley was largely north facing, this did little to dispel the gloom.
With his pistol held at arm’s length, his thumb resting on the safety catch, ready for immediate use, he snapped on his flashlight and shone the beam in a complete circle around him.
Then Mario stepped into the cave through the falling water and the other two men followed him within a couple of minutes, each stepping from the rock and into the hidden chamber.