The Swagger Sword

by David S. Brody

  “Connor McCarthy here.”

  Cam explained how he came to have McCarthy’s number. “I’ve just fished myself out of the River Corrib. And I didn’t jump in voluntarily.”

  “My sister mentioned you. Sounds like those blokes are intent on ruining your holiday.”

  “I think I saw one of the guys get into a pickup truck.” Cam described the location and time. “Any chance you guys have security cameras?”

  “We do. Let me have a look and ring you back.”

  While waiting, they ordered a pizza from room service, Cam only able to choke down only a few bites. “I should have ordered soup. Or maybe a beer.”

  “We need to figure out what’s going on,” Amanda said. “And then make a plan.” She smiled and patted his hand. “And then have a beer.”

  Cam pulled a copy of Zena Halpern’s book from his bag. He rasped, “I brought this because she mentions the swagger sword, and Brian seems obsessed with it. And the guys in Dublin said something about a sword.” He waved the book. “Maybe there are some clues inside.”

  Amanda opened her tablet to the Amazon page. “Let’s be smart about this.” She ordered the Kindle version of the same book. “On Kindle, we can do word searches.” Their accounts were linked. “Let’s spend the next hour learning all we can about this sword.”

  “Okay,” Cam said. “Here’s the thing I don’t understand: Why are they after me, when Brian has the sword?”

  “Maybe they need you to translate it,” Astarte suggested.

  A little over an hour later Amanda had highlighted six or eight passages from the book. Cam had scratched a couple of pages of notes onto a legal pad. Astarte had gone in a different direction, Googling some of the references from the book and saving the pages. Amanda began. “I didn’t realize how involved the Vatican was in all this.”

  “And I think I know why the thugs were not after Brian’s sword,” Cam said.

  Astarte nodded. “Because they already have their own sword. From the P2 Lodge.”

  It was a convoluted tale, with some information clearly missing. But, after a twenty-minute discussion, Amanda thought she had a pretty good understanding of what had happened: In the 1970s, a group of right-wing leaders of Italy’s business, political, civic, military and religious institutions feared that Socialism was taking over the country. Using a rogue Masonic Lodge by the name of Propaganda Due—‘P2’ for short—as a cover, they formed an Italian shadow government operating counter to the legal government, intent on pushing Italy back toward fascism. P2 became, in short, the de facto government in Italy and committed numerous crimes, including kidnapping and murder, to support its cause. The Vatican, also fearing Socialism and its hostility toward religion, became an active partner in P2, using the Vatican Bank to launder funds for P2 and also for its supporters in the Mafia. This is where Archbishop Paul Marcinkus entered the picture—a native of Chicago, he had become head of the Vatican Bank and also a senior member of P2. At some point Marcinkus and other members of P2 became aware of the Templar treasure in the Catskills, probably through secret documents kept in the Vatican library. According to Zena Halpern’s book, the head of P2, Licio Gelli, distributed fifteen swagger swords to leading members of P2 and the Vatican. Two of these swords contained carvings which were clues to the location of the treasure—one of these swords was given to Marcinkus, and the other presumably to Marcinkus’ close friend, banker Roberto Calvi, who went by the nickname, “God’s Banker.” These markings were similar, but not identical, to markings on a map used by Cam and Amanda to find buried ancient artifacts on the Catskills’ Hunter Mountain five years earlier. Did the clues on the back side of the sword lead to other buried items, such as treasure? One of these swords had somehow found its way into Brian’s hands. As for God’s Banker, Calvi, he was found hanging from London’s Blackfriars Bridge in 1982, in what most believe was a murder orchestrated by P2 in an unsuccessful attempt to cover up the Vatican Bank money-laundering. The Vatican Bank’s unlawful (and immoral) activities were later exposed, with the bank suffering hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in what became know as the Vatican Banking Scandal. Later, in the mid-1990s, Marcinkus, presumably with his sword, returned to America, where he used his power and influence to avoid arrest in the Banking Scandal and also to acquire the Templar travel log describing the secret journey across the Atlantic in 1178.

  This was a lot to digest. But the key takeaway for Amanda was that there were two swords. “I think Astarte is right. They have the other sword. Probably Calvi’s, assuming Brian somehow ended up with Marcinkus’ after he died.”

  “And they need us to help translate the symbols and find the treasure,” Cam said.

  Amanda nodded. “Right. They don’t know the mountain, don’t know the history. We do.”

  “I’m not sure the stuff is still in the Catskills,” Cam said. “But you’re right, I think Marcinkus is the key to this. And remember, Roberto’s father worked for him at the Vatican Bank.”

  “And died a premature death, along with his wife.”

  “You think Marcinkus murdered them?”

  She shrugged. “He was an accountant at the bank. Marcinkus was trying to cover up a scandal. And like I said before, what’s a lowly accountant compared to a pope?”

  Connor McCarthy called Cam back just before ten o’clock. “I think I have something,” the Garda reported. “We retrieved a partial registration on that pickup truck you saw parked in front of the drug store. It’s registered in County Meath.”

  “That’s the Boyne Valley area, right? We were just there. Any way to narrow it down further?”

  “There are about 70,000 vehicles registered in that county. Farm country, so maybe a couple of thousand pickup trucks. It will take some time.” He paused. “But, we did capture a picture of the driver. A woman. Not great resolution. As for her mate, we’re running his face through our system, but no matches yet.”

  “Thanks. Appreciate the help.”

  “Wish I had more for you.” He paused. “But my guess is, you haven’t heard the last from these blokes. Because, you know, treasure.”

  Cam sighed. “Yeah, I know. Treasure.”

  Cam stayed up late, surfing the internet for clues while Amanda and Astarte slept in the king bed on the far side of the hotel room. Archbishop Marcinkus seemed to be the key, the spider at the center of this web.

  Cam adjusted the bag of ice from one side of his swollen and bruised neck to the other. Hopefully the Motrin would kick in. Swallowing hurt, and turning his head more than a few degrees had become almost impossible as it stiffened. The fresh memory of claw-like fingers around his throat left no doubt: It was not safe here in Ireland. Cam had been fortunate to escape from two attacks. He didn’t relish a third encounter. More to the point, Amanda and Astarte were in danger.

  Amanda had set an early alarm. One possibility was to take a taxi to Shannon Airport, immediately go through security (which presumably would provide a layer of protection to them), and take the first flight out of the country. From there they’d figure out how to get back to Boston. But Amanda opposed this approach, arguing that they would be in as much danger at home as in Ireland. “Once we leave, Westford will be the first place they look for us.” In the end they agreed to reevaluate their choices in the morning.

  He searched all things Marcinkus, pairing the Marcinkus name with other relevant search terms like ‘Templars’ and ‘Catskills’ and ‘Hunter Mountain.’ When he entered the name ‘William Jackson,’ the name of the head of the black ops team which initially found the Templar travel log in Italy and later sold it to Marcinkus, he hit pay dirt. In a book entitled In God’s Name, which is where Cam first read speculation that Archbishop Marcinkus assassinated Pope John Paul I to cover up his role in the Vatican Banking Scandal, author David Yallop offered special thanks to William Jackson for the information he provided as background for the book. The Jackson name, though relatively common in English-speaking countries, stood out amidst
the list of Italian names surrounding it. Cam had little doubt it was the same William Jackson. The connection corroborated the information provided in Zena Halpern’s book, that Marcinkus had been working with, and eventually purchased the Templar travel log from, Jackson, the elderly black ops agent. Did Jackson know, or suspect, that Marcinkus had been behind the pope’s assassination? It would explain why, though hesitant, Jackson eventually agreed to sell the travel log to Marcinkus, a man he referred to in correspondence as ‘the asshole.’ This particular asshole, after all, had both the means and the willingness to acquire the document through violence if necessary.

  But Marcinkus died in 2006. And apparently the key to discovering the Templar treasure had died with him. Amanda believed that Cam perhaps embodied some kind of duplicate key, that his knowledge of the Templars and their history in America might be enough to finish the job left unfinished by Marcinkus. Using Amanda’s terminology, Cam didn’t fancy serving as someone else’s key, someone else’s tool. If there was a Templar treasure to be found, he just as soon find it himself.

  Which, he realized, might be the only way to get out of this mess.

  And he couldn’t do that from this side of the Atlantic. He stood and gently shook Amanda awake. “I think we need to fly back tomorrow.”

  Cam, Amanda and Astarte woke early, ate a quick breakfast, called a taxi, and made it from their hotel to Shannon Airport outside Galway without incident. They purchased tickets on the next flight back to the States, an early afternoon nonstop to Kennedy Airport in New York. Cam took the aisle seat, knowing that sleep would be impossible while seated upright with his sore, stiff neck. He also wanted to be in a position to study other passengers, just in case they had been followed. Not that there was much he could do in response if they had.

  Amanda plopped into the middle seat, allowing Astarte to gaze out the window on the left side of the jet. “You should be able to see the sunset in the southwestern sky,” Amanda said.

  After takeoff, with seven hours to kill, Cam took the opportunity to reread portions of Zena Halpern’s book. The story continued to fascinate him, filling in many details and much missing information regarding Templar history. The documents relied on by Ms. Halpern described how Templar Knights, in the early part of the 12th century not long after the Order had been formed, explored the hidden chambers under the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Historians had long suspected the Templars had searched these chambers, but Ms. Halpern’s documents provided specific details as to what they found, including ancient scrolls, maps showing the route across the Atlantic, metal devices which later turn out to be navigational tools, blocks of gold bearing the seal of King Solomon, and a human skull in an ossuary inscribed with the name, ‘John’ (perhaps the beheaded John the Baptist). These treasures were brought back to the Templar stronghold of Seborga, near Genoa, Italy. There the scrolls were translated by Jewish scholars employed by the Templars. These scrolls described the settlement of Onteora in what is today the Catskill Mountains, populated by religious outcasts from Old Testament times who fled the Jewish homeland rather than give up the worship of the ancient Goddess, or Earth Mother.

  Cam sat back and let his mind play connect-the-dots. He and Amanda both had enjoyed Anita Diamant’s classic, The Red Tent, in which during the time of Abraham the matriarchs resisted giving up their fertility goddesses, most prominently Asherah, in favor of the all-male Yahweh. Later, Cam knew, entire villages were slaughtered by Israelite kings insistent on religious orthodoxy. Apparently, in a footnote lost to history, some of these village residents fled, finding refuge in America before the time of Christ. Cam and Amanda had long believed that the ancient Phoenicians, also Goddess worshipers, had crossed the Atlantic to mine and trade for copper in the Great Lakes region of America; one possibility was that these Phoenicians transported their outcast Israelite neighbors across the Atlantic.

  Cam shifted in his seat, turning his thoughts back to the Templars. After returning from Jerusalem to Europe in the early 1100s, the Templars methodically translated the ancient scrolls and prepared for a journey to Onteora, which they commenced some fifty years after first excavating beneath the Temple of Solomon. Knowing the Norse regularly journeyed to North America beginning in the early 11th century (they named their settlement ‘Vinland’), the Templars enlisted the Norse princess Altomara, who had previously visited Onteora, as their guide. From Denmark they sailed to the west coast of Wales in the year 1178, from where they began their ocean crossing on Beltane, the pagan fertility festival falling halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Columbus would embark on a similar journey almost three hundred years later, leaving from the west coast of Ireland rather than Wales, in 1477.

  Crossing the Atlantic, the Halpern book continued, the Templars “made landfall on an island of oak trees” in Mahone Bay on the southeastern coast of Nova Scotia. This was an intriguing reference to the famous Oak Island, so-called because of the non-native African oaks that soared high above the native species, seemingly beckoning sailors crossing the Atlantic. Could it be, Cam wondered, that these African oaks had been planted by earlier Phoenician voyageurs? In modern times, of course, Oak Island had become famous for the treasure rumored to be buried in its so-called Money Pit. From Oak Island, the Templars circled the tip of Nova Scotia to the Bay of Fundy, where they remarked on the monstrous tides, and crossed the bay to New Brunswick and northern Maine. Cam thought again about Columbus, about how he, too, remarked on massive, fifty-foot tides during his 1477 westward excursion from Galway. Why had this chapter in Columbus’ life been so ignored by historians? Cam sensed it was relevant—crucial, even—to decoding the mystery of the Templars and their treasure.

  Dinner arrived, which gave him the opportunity to discuss the Columbus journey with Amanda. “Most people don’t know that Columbus sailed to Iceland in 1477. But I think he went even further, maybe even all the way to Nova Scotia.”

  “I can’t recall even hearing about the Iceland part.”

  “Me neither,” Astarte said.

  “This comes from a letter Columbus wrote to his son.” Cam read the relevant sections aloud: “In the year 1477, in the month of February, I navigated 100 leagues beyond Thule [to an] island which is as large as England. When I was there the sea was not frozen over, and the tide was so great as to rise and fall 26 braccias.”

  Cam looked up. “A hundred leagues is about 300 miles. And a braccia is just under two feet. So we’re talking 50-foot tides.”

  “Where’s Thule?” Astarte asked.

  Cam smiled. “It sort of moves around.”

  She made one of those faces that teenagers make when their parents say something aggravating.

  “I’m serious,” Cam said. “In Roman times, Thule was Norway. Later it was the Orkney Islands. Then Iceland. Then Greenland. Essentially, Thule was the edge of the known world at any given time.”

  “Well, during Columbus’ time, Thule would probably have been the western coast of Greenland,” Amanda said. “The Norse had abandoned Greenland by then, but the settlements were still there.” She smiled. “And so, apparently, was Columbus.”

  “I agree. And he gives other clues. He says that when he sailed 100 leagues beyond Thule, he arrived at an island the size of England. If Thule were Iceland, and he sailed 100 leagues beyond, he’d hit Greenland. But that wouldn’t make sense—Greenland is much larger than England.”

  “Ten or fifteen times as large,” Amanda said. “You’re right. It wouldn’t make sense in Columbus’ mind for Thule to be Iceland. For him, Thule must have been Greenland.”

  Their airplane was just south of Greenland now, according to the flight tracker. Cam peered out the window. The modern aircraft was essentially mirroring Columbus’ journey across the North Atlantic. “That would mean Columbus sailed to Nova Scotia. It’s beyond Greenland, and it’s an island about the same size as England. Nothing else fits.”

  “And they have the 50-foot tides in Nova Scotia, in the Bay o
f Fundy.”

  Astarte chimed in. “I’ve seen cool pictures. They’re the largest tides in the world.”

  Cam nodded. Fifty-foot tides also existed at the mouth of the Hudson Bay, but that waterway would have been frozen solid in February. “So of the four data points in the description, three of them point directly to Columbus landing in Nova Scotia.” He counted them on his fingers. “Thule being western Greenland. Nova Scotia being the same size as England. And the tides matching the Bay of Fundy. The only thing that is off is the 100 leagues—Nova Scotia is further away from Greenland than that.”

  Amanda stared past Astarte, out the window. “But you said Columbus sailed 100 leagues beyond Thule, beyond the edge of the known world. That’s different than sailing 100 leagues from Thule.” She shifted in her seat. “You could sail south for a few hundred miles from Greenland and still be within the bounds of the known world. It’s only when you turn west, toward North America, that you are going beyond it. In fact, to Nova Scotia.”

  Cam smiled. “That’s some impressive lawyering. Maybe a bit of a stretch, but definitely possible.”

  “I get it,” Astarte said. “It’s like when a quarterback throws a pass to the sidelines. The ball might travel thirty yards, but you only gain ten yards in distance. So you’ve moved ten yards beyond where you were, even though the total distance is much further.”

  “Great,” Cam chuckled, “I’m surrounded by lawyers.”

  “Both of whom are smarter than you,” Amanda said.

  Cam was comfortable with their analysis, but he wanted to check to see how it compared to conclusions reached by other historians. He was surprised to find, though perhaps he should not have been, that most other commentators opined that Thule referred to Iceland, and that Columbus had sailed there but no further. Cam shook his head; he had seen this kind of sloppy, even close-minded, scholarship before. For example, Columbus’ most famous biographer, Samuel Eliot Morison, simply threw up his hands and wrote that it would be “time and effort wasted” to try to make sense of Columbus’ 1477 journey, so why bother? Time and effort wasted? Only if one went into the exercise with preconceived notions. All it took was an open mind, a map, and an analysis of the plain meaning of Columbus’ words: He sailed beyond Thule, to an island the size of England, which boasted 50-foot tides. Only Nova Scotia, its Bay of Fundy boasting massive tides, fit the bill.