“I see your point.”
“So we need to be ready.”
Using the library’s WIFI connection and his laptop, he typed a memo to Lieutenant Poulos, summarizing everything they had learned, including the Legions of Jesus’ suspected involvement in the murders of McLovick, Eric Forsberg and Monsignor Marcotte. He emailed the memo to Poulos and also a copy to Uncle Peter and his parents, who had returned to North Carolina. “I will be checking in with Peter on his cell phone later this afternoon,” he wrote, “and then every two hours after that until midnight, then again at 6:00 o’clock tomorrow morning. If anything happens to me, or if I fail to check in, you need to get this information to the press right away. They might not believe you at first but once they dig around they’ll see it’s all true.”
He also took a chance and dialed Eric Forsberg’s office number. He reached a secretary and asked to speak to Scott Wolter, Forsberg’s boss and co-investigator.
“Can I ask who’s calling?”
“My name is Cameron Thorne. Please tell him this is regarding Eric Forsberg’s research.” He wasn’t sure Wolter would take his call.
Wolter surprised him by coming to the phone immediately. “Oh, man, I was hoping you’d call. Are you guys okay?”
Cam appreciated the stranger’s concern. “Yeah. We’re still on the run. Do you think this line is secure?”
“No, I don’t. After they killed Eric, I’m sure they’re keeping a close eye on me. So don’t say anything incriminating. But there’s an old pay phone in the lobby of my building. One of the last ones in the city.” He gave Cam the number. “Call me back in two minutes.”
They resumed their conversation. “Hey, I know Eric was a good friend of yours. He was a good man.”
“The best. I still can’t believe they killed him over research. It’s like the friggin’ Inquisition.”
Cam summarized the events of the past week. “In case anything happens to us, I wanted someone who understands all this to know what we’ve been researching. I don’t want the Vatican fanatics to succeed in keeping this all quiet.”
“No way are they keeping me quiet. This is going public, big time. And check this out: I discovered another Hooked X.”
He squeezed the phone. “Another rune stone?”
“No. It’s part of Christopher Columbus’ signature. If you’re online, do a quick Google search using Columbus and sigla.”
He did so and found the image. Sure enough, a Hooked X.
[Photo courtesy Scott Wolter]
SIGLA (SIGNATURE) OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS WITH ‘HOOKED X’ IN UPPER LEFT
“Why Columbus? I don’t get it.”
“I didn’t either at first. But it turns out Columbus married into a prominent Templar family in Portugal, where they were called the Knights of Christ. Remember the sails on his ships, decorated with red Templar crosses? And he often wrote about having ‘the royal blood of Jerusalem’ in his veins. In fact, I’m reading a book now entitled, Christopher Columbus, The Last Templar.”
Another puzzle piece. But he couldn’t see exactly where it fit. And he didn’t have a ton of time to mull it over. Instead, he asked for Wolter’s email address and sent him a copy of the memo he had sent to Poulos as they talked. “So, do you think we’re on the right track with this Sacred Feminine stuff?”
“Definitely. The thing that convinces me is that whoever came over—and I happen to think it was a combination of Templars and Cistercian monks—must have forged some kind of friendship with the Native Americans. I mean, they didn’t fight their way to Minnesota to carve the Kensington Rune Stone. And they would have needed help to build the Newport Tower.”
“Good point.”
“So they must have had some common ground. And I think that was their spiritualism, their worship of Mother Nature.”
“Yeah, we thought the same thing about the America’s Stonehenge site. The Native Americans wouldn’t have shown it to them if they didn’t have an appreciation for its importance.”
“Exactly.”
“All right. Thanks. It’s good to talk to someone who doesn’t think we’re crazy.”
“The people who are crazy are the ones who dismiss these artifacts. I mean, if you listen to them, North America must have been filled with Runic-speaking natives with iron tools and lots of free time on their hands.”
He laughed. “Good point. Thanks again.”
“Hey, I plan to be out your way in a couple of months. I’d love to buy you guys a beer. Eric said good things about you.”
Cam hung up and checked on Amanda. She had photocopied the library’s oversized map, taping nine sheets of paper together, and drawn the various artifact and stone hole sites around New England onto the map. Using a red pen, she superimposed onto the map the movements—vertical, diagonal and L-shaped—of the three chess pieces, the three bright red lines intersecting at the North Salem, N.H. site of America’s Stonehenge.
She also had made photocopies of the relevant pages of the chess book discussing the ship/bishop piece and printed a handful of pictures of Masonic temples and lodges showing the chessboard-like floor tile pattern from the internet. “What’s that?” he asked.
“The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, built on the site Jesus was buried. Notice the chessboard pattern on the church floor.”
“Nice.” If they were going to sell this to the Vatican crazies they needed a good story. Good pictures always helped.
* * *
Cam and Amanda grabbed some sandwiches and spread out on a bench outside the library. He forced himself to eat, his stomach fighting him at every swallow, his gut clenched as he imagined the Legions of Jesus henchmen closing in on Brandon. He ached to warn his cousin, to somehow arrange for Brandon to be wheeled to safety. But it just wasn’t possible to hide an ICU patient from a trained paramilitary team. So instead he had come up with a plan.
“Cam, are you sure it’s wise to put Brandon in danger again?”
“Like I said before, the reality is there’s nothing we can do about it.” Cam stared out at the hills gently rolling into the valley below. “Besides, I’m not sure Brandon would want it any other way. He’s like an injured football player. He’s stuck on the sidelines while his teammates are in the trenches. There’s no worse feeling—he feels inadequate, powerless, gutted. If he could come in just for one play, make one key block or tackle to help win the game, he’d give up his other leg to do it. I know him. I know I’m right.”
“Must be a guy thing.”
“Not all guys. But definitely Brandon. If he finds out I babied him he’ll never forgive me. It’ll just eat away at him, knowing I didn’t think he was up to it. But if we get through this and he knows he played a part in it….”
“You fancy it will help him recover.”
“Exactly.”
Putting aside his concern for Brandon’s safety, Cam felt oddly confident and at ease, like a landlubber finally stepping ashore after a long ocean voyage. The solid, stable, motionless ground under his feet felt strangely alien but also, paradoxically, comfortable and familiar. Over the past week he had been playing the role of a Hollywood action hero—attacked by bombs and hurtling cars and black-clad henchmen, wooed by a beautiful woman, befuddled by an ancient mystery, opposed by a shadowy cabal of ruthless villains. Now he was back in his element: in a library, researching, strategizing, analyzing, problem-solving. He was a lawyer again. Preparing to argue the case of his life.
And, as often happened to lawyers he wasn’t totally sold on the merits of his own case. The confluence of intersecting lines at America’s Stonehenge was more than coincidence, more than a random occurrence. But he would have liked to have more data to support their theory. Unfortunately, time conspired against them—they were out of it now, and too many stone holes and artifacts had been lost to it. Even so, he could sell his case. Would sell it.
She studied him. “You seem different. More self-assured.”
He nodded, motioning to
ward the library. “This is what I do, what I’ve been trained for. I build cases, make arguments.” He smiled. “I know you think of me more as the James Bond type. But it’s nice to get back to more familiar ground.”
Amanda’s smile was even more radiant in the sunlight. “Well, that makes me feel better. You’ll win the argument. Then they’ll shoot us in the head.”
“Yeah, something like that. Actually, I don’t think we’ll be dealing with the same gorillas who’ve been chasing us. Based on what the Monsignor probably told them before he died, they know we’ve figured a lot of this out. They’re going to want to know what we’ve learned so they’ll need someone who is versant in all this Templar stuff. Probably a Vatican historian. Which is not to say the gorillas won’t still be around. But at least they won’t be calling the shots.”
She stared out at the distant woods for a few seconds. “Really, one thing we might be able to use to our advantage is that we’re not scholars, we’re not experts.” She smiled. “We’re pretty much nothing.”
“You think they might underestimate us?”
“Precisely. Beatrice still thinks of me as young and naïve. They may assume it would be impossible for us, in a week, to solve a mystery they haven’t been able to decipher in decades of work.”
“I see your point. Sort of like cognitive dissonance. Their egos won’t let them accept that we solved the mystery when they couldn’t.” If Beatrice underestimated Amanda’s intelligence, she did so at her peril. “But can we use this to our advantage? Remember, I want them to believe our theory. That’s really the only way to get out of this mess.”
Amanda sipped on her Diet Sprite. “Perhaps we need to make it appear as if we are not that bright, that we stumbled upon the solution by dumb luck. That way they can dismiss us as buffoons but still accept our conclusions.” She smiled as she stood. “Follow me, I have an idea.”
They walked back into the library, Amanda immediately running some Google searches. Within ten minutes she had printed out a stack of articles. One claimed that the Rex Deus line descended from a race of aliens. Another concluded that the Mormon Church was in possession of the Ark of the Covenant, having inherited it from the Prince Henry voyagers. A third discussed a 1990s plot by the Rex Deus leaders to marry Princess Diana to Bill Clinton (after killing off Hillary) in an effort to control the Western world. Yet another featured a guy in Seattle who believed he possessed the Biblical stone that symbolized the God-given power of the Davidic line of kings; he refrained from claiming the power as his own, instead waiting for Jesus’ heir to claim it. A fifth claimed that the Shroud of Turin was actually a cloth used to keep a tortured Templar leader warm. The final article proclaimed that the Oak Island Money Pit was a portal to another dimension, allowing aliens to travel through time and space.
Cam perused them, taking strange comfort in the realization that there was a world of amateur researchers out there championing theories that made the conclusions he and Amanda reached seem downright pedestrian….
His TracFone rang; it was Brandon. He called Amanda over. “This is it.” Taking a deep breath, trying to keep his voice normal even as his stomach clenched, he answered. “Hey, Cuz.”
“I am not your cousin, Mr. Thorne.” A sloppy, Spanish-accented voice.
They had Brandon. Cam had assumed it would happen, even planned on it. A single cop was no match for a paramilitary squad. But the reality filled him with fear and anger. He allowed his emotions to bubble to the surface. “Listen to me. You do anything to my cousin and I swear--”
“Your cousin is fine, Mr. Thorne. Other than his leg, of course.” Probably the Latin American group, the Legions of Jesus, as the Monsignor had theorized.
“Let me talk to him.”
“Very well. But only briefly.”
A few seconds passed. “Hey, Cam.” Brandon’s voice was listless.
“You all right?”
“Not sure,” he slurred. “They drugged me.”
Probably the same truth serum they used on Monsignor Marcotte. It usually made people giddy, like a good buzz. But Brandon was already on medication; who knew how it would react in his system? “Listen carefully. Tell them everything. Don’t try to lie or resist them. I’m serious!” Maybe they should have put him on plane to Europe or something. Not that it could have been arranged in the two hours since the Monsignor’s death.
The Spanish voice again. “Wise advice. In fact, he has been very informative already. Now, no further harm will come to him if you follow my directions.”
He cut him off. “Let’s get something straight right away: If he dies, I go public with all of this—all of Forsberg’s research on the Hooked X, the Jesus bloodline, everything. Understand?”
“Obviously we are hoping to prevent such an occurrence. As I said, your cousin will not be harmed. We will release him if you cooperate with us. We understand that he is of no value to us if he is dead. However, you must act quickly; at some point the nurses will become suspicious.” There was good news, at least—they hadn’t been able to spirit Brandon out of the hospital. Probably figured it’d be easier to isolate him in his room. “In this chess game we are playing, Mr. Thorne, even a pawn must not be sacrificed to no purpose.”
He and Amanda exchanged knowing glances—the chess reference likely was not a random one. Brandon must have told them about the chess pieces intersecting. Apparently they were intrigued by the theory. “Okay, so what do you want?”
“It is now one o’clock. At three o’clock you will meet us at the America’s Stonehenge site. Come alone, just the two of you. And please drive carefully.”
The line went dead.
* * *
Cam and Amanda made a quick detour on their way to America’s Stonehenge. Paying cash, he bought a couple of decent-quality mountain bikes at Wal-Mart, took off the front wheels and tossed the bikes into the back of the Subaru. Meanwhile Amanda went next door to a Staples, made photocopies of all the documents they acquired at the Groton library and used a disposable camera to photograph the lantern from all sides. She also bought a cardboard box and some bubble rap to protect the lantern, then packed that box into a slightly larger one filled with Styrofoam worms. After mailing the papers and the camera to the private box Peter maintained for his law practice they made it to Salem, New Hampshire with over an hour to spare.
Cam studied a map of the area and glanced at his watch. “Okay, we have to move fast.” Following a series of side streets, he pulled into a cul-de-sac that backed onto the America’s Stonehenge site. They parked the car, jumped onto the bikes and rode through some woods on a narrow trail. He checked his GPS and made a slight course adjustment, turning to make sure Amanda was keeping up. Not surprisingly, she rode well.
After a quarter-mile ride he jumped off his bike near a small creek. She did the same and he covered the bikes with some branches and leaves. “They’re going to find the bikes, you know,” she said, her breathing slow and easy as they jogged back to the car.
“Believe it or not, I have a plan—I’ll explain it to you in the car.”
He stopped by the edge of a slow-moving brook, reached through the water and pulled out a dripping pile of decayed leaves and muck.
She crinkled her nose. “It smells nasty.”
He spread the muck over his clothes and into his hair. “I know. Sorry about that.” He held his hand out to her. “Your turn.”
“Why?”
“I want them to underestimate us, like we talked about before. It’s human nature—if we’re dirty and smelly and unkempt, they’ll think less of us. I mean, when was the last time you asked a homeless man for directions?”
She reached out her hand. “Oh bloody hell. I was just getting over my swamp monster look. Now I’m going to smell like one.”
* * *
A half-hour later Cam and Amanda pulled into the dirt parking area of the America’s Stonehenge site. There were about a dozen other cars in the lot, which meant the site would be fairly crow
ded. Good. He didn’t like the idea of going into the woods alone with these people.
He leaned over and kissed her gently, her lips opening to his. “The next few hours are going to be tough. I just wanted something to keep me going.”
She exhaled slowly, her eyes still closed from the kiss. When she opened them the clover-colored orbs grew as her pupils shrank in the sunlight. She reached up and gently stroked his cheek. “Whatever happens, thanks for a wonderful adventure.”
A caravan of three dark-colored sedans bounded into the parking lot. “Remember,” he said as they hopped from the car. “Don’t wow them with your intellect. We want them to underestimate us.”
But Amanda was distracted. She squinted at the lead car. “Bloody hell! That’s Beatrice Yarborough in the front seat. What is she--”
“I guess that explains how the Vatican got up to speed so quickly.”
“I, I can’t believe it, Cam. She was like a mother to me.”
Before he could respond Amanda bounded across the parking lot. She reached the car just as the older woman rolled out, a long cigarette dangling from her left hand. Amanda didn’t hesitate. She slapped her boss across the face, the sharp sound echoing off the surrounding trees and boulders. Staggering, Yarborough began to raise her hand in retaliation. “Just try it, you old frog,” Amanda hissed. It happened so quickly that Cam had barely moved.
A barrel-chested man in a dark suit and blood-red tie slowly pulled himself from the back seat. He wedged himself between Amanda and Yarborough, moving with surprisingly agility. “That is enough,” he crooned in the same wet, Spanish-accented baritone Cam had heard on the phone. Bowing his large body to Amanda, he offered a wide leer. “I see you two are already acquainted.”
Beatrice raised her round chin. “I had the misfortune of being charged with training this tart. Apparently I neglected to teach her decorum.” She sniffed at the air. “Or the importance of bathing. She smells like a loo.” She sucked on her cigarette as if to clear her nostrils.
The man in the suit ignored her. “I am Ricardo Reichmann.” No trace of any German accent. He bowed again. “You must be Miss Spencer.”
Cabal of The Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower (Book #1 in the Templars in America Series) Page 28