Cabal of The Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower (Book #1 in the Templars in America Series)

by David S. Brody

  “Perhaps that’s the real reason Prince Henry came. To fly a kite.”

  Cam laughed as they crossed the cobblestoned Thames Street and continued away from the harbor up a steep incline on Mill Street. “The Redwood Library has an amazing collection of Newport history. I think they’re open until five today so I thought we could spend an hour there digging around.” They were now in the oldest section of the town, centuries-old Federalist- and Colonial-style homes packed close together on narrow, crisscrossing streets. He pointed to his left. “That’s where we ran away from Salazar.”

  “It feels like months have passed. But it was less than a week.”

  Cam’s TracFone rang. Amanda leaned closer; for the hundredth time he breathed in her floral scent as Brandon spoke. “That Frazon guy was buried at Touro Cemetery in Newport, just like you said. And like you said, it was arranged by Judge Sewall. That was in 1704. That’s all I could find on him. But I’ve got some interesting DNA stuff. There’s a web site run by some of the Sinclair descendants and they’re having some symposium or something. They’re hinting pretty strongly at a big announcement involving DNA matches between the Sinclair clan and the Mi’kmaqs. I’ll keep digging and call you guys later.”

  “Wow,” he said. “A DNA match would be amazing.”

  “Yes, they’ve been discussing DNA testing since before I took the job.” She paused. “Sorry to change the subject but what Brandon mentioned about Touro Cemetery also caught my ear. The Touro name comes up often.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Did you know the Touro family purchased the Tower land and donated it to the town of Newport in the 1800s, before a developer could demolish the Tower and build on the land? And now Mr. Frazon is buried in the Touro Cemetery. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences anymore, Amanda.”

  They approached the Redwood Library, a salmon-colored, pillared building that from the front looked a bit like the Supreme Court with a sunburn. Amanda requested materials covering the Newport Tower, while he focused on Joseph Frazon and the Touro Synagogue and Cemetery.

  He found nothing more on Frazon. The absence of any apparent connection between Frazon and the Newport community only deepened the mystery—Frazon wasn’t sent for burial in Newport because he had family or history here. As for Touro Cemetery itself, the land was purchased by the Jewish community in 1677, 19 years after the first Jewish settlers arrived in Newport. The decision to secure a burial ground for a growing Jewish population seemed perfectly sensible. But the history of the cemetery over the next 84 years was anything but. In fact, it was confounding.

  “Amanda, listen to this. Other than Frazon, nobody was buried in the Touro Cemetery until 1761, 84 years after it was established.”

  “That’s peculiar.”

  “Not just peculiar, downright weird. I mean, why have a cemetery if you’re not going to use it?”

  “Perhaps all the Jews left Newport before they passed on?”

  He shook his head. “No. They died here; they just weren’t buried at the Touro Cemetery. Our man Frazon was alone for generations.”

  “Where is the cemetery?”

  He motioned with his chin. “Just up the hill from the synagogue, on Bellevue Avenue. Pretty much the highest point in Newport.”

  “That makes it only a couple of blocks from the Tower,” she mused.

  “There’s a lot of material here on the Tower, mostly stuff I’ve seen before. But one thing I’m learning is how involved the Touro family was with the Tower. The sons moved to New Orleans during the Revolutionary War but even decades later they were still acting as custodians of the Tower, preserving the land and paying for its upkeep. They may even have helped perpetuate the myth that Benedict Arnold built the Tower as a colonial windmill—it would have been a good way to keep unwanted attention away.”

  “Good point.”

  He kept reading. “And check this out. The Touros also paid to preserve the Jewish Cemetery. At one point it had been abandoned.” The next step was obvious. “I’m going to do some research on the Touro family itself.”

  “You’d best hurry. The library closes in 20 minutes.”

  He dove back into his research, his eyes flying over the words, his hands flicking books open and closed. He was close: The picture was coming into focus, the trees moving aside to allow a clear view of the forest. Over the past week they had visited a handful of sites, debated dozens of theories, examined scores of historical precedents. Each of these lines of inquiry was seemingly unrelated to the others, like spokes from a wagon wheel strewn by the side of the road after an accident. Now, finally, he may have found the hub of the wheel, the nucleus through which the knowledge they had acquired could be joined together in a coherent pattern. That hub, that nucleus, was the Touro family.

  “Guess who were the first Masons in America? And guess who served as Grand Master in Rhode Island?” he asked as the librarian locked the door behind them.

  “By the looks of your silly grin, I’d venture a guess it was the Touros and their Jewish friends in Newport.” Cam waited for her to process the information. She did so within a few seconds. “Bloody hell!” she exclaimed, slapping him on the arm. “That just makes so much sense!”

  He guided her north on Bellevue, toward the Touro Cemetery. “Here’s what I think happened. You tell me if I’m crazy.”

  She smiled, her face flush. “Slim chance of me passing on that.”

  “Okay, here’s my theory. All the stuff about the Jesus bloodline and escaping the Pope with the Templar treasures and mapping the New World—it all makes perfect sense. It never actually worked out the way Prince Henry hoped; war between Scotland and England, climate change, Black Plague, whatever—something messed up his plans for a full settlement. But a bunch of them stayed here, including Prince Henry, and intermarried with the natives. Others returned to Scotland, where Prince Henry’s grandson memorialized the journey with cryptic carvings at Roslyn Chapel. But otherwise, for obvious reasons, they kept everything secret. Probably only the Sinclair family and trusted allies knew about their explorations. Plus the Native Americans who helped them. With me so far?”

  “Completely.”

  “So these secrets get passed down through the Scottish Masons—probably Sinclair descendants—over the next couple of centuries, until colonization of North America really gets going. And then the American Masons, as caretakers of Prince Henry’s secrets, take on the duty of preserving his legacy. Of course, I’m talking about only the highest-ranking Masons. Most members had no idea—that was the only way to keep the Church from finding out.”

  “When you say preserving his legacy, do you mean physically or spiritually?”

  “Both, actually.” This is where his knowledge of American history came in handy. “Spiritually, Masons such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and Paul Revere were leading proponents of the Bill of Rights and of separation of church and state, radical ideas at the time that were actually consistent with Templar beliefs and doctrine.”

  “I’ve heard people question whether Masonry really did influence your Founding Fathers.”

  “I had a history professor who did a lot of work on the Masons. She showed us something neat.” Stopping and leaning against an iron railing in front of a real estate office, Cam pulled out a dollar bill from his wallet and a red pen from his pack. On the back of the bill he pointed out the pyramid with the all-seeing eye at its peek. He drew a triangle on the bill, following the lines of the pyramid, and then another triangle, this one upside down. “This is a Jewish star, of course.”

  “It’s also the Seal of Solomon.”

  “Exactly. Whom the Masons revere. Which is why we see the star in Masonic imagery so often. Now, see this Latin writing ringing the pyramid? I’m going to circle the letters that fall on the points of the star.” He handed Amanda the bill. “What are the letters?”

  “A-S-M-O-N. I don’t get it.”


  “It’s an anagram.”

  Her eyes widened as she rearranged the letters. “Mason. How clever.”

  [ http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/chapter4/index.htm ]

  6-SIDED STAR SUPERIMPOSED OVER IMAGE ON U.S. DOLLAR BILL, REVEALING AN ANAGRAM OF THE WORD, “MASON”

  “There’s a whole bunch of this kind of Masonic imagery. You just have to look for it.”

  “Let’s return to Prince Henry. Your theory is that the Masons were privy to his secrets and helped preserve his legacy.”

  “Right. The high-ranking ones, like the Touros here in Newport. They made sure sites like the Newport Tower were preserved.”

  “So where does Frazon being buried in the Jewish Cemetery fit in?”

  “I have a theory about that also.” They approached the edge of the Touro cemetery, opposite the Viking Hotel, and stood outside the wrought iron front gate framed by a granite arch. “We need to get in.” A number of rose bushes climbed along the edge of the cemetery, partially blocking their view.

  “It’s locked,” she said.

  “Let’s go around back. We can climb the fence.” After what they’d been through, it hardly seemed like a major offense. They hoisted themselves over a stone wall in the rear of the cemetery and walked back toward the front gate, toward the roses. “This front section, along the street, was the original cemetery. They added to it later. But Frazon would be buried here.”

  Her eyes moved back and forth. “But there’s no marker.”

  He smiled. “I know. That’s part of my theory. There probably was a tombstone for him when he was first buried but once others were buried here later there was no reason to keep his marker out of disrepair.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  He took a deep breath. “I think Frazon was just a placeholder, a body to establish that this land was a burial ground and couldn’t be disturbed.”

  “A placeholder? For what?”

  On the one hand, he was sure he was right. On the other, he knew his theory was radical. “I think Judge Sewall—later in life, after he apologized for his role in the witch trials—became a Mason, or at least a Masonic sympathizer. I think the Masons knew the secrets of Newport, of who built the Newport Tower, of why Prince Henry was here in America. I think that’s why the early Jewish settlers, who were Masonic leaders, bought this land and dedicated it as a cemetery. It wasn’t because they needed it; they didn’t bury any of their congregants here for 84 years. It was because they wanted to protect the land. You can’t build over a cemetery—it’s pretty much the only land guaranteed to resist development. So they buried Frazon here, the first Jew they could find.” She nodded for him to continue. “They wanted to protect the land because they knew something was buried here. Either they had a map, or it was marked, or they knew how many paces from the Tower; somehow they knew this land was sacred, the secret passed down through the Masonic lodges.” He studied the ground. “Whatever the secret is, it’s probably right beneath our feet.”

  She edged toward him as if the ground beneath them might give way and swallow them up, like in some Raiders of the Lost Ark movie. “Yes. Yes, it all adds up nicely. This is the highest spot in Newport, near the Tower. The question is, what are we standing on?”

  They both were thinking about the possible Templar treasures. Gold and silver? Religious artifacts? Ancient maps and formulas? The Jesus genealogy? All of the above?

  She moved away, studying the ground from another angle. “It makes sense they didn’t bury their treasures at the Tower—they would have chosen a less obvious location.”

  “And it also explains why the Masons have been so protective of this site.”

  She reached for his hand. “So,” she asked teasingly, “when might we begin digging?”

  * * *

  “Well, are there any loose ends?” Amanda asked, sipping a glass of wine at an outdoor café along Newport’s waterfront.

  “There is a small matter of the treasure. Whatever it is. With all these secrets, all these cabals, there just has to be a treasure.”

  She took Cam’s hand. “I have no need for more treasure, thank you very much. What I meant was, is there anything else we need to learn?”

  He picked at a piece of fried calamari and watched the sailboats motor into the harbor as daylight dimmed. A week. One week. That’s how much time had passed since Brandon turned the key to a Bobcat and turned all of their lives into a tragic, stupefying rollercoaster ride.

  He felt a strange combination of fatigue, satisfaction and anger. The fatigue he understood—they had been on the run non-stop for six days. And the satisfaction also—they had put the pieces together to a 600-year old puzzle, a solution that had befuddled historians and archeologists for centuries.

  But there were still some things that didn’t fit. “This whole New Jerusalem thing that Judge Sewall kept writing about still bothers me. Did he know something? Was New Jerusalem a code for something? It’s a loose end.” Just like Cam’s anger.

  “I’ve been wondering as well—is the New Jerusalem concept somehow related to Prince Henry?”

  He linked his fingers around hers. “There’s really only one way to find out.”

  She smiled. “Count me in.”

  They weren’t done yet. Maybe he’d get a chance to deal with his anger after all. Someone needed to pay for what they did to Brandon, to Forsberg, to the Monsignor, to Pegasus. He couldn’t let Yarborough and her Vatican friends just walk away.

  He took a long swig from his Amstel bottle, his free hand finding Pegasus’ collar tucked in his jeans pocket. He wasn’t convinced the police would catch the culprits—the Legions of Jesus undoubtedly had access to fake passports and safe houses and transportation and whatever else they needed to escape detection. As for Yarborough, she could plausibly claim ignorance—she was an ocean away when most of the maiming and murders occurred. And Balducci, as a Vatican official, could claim diplomatic immunity.

  As he gazed out into the bay and watched a couple of kids bounce along in an inflatable rubber tube, the seeds of a plan took root, a ploy that would allow them to both test their theory and also catch Yarborough and the Vatican extremists.

  “Wasn’t there some poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about the Newport Tower?” he asked.

  She looked at him quizzically. “Yes. It’s entitled Skeleton in Armor. It concerns a Viking who sailed to America with his bride and built the Tower for her as a wedding gift.”

  “Well, when I was looking through the materials at the Redwood Library, I found another poem by Longfellow, this one called The Jewish Cemetery in Newport. Obviously, it’s about the Touro Cemetery.”

  She tilted her head. “And?”

  “Longfellow is related to Judge Sewall—the judge’s sister is Longfellow’s great-grandmother. And one other thing: The Longfellow Bridge, in Boston, is decorated with the prows of medieval Viking ships.”

  [Photo courtesy Richard Scott.]

  SCULPTURE DEPICTING VIKING SHIP ON STANCHION OF LONGFELLOW BRIDGE, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, USA

  “Do you believe Longfellow is a key to solving the Prince Henry mystery?”

  He sipped his beer. “Actually, I don’t.” He was willing to connect dots, to follow clues, to draw conclusions supported by evidence. But sometimes a poem was just a poem and a decoration on a bridge nothing more than that. He smiled. “But it doesn’t matter what I think, or what you think. What matters is what Yarborough and the Vatican extremists think.”

  CHAPTER 17

  [Saturday Evening]

  Normally Beatrice lodged at the Ritz Carlton while in Boston. But it had been sold so she took a room at the Copley Plaza in quarters designed to look like something out of a Dickens novel. It was one thing to decorate with authentic antiques. But the hotel furnishings were fakes, new pieces designed to look old. She reached for her smoldering Gauloises cigarette. This time she ground it into the desktop and watched it slowly discolor the mahogany veneer.

 
She lit another, inhaling the pungent, earthy smell. Food, wine, cigarettes. That’s about all the French did well. But they did them very well.

  More than 24 hours had passed since she had instructed her team of ruffians to allow Amanda and Thorne to escape. She had assumed they would run straight to the newspapers with their foolish alien portal story. But, according to Reichmann’s Vatican sources, nobody had contacted the press—either in Boston or nationally—with any type of story involving Prince Henry or the Templars or the Sinclair bloodline. For what were they waiting? Had they begun to doubt their alien conclusions? Were they continuing their research, revising their story, eliminating the aliens from it entirely? Perhaps she had underestimated the young solicitor—he did after all descend from the Rex Deus blood line. And he had proven himself by besting Salazar, supposedly Reichmann’s top man. Not to mention that he had, in a week, come closer to solving the Prince Henry mystery than anyone had in decades of work.

  An hour of smoking and stewing passed, an interminable sixty minutes in a boxy hotel room in downtown Boston, more grains of sand in the hourglass of history lost without the glory of Prince Henry and his noble knight, James Gunn, having been revealed to the world. How many hours had been lost, wasted, frittered away in just such a manner? Now, finally, someone—all right, Thorne and the girl Amanda—had uncovered hard evidence of Prince Henry’s journey, had tied the loose ends up enough to present a coherent story the public could comprehend and believe. But not embrace. Not with the ugly anti-Church details the two lovebirds would include in their narrative, which is why it was so imperative they discredit themselves with their ridiculous alien theory.

  The ring of her mobile phone interrupted her musings. “This is Cameron Thorne.”

  She exhaled the smoke through her nose. “Mr. Thorne. At our last meeting you neglected to say goodbye.”

  “Sorry, we had to run.”

  She smiled. Royal blood, even diluted, shone through. “Well then, what can I do for you?”