The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  The rock plunged through the opening. He followed its path and watched as it struck the ground, then kept going.

  Light beams probed the impact site.

  “You were right,” Cassiopeia said. “That hole was just under the surface, ready for someone to leap off the ladder.”

  “Drop some more rocks around it and find solid ground.”

  Four more rained down and thudded onto hard earth. He knew where to leap, so he dropped off the ladder and used the flashlight to examine the booby trap. The cavity was about three feet square and at least three feet deep. He reached inside and retrieved some of the wood that had been laid loosely across the top. The edges were tongue-and-grooved, the boards thin enough to shatter away at the weight of a man, but thick enough to shoulder a layer of silt and gravel. At the bottom of the hole were metal pyramids, sharpened to a point, wide at the base, waiting to snare an unsuspecting intruder. Time had dulled their patina, but not their effectiveness.

  “Saunière was serious about this,” he said.

  “Those could have been Templar traps,” Mark noted. “Is that brass?”

  “Bronze.”

  “The Order was expert in metallurgy. Brass, bronze, copper—all were used. The Church forbade scientific experimentation, so they learned things like that from the Arabs.”

  “The wood on top could not be seven hundred years old,” Cassiopeia said. “Saunière must have repaired the Templar’s defenses.”

  Not what he wanted to hear. “Which means this is probably just the first of many traps.”

  SIXTY

  Malone watched as Stephanie, Mark, and Cassiopeia climbed down the ladder. Thorvaldsen stayed on the surface, waiting for Geoffrey to return, ready to hand down tools, if needed.

  “I meant what I said,” Mark made clear. “The Templars were pioneers in booby traps. I’ve read accounts in the Chronicles of techniques they developed.”

  “Just keep your eyes open,” Malone said. “If we want to find whatever there is to find, we have to look.”

  “It’s after three,” Cassiopeia said. “The sun will be gone in two hours. It’s cold enough down here as it is. Nightfall will be brisk.”

  His jacket kept his chest warm, but gloves and thermal socks would be welcomed, which were some of the supplies Geoffrey was obtaining. Only the light spilling in from the ceiling illuminated the passageway that stretched in both directions. Without flashlights, Malone doubted if they’d be able to see a finger touch their nose. “Daylight’s not going to matter. It’s all artificial light down here. We just need Geoffrey to get back with food and warmer clothes. Henrik,” he called out. “Let us know when the good brother returns.”

  “Safe hunting, Cotton.”

  His mind swelled with possibilities. “What do you make of this?” he asked the others.

  “This could be part of a horreum,” Cassiopeia said. “When the Romans ruled this area they established underground storerooms for holding perishable goods. An early version of a refrigerated warehouse. Several have survived. This could have been one.”

  “And the Templars knew of it?” Stephanie asked.

  “They had them, too,” Mark said. “They learned from the Romans. What she says makes sense. When de Molay told Gilbert de Blanchefort to take away the treasure of the temple in advance, he could have easily chosen a place like this. Beneath a nondescript church, at a minor abbey, with no connection to the Order.”

  Malone pointed his flashlight ahead, then turned around and shone the beam in the other direction. “Which way?”

  “Good question,” Stephanie said.

  “You and Mark go that way,” he said. “Cassiopeia and I will go the other.” He could see that neither Mark nor Stephanie liked that decision. “We don’t have time for you two to fight. Put it aside. Do your jobs. That’s what you’d tell me, Stephanie.”

  She didn’t argue with him. “He’s right. Let’s go,” she said to Mark.

  Malone watched as they dissolved into the blackness.

  “Clever, Malone,” Cassiopeia whispered. “But do you think it wise to send those two out together? Lots of issues between them.”

  “Nothing like a little tension to make them appreciate one another.”

  “That true for me and you, too?”

  He aimed his flashlight into her face. “Lead the way and let’s find out.”

  De Roquefort and twelve brothers approached the ancient ruined abbey from the south. They’d avoided the village of St. Agulous and parked their vehicles a kilometer back in the thick woods. They’d then hiked through a landscape of scrub and red rock, steadily rising in altitude. He knew the entire area was a magnet for outdoor enthusiasts. Green slopes and purple crags closed around them, but the path was well marked, perhaps used by the local shepherds to herd sheep, and the route brought them to within a kilometer of the torn walls and piles of debris that had once been a place of devotion.

  He stopped the entourage and checked his watch. Nearly four PM. Brother Geoffrey had said that he would return to the site at four. He looked around. The ruins perched on a rocky promontory a hundred meters above. Malone’s rental car was parked farther down the slope.

  “Into the trees for cover,” he ordered. “And everyone stay down.”

  A few moments later a Land Rover churned its way up the sloping graveled path and stopped by the rental. He saw Geoffrey exit the driver’s side and noticed the younger man appraise his surroundings, but de Roquefort did not reveal himself, still not sure if this was a trap.

  Geoffrey hesitated at the Land Rover, then opened the rear hatch and removed two boxes. Grasping both, Geoffrey started up the path toward the abbey. De Roquefort waited until he’d passed, then boldly stepped out onto the trail and said, “I’ve been waiting, brother.”

  Geoffrey stopped and turned.

  A cold pallor engulfed the younger man’s pale face. The brother said nothing and simply laid the boxes down, reached beneath his jacket, and brought out a nine-millimeter automatic. De Roquefort recognized the gun. The Austrian-made weapon was one of several brands the abbey’s arsenal stocked.

  Geoffrey chambered a round. “Then bring your men and let’s get this over with.”

  An insufferable tension flushed every thought from Malone’s mind. He was following Cassiopeia as they inched their way through the underground passage. The path was about six feet wide and eight feet tall, the walls dry and jagged. Fifteen feet of hard earth lay between him and the surface. Tight confines were not his favorite places. Cassiopeia, though, appeared fortified with nerve. He’d seen her kind of courage before in agents who worked best under extreme pressure.

  He was alert for more traps, paying careful attention to the gravel ahead of them. He’d always found it amusing in adventure movies when moving parts made of stone and metal, supposedly hundreds or thousands of years old, still functioned as if they’d been greased yesterday. Iron and stone were vulnerable to air and water, their effectiveness limited. But bronze was a different matter. That metal was enduring, which was precisely why it had been created. So more pointed stakes at the bottom of deep holes could be a problem.

  Cassiopeia stopped, her light focused ten feet ahead.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Take a look.”

  He added his beam to hers and saw it.

  Stephanie hated enclosed spaces, but she was not about to voice that concern, especially to her son, who thought little enough of her. So to take her mind off her uncomfortableness she asked, “How would the knights have stored their treasure down here?”

  “Carried in a piece at a time. Nothing would have stopped them, short of capture or death.”

  “That would have taken some effort.”

  “All they had was time.”

  They were both intent on the ground ahead of them as Mark gently tested the surface before each step.

  “Their precautions would not have been sophisticated,” Mark said. “But they would have been effective. T
he Order possessed vaults all over Europe. Most they guarded, along with rigging traps. Here, secretion itself and a few traps had to do the job without guards. The last thing they would have wanted was to draw attention to this place by having knights around.”

  “Your father would have loved this.” She had to say it.

  “I know.”

  Her light caught something ahead on the passage wall. She grabbed hold of Mark’s shoulder and stopped him. “Look.”

  Carved into the rock were letters.

  NON NOBIS DOMINE

  NON NOBIS SED NOMINE TUO DA GLORIUM

  PAUPERS COMMILITONES CHRISTI TEMPLIQUE SALAMONIS

  “What does it say?” she asked.

  “ ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give the glory. Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.’ It’s the Templar motto.”

  “So it’s true. This is it.”

  Mark said nothing.

  “May God forgive me,” she whispered.

  “God has little to do with this. Man created this mess and it’s up to man to clean it up.” He motioned farther down the passage with his light. “Look there.”

  She stared into the halo and saw a metal grille—a gate—that opened into another passage.

  “Is that where everything is stored?” she asked.

  Not waiting for an answer, she moved around him and had taken only a few steps when she heard Mark cry out, “No.”

  Then the ground slipped away.

  Malone stared at the sight illuminated by their combined lights. A skeleton. Lying prostrate on the cavern floor, the shoulders, neck, and skull propped up against the wall.

  “Let’s get closer,” he said.

  They inched ahead and he noticed a slight depression in the floor. He grasped Cassiopeia’s shoulder.

  “I see it,” she said, stopping. “It’s a long one. Stretches a couple of yards.”

  “Those damn pits would have been invisible in their time, but the wood beneath has weakened enough to show them.” They moved around the depression, staying on solid ground, and approached the skeleton.

  “There’s nothing left but bones,” she said.

  “Look at the chest. The ribs. And the face. Shattered in places. He fell into that trap. Those gashes are from spikes.”

  “Who is he?”

  Something caught his eye.

  He bent down and found a blackened silver chain among the bones. He lifted it out. A medallion dangled from the loop. He focused the light. “The Templar seal. Two men on a single horse. It represented individual poverty. I saw a drawing of this in a book a few nights ago. My bet is this is the marshal who wrote the report we’ve been using. He disappeared from the abbey once he learned the solution to the cryptogram from the priest Gélis. He came, figured out the solution, but wasn’t careful. Saunière probably found the body and just left him here.”

  “But how would Saunière have figured anything out? How did he solve the cryptogram? Mark let me read that report. According to Gélis, Saunière had not solved the puzzle he found in his church and Gélis was suspicious of him, so he told Saunière nothing.”

  “That’s assuming what the marshal wrote was true. Either Saunière or the marshal killed Gélis to keep the priest from telling anyone what he’d deciphered. If it was the marshal, which seems likely, then he filed the report simply as a way to cover his tracks. A way for no one to think he left the abbey to come here and find the Order’s Great Devise for himself. What did it matter that he recorded the cryptogram? There’s no way to solve the thing without the mathematical sequence.”

  He turned his attention away from the dead man and shone his light farther down the passage. “Look at that.”

  Cassiopeia stood and together they saw a cross with four equal arms, wide at the ends, carved into the rock.

  “The cross patee,” she said. “Allowed to be worn only by the Templars thanks to a papal decree.”

  He recalled more of what he’d read in the Templar book. “The crosses were red on a white mantle and symbolized a willingness to suffer martyrdom in fighting infidels.” With his flashlight, he traced the lettering above the cross.

  PAR CE SIGNE TU LE VAINCRAS

  “By this sign ye shall conquer him,” he said, translating. “Those same words are in the church at Rennes, above the holy water fount at the door. Saunière put them there.”

  “Constantine’s declaration when he first fought Maxentius. Before the battle, he supposedly saw a cross on the sun with those words emblazoned beneath.”

  “With one difference. Mark said there was no him in the original phrase. Only By this sign ye shall conquer.”

  “He’s right.”

  “Saunière inserted le after tu. At the thirteenth and fourteenth position in the phrase. 1314.”

  “The year Jacques de Molay was executed.”

  “Seems Saunière enjoyed a touch of irony in his symbolism, and he got the idea right here.”

  He searched more of the darkness and saw that the passage ended twenty feet ahead. But before that, a metal grille locked by a chain and hasp blocked a path that led off into another direction.

  Cassiopeia saw it, too. “Seems we found it.”

  A rumble came from behind them and someone shouted, “No.”

  They both turned.

  SIXTY-ONE

  De Roquefort stopped at the entrance to the ruins and motioned his men to flank out to either side. The site was uncomfortably quiet. No movement. No voices. Nothing. Brother Geoffrey stood beside him. He remained worried that he was being set up. Which was why he’d come with firepower. He was pleased with his council’s selection of knights—these men were some of the best in his ranks, experienced fighters of unquestioned courage and fortitude—which he might well need.

  He peered around a pile of lichen-encrusted rubble, deeper into the decayed structure, past billows of standing grass. The bright dome of sky overhead was fading as the sun beat a retreat behind the mountains. Darkness would arrive shortly. And he worried about the weather. Squalls and rain came without warning in the Pyrenean summer.

  He motioned and his men advanced forward, clambering over boulders and collapsed wall sections. He spied a campsite among three partial walls. Wood had been arranged for a fire that had yet to be lit.

  “I’ll go in,” Geoffrey whispered. “They’re expecting me.”

  He saw the wisdom of that move and nodded.

  Geoffrey calmly walked into the open and approached the camp. Still no one was around. Then the younger man disappeared deeper into the ruins. A moment later he emerged and signaled for them to come.

  De Roquefort told his men to wait and only he stepped into the open. He’d already directed his lieutenant to attack if necessary.

  “Only Thorvaldsen is in the church,” Geoffrey said.

  “What church?”

  “The monks cut a church into the rock. They’ve discovered a portal beneath the altar that leads to caves. The others are beneath us exploring. I told Thorvaldsen that I was going to retrieve the supplies.”

  He liked what he was hearing.

  “I’d want to meet Henrik Thorvaldsen.”

  With gun in hand, he followed Geoffrey into the dungeon-like cavity carved from the rock. Thorvaldsen stood with his back to them, gazing down into what was once a support for the altar.

  The old man turned as they came close.

  De Roquefort raised his gun. “Not a word. Or it will be your last.”

  The earth beneath Stephanie’s feet had given way and her legs were collapsing into one of the traps they’d tried so hard to avoid. What had she been thinking? Seeing the words etched into the rock and then the metal gate waiting to be opened, she’d realized that her husband had been right. So she’d abandoned caution and raced forward. Mark had tried to stop her. She heard him scream, but it had been too late.

  She was already heading down.

  Her hands went skyward in an attempt to balance and she readied he
rself for the bronze stakes. But then she felt an arm encase her chest in a tight embrace. Then she was falling backward, to the ground, which she struck, another body cushioning her impact.

  A second later, quiet.

  Mark lay beneath her.

  “You okay?” she asked, rolling off him.

  Her son raised himself off the gravel. “Those rocks felt lovely on my back.”

  Heavy footsteps sounded in the darkness behind them, accompanied by two orbs of waggling light. Malone and Cassiopeia appeared.

  “What happened?” Malone asked.

  “I was careless,” she said, standing, brushing herself off.

  Malone shone a light down into the rectangular hole. “That would have been a bloody fall. It’s full of stakes, all in good shape.”

  She came close, stared down into the opening, then turned and said to Mark, “Thanks, son.”

  Mark was rubbing the back of his neck, working the pain from his muscles. “No problem.”

  “Malone,” Cassiopeia said. “Take a look.”

  Stephanie watched as Malone and Cassiopeia studied the Templar motto she and Mark had found. “I was headed to that gate when the hole got in the way.”

  “Two of them,” Malone muttered. “At opposite ends of this corridor.”

  “There’s another grille?” Mark asked.

  “With another inscription.”

  She listened as Malone told them what they’d found.

  “I agree with you,” Mark said. “That skeleton has to be our long-lost marshal.” He fished a chain from beneath his shirt. “We all wear the medallion. They’re given at induction.”

  “Apparently,” Malone said, “the Templars hedged their bets and separated the cache.” He motioned to the floor trap. “And they made it a challenge to find. The marshal should have been more careful.” Malone faced Stephanie. “As we all should.”

  “I understand,” she said. “But, as you so often remind me, I’m not a field agent.”

  He smiled at her sarcasm. “So let’s see what’s behind that grille.”