“You’re too kind, Father,” Purdue said. “Let me introduce you to my lovely companion, the Countess Baldwin, Toshana.”
Father Harper held his poise very well, leaving no indication that he knew who she was. However, Toshana was very reluctant to shake hands with the priest.
“This is the man who saved my life a year ago, Father Harper,” Purdue told his lady. To keep up her charade, Toshana quickly shook Father Harper’s hand and let go promptly. Purdue found her behavior bewildering, as if touching the priest repulsed her.
“Lovely to meet you, Countess Baldwin,” Father Harper said, feeling sick to his stomach at her presence. Both of them played their roles convincingly for the sake of Purdue.
“Where’s Sam, Father?” Purdue asked. “And who is the lady? I thought Nina would be here?”
The priest thought it best no to share too much information about Nina, or about the Militum members and what he and Sam had discussed before leaving Oban. Toshana made him cringe, and he was not about to spill the whole lot in front of her.
“Nina unfortunately couldn’t make it. She is…tied up…in something, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing her soon,” Father Harper told Purdue. “The lady with us is a friend of Sam’s. From work. She’s been feeling a bit under the weather.”
“Who is Nina?” Toshana asked.
“The historian I usually hire to join us on excursions, my dear. She would have been such a help during this search,” he told his new lover amicably. He tried to make Nina sound like nothing more than a colleague, but inside he was very unhappy that she hadn’t made it. The things that Sam had reported to him on the Skype session simply did not occur to him, even though he had heard them perfectly.
Father Harper could see Purdue’s inner turmoil. It reminded him of a battered spouse siding with their attacker, even while they were in peril and sorrow. The billionaire was trapped in the thrall of the striking woman, willing to appease her at all costs. But somewhere in his eyes, the priest could see the man’s common sense struggling to comprehend his own actions.
Jan Harris came walking across the dining hall, wiping the corners of her mouth gracefully. Father Harper introduced her formally, but she refrained from shaking hands and simply nodded. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said, her eyes resting a beat too long on Toshana’s beauty.
So this is the hussy we’re all going to get killed over, she thought to herself as she scrutinized Toshana’s features.
“Where is Sam, Miss Harris?” Purdue asked. “I haven’t seen the lad for months and now he pulls a disappearing act.”
“Um, he did ask me to apologize on his behalf, but he said he’ll join us at the Temple Mount later,” she told everyone, keeping her tone docile and oblivious. Toshana, however, couldn’t take her eyes off Harris. She stared at the professional looking woman without reservation.
“Do I know you?” she asked Harris.
Father Harper’s heart skipped a beat.
“I don’t think so,” Harris smiled falsely. “If we’d ever met, I know I would have remember you, ma’am.”
“Oh, call me Toshana, Janet. I’m not one of your elders, am I?” Toshana smiled, but her friendliness was cold and affected, leaving the reporter dumbstruck. Only people who watched her on television news knew her as Janet. Toshana looked at Father Harper. “So, why are we going back to the Temple Mount, Father Harper? I think David has been quite clear that the object we seek is not there.” She smirked condescendingly, mocking the priest, “Unless you wish to eat the soil of your god’s broken house.”
An old reflex of the priest’s bolted through his body, one from when he used to be one of the Militum sect. It was a need to grab the bitch and throttle her until her breath abandoned her lungs, making her limp and cold. But he was not to react like that anymore. Now he was required to allow the lashes of the devil and not to lose his composure in the face of evil’s ridicule.
“Had you done your research correctly, madam, you may have learned that the crown was hidden there by a Second World War chaplain,” he retorted with a soft tone that was deadly serious, “and that his daughter was the only person who knew of its removal. It is her we have to find to locate the crown, of course, and that clue lies inside the premises, where only I know to look. Only those who buy their way to divinity will bite the dust of the Templars’ tracks.”
27
Too Much Information
Purdue could feel the tension between the priest and Toshana. He did not want to displease either of them, especially since Father Harper was predominantly there to assist him in appeasing his beloved. Having one there to please the needs of the other placed Purdue in a bit of a tight spot, but he was David Purdue, a smooth talker who could sell the Bible to the Devil if he used his charm.
“Father, shall we check you in at the desk?” Purdue said cordially, interrupting the unholy pissing contest.
“Oh, no need, Mr. Purdue,” Harris smiled, “we already checked in at a quaint little B&B in the Old City. We thought we’d stay there while we investigate the site Father Harper is referring to. We fail to see why we should spend exuberant amounts for a bed and a cup of tea,” Harris jested, evoking a hearty chuckle from Purdue and the priest. Her remark, however, did not amuse Toshana.
“Bed and a cup of tea,” she scoffed, hooking her arm into Purdue’s. “Thankfully, our suite has a shower as well.”
“Father,” Purdue almost hollered, “we shall meet you at the Temple Mount in say, thirty minutes?”
“Certainly, David,” Father Harper smiled.
“I assume you know that non-Muslims enter through the Gate of the Moors, right? I mean,” Purdue snickered sheepishly, “you are a man of the cloth after all. I suppose you know just about everything about the Temple Mount.”
The priest glanced at the piercing eyes of the Countess and smirked, “Oh, I know it intimately.”
Purdue and his mistress turned on their heel with a quick salute from the billionaire, and as they walked away, Harris could feel the tension lift. “Fucking hell! What a bitch.”
Father Harper watched them intently and replied, “I fear David has made a grave mistake with that lady.”
“Obviously,” Harris agreed. “Why do they always choose the pretty faces with the rotten attitudes?” she asked rhetorically, realizing that she had just described herself. “Why would you say he made such a big mistake, Father? He can always just find her bloody relic and be done with her, right?”
The priest shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Miss Harris. Not this time. This time he has really tugged at the thread of the web and unless we do something rather drastic, poor Purdue is in for a sobering shock.”
“You really don’t like her,” Harris grinned. “He’s doing this all just to please that harpy.”
“They are bound by a contract, Miss Harris,” Father Harper said, as he finished his tea. “And much as Purdue knows his legal way around contracts, I fear this time he has unknowingly made a deal with the devil.”
Rich colors imbued the afternoon with cheer around the massive religious complex. When Sam, Father Harper, and Jan Harris arrived, Purdue and Toshana were already inside, waiting. Purdue’s tablet notified him that his associates had arrived via Father Harper’s cell phone tracker.
“They’re here, my darling,” he told Toshana.
“About time,” she spewed. “I never took you for a Catholic, David.”
“I am not a Catholic. I am not even religiously inclined. As you know, my religion is business and science,” he winked as the wind played with his hair. “What’s your religion? By your joust with the good preacher, it’s safe to assume that you are definitely not Catholic.”
“My religion is much like yours, David. I worship money,” she sneered. “Have you ever considered the fact that if you were poor you would have no friends?”
“Who, me?” he asked, taken aback at her personal remark.
“Yes, you. Your only friends are all people wh
o need you. A reporter known to be a charlatan to the media, and a goddamn priest. These people need you respectively for sensation and alms, my beloved David. Think about it. They use your money and your fame to get along in life. You used to be friends with financiers, moguls – hell, even royalty,” she scoffed. “Now you keep to your laboratories and inventions, to keep the money flowing in. A recluse with more money than the Sultan of Swine. You, my darling, don’t serve science and technology. You serve money.”
“David! How did you get here so quickly? Traffic was a mess,” Father Harper exclaimed, smiling as the three figures labored up to where Purdue and Toshana stood.
“I can be persuasive, Father,” he laughed.
Toshana watched what was, in her opinion, the less than adequate group of people Purdue had summoned to help him on this excursion. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t hired professional archaeologists and a private army to keep the Israeli soldiers at bay while the crown was located. It was not as if he couldn’t afford it.
Father Harper had finally traded his cassock for a pair of jeans and a cotton shirt. The casual attire made him look so fetching that Harris could hardly keep her eyes off him as she trailed behind him, hidden behind his huge frame. Toshana regarded them with disdain, not yet having met the third man who walked in their wake. Sam stepped out from behind Harris and Father Harper to greet his friend.
“Hey Purdue, I’m so sorry about the dining hall, mate. I had something urgent to do after I helped Harris,” he told Purdue. Toshana froze visibly, to Sam's delight.
Did not smell me that time, did you? he thought in amusement.
“No worries, Sam. Great to finally see you here,” Purdue beamed as he shook Sam’s hand. “My dear, this is one of my closest friends.” He accentuated the word to prove a point for their last conversation, “Sam Cleave.”
Sam waited to see whether she would admit that they’d met before, or if she would act oblivious. Toshana opted for the latter. Her dislike for Sam was less hostile and more a nuance of faltering, but Purdue thought that the observation was his own imagination.
“We must make it quick,” Purdue advised. “This place won’t stay open for our little treasure hunt much longer. I bought us an hour from the Israeli guards on duty.”
“Ladies, please wear your scarves and enter the woman’s mosque at the western annex while we go underground,” Father Harper suggested. “At the eastern wall in the far left corner, there are symbols, markings on the wall that are not Muslim in nature at all. You will recognize them as forming the Templar cross with a rose etched over it. Under these two sigils there should be a banner or slate of wood.”
“Should I write this down?” Harris asked, meeting an impatient audience.
“Just listen,” Toshana snapped at her.
Father Harper carried on hastily. “Remove the obstacle and enter into the small hole in the wall, but do not draw attention. You will be shown no mercy if you are discovered.”
“And that hole takes us where?” Toshana asked abruptly, as she covered her head.
“It will take you to a network of arches that once served as the Templar’s place of worship, so to speak. We will meet you there and find the grave of the chaplain’s daughter,” the priest instructed. With that, Toshana and Harris started strolling toward the entrance, leaving the men behind.
“Purdue, non-Muslims are not allowed into the mosque,” Sam warned, “I hope they don’t mind looking the other way while we just take a gander in there. What did you have to pay them?”
“Gold bars,” Purdue smiled. “I paid them in the gold bars Toshana gave me as my first payment of three.”
“I suppose the second payment was flesh?” Father Harper guessed, but he was quite sincere.
“Correct,” Purdue grinned, as they started toward the entrance of the holy building. “How did you know?”
The priest sighed, and looked at Sam. “I know her…type.”
“I hope they don’t realize we are aliens. Jesus, I don’t need this on top of all the Nina-trouble,” Sam groaned.
“We’ll be surreptitious enough, unless we do something unnecessarily Christian,” Purdue chuckled, drawing an amused smile from Father Harper. “So Father, do tell us why we are going this way.”
“In the Second World War a chaplain hid the relic here in the Al-Aqsa mosque, near the left foot of Christ, according to most sources,” Father Harper said. “We have to find its former resting place to gain entrance to the Templar headquarters. From there we have to follow the path the chaplain’s daughter took before she was killed.”
“How do you know where she was killed?” Purdue asked the priest, but Father Harper evaded the question by greeting some other men. His knowledge of various religions allowed him to pass as a brother. As they entered the mosque, Father Harper whispered to his ally at his side. “Sam, once we are under the mosque, we have to tell David about Nina, and about Toshana’s affiliations.”
“Do you think that would even help?” Sam asked. “I’ve mentioned Nina several times, but he seems to just ignore her existence.”
“Perhaps now that he’s separated from her, we can try again,” the priest suggested, which Sam agreed with.
Inside, the women’s mosque was bustling with visitors and worshipers which made it easier to move around unnoticed.
“Aren’t you supposed to be secretly recording footage to edit later?” Toshana asked Harris. “How else are you going to lie your way to another award?”
“Why don’t you just leave the reporting to me and leech on rich men while you still have the looks,” Harris sneered. Toshana smiled. “Finally, some backbone. I like liars. They seem to believe their own hype which makes them easy to deceive.”
“So, you admit it then? That you are using Purdue?” Harris asked.
“Of course,” Toshana replied, looking surprised at the reporter’s words. “He has no choice. I’m paying him greatly for his servitude.”
Harris caught her breath. “You mean, his service.”
Toshana shrugged. “Right.”
Harris wished she did have a high definition device on her to capture the awe-inspiring beauty of the mosque’s interior. The ancient arches, built during the era when the Knights Templar used the mosque as their headquarters, seemed to lean silently over the women inside. It was by no means as grand as the main mosque, of course, but the marble and stone seemed to speak volumes. If the stone tape theory could be employed here, Harris thought, it would have been filled with the sounds of war, counsel, and masculine powers of chivalry.
“Tell me, Janet,” Toshana said suddenly, “how are you involved in this excursion? You have no place here. You are not filming, are you?”
“Nope, just came to help to look for the crown. I have to keep my eye on Sam, so I came with him,” she confessed.
“Why?” Toshana asked, as they reached the insignia Father Harper referred to. “What is Sam to you?”
“Insurance,” Harris bragged. She couldn’t help it. Feeling important was important to her, so the thought of having Sam by the balls was reason for boasting. Having no idea that Toshana was an agent of the Black Sun, sent to seduce Purdue through the meeting at Bilderberg, Harris spilled the beans on how she was blackmailing Sam with footage of the street killings in Barking and how she’d solicited him after he escaped an assassination. But the worst damage Harris’ ego incurred was when she revealed that Sam’s paramour, Dr. Nina Gould, was being held hostage by the very men he had saved Toshana from.
28
Dragon’s Breath
Nina was surprised that her captors carried on as if she were just another housemate, although the structure they were housed in wasn’t quite a house. She knew it had to be somewhere in the UK, mainly because of the British broadcasts on the radio and some trash she saw in the kitchen being English brands.
They hardly looked at her, nor did the insult or attempt to harm her in any way. She’d now been with them for several days, still sleepi
ng on the covered stone slab she’d awoken on that first night and having only two meals a day. Toast, bacon and tomato in the morning and usually some deli foods at night. Although the men of the Militum wore casual clothes, Nina could see that they had all had some training in tactics, as well as some sort of theological background. What baffled her still, was that even with the indoctrination of the latter they showed no practice of Christianity.
“Ayer,” she peeked around the doorway of the chambers where she was allowed to roam freely. He was on the phone with someone, holding up an open hand for her to wait. Nina’s propriety prompted her to give him his privacy and she retracted. In the dark corridor there were strong lights overhead, as there was no daylight to come in, but she could find no switches.
The lair had to be a centrally controlled base, so there had to be a communications room or some office from where the lights and the water usage was monitored. She was told that she could shower, but only if one of their men escorted her, so alternatively Nina had been taking sponge baths in her room for the last three nights and had the dreaded use of a chamber pot.
“Dr. Gould,” Ayer called from his room, beckoning her back. “What is it?”
“Well, I just wanted to ask you the things you would expect to be asked by someone you are holding,” she started.
“Like, are we going to kill you?” he asked quickly, polishing his Doc Martins.
“Um, aye. I suppose that is important to know,” she shrugged, her arms folded over her chest as she leaned in the doorway. “But I wonder also, why you are so lenient on me?”
“Would you prefer we lock you up like a prisoner? Because we would have no problem doing that,” he replied nonchalantly.
“No, I just don’t understand. If you’re going to let me walk around here, eat with you, and join in your conversations, why am I even here at all? Can’t you just let me go home?” she asked evenly.
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