The Templar Archive (25 page)

“But not impossible. They could have bought one from a criminal contact.”

“Yes, but unless I’ve misunderstood what’s happened, you and your men picked them up in France and you’ve had them under virtually constant surveillance ever since, so if they had managed to source a weapon from somewhere you would almost certainly have to know about it.”

Mario nodded, still not entirely satisfied with Toscanelli’s answer, but recognizing the essential logic of what the other man had just said. He turned back and gestured for Salvatori to continue forward.

A couple of minutes later, Salvatori stopped, the light from his flashlight illuminating an even narrower section of the tunnel beyond which a vast expanse of blackness seemed to extend in all directions, the flashlight beam seemingly being absorbed by the dark, fading away into nothing.

“This last section of the tunnel is really narrow,” the Italian said. “If the Templars constructed another booby trap, this is the most likely place for it.”

The three men stopped about a dozen feet from the tunnel exit and began searching everywhere with the beams of light from their flashlights, looking for anything that seemed out of place or that could possibly function as a trigger.

“I don’t see anything,” Mario said. “Maybe that killing pit at the other end of the tunnel is the only one they built.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Toscanelli said. “The two targets aren’t going anywhere. We’ve got plenty of time to check this thoroughly. I’m not stepping out into that next
chamber until I’m certain it’s safe to do so. We’ll examine every centimeter of this tunnel before we move on.”

But even after five minutes of searching, none of them had seen anything that suggested there might be any kind of hidden hazard.

“I think we’re just wasting our time here,” Mario said. “There’s nothing to fear. Let’s get the job done and finish this.”

*   *   *

Mallory had crept closer to the entrance to the narrow tunnel, his flashlight in one hand and the crowbar in the other, Robin a few feet behind him. This was not so that he could hear what was being said, because he didn’t speak or understand Italian, but so that he could hopefully ambush any of the men who survived the Templar booby trap when he or they stepped into the chamber. Assuming, of course, that the Italians tripped the device. And obviously also assuming that the device still worked.

After a couple of minutes, he realized that they were checking every part of the narrow section of the tunnel, and that meant they would probably find the same group of hidden planks on the ground that he had detected. If that were the case, then they’d also most likely find the hole into which the length of wood or metal needed to be inserted to disable the mechanism.

Once they’d done that, the three Italians—probably three armed and very angry Italians—would be able to walk into the cave and Mallory and Robin would be completely at their mercy. Even with the benefit of
surprise, there really was no way that two basically unarmed people—because crowbars and rocks didn’t really count—could tackle three men carrying pistols.

He was going to have to try to do something else.

*   *   *

“Wait,” Salvatori said urgently.

He was on his hands and knees in the most constricted section of the tunnel, feeling the ground directly in front of him.

“There’s something under the surface right here. Something that’s not rock. It’s more like wood, planks or timbers of some sort laid across the path.” He leaned forward slightly and pressed gently on the wood with his hand. “There’s some give in it. I think it’s probably connected to something. Some mechanism.”

Mario and Toscanelli peered over his shoulder at the area on the ground that Salvatori was investigating.

“Are you sure?” Toscanelli asked.

“Of course I’m sure. I’m not going to walk on this, but if you want to get in front of me and stamp all over it, you be my guest. I’ll just stand back and watch.”

Toscanelli took a couple of steps backward and looked around. “If there’s a trap here, there must be a way of disabling it or bypassing it. Can either of you see a lever or anything? If we can’t find it, we’ll have to haul a couple of those planks up here from the other cavern and put them over whatever it is.”

But although they all checked both sides of the tunnel, for some reason they either didn’t see the hole drilled into
the rock, or didn’t associate it with the hidden device, and after a couple of minutes Toscanelli lost patience.

“It’ll be quicker if we just get the wood,” he said to Mario. “You stay here, just in case the two targets try to get out of that cavern. If they do, shoot them. In fact, shoot them if you see any sign of them. Salvatori and I will go back and collect a couple of planks.”

*   *   *

Mallory stood silently in the utter blackness of the cavern watching the activity in the tunnel entrance about twenty yards away. When two of the shadowy figures abruptly left and headed back down the passageway, he whispered to Robin, who was standing right beside him, “I think they’ve spotted the trigger for the booby trap and they’ll probably haul along a couple of lengths of wood to bridge it. And if they do that, we’ll have nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.”

“So that’s it? They’ll just walk in here, kill us, and take the boxes?” Her voice was calm but determined.

“If they can, yes, but we’re not dead yet. We can try to ambush them when they come out into this cave.”

“At the precise moment when they’ll be expecting an attack, you mean?” Robin didn’t sound encouraging. “Two of us and a couple of crowbars against three armed and irritated gunmen? Forget it. I think I’ve got a better idea.”

“What?”

“You’re standing right beside it. I spotted it when we first walked in here, but it didn’t make any sense then. Now I think I’ve worked out what it is.”

She took his hand and forced him down into a crouch, then pressed his hand down on the ground.

“Feel that?” she whispered.

Mallory’s hand traced a smooth groove in the stone floor, like a very shallow dish or the bottom part of a wide tube or pipe. He ran his hand around the carved rock, trying to get a feel for the overall shape of whatever Robin had found.

“It’s like a gully or a channel for water,” he murmured.

“Shit hot, Sherlock. It
is
a channel, but not for water. There’s a pretty big stone in the gully right where we’re standing. It’s almost completely round, like a big bowling ball, and there’s a smaller wedge-shaped rock positioned right in front of it. Move that away, and the larger rock will roll all the way to the tunnel entrance.”

“It’s a second trigger, you mean?”

“That’s what it looks like to me, yes.”

Mallory paused for a moment, considering the implications.

“We don’t know what will happen if it’s triggered,” he said. “We could be locking ourselves in here for eternity.”

“I don’t think so,” Robin whispered. “As far as I know, the Knights Templar weren’t big on suicide, so if this is a device to trigger the booby trap from inside the cavern, there has to be another way out. We just haven’t found it yet.”

Mallory stared ahead at the entrance to the tunnel, where they could both hear the sound of approaching footsteps.

“It’s make-your-mind-up time,” he muttered. “That
sounds like the other two coming back with the planks. They’ll have the wood in position in a couple of minutes. So do we do this or not?”

“We do it,” Robin replied quietly. “In my opinion, we really don’t have a choice.”

“Okay. I’ll pull the round stone back a bit. See if you can shift that wedge.”

He wrapped his arms around the stone and heaved. It was heavy—really heavy—and probably hadn’t been moved in over five hundred years, but he felt it give slightly. But the movement wasn’t quite enough to allow Robin to remove the wedging stone.

“It’s not shifting,” she whispered urgently, very conscious of the sounds of activity in the tunnel, where the other two men were just coming into view, dragging lengths of timber toward the narrow section.

“I’ll use my legs,” Mallory whispered.

He let go of the stone and stepped around it. He lay down flat on his back and placed his feet against the stone, braced himself, and then pushed as hard as he could with the soles of his feet against the heavy rock.

This time, he felt the stone move a fraction more than before, but still Robin couldn’t shift the wedge. He relaxed again, took a couple of deep breaths, and then pushed with all the strength in his legs.

He heard the sound of stone moving against stone and then the rock shifted noticeably.

“Got it,” Robin said, pulling the wedge-shaped rock out of position and moving it to one side.

For perhaps a second, Mallory kept his legs in position,
feeling the brutal weight of the rock pressing against his feet, then rolled sideways, away from the gully. And immediately the rock began to move, the rumbling sound as it gathered speed unmistakable in the silence of the cavern.

Then the beam of a flashlight speared out from the tunnel entrance and bathed Mallory in light, and a moment later two rapid shots rang out, the sounds echoing deafeningly from the walls of the cavern.

Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland

The mobile phone in a pocket on the spotter’s ghillie suit vibrated—for obvious reasons the ringer was set to silent—and he answered the call by touching a button on his Bluetooth earpiece.

“Yes?”

“Your orders are unchanged. Until we know exactly what these intruders have discovered, we intend only to watch them. However, we will be supplying the additional weapons you requested so that you will be able to act immediately should the situation change. They will be delivered to you within the next half hour or so. I’ll call again when I’ve heard from the courier.”

“Understood.”

“What is the situation now?”

“Also unchanged. The English pair are still inside the
cave, along with the four Italians. We’ve seen and heard nothing since they walked through the waterfall.”

“Good. Keep me informed.”

*   *   *

Mario stared ahead into the darkness, hearing sounds that he couldn’t immediately identify.

He’d swung the flashlight beam around the cavern, and at the instant the light had passed over a crouching figure he swung the flashlight back, raised his pistol, and snapped off two quick shots toward the target. Both had obviously missed.

Then he saw the reason for the noise, the spherical rock rolling down the gully toward him, its speed increasing with every second, and for an instant he just stood there, trying to assess what he was seeing. It didn’t look dangerous. It was just a big rock rolling, and actually rolling fairly slowly, down the slope toward him. He could easily dodge it, just step to one side, so why had the targets set it in motion? Or had they just knocked it as they moved around in the cave and that had started it moving?

And then he moved the flashlight beam to the area in front of the rock, and spotted the gully for the first time. Realization dawned.

The groove in the rock floor that the stone was following ran arrow-straight toward the end of the tunnel where he was standing. It was nowhere near big enough to block the passage, but there was absolutely no doubt in Mario’s mind that the weight of the rock would be more than enough to trip the hidden trigger located at the end of the tunnel.

He took one final glance at the oncoming, and certainly unstoppable, rolling rock, then turned tail and ran back down the tunnel toward the other two men.

*   *   *

Mallory had dived into cover the moment Mario started shooting at him. Both bullets had missed him, one only barely, smashing into a rock less than three feet from him and ricocheting away into the darkness.

Then the Italian’s attention had obviously switched to the oncoming rock, and Mallory had taken the chance to get out of his line of fire, ducking sideways and jogging across to where Robin was waiting. She’d moved as soon as the boulder started to travel down the gully, putting as much distance between herself and the end of the tunnel as she could, because they had no idea what would happen when the rolling rock triggered the device left there by the Templars.

“You okay?” she asked as Mallory appeared beside her. “Both shots missed?”

“One of them came pretty close, but that was all,” Mallory replied.

“Are we safe here?”

“I’ve no idea. All we can do now is wait and hope, but we’re a good distance clear of the tunnel entrance. My guess is the booby trap will be a pit or something like that, which will block the tunnel completely and keep those Italians out of this cavern.”

*   *   *

Toscanelli and Salvatori heard two shots from just in front of them. Both men reacted instantly, dropping the lengths
of timber they were dragging and pulling out their pistols as they stared ahead down the tunnel, their flashlights switched off so as not to make them easy targets.

Moments later, they saw and heard Mario heading toward them, the beam of his flashlight bouncing wildly as he ran.

“Get back!” he yelled.

“What is it?”

“They’ve triggered the booby trap. Used a heavy rock.”

“Did you kill them?” Toscanelli demanded.

“No. I missed. Now we need to get clear.”

*   *   *

A matter of just seconds later the rock, still slowly gathering speed, reached the tunnel entrance and rolled onto the hidden wooden platform. There was a cracking sound as the ancient planks gave under its weight, and then the rock dropped into a shallow cavity that had been dug underneath the floor of the tunnel.

But the boulder didn’t disappear completely, just dropped about a foot below floor level on top of the shattered timbers, because this trap wasn’t a killing pit and didn’t contain spikes or blades to impale an intruder. This trap was something very different.

For roughly a second or two nothing else seemed to happen. Then the cavern filled with an ominous rumbling sound, a noise that quickly became deafening. And then the entire roof of the cave near the tunnel entrance seemed to come apart, rocks crashing and tumbling to the ground as a massive rockslide began.

The whole place seemed to shake with the repeated
impacts of the heavy stones and a tremendous, deafening roaring filled the entire space.

*   *   *

The boulders smashed into the floor of the cavern like a black waterfall of rocks and rubble. Most of them crashed into the area around the tunnel entrance, but the trap had obviously been designed so that some fell into the tunnel as well.

It probably took only a few seconds, but the utterly deafening rumbling and crashing sounds seemed to last for minutes. And when it finally stopped, the entire appearance of the interior of the cave had been irrevocably changed.

Where the tunnel entrance had been was now hidden somewhere under a rock pile, a heap of boulders that in some places reached almost as high as the roof of the cavern. The entire area was shrouded in a cloud of dust created by the falling rocks, giving it a surreal and almost filmic quality in the light from Mallory’s flashlight.

“Bloody hell,” Robin muttered.

*   *   *

“Did you hear that?” the sniper asked.

“I felt it more than heard it but yes, I certainly did. What the hell was it?”

“Could have been a distant explosion. If this was winter, it would most probably have been the sound of an avalanche. But in this valley, at this time of year, my guess is that something’s happened inside that cave. Maybe there was a bit of unstable rock and one of them trod on it and that started a rockslide.”

“Or perhaps it was man-made, an explosion. More than a grenade, obviously, but maybe one of them had some C-4 or Semtex with them and triggered it. That would do it. I’ll call it in.”

The spotter selected the contact number for their employer on his mobile and initiated the call.

“There might have been an explosion in the cave system. We both heard a sound like distant thunder, but we’re pretty sure it came from the ground in front of us.”

“Any visible indications on the surface? Is that Italian watcher still in place?”

“No and yes. The Italian was sitting down on a fallen tree, but now he’s standing up and watching the waterfall through his binoculars, so I guess he felt or heard it as well.”

“Keep watching and contact us as soon as anyone comes out of that cave. The courier with your close-quarter weapons will be with you in about twenty minutes. One of you needs to walk back down the valley to meet him. I’ll text you the grid reference.”

“Copied. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

*   *   *

“Beautifully put,” Mallory said. “I certainly didn’t expect anything like that.”

“I’ll tell you one thing. There’s no way we’re leaving this place the same way we came in. If we leave it at all, that is.”

“Have faith, Robin,” Mallory said, with a confidence that was built almost entirely on hope and faith rather than reason. “I don’t believe for a moment that the
Templars would have trapped themselves in here with no way out. That rock and the groove cut in the floor must mean that they intended to be able to trip the rockslide from within the cave, to protect their assets in the cave if it ever came under attack. So somewhere in this place they must have built an escape route.”

“So all we have to do is find it. And that sounds easy if you say it quickly.”

“Yes. Let’s try to have a proper look around right now to make sure we can get out. Otherwise we’ll have to try shifting those bloody rocks, and that’s not something I want to even think about doing.”

They walked all the way round the cavern, using their flashlights freely now that there was no danger of the Italians interrupting them. The perimeter was rocky and uneven, full of nooks and crannies that at first seemed to suggest the entrance to a narrow tunnel but none of which, as they’d already discovered on their first, hasty inspection just after they’d entered the cave, actually led anywhere.

“It must be somewhere in the tunnel,” Mallory said, sounding uncharacteristically defeatist when they reached the edge of the pile of fallen rock, the farthest point they could search.

He led the way toward the comparatively wide entrance to the tunnel they’d briefly explored already, and where they’d found the wooden chests. They walked side by side along the tunnel, carefully examining every inch of the walls. The sides of the tunnel, although fairly straight, were deeply fissured and cracked, just like the
walls of the cavern, but every opening they saw proved to be a disappointment, extending only a maximum of a few feet, and sometimes only a few inches, into the bedrock around them.

“The only thing I’ve seen,” Mallory said, “is a length of old timber that seems to have been jammed into the rocks on that side of the tunnel about halfway along”—he aimed his flashlight at the object he was talking about—“but I really don’t see what . . .”

He broke off as another thought struck him.

“What is it?” Robin asked.

“Why did they leave the chests here at the end of the tunnel instead of somewhere in the main part of the cavern? If they needed access to them, to get documents out or put others inside, it would make better sense to have them in the cave, where there’s plenty of room. This tunnel is narrow. That’s why they’ve had to pile them up on top of each other. Or at least, I think that’s one reason they’re stacked like that.”

Robin looked at him.

“What are you driving at?” she asked.

“Just thinking out loud, and putting together the way those chests are positioned and that piece of timber on the side wall of the tunnel.”

“You think there’s a connection?” Robin asked.

“Maybe. Yes, maybe there is. Just think about the route we had to follow to get here. The entrance to the cave was invisible because it was behind the waterfall. Then there was the internal waterfall that led to the second chamber, and in there the other entrance was completely hidden by
those heavy timbers and piled-up rocks. We saw one booby trap, and tripped another one, and now we’re standing here at the end of a short tunnel that leads nowhere, looking at a collection of chests.”

“So the cave was very well hidden and protected internally, but isn’t that pretty much what you would have expected?”

“Yes, but it also reminds me of a kind of phased retreat, moving deeper into the mountain. I think that length of timber we saw could well be another—a final—trigger for a last line of defense. Probably another rockfall that would block this tunnel and stop any attackers reaching this end of it, and getting access to the chests.”

“But that would trap the defending Templars at this end, in this tiny space. And we know they weren’t suicidal.”

“Exactly. So I think we’re looking at the way out of here.”

“We are?” Robin demanded. “Where?”

“Hidden in plain sight. We just move the chests and I think we’ll find another tunnel behind them. That’s why they’re piled up like that. They’re hiding the entrance.”