The Templar's Code (24 page)

Are soon parted.
Or dearly departed as the case may be.

Lengthening his stride, Caedmon came abreast of their guide. “According to Dr. Lovett, the treasure consists of a fortune in gold bouillon. Covetous, he might have been, but the man was no fool.”

This time, Tonto Sinclair actually swiveled his head in their direction. For what seemed like an interminable length of time, he silently scrutinized them. While Edie knew it was impossible, it felt like the Indian was peering into her very soul.

“There is no gold bouillon.”

Hearing that, Edie’s jaw dropped. “So why did you
purposefully
mislead Jason Lovett into thinking there was a monetary treasure trove buried in Arcadia?”

The question got their guide’s attention. Sinclair came to a complete standstill.

“For five hundred years the white man has fucked my people.” The Indian’s voice lowered to a guttural rumble. “I needed the scrawny shit to help me find Yawgoog’s treasure. It’s called payback.”

Edie turned to Caedmon, bewildered. “Am I missing something?”

“Indeed, Mister Sinclair’s remark begs the question, what exactly is Yawgoog’s treasure?”

The begged question elicited another drawn-out silence.

“Yawgoog entrusted my people with his sacred stone,” Sinclair said at last. “That’s the treasure.”

What?
Edie shook her head, wondering if she had heard correctly.

“A stone . . . how curious.” Caedmon didn’t seem the least bit surprised. Or even disappointed for that matter.

“Earlier today we found a carved stone with a Templar Beauséant,” Edie said, still grappling with the notion that someone just tried to kill them because of a rock. “I thought
that
was Yawgoog’s Stone.”

Sinclair shook his head. “That’s what I told Jason Lovett, but that’s not Yawgoog’s sacred stone. Before Yawgoog died, he entrusted his sacred stone to the Narragansett. And we did a pretty damned good job of minding the store—until the white man showed up and stole it from us.”

Given the way Tonto glared at them, Edie had the unnerving feeling that he was personally holding them accountable for the centuries-old theft.

“You know, a description of this stone would be nice,” she shot back, peeved. “Are we talking about your garden-variety rock? Or some kind of polished pebble?”

“According to the legends of my people, the sacred stone is the size of a flat grinding mortar.” Moving his hands slightly, Tonto indicated dimensions comparable to a large dictionary.

Which meant that Yawgoog’s Stone would have perfectly fit into the empty niche that she and Caedmon discovered in the Templar sanctuary.

“Because we failed to keep our promise to Yawgoog, the Narragansett paid with their blood. And will continue to pay until the sacred stone is returned to us.” Sinclair took a menacing step in their direction, his scowl deepening. “So I’m only going to ask you this one time: Did you find the sacred stone?”

The air fairly crackled with hostile intent. Edie fearfully glanced at Caedmon, wondering if he was aware that the finger emblazoned with a blue
O
now hovered over the trigger.

“We did not find the sacred stone. Although you may be interested to know that we discovered Yawgoog’s cave, the entrance of which is located behind the falls that course over the stone bridge. The cave, however, was empty,” Caedmon quickly clarified. “That said, do exercise caution if you’re of a mind to explore. There are deadly traps concealed throughout.”

“Thanks for the update. Guess that means I won’t be shooting the two of you in the head and burying the bodies in a shallow grave.” One side of Sinclair’s mouth twitched. The ghost of a very sick smile. Turning his back on them, he continued walking.

“Disappointed does not even begin to explain how I feel right now,” Edie hissed in a lowered voice. “In the last two minutes, we’ve gone from a treasure worth a hundred billion dollars to a simple stone.”

“A
sacred
stone,” Caedmon quietly emphasized. “And I doubt there is anything simple about it. Several hundred Templar descendants were massacred on account of this stone. Moreover, the sacred stone may have led to their forbears’ demise at the hands of the Inquisition.”

“Do you think Rico Suave knows that the fabled Templar treasure trove is just an old stone?”

“A
sacred
stone,” he again reiterated. “And I have no idea what our assailant knows or doesn’t know.”

“You keep using the word
sacred.
Do you mean sacred like the Ten Commandments?” she asked, wondering why he kept harping on that particular attribute.

“Possibly.” No sooner did he say it than Caedmon shook his head. “While the Ten Commandments were carved onto stone tablets, Sinclair is adamant that Yawgoog had only one stone, not two.”

“And what about Sir Walter Ralegh? Still convinced he took Yawgoog’s Stone to London?”

“Oh, yes,” he quietly avowed, blue eyes glimmering.

“I noticed you didn’t volunteer
that
tidbit to our gun-toting guide.”

“While the purpose of Yawgoog’s sacred stone is still a mystery, any number of men have killed to possess it.”

A dire thought. One that she preferred
not
to dwell on. Luckily, they had strict gun laws in the United Kingdom.

Up ahead, Edie caught sight of a beat-up truck. The blue jalopy had to have been at least thirty years old. And, no surprise, there was a gun rack mounted to the back window.

Caedmon caught up to their guide. “Our vehicle is parked near the eastern border of the wilderness area,” he said, diplomatically requesting a lift.

“Somebody slashed the tires on your little piece of Japanese crap.”

Edie groaned. She had a pretty good idea who wielded the knife.

“Not entirely unexpected,” Caedmon said calmly, taking the news in stride. “I’ll need to get some items out of the boot.” He cleared his throat, giving Sinclair ample opportunity to offer them a ride. When no invitation was forthcoming, Caedmon, a tight smile on his lips, said, “Would it be too much of an inconvenience to drive Miss Miller and me to the airport at Providence?”

Sinclair pulled his car keys out his pocket. “You paying for the gas?”

A total butt-fuck!

Sobbing, barely able to pull breath into his lungs, Saviour collapsed on the ground, the tinder-dry foliage crunching beneath him.

Deeply humiliated, he hugged his knees and rocked back and forth. Still able to smell the smoldering nylon jacket that he’d flung aside.
Uncomprehending
. He’d been on the verge of taking down his quarry when the wounded animal reared up and . . . and the
boutso gliftie,
the cocksucker, nearly set him ablaze. And while he flapped about like a bird on fire, the Brit and his woman escaped. The two of them jumping into the river.

Angry tears scorching his cheeks, Saviour gave vent to his rage.
Kologameio!
He pounded the leaf-strewn soil with his balled fist. A moment later, he gulped a deep breath. Then another.

Focus
.

He needed to check his emotions at the door and focus.

Christos! There is no door!
He was in the dark forest. A forest that reeked of cedar and wild olives.
No!
That was another forest. On the island of Panos. He’d been so scared. So certain that once Evangelos Danielides’s arrow-riddled body was discovered, the servants would set the Argentine mastiffs loose on him. Terrified, he ran from the archery range and took refuge in the forest that bordered the villa. He hiked through the cedar and wild olive groves to the service dock on the far side of the island. Where the supplies were weekly delivered on a motor launch from the mainland. Evangelos’s Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes. Crates of Ouzo. Feta. Tomatoes. Fresh octopus and slabs of tuna.
A godsend!
He could sneak on board. He didn’t care where the vessel was headed. It didn’t matter.
Somehow
he would find his way to Thessaloniki.

It took a week of blow jobs and picking pockets on the docks of Piraeus before he could purchase a train ticket.

Afraid he would be hunted for Evangelos Danielides’s murder, he’d kept to the shadows. He became so skittish that he’d physically lurch when he heard a siren or a police whistle. Even a barking dog. To his surprise, there was no mention of the murder in the Greek newspapers. Although he read that an elaborate funeral was held in Athens, the cause of death officially reported as cardiac arrest. A cover-up. He didn’t even shoot the bastard in the heart. Obviously, the powerful Danielides family didn’t want their son’s predilections made public. Nonetheless, he feared that same powerful family would seek revenge for the murder of their only son.

Like a fugitive on the run, Saviour spent his nights roaming the Leoforos Nikis for quick pickups and hiding out in Thessaloniki’s churches during the daylight hours. The last place the guns hired by the Danielides family would look for him. As though it were fated, at the Agía Sophía, the Church of Holy Wisdom, he met
his
savior, the man who would alter the course of his life in a profound and wondrous way.

A beautiful memory.

Revived somewhat, he used his sweater sleeve to dry his face. He had to get a grip. Another American phrase. Shoving himself upright, he walked over to the stone slab where the English
boutso gliftie
and his bitch had held court before the attack. In a hurry to escape, they left one of their packs. As well as a small laptop computer.

What are they doing with a computer?
he wondered, struck by the oddity of seeing a high-tech device in the middle of the dark forest. He picked up the computer and, with the tap of a finger, took it out of hibernation mode.

There on the screen was a reservation confirmation: airline tickets for two to London, including a three-night stay at the St. Martin’s Lane Hotel.

Overjoyed, he threw back his head and merrily laughed aloud.

“A first brain! The Englishman is
vlakas,
I tell you! An
archimalakas!
The chief of assholes!”

While Mercurius could not say whether Caedmon Aisquith merited the damning praise that Sherlock Holmes had heaped upon his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, it was obvious that the man was no idiot. Far from it.

“Do you want me to go to London?”

“And confront the powers of darkness?” he countered, injecting a touch of humor into his voice.

“You often tell me to look to the Light.”

“So I do,” he murmured.

Faced with a conundrum, Mercurius said, “Let me think on this,
amoretto
. I will call you back in a few minutes.”

Hanging up the telephone, Mercurius wandered into the kitchen.

For sixty years, he’d been haunted by the parting remarks of his father, Osman de Léon, and his milk brother, Moshe Benaroya. And because he’d been haunted, when he was sixty-five years of age, he
finally
returned to the city of his birth, Thessaloniki. To confront the horror of that spring night when the Nazis loaded the two men onto a train bound for Auschwitz.

From the grungy window of the airport taxi, he’d caught his first glimpse of the city, disappointed to see that it had changed greatly in the intervening years. Where once there had been graceful cypress trees, there were now garish billboards that advertised everything from yogurt to motorcycles. And blocks of hideous postwar apartment buildings. To someone who’d grown up with the lavish architecture of the fin de siècle, it seemed relentlessly dreary.