The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (36 page)

‘I’m jealous. They obviously know where they’re going,’ she muttered good-naturedly. ‘Not like some of –’

Hearing a car engine, she stopped in her tracks.
My prince has come!
Bursting with excitement, Anala stepped out into the middle of the lane and waved her arms madly.

‘Help me! Help me!’ she hollered as the vehicle approached.

The white SUV swerved to one side to avoid hitting her, the driver slamming on the brakes. Anala ran towards the SUV, noting with great surprise that there were New York State plates affixed to the back of the vehicle.
Blimey!
It had never occurred to her that she’d been spirited to the United States.

The driver’s side window slid down. A handsome middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper gr
ay hair gaped at her in wide-eyed astonishment.

Anala leaned towards the open car window. ‘Can you please help me, sir? I . . . I’ve been kidnapped . . . and against all odds, I . . . I’ve managed to escape my captors,’ she blurted haltingly, not wanting to unduly alarm him. ‘If you could take me to the authorities, I’d be ever so grateful.’

Clearly shell-shocked, the man nodded jerkily, leaning over to unlock the passenger side door.

Kind stranger, indeed!

Anala scrambled into the passenger seat, somewhat taken aback that the man behind the wheel was dressed in black clerical garb.

Having yet to find his vocal cords, he handed her a bottle of water.

‘Bless you.’ No sooner did she utter those words than Anala giggled, succumbing to a bout of giddiness. ‘That’s what you’re supposed to say to me, isn’t it?’

As he turned into a tree-lined driveway, the clergyman smiled wordlessly at her.

Peering anxiously through the windshield, Anala sighted a majestic stone mansion on the knoll. An estate right out of America’s gilded age, it boasted numerous turrets, gables and arched walkways.

The clergyman pulled the SUV up in front of a six-bay coach house. Like the nearby mansion, it was constructed of stone. No sooner did he turn off the ignition than Anala heard the patter of shoe leather crunching on gravel. Within seconds her car door was yanked open and she was forcibly dragged from the vehicle.

‘Hey! What are you doing?’

The boom crashed to the deck so quickly, Anala could barely process the fact that it was one of her guards who now held her in a vice-like grip, her arms pinned behind her back.

‘Take Miss Patel to the old root cellar at the caretaker’s cottage,’ the driver instructed.

Anala immediately recognized the clergyman’s voice.
It was G-Dog!

Hammered with a burst of fear, she bucked and writhed, trying, without success, to break free. In mid-struggle, she felt a stab of pain in her bicep. Turning her head, Anala saw a hypodermic needle protruding from her arm.

‘Please forgive me,’ G-Dog murmured before he turned his back and headed towards the stone mansion.

‘You heartless bastard! I hope you rot in –’

In the next instant, the ship went down, quickly sinking into a cold, dark sea.

Sanguis Christi Fellowship, Dutchess County, New York

‘
Keep her alive until the third plate has been recovered.’

‘I’m not questioning your wisdom in this matter, Your
Eminence, but . . . is it really necessary to –’

‘Yes, it is absolutely necessary,’ Cardinal Fiorio interjected with a
testy edge to his voice. ‘Grácion, surely you know that you are doing God’s work? More importantly, it’s your sacred duty to protect our Holy Mother Church from the heretics bent on destroying her. And you have my word, you
will
be amply rewarded. Keep me informed of any further developments.’

Hearing a dull click on the other end of the line, Gracián
Santos replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle.

If I am truly
doing God’s work, why does it feel like I’m the Devil’s right-hand man?

The Cardinal had even gone as far as to suggest that
since Anala Patel was a Hindu pagan, her abduction – and Gracián assumed her subsequent death – would not be considered a mortal sin. When Cardinal Fiorio first broached the subject of retrieving the gospel, there’d been no mention of killing anyone. But now that Anala Patel had escaped and knew about the Sanguis Christi Fellowship, she had to be executed. And the Englishman as well.

Gracián
had no idea what
was contained in the ancient gospel.
But whatever it was, did it justify all of this bloodshed and brutality?

Deeply troubled by the situation, Gracián got up from his desk and walked over to the diamond-patterned window, his gait sluggish as though each foot was weighted with a guilt-laden brick.

Standing sentry, he watched as the Fellowship SUV pulled up to the stone porte cochère, Jacko Maciel jumping out of the back seat and rushing into Mercy Hall. Gracián had ordered Jacko and the other two Diablos who’d been guarding the Patel woman to drive to the Catskills and join the others at the Catholic retreat. He didn’t want their souls to be stained crimson red.

‘Yo, G-Dog, wassup?’ Jacko warmly greeted as he stepped into the office. ‘I thought I’d drop off the mail before we hit the road.’

Gracián took the small bundle of envelopes. ‘Thank you, Jacko.’ Thinking it better
not
to mention ‘what was up’, he forced his lips into a semblance of a smile and said, ‘Drive safely and have a good trip. May the Lord bless and keep you.’

‘You too, Father G,’ the young man replied, clearly excited about the road trip.

Sending Jacko on his way with a pat on the shoulder, Gracián walked back to his desk, the bundled mail clutched in his hand. The envelope on top was from the First New York Loan and Trust Bank. Over the last two years, he’d received so many demands for payment from the bank that he was now immune to the shock.

Dispirited, Gracián tossed the bundle into his in-basket and left the office, making his way down a lavishly appointed corridor that displayed all the exuberance of the late-Victorian period. Originally a Women’s College, Mercy Hall had catered to daughters of the wealthy elite, the building certainly worthy of their privileged progeny.

Stepping into the main lobby, an expansive area with dark-stained wall panels, richly carved columns and a massive oak staircase with an oriental stair runner, Gracián was unnerved by the silence. Somehow it made the flamboyant lobby seem strangely forlorn.

That was when it occurred to him that, f
or the first time in years, he was completely alone. Even in prison, he’d always had a cellmate.

Hoping that some fresh air would clear his turbulent thoughts and give him some much needed clarity, he exited the lobby. He then hurried across the crushed stone driveway to the porte cochère where his golf cart was parked. A few moments later, he was navigating the electric golf cart across the undulating fields behind Mercy Hall, careful to steer clear of the occasional rock outcropping. The terrain on the western end of the property was particularly wild and overgrown.

Cresting a small hillock, he braked to a stop. For several moments, he admired the lovely view. This was the Promised Land. A bucolic paradise where scarred youths received the necessary education and job skills to live productive lives. Unlike other priests who would never know the happiness of being a father, Gracián had one hundred and fifty teens in his care. Not only did he love and cherish them unconditionally, but he would do anything to protect them from the violence that lurked beyond this safe sanctuary.

He had just never dared to imagine
that ‘anything’ would include murder and mayhem.

I thought I’d left that life behind me.

Awash with guilt, he stared at the abandoned caretaker’s cottage that was nestled in a small grove of oak and maple. In a derelict state, the two-story abode was covered in bindweed with many broken window panes. Approximately twenty meters from the ramshackle cottage, there was an underground root cellar that had once been used to store vegetables and salted meat. The underground storage cellar was entered through a trapdoor which had earlier been secured with a new padlock.

This time there will be no escape.

Ever since Anala Patel had arrived at the Fellowship, he’d repeatedly reminded himself that he mustn’t feel any compassion for her. She was a Hindu who’d willfully chosen to worship a false god –
no, a hundred gods! –
the Hindu religion inundated with devas, deities and avatars. Because of her chosen religion, Anala Patel was hell-bound.

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus
.

There is no salvation outside of the Church.

Gracián stared at the root cellar, the padlock on the trap door glimmering in the summer sun.

‘
Keep her alive until the third plate has been recovered
.’

‘
How can I kill her?’ he whispered, overcome with a dread fear.

Turning his head, Gracián gazed at Mercy Hall – his City
upon a Hill – the massive building dominating the skyline on the eastern knoll. One hundred and fifty young people
completely
depended on him to take care of them. And he could only do that if he repaid the bank loan.

His gaze returned to the root cellar.

How can I not kill her?

Compostela, Spain

Javier
Aveles toggled his semi-automatic pistol. ‘Don’t either of you fuck with me!’

‘
The field is yours,’ Caedmon grated harshly, not about to test the other man’s resolve. Although he could hear police sirens blaring in the distance, he suspected that wouldn’t stop Aveles from pulling the trigger.

Edie, her earlier shock at being waylaid by
Aveles having morphed into weary dejection, sagged against the car seat.

Christ!
The entire time that they were at the cathedral, Caedmon had arrogantly presumed that he was pulling the wool over Hector Calzada’s eyes when he and Edie were the ones being duped. Perhaps it was due to mental exhaustion, but he’d never considered the possibility that the third bandito would arrive in Spain; a replacement for Diaz. And because he’d not taken that possibility into account, they’d been caught with their knickers down.

Demoralized, an abject sense
of failure now clung to him. Despite the fact that he was seated in a parked car, he felt as though he were falling. Into a deep, inky-black pit patrolled by feral, phantasmagoric creatures. The sort of snarling beasts that inhabited a Schongauer print.

He
glanced at his watch.
Shite!
They’d squandered too many hours. With absolutely nothing to show for it.

‘We have airline reservations,’ he said abruptly, meeting Aveles’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. ‘If you want the third plate, you must allow us to catch our –’

Just then Aveles’s mobile phone rang, the ring tone a ridiculously jaunty mariachi tune. Keeping the semi-automatic trained on them, he removed the phone from his breast pocket and flipped it open.

‘
It’s for you,’ he said a few seconds later, handing Caedmon the mobile.

Assuming it was G-Dog,
Caedmon got right to it. ‘This delay is intolerable,’ he said. ‘I’m booked on the next flight out of Compostela. If you want me to find the third plate, I need to be on that plane
.
’

‘
You have an impolite manner, Mr. Aisquith. Whatever happened to English civility?’

H
earing an unfamiliar voice, Caedmon frowned. Although he couldn’t be completely certain, he assumed that he was speaking to Cardinal Franco Fiorio, the self-styled ‘Irenaeus’ and the prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives.

‘
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,’ Caedmon retorted. ‘Is that more to your liking, Irenaeus?’

‘S
uch a droll sense of humor.’

‘
I’m not here to amuse you; I’m here to find your bloody gospel. Assuming that we’re to be released from armed custody.’

‘
Given that you purposefully misled my associates, I can only conclude that you have designs on the third plate,’ Irenaeus was quick to accuse.

You red-caped bastard! Do you think I’d actually sacrifice my own daughter for a blasted copper plate?

Tamping down his anger, Caedmon said, ‘I have absolutely no intention of keeping the third plate.’

‘Your avowal pleases me no end. So
where is it?’ the other man demanded to know.

‘“The virgin in the bishop’s meadow” was the encrypted clue that was carved on to the Tau stone. From that, I have deduced that t
he third plate is located in Paris in “the bishop’s meadow”,’ Caedmon readily confessed, there being no advantage in telling a lie.

‘
I’ve been to Paris and so I happen to know that there are precious few meadows.’