The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (42 page)

Thinking of her mother, Anala envisioned her dressed in a cotton sari, carrying
a plateful of flowers – jasmine, hibiscus and pavizhamalli, her favorite night flower. When she was a young child, her mother had explained to her that plants and flowers had a special energy that could express the contents of one’s heart.

Such a lovely memory.

Overcome with emotion, Anala sniffled loudly, causing those bits and bobs of memory to scatter like frightened tadpoles.

There are so many things that I need to ask my mother. So many things that I should have said but didn’t.

Since she had no flowers to give to her mother to convey what was in her heart, Anala pulled her hands close together, moving her thumbs over an imaginary keypad. Knowing how Gita loathed emoticons and anything that smacked of an abbreviation or acronym, she ‘typed’ out the message in its entirety. Even going so far as to include proper punctuation. While the digital device was a figment of her imagination, the sentiment of the message had never been so keenly felt.

‘
I love you, Amma.
’

Tears puddling at the corners of her eyes, Anala hit the
‘Send’ button.

Paris, France

0445h

Caedmon raised the ceiling hatch. ‘Tread gently,’ he cautioned. ‘We don’t want to awaken the occupants below.’

Who would undoubtedly freak out if they thought there were two
burglars prowling on the apartment rooftop
, Edie mused. A case of mistaken identity to be sure. But try telling that to the Paris Metropolitan police.

While they weren’t looters with sacks full of plunder, she and
Caedmon were trying to make a getaway, the roof the only point of egress where they could exit the apartment building undetected. Hector Calzada and his sullen-faced sidekick had been keeping a vigilant eye on the building entrance since they’d returned from St Germain-des-Prés, taking turns manning the courtyard below.

Edie held on to the steel service ladder anchored into the wall of the upper-story hallway as she popped her head through the hatch opening. Above her, the stars in the night sky twinkled in the firmament. Almost immediately the celestial lights induced an onslaught of vertigo, the stars appearing to spin like tops on steroids.

Buck up! It’s just an illusion.

‘All in my mind,’ Edie murmured to herself, repeating the ‘buck up’ mantra a few more times to stiffen her resolve.

Mentally shoving her anxiety aside, she scrambled through the opening. Too much was at stake for her to suffer a panic attack. She’d trekked in the Himalayas, scaled climbing walls and even hiked to Machu Piccu without incident. However, there was something about being on top of a building that always gave her the heebie-jeebies. Why rooftops should prompt such extreme anxiety, she had no idea. Rooftop entertaining was popular in Washington DC and she’d had to give a stammering excuse to more than one hostess when she’d been forced to make an abrupt party exit, having succumbed to severe vertigo.

Other than bulky vents and one or two skylights, there was nothing of interest on the rooftop. Farther afield,
the lights of Paris gleamed. A million plus glow-worms illuminating the urban landscape. Although Edie knew that it wasn’t physically possible, it
felt
like every hair follicle on her body was standing on end. She swayed slightly, her heart racing.

‘Are you all right, love?’ Knowing that she suffered from vertigo,
Caedmon solicitously grasped her by the elbow.

‘I’m fine.’ Edie shot him a shaky smile . . . even as she envisioned herself plunging off the side of the apartment building. She was, as the saying went, whistling in the graveyard. Trying desperately to keep the ghosts at bay.

Caedmon’s brows drew together, the man seeing right through her false bravado. ‘Don’t look down.’

‘Or up,’ she murmured, both inducing a spinning sensation. Looking straight ahead, s
he concentrated on her breathing. The only thing she had even a remote chance of controlling.

Several moments passed, her heartbeat finally slowing to a more normal rate.

Okay. I can do this. Piece of cake.

Resolve bolstered,
Edie shifted the strap on the black rucksack a bit higher on her shoulder; it contained her iPad, mobile phone, passport, wallet, a change of clothes and some basic toiletries. From St Germain-des Prés, they were going straight to Charles de Gaulle airport, having booked two seats on the first nonstop flight to New York City.

Wordlessly,
Caedmon gestured to the Romanesque spire visible in the distance – the St Germain-des-Prés bell tower – indicating that it was time to depart.

Sidestepping the skylights, they made their way to the far side of the roof where there was a metal scaffold, approximately seven feet long and three feet wide, parked against the exterior wall of the building.
Caedmon had spotted the mechanical platform earlier in the day when they’d returned from the church. The work crew that had been contracted to install new wrought-iron balconies was using the scaffold to transport men, equipment and materials up and down the six-story building.

‘
Mind your step,’ Caedmon warned as he swung a leg over the side of the steel carriage. There was no need to add the obvious – that a misstep could have fatal consequences.

Edie took hold of his outstretched hand, allowing him to assist her from roof to carriage. ‘
Kinda daring, don’t you think?’

‘
No more daring than scaling the tower at Ponferrada Castle.’

‘Yeah, and as I recall, you took quite a tumble. Scared me witless.’

‘An unforeseen accident,’ Caedmon muttered as he crouched in front of a locked metal box. Prying a screwdriver under the cover, he popped it open, exposing a simple control panel.

‘
Ready to set sail?’

Edie nodded, not bothering to point out that s
hips were safer when anchored in the port. But that, of course, wasn’t why they were built.

‘Let’s hope the bark floats,’
Caedmon said as he pressed the ‘ON’ switch.

The platform jerked
violently.

Edie clutched the steel safety bar. ‘
Or at least doesn’t sink too swiftly,’ she murmured.

Hit with another wave of dizziness, she closed her eyes, forcing herself to think about something –
anything
– other than the fact that the moonlit rooftops had started to careen wildly. Instead, she thought about the
Evangelium Gaspar
and a teenage Yeshua bar Yosef setting out to see the world on what would prove to be an eighteen-year spiritual odyssey.
To boldly go where no one had gone before.

Although she’d been initially stunned by the gospel, now that she’d had time to reflect, the
idea, somehow, seemed
right.
Jesus was, after all, a mortal human being, endowed with a curiosity about the world. Would such a gifted individual have been content to spend his youth in the backwaters of Galilee? Because he travelled to foreign lands during those eighteen ‘Lost Years’ to study other religions, she believed that it made him the wise and compassionate man that he came to be when, at the age of thirty, he began his ministry. Obviously, he was secure enough in his own faith to respectfully study other spiritual beliefs. Jesus, the mortal man, was a seeker of the truth who knew that God dwelled in every corner of the universe.

Opening her eyes, Edie glanced at
Caedmon who stood, legs braced wide apart, in front of the control panel, ready to hit the ‘OFF’ button before the slow-moving platform reached the ground level.

‘I trust the vertigo has dissipated,’
Caedmon said as the steel carriage came to a shuddering stop several inches above the pavement.

Relieved to be on
terra firma
,
Edie gave a thumbs-up. ‘I’m made of sterner stuff,’ she informed him with a self-deprecating chuckle.

‘You are at that.’ Taking her by the arm, he helped her to scramble over the safety bars.

For several moments they stood side-by-side, two shadowy figures on the narrow cobbled lane.

Caedmon
glanced over at her, blue eyes glittering. ‘Ready?’

Bolstered by the knowledge that the hard part was done,
Edie nodded gamely. ‘All set.’

‘
Right, then. We’re off to the crusades.’

‘
Where the hell have you been?’ Javier Aveles hissed, shooting Hector an accusing glare as he entered the courtyard.

‘
Who are you, my old lady? I took a pussy break. Try it some time, amigo.’ Peering up at Aisquith’s flat, Hector saw a faint golden light shining in the window. ‘Any movement?’

Javier shook his head.
‘Not recently. They were up and moving for a while, but –’ his lips turned down at the corners as he shrugged expressively – ‘I’m thinking they hit the sack.’

‘
So, why didn’t they turn off the light?’ Hector wondered aloud, suddenly suspicious. As he’d painfully, and humiliatingly, discovered, Caedmon Aisquith was a crafty fucker.

The skin on the back of
Hector’s neck prickled as he remembered what happened at Santiago de Compostela.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this
.

Suddenly suspicious, he
strode into the apartment building. A few moments later, he exited the creaky elevator, stormed down the corridor and kicked in the door of Aisquith’s flat.

It took only a few seconds to verify that the Englishman and his bitch had
escaped the premises.

Fuck! I leave Javier alone for two hours and this is what happens!

Enraged, Hector fought a very strong urge to set Aisquith’s flat on fire. Light up one of the thousands of books and torch the place to the ground. Like blood, fire was a cleansing balm.

But first I have to track down the English cabrón.

According to Javier, earlier in the day Aisquith and his bitch had spent a lengthy amount of time at a nearby church.

What do you wanna bet that’s where they’re at?

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a gun on him. But he had a very sharp blade. Sharp enough to cut through the silver thread that tethered the English fucker to the earth. Hector’s homeboys back in Spanish Harlem used to always say that he was like a pit bull bred for the ring. A beast that kept fighting until it drew its last breath.

As you, English,
will soon find out.

Caedmon
and Edie quickly wended their way along the cobblestone alleys and narrow lanes that were tucked behind looming seventeenth-century buildings. A hidden section of the St Germain-des-Prés neighborhood, it was a slice of old Paris, the district inundated with antique shops, art galleries and intimate bistros. All were closed, the windows shuttered, daybreak still an hour away. A few minutes ago, they’d passed a fruit vendor unloading crates of fresh produce from a truck. Other than the lone peddler, the streets were deserted.

As they emerged from a covered alleyway, the street
lamps shed a soft light that shrouded the enclave, dividing it into areas of hazy illumination and inky pools of dark shadow. He and Edie hugged the latter. Should they encounter an inquisitive passer-by, he didn’t want anyone to be able to later identify them. They were, after all, en route to pinch a 2000-year-old gospel from the oldest church in Paris. Stealing antiquities was a criminal offence, one that would unquestionably be punished to the full extent of French law should they be caught. A lengthy prison term was a given.

On their guard, they approached the small courtyard that was adjacent to the church
. The garden was illuminated by a twenty-foot-high street lamp that bathed the entire area in incriminating light – including the Gothic arches of the destroyed chapel.

Damn.

‘I didn’t anticipate the street lamp,’ Caedmon muttered as he opened the courtyard gate, the hinges squealing harshly. Swiveling his head from side-to-side, he surveyed the area, checking to make sure that no vagrants lurked. Satisfied, he gave the all-clear. ‘
No hay Moros en la costa.
’

Edie shot him a quizzical glance.
‘
Que?
’

‘“
There are no Moors on the coast,”’ he translated. ‘It’s the Spanish version of “the coast is clear”.’

Peering upward, Edie gnawed on her lower lip.
‘The lamp could be a problem. Particularly if someone walks past the courtyard while we’re removing the plate,’ she whispered, glaring at the street lamp as though it were an intruding Cyclops, a circle-eyed member of that ancient race of primordial giants.

‘I agree
.’ Annoyed by the unforeseen hitch, Caedmon bent at the waist and retrieved a good-sized stone from the ground. Jack-knifing into an upright stance, he bit back a grunt, his bruised ribs protesting the motion. Stone in hand, he took aim and sent the rock hurling through the air.