The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (48 page)

Unnerved, Edie glanced at her wristwatch, a chunky digital sports edition with a lime-green band. Equipped with more functions than she required – as if she’d ever need to know the altitude – the only thing her snazzy timepiece couldn’t do was tell her if
Caedmon was safe. Or if he’d found Anala alive and well.

Please, God, please.

‘I don’t think he could bear it if –’

She clamped her mouth shut,
unwilling to think let alone articulate that dire scenario. It was one of those dark thoughts that you didn’t want to casually toss out into the universe for fear someone might actually be listening. Earlier, during the drive from Rhinecliff, she’d asked Caedmon about Anala. Studiously avoiding her gaze, he’d mumbled something indecipherable. The way in which he’d sullenly turned inward had put Edie in mind of a great wounded bear lumbering off to its den.

And yet he was willing to risk life and limb to save the daughter he’d never met.

Never good at hand-wringing, she folded her arms over her chest. A few seconds later, a blurred flash of motion snagged on the edge of her peripheral vision. Turning her head, Edie saw a black-clad priest scurrying across the expansive yard.

Father Gracián Santos!

She gasped in surprise, pressing herself closer to the giant maple as she surreptitiously observed the dastardly dog disappear into Mercy Hall. Her fingers dug into the tree bark.
He’s plotting a deadly ambush.
What other reason could there be for the priest having earlier vanished into thin air?

Shuddering, Edie shot a quick glance at the dense foliage at the bottom of the hillside.

Come on, Caedmon! You need to hurry up and find –

Suddenly hearing a car engine, she peered around the gnarled bole. In stunned disbelief, she watched as a white SUV roared down the driveway, the driver stopping in front of Mercy Hall’s massive stone porch. Disbelief immediately mutated into dread shock when the three banditos – Hector Calzada, Javier Aveles and Roberto Diaz – jumped out of the parked vehicle. Broadly smiling, Calzada then assisted a short, balding man garbed in a black cassock from the back passenger seat.

‘It’s Cardinal Franco Fiorio!’ Edie croaked on a serrated breath. Unclipping her mobile phone, she hit the speed dial to warn Caedmon.

Getting nothing but dead air, she hurriedly redialed.

No! No! No!

Seized with an explosive burst of fear, she stared at the phone in utter disbelief.

There’s no mobile phone service!

The devil at his back,
Caedmon ran through the tall sweep of grass towards the dilapidated stone cottage. To one side of the abandoned house there was a low-lying fieldstone enclosure that was overgrown with weeds and the odd sapling. On the opposite end, a forlorn, rusted-out truck was parked under a metal lean-to, the structure completely covered in a tatter of tangled vines. By all appearances, the ramshackle cottage had been tenantless for a number of years.

He pulled up short, p
anting heavily as he swiped the back of his hand across his beaded brow, each ragged breath drawn from a heavy curtain of ozone-infused air. A violent tempest was on the way, gray clouds storm-trooping across the horizon.

So where’s the sodding root cellar?
Was it inside the cottage or was it a separate –

‘There it is!’ he rasped, espying a trapdoor h
alf hidden in sward of field grass and wild bramble, approximately twenty meters from the cottage.

Still huffing madly, his muscles burning with pain, he charged forward.
Worse for wear, as they say.

Seeing the sturdy padlock on the top of the trapdoor,
Caedmon set down the shotgun and snatched the fire axe that dangled from his waist pack; grateful now that he’d had the foresight to pinch it. Going down on bent knee, he put his mouth close to the narrow crack that separated the two sides of the trapdoor.

‘Anala! Are you in there?’

The query met with a weighty silence.

Fear instantly
ballooned, on the verge of bursting with a deafening
pop!
He didn’t want to consider the worst-case scenario. But given that there’d been no reply, what else was he to think?

S
eized with a fierce urgency, Caedmon began to chop at the weathered planks of wood, chunks and chips arcing through the air. His bruised ribs protested each and every swing as he hacked and clawed with a feral resolve. Although he was on the verge of full-blown panic –
Why didn’t she answer me!? –
he stayed focused. If he lost his concentration for even a split-second, it could prove disastrous. It was a
very
sharp blade.

The relentless chopping paid off,
Caedmon soon able to rip away enough wooden slats to create a large opening. From his side of the breach, he could see that there were four crudely carved stone steps that led into a dark and dank cellar.

Silent as the grave.

Anguish ripped at Caedmon’s throat, before sinking its talons into the sinews of his heart.

Fumbling with his
waist pack, he removed a small flashlight. He quickly flipped it on and shone it into the dark depths. Unable to see anything other than cobwebbed shelving, he took a deep breath . . . braced for the worst . . . and stepped into the subterranean pit.

In the far corner of the cellar his torch beam landed on a mound; a body curled in the fetal position, back turned to him.

Gasping, Caedmon rushed forward and knelt beside the unmoving body. His hand shook as he rolled Anala towards him. Despite the fact that her clothing was filthy and there were brambles in her hair and dirty smudges on her cheeks, he instantly recognized her from the photograph that Gita had given to him.

Just as he was about to check for a pulse, she opened her eyes.

She’s alive!

A giddy
tsunami of relief crashed over him.

‘Piss off, you prick!’ she rasped in a weakened voice; down but by no means out.

Taken aback by the rude welcome, Caedmon’s jaw slackened, Anala Patel having succinctly delivered a defiant jab. For some inexplicable reason, her spirited reply pleased him immensely.

Still glaring at him, she muttered, ‘Can’t a body die in peace?’

The sullen addendum caused Caedmon’s heart muscle to painfully constrict.

‘There’s no need for alarm,’ he hastened to assure Anala, his voice sounding unnaturally gruff. ‘My name’s
Caedmon Aisquith. Your mother, Gita, sent me to find you.’ He purposefully mentioned Gita’s name, hoping it would convince Anala of his honorable intentions.

Moaning softly, she levered her torso off the ground so that she could better see his face. ‘The priest told me that you’re . . . is it true?’ B
lue eyes, identical in color to his own, stared, unblinking, as she waited for his reply.

Caedmon
assumed that she was asking, albeit in a rather butchered fashion, if he was her biological parent.

He nodded. ‘Yes, Anala. I’m your father.’ Those three simple words – ‘
I’m your father
’
–
incited an emotional insurgence. One that he was wholly unprepared for.

As their gazes locked, he fought to keep his emotions in check.

The disheveled young woman mewled softly.
She’s as lost in the swirl of emotion as I am
,
Caedmon realized belatedly. As though to prove the point, a translucent tear meandered down Anala’s grimy cheeks. She looked like a street urchin who’d just wandered out of a Dickens novel. His larynx instantly tightened.

Is this what’s meant by having one’s heart in one’s throat?

Having been so focused on finding her, he’d given no thought to what he would do or say once they finally came face-to-face.

Bloody hell.

The battle lost, Caedmon said nothing as he gently pulled Anala to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. She briefly resisted before collapsing against him, sobbing noisily. He suspected the opened floodgate had more to do with the realization that she’d survived her horrendous abduction than the fact that she’d just met a heretofore unknown parent.

Long seconds passed before Anala pulled free of the embrace. Frowning slightly, she said, ‘
I wouldn’t have thought a redhead was my mother’s type. God blind me!’ she exclaimed on the next breath. ‘Did I really just say that? A knight in shining armor, that’s what you are.’ Clearly embarrassed, she extended her right hand. ‘It’s very nice to meet you.’

Caedmon
took the proffered hand and gave it a businesslike shake. ‘Likewise.’ Later, when they were clear and free of the Sanguis Christi Fellowship, they could sort out the emotional jumble. Now was not the time.

‘
Right. Time to beat a hasty retreat.’ He gestured to the gaping hole in the trapdoor. ‘Shall we?’

‘I must end this
,’ Gracián Santos murmured as he stumbled over to his desk.

A desperate man, he’d gone to the chapel to beg for Divine guidance. His plea, however, had fallen on deaf ears. Resigned to his fate, he knew that he must now make restitution for having abducted the Indian woman. Yes, he’d been lied to and manipulated by an ambitious cardinal. But had he been more firm in his faith, more steadfast in his convictions, he would have seen through the duplicity.

Needing to turn himself over to the authorities, and publicly expose Cardinal Fiorio’s wicked plot, Gracián picked up the telephone receiver and began to dial the three-digit emergency telephone number.
Nine. One –

‘
Hey, G-Dog! I’m back!’ Hector Calzada announced as he stepped into the office.

Startled, Gracián dropped the telephone receiver on
to the floor, the handset clattering against the wood parquet.

‘
You seem oddly perturbed, Gracián,’ Cardinal Franco Fiorio remarked as he stepped across the threshold.

At a loss for words, Gracián stared at the two men standing across from him: one dressed in urban street garb and the other attired in a red-trimmed black cassock.

‘Your Eminence, I . . . I didn’t think that you . . . would arrive so soon.’

‘
Traffic from JFK airport was surprisingly light,’ the cardinal remarked conversationally as he approached the desk. ‘I trust that everything is going according to plan?’

‘E
r, yes . . . yes, the plan,’ Gracián stammered, too emotionally distraught to concoct a lie.

The
cardinal arched a quizzical brow . . . just before his gaze narrowed suspiciously. Stepping behind the desk, he bent over and retrieved the fallen phone receiver. He studied it for several seconds.

Gracián went stock
-still, fervently praying that the cardinal didn’t glance at the display screen, the numerals ‘9’ and ‘1’ still clearly visible.

Reaching across the desk, the
cardinal was about to set the receiver in the cradle when he suddenly gasped. An instant later, he physically recoiled. As though he’d just been struck by an unseen hand.

‘
You betrayed me!’ Cardinal Fiorio rasped. Still holding the phone receiver, he accusingly pointed it in Gracián’s direction.

‘
I have no idea what you’re talking about, Your Eminence.’

‘
Don’t play me for a fool!’ the cardinal snarled. His face contorted with rage, he slammed the telephone handset on to the desk. ‘You were about to dial 9-1-1.’

‘
Are you fucking kidding me?’ Hector exclaimed, rushing over to where they stood. After verifying for himself that the incriminating numerals were on the display screen, he hurled the telephone console across the room, the heavy frame smashing into the fireplace mantle. He then whipped a Glock semi-automatic pistol from his waistband.

Hearing the deadly grind of metal on metal as Hector yank
ed on the slide to chamber a bullet, Gracián swayed unsteadily on his feet.

‘
I don’t have to tell you how the Diablos deal with traitors.’

Gracián wordlessly shook his head. No explanation was necessary.
Blood in, blood out.

‘
Stand down!’ the cardinal ordered gruffly, using the authority of his position to stop Hector from pulling the trigger. Noticing the piece of yellow paper that was adhered to the computer monitor, he peeled it off the screen. ‘“Your daughter is in the root cellar at the caretaker’s cottage that’s located due west of Mercy Hall,”’ he read aloud before angrily balling the slip of paper. ‘I assume this means the Englishman has already arrived at Sanguis Christi? Is he still here?’

‘I have no idea,’ Gracián answered truthfully. ‘We spoke on the telephone, but I . . . .’ His voice faded into silence.

‘Why, Gracián? Why did you betray us?’

‘Because y
ou told me that if I retrieved the
Evangelium Gaspar
and killed the girl that, as a Defender of the Faith, I would receive an indulgence that would absolve me of any mortal sin committed.’