The Nostradamus File (19 page)

Lev and Selena bowed to each other. Gefen attacked. Selena blocked with her arms and tried a leg sweep. Gefen blocked her sweep, countered with his elbow. Selena brushed it aside and half turned. Her leg shot out in a blur, heel extended  The blow landed on his upper thigh and knocked him all the way across the mat.

"That would have been your knee," she said.

Gefen's face got red. He attacked again, a flurry of elbow strikes, kicks and punches. Selena blocked and parried, took a body blow, whirled and knocked Gefen's legs out from under him. He went down hard on his back. Selena was on him, her knee resting lightly on his groin, her hand a sharp fist poised high overhead for a killer strike.

"You're dead," she said. She tapped him on the forehead and moved away in a fluid, quick motion. Nick marveled at her agility. It was if she had springs in her legs.

Gefen got to his feet. Nick waited to see how he would handle the ease with which Selena had beaten him. For an Alpha male like Gefen, getting beaten by a woman was probably a new experience. It was the kind of situation that revealed more about who someone was than all the files and training in the world.

He bowed. "I underestimated you," he said. "I apologize if what I said gave offense."

Selena bowed back. "No offense taken."

"Welcome to the team," Harker said.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Phillip Harrison called Croft on a secure link from his Boston office. The view from the office was spectacular. Harrison could look down like Zeus from Olympus on the Charles River and the city
. It was a sensation he enjoyed, knowing he was far above the worker ants below. He watched a group of racing sculls cut thin, white lines on the river surface.

"Weisner is gaining ground in the Israeli election but
he needs a boost," Harrison said.

"What do you want to do?"

"We implement plan B. Stage an assassination attempt on Weisner. Kill one or two of the people next to him. Don't warn him. That way it will look completely authentic. Make sure you've got a convenient Palestinian patsy handy, someone who's not too smart. We need to do it quickly."

"He's speaking at a big rally in Tel Aviv in two days. It can be arranged. What is the status on the Ark?"

"We have no leads at all. If there was anything in that tomb, the Project has it now. They'll follow up on it and we'll follow them. Then we'll see."

"They've been a real problem."

"Yes, they have. Once we know where the Ark is, we'll eliminate them. In the meantime, we have to be patient."

"Boyd is getting nervous."

"He ought to be. His financial position is overextended. He needs to see the price of crude go up."

"It will go up. As soon as the shooting starts."

"I'll talk to him," Harrison said. "He's in too deep for second thoughts."

"Do you think we'll find it, Phillip?" There was something wistful in Croft's voice.

"You mean the Ark?"

"Yes. Imagine. The real Ark of the Covenant. I wonder if it looks like the pictures and drawings people make of it? The two angels with their wings stretching in, all golden."

"Cherubim, Arthur, not angels."

"What's the difference?"

Harrison didn't feel like giving Croft a rundown on the hierarchy of angels. "When we find it, it won't matter."

"Do you think it had any real, mystical power?"

Yes, but I'm not going to tell you that
, Harrison thought. "Only what people gave it," he said.

After he'd hung up, Harrison thought about the Ark. When it was in his possession he would use it to sweep away the non-believers. He would use it to motivate a new crusade. The Holy Land would be safe again.

God would surely be pleased.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

The team
and Lev Gefen sat in Elizabeth's office. Stephanie had brought in flowers from the garden, a touch of fresh color on Harker's desk. An East Coast summer simmered outside, humid and hot. Inside the office, it was pleasant and comfortable.

"I've been thinking about
the coat of arms on that pouch we found in the church," Selena said.

"What about it?" Elizabeth said.

"The crest shows ten birds around the edge of the shield, with horizontal stripes. I looked it up. That's the crest of the de Valence family, William and Aymer, the 1st and 2nd Earls of Pembroke. William died in 1296, Aymer in 1324."

"That was the 1st Earl of Pembroke's tomb we opened," Nick said. "Makes sense the pouch would have his crest."

"Except that isn't his crest. There's more than one 1st Earl of Pembroke."

"How can there be more than one?" Ronnie asked. He had on one of his Hawaiian shirts, a red and white pattern of impossible flowers
glowing with almost psychedelic intensity. 

"The title goes with the estates, handed out by the King or Queen.
It keeps going until that line dies out. When a new family takes over, the numbering starts again. William Marshal died in 1219. Almost eighty years before William de Valence held the title."

"Then what's the other guy's crest doing there?" Ronnie said.

"That's what I've been asking myself. We need to make some assumptions based on what we know so far."

"Go on," Elizabeth said.

"De Molay sends the Ark and maybe the Templar treasure to England, so the Templar Commander can hide it. That's la More. La More is tortured and dies, but doesn't reveal where it is. La More is the one who placed the letter in the tomb. That's assumption number one."

"That seems logical."

"Number two is that there's a good reason to use that pouch to hold the letter, with that crest."

"Okay."

"Why put it in the tomb?" she asked.

"To hide it," Nick said.

Gefen watched the exchange. It was the first time he'd seen how everyone worked together. How they figured things out.

"Of course. But why does it have that
coat of arms on it? It's not la More's. It doesn't belong to the man buried in the tomb. Why a crest at all? A coat of arms was a message. It told you who the person was, their heritage. It was a medieval ID for all to see."

"For the big shots," Ronnie said.

"That's right. Peasants didn't have crests, only nobility."

"I think I see where you're going," Nick said. "You think the crest is a message."

"Yes. A clue to where the Ark was hidden."

"What do you think it means?"

"I don't know. Something about the Earls of Pembroke, but not William Marshall. De Valence."

"De Valence was alive when de Molay wrote that letter?"

"The father was dead. The son was alive."

"Was the son a Templar?" Lev asked. It was the first thing he'd said.

"I don't think so," Selena said. "If he was known to be a Templar he would have been arrested."

"So why point in the direction of de Valence?" Nick said.

"Say that again, what you just said."

"Why point in the direction of..."

"That's it!" Selena said. She was excited. "The crest is meant to point you at de Valence."

"This is all speculation," Gefen said. "How can you make a plan based on this?"

"It's all we've had from the start," Elizabeth said, "speculation. It's got us this far."

Ronnie cracked his knuckles. "What do the guy in the tomb and de Valence have in common?"

"They both held the title of Earl of Pembroke," Selena said.

"What else?"

"They held the same estates. The main castle still exists. It's in Scotland."

"Scotland might be a good place to stash something you didn't want anyone to find."

"You think the Ark is in Scotland?" Lev felt completely confused.

"Maybe we should take a closer look at that castle," Ronnie said.

"No problem." Stephanie had her laptop. It was hooked into the Crays and the monitor on Harker's wall. The monitor lit. She entered a search for Pembroke Castle.

"Lots of links." She clicked on one. An article and picture came up on the screen.

"Big castle," Ronnie said.

The castle had high ramparts of stone, a tower keep and walls 20 feet thick. It sat on land that stuck out like a thumb into the Pembroke River in West Wales. Three sides were surrounded by the river. The fourth side had a thick wall, a gate and tower. Beyond the castle was the town of Pembroke.

They read the article. "The place was mostly restored in the last century," Nick said. "If something was hidden there, wouldn't they have found it?" 

"Not necessarily," Stephanie said. She clicked on a different link. "Here's something interesting. The castle is built over a limestone cavern carved out by water erosion. The Earls used it for storage.
It's called Wogan Cavern."

A picture of the cave appeared on the screen.

"Caves are good places to hide something," he said, "but if anything was there, it's long gone."

"Sometimes there's more than one cave in a
limestone formation like that," Selena said. "There could be connecting caves. If there are, something could be hidden in them."

"I'll task a satellite for a deep scan," Elizabeth said. "If there
's another cave it will show up."

CHAPTER FORTY-
EIGHT

Nick took Lev Gefen to the part of the old Nike site that had been converted into a shooting range and armory.
He opened a wide cabinet to reveal a full array of personal assault weapons. They all had one thing in common; deadly efficiency.

Lev looked at the racks of weapons.
"Interesting," he said. He took an MP-5 from it's place, checked to see if it was loaded, held it to his shoulder. "I always liked these. We use the Tavor C21."

"That's a fine weapon in the field," Nick said. "We mostly use the MP-5s and the SIG-Sauer
. We've switched over to .40 Smith and Wesson. Makes it easy to keep the ammo straight."

"A good round. That is what we use in our pistols. What you call a Baby Eagle."

"The Jericho 941."

Lev nodded.

"Pick a pistol. I take it you didn't bring yours."

"No. Ari told me you would take care of it."

Lev took a Sig-Sauer P229 from the rack. All the pistols were flat black. No stainless styling to catch a stray ray of light and give away a position. "This will do."

Nick nodded. "The 226 is a little more accurate, but these are easier to carry.
Let's practice."

Nick ran man-sized silhouette targets out to the end of the shooting lanes. They loaded up, put on glasses and ear protection and began firing. After a half hour, they stopped.

"Nice shooting, Lev."

The Israeli's targets were consistent. Tight groups centered on the body. Occasional two shot groups to the head, for variety. Gefen could shoot. Nick hoped he didn't have to find out if the Israeli could do the same thing when the targets were shooting back.

There was a meeting with Harker and the rest of the team in half an hour. They began cleaning the guns.

"Your file says you're married."

"That's right. My wife's name is Rachel. We've got two children."

Lev ran a cleaning brush through the bore of his pistol. The distinctive smell of Hoppe's No. 9 filled the room. He set the pistol down and took out his wallet. He showed Nick pictures.

"This is Aaron. He's five. And this is Rebecca. She's seven."

The children were laughing, splashing each other in a backyard pool. "Rebecca thinks she's the boss, but Aaron always gets even. They're good kids. This is Rachel."

His wife was dark haired, with strong features and a wide smile.

"You're a lucky man, Lev." For just an instant, Nick wondered what it would
be like to have children. Megan had wanted children. He thought of Megan and pushed the image away. Megan was gone, a long time ago. Now he was with Selena. She hadn't brought up the subject of children and neither had he. Sometimes it was best to let things be.

Gefen put the pictures away, picked up the gun and began running patches through the barrel. He kept changing them until they came out clean.

"How about you, Nick? You are with Selena, no?"

"You could say that." Nick looked at his watch. "Let's finish up. Time to get upstairs."

There was something in his voice. Lev decided not to pursue it.

Harker had satellite images up on the big screen when they entered her office. Ronnie and Selena and Stephanie were already there.

"Glad you could join us," Elizabeth said.