The Templar Concordat (7 page)

The Chief Archivist of the Knights Templar shuffled around from behind his desk.  Wire spectacles sat on his forehead, and his old cardigan sweater hung nearly to his knees. This would be another difficult meeting. They had all been difficult since the Master had taken the old man off the active field roster after sixty years as a Templar.

“Well, have a seat, and let’s see what you want. I presume you are here to pursue learning? The French are so backward.” The Archivist pointed to a set of matched armchairs. The instant the Master reached to help him into the chair, he knew he had made a mistake.

“Get your skinny claws off me,” hissed the small man. “I can still sit in a chair under my own power, and I expect to be doing it long after you’re moldering in the dust. I’ve been doing it for eighty-five years, and it’s not something that takes a lot of practice. You, you might forget, but not me. And you might remember it was me who pulled your sorry French carcass from the clutches of the Saracen fiends. Not the other way around.”

The Master recalled being injured and trussed up in a Beirut cellar many years ago after a particularly stupid move on his part. The man in front of him had bounded down the cellar stairs with a bloody knife in each hand, cut his bonds, and carried him out to safety. On the way out, they passed his three guards piled in a bloody heap with their throats cut. Well into his eighties, the Archivist still taught knife technique in training.

“Yes,” replied the Master, “and good afternoon to you, too, Patrick. And once again, I thank you for my worthless carcass. I’m always grateful for the good cheer you bring to my otherwise miserable life.”

“Ok. Now, what do you want?” asked the Templar Archivist. “What do you want? I’m busy, and don’t have time to waste on nonsense.”

“What do I want? I want to know about the Treaty of Tuscany. You’re the one who called me about it. What is it?”

“Tuscany? The Treaty of Tuscany? Oh, yes.” The Irishman cocked an eyebrow and the Master swore he could see new life leap into the small man. “Now, Tuscany? Nobody knows about Tuscany. But just this morning, our own Marie Curtis calls up out of the blue. She calls in from Costa Rica and asks about it because she ran across it while having high tea with one of our Hashashin friends.”

“Let’s not play games, Patrick. Not today.”

The Archivist seemed lost in his own thoughts.

The Master waited. “Patrick? Do you know? What is it?”

“Know? Of course I know. At least I know more than anyone else knows.” He sprang up with surprising agility and darted to the door. He looked back at the Master. “Well, are you coming or not? I thought you wanted to learn about the treaty.”

He led them down the corridor to an unmarked door, pressed his palm against the scanner, and scampered down two flights of stairs. The old fraud, thought the Master, he’s infirm when it suits him, and can dance on a high wire when he wants. Something to remember.

An armed guard behind a bulletproof glass admitted them, and they passed through a second door leading to a large room with aisle after aisle of shelves and cabinets. “The Templar Archives,” said the Archivist. “One day, maybe this can all be moved upstairs, but not yet. Hmmph, it would be nice to let the world know what really started the French Revolution, what Henry VIII and the Pope were actually doing, who shot Kennedy. But not yet, not yet.”

The Archivist tapped a keyboard and ran his finger down the screen. Then he slowly moved down an aisle, lightly dragging his fingers across the books, and pulled a large, leather-bound volume from a shelf.

He took a seat and paged through the volume. “Yes, yes… this is it… hmmm…”

The Master waited, then asked, “Well? What is it?”

“First off, understand we don’t have the treaty. Don’t even have a copy of it. Nobody does.”

The Archivist turned his chair sideways to the table, crossed his ankles, settled back in the chair, and folded his hands in his lap. “Simply put, the treaty is the stuff of legends, and mostly forgotten legends. But don’t forget legend is usually born in fact. I haven’t heard mention of it for fifty years. We have some Templar documents from the early Fifteenth Century that refer to it, but they don’t tell us much. One of my predecessors as Chief Archivist, Hugo Deboge,” he tapped the volume on the table, “he wrote about it in 1540 when he tried to gather all the information he could into a short history. I’m sure he did quite a fine and complete job. Unfortunately, we don’t have his complete work, and the manuscripts he references have disappeared into history’s dustbin.”

The Archivist bent over the book again. “And we don’t know why he was interested, either. Something had to prompt him… hmmm… but there’s no hint here.”

He lifted his glasses onto his forehead. “So, the treaty. Now mind you, what I’m telling you isn’t based on anything close to verifiable history. It’s a mix of conjecture, legend, hearsay, and probably a heavy dose of crap, but it’s all we know, or all anyone knows.”

The Master just nodded.

“Ok. Just before the Third Crusade, let’s say about 1190, which was a horrible disaster for the Europeans, and well after our Order had been founded in 1122, the Pope got the big three kings of Europe to sign onto an eternal campaign to wipe out every vestige of Islam.  Not just secure Jerusalem, keep pilgrims alive, and plant the Pope’s flag, but go way beyond that. Way, way beyond. Think about it. We have the Pope and the kings signing a document that pledged them to rid the world of the Islamic menace and ensure Christian dominance forever.

“And it wasn’t just for the Third Crusade. No, not at all.  It committed them and all their descendants to the task. All of Europe, and all of Christendom forever. Let’s say they were taking the long view of history. Get rid of Islam. Get rid of Muslims. Kill ‘em all. Rend ‘em limb from limb. Accept the gentle Lord Jesus Christ as universal love, or die! Heathen scum! Infidels! All good, peace loving Christians, of course.”

The Master raised his cane. “And they wrote it all down? Isn’t that a bit strange for the times? After all, how many could even read?”

“Who knows why they wrote it,” answered the Archivist. “Maybe the Pope wanted to have a stick to use against the next generation of kings when he wanted to shake them down for men and money for some future Crusade. I don’t know. They were all half-mad. Who knows?”

“Ok,” said the Master, “go on.”

“Now, one of the sketchier things about all this has to do with the authority the Pope invoked to get it all done. And this is by no means verifiable, since nobody has ever seen the treaty, if it even existed.”

He stopped and twisted around. “Could you perhaps fetch an old man a bottle of water? I’m afraid I can’t make it on my own.”

Fetch? The Master refused to give him the satisfaction of objecting. He simply got up and grabbed a bottle of water from a small cooler.

“Much better,” said the Archivist, twisting the cap off the bottle. “Have to keep this dried-up old wreck of a body hydrated or I might just blow away with the dust before I finish my story.”

The Master sat silently.

 “Alright, back to the Treaty of Tuscany. Apparently, some folks thought the Pope invoked the magisterial teaching authority of the Church in demanding the obliteration of Islam.  In today’s terminology, that means it’s an infallible teaching. Infallible. Can’t be wrong because the Pope speaks for God and God says so. Can’t be changed because God doesn’t change his mind. That would be admitting error, and God doesn’t screw up in the first place. Can’t be questioned, because one does not question the Lord Thy God. And it binds every Christian to the end of time. How’s that for a great, fine mess?”

The Archivist sat back and cackled. “And if it’s real and if it’s in play? And if our Hashashin friends have the ball? Oh, we’ve been tipped into the shitter now. Love to get a look at it. Love to know exactly what it says.”

The Master was silent for a few moments, then raised his head and asked, “And you are getting all this from that old Templar Archivist? The one in the Sixteenth Century?”

The Archivist frowned. “In a nutshell, that’s right.” He tapped the book again. “Maybe a few references before his time, but those are included in what he wrote. There’s stuff he referenced that we don’t have, and there’s stuff he referenced that we do have. But there’s nothing since this 1540 summary he wrote. In fact, I doubt you’ll find any reference to the treaty anywhere but in our own Templar archives. It’s essentially lost. But now it’s being chatted up by the enemy?”

“I presume this wouldn’t be of any use unless someone had the original?”

“Yes, yes. Something like this, something that has essentially been lost and forgotten? You have to come up with the real thing to make any kind of claims.”

“The real thing? Ok, where is it?”

“Where is it? Now how would I know? It isn’t here, if that’s what you want to know. It could be anywhere, tucked away in some dusky corner. Remember, the kings of England, France, and Germany were in on it. That means it can be in any of those countries. It could be in Rome, Jerusalem, or Antioch. It could be anywhere.”

“Could they forge it?”

“Not today. With the new laser analysis for manuscripts, anything older than four hundred years gets you a date within twenty years. Now, if you had a piece of Twelfth Century parchment sitting in your supply room, I suppose you could forge it. But there isn’t any. We don’t have any blank Twelfth Century paper just fluttering about. Without that, they can’t cook up a forgery. It would be exposed immediately.”

“That means if they plan to do anything with it, they need the original.”

“Excellent. You’re coming along nicely.”

The Master paused and flipped a few pages in the old volume the Archivist had been consulting. “Does Marie Curtis know about the treaty?”

“No. She hasn’t a clue. I told her nothing.”

“Good. Let’s keep it quiet for now. At least until we decide how to proceed. We may have to bring her in on it. Probably will. She works for you. You know better on that. So, I’ll leave you to it, Patrick.”

“If there’s anything to be found, we’ll find it. Yes, we’ll find it. I’ll have them burning the midnight oil tonight. We’ll be humming the Anvil Chorus in three-part harmony round the clock. Send our people scurrying through libraries all over Europe.”

The Master turned as he was leaving. “Do your best Patrick. You probably know better than anyone how damaging this could be.”

“I’m on it. I’m on it. He shuffled back to his table. “Infallibility. Hmmph. Whoever dreamed up that doozy should choke on his own pride.”

Zurich - Friday, March 20

Wednesday morning, an hour before the seven members of the Council of the Knights Templar were to meet, the Marshall and the Templar Chief of Intelligence presented themselves before the Master’s secretary in the outer office. The Marshall inclined his head toward the locked office and raised an eyebrow.

“Deputy Commissioner of Banking for Switzerland, and a heavy hitter from the Bank of England,” whispered the secretary.

“How long?”

“They’ve been in there about an hour. Do I need to break it up?”

“No. But hit the button. Hit it hard. We’ll be in there.” The two men walked into a small conference room and closed the door.

The Master saw the purple light flashing below his desktop. Unusual. He quickly ran through the closing pleasantries, escorted the bankers to the door, and turned them over to a young woman who would usher them into their waiting limos.

“In there.” The secretary pointed at the closed door.

The Master entered the room and sat opposite the Marshall and Intel Chief. “Ok. What is it?”

The Intel Chief looked up and said quietly, “We cracked the Blackberry code. The one Callahan got from that guy in Costa Rica.”

He passed a sheet of paper to the Master. He silently read it, then placed it face down on the table.

The Intel Chief pointed at the paper. “Those are the encoded messages that Rashid hadn’t opened yet. Since he hadn’t opened them, he didn’t know those details when Callahan and Marie interrogated him. He just never knew. Couldn’t have.”

“Who decoded this? Who else knows? Any way Callahan could have read this? Marie?”

“Nobody else. I did it myself. Callahan and Marie had the Blackberry with the clear message, nothing else. Our computers took a while to crack it. New code. So those two sure didn’t figure it out with a pencil on the back of an air-sick bag.”

“Crap. Crap. Crap. So, Callahan and Marie know an attack is coming soon, but not these specifics. My God, what a mess this is.” The Master looked at his watch. “I think we have a Council meeting to go to. I’m afraid it will be a long one. A very long one.”

Vatican - Easter Sunday, March 22

The gates of the Vatican beckoned to all who felt the call of the Church, and Ibrahim heard the call. He had come for the Church. His electric wheelchair moved silently with the crowd, and he nodded his twisted head in thanks to people who let him pass. The Easter crowd was heavy with the faithful, and Ibrahim might not be much, but he was faithful to God.

He was a poster child for mobile medical technology. His frozen right hand clutched a small joystick that guided his electric chair into St. Peter’s Piazza. Two plastic tubes trailed from his nostrils to a pair of oxygen tanks secured to the arm of the chair, and he clutched a palm-sized chunk of plastic that he pressed to the front of his throat when he wanted to speak. While no words ever came out of his mouth when he spoke, a hollow, mechanical croak came from the device when it detected vibrations from his ruined throat and vocal cords.