He saw her glance over his shoulder. 'Mark Nelle. I am pleased to finally meet you. Glad to see you didn't die in that avalanche.'
'I see you still like to interfere in other people's business.'
'I don't consider it interfering. Merely monitoring the progress of those who interest me. Like your father.' Cassiopeia stepped past Malone and extended a hand to Stephanie. 'And I'm pleased to meet you. I knew your husband well.'
'From what I hear, you and Lars were not the best of friends.'
'I can't believe anyone would say that.' Cassiopeia looked at Mark with clear mischief. 'Did you tell your mother such a thing.'
'No. He didn't,' Stephanie said. 'Royce Claridon told me.'
'Now, he's a man to watch. Placing your trust in that one will bring nothing but trouble. I warned Lars about him, but he wouldn't listen.'
'On that we agree,' Stephanie said.
Malone introduced Geoffrey.
'You're of the brotherhood?' Cassiopeia asked.
Geoffrey said nothing.
'No, I wouldn't expect you to answer. Still, you are the first Templar I've met civilly.'
'Not true,' Geoffrey said, pointing to Mark. 'The seneschal is of the brotherhood and you met him first.'
Malone wondered about the volunteered information. So far, the young man had been tight-lipped.
'Seneschal? I'm sure there's quite a story there,' Cassiopeia said. 'Why don't you come inside. My lunch was being prepared, but when I saw you I told the chamberlain to set more plates. They should be about finished with that.'
'Great,' Malone said. 'I'm starving.'
'Then let's eat. We have much to discuss.'
They followed her inside and Malone took in the expensive Italian chests, rare armored knights, Spanish torch holders, Beauvais tapestries, and Flemish paintings. Everything seemed a cavalcade for the connoisseur.
They followed her into a spacious dining room lined with gilded leather. Sunlight poured in through casement windows draped with elaborate lambrequin and doused the white-clothed table and marble floor in verdant shades. A twelve-branched electrified candelabrum hung unlit. Attendants were laying out gleaming silverware at each place setting.
The ambience was impressive, but what caught Malone's undivided attention was the man sitting at the far end of the table.
Forbes Europe ranked him the eighth-wealthiest person on the Continent, his power and influence in direct proportion to his billions of euros. Heads of state and royalty knew him well. The queen of Denmark called him a personal friend. Worldwide charities counted on him as a generous benefactor. For the past year Malone had spent at least three days a week visiting with him-talking books, politics, the world, how life sucks. He came and went from the man's estate as if he were part of the family and, in many respects, Malone felt that he was.
But now he seriously questioned all that.
He actually felt like a fool.
But all Henrik Thorvaldsen could do was smile. 'About time, Cotton. I've been waiting two days.'
PART FOUR
DE ROQUEFORT SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT AND CONCENTRATED on the GPS screen. The transponder attached to Malone's rental car was working perfectly, the tracking signal transmitting strongly. One brother drove while Claridon and another brother occupied the rear seat. De Roquefort was still irritated with Claridon's interference back in Rennes. He had no intention of dying and would have eventually leaped out of the way, but he'd truly wanted to see if Cotton Malone possessed the resolve to drive through him.
The brother who'd fallen down the rocky incline had died, shot in the chest before he fell. A Kevlar vest had prevented the bullet from doing any damage, but the fall had broken the man's neck. Thankfully, none of them carried identification, but the vest was a problem. Equipment like that signaled sophistication, but nothing linked the dead man to the abbey. All the brothers knew Rule. If any of them were killed outside the abbey, their bodies would go unidentified. Like the brother who'd leaped from the Round Tower, Renne's casualty would end up in a regional morgue, his remains eventually consigned to a pauper's grave. But before that happened, procedure called for the master to dispatch a clergyman, who would claim the remains in the name of the Church, offering to provide a Christian burial at no cost to the state. Never had that offer been refused. And while arousing no suspicion, the gesture ensured that a brother received his proper internment.
He'd not rushed leaving Rennes, first searching Lars Nelle's and Ernst Scoville's houses and finding nothing. His men had reported that Geoffrey had carried a rucksack, which was handed over to Mark Nelle in the car park. Surely it contained the two stolen books.
'Any idea where they went?' Claridon asked from the backseat.
He pointed to the screen. 'We'll know shortly.'
After questioning the injured brother who'd eavesdropped on Claridon's conversation inside Lars Nelle's house, he'd learned that Geoffrey had said precious little, obviously suspicious of Claridon's motivations. Sending Claridon in there had been a mistake. 'You assured me you could find those books.'
'Why do we need them? We have the journal. We should be concentrating on deciphering what we have.'
Maybe, but it bothered him that Mark Nelle had chosen those two volumes from the thousands in the archives. 'What if they contain information different from the journal?'
'Do you know how many versions of the same information I've come across? The entire Rennes story is a series of contradictions stacked atop one another. Let me explore your archives. Tell me what you know and let's see what, together, we have.'
A good idea, but unfortunately-contrary to what he'd led the Order to believe-he knew precious little. He'd been counting on the master leaving the requisite message for his successor, in which the most coveted information was always passed from leader to leader, as had been done from the time of de Molay. 'You'll get that opportunity. But first we must take care of this.'
He thought again of the two dead brothers. Their deaths would be seen by the collective as an omen. For a religious society heaped in discipline, the Order was astoundingly superstitious. And violent death was not common-yet two had occurred in a matter of days. His leadership could now well be questioned. Too much, too fast would be the cry. And he'd be forced to listen to all objections since he'd openly challenged the last master's legacy, in part because that man had ignored the brothers' wishes.
He asked the driver for an interpretation of the GPS readout. 'How far to their vehicle?'
'Twelve kilometers.'
He gazed out beyond the car windows at the French countryside. Once, no stretch of sky had been true to the eye unless a tower rose on the horizon. By the twelfth century Templars had populated this land with well over a third of their total estates. The entire Languedoc should have become a Templar state. He'd read of plans in the Chronicles. How fortresses, outposts, supply depots, farms, and monasteries had all been strategically established, each connected by a series of maintained roads. For two hundred years the brotherhood's strength had been carefully preserved, and when the Order failed to establish a fiefdom in the Holy Land, eventually surrendering Jerusalem back to the Muslims, the aim had been to succeed in the Languedoc. All was well under way when Philip IV struck his death blow. Interestingly, Rennes-le-Chateau was never mentioned in the Chronicles. The town, in all of its previous incarnations, played no role in Templar history. There'd been Templar fortifications in other parts of the Aude Valley, but nothing at Rhedae, as the occupied summit was then called. Yet now the tiny village seemed an epicenter, and all because of an ambitious priest and an inquisitive American academician.
'We're approaching the car,' the driver said.
He'd already instructed caution. The other three brothers he'd brought to Rennes were returning to the abbey,
