you, I presume, thought the whole dig was a setup to cover illegal arms dealing.”
“She told you this?”
“Only because she believed that the government had made a mistake, but she wanted to verify it. She thought the dig was absolutely authentic.”
Sydney tried to remember her conversation with Tasha at dinner that night in D.C. Something about returning from some dig, and her apparent paranoia. And Sydney wondered, What were the chances it was the same one? Not that she was about to interrupt Griffin’s interrogation to ask.
“I thought you hated big government,” Griffin said. “Why did you agree to work with her?”
“Because she’d overheard something by the men she was supposed to be watching, something that had to do with a third key.”
Griffin’s reaction was barely noticeable, a slight tensing of the shoulders, and Sydney figured he was thinking of what she’d been able to pick up at Adami’s gathering at his villa. “What about this third key?” he asked Francesca.
“It’s supposed to be the means of finding-well, of finding this map. Alessandra was certain that this is what the men were actually searching for in Egypt, but something made her think that perhaps they were searching in the wrong place. That they’d misinterpreted the location, and she wanted proof. She sent a postcard from the Smithsonian with a note. The pyramid. Not in Egypt. I’m sure she felt that one couldn’t disrupt an entire government operation based on conjecture about some map that many scholars think is merely legend.”
“A map to what?”
It seemed several heartbeats before she finally answered, as though it was a secret she still didn’t want to share. “Some believe it’s the key to the lost Templar treasure. Some, however, believe it is the key to something far more dangerous. Something that could kill millions.”
28
Griffin was certain he’d heard wrong. “The Templar treasure? Dangerous? Forgive me if I don’t follow. We’re talking gold, right?”
“Gold?” Francesca’s expression dismissed this possibility outright. “Do you have any idea what is said to be found in the Templar treasure? Put aside its historical significance, or the questions it could possibly answer about religion, questions that entire wars have been fought over. This goes beyond mere gold.” She looked at each of them, waiting for some response, and when no one spoke, she added, “Do none of you read the Bible?”
“File your complaints with Dumas,” Griffin replied. “About the Templars and these religious artifacts,” Griffin said. “I was under the impression that the treasure was lost in the raid and destruction of the Second Temple of Solomon.”
“Not lost. The treasure itself has been captured and moved many times, cursing all who come across it. One can either believe in God’s hand, or fate, or perhaps the misfortune of being in the path of the black plague, but each time someone has attempted to possess the treasure for their own benefit, the downfall of their civilization has followed shortly thereafter. What remains is trying to retrace the last years of the treasure’s whereabouts. Rome in 70 A.D., Carthage in 455, Constantinople in 533-”
“Carthage?”
“As in Tunisia.”
Hell, he thought. No wonder Adami had set up shop there. He’d been searching for this treasure a lot longer than they’d thought. “Go on.”
“The last word was that the treasure was returned to Jerusalem, only to be hidden once again when the city was ransacked by the Persian Sasanians. After this point, it was never seen again. Except for the rumor that the Templar Knights found it and became the guardians.”
“So the rumor that the treasure is sitting in the vaults of the Vatican is false?”
“If it were at the Vatican, then ask yourself why Dumas is busy searching for it.”
A good point, he thought. “And Adami would be after this for what reason?”
Sydney answered. “Wouldn’t the acquisition of religious artifacts worth billions factor into Adami’s game plan? If you’re going to sell weapons to terrorists, and you want to keep warring factions at each others’ throats to inflate your prices, then it seems to me possession of these artifacts would up his ante.”
“You both are missing the point,” Francesca said. “I am not talking about the gold, precious stones, or scrolls. I am talking about the Ark of the Covenant that was found by the Templars.
Griffin and Sydney stared in disbelief. Even Giustino looked up from the monitors, waiting for an explanation.
“Surely,” Francesca said, “you didn’t think Adami was in this strictly for the advancement of art or religion or academia?”
That was the farthest from Griffin’s mind. Carlo Adami, an arms dealer and secret intelligence broker, was first and foremost a master manipulator, willing to sell out to the highest bidder, no matter what country was involved. He was loyal only to himself. The man craved power, and anyone who held important religious artifacts would wield a lot of power, stirring up radicals into a bloodlust over territories and beliefs. And if those religious artifacts contained something that could be used as a bioweapon? Was it even possible? “
“Carlo Adami was funding the study for the search. My friend was the recipient of the grant and gave periodic reports to him, unaware, I’m sure, as to what his true motive was. Regardless, several years ago, this friend of mine, a biblical archeologist, came across some papers in the Vatican archives detailing information about a map leading to the Ark of the Covenant, a map held by the Ark’s guardians, the Templar Knights, papers he is certain were misfiled and not meant for public view. And therein lies the problem.” Francesca leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “The Vatican was not very forthcoming when he tried to research further, and the documents he’d been researching were promptly removed. Some scholars insist that this third key is merely legend. No map, no gold, no artifacts, nothing at all. They think that the entire concept was invented by di Sangro as a ruse to anger the Vatican in revenge for ruining his name, and to keep them from finding the treasure.”
And here was that di Sangro prince again. “What do you believe?”
“You were with me when I found the first key in the very columbarium that I know for a fact was searched and ransacked before, including by the Vatican in the 1700s. They were searching for the first key back then. How can I not believe?”
Griffin pushed his chair back, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. “How do you know that what you found in the columbarium was the first key, if you found no second key at the crypt? And why is it so important?”
“It’s difficult to explain.”
“Try.”
“Di Sangro ensured that without all three keys, if someone tries to remove this map, that person will be killed.”
“This has something to do with a so-called curse at the tomb of the Valley of the Kings?” Griffin asked, thinking of what Tasha had told him when she’d first returned from the dig in Egypt.
“That’s a separate curse entirely, and, as most of the Egyptian curses go, a fable to ward off grave robbers. What di Sangro constructed in his own crypt is no curse. It
“What was di Sangro’s motive?”
“Familial duty. The city of San Severo, his birthright, was owned by the Knights Templar. Add to that that di Sangro was the first Grand Master of the Freemasons in Naples in the 1700s, it explains why some scholars believe he was also an appointed guardian of part of the Templar treasure.”
“Why waste time searching through these long-forgotten chambers of death for keys that may or may not
