imminent.'
Martin studied his old friend carefully, then asked, 'What if we should all die along the way? What happens to our Order?'
'There are others,' Aimard told him. 'Some in Paris, some elsewhere. The truth will never be lost.'
He paused, catching his breath. 'Some of what is in the letters is known only to me, although I think Hugh must have guessed. But he won't ask questions. He may not be a brother, but he's a man of 108
unshakable loyalty. You can place your trust in him, just as I place my trust in you.'
Reaching into a pocket inside his jerkin, Aimard brought out two packages, each wrapped in oiled skin. 'Take them now. And hand one to the other pair.'
'To Hugh?'
Aimard shook his head. 'No. He's not a member of our Order, and there may come a point when the grand master of the Paris Temple will only listen to a true brother. In fact, I think Hugh should be the one to travel with you.'
Martin nodded thoughtfully, then asked, 'What about you?'
Aimard coughed and wiped a hand across his beard, and Martin saw more blood in his spittle. 'So far, we've been fortunate, but more dangers will come your way, without a doubt,' Aimard said.
'Your journey can't be slowed for the sick and wounded. Not later, and certainly not now. As I said, this is my journey's end.'
'We can't leave you here,' Martin protested.
Cringing with pain, Aimard touched his fingers to his ribs. 'After the accident on the ship,' he said,
'I'm lucky to have reached this far. Take the letters and go. Somehow, you must reach Paris. A lot rests on your shoulders.'
Martin of Carmaux nodded, then, reaching out, he clasped his friend and mentor in his arms. He then rose and walked away to where the others and their mounts waited.
He spoke briefly with them and they all turned to look at Aimard of Villiers, who held their eyes for just a moment before rising laboriously to his feet and walking unsteadily to the well. The geared device was in his hands. Martin watched in rapt silence as his old friend smashed it against the stone wall and, piece by piece, dropped its broken fragments into the well.
'May God be with you,' Martin said softly. 'And with us all.' Taking the bridle of one of the horses, he swung up into the foreign saddle. Soon, the line of four horsemen was filing through the ruins of the village, their spare mounts trailing behind, before they began to head northwest, uncertain of their fate, unaware of whatever dangers might lie before them on their long journey to France.
Chapter 48
Tess's mind was still roaming the Mameluke hinterland when Jans-son's voice interrupted her medieval sojourn and yanked her right back down to earth.
'We have to assume Vance has translated this too by now,' he stated gruffly.
Reilly nodded without hesitation. 'Absolutely.'
She remembered where she was and, still clutching the printout, she studied the faces around her.
They didn't seem as caught up in the sublimity of the moment as she was. It was different for her.
This extraordinary and private insight into the lives, actions, thoughts, and deaths of these legendary men touched her deeply. On another level, it was also confirmation of everything her instincts had been harping at since the night of the raid. Her whole body was tingling with anticipation. This could be her Troy, her Tutankhamen. She wondered whether any of those sitting there were at all galvanized by what the printout in their hands hinted at, or whether they were simply interested in the letter because of how it might help them solve a particularly vexing case.
Jansson's expression left no doubt as to which one it was. 'Okay, so we still don't know what we're talking about here,' he went on, 'apart from the fact that whatever it is, it's small enough to be carried around in a shoulder pouch—but at least we know where he's going. Vonsalis Jansson flashed Kendricks a questioning look.
'Sorry,' Kendricks answered somberly. 'Can't help you there. I've got a bunch of guys working on it, but so far they're hitting a wall. We haven't found any records of it anywhere.'
Jansson frowned, clearly annoyed. 'Nothing?'
'No. Not yet anyway. We're talking thirteenth-century Europe here. They didn't exactly have MapQuest back then. Mapmaking was a very crude, primitive exercise, and, as it is, very few charts from the period have survived, to say nothing of written texts. We're working our way through whatever writings we have from then onward, everything up to this day—letters, journals, that kind of thing. It's gonna take time.'
Tess watched Jansson sink back into his seat and run a hand up the back of his head. His face clouded. The man clearly didn't take kindly to being thwarted on anything having to do with hard, researchable data.
'So maybe Vance hasn't figured it out yet either,' Aparo offered.
Tess hesitated before stepping in. 'I wouldn't count on it. It's his area of expertise. References to somewhere like that may not come up in widely published works that you might have in your database. They're more likely to be found in some obscure manuscript of the time, the kind of rare book that someone like Vance would know where to find.'
Jansson studied her, seemingly mulling it over for a moment. Seated next to him was De Angelis.
His gaze was locked on her. She couldn't read him, though. Surely, of all the people in the room, he had to appreciate the value of what they'd just had the privilege of participating in. But he hadn't shown any signs of wonder and hadn't said a word throughout the meeting.
'All right, we need to figure this one out if we want to catch this guy,' Jansson grumbled. He turned to De Angelis. 'Father, your people can probably be a big help here.'
'Absolutely. I'll make sure our best scholars work on it. We have a huge library. It's just a matter of time, I'm sure.'
'Time we may not have.' Jansson turned to Reilly. 'The guy's definitely going to be on the move, if he hasn't left the country already.'
'I'll make sure the CBP gives this top priority.' The Bureau of Customs and Borders Protection was in charge of keeping track of whom and what entered and exited the country. 'Wherever it is, it's got to be in the eastern Mediterranean somewhere, right?' He turned to Tess. 'Can we narrow down the possibilities of where he's headed?'
Tess cleared her throat, thinking about it. 'It could be anywhere. They were blown off course so radically . . . Do you have a map of the area?'
'Sure.' Kendricks leaned over, pulled the keyboard over to him, and tapped in a few keys. A world map soon appeared on the huge plasma screen facing them. He punched in a few more keys and the screen shifted, zooming in on the map several times until it displayed the eastern Mediterranean.
Tess stood up and walked over to the map. 'According to his letter, they left Acre, which is right here in what is now Israel, just north of Haifa—and sailed for Cyprus. They would have sailed north before crossing west, but the storm hit them before they could get anywhere near it. . .' She considered tlie map some more and couldn't help but let her mind drift a little, conjuring up images of their perilous journey that seemed so real that, for a moment, she felt she had actually been there with them. She mustered her thoughts, concentrating on the task at hand. 'It all depends on which way the storm took them. Did it push them east of the island—in which case they could have washed up anywhere along the Syrian coast, or the southeastern Turkish coast along here ...' She traced the route with her finger. 'Or did they pass to the west of Cyprus, in which case we're talking about this area here, the southwestern coast of Turkey, from the Gulf of Antalya to Rhodes.'
'That's a pretty big target area,' Jansson noted vexedly.
'The landscapes along that whole coastline are pretty much the same,' Tess said. 'There's nothing in the letter that would suggest one or the other. But I can't imagine they were that far off the coast if they managed to spot it in the middle of a huge storm.'
Reilly nodded, studying the map. 'We can start by alerting our people in Turkey and in Syria.'
Jansson's brow furrowed in apparent confusion. 'So what's this Vance thinking? That whatever they buried is
