“We need to know all the facts about why this outrage was allowed to take place,” Brugnone grumbled. “Agent Reilly—why don’t you tell us what you should have told us when you first arrived here?”
Reilly felt the onset of a massive headache. “I’ll tell you what I know, but I don’t even know all the facts myself. We need to hear from Tess—Miss Chaykin, out there—to get the whole picture.”
“Why don’t we invite her in?” the cardinal suggested.
“I’m not sure she’s up to that just yet,” Reilly said.
The cardinal fixed him with a grave stare. “Why don’t we ask her about that?”
Chapter 11
It all started in Jordan,” Tess told the group in the room. Right now, it was the last thing she wanted to do. She still felt drained, and dredging up the memory of what happened was making her shiver. Still, she realized it was important. The men in the room—Reilly, Cardinal Brugnone, Inspector Delpiero, the archivist Bescondi, and the two detectives from the antiterrorist squad—they all needed to know what she’d been through. She had to do everything she could to help them catch the guy who was behind all this, and rescue Simmons, who, she hoped, had to still be alive. For how long, though, was something she didn’t really want to think about.
“I was out there with another archaeologist, his name’s Jed Simmons. He’s got this dig going near Petra, he’s got Brown backing him, and—” She stopped, reminding herself to stick to what was relevant and not go off-piste. “Anyway, this Iranian historian showed up, someone who knew someone who knew Jed.”
“Behrouz Sharafi,” Reilly noted.
Tess nodded. “Yes. A sweet, quiet man. Thoughtful, and extremely well read too.” Reilly had told her what had happened to him, and the idea that he was dead made her shivers worse. She steeled herself and pressed on. “Sharafi needed help figuring something out. A contact of his had suggested he talk to Jed about it because—well, although Jed’s work in Petra was all about Nabataean cultural history, he’s also one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to the Templars. That’s actually why I was there myself.”
She noticed Brugnone stir and slide a glance at Reilly, as if things were starting to fall into place for him.
“Tess—Miss Chaykin—she’s an archaeologist,” Reilly explained to the room. “A lapsed one, really. She’s now a novelist. And her first book was about the Templars.”
“It’s historical fiction,” Tess specified, suddenly feeling the walls tightening in around her.
She glanced around the room and noted Brugnone’s reaction. He seemed familiar with what she and Reilly had just mentioned.
“Your book,” the cardinal mused, his eyes scrutinizing her. “It was rather well received, if I’m not mistaken.”
“It was.” Tess nodded, graciously but also somewhat uncomfortably. She knew what he meant. Although her novel, a thriller set during the Crusades, was perceived as nothing more than a work of historical fiction, she knew that Brugnone was well aware that the story within its pages wasn’t entirely borne from her imagination. She felt a pang of unease and tried to remind herself that she hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d stuck to what she and Reilly had agreed to—keeping it private, not talking about it, not telling anyone, particularly Brugnone and Reilly’s boss at the FBI, about what really happened in that storm and on that Greek island. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use what she’d lived through and what she’d discovered about the Templars along the way as the basis of a novel—a pretty successful one, as it turned out, but one that only the most radically conspiracy-minded would ever think was based on real history. It had launched her into a new career and a new life, and it had also proven pleasantly cathartic for her.
Until now.
The cardinal held her gaze for an uncomfortable moment, then said, “Continue, please.”
Tess took a sip from her bottle and shifted in her chair. “Sharafi had found something, in Istanbul, in the National Library. It was in the old Ottoman archives. He came across it by chance. He lived there, in Istanbul. He’d moved there from Tehran and he was teaching at a university, and being an expert on Sufism, he was digging into Sufi history in his spare time. He was a Sufi himself, you know.” Her lips still ached from the duct tape, and she was having trouble focusing. “Anyway, it was the perfect place for that line of research since that’s where it all started, in thirteenth-century Turkey, with Rumi and his poems.”
“And he found something there that was Templar?” Brugnone asked, a gentle prod for her to get to it.
“Sort of. He was rooting around in the old archives—you know they have literally tens of thousands of documents that are just stored there, waiting to be sorted out. All kinds of stuff. The Ottomans were maniacal archivists. Anyway, Sharafi came across a book. A substantial volume, nice tooled leather-bound covers, early fourteenth-century. It held the writings of a Sufi traveler that he hadn’t come across before. But it also had something else. Some loose vellum sheets had been tucked in under its bindings. Hidden from view for centuries. Sharafi spotted them, and naturally, he got curious. So without telling anyone or seeking permission, he pried them out. His first surprise was that they weren’t written in Arabic, like the book itself. They were in Greek. Medieval Greek. He copied down a few sentences and asked a colleague to translate them for him. The pages turned out to be a letter. Not just a letter … a confession. The confession of a monk who lived in a Byzantine Orthodox monastery.” She concentrated to recall its name. “The Monastery of Mount Argaeus.”
She paused and glanced around, looking for any signs of recognition. No one seemed familiar with it.
Bescondi, the prefect of the archives, leaned in. He seemed confused. “You’re saying this man Sharafi found the confession of a monk from a Byzantine monastery. What does that have to do with the Templars?”
Only one word came to Tess’s lips.
“Everything.”
Chapter 12
CONSTANTINOPLE
MAY 1310
Five hundred hyperpyra? That’s … that’s just outrageous,” the French bishop blurted.
Conrad of Tripoli wasn’t moved. He held the old man’s gaze with the serenity of someone who had done this many times before, and shrugged. Not a cold, demeaning shrug. He made sure he maintained an air of con-geniality and, above all, respect. “We really shouldn’t be haggling over a few pieces of gold, Father. Not when it involves something this sacred.”
They were seated at a discreet table, tucked away in a dark corner of a tavern in the district of Galata, a Genoese colony on the north shore of the Golden Horn. Conrad knew the owner of the tavern well and often conducted his business there. He could count on him to give him the privacy he needed and lend a hand if things got messy. Not that Conrad needed much help. He had seen more fighting and spilled more blood than most men could even imagine, but that was part of a long-gone past that he kept to himself.
The gilded box sat squarely on the table. It was a small masterpiece with an embossed, floriated design on its side and a large cross on its lid. Inside, it was lined with frayed velvet cushioning that looked like it was centuries old. When Conrad had first presented the priest with the reliquary, the bones it housed had been wrapped inside a sheet of vellum that bore the markings and seal of the Patriarch of Alexandria. They were now laid out on the padded base of the container, their ancient yellow-gray pallor contrasting vividly against the burgundy padding.
The bishop’s thin, long-nailed fingers trembled as he reached out to touch the bones again. From the talus to the metatarsals, they were all there.
“Sacred, indeed. The foot of Saint Philip,” he muttered, his eyes brimming with reverence. “The fifth apostle.”
