The Templar's Code Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  CHAPTER 92

  CHAPTER 93

  CHAPTER 94

  CHAPTER 95

  EPILOGUE

  Berkley titles by C. M. Palov

  ARK OF FIRE

  THE TEMPLAR’S CODE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE TEMPLAR’S CODE

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley premium edition / November 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Chloe Palov.

  Interior artwork by Ria Palov.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-44519-8

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  I lived in this world of darkness for myriads of years and no one ever knew that I was there.

  —GNOSTIC HYMN

  PROLOGUE

  THE NEW WORLD

  ARCADIA COLONY

  1524

  Isabelle d’Anjou threw herself at the foot of the black-robed priest. “Mercy! I beg you!”

  “Haereticus!” the Jesuit screamed, his thin ascetic frame shaking with fury’s passion. “By this cross you will know him!”

  An armed soldier, red surcoat emblazoned with a white cross, roughly grabbed Isabelle by the waist and hauled her away from the priest. Shrieking, a wild animal caught in a snare, the terrified girl grabbed at the beads dangling from the Jesuit’s hand. A desperate plea that went unanswered, the soldier plunging a falchion into Isabelle’s left breast. Blood arced through the air, splattering the priest’s cassock.

  Raising his gaze heavenward, the Black Robe made a ritualized motion. Above to below. Left to right. “In nominee Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” With upturned hands, the Black Robe continued his Latin chant . . . as the mounted knights slashed and swung their broadswords . . . as the soldiers ravished the village women . . . as the orange flames consumed the thatched huts in a fiery blaze . . . as the pitiless and unrelenting devastation raged all around.

  Horrified, Yann peered beneath the upturned cart. He watched as a bearded man, the Stone Keeper, fell to his knees, hands clasped to his chest. Blood dripped from a hideous gash on the side of his face. For one brief instant, their eyes met.

  “Yann! You must—” The cry went unfinished. An armored horseman, brandishing a broadsword in his gloved hand, took aim at the bearded supplicant, severing both hands with one pendulous swing as the blade sliced through the Stone Keeper’s torso. The morning sun glinted off a silver ring still attached to a detached hand.

  Suddenly, a village farmer, sharp scythe gripped in his hands, charged through the melee. “Beauséant!” he yelled. That hoarse cry was the last word the intrepid farmer uttered, a soldier embedding a double-edged ax into the top of Didier’s skull.

  And on it went as though the gates of hell had opened up and swallowed the village of Arcadia whole. A killing field. Sickles and scythes no match for broadsword and war hammer.

  Fear rooting him in place, twelve-year-old Yann remained crouched beneath the wooden cart. Blackness threatened to overtake him. Dark spots swirled befor
e his eyes. The entire village was drenched in blood. Everywhere he looked: headless torsos, sprawled legs. A trampled hump, all that was left of César the blacksmith. A shout indistinguishable from a shriek.

  And standing near the front gate, presiding over the bloody mass, the duplicitous Black Robe.

  Yann shuddered, blinked, commanded his body to move.

  I must escape!

  Crawling from under the cart, Yann dashed toward the blacksmith’s shop, orange flames shooting from the roof. From there he charged across the Bertrand croft with its newly planted Lenten crops. Barley and beans. Glancing up, he saw the mended battle standard that undulated in the breeze above the village longhouse. Splayed red cross on a black-and-white background. A different cross from the one sewn onto the surcoats of the marauding soldiers.

  Yann charged toward the stone wall that bordered the back of the village and hoisted himself up and over. He gracelessly landed in a bramble bush. Sharp thorns pierced his hose. Dizzy, he leaned over and retched.

  On the other side of the stone wall, he heard a knight angrily bellow, “Kill them! Kill them all!”

  Flagging energy renewed, Yann lurched out of the bush and kept on running. Toward the forest with its dense greenery and long shadows. The perfect place for a boy to vanish from sight. To escape the carnage.

  Since the time of the great sea journey, two hundred years ago, the people of Arcadia had lived in harmony with their neighbors. Each year, the Arcadians paid tribute to the local sachem, bushels of dried fish ensuring peaceful coexistence. A small price to pay.

  But the Black Robe could not be bribed. He did not want their gold. Or their silver. Or a basket of dried pike. He wanted their sacred stone. And he was willing to kill every man, woman, and child in Arcadia to get it.

  But the Black Robe would come away empty-handed. The ancient relic was not kept in Arcadia. It was safeguarded in a specially built sanctuary, a league away. A fact known only to the Stone Keeper and the seven members of his inner circle. All dead. Put to the sword.

  Which meant that Yann was the only Arcadian still alive who knew the secret. The reason why he now ran through the forest. Heart pounding. Shins aching. Breathless.

  Gasping for air, Yann came to a shuddering halt and leaned against a sturdy oak tree. Shafts of sunlight streamed through the interlaced branches, dappling moss and rock.

  Hearing something other than his own labored breath, Yann jerked his head away from the trunk. Craning his neck, he fearfully peered behind him . . . just in time to see two Narragansett warriors, faces painted, black hair roached, emerge from the shadows. One man held a war club, the other a tomahawk.

  Uncertain whether they were friend or foe, Yann placed his right hand over his racing heart and bowed his head. “I am Yann Gugues . . . the Stone Keeper’s son.”

  CHAPTER 1

  PRESENT DAY

  WASHINGTON, D. C .

  Afraid that he’d been followed, Jason Lovett scanned the crowded subway platform as he pushed his way through the slow-moving throng.

  Not seeing the pretty boy bastard who’d been tailing him, he noisily exhaled.

  So far, so good.

  The exit turnstile was at the other end of the Dupont Circle station and he was in a big-ass hurry. The lecture was scheduled to end at one o’clock. It was his only chance to speak with Caedmon Aisquith. And, hopefully, to make a proposition the English historian turned author couldn’t refuse. He had fifteen minutes to get to the lecture hall.

  Shit. Could these people move any slower?

  “It’s like bovines being loaded off a cattle car,” he muttered, now sandwiched between a pudgy soccer mom and her equally plump teenage daughter. Afraid he would get stuck on the escalator behind a couple of lard asses, he squeezed past.

  No sooner did he clear the obstacle than a dude in an even bigger hurry bumped into him, prying loose the book Lovett had tucked under his arm. He made an awkward save, catching the hardcover volume before it hit the deck. The subway had seemed a good idea at the time; now he wasn’t so sure. Earlier, he’d gone to Union Station where he bought a train ticket for Richmond. He’d even boarded the train, bailing out just before it left the station. Moments after that, he caught the westbound subway. An elaborate hoax to make the pretty boy bastard think he was leaving town.

  God, he hoped the ruse worked.

  Feeling a trickle of sweat roll down the side of his face, he wiped his shirt sleeve across his brow, the humid air inside the cavernous station jungle-like.

  Finally reaching the turnstile, he snatched his subway ticket out of the metal slot and rushed toward the escalator. Head bent, he sprinted up the left side. Glancing upward, he groaned, the escalator at least a city block long. Ten years had come and gone since he rowed crew at Brown University, his lung capacity not what it used to be.

  A few moments later, wheezing like an old fart with emphysema, he stepped off the escalator. He glanced around the urban neighborhood, disoriented. Dupont Circle was a hip hodgepodge of cafés, bookstores, and high-end art galleries. The nearby traffic circle, with at least six streets radiating out in all directions, didn’t help.

  He stopped a middle-aged suit rushing past. “Excuse me,” he huffed, still working on catching his breath. “I’m looking for the House of the Temple.”

  The suit pointed to one of the radiating streets. “Two blocks up New Hampshire. Turn right on S Street,” he brusquely replied, clearly annoyed that the last five seconds of his life had been stolen from him.

  Lovett nodded his thanks. Ignoring the traffic signal, he darted in front of a yellow cab. His jaywalking incited several motorists to lay on the horn.

  Up yours! I’m in a hurry.

  Figuring he’d catch his breath at the other end of the line, he jogged down New Hampshire Avenue, the tree-lined street relatively free of pedestrian traffic. The embassies of Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Nicaragua passed in a blur.

  He peered over his shoulder.

  Damn. There was a dark-haired man about a block back. He didn’t think it was the pretty boy bastard. But then again, it might be.

  Catching sight of an English basement on a nearby town house, he veered off course, ducking into the brick stairwell. He scrunched out of sight, wedging himself between a metal garbage can and a blue recycling bin. Worried he might puke, or even pass out, he ripped open the Velcro flap on his cargo pants and removed a prescription bottle. The doctor at the walk-in clinic prescribed the Xanax to help manage his anxiety. He’d taken one an hour ago and so far it hadn’t done jack.

  Fumbling with the childproof lid, he popped another tablet into his mouth.

  A second later, his courage in freefall, he peered over the brick retaining wall. The dark-haired man was now a half block away. Still too far to make out his features.

  Lovett shoved his hand back into his pocket, this time removing a small digital voice recorder. He’d been keeping a verbal diary. Just in case.

  Fearing the worst, he switched it on. Then, in a lowered voice, he continued. “If someone is listening to this, shit, it means the fucker finally caught up to me. Just so we’re clear, I’m not paranoid. I am being stalked. But there’s too much at stake to tuck tail and run. No way in hell I’m going to let that pretty boy bastard take what’s mine. If he wants the treasure, he’s going to have to—”

  The dark-haired man strolled past.

  Lovett sagged against the brick wall, relieved.

  Hoping the Xanax kicked in sooner rather than later, he shoved the recorder back in his pocket and climbed out of the stairwell.

  At S Street, he turned right. About a hundred yards down, he caught sight of the House of the Temple, a colossus of stone that took up an entire city block.

  Christ.

  What kind of drugs were the Freemasons taking when they constructed the ungodly structure?

  The House of the Temple looked like an ancient Greek sanctuary with a truncated pyramid plunked on the top of it. The pyramid bore an uncanny rese
mblance to the one on the back of the dollar bill. Which no doubt gave conspiracy theorists a hard-on. Add to that the giant pair of sphinxes that flanked the imposing granite steps and the whole thing put him in mind of the Temple of Mausolus at Halicarnassus. Which was kind of ironic, since he spent a summer at Bodrum working on an archaeology dig. Slaving away, actually, grad students forced to do all the grunt work. But then he dug up a gold earring. Talk about an adrenaline rush. It sure beat the hell out of sifting through potsherds.

  Deciding there and then that the real glory was in treasure hunting, he spent the next summer at Key West, volunteering with the Fisher expedition. Man alive. It was an adrenaline rush on steroids, gold and silver bars strewn across the ocean floor, there for the picking. But not the taking, the Fisher folks being a real proprietary lot. Possessed of a first-class education and a burning desire to make his mark on the world, he figured he could find his own treasure trove.

  And he was damned closed to doing just that.

  But he needed help.

  That’s why he was standing in front of the butt-ugly building.

  Knowing he only had a few minutes before the clock struck one, Lovett took the steps two at a time, counting thirty-three of them. At the top, he opened a massive pair of bronze doors. About to step inside, he glanced over his shoulder.

  The pretty boy bastard was nowhere in sight.

  Mission accomplished.

  CHAPTER 2

  “. . . leaving no question in my mind that the Ark of the Covenant was a form of ancient technology inherited from the Egyptians,” Caedmon Aisquith told his audience, more than a few of whom had a copy of his book Isis Revealed in plain sight.

  “Next question?” He pointed to a woman sitting in the front row of the library reading room. At least four dozen jurists’ chairs had been placed in the middle of the room, turning the book-lined chamber into a makeshift lecture hall.

  The bespectacled attendee glanced from side to side, verifying that she was indeed the chosen questioner. “Yes, I’m, um, curious about your recent trip to Ethiopia, which you briefly mentioned in the lecture. How do you know the Ark of the Covenant isn’t hidden there?”