The Book of 21 (17 page)

John scrolled down the webpage a bit more and wondered if the author ever thought about breaking the material up into a couple of different pages; the single webpage would probably fill a three-ring binder when printed. John looked at the page. Across the top, there were links to “Home,” “History of the Templars,” and “Treasure of the Templars.”

“Everybody loves treasure,” he sighed, as he clicked the treasure link.

The webpage loaded quickly on the hotel’s broadband connection and presented a legend in which the Templars found a treasure in the Middle East. Upon bringing the treasure back to Europe, it became a source of great power to the Templars, and when the church became jealous of this power, they destroyed the knights in an attempt to possess that wealth. However, the Templars hid the treasure somewhere in France to keep it from the church.

John eased back in his chair and took a sip of bourbon. This was a case of a schism between the church and a sub-group of Christians. It fit his earlier conjecture.

He returned to the search page and selected the next webpage in the list. The new page discussed how Templars, and subsequently Masons, used sacred patterns. It went on to explain that there were several geometric grids on the earth, which organized consciousness and energy. The author began to detail how the triangle represented “connectiveness.” John knew that people could see anything in patterns, and even trained detectives misperceived patterns. While interesting, the theory on geometric patterns made John wonder whether the author missed his daily dose of lithium.

John was just about to click “back” again, when one sentence caught his eye. It read: “The letter Vau ‘#6’ is another one of these triangle patterns that represent connection, and it sometimes referred to as the Key of David.”

John pondered that for a second, and then returned to the search screen. He typed “Vau” and “6” into the text box. After a second, the search engine returned pages referencing the Tarot. He turned his head slightly and looked at the screen. At first, the connection seemed odd. He paused for a second, hesitant as to whether the search results were right.

Opening the first link, he read a bit from a book called
Tarot of the Bohemians
, which was supposedly a long-forgotten text. According to this chapter, card six of the Tarot represented balance, transition, passage, and the merging of opposites; it was also associated with Vau. John thought this was an interesting and apt description for the Key of David, which supposedly prevented the release of gods who would unleash both extreme good and bad—the merging of opposites.

Returning to the list, he clicked the next link, which contained a graphical depiction of the Hebrew script that was the letter Vau. He looked at the letter. It was a sort of distorted “greater than” symbol, with the bottom line pushed downward.

He knew where he had seen that shape before; he flipped back to vanNest’s photocopy of the cover page to the Key of David. He looked at Vau for a second, then again at the page vanNest had sent. The letter Vau was remarkably similar in shape to the lines inside the rectangle.

Incorporating the letter Vau into the design of a title page for a book on the Key of David would be interesting, but this seemed to be quite a pedestrian attempt. John asked himself why the author would simplify it and then frame it with a boring design. The execution seemed uninspired for an era with texts that often held great art; the page just did not seem to resemble a title page of an old book.

It suddenly hit him.

“It’s not a cover page to a book about the key; it
is
the key.”

A second later, he asked himself why Hallman and Dunglison failed to see it; they probably ran the same Web search at some point. The information was there, waiting for them. The elation of his discovery gave away sharply to self-doubt.

The sources of information were shaky at best, and even John knew that some of these pages were simply fantasy, but he still thought Dunglison and Hallman had to notice it. He thought the sticking point might be that they needed sources with academic merit. It was just as Amy said; if Hallman pushed out a paper based on nothing better than a poorly verified fantasy, his reputation would be toast. According to Amy’s earlier story, it would seem likely that Hallman may have figured out that the page was the key, and Dunglison was urging him to wait until he could check more facts.

John just needed to save his job, so he really could test any hypothesis he wanted right now; academic merit meant nothing to him. He did realize, however, that he should not get overly excited about the idea, or throw too much confidence into it. Even if the paper was a key, John had no idea of what to do with it.

John decided to step away from the Web search, and get back to Hallman’s stack of papers; he turned to the next page in the pile. It was titled, “The Legend of Sir Charles,” and carried the byline of TJ Hallman. John wondered why Hallman would have been so formal as to center the title and include the byline. The paper read:

When collecting stories about the 21 old gods, I heard of a legendary Templar Knight named Sir Charles, described as pure of heart and fearless in battle. Sir Charles apparently led a small band of Templars against a much larger Muslim force at a temple in Phrygia, close to the location of the Church of Philadelphia in Asia Minor.

Apparently, a ferocious battle to the death ensued, with the Muslims refusing to surrender the temple. At the end, only one man stood—Sir Charles. Several letters I have found refer to a locked door behind which Sir Charles found
Le Coeur Codex
.

I have linked the appearance of Baphomet at Templar meetings to the time shortly after Sir Charles returned to France. The timeframe is rough—about a year or so different. During this same period, the church first claimed the Templars held a source of great power.

While vanNest believes his page to be a title page to a missing text, I feel it is the key itself. I have hidden the necessary reference pages to these claims in various folders within Anita Brinker’s filing cabinets. They may take some time to retrieve, but I figured the necessary authorities would be able to take that time.

Sir Charles found something. What he found is still a mystery, but someone wants it, and I feel that it can be recovered with the key.

John sighed and thought about going back to Penn Commonwealth to try to access Brinker’s files; even if he could pick the lock, there was not enough time to go through all the files before the cleaning crew chanced upon him, or the staff began to arrive in the morning. Based on Hallman’s note, the kid also felt that the page vanNest photocopied was, in itself, the key. John resolved that all the academic references, which justified exactly why Hallman felt that way, were irrelevant to his current situation. Right now, he only needed to figure out how and where to use the thing.

He smiled and took another sip of bourbon, then sighed, “Piece of cake.”

Chapter 19:
Harry Loses His Cool

As Harry Mulgrew stared at his office door, he thought of all the evidence he was about to sort through. There was so much material to examine that he could be at it for weeks. He wondered why he always wound up on the toughest cases, but he knew there was really no reason. It was just his luck.

On the thought of luck, he suddenly wondered whether Murphy’s death was really related to the case, or just chance. He knew that random accidents bore that name for a reason, and while the human mind tried to make sense of them, there often was really no reason why some things happened. Some events were simply part of life’s chaos.

Though he wanted to think that was the circumstance right now, he knew that John had never been the type to start jumping to conclusions and manufacturing connections. John had always seemed very smart and thorough. With that being the case, he wondered what could have suddenly appeared in John’s personnel file to trigger a suspension.

Harry realized his mind was bouncing around like a pinball; he considered whether he should have just slept tonight and come in tomorrow with a fresh head. After he briefly wondered why his life was so pathetic that he would even consider going into work in the middle of the night, he told himself to stop it. All of his worry did little to solve anything; he was there, and if a friend needed help, he would do his best.

After digging in his left pocket, he withdrew the key to his office and slid it into the keyhole. He hesitated one second before turning the key, just to tell himself that he was indeed doing the right thing. With a twist of his wrist, Harry unlocked the door to his office.

Harry surveyed the office. His desk was tidy and clean. That instantly told him that there was a problem.

The evidence from the three scenes had been on his desk, in white plastic bins that held test tubes and plastic bags. Now, there was nothing there. He stood there for a second, hoping that the stuff would just miraculously reappear. He suggested to himself that one of his office mates might have been kind enough to put it away. He opened the small evidence closet behind his desk and one glance told him it was empty.

“Damn it.”

At first, he felt guilty for not locking it away in the evidence closet, but he knew this was an irrational thought. Whoever got in the office would be able to get into the evidence closet. The closet used the same key as his office door; the chamber simply provided the convenience of leaving the office unlocked while still being able to lock evidence away.

That being the case, he told himself not to cry over spilt milk and mumbled, “When you spill the milk grab a mop.” He then knew whom he needed to see.

Harry went out into the hallway and looked around. There was no sign of movement. He went down the stairs to the first floor, where he knew the cleaning crew was still working. The large, hulking form of Jerome Butler was mopping the floor in the hall.

“Jerome, did you clean anything in my office?”

“Dr. Mulgrew, we talked about this, we vacuum and mop the floor, and that’s it,” Jerome said with a roll of his eyes. The behemoth of a man stopped mopping and looked at Harry. “Besides, I didn’t see anything in there anyway.”

Harry folded his arms, and asked, “How long ago were you in there?”

“An hour, or so,” Jerome stated flatly.

“And you didn’t see
anything
on the desk.”

“No,” Jerome groaned, “I didn’t, Dr. Mulgrew.”

Harry realized that Jerome’s monotone groan sounded like the response of a schoolboy who was being scolded. He took a deep breath and asked, “What about the other people you are working with?”

“I’m on alone tonight, Dr. Mulgrew. There’s no one else here.”

Harry put his hands in pockets. While he turned the missing evidence over in his mind, he muttered to himself, “It was there when I left. It didn’t just walk off by itself.”

Jerome felt the words were pointed at him, and he lost his last grip on patience. “Well, I didn’t walk off with it either,” Jerome snapped. He leaned toward Harry, as if to imply he could willingly drive the smaller man into the ground like a ten-penny nail.

Harry leaned in and barked back, “Well, somebody did.” He turned and walked away. “I’m going to have somebody’s ass for this. Someone’s getting fired.”

Jerome mumbled to himself as he watched the Harry walk away, “You can’t fire
me
, jackass. I’m union.”

On the way back to his office, Harry dialed John’s cell phone. After one ring, the call went to John’s voicemail.

“John, call me. It’s all gone; everything I collected is gone.”

He sat down behind his desk, and realized that John was right—someone had to be on the inside. The problem was that he did not know what to do about it. He thought about John’s admonition, “Be
careful
. Don’t wind up dead like Murphy.”

He opened his desk drawer to reveal his service revolver. He lifted the gun and swung out the revolving cylinder that held the bullets. He pulled each bullet out, one by one, and made sure each was the hollow-point type that he used before replacing it. After snapping the cylinder securely back into place, he pulled back on the hammer to cock the pistol, and sat it on top of his desk blotter.

Harry Mulgrew began staring at the door, and that is how he would spend the rest of the night.

Chapter 20:
Calling All Cars

John looked at the clock next to the bed. It was almost two thirty. He had been reading cryptic conspiracy theories far too long, and knew he needed to unwind and get some sleep. He shut down the computer and sat on the bed.

Still a little too alert to nod off right away, he started looking for a mindless task that would occupy him for a few minutes, and saw the new cell phone charging on his nightstand. He resolved to learn how to set his phone to vibrate.

He picked it up and touched the screen. The small panel glowed in response. What caught his eye, however, was not the vibrate command, but the indicator that showed there was no cellular signal.

There were numerous places in the city that had a cellular shadow; it was part of dealing with the massive structures of concrete and steel that rose out of the earth in Philadelphia. He was somewhat grateful, since he could use a little time isolated from the outside world. After thinking about the idea of not being connected to the network, however, he started to get a sickening feeling.

Two thoughts shot into his mind.

The first thought was the idea of tracking a cell phone. After the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, the government required all cell phone companies to be able to triangulate the location of their phones so that people in distress could be located. The idea was that you could then dig survivors out of rubble with the cell phone serving as a sort of personal distress beacon. If these people had moles inside the department, John realized they might also have contacts in the phone company, just as he had Janice. If they had someone inside the phone company, they could track his cell phone’s location. Thanks to the E911 laws, someone could triangulate him within a few yards if he was on the grid and pinpoint him within a couple of feet if he was making a call.