James Acton 04 - The Templar's Relic (2 page)

The Imam’s voice was muffled but clear enough. “Go!”

Malik didn’t need to be told twice. He turned, eyeing the tunnel ahead of him, and stepped forward into what, he did not know.

Northern Wall, Vatican City

Present Day

Ermes Sabatino looked up as one of the men yelled for an excavator to stop.

“What now?”

It was like this job was cursed. This had been going on for almost three months. They were trying to replace an ancient storm drain and sewer line that ran on the Vatican grounds with a more modern one. But since day one there had been problems. Because it tapped into the Rome lines, permits were needed. These were constantly delayed or lost. There were extra inspections, environmental assessments, and any other myriad of delays thrown in his face. This should have been a three month job, but they were already at the three month mark, and excavation had only begun two weeks ago, but equipment kept malfunctioning, and some was sabotaged.

It was as if someone was trying to stop the job.

But why?
It’s only a goddamned sewer!
He stopped and looked at where he was, then made the sign of the cross.

He heard the mighty machine turn off.
Okay, this might be bad.
Had they hit a gas line? He looked through the window of his trailer, and there was no indication of panic. If anything, he’d call it excitement.

He grabbed his hard hat and shoved it on his head as he stepped from the air conditioned cool and out into the midday heat. Trotting over to the crowd gathering, he pushed his way though, and when he reached the site, he gasped. The teeth of the excavator had broken through the ground, revealing a chamber underneath.

He felt the ground shift under him.

“Everybody get back!” he yelled. “This ground may not be stable.”

He began to step back himself when he felt the ground give way, and he plunged into the depths below. He heard several others cry out as they fell along with him.

His arms flailed, looking for anything to grab onto, but found nothing but empty space. Then he hit. Hard. His head snapped back, but the helmet did its job, absorbing the blow. He looked about but couldn’t see anything, just darkness around him, and a light above, blocked by dust.

“Are you okay?” yelled a voice from above.

He wasn’t sure. He sat up. Nothing felt broken. “I’m okay!” He looked about but couldn’t make out anyone else. “Who else is here? Are you okay?”

“It’s Luca. I think I broke my leg.”

“Filippo. I’m okay.”

A flashlight snapped on. It was Filippo.

“How many are missing?” he called up.

“Three of you fell in!”

“Okay, we have one injured man down here. Call for an ambulance and fire department. We’re going to need some special equipment to get us out of here.”

“I’m on it!”

Sabatino looked around.

“And send some flashlights down here.”

He heard the sounds of several plastic flashlights smashing nearby.

“In a bucket on a rope, you idiots!”

“Sorry, boss!”

“Let me see that,” he said to Filippo, putting his hand out for the flashlight. Filippo handed it over, and Sabatino played the beam around the area. It was ancient, filled with dust and cobwebs. Several large stone boxes occupied the room. He stepped over to one, searching for the word, trying to remember what it was called.

Then he shivered.

Sarcophagus!

Outside Acre, Dominion of Saladin

1191 A.D.

Malik squinted at the sun.
Late afternoon.
The exit, or entrance, depending on which way you were travelling, was not well marked, which was clearly by design. Buried behind a myriad of rocks, exiting had involved shoving aside what turned out to be a fairly heavy hollowed out rock. When Malik had emerged from the hole and replaced the rock, he was amazed at the simplicity of it all. The stone looked like any other. Though hollowed, it was substantial enough that a single man would still struggle to move it.

He swept his foot over the sand, hiding any indication that the stone had moved, then cautiously stepped out from the rocks, surveying the area. He was alone. Squatting in the shade from one of the large rocks, he examined the provisions.
Two weeks?
It occurred to him perhaps the old man didn’t eat much, or had forgotten to give him a bag.

But his first priority was to put some distance between himself and the city. To the north he could see the dust from the infidels, and smoke from fires burning in the city. The siege had been brutal. He had heard whisper of several surrender attempts, but none had been accepted. Saladin had managed to hold off the hordes by attacking the infidels from the outside every time the walls were breached.

But not this time.

He wondered why. What had changed for Saladin to not come to the city’s aid once more? Could the Christians have defeated him? Were his forces too weakened to stage an attack?

He plodded through the hard rock and hot sand.

It was frustrating. Malik knew he was just a boy, not schooled in the ways of the world yet, but to him the fall of Acre, his home since birth, was blasphemous. The stunning mosque he had worshiped in since he was a boy, and lived in after the death of his parents from some sort of pestilence, was a holy place, a place infidels should never tread.

But it had fallen, and they had tread there.

It had been almost ten years that he had lived there, and those years had left very little memory of his real parents. And for that he sometimes wept, his guilt-ridden mind unable to cope.

But one day he would earn his place in Paradise, in Jannah, and see them again.

He smiled at the thought.

The neighing of a horse tore him from his reverie.

Malik dropped to a knee and looked around, finding no one. Lying down, he slithered up the embankment he was on like an asp. Cresting the top, he peered down below. His heart hammered in his chest. Four horses. He looked closely. Three men were sitting inside a fair-sized tent, enough to comfortably fit them. In front of the tent, tea brewed on a small fire as the men relaxed, obviously avoiding travel during the heat of the midday sun.

These weren’t Christian soldiers. And with a spare horse, if they were men of God they would surely lend him the horse, perhaps even escort him all the way to Jaffa. Malik looked up at the heavens.
Allah be praised for bringing them to me!

He was about to rise to his feet and announce his presence to his saviors, when he heard a noise to his left.
What was that?
It almost sounded like a child. A child sobbing. He slithered back down the embankment, then ran further to the left, toward where he guessed the sound had come. Again he crawled to the top, and, peering over the side, almost gasped.

Below, hidden behind a large stone that sat behind the tent, were four children, varying in age from what he would guess to be barely ten, up to his own age of fourteen. They were all shackled together.

Slave traders!

Suddenly a long shadow cast itself over him, the raging sun blocked. He turned over and saw the silhouette of a man reaching down to grab him.
The fourth rider!
Malik reacted quickly, and the only way he could at this moment. He raised his right knee, then extended his foot—hard and fast. The desired target hit, the man gasped in pain, grasping his now scrambled eggs, and fell backward. Malik leapt to his feet, and in a split second made a monumental decision. He could flee, and perhaps save himself, but more likely be captured by the four men on horseback, or he could fight, perhaps preventing his own discovery, and perhaps, even accomplishing something noble in the name of Allah.

He picked up a rock, and raising it over his head with both hands, dropped to his knees beside the man who was writhing in agony, his eyes closed. Malik dropped the stone hard. It immediately drew blood from the man’s forehead. Before the man could react, Malik hit him again. And again. Several more blows and it was clear the man was no longer a threat. In fact, Malik wasn’t even sure if he was alive.

He tossed the stone aside and dropped back on his haunches, holding his blood soaked hands in front of him.
Forgive me, Allah!
He had never struck a man before, and he had certainly never killed a man. Tears filled his eyes as he looked down at the man, unmoving, even his chest failing to rise and fall with the life giving breaths it should.

He must be dead.

Malik wiped his hands in the sand, ridding them as best he could of the blood staining them. He rose, looking about for the man’s companions, but found himself alone. As he stepped away he stopped. Around the man’s chest was a leather cord, and attached to that was a ring with keys. Keys that just might fit the shackles imprisoning the children he had found. He yanked it off the man’s neck, the cord snapping with little effort.

The keys slipped from his fingers, and as if in slow motion, slid down the loose end of the cord, falling through the air, Malik’s mouth gaping in horror as they clattered against a rock. The sound seemed to roar across the landscape as Malik’s heart pounded, his ears filling with the rush of blood, removing all stillness from the setting.

He dropped to the ground.

Listening for the others, he tried to steady his breathing, the din in his ears hindering his ability to listen for the telltale sounds of feet on sand. He closed his eyes, and said a short prayer, asking Allah for strength and guidance.

The roaring quieted. He opened his eyes and looked.

No one.

And no sounds.

He carefully picked up the keys, this time gripping them tightly, and crawled toward where he had seen the children. He found them, still alone, still shackled.

“Pssst!”

The small hiss, meant to attract their attention, sounded like the horns of the Christians. One of them looked up, a boy about his age. Malik put his finger to his lips, urging him to remain quiet. The boy nodded, then tapped the others on the shoulders, his own finger to his lips, then pointed to Malik. One was about to say something when the older boy put his hand over the young one’s mouth, shaking his head. The little one nodded.

Malik crawled down the embankment and quickly reached the cover of the rock. Without saying a word, he showed the keys to the older boy, whose face lit up with a smile and wide eyes. He grabbed the keys, and flipped through them quickly, selecting one he had obviously seen used before. He slid it into the keyhole on the shackles gripping his ankle, and turned. They fell to the ground.

This got the other kids excited.

“Me next!”

The older one slapped his hand over the young one’s mouth, and they all froze, listening for the slavers. The murmur of their voices was all that could be heard, and it didn’t seem to have changed.

The oldest one unlocked the remaining children, then they all quickly ran with their back to the rock, putting as much distance as they could as quickly as they could between them and the slavers. As they left the captors behind, the scrambled combination of ducking and running turned into an all-out run, with Malik and the oldest alternating between dragging and carrying the others, who were quickly exhausted.

Malik spotted a group of rocks, and pointed. The older boy nodded, and they adjusted their direction toward the stones and the precious cover they would provide. Within minutes they were safely tucked in behind the stones, Malik and the eldest peering out for any sign of pursuit, the other three lying on their backs, gasping for air, one crying softly.

Satisfied there were no pursuers, Malik sat down, his back to a rock, and calmed his hammering heart. The eldest held out his hand, saying something that had Malik’s heart drumming again. He spoke in the tongue of the invaders.

He was an infidel!

Corpo della Gendarmeria Office

Palazzo del Governatorato, Vatican City

Present Day

“Out of the question!”

“What do you mean? How can you say that? It’s protocol, we’ve always done it this way!”

Inspector General Mario Giasson, head of the Corpo della Gendarmeria dello Stato della Città del Vaticano, or the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City State, stared at Father Jonathan Brandis.
Where has he been this past year?

“I’m sorry, Father, but with two serious security breaches”—he held up a finger—“at least two serious security breaches, in the past year, there is no way I can let a team of outside archaeologists swarm all over the city.”

Father Brandis dropped into a chair, clearly frustrated. “But Monsieur, this is an archaeological find. Surely you don’t propose we destroy it and continue on with the construction.”

Giasson ran his hand over his shaved head, willing the tension into his fingers, and away from the pounding headache he now had. This was quite possibly the worst scenario they could be facing. They were using the sewage upgrade as an excuse to seal off the entrance to the Vault that had been discovered several months ago, and it was clear someone was trying to stop it, or at least delay it.

And now this.

This threatened to not only stop the entire project indefinitely, but bring in outsiders, who might stumble upon the Vault, which was absolutely not acceptable.

Unfortunately Father Brandis was right. There was no avoiding it. The discovery had to be investigated, there was no choice. This was history, and it needed to be preserved.

But they also needed to seal the security breach, and it couldn’t be done from the inside, as that would expose the Vault. It had to be done from the other end.

He turned to Ermes Sabatino who had sat patiently through the exchange. “Can you reroute?”