The Cleric's Vault (41 page)

Chapter 69

Southwestern United States

Alexander
Lindsey made his way down a darkly lit hallway.
 
Four large bodyguards accompanied him, following close
behind.
 
The corridor was lit with
old candle sconces made from wrought iron.
 
Unlike most sconces in the present day, the building’s
purveyors used fresh, real candles every day.
 
Lindsey liked that about the establishment.
 
It gave the place a serene, almost
haunted feel.
 

The
building they were visiting was called The Galleon, an elitist club that was
named as tribute to the mighty ships of the Spanish Armada.
 
Though its name hinted at an overall
Spanish theme, the club actually paid honor to many different types of sailing
vessels from years gone by.
 
Near
each sconce was an oil panting of a famous ocean going vessel.
 
Some belonged to great captains from
history.
 
Others were associated
with less reputable seafarers.
 

The
Galleon was an oddity given that it was located in Salt Lake City, nowhere near
an ocean.
 
The founder had, no
doubt, had a love of the sea and history so when he opened his club for Utah’s
elite, he combined the two to create a unified theme.

Lindsey
had been there a few times for business meetings that would be better left out
of the public eye.
 
That was
probably the greatest service that the establishment provided.
 

On
the outside, it seemed just like any other private club, a place where
businessmen could have a drink or a cigar and unwind after their daily
toils.
 
The inside, though, was a
facility full of secrets.
 

Aside
from the main lounge, there were ten smaller rooms, each featuring leather
couches and chairs, mini-bars, restrooms, fireplaces, and even small tables for
eating.
 
It was rumored that
hundreds of under-the-table deals had been made in the facility.
 
Even two former presidents were members
and had been said to visit the place when meeting with foreign heads of state
or with high level business officials.
 
The floor was made from dark, worn oak planks that had been said to come
from two old merchant vessels the owner had purchased for scrap.
 
A narrow strip of dark, red carpet ran
along the center of the hall between each of the ten rooms.

Lindsey
and his escorts arrived at a door marked with the name,
Sir Francis Drake.
 
He
looked left to right at his bodyguards and then pulled the door handle.
 

As
the door eased open, Mornay and Carroll looked over from their seats near the
fireplace.
 
Their conversation had
come to an abrupt halt.

Alexander
eyed both of them suspiciously.
 
“Don’t let me interrupt you, gentlemen.
 
It sounded like you were talking about something.”
 
His tone was lathered in a
condescending tone.

The
two men’s faces were awash with a combination of guilt and fear.
 
The fire in the hearth crackled
dramatically in the silence.

“Alexander,”
Carroll said with a stutter, “please, come join us.”
 
He stood, cautiously.
 
“Would you like a brandy?” he offered, nearly stumbling over the coffee
table as he headed towards the bar.

“Sit
down, Jonathan.”
 
The harsh order
startled the already unsettled man, and he felt his way into a seat near where
he was standing.
 
Mornay was less
eager to acquiesce to the request and stood up defiantly.
 
“You too, Albert,” Alexander said with
a tone that carried a warning.

The
narrow, sharp face of Mornay clenched angrily.
 
“I think I’ll stand, Alexander.
 
What are you doing here?
 
It is against club policy to interrupt a room with closed
doors.”

Lindsey
gave a quick nod to his escorts who walked over to where Mornay was standing
and forced him to sit down, splashing the whiskey he was holding all over the
floor and his pants.
 

“I
said sit down,” Lindsey replied coldly.
 
“And the club makes certain allowances for its more generous
patrons.”
 
He grinned slightly as
he made his way across the room to where the two men were seated.
 
The remaining bodyguards closed the
door behind him and stood, staring lifelessly towards the fireplace.

Mornay’s
anger only heightened at the fact that two men pushed him into sitting in the
deep leather couch.
 
He hated being
treated like a child.
 
“What is
this about?” he asked, incredulous.

Carroll
tried a different approach.
 
Perhaps thinking that being a little proactive would change the emotions
of the room a bit.
 
“How are things
progressing with our project?” he asked sheepishly.

Lindsey
turned to the fleshy man whose three piece suit protruded awkwardly around his
rotund figure.
 
“Ah.
 
Our little project.
 
Yes, Jonathan, it’s interesting that
you should ask about that.
 
Very
interesting indeed.”

“What
are you talking about?” Mornay interrupted.

“Things
are progressing quite well, it seems.
 
In fact, our lead operative has made an extremely valuable discovery.”

“Another
clue?” Carroll offered in vain hope.

Lindsey
snorted.
 
“I guess you could call
it that.”
 
The old man stepped
around the couch and eased into a leather chair facing both men.

“You
see, Agent Hastings ran into an interesting situation while in South
America.”
 
He paused momentarily
and let the drama build along with the fear in his subordinates’ minds.
 
Neither man dared look at the other,
still clinging to hope that their treachery hadn’t been discovered.
 
“It seems there was another player
involved that I was previously unaware of.”

“So,”
Mornay said defiantly.
 
“Did our
operative handle the situation?”

The
old man let out a low chuckle and raised a finger towards Mornay.
 
“Which operative are you talking about,
Albert?”
 
His tone had become
almost playful, dangling his victims over the possibility of escape or
doom.
 

“Hastings.
 
Did he get rid of the problem?”

Even
now Mornay was still obstinate.
 
Lindsey knew he would never bow, never be trustworthy.
 
To complete the mission at hand,
Lindsey would need men he could depend on, those who would do anything he said
without question.
 
The two men
before him had not only proven themselves unreliable but had actually gone
behind his back and tried to sabotage the mission.
 
Had they succeeded, Lindsey feared everything would have
been lost.
 
They would have, no
doubt, simply taken the treasure and quit there, happy to fill their coffers
with more loot.
 
Men like that only
cared about money.
 

Lindsey’s
thoughts still lingered on the two betrayers.
 
Mornay, especially,
was infatuated with superficial power.
 
He believed that money could buy power.
 
Money could by people and votes and material possessions,
but a twenty-five-cent bullet could take all of that away in a second.
 
Disease could destroy an entire life’s
work and cut short everything a person had worked for.
 
An idiot texting on the interstate
could swerve over and crash your car along with theirs, killing you without
notice.
 
No, money was not
power.
 
A greater power
existed.
 
And the two morons two
whom The Prophet spoke had put the acquisition of that power at great
risk.
 
Their greed and foolish
ambition could have ruined everything he had worked so diligently to attain.

“He
got rid of that part of the problem, yes.”
 
Lindsey looked thoughtful for a moment.
 
Mornay and Carroll gave each other a
cautious sideways glance.
 
They may
have actually believed they would get away with it.

“Good,”
Carroll chimed in.
 
“So things will
continue to move forward?”

He
looked at Carroll then Mornay.
 
“Come, Gentlemen.
 
I have
convened a meeting of the Order and need you both to attend.
 
We must leave at once.”

The
sudden request caught the other two off guard.
 
They both looked at each other with a combined expression of
confusion and relief.
  
“Lead
the way,” Carroll said as he stood simultaneously with Mornay.
 

“You
will ride with these men here,” Lindsey said flatly.
 

“What
about our cars?” Mornay protested.

Alexander
waved a dismissive hand.
 
“We will
take care of them.”
 
With that, he
led the way back out the door and down the hall, followed closely by the two
men.
 
The bodyguards formed around
the two as they exited the room.

Carroll
looked around nervously.
 
There
were no other people in sight.
 
As
they rounded the corner towards the lounge, they noticed that it too was
completely vacant.
 
He said nothing
but became immediately concerned about the odd lack of patronage.
 
That time of day was usually fairly
busy for the club.
 
The group made
their way out a side door where many of The Galleon’s members entered and
exited.
 
It was another way the
club provided anonymity to its valued clientele.
 

Darkness
had fallen on the city and a cold chill burst through the doorway.
 
Once through the heavy, metal doors the
group was greeted by three black, GMC Yukons.
 
The first two vehicles had guard standing next to them.
 
The back passenger doors of the SUVs
were open, awaiting their passengers.

As
the group neared the parked convoy Lindsey suddenly stopped and turned around,
facing his two vice-presidents.
 
He
said nothing for a few seconds and the two men stood, wondering what the
awkward moment was for.
 
They never
saw the guards come up from behind and yank the hoods down over their
heads.
 
Each man was grabbed by two
guards and their hands were bound quickly behind their backs.
 
Before the unwitting adepts could even
force a scream of protest they had been thrown into the backseats of the two
vehicles.
 

Lindsey
nodded to the drivers and as soon as a guard had closed the back door the
trucks took off and disappeared around the corner at the other end of the
alley.

*****

Ten
men sat silently in the small auditorium.
 
The room was designed like a half circle, made from mountain stone.
 
Walls were lit with weathered brass
candle sconces.
 
Most of the light,
however, emanated from an iron chandelier that hung from the domed
ceiling.
 
Unlike the candles on the
walls, it was powered by electricity.
 
The seating area was much like a surgical observation deck, about seven
or eight feet above the sand covered floor below.
 
All of the faces were as blank as the stone that surrounded
them.

Their
leader, Alexander Lindsey appeared in a doorway on the floor level and walked
across the sand to the center of the room.
 
He stood next to something that would seem odd in any
facility save for the New York Stock exchange.
 
A large, bronze bull standing about six feet high and eight
feet long was in the middle of the small auditorium.
 
Underneath it, a pit of logs had been built reaching just
short of the figure’s belly.

Lindsey
looked around the room before he spoke.
 
“Today,” he began, “we must do something that has not been done in a
long time.
 
It has been many
decades since one of our own has betrayed us.
 
Yet today I present to you two who have directly opposed our
leadership and our mission.”

As
he finished the sentence, two guards in black hoods brought out the two
prisoners.