The Templar Chronicles (13 page)

Olsen dug a little deeper into the records.

*** ***

The landscape of the Beyond was constantly shifting, like a fun house mirror, hauntingly familiar yet intimately strange. Sometimes it was vastly different from where he had entered the rift; other times it was as alike as a photograph and its negative.

Tonight it was the latter.

The commandery in which he emerged was a mirror reflection of the one he had just left, though with one major difference. Here the inevitable passage of entropy was clearly visible; like a canvas painted with depression and pain, everything was hung with a patina of decay. Dark stains covered walls that seeped a foul-smelling sweat, while thick cobwebs and layers of dust hid the ceiling from view. The scent of mold hung heavily in the air. Underneath the mold, other less identifiable but equally unpleasant odors lingered. Great gaping holes littered the floor of the hallway. Through them he could see the floor below and. in one notable case, all the way to the basement deep beneath the house.

He cautiously descended the stairs, expecting them to collapse beneath him at any moment, and was finally able to reach the ground floor without mishap after several slow, agonizing minutes. From there he quickly made his way to the front door and out into the night.

He set off across the lawn, moving toward the graveyard on the far edge of the estate, just as he had earlier in the day. Where in the real world the grass was vibrantly green, here it was limp and lifeless. And like everything else in the Beyond, it was one of a thousand subtle shades of grey. Great burrow-like holes littered the area, displaying tunnels that disappeared into the dank earth below, tunnels that seemed to devour even the scant light cast by the feeble stars above.

Cade didn’t like their looks and made wide, sweeping detours to avoid them.

It was a long walk, longer than he remembered and therefore suspect in the constantly shifting landscape, though at last he came to the cemetery. The waist-high gate of iron that guarded the entrance in the real world had been torn down, but here in the Beyond it still hung on its rusted frame.

Cade moved through the gate onto the cemetery grounds.

In the living world the grave markers were carefully tended; here, many of them were split in two. Their top halves lay discarded and forgotten in the uncut grass, their bottom portions caked with strange growths and odd lichens that obscured the inscriptions. The sickly light of a waning moon cast shadows across the scene, shadows that seemed to weave and dance around him.

A sudden motion out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Reacting on instinct, Cade spun to his left.

The blade that should have severed his arm at the shoulder merely nicked his skin as he turned. A dark, barely glimpsed figure dashed past him and disappeared behind a nearby mausoleum.

Cade called after the departing figure. “I mean you no harm.” He spoke in Latin, the universal language of the Order. Despite his statement he drew his own sword, so he would be ready to defend himself if and where necessary. There was no telling how the other would react to his intrusion into the Beyond. His reception had been less than welcome by other denizens of the place.

Cade moved closer to Spencer’s grave. Twice more he was attacked. Twice more he managed to twist out of the way of the deadly weapon at the last moment. Still, he did not attempt to attack the other man in turn. He suspected the shade was Spencer, and he needed his cooperation, not his animosity.

He was also beginning to believe that the man’s attacks were nothing more than a test, a challenge to his worthiness. Each time the other man had him dead to rights, yet Cade had managed to elude the killing blow.

With a confidence born of this new consideration, Cade moved toward the figure waiting for him by the grave, a figure with a naked longsword visible in its right hand.

Cade stopped several feet away. He replaced his own sword in its sheath and let his hands fall to his side with his palms open, clearly showing his lack of hostile intent.

The two men studied each other.

Cade waited, enduring the inspection.

The silence stretched.

Finally, the other spoke.

“Why have you come here?”

The man’s voice was soft but carried the hard tones of command quite clearly across the distance that separated them.

“I need your help.”

The figure stared. “The living are not welcome here.”

Cade ignored the implied threat. “The Order is under assault. I need to understand who is behind the attacks and what they are after. I believe you can give me the answers I need.”

The former Knight turned away. “I cannot help you.”

“You must!” Cade demanded. “Our brothers are dying. Our dead are being ripped from their graves, forced to walk the earth. You know who is behind this. You must help us.” His shout echoed across the desolate landscape.

The shade continued to walk away.

“By your Vow, by your pledge to the Lord, I demand that you honor my request.
Let each, as well as he can, bear another’s burdens, so that one may honor another.”

“Do not quote the Rule to me!” the dead Knight answered angrily, spinning around to face Cade again. “You do not know what it is like to wander this place. You don’t know the unrest, the yearning for finality that I have endured since coming here. You do not know the horrors that I have seen! After my faithful service, I am reduced to this? You should bear
my
burdens.”

But Cade would not be deterred. “If my taking your place could save the lives of those in my care, then I would be the first to volunteer. But I don’t have that option. If not for the Order, then do it for your brother soldiers, those who fought and died in the name of the cause as earnestly as you did. They believed. They gave their lives willingly. Don’t let their sacrifices be in vain. Don’t let their rest be shattered in the way that your own has. With your help I can stop this, I know I can.”

For a moment, Cade thought he had failed. The dead Templar raised his weapon, his face contorted in anger. Cade braced himself for the battle to come, but something in his earnest plea must have finally reached the other man for the blow Cade anticipated never came. The former Templar slowly lowered his weapon and nodded in defeat.

“Very well, I will help you. But you will not like what you will hear.”

The man’s soft, quiet statement only heightened Cade’s curiosity.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“This is interesting,” Olsen said, pointing to a particular line on the screen.

“A training assignment? We all have those. So what?”

“One that lasted two years?”

Riley frowned and looked closer at the screen. “Two years? That doesn’t make any sense.” Both men knew that such assignments rarely, if ever, lasted more than six months. If you couldn’t cut it in your new unit in that time frame, you were transferred elsewhere. “Is there any more information?”

When Olsen tried to access the detailed information, he struck a command prompt that asked for a user ID and password. He plugged in his standard codes, fully expecting to gain access, only to be bumped back out again with an error message that informed him that the information he was trying to reach was classified.

“What the…?” Olsen thought for a moment, then inserted a second set of codes.

The classified warning blinked back at them from the screen for a second time.

“Try mine.” When that, too, failed to work, Riley said, “So much for that.”

But his partner shook his head. “We’re not finished yet.” When the prompt came up a third time, Olsen inserted Cade’s personal codes.

“The commander would have your scalp if he knew you had his codes.” Riley said ominously.

Olsen grinned. “I know. That’s why we aren’t going to tell him, right?”

He received a smile in return. “Mum’s the word.”

But once again, the security system kicked them out.

Olsen was frustrated, but by no means beaten. He had an ace up his sleeve for defeating the system security, but he was holding it in reserve, until he was certain they were on to something. For the moment, Echo Team’s security expert decided to take another route. He called up a list of the commanderies that had suffered assaults in the last several days. Then he accessed the property records for each, creating a list of all of the Order’s members who had been interred at the cemeteries on those sites. He then instructed the computer to hunt through the service records for those individuals, flagging every member who had a long-duration training assignment similar to Spencer’s.

Ten minutes later the computer spit back a list of five names. Each and every one of them had been assigned to Birmingham for the same training assignment. But when Olsen tried to dig deeper into the individual records, he received the same results. Any detailed information regarding those assignments was classified. And Riley, assigned to the same location during the same time period, didn’t recognize any of the names on the list.

His suspicions growing, Riley said, “Can you check that assignment against the service records of the entire Order, using today’s date?”

“Why?”

“I want to see how many other men there are and where they’re located now.”

Olsen considered the request. “That kind of search might set off a few alarms.”

“The system thinks you’re Cade. What do you care?”

“Good enough for me.” Olsen set the process in motion, then sat back to wait for the results.

The two men talked over various theories regarding the attacks in the half hour it took for the computer to complete its task. When it had, they were faced with a list of twenty names.

Every one of them was assigned to the Preceptor’s commandery in Bristol, Rhode Island.

None of them were familiar to either of the Echo Team members.

Olsen tried to use Cade’s pass codes to access the individual records and learn more, but even that gambit failed. He was not to be deterred, however; he had the sense that he had a major piece of the puzzle right in front of him if he only had the wherewithal to follow it to its source, and he fully intended to do just that. It was time to use his ace in the hole. “I’ve been saving this for a real emergency. Something tells me this is one,” he said.

Early in his relationship with the Order, Olsen had been assigned to the unit in charge of developing the Templar technological infrastructure. During that time, he had used his knowledge of network systems to bury a back door deep behind the security systems, a hidden port of entry into the heart of the Order’s framework. It could only be used once, but when it was, it allowed Olsen to roam around the system as a root administrator with complete access to all but the most fortified sections of the database.

With the help of the back door and a slick little utility that masqueraded as an authorized net spider, Olsen broke through.

An entire unit was hidden there.

Neither of the men had been aware of its existence, and they pored over the information with a great degree of shock and surprise. What they had in front of them was a standard TO&E. The Table of Organization and Equipment was a document that identified the unit’s rank structure, mission, and arms and equipment. This particular unit was identified as the
Custodes Veritatis,
or Guardians of Truth.

From what they could determine, its primary mission was to protect and preserve the Holy Relics that the Order had obtained over the years, everything from Veronica’s Veil to the staff of Moses. Knight Commander Nigel Stone was listed as the unit commander and all twenty of the previous names they had uncovered showed up on the current duty roster. The unit’s historical records showed that all five of the deceased had been members at one time or another as well.

“Who does Stone report to?” Riley asked.

A few key strokes later they had their answer.

“Son of a…”

“My feelings exactly,” Olsen said, nodding in agreement. “The boss sure ain’t gonna be happy about this.”

Before Riley could reply the emergency alarms outside in the corridor began blaring.

The commandery was under attack.

The two men grabbed their weapons and rushed out into the corridor, the computer, and the damning evidence it contained, forgotten on the desk inside.

*** ***

“What are they looking for?”

Cade and his companion were seated on the cracked surface of a marble sarcophagus, where they had settled after the shade of the dead Templar had finally agreed to talk.

The shade’s answer was short and to the point. “The Spear of Destiny.”

Cade sat back in surprise. The Spear of Destiny was the mythical name given to the lance the Roman centurion Longinus used to pierce the side of Christ while he hung on the cross, thus fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies. It was also known as the Spear of Longinus or the Lance of Mauritius. Cade knew that historically the Lance had allegedly been possessed by a series of successful military leaders including Alaric, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, and even Hitler, all of whom claimed it was the power of the Lance that led them to victory.

“Why do they want it?”

Spencer simply looked at him, not bothering to respond.

The Templar Commander realized the futility of his question. Reviewing what he knew about the Lance, the why of it all quickly became obvious. There was a legend that whoever possessed the weapon would be able to conquer the world. Napoleon attempted to obtain the Lance after the Battle of Austerlitz, but it had been smuggled out of the city prior to the start of the fight, and he never got hold of it. Charlemagne carried the Spear through forty-seven successful battles, but died when he accidentally dropped it. Barbarossa met the same fate only a few minutes after it slipped out of his hands while he was crossing a stream. The modern history of the Spear wasn’t as well documented. Somehow it eventually wound up in the possession of the House of the Hapsburg and was placed in the Hoffberg Treasure House in 1912, where Hitler was later to “discover” it. A rabid student of the occult and fully aware of the legend attached to it, Hitler had the Spear moved to St. Catherine’s Church in Berlin shortly after he came to power. As the Americans and Russians advanced on Berlin, he had it moved again, this time to an underground bunker to protect it from Allied bombing raids. That bunker fell to the U.S. on April 30, 1945, and an Army officer took possession of the weapon. Consistent with the legend, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker just eighty hours after he lost control of the Spear. General Patton was particularly interested in the weapon and took the time to have its authenticity traced. His fanaticism on the subject was eventually brought to Eisenhower’s attention, however, who found the whole subject distasteful. If Cade remembered correctly, it was Eisenhower who returned the Lance to its rightful location, the Hofberg Treasure House in Vienna, where it was supposedly still on display.