Paul Christopher: The Templar Cross

What if the landscape in the fresco wasn't the near-mythical land of Punt? What if the island in the fresco was Manhattan and the river was the Hudson, flowing a few hundred yards from where he sat, down to the invisible Atlantic, hidden beyond the hills? What if Imhotep had sailed his long-keeled boat across the Ocean Sea three thousand years before Christ, let alone Columbus, and claimed the land for his great pharaoh, Djoser?

Only a year or so ago they'd found funerary boats buried in the sands near the Tomb of Ramses in the Valley of the Kings, boats twice as long as any Columbus sailed to the West Indies. The pieces put together made it quite possible. Now wouldn't that turn history on its complacent ear?

He picked up the wooden cross and put it back in the drawer along with the Templar notebook with the bloodstained cover he'd inherited from the old monk Rodrigues. He watched the fire in the hearth die down as the room grew cold. He thought about Imhotep, about the gold and about the past. And then he thought about the future.

Emil Tidyman had been right: gold and power brought out the worst in almost everyone. A lot of people had died because of Rauff's bullion and Holliday could bet it wasn't over yet. He was fairly certain that Father Thomas wasn't finished with him. That battle would almost certainly go on, wherever he went. There were scores to settle.

And letters to write.

He took a few sheets of paper from his drawer along with a felt pen and a brand-new moleskin notebook he carried. It had taken some time and a lot of phone calls, but he'd eventually discovered the names of the four men who made up the crew of the ill-fated B-17, Your Heart's Desire:

Major-Fleigerstabsingenieur Johann Biehl, the pilot; Captain-Fleigerhauptsingenieur Hugo Dahmer, the copilot; Lieutenant-Fleigerobersingenieur Gerhard Fischer, the flight engineer/navigator; and, finally, the radio operator, Lieutenant-Fleigerobersingenieur Willi Noller.

He'd also discovered the names of their nearest relations, all surviving sons and daughters, and he'd decided to write them each a letter telling them of the plane's discovery and the fate of their forgotten fathers. It was the least that he could do.

And then there was Tabia, Emil Tidyman's daughter. It had taken even longer to discover her whereabouts, but he'd pulled some strings and called in some markers and eventually he had the name and address of a cutout who would eventually get the letter to the people taking care of her.

Perhaps someone would read Tabia the letter now, or perhaps she'd read it herself somewhere far in the future. It didn't matter. Since coming back to West Point he'd had a lot of time to think about what he'd say and now the words came easily.

In the dark of a chilly New York night he began to write, his pen moving easily across the blank paper, forming letters and words that told a story of friendship and family love, a story of a rogue but a rogue redeemed, and the story of a friend who believed in friendship at any cost. Above all it was the memory of any child's hero, her father, a man she could be proud of. Holliday wrote for a long time and when he was done he smiled. He put down the pen and leaned back in his chair. Perhaps, for Tabia at least, the bad times were over.

Outside, the winter wind shook its fist at the moaning eaves and the frost-rimed glass, reminding the world of things to come, like cold bad dreams. Holliday's smile slipped away and became a thoughtful frown. Sitting there with the fire no more than dead ash in the hearth, he knew that while Tabia's troubles were done, his own were just beginning.

Colonel John "Doc" Holliday, U.S. Army Rangers (retired), most recently a professor of Medieval Military History at the United States Military Academy at West Point (and retired from that, too), sat on the glassed-in terrace of La Brasserie Malakoff, an upscale cafe in the prestigious 16th arrondissement of Paris. His companion was Maurice Bernheim, director of the Musee national de la marine, the National Maritime Museum of France.

Both men were eating a lunch of salad and croque monsieur, the Parisian version of a Reuben sandwich that might as well have come from an entirely different universe. The Parisians looked down their noses at everyone else on the planet, but when it came to food they were right. Even a Royale avec Fromage at a Paris McDonald's was vastly superior to a Big Mac sold anywhere else in the world. Bernheim had been lecturing him on the subject for the better part of an hour, but a good lunch on a spring day in Paris made up for a lot of things.

Holliday had crossed paths with Bernheim previously when he was in the midst of tracking down the secret of the Templar sword. The chubby little historian who smoked the foul-smelling cigarettes called Boyards had helped him then, and now Holliday was hoping he'd help him again.

"I must say it is too bad that your charming niece could not be with you today," said Bernheim. He finished the sandwich and hailed a waiter, ordering creme caramel and coffee for both of them.

"Cousin," corrected Holliday. "She's too busy being eight months pregnant in Jerusalem." Peggy and the Israeli archaeologist Rafi Wanounou had married last year shortly after their adventures in the Libyan desert. The same adventures that had eventually led Holliday to his high-cholesterol lunch with Maurice Bernheim.

"Such a pretty young woman," sighed the middle-aged man.

"Her new husband thinks so," Holliday said with a smile. "Speaking of which, how's your wife and kids?"

"Pauline is well, thank you. Fortunately for me her dental practice keeps me in the style to which my little hellions and I have grown accustomed. The twins of course must also have the latest running shoes. La vie est tres cher, mon ami. Life is very expensive, yes? Soon it will be makeup and matching Mercedeses." Bernheim flicked an invisible bit of fluff off the lapel of his very expensive Brioni suit.

The creme caramel arrived and the museum director stared at it reverently for a moment, as though it was a great work of art, which, to Bernheim, it probably was. Holliday ignored the dessert and tried the coffee. As with everything else at Malakoff's it was excellent. At least with the ban on smoking in Paris restaurants he didn't have to endure Bernheim's Boyards.

"So," said the nautical expert. "What brings you to Paris and my humble little museum?" He took another bite of the creme caramel and briefly closed his eyes to savor the flavor.

"Have you ever heard of a place called La Couvertoirade?" Holliday asked.

Bernheim nodded.

"A fortified town in the Dordogne. Built by the Templars, I believe."

"That's right," Holliday said and nodded. "A while back an archaeologist, a monk named Brother Charles-Etienne Brasseur, discovered a cache of documents from there relating to the Templar expedition to Egypt." Holliday paused, trying to remember it all. "The texts were written by a Cistercian monk named Roland de Hainaut. Hainaut was secretary to Guillaume de Sonnac, the grand master who led the Templars at the Siege of Damietta in 1249."

"Of course. The Seventh Crusade," said Bernheim. "They couldn't get upriver because of the Nile flooding, so they sat around for six months and had their way with the Egyptian women."

"They also played at being tourists," added Holliday. "Guillaume de Sonnac's personal ship as grand master was a caravel called the Sanctus Johannes chartered out of Genoa from a ship owner named Peter Rubeus. De Sonnac provided his own captain, a fellow Frenchman named Jean de St. Clair."