Steve Berry - The Templar legacy

"No danger they'll come in?"

He shook his head. "They're here to watch."

"I understand now why you got out of the Billet. The anxiety. It's tough. You can never let your guard down. You were right back in Copenhagen. I'm no field agent."

"The trouble for me came when I started to like the rush. That's what'll get you killed."

"We all live a relatively safe existence. But to have people tracing your every move, intent on killing you? I can see how that would wear on you. Eventually, you have to escape from it."

"Training helps with the apprehension. You learn how to deal with uncertainty. But you were never trained." He smiled. "You're just in charge."

"I hope you know that I never intended involving you."

"You made that point quite clear."

"But I'm glad you're here."

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world."

She smiled. "You were the best agent I ever had."

"I was just the luckiest. And I had enough sense to say when."

"Peter Hansen and Ernst Scoville were both murdered." She paused and finally voiced what she'd come to believe. "Maybe Lars, too. The man in the cathedral wanted me to know that. His way of sending a message."

"That's a big leap in logic."

"I know. No proof. But I have a feeling, and though I may not be a field agent, I've come to trust my feelings. Still, like I used to tell you, no conclusions based on assumptions. Get the facts. This whole thing is bizarre."

"Tell me about it. Knights Templars. Secrets on gravestones. Priests finding lost treasure."

She glanced over at a photo of Mark on the side table, taken a few months before he died. Lars was everywhere in the young man's vibrant face. The same cleft chin, bright eyes, and swarthy skin. Why had she let things become so bad?

"Strange that's here," Malone said, seeing her interest.

"I set it there the last time I came. Five years ago. Just after the avalanche." Hard to believe her only child had been dead five years. Children shouldn't die thinking their parents had not loved them. Unlike with her estranged husband who possessed a grave, Mark lay buried under tons of Pyrenean snow thirty miles to the south. "I have to finish this," she muttered to the picture, her voice faltering.

"I'm still not sure what this is."

Neither was she.

Malone gestured with the journal. "At least we know where to find Claridon in Avignon, as the letter to Ernst Scoville instructed. He's Royce Claridon. There's a notation and address in the journal. Lars and he were friends."

"I was wondering when you'd find that."

"Anything else I missed?"

"Hard to say what's important. There's a lot in there."

"You have to stop lying to me."

She'd been waiting for the scolding. "I know."

"I can't help if you hold back."

She understood. "What about the missing pages sent to Scoville? Anything there?"

"You tell me." And he handed her the eight sheets.

She decided a little thinking would take her mind off Lars and Mark, so she scanned the handwritten paragraphs. Most of it was meaningless, but there were parts that ripped at her heart. … Sauniere obviously cared for his mistress. She came to him when her family moved to Rennes. Her father and brother were skilled artisans and her mother maintained the parish presbytery. This was in 1892, a year after much was found by Sauniere. When her family moved from Rennes to take jobs in a nearby factory, she stayed with Sauniere and remained with him until he died, two decades later. At some point he titled every single thing he acquired in her name, which shows the unquestioning trust he placed in her. She was totally devoted to him, keeping his secrets for 36 years after he died. I envy Sauniere. He was a man who knew the unconditional love of a woman and returned that love with unconditional trust and respect. He was by all accounts a difficult man to please, a man driven to accomplish something for which people would remember him. His garish creation in the Church of Mary Magdalene seems his legacy. There is no record of his lover ever once voicing any opposition to what he was doing. All accounts say she was a devoted woman who supported her benefactor in all that he did. Surely there were some disagreements but, in the end, she stood by Sauniere until the day he died and then after, for nearly four decades. There is much to be said for devotion. A man can accomplish much when the woman he loves supports him, even if she believes that what he does is foolishness. Surely, Sauniere's mistress must have shook her head more than once at the absurdity of his creations. Both the Villa Bethanie and the Tour Magdala are ridiculous for their time. But she never let a drop of water fall on his fire. She cared for him enough to let him be what he needed to be, and that result is being seen today by the thousands who come to Rennes each year. Such is Sauniere's legacy. Hers is that his still exists.

"Why did you give me this to read?" she said to Malone when she finished.

"You needed to."

Where had all these ghosts come from? Rennes-le-Chateau might hold no treasure, but this place harbored demons intent on tormenting her.

"When I received that journal in the mail and read it, I realized that I had not been fair to Lars or Mark. They believed in what they sought, just as I believed in my job. Mark would say I was nothing but negative." She paused, hoping the spirits were listening. "I knew when I saw that notebook again I'd been wrong. Whatever Lars was after was important to him, so it should have been important to me. That's really why I came, Cotton. I owe it to them." She looked over at him with tired eyes. "God knows I owed it to them. I just never realized the stakes were so high."

He glanced at his watch again, then stared toward the blackened windows. "Time to find out just how high. You going to be all right here?"

She grabbed hold of herself and nodded. "I'll keep mine occupied. You handle the other."

MALONE LEFT THE HOUSE THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR, MAKING no attempt to hide his departure. The two men he'd noticed earlier were stationed at the far end of the street, around a corner near the town wall where they could see Lars Nelle's residence. Their problem was, in order to follow him, they would have to traverse the same deserted street. Amateurs. Professionals would have split up. One at each end, ready to move in any direction. Just like in Roskilde, this conclusion lessened his apprehension. But he remained on edge, his senses alert, wondering who was so interested in what Stephanie was doing.

Could it really be the modern-day Knights Templar?

Back inside, Stephanie's lamenting had made him think of Gary. The death of a child seemed unspeakable. He could not imagine her grief. Maybe after he retired he should have stayed in Georgia, but Gary would not hear of that. Don't worry about me, his son had said. I'll come see you. Fourteen years old and the boy possessed such a level head. Still, the decision haunted him, especially now that he was once again risking his neck for somebody else's cause. His own father, though, had been the same way-dying when the submarine he commanded sank in the North Atlantic during a training exercise. Malone was ten and he remembered his mother taking the death hard. At the memorial service, she'd even refused the folded flag offered her by the honor guard. But he'd accepted it and, ever since, the red, white, and blue bundle had stayed with him. With no grave to visit, that flag was his only physical reminder of the man he barely knew.

He came to the end of the street. He didn't have to glance back to know that one of the men was following him, the other staying with Stephanie at the house.

He turned left and headed toward Sauniere's domain.

Rennes was clearly not a night place. Bolted doors and shuttered windows lined the way. The restaurant, bookstore, and kiosks were all closed. Darkness sheathed the lane in deep shadow. The wind murmured beyond the walls like a soul in pain. The scene was like something from Dumas, as if life here spoke only in whispers.