Steve Berry - The Templar legacy

He heard the breath leave Stephanie.

"My God in heaven," she whispered.

He was shocked, too.

Standing before him was Mark Nelle.

STEPHANIE'S BODY SHOOK. HER HEART POUNDED. FOR A MOMENT she had to tell herself to breathe.

Her only child was standing across the room.

She wanted to rush to him, to tell him how sorry she was for all their differences, how glad she was to see him. But her muscles would not respond.

"Mother," Mark said. "Your son is back from the grave."

She caught the coolness in his tone and instantly sensed that his heart was still hard. "Where have you been?"

"It's a long story."

No shade of compassion tempered his stare. She waited for him to explain, but he said nothing.

Malone came toward her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and broke the awkward pause. "Why don't you sit."

She felt disconnected from her life, a jumble of confusion violating her thoughts, and she was having a hard time settling her anxiety. But dammit, she was the head of one of the most highly specialized units within the U.S. government. She dealt with crises on a daily basis. True, none was as personal as the one now facing her from across the room, but if Mark wanted their first reception to be a chilly one, then so be it, she'd not give any of them the satisfaction of thinking emotion ruled her.

So she sat and said, "Okay, Mark. Tell us your long story."

Mark Nelle opened his eyes. He was no longer eight thousand feet high in the French Pyrenees, wearing spike shoes and carrying a pick, hiking a rough trail in search of Berenger Sauniere's cache. He was inside a room of stone and wood with a blackened beamed ceiling. The man standing over him was tall and gaunt with gray fuzz for hair and a silver beard as thick as fleece. The man's eyes were a peculiar shade of violet that he could not recall ever having seen before.

"Careful," the man said in English. "You're still weak."

"Where am I?"

"A place that has been for centuries one of safety."

"Does it have a name?"

"Abbey des Fontaines."

"That's miles from where I was."

"Two of my subordinates were following and made rescue when the snow began to engulf you. I'm told the avalanche was quite intense."

He could still feel the mountain as it shook, its summit disintegrating like a great cathedral falling apart. An entire ridge had shattered above him and snow had poured down as blood would from an open wound. The chill still gripped his bones. Then he recalled tumbling downward. But had he heard the man standing over him right?

"Men were following me?"

"I ordered it. As with your father before you sometimes."

"You knew my father?"

"His theories always interested me. So I made a point to know both him and what he knew."

He tried to sit up from the bed, but his right side jarred with electric pain. He winced and clutched at his stomach.

"You have broken ribs. I, too, in youth, broke mine once. It hurts."

He lay back down. "I was brought here?"

The old man nodded. "My brothers are trained to be resourceful."

He'd noticed the white cassock and rope sandals. "This a monastery?"

"It's the place you've been seeking."

He was unsure how to respond.

"I am master of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. We are the Templars. Your father sought us for decades. You, too, have sought us. So I decided the time was finally right."

"For what?"

"That's for you to decide. But I am hoping you choose to join us."

"Why would I do that?"

"Your life is, I'm sorry to say, in utter chaos. You miss your father more than you could ever voice and he's been dead a long six years now. You're estranged from your mother, which is difficult in more ways than can be imagined. Professionally you're a teacher, but you're not satisfied. You've made some attempts to vindicate your father's beliefs, but have been unable to make much progress. That's why you were in the Pyrenees-searching for the reason Abbe Sauniere spent so much time there when he was alive. Sauniere once scoured the region looking for something. Surely you found the coach and horse rental receipts among Sauniere's papers that evidence the fees he paid to the local vendors. Amazing, isn't it, how a humble priest could afford such luxuries as a private coach and horse."

"What do you know of my father and mother?"

"I know much."

"You expect me to believe that you're the master of the Templars?"

"I can see how that premise might be hard to accept. I, too, had trouble with it when the brothers first approached me decades ago. Why don't we, for now, concentrate on mending your wounds and take this slow."

"I stayed in that bed for three weeks," Mark said. "After, my movements were restricted to certain parts of the abbey, but the master and I spoke often. Finally, I agreed to stay on and took the oath."

"Why would you do such a thing?" Stephanie asked.

"Let's be realistic, Mother. You and I had not spoken in years. Dad was gone. The master was right. I was at a dead end. Dad searched for the Templar treasure, their archives, and for the Templars themselves. One-third of what he'd been looking for had just found me. I wanted to stay."

To calm her growing agitation, Stephanie allowed her attention to stray to the younger man standing behind Mark. An aureole of freshness hovered about him, but she also registered interest, as if he were hearing things for the first time. "Your name is Geoffrey?" she asked, recalling what Mark had called him earlier.

He nodded.

"You didn't know I was Mark's mother?"

"I know little of other brothers. It is Rule. No brother speaks of himself to another. We're of the brotherhood. From where we came is immaterial to who we are now."

"Sounds impersonal."

"I consider it illuminating."

"Geoffrey sent you a package," Mark said. "Dad's journal. Did you receive it?"

"That's why I'm here."

"I had it with me the day of the avalanche. The master kept it once I became a brother. I discovered it gone after he died."

"Your master is dead?" Malone asked.

"We have a new leader," Mark said. "But he's a demon."

Malone described the man who'd confronted him and Stephanie in the Roskilde cathedral.

"That's Raymond de Roquefort," Mark said. "How do you know him?"

"We're old friends," Malone said, telling them some of what had just happened in Avignon.

"Claridon is surely de Roquefort's prisoner," Mark said. "God help Royce."

"He was terrified of the Templars," Malone said.

"With that one, he has good reason."

"You still haven't said why you stayed at the abbey for the past five years," Stephanie said.

"What I sought was there. The master became a father to me. He was a kind, gentle man, full of compassion."

She caught the message. "Unlike me?"

"Now is not the time for this discussion."

"And when would be a good time? I thought you were dead, Mark. But you were secluded in an abbey, commingling with Templars-"

"Your son was our seneschal," Geoffrey said. "He and the master ruled us well. He was a blessing to our Order."

"He was second in charge?" Malone asked. "How'd you rise so fast?"

"The seneschal is chosen by the master. He alone determines who is qualified," Geoffrey said. "And he chose well."

Malone smiled. "You have a devoted associate."

"Geoffrey is a wealth of information, though none of us is going to learn a thing from him until he's ready to tell us."

"Care to explain that one?" Malone asked.

Mark spoke, telling them what had happened over the past forty-eight hours. Stephanie listened with a mixture of fascination and anger. Her son talked of the brotherhood with reverence.

"The Templars," Mark said, "rose from an obscure band of nine knights, supposedly protecting pilgrims on the way to the Holy Land, to a multicontinent conglomerate composed of tens of thousands of brothers spread over nine thousand estates. Kings, queens, and popes cowed to them. No one, until Philip IV in 1307, successfully challenged them. You know why?"