Steve Berry - The Templar legacy

"Mark detests me."

"He loves you."

"How would you know that?"

"My master told me."

"He would have no way of knowing that."

"My master knew all." Geoffrey reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew a sealed envelope. "I was told to give this to you when I thought appropriate." He handed her the crinkled packet, then stood from the table. "The seneschal and Mr. Malone have gone to the church. I'll leave you alone."

She appreciated the gesture. No telling what emotions the message might stir, so she waited until Geoffrey had withdrawn to the den, then opened the envelope.

Mrs. Nelle, you and I are strangers, yet I feel I know much about you, all from Lars, who told me what troubled his soul. Your son was different. He kept his torment inside, sharing precious little. On a few occasions I managed to learn some, but his emotions were not as transparent as his father's. Perhaps he inherited that trait from you? And I do not mean to be flippant. What is surely happening at the moment is serious. Raymond de Roquefort is a dangerous man. He is driven by a blindness that has, through the centuries, affected many of our Order. His is a single-mindedness that clouds his vision. Your son fought him for leadership and lost. Unfortunately, Mark does not possess the resolve needed to complete his battles. Starting them seems easy, continuing them even easier, but resolving them has proven difficult. His battles with you. His battles with de Roquefort. His battles with his conscience. All challenge him. I thought that joining the two of you together could prove decisive for you both. Again, I do not know you, but I believe I understand you. Your husband is dead and so much was left unresolved. Perhaps this quest will finally answer all your questions. I offer this advice. Trust your son, forget about the past, think only of the future. That could go a long way to providing peace. My Order is unique among all Christendom. Our beliefs are different, and that is because of what the original brothers learned and passed on. Does that make us less Christian? Or more Christian? Neither, in my opinion. Finding the Great Devise will answer many questions, but I fear that it will raise many more. It will be to you and your son to decide what is best if and when that critical time comes, and hopefully it will, for I have faith in you both. A resurrection has occurred. A second chance has been offered. The dead have risen and now walk again among you. Make good use of that miracle, but a warning: Free your mind from the prejudices in which it has grown comfortable. Open yourself to conceptions more vast, and reason by more certain methods. For only then will you succeed. May the Lord be with you.

A tear streaked down her cheek. A strange feeling, crying. One she could not remember since childhood. She was highly educated and possessed the experience that decades of working in the top levels of the intelligence business offered. Her career had been spent handling one difficult situation after another. She'd made life-and-death decisions many times. But none of that applied here. She'd somehow left the world of good and bad, right and wrong, black and white, and entered a realm where her innermost thoughts were not only known, but actually understood. This master, a man to whom she'd never spoken a word, seemed to precisely comprehend her pain.

But he was right.

Mark's return was a resurrection. A glorious miracle with endless possibilities.

"Do the words sadden you?"

She looked up. Geoffrey stood in the doorway. She swiped the tears away. "In one way. But in another they bring happiness."

"The master was like that. He knew both joy and pain. Much pain, though, in his final days."

"How did he die?"

"Cancer took him two nights ago."

"You miss him?"

"I was raised alone, without the benefit of family. Monks and nuns taught me about life. They were good to me, but none ever loved me. So hard to grow up without the love of a parent."

The admission struck her heart.

"The master showed me great kindness, perhaps even love, but most of all he placed his trust in me."

"Then don't fail him."

"I won't."

She motioned with the paper. "Is this mine to keep?"

He nodded. "I was only the deliveryman."

She grabbed hold of herself. "Why did Mark and Cotton go to the church?"

"I sensed that the seneschal wanted to talk to Mr. Malone."

She stood from the chair. "Perhaps we, too, should-"

A knock came at the front door. She tensed as her gaze darted to the unlocked latch. Cotton and Mark would have simply walked in. She saw Geoffrey likewise come alert and a gun appeared in his hand. She stepped toward the door and peered through the glass.

A familiar face stared back.

Royce Claridon.

DE ROQUEFORT WAS FURIOUS. FOUR HOURS AGO HE'D BEEN INFORMED that, on the night the master died, the archival security system had recorded a visit at eleven fifty-one PM. The seneschal had stayed inside twelve minutes, then left with two books. The electronic identification tags affixed to every volume identified the two missing tomes as a thirteenth-century codex he knew well and a marshal's report filed in the latter part of the nineteenth century, which he'd also read.

When he'd interrogated Royce Claridon a few hours ago, he'd not made known his familiarity with the cryptogram contained in Lars Nelle's journal. But one was included in the prior marshal's report along with the location where the puzzle had been found-in the abbe Gelis's church located in Coustausa, not far from Rennes-le-Chateau. He recalled from his reading that the marshal had spoken to Gelis shortly before the priest was murdered and learned that Sauniere had also found a cryptogram in his church. When compared, the two were identical. Gelis apparently solved the puzzle and the marshal was told the results, but the solution was not recorded and was never found after Gelis's death. Both the local police and the marshal suspected that the murderer was after something in Gelis's briefcase. Surely, Gelis's decipher. But was the murderer Sauniere? Hard to say. The crime was never solved. Still, given what de Roquefort knew, the priest from Rennes would have to be included on any suspect list.

Now the marshal's report was gone. Which might not be all bad since he possessed Lars Nelle's journal, which contained Sauniere's cryptogram. Yet was it, as the marshal reported, the same as Gelis's? No way to know without the marshal's report, which was certainly removed from the archives for a reason.

Five minutes ago, while he'd listened through a microphone stuck to a side windowpane as Stephanie Nelle and brother Geoffrey bonded, he'd learned Mark Nelle and Cotton Malone had walked to the church. Stephanie Nelle had even cried after reading what the former master had written. How touching. The master had clearly planned ahead and this whole matter was rapidly spinning out of control. He needed to yank the reins tight and slow the momentum down. So while Royce Claridon dealt with the occupants at Lars Nelle's house, he was going to see about the other two.

The transponder still attached to Malone's rental car had revealed that Malone and Stephanie Nelle returned to Rennes from Avignon in the wee hours. Mark Nelle must have come straight here from the abbey, which was not surprising.

After what happened last night with the woman on the bridge, he'd thought Malone and Stephanie Nelle were no longer important, which was why his men had been instructed only to subdue them. Killing a current and a former American operative would surely bring attention. He'd traveled to Avignon to discover what secrets the palace archives held and to capture Claridon, not to attract the interest of the entire American intelligence community. He'd accomplished all three objectives and managed to obtain Lars Nelle's journal as a bonus. All in all, not a bad night's work. He'd even been willing to let Mark Nelle and Geoffrey go, since away from the abbey they were a far lesser threat. But after learning about the two missing books, that strategy had changed.