Steve Berry - The Templar legacy

"We're in place," a voice said in his ear.

"Stay still until I call for you," he whispered into the lapel mike.

He'd brought six brothers with him and they were now scattered around the village, blending in with the growing Sunday crowd. The day was bright, sunny, and characteristically windy. While the Aude River's valleys were warm and calm, the summits surrounding them were perpetually raked by mountain winds.

He strolled up the main rue toward the Church of Mary Magdalene, making no effort to mask his approach.

He wanted Mark Nelle to know he was there.

MARK STOOD AT HIS FATHER'S GRAVE. THE MEMORIAL WAS IN good condition, as were all the graves, since the cemetery now seemed an integral part of the town's growing tourist industry.

For the first six years after his father died, he'd personally tended to the grave, visiting nearly every weekend. He'd also tended to the house. His father had been popular with Rennes' residents since he'd treated the village with kindness and Sauniere's memory with respect. That was, perhaps, one reason why his father had included so much fiction about Rennes in his books. The embellished mystery was a money machine for the entire region, and writers who trashed that mystique were not appreciated. Since precious little was known for sure about any aspect of the tale, lots of room for improvisation existed. It also helped that his father was regarded as the man who brought the story to the world's attention, though Mark knew that a relatively unknown French book by Gerard de Sede, Le Tresor Maudit, published in the late 1960s, was what first ignited his father's curiosity. He'd always thought the title-The Accursed Treasure-apt, especially after his father suddenly died. Mark had been a teenager when he'd first read his father's book, but it had been years later, while he was in graduate school, honing his knowledge of medieval history and religious philosophy, that his father told him what was really at stake.

"The heart of Christianity is the resurrection of physical bodies. It's the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise. If Christians will not one day be resurrected, then their faith is useless. No resurrection means the Gospels are all a lie-the Christian faith is only for this life-there's no more after. It's the resurrection that makes everything performed for Christ worthwhile. Other religions preach about paradise and the afterlife. But only Christianity offers a God who became man, died for His followers, then rose from the dead to rule forever.

"Think about it," his father had said. "Christians can have a lot of different beliefs on a lot of subjects. But they all agree on the resurrection. It's their universal constant. Jesus rose from the dead for them alone. Death was conquered for them alone. Christ is alive and working toward their redemption. The kingdom of heaven is waiting for them, as they, too, will be raised from the dead to live forever with the Lord. There's meaning in every tragedy, since the resurrection gives hope for a future."

Then his father asked the question that had floated in his memory ever since.

"What if that never happened? What if Christ simply died, dust to dust?"

Indeed, what if?

"Think of all the millions who were slaughtered in the name of the risen Christ. During the Albigensian Crusade alone fifteen thousand men, women, and children were burned to death for simply denying the teachings of the crucifixion. The Inquisition murdered millions more. The Holy Land Crusades cost hundreds of thousands of lives. All for the so-called risen Christ. Popes for centuries have used Christ's sacrifice as a way to motivate warriors. If the resurrection never happened, so there's no promise of an afterlife, how many of those men do you think would have faced death?"

The answer was simple. Not a single one.

What if the resurrection had never happened?

Mark had just spent five years searching for an answer to that question within an Order the world thought eradicated seven hundred years ago. Yet he'd come away as perplexed as when he was first brought to the abbey.

What had been gained?

More important, what had been lost?

He shook the confusion from his mind and refocused on his father's tombstone. He'd commissioned the slab and watched while it had been laid in place one dreary May afternoon. His father had been found a week earlier, hanging from a bridge half an hour to the south of Rennes. Mark had been at home in Toulouse when the call came from the police. He remembered his father's face when he identified the body-the ashen skin, a gaping mouth, dead eyes. A grotesque image he feared would never leave him.

His mother had returned to Georgia right after the funeral. They'd spoken little during the three days she was in France. He was twenty-seven years old, just starting at the university in Toulouse as a graduate assistant, ill prepared for life. But he wondered now, eleven years later, if he was any more prepared. Yesterday he would have killed Raymond de Roquefort. What happened to all that he'd been taught? Where was the discipline he thought he'd acquired? De Roquefort's failings were easy to understand-a false sense of duty powered by ego-but his own weaknesses were perplexing. In the span of three days, he'd gone from seneschal to fugitive. From security to chaos. From purpose to wandering.

And for what?

He felt the press of the gun beneath his jacket. The reassurance it offered was troubling-just one more new and strange sensation that brought him comfort.

He stepped from his father's grave and crept across to Ernst Scoville's resting place. He'd known the reclusive Belgian and had liked him. The master had apparently known of him, too, since he'd sent Scoville a letter only last week. What had de Roquefort said yesterday about the two mailings? I've tended to one of the receivers. Apparently so. But what else had he said? And will shortly tend to the other. His mother was in danger. They all were. But there was little that could be done. Go to the police? No one would believe them. The abbey was well respected, and not a single brother would speak out against the Order. All that would be found was a quiet monastery devoted to God. Plans existed for the secretion of all things related to the brotherhood, and not one of the men inside the abbey would fail.

Of that he was sure.

No, they were on their own.

MALONE WAITED IN THE CALVARY GARDEN FOR MARK TO RETURN from the cemetery. He'd not wanted to intrude on something so personal since he fully understood the unsettling emotions the man was surely experiencing. He was only ten when his father died, but the sorrow he'd felt at knowing that he would never see his dad again had never faded. Unlike with Mark, there was no cemetery for him to visit. His father's grave had been at the bottom of the North Atlantic inside the crushed hulk of a sunken submarine. He'd tried once to find out the details of what happened, but the entire incident remained classified.

His father had loved the Navy and the United States-he'd been a patriot who willingly gave his life for his country. And that realization always made Malone proud. Mark Nelle had been lucky. He'd shared many years with his father. They'd grown to know one another and shared life. But in a lot of ways he and Mark were similar. Both of their dads had been committed to their work. Both were gone. Neither death possessed a good explanation.

He stood by the Calvary and watched as more visitors streamed in and out of the cemetery. Finally, he spotted Mark following a Japanese group out through the gate.

"That was tough," Mark said as he approached. "I miss him."

He decided to pick up where they'd left off. "You and your mother are going to have to come to terms."

"There's a lot of bad feelings there, and seeing his grave just brought them into focus again."