Steve Berry - The Templar legacy

Geoffrey ripped away the buttons, exposing a microphone taped to the thin chest.

"Come. Quick. I need help," Claridon screamed.

Geoffrey slammed his fist into Claridon's jaw and sent the impish man to the floor. Stephanie turned, gun in hand, and spotted through the window a short-hair running toward the front door.

A kick and the door swung open.

Geoffrey was ready.

He'd positioned himself to the left of the entrance and, as the man burst inside, Geoffrey spun the attacker around. Stephanie saw a gun in the short-hair's hand, but Geoffrey deftly kept the barrel pointed down, pivoted on his heel, and kicked the man into the wall. Allowing no time to react, he delivered another kick to the abdomen that brought a yelp. When the man keeled forward, the breath gone from him, Geoffrey propelled him to the floor with a blow to the spine.

"They teach you that at the abbey?" she asked, impressed.

"That and more."

"Let's get out of here."

"Hold one second."

Geoffrey darted from the kitchen back toward the bedroom and returned with Mark's knapsack. "Claridon was right. We have books and I can't leave without them."

She noticed an earpiece on the man Geoffrey had subdued. "He was listening to Claridon, and is surely in communication with others."

"De Roquefort is here," Geoffrey said with conviction.

She grabbed her world phone from the kitchen counter. "We need to find Mark and Cotton."

Geoffrey approached the open front door and carefully peered in both directions. "You'd think more brothers would be here by now."

She stepped up behind him. "Could be they're occupied at the church. We'll head there following the outer wall, through the car park, staying off the main rue. " She handed the gun back to him. "You watch my back."

He smiled. "With pleasure, madame."

DE ROQUEFORT STARED INTO THE EMPTY SECRET ROOM. WHERE were they? There was simply no other place to hide within the church.

He slammed the cupboard back into place.

The other brother surely saw the moment of confusion that had passed across his face when they'd discovered the hiding place bare. He washed any doubt from his eyes.

"Where are they, Master?" the brother asked.

Considering the answer, he stepped to the stained-glass window and gazed out through one of the clear segments. The Calvary garden below was still busy with visitors. Then he saw Mark Nelle and Cotton Malone rush into the garden and turn toward the cemetery.

"Outside," he calmly said, stepping toward the sacristy door.

MARK THOUGHT THE TRICK WITH THE SECRET ROOM MIGHT BUY them enough time to make an escape. He was hoping de Roquefort had brought only a small contingent. But three more brothers had been waiting outside-one on the main rue, another blocking the alley to the car park, and a final one positioned outside the Villa Bethanie, preventing the tree garden from becoming an escape route. De Roquefort had apparently not thought the cemetery a threat since it was walled with a fifteen-hundred-foot drop on the other side.

But that was precisely where Mark was headed.

He now thanked heaven for the many late-night explorations he and his father had once performed. The locals frowned on people visiting the cemetery after dark, but that was the best time, his father would say. So they'd many times scoured around, looking for clues, trying to make sense of Sauniere and his seemingly inexplicable behavior. On a few forays they'd been interrupted, so they'd improvised another way out than through the skull-and-crossbones gate.

Time to put that discovery to good use.

"I'm afraid to ask how we're going to get out of here," Malone said.

"It's scary, but at least the sun's shining. Every other time I've done it has been at night."

Mark turned right and scampered down the stone stairs to the lower part of the cemetery. Fifty or so people were scattered around, admiring the memorials. Beyond the wall the cloudless sky was a brilliant blue and the wind moaned like a stricken soul. Clear days were always breezy in Rennes, but the cemetery air was motionless, the church and presbytery blocking the strongest gusts, which came from the south and west.

He hustled straight for a monument that lay adjacent to the east wall, beneath a canopy of elms that draped the earth in long shadows. He noticed that the crowd loomed mainly on the upper level, where the grave of Sauniere's mistress sat. He hopped onto a thick tombstone and clambered up onto the wall.

"Follow me," he said as he jumped down on the other side, rolled once, then came to his feet, brushing off grit.

He looked back as Malone leaped the eight feet down to the narrow track.

They were standing at the base of the wall, on a rocky footpath that measured about four feet wide. Anomalous beech and pines sustained the downward slope beyond, beaten back by the wind, their branches twisted and interlaced, their roots stuck between clefts in the rock.

Mark pointed left. "This path ends just ahead, beyond the chateau, with nowhere to go." He turned. "So we have to go this way. It takes us around to the car park. There's an easy way up there."

"No wind here, but when we round that corner-" Malone pointed ahead. "-I imagine it'll get breezy."

"Like a hurricane. But we have no choice."

DE ROQUEFORT BROUGHT ONE BROTHER WITH HIM AS HE ENTERED the cemetery, the remaining three waited outside. Clever what Mark Nelle had done, using the secret room as a diversion. They'd most likely stayed inside only long enough for his scout to leave the church. Then they hid in the confessional until he'd ensconced himself in the sacristy.

Inside the parish close he stopped and calmly surveyed the graves, but did not see his quarry. He told the brother standing next to him to search left and he went right, where he came across Ernst Scoville's grave.

Four months ago, when he'd first learned of the former master's interest in Scoville, he'd sent a brother to monitor the Belgian's activities. Through a listening device installed on Scoville's telephone his spy had learned about Stephanie Nelle, her plans to visit Denmark then France, and her intent to obtain the book. But when it became clear that Scoville did not like Lars Nelle's widow and was merely leading her on, intent on thwarting her efforts, a speeding car on the Rennes incline solved the problem of his potential interference. Scoville was not a player in the unfolding game. Stephanie Nelle was and, at the time, nothing could be allowed to impede her movement. De Roquefort had personally handled Scoville's killing, involving no one at the abbey since he could ill afford to explain why outright murder was necessary.

The brother returned from the other side of the cemetery and reported, "Nothing."

Where could they have gone?

His gaze settled on the tawny gray wall that lined the outer edge. He stepped to a spot where the wall rose only breast-high. Rennes sat on the backbone of a summit with slopes as steep as pyramids on three sides. Objects in the valley below were lost in a grayish haze that blanketed the colorful earth, like some far-off Lilliputian world, the basin, highways, and towns as if seen on an atlas. The wind from beyond the wall washed over his face and dried his eyes. He planted both hands on top, leveraged himself up, and hinged his body forward. He glanced right. The rocky ledge was barren. Then he looked left and caught a glimpse of Cotton Malone turning from the wall's north side to its west.

He dropped back down.

"They're on a ledge moving toward the Tour Magdala. Stop them. I'm going to the belvedere."

STEPHANIE LED THE WAY AS SHE AND GEOFFREY FLED THE HOUSE. A sunburned lane paralleled the west wall and led northward to the car park and beyond to Sauniere's domain. Geoffrey was clearly alight with anticipation, and for a man who appeared only in his late twenties he'd handled himself with a professional ease.