Steve Berry - The Templar legacy

"Are you still head of the Magellan Billet?" he asked.

She appreciated the change in subject. "As far as I know, but I've probably pushed my luck the past few days. Cotton and I haven't been inconspicuous."

"He seems like a good man."

"The best. I didn't want to involve him, but he insisted. He worked for me a long time."

"It's good to have friends like that."

"You have one, too."

"Geoffrey? He's more my oracle than a friend. The master swore him to me. Why? I don't know."

"He would defend you with his life. That much is clear."

"I'm not accustomed to people laying down their lives for me."

She recalled what the master had said in his note to her, about Mark not possessing the resolve to finish his battles. She told him exactly what the master wrote. He listened in silence.

"What would you have done if you'd been elected master?" she asked.

"A part of me was glad I lost."

She was amazed. "Why?"

"I'm a college professor, not a leader."

"You're a man in the middle of an important conflict. One that other men are waiting to see resolved."

"The master is right about me."

She stared at him with undisguised dismay. "Your father would be ashamed to hear you say that." She waited for his anger to come, but Mark merely sat silent, and she listened to the rattle of insects from outside.

"I probably killed a man today," Mark said in a whisper. "How would Dad have felt about that?"

She'd been waiting for a mention. He'd not said a word about what had happened since they'd left Rennes. "Cotton told me. You had no choice. The man was given an option and he chose to challenge you."

"I watched the body roll down. Strange, the feeling that goes through you knowing you'd just taken a life."

She waited for him to explain.

"I was glad the trigger had been pulled, since I survived. But another part of me was mortified, because the other man hadn't."

"Life is one choice after another. He chose wrong."

"You do it all the time, don't you? Make those kinds of decisions?"

"They happen every day."

"My heart is not cold enough for that."

"And mine is?" She resented the implication.

"You tell me."

"I do my job, Mark. That man chose his fate, not you."

"No. De Roquefort chose it. He sent him out on that precipice, knowing there'd be a confrontation. He made the choice."

"And that's the problem with your Order, Mark. Unquestioned loyalty is not a good thing. No country, no army, no leader has ever survived who insisted on such foolishness. My agents make their own choices."

A moment of strained silence passed.

"You're right," he finally muttered. "Dad would be ashamed of me."

She decided to risk it. "Mark, your father's gone. He's been dead a long time. For me, you've been dead five years. But you're here now. Is there no room within you for forgiveness?" Hope laced her plea.

He stood from the chair. "No, Mother. There's not."

And he walked from the room.

MALONE HAD TAKEN REFUGE OUTSIDE THE CHATEAU, UNDER A shady pergola overgrown with greenery. Only insects disturbed his tranquility, and he watched as bats fluttered across the dimming sky. A little while ago Stephanie had taken him aside and told him that a call to Atlanta, requesting a complete dossier on their hostess, had revealed that Cassiopeia Vitt's name did not appear in any of the terrorist databases the U.S. government maintained. Her personal history was unremarkable, though she was half Muslim and these days that raised, if nothing else, a red flag. She owned a multicontinent conglomerate, based in Paris, involved in a broad spectrum of business ventures with assets in the billion-euro range. Her father started the company and she inherited control, though she was little involved with its everyday operation. She also was the chairwoman for a Dutch foundation that worked closely with the United Nations on international AIDS relief and world famine, particularly in Africa. No foreign government considered her a threat.

But Malone wasn't sure.

New threats arose every day and from the strangest places.

"So deep in thought."

He looked up to see Cassiopeia standing beyond the pergola. She wore a tight-fitting black riding habit that suited her.

"I was actually thinking about you."

"I'm flattered."

"I wouldn't be." He motioned to her outfit. "I wondered where you disappeared to."

"I try to ride every evening. Helps me think."

She stepped under the enclosure. "I had this built years ago as a tribute to my mother. She loved the outdoors."

Cassiopeia sat on a bench opposite him. He could tell there was a purpose to her visit.

"I saw earlier that you have doubts about all this. Is it because you refuse to challenge your Christian Bible?"

He didn't really want to talk about it, but she seemed eager. "Not at all. It's because you choose to challenge the Bible. Seems everyone involved in this quest has an ax to grind. You, de Roquefort, Mark, Sauniere, Lars, Stephanie. Even Geoffrey, who's a bit different to say the least, has an agenda."

"Let me tell you a few things and maybe you'll see this is not personal. At least, not with me."

He doubted that, but he wanted to hear what she had to say.

"Did you know that in all of recorded history only one crucified skeleton has ever been found in the Holy Land."

He didn't.

"Crucifixion was alien to the Jews. They stoned, burned, decapitated, or strangled to accomplish capital punishment. Mosaic law only allowed a criminal who'd already been executed to hang on wood as additional punishment."

"For he that is hanged is accursed by God," he said, quoting Deuteronomy.

"You know your Old Testament."

"We do have some culture back in Georgia."

She smiled. "But crucifixion was a common form of Roman execution. Varrus in 4 BC crucified more than two thousand. Florus in AD 66 killed nearly four thousand. Titus in AD 70 executed five hundred a day. Yet only one crucified skeleton has ever been found. That was in 1968, just north of Jerusalem. The bones dated from the first century, which excited a lot of people. But the dead man was not Jesus. His name was Yehochanan, about five and a half feet tall, twenty-four to twenty-eight years old. We know because of information inscribed on his ossuary. He'd also been tied to the cross, not nailed, and neither of his legs was broken. Do you understand the significance of that detail?"

He did. "Suffocation was how you died on the cross. The head would eventually droop forward, and oxygen deprivation set in."

"Crucifixion was a public humiliation. Victims weren't supposed to die too soon. So to delay death a piece of wood was attached behind the abdomen that could be sat on, or a piece at the feet that could be stood upon. That way, the accused could support himself and breathe. After a few days, if the victim had not exhausted his strength, soldiers broke the legs. That way he could no longer support himself. Death came quickly after that."

He recalled the Gospels. "A crucified person couldn't defile the Sabbath. The Jews wanted the bodies of Jesus and the two criminals executed with Him down by nightfall. So Pilate ordered the legs of the two criminals broken."

She nodded. "But when they came to Jesus, and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. That's from John. Ever wonder why Jesus died so quickly? He'd only been hanging a few hours. It usually took days. And why didn't the Roman soldiers break His legs anyway, just to be sure he died? Instead, John says, they pierced His side with a lance and blood and water poured forth. But Matthew, Mark, and Luke never mention this happening."

"What's your point?"

"Of all the tens of thousands who were crucified, only one skeleton has ever been found. And the reason is simple. In Jesus's time, burial was deemed an honor. No greater horror existed than for your body to be left for the animals. Each of Rome's supreme penalties-burned alive, cast to the beasts, or crucifixion-had one thing in common. No body to bury. Crucifixion victims were left hanging until the birds picked their bones clean, then what was left was tossed into a common grave. Yet all four Gospels agree that Jesus died in the ninth hour, three PM, then was taken down and buried."