Hell Ship

CHAPTER 20

John Lee Ray had long wondered at the inclusion of Bern on the chapel map. His extensive research into actual and suspected Templar refuge sites had uncovered a great deal of circumstantial evidence to support the idea that the Swiss Confederation had been a bold move on the part of the Templars to establish their own independent state in Europe. The timing was too perfect to be coincidence.

The decline of the order had begun in 1291, with the fall of the Templar stronghold of Acre in Palestine. The campaign to take back the Holy Lands was the very essence of the Templar mission, and despite their many successes, the ultimate defeat of Christian forces under Templar leadership had left them vulnerable. That was very year that the cantons and city-states of the remote mountain region east of France had united to fight for an existence independent of the European monarchies.

It was in the subsequent history of Europe however that Ray saw the tentacles of Templar influence. Just as the warrior-monks had created a sophisticated system of banking, the Swiss had, over the centuries, established a banking empire that guaranteed anonymity and political neutrality. Swiss banks had become synonymous with investor security, to the extent that a fortune in Nazi gold bullion, treasure looted from Holocaust victims and laundered through a series of foreign banks, was still sequestered away in Swiss vaults fifty years after the end of Hitler’s regime. Moreover, many of those victims — successful Jewish businessmen — had Swiss accounts of their own, which were now inaccessible to their surviving offspring since the Swiss banking system was built on a foundation of anonymity; names did not matter, only account numbers, and if those numbers were lost, the accounts entered a state of perpetual limbo. Swiss neutrality guaranteed that, even though the Third Reich was gone, no one — neither the victorious Allied powers nor the heirs to Nazi brutality — could get their hands on those assets.

To Ray, this was further evidence of Templar influence. The Swiss could remain neutral in every conflict, secretly bankroll both sides, and were assured that regardless of who was the victor and who was defeated, they would always win.

That knowledge however did not shed light on the location of the Templars’ own treasure vault.

Three days after arriving in Bern, the very place indicated by his photographs of the chapel map, he was no closer to finding it than he had been before traveling to Manila. He had the medallion, which proved that the vault was real, but where was it?

He had begun his search in the oldest part of the city, on the peninsula surrounded by the River Aare. He sent his men out to scout various location in the medieval heart of old Bern, while he and Scalpel visited some of the city’s oldest and most prominent landmarks, searching for Templar symbols or anything that might hint at a secret room or tunnel passage. He fancied the notion that the Zytglogge clock tower, with its elaborate mechanical bell striker, might somehow unlock the vault; turn the clock hands this way or that and a hidden door would pop open. The structure was certainly old enough; it was one of the original gate towers, dating back to the mid-1200s. Unfortunately, it was also, even after seven hundred years, still a work in progress. The Zytglogge tower had been almost completely destroyed in the great fire of 1405, along with most of the rest of the city, and been in a near constant state of renovation ever since. Many of its more famous features, including the clock itself, had been added in the centuries following the fire. If a vault had existed there, it almost certainly would have been discovered during one of the ongoing construction projects.

If not the Zytglogge, then where?

He spent the better part of a day roaming the Nydegg neighborhood and the Nydeggkirche, a historic church built in the mid-1300s on the site of the original Bernese fortress. Here too he found a structure that had been restored, renovated, and repurposed countless times throughout the centuries, but nowhere were there Templar “fingerprints” to be found.

He was pondering his next destination when his cell phone trilled. He answered it with his customary greeting: “John Lee Ray speaking.”

“Rooster here. You’ll never guess who I saw getting off a Eurail train.”

“I believe you’ve been in my employ long enough to know that I detest guessing games,” he answered frostily. “I suggest that you come hastily to the point, after which we may need to review procedures for reporting in.”

“Dane Maddock.” Rooster did not sound the least bit chastened. “Along with the woman and the Indian.”

All thoughts of further berating his subordinate evaporated. “Maddock is here?”

Scalpel immediately took an interest, mouthing the same words.

“Affirmative. I spotted them waiting for a train.” Rooster paused a beat, and then casually added. “I followed them to a place called Mulenen. They’re asking around about something called the ‘Niesen.’”

Niesen. It was the German word for sneeze, but it was also the name of nearby mountain peak, which when viewed from a certain perspective, formed a slightly off-center triangle. So perfect was the outline that Niesen Mountain, just a few miles from Bern, was widely known as “the Swiss Pyramid.”

Not only had Maddock escaped his exile in the Spratly Islands, he had also found the location of the Templar treasure, right where the riddle promised it would be.

Under a triangle so big only God could see.

Dane held the copper triangle at arm’s length so that it completely blocked out the outline of the Niesen, just as Bones had done with the photograph in the travel guide. Despite its nickname, the mountain only looked like a pyramid when viewed from the east; the most dramatic pictures, including the one that had led to Bones’ discovery, were taken from the far shore of nearby Lake Thun. Through some trial and error, Dane had worked out the approximate location on the slope that would correspond to the pin-hole in the center of the triangle. If all his assumptions were correct — a big if—the door to the Templar treasure vault would be found there.

Peering through the triangle one last time verified the spot at least, which perhaps not coincidentally, fell almost exactly at the location of the Schwandegg station for the Niesenbahn funicular railway — a cable driven single-track conveyance that shuttled hundreds of tourists daily from the village of Mulenen, at the base of the mountain, to its summit, nearly 7,800 feet above sea level. The Niesenbahn had been built in 1910 and was the longest continuous funicular railway in the world. Because it ran at an almost forty-five degree angle for its entire length, the interior of the cars were built on stair-step platforms so that passengers could stand on a level surface during travel. Running alongside it, at 11,674 steps, was the Guinness World Record longest stairway in the world, though the steps were only open to the public once a year for an organized stair-climbing race. Although neither the funicular nor the stairway had been built until many centuries after the destruction of the Templars, the route chosen for both doubtless traced back to an earlier, historical trail. The only question was whether the construction had inadvertently covered up any signs that had been left to indicate the precise location of the vault.

Dane could not help thinking about Bones’ haystack comparison. It felt like every time they made a deductive leap forward, they were confronted with a smaller, but still seemingly insurmountable area in which to search for their goal.

They bought tickets for the funicular and spent the fifteen minute ride halfway up the mountain trying to see the slope as the exiled Templars might have seen it nearly seven hundred years earlier — raw, untrammeled, undeveloped. The shape of the Niesen might have seemed like the perfect signpost, but what would have been involved in transforming the mountain into a place to store treasure?

His research had enlightened him on one point. Although often romanticized — sometimes demonized — the Templar organization was far more complex than most people realized. To begin with, only about ten percent of those who joined the Poor-Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon could be called Templar Knights. The Templar order did not elevate members to the knighthood; only those of noble birth who took monastic vows to join the order — including a pledge to surrender all their wealth and property — were actually considered Knights of the Temple. The rest of the order, which numbered more than 20,000 at its peak, was mostly made up of two classes — sergeants and chaplains. The sergeants were both fighters and tradesmen — blacksmiths, carpenters, stone masons, and so forth. With an army of thousands of skilled tradesman, it would certainly have been feasible for the fugitive Templars to carve out a vault beneath this mountain peak.

They disembarked at Schwandegg but instead of joining the throng that moved to board the rail car for the second leg of the ascent, they meandered around the station and eventually descended the steps to continue their search on the mountain slope itself. Their first bit of luck came when they learned that the station was built on the foundation of an earlier watchtower dating back to the time of the original Swiss confederation.

“We need to focus our search on this building,” declared Dane. “Our Templars might have used that original tower to hide their excavation.”

They waited for the train cars to depart, one returning to the base of the mountain, the other moving on to the top, to begin looking in earnest. It was already early evening and there would only be a few more runs before the train shut down for the day. If they didn’t find what they were looking for, they would have to stay the night at the summit lodge or hike out on foot.

At one corner of the station well concealed by the overhanging viewing terrace, they found a large weathered cornerstone, and on it, more proof: a triangular depression that might easily have been mistaken for a Masonic seal, except that unlike the universal builder’s square and compass symbol, the triangle was not quite symmetrical. They had seen this shape elsewhere; it was on the official logo of the Niesen Park. But it was also a perfect match to the medallion.

Almost trembling with anticipation, Dane pressed one of the facsimiles into the depression. There was a distinctive click from within the block, and then it opened.

Despite the appearance of solidity, the cornerstone was hollow. The face with the triangle symbol was in fact a two-inch thick slab, beveled at the edges so there was no visible seam when it was closed. The heavy slab moved smoothly despite the fact that the hinges were also of carved stone.

“Was there ever any doubt?” Bones pointed a finger at Maddock. “You, me, lottery ticket.”

“If there’s really a Templar treasure here,” said Alex. “You won’t need to win the lotto.”

“One thing at a time.” Dane took a flashlight from his backpack and probed the interior of the block. The cornerstone was the threshold of a carved stairway that descended steeply, into the mountain itself. “Well, this is what we came for.”

He started to take a step inside, but felt Bones’ hand on his shoulder. “Watch your step. I’ll bet these Templar guys liked to build booby-traps. Like in that Indiana Jones movie.”

Alex wrinkled her nose. “The one with all the bugs?”

Bones shook his head. “No, that was Temple of Doom. In India. I’m talking about Last Crusade. The one with the rats and the hot German chick. I suppose there could be bugs here, too.”

“Thanks for the cheerful thought.” Alex shuddered.

Dane continued forward, but Bones’ warning was not lost on him. He didn’t think they would find bugs, rats, snakes or any other living creatures five thousand feet above sea level, but the Templars might very well have employed defensive measures to guard their secret vault. He checked the surrounding walls of the passage for slits or holes that might conceal traps, and checked each stair tread before putting his full weight down. It was slow going, but a few minutes later, he reached the bottom of the stairs about a dozen feet below the entrance, and found himself in the center of a conspicuously circular room.

There were arched openings equally spaced around the circle, and a quick check showed passages leading away to the left and right, while the one directly in front of him led to an ascending staircase. The opening behind the entrance stairs also led to a stairwell, but this one went down.

“Better get down here,” he called. “We’ve got a multiple choice problem.”

When they were all together again, Dane pointed out the openings. “Any thoughts?”

Alex walked the circumference of the room, playing the beam of her light on the arches and into the depths of the passages. “No markings, but there’s something familiar about this place.”

“It’s a standard Templar design. Most of their chapels and churches were round, like the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.”

“And Hancock’s chapel. But it’s not that.” Alex studied the layout again. “It’s laid out like a cross, no surprise there. One way goes up, one down, the others left and right…oh, duh.”

She wheeled to face them, grinning. “Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch.”

Dane and Bones exchanged a glance, and then Bones cleared his throat. “Ummm, I should point out that you…like…aren’t wearing spectacles.”

“It’s mnemonic for remembering how to make Sign of the Cross.” She touched a finger to her forehead. “Spectacles…”

Dane quickly forestalled her. “Okay. No need to continue with the demonstration. This room is our Templar Cross laid out in three dimensions.” He held up the copper medallion. “Right now, we’re standing in the hole in the middle, and we have the four cross arms leading away. But which way do we go?”

“Up,” said Alex, confidently. “Start with ‘spectacles.’”

Bones rolled his eyes. “I’m not looking forward to what comes next.”

“We go up the stairs. Maybe there’s another seal we need to activate. Then we go down, and repeat the process, completing the cross in the correct order.”

“It beats anything I’ve got,” said Dane.

Bones however raised a hand. “I don’t like this. You were right to call it ‘multiple choice.’ This is a test, and I have a feeling that a wrong answer will mean something a lot worse than a bad grade.”

“You think it’s a trick question?” Dane moved toward the ascending staircase and scanned it with his light. The beam showed the steps and a confined arched tunnel, both evidently carved of out of the solid bedrock of the mountain, but then he noticed a scattering of dark spots on the walls and ceiling further up the passage. A check of the other passages showed similar deformations.

“Bones, I think this is where your knowledge of fictional swashbuckling archaeologists just might come in handy. Those holes and slits in the walls are murder holes, a common feature of medieval architecture. The gateway to a city would have little windows, just big enough to shoot an arrow through or pour boiling oil on an invader. If I had to guess, I’d say that if we step in the wrong place, something nasty will pop out.” He paused. “Any idea how we can get past them?”

“Trial and error?” suggested Bones. “Tap on the steps, try to avoid getting skewered.”

“Might work.” Dane rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Okay, let’s think like the guys who built this place. They wanted to keep it secret and safe, but they also knew that someday, the guy with the key would come. All the information that we’ve used to get here came from the key — the medallion. It showed us where to look and it opened the front door. There must be something about the key that will help us out here.”

“Too bad we don’t have the original,” said Alex. “You got the best look at it. Was there anything else? Writing or other symbols?”

Dane shook his head. “No. Just a triangle, a cross, and if you want to get technical about it, a circle in the center of the cross.”

“Three sides to the triangle. Maybe every third step is safe?”

“I like it. Three was a very important number to the Templars. There were three classes: Knights, sergeants and chaplains. Their coffers were secured with a three different locks, and the keys given to three different knights. They would fast three times a year, and were only permitted to eat meat three times a week.”

“How do you know all this crap, Maddock?”

“I’ve done a lot of reading about them over the years. And, of course, all the research we did before coming here. Anyway, the number three…”

“There were three tests in Last Crusade!” Bones exclaimed.

“Right. And before going into battle, a Templar would make the Sign of the Cross three times! That’s something every Templar would know.” Dane took a deep breath. “Well, I guess there’s only one way to know for sure.”

He extended his left foot up to the third tread on the ascending stairwell and slowly, gingerly, transferred his weight to it. Nothing happened. He stepped up three more. Still nothing.

“Look at him stretch,” Bones said. “Sucks to be short, doesn’t it?”

Dane grimaced. At a shade under six feet tall, he was hardly short, but compared to Bones… He gave his head a shake and refocused on the task at hand.

The murder holes were all around him, but whatever deadly potential they held remained unrealized. He went up to step number nine, then twelve, his pace quickening both with urgency to be done with the deathtrap and confidence that they had unlocked yet another Templar secret. Then, on what would have been the seventy-second step — a number that corresponded to the number of clauses in the original Templar code of behavior, and was the product of eight and nine, which were also important numbers to the Templars — he reached another landing.

And another circular room with four passages.