The Last Templar

Chapter 3

In the Great Hall, Tess heard the screams from outside and quickly realized something was very, very wrong. She turned in time to see the first horse burst through the door, shattering glass and splintering timber inward as the Great Hall erupted into chaos. The smooth, polished, immaculate gathering disintegrated into a snarling atavistic pack as men and women shoved and screamed their way out of the path of the charging horses.

Three of the horsemen rampaged through the crowd, swords crashing through display cabinets, trampling on broken glass and shattered timber, and damaged and destroyed exhibits.

Tess was thrown aside as scores of guests tried desperately to escape through the doors and into the street. Her eyes darted around the hall. Kim—Mom—Where are they'? She looked around, but couldn't see them anywhere. To her far right, the horses wheeled and turned, obliterating more displays in their path. Guests were sent flying into cabinets and against walls, their pained grunts and shrieks echoing in the vast room. Tess glimpsed Clive Edmondson among them as he was knocked violently sideways when one of the horses suddenly reared backward.

The horses were snorting, nostrils flared, foam spilling from around the bits in their mouths. Their riders were reaching down and snatching up glittering objects from the broken cabinets before stuffing them into sacks hooked onto their saddles. At the doors, the crowd trying to get out made it impossible for the police to get in, helpless against the weight of the terrified mob.

One of the horses swung around, its flank sending a statue of the Virgin Mary reeling over to smash onto the floor. The horse's hooves pounded down onto it, crushing the Madonna's praying hands.

Ripped from its mounting by the fleeing guests, a beautiful tapestry was trampled underfoot by both people and animals. Thousands of painstaking stitches, shredded in seconds. A display case toppled, a white and gold miter bursting through the breaking glass to be kicked aside in the mad scramble.

A matching robe drifted, magic carpet-like, until it, too, was stamped upon.

Hurriedly getting out of the way of the horses, Tess looked down the corridor where, partway along, she could see the fourth horseman and beyond him, way back at the far end of the corridor, yet more people were scattering into other parts of the museum. She searched for her mom and her daughter again. Where the hell are they'? Are they all right'? She strained to pick out their faces from the blur of the crowd, but there was still no sign of them.

Hearing a commanding shout, Tess spun around to see that the police officers had finally made it through the fleeing mob. Weapons drawn and shouting above the mayhem, they were closing in on one of the three horsemen who, from beneath his robe, pulled out a small, vicious-looking gun.

Instinctively, Tess dropped to the floor and covered her head, but not before witnessing the man loose a burst of bullets, moving the gun from side to side, spraying the hall. A dozen people went down, including all of the policemen, the broken glass and smashed cases around them now splattered with blood.

Still crouched on the floor, her heart pounding its way out of her chest, and trying to keep as still as she could even though something inside was screaming at her to run, Tess saw that two of the other horsemen were now also brandishing automatic weapons like the one their murderous consort was carrying. Bullets ricocheted off the museum walls, adding to the noise and to the panic. One of the horses reared suddenly and its rider's hands flailed, the gun in one of them sending a fusillade of bullets up one wall and onto the ceiling, shattering ornate plaster moldings that came showering down onto the heads of the crouching, screaming guests.

Risking a glance from behind her cabinet, Tess's mind raced as she evaluated routes of escape.

Seeing a doorway to another gallery three rows of exhibits beyond to her right, Tess willed her legs forward and scurried toward it.

She had just reached the second row when she spotted the fourth knight headed straight toward her.

She ducked, darting quick glances as she watched him weave his mount among the rows of still undamaged cabinets, apparently uninvolved and unconcerned with the mayhem his three companions were wreaking.

She could almost feel die breath venting from his snorting horse as the knight suddenly reined to a stop, barely six feet away from her. Tess crouched low, hugging the display for dear life, urging her beating heart to quieten. Her eyes drifted up and she spotted the knight, reflected in the glass displays around her, imperious in his chain mail and his white mantle, staring down at one cabinet in particular.

It was the one Tess had been looking at when Clive Edmondson had approached her.

Tess watched in quiet terror as the knight drew his sword, swung it up, and brought it thundering down onto the cabinet, smashing it to bits and sending shards of glass spewing onto the floor around her. Then, sliding his sword back into its scabbard, he reached down from the saddle and lifted out the strange box, the contraption of buttons, gears, and levers, and held it up for a moment.

Tess could barely breathe and yet, against all rational survival instincts she believed she possessed, she desperately needed to see what was happening. Unable to resist, she leaned out from behind the display case, one eye barely clearing the edge of the cabinet.

The man stared at the device, reverently it seemed, for a moment before mouthing a few words, almost to himself.

"Veritas vos libera—"

Tess stared, entranced by this seemingly most private of rituals, when another burst of gunfire snapped both her and the knight out of their reverie.

He wheeled his horse around and for an instant, his eyes, though shadowed beneath the visor of his helmet, met Tess's. Her heart stopped as she crouched there, utterly and helplessly frozen. Then the horse was coming her way, straight at her—before brushing past and, as it did so, she heard the man yelling to the other three horsemen, "Let's go!"

Tess rose to see that the big horseman who had started the shooting was herding a small group into a corner by the main staircase. She recognized the archbishop of New York, as well as the mayor and his wife. The leader of the knights nodded his head and the big man forced his mount through the knot of distraught guests, grabbed the struggling woman, and lifted her up onto his horse. He jammed his gun into the side of her head and she went still, her mouth open in a silent scream.

Helpless, angry, and afraid, Tess watched as the four horsemen moved toward the doorway. The lead knight, the only one without a gun, she noticed, was also the only one without a bulging sack tied to his pommel. And as the horsemen charged away through the galleries of the museum, Tess stood up and rushed through the debris to find her mother and her young daughter.

***

The knights stormed out through the doors of the museum and into the glare of the television floodlights. Despite the sobbing of the frightened and the moaning of the injured, it was suddenly a lot quieter and around them came shouts; men's voices, police mostiy, with random words identifiable here and there: ". . . hold your fire!" ". . . hostage!" ". . . don't shoot!"

And then the four horsemen were charging down the steps and up the avenue, the knight with the hostage protectively bringing up the rear. Their movements were brisk but not urgent, contemptuous of the approaching police sirens sawing at the night, and in moments they had disappeared back into the marled darkness of Central Park.