The Last Templar

Chapter 60

A s he helped Tess clamber into Rustem's boat, Reilly shot a quick glance toward the shore.

A brown Toyota pickup truck was now parked by their SUV. Two men were standing at the edge of the lake, and neither of them was the engineer, Okan. The first was much taller and bulkier than the small engineer, and the second, although wiry and no taller than Okan, lacked his thick nest of black hair. Reilly also spotted something else: both men were holding guns. From this far out, they looked like hunting rifles, but Reilly couldn't be sure. He guessed that Vance had bought himself some local muscle along the way. He wondered if any of them had thought to check the Pajero and, if so, if they'd found the Browning he'd tucked into the stow box under the seat.

Reilly studied Vance, seeing him in the flesh for the first time. So this is the man behind this whole mess. He thought back to the murdered horsemen in New York, trying to reconcile the man before him with all the events that had brought them to this remote place and gauging the professor's mind-set. The threatening announcement that Reilly was, in fact, an FBI agent hadn't fazed Vance in the least. Watching his calm, controlled disposition, Reilly wondered how this sophisticated man, this respected academic, had evolved into the fugitive sitting across from him with a shotgun in his lap; how someone with his background had managed to put together that raiding party and, more to the point, how he had gone on to kill off his hired guns, one by one, and with such efficiency and ruthlessness at that.

Something didn't fit.

He noted that Vance was fixated on the pouch in Tess's hands.

"Careful," Vance told her as she settled into the boat. "We wouldn't want to damage it. Not after all this." His tone sounded strangely detached as he stretched his hand out. "Please," he beckoned.

Tess looked at Reilly, unsure of what to do. Reilly turned to Vance who, with the other hand, swung the shotgun out slowly until it was pointing in their direction. The expression on the professor's face was almost rueful, but his eyes were unflinching. Tess stood up, reached over, and handed him the pouch.

Vance simply stowed it by his feet and motioned toward the shore with the shotgun. "Let's get back on solid ground, shall we?"

As they climbed off the boats at the shore, Reilly could now see that Vance's men were indeed carrying hunting rifles. The taller of the two, a rough-looking man with a neck like a tree stump and a steely stare, was pointing his rifle at them, directing them away from the boats. The rifle didn't look new, but it was threatening enough. It was an odd kind of weapon for a hired thug. It occurred to Reilly that Vance almost certainly had had to make do with whomever he'd been able to find at short notice. That could work to their advantage, he thought, especially if the Browning was still in the Pajero. For the moment, though, they were too exposed, standing there dripping in their wet suits.

Vance found an old, rickety table in Rustem's yard and rested his shotgun against it. He glanced at Tess, his face brightening slightly. "I guess I'm not the only fan of Al-Idrissi. I really did want to be the first to get to it, as you can imagine, but. . ." He trailed off, placing the bulky pouch on the table.

He stared at it reverentially, his mind seeming to drift away for a moment. "Still," he added, "I'm glad you came. I'm not sure the local talent would have brought it up as efficiently as you did."

His fingers reached out and settled on the pouch's bulge, feeling it gently, trying to divine what secrets it held. He started to lift its flap, then stopped, his head cocked with a sudden realization. He turned to Tess.

"You should join me for this. In many ways, it's as much your discovery as it is mine."

Tess glanced at Reilly, clearly conflicted. Reilly nodded for her to go ahead. She took a hesitant step forward, but the wiry, balding man tensed up, raising his rifle. Vance blurted some quick words in Turkish and the man relented, stepping aside to let her through. She joined Vance by the table.

"Let's hope this wasn't all for nothing," he said, as he reached for the pouch and lifted its flap.

Slowly, and using both hands, he pulled something out from inside the pouch. It was an oiled skin.

He laid it on the table. His brow farrowed in apparent confusion as he studied the shrouded shape.

With hesitant fingers, he unwrapped the skin, revealing an ornate brass ring around ten inches wide.

Its rim was intricately graduated with minute, regularly spaced notches, and it had a two-pointed rotating arm in its center, with a couple of smaller, secondary hands underneath.

Reilly's eyes darted from the object to the big Turk, who was also glancing back and forth from the table to Reilly and Rustem, struggling to keep his curiosity at bay. Reilly's muscles tensed as he saw a potential opportunity, but the big man had the same idea and stepped back, raising his rifle menacingly. Reilly pulled back, noticing that Rustem had sensed his move and now had beads of sweat peppering his scalp.

At the table, Tess's eyes were riveted on the device. "What is it?"

Vance was busy examining it carefully. "It's a mariner's astrolabe," he said with a surprised look of recognition. He looked up briefly and saw her confused expression. "It's a navigational instrument, kind of like a primitive sextant," he clarified. "They didn't know about longitudes then, of course, but . . ."

Known as "the slide rule to the heavens," the astrolabe, the earliest of all scientific instruments, had been around since 150 BC. Originally developed by Greek scholars in Alexandria, its use had eventually spread into Europe with the Muslim conquest of Spain. Widely used by Arab astronomers to help tell the time by measuring the altitude of the sun, astrolabes had evolved into a highly prized navigator's tool by the fifteenth century, with Portuguese sailors using them to locate their latitude. The mariner's astrolabe was crucial in helping Prince Henry the Navigator, the son of King John of Portugal, earn his nickname. For many years, his fleet kept its use a closely guarded secret and was the only fleet able to navigate open waters. It proved an invaluable tool throughout the Portuguese age of discovery, which culminated in Christopher Columbus's setting foot in the New World in 1492.

It was no coincidence that Prince Henry was the Governor of the Order of Christ from 1420 until his death in 1460. A Portuguese military order, it traced its origins back to none other than the Templars.

Vance examined it further, turning it over carefully, studying the graduations on its outer ring. "This is remarkable. If this is indeed Templar, it predates the ones we've seen by over a hundred years."

His voice trailed off. His fingers had found something else in the pouch: a leather wrap.

Unfolding it, he found a small sheet of parchment.

Reilly immediately recognized the lettering: it was identical to that on the coded manuscript that 142

had led them here. Only there seemed to be spaces between the words.

This letter wasn't in code.

Tess spotted the similarity too. "It's from Aimard," she exclaimed. But Vance wasn't listening. He wandered off, engrossed in the sheet of parchment in his hands. Tense seconds passed as he read it in silence, away from them. When he finally came back, a look of resignation had clouded his features. "It seems," he said somberly, "that we're not quite there yet."

Tess fought the nausea rising in her throat. She knew she wouldn't like the answer, but still managed to ask, "What does it say?"