The Lost Crown of the Knights Templar

1 Bad Things Happen When Good Men Do Nothing

One by one, the men cast rocks, broken bricks, and even pieces of concrete at Toshana. All she could do was cower away from their inescapable ruck, while praying out loud for salvation from under her burka. Her back was bleeding. She could feel the warm wetness seep from where the pain came, slowly painting the inside of her black garment and making it stick to her skin. She hid her face under cover of her forearms, but she knew it would not save her.

Another large brick struck the side of her skull and her ears hissed under the sound of her screams. All she could hear outside of herself were the hateful cries and vulgar accusations hurled at her like the very stones she was being lapidated with.

“Zina! Zina!” they shouted in between their spitting and condemnation. They called her a fornicator, whore… filthy bitch, at least when she was able to hear above the barbaric grunts among them. Toshana clutched her head, opening up her ribcage to the boots of those who stood to her right. Trampling the woman, a hail of boots came down on her back and scuffed down her sides, cracking a few ribs. Her weeping profited her nothing, yet it was all she could do.

Around the group of attackers, only a few passers-by glared in terror, not daring to film it on their cell phones. Even with the atrocity unfurling before them, they were reluctant to help the dying woman for fear of persecution or even arrest.

“My God, this can’t be happening!” one man said to another as they hastened to their vehicles parked under a nearby freeway. “For fuck’s sake, this is London, not Babylon!”

“Ignore it. Just now we’re the ones under the stones, Gerold,” his colleague warned. “Let them sort out their own shit. Do you want them to torch our cars like they did to those French tourists last week? I don’t think so.”

“But we have to do something,” the man insisted, being tugged hard by his colleague to move on swiftly. “Are we just going to watch a woman being murdered?”

“Jesus Christ, Gerold! What do you want to do? Do you have a gun? Do you have backup? There are easily twenty of those animals over there. They’ll kill you!” his colleague growled, shoving him forward as the pack of refugees rained down rocks on the defenseless female on the concrete. The blood from her burka was smearing the cement around her as she tried to move out under their onslaught, but it only excited their odium.

The two men raced for their cars as the evening sky darkened over the decrepit buildings outside the Barking business center, still hearing the clatter of stone on concrete among the furious cries. Putting the chaos behind them, they pulled away and didn’t as much as glance in their rear view mirrors where the woman was now lying motionless in the deserted street.

As Gerold turned onto the freeway, he could not help but feel horribly guilty for his inaction. Without thinking it through, he turned his SUV around and headed back to the scene of the terrible execution. He was feeling an unfamiliar fire rapidly fueling his racing heart.

“You are insane,” he told himself as the group of men came back into view at a small distance away. “What are you going to do? Think, think!”

Just run them over, his inner voice suggested nonchalantly. Just put down your foot and flatten them all. Come on. Run them all down and carry on driving. They’ll never catch you and you will have done something — something — to equalize the wrong that the goddamn governments allow while countless people perish at the hands of evil bastards like these.’

While Gerold and his Ford Expedition idled a block away, contemplating his morals in the funhouse mirror of impotent laws that served everything but justice, a figure appeared from between two tenement buildings. He perked up to see what was about to happen, catching sight of a powerfully built man charging out into the street about half a block from the black heap of a victim the pack had left bleeding. His hands held two grenades that he promptly flung at the celebrating assemblage of killers as they walked away from the woman’s broken body.

One was a stun grenade, detonating with a thunderous bang that punched Gerold in the ribs even at this distance. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed as the group of men grabbed their ears and fell about, disorientated and blinded by the potent flash. The man slipped on a gas mask just before releasing the second hell upon the already scampering group. Gerold revved his car in excitement and the lone man with the mask hastened through them to get to the woman.

Effortlessly he lifted her limp body in his arms and made for the alleyway. But another group of refugees responded to the unholy clap they mistook for a bomb. They came from the direction in which the masked man was trying to escape, trapping him in the street where he had just rescued the woman.

Now, Ger, now is your chance to make a difference! the voice urged.

“What if I fail? If I get arrested… my family… my wife will…,” he stammered, swallowing hard at the dryness in his throat. You always see this shit on the news and shake your head, remember? the voice persisted. You shake your head and remark about the lack of testicular fortitude men suffer these days to take back their country, civility, and justice, Ger. Now, prove it. Prove that not all men have gone soft, lapdogs of an ass-backwards system, the bitches of political correctness! Is what happened here right or wrong?’

“Wrong,” he said aloud.

Right then, bollocks to the rest. Do what is right, for once! it commanded. Remember, bad things happen because good men do nothing. But it was what Gerold saw next that slammed his foot down. The other group of men had assembled around the masked stranger and were moving in on him.

Aimlessly, he turned to find a way out with the black shape of the woman still in his arms, but they had him surrounded. Suddenly a speeding SUV came from nowhere, roaring as it came speeding at the congregation. Without warning or relent the huge V8 charged through them, sending most hurtling through the air before they fell on the hard concrete like puppets released by the hand of their master.

While some had recovered and stumbled toward the vehicle, Gerold opened his passenger door to the masked man. “Get in! For Christ’s sake, get in the car! Hurry!”

The man threw the woman’s body onto the back seat as gently as he could before propelling himself into the car and slamming the door just in time as force-flung rocks started pelting the back windshield.

“Christ, mate! You saved my life just then!” the masked man panted heavily, tearing off the heavy rubber mask and discarding it on the floor. “Thank you.”

Gerold smiled, although he was pretty certain he had just soiled himself. “You’re welcome. Couldn’t let that escalate while there was help at hand, you know.”

“Aye,” the exhausted stranger said. “The very sentiment I shared at witnessing this mobbing. She needs to get to an ER or she’s not going to make it.”

Gerold gasped, “She’s still alive?”

“Aye. Breathing, but just,” the response came.

The battered SUV turned into the King George Hospital emergency area, where the stranger jumped out to summon help from the staff. Promptly, emergency personnel rushed out to collect the battered woman, virtually dead.

“Will you please fill out some details for us?” the nurse asked.

“Oh, we don’t know this woman,” Gerold asserted. “We just… found her like this and brought her in.”

“I understand, sir, but we just need one of you to give us some particulars so that we can treat her, you know, the site and circumstances of her assault and so on?” the nursing sister persisted. The two men reluctantly exchanged glances, then Gerold’s passenger laid a hand on his shoulder.

“You go on. I’ll take care of the paperwork,” he winked. Gerold was beyond relieved, shaking the stranger’s hand. “Thanks a mill, mate,” he said. “The coppers… my wife… must never know what happened tonight or I’ll be up shit creek, hey.”

“I figured as much. Look, here is my card. Please call me within the week. I would like to interview you, anonymously of course, for a story I’m covering regarding the recent uprising in the area,” the stranger told Gerold. “And again, thank you.”

As the rugged man walked into the emergency reception area Gerold looked down at the card and read, “Sam Cleave.” The name rang a bell far off in Gerold’s head, but he was more of a sports man than a news man, so he shrugged it off as some reporter who could seal his fate if he did not grant the requested interview.