The Lost Crown of the Knights Templar

6 The Rowback

Sam arrived in Edinburgh just before midday of the day following his visit to the hospital where the nameless woman had put him off. Without reservation, he inhaled a long and deep breath when he stepped off the plane, as if reacquainting himself with the foggy air of his city. She was always pregnant with rain and pollution, but Sam wouldn’t exchange her for the world. He knew every neighborhood, every graveyard, every warehouse, and most certainly every pub worth its salt… and whisky.

The Scottish wind was welcoming, clawing its delightfully frigid finger through his dark tresses. Not even taking his hair back and tying it could keep it from becoming unkempt. That was fine with him. His rugged, slightly unshaven look felt good, and according to Sam — and a few sycophantic adolescent girls in his apartment building — the rough wildness suited his reckless nature in pursuing a good story or gallivanting in dangerous places on excursions.

For now, though, all Sam wanted to do was get home, kiss his cat, and check his gear. He still couldn’t fathom why nobody had confiscated his exuberantly expensive cameras and lenses, recording equipment, and riot gear while the car had been abandoned in Barking.

When he got home the clouds had grown heavy and a light drizzle had erupted overhead. Nothing new for Edinburgh. Still, for some reason Sam felt a feeling of dread overcome him with every step closer to his front door.

“Hallo Sam,” said his neighbor, Mr. Coughley, a war veteran somewhere in his eighties. He was right next to Sam when the journalist lugged his bags to the post boxes. “Fed your cat, as you asked.”

“Geez, Mr. Coughley, you gave me a fright,” Sam gulped, trying not to cuss at the friendly, emaciated old man who was pulling his mail from the little open door of his post box with shaking hands. “And thanks for feeding Bruich for me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, lad,” he laughed at Sam. “I didn’t think the likes of you ever got a fright for anything, not unless the whiskey runs out, hey?”

“That’s true, sir, that is true,” Sam chuckled as he fumbled through leaves of unimportant junk mail and pamphlets. “On that note, I see Hailey’s Off-License practically burned down while I was gone.”

“Aye, son,” the old man replied morosely. “Fifty years that place has stood there and now, two days back, some immigrant nonsense about Muslims killed in England recently wells up here and,” he motioned with his hand what looked like an explosion, “…poof! There goes Hayley’s after being declared a national heritage site by every self-respecting alcoholic in Edinburgh.”

“Religious unrest, coming to our neighborhoods,” Sam said, shaking his head as he locked the box. “Looks like soon I won’t have to travel at all to cover terrorism.”

“Aye, son, aye. Sad state of affairs, by God,” the old man agreed. “In our day those immigrants would have been put square in their plotters by now, but I fear the world has gone to the dogs.”

“I agree, Mr. Coughley, but we live on the edge of too much information and too little practical assistance, it seems. Believe me, I’ve seen my fair share of plundering go unnoticed, and it sickens me,” Sam said, feeling his words come to life in the pit of his stomach. Was this perhaps the sickening feeling of impending doom his gut had picked up when he arrived? “Well, I have to go. Got some footage to sift through for a report. You have a good day, Mr. Coughley.”

“And you too, lad. Nice chat we had. See you, then,” the old man smiled cordially and walked into the ground floor hallway with a shaky wave. To the opposite side of Mr. Coughley’s corridor a double flight of broad stairs ascended. Covered with thick, dark red carpet and bordered by an old, faded variation of gold, each flight sported twelve steps that took considerable upkeep by the housekeeping company to keep out the mold in such a damp, old apartment building.

Sam laboriously lugged his heavy gear up, his legs burning with each step. It surprised him, since he was currently in the best shape of his life, bar his late teens/early twenties when he had quit gymnastics after a serious injury to his rotator cuff and right knee put him out for good. Yet here and now, after years of being in great shape on Purdue’s often life-threatening fun and games, Sam felt his body deny him for the first time.

Without warning, Mr. Coughley’s seemingly unimportant mention reverberated to his recollection. Did he say Muslims recently killed in England, just then? Sam wondered. Could it be the very same…?

“You forgot to put your phone on charge again, idjit,” a stark female reprimand greeted him as his head reared up from the landing just outside his front door. Sam didn’t care about charging his old Nokia as religiously as most, and since it got her to physically appear at his door, he was elated for the flaw.

“Hey Nina,” he smiled boyishly, trying to look fitter than he was, easing his huffing to a less troublesome cadence. “And to what do I owe the honor, then?”

The petite brunette was sitting on the edge of a large plant pot, one of two that flanked his door. Having a smoke at her leisure, she took her time in answering him.

“When you don’t reply by e-mail or text, I will naturally hunt you down at your nest, Sam. I was worried, ye bastard. Been waiting with baited breath and worry for hours and here you are, casually marching up the stairs from God knows which war you poked at again.”

“War?” he asked, roughly setting his bags down to unlock.

“Aye!” she said, her dark eyes flashing sharply as she scanned him from crown to sole. “You look like you lost a fight with a chimney sweep, love.” Nina rose to her feet, flicking the butt of her fag into the moist soil of the plant pot. Her hair was tucked under a dark purple knitted hat that completely clashed with her blue jeans and tapered, tan leather jacket. Pearls of water droplets still adorned her wool scarf, reminiscent of the rain she had just come through.

“Oh, come on, Dr. Gould. Your scarf betrays you,” Sam teased. “We both know you’ve not been here longer than thirty minutes. Tops.”

“Forty-five, actually,” she retorted.

“Thir-ty,” he persisted without looking at her.

Nina breathed in for a comeback, but abandoned the endeavor.

“You’ve never been a good liar,” Sam grinned as he pushed open the door, reveling in Nina’s sudden scrutiny of the accessory. “Now, help me with my luggage and I’ll whip you up a good warmer, alright?”

Nina sighed. Sam’s skills of observation could prove tedious at times, especially when she was trying to apply some hyperbole for pity’s sake. “Alright, Sherlock,” she conceded, taking to the arduous task of lifting the black and green duffel bag containing unknown contents she did not dare guess at. “Jesus, Sam! What do you have in here?”

“Oh that?” he answered as he plodded into the apartment, dodging the affections of his large ginger cat. “That’s just some stuff from the war I just came from, as you rightly reckoned.”

“Oi! Bruich, darling!” Nina exclaimed at Sam’s pet as it approached her for what Sam did not yield. “Let me get a cuddle in, eh?” Unceremoniously she plonked down the duffel bag right there to pick up the whiny animal. The bag fell open and a hunting knife and gas mask spilled from the neck. “Oh my God! Where the hell were you, Sam?”

“Told you. In a war,” he replied dryly, trying to get the TV on with an unwilling remote control. “I have to get new batteries for this bloody thing.”

Nina frowned at his glib report and buried her nose in Bruich’s remarkably soft fur. Dare she ask for more information? She was awfully curious, but she knew Sam better. He would have babbled on about it if it had had any significance. Therefore, bearing in mind that he was covering a story out of Scotland, she assumed that a story was all it was, regardless of the heavy artillery that slept in the bag on the floor.

“I’ll make us some tea, I suppose,” she mentioned, attempting to remind him of the warming beverage he had promised. “Sam?” He appeared to ignore her, focused entirely on the problematic remote control. “Sam!”

“Aye?” he swung around, rattled from his trance. “Oh God, yes. Sorry, I forgot. Let me make you some Irish Coffee.” Tossing the remote on the couch, he hastened past the perplexed historian.

“Are you alright, Sam?” she asked sincerely.

Sam knew Nina would pry until he came clean — and she could tell when he was bluffing or playing down the urgency of his toils. Exhaling lengthily, he confessed. “I’m just worried about my equipment… not working.”

Nina wore a stone face, not daring to comment on Sam’s equipment being alright in her opinion, but she was dying to jest. Without reading into her amusement at the pun, he carried on, “Long story short, my equipment was left in my abandoned car in Barking the other night.”

“Aye?” she nodded, waiting for the rest.

“And let’s just say I left it after a heated disagreement with a bunch of immigrants living there,” he continued. Sam lifted his perfectly intact DSLR and examined it, rotating the thing to all angles of scrutiny. “Yet, none of my cameras suffered for it. Nothing seems to be damaged, broken, or stolen, Nina. How fucking weird is that?”

Nina shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t know there was stuff in your boot?”

“They knew,” he insisted a little loudly before Nina even finished her sentence. “They knew. They took time to slash my tires and fuck up my upholstery and smash all the windows, Nina. You mean to tell me they would not have bothered with the boot?”

He leered at the dark-eyed beauty as she mulled it over in her mind. Nina looked at Sam in conclusion, the tip of her tongue playing inside the wall of her cheek. “I get what you mean. Why would they not tamper or destroy your belongings? Best be grateful and let it go, maybe? Why? What else do you think could be wrong with the gear, Sam? There it is, in your hands. No problem, right?”

“I just don’t trust it.” He sighed. “Besides, I have to transfer the footage to my MotionCap program to edit it all into a proper report. No need to fret over a lucky break, right?”

“I agree. After I’ve had my Irish Coffee, I’ll leave you to your work,” she said. “After all, I only came by to make sure you weren’t dead.” Nina smiled and winked, forcing Sam to return the gesture.

“Many thanks, Dr. Gould,” he smirked, whipping out the whisky and two dusty glasses for the promised drink. A puff of hard breath made for a cheap eradication of dust from the glasses and he set them down on the counter, feeling quite a measure lighter after discussing the matter of the video equipment with Nina. She could see that the hyperactive Sam was rushing to get to the footage like a teenager charging a cell phone after a night of rock concert selfies.

“You know,” she said, leaning against him, “I would be happy to finish making these if you are in a hurry to start working over there.”

Sam’s face swung towards her, looking decidedly cheered. “You wouldn’t mind?”

Nina smiled and shook her head. “Nah, go on. I’ll bring the drinks.”

Sam grabbed her hard and thrust her body against his. He planted a solid kiss on her thick, soft lips and let go so suddenly that it sent her reeling. Not a moment later, he had disappeared into the dark hallway and she could hear the sound of clanking equipment and jacks sliding into line-in ports.

Vaguely, as Nina carefully poured the cream over the back of a teaspoon to form the frothy crown on the black coffee, she could hear sound coming from the computer. It sounded like an address, a speech, by some important man about some important issue. Assuming Sam had engaged in an interview with one of the significant representatives of his assignment, Nina walked in with the two glasses of delectable Irish Coffee.

“I hope I got the sugar part right, since…,” she stopped talking instantly as she watched Sam’s face glaring at the screen, frozen in horror.