Helios (Cerberus Group Book 2) Read online

  One hardly seemed worse than the other, so she ran to it and slammed both her fists against it.

  The balcony lurched beneath her, then knocked her down.

  “Damn it,” she muttered, and thought, Booby trap.

  But then the floor stopped moving, and she saw that the stone block with the cross was now a good eight feet higher than it had been, and positioned right above an arched doorway leading out of the shaft.

  Without pausing to consider what new perils might await her on the other side, Fiona charged through the door and found herself in another round, vaulted chamber. The walls were adorned with painted frescoes. The scenes were reminiscent of stained glass windows in a cathedral or Byzantine icons, though she didn’t give the artwork more than a cursory glance. At the opposite end, there was a block of carved stone, about waist high and twice as long, and behind that, several long tapestries covering the wall—black on top, white on the bottom, with red Templar crosses in the center.

  The room was a chapel, a secret underground church that probably dated back to the crusades. It was no doubt built by the men who had discovered, and removed, the Ark of the Covenant.

  No ladders, but the tapestries gave her an idea. Each was long enough to reach down to the floor of the snake pit.

  She ran down the length of the chamber, circled the altar, and grabbed one of the enormous woven panels. She half-expected it to crumble to dust in her hands, but the dry environment of the sealed chapel had preserved the tapestry well. It tore free of the hooks from which it was suspended, but its unexpected weight bore her to the ground. She struggled to get her arms under it, but the woven fabric was so heavy, she could only lift one end.

  The removal of the tapestry revealed another doorway, leading out of the apse and perhaps to another stairwell or secret passage. It probably led all the way to the surface, a hidden entrance somewhere on Mount Nebo, but Fiona paid no attention to the possible exit. Instead, she pulled the heavy tapestry behind her, heading for the door back to the staircase.

  The woven curtain snagged on the rough floor, pulling her off balance once more. The utter futility of what she was trying to do crashed down on her like a wave. If she could not even lift the tapestry, how would she ever be able to hold it in place while Pierce climbed up? Was he even still alive?

  She fell to her knees, sobbing.

  “Fi!”

  Pierce was standing in the doorway, breathing hard but smiling. She shoved the tapestry away, bounded across the intervening distance, and threw her arms around him.

  “You made it! How?”

  “The stairs came down. I thought you did that.”

  Fiona realized that she actually had. The mechanism outside the chapel had done more than just reveal the hidden entrance. It had lowered the entire stairwell down eight feet to the floor of the lower chamber. She had saved Pierce without even realizing it.

  She looked past him to the stairwell. “Can snakes climb steps?”

  Pierce chuckled. “Maybe, but I think we’re safe for a little while.” He gave her a squeeze, then released her and moved into the chapel, scrutinizing the frescos.

  Now that there was time for her to look at them, Fiona realized that she was looking at a visual record of the chamber’s discovery. The paintings on the right side showed an artist’s rendering of a man in a rough-looking garment with his eyes raised heavenward as if in prayer. Then the same man journeying into the desert at the head of a procession of men carrying large bundles. In the final scene, they were setting up what looked like a circus tent in a cave. The panels on the left side showed the story of how the Templars found the secret chamber.

  Pierce stared at the last panel on the left, which depicted the same scene as on the opposite side, but with the addition of Templars kneeling before their swords, which were held in front of them like crosses. “This is where they found the Holy Tabernacle of Meeting.”

  “It doesn’t show what happened next,” Fiona said. “Where did they take it?”

  Pierce moved back to the first panel, which showed priests and Templar scholars perusing scrolls. “They found something that told them where to look. Maybe the same scrolls we read.” He moved to the next panel, which showed Templars, some on horseback, others on foot, carrying what looked like short walking sticks. One of the men was kneeling, with his cane lying on the ground before him, pointing toward the rising sun.

  Pierce tapped the picture. “That rod, it’s too short to be a walking staff. I think it’s a measuring stick. Exactly one Sacred cubit. They calculated the correct length six hundred years before Isaac Newton.”

  “How?”

  Pierce shook his head. “There are several references to measuring the Temple in the Bible—the Revelation, the prophecies of Ezekiel and Zechariah. Maybe there was something left of the old Temple in Jerusalem that they were able to use as a baseline.”

  He moved to the last panel, which showed the warrior-monks ringing the Tabernacle, praying before their upraised swords. “If they’d had the Tabernacle, they would have been able to measure it and work it out backward…” His voice trailed off, and then he turned to Fiona, his eyes dancing with excitement. “I know where the Ark is.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  Chartres, France

  Ask the Templars.

  Augustina Gallo had wrestled with Pierce’s parting admonition for hours. She had pondered the message as Fallon’s men drove them to the airport in Amman, then dissected and parsed the words as Fallon’s private jet soared toward France, the only destination she could think to give him. Now, standing here at the north entrance to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, she hoped she had interpreted the message correctly.

  Gallo had convinced Fallon to allow her Internet access aboard his plane, albeit with him looking over her shoulder. She was not an expert on the Templars by any means, which meant that before she could even begin to solve the mystery of what they had done with the Ark, she would first have to figure out who they really were.

  There were two Templar histories. The generally accepted version began in 1119, when Hugues de Payens founded the order, and ended in 1307 with the arrest of the last grandmaster Jacques de Molay, the official dissolution of the order, and the seizure of all Templar assets. Despite being set against the backdrop of the Crusades, it was more a tale of shrewd business and political scheming than a war story. The Templars fought valiantly, sometimes brutally, but could not hold the Holy Lands against the forces of Saladin, the Sultan of the Levant. Their success derived, not from prowess in battle, but from an astute manipulation of both economic and religious power. That success attracted enemies far more destructive than Muslim armies.

  Then there was the other history of the Templars. Pseudo-history to the doubters, true history to the believers. Some, though not all, held that the story began a century earlier than the official version, with the discovery of holy relics in Scotland. All agreed that it continued right up to the present, with Templar influence transforming secret societies like the Bavarian Illuminati and the Freemasons into powerful political and economic entities, all in pursuit of a New World Order. In this history, the Templars were both heroes and villains, guardians of secret scientific or occult knowledge, and diabolical puppet masters.

  Gallo, a professional historian, knew all too well that the official version of history was rarely honest or completely accurate, but she lived by the same principles as a scientist—extraordinary claims required extraordinary proofs. And while she had seen some extraordinary claims proved true, she always started from a foundation of solid, reliable information. Pierce, knowing both her background and her temperament, would have expected her to start with research, but the more she read, the harder she found it to separate fact from fancy, real history from conspiracy theory.

  Then it occurred to her what Pierce was trying to tell her.

  “Chartres Cathedral,” she had announced. “That’s where we need to go.”

  One of Fallon’s hire
d men, a brutish thug named Williams, made a rude joke about the name, but Gallo ignored him. “The Templars were involved in financing its construction. Its location has long possessed spiritual significance going back to pre-Christian times. If the Templars brought the Ark back to Europe, that’s the most logical place for them to put it.”

  “And it’s still there?” Fallon asked, barely able to contain his eagerness.

  “There’s only one way to know for sure.”

  That had been enough to get them to the idyllic French town of Chartres, sixty miles from Paris. The church for which the town was world famous, was considered the best preserved Gothic cathedral in the world, having survived World War II almost completely intact. It had also survived the previous day’s earthquakes mostly intact, though a few areas of the exterior were cordoned off with yellow caution tape.

  Gallo stared up at the ornately carved pillars of the north façade. Like all Gothic cathedrals and most Catholic churches worldwide, Chartres utilized a long cruciform design, with a nave divided into several bays, separated by pillars, and a transept crossing the nave, separating it from the apse. All of the facades were elaborately decorated, but the north entrance featured the element that had commanded the attention of Templar historians and Ark hunters for several decades.

  “There,” she said, pointing to a pillar that showed what appeared to be a wheeled cart being pulled by robed figures. “That’s a representation of the Ark of the Covenant being brought from the Holy Land by the Templars. The inscription beneath it is Latin. HIC AMITITUR ARCHA CEDERIS. ‘Here things take their course. You are to work through the Ark.’”

  Fallon nodded and rubbed his hands together. “Work through the Ark? How do we do that?”

  “We have to go inside.” She started walking along the exterior, passing the impressive flying buttresses that extended out from the main structure like the skeletal ribs of an enormous leviathan. “There’s a labyrinth set into the floor of the nave. That’s sort of like a spiritual maze.”

  “I know what a labyrinth is,” Fallon said.

  “Well, it’s been proposed by some Ark hunters that the Ark is hidden on another dimensional plane, and if you walk the labyrinth through to the end, you will be able to step through into that other dimension.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I don’t believe it’s the literal truth, but there are rumors of a secret tunnel under the labyrinth. I believe that we’re meant to walk it to find the entrance, or the means to unlock it. But I should warn you, a lot of people walk that labyrinth every day, and a lot of them are looking for the Ark. It won’t be easy.”

  “For your sake, Dr. Gallo, and for your friends, I hope it’s easier than you think.”

  She stopped, turned to him, and fixed him with a lethal stare. “I’m well aware of what’s at stake. You don’t need to keep reminding me.”

  Fallon grunted and motioned for her to keep moving.

  They came around to the west entrance and made their way inside. It was early evening, just after dusk, but the cathedral was busy with visitors. As at Mount Nebo, many people had turned to their faith to help them cope with the global earthquake crisis and the uncertainty of what might come next. Given the circumstances, it was probably an appropriate reaction.

  She went inside and approached the font, dipped her fingers in, and crossed herself. Fallon stared at the basin for a moment, then did the same, looking almost embarrassed.

  “You’re Catholic?”

  “I’m Irish. What do you think?” He grimaced. “It’s been a while, though. I don’t really…you know…believe any of it.”

  She raised an eyebrow, feigning indignation, then nodded in the direction of Williams and the other security contractors. “What about you guys?”

  The men exchanged awkward glances but did not answer.

  “Maybe they should stay here,” she told Fallon. “This is holy ground, after all.”

  Fallon turned to his men. “We don’t need you in here. I don’t think Dr. Gallo will try anything, but just in case, keep an eye on the exits.”

  The mercenaries seemed relieved, as if being in the church building made them uncomfortable. They headed back outside. Gallo started up the nave with Fallon right behind her. As they walked, she studied the carved relief images adorning the bay pillars and the majestic stained glass windows. “Too bad we didn’t get here before sunset. It would have been nice to see these windows lit up with natural light.”

  “We’re not here for sightseeing.”

  “No, but if my theory is correct, the windows hold the secret of finding the Ark.”

  That got Fallon’s attention. “How?”

  “Each window depicts a scene from the Bible.” She pointed to one window on the north side of the nave. “That’s Noah and his sons building the first Ark.”

  “The one from the Flood.”

  “Exactly.” She pointed down at the dark pattern on the lighter-colored floor tiles, tracing it with a finger through the first few turns, as the path wandered back and forth across the nave. The labyrinth was contained in a circle, at least forty feet in diameter. “When we walk the labyrinth, we’ll be looking at the windows and the reliefs in a very specific order. I think that the scenes will form a code, like a combination lock, that will open the secret crypt under the cathedral.”

  Fallon’s earlier eagerness returned in full force. “That’s awesome. How did you figure it out?”

  She shrugged. “You should take video of your walkthrough. That way we don’t have to keep walking it over and over again until we figure it out.”

  Fallon liked this idea even better. He took out his mobile phone and held it up as he followed Gallo down the well-trod path.

  The labyrinth was not a maze, with pathway junctions and dead ends, but a single path that never crossed itself. It wound around and around in an elaborate pattern within the circle, until reaching the center. Walking a labyrinth was a spiritual journey, a physical meditation. Some even considered it a transformative experience, like a baptism. Gallo had a similar hope for her labyrinth walk.

  The path started off straight, heading toward the center, but then just before the halfway point, it turned left and began a clockwise curl. After only a quarter rotation, it doubled back in the first of many hairpin turns, returning almost to the original line. It turned left again and continued toward the center. Just before reaching the center, it turned left again, skirting the ultimate goal without actually reaching it.

  Gallo and Fallon were not the only ones walking the labyrinth, and while the pattern did not allow for actual collisions, the narrow path meant they were brushing past other devotees, some further along, others just beginning. She studied the expressions on the faces of the faithful, noted the quivering of their lips as they prayed silently, and wondered how they would react when she and Fallon reached the center. Then, she focused her attention on the path ahead, barely noticing the beautiful windows above, and kept her breathing slow and steady.

  Ask the Templars, Pierce had said. At first, Gallo had assumed that he was telling her to look into the accepted history of the Templars and their actions during the Crusades, or perhaps that she was to focus on the final chapter in their tale—the fragmentation of the order, and what happened afterward. But as she read about the trial and the persecution of Jacques de Molay and the other senior Templars, of the relentless torture of the Inquisition, and the false confessions designed to mislead their enemies with wild stories of treasure ships and bizarre pagan rituals, another thought occurred to her.

  Ask the Templars.

  She had a pretty good idea how they would have answered.

  By design, the end of the labyrinth walk came with little warning. The path brought her to a spot adjacent to where she had made the first turn, only instead of turning left, she turned right and waked straight into the six-petal flower-shape at the center of the labyrinth. There were a few people already occupying the space, heads bowed and lost in the exu
ltation of completing their symbolic journey. Gallo stepped aside and allowed Fallon, his mobile phone held up and recording every step, to enter the center.

  “Now what?” he asked, stepping close and keeping his voice low.

  “Now, you see God,” she replied, and slammed her right knee up into his crotch.

  Fallon curled around the point of impact like a worm on a fishhook, unable to breathe or cry out. As he crumpled to the floor, she plucked the phone from his grasp then knelt beside him as if trying to offer comfort.

  She raised her eyes to meet the questioning stares of her fellow travelers. “He will be fine,” she said, in passable French. “The spirit is upon him.”

  The explanation was evidently good enough. No one paid them any further attention.

  She bent lower over Fallon’s still-writhing form and whispered in his ear. “First, I’m going to call the police and tell them that I’ve just escaped from a kidnapper. While I wait for them to get here, I’m going to call the authorities in Jordan and have them dig George and Fiona out. If you leave now, and take your hired goons with you, you just might be able to get out of the country before I tell them your name.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Better get moving.”

  Once out of the labyrinth, she ducked into the south transept and looked down at the phone, which was still in video mode. She thumbed the button to stop recording and opened the phone function, but she did not call the police.

  After the first ring, Dourado’s wary voice sounded in her ear. “Cerberus Group.”

  “Cintia, it’s me.”

  “Augustina! I mean, Dr. Gallo. Thank God.”

  Gallo smiled. Dourado was always so very formal. “Listen. I need you to—”

  “Let me go first,” Dourado said, cutting her off. “I probably know more than you do. Dr. Pierce and Fiona are safe. They got out. They’re heading your way. Are you safe?”