THE TEMPLAR CURSE
by
THOMAS B. RONAN
Copyright © 2009 by Thomas B. Ronan. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.
PROLOGUE
I
PARIS 1314
JACQUES DE MOLAY, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, lay against the filthy slime of the wall of the dungeon cell.
Since his arrest seven years earlier by King Phillip IV, he had been tortured and starved. Like all medieval knights he had been conditioned for physical battle with massive edged weapons. At the time of his arrest he weighed almost 240 pounds on a muscular six-foot frame.
Now, the once noble fighting monk had lost over 100 pounds.
Once he wore the proud white mantle with the red Templar cross over his knightly chain mail. Now he lay in his own malodorous filth, too tired and indifferent to care. His blood and urine and feces stained the simple peasant tunic of coarse wool he wore.
De Molay reflected on his tenure as Grand Master. He had been Master of the Templars since the fall of Acre in 1291. He presided over an order that had been formed nearly 200 years before to defend the Holy Land during the Crusades. The Templars had become rich and powerful.
After the fall of Acre, the Templar raison d’etre was gone. There was no crusade in the Holy Land and no appetite in Europe for another invasion of the Levant. They were ripe for picking. The French King had just arrested the Jews in France to steal their money. Now he set his sights on the Templar treasures.
Phillip IV, called the Fair based on his handsome appearance, enlisted the aid of his attorney chancellor, Phillip de Nogaret. The chancellor devised an international spin campaign against the Templars accusing them of heresy and treason. By 1307 he had arranged for the support of the pope, a captive of the French crown headquartered in Avignon. The King lured de Molay to France and was prepared to strike.
On October 13, 1307, the Friday the 13th, which forever branded that day as unlucky and dangerous, the once powerful Templars were arrested and imprisoned as heretics and traitors to Christendom.
At the time of his arrest de Molay was one of the most powerful men in the world. But now he was slumped against a cold moldy wall in a royal prison. His long hair and beard matted with tossed straw around a pair of sunken blue eyes. His beloved Templars had been disbanded by a puppet pope. Their wealth and castles had been confiscated by greedy opportunistic kings. Some Templars were tortured.
Some had already been burned at the stake.
Lying there in the foul murky air of is dungeon after seven years of imprisonment, de Molay had long ago despaired.
He was also quite insane.
The coarse iron bolt of the cell door shrieked open. In walked Pierre de Bologna. He squinted to see in the near pitch darkness of the cell.
Once, de Bologna had been a Templar cleric who handled legal affairs for the Order. He was from a noble family, but too small and nearsighted to be trained for the profession of arms as a knight. He had been appointed by the French court of Inquisition to act as de Molay’s defense counsel during his years of interrogation and testimony and torture.
De Bologna had also been driven mad with rage over the Templars’ fate.
He was now a tall rail thin 34 year old. He had been with the Order since he was sent there as an 11 year old oblate. He remembered no other way of life. He worshipped the now tortured knights as heroes. He loved de Molay like a father and could scarcely bear to see him this way.
“Good Morning, Dear Master,” de Bologna said.
“Good Morning, dear brother,” de Molay replied.
“I have terrible but not unexpected news,” de Bologna said.
“Your brave speech in passionate defense of our beloved Order has been determined to be a relapse into the heresies to which you confessed under torture. As you knew when you denounced the King and his Avignon pope, relapsed heretics are turned over to the secular authorities to be burned at the stake. The sentence is to be carried out this evening on the Isle de Seine in the river in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I understand that the King has given orders that the burning will be particularly painful; no toxic fumes or flash fire for a quick death. You will be slowly roasted in agony for a long as they can prolong the spectacle.”
“I have faced death at the hands of the Saracens many times, dear brother. I have buried scores of our brothers who fell fighting the Saracen beasts, including my predecessor Robert De Beaufort, who died from a poisoned arrow before the walls of Acre,” de Molay replied.
“My only concern is that the preparations for our revenge be ready,” de Molay pleaded with all his remaining strength.
“The preparations have been made, Dear Master. I have retrieved all that is necessary from our castle. It will be distributed to our secret houses throughout Christendom. Europe will be struck like never before. Millions will die. Their society may collapse. We will have our vengeance.”
“How long will it take to complete the distribution?” de Molay asked the brother attorney.
“It will take many years. Perhaps it will take my entire lifetime. But it will be done and Europe will pay for their betrayal of our brothers,” de Bologna replied.
“I want the King and the pope and de Nogaret to be stricken within the year. I will curse them from the pyre this evening,” de Molay stated with all the fire and bile his sunken eyes could generate.
“So be it. Dear Master. They will die within the year,” de Bologna said. “All three will die within the year,” he vowed.
II
LONDON 1342
De Bologna’s eyes had lost their youth. Always myopic, he was now nearly blind. He had spent almost 30 years carrying out the directions of his Dear Master. His was a mission of love. He thirsted for vengeance. It was his only reason for living.
The image of de Molay chained to the stake was the one clear vision he retained. The last Grand Master of the Templars stood defiantly as the flames licked at the pile of faggots stacked around the stake. He must have been in unbearable pain from the slow roasting of the fire. Yet de Molay was silent until the wall of flame closed upon him. He had only moments left before a merciful incineration.
De Molay spoke in a loud and surprisingly steady voice.
“King Phillip, Antipope Clement I curse you on behalf of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ of the Temple of Solomon. You will follow me to the grave within one year. De Nogaret, I curse you as well. You will die first.”
The flames reached the stake. De Molay was gone.
De Bologna eyes were further blurred by tears. His Master, his Order and his life had ended with the murder on the Isle de Seine. He saw only vengeance. He had worked for 28 years for this moment. Now it was at hand.
De Bologna had kept his promise to his late Master. De Nogaret had indeed been first. He was stricken within days of de Molay’s death. He was walking in triumph down a Paris street when it happened. He stumbled, fell and lost consciousness. His royal aides rushed him to the palace. It was no use. He was dead by nightfall. The royal physicians could not determine the cause of death. There was talk of de Molay’s curse. The King was concerned for his own safety. But de Nogaret was soon forgotten. Phillip the Fair had a country to run and no time to mourn fallen henchmen.
Pope Clement was next. He was stricken with a month of de Molay’s execution. He fell ill while eating at his palace in Avignon. He died the next day. Several of his papal court also fell ill. None recovered. Their deaths were attributed to food poisoning. Popes had been poisoned before, but there had never been a mass poisoning. The fact that others died along with Clement led everyone to say that food poisoning was the cause of death. Yet there was still some talk of de Molay’s curse.
King Phillip was not unhappy to see the pope die. Clement had been bothersome since de Molay’s death. Clearly Clement was troubled by the execution of the head of an order established and ruled by the papacy. In King Phillip’s pragmatic view de Molay was merely a fool. Everybody in Christendom knew that the penalty for a relapse by a previously confessed heretic was death at the stake. De Molay’s defense of the Templars meant certain death. The old fool got what he deserved. Yet Phillip was a medieval man. And men of the times were very superstitious. Phillip admitted to his confidants that de Molay’s curse was unsettling to him. But King Phillip still had a country to run and a life to lead. The King continued with his royal routine.
Six months later King Phillip was out hunting when he took ill. Those present said he was dead when he hit the ground. The royal physicians could determine no cause of death. Again there was talk of de Molay’s dying curse. The royal court decided to suppress the details of Phillip’s death. A death as a result of a religious curse might indicate the disfavor of God. This was not a good thing for a French dynasty claiming to rule by divine right. Phillip’s death was attributed to a hunting accident. His son became king. The French dynasty survived until the French Revolution.
De Bologna remembered these murders with satisfaction. The Order had done well. They had avenged their fallen brothers. And now all Christendom would be stricken.
Already de Bologna could hear the wails of grief arising from the nearby buildings. It was like a roar of thunder. Screams arose from fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and children alike. All of the work had been worthwhile.
Millions would die.
Yet those faithful to the Order would survive.
De Bologna closed his eyes for the last time.
Chapter 1
ROME
PRESENT DAY
Dr. Elizabeth Weaver entered the reception area of the office suite on the second floor of the U.S. Embassy. The sign on the door read Capt. Stephen P. Whedon, U.S.A., Public Affairs. It was 9:55 in the morning.
She was in Rome on a kind of working vacation to attend a conference on her specialty of infectious diseases. She had received a phone call from her boss at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta to meet a Captain Whedon at the embassy at 10 o’ clock sharp.
She was a 28-year-old biochemist with a PhD from Yale via Fairfield, Connecticut, where she had grown up and attended high school and college.
Weaver sharply surveyed the room with the practiced analysis of a scientist. Dispassionately, she determined that the room was filled with metal furniture which looked like it was left over from World War II. The walls were painted a pale institutional green like a public rest room. There were pictures on the wall of the President, a couple of military officers and the World Trade Center.
Weaver was a rational logical person. She figured this office was staffed by very conservative people. She had been raised by parents, both of whom were “liberal” college professors with a deep distrust of government and the military. She went to very liberal universities, where her suspicion of the military industrial complex was reinforced by “intellectuals” on a daily basis.
Weaver recognized the need for some soldiers. She just did not want to associate with them.
She spotted the pretty receptionist with neatly dressed brown hair sitting at a gray metal desk that was about twice as old as she was. She wryly thought that the desk was what passed for an Army antique.
“Good morning,” she said suppressing a smile of superiority, “I’m Elizabeth Weaver.”
“Good Morning, Dr. Weaver, we have been expecting you. I am Christy Defranco. I am Captain Whedon’s assistant. I called Dr. Collins at CDC to request your attendance here. Captain Whedon will be right with you. Please take a seat.”
Weaver looked over at the two unappetizing bare metal chairs against the office wall.
She was now even more annoyed that her boss had interrupted her 2 week conference on the 1918 Influenza Outbreak by ordering her to attend this meeting. She had plans today to go shopping after the lectures. She was told that there were great stores on Rome’s Via Conditti over by the Spanish Steps. She had been thinking about a Prada bag for the last 24 hours. Now she was sitting on a metal chair in some soldier’s office waiting for God knows what.
The truth is she had hoped to meet someone on this trip. She was single with no boyfriend and had not been in a relationship for some time. It wasn’t her looks. Men had always found her attractive. She was tall and feminine with straight blonde hair and green eyes and soft northern European features.
Weaver was beginning to despair of ever meeting anyone. She crossed her long legs and began to think again of that Prada bag that this military idiot Whedon was keeping her from getting. First the Army blew it in Iraq. Now her Prada bag. Couldn’t they do anything right?
She knew her frustration was mainly just about men. The boys from college had been nice enough. But they were all wimps. They were now beginning careers as doctors or lawyers or stockbrokers. The lawyers bragged that they kicked ass when they sent someone a tough letter. The stockbrokers had resigned themselves to a life staring at computer screens. The doctors were terrified of getting sued by somebody. Not a very dependable group, she thought.
Oh well, maybe she could become a nun. That is what career women did in medieval times. But first, the Prada bag. The nuns would have to let her keep the bag.
Just then the door to the hall opened.
In walked the best looking man she had ever seen.
Her irrational thoughts of celibacy were gone immediately.
He was tall, over six feet with short brown hair and quick blue eyes. She guessed he weighed about 190. He moved with an athletic grace she saw only in professional athletes on TV. He dressed well too wearing a blue blazer, gray slacks, white shirt and red tie. Definitely not some Army man. The new visitor wore the official uniform of Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Her single girl’s eyes immediately riveted on his left hand. There was no wedding ring. Only a college ring. She was glad she decided to put in her contacts and wear her hair down this morning. She knew her charcoal gray pantsuit was just the right outfit. Professional yet stylish.
The new visitor walked right up to Ms. Defranco and spoke in a clear gentle voice. “Good morning, I’m James Paige. I am to see Captain Whedon at 10 o’ clock.”
“Good morning, sir,” said Ms. Defranco deferentially and almost submissively.
She was obviously as impressed with Paige as Weaver. “You will be joining Dr. Weaver,” she said, motioning with a well-buffed hand to Weaver perched on the metal chair along the wall.
Paige turned to Weaver and politely extended his right hand. “Good morning, Dr. Weaver, I’m James Paige.”
James, not Jim, or Jimmy. She liked that. She extended her hand. His grip was gentle for a big man. She was about to say something when the office door opened and a man in uniform entered.
“James,” he almost shouted.
“Hi, Steve,” Paige said with a kind of reserved male fondness.
Obviously, they knew one another.
Whedon was wearing a military uniform. Weaver assumed it was Army. He had 2 silver bars on each of his shoulders and a lot of other badges pinned in various places on his jacket. She surmised that much of his military training involved learning where to pin these silly looking badges and patches.
Despite her anti-military bias, she instantly liked Whedon. Unlike Paige he had a slight build. He was balding and had shaved his head to compensate. He wore a wedding ring. He had an impish look with bland features and toffee colored eyes -- like the kid who is always in detention in school.
Whedon turned to Weaver. “Good morning, Dr. Weaver. Thank you for coming. We wouldn’t have interrupted your conference, if your boss and I didn’t think it important. Please come into my office.”
Whedon opened the door to his office, and both he and Paige waited for her to enter the office first before proceeding in. She liked that. So many of her male friends were so affected by the political correctness of the equality of the sexes they had forgotten that chivalry goes a long way. She was getting in a better mood. She liked Whedon and Paige. Especially Paige. Maybe her luck was about to change. Thoughts of the Prada bag faded.
Whedon’s office was small and sparsely furnished. There was the ubiquitous gunmetal colred desk, a cracked dried leather swivel desk chair and 2 metal chairs for guests. The only decorations on the walls were diplomas from schools, which Whedon had apparently attended. They were definitely not Ivy League. With the exception of the college diploma, which she could not read from where she was sitting, they appeared to be from some sort of military schools. They had parachutes and helicopters on them. Aside from the diplomas, there was nothing on the walls.
The office had all the luxury of a public rest room. The military budget she had always been taught was bloated definitely did not filter down to Whedon.
Whedon spoke as soon as they were seated. “James and I were roommates for a while in college.”
“We were also on the lacrosse team.” Paige said.
“Actually, I was the manager.” Whedon said. “James was an all-American defense man.”
“Yeah, only third team honorable mention.” Paige said. “But it made my Dad feel good. Anybody that still talks about what their stats were at school has a problem.”
Weaver nodded her agreement. She liked these two guys. She especially liked Paige’s self deprecating manner. She had never met anyone who was all-American at anything. That explained the athletic way he moved.
“When did you get to Rome, James?” Whedon asked.
“Just got into DaVinci airport at 9. I took a cab right over here.”
Boy, he looked good for someone who had spent a night on an airplane, Weaver thought.
“My parents met me at JFK Airport during my layover. It was good to see them.” Paige said. “They say hello, Steve.”
“Are your parents from the New York area, Mr. Paige?” Weaver turned and asked.
“Long Island, and please call me James.”
“And it’s Elizabeth,” Weaver said as formally as she could.
“Now that we have all been properly introduced,” Whedon began. “Let me tell you why we are here.”
Whedon leaned back on his ancient chair. The wooden beneath the leather creaked as he began to speak.
“Although it says Public Affairs on the door, I am actually in Army Intelligence. We don’t advertise on office doors. “
Army intelligence, thought Weaver, there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. But in spite of her liberal leanings and conditioning she liked Whedon. He seemed to be quite bright. And he did have that college diploma hanging on the wall. If only she could read it.
Where did he and Paige go to college?
Whedon continued, “Another government agency has intercepted an electronic communication which hints at a possible terrorist plot involving biological agents.”
Probably an illegal National Security Agency wiretap Weaver thought, her liberal bias showing again. But she caught herself. This could be serious. She knew from her work at CDC that millions of lives could be affected by biological threats. She decided to keep an open mind.
Whedon continued to speak. “Both of you have expertise which we need. Fortunately, Dr. Weaver you happened to be in Rome. And you, James, are always on call.” Whedon laughed.
“Steve, I can understand you bringing a doctor in on this. But why me?”
“The intercepted message mentioned the Knights Templar. I remember from school that you wrote your history thesis on the Templars. And you speak Italian and Greek,” Whedon answered.
“And a little English.” Paige joked. “But I’m not Army Intelligence.”
“Neither am I,” Weaver said standing. “It doesn’t seem fair to involve an old college classmate in a terrorist plot just because he wrote a paper on something years ago. It’s not like he’s in the Army or anything.”
Now standing, Weaver could read the college diploma on Whedon’s wall. Where did they go to school anyway? She squinted at the wall.
The diploma read, “United Sates Military Academy, West Point, NY.”
It suddenly dawned on her. They were roommates in college and on the lacrosse team.
Her face flushed. She turned to Paige, blustering, “You went to West Point. You’re in the Army?”
Paige just nodded.
Whedon spoke. “Meet Captain James Paige, United States Army.”
Chapter 2
US EMBASSY
10:15 a.m.
Weaver felt silly. Her features colored with flushed embarrassment under the cheap hard fluorescent light in Whedon’s Embassy office.
Of course this big athletic man was not some college professor. Guys like him don’t study. They play sports. When they’re done they get sales jobs that don’t require a lot of intellect.
Or they go into the Army.
But somehow she knew Paige was different. She had heard about West Point from her friends in Atlanta. It was the toughest school to get into in the nation. SAT scores were phenomenal. He spoke foreign languages. Whedon obviously regarded his intellect highly. And he was so good looking. She would definitely give him a chance.
Paige for his part was disappointed by Weaver’s obvious horror at discovering that he was in the Army. He found her very attractive. But nothing would ever happen. He had seen that look in a girl’s eyes before. Women wanted their men to be around. They did not want relationships with someone who could be sent to Iraq and killed or disabled. It took an unusually strong woman to put up with a relationship with a serviceman.
Whedon began in a somber tone and both Paige and Weaver focused on his words.
“What I am about to tell you is highly classified. James knows what that means, Elizabeth. The best way I can explain it to you is that people may die if you disclose secrets to the wrong people. If that doesn’t cause you to be circumspect, threats of criminal prosecution will have no effect on you.
“As everyone who reads the New York Times knows, the NSA has the capability to monitor certain electronic communications worldwide. The disclosure by the Times about the NSA created an international firestorm. The opposition political party seized on the NSA program as a violation of constitutional rights against warrantless search and seizure. Congressional hearings were held. The disclosure was designed to do just that.”
“Terrorists also read the Times. Terrorists worldwide took steps to avoid the electronic systems disclosed in the Times’ stories. We were waiting for them. The leak to the Times was part of an elaborate plan to get the terrorists to believe that there was a non-selective shotgun style approach to electronic surveillance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Electronic surveillance is highly selective. It can now target individual computers. The only thing it needs is the algorithm used when the computer turns on. The NSA discovered that algorithm early this year. But NSA needed one additional piece of information. That information was provided to us in response to the Times disclosure.
“You see since 9/11 we have monitored the computers that logged in to terrorist web sites. We even monitored the computers that logged into Al Jazeera and other stations that Islamic terrorists might find appealing. The problem was that we did not know which of the hundreds of millions of computers were owned and operated by the terrorist cells. In the movies these terrorists always go to an internet café or something. But that is not the case in remote areas of Pakistan or Afghanistan, or even downtown Baghdad. That is where the big time terrorists are today and we could not reach them through their personal computers. So we had a problem.
“We had an algorithm that allowed us to record everything transferred from one computer to another. But we could not identify the few computers that the real dangerous terrorists were using.
“Hence, The New York Times. We knew the Times would print a ‘wiretapping’ story, if it was leaked to them. Especially if we asked them not to print it. Hell they are still pissed off that The Washington Post scooped them on Watergate. The Times in many ways is still stuck in the 60s, looking for impeachable offenses against any president. A story of presidential authorized wiretaps without warrants would be front page news. Before the story was leaked, the administration brought in a few key senators and congressmen of both parties, told them the plan, promised not to indict the Times for the disclosure and asked them to play along. They agreed.
“Terrorists are information junkies. They have to be to stay one step ahead of us. They read the Times online as soon as it comes out. The story sent chills down their networks. They immediately cut off all links with the U.S. And they immediately notified all of their contacts to do the same. In so doing, they exposed their contact information to us. We now had access to the 200 or so key computers used by al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, as well as other terrorist groups around the world. They all talk to one another. Now we listen in.
“The best part is that we have a warrant from a respected federal judge. The system worked perfectly.”
“That explains why the Government recently dropped the NSA surveillance program, after initially saying it was so important,” Weaver said.
“Right,” said Whedon.
“Slick,” said Paige. “Whose idea was it?”
“Some geek from the Naval Academy.” said Whedon, “I almost forgive them for beating us in lacrosse so many times.”
“I don’t,” said Paige. “So what did you find out?”
“Yesterday,” Whedon said, “We picked up a coded message from a Hezbollah computer in Greece. Athens is the Wall Street of the East, and a major money laundering center for the terrorist groups. The message was cryptic. This kind is often sent by a terrorist group to a sympathizer or financial backer to hint at the good work done, or about to be done, and to request financial or moral support.”
“What was the message?” Weaver asked.
“The message was short but terrifying.”
Whedon walked to the wall took down one of his diplomas and revealed a wall safe. He opened the safe and took out a single sheet of paper. He read from the paper aloud.