Free The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry Page B

Arabs, whose culture encouraged independent thought. The Templars also secreted away, much as modern banks scatter wealth among so many vaults, a vast amount of assets. There was even a medieval French verse quoted that aptly described the overly solvent Templars and their sudden disappearance:
    The brethren, the masters of the Temple,
    who were well filled and ample
    with gold and silver and with wealth.
    Where are they? How have they fared?
    Who had such power that none dared
    take aught from them, no man so bold:
    forever buying, they never sold.
    History had not been kind to the Order. Though they captured the imagination of poets and chroniclers—the Knights of the Grail in Parzival were Templars, as were the demonic antiheroes in Ivanhoe —as the Crusades acquired the label of European aggression and imperialism, the Templars became an integral part of their brutal fanaticism.
    Malone continued to scan the book until he finally found the passage he recalled from his first perusal. He knew it was there. His memory never failed him. The words talked of how, on the battlefield, the Templars always displayed a vertical banner divided into two blocks—one black to represent the sin that brother knights had left behind, the other white to symbolize their new life within the Order. The banner was labeled in French. Translated it meant a lofty, noble, glorious state. The term also doubled as the Order’s battle cry.
    Beauseant.Be glorious.
    Precisely the word Red Jacket had uttered as he’d leaped from the Round
     Tower.
    What was happening?
    Old motivations stirred inside him. Feelings he’d thought a year of retirement had quelled. Good agents were both inquisitive and cautious. Forget either attribute and something was inevitably overlooked—something potentially disastrous. He’d made that mistake once years ago on one of his early assignments, and his impetuousness cost the life of a hired operative. It would not be the last person he felt responsible for getting killed, but it was the first, and he never forgot his carelessness.
    Stephanie was in trouble. No question. She’d ordered him to stay out of her business, so talking to her again would be useless. But maybe Peter Hansen would prove informative.
    He glanced at his watch. Late, but Hansen was known as a night owl and should still be up. If not, he’d awaken him.
    He tossed the book aside and headed for the door.
     
    “WHERE ISLARSNELLE’S JOURNAL?”DE ROQUEFORT ASKED.
    Still in the grasp of the two men, Peter Hansen stared up at him. He knew Hansen had once been closely associated with Lars Nelle. When he’d discovered that Stephanie Nelle was coming to Denmark to attend the Roskilde auction, he’d surmised that she might contact Peter Hansen. Which was why he’d approached the book dealer first.
    “Surely Stephanie Nelle mentioned her husband’s journal?”
    Hansen shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
    “When Lars Nelle was alive, did he mention that he kept a journal?”
    “Never.”
    “Do you understand your situation? Nothing I wanted has occurred and, worse, you deceived me.”
    “I know that Lars kept meticulous notes.” Resignation filled Hansen’s voice.
    “Tell me more.”
    Hansen seemed to steel himself. “When I’m released.”
    De Roquefort allowed the fool a victory. He motioned and his men released their hold. Hansen quickly gulped a deep swallow of beer, then tabled the mug. “Lars wrote lots of books about Rennes-le-Château. All that stuff about lost parchments, hidden geometry, and puzzles made for great sales.” Hansen seemed to catch hold of himself. “He alluded to every treasure he could imagine. Visigoth gold, Templar wealth, Cathar loot. Take a thread and weave a blanket, that’s what he used to say.”
    De Roquefort knew all about Rennes-le-Château, a tiny hamlet in southern France that had existed since Roman times. A priest in the latter part of the nineteenth century spent enormous sums of money