Free The Sword of Moses by Dominic Selwood Page B

the elevator shaft.
    Sprinting up the bare stone steps as fast as she could, she emerged onto the fourth floor, where she could hear thudding trance beats coming from a dance-floor beyond a bar off to her left. The middle elevator was still there, motionless. She headed towards it, and saw it was wedged open with a fire-extinguisher.
    They had this planned. Right down to the last detail.
    She began to feel panicky.
    They could be anywhere.
    DeVere was shouting in her ear for an update.
    “I don’t know,” she yelled, sprinting into the bar. “I’m checking the fourth floor.” She ripped the earpiece from her ear—the music was so loud it was useless. She would not have been able to hear DeVere even if he had been standing next to her.
    She ran to the end of the bar area again, and saw that it dropped down onto a dance-floor where groups of people were dancing in a firestorm of coloured lights and strobes. There was a DJ booth at the far end of the floor, but no other doors.
    They were not here.
    She looked around frantically before running back through the bar again, jamming the earpiece back into her ear. As she reached the elevator hall, DeVere came through loud and clear. “They’ve gone.” She could hear the anger and frustration in his voice.
    “What do you mean, gone?” Prince yelled back into the microphone, fighting to keep the desperation from her voice.
    “The basement. Come down to the basement.” He sounded dejected.
    She punched open the door to the emergency fire-stairs and flung herself down the narrow grey steps, her long legs carrying her quickly down the five double flights.
    At the bottom was a large set of metal fire-doors. She banged through them, and saw DeVere at the end of the corridor, standing beside an open external loading door.
    She reached him quickly, pulling the mobile phone earpiece from her ear again. She could see through the door into a loading bay, but the area was deserted.
    “An unmarked white van,” he said, looking through the doors. “It was just screeching out onto the road when I got here.”
    “They must’ve gone up to the fourth floor, wedged the elevator open, then run down the stairs to the waiting van,” she panted, punching the wall behind her. “Damn!”
    She wiped the sweat from her face and leaned up against the cool wall to catch her breath.
    General Hunter was not going to be pleased.

 
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9
     
    The Grand Assembly Hall
    Castrum Lucis
    Musandam Peninsula
    The Sultanate of Oman
    The Arabian Gulf
     
    Olivier De Molay, one hundred and fourth Grand Master of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, sat on the wide gothic marble throne that dominated the centre of the ancient assembly chamber’s east wall.
    The atmosphere in the castle was electric.
    The meeting had been called at short notice, and the knights had been flying in all day.
    Although the Order of the Temple had been officially abolished, outlawed and destroyed by the pope in AD 1312, the knights who had been arriving at the castle’s private helipad knew better.
    De Molay placed his hands on the medieval seat’s cold arms.
    It was the same throne his ancestors had governed from in an unbroken line for seven centuries—first in Jerusalem, then Acre, Cyprus, and finally Oman. When King Philip the Fair of France had arrested all Templars in his kingdom on Friday the 13th of October 1307 for heresy and blasphemy, a select group of Templars in Cyprus had reacted rapidly. On the secret orders of their Grand Master, they had quickly and covertly moved the throne from the Order’s headquarters in Limassol to Oman.
    De Molay valued the link the seat gave him to the past. It was a tangible connection to nine centuries of the Order’s uninterrupted existence.
    Like all the knights in the room, he wore a white monk’s habit. His hooded cowl was raised, shrouding his head so observers could see only glimpses of his quick dark eyes,