He quickly swam over the side of the boat and down to the sunken Zodiac. He immediately noted that it had not escaped the explosion completely unscathed. At least one of its cells had been damaged, and only its rigid fiberglass hull kept it from folding in half like a taco. That didn’t worry Dane overmuch; they could probably repair the damage once the little boat was back on the surface. It was the condition of the outboard motor that worried him most; after a few hours of total immersion, he wasn’t sure they’d be able to get it started again, and if they couldn’t all of his preparations would be for nothing.
No time to worry about that now.
He tied the loose end of the cable around the tapered base of the motor. The wire cable was stiffer than rope, but he managed a decent approximation of a bowline. He then hooked the repurposed life raft to the line and allowed it to unfurl a moment before opening the valve on the pressurized air cylinder.
The raft instantly puffed up and leaped out of his hands, lifting the Zodiac and the heavy engine as if they were feather light. The mooring rope went taut, too taut for him to even attempt untying the knot. Instead, he slashed it with the knife blade of Bones’ Leatherman. The Zodiac floated free back to the surface, and Dane was right behind it.
As soon as the Zodiac reached the surface, Bones started hauling in the cable from the beach. With hundreds of gallons of water filling its bilges, the Zodiac was like a floating anchor, but Bones won the tug of war and got the craft up on the beach faster than Dane could swim. Nevertheless, the sky was a deepening purple, shot through with orange clouds, by the time Dane crawled up on the sand next to the still swamped inflatable.
They bailed out as much of the water as they could, and then tipped the boat up on its side to drain the rest. Dane and Alex transferred their survival equipment to Zodiac, while Bones tinkered with the outboard.
“The good news,” Bones announced, “is that I don’t think the fuel supply was contaminated. I can’t tell if the electrical system was compromised, but we should be able to get her started.”
“And the bad news?” asked Alex.
“That fuel supply I told you about? There’s not a whole lot of it. About a quarter of a tank. Not sure how far that will get us.”
“Far enough,” said Dane, trying to inject a confidence into the discussion that he did not necessarily feel. He’d known all along that, even if the Zodiac’s outboard could be made functional, it would only be of limited use. If they were to reach civilization, it would require another means of motive force. “We’ll take another look at it in the morning. For now, we paddle.”
Alex slumped against the boat. “What, tonight?”
“I told you. I want to be a hundred miles away by sunrise.”
“I thought you were joking.”
“Him?” interjected Bones. “You’ve been around him long enough to know, he doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
“Very funny.” Dane handed Bones an oar. “But true.”
CHAPTER 17
John Lee Ray was almost painfully aware of the gold triangle in his breast pocket, but he resisted the urge to take it out — to touch it, look at it — until he was safely ensconced within the lavishly appointed confines of his Gulfstream III jet, which sat idle at a private airstrip outside Manila, awaiting a destination. With only Scalpel and four other senior lieutenants present — all of them members of his inner circle and true believers in his cause — he took out the thick leather portfolio which contained the sum total of the knowledge he had acquired about the history the Templar conspiracy. He flipped through the file folders within until he found a sheaf of photographs which he removed and spread out on a table-top.
One photo showed a wide-angle shot of the ceiling of the secret chapel at the Hancock manor. The other pictures, dozens of them, showed the individual sigils, and marked on the back of each print was the corresponding geographical location. Many of them were known Templar fortresses and houses dating back to the Crusades. He knew many of these places well; he had thoroughly researched each of them, hoping in vain to find a shortcut to the secret Templar treasury. Several of the other symbols indicated prominent cities throughout Europe and the Middle East where there was no well established presence for the monastic order. Those were more problematic since there was no way to narrow the focus of the search.
Until now.
He shuffled through the photographs like playing cards, removing all those that did not contain a triangle in the sigil. To his dismay, that measure did not greatly reduce the number of possibilities; triangles figured prominently into most of them. He recalled an old riddle he’d come across in his investigations: Where is the Templar treasure? It's under a triangle so large only God can see.
Of course, Ray thought. The triangle is a Masonic symbol, with links to the Illuminati. It all makes sense.
The connection between the Freemasons and the Templar Knights had long been posited by scholars of the Templar conspiracy, but the Masonic influence was so ubiquitous that instead of shedding light on the mystery, this knowledge only obscured the truth.
He studied the medallion again, noting that none of its sides were even. Therein lay its secret. Like a puzzle piece, it might appear to fit in many different places, but would only match one.
If he couldn’t make a match with the photos, he would have to go back to Hancock’s estate.
He’d obtained the photographs three years earlier, learning about the secret chapel only after months of quiet inquiry and investigation. At first, he had hoped to join the secret fraternity; after all, who was a sacred warrior monk in the tradition of the Templars, if not he? He had discreetly approached some whom he knew to be among their number, and while none would confirm what he had discovered, their oblique refusals told him that he was being considered for membership. More importantly, they helped him identify other key figures in the ranks, including a rather shabby English lord with a run-down estate north of London. His surveillance of Edward Lord Hancock had paid off handsomely when, one summer evening, several of the men he suspected were Templars paid Hancock a visit, and took a walk in the nearby woods. When the meeting was concluded, Ray stole into the underground chapel and photographed everything. Soon, he had the whole story, but like the Templars themselves, had no way to decode the map and find the treasure vault.
Further complicating matters, as he got closer to the truth, the doors that had once been opened to him began to close. His attempts to join the order were met with stony silence, and he realized that, in trying to pierce their veil of secrecy, he had unwittingly discovered their grand scheme for world domination. The modern Templars were not the guardians of a sacred trust as he had once believed, but the puppet-masters of Western civilization, manipulating wealth and power to enslave humanity.
He was not alone in realizing this. For as long as the Templars had been spinning their web, others were actively working to disrupt their hegemony. This rival order, known simply as the Dominion, were the true holy knights; they were the spiritual heirs of the order, unlike the real Templars who had lost their way and become nothing more than avaricious bankers.
Ray took out a magnifying glass and began studying each of the triangular glyphs in the pictures. Even though the scale wasn’t correct, the angles should be consistent. “I need a protractor.” He turned to Scalpel. “The pilot should have a protractor.”
The other man nodded, but took advantage of the break in his employer’s concentration to address another concern. “John Lee, you should know that Hammer is overdue for a check-in.”