Bronson shone the torch around the perimeter of the hole, then nodded and snapped off the light.
‘You’re right,’ he said, and reached out to flick a switch.
Immediately, the crypt was flooded with light from a couple of fluorescent tubes mounted on the ceiling. The two of them walked down the staircase, stopped at the bottom and stared around them.
As far as Bronson could tell, the crypt was about one third the size of the chapel above it, and was largely empty. In the spaces on both sides of the staircase a number of anonymous cardboard boxes had been stacked, presumably containing materials that would be needed in the chapel above, perhaps candles and the like. The walls on both sides were concealed behind old and faded hanging drapes, possibly in an attempt to provide a degree of insulation, because the crypt felt quite cold.
But the dominant feature of the underground chamber, the one thing that could never be ignored, was the design on the stone wall directly in front of the staircase. In colours that looked as vibrant as if it had only been painted a matter of days ago, the wall boasted a huge croix pattée, the most dominant and enduring symbol of the Knights Templar. And, as a further confirmation, suspended from two stone pegs directly below the symbol, an ancient rusted Templar battle sword hung, point downwards.
‘Well, that’s interesting and impressive,’ Bronson said, ‘but what I don’t see is anywhere that the relic we’re searching for could be hidden.’
‘That’s because you’re an amateur meddling in a world that belongs to the professionals,’ a cold voice spat from behind them.
Bronson and Angela whirled around to find themselves facing two men who had walked silently down the stairs and now stood just a few feet away, each holding a semi-automatic pistol and giving every impression that he knew how to use it.
It was Angela who reacted first.
‘You!’ she gasped, with a sharp intake of breath. She was staring at one of the two men. ‘I should have guessed.’
61
‘Khaled,’ she said. Her face was a picture of anger. She looked at Bronson. ‘He’s the director of the Baghdad Museum. He was basically in overall charge of our expedition. That explains a lot. I always wondered how news of our finding that underground temple got out so quickly, but obviously we were keeping him informed on a daily basis.’
‘You talk too much,’ the bearded man standing beside Khaled said, his English fluent and almost without an accent. ‘Before we leave here I’m going to teach you some manners.’
‘Enough, Farooq,’ Khaled said. ‘First of all, we have to find what we’re looking for. These two might be useful for a little while longer.’
‘What are you looking for?’ Angela asked, ignoring Farooq’s warning and immediately deviating from the strategy she and Bronson had discussed earlier that morning. ‘And what have the Knights Templar got to do with a Mandaean temple in Iraq?’
Khaled shrugged. ‘Everything, and nothing, really,’ he replied. ‘Both were heretics, and both shared the same gnostic beliefs, at least to some extent. You saw the carved face in the underground temple, and I’m assuming that you are bright enough to know who it was supposed to represent.’
‘John the Baptist,’ Angela said, after a moment.
‘Bravo. Well, the Templars shared that belief.’
Angela shook her head in frustration. ‘I know that. But why was it necessary to murder all of my colleagues? What was the point of that? And poor Stephen in Italy. Why did they all have to die? What’s so important that you had them all killed?’
‘Simple,’ Khaled replied. ‘They knew too much. I’d been hoping that someone would find that temple for years, and once they did, that knowledge had to die with them.’
‘Why?’
‘You really don’t know?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ Angela almost shouted.
‘So what was it?’ Bronson demanded. ‘Part of some twisted Islamic crusade?’
A smug look passed over Khaled’s face, and he shook his head. ‘This has nothing to do with religion, except in the most peripheral manner. This was all to do with money and rewards.’
The surprise must have shown on the faces of Bronson and Angela.
‘It’s really very simple,’ Khaled went on. ‘The Mandaeans of southern Iraq were nothing to do with the Knights Templar except that they were both heretical groups, both worshipping John the Baptist. That was the Templar heresy, if you like. They were accused of worshipping a disembodied head, of spitting and trampling on the cross, and denying Christ. All of which made perfect sense if they did worship John the Baptist, because that would have made Jesus Christ a usurper, somebody who came along after the event, as it were, and stole all of John’s glory. They would have reviled and rejected him and everything he stood for.
‘Years ago, I discovered a parchment that stated unequivocally that not only were the Templars Johannites, but during their excavations on the Temple Mount they had recovered the head of John the Baptist, placed there for safe keeping and veneration by his followers at some time in the first century AD after he was beheaded. Over the years, John’s disciples had established groups in a number of countries — including the Mandaeans of Iraq — to follow what they saw as the only true religion.
‘But the really interesting claim made in the parchment was that the head of the Baptist became the “truth” so jealously guarded by the Templars. It became, in fact, the Baphomet idol that they worshipped, perhaps their most sacred treasure. After the order was purged, somebody realized that the Mandaeans were the best hope of keeping the truth alive — the sacred truth about the Baptist, I mean — and stated that in a temple below the sands was a clue to the final resting place of the Templars’ Baphomet, the head of John the Baptist.’
Khaled stopped talking, as if that were the entire story, his whole justification for what he and his companions had done.
‘But what possible use would it be to you to find the head — and all it would be today is a skull, I presume — of a man who died two thousand years ago?’ Angela demanded. ‘The skull of a person who may have been John the Baptist, though there’s no chance you’d ever be able to prove that.’
‘You still don’t see it, do you?’ Khaled smiled again. ‘Despite everything I’ve told you. Baphomet was the Templars’ sacred “truth”, the reason why they denied Christ. Even under the most painful and prolonged tortures, no Templar ever revealed its true location or admitted anything about it. When the order was forced out of Outremer, the land beyond the sea, after the fall of Acre, that relic went with the survivors to a place of safety. And,’ Khaled paused for emphasis, ‘the important thing is that all their other assets went with it, most especially the treasure of the Templars in the Holy Land, the contents of the treasury of Acre that Tibauld de Gaudin took with him when he fled from that doomed castle ahead of the final Mamluk assault. So, find one, and you find the other,’ he finished. ‘Find the relic and you also find the treasure.’
‘So this was just a treasure hunt?’ Angela asked, as she realized the essential truth of what he’d just said. ‘Nothing to do with a search for historical truth or an important relic, just a grubby little expedition so you could get your hands on something that didn’t belong to you.’
‘After all these centuries, it doesn’t belong to anyone,’ Khaled pointed out. ‘But, yes, that was the whole purpose of what we’ve been doing. That was why your companions had to die, and why you, too, won’t be walking out of here.’