Treasure Templari Read online

  Katarina resumed her walk. She had spent the past decade searching, like Himmler, for the lost Atlantis. Her interest was partly political but also partly scientific. What kind of technological secrets had the Atlanteans discovered? Scientific discovery was random, haphazard, fortuitous. There existed billions of possible threads of scientific discovery; surely the Atlanteans, many of whose scientists Katarina was convinced were women, had made discoveries modern scientists had not. Advancements in medicine, husbandry, agriculture, metallurgy, transportation, energy. And, yes, weaponry. Katarina dreamed of finding these ancient technologies, of deconstructing them and adapting them for use in modern times. For use in building a new Germanic, or should she say Aryan, state.

  Bruce settled into the backseat of his hired SUV at the Amsterdam airport. “Head northeast toward the province of Drenthe,” he ordered as he slid the privacy glass closed. He cleaned the airport grime from his hands with a bottle of Purell. “Wake me when we get close to the border.”

  He quickly wolfed down a ham and egg croissant, cleaned his hands again, and closed his eyes. He had trained his body to be immune to things like jetlag and hunger. But that didn’t mean he failed to appreciate the importance of sleep and food. Despite his seat in business class, he had barely slept. Sleeping in public was one of the few things he could not train his body to do. In the end, he had stopped trying. Animals in the wild never slept around potential predators. At least not those who wanted to wake up alive.

  As he drifted off, his thoughts turned to Shelby. She deserved better. But they both had come to realize he gave her all he could, and she had chosen to settle for half of Bruce over none at all. And that meant that sometimes he would cook her dinner, dance with her to Sinatra on the balcony overlooking the harbor, and then race away in a taxi to catch a cross-Atlantic flight. It was the life he chose. Or perhaps it was the life which had chosen him. But Gus’ appearance last month had added a new variable, a new danger. When Gus made a threat, it was a real one. Bruce had actually given him five grand—not the fifty he demanded, but enough to allow him to get an apartment and some new clothes. Bruce hoped it would placate him, though he doubted it. At least it might buy Bruce some time. And even if it didn’t, it might have been the best five grand Bruce ever spent—he had hidden a tracking device inside one of the buckles of the cash bag. Gus was savvy, but he had also last been out of jail when the Walkman was the rage. It might not occur to him to be on the lookout for micro-transmitters.

  In some ways, Gus’ appearance had been a wakeup call. Bruce had been able to squirrel away a decent nest egg, north of a million dollars. It was plenty for him—he could live on his boat if he had to, surviving on trail mix and cheap wine. But Shelby would never go for that kind of existence. She needed theater and museums and—what did she call them?—culinary experiences. ‘Needed’ perhaps was too strong a word; perhaps ‘wanted’ was better. But it was a distinction without a difference. Bruce needed, and wanted, to give her that life. As a kid, he used to associate a million bucks with butlers and yachts and inviting the Rolling Stones to sing at your birthday party. But the reality was that, invested conservatively in bonds and CDs, Bruce’s savings only threw off about $25,000 per year in income; once he retired from his art consulting job, that would be all he had to live on. And Shelby had burned through much of her savings after her job change, not to mention that she had gotten in the habit of ripping up one paycheck per month from Big Sister as a way to help support the fiscally-challenged organization. Bruce figured he would be fine financially for the next decade or so while he still worked, but for the first time in his life he realized that old age was creeping up on him. Again, he could live a Spartan existence. But Shelby put up with a lot from him already—would she also accept a life of austerity? This was not some Hollywood romance, and Bruce had no interest in testing her loyalty to him. Money could not buy happiness, but it sure made for a good down payment. All of which meant he had come to the realization that, even putting Gus and his demands aside, he needed another big score.

  They had been driving ninety minutes when his driver, a heavy-set man with an Arab accent, flicked the privacy glass open and cleared his throat. “Sir, the town of Meppel is just ahead.”

  Bruce rubbed his face and gulped a few sips of a bottled water he had purchased at the airport. “Okay.” He pulled out his phone. He had been given specific directions, which he conveyed to the driver.

  “But there is nothing at this location,” the driver countered after inputting the coordinates into his own phone. “Look. There is nothing.”

  Bruce nodded. “Just because there is nothing on the map does not mean there is nothing there.”

  The driver grunted and changed lanes to take the next exit. “Very well.”

  Twenty minutes and a number of turns later, the driver slowed along a two-lane highway. Blinker on, he searched for a turn. “There is nothing,” he repeated.

  “There,” Bruce said. “That opening.”

  “That is a path, not a road.”

  “Which is why I ordered an SUV rather than a sedan.”

  With a sigh, the man cut across the gravel shoulder and angled the vehicle through the brush along a narrow, bumpy trail. “My paint is getting scratched.”

  “I’ll pay the damage. Keep going.”

  A couple of hundred yards later, they emerged into a clearing that looked like abandoned farmland. A tall, portly man in a tweed blazer and waxed mustache stood leaning in the afternoon sun against one of the handful of trees that grew amidst the clearing, a pipe in his mouth and a newspaper in his hand. Bertrand De Jong. He lowered the paper and grinned at Bruce through browning teeth. “I see you found it,” he said in a Dutch accent.

  Bruce opened the door and stepped out, glad he had worn his windbreaker as a cool breeze hit him. Bertrand knew better than to expect Bruce to shake his hand—it was an archaic custom, good for nothing beside spreading germs. “Yes. But found what?”

  The man grinned and pointed to a cluster of boulders atop a rise in the distance. “The Hunebedden.”

  Bruce repeated the word back to him. “Hunebedden?”

  “It means ‘Giants Beds.’ Come have a look. Maybe learn something.”

  Bruce had known Bertrand for almost thirty years. He didn’t consider the man a friend, but in almost three decades of doing business, he had never screwed Bruce. At least not yet. That track record was more valuable than any friendship Bruce could imagine. Because of that, Bruce indulged his idiosyncrasies. Like meeting in the middle of abandoned farmland miles from civilization, just to look at some boulders. But Bruce also realized that a track record was just that—a reflection of the past. It did not always predict the future. Every man had his price, and Bruce’s instincts told him that Bertrand, though expensive, was himself for sale.

  Bruce motioned for his driver to wait and fell in beside the Dutchman, Bertrand lifting his feet stiffly to keep his loafers from getting soiled. It had been almost a decade since Bruce and Bertrand had met face to face, and the man seemed different—heavier, softer, the way people sometimes got when coasting later in life.

  Bertrand must have sensed Bruce studying him. “Thyroid condition. I’ve blown up like an engorged leech.” He smiled ruefully. “I’m a carnival-mirror version of myself, horizontal when I used to be vertical.”

  Bruce nodded, not sure how to respond. He guessed the condition was particularly difficult for a man like De Jong, who was fastidious about his appearance. They walked in silence, Bruce knowing better than to ask any questions about their destination. Answers would be provided when Bertrand was ready to give them.

  As if on cue, Bertrand exhaled a plume of smoke and spoke in a low voice. “This is no job for an amateur, Bruce,” he said, pronouncing the word with a French accent. “The Just Judges is much more than merely a painting. It is both a treasure map and a ticking time bomb. You had best understand that. Before it blows up in your face.”

  Bruce was used to th
e Dutchman’s melodrama. But this most recent diatribe seemed to rise to a different level. “How so?”

  Bertrand ignored the question, and they continued through the field until they were about twenty yards from the boulders. An ovular ring of large stones stood upright in the ground like irregularly-shaped teeth. They encircled a half-dozen massive, sofa-sized boulders perched a foot or two off the ground atop smaller base stones.

  Bruce had no idea what the formation represented, but it would have taken quite an effort to lift and arrange the immense rocks. Glancing at the late afternoon sun, he guessed that the formation ran in a direct east-west alignment.

  “So,” Bertrand said, “what do you think?”

  “I think you dragged me out here for a reason. So I assume these rocks are important.” Did they mark some kind of treasure?

  Bertrand led him around to the other side of the formation. “Look at the way these are arranged, with the large boulder resting horizontally atop two smaller ones. That arrangement is called a trilithon.”

  Bruce nodded. Some of the larger capstone boulders were missing, but Bruce could clearly see a line of extant trilithons.

  Bertrand dropped his voice in a breathless affectation, as if narrating a murder mystery. “The legend is that giants built them, perhaps as sleeping places. That’s where they get their name. But the reality is that nobody knows who built them. Or how. Or why. They are 5500 years old, which makes them older than the Pyramids, older even than Stonehenge. Some of them weigh more than 25 tons.”

  Bruce wandered around, allowing himself to feel the presence of the ancient peoples who somehow wrestled boulders the size of refrigerators into place without the benefit of the wheel. The question, of course, was why. He sensed the answer to that question would, in turn, help explain why Bertrand had insisted he make the trans-Atlantic flight.

  Bruce finished his circuit of the site and returned to Bertrand’s side. “There are over fifty Hunebedden sites in this area of the Netherlands and in neighboring Germany,” the Dutchman said. “They tend to be ignored by historians who are more focused on other megalithic sites. But the sheer volume of them demands an explanation. As I said, the legend is that giants built them.” Bertrand gestured toward the boulders. “Even for a giant, this would be quite a job. Which means you would need quite a number of giants to build fifty of them. Not to mention the hundreds of formations which have probably been lost to history. So, where did all the giants come from? Down the beanstalk?”

  Bruce hated rhetorical questions; they were nothing but a waste of time. “Since you know the answer, and I obviously don’t, perhaps you should just tell me.”

  Bertrand ignored Bruce’s insolence. “The answer is, there must have been an entire race of them. A race of giants. The Bible talks of a tribe of giants living in Lebanon. But Lebanon is over two thousand miles away, so not likely.” He paused and puffed on his pipe, waiting for Bruce to reply.

  “Okay, so where else are there giants?”

  “Atlantis. The lost civilization.”

  “You mean the legendary lost civilization.”

  Bertrand raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps. But what is that expression? Legend is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man while legend tells us about a million men.”

  “So you believe in Atlantis?”

  “I believe in the possibility of it, yes. We still have remote peoples today living a Stone Age existence, unchanged from 50,000 years ago, even as we fly to the moon and clone sheep. So why the opposite, why not an advanced civilization ahead of its time?”

  Bruce sighed. Whatever. “Okay then. But isn’t Atlantis out in the Atlantic?”

  “Yes. It was. But the question has always been, where did its survivors settle? Many legends place them in this area. Some even believe they gave rise to the Nordic race.” He puffed again. “Students of Atlantis tell us that its citizens were very tall. Some would even call them giants. And they possessed advanced technology. Technology, such as levitation, that could easily move and lift massive boulders.”

  “When you say Nordic, aren’t you also saying Aryan?” Bruce sensed they were, finally, getting to the point.

  “Indeed I am. Which explains why the Nazis were so fixated on the legends of Atlantis. They believed the technology of Atlantis still existed, hidden. They were obsessed with finding it. Technology which would allow them, like the ancient Atlanteans, to rule the world. Technology that people would kill for.”

  Bruce shifted. “I don’t believe in giants. And nobody has proven Atlantis even really existed.”

  “So?”

  “What do you mean, so?”

  “Just that. What does it matter if Atlantis existed or not?” He began to guide Bruce back to the car. “You Americans can be so literal at times. What matters is what people believe. The Nazis believed that the Ghent Altarpiece would lead them to the lost Atlantis technology. Others see it as a map to the Holy Grail. Whether they are right or not is irrelevant.” He stopped and turned to look Bruce in the eye. “If you’re going to understand the importance of the Just Judges painting, my friend, you’re going to need to understand why it is people are so fixated on it. It is not because of what is portrayed on the oak panels. It is because of what people believe those portrayals mean. Perception, not reality. Legend, not fact.” Bertrand resumed walking, cutting left, increasing his pace, angling away from the road and where Bruce’s driver waited. He spoke over his shoulder, breathing from his mouth from exertion, as he departed. “That painting, perhaps more than any other piece of art you have ever dealt with, is not merely a collection of brush strokes. It is the proverbial genie in the bottle, the thing that can make one’s dreams come true.”

  Bruce blinked. Paintings to him were commodities, to be bought or sold or stolen or fenced. Or, on a different level, works of art to be displayed and admired. He had never thought of a painting the way Bertrand had just described the Just Judges. He glanced back at the Hunebedden site and exhaled. He was beginning to understand why Bertrand had dragged him out here.

  But he had no idea why the odd Dutchman was walking in the direction he was.

  Katarina had showered after her morning run and eaten a breakfast of yogurt and fruit. She was taking a rare day off—she would work from home this afternoon before heading off to her evening event. For now, there was something more important even than work: The downfall of Christianity.

  As Himmler had suggested, a new Aryan state would—in fact, must—reject Christianity. Fortunately, over the past few decades Christianity was doing a good job of destroying itself.

  She strode out of her brownstone and headed east toward the Gothic-style church on the corner of Arlington Street and Boylston. She marched in—the edifice may have been majestic in its architecture, but its glory days had passed. The only people occupying its pews were the elderly and homeless. Christianity had become nothing more than a congregation of misfit toys, held together by silly platitudes. She sniffed in derision. The poor were poor because they had nothing of value to contribute to society. The meek, in reality, had no right to inherit anything. Enemies were meant to be destroyed, not loved.

  One swift kick should be enough to bring the whole festering religion to its arthritic knees. In fact, she had recently come across a fascinating book calling into question the very premise of Christianity. A book which, when her Aryan state became a reality, would become required reading in every school. Caesar’s Messiah, by Joseph Atwill, argued that Jesus was not a real historical figure. Rather, he was invented by the Roman imperial family, the Flavians, as a way to fulfil a popular prophecy and give the Jews of the day, many of whom were rebelling against Rome, a Jewish messianic leader behind whom they could rally. But the Flavians spiked the drink, as it were, giving the Jews a leader who championed pacifism rather than rebellion, undermining Jewish factions who were inclined toward a more violent rebellion. In support of this theory, Atwill noted how the Catholic Church was strikingly Roman in it
s organizational structure, rather than Jewish as one would expect from a religion founded by a Jew. Its sacraments, its college of bishops, even the word ‘pontiff,’ were all based on Roman, not Jewish, traditions. The author also pointed out how numerous passages in the New Testament seemed to glorify the Roman occupying force in a way which defied common sense. For example, in Romans 13:2-6, the Apostle Paul taught that Roman judges and magistrates were a threat only to evil-doers, as if blaming the oppressed for the actions of their oppressors:

  “Therefore the man who rebels against his ruler is resisting God’s will… For judges and magistrates are to be feared not by right-doers but by wrong-doers. You desire—do you not?—to have no reason to fear your ruler. Well, do the thing that is right, and then he will commend you. For he is God’s servant for your benefit… We must obey therefore, not only in order to escape punishment, but also for conscience’s sake. Why, this is really the reason you pay taxes; for tax-gatherers are ministers of God, devoting their energies to this very work.”

  Katarina stared up at the massive, gilded figure of Jesus hanging above the altar. Obey the occupier? Pay your taxes? The occupier is God’s servant? What kind of revolutionary leader took the side of an occupying force over his own people? None that she knew of, and surely no leader worthy of being followed.

  But the most compelling argument Atwill made was this: Outside of the New Testament (which Atwill believed the Flavians and their agents authored), the only historical account of Jesus’ life was contained in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus in his book, Antiquities of the Jews. But Josephus, Atwill argued, was himself part of the plot, having been adopted as a young man by the Flavius family after defecting to the Roman side during the Jewish uprising. Without Josephus, whose full name was Flavius Josephus, there was not a single historical source validating the existence of Jesus.