The Templar Scroll: Book six in the series Page 15

  Salvatore turned to look at the foreman and his team. “Why are you not working? Are you finished for the day?” Instantly the men grabbed at their tools and began cutting at the exposed stone face and hauling timbers. Templars were not to be trifled with. “Clean this place up, put down water for the dust and get this rubble shifted.”

  Salvatore walked back through the tunnel and hoisted himself up into the castle’s cellar. He wound his way through the underbelly of the castle, back towards the base of the sea wall to where his own work lay.

  At the end of the short passageway stood a timber door. He banged heavily on it. Two knocks, a pause, one more. The door swung back on its rusty hinges and the face of Dimitrios appeared in the dim light.

  “How is he?” he said.

  “The Mason is fine, as far as I can tell. Hard to judge a man’s health when he is trapped in a wooden cage.”

  “At least he is alive which is more than I will be able to say of you when you try this.”

  “Is it ready?” said Salvatore.

  “No idea,” said Dimitrios. “I have done all I can if that’s what you mean.” He walked across the flagged floor to the edge of the water channel. When the castle had been built this had been one of the watergates to the sea. The others had been sealed and their water inlets filled, but this had been forgotten about, its entrance out to the sea beyond covered by an iron gate now choked with weed and invisible to the outside world.

  Resting by the side of the water stood a dome-shaped copper object almost as high as a man and over a yard across at its base. The outer surface was unadorned, but marked and dented where it had been hammered into shape.

  Salvatore approached it and ran his finger along one of the four seams that joined the parts of the object together. The seam was dull with grease.

  “You used the Mason’s idea about the sheep fat?” he said. Dimitrios nodded.

  “The seams are coated inside and out with the wax, and the joints are lined with animal intestines filled with fat.”

  “Will they hold out the water?” said Salvatore, examining the seams.

  “No,” replied Dimitrios, “not for long.”

  “But long enough?”

  “Long enough for what?”

  “Long enough to keep me alive for a while,” said Salvatore.

  “I’ve done what I can in the time that I had. This has never been done before.”

  “It has, I told you, Alexander the Great did it.”

  Surface

  The wind ripped the surface off the sea. Spray from the crests of collapsing waves was atomized into a torrent that would have made it impossible to say where the surface of the sea stopped and the air began.

  At the moment the plane dropped below one thousand feet, the captain was unable to stop himself taking a deep breath as though he might actually survive in the water. He closed his eyes and began counting, one, two three, four… would he feel the impact? Would he be aware of the aircraft breaking up? …five, six, seven.

  At eight he opened his eyes, he wanted to see the end. The aircraft’s lights lit up the grey white fury of the sea, the waves seemly reaching up to grab them. Nine, ten, eleven.

  The altimeter showed two hundred feet and slowly clicked down to one hundred and ninety, then one hundred eighty-five …twelve, thirteen, fourteen. The altimeter showed one eighty-five. He glanced out at the storm, aware that he was now barely higher than the bridge of some large ships. He looked back at the reading. One eighty-five.

  His airspeed was up and he took a snap reading of his trim. He was flying level. One eighty-five.

  The aircraft was now so low that the back blast from his jet engines was ploughing into the seas below, thrashing the waves into even more chaos and leaving two cones of water spray spiraling behind him.

  One eighty-five.

  He reached forward and tilted the controls slightly away from their climb so that the plane was now trimmed for level flight. The adjustment reduced the drag over the surface of the wings. The massive machine edged up in airspeed, every knot making it more aerodynamically stable. He forced himself not to cry out as he read the altimeter. Two hundred and ten feet. The slightest downdraft could still drive the aircraft into the waves below and he lifted the nose up by a few more degrees. Two hundred and fifty feet.

  “We’ve pulled up,” said Sparke, looking at his own altitude reading and then out into the storm. “We’re level.” He looked across at Tilly who met his stare but said nothing.

  The cabin was still a chaos of screaming passengers, but many had fallen into a hopeless silence.

  The ding-dong chime of the aircraft’s announcement system sounded absurdly mundane in the midst of the pandemonium.

  “This is the captain speaking. The aircraft is now under our full control and we will be resuming our original course. We regret any concern or inconvenience our flight disruption may have caused. Your safety is our first concern.”

  Dust

  The Arab artillery had found its range and now every missile crashed into the outer walls. Beneath the rocky surface sappers scrapped away their tunnels, threading towards the foundations of the city’s defenses.

  Although the full length of the wall was under bombardment, Salvatore could see that the heavy weapons were aimed at the Accursed Tower. The weakness here was as clear to the Arab generals as it was to the Mason. To an untrained eye it was a daunting structure, but the stones were poorly mortared and old repairs had been largely cosmetic. The outworks, a separate tower which had been built to provide forward defense, was in fact a point of weakness.

  Salvatore looked around at the men manning the walls around him. Despite the fact that the Arab front lines were well within range, no one in the Christian side was firing. Any movement on the walls was greeted with a hail of Arab arrows which rattled against the battlements or zipped over, falling randomly into the streets behind.

  Salvatore followed the flight of one of these arrows as it soared above and dropped in a perfect arc into the city. It crashed against the glazed roof tiles of one of the inns and rolled into the dusty street below.

  The area around the inn looked like a building site, but Salvatore knew that the materials lying scattered in the dust were the result of demolition, not construction. The site had been cleared by gangs of laborers to make space for the Christian artillery which was firing counter-bombardment against the besiegers.

  “You are to report to the Grand Master tonight on the readiness of the Order of Lazarus.” Salvatore looked over and saw the face of the Old Guardian. He was a man who took great pleasure in passing on the commands of others. Authority brought his voice a vigor that made him sound like a much younger man.

  “I can do this,” said Salvatore. “But would it not be better from a more experienced knight such as yourself?”

  The Guardian nodded at this obvious logic, but said, “We know that you are familiar with the lepers…” He paused as a missile crashed into the wall behind him. “If you are to be infected by their curse then you already are. No point in risking another man.”

  Dust from the wall settled slowly over the two men. The missiles that struck the outer surface often created a spray of sharp stone fragments and produced a constant haze of dust. The Guardian had not flinched when the missile struck and kept his gaze fixed on Salvatore as though he was puzzled by the fact that he had not immediately leapt to obey his command. Salvatore brushed dust from his surcoat and smiled at the Guardian.

  “Thank you for taking the trouble to bring me this order personally,” he said. “I will do my best.”

  Satisfied with Salvatore’s display of humility, the Old Guardian nodded and looked up to scan the top of the wall in a proprietary fashion.

  Salvatore took the opportunity to examine the leather pouch which hung from the older man’s waist. Whatever was contained inside had no sharp edges, perhaps a cylinder of six inches in length and at least four across. By its obvious weight it was either metal or stone.
It was held on his belt by a length of well-made chain and there was no clasp. The only way to remove it would be to cut the belt.

  “I should go,” said Salvatore. “I want to make a thorough inspection of the preparations which the lepers are making for my report.”

  The Guardian showed no signs of having heard him, keeping his eyes on the outer wall as more missiles struck. The crash of the impact was followed by the rattle of small fragments of stone falling to the ground.

  Salvatore picked his way down the open stone staircase that linked the battlements to the city below. Most of the watch were sitting on these steps rather than being at their posts; there was no point in wasting valuable lives now, they would be needed when the attack began. The men, bored with inactivity, eyed the Templar as he passed them. His white tunic marked him out as one of the true elite among the garrison.

  Once down in the city streets, Salvatore walked in the shadows of the high buildings as much to avoid the heat of the sun as the occasional spent arrows that fell silently from above.

  It took him thirty minutes to reach the Templar castle on the seaward side. The ground around the castle walls had been cleared and turned into a killing ground. The walls, lower than the city’s outer defenses, looked solid and well finished. He tried to imagine the weight that now pressed down on the new timber supports. Having seen the impact of the bombardment on the main walls, he could only hope that the new underpinning ordered by the Mason would give additional strength to their fortress when the moment came.

  The only break in the smooth wall was the original gateway, now turned into the bastion of the Lazarus Knights.

  The old entranceway had been closed off with a new wall leaving only one narrow door. Two leper knights stood in the shade of a woven rush awning. As he approached, Salvatore realized the shade was less for the men’s comfort as it was to keep them shielded from view.

  Both men were fully armed and equipped and both wore linen face masks.

  “Good Brother,” said one of the men, “what business do you have in this house?”

  “I am sent by the Grand Master of my Order. He would know your condition.”

  “Our condition?” laughed the other guard. “Our condition is that we are cursed by God and abandoned by man. We are all dying here, don’t you know that?”

  “We are all dying,” said Salvatore. “If the Arabs don’t kill us we will all die sooner or later.”

  The two guards looked at Salvatore for a moment in silence, then one spoke. “Life itself is a fatal condition, the only cure is death, but I wish you a happier end than ours. I know your face, I have seen you with the Mason.”

  “Good, then since you know I am a friend, perhaps you will tell your Grand Master that I will speak with him.”

  “Tell him yourself,” said the guard. “A good friend like you is welcome to enter our house.”

  Salvatore looked at the man and said, “Should I start crying in fear now at the idea of entering a house of lepers? I am too busy for such games. No one knows how this curse takes a hold on you, but I know that it takes more than walking among you to attract it. I will find your Grand Master as you suggest.” Salvatore used his elbow to push on the heavy door and entered the leper house. He looked directly into a wall made of newly placed bricks, the building was being walled on the inside, a classic technique for close defense which the Templars often used themselves. The only way past was to squeeze through a narrow gap between the new wall and the original stone passage. Once past this, he faced another new wall. It was a death trap built to pen in attackers and make them easy targets for spearmen who would be standing in the gloomy darkness above.

  Once past the ambush points Salvatore found himself in a wide hallway. On each side were vaulted alcoves, all bricked in like the death traps in the entrance. Any attackers who made it this far would be slaughtered by crossbows and spears from defenders behind the walls.

  “We will fill this room with oil jars,” said a voice behind him. “When they get to here we will let them burn for a while.”

  Salvatore turned and looked at Whitehead, Grand Master of the Order of Lazarus.

  “Sir, I am sent…” said Salvatore.

  “I know why you are here. Your Order wants to know how long we might last when the final attack comes. We could well offer a good diversion for you, for a while at least. How is the Mason?”

  “Well enough, Brother Whitehead. His fingers and toes move when he wants them to, and he is eating and sleeping.”

  “What more can we expect?”

  “Nothing more,” said Salvatore. “I am sent to find out how your preparations are for defense.”

  “As you can see the work is well progressed, and I know you will never meet so many happy men who are facing their deaths.”

  Landings

  Flight 771 was flying at ten thousand feet when it reached the coast of Israel. The captain made no attempt to alter direction towards Amman, concentrating entirely on getting his plane back up to a safe height. His flight path deviation brought him an escort of Israeli Defense Force F16s which came in close enough to see the face of the captain through the cockpit window. The two fighters sat on his tail for the few moments it took for them to cross the country.

  The Dead Sea flashed beneath them and the captain, now in Jordanian airspace, began the low, slow turn that took him towards Amman Airport. By now the passengers had lost much of their fear. Many still wept and more than a few took their fears and frustrations out on the cabin crew who were dealing with the many injured passengers.

  Tilly stared out of the window, answering Sparke in monosyllables whenever he spoke to her. Sparke had seen more than enough crisis survivors in his life to recognize the impact of stress and he left her in silence to work through her response.

  They remained in silence as the aircraft touched down. As the engines wound down the stillness of the aircraft brought a new wave of noise from the passengers who exploded into a chorus of relief and loud voices as they called friends and family. Emergency response teams from Amman Airport clambered aboard the aircraft and began removing the injured before the rest of the passengers were allowed to disembark.

  No event is traumatic enough to force the customs and border control authorities to relax. The tear-stained and exhausted passengers of Flight 771 gathered their luggage and then stood in line like any other new arrivals and had their passports stamped and paid forty Jordanian dinars for their entry visas.

  Tilly progressed through the airport silently as they passed the last hurdle of bureaucracy and walked into the main arrivals hall. Around them their fellow passengers fell into the arms of friends and family waiting for them. A man in a black suit stood holding a sign that said “Sparke”.

  The large black saloon car cleared the armed guards that cover every entrance to Amman Airport and sped into the city.

  “You were on the London flight?” said the driver.

  “What do you know about the London flight?” said Sparke.

  “It was on all the news,” said the driver enthusiastically. “One of the passengers took control of the airplane and saved everyone. He used his computer. Wi-Fi, he used Wi-Fi.”

  For the first time Tilly turned to look at Sparke.

  “You knew we were crashing,” she said flatly. “You knew and you didn’t say a word.”

  “It was on the radio,” said the driver. Sparke looked at Tilly but said nothing.

  A small audience around the world had watched the fate of Flight 771. The people on the discussion thread that Sparke had started numbered around fifty, and all were experts in their field. In addition to that, a dozen or so members of that strange community who invest a large part of their lives in observing the intricate workings of the world’s aviation industry plugged into the story.

  Someone, somewhere, recognized a good story when they saw one and copied the whole of Sparke’s communication onto the forum of a global news media organization. Flight 771 had become a global
media event before it had even landed.

  “What do you think I should have done?” said Sparke. “Would you have been happier if I told you what was happening from the start?”

  “What you shouldn’t have done is assume I couldn’t handle it,” said Tilly, her eyes still focused on the dark desert.

  The car sped along the motorway towards the city and neither Sparke nor Tilly spoke for the rest of the journey. The entrance to the Amman Intercontinental Hotel has the look and feel of a luxury fortress. A solid steel barrier set into the driveway barred vehicles from approaching until they had been checked by security. A dark green Humvee with a heavy machine gun on the roof was parked under the shade of some of the many palm trees in the forecourt.

  Porters unloaded Sparke’s and Tilly’s bags and placed them on an airport-style X-ray machine, then Sparke and Tilly went through the metal detector at the entrance to the foyer.

  A young man in an impeccable suit stood smiling in front of the reception desk. “Mr. Sparke, a pleasure to have you with us again,” he said, handing them their room passkeys. “If you and your colleague could let me have your passports we will handle the formalities for you. Your bags will go to your rooms. Perhaps we can offer you a drink after your journey? We understand it was quite a difficult flight.”

  “Drink, yes, that’s an excellent idea,” said Tilly. The manager smiled and led them to a cool, dim lounge.

  Tilly walked to the bar and placed both hands on the marble top. “I’ll have a massive French Martini,” she said, “and he’ll have tonic water, no ice.” The barman nodded slightly and turned away to make the drinks.

  “Alright,” said Sparke, “here’s what happened. As soon as I realized what might be happening I suppose I just went into my working mode. I mean, I just didn’t think about anything except the situation at first.”

  “Just another crisis to solve, that sort of idea?” said Tilly.