“When you had her with you, Sam, was there anything that indicated who she was or where she could have gone?” the priest asked Sam. In the silence resting between his inquiry and Sam’s answer, the thunder yielded a soft spray of rain against the windows.
“Nothing comes to mind right now,” Sam admitted. “However, I’m almost sure that those assassins sent to kill me at the hospital were somehow connected to Toshana. I was the only person who knew where she was while she was in hospital, and those gun-wielding assholes were sent to keep me from telling Ayer where she was. I’m almost sure of it.”
“Well, what do we know?” Harris asked, recording the conversation for good measure. “We know that Ayer and his goons are Templar apostates, which means that they share this tattoo that is not exactly a declaration of loyalty to Christ. Does that mean that they are bad monks, Father?”
“Bad monks?” Sam cried. “Really, Harris?”
“It does sound rather stupid, Miss Harris,” Father Harper conceded. “But that is actually exactly what you should think. They still hold a grudge against the church for what happened to the Templars, and they are not shy to exhibit their bestial denial of piety when the mood takes them. We should be very wary of them. They would flay the skin off a child, if it would give them what they want.”
“They want Toshana,” Harris said. “Right?”
“Does that mean Nina is not as safe as we hope she is?” Sam asked, looking tense already.
Father Harper opened a bottle of whisky and poured three shots’ worth — each. He turned and looked solemn as he screwed the cap back on the bottle. “They want Toshana…” he sighed reluctantly, “because they think she has the crown, Miss Harris. And no, Sam, Nina is not safe at all. In all honesty, had she not been leverage…” He simply shook his head as he brought the three glasses to his desk.
“Wait, the crown? What crown?” Sam asked intently.
“The lost crown of the Knights Templar, of course. The crown within the monstrance of Cardinal Hermanus, a priest who reputedly buried the holy relic made by some alchemist under the ruins of the Temple of Solomon, Sam,” the priest relayed as he placed the glasses in front of them. “World War II, when army chaplain Hermanus came into possession of the crown. He apparently buried it in an old pillar to hide it from the SS treasure hunters, but it was never confirmed. The story was that the crown would draw unimaginable riches to its owner, but Ayer and his lads know the truth.”
“You know this how?” Sam asked.
“Take your drinks, friends,” Father Harper requested, holding his glass up to the firelight.
They obliged, realizing that the priest had to have something big to tell them if the occasion merited neat spirits. Harris almost lost her breath as she chugged the burning alcohol down her gullet, but Sam was used to a good single malt. It felt good going down. Father Harper drank his slowly, consistently, like medicine. And, as medicine, was precisely how it was treated by the priest.
“I know this, because I, myself, am an apostate of sorts,” Father Harper said, after he swallowed down his drink. “I know this, because I was one of them once.”
“Oh my God!” Harris gasped, already fevered from the strong drink. Sam was equally taken aback, but he took his time to mull it around in his softened brains. The weather was wild outside, serenading the enormous priest’s revelation. After all, this time, it was his turn to confess.
“Alright, so you said Ayer and you know the truth of the crown,” Sam finally uttered with a heavy heart, dreading what more was to come. As he said it, the coincidence finally shot through him like a harpoon. “Oh God! You mean,” he pointed wildly to the laptop from where he had spoken to Purdue, “that crown? That is the crown Purdue is looking for?”
“Unknowingly so, yes. The crown does not bring riches, Sam. I suppose it does, in a way, but it was made by means of old sorcery,” he tried to explain without sounding bat shit crazy.
“This is great stuff, Father,” Harris giggled, recording every word. Sam could see that she was well away from the potent clout of the single malt. Without her even noticing, he disabled the recording button with a swift move of his hand to collect her glass for another helping.
“Pour another, my friend. This is old world science, alchemy, and advanced intelligence that sounds like the fabrications of a lunatic. But I swear to you, in all Holiness, that I speak the truth,” Father Harper told Sam.
“The crown Purdue is looking for is not a coronet or a tiara, you see, but rather a crown in the poetic sense,” he said as he waited for Sam to pour his share.
“I don’t follow, Father,” Sam frowned, passing the priest his glass.
“We are not nearly inebriated enough for this,” the priest attested by looking up at the bottom of the glass he was holding high above him. He brought it down to his lips and took a gentleman’s sip. The rugged journalist looked wide awake, zealous in his quest for more information so that he could eat it up and formulate a solution to save Nina.
Father Harper looked into the fire. “How much do you know about history?”
“That’s Nina’s thing, Father,” Sam answered.
The towering clergyman brushed past Sam and deposited his ass down on the corner of his desk, as Sam sat down at the hearth. “I’ll keep it concise. I’ll keep it simple,” Father Harper said, as his eyes explored the ceiling for the right way to convey the sentiment. “Around the late 10th Century, the French-born Pope Sylvester II was said to have committed the unspeakable act of consorting with the devil.”
“Ah!” Sam joined in. “Another one of those disobedient preacher heretics, hey?”
“Affirmative,” the priest played along. “Anyway, Pope Sylvester was studying mathematics or something in a Muslim city, the name of which eludes me right now. While there, he reputedly built a head, a mechanical sort of thing that gave ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to anything it was asked.”
“Wow, sounds downright evil,” Sam jested, clearly deep into his alcohol allowance for the day. But Father Harper knew that his tale would stick in Sam’s sharp mind nonetheless, so he carried on. “The legend says that the robotic head was controlled by a demoness. Again, the name escapes me now. It was said that he had won the papacy by playing dice with the devil, blah-blah-blah. But what I’m trying to tell you, Sam, is that the crown David is trying to find on the Temple Mount is not a crown in the sense he thinks.”
Sam’s puppy eyes stared into the fire, still waiting for more on the story, but as the penny dropped, his eyes sprang open. He looked up at Father Harper’s intimidating frame, silhouetted by the fire. His mouth agape at first, Sam realized what the priest was trying to tell him.
“The lost crown of the Knights Templar is not a diamond encrusted accessory! It is a… a,” he wavered, trying to say it in a sane sounding manner, “a head?”
Father Harper said nothing, but the lowering of his chin to bow his head confirmed Sam’s guess. “The Knights Templar had discovered the crown!” Sam repeated.
“That’s right. They stole the brazen head from Pope Sylvester II, during the Second Crusades. They hid it from Roman emperors and Islamic warlords, even noble men and women who would threaten the position of their countries.”
“Because it answers questions?” Sam frowned at the almost laughable motive.
“But remember that this thing has the wisdom of fallen angels — being one, in essence,” Father Harper reminded him. “Naturally, back then, anything built from the use of mathematics, sacred geometry, or engineering based on secret information, say, from an advanced intelligence, would be considered a demon.”