"Why only one horse?"
"It was a symbol of poverty."
Ronnie and Lamont came over. They heard what Selena said.
"The Templars weren't poor," Ronnie said. "They had lands, money, gold. Everyone knows that."
"They didn't start out that way." Selena peered at the wall.
"No one ever found their treasure, though," Lamont said.
"There's something else here," she said. "You can just make it out." She still had some soda in the can. Now she splashed it on the wall. Letters appeared under the cross, so faint that no one would likely notice them.
La maison de cinq arbres
"It's French."
"What does it mean?"
"The house of five trees."
"Five trees, again."
"We were wrong," she said. "The quatrain wasn't about the mountain where Moses got the Commandments. It was about this fort and this inscription. Nostradamus is pointing us at the Templars. We need to get back to the hotel and my computer."
"What have Templars got to do with the Ark?" Ronnie asked.
"They occupied Jerusalem during the Crusades. The Dome of the Rock was their headquarters. There are legends that the Ark was hidden in a secret chamber under the Temple Mount, and that the Templars took it with them when Jerusalem fell."
"The Templars." Nick shook his head. "Now it's the Templars as well as the Ark. Why is nothing ever simple?"
"Where's Ahmed?" Ronnie said.
"Probably taking a leak," Lamont said. "Here he comes." The guide came out from behind some rocks. He was putting a cell phone away.
"You wish to see the other castle?" Ahmed said.
"No. We're done."
"Then there is a shorter way to the visitor center."
Nick's ear began itching.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was late in the afternoon when they arrived back at the Visitor Center. The parking lot was almost empty. Nick gave Ahmed another 50 Dinar note. The guide seemed nervous. He thanked them and scurried away.
They walked over to the Land Rover. Nick's ear began to itch and burn. He pulled on it, hard.
"Oh, oh," Ronnie said.
"Something's wrong," Nick said.
They looked around. Everything seemed normal.
"There goes Ahmed."
Selena pointed at a white pickup speeding out of the lot. The guide was in the passenger seat. He didn't look back at them. The truck drove away fast, trailing plumes of dust.
"Kind of in a hurry," Lamont said.
"Remember when we were in Kabul?" Nick said to Ronnie. "That IED?"
"Yeah."
"I had the same sensation then."
"I don't see anything," Lamont said.
There was nothing in the area, no garbage bags, trash cans, packs, boxes, nothing that would conceal a threat. The nearest car was parked some distance away.
Lamont got down on his knees and peered under their truck. A black, oblong shape was stuck under the driver's side. A digital counter was marking down seconds in red. Lamont watched the numbers move past 20 to 19 to 18.
"Bomb!" he yelled. He scrambled to his feet. They ran.
They were more than a hundred feet away when the bomb detonated. The force of the blast knocked them to the dirt. Nick went sprawling. Pain jolted his spine. Chunks and pieces of the Land Rover fell around them. The hood crashed down into the parking lot ten feet from his head. All that remained of the truck was a jagged tangle of metal that burned with bright, hot light, sending a dense column of black smoke spiraling into the clear afternoon sky.
Nick got to his feet. He looked at the burning wreckage. Lamont came over to him.
"Smells like Semtex."
"Ahmed," Nick said. "Our friendly guide."
"Maybe you should have tipped him more," Lamont said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The sat phone connection was good. "Everyone is all right?" Harker asked.
"Yes."
"No trouble about the guns?"
"No. The Jordanian cops are treating it as a terrorist attack on Western tourists. They never searched us. Selena distracted them. They even gave us a ride back to the hotel."
He shifted in the chair. His back was locked up tight.
"I'd like to get my hands on that guide. The bad guys just upped the ante."
"What's your plan now?" The connection sounded clear but far away.
"Selena is in the other room on the computer looking for something that ties into that inscription we found. We need to know where to go next. The inscription is the only lead we've got. If there's something there, she'll figure it out."
"I've been looking at Cask and Swords," Harker said. "Getting a membership list was next to impossible. People in this group are a who's who of American power. If they're behind this, we have a problem."
"We always have a problem."
"What I don't know is who is part of the core group Adam warned you about. There are a lot of people who would profit if there was another war. I'm working on narrowing down the list."
She paused. Nick heard her pen tapping in the background.
"There are several members who advise President Rice."
"You think Rice is involved?"
"No, I don't. He's not a member and everything he's done points the other way. But some of the people around him are. The Secretary of the Treasury, for example."
"Are you going to tell Rice about this?"
"Not until we have something concrete. I can't go to the President on the basis of what Adam told you. We don't even know who Adam is."
"You have a lot of credibility with Rice."
"Not that much. Follow up on what Selena finds out. Keep me up to date."
In Virginia, Elizabeth put down the phone. She looked through the bullet proof windows at the flowers growing over the underground rooms. The day was clear, sunny. She could have been in an average home almost anywhere in America. Project headquarters was anything but your average American home.
She looked at the list she'd compiled of Cask and Swords members. Who were the conspirators? She had no reason to doubt what Adam had told Nick. He'd been right in the past. His intel had prevented millions of deaths and probable war.
Elizabeth glanced at the picture of her father on the desk. She remembered a conversation with him from when she was fifteen. She'd had a complicated school science project due by the end of the week and hadn't been sure what would make it work. Her father had been in his usual chair, the big green one near the fireplace. It was a warm spring on the Western slope of the Rockies. The fire wasn't lit. The bourbon in his glass was warmth enough.
"I don't know where to start," she'd said.
"Have you made a list?"
"Yes, but there are too many things on it."
"What are the criteria?"
"Well, it's about the rate of gaseous diffusion in…"
"That's not what I asked. It doesn't matter what it's about. What matters is the critical thinking you apply to the problem. Whenever there's too much information you have to narrow things down. Sort out what's important and what isn't."
"How do I do that?"
"You have to ask yourself the right questions."
What were the right questions? She looked at the list. What would someone gain from starting a war? People who wanted to control things were usually driven by love, power and money. Elizabeth didn't think love factored in here, though some seemed to love war.
Power and money. The list had plenty of people on it who had both. She decided to pick out the top ten. Who had the most wealth, the most toys? In a hierarchy of Alpha males, that person would have serious clout. Who would benefit the most from war? She could find out. Almost everything that mattered was in the computers somewhere.