The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (60 page)

He got up and paced the floor restlessly.
When he could stand it no longer, he pulled his bags from under the
bed and took out his secondary weapons. A long, curved dagger of
antique vintage and a heavy broadsword with an unadorned hilt of
burnished silver wrapped with black leather lacings and wound with
wire. He had to find Ramsay and finish the job before d’Brouchart
and the inestimable Mister Montague ruined everything with their
tolerant attitudes. Perhaps d’Brouchart was growing weak and
feeble. The Grand Master was, after all, older than all of them.
Perhaps it was time for the man to step down, if he did not have
the stomach to do what had to be done without hesitation.

He walked quietly down the hall of Miss
Penelope Martin’s hotel and let himself out the front door into the
rain. That Ramsay had gone back to the house where the woman was,
he had little doubt. Perhaps she would have the pleasure of
watching him behead her lover before he killed her, and everyone
else at the despicable house of pretenders and if Lucio Dambretti
got in his way, he would not hesitate to take the Italian out of
the picture as well.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

The house was quieter than ever when the two
soaking wet Knights and the blond woman let themselves in the side
door. No lights were on, nothing stirred. They went quickly up the
back stairs to Merry’s room. The men would wait outside in the
hallway while she went in to change clothes.

Mark held his sword in one hand and
Dambretti’s dagger in the other as they edged their way down the
hall past Merry’s room onto the balcony at the top of the main
stairwell. They checked the foyer, but the big man’s body was gone.
Scuff marks on the tiles and a few splotches of blood were the only
indications that he had been there at all. They returned quickly
and took up a position in the corridor, standing back to back in
front of her door until she emerged again wearing jeans, tee shirt,
boots and a light raincoat. She carried a small flashlight in one
hand and Mark could tell that she had been crying again.

No one accosted them as they made their way
back downstairs and out into the night. Mark had a very bad feeling
about the eerie silence in the mansion. He wanted to go back and
search the house, but they had to find the others first. Then they
would all come back together and make sure that everything was in
order before they left. He knew that Beaujold would not hesitate to
kill Valentino if he found her and Mark wanted to prevent it, if he
could. He felt that it was not necessary. She was essentially
harmless without her watchdog and nobody would ever believe her if
she told them what had been going on for the last few weeks. She
was, after all, a criminal now, a murderer or an accomplice in the
very least, by whatever part she had played in the deaths of
Anthony and Tellman. She had held both himself and Lucio prisoner
in her house and that was just the beginning of what was probably a
long list of charges she could face if the truth came out.
Valentino could not afford to complain to the authorities no matter
what they did.

Mark pulled the heavy golf bag from the
flower bed beside the door and hefted it to his shoulder, hoping
against hope that his Brothers would be able to use them when they
found them. The tiny search party set off down the brick path
toward the garden and beyond, up the slippery limestone hill behind
the estate. Merry led them quickly through the winding paths and up
the rocky path toward the crest of the hill as she had promised. In
spite of her expert guidance, their way was made slow and
treacherous by the rain-slicked rocks and mud where the water
rushed past their feet as if they were walking upstream in a small
river. The lightning flashed almost continuously in a spectacular
display and Merry ducked reflexively again and again as the red and
yellow prongs seemed to strike the very top of the hill above them.
The frequency of the lightning provided them with a strobe-light
effect, allowing Merry to keep the flashlight turned off much of
the time, preventing them from sending a beacon to anyone who might
have been looking.

The storm fascinated Mark Andrew and he knew
that such displays were a familiar occurrence in his past and he
actually enjoyed the magnificent power that filled the air around
them with an almost palpable charge. If their circumstances had
been different, he would have taken Merry back to the barn and
watched the storm from the hay loft. The strange thought made him
feel even more desperate to be done with this thing. He just wanted
to get home and find out who he really was. If all went well, he
would invite her to Scotland for a holiday next year. A holiday.
Yes.

The entrance to the old shelter was hidden
behind a pile of boulders near the top of the hill. Inside the
heavy metal door, the passage was dry and their footsteps echoed
eerily in the dark. They descended through the side of the hill
until they were some fifty yards from the main entrance where their
way was suddenly barred by a smooth slab of polished limestone. A
rusty pulley mechanism with decrepit chains hung beside the door,
tinkling and vibrating as the thunder shook the hill.

“They are probably in there.” She nodded to
the stone slab. “It’s the only place she could have put them to be
sure they would not escape without having to set a constant guard
on them. This door has never been closed to my knowledge,” she
looked in wonder at the rusty chains disappearing into the pitch
blackness above them. “The rest of the chambers have
collapsed.”

Mark examined the pulley. Primitive. Ugly and
cumbersome. Nothing like the perfectly balanced blocks guarding the
entrances to the secret chambers in the pyramids. Again he shook
his head to clear this even stranger thought from his mind. He
caught hold of one of the chains and rattled it against the rock
above them. An avalanche of rock chips, dirt and rust showered down
on their heads, not to mention a few startled bats. A creaky system
of cogs and a hand crank of very antiquated design made up the
simple device anchored to the rock floor.

He took hold of the handle on the crank and
gave it a tentative twist while Dambretti and Merry looked on. It
squeaked loudly and turned with a jerky clicking motion. Each link
in the rusty chain was caught by one of the teeth in the cog just
above his head and held in place by a primitive locking mechanism.
Two turns of the crank caused the door to raise a quarter of inch.
Cool air issued from under the door.

Dambretti got on his knees and projected his
voice under the stone.

“Hello! Anyone home?” he called.

Soon they heard the very distinct sound of
someone answering them from the other side.

“Master Dambretti?” Christopher’s voice
echoed into the dark corridor.

“Yes, it’s me!” Lucio turned his head to look
up at them and smiled.

“Deo gratis!” D’Ornan’s voice joined that of
the apprentice from under the door. “Please hurry, my Brother. We
are in trouble here. The water is rising.”

Faint splashing sounds could be heard from
the hollow space beyond the door.

“And it’s dark in here,” Christopher told
them urgently.

“Stand back while we try to get the door
opened,” Dambretti ordered and then stood up beside Ramsay. “You
must hurry, Brother.”

Mark Andrew nodded. It was not easy to work
the crank as the chain creaked and popped and continued to rain
down flakes of metal and red dust on them. Bats frightened them
from time to time and the storm continued to rage outside. The
debris stuck to their wet necks and skin, making them more
miserable than ever. He expected the entire thing to collapse on
their heads at any moment. The door was barely two inches aloft
when the chain snapped. The stone slammed down with a resounding
boom, causing them to fall back against the walls of the corridor.
The sound had actually jarred their hearts.

Merry stood staring at them in the light of
her flashlight, thinking the unthinkable. The link had separated at
a point some two feet above the cog. Mark reached up to inspect the
broken chain, while Dambretti tried unsuccessfully to contact the
people within the cavern. No amount of shouting or pounding on the
door brought any audible answers from the other side of the
slab.

“We have to find some other way,” Mark said
as he looked around the enclosure. “We have to get them out of
there. We need more chain.”

“There’s some chain in the garage,” Merry
told him. “Maybe we could hook up a new piece.”

“Never patch an old cloth with new,”
Dambretti shook his head. “It would only cause the chain to break
faster.”

“Well, do you have some other idea?” Merry
looked at him in the darkness.

“No,” he told her and shrugged in his most
irritating fashion. “It is not my mission, la mia dolce. No
decisions are required of me.”

“I’ll go.” Mark drew a deep breath. He was
beginning to understand why he might have some deep-seated
animosity for the Italian. “You two stay here.”

“You had best hurry,” Lucio told him and took
the light from Merry to shine it at the floor near the door. Water
was beginning to pool at the base of the slab. He shined the light
up the passage and saw two small streams flowing in from outside.
They met in front of the door soaking into the extremely dry sand
and then edging out toward their feet.

Mark pulled his sword and Lucio’s dagger from
the bag and started back out of the cave into the rain. Was nothing
ever easy?

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Beaujold parked the van under the trees near
the point where the drive to the mansion began and then hurried
along the white rock lane, keeping near the line of trees and
hedges. The storm was raging around him as if God, himself, were
angry with him. When he reached the house, he saw no lights inside.
The electricity was out. He had seen the spot where a lightning
bolt had downed the lines on his way out from town.

The front doors of the mansion were unlocked.
A bad sign. There were traces of blood visible on the marble tile
in the foyer. The third floor bedroom where they had kept Mark
Ramsay was a scene most terrible. As he entered the room, he could
smell the blood, even before the lightning showed him the dark
stains on the bed, on the headboard and all over the new rug. He
had no way of knowing who had suffered here. It could have been any
one of the five Templars or someone else entirely. Most likely
Lucio Dambretti had paid dearly for his sins in this very room.

He made his way outside to the basement
doors. The only other place he knew to look, but the basement doors
stood open. Another bad sign.

The water was already several inches deep in
the passage at the bottom of the stairs. Beaujold turned on his
flashlight reluctantly and made a quick search of the storerooms
and laboratory. No one. A feeling of dread washed over him. What
had Ramsay done? Killed them all? It did not seem unreasonable. If
the man could get up and ride with a sword run through him, why
not? The thought brought to mind a story that Louis Champlain loved
to relate around the campfire.

The Templars had been caught in a siege in
the Holy Lands. There had been only ten Knights in the fortress and
all hope was gone. Rather than risk capture and torture, they had
formulated a suicidal plan designed to inflict as much harm on the
enemy as possible and, at the same time, make sure that their own
deaths would be swift and merciful. They had put on their armor,
mounted their horses and rode into the streets in an offensive move
of unprecedented bravery or foolishness, depending on the point of
view. To their own amazement and the Glory of God, they had routed
the entire contingency of Saracens infesting the city, leaving
hundreds dead in their wake without losing a single man in their
ranks. It had been a miracle! But then, of course, as Louis
Champlain liked to claim, God had been on their side and Sir Ramsay
and his brother had not been with them. Most of the stories he had
heard about the two brothers from those early days of the Order
were much less honorable and Ramsay’s brother had paid the price.
Now Ramsay would finally pay the price for his own philandering and
join his brother in Perdition. He had broken his vows, betrayed the
Order and disgraced himself.

A chill coursed up his spine and Beaujold
crossed himself quickly at the thought that Ramsay might be hiding
somewhere in the basement, watching him.

The Knight of the Sword switched off the
flashlight and stuck it in his pocket. He went back up the stairs
more warily than before. He turned right, once outside, and went
toward the stable. There he found only the horses. They eyed him
suspiciously when he entered. The stallion was back in its stall,
but it still wore the black, bloodstained saddle, confirming his
suspicion that Ramsay had returned to the mansion. The palomino,
however, had not returned and the bay mare, wearing a halter and
bridle, nudged him playfully, hoping for a treat. So, he had help.
It was not surprising. He reached for the reins of the mare and
frowned. If Ramsay and the woman had returned to the house and left
the barn without taking time to tend the horses, then where were
they?

He left the barn, blinking back the rain from
his eyes, and started around the back of the house, looking for the
garage. The next lightning flash showed the side entrance to the
garage standing open. He stopped at the door and frowned into the
dim interior. The lightning flashed again and he saw someone inside
the garage kneeling in front of a large tool chest on the floor. He
ducked aside and flattened himself against the side of the building
to wait.

The Chevalier du Morte hurried as best he
could from the garage, awkwardly carrying a bundle of chain,
clutching it close to his body with one arm while holding the
Flaming Sword in his other hand. Beaujold noticed right away that
he held the sword in his left hand. He could have killed him then
and there, but the French Knight stayed put, watching him curiously
as he hurried away with his clinking, rattling burden down the
brick walkway. The Knight of the Sword gave him a bit of a lead and
then followed after him. It would behoove him to learn where the
man was bound and whom he intended to bind with the chains. Ramsay
knew where his Brothers were! It was apparent that he had taken
them captive somewhere and was in the process of making ready to
abandon them. Perhaps weighting their bodies down in a subterranean
pool or a well or a quagmire. Beaujold had very little knowledge of
what sort of landscape surrounded the estate. He knew that Texas
was called ‘a whole ’nother country’ from the tourist propaganda he
sometimes saw on the web and TV.