The Templar Salvation (2010) (28 page)

Sully glanced up at the midday sun, then checked his watch.

“We’ll leave the tents and everything else here for now and travel light,” he told Zahed and Simmons. “We’ll be able to cover more ground that way. But we’ll need to be back down here by sunset, which is in about eight hours’ time.”

“I hope you managed to pick up some hiking gear for us?” Zahed asked.

“I think I’ve got everything you need.” He retrieved a big duffel bag from the back of his car and handed it to Zahed. “T-shirts, shorts, fleeces, socks, and shoes. Let’s go, gentlemen,” he smiled. “The mountain’s waiting.”

ONCE THEY MADE IT UP the narrow path that snaked along the steep rock face that abutted the clearing, they had a relatively easy trek for the first hour, traversing several
yaylas
, the high-altitude meadows that ringed the volcano in a series of undulating hills. Despite the August sun, the air felt more crisp and dry with each new meter of altitude, a marked difference from the humid furnace at the base of the mountain. Scattered herds of animals—sheep, cattle, and the Angora goats the region was famous for—grazed peacefully in the arid grassland, while overhead, flocks of pink rose finches swooped past for a look before resuming their aerial ballet.

Despite the pastoral serenity surrounding him, Zahed was not at ease. Time was draining away, time in which Reilly and the rest of his enemies could pick up his trail and close in on him, and yet here he was, out on a leisurely hike with sketchy information and little more than a hope that the stranger he’d selected hastily knew what he was doing.

Simmons hadn’t said much throughout the climb, which was just as Zahed had instructed him to do. Sully, however, and much to Zahed’s irritation, more than took up the slack, yapping almost nonstop, clearly suffering from another form of diarrhea.

The terrain soon became more challenging as the slope steepened and the meadows gave way to slippery bowls of scree and coarse volcanic rock. High above, a series of jagged rock spires delineated the valley head. Two hours into the climb, the guide suggested they take a break in the shelter of a thicket of trees. He handed them some water bottles and spicy
sujuk
sandwiches, along with some energy bars, all of which they consumed heartily while taking in the breathtaking view.

The Anatolian Plain stretched out far below them, an infinite, striking golden-beige plateau that was punctuated by an array of unusual shadows from the late-afternoon sun. Hot air balloons drifted slowly by, multicolored gumdrops gliding over the distant valleys and the hidden canyons. Even from this distance, one could make out the distinctive features that made the area one of the most unusual—and spectacular—landscapes on the planet.

More than thirty million years ago, during the Cenozoic Era, the entire area had been smothered by volcanic eruptions from Mount Argaeus and a couple of other volcanoes. They’d dumped lava all over it on and off for tens of thousands of years. Once the eruptions had petered out, stormy weather, rivers, and earthquakes all colluded to churn the deposits and turn them into tufa, a soft, malleable stone made up of lava, mud, and ash. Centuries of erosion then carved the plain into valleys and canyons, and lined them with an astonishing landscape of undulating, sensuous rock formations that looked like mammoth dollops of whipped cream, endless fields of massive cones of rock, and “fairy chimneys,” strange spires of bone-white tufa that looked like asparagus tips topped by gravity-defying caps of reddish-brown basalt stone. And if nature’s work wasn’t phantasmogoric enough, man had added to it by burrowing into the tufa wherever he could. Small holes poked out of rock formations of all shapes and sizes, windows to the most unlikely of human habitations, entire valleys carved into warrens of underground cities, hermit cells, rock churches, and monasteries.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sully asked.

“Very,” Zahed replied.

The guide took a swig from his canteen and said, “You’re from Iran, right?”

“Originally, yes. But my family left the country when I was seven.” He lied with ease. It was a profile he’d used before.

“The name of this whole area, Cappadocia,” Sully said, “it’s originally Persian, you know. ‘Katpatuka.’”

“‘The land of beautiful horses,’” Zahed told him.

Sully nodded. “Long ago, they used to be all over the place. Not anymore, though. But it must have been something, to come across wild horses roaming free in a landscape like this.” He let his eyes wander over the outlandish terrain below, sucking in slow, deep breaths, then said, “Have you had a chance to explore the valleys?”

“This trip wasn’t really planned in advance, and we have to get back to the university very soon.”

“Oh, you’ve got to find some time to do it while you’re here,” Sully enthused. “It’s not like anything you’ve seen before. It’s another planet down there. And it’s all because of this monster here,” he said, pointing up at the peak of the extinct volcano that loomed over them.

Zahed shrugged with fake chagrin. “We’ll try.”

Sully nodded, then a cocky grin spread across his face. “You haven’t noticed where we’re standing, have you?”

Zahed glanced around, unsure of what Sully was talking about. He caught Simmons’s eye—the archaeologist was looking up at the trees.

“Poplars,” Simmons said. “They’re poplar trees.”

“Yep.” Sully was enjoying this. “And if you’d care to follow me, there’s this rock I’d like to show you.”

HALF AN HOUR LATER, they reached it.

It was a large, upright, rectangular rock, roughly cut to shape like a massive grave marker, about eight feet tall, tucked away in a narrow hanging valley that separated two ridges. Its front had several crosses carved into it, along with a diamond shape in its bottom right corner. Close to its top, a hole of about seven inches in diameter had somehow been drilled through it.

Zahed studied it curiously. “What is it?”

Simmons was also examining it closely. The sight had injected some life back into him. “There are quite a few of these farther east, near the border with Armenia. Some people think they’re drogue stones—anchor stones that ancient mariners used to suspend from the backs of their hulls to slow their boats down and make them more stable in stormy seas. But given that we’re far inland … they think they’re from Noah’s Ark. Jettisoned before it settled on Mount Ararat.” His tone had a tinge of mockery and pity.

“You don’t agree?” Zahed questioned.

Simmons gave him a look of quiet surprise. “You really think I would?” He scoffed. “It’s almost as if you don’t know me, ‘Ali.’ ” That last word had a bite to it.

Before Zahed could play it down, Sully waded in, oblivious to Simmons’s little game. “You don’t believe in the Ark?”

The archaeologist sighed. “Of course not. The story of the Ark was never meant to be taken literally. It’s in the book of Genesis, for God’s sake, and …” He shrugged, as if he didn’t even know where to begin on that one. “This rock, for example. It’s basalt. Volcanic.
Local
. And the Ark—according to the Old Testament—was meant to have set off from Mesopotamia. No volcanoes there. And you’d expect drogue stones to be made out of material from the place the ships set out from, not from where they landed, no?”

Sully asked, “So what do you think they are?”

“Pagan stones, from long before Christianity. There are many of them scattered across Armenia and eastern Turkey. The crosses were carved into them much later, when Christianity took over from paganism. This is where the Christian concept of tombstones with crosses carved into them first started. First with the pagans. Then with Christians.”

“And the holes?”

“Just niches for lamps.”

Zahed scanned the area, then said, “Okay. What about the waterfall?”

“I think I know which one we need,” Sully said. “It’s the only one that makes sense, given that he passed this way.”

IT DIDN’T TAKE TOO LONG for them to reach the waterfall. And an hour after that, they were exploring the ruins of the monastery.

Not that there was much of it left to explore.

After seven hundred years of abandonment, there was little to show that it was anything more than a series of primitive caves, albeit ones with cuboid shapes and with more-or-less rectangular openings in their walls. An infestation of wild grass and thick, tall bushes shielded the ruins from view, and when Sully, Zahed, and Simmons did manage to cut their way through the overgrowth and enter the rooms of the monastery, there was nothing there beyond bare, cold walls and the ghosts of long-faded murals depicting, they assumed, Biblical scenes.

Still, it was in no way a disappointment. They weren’t there to find anything beyond the monastery itself.

They took a breather and huddled on some boulders on a ridge outside, at the head of the steep rocky incline that led up to the ruins. In the late-afternoon sky overhead, a lone buzzard circled around lazily, hitching a ride on a thermal, while down below, the valleys had shifted to a brooding panorama of purples and grays. Sully was using the fold-out blade of his multitool to cut pieces of pistachio
helva
that he was handing out to his clients. His map was back, spread out beside him. He’d already marked the position of the monastery on it.

“So now you need to follow another set of directions from here?” he asked Zahed in between mouthfuls.

“Yes. The directions of a traveler who passed through here in the fourteenth century.” He pulled out a folded piece of notepaper and handed it to Sully. On it were the details of the inquisitor’s journey that Simmons had harvested from the Templar Registry. “We need to find the canyon he was talking about.”

Sully glanced at the sheet, then looked up at Zahed. “What is this all about anyway?” A cheeky grin broadened across his face, like he was on to them. “Are you guys on some kind of treasure hunt?”

Zahed chortled. “A treasure hunt? Do we look like treasure hunters to you?” He turned to Simmons, pointing mirthfully at Sully, shaking his head and laughing off the suggestion. “You watch too many movies, my friend.”

Simmons dredged up a weak laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.

“What then?” Sully prodded. “I mean, why the rush?”

“We didn’t expect to be here. We’re putting the finishing touches to a book about the Crusades, and these graves could prove some knights survived out here longer than we assume, which would contradict things we’ve said in the book. But as we’re on a budget, we can’t stay here forever. We’re due back at the university in two days.”

Sully looked crestfallen. “So there’s no treasure?”

Zahed shrugged. “Sorry. But we’ll be happy to send you an autographed copy of our book.”

“That would be great.” Sully smiled, clearly trying not to sound too crestfallen. He then dropped his eyes to the note Zahed had given him and studied it, his gaze flicking across to the map and back, his mind consumed by the challenge.

After a long moment, he seemed to reach a verdict. “The description is a bit vague to be sure of anything, but given what’s in here … if I had to guess, I’d say they were trying to get to the Gulek Pass, the mountain pass that the bishop also took on his journey north. It was the only way to get across the Taurus Mountains. Which means the canyon he’s talking about is south of here, in this area.” He circled the area he was referring to on the map. “But there are lots of canyons there. I can’t say which one of them it might be, assuming I’ve got the first part right, without making that journey and following in his footsteps.”