The Templar's Code Read Free Page A

his chest. Shaggy-haired and disheveled, the man looked out of place in the clean-cut crowd.
    “I’ve got some information about the Knights Templar that might interest you,” the towheaded man announced without preamble.
    Removing his fingers from the keyboard, Caedmon straightened, giving the other man his full attention.
    Long years ago, when he’d been a doctoral student at Oxford University, he’d written his dissertation on the Knights Templar, his research leading him to conclude that during their tenure in the Holy Land, the Templars had been secretly initiated into the Egyptian mysteries. To his chagrin, the dissertation he’d meticulously researched was publicly ridiculed by the head of the history department at Queen’s College. Realizing his advance degree would not be conferred, he left Oxford, tail tucked between his legs.
    Whereupon he’d promptly been recruited by MI5, Great Britain’s Security Service.
    MI5 actively sought men like him, defrocked academics keen to prove their worth. Such men made good spies. He’d spent eleven years in Her Majesty’s Service before returning to his first love, history. No longer concerned with how his controversial theories might be received, he’d written Isis Revealed.
    Although he suspected the opening gambit would lead nowhere, Caedmon inclined his head toward the shabbily dressed younger man. “Pray continue.”
    Visibly anxious, the blond man used the ball of his shoulder to wipe several translucent beads from his upper lip. Then, a determined look in his hazel blue eyes, he thrust the copy of Isis Revealed in Caedmon’s direction.
    “Open it.”
    Thinking the impolite command odd, Caedmon took the proffered volume.
    A half second later his jaw slackened as he read the handwritten message scrawled on the inscription page.
    The Templars brought the Ark to the New World in the fourteenth century.
     
     
    I have the proof!

CHAPTER 3
    Saviour Panos opened an oversized bronze door and stepped inside the House of the Temple. In no hurry, well aware that the blond-haired archaeologist was now trapped within the confines of the stone colossus, he stopped at the guard station located just inside the vestibule.
    A green-eyed mulatto, his drab uniform hugging a trim figure, looked up from the book he’d been reading. “Welcome to the House of the Temple.”
    “I am pleased to be here,” Saviour replied in a cultivated accent that had taken years to perfect. He glanced at the battered copy of The Iliad splayed on top of the podium, greatly amused. Beware Greeks bearing gifts. . . .
    “English literature major at Howard,” the other man offered, noticing the direction of his gaze. Warmly smiling, he gestured to the nearby coatroom. “Would you like to check your jacket?”
    “No, thank you.” Saviour returned the other man’s smile. He frequently used his physical beauty to advantage, well aware that one could conquer the world with a smoldering glance.
    Pleased that he’d so easily found his quarry, he stepped into the atrium. No sooner did he enter the dimly lit space than he came to a sudden halt, taken aback by the lavishly designed chamber.
    “It’s magnificent,” he murmured, dazzled.
    Well acquainted with ancient architecture—Thessaloniki, the city of his birth, inundated with churches, towers, and Roman arches—the atrium was wholly different from those grandiose monstrosities. While the expansive chamber with its massive granite columns had the heft and gravitas of a basilica, this was no Christian sanctuary. There were no Byzantine saints casting down their stern disapproval. No lavishly painted enthroned Madonnas. In lieu of the Stations of the Cross, there were bronze medallions with bas-relief symbols. The square and compass. The sun and the moon. The All-Seeing Eye.
    The temple proudly flaunted its pagan origins.
    Beautiful. Erotic. Like a muscle-bound youth.
    Enthralled, he walked toward the center of the room, drawn to the gargantuan