Read The Templar Archive for Free Online Page B

certain they would have been taking photographs of the entire process, from the moment they uncovered the chests at the bottom of that hole. Don’t forget that Jessop is an antiquarian bookseller. With her academic background and in that profession, she would appreciate the importance of documenting what they’d found, step by step.”
    “So you think they’ve got photographs of the chests, of the patterns in the metalwork?”
    “Of course they have. It’s obvious. That’s not quite as good as having the chests themselves, but it’s the next best thing. Make no mistake, Toscanelli, those two are still in the race, and they will have to be taken out eventually. But right now it’s more important to work out where the trail leads us next, and it’s just possible that they might help us. Unwittingly, of course. I’ve ordered surveillance to be started on the girl, because I think she’s the key, with her background.”
    As Vitale finished speaking, there was a knock on the door and moments later a junior member of the order walked in, carrying a sheet of paper on which was a photographic image and a block of text. He handed it to Vitale, bowed deeply and respectfully, and then withdrew.
    Vitale glanced at the picture, looked up at Toscanelli, still standing in front of his desk, and then read the text.
    “I will still want Jessop and Mallory dead,” he said after about a minute, “but it almost certainly won’t be you who kills them. Or not if they stay in Britain, at least.”
    He turned the paper round so that Toscanelli could see it. “I think that proves the truth of what I said about them earlier.”
    Toscanelli peered at the paper, his attention drawn to the photograph on the page. With a start of surprise, he realized he was looking at a picture of his own face, and the unmistakable background was the wall of the cave on Cyprus in which the abortive quest had come to an end.
    And in that instant he decided that, no matter what Vitale wanted, Mallory and Jessop were as good as dead. He was quite certain that the order’s experts would bemore than capable of working out where they should now be looking for the treasure of the Templars, the relic that had been lost for the better part of one millennium. There was no way, in his opinion, that anyone could reach the right conclusion from just looking at photographs. The clue was hidden somewhere in or on the chests. The order had them, and that was all that mattered. Toscanelli had contacts, and if Vitale wouldn’t send him to do the job himself, he would make his own arrangements.
    “Not only did the two of them certainly take photographs of the chests,” Vitale continued, “but one of them also managed to snap a picture of you in the cave, presumably at the precise moment when you ordered your two men—or to be absolutely accurate,
my
two men—to open the chests.”
    He tapped the sheet of paper. “This has been sent to us by one of our supporters, one of our tertiaries, who is a senior officer in the British police force covering the county of Devon in England. Obviously Mallory and Jessop released this image to the police, and according to this statement you are wanted for questioning about the murders of three Italian businessmen in Dartmouth and another one near Exeter. Apparently the British police have not only your photograph, but a confession to the first three of those killings
in your own words
, secretly recorded by Mallory while you were in the cave, holding him and Jessop at gunpoint and presumably gloating over your own cleverness. Misplaced cleverness, obviously.”
    Vitale stared at Toscanelli, the hostility in his gaze unmistakable. “The only thing—quite literally the onesingle grain of comfort—that you can salvage from this is the fact that the British police still don’t know your name. Though frankly I’m very tempted to put you on an aircraft to London, then tell them who you are and get rid of you permanently that