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  Rocko returned with the scotch and four glasses were poured and a toast to Abbey and Stacey was given.

  David then went straight to business.

  “Miss Bec…” She corrected him to using her first name.

  “Ok… Abbey. We have heard the story from Stacey as to what happened, but it’s obvious you are much more than you seem. I like to know who I am dealing with, and whilst I really do appreciate you looking after Stacey and naturally we will compensate you for all your personal loss and contribute to the family of your employee, I need to know who you are and who you work for.”

  Abbey spluttered with laughter on his last comment. Rocko simply looked at Stacey and whispered, “Oh my god she’s chiding him. That’s going to turn him on even more.” It was true Abbey was being incredibly flirtatious.

  “David, you are one very interesting man. I have been reading a lot about you, oh and you too Rocko.” Rocko just smiled through the side of his mouth as if to say ‘yeah yeah…’

  “Yet you are really quite serious, aren’t you? OK I know you guys are good people. I’ve had you checked out and Stacey is a gem… totally Lakkha as we would say. I’ll level with you. It’s not something I choose to share these days.”

  Abbey went on from the beginning telling the team her real name was Abigail Beckingsale, yet she always found that so formal. Her father was in the South African SAS (Special Air Services). He was essentially the top commando in the nation and as a young man he fought missions on the South African borders and in Zimbabwe. He also fought for the British in the Falklands War and on special loan to the British during their troubles with the IRA in Northern Ireland. As a child she had been on base with her mother and her brother. Her brother was always a clumsy one but right from under age ten she showed an aptitude for war, weapons and the martial arts, having done Kung Fu initially from age five.

  When she was in her teens the army was taking women for the first time into front-line combat. She joined up and steadily rose through the ranks becoming a captain by age 19, then she was invited into the SAS and actually did some undercover work, because of her beauty and lack of standard SAS appearance. She retired from the army in her late twenties and had done mercenary work in a variety of places globally since, and in the last two years, aged now over thirty, she had decided it was time to live the life of a woman, before she lost her youth. The three listened in earnest.

  “So you are a born killer?” David said, winking at her. “Where did all the money come from? I guess this place is worth more than a few bucks even here in South Africa.”

  “My grandfather was very wealthy. He too was a sort of mercenary. He was invited to become a Rhodes Scholar at Cambridge University, but that turned him against the system. In fact he became a spy in the Second World War, working on the side of the British in Germany and Russia. Let’s just say, he learnt to be well paid and that gene has filtered through to my father and to myself, but unfortunately not my brother.” She smiled at Stacey, who blushed.

  Rocko decided it was time to chime in. “So this stuff is stolen from rich douche bags who didn’t deserve it and were probably pretty bad people. I can live with that. I noticed some Egyptian relics in the foyer. Who’d you steal those off?”

  “Ha ha, Mr Rocko. Stacey said you were a laugh. None of them are real. They were, but we don’t collect old artefacts that are priceless and hide them away. Anything we have obtained we have taken to a variety of museums and set up trusts. However… we did get them copied, it’s sort of like a trophy cabinet of fake trophies.” The group laughed and Rocko got up and started poking around a variety of art pieces laughing and cracking jokes about each one amusing himself.

  David brought the group back to order. “Thanks Abbey. Not only did you save our favourite girl here. I believe you. You are a good person.”

  “Hot, you mean,” chimed Rocko.

  Abbey threw a pillow at him in fun and then Stacey chimed in.

  “Abbey has allowed me to work from here. Due to her work she has military encoded Internet and I realise I was a bit lax with my laptop. Obviously this thing I have been researching for you is more important than we all think. I haven’t been totally idle, so let me tell you what I have found. Did you know why Columbus tried to find America?”

  “No I don’t,” said David. “But let’s get another Scotch and hear what you have turned up.

  Stacey told them all about her deeper and deeper search into the hooked X. Her contact at the Vatican archives had been very quick to say he couldn’t help, which made her wonder, yet she had also studied with a girl who was now a mum in Edinburgh and was the part-time researcher and counter girl for the Grand Lodge of the Freemasons in George Street.

  Through a combination of different sources and following leads, most of which came to nothing, Stacey had put her time in well as the boys were flying in from Asia.

  As they already knew the Templars had been rounded up in 1307, with their leader Jacques De Molay being finally burnt at the stake in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1314. In the seven years in between it was cited that the escaping Templars went to all corners of the globe to hide a secret they had sworn to protect: the bloodline of Christ. The symbol of this was a hooked X, X marks the spot. The Templars that went to America had stayed for what was thought to be only seven years and then they returned to Scotland and took up arms with Robert the Bruce winning the freedom of Scotland forever and finally settling there, disbanding their order and within 100 years creating freemasonry. Yet Stacey had found that some of the Templars had not left the USA, they had left clues to who they were including the hooked X carved using Nordic runes in the fashion of the Viking brothers of the Knights of the North, who founded those lands after being hunted there by the Mongols and tribes of the east many years before.

  Stacey had asked Rocko what he remembered of the ships of Columbus – the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Rocko of course knew nothing. If it wasn’t alcohol, a steak or wearing a skirt he was unlikely to remember it.

  “Columbus’ ships flew under the Templar flag, Rocko,” said Stacey.

  She handed them printouts of drawings of the ships and there it was, the Templar flags as big as Texas right on the mainsails.

  “But that’s not all,” she went on. “Look at this.”

  She handed them copies of Christopher Columbus’ signature. Within this signature and for no explainable reason was the hooked X.

  “Columbus was a Knight Templar,” said David “Of course, that makes sense. He wasn’t trying to find the great America for any other reason. Queen Isabella wouldn’t have funded that quest. There was a bigger incentive. He was sent to find the others, their descendants and the bloodline.”

  They all looked at each other. Stacey went on.

  “There was a Nordic rune stone found near the great lakes in Wisconsin. It’s called the Kensington Rune stone and it dates to 1364, that’s 128 years before Columbus. Farmers found it over a hundred years ago. This rune stone tells of a group of people on a land grab… in 1364. It says they were Nordic and that some of the group were killed and the others were to flee to the great lakes and out to sea. I think that’s what they did.”

  David scratched his chin and everyone in the room looked at each other for council. Finally it was Abbey that spoke.

  “So you think someone killed my beloved Socks and tried to kill Stacey to stop you from discovering the bloodline of Christ, on some wild goose chase from 700 years ago? Honestly if I found out Rocko here was a direct descendant of Jesus I’d pat him on the back and get him to turn some water into wine, but other than that, what difference does it make?”

  David smiled for a moment and then quipped. “Well if any of us are likely to be Jesus it will be the big guy. Chances are in 1st-century Jerusalem Jesus looked more like a kebab salesman than the Brad Pitt poster boy looks we know of him. Rocko fits the bill perfectly.”

  The group laughed out loud. Stacey waited for them to regain c
omposure.

  “In many respects Abbey is right. Obviously there is the Church who would not want people to know Jesus had children, but it’s always about money and power, so the question is who is behind the Church with money and power?”

  Rocko decided it was time for him to chip in. “Ultimately the Catholics have all the money and power they need, but if you go by those two clowns that came after you, that seems to me to be textbook German or Eastern European work. These guys were not military. If so they may have acted a little differently and they obviously wanted to be discreet, taking out our eyes and ears and making it look like an accident. Hell, they had an almost untouchable confidence because they knew they were going to do it in front of both of you. Why not just shoot the three of you and dump you at sea? No… they were prepared to go through all the police checks and questions. In fact they wanted to, so they could be model citizens and keep their order quiet. These guys have got balls and brains and reach. Whatever we have it will be linked to money and power. I’m starting to think my little friend in Malaysia taking photos in that restaurant may just have been part of this. They want to know who we are, and we are closer than what we think, but to what really? That’s the question.”

  “Rocko is right,” David summarised. “Someone had us under surveillance and decided to step the game up. Now they know we know and that makes this game so much more dangerous. We have to find out more and fast. We need to cover our tracks and we need to buy time. They will know we are here with you Abbey, they will know their hired hands have not returned and that will piss them off. We need to get that jet of ours in the air, without us. Send them on a bit of a goose chase, while we plan what to do. Abbey… how safe is this place?”

  Abbey smiled wryly at David. “So safe David that even you would struggle to get into my bedroom.” David found himself blushing at Abbey’s forwardness. Rocko simply rolled his eyes and poured another scotch, this time doubling the portion.

  “David,” Abbey spoke seriously now, “this place is quite well fortified. By now they will know who I am as well. I need to lock down my family and this place. You all will be safe here for the moment. I’ve had to do this before. You could almost say my family is a little used to it. Quite exciting really.”

  “Ok then, it’s done,” said David. “We will stay here. Rocko, you and I better do a quick false exit at the airport and get that plane off at least to Port Elizabeth or somewhere close by and buy ourselves a day or two to rest up and strategise. Time to get back on that laptop, Stacey.”

  And with that the boys stood up, embracing the girls and walked straight out the front door, up the stairs and into the hire car.

  12

  William Chant III, or as was his original birth name Chantkje, looked out of the window of his Manhattan office. His gaze across the Hudson to the Brooklyn side always reminded him of those who worked for him and how the other half lived. Something he had never had to worry about. His birthright would also be his legacy and his role was custodian of one of the most sizeable empires on Earth. Born in 1941, he was a 12th-generation child of the wealthiest family on the planet. In fact his arm of that family comprised number five in the thirteen that ruled the banking system, pharmaceutical companies and even the religion chosen by most Westerners. William had a charmed life, but had been brought up in a post-war Jewish home in Berlin. His father had been the chief adviser to Adolf Hitler. Hitler came to power funded by the great pharmaceutical companies of the time, and was himself an addict, becoming that from simple experiments completed on poor children from Austria. Chant’s father was assigned to Hitler as his mentor on many things, especially his hoarding of the great wealth of Europe. Hitler too was of Jewish roots and enjoyed his arms funding from one of the great American banks set up by Chant’s father and some leading American politicians who were linked.

  Chant’s office resembled an art gallery. The roof was high off the ground, some 13 feet. The walls were adorned with works from Picasso and Dali, his personal favourites, and there was his priceless Egyptian settee, which had gone missing from the Tutankhamen collection almost 50 years before to be replaced by a solid forgery that is still looking good. He still admired that settee, yet no one except the elders was ever to sit on it.

  Why not, he thought. After all, most of the priceless items of the Louvre and other distinguished museums were now in both his home and homes of the other twelve heads of families, replaced by exquisite copies, but copies none the less. This was the way it should be. They had the right to everything that was beautiful on Earth, at least that was what Chant thought.

  He had only heard a few hours before of the failure in Cape Town. That failure was unexpected. Two of his best men, proving their worth after years of training, failing against what seemed to be one determined woman. He never understood determined women, as he had never had one that would prove to be anything except a doormat or bed partner his whole life. Now at over 70 years of age his impotence simply reminded him that he was human, an awful thought, and of course he would never take any prescription from any of his drug companies. To do so was a sure recipe for an early death. Longevity was a birthright, his father living to nearly 100 years of age.

  A knock on the door changed his brooding. He turned and adjusted his toupee in the mirror behind the door. The advantage of being the wealthiest individuals on Earth was that you could afford the best craftsmen. Even his private secretary, a woman who had been with him over twenty years, had no idea it was a wig. It retained some of his youth, yet there was no doubt as he caught his wrinkly face with its drooping jaw and liver spots clearly on its temples that he was an old man. He had progressively greyed the wig to ensure it wasn’t comical. His weight was fine and he wore a suit well still. Grey pinstripe as it had been all his life. His personally tailored shoes and clothes made him look immaculate and he ensured he changed them all three times a day to retain that crispness that people loved. He rarely saw many people, however. He kept as low a profile globally as possible. His law firm operated on the floor below. He himself had never actually practised the law. It was simply another sham and front.

  “Come in,” said William Chant III

  The door opened and in came his secretary, who looked more like a beaten mouse than an assistant to one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet.

  “Mr Chant, Sir, Mr Leon Gills is here.”

  “Bring him to me,” said Chant, more like addressing a naughty child.

  Leon Gills had nervously waited in the outside office for nearly twenty minutes. It was his first day as CEO of the bank, a job he had wanted since he joined the bank in 1990 and early on in his career became the junior assistant on the trading floor to a young Rocko Rizotto. Leon was now in his mid-forties, yet by all accounts had risen fast through the bank. Even though he had the job he had always wanted, there was something different about this job, something that unnerved him. He almost felt a bead of sweat trickle down his balding head. He prayed that it wouldn’t.

  Athletic and tall, he was in good shape and he knew his job. The bank had not seen very good years under the custody of his predecessor and he had plans and a strategy to make it again not only the biggest bank in the world, but also the best and most profitable. Today he was to meet the board. The Chairman, William Chant III, had requested it be in his office and not the boardroom. Chant always unnerved him, yet the three other board members he knew reasonably well having met and socialised with them many times over the years. Katarina Hogg was a hotshot barrister from Chicago who had made millions by age 30. Dermot Brannigan was an Irishman who came off the streets of Dublin to succeed to the top of Lloyds’ bank and then retired to the USA, and Pascal Levin was an ex venture capital expert who funded Microsoft in the initial stages, then Google and most recently Facebook. Along with himself and Chant they were the board of the biggest bank on the planet and he was about to address them for the first time as CEO. He was nervous yet he was well prepared, although for weeks now he had been l
ooking over his shoulder feeling that he was being watched. Maybe that feeling came from the millions of shareholder eyes that would now be upon him. He snapped to, when Chant addressed him.

  “Leon, welcome,” Chant said with unceremonious blandness. “It’s time to meet the board.”

  Chant walked to a door at the side of his office opposite the incredible view over the Hudson and threw it open. Moving aside so Leon could enter, Leon stopped dead in his tracks. There were not the other three board members he knew. In fact there were a dozen others he did not know. All of them old men, all Chant’s age or older. He stared in disbelief. Maybe he knew one of them, but from where.

  “Come on Leon, surely you are better prepared than that.” Chant’s old man voice hinted at a smirk.

  Leon walked in and went to introduce himself to the first person sitting in front of him around a big boardroom table.

  “There’s no need for that – sit!” barked Chant.

  Leon could not hide that trickle of sweat any longer. He pretended to brush his diminishing hair and wiped it away. He sat.

  Looking for some sort of friendliness he turned to Katarina Hogg. He had always enjoyed the confident woman’s energy. She had liked him and they spoke intelligently and friendly to each other in the past. Hogg did not take his gaze. Her face was vacant and eyes down toward an empty boardroom table. It was then he realised that nothing was on the table. No notes, no coasters nothing, except a TV remote for the video conferencing system. He looked to Levin who also turned away, looking at a spot on the wall.

  “Let me introduce you to the way this works,” said Chant with a smile disguised beneath his well-practised lips.

  He picked up a remote and the screen at the far end of the table came to life. Everyone turned their heads to it. No one spoke.

  What Leon Gills then experienced for the next two minutes in deep silence changed his perspective and life forever.