Chapter Three
INSTANTLY ATTENTIVE, Adam and the others leaned in toward the bed. Nathan Fiennes stirred again. His bruised eyelids fluttered, then opened a painful chink, the gaze wandering unfocused.
“Rachel?” he muttered hoarsely.
Suppressing a small sob, his wife bent down and clasped his hand more closely. “I’m right here, Nathan. So is Peter. Larry’s going to be arriving shortly. And Adam—Adam Sinclair. You asked me to call him.”
A crooked smile touched the injured man’s bluish lips. “All here,” he mumbled drowsily. “That’s good. Always nice when the boys come home for the holidays . . .”
Rachel directed a wordless look of dismay toward Adam, who said softly, “This is not unexpected, I’m afraid. It’s very common in the case of head injuries for the patient’s memory to wander.”
“Is there anything you can do to help him focus?” Peter asked. “He was so adamant that Mother call you.”
Considering, Adam gave a cautious nod. “It’s just possible that he might respond to hypnosis, that he’s at least partially aware of his surroundings.”
“Yes, but would it work in a case like this?” Peter wondered. “The surgeon says there’s been localized brain damage.”
“Let me answer your question with yet another question,” Adam said. “Do you believe that your father has an immortal soul?”
The query brought Peter up short. He gave a blink, then said, “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Then believe me,” said Adam, “when I tell you that the true seat of memory lies there, in the realm of the spirit, not in the perishable physiochemical structures of the brain.”
Even as he spoke, the man in the bed heaved a heavy sigh.
“Sure hope this flu passes off soon,” he murmured, his head moving restlessly from side to side. “Promised the boys we’d drive up to Perth . . . all go camping . . . “
Rachel lifted her head, her expression one of anguished tenderness. “He’s talking about an incident that happened nearly twenty years ago,” she said softly. “You remember, don’t you, Peter?”
Her son nodded without speaking.
“Those were happy times,” Rachel said, her voice quivering on the edge of a break. “He’s there now, in memory. Do we have the right to call him back to the present—to the pain, and the realization that he’s almost certainly dying?”
“That’s your decision, of course,” Adam said quietly. “But given the apparent urgency of his request that I should come, I’d like to at least try to question him. I promise you that nothing I intend will harm your husband in any way, either physically or spiritually. Indeed, it may even be possible to alleviate some of his pain, make him a bit more comfortable.”
There was a moment’s silence, broken only by Nathan’s labored murmurings as his mind wandered aimlessly about its chambers of memories. Then Rachel drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders with an air of decision, her hand tightening on her husband’s.
“Forgive me, Adam. I wasn’t thinking of Nathan’s wishes. He’s always trusted you. You must do what you think best. Were I to interfere with this last confidence he wanted to impart to you, I would be less than true to the trust he and I have shared for most of a lifetime.”
Adam smiled gently and patted her hand. “Thank you, Rachel. I know that was not an easy decision. Do you think you and Peter could give me a few minutes alone with him? This is going to require maximum concentration on my part, and the fewer distractions, the better.”
“I think a breath of fresh air might be exactly. What Mother and I need,” Peter said, getting to his feet. “Maybe something to eat as well. Can we bring you anything, Adam? A cup of coffee, maybe? Tea?”
Adam shook his head as he stood. “Not just now, thank you. Give me twenty or thirty minutes, would you?”
“Of course.”
As mother and son left the ICU together, arm in arm, Adam moved closer to the head of the bed and casually drew the curtain partway between Nathan’s bed and the rest of the room, thus shielding them from casual observation by the family gathered two beds down around an unconscious older woman. Nathan was still vaguely conscious, if rambling, but there was no telling when he might lapse back into coma. Adam knew he had to act with dispatch or risk losing what might be his one and only chance to question Nathan and learn whatever it was that the old man wanted him to know.
His action had drawn no untoward attention from the nurses tending patients at the other end of the room. After making an understated show of checking Nathan’s pulse and glancing at the readings on the life-support monitors, he reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit coat and unclipped a small, pencil-sized flashlight. For a quick trance induction, its beam would catch and hold Nathan’s wandering attention far better than the usual, more indirect focus of his pocket watch, and also be less conspicuous.
Leaning in close over the bed, he turned Nathan’s face gently toward him and directed the light first at one pupil, then at the other, beginning a rhythmic oscillation between the two.
“Nathan,” he called softly. “It’s Adam Sinclair. Listen to me, Nathan. Would you look at me, please?”
The injured man’s distracted gaze slowly gravitated toward the light and the sound of Adam’s voice. He blinked twice, then focused with an effort on the strong face beyond the moving light.
“Adam . . . It is you, isn’t it?” he mumbled with a fleeting attempt at a smile. “Always a pleasure to see you. My, but you’re getting grey—but I suppose medical school does that to a man. What can I do for you?”
“Nothing terribly difficult, Nathan. I’ve come to help you.” Adam’s voice deepened slightly as he went on. “I want you to relax. If you can manage it, I’d very much like you to look at the light I’m holding in my hand. Can you see it?” He continued to move it back and forth, flashing it first in one eye, then the other.
“That’s good. Just relax, my friend. Listen to my voice and follow the light. Back and forth . . . that’s right. Relax. Listen to my voice and feel yourself starting to float. Very relaxed. That’s good, Nathan. Tell me, how do you feel?”
Nathan’s pale lips twitched, his eyelids starting to droop as he continued to track the moving light.
“No too well,” he murmured. “Head hurts damnably. Flu, I think . . .”
“No, it isn’t flu,” Adam said softly, his voice taking on a soothing, singsong lilt. “But I think we can do something about the discomfort. Imagine that the pain in your head is like a hat that’s on too tight. Imagine yourself taking the hat off and putting it to one side. Once you’ve taken it off, the pain will ease up and your mind will be clear. It will be like floating on a quiet pool—no noise, no trouble, only peace. Take off the hat, Nathan . . .”
He waited a moment, watching Nathan’s taut face. After a few heartbeats, the trembling eyelids closed and the lines of pain and stress began to smooth out.
“That’s good, Nathan,” Adam murmured, switching off his light and returning it to his breast pocket. “The pain is gone. You’re very relaxed. Tell me, are you floating now?”
“Yes . . . floating . . .”
“Very good,” Adam said. Dropping his voice till it was scarcely louder than a whisper, he said, “Nathan, I want you to picture something in your mind’s eye—a familiar object. It’s a bronze seal engraved with the star of Solomon. Can you see it?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you could. Nathan, there was something you wanted to tell me about this Seal, something you were having trouble remembering. I’m taking hold of your wrist, and I’m going to count backwards from five to one. When I reach the end of the count, I’ll give your wrist a tap. At that moment, the clouds will lift from your memory and you’ll be able to recall the message you wanted to convey to me. Are you ready? Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”
He tapped Nathan’s wrist lightly just below the base of his thumb. The old man did not respond at first, but then, all at once, his whole body stiffened. The eyes opened, but what they saw was not Adam or the room beyond.
“The treasure of the Temple!” he rasped hoarsely. “The Seal guards the secret. Adam, it has to be recovered, do you hear me? The Seal has to be recovered!”
Adam tightened his clasp reassuringly about the older man’s wrist, his other hand brushing soothingly across the forehead. “I hear you, Nathan, but I don’t yet follow you. What does the Seal guard? What secret? What treasure? And what Temple?”
“Solomon’s treasure,” Nathan murmured, “from the Temple in Jerusalem. The Seal came from there . . . part of a sacred trust. Great power and great danger . . . royal legacy of the House of David.”
Beneath his calm exterior, Adam’s mind began to work furiously. What Nathan seemed to be hinting was that the missing Seal was, in fact, the legendary Seal of Solomon himself! Tradition had always ascribed to Solomon power and authority over evil spirits, and Adam found himself wondering if some measure of that controlling influence might have been vested in this Seal of which they were speaking. If that was so, there might well be some who would be willing to steal and even kill to obtain it.
“Nathan, what was the purpose of the Seal?” he asked softly. “Do you know?”
“It was a key,” Nathan whispered. “A key to keep a deadly evil locked away from the rest of the world. But the Seal is only part of the secret. I think . . . the Knights knew . . . the Knights of the Temple knew . . .”
“The Knights of the Temple?” Adam repeated. “You mean, the Knights Templar?”
Nathan drew a labored breath, nodding weakly. “So I believe. The Seal came in pledge . . . Pawned to my ancestor . . . 1381 . . . Graeme of Templegrange . . .”
The significance of the name was not lost on Adam. The appearance of the word “temple” in many a Scottish place name generally indicated that the site had once been associated with the Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem. Indeed, the Templars figured prominently in Adam’s own family history. The ruined tower of Templemor, now being restored on a hilltop overlooking Strathmourne Manor, had once been a Templar outpost.
“Then, you think the Templars guarded this secret?” Adam asked.
“I think so . . . Many connections,” Nathan whispered, his breathing starting to quicken. “I was getting so close . . . Try Dundee . . . Dundee may provide more of the answers . . .”
Nathan’s voice broke on the last word, and his pulse suddenly gave an irregular, ominous flutter beneath Adam’s fingers. In the same heartbeat, the gauges on the monitors beside him came alive with blips and warning lights as the old man’s pulse rate soared. As if sensing that his body was nearing the limits of its endurance, Nathan made a struggling attempt to raise his head off his pillow.
“Find the Seal!” he muttered hoarsely. “Stop those who stole it! The evil they can loose . . . Adam, you must stop them! Please, Adam, for the love of God . . .”
“I understand, Nathan,” Adam said in a tone of quiet authority, gently pressing him back against the pillows and trying to calm him. “That’s enough for now. I’ll do what must be done. You’ve told me what I need to know. Stop fighting now and relax. Stop struggling and be at peace. This need not concern you anymore.”
Under the influence of his voice and the stroke of a soothing hand across his brow, Nathan’s agitation gradually subsided. His pulse rate slowed, though it remained very weak, and the monitor readings somewhat stabilized, but his condition clearly was deteriorating. Nathan had not much time, and Adam knew he must try to ready the way for the soul’s passing.
“You’re doing just fine now, Nathan,” he continued softly, as nurses and an ICU physician converged on them and he fended them off with a glance and a shake of his head. “Let go all thoughts of the Seal. Let go all thoughts of strife. Feel yourself floating without pain now on a tranquil stream. Feel the pull of a gentle current carrying you backwards in time. Somewhere in the past a safe haven is waiting to receive you—a place of gentleness and peace and joy. Find a moment of your own choosing, and say to that moment, Stay . . . And there abide in peace until the door opens into Light . . .”
“Light . . .” came Nathan’s faint and unexpected whisper, hardly more than a sigh.
“Yes, Nathan,” Adam murmured, heartened to have gotten any response at all, and suddenly aware what final thing he still might do, that would mean much to his old friend. “The Light will embrace you and hold you safe. Listen to me now, and try to repeat what I say. This is very important. You taught me yourself. If you can’t speak the words, then offer them up in the temple of your own heart. Shema Yisrael.”
Nathan’s eyelids fluttered, and his hand tightened slightly in Adam’s.
“Shema . . . Yisrael . . .”
“Adonai Elohenu. “
“Adonai Elohenu . . .”
“Adonai Echad.”
“Adonai . . . Echad . . .”
Nathan Fiennes slipped gently back into a coma shortly thereafter, and did not rouse a second time. Though apparently in no discomfort, his vital signs became more and more depressed as the evening wore on. His physicians held out little hope that he would last the night.
His son Lawrence arrived shortly after ten o’clock, white-faced and anxious, fetched from the airport by Superintendent Phipps and McLeod, the latter of whom remained at the hospital to wait for Adam. Nathan lingered until just before midnight, surrounded by his wife and sons and the friend he had called both to witness his passing and to carry out his final wishes. Adam watched over his old friend’s bedside like a knight keeping vigil at the altar, bowing his head when, at the end, a grieving Lawrence pulled a small prayer book from his pocket and began to read, beginning in Hebrew and then shifting to lightly accented English.
“Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One . . . Go, since the Lord sends thee; go, and the Lord will be with thee; the Lord God is with him, and he will ascend.”
As Lawrence intoned the exhortation twice more, his voice choking toward the end, Peter reached across and gently took the prayer book from him, continuing to read as Adam quietly slipped an arm around the shoulders of the younger son in comfort.
“May the Lord bless thee and keep thee,” Peter read. “May the Lord let His countenance shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. At thy right hand is Michael, at thy left is Gabriel . . .”
Adam lifted his head at the recitation of the angelic names, for though the order was slightly different, the calling of the four archangels was common to his own tradition.
“Before thee is Uriel, and behind thee is Raphael, and above thy head is the divine presence of God,” Peter went on. “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and He delivereth them. Be strong and of good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest . . .”
When it was over, Adam spoke briefly with the attending physician, who had slipped in beside him during the final moments to watch helplessly as the life-support monitors faded, then joined McLeod in the corridor outside, to give the family a few minutes alone with their grief.
“He’s gone, then?” McLeod said, as Adam appeared, his tie loosened and his suit coat over one shoulder.
Adam nodded, his expression somber. “I don’t suppose one could wish for a gentler passing, under the circumstances. It was premature, though. He should have been allowed another decade or two, to see his grandchildren well grown and to carry on his research.”
“Well, we’ll see if we can’t find those responsible,” McLeod said. “Did you find out more about this stolen Seal?”
Adam glanced back at the glass-windowed double doors leading into the ICU.
“Yes, I did, and Nathan’s urgency apparently was well founded.” His expression was grave as he drew McLeod farther along the corridor from the nurses’ station, where they would not be overheard.
“I’m afraid Nathan was out of his depth,” he said quietly. “I wish he’d come to me sooner, but I doubt he really knew what he had. He had come to believe that the Seal guarded a treasure or a secret somehow connected with King Solomon and the Temple in Jerusalem. I’m left with the distinct impression that it kept something powerful and dangerous locked away—whether in Jerusalem or someplace closer to home, I couldn’t begin to guess. The Knights Templar figure in the story somehow, perhaps as guardians of the Seal. According to his son, Nathan has a document from the late fourteenth century that’s a promissory note for money borrowed against the Seal by someone called James Graeme. Nathan referred to him as Graeme of Templegrange.”
“Sounds like a Templar place name, all right,” McLeod rumbled. “But isn’t that a little late for Templars?”
“Aye, at least half a century late,” Adam agreed. “But don’t forget that the papal decree dissolving the Order was never publicly proclaimed in Scotland. Even in England, it was months before the authorities made a halfhearted attempt to enforce the decree. This James Graeme could have been a Templar, or a descendant—and Templegrange certainly suggests a former Templar connection of his estate, just like Templemor.”
“But what would Templars be doing with the Seal of Solomon?” McLeod asked.
“Maybe they brought it with them from Jerusalem, when they moved their headquarters to Paris,” Adam said lightly. “I don’t know. For that matter, I don’t know that it’s actually Solomon’s Seal. He also mentioned Dundee, and I also don’t know what connection the Templars had with that. I never had the impression that their holdings were extensive in that area, but I never had reason to investigate specifically, either. I know a lot about Templemor, of course; and there’s the village of Temple, down by Gorebridge, which used to be the main Templar preceptory for Scotland. I don’t think there’s much left standing, though—”
He broke off as a shaken-looking Peter Fiennes came out of the ICU, glancing in their direction and then heading toward them.
“There you are,” Peter said. “I wasn’t sure where you’d gotten to. You must be Inspector McLeod,” he added, offering his hand to McLeod, who shook it. “Thank you for coming along with Adam.”
“I only hope I can help your local police find the culprits,” McLeod said. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Fiennes. I wish I’d known your father. I’ve heard Adam speak of him often, and in glowing terms.”
“You’re very kind,” Peter said, obviously restraining his emotions only with an effort. He returned his gaze to Adam and drew a fortifying breath. “Adam, if you and the inspector haven’t made other plans, I’d be very grateful if you’d both come and stay at my mother’s house tonight. You’d have to share a room, I’m afraid, but I’d feel better if you’re there for her in the morning, when some of the shock begins to wear off.”
Adam glanced at McLeod, who gave a sober nod.
“Whatever you think best, Adam. We have an offer from Walter as well, but it sounds like you might be needed more with Mrs. Fiennes.”
“If you’re sure it won’t be an imposition,” Adam said to Peter. “You’ll have heavy family obligations in the next few days. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“It’s no intrusion, believe me,” Peter replied. “Besides, if you stay at the house, you can start going through Father’s papers first thing in the morning. One always feels so helpless at a time like this. At least maybe something in his notes will help with the police investigation.”