The Templar Legion by Paul Christopher Read Free Book Online Page A

mausoleum?” Peggy said, frowning. “That’s a bit icky, don’t you think?”
    “From what I can tell he probably lived here,” said Rafi. “The mausoleum is in the same style as the Coptic monasteries around the lake, so presumably he paid local builders and quarrymen to put it up, building it to his design. The same holds true for the sarcophagus; it’s a European tradition reserved for emperors. Most burials here are much simpler affairs—a mummified body is stacked with dozens or hundreds in a church crypt or a cave. Roche-Guillaume clearly designed the sarcophagus and may even have overseen its construction.”
    “And the interment?” Holliday asked.
    “Bought and paid for. Most likely a hired priest from the monastery at Tana Kirkos, the big island I pointed out to you on the way here.”
    “Once again, ick,” said Peggy. “Paying that much attention to your own death. It’s just a little bit obsessive-compulsive, don’t you think?”
    “I don’t know,” said Holliday, looking at the mural. “He visualized paradise and made sure he’d spend eternity right in the middle of it.”
    “The mural’s no vision,” said Rafi. “It’s a real place. Ten degrees, twenty-eight minutes, thirty-six seconds north by twenty-three degrees, seventeen minutes, forty-eight seconds east, to be precise. The exact location of King Solomon’s Mines.”
    “You’ve been there?” Holliday asked skeptically. “Maybe Roche-Guillaume went looking, but this isn’t done from life,” he said. “It’s a dream, Rafi. He smoked too much local weed, which I understand Ethiopia is famous for. It’s like Coleridge and the Ancient Mariner—a drugged-out fantasy.”
    “How do you explain the diamond?”
    “He bought it from someone who thought it was worthless. It was a souvenir, like one of those pennants that says, ‘Come to Cleveland,’ on it.”
    “Look,” said Rafi, gesturing to Holliday, then stepping over to the wall. He dug into his pocket, took out his Swiss army knife and pulled out the large blade. He began digging into the plaster at a point where the side and front walls of the little mausoleum joined. The plaster was at least half an inch thick and it took a little time but eventually he removed a two-by-two-inch square. He stepped aside and let the weak sunlight play on the exposed surface.
    It glittered.
    “What the hell?” Holliday said, stepping closer. Instead of the brown basalt stone he’d expected, the little patch was a rich, buttery yellow. He reached out and touched it with the pad of his index finger. “That’s crazy,” he whispered.
    “No,” replied Rafi. “That’s gold. Ninety-nine nine pure. I had a few slivers assayed in Jerusalem. All four walls, the ceiling and the floor. This whole place is lined with solid gold almost an inch thick.”
    “Where on earth was it smelted?” Holliday asked. “He didn’t bring sheets of it out of the jungle.”
    “It’s in two-by-eight panels, heated and welded together. I found a slab of basalt that was used as the form for pouring the sheets buried in the jungle just beyond the clearing.”
    “And he kept all this secret?”
    “Apparently.”
    “This is an incredible find, Rafi. Why haven’t you said anything or published?”
    “The country has been on the verge of another civil war for years. Unstable isn’t the word. The Ethiopian government isn’t big on protecting its cultural heritage and it’s as corrupt as most bureaucracies. If word of this got out the place would be overrun and gutted within days if not hours. At the very least it would be turned into a tourist trap. As a site for serious archaeological work it would be ruined. I can’t say anything, not yet anyway.” He paused. “And there’s more.”
    “More?” Holliday said, dumbfounded.
    “How’s your Latin?”
    “Still passable,” answered Holliday.
    “Read the inscription on the sarcophagus.”
    “What inscription?”
    “Just under the overhang of the