The Venetian Code: The Vatican Knights, #28

By Rick Jones

In Cana, Jesus performs the first of His miracles that unites the Apostles.

In 1307, a Templar Knight who is on the run from Philip the Fair carries a sacred relic of priceless value.

In Germany, a collector of rare books purchases a tome on the black market that holds the key to finding the Templar treasure and the holiest of holy relics, the Cup of Miracles.

In Dubai, a Russian oligarch hires a team of elite assassins who are former operatives from Russian Special Forces.

Beneath the city of Venice lies a mysterious warren filled with dark secrets. When Vatican Intelligence discovers that a sacred artifact is about to be claimed by a treasure hunter, the Vatican Knights are sent on a mission to stop the thievery of the church's most cherished article. But to reach the treasure, they must solve the Templar riddles that are as deadly as they are complexing while opposing an elite group of assassins, the Russian Spetsnaz. Discovering a hidden entryway inside a church in Venice, the mission becomes clear that the Vatican Knights will be fighting against a double-edged sword with the odds highly against them.

From bestselling author Rick Jones comes the newest installment of the Vatican Knights series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rick Jones
• Release date: Aug 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201857882

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Cana of Galilee

29 A.D.

In the hamlet of Cana, one of several villages in Galilee, a Jewish celebration of a marital union is taking place. On the third day of the week-long affair, the celebrators had run out of wine. But Mary, a peasant girl of tanned skin and raven hair, called upon her son Jesus to help replenish the vats that had run dry.

When she spoke, she did so with marginal insistence in her tone. They have no more wine.

Dear woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied. My time has not yet come.

With a warm smile, Mary knew that she had made her point: Your time is now. After laying a calloused hand on Jesus’ forearm and giving it a slight squeeze, she turned to the servants and said, Do whatever He tells you. 

People were milling about the chamber that was made up of stone walls the color of desert sand and a dirt floor. A round firepit marked the room’s center with a goat roasting over the flames, the beast having been skinned with its meat having a greasy sheen to it.

Crossing the room and moving past the firepit with a clay cup, Jesus came upon six 30-gallon jugs by the entryway. These clay pitchers were used by guests to cleanse themselves in a ceremonial washing before they entered the chamber. When Jesus took inventory of these containers, He noted that the water in each vessel was filthy with floating sediment, this being indicative of Cana’s spiritual dryness, He considered, when wine was a common symbol of God’s bounty and spiritual joy.

Curling the fingers of His hand over the rim of the vessel, Jesus closed His eyes and spoke so softly that He appeared to be mouthing His words. He did this with each vessel and blessed each one separately with the act not going unnoticed by John, who would later memorialize the experience in his version of the Gospel that would mark the first of Jesus’s miracles and the beginning of His public ministry.

With his clay goblet, Jesus dipped it into the clay container and filled the cup. What had once been water had now been turned into wine of the finest quality. And in the eyes of John, this was a true indicator that pointed to Jesus’ divinity.

Having told the master-servant that he could now serve the guests from the jugs, Jesus went to John and proffered him the cup that was a simple molding of hardened clay and nondescript. There were no fancy features or imaginative designs on the misshapen goblet. It wasn’t gemmed with precious stones. It was just . . . a clay cup.

When Jesus smiled, a feeling of warmth eclipsed John. And then, as Jesus pointed to the cup in John’s hand, He said, What you hold is the first of many wonders, John. Use this moment to bring together my disciples. For they shall follow me as I spread the word of my Father throughout the lands. But by this miraculous sign, I have revealed My glory to you and them as the Son of God, so they will put their faith in Him.

On the seventh day as the wedding ended, John, who would bring into line the apostles to follow Jesus after the miracle of Cana, kept the cup as something gifted to him by Jesus as the instrument of His first true miracle of turning water into wine.

Over the years, the cup had been protected by John’s descendants until it ended up in the hands of the Knights Templar, who assured them that the cup would be added to their trove and well-guarded.

Then in 1307, as Jacques de Molay, the final grandmaster of the Knights Templar, was being burned alive at the stake for heresy, the cup, along with the Templar treasure, would disappear.

* * *

October 1307

After Philip the Fair issued an immediate arrest order against all the Knights of the Order of the Templars for heresy, one of the Initiates, Geoffroi de Barres, found himself as one of the few to have escaped Fair’s clutches. A few days after the public execution of Jacques de Molay, de Barres, under the cover of night, found his way to the pro-Templar city of Venice. With his white mantle that bore the red cross pattée having been smudged to mark his difficult flight, he was now on the final leg of his journey as he navigated through subterranean warrens beneath the city. With earthy smells hanging in the air along with a stagnate and humid syrupiness, Geoffroi de Barres moved through tunnels that were heavily fortified with thick timber to support the low-lying ceiling.

As de Barres went from corridor to corridor with a torch lighting the way, he took the shortest distance through this labyrinth after studying the aged maps. In his hand was an article of grave importance that was wrapped inside a bloodied mantle once belonging to his companion who’d been killed during Fair’s captures.

He moved from corridor to corridor with each passageway a facsimile of the other to throw off intruders. Since de Barres had the route imprinted in his mind, his movements were swift and taken with the confidence of reaching his destination. But there were, however, dangerous points and lethal challenges, puzzles he had to decipher to enter the Templar Vault. To reach the chamber, there would be snares he needed to bypass by solving puzzling encryptions along the way to open gateways to hidden passages. These were safety features, like vault doors, that had been built into the tunnel system so that intruders would see these puzzles as unsolvable mysteries that would discourage, if not stop, further movement. But should these enigmas fail to perform as they were meant to do, which was to prevent a breach, then as a recourse, the Templars had devised deadly traps to keep the treasure safe.

As de Barres solved every riddle and challenge, he soon found himself in the final passageway that led to the Templar Vault. In the flicker of the torch’s light, he could see a medieval door that had been crafted from thick planks of wood, black steel bands, and rivets at the end of the corridor. Reaching the door and holding the bloodied mantle close to his body, he pressed a shoulder against the door and pushed until the veins in his neck stood out in cords. As the door started to swing wide on protesting hinges, the sound of their squeals was as unnerving to de Barres as someone raking fingernails along a chalkboard.

Once the door was open, the Knight stepped inside the Templar Vault. Then he swung his torch from side to side to shed its light upon the treasure. There were broadswords and helms from past Templar Grand Masters, all relics from the Crusades when Catholicism was spread by the blade of a sword. Gold crucibles filled with rubies and sapphires. Gemmed goblets made of gold. Holy relics, such as the Golden Shields belonging to Solomon, obsidian chalices, libation cups, and ornate reliquary boxes filled with precious metals and gems.

With the head of the torch leading the way, de Barres made his way to a veined marble podium. Getting to a bended knee and setting the Templar mantle upon the dirt floor as though it was an infant, he carefully peeled back the layers of cloth until he revealed the relic. It was a nondescript clay cup, something that appeared to have no value, yet it was the most priceless of all the items within the chamber. Grabbing the Cup of Miracles with his right hand, he brought it up to examine it. At one time, the cup had been whole. But during its travels over the centuries, it had developed cracks and hairline fissures, the relic unable to withstand the test of time.

Bringing the cup to his lips, he kissed it. There was no special tingle or magical burning sensation in this act of reverence, only the cool surface of a clay goblet. Yet the act in itself, this kiss, was magical in knowing that Jesus had performed the first of His miracles with this simple chalice. Then de Barres placed the cup on the podium and centered it. As he stepped away, he stared incredulously at this display that was surrounded by pyramidal mounds of gold coins and cherished antiquities. And it was at this moment that Geoffroi realized that the cup’s magic had an indescribable value that outweighed anything of worth inside this chamber. 

After making the sign of the cross, the last Templar Knight exited the Vault. As the shadows of absolute darkness eventually eclipsed the Cup of Miracles as the door closed, it would sit undisturbed upon its podium for centuries to come.

CHAPTER ONE

Berlin, Germany

One Week Ago

Maximillian Müller was a billionaire philanthropist who was worth more than ten billion euros. Though he had many interests, he was also a bibliophile who had a taste for owning extremely rare and expensive books. In his library, he had more than 80,000 books stacked upon floor-to-ceiling shelves that were two stories high. To get to the second level, one would have to take the spiral staircase that was crafted from bronze and wrought iron.

In the master bedroom located on the third floor of his estate, Müller had just hung up his silk robe for the night and was preparing for bed when the alarm went off. The keen wailing was ear-splitting, causing Müller to cup his hands over his ears.

After thirty seconds it stopped; the alarm dead.

Müller lowered his hands.

Silence.

Then he went to the comm system on the wall by the bedroom door and pressed the SPEAK button. Hans . . . Gruber . . . Frederik . . . Anyone?

Nothing.

Then he tried again. Hans . . . Gruber . . . Frederik . . . Can anyone hear me?

No response.

After a flurry of obscenities, Müller donned his robe and exited the room. The hallway was steeped in a cold blue light that filtered through the window at the end of the hallway, the moon bright and full. Along the walls were painted portraits of family members with their renderings lifelike and close to the standards of snapshot photography; they were that masterful.

Standing at the top of the semi-spiral staircase that curved downward to the first level, Müller cried out with his voice echoing through the foyer below. Hans . . . Gruber . . . Frederik?

Nothing.

Müller cocked his head from side to side as though his ears were serving him as radar. But in the sense of an oxymoron, he heard only silence.

Taking the steps while tying up the front of his robe, the philanthropist finally reached the vein-marbled flooring of the first level. Above him, a ten-foot crystal chandelier served as the focal point that was suspended by a polished brass chain.

Müller stood and listened.

The house was too quiet, the lack of any sound too unnerving. Even those who served as his protective detail—Hans, Gruber, and Frederik—should be heard ambling about as they performed their rounds.

Exiting the foyer and entering the kitchen, shafts of moonlight entered through the windows to give the area an eerie feel.

Still, he heard nothing which caused the skin on the back of his neck to prickle into gooseflesh, his internal alarm apprising him that something was neither proper nor in its place. Quietly extracting a butcher’s knife from a drawer, Müller pressed on.

He moved from hallway to hallway, the house a labyrinth. When he reached the corridor that led to his beloved library, he saw a light coming from beneath the door that was always locked, even from his detail. 

Firming his grip on the knife’s handle until his knuckles turned white, Müller moved down the hallway with his footfalls soundless against the carpeted floor. 

. . . The door . . .

. . . And the light that spilled into the hallway from the crack underneath . . .

Müller placed a hand on the polished brass knob, which was cool to the touch. And then he turned it, albeit slowly, with the billionaire surprised that it turned fully in his grasp and was not locked. As the door swung wide, he entered the library. He saw the towering shelves filled with books, the spiral staircase, and the leather wingback chairs, though they faced away from him, in the center of the room. 

From the backside, Müller could see an arm resting comfortably on the armrest, though his fingers drummed against the leather in a slow, even rhythm.

Maximillian Müller, a voice finally said. The finger drumming continued, slow and steady. And the accent was something Müller instantly recognized, that of an Eastern European, perhaps Ukraine or Russia, but most likely the latter.

The finger drumming was incessant.

And then the door closed sharply behind Müller which caused Müller to jump.

A man, tall and heavily muscled with a lateral scar running across his simian brow and a shaved head, guarded the doorway to keep Maximillian Müller from escaping. Then with a beefy arm that was the size of a ham hock, he reached out and opened his hand, the gesture telling Müller to hand over the knife. When Müller hesitated, the large man lifted his shirt to reveal a sidearm.

If I were you, Mr. Müller, I would give Vladimir the knife. This coming from the man in the chair. Unless, of course, you want him to take it away from you and then cleave you in half. But Vladimir likes the personal approach with his method to gut his opponent until his intestines uncoil from the belly like garland . . . And then he likes to hang them with it. Inside this library, Mr. Müller, you would hang high. And then: Give him the knife.

Who are you and what do you want?

Give . . . him . . . the knife, Mr. Müller. I will not tell you again.

Müller, seeing the big man holding out his hand, handed over the knife.

As though the man sitting in the chair had omniscient sight, even with his back to Müller, he said, Excellent. Then after a beat, he added, Now, Mr. Müller, you may now approach and have a seat. The fingers stopped drumming as the man sitting in the chair raised his hand and pointed to a seat that was neighboring him. Please.

Müller, looking at the large man, turned and walked towards the man who sat in the wingback chair. As he approached, he stumbled in his gait. Lying in a heap before the man in the wingback chair were the members of his detail—Hans, Gruber, and Frederik—who appeared surprised at their mortality the moment their lives were extinguished. Each man possessed a bloodless bullet wound to the forehead and two to center mass, which was the hallmark trait of a professional assassin.

Honestly, Mr. Müller, said the man in the wingback chair, your detail lacked any class of professionalism. Vladimir removed them easily—almost effortlessly, one might say.

As Müller rounded the chair, he saw a man of equal thickness to Vladimir, though his eyes were as dark and cold as obsidian glass.

Pointing to the seat across from him, the man said, Please, sit. We’ve much to discuss.

I don’t even know who you are.

I said . . . sit. Why is it that I always have to repeat myself with you?

Müller sat down, though his eyes continued to study the members of his detail with horrification. What was most unsettling to him was the locked expressions of disbelief as they registered the last thing they saw in life, which was the point of a gun’s barrel.

Turning away from the grisly sight of the piled bodies, he faced the man in the wingback chair. Why did you do this to them? he asked, referring to his detail.

Is it not simple? They were in the way.

What do you want?

My name, Mr. Müller, is Igor Rabinovitch.

Müller shrugged. Is that supposed to mean something to me?

Not necessarily.

Then why are you here?

After a moment of hesitation, Rabinovitch said, You have a book that I want. And yet, he waved his hand to emphasize all the books sitting on the shelves, tens of thousands of them, "it would be best that you tell me where it is, rather than I waste my