City of Biot, France, 1980
It was past one oćlock in the morning. More than half-a-dozen black cars were scattered around the narrow streets of the city near the little church of Saint Mary Magdalene. All the cars had smoked-glass windows, making it impossible to see who or what was inside. in the cars were men wearing smart black suits and armed to the teeth with a variety of weapons. They were there to protect a secret meeting which was going to start in a few minutes inside the church. everyone in the city was asleep and every movement was careful and silent, so that the people living nearby shouldn´t notice their presence. Two guards watched the inside of the church, controlling the entrance of the members of the group by the back door. every five minutes a car drew up at this door and a person wearing a monkś habit got out. They went to the door and knocked three times at the top and twice at the bottom. it was the sign for the guard to allow them to go in.
As they entered the car drove away. In all, eleven monks entered the church.
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Inside, the monks began to sit down as they arrived. The place was dark and gloomy and there were torches burning on all the columns which supported the roof of the church. The monks didn´t even look at each other, let alone exchange a word. It was totally silent. And then a monk wearing a white habit appeared at the altar.
‘Good evening, brothers,’ said the white monk in accented French.
‘I appreciate your illustrious presence. Brothers, as you well know, today is a very important day for us. For centuries our predecessors waited, and now we have been waiting for this day. our last meeting was thirty years ago and, for some of us, this is the first meeting. As you were told, this meeting was to be in the exact place where our relic is buried - and today is the day that we will unearth it.’
The relic they were to unearth had been placed in that church by the Knights Templar in the fifteenth century, and had been lying there in secret until then. only the family of the grand master, the white monk, knew its exact location. Weeks before the meeting, all the members had received an ancient parchment, delivered personally by trusted messengers of the grand master, informing them. The parchment was sealed with the symbol of the society, which only the members themselves recognized.
Then the white monk went on:
‘Brothers, it happens that our enemies are close to finding this place. so the withdrawal of the relic is more than providential.’
‘Brother, we would like to have the latest news about our enemies.
How did you discover that they were close?’ asked one of the monks in a worried voice.
‘our contact in the CIA is monitoring some of their members, and according to the intelligence report they are already in Marseilles, 42
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searching. They have never been so close,’ replied the grand master.
‘Please follow me down under the church. Come this way.’
The white monk climbed down and walked along the wall behind the altar. In the middle were old wooden bookshelves, practically rotten from the damp in the place. With the help of two of the other monks one of the bookshelves was carefully removed. The floor was of white marble, but it was black from years of accumulated dirt. A guard wearing a dark blue tunic took hold of a pickaxe and looked into the white monkś eyes. The latter gave the signal for him to start breaking the marble in that exact spot. As the guard broke the flooring, instead of the broken pieces of marble staying put or flying into the air, they were sucked downwards. The floor was hollow, in fact it was a passageway. After making a hole about a yard in each direction, they could see iron bars attached to the wall, forming a staircase. The first to go down was the guard. He descended the iron steps carefully, holding a lantern in one hand. When he had gone down about ten feet he stepped on to what turned out to be a wooden trapdoor. he shone the torch on it and saw that it was locked with an enormous black padlock. As the wood seemed old and rotten, the guard raised his head and with a look asked for permission from the white monk to open the trapdoor. Permission was immediately given; and the guard, with a single kick, broke through the wood. The way was clear. he went down another six feet until he could stand on the floor. He shone the lantern round and then began to clear the cobwebs which covered everything.
It was an empty chamber, the walls were made of stone and nothing could be seen except some ancient torches hanging on the wall. one by one the monks climbed down to the chamber, 43
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now fully lit by their lanterns. The white monk indicated the exact spot on the wall that the guard should break. The man set to work at once. Some pieces of stone started to fall outwards, but most of them inwards - once again, the place was hollow. With a great effort the guard managed to clear a passage about six feet wide and four high. The guard was the first to make his way through and behind him went the monks with their lanterns lit. They passed along a corridor about eight feet wide, all of stone, for a distance of about fifty yards. The floor sloped down, so that as they walked forwards they gradually went lower. After the fifty yards they found a bend in the passage, and when they went round it the floor started to fall even more steeply. They went on for another hundred yards or so.
suddenly they came to a huge iron gateway. This time the pickaxe wasn´t enough to break down the gate, and mere kicks were of no use. Then the white monk produced from his neck a piece of string, with two keys attached to it: one of them should open the gate.
They were almost identical and the first one that the monk tried was unsuccessful. The second key fitted perfectly and he turned the lock, opening it. The guard pushed the gate but it was very heavy and the first time he failed to open it. He rested a little, and then with a slightly greater effort he pushed it open. Cautiously he entered the place, keeping his lantern in front of him to avoid any nasty surprises. once again they found an empty chamber, this one a little smaller than the last. The white monk seemed unsurprised and the others, although surprised, were getting used to it.
‘Where should I break now, sir?’ asked the guard, who now seemed a little disheartened.
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‘You don´t need to break any more, just let me past,’ said the grand master, moving ahead of him.
He could see, just above his head on one of the walls, some slightly darker stones. he reached up to touch the topmost of them and gave it a push with his two hands. The stone moved and began to slip into the wall. Noises could be heard as of a gearing mechanism working. The noise stopped and the wall slowly began to move. All of them in the chamber just stared with their mouths open.
‘John, you are to guard the entrance. We will go on alone. Many thanks for your help,’ said the white monk, putting his hand on the guardś shoulder.
‘Brothers, be so kind as to follow me.’
Then they all went through the wall which had just opened. one by one they collected at the other side and, as the light of their lanterns grew stronger, the place was illuminated. It was a great gallery, all made of marble, with wide columns and some stained-glass windows - it seemed like a temple or something similar.
some of the columns held inscriptions in roman lettering and some drawings. The men started walking slowly forward and soon they could see an altar. They went up some marble stairs and were greeted by another iron door. in the middle of the door there was the design of a cross, and on the cross there were twelve locks.
each of the monks carried a key hanging on a string around his neck. This key had been passed from father to son down the centuries. each of the members there present held a seniority within the society which went from one to twelve, with the grand master holding the highest level. The monks removed the black strings from their necks and one by one, starting with the lowest in 45
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seniority, they placed their keys in a certain lock. The movements were synchronized, in that only when a monk of a lower level had turned his key could the next senior monkś key be fitted. Thus the white monkś key was the last one. After he had turned his key, once again a noise was heard from the other side. And when the noise stopped, three of the monks pushed against the great iron door, which opened.
Through the door they could see a small marble room decorated in gold and silver, with some drawings on the wall and some cuneiform inscriptions, a mixture of Egyptian and Sumerian. At the end of the room there was a big stone table and on it were twelve wooden boxes, side by side. The boxes had no locks or any apparent means of opening them. They were covered with dust.
Then, one by one, each of the monks picked up a box. one of them should contain what was known as the Holy Grail, the holy chalice used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper with his disciples, and which had been used by Joseph of Arimathaea to collect his blood when he was crucified. All the monks - important men, businessmen, politicians and even a prince - were the protectors of the Holy Grail and its secret, not of their own choice but because of a legacy passed down from father to son through the ages.
These men were members of a secret society which called itself the Priorate of Sian. The name was no longer of much importance, as they had been unmasked in the previous century. Moreover, others had created secret societies with the same name. however these men were the members of the true Priorate of Sian, created centuries before to protect the Holy Grail and the secret of Jesus Christ on earth.
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What none of the members knew was that the real Holy Grail was not in any of the boxes. One of them contained a perfect replica of the chalice, but the real one had been very well hidden under the control of the grand master since the beginning; it had never been far from his family and would stay near them until the time arrived. everything that had happened that night was only a show, to direct attention away from the real location of the most precious relic on earth. The theater was necessary, for amongst the members there could be traitors, or one of them could let slip information to an outsider without meaning to. The same show had been staged centuries before when the false Grail was buried in the little church. Perhaps at that time some information got out, because their enemies had got very close to the place where the false Grail was hidden. If there really was a traitor in their midst, the whole simulation would not be in vain.
The grand master knew this. The idea was that each of them should keep a box. So, in theory, none of them would know which box the sacred relic was in. In single file the monks left the chamber.
They closed the main door, took the keys back and returned to the church, closing all the doors and passages through which they had passed. When they got back to the church they carried out some society rituals, were informed about some other matters, then embraced each other and left by the back door. each one got into his car, which disappeared into the night. They returned to their own countries, to their homes, where they would conceal the box that each of them had taken, until the right moment came.
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