Scriptum
Scriptum (English title: The Last Templar ) is an in 2005 published Thriller -novel by Raymond Khoury .
action
The prologue describes how the Knights Templar lost the final battle for the Holy Land in the 13th century . A few survivors flee the ship on the sea, they carry a mysterious package with them.
Seven hundred years later: a historical exhibition is taking place in the middle of New York . For the first time the Vatican presents precious exhibits to the public. The archaeologist Tess Chaykin is also present with her mother and daughter. Suddenly four riders step in front of the building. The audience thinks the performance is part of the show, but the museum attendant is blocking the entrance. One of the knights draws his sword and beheads the defenseless man. Panic breaks out, the riders storm into the museum and destroy everything. Tess is hiding behind one of the showcases. One of the riders is riding towards them. Apparently he doesn't care about the other treasures, he just concentrates on a strange device. As he holds it in his hands, he speaks the Latin words "Veritas vos liberabit" - the truth will set you free .
The next morning, FBI agent Sean Reilly visits the crime scene. He notices Tess' presence for a moment. Then the FBI's investigation begins. The expert De Angelis is also called in as an advisor to the Vatican.
Tess is also concerned about her private life; she remembers that all four horsemen were dressed like Knights Templar, and the strange little box, the apparatus, cannot get out of her head. She asks a friend for help, who gives her the names of archaeologists who could help her.
Meanwhile, one of the four riders wants to sell his stolen treasures. However, the dealer he offers them to betrays him to the FBI . A trap is set for the man, but he can escape. Reilly and his colleague immediately start the chase, in the course of which the victim collides with a wall and is taken to hospital. He's in a coma for a long time, so the FBI can't question him. By chance, Sean meets Tess in the hospital and she tells him what she has found out so far: She knows that the device was used to encrypt messages at the time of the Knights Templar.
Then the perpetrator, who has just awakened from the coma, is murdered by a stranger. Before that, he reveals the name of another rider to his murderer. The FBI has also already found out that this man, a former police officer , could be involved in the robbery on the museum. Sean arrives too late at the horse farm and the second rider has also been murdered: he was tied up in the open barn door while the barn was burning and was overrun by three fleeing horses, whose only way out was this gate. He too told his murderer another name of the four horsemen beforehand. The murderer does not hesitate long and also kills the third rider, who was warned and therefore cautious, but the murderer was nevertheless successful. The FBI realizes far too late that he too was one of the four horsemen. So one of the four remains and one wonders what exactly he wants with the decryption device , an old cipher machine with four cylinders.
Meanwhile, Tess goes looking for a Knight Templar expert named Bill Vance, whom she knows from before. She meets him in a cemetery he visits because of the fifth anniversary of the death of his wife and child, for whose death he blames the church alone. Too late, Tess realizes that Vance is the fourth knight. He kidnaps her to his hiding place and explains most of the story to her.
Meanwhile, Father De Angelis is looking for Tess. He tracks down Vance in his hiding place. On the occasion, Tess flees and takes some parchments with her that have already been translated with the cipher machine. However, Vance manages to get the papers back, so he pretends to be a friend of Tess' mother and guides her back to him.
Sean succeeds in having the cipher machine rebuilt, and so the FBI can also read the secret writings: it is a letter from the Knights Templar, in which it says that the knights left something on an island in Turkey . Tess, who was involved in the investigation in the course of the story, finds out before the FBI exactly where this island is and wants to fly to Turkey, but Sean intercepts her first. But then, much to the discomfort of his boss, he decides to fly with him.
When they arrive in Turkey, the two set off in search of the village where the package is supposed to be, always followed by one of De Angelis' assistants, who also murdered the other three riders.
Eventually Tess and Sean find out that the valley in which the village was located was flooded when a dam was built and is now under water. They dive to get the package. Upon surfacing, they discover that Vance has followed them, who is taking the package from them: it contains another letter stating that the mysterious treasure has sunk in the sea, hidden in a certain part of the ship.
A sniper surprises Tess, Vance and Sean, but they escape. All three suddenly have to fight for survival together. In the night camp, Vance explains to the devout Sean that all of Christianity is pure nonsense: the treasure would serve to unite Christians, Jews and Islam. Lost in thought, Sean remains behind while Tess and Vance disappear to dive to the sunken ship. Sean would only have prevented them from doing so, because he just wanted to bring Vance back to the USA to have him locked up there.
While the two are on their way to the Mediterranean Sea , Sean decides to go back to the lake to make a phone call. On the way he is intercepted by De Angelis and taken to the Vatican. There it is explained to him what the treasure is about: It is about the diary of Jesus of Nazareth , in which he clearly expresses that he is not God's son . It is now up to De Angelis and Sean to prevent Vance and Tess from finding the diary.
While a big storm is brewing, Tess and Vance's search boat actually finds the sunken ship. Although Vance knows that if he accomplishes his plan, he will die, he orders the figurehead to be lifted. Because he shoots the captain because of it, Tess decides to sink the figure again. The ship capsizes and Tess drifts alone with a life jacket in the sea. The rest of the ship's crew, including Vance, appears to be missing.
At the same time, Sean is on another boat with De Angelis. De Angelis wants to shoot down Tess's boat. Sean prevents this by shooting the priest. Then he tries to save Tess, but faints himself. Tess ties herself to a wooden board with him. They are eventually washed up on a beach together. While Tess quickly gets better, the recovery of Sean, who is in a coma, leaves much to be desired. Tess spends many lonely days on the small island near Rhodes in Greece . She realizes how important belief is to herself.
By chance one day she found the washed-up figurehead on the beach. She worked on them until she released Jesus' diary. On the same day, Sean wakes up from his coma. Tess decides not to tell him anything about her sensational discovery yet. But one evening she does it. She tells him that she wants to burn it. Suddenly Bill Vance reappears. He takes the diary from her and tries to escape, but Sean follows him. He drives him to an abyss. When the individual pages of the book fall out, Vance tries to catch them and falls to his death in the process. The leaves fall into the sea, the ink disappears. Sean gives Tess a single parchment, but she crumples it up and throws it into the sea. The diary of Jesus Christ is thus lost forever, mankind will continue to believe the lies surrounding his legend. But Tess thinks it's better that way. Sean and Tess decide they don't want to part ways for the rest of their lives.
The epilogue - also a flashback to the Middle Ages - makes the last Knights Templar think again that the diary is a forgery that should have served to end the wars of religion.
background
Khoury was accused of not a few critics to numerous story and style elements of Dan Brown and his successful novel The Da Vinci Code from the year 2003 to have served. In Brown there is a series of murders by a murderer who is in the church service, much like the novel by Khoury. Furthermore, the novels have the motif of the search for an artifact from the time of Christ in common, and there are two protagonists in both novels, between whom a superficially described love story develops.
Editions
The original edition was published by Ziji Publishing (initially bound), the German-language first edition was published by Rowohlt Verlag (rororo), the latter only as a paperback.
- Raymond Khoury: Scriptum . 560 pages, Reinbek near Hamburg, Rowohlt, December 2005, ISBN 3-499-24208-7
filming
The novel was filmed as a TV two-parter under the title Scriptum - The Last Templar ( The Last Templar ).
