The Templar Concordat
The idea for the book began to grow a few years ago as news reports revealed more and more about Al Qaeda. What struck me was the fact that it had no national allegiance. It operated outside the established nation state system. Al Qaeda didn't care what the government of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, or Iran thought. It did whatever it wanted, and claimed to be doing it to further world-wide Islam.So, I wondered what things would be like if there was an organization in the West that was also free from the governments of the West. How would they combat Al Qaeda? What kind of scene would play out across the world if that kind of group challenged Al Qaeda without worrying about media, Congressional hearings, appeals courts, public opinion, or the next election cycle?Then I remembered there once was such a Western organization when the Knights Templars were active from 1120 to 1307. They answered to nobody, had the strongest military of the day, crossed borders at will, amassed a huge fortune, engaged in trade and commerce, and financed many of the monarchies.So, why not bring the Templars forward in time, and let some escape the ambush by the King of France and the pope that destroyed them in 1307? And since the Templars were a creation of the Crusades and the Church, let those players come into the present day, too. And the Hashashin, a secretive branch of Islaimi Shiite Islam that excelled in covert operations? Let them escape their destruction by the Mongols in 1275, and come forward to the present day.I also noticed news stories about the discovery of the Chinon Parchment from 1308 dealing with the Templar trials. The document had been misfiled in 1628 and was lost to history until an Italian researcher found it buried in the stacks of the Vatican Library in 2001. So the notion that things could get lost for hundreds of years in a library was definitely reasonable.The result is The Templar Concordat. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Terrence O'Brien