Let us do something, while we have the chance.
Just something for the fun of it. Hope you enjoy. I don't own Warehouse 13.
"What really matters is what you do with what you have."
- H. G. Wells
Part II
Chapter 2—Old Stories
Philadelphia
Claudia had walked over to the wall display in John's underground office. She had expanded the view in the area of Artie's Farnsworth. Then with overlaid satellite map, she could see where the signal was coming from, the ocean beside Italy. "So, the phone is on a boat or ship off Salerno, Italy? What can we do about it?"
"I got some old buddies that were Seals," Pete began.
John held his hand up for Pete to stop. "I know these waters. We had to study them for the landing."
Pete had heard enough from Claudia and Myka to know that John was actively fighting the Nazis in WWII. It made sense that he could have been in the landings at Salerno. He had remembered some of it from his training, "So, were you with the 5th Army?"
"No, I was assigned to the Rangers and Tim Crotchet was with the British Commandos. We spent hours going over everything about the harbors and currents." John added.
Claudia remembered looking up Tim's information. He was a Warehouse agent also and John said they were partners. "Both of you went to the landing at Salerno? Okay, there has to be more. What was happening?"
John smiled at Claudia. She was right again. She really did have potential. "We had finished our job in Africa. There we were retrieving Hannibal's Tusk. One of those war artifacts that when used properly causes the opposing force to turn and retreat.
"For Salerno we were initially scheduled to go in with the airborne units. By the time they were thinking of the drops near Rome, we had switched to the Rangers and Commandos. The thought at the time was that with the two of us in different landings one of us would make the objective. The backup was an OSS agent at Naples. Bernie Rogers was his name. We never did hear what happened to him but he did not make it."
John saw that they were interested. He enjoyed telling a good story, so he continued. "We did not know what kind of opposition we were going to receive. Our intelligence at the time gave us reports that the 16th Panzer Division was in place at Salerno. We continued to be appraised at the opposing deployments. We landed on the ninth of September. There was no opposition at the beach. We landed to the west of Salerno at a little town called Maiori. Tim and the Commandos landed over near a town called Vietri sul Mare. They had no opposition either. As fast as we could we moved up the pass north of Maiori.
"We were about a mile up the pass when we came under fire from two emplacements. Fortunately we got support from HMS Ledbury. We will able to direct their fire to the opposition and made it to our objective at the top of the pass. Tim and his unit were able link up with us and get to our objective. It overlooked Naples. His unit had no problems either. One of the Commando units did encounter a recon element of the 10th Panzers." He paused and got a drink of coffee.
Pete asked this time, "But that wasn't why you were assigned to the Rangers and Tim to the Commando's. What were you after?"
"While it was an honor to be with the Rangers and Commandos, we were there to link up with Bernie and extract a few artifacts from near Naples. We waited a day at the designated point. He did not come.
"Tim and I worked our way down the mountain pass toward Naples and got to a mausoleum at the foot of the mountain. At the back of the mausoleum there was a tunnel. The tunnel led into the mountain. It was a sizeable cave that had been carved out of the rock. There was a chapel area and several separate tombs. Our job was to find one special tomb. It was Sir Edward Philo Molay's resting place. We believe he was one of the original Knights Templar and a Crusader. His resting place contained a shield and sword. They had been used by the Medici to help consolidate power."
Myka was aghast, "They put something so powerful back in its original place?"
"Remember, hiding something in the open?" John saw her nod her head, "Well, this was the first of my classes on the effectiveness of hiding something in the open. The shield and sword had been in the tomb since the early 1700s. Before that it had been taken out and used at least four times. Each of those times could be traced to historical records. Those records take it all the way back to the date when Sir Edward would have been traveling back to Rome and died in 1157 just outside of Naples.
"Even though we knew the general inscription on the front of the shield we almost missed it. It was not in Sir Edward's tomb but clearly displayed in the chapel. And we were counting our blessings. We knew of the existence of the shield and sword since the beginning of the war. We had indications of it being in mausoleums scattered throughout Europe. It wasn't until we got a copy of a letter from a Sicilian monk that we knew that it was the real mausoleum." John concluded.
Claudia slumped in her chair, "So, let's see the next part is that the shield and sword are gone. They were a part of what you and Tim were guarding." She paused, "Something is missing, right?"
Pete looked at her, "Of course, something is missing. The shield and sword are missing."
John smiled, "No, she is right. You can't activate the shield and sword without this, the monk's letter."
Myka joined back in, "Okay, another missing artifact, an important one, but another missing artifact. What does that have to do with Artie and Mrs. Frederic?"
Claudia smiled, "Because they are headed back to the mausoleum."
"That's right. The letter contains the symbol to activate the artifacts, and so does the mausoleum," John replied. "We'll make arrangements to go to Naples."
"Ah, a little pasta and some wine, how sweet is that," Pete smiled as he swiped his mouth.
"Pete," Myka began trying to get his attention, "Pete, we are going over there to get Artie, not spend all our time in their restaurants."
"What? Just saying, we have to eat sometime," Pete shrugged his shoulders.
A/N Please review.
Couple notes: Big Thanks to KJay99 The T-shirts from the Christmas special are for sale at the NBC Universal Store
www. nbcuniversalstore. com/detail. php?p=289491&icid=xsell (when you use this, you'll need to backspace at n, c, and p to eliminate the spaces)
Hope everyone has a Great Christmas.