The Alchemist’s Code (24 page)

“I saw you in my visions, even before I met you in Zurich. You were wearing a uniform, and your face turned into that of my grandfather. How is that possible?”

As I continued to stare at him, more images gradually emerged. “Hang on, now I understand. They weren't just visions, they must have been memories.”

“That's right, Lorenzo,” said Navarro with a wistful smile. “My face probably remained in your unconscious because you must have seen me a few times in your house when you were little, before I stepped down.”

What do you mean? I don't understand.”

“If I know all of the things I've told you, it's because your grandfather entrusted me with a delicate task. Something that at some point he knew he could no longer carry out himself. That of protecting you.”

“I still don't understand.”

“What do you remember about your grandparents' death?”

“What could I possibly remember? I was a child. I only discovered what happened years later. The car accident, I mean, and the rest.”

Navarro stared at me for a moment, then looked down. “There never was any accident. One day in the early nineteen seventies, your grandfather convened us all and, with a pain I cannot convey, told us that he and your grandmother had to disappear forever for the sake of his family. A disturbing incident had convinced him to make a decision that would change the lives of all of us forever: a series of murders. Three members of the Lodge of the Nine, three of those seven who had survived the mission in Berlin in 1945, and a fourth person connected to the Lodge, were murdered within a few days of one another. They all lived in different cities and very far apart – in Marseilles, Los Angeles, Odessa and Singapore. Your grandfather immediately joined the dots between the murders and knew that someone had come back to track down the Baphomet – someone powerful and unscrupulous, someone who knew the whole story – and that soon they would be coming for him and his family. He had to die, and die in a way that would make headlines so that everyone would know he was out of the way. And so we organized the fake accident.”

I sat there in a daze, shocked at what I was hearing. In a few days, my life, my present and my past had been turned completely upside down. I stared at in disbelief at Navarro for a few seconds.

“How could you keep all this hidden from me? And what kind of lies has my father been telling us all these years?”

Navarro just looked at me.

“You all waited for Bruno to get killed, for me to get kidnapped and filled up what whatever crap they were doping me with, as well as forcing me to stay away from my wife, who is dying.
That's
how you wanted to protect me?”

I was furious, tired and confused, and this nightmare seemed endless.

“I'm sorry—” whispered Navarro, surprised at my reaction.

“You're
sorry
?!” I blurted out, walking towards the table and chairs that were on the terrace. I sat down and buried my face in my hands, devastated. After a moment of silence, I felt his hand on my shoulder and found the solace that I so badly needed.

“Forgive us all, if you can. Forgive us, Lorenzo,” whispered Navarro.

I had no foothold, no more certainties, I couldn't even trust my own memories. Suddenly I felt very alone, and saw in him a friend, even though he had kept me in the dark about everything.

I looked up at him wearily.

“You should have told me the truth, Antonio, you really should.” Then I lowered my head again and sank into silence.

It was he who spoke first. “That toy you mentioned, the one you found in the box – is it a small plastic Spider-Man, by any chance?”

I looked at him in amazement. “How did you know?”

Antonio smiled. “It was me who gave it to you. You were crazy about it and your grandfather knew that. 'I could use it as a key to open Lorenzo's mind at the right time', he said once.”

He paused, and a sad, almost heartbroken expression came over his features, then, gazing over the dark ocean, he went on. “What I did cost me your father's trust. Your grandfather, in fact, forced me to lie in order to implement his plan.”

I listened as he leaned on the railing, as if these revelations were so crushing that he needed a support to cling to.

“Your father trusted me. I was one of the family. And I betrayed him. The grafting of the sequence into your mind took place one summer, in Positano. Your grandfather was already in hiding, so he was compelled to re-appear in secret. You must have been about three years old. I took you to the house I used to rent when I was there. It was so moving when you met again. Although he'd grown a beard and was wearing sunglasses, we could tell from your reaction that you
felt
you knew that old man. Your grandfather could hardly hold back his tears. I introduced him to you as a friend, but you kept on staring at him as though you were trying to dig into your infant memory. You'd always been a very thoughtful, very sensitive boy. The meeting didn't last long, though. It
had
to be short, so that your parents wouldn't become suspicious. I left the room and your grandfather grafted the sequence into your mind. I was sure he would use that toy and, probably through hypnosis, he ordered your subconscious never to forget it. In any case, that was the last time you met him.”

I listened in silence. I wanted to remember that last meeting with my grandfather, but all I had were the Spaniard's words.

“What happened to them? Where did they live? Where did they die? Their tombstones are in the family tomb, but at this point I doubt they're even buried there.”

An expression of pain and regret came over his face. I must have touched a nerve, recalling painful events of which I had been unaware until that moment.

“Your grandmother is buried in the family chapel,that much is certain. We all attended her funeral, the
real
one I mean. Your grandfather organised it, in secret, in a village in the mountains in Tuscany, where they lived until your grandmother's death. Then, still in secret, we moved your grandmother's remains to the family chapel, where a tombstone had already been placed after the fake accident.”

While Navarro was speaking, I shook my head in disbelief. My life had been a lie and I had been treated like a child who needed protecting.

“It's truly incredible what you all did.”

I paused, then went back to staring at the sea.

“Where is he? When did he die?”

Navarro's voice came to me as a hoarse whisper. “We don't know. He never said where he lived. He said it was better for everyone if he didn't. His postcards and letters always came from different mailboxes or addresses. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped calling or writing, and we realized he was dead.”

There was a long, tense pause, then he carried on sadly.

“We don't even have a place to take flowers, just a tombstone behind which there is nothing but an empty coffin. All that's left of him are a few memories, some letters and a few small objects.”

I looked at him quizzically. “And where is this stuff?”

Navarro returned my gaze and then pointed inside the house.

“I keep it all here, in a safe.”

“Then maybe it's time to open it.”

Police reconstruction on the basis of the statement of Anna Nikitovna Glyz

Rome, January 2013

“Listen, why don't we get to know each other a bit better first?”

Anna watched the threatening giant approaching with increasing fear.

“I know that you are a tough nut to crack,” said the old man with the masked face quietly, “but I have no time to lose. Either you tell me what I want to know, or Bastian will get it out of you by force.”

The giant didn't speak, just watched his prey with his thin, icy eyes. Anna felt panic rising inside her, and, her hands still tied, began to crawl backwards along the floor, rummaging around in her mind in search of a solution.

She had already realised that, being tied up, her martial arts skills would be severely hampered, and that if she missed, that beast wouldn't give her a second chance.

She reached the back wall of the room and found herself cornered. She looked up, and saw Bastian's grin flickering in the dark for a moment before, with unexpected rapidity, he tore off her blouse. Just as the giant was about to begin beating her, Anna responded by kicking him in the face, but it was as though Bastian hadn't felt the blow.

“Don't try to resist, darling,” the old man said with a voice betraying a hint of satisfaction, as though he were enjoying the show. “You'll only get him more excited.”

Anna ignored him and tried to slip between the monster's legs, but he was blindingly fast and grabbed her by the belt, slamming her down on her back. The girl let out a howl of pain as Bastian threw himself at her once more.

In that instant, a third man materialized beside the old one and whispered something in his ear. “What? That's impossible! I've always said that German is an idiot.”

Bastian stopped dead. He raised his head and looked at his master.

“Hang on, Bastian!” the old man ordered.

The giant's hand remained suspended in mid-air while his boss got up and walked toward the girl. Anna could better see the mask he was wearing. It looked like some kind of monstrous gargoyle.

“Baphomet—” she thought.

“Your friend has managed to escape again. He seems to have been helped by some local criminals who have shaken off my men. We didn't know he had friends in organized crime. He's quite a character,” the old man said with disappointment, then, with a grin, continued, “any way, my men tell me they lost sight of him at the airport. He was probably bound for Zurich. He's going back to his wife, Miss Glyz. He doesn't seem at all interested in
your
fate.”

Anna merely breathed loudly and looked at him with hatred, while Bastian held her pinned to the ground.

“So, are you still unwilling to talk?”

Anna spat on his shoes.

He shook his head slowly.

“Go ahead, Bastian.”

The last thing he heard before leaving the room were Anna's stifled screams.

Events reconstructed by Lorenzo Aragona

Naples, January 2013

Navarro had carefully kept all my grandfather's correspondence and many other objects belonging to him, including postcards, photographs and books that he had sent him. Everything was filed by year and origin.

“You see? He always used mail boxes. So you could tell more or less where he was, but never the exact address,” he remarked, browsing the letters. Many were from European cities, but others were also from the United States and Argentina.

Navarro's expression grew melancholic as he looked at the old photos. “It was thanks to the books that we started meeting regularly. I had attended some of his university lectures and I invited him to visit my bookshop. He was immediately interested in my private collection of esoteric books, especially those about the Templars. We had long chats about rare books, mysterious authors and flea markets where you could pick up bargains. He was an amateur antiquarian, but he was good at it. We shared similar views on the difficult political situation in Spain. Francoism had reduced the country to poverty and some day it would be better to move away, and breathe fresh air elsewhere.

Our political ideas and our shared passion for esoteric books and antiques strengthened our friendship. One summer's day in 1958 your grandfather invited me to his house. After a delicious Italian lunch, he invited me into his study and told me in no uncertain terms that he was thinking of going back to Italy, which was at the height of an economic boom at the time, and, if I wanted to, I could come away too, at least for a while. He had important connections, he told me, and he could certainly help a bright young bookseller like me to start a new life. I didn't really want to leave Barcelona, but your grandfather's idea was tempting, so I accepted.

Before I left, I told him that whatever he asked me in the future I would do, and that I would be a fraternal friend to him forever. He said, cryptically, that maybe one day I could return the favour, although he hoped with all his heart that there would be no need.

That day did come, however, twelve years later, in 1970, when you were three years old. I'd found a job in Rome, first as an interpreter, then as the owner of my first Italian antiquarian bookshop. Your grandfather had returned to Italy with his family a few months after I left and had settled in Naples, his home town. He'd sold a couple of properties he had inherited there from his mother and bought a chemist's, so your father would have a secure future when he had finished college, and then he took up studying psychology again.

After he and his family came back to Italy, we often saw each other, until, at some point in the summer of 1970, something happened. He just disappeared for a few weeks, then, one day, showed up at my shop. I was very surprised, but nonetheless overjoyed to see him. He looked gloomy, though, and seemed tormented. 'Do you remember what you promised me, Antonio?' he asked. 'Unfortunately, the time has come to help me. I can only trust a few people now and you're one of them'. He told me the whole story, and my life changed again.”

Navarro paused for a moment and sat down at his desk, which was spread with postcards and letters, as though he were burdened by the weight of those memories.

He picked up a photograph of my grandparents and looked at it nostalgically. “So, I came to know about the Baphomet, the murders that had just been committed and your grandfather's plan. I tried to dissuade him, but I knew it was useless. I had come to know him and, although he was a difficult person to read, there was no confusion about certain traits of his character. His determination, above all. 'I have to protect my family, Antonio, and I have to die to do it'. That was his answer. So we organized the fake accident and the funeral, so that it would create a stir and reach the ears of those it was meant for.”