The Alchemist’s Code (32 page)

Oscar gestured to me to play along with him.

“All right, go on,” I said.

“Last night I found an empty box that I thought contained the Baphomet, but the fact that you are in Rome makes me think that perhaps that joker, your grandfather hid what we are looking for here so as to save his nephew the trouble of travelling far.”

“Yes, I have found something.”

“Ah, I see that we are beginning to understand one another. What have you found?”

It was clear now that I couldn't lie.

“The keys.”

There was a moment's pause.

“All of them?”

“I've got four in total.”

Good, very good. Anything else?”

“N-no, I don't know where the Baphomet is and I have no other clues for finding it.” I lied.

Raymond paused again. “Oh, no, I sense that you are lying. But I want to be generous. I'll tell you what: I will give you three hours to clear your mind and collect some more valuable information for me. If in three hours, when I call you back on this number, I sense the same hesitation, I'll begin to butcher your beautiful friend and meanwhile I'll set off my explosive device.”

He hung up without another word and immediately afterwards Oscar received an MMS. The phone number from which it came, the same one from which Raymond had called, was, of course, encrypted.

Oscar opened the video, and we saw the chilling scene of Anna, being slapped and kicked.

We looked at one another, horrified, and we stayed silent for a few seconds.

“Bastard,” I whispered.

“We must stop him and figure out what he's up to. If this is the killer known as the collector of ears, his return is part of a plan which originally began in the nineteen seventies, and perhaps long before.”

“He talked about a bomb,” I muttered, the images of Anna still haunting my brain, “I don't know if we should believe him or not, but—” the sentence hung on my lips as I stared into space.

“What is it? What's the matter, Lorenzo?”

“Oh my God, the international summit on human rights! The one that's taking place tomorrow in Rome, do you remember?!”

Oscar turned pale. “Yes, Father Palminteri mentioned it, he's even one of the organisers.” He paused.

“You don't think that—”

I frowned and, following a sudden intuition, turned to Sean Bruce, who had been staring out of the window in a catatonic state all this time.

“'The priest knows where it is'. That's what old Sean said, isn't it? Was he talking about Father Palminteri?”

“It wouldn't surprise me – that priest knows much more than he appears to.”

“And he could also alert the security at the Rome summit,” I added. “I imagine he's taken seriously there, they'll believe him.”

“You're right, it's going to take someone who carries some serious weight to get anyone to believe a story like this,” said Oscar.

“I'd say we know how to use these three hours, then. Let's find Father Palminteri. This time he'll have to tell us more.”

*

Oscar turned on the flashing blue lights and siren on his car to clear a way through the Roman traffic. There wasn't a minute to waste, every second was precious, and we only had two and three quarters hours left to contact Father Luigi, fill him in on what had happened and provide Raymond with a satisfying answer. Not enough time. Of course, we also wanted to know what had happened to Navarro, but things were getting out of control quickly. We would deal with that later.

Fortunately we managed to convince Josè Ferrer, the young Chilean seminarian, to come with us, in the hope that it would increase our chances of being able to speak to Father Palminteri.

We raced through the traffic we found on the short trip to the Vatican, crossed Piazzale degli Eroi and headed quickly for the Holy See, parking in an alley in Borgo Pio and briskly making our way to the entrance in Via di Porta Angelica.

Josè couldn't get hold of Father Luigi, whose phone was either off or unreachable, and the receptionists at the Vatican refused to put us through to him. Our only chance, therefore, was to go there and look for the priest in person.

We spotted the blue uniforms of the Swiss guards standing at the entrance to the gate. Josè showed them his seminarian student's badge, and the guards made it clear that only he could enter. For the duration of the international summit there was a large red zone with the Vatican in the middle. In order for the boy to be taken seriously, Oscar came up and showed his police badge.

Upon hearing Josè's words and at the sight of Oscar's badge, the young Swiss guard's face grew grave. He went into his small office and called someone on the phone.

“The police are coming to pick you up to take you to Father Palminteri,” he said, coming back to us, and a few minutes later a black Alfa Romeo arrived at the gate.

Two men climbed out of it, one wearing a black suit and the other in the blue uniform of the Vatican police. The one in black walked over to the Swiss guard and then to us. “I am Captain Rocco Barucci of the Vatican police, please tell me what the problem is.”

Oscar's eyes, burning with determination, never left Barucci's. “I'm Commissioner Oscar Franchi from the San Ferdinando station in Naples. Captain, we've asked to speak with Father Luigi Palminteri, father general of the Missionaries of the Temple of Jerusalem—”

“I know perfectly well who Father Palminteri is, Commissioner,” replied Barucci curtly.

“Why are you looking for him? What are you doing here, so far from your jurisdiction? The Swiss guard spoke about a matter of the utmost urgency.”

Oscar decided he had to turn up the heat. “Captain, it seems there is a madman intent on setting off a bomb in a crowded part of the city. This person has made some demands and perhaps Father Palminteri can help us.”

Barucci stiffened and his face became ashen for a few seconds, then he seemed to recover.

“First of all, Commissioner, Rome is not the Vatican. If this individual has mentioned Rome, then you must speak to your colleagues in Rome. Tomorrow an international meeting is taking place and we've already had dozens of threats—”

“Chief, please take what I'm saying seriously,” Oscar said. “The threat is real, believe me. All I'm asking for is to talk to Father Palminteri.”

Barucci sighed, then gestured to the officer who had come with him and ordered him to get another car.

*

Within minutes we were in front of the Governorate.

Barucci let us in and told us to wait in a small room.

“I hope you're not simply spreading unnecessary alarm, Commissioner. That would be extremely unhelpful.”

“Quite the opposite, though I wish I was,” came Oscar's tart reply.

After a few minutes, Barucci returned with Father Palminteri.

An expression of total surprise appeared on the priest's face when he saw us there, along with Josè, which soon turned into one of chagrin.

“I should have guessed that you wouldn't settle for what I told you this morning.”

I looked at the clock – we had two hours left until the deadline Raymond had granted us.

“Father, we'll discuss our unconventional methods later. Right now we need you to tell us everything you know about the Baphomet. Anastasio Elpìda was my grandfather, Lorenzo Aragona senior. We know almost everything. Just like you – right?”

To confirm my story I showed him the keys of the Lodge of the Nine I had got from Sean. Palminteri's eyes opened wide, and he turned to Barucci, saying in a trembling voice, “Chief, give us a quiet room and come with us. We need to listen to what they have to say.”

Events reconstructed on the basis of the statement of Anna Nikitovna Glyz

Rome, January 2013

Anna, her face covered in bruises, was huddled up on her bed in the room where she was kept. Anyone watching her would have though she was asleep, exhausted by the beating she had taken, but in fact she was thinking about the few words she had managed to grasp of the message found in the mithraeum.

She was sure that they contained another clue for finding the Baphomet, another code to decipher using a Cardan grille, just like in Kiev. Woland had been so angry that he hadn't realised and had thrown it away. If only Camille hadn't noticed as she was trying to hide it in her pocket. But torturing herself over it wasn't helping. The only thing to do now was find a way to escape. She had undergone Bastian's beating, trying only not to let his blows hit her too hard. At the end of it she was black and blue, but at least she had studied her enemy. Now it was his turn.

Stifling a moan of pain and rubbing her hip, she got up from the bed and looked around herself again.

At first glance, there didn't seem to be any cameras around, but with people like this, she knew, one should always expect the worst. Anyway, she didn't have a choice: it was time to act. She had to stop acting like a victim, don her hunter's mask, and finally face her enemies out in the open. She closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate. She knew that the only way she could hope to take on ten armed men with no weapons apart from her hands was to use her excellent knowledge of the martial arts, but she had no way of knowing exactly who she would be facing, and that was a problem she mustn't overlook.

When she re-opened her eyes, they were sparkling with determination. She walked over to the door and banged loudly to attract attention.

“Hey, I need a piss! Open the door!”

A few seconds later she heard the key turning in the lock, so she moved rapidly and flattened herself against the wall. A dim light from the doorway spread across the floor of the room, and a gun appeared, together with a few words that would never have time to become a sentence.

“Calm dow—”

A bottom-up kick sent the gun flying into the air, the hand holding it was yanked in the room and a straight chop to the throat took out the owner of the hand completely. Anna instantly seized the gun in preparation for the arrival of more guests, then leaned a few centimetres out into the corridor. She saw another figure coming towards her in the semi-darkness and at the thought of her next attack, a pleasant thrill ran down her spine: it was Bastian.

The giant approached the door slowly, a vague smile imprinted on his stony face. He was so cocky he wasn't even carrying a weapon.

“Ok then, my dear Goliath,” thought Anna, “your David's going to face you without a sling.”

She walked out of the room, showed Bastian the gun and then placed it on the floor about a metre from her.

“Want some more fun, do you, you damn gorilla? This time we play by my rules, though.”

Bastian remained silent, then launched himself at her with all his weight.

“Too easy.”

With an agile aikido move, Anna moved sideways and, leveraging his momentum and weight, gave her opponent a light push which sent him crashing to the ground. Bastian got up faster than expected and was instantly ready to fight back, but this time he looked less sure of himself.

“Surprised?”

Anna heard rapid footsteps on the stairs which led to the upper floor.

“What's going on down there?” said one of Woland's men, appearing with a gun in his hands. Bastian raised a huge arm.

“Leave her to me,” the giant grunted, before attacking the girl again.

This time, Anna's move was more sophisticated: she ran towards Bastian and, a moment before impact, slid between his legs. As she went, she punched him hard in his groin, causing him to shout in pain and clamp his hands to his privates as he closed his legs and fell to his knees. Anna was already behind him and, with a kick to his back, knocked him down, jumped over him and attacked the other man, who in the meantime had been pointing his gun at her. The girl moved out of the way the precise moment the man pulled the trigger and the bullet struck Bastian dead in the chest as he was trying to stand. Anna grabbed the man's arm, snapped it as easily as though it were a twig, then finished him off with a blow to the throat.

Bastian was on all fours, one hand grasping his chest and blood dribbling from his mouth.

Anna walked over to him, and whispered, “I wish I had time to make a little video of you to send your boss, you piece of shit – but my priorities have changed.”

She gave him a powerful kick to the face, and Bastian passed out. For ever.

Anna didn't wait for the others to arrive. She picked up both of the guns her opponents had dropped and left the basement, heading up towards the ground floor. Two armed men were rushing towards her. They had just enough time to raise the muzzles of their guns a few centimetres before Anna gunned them down with surgical precision. She had already taken out five men, how many more could there be in the house?

She didn't waste any time looking for an answer: even though the guns all had silencers, the shots produced a dull thud like a hammer blow, and the noise would certainly have attracted the attention of the other guests. She had no choice but to face them all. She reached the main hall and this time Woland's men were ready for her and started firing first. Anna managed to take cover behind a sofa, but didn't wait for her enemies to attack. She lifted her gun over the cushions and started shooting blindly. When she heard a suffocated moan, she peeped out and shot one of her assailants in the leg. While two of them lay there, convulsed with pain on the floor, another appeared and immediately started shooting towards the sofa. The sound of the shots was strange, and when Anna looked at the wall behind her she saw dozens of little needles, like arrow tips, sticking out from the plaster. The tips sparked slightly then the wall started to corrode as though it were being attacked with a powerful acid.

“A damned high-voltage taser, or something like that.”