The Aztec Heresy (6 page)

Finn and Billy climbed out of the car and went up the flagstone path. The arched, planked oak doorway had huge wrought-iron hinges and a lion’s-head knocker. Below the knocker was a worn-looking brass plate that read: Br. Luca Pacioli.

‘‘Doesn’t sound very Jewish to me,’’ said Billy.

After a moment the door swung open and an old man in a cardigan and twill trousers peered out at them over the lenses of a pair of bright red reading glasses. The man had long, snow white hair and a Vandyke beard, neatly trimmed. He looked like Santa Claus on a diet for the summer. He appeared to be in his eighties, but fit enough. In one hand he held an old briar pipe.

‘‘Martin Kerzner?’’ Finn asked.

The man’s eyes widened. ‘‘I haven’t been called that since the war,’’ he said. ‘‘How extraordinary!’’

‘‘Matthew Penner from Lausanne sends his regards,’’ said Finn. ‘‘My name is Finn Ryan and this is my associate, Billy Pilgrim.’’

‘‘Brother Matthew. Dear me, I thought he was long dead.’’

‘‘He said you might be able to answer some questions we had about Friar Bartolome de las Casas and the Order of the Black Knights.’’

‘‘Well,’’ said the old man, ‘‘I know Friar Bartolome is long in his grave, spinning merrily I have no doubt, but the knights are something else altogether.’’ He stepped aside. ‘‘Do come in. I’ll fix us some tea and biscuits and tell you all about it, if you like.’’

The interior of the cottage had the same Agatha Christie feel as the exterior. The hallway was dark, paneled wainscoting rising waist-high, the wall above done in a small flower print that had faded to almost nothing. There was a bay-windowed dining room immediately to the left, a kitchen and scullery to the right, and then a dark set of winding stairs leading to the second floor. Beyond the stairs were two more rooms, a drawing room to the left and a library to the right. More wainscoting and wallpaper.

Both the drawing room and the library had small fires burning in the grate and both rooms looked out onto a long narrow garden laid out with half a dozen flower beds with several enormous oaks that looked centuries old. The fog was beginning to break up and patches of blue sky could be seen.

The library had bookcases on three of the four walls, stuffed to overflowing. There were piles of books and papers on every horizontal surface, including stacks of them on the carpet. There was an old desk in front of the window, paper cascading across the scarred surface like drifts of snow. Finn immediately felt at home; her father’s study had looked a lot like this.

There were two leather armchairs in front of the desk. The old man unceremoniously swept the stacks of books and papers off them and gestured for Finn and Billy to sit down. ‘‘Back in a jif,’’ the old man said and disappeared.

‘‘Nice old sort,’’ said Billy, looking around the warm, chaotic room.

‘‘According to my information he locked a man into a cabin on a burning ship in the Caribbean. He was an assassin for Israeli intelligence. ’’

‘‘Where do you manage to find these people? ’’ Billy said. ‘‘He certainly had me fooled.’’

A few minutes later the old man appeared with a tray of tea things, including a small plate piled high with an assortment of fancy cookies. He put the tray down on the desk, fixed the tea according to their various preferences, then plucked a bourbon crème biscuit off the plate, sat down in the chair on the far side of the desk, dipped his cookie briefly into his teacup and took a soggy bite.

‘‘Teeth aren’t what they used to be,’’ he explained, munching happily. He took a sip of his tea, made a contented sound of appreciation, and sat back against the creaking old leather of his chair. ‘‘If you know me as Martin Kerzner then you must have known Abramo Vergadora at one time or another.’’

Vergadora was an Italian historian Finn had met two years before while investigating the Lost Legion of Luciferus Africanus and the disappearance of the so-called Lucifer Gospel.

‘‘Yes, briefly,’’ answered Finn.

‘‘If memory serves, Miss Ryan, you were involved in his murder.’’

‘‘I was with him shortly before he was killed, yes,’’ she answered tightly.

‘‘In the end responsibility for his death was laid at the feet of
Terza Positione,
the Third Position, a radical terrorist cell in Italy,’’ said the old man.

‘‘You’re well-informed for a retired theology teacher,’’ said Finn.

‘‘Have you ever heard of an organization called P-Two, also Italian?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘It stands for
Propaganda Due
. It was a secret society allied with the Vatican with the intent of fighting Communism by the creation of a paramilitary ‘authoritarian’ democracy in Italy. At one time they had infiltrated every level of Italian society, from university professors and policemen to the prime minster himself.
Terza Positione
was one of its front groups. P-Two was supposedly outlawed after its discovery during the Vatican bank scandal in 1981 and dissolved.’’

‘‘You’re saying it wasn’t?’’

"Yes. It simply reinvented itself under another name."

‘‘
Cavallo Nero,
the Order of the Black Knights,’’ said Billy.

‘‘Quite right, Lord Pilgrim,’’ the old man answered.

Billy looked stunned. ‘‘You know who I am?’’

‘‘Certainly, and Miss Ryan as well. I am old, my lord, but I am not a fool. My friends in Lausanne gave me ample warning, not to mention the fact that both of you were all over the news last year after your somewhat dramatic escapades in the South China Sea.’’

‘‘I’d prefer it if you just called me Billy.’’

‘‘Not William?’’

‘‘William was my father. Billy is better.’’

‘‘As you wish.’’

‘‘Cavallo Nero,’’
reminded Finn. ‘‘Friar Bartolome de las Casas.’’

‘‘Ah, yes,’’ murmured the old man. ‘‘The Aztec Heresy of Hernán Cortéz. And the fate of the
Nuestra Señora de las Angustias
off Key West, Florida.’’

‘‘From which virtually all the treasure was recovered the following year, 1522, and Bartolome de las Casas rescued. That much was in the records in Seville,’’ said Billy.

The old man laughed and chose another biscuit. ‘‘Seville. The Archives of Broken Dreams. A thousand plans hatched, ten thousand treasure maps described. Did you know that Tomás de Torquemada, the first Grand Inquisitor, held the original tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition in the very building that houses the Archives of the Indies today? If those walls could speak you’d hear nothing but the screams of the damned.’’

‘‘I still don’t see the connection to this
Cavallo Nero
group,’’ said Finn.

"P-Two was effectively a continuation of the Inquisition—the Vatican Inquisition—all of it, not just the Spanish directorate. Their job then, as now, was to root out the enemies of the Holy Church and deal with them. Often violently. At some level they had to be at arm’s length from the Vatican itself, so they invested special powers in the Dominican order to do so. The so-called Hounds of God—
Domine Canis,
an old joke, I’m afraid. Their job was to find the heretics. The particularly powerful and important ones like Hernán Cortéz were handled by an even more secret group within the Dominicans—the
Cavallo Nero
. The Black Knights. Effectively they were the Vatican’s hit men.’’ He paused. ‘‘They still are.’’

‘‘Cortéz was a heretic?’’

‘‘Hernán Cortéz was extremely wealthy by the time he’d finished with Mexico. And he wasn’t leaving, which worried the governor of Cuba at the time, Don Diego Velázquez. Somehow he discovered that Cortéz had hidden a vast fortune from the court of the king and he had proof.’’

‘‘The Codex.’’

‘‘Yes.’’ The old man nodded. ‘‘A complete history, including precise directions to the secret hoard, a virtual city of gold in the Yucatán jungle.’’

‘‘What happened to the Codex?’’ Billy asked.

‘‘Bartolome de las Casas was taking it to the Vatican. It was lost aboard the
Nuestra Señora de las Angustias
. Destroyed in the wreck.’’

‘‘But the story doesn’t end there, does it?’’ Finn said.

‘‘Stories like that never do. That’s how they become mysteries and legends.’’

‘‘How does it end?’’

‘‘With a question mark’’—the old man smiled—‘‘and rumors.’’

‘‘What kind of rumors?’’ Finn asked.

‘‘Rumors that Don Diego Velázquez, the governor of Cuba and Cortéz’s sworn enemy, was no fool. He had a copy of the Codex made and sent it off on another ship, the
San Anton,
a
nau,
or
caravella,
a much smaller ship than the treasure galleons. Some were less than a hundred tons. They were fast, mostly used to carry important passengers or documents.’’

‘‘Like the copy of the Codex,’’ said Billy.

‘‘Umm.’’ The old man nodded. ‘‘Like the Codex.’’

‘‘What happened to her?’’ Finn said.

‘‘She sank in the same hurricane as the
Nuestra Señora de las Angustias,
’’ said the old man. He poured himself another cup of tea and took a third biscuit from the plate.

‘‘Where?’’ Billy asked.

‘‘Ah,’’ said the old man, eyes twinkling behind his candy-colored spectacles. ‘‘Now that’s an entirely different story.’’

‘‘One you’re willing to tell us?’’ Finn asked quietly.

‘‘I’d be happy to tell you if I knew, but that sort of thing is well outside my present mandate.’’

‘‘Mandate?’’ Billy said. ‘‘Odd word.’’

‘‘Have you ever heard of an organization called the Vatican Watch?’’

‘‘Good Lord, not another secret society!’’ Billy laughed.

The old man smiled. ‘‘Nothing secret about it at all, although we don’t advertise our existence very strenuously.’’

‘‘What is Vatican Watch?’’ Finn asked.

‘‘An association of concerned Catholics, lay members as well as those like myself, people with a religious vocation. We monitor the activities of certain groups within the Holy See. Discreetly. One would assume that the Vatican of all places could police its own activities, but events of the last hundred years or so have sadly confounded that hypothesis.’’

‘‘
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
’’ Billy nodded.

‘‘The benefits of a classical education, I see,’’ said the old man.

‘‘Who shall watch the watchers?’’ translated Finn. ‘‘You learn a few things in public school as well.’’

‘‘Quite so,’’ the old man said. ‘‘You’re quite right to chide me. I’ve become something of a snob in my old age.’’ He dipped his cookie again. ‘‘Plato, and later Juvenal, were perfectly correct. The watchers are not capable of watching themselves since any position is corruptible. Thus, the monitoring must fall to those outside the organization being monitored. That is the origins of Vatican Watch.’’

‘‘And Vatican Watch has been monitoring
Cavallo Nero
?’’

‘‘Yes. For many years.’’

‘‘What does any of this have to do with Cortéz and the Codex?’’ Finn asked, her tone a little frustrated.

‘‘Nothing directly,’’ said the old man. ‘‘But
Cavallo Nero
has made a number of somewhat disreputable alliances over the years to further their cause.’’

‘‘What sort of alliances?’’ Billy asked.

‘‘Dangerous ones,’’ said the old man. ‘‘It is not so much the Codex but where the Codex leads that is important. Equally, it is the people along the way to that destination who we find disturbing.’’

‘‘Who?’’ Finn asked bluntly.

‘‘It is not my place to say. In fact, if anything, my purpose is to warn you against pursuing this matter any further.’’

‘‘And if we decide not to heed your warning?’’

‘‘Then go with God,’’ said the old man. ‘‘But before that I suggest you visit a friend of mine.’’

‘‘Who?’’

‘‘His name is Pierre Jumaire. He lives in Paris. He operates a bookstore on the rue de la Huchette. Perhaps he can guide you better than I.’’

7

Rue de la Huchette is a short narrow street on the Left Bank of the Seine one block in from the river and the Quai St. Michel. The street runs between rue de Petit Pont on the east and Boulevard St. Michel on the west. ‘‘Huchette’’ is probably an archaic bastardization of the word ‘‘hachette,’’ or ‘‘hatchet,’’ which stands to reason since the street was once predominantly occupied by charcoal burners, who must have chopped a great deal of the hardwood from the local forests that grew in what was at one time the outskirts of Paris.

For most of the twentieth century rue de la Huchette was an eclectic mix of cafés, small hotels, and neighborhood shops that ranged from Le Garage de Terreur to a pawnshop named Aux Temps Dificiles, and a brothel called Le Panier Fleuri. It formed the backdrop for dozens of movies, and by the fifties it had been made famous in at least two books,
The Last Time I Saw Paris
and
Springtime in Paris.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century all that had changed. Mado, Daisy, Consuelo, and Amandine, once the favorites at Le Panier Fleuri, were all great-grandmothers, and Monge the horse butcher was long dead, as was his trade. L’Oursin, the man who’d once sold chestnuts outside the Pharmacie Rabat at the corner of the narrow alley romantically known as rue de Chat Qui Peche—Street of the Fishing Cat—vanished the day Kennedy was shot and was never heard from again. The street was now filled with Greek restaurants offering cheap plates for smashing, overpriced boutiques selling questionable name brands, and trendy bed-and-breakfasts for trendy tourists. The last remnant of what had once been the essence of Hemingway and Fitzgerald’s Left Bank was Librarie Pierre Jumaire, a dusty little bookshop on the corner at rue de Petit Pont.

The shop was a classic: dark, dusty shelves stuck here and there wherever there was room, books in piles everywhere, crammed in willynilly with little regard for price or age, the popular beside the obscure, the sublime sharing space with the profane, and all of it smelling faintly of mildew, ink, and binding glue.

Jumaire himself was equally an archetype: he was squat, old, his white hair a halolike memory on the edges of a freckled skull; he wore thick bifocals and a black suit with a green bow tie on the worn collar of his wrinkled white shirt. There were two heavy briarwood canes beside his high stool behind the counter in the front where he held court, always with a fat yellow Boyard cigarette dangling between his thin lips and poking out of his bushy white beard, the mustache the color of nicotine, his right eye in a permanent squint where the acrid smoke wound its way up beneath the lenses of his spectacles.