Dante's Key

by G. L. Baron

  ‘Ten steps to the spring, then…’ Dempsey cut him short. Converting the last reference to metres, he summed up the previous measurements and drew a straight line to the east.

  Suddenly he stopped, not convinced.

  Cassini looked up. Meanwhile he had drawn an arrow extending from point “5” to “6”.

  Even Julia looked at him uncertainly.

  The young man looked at his map again and then dropped his eyes on the one drawn up by the professor. The results were identical to his:

  It was plausible, of course that must be it!

  ‘What does point number six match with?’ the Sheikh asked, also intrigued.

  ‘One moment.’ He redid the calculations quickly and got the same result: point “6” was a total of four hundred and thirty metres away from “5”. The last line would stop right on the Gýgjarfoss waterfalls. ‘What did you say, Professor?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Before Dante ascends to Heaven we have one last reference to the ground, so to speak. You said that the poet drinks at the source of two rivers?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Cassini muttered, nodding his head.

  ‘Bingo!’ concluded the stunned young man. ‘Point six is here, the waterfalls of Gýgjarfoss, where two rivers arise, the Blákvísl and the Jökulfall.’

  *

  Forty minutes later, Prince Ibrahim Al Husayn was with Edward on the edge of the brightly-lit fountain at the foot of the Burj Khalifa.

  ‘There has been a sudden development. There’s a change of program,’ he said, his eyes leaden and his voice toneless. ‘But I’ve thought about how to fix it. In a few days, I’ll be leaving for Iceland… Tell your friends to be there in early February and I will respect the agreements.’

  74

  Reykjavik, January 15th. 10:30 a.m.

  Ten days after the discovery of the co-ordinates.

  The first thing the Bull saw on his arrival in the capital of Iceland was the poster affixed above the tourist information office at the airport: ‘If you want to meet someone in Paris go to a brasserie, in London go to a pub, but if you want to meet someone in Reykjavik, go to the municipal swimming pool.’

  He had seen it and remembered it, and two days after his arrival, he went to one of the city’s nine pools. He had arrived in the morning but it was still as dark as night, with the street lamps reflecting on the cobblestones, and red streaks beginning to appear in the sky. The sun would rise soon, and then dive back into the ocean after only six hours of pale light. This was Icelandic winter.

  He went down a marble staircase with orange walls, stained with humidity in several places. Passing through a glass door, he found himself in a room set up as a gym. To his right, along the wall, were four spinning bikes. Where the room opened out, on the opposite side, a number of machines for weight-lifting were lined up – a rainbow of aluminium and black imitation leather.

  The Bull, with a towel tied around his waist, went to the sauna. When he opened the wooden door, the hellish heat blasted him.

  Joonas Eklöf was already there, alone, sweating, flushed skin and soaking beard. He had an untied towel around his waist.

  ‘I’ll never get used to such short days,’ muttered the Bull, with his South American accent, as he sat down next to the Finn.

  ‘It gets better in summer…’ the archaeologist said, not at all happy to be there, but remaining faithful to an oath he had made many years ago.

  ‘I got here two days ago and I’m already going crazy! So… have you been given the co-ordinates?’

  ‘Yes. I received the call I was expecting from Dubai last week.’

  ‘Have you already submitted the request for digging permission?’ The Bull enquired, rubbing his arm across his sweaty forehead.

  ‘I had already done so for the whole area, as the Sheikh had asked me,’ admitted Eklöf, with a hint of nervousness in his voice. ‘I just had to limit the request to the definitive co-ordinates.’

  ‘And where are we going this time?’

  ‘They indicated the area near the Gýgjarfoss waterfalls, a six-hour drive from here.’

  The Bull did not answer and snorted excitedly. ‘When are the Arabs arriving?’ he asked finally.

  ‘Early February, in two weeks. We have just enough time to prepare the team.’

  ‘Good.’ He walked towards the door of the sauna. ‘Choose trustworthy people.’

  Eklöf nodded.

  For a moment the two were silent. The South American leaned his head on the wooden support and closed his eyes.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ enquired the archaeologist, his voice unpredictably acute.

  The Bull turned and stared at him.

  ‘Are we doing the right thing?’

  ‘The papyri must not fall into the wrong hands,’ roared the other with a half-smile.

  The papyri.

  It was the first time the Bull had called them that… He wondered what they really were and what they had to do with the Sex dierum iter.

  Eklöf swallowed; whatever the object of their research, in that moment he was more concerned with another matter: ‘Can you promise me that no one will die?’

  ‘No!’

  75

  Reykjavik, February 1st. 1:12 p.m.

  Two weeks after his meeting with the Bull, Joonas Eklöf drove at high speed along the large artery that connects the airport to the centre of the city.

  ‘Have the permits arrived?’ asked Julia, sitting beside him. She had landed that morning with Timothy Dempsey and Manuel Cassini, who was now determined to unearth a treasure that he had helped to identify. In a taxi following them a short distance away was Prince Ibrahim Al Husayn, escorted by three bodyguards.

  Before them, illuminated by the feeble daylight, stood the far away white peninsula of Snæfellsnes. The large green expanse, alternating with the black lava and the white of the snow, was giving way to the greyish colours of the first buildings.

  ‘Everything is ready,’ the Finn nodded as he looked in the mirror of the car. ‘I was on the site last week. We set up camp north-west of the waterfalls because it was impossible to reach it directly with the campers.’

  ‘Is there a lot of snow?’ Cassini asked him, staring out the window at the big icy mounds blackened by traffic and piled by the roadside.

  Eklöf nodded several times and put his indicator out to turn left. ‘As I already explained, February is not the best month to dig. Parts of the rivers and ridges of the waterfalls are completely frozen. And even the dirt road to get to Gýgjarfoss is impracticable.’

  ‘We’ve already discussed this,’ Julia said shortly. After the meeting where they had deciphered the clues of the Divine Comedy, she had become more determined than ever to fulfil her boss’s last wish. ‘Unfortunately, your friend Mohamed’s days are nearly up. We couldn’t have waited for the summer.’

  Eklöf seemed genuinely sorry and did not reply.

  ‘Is the team ready to go?’

  ‘The geologist Holmar Bjarnason, and Jari Johansson – the historian whom you met last summer – are already there. Kjell Lagerbäck, the head of Geosync, to whom we entrusted the ground penetrating radar management, is with them.’

  ‘The guides?’

  ‘We’ll meet with them tomorrow, as agreed.’

  Cassini, still wearing his windproof jacket despite the heat in the car, leaned between the two seats. ‘How long does it take to get to the area?’

  ‘In the summer, about six hours. With the current climate a bit longer,’ explained the archaeologist, as they drove through an area of town with wooden buildings interspersed with modern glass buildings. ‘We’ll move as a group, it’s safer. I’ve hired five pick-ups with 38-inch spiked tyres and winches.’

  ‘And the guides?’ insisted Julia.

  ‘Olina and Rúnar Einarsson, husband and wife. No one knows the area better than them. We were also lucky, they were free during the midwinter holiday and we were able to hire them.’

  Meanwhile, the
car had arrived in the historic centre, near the main street of Reykjavik, the Laugavegur. It was an area full of a variety of different-style buildings; each one a stark contrast to the next, tall and low buildings, others in coloured wood, some ancient, others modern. Even the road surface followed the same rule of chaos: lava earth alternating with gravel, brick paving and asphalt.

  Cassini was about to ask something about it when the vehicle stopped suddenly on the edge of a square surrounded by bare trees immersed in tranquillity. There were two taxis and a driver shivering next to his car, focused on a cigarette.

  ‘We’re here, this is the hotel Odinsve, a stone’s throw from the centre,’ concluded the Finn. The car carrying the Prince arrived a while after.

  Julia scanned the building carefully, ready to identify potential danger for the device that the Sheikh had insisted they bring with them on the mission. At first glance, there did not seem to be any; it was a cube with white walls and an anonymous appearance.

  They got out of Eklöf’s car, picked up their backpacks, and made their way towards the entrance.

  *

  At the same time, Hidetoshi Tanaka admired the view through the large windows of Reykjavik’s airport. A pale sun shone before him, under a sky full of white, foamy clouds.

  ‘Are you staying for a long time?’ Teitur, a customs officer, asked. ‘Tourism or business?’

  ‘Business.’

  The young man fumbled for a moment on his terminal and then stamped the Japanese’s passport. ‘Enjoy your stay.’

  Business.

  ‘Good business… I hope!’

  76

  Reykjavik, February 2nd. 5:54 p.m.

  A comely hostess closed the business class folding door and darted past, in front of Nigel Sforza, who was staring at her backside and hidden behind his Ray-Bans.

  Flight FI 701 was about to land at Keflavik Airport in Reykjavik. Immediately after fastening his seat belt, the inspector closed the coffee table in front of him.

  He had left Paris that morning, had a stopover at Heathrow, and boarded an Icelandair Boeing 757, conscious that he had had a great stroke of luck.

  The previous day, one of the Icelandic customs officers had noticed a Japanese suffering from heterochromia. He had compared the arrest warrant sent out by Interpol with Tanaka’s face and had reported him.

  Landing and disembarking fifty passengers required less than twenty minutes.

  At a quarter past six, Sforza was dragging a trolley across the gleaming floors of the terminal.

  In front of him, out of the airport windows, two lit towers rose up and he could see the moon hidden in the clouds.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said a young man in a blue uniform, as soon as Sforza emerged from a sliding door. ‘My name is Teitur Surtsson, I’m the one who reported the presence of your man… I’m sorry I realized it was him too late.’

  The inspector looked at him with vigilant eyes; he was a young man of about twenty-five, wearing thick-lensed glasses, with cropped hair and a pleasant face.

  ‘I work at customs just to keep myself while I’m at Uni,’ he justified himself. The two walked along a large semi-deserted atrium, past the baggage claim area, and then slipped through a back door. ‘I study medicine and I noticed that man’s eyes immediately. Unfortunately, I only realized that I’d let him go when my shift was over… I saw your fax on the notice board of the office.’

  ‘What was the name on the passport?’ inquired Sforza, following the young man.

  ‘Matsumoto. Hidetoshi Matsumoto. Japanese passport.’

  ‘Are you really sure it was him?’ Sforza showed him the photograph. The young man nodded convincingly. ‘Absolutely. You never forget eyes like those.’

  ‘How much time passed since his arrival and your telephone call?’ he asked again.

  ‘I finished my shift at 3:00 p.m., less than a couple of hours.’

  Meanwhile, the two had arrived in a corridor lit by a blinding row of neon lights. The walls dividing the rooms were prefabricated, and each door matched a glass window covered with a white venetian blind.

  There was a slight smell of disinfectant.

  ‘Then you informed your superiors and contacted Lyon,’ the inspector cut him short.

  ‘Of course!’ he said, as they came into a large waiting room. Sitting on one of the chairs was an old man, looking frightened and disorientated.

  ‘But I followed it up!’ he continued. ‘I went down to security and watched the surveillance video. After passing through customs, the Japanese went directly outside the terminal and boarded a taxi, a Volkswagen Passat station wagon license plate LI R76.’

  Sforza gave a slight bow of admiration. ‘And maybe you called the taxi driver,’ he deduced, watching the man with white hair sitting next to them, clutching a hat with a visor between his fingers.

  Teitur rubbed his hands nervously and stared straight in Sforza’s eyes. ‘I felt responsible… I tried to do my best to make up for my mistake.’

  ‘Good work!’ concluded the inspector. ‘At this point, I imagine you also have the address of where he took our man.’

  Teitur smiled, satisfied.

  77

  90 km north-east of Reykjavik, February 3rd. 12:40 p.m.

  The Toyota Hilux bounced several times on the ice and slowed down at the bend.

  Manuel Cassini, in the passenger’s seat, struggled to find a road in the white expanse that ran in front of the windshield. But he only saw a snowy plain bordered by metal pegs.

  The sky was a grey slate that disappeared over the horizon in dense low clouds. Before him, a red pickup – identical to the one in which he was traveling – seemed to slow down, but then increased speed again.

  The convoy consisted of five vehicles, which had set off from Reykjavik a little after eight in the morning. The choice of the type of car with spiked wheels and winches had been obligatory, explained Joonas Eklöf. Once in Kjalvegur, south of the Langjökull glacier, the road would turn into an icy tongue, uneven and bordered by coloured poles.

  The choice of February had been forced on them, because the Sheikh’s condition had worsened in the last month.

  It had been an intense period for Cassini. He had gone from the hotel Ritz in Paris to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in such a whirlwind of events, that he would be able to metabolize them only as time passed.

  Of course, he had not forgotten all the trouble that the Sheikh had put him through; the scientific experiments with his brain, drugs, the lies and all that had brought him there. He had not forgotten, and probably never would.

  But there was only one thing stronger than rancour: the thirst for knowledge. And as crazy as Al Husayn’s theories were, they had bewitched him. Ever since Rome – when he’d seen the astronomical triangles in Botticelli’s Primavera – he had been swept into a maelstrom of events that had awakened feelings in him that had been dormant for years. He had been really excited when they had found the co-ordinates of the spring in which Dante had purified himself.

  And their destination was the Gýgjarfoss waterfalls, a deserted landscape in the north, where the rivers Blákvísl and Jökulfall arose. The same rivers the poet called Lethe and Eunoe.

  During the last month spent in Dubai refining the excavation details, getting the required permits, and re-analysing all their calculations, many other things had happened; the most important regarded Julia, sitting in the Toyota at the head of the party – the one in front of him.

  The girl who he had been so attracted to in Rome, who had revealed herself to be a cold-hearted monster, seemed to calm down more as each day passed. Although there had been no more physical contact, Cassini believed he was starting to understand her better.

  A great help in understanding Julia’s personality, as if it were a map – which in some respects was more complicated than Dante’s – had come from Timothy Dempsey, the programming genius with the red hair.

  The young man had become his friend during the weeks Cassini spen
t at Al Husayn’s court… or at least the nearest thing to a friend a situation like that could offer.

  He had told him Julia’s story, how she had been kidnapped by Bashar Al Husayn, trained in guerrilla warfare and raped for years. After much hardship, she had been rescued by the Caliph’s brother, the same Mohamed bin Saif whom he now knew.

  According to Dempsey, the girl had never overcome the hardship and suffering she had endured during her youth, and was totally incapable of showing her emotions. Yet, behind that mask, he saw a sweet personality that was unable to emerge.

  Cassini did not know if the young man was right, but once he heard Julia’s story he began to look at her with different eyes.

  And now here he was, in the company of a dozen people, in search of a treasure that he also believed existed.

  The car jerked suddenly to the left and the convoy turned northwards. The glacier’s profile – black in several places – hung over them like a sharp, pronounced hump that rose up from the snow-covered plain.

  ‘It’s roughly another fifty kilometres,’ Julia’s voice crackled over the radio. ‘It will take a couple of hours, according to my driver.’

  Cassini made a quick calculation. The sun at their latitude in February set more or less at 5 p.m., according to the tables he had consulted in the hotel. This meant they would have little more than two hours of light, once they arrived.

  The Toyota proceeded swiftly for about an hour. The landscape was always the same, flat white expanses everywhere. The white desert was only broken by the snowless, overhanging black rocks weathered by the Baltic gusts of wind.

  Without warning, the persistent noise of the engine was replaced by the rhythm of a horn.

  Cassini was watching the scene in the car’s side mirror long before the driver of one of the pick-ups behind them – the last or next-to-last in the convoy – instead of taking a curve eastward like everyone else, had gone straight on.