“Let’s go, let’s go,” the third man muttered impatiently.
“One moment, Pizza Two . . . There it is!”
“Yes?”
“You can keep going. Only the main oven is activated.”
“Excellent.”
The locksmith and his accomplice climbed through to the interior of the manuscript room, swerved to their left, and hurried through a doorway that swung open when they hit the “release” bar.
“By the stairs.”
“The basement room?”
“Yes, hurry. We’ve been inside four minutes, fifty-nine seconds.”
Forty seconds later, the two silhouettes arrived at the end of the stairs.
“We’re on our own now,” the locksmith advised his companion. “Down here we are out of range of the support team’s signal. The room is encased in steel.”
“I follow. This is the right door?”
The locksmith nodded.
A metal barrier with two rectangular sliding doors, both eight feet across, blocked their way. The code box for the door was built into the wall on the right. It opened with the swipe of a magnetic card, after a numeric code was entered onto a tiny keyboard.
“No problem,” the locksmith said. “Only the gates of heaven are safe from thieves.”
After he had taken off his ski mask and slid the small pack off his shoulders, he removed a sophisticated calculator out of his bag. Then he pulled out of his pocket an electric cable that ended in a plug. He inserted it just below where the cards are swiped.
“Let’s see if this works,” he whispered. “It seems their security program is based on the Fichet system. So if we enter the master digits . . .”
“You’re talking to yourself . . . ?”
“Ssssh! Seven minutes, twenty seconds . . . Open sesame!”
A green light next to the security system’s keypad and the clicking sound coming from the door handle on the large doors indicated that access to the “oven” had succumbed to the locksmith.
The second shadow did not make a movement in response. The kid’s precision had never ceased to amaze his coworkers, but they had learned to disguise their euphoria.
“Nice work. Now it’s my turn.”
The second shadow walked into the steel-lined vault. Once inside, she felt around inside her bag for her night-vision goggles, pushing aside the chic red shoes she always kept handy, and grabbed the latest model Patriot light beam. It was her favorite toy. After pulling off her ski mask, the shadow adjusted the goggles. A short whistle indicating that the power was on and the batteries fully charged made her nerves tingle.
“Okay, beautiful, tell me where you are,” she hummed.
She slowly started to run her infrared vision along the shelves, reading the designations for the various sections. First came the letters Mss., then Mss. Facs., and finally Mss. Res.
“Aha. Here you are. ‘Reserved Manuscripts.’ ”
THIRTY-FIVE
MADRID
Damn! Can’t they leave me alone?”
Nothing got on Carlos Albert’s nerves more than being awakened by a ringing telephone. He had gone out and bought the best answering machine on the market, telling himself he was not going to pick up the telephone unless he knew who was calling. But if he was at home, he was incapable of keeping his word.
“Carlitos, are you there?”
“I’m here . . . José Luis?”
“Who else? Listen, I’ve got something to tell you.”
The cop sounded like a bundle of nerves.
“Last night thieves broke into the National Library and stole one of its historical documents.”
“Really? So then go ahead and call El País with the story,” Carlos responded apathetically.
“Hold on a minute. They’ve assigned the case to my department. And you know why?” Martín’s theatrical pause got Carlos’s attention. “Because they suspect there could be a sect behind it.”
“Really?”
“Really, Carlos. But that’s not the most important thing. What surprised me most was that this particular stolen item relates to you.”
“No kidding.” Now it was the journalist’s voice whose tone had changed.
“No doubt about it. That’s why I called you. You were the last person in the manuscript room yesterday, correct?”
“I think so.”
“And you asked for a volume. Let me see: the Memorial of Benavides. A book from 1630.”
“They stole the Memorial?” Carlos was in a state of shock.
“No. The book that disappeared is an unpublished manuscript of this Benavides, which, as the librarians explained to me, is a later, never-published version of the book you asked for. It is dated four years after ‘your’ Memorial. And it is infinitely more valuable.”
“And what does this have to do with me? Do you consider me a suspect?”
“Well, Carlitos, technically you are the one clue we have. Furthermore, it is undeniable that a strong relationship exists between the book you asked for and the missing material.”
“Is this going to turn out to be another one of your ‘synchronicities’?”
“I guess so.” He sighed. “I thought of that, too, but no one on the police force reads Jung. In a case like this, synchronicities are known as evidence.”
“All right, José Luis. Let’s straighten this subject out as soon as possible. Where do we meet?”
“Jesus, I’m glad we agree on something.”
“How does the Cafe Gijón sound to you? It’s right next to the library. At noon?”
“Noon it is. See you there.”
Carlos hung up the phone with a strange, bitter taste on his tongue.
• • •
Three hours later, sitting at one of the tables at the Gijón, José Luis flipped through a magazine while waiting for his friend. From his perch near the window, he tried to distinguish the journalist among the swirling mass of pedestrians crossing the Paseo de Recoletos at that hour.
Carlos arrived on time, accompanied by a man with a crew cut who looked as if he had thrown his clothes on at the last second. He was stocky and somewhat flabby, and had eyebrows that crossed his face in a single line.
“Let me introduce Txema Jiménez, the best photographer at the magazine. In fact”—he laughed—“the only one.”
The look on José Luis’s face indicated he needed an explanation.
“He was with me in Ágreda,” Carlos added, “and is completely in my confidence.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
The cop offered his hand to Txema, who remained silent. Once they had settled in their seats, they ordered three espressos and lit their cigarettes.
Carlos took the lead. “Let’s get started. What exactly is it they stole?”
José Luis pulled a small pile of notes out of his sports jacket and put on his glasses to look them over.
“As I told you, the manuscript in question is very valuable. It was written in 1634 by Friar Alonso de Benavides, someone you seem to know very well.”
Carlos nodded.
“According to what the librarian told me this morning, the text was reelaborated with the intention of sending it to Pope Urban the Eighth as an expanded version of the report that Philip the Fourth printed in Madrid, which you asked for yesterday.”
“And who would be interested in something like that?”
“That is exactly the problem: a whole lot of people. The manuscript that disappeared contained a large number of marginal notations in the king’s own hand. And that makes it priceless.”
“Priceless? How much would something like that go for?” Txema’s tiny eyes flickered.
“Hard to say for sure, mainly because there are very few specialists in the field who can put a price on a one-of-a-kind work. A million dollars on the black market? Two, maybe?”
The photographer whistled.
“What I fail to understand,” the photographer went on, “is why they assigned the case to
you. Carlos told me you work on cases involving sects.”
The photographer’s tone made Martín cringe. The cop’s face was a question mark aimed at Carlos.
“Have no fear José Luis,” Carlos said. “I already told you that I completely trust Txema.”
“Okay then,” he said. “In addition to the clue that points in Carlos’s direction, several weeks ago a certain Order of the Sacred Image offered the library thirty million pesetas for that very same manuscript.”
“Thirty kilos!” Txema blurted out. “A small sum in comparison—”
“The library, of course, refused and had nothing more to do with this order. The problem is that in the Episcopal Conference’s registry of the various fraternal and religious organizations, there is no record of an organization with such a name, and the same goes for Rome. Which is why my team suspects we may be dealing with some sort of fundamentalist sect.”
“And a rich one, at that,” the photographer interjected, this time with more enthusiasm.
“Do you know how they stole it?”
José Luis had been waiting for that question.
“This is the strangest part of the case. The manuscript was kept in the library’s steel-lined storage room, protected by a complex security system, with guards patrolling the library at all hours of the night. So, consider this: no alarms went off, no one heard anything, and except for a portion of window lifted out of its frame, which the guards found at the entrance to the manuscript reading room, the robbery would have gone undetected.”
“Then they found some clues—” Txema once again jumped into the conversation.
“Right. An out-of-place window and . . .”
José Luis hesitated, and then continued.
“. . . and a call made from a phone on the ground floor of the library to Bilbao. At four fifty-nine in the morning.”
“During the time of the robbery?” Carlos asked.
“Most likely. The number was logged into the main switchboard’s memory, and we have already made the appropriate investigations. We’re almost certain it’s a false lead.”
“Why?”
“Because the number belongs to the telephone of a school that was, naturally enough, closed at that hour. We’re probably up against well-equipped professionals, who electronically falsified the number, the better to lead us down a blind alley.”
“Or maybe not.”
Carlos’s cryptic comment nearly made José Luis spill his coffee.
“You have something to add?”
“Let’s just say I have a hunch.”
The journalist then opened his notebook to April 14, the day they interviewed the two nuns at the Conception of Ágreda Monastery. His finger moved down the page searching for the entry.
“Txema, do you remember the clue our two sisters in the monastery gave us?”
“They gave us more than a few, didn’t they?”
“True.” Carlos nodded while he kept looking. “I am referring to a special one, an obvious one.”
“I have no idea,” said Txema.
“Here it is! José Luis, do you have your cell phone on you?”
His friend the policeman nodded, a bemused look on his face.
“And the number of that school in Bilbao?” asked Carlos.
He nodded again, pointing to a seven-digit number on his notepad.
Carlos grabbed the cop’s cell phone and quickly dialed the number, prefixed by the Bilbao area code. After a number of loud clicks, there was a clear connection and a phone began ringing on the other end.
“Passionists. May I help you?” the voice said forcefully.
A happy smile spread across Carlos’s face while the officer and the photographer stared at him incredulously.
“Hello, can you direct me to Father Amadeo Tejada, please?”
“He’s at the university, sir. Try again later this afternoon.”
“Thanks very much. But he does live there, yes?”
“He does.”
“Thank you.”
“Agur,” the voice on the other end said in Basque.
Carlos took his eyes off the phone, only to encounter two surprised people staring at him.
“I solved it for you, José Luis. Your man is Father Amadeo Tejada.”
“But how the hell . . . ?”
“Really, it couldn’t be easier: chalk it up to another ‘synchronicity.’ ” He elbowed his friend and went on. “When we were in Ágreda, the nuns told us about an ‘expert’ who is advancing the cause for the beatification of Sister María Jesús de Ágreda in Rome. I noted the information in my notebook for some future visit, knowing I could find him in a religious residence next to a school in Bilbao.”
“Good Lord!”
“Do you think the National Police will pay for a short trip to the Basque region?”
“You can count on it.” José Luis could hardly get the words out. “Tomorrow morning.” And then he added, “But I remind you that you remain on my list of suspects.”
THIRTY-SIX
LOS ANGELES
Everything is fine, Jennifer. There’s no tumor.”
Dr. Meyers looked over the results of the MRI that Jennifer Narody had had the day before at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The razor-thin images revealed a well-formed skull and a spinal medulla with no irregularities. The temporal lobes were healthy and there were no white spots to denote the presence of foreign bodies inside the cranium.
“You don’t look very pleased, Doctor.”
“No, Jennifer, I’m happy. It is just that . . .”
“What?”
“I have yet to find a single cause to explain your dreams. You still have them?”
“Every night, Doctor. Do you know what? At times I have the impression that they’re dictating something to me, as if my mind were an enormous movie screen that someone is projecting a documentary onto. They do it a little bit at a time. And every so often they let me see scenes that really affect me.”
“Such as the scene of the Indian who has the same birthmark on his arm as you do.”
“Exactly.”
“Or the presence of a character who has a name that runs in your family, such as”—Meyers looked back at her clinical papers—“Ankti.”
Jennifer nodded in agreement.
“Let me ask you a question,” the doctor said. “How are you affected by all of this? What I mean is, do the dreams make you feel bad, do they give you a feeling of revulsion? Or is it completely the opposite: do they give you some sense of satisfaction?”
Her patient thought about it for a second. There was no easy way to answer the question. In fact, far from being an obstacle, her dreams were intriguing her a bit more every night.
“The truth, Doctor,” she said at last, “is that I have progressed from being troubled by the dreams to being curious about them.”
“In which case, we should perhaps change the course of our therapy. You tell me what you dreamed last night, and I will tell you about the benefits of a technique called regression therapy. Are you ready?”
Jennifer’s face took on an enthusiastic expression.
“Are you?”
THIRTY-SEVEN
BETWEEN ISLETA AND LA GRAN QUIVIRA
AUGUST 1629
Six days after they left the mission at San Antonio, exhaustion had overtaken Sakmo and the rest of the party. Forward progress had been reduced to a minimum, while provisions began to be in short supply. Of the twelve miles covered on a daily basis on previous journeys, they were now lucky to reach six.
The increase in security measures also played a part. Three men would go ahead, marking rocks and the bark of trees to indicate whether the route was passable or not. At the same time another group kept watch on the friars from a half-mile behind.
They traveled on a continuous southeast course, gaining a few minutes of light with each sunrise while crossing the old Apache hunting grounds. They knew the tribe had emigrated to other latitudes but their old territory
still filled the pilgrims with a superstitious dread.
Nothing came to pass. No sign of Apaches.
Friar Juan made use of the days of slow progress to learn as much about the desert as he could, but he was surpassed by Friar Diego López, a strapping youth from the north of Spain. Built like a spreading oak tree, he was as curious as a child and interested in everything. Most of all he wanted to learn the Indians’ languages quickly in order to preach the Word of God to them.
During this part of the journey, the Franciscans’ eyes were opened to “the flatlands to the south,” as the Jumanos called them. What was only a wasteland at first glance turned out to be, in fact, abundant with life. The Jumanos taught the Spaniards to tell the difference between the dangerous insects and the harmless ones. They told them about the harvest ants, whose venom is more poisonous than the sting of a wasp. They showed them how to split open a cactus to drink the water inside, and they instructed them during the brief summer nights that they need not be afraid should they roll over and find a horned lizard lying next to them. The lizards, they said, protected humans from scorpions and other venom-bearing reptiles, and they made a good breakfast the next morning.
On the ninth day, shortly before nightfall, an event took place that changed their plans. All day long there had been heat lightning, and even when there were no clouds directly overhead, the Indians’ spirits soared. They saw portents in each of nature’s phenomena.
“Perhaps tonight we will see the Lady in Blue,” Friar Diego whispered to old Friar Salas, when the leader of the group stopped to pitch camp. “The Jumanos seem very jumpy, as if they were waiting for something.”
“May God hear what you say, Brother.”
“My body feels a bit strange, too. What about you, Friar?”
“It is only the storm,” the old friar replied.
Two paces behind them, the Jumanos followed Sakmo’s order to drop what they were carrying and prepare camp by clearing the brush from a wide circle of earth. Great Walpi’s son knew there would be no rain that evening, and therefore he decided to sleep in the open. By doing so, they would have an ample view of the horizon.
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