Apocalypsis 1.04 Baphomet (4 page)

XXXVIII

May 13, 2011, Headquarters of the Swiss Guards, Vatican City

T
he machine in question is a ground-penetrating radar,« reported Guard Egger in his stereotypically slow Bernese accent. »It is used to…«

Bühler interrupted him harshly. »I know what a GPR is used for,« he said. »But what business did these people have taking a ground-penetrating radar into the Necropolis? Steiner?«

»We found evidence of surface drilling on the second level of the catacombs,« reported the guard. »They look like exploratory drillings.«

»Where exactly?« Bühler took a topographical map of the Vatican and spread it out on his desk.

Steiner pointed at the west wing of St. Peter’s Basilica. »Here.«

»How did the dog react?«

»The whole time that we were down there, Spitzi was very excited, almost anxious, I would say. But she did not bark, not even once.«

»Take your men and go down there again. I want you to search every fucking inch of the Necropolis! – Favre, what did you find out about this mining company?«

»Well, that’s all very strange,« reported Guard Favre. »There is an official contract between the Fratec company and the Governorate for the reinforcement of some of the vaults in the Necropolis. However, nobody in the Governorate can remember signing the contract. And the signature can’t be matched to anyone either.«

»What kind of company is it?«

»That’s also very strange. They have an official entry in the commercial register but they have neither an office nor company grounds. The company address is Via della Camilluccia 306. But this address does not exist.«

Bühler froze.

»Repeat the address, please.«

»Via della Camilluccia 306.«

»Shit, what a fucking idiot I am!« Without giving any explanation, Bühler stormed out of his office. He was gone before he could hear what Favre added – that Fratec had left special instructions with the Italian Post Office to forward all their mail to the address of a luxury hotel in downtown Rome.

However, it was not important for Bühler to hear this. Because Urs Bühler already knew the true meaning of the bloody sequence of numbers that Loretta Hooper had left behind. It had not been ›3 by 6,‹ as he had initially thought and therefore it was not a hint at the Book of Revelation. It was much simpler: 306. A simple number. No wonder Bühler had thought the whole time that it had a familiar ring. During his drive downtown, he cursed himself for not seeing it sooner.

306.

Suite 306.

If there were any blessed and cursed places in this world, then in Bühler’s opinion Suite 306 definitely belonged in the ranks of the cursed. Within the last ten years alone, a series of mysterious deaths had occurred in this suite and not a single one of them could be solved. One of the victims had been a cardinal, which was the only reason why Bühler knew about the suite. Cardinal Quintigliami had died from a sudden heart attack, even though he had never had any heart problems. Other guests who stayed in Suite 306 had simply disappeared without a trace and had never returned.

Dead guests and police investigations were the worst-case scenario for any hotel. Bühler was not surprised that the Hotel Casa Spagna, which was steeped in tradition, had changed owners several times over the last few years and now belonged to a Japanese chain. He was only surprised that the hotel still existed.

Twenty minutes later, he entered the lobby of the Hotel Nakashima Villa Spagna in Via Sistina, Rome’s most expensive five-star hotel. It was mainly frequented by Russian oligarchs, young American internet billionaires, pop stars, sheiks, politicians or cardinals from wealthy families. Bühler asked for the general manager and showed him his credentials.

»Is Suite 306 currently occupied?«

The manager pulled Bühler aside, away from the guests.

»No, it is not occupied. But Suite 306 is booked, for the entire year.«

»What? The room is booked but not occupied? Who the hell can afford that?«

»Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to share this information with you.«

The manager in his black Issey Miyake uniform cast a glance towards the two hotel security officers who were standing by the entrance. Apparently he had a hunch that the beefy Swiss man might cause problems.

And the hunch was dead on.

»Listen to me, you little fairy,« Bühler hissed at the manager, »you know damn well what the deal is with Suite 306. How would you like to read about it in the press again, as of tomorrow? How would you like it if I saw to it that no cardinal will ever stay in this hotel again or jamboree the night away?«

The two security guys were already staring at him. Bühler flexed his muscles. But the young manager gave them a dismissive wave.

»A Colombian investment consortium,« he said, caving in. »They booked it and paid for a year in advance.«

»I need the name of the consortium and the key card for the suite.«

»No! That is absolutely impossible.«

Bühler gave the manager a stare. »I’ll just be looking around. It won’t take long. And you can come with me.«

The elegant suite had three bedrooms in over sixteen hundred square feet of living space. The rooms looked unused and tidy. A quick mental calculation told Bühler that the annual rent for the suite amounted to roughly one million euros.

»When was Suite 306 last occupied?«

»About a month ago. But the staff clean the rooms every day, of course.«

»Who are the guests?«

»Excuse me, but this is something that I really cannot discuss with you. … Hey, wait a minute!«

Bühler ignored him and marched through the individual rooms. He began to remember. Even the furnishing was still the same. Only the best and the most exclusive. But Bühler could feel, exactly as he had felt back then, that this room exuded a certain aura. Bühler was not an esoteric man; he simply knew from experience that there was always a good reason when his skin began to crawl. He knew how it felt when death was in the room.

»Good heavens! Stop that!« The manager was beside himself when Bühler began to search the wardrobe in the first bedroom. Bühler did not even listen. And nor did he hear the manager’s scream when he opened the wardrobe in the last bedroom and the corpse of a young man toppled out.

The man was completely wrapped in transparent plastic; like a hay bale in summer. His head had been cut-off and was also packed in plastic wrap. Bühler had to cut the plastic with his Swiss Army knife to identify the face of the victim. He had seen this face on a photo only a few hours earlier. Bühler could even remember the name of the doctoral student who had been reported missing: Giovanni Manzoni.

XXXIX

May 13, 2011, Avignon

I
don’t want any trouble!«

The owner of the small guesthouse in the Rue de la Bancasse cast suspicious looks at the strange couple without luggage who were standing in front of her asking for two single rooms for the night. A German man and a nun.

»Don’t worry, Madame,« Maria said to her, »if it eases your mind, you can call my convent.«

This seemed to ease the owner’s mind. She checked their identification thoroughly and then did it again, even more thoroughly, and finally she gave them the look of an inquisitor along with two room keys, announcing that she would come by frequently to check if everything was in order.

»We have to be back at the airport in a few hours,« Maria said fifteen minutes later, when they met in her room.

»Perhaps that’s time enough.«

Peter spread the copy of the Sator Square on Maria’s bed. They had not discovered any additional Templar symbols in the charterhouse, just the Baphomet relief, the Sator Square and the crossed symbol.

»So let’s assume that these three items are clues to something that the Templars have hidden in the charterhouse or maybe even in the Palace of the Popes. The question remains of how we interpret the clues.«

He pulled the parchment with the Trismegistus text and the amulet from his jacket pocket, put them next to the Sator Square onto the bed, and then he began to stare at the items, as if this were enough to pry their secret out of them.

Talk to me! What are you hiding?

With Maria’s assistance he tried to translate the Trismegistus text. But this was not of much help either, as the text indulged in preposterous metaphors about the divinity of the light.

»Perhaps it is much easier than we think,« Maria said. »The small temple was already so obvious. And the best hiding place is in the open.«

»Meaning what?«

»The temple itself and the Baphomet head, for instance. These are distinct clues that point to the Templars. So perhaps they are nothing else but an invitation: hey, look here, here is the code.«

»Okay. Let’s assume that you are right. What role would the Sator Square play in this? And the copper symbol?«

»Well, two different keys are needed to open the lock.«

Peter continued to stare at the Sator Square and the amulet.

Two keys.

For a brief moment, he was struck by another déjà-vu experience. Suddenly, the whole situation – being at a complete loss and sitting on a bed in a small hotel room – felt as familiar as an old and unpleasant memory mingled with the shreds of his nightmares. Dark images of a ruined city in the desert. Edward Kelly. Ellen’s face, close, so close to his during their last night together. Alessia Bertoni, who looked so much like her. The feeling of drowning. The panic of losing something beloved, forever.

Edward Kelly. Two keys. … Two keys.

»Peter? Are you okay?«

Angrily he held up his hand to shut her up.

Two keys, one lock. Edward Kelly.

Peter stared at the Sator Square and the amulet without blinking.

Two keys, one lock.

As he was staring without blinking, his visual axis shifted and the images of the Sator Square and the amulet began to overlay.

Edward Kelly, you fucking crook and murderer!

»Holy shit, I think I found it!«

Peter grabbed the paper with the Sator Square and drew something on it. When he handed Maria the paper she saw that he had drawn the copper symbol over the square, fitting it in true to scale.

»In most cases, medieval encryption techniques were quite simple. What if each end of the copper symbol corresponds to one letter of the Sator Square?«

He wrote the resulting letters down, one after the other.

SRAOEEOARS

Maria seemed little convinced. »And?« she said.

»This might actually be the code. Perhaps it’s an anagram!«

Electrified, he took the paper and bolted out of the room. When he returned fifteen minutes later, he was very excited.

»Where have you been?« Maria asked.

»The lady downstairs kindly allowed me to use her computer. You can find a whole bunch of anagram generators on the internet. I found one for Latin, if we assume that the code was written in Latin. The letter sequence SRAOEEOARS results in the following, more or less reasonable sentences:

        Area Eo Sors

        Area Sero Os

        Ara Esse Oro

        Ara Sese Oro

        Ea Aes Soror

        Ea Rosa Sero

        Ae Aes Soror

        Ae Rosa Sero

        Orare Aes Os

        Aes Ora Sero

        Aes Aro Sero

        Ora Aro Esse

        Ora Aro Sese

        Ora Rosa See

Maria skimmed through the list and shook her head.

»None of this makes any sense whatsoever. It’s crude gibberish!«

»Don’t you notice anything?« Peter asked.

»What should I notice? It all looks completely random to me.«

Peter circled one of the sentences.

ORARE AES OS

»Pray, bronze, bone,« Maria translated. »So what?«

»That’s the clue!« Peter said triumphantly. »Whatever the Templars might have hidden, it is in the Palace of the Popes.«

Without paying any mind to Maria’s questions, he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room.

The woman at the ticket counter of the Palace of the Popes remembered Maria and Peter. She found it quite surprising that they were in such a rush and explained to them that the Palace would be closing in half an hour but Peter assured her that this would be enough time. They just wanted to take another look at a detail in the Saint-Jean Chapel.

By now, Peter was running, pulling Maria along behind him and ignoring her protests. When they reached the splendidly decorated chapel, he stopped for a moment to get his bearings and then he headed towards one of the side altars and pointed at a huge sculpture behind the communion table.

»There she is!« he proclaimed. »I noticed her this morning because I have never seen an image like it. Do you get it now?«

Maria stared at the sculpture. »Good gracious, you are right,« she whispered. »Pray, bronze, bone.«

According to the little plaque at the side, the unusual bronze sculpture dated from the 14
th
century. A bronze statue showed the Virgin Mary kneeling in prayer over the mortal remains of the martyrs Stephen and Sebastian.

»What do we do now?« Maria whispered.

Peter looked over his shoulder. Due to the late hour, they were alone in the chapel. Peter expected that any minute the woman from the ticket counter would send one of the janitors to the chapel to ask them to leave. So they didn’t have much time.

He stepped in front of the sculpture and began to examine the statue. It didn’t take long until he let out a soft gasp of triumph.

»Look at this!«

He pointed at one of the bronze bones between Maria’s knees. This one was distinctly larger than the others and it also protruded.

»There is a gap, do you see it?«

»Peter! What are you doing, for heaven’s sake?«

Ignoring Maria’s horrified objection, Peter grabbed the protruding end of the bone and jerked at it.

Nothing happened. So Peter looked over his shoulder again and then he jerked at it one more time, now with more force. With an ear-piercing sound, but unexpectedly smoothly after the first resistance, the thread underneath the bone, which had not been moved in centuries, awoke to new life. After a few rotations, Peter had screwed off the upper half of the bone and held it in his hand. Frozen in horror at Peter’s cold-bloodedness, Maria stared at a bronze tube in the statue of the Virgin Mary. And inside the tube was a rolled up parchment.