"Nothing special," he said coolly. "Like you, ships that set sail never to return. And a man. A Knight Templar in chain mail leaning on his sword, in a desert."
She looked at him strangely, as if seeing him for the first time. She said nothing.
"But ghosts," added Quart, "don't leave postcards in hotel rooms."
Macarena touched the card still lying on the table with the writing face up: I come here to pray for you every day... Her lips moved silently as she read the words that never reached Captain Xaloc. "I don't understand," she said finally. "The card was at my house, in the trunk with the rest of Carlota's things. Somebody must have taken it from there."
"Who?"
"I have no idea."
"How many people know about the letters?"
She thought hard. "No," she said after awhile. "It's too absurd."
Quart reached with his hand and saw Macarena shift back in her chair, almost as if in fear. He turned over the card and showed her the photograph of the church. "There's nothing absurd about it," he said. "This is the place where Carlota Bruner is buried, near Captain Xaloc's pearls. The church that your husband wants to demolish and that you're defending. It's the reason for my presence in Seville, because two people have died there." He looked up at her. "A church that, according to a mysterious computer hacker we've called Vespers, kills to defend itself."
She began to smile, but the smile faded to preoccupation. When she spoke, surprisingly, the tone was more annoyed than anxious. "Don't say that. It scares me."
Quart watched her turn the plastic lighter over in her fingers. He felt that Macarena Bruner was lying. She wasn't the kind of woman who scared easily.
Since Vespers' appearance a week ago, Father Ignacio Arregui and his team of Jesuits - all computer experts - had been watching the central Vatican system in twelve-hour shifts. It was now ten minutes to one in the morning, and Arregui went to get coffee from the vending machine in the corridor. The machine accepted his hundred-lire coin but returned only an empty cup and a little heap of sugar. The Jesuit cursed, glancing out of the window at the Belvedere Palace. He searched his pockets for more coins and made a second attempt. This time he got a coffee but no sugar. Luckily the previous cup had remained upright in the dustbin so he used the sugar from that to sweeten his drink. He went back to the computer room. "Here he is again, Father."
Coocy, the Irishman, was staring excitedly at a screen. Another young Jesuit, an Italian called Garofi, was desperately typing at a second terminal.
"Is it Vespers?" asked Father Arregui. He stared over Cooey's shoulder, fascinated by the blinking of the red and blue icons and the vertiginous speed with which the files checked by the hacker scrolled past on the screen. The hacker's movements were shown on one monitor while, on another, Father Garofi tried to track him down.
"I think so," answered the Irishman. "He knows the way and he's going really fast."
"Has he got to the SSs?"
"Some of them. But he's clever: he's not falling into them." Father Arregui took a sip of coffee. It scalded his tongue. "Damn him," he said.
The SSs - Sadducean Snares, as the team had nicknamed them -were like nets at the mouth of a river, in which hackers were snared or at least revealed information that made it possible to track them. The traps that had been laid for Vespers were sophisticated electronic labyrinths that forced an intruder to show his hand.
"He's looking for INMAVAT," said Cooey.
There was again a hint of admiration in his voice. Frowning, Father Arregui glanced at the young man. It was to be expected, he thought as drank his coffee. He couldn't help feeling professional excitement himself, when he saw a member of the computer fraternity doing his stuff so stealthily and cleanly. Even if Vespers was a criminal who was giving them all sleepless nights.
"He's in," said Cooey.
Garofi stopped typing and simply watched. INMAVAT, the restricted file for high-ranking members of the Curia, was there on screen for all to see.
"Yes, it's Vespers," said the Irishman, as if he'd recognised an old friend.
Garofi watched the cursor of the scanner connected to the police and the Vatican telephone system. "He's doing the same as before," said the Italian. "Hiding his entry point by jumping from one phone network to another."
Father Arregui's eyes were riveted to the scrolling list of eighty-four INMAVAT users. They'd spent several days installing a Sadducean Snare for anyone who tried to get into VoiA, the Holy Father's personal computer. The trap would be activated if anyone tried to get in without using the password: once the hacker was inside INMAVAT, he would unwittingly trail a hidden code after himself. When he reached VoiA, the signal would switch him to another file, VoiATS, where he couldn't cause any harm and where he'd leave his new message, thinking he was leaving it for the Pope.
The cursor blinked beside VoiA. Ten long seconds passed, during which the three Jesuits held their breath, watching the second computer screen. At last the cursor gave a double blink, and a clock appeared.
"He's getting in," said Cooey in a whisper, as if Vespers might hear.
Father Arregui bit his lower lip and undid a button on his cassock. If Vespers realised there was a trap, he might get angry. And who could tell what an angry hacker might do inside a file as delicate as INMAVAT? But the team of Vatican experts had a final trick up its sleeve: with just one keystroke, INMAVAT could be taken out of the system. The problem was that if that happened, Vespers would know they were on to him and disappear. Worse, he might return on another occasion with a new tactic. A killer virus, for instance, infecting and destroying everything it touched.
The clock disappeared, and a new window opened on the screen.
"There he goes," said Garofi.
Vespers was inside VoiA, and for one agonising moment the three Jesuits watched anxiously to see which of the two files, the real or the fake, he'd entered. Cooey read out in a tense voice as the code appeared on the screen:
"Vee-Zero-One-A-T-S."
He smiled proudly. Vespers had stepped into the Sadducean Snare. The Pope's personal computer was out of his reach. "Thank God," said Father Arregui.
He'd pulled the button off his cassock. Holding it in his hand, he leaned over to read the message:
Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all
that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.
Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations;
they set up their ensigns for signs.
But now they break down the carved work thereof at
once with axes and hammers.
They have cast fire into thy sanctuary; they have
defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy
name to the ground.
O God, how long shall the adversary reproach?
Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?
After that Vespers disappeared.
"There's no way we can follow him," said Garofi, mouse clicking hopelessly. "As he switches phone networks, he leaves behind a kind of explosive charge that erases any trace of his route. This hacker certainly knows what he's doing."
"And he knows the Psalms," said Father Cooey, switching on the printer to get a copy of the text. "It's sixty-four, isn't it?"
Father Arregui shook his head. "Seventy-four. Psalm seventy-four," he said, still staring anxiously at Garofi's screen.
"Now we know one more thing about him," said Cooey suddenly. "The man has a sense of humour."
The other two priests looked at the screen. Little spheres bounced like ping-pong balls, multiplying at every bounce. When two of them collided there was an explosion and a small mushroom cloud with the word BOOM in the middle.
Arregui was indignant. "The swine," he said. "The heretic."
He became aware that he was still holding the button from his cassock. He threw it in the bin. Still watching the screen, Fathers Cooey and Garofi chuckled quietly.
VII
The Bott
le of Anis del Mono
In the distant past when, studying the sublime Science,
we would lean over the mystery replete with heavy enigmas...
Fulcanelli, The Mystery of Cathedrals
It was a little after eight in the morning when Quart walked across the square towards Our Lady of the Tears. The sun shone on the faded belfry but had not yet risen above the line of eaves of the houses, painted red-ochre and white, and the orange trees were still in shade. Their fragrance accompanied him to the door of the church, where a beggar sat on the ground, his crutches against the wall. Quart gave him a coin and went inside, stopping for a moment beside the figure of Jesus surrounded by ex-votos. The Mass hadn't yet reached the offertory.
He sat at the back. About twenty of the faithful sat in the pews in front, occupying half the nave. The rest of the pews were still piled up against the wall, amongst the scaffolding. The altarpiece light was on, and beneath the motley ensemble of carvings and images, at the foot of the Virgin of the Tears, Don Priamo Ferro performed Mass assisted by Father Oscar. The congregation consisted mostly of women and old people; people of modest means, pensioners, housewives, office workers on their way to work. Some of the women had baskets or shopping trolleys. Two or three elderly women were dressed in black, and one of them, kneeling not far from Quart, had a veil over her head, the kind women wore to Mass twenty years ago.
Father Ferro came forward to read the Gospel. His vestments were white, and, beneath the chasuble and stole, Quart could see that he wore an amice - the strip of linen that, until the second Vatican Council, priests had worn over their shoulders while performing
Mass, in memory of the cloth that covered Christ's face. Only very traditional or very elderly priests continued to wear the vestment, but it wasn't the only anachronism. Father Ferro's old chasuble, for instance, was bell-shaped, a style that had been replaced by one lighter and more comfortable.
"And Jesus said to his disciples ..."
The old priest had read the text hundreds of times during his life and hardly needed the book open on the lectern. His gaze was fixed on some vague point in space before the congregation. He didn't have a microphone, and he didn't need one in such a small church; his loud, flat voice rang out authoritatively in the silence of the nave. It left no room for argument or doubt; nothing but those words, pronounced in the name of the Other, had significance or value. This was the Word.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you . . .
"Word of God," he said, returning behind the altar, and the congregation recited the Creed. With little surprise, Quart caught sight of Macarena Bruner. She sat three rows in front of him, her head bowed in prayer. She wore dark glasses and jeans, her hair was tied in a ponytail, and her jacket was draped over her shoulders. Quart looked back at the altar and met Father Oscar's eyes. He was watching Quart inscrutably while Father Ferro continued to celebrate Mass, aware of nothing but the ritual of his words and gestures:
‘Benedictus est, Domine, deus universi, quia de tua largitate accepimus panem . . .’
Quart listened. Father Ferro was pronouncing those sections of the Mass not directly addressed to the congregation or not recited collectively, in the ancient canonical language of the Church. It wasn't a serious offence. Certain churches had a special right to do this, and in Rome the Pontiff himself often celebrated Mass in Latin. But since Paul VI, ecclesiastical regulations stipulated that Mass be said in the language of the parish, so that congregations find it easier to comprehend and participate. Father Ferro had not accepted all the modern reforms of the Church.
"Per huius aquae et vini mysterium . . ‘
Quart watched him closely during the offertory. Having placed the liturgical objects on the corporal, the priest raised to heaven the Host on the communion plate and then, mixing a few drops of water with the wine brought in cruets by Father Oscar, he also raised the chalice. He then turned to his assistant, who held out a small basin and a silver pitcher, and washed his hands.
"Lava me, Domine, ab iniquitate mea.’
Quart followed the movement of Father Ferro's lips as he whispered the words in Latin. The lavabo was another custom that was almost extinct, although it was still part of the common order of Mass. Quart noticed other anachronisms, rituals that had rarely been performed since he was an altar boy of ten or eleven assisting his parish priest. Father Ferro placed his fingers against one another, beneath the stream of water poured by his assistant, and then, when he dried his hands, he kept his thumbs and index fingers together, in a circle, so that they shouldn't come into contact with anything else. He even turned the pages of the missal with the other three fingers, held rigid. He was observing, to the letter, the usage of old clerics who refused to accept change. All that remained was for him to officiate facing the altarpiece and the image of the Virgin, his back to the congregation, as was the practice thirty years ago. And Quart suspected it wouldn't have bothered Don Priamo Ferro in the slightest to do so, as he recited the canon, his stubborn head bowed with its uneven, bristly hair: Te igitur, clementissime Pater. His unshaven chin sunk into the collar of his chasuble, he whispered - the words perfectly audible in the absolute silence of the church - the prayers of the sacrifice of Mass, exactly as they had been pronounced for the past thirteen hundred years:
"Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti...’
Despite his doubts about such anachronism and his disdain for Father Ferro, the priest in Lorenzo Quart could not but feel moved by the strange solemnity that the ritual conferred upon the old priest. As if the symbolic transformation being acted out at the altar turned the rough provincial priest into a figure of authority, giving him a spiritual power that made one forget the stained cassock and scuffed shoes, the threadbare chasuble. God - if there was a God behind all the gilded baroque carvings that surrounded the Virgin of the Tears -had without a doubt laid His hand, for a moment, on the shoulder of the grumpy old man bowed over the Host and chalice, performing a symbolic re-enactment of the mystery of the incarnation and death of the Son. At that moment, Quart thought as he observed the faces of the people around him - including Macarena Bruner - it mattered little whether there was a God prepared to punish or reward, to damn or grant eternal life. What mattered, in the silence filled by Father Ferro's harsh voice intoning the liturgy, were the people, their grave, calm faces intent on his hands and voice, whispering with him, whether they understood or not, a text that could be summed up in a single word: solace. It was a friendly hand in the darkness, a warmth to keep out the cold. And Quart, kneeling like them, his elbows on the back of the pew in front, repeated the words of the Consecration. He was uneasy, because he knew he had taken a first step towards understanding this church, its priest, the message sent by Vespers, and the reason he himself was here. It was easier, he realised, to despise Father Ferro than to see him, small and uncouth in his old-fashioned chasuble, creating with the words of the ancient mystery a humble haven where the twenty or so faces, most of them tired or bowed with age, watched - with fear, respect, hope - the piece of bread that the old priest held in his proud hands. He raised the chalice containing the wine, fruit of the vine and of man's labours, and then lowered it, transformed into the blood of Jesus, who Himself gave food and drink to His disciples at the Last Supper with the exact same words that Father Ferro now intoned, unchanged, twenty centuries later, beneath the tears of Carlota Bruner and Captain Xaloc:
Hoc facite in meam commemorationem.
Do this in my memory.
Mass was over. The church was deserted. Quart remained seated, motionless, after Don Priamo Ferro said Ite, missa est and walked away from the altar without glancing once in his direction. The congregation left one by one, including Macarena. S
he gave no sign of noticing Quart from behind her dark glasses as she passed. For a time, the old woman in the veil was the only other person there. While she prayed, Father Oscar emerged from the door to the vestry and extinguished the candles and the altarpiece light. He left again without looking round. The old woman then departed too, and the IEA agent was alone in the gloom of the empty church.
Despite his views and rigid adherence to the rules, Quart was a clear-minded man. His lucidity was like a silent curse. It prevented him from accepting totally the natural order of things but gave him nothing in return to make such clarity of mind bearable. For a priest, as in any other walk of life that required a belief in the myth that man held a privileged position in the universe, such lucidity was awkward and dangerous, for it said that human life was totally insignificant. In Quart's case, only willpower, expressed as self-discipline, offered protection from the naked truth that gave rise to weakness or apathy or despair. Maybe that was why he remained sitting there beneath the blackened vault that smelled of wax and cold, ancient stone. He looked round at the scaffolding, at the figure of Christ with dirty hair surrounded by ex-votos, the altarpiece in gloom, the flagstones worn by the footsteps of people long dead. He could still see Father Ferro's unshaven, frowning face at the altar pronouncing the mysterious words, and twenty faces looking back at him, momentarily relieved of their human condition by the hope that there was an all-powerful father and a better life where the just were rewarded and the heathens punished. This modest church was far removed from the vulgarity of Technicolour religions where anything went - open-air arenas, giant television screens, Goebbels' methods, rock concerts, the dialectic of the World Cup, and electronic sprinklers for holy water. Like the forgotten pawns who didn't know whether there was still a king to fight for, some pieces chose their square - a place where they could die. Father Ferro had chosen his, and Lorenzo Quart, experienced scalp hunter for the Roman Curia, didn't find it difficult to understand. Perhaps for that reason he now had doubts, sitting in the small, dilapidated, lonely church that the old priest had made into his tower: a refuge where he could defend the last of his flock from the prowling wolves outside.