"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 Bottle 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.