The Voynich Cypher

CHAPTER 18

Natalie and Steven settled in at the hotel they’d selected by the Spanish Steps plaza, a large, multi-storied affair in a renovated older building. Steven was in Natalie’s room, using the laptop, when her phone rang.

Danny explained to them that he’d found a contact at the church’s security company and had made an arrangement for three thousand dollars to get them half an hour alone in the middle level, on the understanding that they couldn’t take anything out and didn’t harm any of the art, subject to prosecution. A meeting was set for one a.m.. Danny offered to supply a ride if they wished, but Natalie declined. She told him they’d be at the side entrance of the church at one. Danny would meet them to ensure there were no last-minute problems at the basilica.

They ate at a little restaurant a block from the hotel that the manager had recommended and were pleasantly surprised to find it a world-class eatery. Both avoided any wine and instead had mineral water with dinner, prompting a sneer from the surly waiter.

Steven had studied the online blueprint of the site and plotted a rough circle that equated to a radius of six paces from the fresco. He hoped they would find something they’d missed in the crush of tourists on the tour, but the way things had been going, he wasn’t hopeful. A part of him believed this was all for naught, but he wouldn’t tell Natalie that. She’d had enough body blows in the last week, between her father dying and being hunted all over the planet.

When they returned to the hotel, they agreed to meet at twelve forty-five in the lobby. They silently rode up the elevator to their floors, lost in their separate thoughts. Back in his room, Steven brushed his teeth and took a fast shower, hoping to get some rest before their basilica adventure started. But once on his bed he found himself tossing and turning on the unyielding mattress, unable to sleep for the few hours before their rendezvous.

The prior time his life had been uprooted, he’d had Antonia to keep him company and partner with him on the journey, which made things easier. Now he was alone and in the same situation. There was no alternative he could see to abandoning everything.

Steven shifted uncomfortably on the bed, willing the unbidden thoughts away, but to no avail. His mind was racing on its own course, fueled by adrenaline in anticipation of the night’s forthcoming events. In spite of his best intentions, it wouldn’t be denied.

He could tell that Natalie hadn’t digested all the ramifications of their predicament until their discussion that afternoon. If Frank was as murderous as she’d said, and the Order was as persistent as could be expected, given their history, they’d never stop hunting them. No matter where he went or what he did, he would never be safe, nor would Natalie. She wasn’t his problem, but still, she had forced her way into his consciousness. Unfortunately, their discussion hadn’t yielded any insights into what she intended to do, other than reinforcing that she was playing it all by ear.

Much as he’d tried, Steven couldn’t figure Natalie out. She seemed tough as titanium, but with a vulnerable streak that flashed to the surface occasionally. That was a powerfully attractive combination to him, which was obvious, given how hard a time he had concentrating whenever she was near. It was probably for the best that there was no chance for them. The last thing Steven was looking for was any kind of a relationship — it was too soon after Antonia — but even so, he was intrigued by Natalie’s violet eyes and overall aesthetic.

But was it really too soon? An internal voice whispered the nagging question. It was approaching three years since the accident. Was it really too soon to be interested in another woman, or was that just an excuse for remaining disengaged, a spectator in life rather than a participant?

He rolled over, trying to banish the pointless speculations. She was too young for him, and he knew it. His mind was just punishing him with empty possibilities based on delusions of vitality.

At half past midnight, he pulled himself off the bed and changed into black slacks and a dark blue shirt, pulling on his lightweight black windbreaker as an afterthought. He automatically checked to ensure the room safe was secure as he pocketed his valuables, then closed the door behind him and descended to the lobby. Natalie was already waiting for him, now back to wearing her black suede jumpsuit. He tried not to notice how well she filled it out, but lost the battle when she walked ahead of him to the entry doors.

Frederick pulled up at the curb right on time. As they sped away, he wordlessly handed Natalie a small bundle of tools — a flathead screwdriver, a putty knife and a cordless battery-powered jeweler’s drill. She inserted the various items into her knee-high boots, which, while awkward, effectively concealed them. Steven watched her preparations with interest. They’d been told they couldn’t remove anything from the church, but nobody had said anything about what they could bring in. He hoped whoever they were paying off wasn’t too much of a stickler for formality.

They pulled to a stop around the corner from the side entrance of the basilica, the only vehicle on the deserted street. Steven and Natalie cautiously got out and proceeded up the block. When they turned the corner, they saw a single car parked at the far end of the building. Danny’s distinctive frame approached them from beneath one of the dim streetlights.

“Good evening. I trust this will work for you?” he asked.

“Perfect, Danny. I appreciate it,” Natalie said.

“I just handled the payment to security — we can settle up later. Now, remember the rules. No removing anything, no defacing the art. Beyond that, you have thirty minutes to explore or do whatever you like in the middle level. The guards will stay in the upper level, so you’ll have privacy, although they’ll do a quick tour with you once your time is up to confirm everything’s still there and that you didn’t damage anything. Is that all clear?” Danny warned.

“Don’t mess with the art. Don’t steal anything. I got it,” Natalie confirmed.

“That’s about it. I’ll introduce you to the guard and then I’m going home. We can meet tomorrow to handle the money. Good luck.”

They followed Danny to the side entrance, where a few minutes later a pale face peered at them through the bars. Danny fired off a soft burst of Italian, and the guard’s face relaxed. Seconds later, the lock turned and the old iron door creaked open. Danny nodded to them and left them to their devices, strolling casually back to his vehicle while lighting a cigarette.

The guard motioned for them to enter as he scanned the street to ensure they were alone. The bars slammed shut behind them with an ominous finality, echoing in the empty church. Gesturing with an outstretched hand to signal silence, he guided them to the stairway that led to the lower levels, then did a pat-down of Steven, pausing when he found his phone and keys. Next, he performed a cursory inspection of Natalie’s small black clutch purse before handing it back to her. One look at Natalie’s outfit had convinced him that if she was hiding anything on her person he’d need an X-ray system to find it. Satisfied, he pointed to his watch.

“Thirty minutes,” he said in Italian. “You know the rules, eh?”

Natalie looked at Steven uncomprehendingly; he tersely summarized the man’s message for her. They nodded, and he opened the two wooden doors that shuttered the foyer for the stairs to the lower level. Once they were through, he closed them again. They heard a chain wrap around the handles. Steven experienced a moment of foreboding but it quickly passed. It was only a half hour, and they’d soon find out whether their mission was a dud or a winner.

They stepped down the stairs into the dank middle basilica, the walls of which were mostly worn stones and crudely-made brick held together with mortar, with odd patches of plaster covering stretches where it hadn’t yet crumbled away. They made their way quickly through the first gallery, which ran perpendicular to the main chamber. The middle level, much like the upper modern church, was composed of a large central room punctuated by a series of supporting columns and arches, with a long, narrow gallery on either side.

From their position across the main room, Natalie pointed at the fresco of Saint Alexis on the far wall, near the entry to the left gallery. They moved soundlessly across the floor. Once at the fresco, Steven paced off six long strides — five feet each — and after fishing a small stub of chalk out of his pocket, made a light mark on the floor. He walked twelve paces in the opposite direction and repeated the process. They both moved away from the fresco and inspected the ceiling, floor and the two walls on either side, by the chalk marks. There was no cross anywhere. Steven strode into the left gallery, the wall of which was the back side of the fresco, and after counting the paces to the entryway, repeated the calculation process. Natalie watched him, and they peered at the two points. Nothing. Just ancient stone walls dotted haphazardly with art.

Frustrated, they moved back into the main chamber and stared at the Alexis fresco.

“Like we saw today,” Steven whispered, “there’s no cross. Now, either that means that this is the wrong place, and I somehow garbled the parchment data, or in the last five hundred years a cross in this room was removed.”

“What if it was painted on the wall and over time the plaster came off? Most of the walls are just bare stone, but you can see some of the original plaster in places, like the frescoes,” Natalie said, kneeling as she extracted the tools from her boots.

“Anything’s possible, but we could just as easily speculate that it was somewhere on the floor in a six pace radius. Point is, that’s a lot of space to cover. If the cross was a statue on some sort of a base, it’s long gone. I’m afraid the short answer is, looks like we’re screwed.”

“Maybe a pace is more like a yard?” she mused.

“No. It’s five feet. Even in 1450 the yard was well understood as a unit of measurement. If the parchment had meant yards, it would have said yards.”

Natalie walked to the wall near the first chalk mark and lightly tapped on the stones with the handle of the screwdriver, starting from the bottom and moving as high as she could reach. Steven watched her stretching on her toes. He absently wondered what her workout regimen consisted of. He felt a stirring and quickly shifted mental gears.

She shook her head and made a noise, then moved to the far chalk mark and repeated the process. Steven decided to occupy his wandering eye in some other fashion than ogling his partner in crime and walked to another fresco at the far end of the chamber — this one of Saint Clemente celebrating mass. According to his watch, they’d burned seven minutes. This wasn’t going anywhere.

“Steven. Come here,” Natalie called.

He spun around and moved to where she was crouched by his second chalk mark. “Look up at the ceiling. Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

He squinted in the meager light, then rooted around in his pocket for his phone. He selected the flashlight function and a bright beam of light stabbed into the darkness above them. There, faintly embossed in the plaster remnants, was the unmistakable labyrinth crest from the Scroll. Natalie and he exchanged a look, and she redoubled her tapping on the wall below it. The wall was solid stone and mortar.

“Kneel down,” Natalie urged. “I need to climb onto your shoulders and try higher up the wall. That’s the crest. There has to be something here.”

“What if it was a stand-alone cross on the floor below it…which is now gone? Or what if it’s up in the ceiling?” Steven asked, crouching down as he did so.

“Then we’ll borrow some scaffolding and get up there somehow.” She threw her legs around his head and, once in place, tapped the top of his skull. “Giddy up, big boy.”

Steven ignored the erotic implications of having Natalie straddling his shoulders and obligingly stood. She couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds, so it wasn’t much of a burden. He noted that even her suede jumpsuit legs smelled good, while she busily tapped against the wall with the screwdriver. After a few seconds, the tone of the tapping changed.

“I think I found something. Hold still,” she instructed and began chipping at the mortar. Dust and chips landed on Steven’s face. He closed his eyes and spat out the small bits that had found their way into his mouth. After several minutes of this, she nudged his shoulder with the screwdriver blade, which he grabbed as she retrieved the battery-powered drill from her boot. The little motor whined alarmingly, but the grinding bit ate through the old mortar like it was butter. Eventually the din stopped, and Natalie slid the drill back into her boot. He blew mortar dust from his lips and shook some fragments off his head.

He heard something above slide grudgingly out of the wall, then Natalie handed the object to him. It wasn’t a rock, but rather a ceramic block crudely molded to look like one.

Natalie squinted at the cavity. “There’s something in here, in a cubbyhole. I…Steven, I don’t want to ruin it…”

“Take my camera and get some photos. Then we can figure out how to extract whatever it is without damaging it.”

Steven fished his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. A few seconds later the blinding flash went off, once, then again.

“Okay. You can see it clearly. Let me down for a second.”

Steven obliged, kneeling on the floor so she could get off his shoulders. They both looked at the image on the tiny screen.

“It looks like a parchment,” Steven said. “The bad news is that it’s going to be in terrible shape after five centuries in these damp walls. It’s a kind of miracle that it’s even intact,” he warned. “It looks like it’s folded in half. See if you can gently lift it out, and we’ll place it here on the floor and have a look at it. I’d use the screwdriver.”

Natalie nodded and, screwdriver in hand, hopped back up onto Steven’s shoulders, wedging her feet under his armpits as he gripped her legs. Within a minute, she’d painstakingly slipped the metal blade under the document and extracted it from its hiding place.

“I’m clear,” she said, then as Steven kneeled, both watched in horror as the ancient parchment tumbled from its precarious position and fell to the floor, where it shattered into six fragments. The ancient vellum had indeed degraded to the point where it was as brittle as an eggshell.

Natalie gasped as Steven gently set her down, then held her back from the small pile of rubble.

“Don’t breathe. Give me the putty knife,” he instructed.

Natalie did as asked, and he cautiously flipped over the shards of the old document, piecing them roughly together. He unfolded the area that was doubled across the broken lower sheet, and it split at the fold. Steven gently eased that piece against the rest, creating a badly broken single page with faint coded writing on it. To Steven’s eye, it was the same code as the one that had led them there. With a trembling hand, he took several more photos, checking to ensure they were of adequate resolution to be analyzed later.

The clattering of the chain on the doors in the stairwell foyer above them jarred their moment of triumph.

Steven dropped the phone back into his pocket and whispered to Natalie, “Grab the stone and set it back in place. Hurry.”

He handed the coarsely crafted rectangle to her and knelt down again, swinging her up onto his shoulders and moving back towards the wall. He heard the scraping of the block as Natalie re-wedged it into place. More debris hit him in the face. Finished, she patted his head and he crouched so she could jump down. Just as her feet hit the floor, they heard the door swing open upstairs and a soft voice call out. Steven peered at his watch — their thirty minutes was up. He looked down at the parchment and saw with horror that his boot had crushed it into an unrecognizable pile of dust, intermingled with the tiny mortar specks from above. Moving quickly, he brushed the debris away from the wall, off into a dark corner at the far end of the chamber. Natalie quickly followed suit as they heard the heavy footsteps moving down the stairs and into the far gallery.

She looked up at Steven’s face and began lightly patting it in an effort to remove most of the telltale powdery residue. The footsteps neared the opening to the chamber, and she hastily moved a few paces away from the area, pulling Steven along by the hand. As the steps neared the main room, she pulled the zipper of her jumpsuit to her navel, threw her arms around Steven and kissed him full on the lips, her tongue finding his with a small moan.

The guard shuffled into the hall and cleared his throat. Steven and Natalie looked up at him, visibly startled. Steven wasn’t faking the surprise, and his tousled hair and expression clearly radiated shocked guilt. Natalie pulled away and hastily pulled up her zipper, allowing the man to catch a good glimpse of one perfectly-molded breast in the process. She cleared her throat and flashed a beaming smile at the entranced guard, then also smiled at Steven, who was struggling to regain his composure.

“Eh, so your half hour is over. Let’s have a look at the paintings to make sure you didn’t damage anything.” The guard leered at them both. “I hope it was worth it for you, si?”

Steven smirked in what he hoped was a lascivious manner. “Oh, it was, my friend. It was. Si.”

The guard performed a cursory inspection of the frescoes; satisfied that nothing had been touched, he motioned to them to accompany him up the stairs, muttering to himself and shaking his head along the way. Americans were an odd bunch. Who else would pay several thousand dollars to screw in a church basement? Then again, whatever floated your boat, he reasoned. If he had the money and a willing partner like this minx of a woman, he’d pretty much do it wherever she wanted, as well. When love was in the air, you didn’t question it…

Natalie took Steven’s hand as they mounted the stairs to the upper level. After thanking the guard and slipping him an extra hundred dollar bill for his discretion, they stepped out onto the empty street. Steven listened as the heavy iron security door closed behind them, sheltering the church’s treasures from blasphemers once again. Natalie was suddenly all business and detached her hand from Steven’s before moving down the block.

When they reached the corner of the building, they peeked around and confirmed that Frederick and the car were still there, waiting patiently for their return. The street was empty, with only a few streetlights glowing in the darkness. Steven followed Natalie to within a few yards of the passenger door, when he abruptly stopped and grabbed her arm. A man’s leg protruded from the bushes to their right, part of the church’s hedges.

What the hell was going on? Steven spun Natalie towards him and held his fingers to his lips before moving to the vegetation. A quick inspection revealed Frederick’s body lying twisted in the dirt, the telltale marks of stab wounds on his torso, his white shirt and black jacket gleaming with blood.

Steven reached into the bushes to confirm there was no pulse, then jerked Frederick’s weapon free of the shoulder holster — a Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol. Steven guessed by the still-wet blood he’d been killed no more than ten minutes earlier. Beyond him, in the space near the rear of the building, another man lay in a pool of his own fluids, also clearly dead.

Natalie was reaching for the car door when Steven hissed at her, “No. We’ve been blown. Leave the car. We’ve got to get out of here; it could be rigged.”

He grabbed her hand and they set off at a run, away from the church and the death that had suddenly surrounded them. The empty street gave no hint of pursuit, but still they ran like the devil himself was behind them.