by James Codlin
Cobo straightened in his seat. “We are the latest in an unbroken line of more than 60 monks and cardinals who have taken the Fourth Angel oath, putting our eternal souls in jeopardy if we break it. I will not listen to this madness.” Cobo stood and glared at the other monk. “You can be sure I will inform Cardinal Gasco of this blasphemy that you propose the moment he arrives.”
Cobo turned, began to walk toward the door… and stumbled. His legs, already weary from the riding, had suddenly lost their strength. As he dropped to one knee, nausea swept through him, and he began to lose feeling in his hands. Cobo reached for the chair he had just vacated, hoping for some measure of support. As his fingertips brushed against the edge of the chair, it slid slowly away and out of his grasp, scraping against the stone floor with a sorrowful screech. Cobo looked up and saw the calm disappointment on Enríquez’s face as he finished sliding the chair under the table.
Enríquez withdrew a small glass bottle with a cork stopper from his robe, and leaned over the weakening man. “My brother, you have reacted rather poorly to my proposal. As such, I am afraid that I must deny you the relief that this elixir would have provided you had you been more… receptive.”
Cobo collapsed to the floor, his limp arms providing no buttress as he fell. He turned his head to look up at Enríquez, the cool stone against his cheek the only remaining tactile sensation of which he had any awareness. “How can you… why would you… you are damned,” he said, and died.
Enríquez impassively placed the bottle back within his robes. When the cardinal arrived, it would have another opportunity to be utilized. Or perhaps not. Time would tell whether Enríquez would have a co-conspirator, or if he would be forced to work alone to get his hands on the Fourth Angel fortune. Until then, he had work to do. He would wait until the cover of darkness to dispose of the body in the nearby woods, where wild animals would make short work of it. He would also free Cobo’s horse and encourage it back along the road from which it had come. The explanation of Cobo’s predawn departure, should anyone bother to even ask, would be more than satisfactory.
The door swung open and Cardinal Gasco looked over the scene.
Enríquez instinctively backed away, startled. “Cardinal! Brother Cobo has had a seizure of some sort! Please, help me assist him!”
The cardinal stepped in, still blocking the small room’s only exit, and removed a dagger from underneath his raiment. “It appears my arrival has come at an inconvenient moment for you, Brother Enríquez. It was clearly God’s will that I would locate your cell in time to hear your unholy proposal to Brother Cobo. I am comforted that he will ascend to join our Holy Father as an innocent who gave his life in protection of his sacred duty. You, on the other hand… your treachery is disgraceful. I take pleasure in the fact that you will spend an eternity in hellfire for your actions.”
Enríquez lunged forward in a desperate attempt to bull rush the larger man. The cardinal readied his dagger and braced for impact, but it never came. Enríquez’s foot tripped over the lifeless, outstretched leg of Brother Cobo. His arms pinwheeled wildly and his mouth formed a surprised and horrified “O” as he grasped the fatal nature of this turn of events. The moment Enríquez’s body smacked against the hard floor, the cardinal promptly straddled him and plunged his dagger into the base of Enríquez’s skull.
*
Gasco disposed of the bodies and returned to the cathedral in Valladolid. He sat in his study, thinking of the future.
The cardinal reflected on how the original plan for three Guardians had been based on Torquemada’s then-contemporary actuarial mortality estimates. He had taken into account accidents, plagues, murders, wars—all the possible ways that men could die in the 15th century. Now it was up to the cardinal to modernize these calculations to sustain the essence of Torquemada’s master plan, even if it meant modifying the Inquisitor General’s original instructions.
As for the current political climate, Gasco had to concede that Enríquez was right—the Hapsburgs had been out of power in Spain for more than one hundred years and were losing influence throughout Europe. But if he could tie the Spanish Hapsburgs, the papacy, and the Austrian Hapsburgs together some way…
Cardinal Gasco unlocked a drawer and withdrew the voluminous Flanders Hapsburg family research that had been completed by the Guardians eight decades earlier and meticulously updated by their successors. He turned to the first page: King Carlos I of Spain, also known as Carlos V, the Holy Roman Emperor.
CHAPTER TEN
Lenin paced the floor while Martín sprawled on a sofa and Gina hunched over Lenin’s desk, continuing to replay the recording Dave had left for her. They had listened to each of the messages so many times that they could recite every word Dave had said.
Martín was adamant that the absence of background noise during Dave’s last message meant that the call had been made under duress. Everything he said had to be a code, particularly since he and Dave hadn’t played golf together in quite some time. He pulled up the Gables Golf Club’s scorecard on his phone and wrote down each hole’s par score on the front nine.
“Three, four, four, three, five, four, three, four, four,” he read aloud as he wrote the numbers one through nine across the top of the sheet of paper over the par values. Under that he wrote the scores that Dave referred to, omitting the first three holes because he hadn’t said what the scores were in relation to par.
“So, the numbers he wants us to know are one, four, two, two, five, and four,” Gina said. “We don’t know what the first, second, and third holes are supposed to be.”
“And we also don’t know what ‘choice guy’ and ‘Saint Benny’ mean,” Martín said.
They tried country and city telephone dialing codes, but none made any sense in this context. If the numbers corresponded to letters of the alphabet, they spelled A-D-B-B-E-B. Grid coordinates were a possibility, but only had meaning if they knew the map that they referred to.
The hour was late, and Lenin brought in three mugs of coffee before shocking Gina and Martín by removing his jacket. In all the years they had known the man, they had literally never seen him without one.
Lenin regarded their slackened jaws with a raised eyebrow, but refrained from making any sarcastic remarks. He was too exhausted to generate much wit, and his anxiety over Dave’s fate was acute.
The three sipped their coffees in silence for a few minutes, lost in their individual thoughts.
“This is delicate, Martín,” Lenin said. “I don’t want you to compromise yourself, but could this in any way tie to your conversation with Takeshi Ishikawa? Don’t answer out loud—just think about it.”
Martín thought hard, but he could see no connection with the guerrillas and terrorists that President Ishikawa had discussed with him. He shook his head. “I also had a conversation with King Carlos. But there’s no connection there either, of course.”
For a moment the tension in Lenin’s face melted and he looked pleasantly surprised. “You had an audience with the king? I’m impressed!”
Martín related the conversation with Carlos and Lenin nodded, remarking that he had heard that the king was a dedicated scholar of Spanish history.
“There was one thing that was odd, though,” Martín said. “I noticed the king’s screensaver. It was the Spanish flag, but it had the Hapsburg coat of arms, with the S.C.C.R. acronym.”
Professor Lenin’s eyes widened a bit and he scribbled something on the pad of paper in front of him. “Let’s puzzle through the other recordings a bit more. Perhaps this chromium head of mine can come up with some ideas—even at this late hour.” He looked down at his exposed dress shirt. “And in this obscene state of undress.”
Gina and Martín exchanged a smile, prompting one from their former professor as well.
“Why was Dave in Sevilla?” Lenin asked.
“I don’t know,” Martín said.
“Hmm. All right, he’s researching in Sevilla. No doubt it’s a legal matter, and since
David’s specialty is national sovereignty, we can assume it has something to do with that. There are two named persons who may or may not have something to do with his research: Julio and Ray.”
“Or they could just be fellow party animals,” Martín said.
“Possibly. At the same time, Gina is in France researching Pope Pius’s lineage, and she finds a discrepancy. There is an immediate reaction—the priest who helped her is murdered and the conspirators running the cover-up begin to seek out Gina as well.
“Dave finds himself in a situation of duress. He sends Martín a coded message—a series of numbers—and says that he is staying in Spain. It has something to do with Spanish history ‘that Cr would love.’” He glared at his former students. “Plus, an admonition to talk to Gina. Any possible tie to what Gina uncovered? ‘Choice,’ ‘Saint Benny.’ Anything else?”
Gina chimed in. “We also know that whatever I was supposed to tell Martín was cut off in the message Dave tried to leave me. He must not have realized that the message didn’t go through. Otherwise he would have tried again, given how important he made it sound.”
Martín’s phone rang. He fumbled the phone out of his pocket, then shook his head apologetically as he answered the call.
“Ibarra here,” he said and listened silently for thirty seconds. He clicked the phone off.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Let’s take it up again tomorrow morning,” Lenin said.
“Okay,” Martín said. “But I have to leave for South America tomorrow afternoon. I’m sorry.”
Gina grimaced, then stood. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
They went out the front door and across the lawn, Martín with his hands in his pockets, Gina with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. As they walked, Martín pulled a hand out of his pocket to put an arm around her shoulders, but stopped himself. When they got to the car they avoided eye contact.
Finally, Martín spoke. “I’m worried about you, Gina.”
“So am I,” she said. “Where are you off to?”
“I have to meet someone.”
“Something about my father?”
Martín said nothing.
Gina turned to face him, looking directly up into his eyes. He saw genuine concern in her expression. “My father is almost messianic about his… mission, I guess you would call it. But at the same time, he’s in a bad political spot. He’s desperate, Martín. I’m afraid for you too, and what my father may want of you. He’ll do anything to maintain what he believes will be his greatest legacy. I know this better than anyone, and I want you to think carefully before you do what he asks of you.”
Martín felt a twinge of annoyance that Gina had turned the conversation around on him. She was the one who had recently escaped death, not him. His fatigue amplified his annoyance and he responded abruptly, and with a harsher, more condescending tone than he intended. “I’m going to be fine, Gina. As for you, I want you to just lay low with Cr and not go anywhere until—”
Her eyes flashed. “You want? You have no right to ‘want’ anything about my life. And lay low until what, Martín? Until this—whatever the hell it is—blows over? Or Dave comes back? Maybe if I hide for long enough I can write my big story about the pope without one shred of evidence to back it up and they’ll hand me the Pulitzer! Don’t tell me what you ‘want,’ Martín. Just go. I’m not your damsel in distress to protect.”
Gina turned and stalked across the lawn to the house. Defeated and angry with himself, Martín opened the door to his car, started it, and drove away.
*
Martín drove slowly through Little Havana. Young dark-haired women in tube tops and form-fitting elastic shorts strolled the sidewalks arm in arm with young men in colorful shirts and tight pants. Cars with glossy paint jobs cruised by, seeming to float on cushions of delicate fluorescent lighting that reflected off the pavement. The cars throbbed with the deep bass beats of salsa and meringue music. Martín pulled to the curb, turning to look at the front of a cafe displaying glowing pink flamingos in the windows and a painted sign saying MANTANZAS CAFÉ COCINA CUBANA.
Martín walked inside and looked around. The café was narrow and dark, extending a long way toward the back. Jalousie windows at the front let in the humid evening breezes. On one side two old men rasped in Spanish while playing checkers. In a booth near them were three beautiful girls in bright-colored dresses, winding down after what looked to be an evening on the town. Everyone in the cafe gleamed with a sheen of perspiration. The radio blared a song by Orquesta Revé.
Martín slid into a booth with a hand-sawed plywood table covered in heavy coats of red paint. A flat-screen television with the sound turned off showed the lowlights of yet another Marlins loss. One of the girls from the front of the cafe slinked past him on her way to the restroom, giving him an inviting smile that changed to a pout when he looked away.
A waitress brought him a Cuban coffee, served steaming hot in a large glass tumbler. The liquid was light beige in color due to its heavy dilution with milk, and its consistency was sticky-sweet with sugar. Martín sipped it and watched the television as Giancarlo Stanton, a former Marlin now with the hated Yankees, thundered a home run into the second deck.
Martín was startled when a voice next to his ear said in Spanish, “Listen, architect—wait thirty seconds, then follow me.”
After a few more sips of his café con leche, Martín stood and walked toward the kitchen doors. The girl came out of the women’s bathroom, made eye contact with Martín, and formed another hopeful smile. Then she caught sight of the small man standing by the kitchen door and looked back at Martín with new respect. Her lips puckered into a kiss, and she headed toward the front of the restaurant.
Martín pushed through the swinging doors. The kitchen was steamy and smelled of spicy Cuban beans with rice. The man led Martín to a door that he knocked on twice, paused, and knocked once more.
Behind the door a man sat at a large, ornate desk. He had thick black hair that was combed into a 1940s-era pompadour. His face was puffy and his eyes were magnified to caricature proportions by thick glasses in Buddy Holly-style black frames.
The man wore a Bluetooth headset and was talking softly in Spanish. He held up his thumb pressed against his index finger toward Martín, talked for another minute, clicked off the phone, and stood, opening his arms broadly.
“Martinito!” he bellowed in a voice roughened by heavy smoking. Martín came forward, throwing his arms around the man, and they slapped each other’s backs furiously in a Latino abrazo.
“Gallego,” Martín said affectionately. No one in Martín’s generation knew him by any other name. He had been given the nickname because he had gone to live with an uncle in the Galicia region of Spain after his parents had fled Cuba in 1962 and still affected the accent of that region.
Gallego came around the desk and plopped his massive frame into a chair beside Martín, gripping the young man’s forearm tightly. He asked enthusiastically about each member of Martín’s family, smiling broadly and nodding frequently as Martín answered. Martín reciprocated by asking Gallego about his wife, children, godchildren, and parents, and was genuinely saddened to hear of the passing of Gallego’s father. They spoke of Cuban baseball and gossiped about Miami’s Cuban-American community leaders.
Gallego moved easily within the Cuban community in America. And perhaps uniquely, he was also able to pass easily into and out of Cuba from the United States using clandestine means that baffled even those closest to him. He did favors for, and received favors from, Cubans on the island and overseas. He operated in the vague areas between the bombastic Marxist dictates of Cuba and the elaborate Anglo common law system in America, helping unofficially here, facilitating something there, and passing official and unofficial messages back and forth. He had brought together many family members divided by the isolation of Cuba from its large neighbor and had moved millions of dollars from prosperous Cuban-Americans to their destitute
Cuban relatives.
After a half-hour and two Cuba Libre drinks each, Gallego got to the business at hand, using his curious Caribbean and Iberian blend of the mother tongue.
“So of course you come to Gallego for information about your brother. You will go to Caracas—the sooner the better—and check into the Reyes Católicos Hotel. Ask the night clerk for directions to Ranchito Fierabrás. But, please be careful in your work for Ishikawa.” He waved off a weak denial by Martín. “Remember who you are talking to—I hear such things. Ishikawa is Latino in birth and citizenship, but his heart is Japanese and unknown to anyone but himself.”
“Do you know what my brother is doing?” Martín asked. “This marshaling of various forces, and foreigners joining his movement?”
The large man shrugged. “Many things are heard. Perhaps a symbolic act for indigenous rights? A blow against the Latino Union to force continent-wide land reform? A demand for a homeland for those who feel excluded from the new Eurocentric culture? It is not clear who he considers good and who he considers bad in this matter.”
“Drug trafficking?” Martín asked quietly.
“Impossible. Not your brother. He is a true ideologue—the purest Marxist remaining in the world. I am helping bring you two together because I believe in both of you. Something good will come of it.”
“Ishikawa says he’s a vicious terrorist.”
Gallego considered this for a moment, and then shook his head. “Nico was trained that way. But today he is older and his temperament has mellowed.”
Gallego rose, indicating the end of the meeting. He affectionately took Martín’s elbow as he walked him to the door. They slapped another abrazo. “Be careful of who may follow you to Nicolás and what you tell Ishikawa after you meet your brother. And for you personally, be careful of priests.”
“Priests?”
“They are everywhere in the Latino Union right now—going door to door, on TV, staging rallies, handing out crucifixes to everyone. I’ve never seen such things before. There are rumors that some may even have an interest in you. As I said, many things are heard. I would tell you more if I knew. An abrazo for my friend Teodoro, and a kiss on each cheek for Gina.”