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The Lost Angel
OTHER BOOKS BY JAVIER SIERRA
The Secret Supper
The Lady in Blue
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Picatrix S.L.
English language translation © 2011 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Originally published in Spain in 2011 by Editorial Planeta.
Translated by Carlos Frías.
Glossary text © Equipo Picatrix.
Glossary design © 2011 Óscar Peris Pina.
Glossary translation also by Carlos Frías.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof
in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights
Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Atria Books hardcover edition October 2011
ATRIA BOOKS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Illustrations by ED.
Document image on page 175: Monas hieroglyphica, John Dee, Amberes, 1564.
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Designed by Paul Dippolito
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sierra, Javier, date.
[ángel perdido. English]
The lost angel : a novel / Javier Sierra.
p. cm.
Summary: “Bestseller Javier Sierra presents a new historical enigma: a mysterious pair of 16th-century stones used for communicating with God”—Provided by publisher.
Includes glossary.
I. Title.
PQ6719.I54A4213 2011
863’.7—dc22
2011019248
ISBN 978-1-4516-3279-8
ISBN 978-1-4516-3281-1 (ebook)
To Eva, Martín and Sofía,
my own guardian angels
. . . the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
—GENESIS 6:2–3
Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat. (He who does not understand, let him either remain silent or learn.)
—JOHN DEE (1527–1608)
Contents
Twelve hours earlier
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Translator
The Lost Angel
Twelve hours earlier
An enormous flat-screen monitor lit up in the National Security Agency director’s office as the electric blinds darkened the room with a whispered hum. A man in a tailored suit sat across a rich mahogany desk from the all-powerful Michael Owen, waiting to be told why he had been summoned so hastily all the way from New York.
“Colonel Allen.” The towering man with obsidian skin cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“I don’t think I had much of a choice, sir,” he answered.
Nicholas Allen was battle tested in these circles. He had spent two decades navigating the bureaucratic maze that is Washington, DC, and yet, he could count on one hand the number of times he had been in this room. If Owen, the agency’s director, had called him to his office in Fort Meade, Maryland, it was because he was in a bind. A big one. Rushing here was the least he could do.
“You’ll understand in a minute why I needed you here so quickly, Colonel Allen,” Owen said, his eyes fixed squarely. “Six hours ago, our embassy in Ankara sent me a copy of a videotape I need you to see. I want you to pay close attention to every detail and give me your thoughts when it’s over. Can you do that?”
“Of course, sir.”
Nick Allen had been trained to do just that. To follow orders without question. From every angle, he was the perfect soldier: a powerful physique, six feet tall, a square jaw and angular face bearing the scars of combat, and a piercing blue-eyed stare that c
ould in a flash dart from kindness to merciless fury. He focused that gaze and leaned his tall frame back in the chair, waiting for the monitor with multicolored test bars to reveal its first image.
What he saw made him start.
A man in a room with cracked and stained walls sat with his hands tied in front of him and a black hood draped over his head. Someone had dressed him in an orange prison jumpsuit, of the kind worn by US federal inmates. But those hovering around him weren’t “friendlies.” Between the shadows, Allen could make out two, maybe three men dressed in Middle Eastern–style tunics, head scarves covering all but their eyes. From the border between Turkey and Iran, Allen thought. Maybe Iraq. As the jittery camera moved about, Allen finally saw graffiti written in Kurdish. The video had obviously been shot with a handheld camera. Maybe a camera phone. Once he heard the men speak again, he was certain where they were from. “Near the Armenian border,” he said. Plus, two of the men were carrying AK-47s, and, on their waistbands, each wore a curved scimitar, typical of that region. He wasn’t surprised to hear the cameraman also directing the scene. Nor that he spoke to the hostage in English with a heavy northeast-Turkish accent.
“All right. Now, say what you’re supposed to,” the voice ordered.
The prisoner struggled as menacing hands grabbed him by the back of the neck and roughly angled his face toward the camera, whipping off the black hood.
“Say it!”
The hostage looked shaken, unsteady. His whole demeanor told of abuse. Unkempt beard. Mussed hair and a gaunt, dirty, sun-scorched face. Nick Allen thought it odd that the lighting was so poor he couldn’t get a good look at the man’s face. The room looked lit by a single bulb. And yet, something about this man seemed strikingly familiar.
“In the name of the Forces of Popular Defense . . . I urge the government of the United States to cease supporting the invading Turks,” the hostage said in perfect English. Somewhere behind him, a swell of disgruntled yells called out, “Keep going, you filthy dog!” The poor man, whom Allen couldn’t identify no matter how hard he tried, began to tremble. He leaned forward and held up his bound wrists for the camera to see. Several of his fingers were black, perhaps frostbitten, but they appeared to be grasping a small stone pendant. The irregularly-shaped opaque stone dangling between the man’s tortured fingers caught Nick Allen’s eye. “If you ever want to see me alive again, please do what these men ask,” the hostage said, his voice choking back a deep sadness. “The price . . . the price for my life is the immediate withdrawal of all NATO troops within 150 miles of Mount Ararat.”
“Mount Ararat? Is that all? They’re not asking for a ransom?” Allen said.
The two men in the background began chanting in Kurdish and moving aggressively toward the hostage. One of them pulled a dagger and held it against the hostage’s throat, looking as if he were ready to plunge it into the man at any second.
“Now, watch closely,” Owen whispered.
Colonel Allen rubbed his nose and waited for the video to continue.
“Say your name!”
Allen had seen many similar videos in the past. They would force the hostage to give his name and rank and possibly the name of the town he was from, then they would press his face close to the camera so there would be no doubt about his identity. If at that moment the hostage was not important to the terrorist group, they would wait for him to cry and plead for his life and, finally, to say good-bye to his family before they bowed his head and slit his throat. The lucky ones would get a gunshot to the head to end the agony. Others would simply bleed to death on camera.
But this hostage must have been of considerable importance. Otherwise, Michael Owen wouldn’t have called Allen here. Nick Allen was, after all, an expert in special operations. His résumé included rescue missions in Libya, Uzbekistan and Armenia, and his unit was the agency’s most secretive. Is this what the director wanted him to do? To rescue this man?
The voices on the video surged up again:
“Didn’t you hear me?” the cameraman yelled. “Say your name!”
The prisoner raised his gaze to reveal dark circles under his eyes.
“My name is Martin Faber. I’m a scientist—”
Michael Owen froze the tape. Just as he had expected, Nick Allen was dumbstruck.
“Now do you understand, Colonel?”
“Martin Faber . . .” Allen muttered the name, still not believing it. “Of course . . .”
“And that’s not all, Colonel.” Still holding the remote, Owen pointed at the frozen figure on the screen and motioned a circle around the man’s hands.
“Did you notice what he’s holding?”
“Is that . . . ?” Nick Allen said, squinting in disbelief. “Is that what I think it is, sir?”
“Yes.”
Nick Allen pursed his lips as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He stood within an inch of the screen to get a closer look.
“If I’m not mistaken, sir, that’s just one of the stones we need.”
A malevolent gleam flashed in the eyes of the man who commanded the most powerful intelligence agency on earth.
“You’re right, Colonel,” Owen said with a smile. “The good news is this last will and testament gives us the location of the missing stone. Pay close attention.”
Michael Owen aimed the remote at the screen and pressed play. The frozen image of Martin Faber returned to life. His icy blue eyes watered on the verge of tears.
“Julia,” he whispered, and then said in Spanish, “We may never see each other again . . .”
“Julia?” Allen said to himself.
Seeing his most trusted soldier’s face light up made the director of the National Security Agency smile. Even before the video had ended, the bureau’s finest agent knew his orders.
“Julia Álvarez—find her, Colonel Allen. Immediately.”
1
For some strange reason, I had my mind made up the day I died, my soul would leave my body and float weightlessly to heaven. I was convinced that once there, guided by an irresistible force, I would come face-to-face with God and I would look into his eyes. And in that moment, I would understand it all. My place in the universe. My origins. My destiny. And even why he gave me a gift for perception that was so . . . unique. This is how my mother had explained it to me when I asked her about death. So did the priest of my church. They both knew how to quiet my restless Catholic soul. I envied their determination in defending all that had to do with what was on “the other side,” life after death, and the nature of our existence. And now I was starting to understand why.
On the evening of that first day in November, I was, of course, not dead. But nevertheless, I found myself face-to-face with the Creator. His giant face stared back at me serenely, his body more than fifteen feet tall, his arms spread wide, inviting, as I hovered inches from his nose.
“Don’t stay here too late, young lady.”
Manuel Mira, the head of security for the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, shook me out of my trance with a yell from below. He had spent the afternoon watching me set up my scaffolding and rigging around the statue of Christ in the Pórtico de la Gloria, the Portico of Glory, atop the archway just inside the church’s westernmost façade. And now that his shift had ended, I think he worried about leaving me there alone, dangling and at the mercy of ropes and pulleys he didn’t understand.
In truth, he had nothing to worry about. I was in excellent shape, an expert with these harnesses, and the alarm in this wing of the cathedral alerted security every time I climbed down from my scaffolding, usually before midnight.
“It’s not safe to work in a place so secluded,” he said to himself, but loud enough so that I could hear him.
“Don’t worry about me, Manuel. I don’t plan to have my last rites said for me here,” I said with a smile, without turning from my work.
“Be careful, Julia. If your harness gives way and you come crashing down, no one will know about it until seven in
the morning. Think about that.”
“I’ll risk it. This is not Mount Everest or anything. Besides, I’ve always got my cell phone with me.”
“I know, I know . . . ,” he grumbled. “Still, be careful. Have a good night.”
Manuel, who was at least twenty years older than me and had a daughter my age, tipped his cap and gave up his warnings as a lost cause. Besides, he knew that given my present situation—dangling from a second-story height, enraptured with my work, wearing safety goggles and a hard hat crowned with LEDs and emblazoned with the logo of the Barrié de la Maza Foundation, tethered to a PDA and to the wall just below the statue of Christ—it was better to just let me be. My work required surgical precision, nerves of steel and total concentration.
“Good night,” I said, appreciating his concern.
“Oh, and, uh, beware of the ghosts, will you?” he said flatly, just as he was turning to leave. “Remember, it’s All Souls’ Day, and they love to haunt this place. They seem to like this spot, in particular.”
I couldn’t even bother to smile. I was holding a $60,000 endoscope designed in Switzerland specifically for this work. Death, despite my earlier daydreams, was still a long way off.
Or maybe not.
After months of writing articles about how to preserve masterworks of the Romanesque period, I knew I was on the verge of being able to explain the deterioration of one of it’s most important sculptures. What did I care that it was All Souls’ Day—the Day of the Dead? Deep down, I saw it as a fortunate coincidence. For centuries, pilgrims had traveled the Way of St. James, the oldest and most journeyed spiritual pilgrimage in Europe, to visit the very sculptures I was analyzing in the shrine to St. James at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. They made this trek to revive their faith, reminding themselves that to cross under this archway meant ending their sinful life and beginning another one that was more sublime. And that’s how it received its name, the Pórtico de la Gloria, the pathway to heaven.
The more than two hundred sculptures here truly were a collection of immortals, an army impervious to man and time. And yet, since the year 2000, some inexplicable disease was causing these statues to crumble. Isaiah and Daniel, for example, seemed to be peeling in layers, while the musicians strumming their instruments above them threatened to come crashing down in chunks, had we not reinforced them. Heralding angels, characters from the book of Genesis, sinners and the convicted—all of the sculptures showed worrisome signs, a darkening, an aging that seemed to be sapping the life from them.
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