The Lost Angel

by Sierra, Javier

  “Okay, let me walk you through it,” he said. “Just as John Dee did centuries earlier, your husband is a master at hiding messages in plain language. They trained him to do this at the NSA, and believe me, he was the best of the bunch at it. So when he was ordered to make this video, Martin tapped into that skill and delivered a message as clear as it is veiled. In the Middle Ages, they used to call this ‘phonetic cabala.’ Ever heard of it?”

  I shook my head, still confused.

  “It’s very simple and easy to detect—if you’re looking out for it. It goes back to an old French linguistic trick, where it’s not as important what you say as how you say it, leaving a phrase open to double entendres—double meanings. If you were to say, out loud, ‘par la Savoie,’ or ‘by the Savoy,’ you might mistakenly understand ‘parla sa voix,’ or ‘his voice spoke.’ The two are pronounced exactly the same. Like homonyms—words that sound the same but have very different meanings. Dee used those linguistic tricks when he wanted to slip a message to Queen Elizabeth right under the noses of an entire listening audience. Martin was fascinated by it, and he studied it throughout his time at the NSA, playing with language, in Spanish and in English.”

  “I . . . had no idea,” I muttered.

  “These homophone phrases, as we call them today, sometimes work even better if the person listening doesn’t speak the language. So if a Spanish-speaking person heard ‘el tiempo dilapidas,’ he might actually just be listening for the literal translation. Not the real meaning.”

  “So what do you think ‘el tiempo dilapidas’ actually means?”

  “Why, the very place we’re headed.”

  I sighed. “I’m sorry, I just don’t hear it.”

  “Isn’t the church of Santa María a Nova also called ‘the temple of tombstones’? Or, in Spanish, el templo de lápidas? Now do you hear it? ‘El tiempo dilapidas’ and ‘el templo de lápidas’?”

  Was it just that simple? I wondered. Could Martin’s message be hidden in something as simple as a pun, as a child’s word game, like “I scream for ice cream” or “visualize whirled peas”? After all, Dujok was right about Santa María a Nova. The fourteenth-century church was known for housing Europe’s largest collection of ancient gravesites and was dubbed the temple of tombstones, “el templo de lápidas.”

  “Okay, Mr. Dujok. Let’s say you’re right about this. So what can ‘keep envisioning a way,’ or ‘se te da visionada,’ mean?”

  A knowing smile crossed his face.

  “Patience, Ms. Álvarez,” he said. “But I will tell you this: That very phrase will lead us to the right tomb.”

  44

  Roger Castle was sure someone at the all-knowing NSA had been giving him the runaround ever since he took the oath of office. Not that he had ever thought much of these covert operations. In fact, in the last election, he promised to slash the billion-dollar budget this spy game was costing the American taxpayers, and that earned him enemies in high places. But by this point, and over the course of his last two years as president of the United States, he learned he had underestimated them. There were some doors he had not yet managed to open. And especially not the ones to the Big Secret.

  The Big Secret, he thought, shaking his head. It sounded like something right out of a Hollywood script. Some awful B-movie about aliens cryogenically frozen at Area 51. But behind that ridiculous moniker was something serious after all. And every now and then, it would come up in conversation, putting President Castle in an awkward spot. “Never heard of it,” he would lie. And it hurt to have to lie about it. He held the highest office in the land and he hated not knowing the status of the NSA’s investigation into the Big Secret, or as they’d code-named it, Operation Elijah. For a long time, he just ignored it, figuring it was some kind of inside joke at the CIA: The Big Secret is that there is no secret, he would think. But deep down he knew, ignoring it did not mean forgetting it.

  He had first heard the term when he was still the governor of New Mexico, during an official visit with the Hopi Indians at the capitol in Santa Fe. The native tribe from upstate had been worried about recent meteorological changes. There had been a long drought and the Rio Grande had receded 15 percent. “All of it presages the coming of the Great Catastrophe, Mr. Governor,” they had told him. “Knowing when it will arrive and how and when to be ready, that is the big secret,” said the tribe’s spokesman, a Native American almost ninety years old whom everyone called White Bear. “For many years, the white man has kept us in the dark about the details of the great and terrible day.”

  “Great and terrible day?” the then-governor Castle shot back. “My friend, I think you’re mistaking that for a day that’s already passed, the bombing of Hiroshima.”

  Roger Castle had forgotten about the exchange until a month later. The day his father, William Castle II, died. His father had given him everything: his wealth and intelligence, his John Wayne good looks, and, above all, his skepticism. Believing in something that he couldn’t weigh, measure or turn into dividends was a hopeless waste of time.

  During World War II, William Castle II was one of the mathematicians and physicists at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton who worked on the Manhattan Project. What few people knew was that after the war, after atomic weapons had been unleashed on humanity, a group of them continued to meet clandestinely, calling themselves the Jasons. This secret group of independent thinkers continued to advise the NSA, leading them to find solutions in Cambodia and Vietnam. And despite how they may have been loathed by pacifists, some of them, like Castle’s father, had managed to salvage their academic reputations.

  As a boy, over the course of three or four summers, Castle would dart between the legs of those genius minds while they discussed the boring topic of war. During those interminable discussions that the boy found hopelessly dull, the men discussed everything from missile defense systems to electronic warfare to the Internet—though, of course, that’s not what they called it those many years ago—and they even predicted the advent of spy satellites. So when his father mentioned a “great and terrible day” as he spoke to his son from his deathbed, Roger Castle knew he would never forget those words.

  “I can’t believe this. Just a month ago a delegation of tribal Indians told me that a group of thinkers had been keeping this deep, dark secret from the rest of the public,” he said, still shocked.

  “It’s true, Son. That was us.”

  “But, Dad, how can you believe in these wild stories?”

  “I don’t believe, son. I’m a scientist, remember?”

  Roger Castle nodded.

  “I know, Son. I know.”

  Now, consumed by terminal pancreatic cancer, the patriarch of the Castle family added something else: The NSA, working under the code name Operation Elijah, was trying to determine the exact date of that impending apocalypse. It had been years since his father met with the Jasons, but he was sure that a D-day had already been set for mankind. The NSA could monitor communications from all intelligence agencies—from NASA to NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They had spent decades studying everything from cosmic rays to tectonic shifts, from radioactive earth forces to electrical charges in the atmosphere, and William Castle II was certain they had determined the day of the cataclysmic event.

  “But, Roger, these bastards only answer to the weapons industry,” his father told him. “They couldn’t care less about democracy. They know if they have confidential information about the future of the world, they have ultimate control. They’ll keep this secret from everyone. Even the president of the United States. When chaos finally breaks out, they’ll have no use for the democracy that he’s sworn to uphold.”

  “You mean no president in history has known about this?”

  His father grimaced in pain. “This project has been kept so secret that very few have ever known about it. Presidents come and go, Son. It’s all politics. But these men, they endure. And since no president has ever asked about
it, as far as I know, they’ve had no reason to talk about it. Do you understand what I’m telling you? If you ever rise to that position, you will be the one who’ll have to take the first step and ask about it.”

  Years later, Ellen Watson had told him the same thing. It was good advice. And it was exactly what he had to do. Now he was sure of it.

  Roger Castle, the forty-fifth successor to George Washington, was ready to finally get to the bottom of the country’s deep, dark secret.

  It’s now or never, he decided.

  45

  There was a hollow, metallic clang.

  Under the fading shadows of darkness, the second of Dujok’s men—the one he called Janos—wedged something that looked like a small soldering iron into the lock of the wrought iron gate at Santa María a Nova. It popped open with a metallic thunk. I was the only one who jumped.

  The five of us sprang through the gate, dashed through the garden and up the small pathway that leads to the church. Gravel crunched under our feet and I was aware of even the smallest noise we were making. That’s when I noticed how tense Dujok and his men had become. Dujok’s relaxed smile was gone, replaced by an intense animal-like focus as we made our way in the darkness. Janos grumbled something inaudible in Armenian and I could tell they were arguing about the black nylon bag they were carrying or something in it. Dujok won out and they marched ahead. But it was clear these men were truly afraid of something. They had unsheathed their Uzi submachine guns, each with a scope sight, and one of them carried a Sig Sauer pistol in his waistband. They looked all around them as they moved, as if anticipating something or someone lunging at us from the dark.

  But who would even do such a thing in my quiet little town?

  I knew Santa María a Nova like the back of my hand. It was a peaceful chapel at the center of a town where nothing ever happens. The church is surrounded by apartment buildings and its grounds are still used as a cemetery. The most ancient souls rested out to the left and those tombs were covered in climbing vines and brush. To the right, on the other hand, the headstones were resplendent in white with filled flower vases at their bases. What unified the two very different sides were the granite slabs that covered each tomb. Beneath them were the bones of artisans, experts in canon law, even transients, all of which earned this ancient church the nickname Templo de Lápidas. I’d never been afraid in this place, despite the endles tombs. On the contrary, it felt like a place where thousands had finally managed to rest in peace.

  “Why are you armed, Mr. Dujok?” I whispered.

  “Have you forgotten what happened in Santiago?” he said tersely, his eyes scanning our surroundings for impending trouble as we skulked ahead.

  We stopped at the entrance to the church. Above us were statues of the Magi, the very ones I had restored years ago. Their Romanesque forms hovered over us, as did a depiction of the bishop Berenguel de Landoira, on his knees, his eyes staring out to nowhere in particular. Janos quickly moved toward the door to work on his next lock. This one was much larger and ensconced in the massive oak door, so it took him longer to open it with his strange device, which I later learned was a small but potent ionized-gas laser.

  “Let’s go!” Dujok ordered under his breath. “We have to hurry.”

  He and I rushed inside while Janos, Waasfi and Haci—the pilot—waited outside to guard the door. Inside, his solemn voice reverberated throughout.

  “All right, Ms. Álvarez, where is the oldest tomb?”

  “There are hundreds of tombs. No one knows which is the oldest,” I said, looking down at the endless granite slabs at my feet.

  Dujok found a switch on the wall and flipped it. Halogen lamps illuminated the courtyard obliquely, bathing the tombs in light. All of them had images engraved on them. Some of the stone structures had staffs and clamshells etched into granite. Others had inscrutable symbols, eyes and claws. And others still had scissors, sewing instruments, arrows and hats. But not a single one had any kind of written inscription.

  “Well, you’re the expert,” Dujok said, looking at the expanse of graves around us. “Martin met you here five years ago and returned to this very place a month ago to conceal your marital talisman. Where would he have hidden it?”

  I looked over the church carefully. It had changed a lot since I’d last been there. Though everything was still in its place, the ancient ruins had become more of a modern tourist attraction. The floor was covered in tiles now, which were decorated with carvings of hammers, anchors, shoes and the tools of the trade that were once used by those who are buried there. There was no trace of the pews, confessionals or altars that once lined the church.

  “So where do we start?”

  “Mr. Dujok, it makes no sense to be looking for a tomb that’s thousands of years old. The oldest ones are no more than seven hundred years old,” I said.

  “Let’s try it another way. Why don’t you try thinking back and remembering if anything in particular caught Martin’s attention?”

  “I . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “You have to try. We can’t leave here without that adamant. We need it to find Martin.”

  “Agreed.” I sighed. “When I first met Martin, he was one of those guys who came in knowing everything. I can almost see him standing here. He came in through that door,” I said, pointing to the side of the church. “He had walked from Santiago, because he said no pilgrimage was complete until you left behind the cathedral at Compostela and set foot in this place.”

  “Did he say why he thought that?”

  “Well . . . he wasn’t the first one I heard say that. Many of the pilgrims who travel the Way say they do not consider the pilgrimage over until they make the day’s walk to Noia. That, they say, is for the truly initiated. Actually, the roots of this part of the trek are pre-Christian. Ancient, actually. Tradition says you have to reach the coast and watch the sun melt into the west to understand that this is the land at the end of the world. The terra dos mortos. The place where solid ground ends and the sinister sea begins.”

  “Which is the adamant’s very reason for being.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “But I didn’t know anything about that at the time. Plus, Martin had his own ideas. He was always busy copying the masons’ marks along the walls of the church into his little notebook.”

  “Marks? Which ones?”

  “Well . . . like that one,” I said, pointing to one of the archways that held up the roof of the church. “Can you see it?”

  It was a small, simple square carefully chiseled into the stone.

  “There are hundreds of them around the church,” I said.

  “Hmm. Well, did he notice anything else?”

  “Oh, lots of things. That’s why he asked to speak to an expert. And that’s when we met,” I said, smiling at the memory. “Actually, I think he was fascinated by the fact that the soil on which the church is built was brought in from Jerusalem. I told him the Crusaders had carted it over by the ton and spread it throughout Santa María’s foundation—and out there, in the cemetery.”

  Dujok’s eyes suddenly widened.

  “Is that right . . . ?”

  “Well, there’s a reason for it, Mr. Dujok. The Noians believe that when Jesus Christ returns to Earth during the apocalypse, he will first set foot on the holy soil of Jerusalem. And it was said that whoever was buried under that holy ground would be guaranteed a place in heaven during the resurrection of the dead.”

  “This all makes sense . . . ,” Dujok mumbled to himself.

  “What does?” I asked. “What makes sense?”

  “The soil from Jerusalem contains a unique mineral composition,” he said, nodding, “particularly around the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. The earth there has a higher-than-normal iron content, which makes the ground an excellent electrical conductor. Come to think of it, that would explain why the people were so set on removing their shoes when walking on ‘sacred ground’ during ancient times. Somehow, they understood that it was i
mportant not to interfere with the ambient electrical currents. To do otherwise might mean they’d be electrocuted.”

  “You mean, you think there’s a scientific explanation for this?”

  “Absolutely. Remember what happened to those who touched the Ark of the Covenant?”

  They were struck down by lightning, I thought, remembering my conversation with Sheila. “But wait. That would mean they knew about electricity centuries before Alessandro Volta.”

  “Oh, but they did. The ancient Egyptians used to galvanize metal by setting off low-level electrical charges. The archaeological museum in Baghdad displayed a two-thousand-year-old container they used to produce these electrical charges, like an ancient battery. And just consider the adamants themselves, which absorb electricity to serve their function. What we have to do is look past religious metaphors to discover the hidden science.”

  “And you think that’s what Martin was doing here? Reading into the stories, looking for the scientific explanations?”

  “Exactly,” he said, smiling. “The deeper you look into human history, the more of those kinds of surprises you’ll find. The Sumerians, for instance, paved their streets in asphalt. But for most of us, that was unheard-of until the twentieth century. Those are the kinds of things that fascinated Martin, so I’m not surprised he was intrigued by the holy soil around Santa María a Nova. He believed the best place to open communication with the gods was in a place such as this one, where energy courses just under our feet. Unfortunately, so much knowledge was lost on how to open those lines of communication. All we’re left with are relics that we barely know how to use. Like the adamants, which should be able to be used in prime locations such as this one.”

  Dujok took several steps toward the center of the courtyard, thinking.

  “What else? What else caught Martin’s attention?” he said.

  “Well, let’s see . . . He spent a good long while just walking alone inside the church. You know, he immediately struck me as good person, and since it was lunchtime, I let him look around by himself while I grabbed a bite . . . And if I remember correctly,” I added, “when I returned, I found him sketching a picture of our most famous tomb.”