by Martin Rua
“What was his name?”
“Henri von Tschoudy.”
I jumped. “Exactly the same name as one of Raimondo de Sangro’s, Prince of Sansevero’s, brothers. Do you mean they were relatives?”
“Precisely. In short, together with German intelligence and the Thule Society, von Tschoudy organized the theft of the Baphomet. Even though they didn’t really know about its power, no one wanted to run the risk of leaving it in the hands of the Nazis – but by then it was too late. The German fled to his homeland to deliver the idol to Hitler and the eight who remained faithful to the Lodge of the Nine and the Allies’ intelligence services conducted a daring mission to retrieve it. While the bombing raged, they entered Berlin disguised as German soldiers and recovered the Baphomet and the key in the German’s possession after a dramatic gunfight. Von Tschoudy was killed but unfortunately so was the commander of the mission and head of the Lodge at the time, Nathan Keller.”
“Get to the point, for God’s sake!” I snapped. I’d had enough.
Navarro’s expression changed, and his face seemed to darken.
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten the insignificant detail that my wife is dying in a hospital in Switzerland, and if I’ve been tracking this damned Baphomet, it’s because I’m so desperate that I’ve started believing in fairy tales!”
“Lorenzo, you are your grandfather’s heir. Your father didn’t want to listen to him, and so your grandfather had to find another solution.”
“Another solution to what?”
“Your grandfather was there in Berlin in 1945. He was a member of the Lodge of the Nine.”
I stared at him in confusion.
“But he was still a young man then. How old was he? Not even thirty.”
“Thanks to his skills as a researcher and scholar, and his righteousness, the choice fell on him. Age didn’t matter. He was a Mason, just like you. The knowledge and mysteries of the Templars held no secrets for him. When one of the members of the Lodge of the Nine died, grand initiates of Italian Freemasonry named your grandfather. The Grand Master of the Lodge of the Nine contacted him before the war in order to effectively test his qualities, and was stunned when he realized that Lorenzo already knew all about the Baphomet, the true Baphomet. The Grand Master, Nathan Keller, had no doubt. That young Italian should become the ninth member of the Lodge – one of the guardians of the Baphomet.”
The Spaniard looked away from me and paused for a moment, as though searching for the words to continue. “He told me all this in the nineteen seventies, when both he and I, together with his family, had emigrated from Spain to Rome. We were both sick of Franco’s regime. One day he told me it was high time your father took his place, but Domenico was even less orthodox than you. Not only didn’t he listen, he even teased his father about it, so the old lunatic saw fit to skip a generation, against your father’s wishes, and hand down this… this damned gift to you.”
“And what would this ’gift’ be? The visions? The Phoenician key?”
Navarro shook his head in disappointment. “Before he died, Nathan Keller told your grandfather the exact sequence of symbols required to activate the Baphomet. Since the Templars discovered it together with the idol, the Grand Master of the Lodge of the Nine has always been the only one to know the sequence in full. He is considered the most just and the wisest among the nine. That’s why the Grand Master is called the Chosen One of the Nine.”
“Which coincidentally is the ninth degree of the Scottish Rite in Freemasonry. This story is brimming over with esoteric syncretism.”
“More than you imagine. Anyway, Nathan was dying and had to reveal his symbol, which otherwise would be lost, but he also had to appoint a new Chosen One and pass on to him the sequence. His life was abandoning him, and he had to hurry. His choice fell on your grandfather, who became the new Chosen One of the Nine, the only one to know the whole sequence. Think about it – it is a huge responsibility: the Chosen One, provided that he has all the keys, can activate the Baphomet and evoke the Guardian of the Threshold.”
I remained silent, assimilating the information, then lifted an eyebrow and gave a hint of a smile.
“Well, then the secret is lost, along with my grandfather, because not only do we not have one of the keys, but I don’t know the sequence either.”
Navarro returned my smile and nodded.
“Oh yes you do, Lorenzo. It is hidden. Hidden in the depths of your mind.”
23
The Masked Man
Police reconstruction on the basis of the testimony of Anna Nikitovna Glyz
Rome, January 2013
The room was dark, damp and cold, like some kind of abandoned cellar. The only sound was that of drops of water hitting the stone floor at regular intervals. There was a powerful smell of mould.
With great effort she rolled onto her side, and realised that her hands were tied. Her head was spinning as though she’d drunk a litre of vodka, and the sensation was like being on a boat on a stormy sea. She managed to sit up slowly and tried to clear her head and work out what had happened, and suddenly the moments that had preceded her awakening in that inhospitable place came rushing back. She sighed in dismay.
“Taken, like an amateur.”
She saw again the man’s hand pointing the tranquillizer gun at them and pulling the trigger just before darkness enveloped her. One thing was sure: they hadn’t killed her and there could only be one reason why.
They still needed her.
While digging in her memory to retrieve fragments of memories, she heard a new sound, like a key in a lock.
It was only then that she noticed a door on one side of the room. A triangle of light appeared on the floor, forcing her to half close her eyes, frail after being too long immersed in the dark. The silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway, but the light behind him prevented her from seeing his face.
“I see you’re up,” the man began. He spoke Italian and had a deep yet penetrating voice. “I hope this temporary accommodation isn’t too uncomfortable.”
“Fuck you,” she said in Italian as well, without thinking twice.
The man moved toward the centre of the room so the girl could see that his face was covered by a black mask which left only his mouth uncovered. “You’re tough, apparently, but I can assure you that I know of some very effective methods of getting rid of anyone’s desire to be a hero.”
This time the girl remained silent, holding the man’s gaze.
He stood in the triangle of light which emerged through the half open door, pulled a chair close and sat down with deliberate slowness, then reached into his jacket and pulled out four objects: a book, a wooden plate, a plastic toy and a key. He placed them on the table, which, along with the chair and the cot she was lying on, were all the room’s spartan furnishings.
“You son of a bitch!”
The man seemed to guess her thoughts.
“Yes, I’ve got everything. I knew that your dear grandfather must have hidden his key somewhere in Kiev. His really was an ill-advised choice. He and his buddies had always been romantics, though, with a penchant for showy sentimentalism.”
“What do you know about my grandfather?” she asked, challenging him again.
“Oh, it’s an old story. But let’s talk about these, shall we?” he said in mellifluous tones while indicating the objects he had put on the table. “Mr Aragona said that there was nothing at the Lavra Monastery, but having found this little collection of booty on you suggests otherwise.”
“What have you done to Lorenzo?” the girl asked, a hint of anguish in her voice.
“He’s fine. You don’t need to worry about Mr Aragona, he’s in good hands. Let’s talk about these for now. For example, what can you tell me about this strange toy he had in his pocket? When he was our guest for a few weeks, we realized that it had a special meaning for him. You must tell me what. And I want to know what you discovered in your grandfather’s book, this Baphomet Code, whose exist
ence we were already aware of, and whether among the various messages disseminated by the old man there is another clue for continuing the search. Another… coded message.”
The girl said nothing, but simply stared at him, her eyes blazing.
The man shook his head, making an eloquent gesture with his right index finger.
“No, no, no, dear Anna, that is not ok.”
He snapped his fingers and a huge brute wearing only black combat trousers and boots materialized in the doorway.
Hair cropped, and with a square face cut across by eyes like two icy slits, the giant placed himself beside the man with the mask and folded his arms across his powerful chest. “Let me introduce you to Bastian, a dear friend of mine. Bastian, would you like to entertain the lady here?”
The giant said nothing and, with his boot steps echoing in the dark room, walked toward the girl.
“Oh shit—”
24
The Graft
Events reconstructed by Lorenzo Aragona
Naples, January 2013
“What do you mean, it’s buried in my mind?” I asked, trying to follow the thread of this absurd sequence of events.
“When the seven survivors of the Lodge of the Nine fled Berlin with the Baphomet, something happened to your grandfather that he never revealed to me, but I think that, over the years, I’ve managed to work out what it was. The seven took the risky decision of not delivering the Baphomet to the intelligence services, as agreed.
Something dramatic must have convinced them it was the right thing to do, so they made up the story that the Baphomet had been destroyed by a bomb dropped by the Allies themselves. They hid it and, fearing that the secret service and those involved would never leave them in peace, they worked out a way to protect the sequence.
It was your grandfather who came up with the idea, thanks to his studies in the field of psychology and parapsychology. They used some kind of special hypnotic technique and hid the symbols and fragments of the sequence, which were known only to them, in the minds of chosen individuals. In this way, anyone who wanted to activate the Baphomet would have to get hold of the nine keys and dig into the minds of those people to recover the lost symbols.”
It was then that recent memories began to resurface again.
“Wait a minute – while I was still under the influence of that substance which was erasing my memory, something happened, something I remembered later.”
“It may be important, what is it?”
“My wife – or rather, the woman who was pretending to be my wife – pulled out a box of old stuff one day and told me to decide what was to be thrown away. My memory is confused, but I’m sure I dug around for a while and found, at some point, an object I was really fond of, a toy, something I’d kept since I was a child. Anyway, when I saw this toy, I started having visions and—”
I stopped, because I had remembered another important detail. Navarro noticed it. “What? What have you remembered?”
I pointed to the old man and nodded slightly.
“I saw you in my visions, even before I met you in Zurich. You were wearing a uniform, and your face turned into that of my grandfather. How is that possible?”
As I continued to stare at him, more images gradually emerged. “Hang on, now I understand. They weren’t just visions, they must have been memories.”
“That’s right, Lorenzo,” said Navarro with a wistful smile. “My face probably remained in your unconscious because you must have seen me a few times in your house when you were little, before I stepped down.”
What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“If I know all of the things I’ve told you, it’s because your grandfather entrusted me with a delicate task. Something that at some point he knew he could no longer carry out himself. That of protecting you.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“What do you remember about your grandparents’ death?”
“What could I possibly remember? I was a child. I only discovered what happened years later. The car accident, I mean, and the rest.”
Navarro stared at me for a moment, then looked down. “There never was any accident. One day in the early nineteen seventies, your grandfather convened us all and, with a pain I cannot convey, told us that he and your grandmother had to disappear forever for the sake of his family. A disturbing incident had convinced him to make a decision that would change the lives of all of us forever: a series of murders. Three members of the Lodge of the Nine, three of those seven who had survived the mission in Berlin in 1945, and a fourth person connected to the Lodge, were murdered within a few days of one another. They all lived in different cities and very far apart – in Marseilles, Los Angeles, Odessa and Singapore. Your grandfather immediately joined the dots between the murders and knew that someone had come back to track down the Baphomet – someone powerful and unscrupulous, someone who knew the whole story – and that soon they would be coming for him and his family. He had to die, and die in a way that would make headlines so that everyone would know he was out of the way. And so we organized the fake accident.”
I sat there in a daze, shocked at what I was hearing. In a few days, my life, my present and my past had been turned completely upside down. I stared at in disbelief at Navarro for a few seconds.
“How could you keep all this hidden from me? And what kind of lies has my father been telling us all these years?”
Navarro just looked at me.
“You all waited for Bruno to get killed, for me to get kidnapped and filled up what whatever crap they were doping me with, as well as forcing me to stay away from my wife, who is dying. That’s how you wanted to protect me?”
I was furious, tired and confused, and this nightmare seemed endless.
“I’m sorry—” whispered Navarro, surprised at my reaction.
“You’re sorry?!” I blurted out, walking towards the table and chairs that were on the terrace. I sat down and buried my face in my hands, devastated. After a moment of silence, I felt his hand on my shoulder and found the solace that I so badly needed.
“Forgive us all, if you can. Forgive us, Lorenzo,” whispered Navarro.
I had no foothold, no more certainties, I couldn’t even trust my own memories. Suddenly I felt very alone, and saw in him a friend, even though he had kept me in the dark about everything.
I looked up at him wearily.
“You should have told me the truth, Antonio, you really should.” Then I lowered my head again and sank into silence.
It was he who spoke first. “That toy you mentioned, the one you found in the box – is it a small plastic Spider-Man, by any chance?”
I looked at him in amazement. “How did you know?”
Antonio smiled. “It was me who gave it to you. You were crazy about it and your grandfather knew that. ’I could use it as a key to open Lorenzo’s mind at the right time’, he said once.”
He paused, and a sad, almost heartbroken expression came over his features, then, gazing over the dark ocean, he went on. “What I did cost me your father’s trust. Your grandfather, in fact, forced me to lie in order to implement his plan.”
I listened as he leaned on the railing, as if these revelations were so crushing that he needed a support to cling to.
“Your father trusted me. I was one of the family. And I betrayed him. The grafting of the sequence into your mind took place one summer, in Positano. Your grandfather was already in hiding, so he was compelled to re-appear in secret. You must have been about three years old. I took you to the house I used to rent when I was there. It was so moving when you met again. Although he’d grown a beard and was wearing sunglasses, we could tell from your reaction that you felt you knew that old man. Your grandfather could hardly hold back his tears. I introduced him to you as a friend, but you kept on staring at him as though you were trying to dig into your infant memory. You’d always been a very thoughtful, very sensitive boy. The meeting didn’t last long, though. It had t
o be short, so that your parents wouldn’t become suspicious. I left the room and your grandfather grafted the sequence into your mind. I was sure he would use that toy and, probably through hypnosis, he ordered your subconscious never to forget it. In any case, that was the last time you met him.”
I listened in silence. I wanted to remember that last meeting with my grandfather, but all I had were the Spaniard’s words.
“What happened to them? Where did they live? Where did they die? Their tombstones are in the family tomb, but at this point I doubt they’re even buried there.”
An expression of pain and regret came over his face. I must have touched a nerve, recalling painful events of which I had been unaware until that moment.
“Your grandmother is buried in the family chapel,that much is certain. We all attended her funeral, the real one I mean. Your grandfather organised it, in secret, in a village in the mountains in Tuscany, where they lived until your grandmother’s death. Then, still in secret, we moved your grandmother’s remains to the family chapel, where a tombstone had already been placed after the fake accident.”
While Navarro was speaking, I shook my head in disbelief. My life had been a lie and I had been treated like a child who needed protecting.
“It’s truly incredible what you all did.”
I paused, then went back to staring at the sea.
“Where is he? When did he die?”
Navarro’s voice came to me as a hoarse whisper. “We don’t know. He never said where he lived. He said it was better for everyone if he didn’t. His postcards and letters always came from different mailboxes or addresses. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped calling or writing, and we realized he was dead.”