Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (7 page)

Maybe I could get something out of trying different combinations of letters, rearranging them in a certain order…, or by substituting some letters for others.

But every one of these procedures would involve a great deal of time that he didn’t have to spare right now. He remembered the grid which looked like a word search and which was drawn on one of the last pages of the book. He had had it clear right from the start that this was the Holy Grail as far as decipher it was concerned, and perhaps he could use it now. The page displayed the following array of letters:

This time, no sooner had he seen it than he knew what he had to do. “Oh my god! I’ve got it!”

James shouted so loudly and started laughing so hard that Mary got out of bed and burst into the bathroom, panicking. She thought that something had happened. “What’s the matter? Is something is wrong?”

“Come here! Look at the mirror! Do you know the alphabet it uses?”

Mary got so close that her nose bumped into the glass, hurting her a little. The woman’s face turned white as she saw how the characters, before indecipherable, were now revealing their true nature before the mirror. However, she still didn’t understand the words which were appearing. “James,” said Mary in a faltering and shaky voice. “Tell me that you understand what it says.”

The young man nodded. “The message is encrypted and the key to deciphering it lies in the grid which appears on the last page of the book. I studied the rows first of all and I came to the conclusion that each contains the twenty-three letters of the Latin alphabet, in their respective order and without repetition. If you think about it, the same thing happens with the columns. Suddenly, everything became clear. It is the famous
Trithemius cipher
which has given cryptanalysts headaches to this day.”

“The Trithemius cipher?”

“Yes. Trithemius was a German Benedictine monk who was famous for his books on cryptographic techniques disguised as an esoteric treatise. His most important technique, the so-called ‘Trithemius cipher’ or ‘tabula recta’, kept cryptanalysts busy for nearly half a millennium. The table is made by choosing an alphabet, such as Latin, and writing it along the top row. The second row is formed from the one above, but the first letter is removed and the others are all shifted one position to the left. Finally, you place the letter you removed at the end of them all and you follow the same procedure for the other row.”

James noticed that Mary wasn’t following him at all, so he gave her an example. “Say we wanted to encode a five-letter word, such as
PAPER
. The first letter would correspond to the one which occupies the position of the letter
P
, but on the alphabet in the first row. In this case, that would still be
P
. The second letter would correspond to the position of
A
but on the second row, in other words
B
, and so on. Eventually, the word
PAPER
would be encoded as ‘PBRHX’.”

“Impressive!”

“Definitely. We’re looking at a true cryptographic masterpiece. If you look carefully, you see that the author would have to have spent a lot of time writing the book, because not only are the characters back-to-front, but also encoded. Another feature which makes it impressive from an artistic point of view is that it is not only written in Latin, but also using a certain kind of script - Visigothic.”

Mary looked him in disbelief.

“Don’t get scared,” he laughed. “I know because a month ago, I had to supervise an exam for paleography professors. It consisted of translating an ancient text about the sale and exchange of monasteries and kings’ orders. The text was written using Visigothic script and it piqued my curiosity. I spent a couple of days finding out a little more about the topic.”

Despite fearing that the young woman might think she was faced with a veritable bookworm, he continued.

“From what I can gather, the Visigothic script originated in Spain between the eighth and twelfth centuries and judging by the few examples which remain, it wasn’t used for writing classical texts. I think the author must have been somebody related to the church. If not, I don’t see how they would have knowledge of this kind of script three centuries later, in a place far from Spain. Besides, Trithemius was born in 1462, and he was named Abbot of the monastery where he lived when he was twenty-two years old. It’s highly likely that the author of the book knew of his work and contacted him in search of a trustworthy cryptographic method. When he saw that he was a servant of God, he trusted him and divulged his secrets. In any case, what is clear is that he thought about hiding the content of the book in the best way possible, and what better way than using a script which was unknown in that area?”

“So you know how to decode the content?”

“No, my interests revolve more around the age in which it was used, by whom and for what reason.”

James glimpsed a look of indifference in the woman’s eyes. Meanwhile he searched desperately for his cellphone. “Anyway, I know who can help us. I know the best paleographer in the world and, funnily enough, he’s my best friend.”

A
blue Ferrari slowly cruised by, taking its two occupants through the streets of Florence. A large blue and white logo was plastered on the side of the vehicle, running from the hood to the trunk, and it read
Polizia
. For some years the Italian police had been infamous for purchasing one luxury sports car after another for their taskforce, in order to catch slippery criminals. However, not content with that, they had also increased their fleet free of charge by bringing in all those Ferraris and Lamborghinis they had seized on special operations. In fact, in a recent mafia sting, they had managed to acquire over a hundred luxury sports cars.

The Ferrari turned right and slowly drove down a cobbled pedestrian road, with few people walking about. At the end of it, the driver turned left onto a highway, but he suddenly braked without warning and gestured with his right hand, pointing out something strange to his companion. “Did you see that car parked there?”

“Yes,” he answered, surprised. “Now that you mention it, it’s strange that it’s parked right there when practically all the spaces in the street are vacant.”

About a hundred yards away, a black all-terrain vehicle with blacked-out windows in the back was parked right in front on the garage door. There was enough space on either side, but its position meant that it was blocking access for other vehicles.

“Let’s go and say something. They probably haven’t realized,” said the agent stoically as he reversed back, making the four-hundred horsepower engine roar. “Besides, with the day we’re having, I bet some driver will call the police later, asking for it to be moved and it will be down to us, you watch.”

Inside the four wheel drive, two men were chatting calmly to each other while one of them was looking at the living room opposite through a pair of binoculars. Suddenly, some flashing lights were reflected in the rear-view mirror, blinding the driver.

“Fuck, we have visitors! Get ready!”

Two young police officers got out of the sports car and, from the way they were talking, they seemed to be a supervisor and his trainee. The pair walked towards the vehicle, positioning themselves on either side. The supervisor let the trainee take the lead.

“Good evening. Could you roll your window down, please?”

It seemed as if they hadn’t heard him at first, so he rapped his knuckles on the window of the vehicle.

“How can I help you officer?”

“You’re blocking the entrance to a private garage. Don’t you see that there are other places to park? Somebody will probably end up reporting you, so if you would be so kind as to move the vehicle, please.”

The other officer had been listening to the whole conversation from the other side of the car, but he had seen something inside that he hadn’t liked one bit. He followed the usual protocol. Without raising suspicion, he covertly contacted headquarters via his walkie-talkie and read them the license plate of the vehicle. He hung up and waited for a response.

“Sorry, officer. We’re waiting for a friend and we hadn’t realized. I’ll move it right away.”

The blonde man with a scar near his right eye started the car and put it into first gear, but something stopped him when he was ready to accelerate. It was the officer who had just stepped in front and was blocking their way. When he reached the driver’s door, he slowly gave him the once over.

“Before you go, could you explain to me why your friend has some long-range binoculars on the floor of the vehicle.”

There was a short silence.

“We just bought them in a hunting shop and we were testing them out,” he replied, despite knowing that he himself wouldn’t have believed that.

The officer slowly slid his hand towards his gun so as to have it as near as possible after what he had just heard. “It’s strange. Truth is, I don’t believe a word of what you’re telling me, so I reckon you’re a pair of Peeping Toms who use binoculars to spy on people who live around here.” The officer saw disbelief in the eyes of the two men and he continued with his interpretation of the facts. “Give me your identity cards, please. We’re going to check if you have any priors.”

“Whatever you say, but it’s in the inside pocket of my raincoat. Just let me get it.” Alpha 1 slowly moved his hand towards his pocket until he could feel the pistol; he grabbed it firmly and removed the safety catch before he took it out. Then he looked up at the two officers. “Here you are!”

Two shots echoed around the vehicle, muffled by leather. A second later, the two policemen dropped to the ground with two shots to the head.

“Quick! Take their car and get rid of the bodies! I’ll stay and watch the house.”

One of the doors to the vehicle opened and Alpha 2 stepped out on to the asphalt, following orders.

I
n the restaurant of a famous hotel in Rome, a group of people were locked in conversation as they were being served dinner. They were discussing the famous appearance some years before of a document that absolved the Templars, which had been covered in many major newspapers and sensationalist magazines. Contrary to popular belief, the Vatican had not wanted to dissolve the Knights Templar and did not condemn them as heretics, but it was embroiled in a political crisis and the pope, Clement V, died before the crisis could be sorted out. The news came to light a few years ago with the chance discovery of an astonishing document in the Vatican Archives - a piece of text from that Pontiff, which absolved the order.

A thirty-year-old woman was sharing her thoughts with the group with a look of resignation on her face. “I’ve sent piles of letters to the Vatican for years asking them to let me research their archives, but they always refuse my requests.”

One of the men who was at the table gently raised his glass of wine and, before taking a sip, loudly revealed that they had given him permission to do so, thus gaining the attention of all his dinner companions. “I’d wanted to gain entry to that room for many years. It holds a number of unimaginable secrets. I had a chance to see that document which absolves the Templars and I can vouch for its authenticity.” Everyone was thinking the same: if anyone was able to get into that room, then that was Richard Matheson. He carried on speaking. “From what I was able to read, the document was an attempt to stop Philip the Fair from ordering the execution of the Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the other Templar leaders.”

Richard Matheson was of average height, around five feet seven, with green eyes and a prominent nose. He changed the style of his light brown hair more often than he did his shirts; at that moment it was completely gelled back so as to give as modern a look as possible. Richard took great care of himself and his physical appearance, which is why he got so angry when someone suggested he should lose a few pounds. He normally deceived himself, telling himself that his weight was ever so slightly above average but he wasn’t fat and that, for the time being, his 202lb frame didn’t worry him at all. Then he cursed under his breath, wondering if people were stupid and how they didn’t realize how much it took for him to maintain his weight and not put any more on, and that if he hadn’t slimmed down it was because he couldn’t and not because he didn’t want to.
As if it were that easy!
he said to himself over and over, controlling his urge cast a few choice words in his unjust critic’s direction.

“What else did you discover there?” asked one of the women opposite him.

Richard remained thoughtful for a few seconds while he stroked the dimple on his chin and nibbled on his lower lip. He looked at her until she blushed. She was wearing a very elegant dress, which made her seem a couple of years younger than she was. Perhaps if they had been alone he would have told her one of his secrets to try and sweet-talk her. However, with all these people here, it was impossible. “I’m sorry, Rose. You’ll have to keep writing your letters to the Vatican until they grant you access. If I told you, I would have to kill you and it would be difficult to take the life of someone so beautiful.”