The venetian code, p.9
The Venetian Code, page 9
“If you’re so confident, then perhaps you should take the first step. Why don’t you prove us wrong by proving yourself right?”
After pinning each other with hard stares, Novikov finally said, “Fine.” With that final word and a purposeful stride to his gait, Ivan Novikov entered the archway that led to deeper darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Vatican Knights continued to maneuver through the ankle-deep water. With the earth-packed walls, low-lying ceiling, and supporting timbers that were slick with slime and smelled like mold, they knew they were moving blindly through the channels without a map. With one tunnel appearing like all the others, with dirt, water, and warping beams that looked too tired and stressed to support the low-lying ceiling, this mission depended upon discovering something by chance.
As they continued to move in a southerly direction beneath the canal and towards the Bridge of Sighs, Kimball decided to address the newest member of his team, Roman, in hushed tones.
“How are you doing, kid? All right?”
Roman nodded.
“That’s good. You never forget your first mission. You’ll do just fine.”
“Can I ask you something?” Roman said. “If I may be so bold.”
Kimball knew what was coming, an admission of guilt of a past that no one could believe in—that he was an assassin who killed with indifference.
After Roman paused as though he was considering, Kimball said, “It’s all right, Roman. I have no secrets when it comes to my team.”
“Is it true that you used to kill people? Innocent people?”
Kimball nodded. “At one time, yes. I did. I wasn’t too much older than you when the CIA stripped me of my conscience. I was led to believe that every action taken was for the good of the country and the organization. Here, at the Vatican, they serve to develop your conscience, not take it away.”
“Did you kill children?”
Now it was Kimball’s time to pause. And then he spoke evenly: “Yes,” he said. “And now I serve the Vatican to atone for my sins, a long journey so far.”
“How will you know?”
“How will I know what?”
“That you’ve atoned?”
Kimball took a deep pull through his nostrils and exhaled. “I don’t know. Some have said that I reached it long ago, the Light.”
“But you feel differently?”
Kimball had to admit that he did. The weight of Sin upon his shoulders and working within the Dark to serve the Light, none of this served to enlighten Kimball that he had reached his point of salvation. “I do,” he finally said.
“And by being a Vatican Knight, this will get you deliverance?”
“I don’t know, kid. It might be that I can never do enough to see the Light for the unforgivable things that I’ve done.”
“Have you saved lives since becoming a Vatican Knight?”
“Of course.”
“Then perhaps they’re right?”
“Who?”
“Those who’ve said that you reached the Light long ago. Maybe it’s you who hasn’t seen the Light within you that others have. I see it.”
“You see what?”
“The Light in your eyes. But there’s something else, a Darkness that sits idle until it’s time to make itself known. It just sits there waiting.”
“You see all that, huh?”
“Everything is in the eyes. Everything. If you look deep enough, the truth is there.”
“And what do you see in mine?”
“I see incredible kindness, compassion, and absolute goodness about you. But I also see a man who is capable of volcanic rage and incredible destruction. You’re a man who operates on both sides of the spectrum, between the Darkness and the Light by walking in the Gray.”
Kimball was in awe of Roman, a kid of nineteen who had the incredible insight of a wise man. Perhaps, Kimball, wondered, Roman’s calling should have been that of a prophet instead of a soldier.
“Now, can I ask you something?” said Kimball.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why did you choose to become a Vatican Knight and not a priest?”
Roman shrugged. “Not sure outside of saying that I felt that becoming a Vatican Knight was my calling. I’m here for a reason—that I’m sure of. What that reason may be is God’s will. But for now, I feel the need to help those who cannot help themselves.”
Kimball smiled inwardly. Roman was a kind soul who had his head wrapped around serving the masses in a world full of menace when a kid his age should have been chasing girls and living life in the fast lane. But here he was, a Vatican Knight, who served with a pure heart. Instantly, Kimball liked Roman and saw him as a huge asset to the team.
As they maintained their southerly course, they came upon two symbols on the wall. There were no Latin verses, only side-by-side images.
Kimball moved closer to the monsignors, and asked, “Mean anything to you?”
Monsignor Calidonna nodded. “The first symbol is the Philosopher’s Stone, that of turning lead into gold. The second symbol, the upside-down arrow, is the symbol of water.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s enough.” Monsignor Calidonna then ran his fingertips over the images. “Trying to turn lead into gold was an unrealistic goal of achievement for the alchemists at the time. Here, I believe, is a Templar message that when you combine the Philosopher’s Stone with the upside-down triangle, it says: the Philosopher’s Stone turns lead into gold, the water symbol, the upside-down triangle, is saying, by comparison, to turn water into wine. So, lead to gold, water to wine.” He turned to Kimball with something of a childlike glee to his features. “We’re on the right path,” he told him. “The Templars are telling us that this is the way to the Cup of Miracles. Lead to gold, water into wine.”
“Are you sure?”
Monsignor Calidonna turned to Monsignor Russo, who was nodding vigorously, his answer being ‘yes,’ this was an indisputable message.
“Good enough for me,” said Kimball.
In the shadows that grew deeper and darker with every forwarding step, the monsignors, along with the Vatican Knights, headed for the treasure chamber. But they would still have a long way to go and many dangers to overcome.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Novikov’s team took the center archway that eventually led to a circular room whose walls were fashioned from cobblestone. It gave off an eerie feel since the walls mirrored the stone walls that crushed the Spetsnaz soldier. Walls made of packed earth and support beams did not move, whereas cobblestones could hide a weight-and-pulley system behind a wall. Their apprehension to move forward was on heightened alert.
In the center of the room stood a pulpit whose base was partially obscured beneath the ankle-deep level of raven-black water. Though no book sat on it, there appeared to be a verse carved into the stand where a book would normally sit.
“Now what?” Rabinovitch asked Novikov. “We took your center corridor and for what? To lead us into another trap?”
“You’re always in a rush to judgment, aren’t you?”
Novikov, taking the initial step forward, though his heart raced to the point where he thought it would misfire in his chest, did so not as a show of bravado, but to save face. His ego had been bruised because he had erred before Rabinovitch, something he considered a weakness, and thereby inexcusable. His bold step forward was not only to prove to Rabinovitch that he was confident in his decision-making, but also to himself. His miscalculation had cost him the life of a man, which brought Rabinovitch’s ire against him. Now was his time for redemption.
Splashing his way across the floor that was covered with raven-black water, he reached the podium. On its surface was a verse not in Latin, but French.
Tous les chemins mènent à Rome
↨
As Novikov was reading the line, he also beckoned to Rabinovitch and his team to follow and stay close. When they reached the pulpit, they saw the carved verse and the symbol beneath it, the two-way arrow with the line on the bottom.
“Latin?” Rabinovitch asked.
Novikov shook his head. “No. It’s French. All Roads Lead to Rome. Perhaps it means that all roads lead to the Templar’s Chamber, but some roads are more lethal than others. So, choose your path wisely.” He stared at the cobblestone wall before him. There was no door. Then he focused his thoughts on the symbol of the arrow. The upward point represented one of two directions, either an upward or a straightforward path. The line beneath the downward arrow emphasized the primary direction. So, according to the imagery that this particular road would lead them to Rome, or the Templar Chamber, one must either move upward or straight and then downward. The problem was, however, that the ceiling was solid and there was no door before them. That left Novikov with one conclusion: there was a stairway beneath the waterline.
Novikov moved around the pulpit and stood about ten feet from the cobblestone wall.
“What is it?” Rabinovitch asked him.
“All roads lead to Rome. And the road begins here, beneath the waterline. There has to be a stairwell here that leads to the Templar Chamber.”
Rabinovitch made his way beside Novikov with his footfalls sloshing through the ankle-deep water. Once he stood beside Novikov, he turned his NV mode into high-intensity flashlight mode. The light, purportedly powerful enough to cast the illumination of one million candles, could not penetrate the surface of the dark water. “I don’t see anything,” he said.
Novikov, willing to prove himself further and patch up his bruised ego, took small, tentative steps toward the wall. About four feet away from the cobblestone wall, he could feel what he believed to be the lip of a stair. Reaching down and breaking the surface of the water with his hand, he could feel the corner of a top step. Reaching deeper, he felt a second step. Standing and whipping his hand about as though to swing it dry, he said, “There’s a stairway that goes downward. The passageway is underwater.”
“Underwater,” said Rabinovitch, sounding terse. “And suddenly we’re now gilled men, is that it?”
“This can be either a short corridor that comes up elsewhere or the passageway has filled over time by the leakages from the canal above. Perhaps both. There’s only one way to find out.”
Removing his holster, weapon and his backpack, then his Kevlar helmet and NV goggle system, Novikov stood on the top step. Without his NVG, everything was as dark and absolute as the vacuum of space. “I swim the Persian Gulf every day,” he said. “A luxury I’m afforded by living on my yacht in Dubai. Not only am I a strong swimmer, but I’m also capable of holding my breath for a lengthy time—up to three minutes. If I don’t come back . . . then it’s because of the obvious.” Then he dove into the water, the darkness swallowing him whole.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Vatican Knights came to a rectangular-shaped room that smelled of rot and dirt, perhaps an omen of a premature grave. In the room’s entryway, they were greeted by a ten-foot-high monolith that had a myriad of rune-like symbols and Latin scripture upon its face. In the center of this monolith was a stone-carved tray that was filled with perfectly round stones that had the same matching rune-like images that were carved into the monolith’s wall. To the right of this tray was a billiard-ball-sized hole that appeared to be for the dispensing of these stones the same way that a coin is inserted into a vending machine, though its purpose remained somewhat debatable between the monsignors. Against the far wall beyond the monolith was a block-stone door that was ten-feet tall and four-feet wide, a grand entryway. As they approached the block-stone doorway, they not only found it impenetrable but also unmovable, the weight most likely in the thousands of pounds.
Kimball, forcing his shoulder against the doorway and pushing until the cords of his veins stood out against his neck, quickly surrendered when he realized that his endeavor was completely ineffective. “The door isn’t budging,” he said. Then he turned to face the stone monument with the rune-like carvings. “Apparently,” he said, pointing to the monolith, “we need the key.”
Crossing the long stretch of floor that separated them from the standing stone structure, Kimball asked the monsignors, “Do either of you have a clue as to what this is and its purpose? I’m thinking that to get through the door, which is point B, then we have to find the key that is here, at point A.”
The monsignors stared at the rune-like shapes upon the monolith’s wall, and then at the Latin beneath the figures.
Imple inanis cum recta summa.
Si sapienter eligatis, ad cameram Templarii Cochleum transibis
Si male eligis, in aeternum te Tenebrae videbunt.
Monsignor Calidonna spoke slowly as he translated. “Fill the void with the correct sum. Should you choose wisely, then to the Templar Vault you shall pass. Should you choose poorly, then Darkness shall you forever see.”
“As bright as the Templars were,” said Jeremiah, “I can’t say that I much like their poetry.”
“Simple and to the point,” said Monsignor Calidonna. Then he began to run his fingertips over the images. To Monsignor Russo, he asked, “Tell me, Monsignor, what do you make of these characters upon the monolith’s wall?”
Grabbing the perfectly shaped stone balls from the carved tray, Monsignor Russo held them up before the lens of his night-vision goggle and rolled the ball about his fingertips. He quickly noticed that these intricately carved spheres, more than three dozen, were the size and shape of snooker balls. More importantly, each sphere contained a particular imprinted image to match the rune-like images that had been carved onto the monolith’s wall.
“The images upon these spheres match those against this monolith,” he said. “Therefore, I assume that one of these spheres is the key.” He looked at the stone orbs inside the tray. “But there are so many to choose from.”
Monsignor Russo continued to study the figures etched on the top half of the monolith’s wall.
Below the puzzle with the missing piece was additional runes that had assigned symbols beneath them.
And beneath that, the Latin scripture.
Imple inanis cum recta summa.
Si sapienter eligatis, ad cameram Templarii Cochleum transibis
Si male eligis, in aeternum te Tenebrae videbunt.
The runes at the top and the middle, and the Latin verse on the bottom, together provided the key.
Then softly, Monsignor Russo said, “Fill the void with the correct sum. Should you choose wisely, then to the Templar Vault you shall pass. Should you choose poorly . . . then Darkness shall you forever . . . see.” He examined the top set of runes with precision-like focus.
“Fill the void—” After cutting himself off abruptly, he then stated, “There’s a missing image in the second row. The Latin stanza is asking us to fill in the missing space with the proper symbol from a symbol in the row beneath the—” Once again cutting himself off with his voice fading, he examined the rune-like figures and the strange characters beneath them. And then: “With the correct . . . sum.”
“Of course,” said Monsignor Calidonna. “The correct sum. Those strange characters beneath the rune-like figures that you see below represent numbers, one through nine, with the symbols in numeric sequence. The symbols and the characters are part of a numerical legend with each symbol having an assigned number to it.”
“The ¥ is symbolic of the number one,” Monsignor Calidonna continued. “The double ¥¥ is the number two, and so on. The ɛ represents the number four. ɛ¥ equals five, ɛ¥¥ is six, and the symbol ᵿ is the number . . . nine. It’s sequential.”
The monsignors’ minds began to work in tandem before Monsignor Russo realized that they would need the small iTablet to assign the proper number to the proper symbol to decode the puzzle.
Since the symbol equaled ¥, he typed the number 1 onto a grid wherever the symbol was, filling the spaces of the corresponding symbol with its corresponding number. Then he followed the same pattern of inserting the corresponding number value to its assigned figure until the grid appeared as a numeric board instead of symbols.
“Mathematics,” Monsignor Russo murmured as though he was speaking to himself, “has always been the universal language.” He continued to study the model looking for a pattern.
But it was Kimball who pointed it out. “I see it,” he said, then he tapped the screen with the tip of his finger. “Every vertical and horizontal row adds up to the number fifteen. So, to maintain the pattern, you have to insert the number . . . eight to make it whole.”
The number 8 was represented by the character ᵿ, which was assigned to the symbol . After assigning the symbol into the slot, the grid now appeared as:
Now the pattern was complete with the correct sum added—that of the number eight—to complete the grid so that the total sum of the vertical and horizontal lines, when added separately, always came to fifteen, which met the requirement of the Latin stanza.
Monsignor Russo then rummaged through the tray looking for a sphere that had the imprint on it to match the number eight. When he found it amongst the other spheres, he realized that the weight of these perfectly shaped orbs differed, though not by much. Are the scales and balances that delicate, he wondered, to differentiate an object by mere ounces?
Following his logic, he placed the stone ball into the monolith’s opening, a flawlessly round hole large enough to accept the sphere, where the ball could be heard rolling along the tracks inside the monolith and beneath the floor until the sound eventually faded into silence.
After nearly a minute with nothing happening, Monsignor Russo said, “I believed that we were on the right—”
