The Inca Prophecy (35 page)

When(1) in(2) the(3) course(4) of(5) human(6) events(7) it(8) becomes(9) necessary(10) …

‘And so on until you’ve numbered all 1322 words. The numbers in the second Beale cipher represented the first letter of whatever word in the declaration corresponded. So these numbers 115, 73, 24, 818, 37…’ he said, pointing to the start of the cipher in the rare book Brother Gonzáles had given them, ‘can be translated like this: the 115th word in the declaration is
instituted
. Seventy-three corresponds to
hold
, twenty-four to
another
, 818 to
valuable
, and thirty-seven to
equal
and so on, revealing Beale’s message:
I have deposited in the county of Bedford … ten hundred and fourteen pounds of gold.
Now,’ said O’Connor, ‘look at this. I’ve numbered every word in the Inca prophecy and come up with a translation. Although it still doesn’t make a great deal of sense,’ he whispered. He gave the paper to Aleta:

To the east lies Apu Veronica, to the west Apu San Miguel. To the south lies Apu Salkantay, to the north Apu Huayna Picchu. Look to the dissection of Intiwatana, as the Condor flies 8560 metres to the ancient capital. Through gold and obsidian it will be revealed.

‘Yes, it does!’ Aleta exclaimed, struggling to keep her voice down. ‘That has to be the sacred Intiwatana Stone at Machu Picchu!’

Chapter 42

‘How much time do we have before the zenith?’ Aleta asked. They had made it through the airport and booked into another nondescript hotel in a small cobbled street in Miraflores. If Aleta felt nervous being back in Miraflores, she wasn’t showing it.

‘It’s getting tight. Why?’

‘I’ve just had an email from my old archaeology professor, Professor Cardoza. He’s working here in Lima at the San Marcos University. Look at this.’ Aleta swung her iPad around so O’Connor could see an image of a gold bar. ‘He’s been asked to provide an analysis of an ingot the local authorities think has its origin somewhere near Lake Titicaca. But looking at the faint markings – I don’t think it’s Inca.’

‘If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, I think we should see him, but can he be trusted?’

‘Absolutely.’

The University of San Marcos was one of the oldest in the world, tracing its origins back to 1551. The archaeology laboratory, with its samples of Inca pottery, quipu cords and Spanish armour, seemed to have been there from the start.

‘The police are being cagey about the origins of this ingot, although I have my own contacts, and they all point to a police raid on the black market in Puno,’ Professor Cardoza explained after Aleta had introduced him to O’Connor, ‘and I’m curious about the markings. Whoever sold this has tried to chisel them off, without complete success.’ Cardoza brought up some pictures on his desktop that had been taken with the aid of a microscope.

‘Von Heißen. Unmistakable,’ O’Connor and Aleta agreed together.

‘When he was commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp, Karl von Heißen kept a smelter going in the basement underneath his office,’ Aleta explained, ‘where he melted down the gold stolen from the Jewish dead and made his own private stock of ingots. He was there until the death knock, when Hitler suicided. American troops from the 11th Armoured Division had crossed the Danube and the 41st Cavalry had reached the outskirts of Mauthausen itself. We know 100 kilograms of gold was secreted out of the camp under Vatican diplomatic immunity, along with von Heißen, who was disguised as a priest, and the gold disappeared. We found four ingots in a cave at the bottom of Lake Atitlán when we were searching for the Maya Codex, but the rest of it had vanished … until now.’

‘When the existence of this ingot becomes public, there will be a lot of journalists pushing the Lost City of Paititi line. You know
how the tabloids love a good mystery – but you’re saying this is Nazi gold,’ said Cardoza.

‘Not official Nazi gold. The gold von Heißen collected should have gone into the Nazi coffers, but it never made it that far. Nazi ingots were produced by the German banks, and they were embossed with an eagle on top of a Nazi swastika surrounded by a wreath,’ O’Connor explained. ‘But there are a number of reasons this ingot was almost certainly not part of the official trading system. You can see the faint lines of the swastika and the image of the eagle, and the embossing’s a pretty good match, but there are no other markings. The Nazi ingots were not only embossed with the eagle and the swastika, they were stamped Deutsche Reichsbank. They also had serial numbers. Finally, I’d say this ingot weighs around ten kilograms, whereas the majority of Nazi ingots were much smaller – reduced to a more manageable one kilogram.’

‘Is there any chance we can compare this ingot with those you found at Lake Atitlán?’ Cardoza asked.

‘Only if it becomes absolutely necessary,’ said O’Connor. ‘We’re not on top of Washington’s Christmas card list at the moment. The less said about our being here the better. But you said you had your own contacts?’

‘My turn to ask for confidentiality. There is a Franciscan friar here in Lima, one Brother Gonzáles, who has contact with an old shaman in Puno. Gonzáles and I have been friends for years, and he tells me the shaman in Puno thinks the ingot originated from somewhere near Lake Titicaca. I can give you the friar’s details if you like.’

Aleta and O’Connor exchanged glances as the professor wrote
down Gonzáles’ name and number.

‘Good luck with convincing the media that the Lost City of Paititi hasn’t been discovered yet,’ O’Connor said as they shook hands and took their leave.

As they left the campus, Aleta said, ‘Talk about six degrees of separation. Brother Gonzáles moves in interesting circles. That ingot has von Heißen stamped all over it … and if it was recovered in Puno, that’s one hell of lead. I know we should be at Machu Picchu, but have we got time to go to Puno?’ Aleta’s eyes were misty. The injustice of the murder of her grandparents and millions of others once was again at the forefront of her mind.

‘Only just. But I agree. If this is a von Heißen ingot, we can’t risk him getting away a second time. We owe it to your grandparents to bring this bastard to justice, and we still don’t have the critical diary. There’s enough in the ones we recovered from Lake Atitlan to ensure von Heißen hangs, but they don’t specifically connect him with the Vatican and Felici’s father. I suspect he kept that one as insurance. Next stop, Brother Gonzáles, and then we’ll head for Puno, via the Israeli embassy. If von Heißen’s there, we’re going to need some help.’

From a distance, Monsignor Jennings watched O’Connor and Aleta disappear into the Convento de San Francisco’s ancient library with interest. Jennings had wondered if the pair might return, and he’d secreted a digital surveillance transmitter underneath one of the library’s carved wooden chairs. It was a long shot, but one that had
paid off. Jennings retreated to the tiny office he’d been allocated, retrieved the surveillance receiver from his safe and switched on the system.

‘You’ve done much better than I expected,’ Brother Gonzáles observed, once O’Connor had brought him up to speed on the Lake Como operation. ‘Your success may be confirmation that your mission to recover the crystal skulls has come from the cosmos itself.’

‘Well, I wish the cosmos would do something about the opposing forces,’ Aleta replied ruefully.

‘The best results are often achieved under adversity,’ Gonzáles responded, ‘and you still have a long way to go. Although I suspect there’s more to your visit to Lima than a chance to update me?’

‘You’re right,’ O’Connor said. ‘We plan to head to Machu Picchu, but there might be a short diversion in store. We’ve just come from Professor Cardoza’s office at the university.’

‘Ah, yes. The gold ingot from Lake Titicaca.’

‘He said you had a contact … a shaman in Puno?’

Gonzáles nodded. ‘Diego Chávez. The last time I saw him, he told me about the rumours of gold from Lake Titicaca.’

‘The Lost City of Paititi?’

Gonzáles shook his head. ‘The gateway to Paititi lies north of here, beginning with the Inca at Machu Picchu,’ he replied. ‘But as I’m sure you know, the ingot Professor Cardoza is examining is not Inca. More than once, Chávez has mentioned a retired priest who lives on one of the floating reed villages. In return for the
villagers’ patronage, the priest has quietly supported the community financially. The rumours of gold are just rumours, nothing more, but Diego has always wondered where the old priest gets his money.’

‘How old is this priest?’ O’Connor asked.

‘Diego thinks he’s in his nineties. The priest doesn’t come into town very often, but he’s still quite spritely, apparently.’

Aleta looked at O’Connor. ‘Von Heißen.’

‘Every possibility,’ O’Connor agreed.

When O’Connor and Aleta returned to their hotel, the CNN coverage of the papal conclave was beaming live out of Rome.

The camera panned across what seemed like a sea of red. As they had since 1492, the cardinals filed into Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, each wearing a scarlet cassock, white lace vestments and a scarlet zucchetto, and as the last two disappeared from view, the image faded back to the news anchor, Walter Crowley.

‘And we cross now to Rome, and one of that city’s most experienced Vatican watchers and journalist for the
Vatican Insider
, Luigi Campioni. Your article this morning has caused quite a stir, Luigi. For those of us not familiar with the process of electing a new pope, what will happen inside the Sistine Chapel now?’

‘Well, as we’ve just seen, 121 of the 203 cardinals – those under eighty and eligible to vote – have retired to the Sistine Chapel, where they will stay until they elect one of their number as the 266th pontiff. Once inside, there is absolutely no communication with the
outside world.’

‘So how does the Vatican police that?’

‘Since 1978, when Pope John Paul I died after only thirty-three days in office —’

‘In circumstances that still haven’t been adequately explained,’ Crowley interjected.

Campioni nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, the Vatican refused to carry out an autopsy and would not disclose who had discovered the body. There were a number of leaks from the 1978 conclaves, and since then, the rules on secrecy have been tightened considerably. The Sistine Chapel in its entirety will be swept for bugging devices each day.’