The Alchemist’s Code (23 page)

Engraved upon a golden triangle, which was part of the Architect's treasure chest, was a short inscription written in ancient Hebrew and Phoenician which the Knights found. One of the nine was able to interpret it, thus confirming that it was the tomb of the master builder of Solomon's Temple and that in that casket there was the Baphomet.”

“Wait, hold on—” I interrupted him, “wait a second. Why did my grandfather tell you this story? This legend, I mean, because that's all it is… I can assure you, I know, because I've spent years surrounded by squares and compasses.”

Navarro shrugged. “At the beginning I didn't want to believe any of that old lunatic's words either. Then things happened that… What I mean is, I changed my mind – but perhaps too late. In any case, the story gets even grimmer, because the knights are said to have unwisely triggered the mechanism which awakened the entity that tradition has handed the name of Guardian of the Threshold, which was imprisoned inside the Baphomet itself. The Guardian caused panic and death among the construction workers who were working at the gallery below the Mount of the Temple before the Templars were able to imprison it again inside the ancient artefact. Having seen its destructive power at first hand, they decided to keep the secret of its existence and guard it so that the device and its dangerous guest would never fall into the wrong hands. The Knights took the keys and the casket and swore there would always be nine elected members in defence of that deadly object. Those Knights, the first Templars, were also the first members of the Lodge of the Nine.”

“Don't tell me… Anna's grandfather and Lorenzo Aragona senior were part of them.”

“That's right, but as you can imagine, a lot happened between 1118 and the nineteen forties. The Lodge of the Nine continued to exist over the centuries and the keys and symbols connected to it have been handed down from time to time to people regarded as worthy of them, who therefore became new members of the Lodge. The casket, or rather, what it contained – the idol which became notorious in the Middle Ages under the name of Baphomet – has been moved countless times, and its guardians have never been all together in one place. Except once.”

I stood quietly waiting for him to finish.

“With Hitler's rise to power, as you know, groups of fanatics interested in occult sciences, like Himmler, went in search of esoteric artefacts. The association known as the Thule Society was one of these. It managed to infiltrate one of its members, a German-born Swiss, into the Lodge of the Nine. His job was to steal the Baphomet and deliver it to the Reich. It was a mistake. A
huge
mistake. But the man had seemed absolutely perfect. He came from an ancient, noble Swiss family which could count alchemists, freemasons, and Kabbalists among its members.”

“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.”

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 existence 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—”

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.