The Columbus Code (19 page)

“A good point!” Vespucci spattered yolk onto Winters' sleeve. “One of the purposes for his voyage was to find a place where Jews could live free of persecution.”

“You remember what Spain was going through at that time,” Sophia said.

Winters felt as if he could finally press the buzzer on
Jeopardy
. “The Inquisition.”

“Yes!” Vespucci said. “More important, he was looking for a source of gold to fund the retaking of Jerusalem.”

“That's where the end-of-time idea comes in,” Sophia said. “He believed that for the Messiah to return, the Temple had to be liberated and restored.”

“I did read that in the
Book of Prophecies
,” Winters said. “But it still doesn't make sense, if he was a Christian. And he didn't say anything about being a Jew.”

“Of course not!” Vespucci's face reddened indignantly. “Or he himself would have been on the rack.”

Sophia put a calming hand on Vespucci's wrist as she turned to Winters. “Not only that, but my reading of the
Prophecies
tells me that he was a Jew by birth but was converted to Christianity.”

That still didn't resolve Winters' dilemma. Anyone's reading of anything could tell her whatever she wanted to believe. They both seemed to be waiting for some kind of response—as if this should be
a moment of great insight for him—but he didn't know what to say. Diplomacy had never been his strength. He'd always left that to Anne. “It would be ironic,” he said finally, “if he was a Jew and yet wanted to have a hand in confronting the Antichrist.”

Vespucci nodded and wiped his mouth on the napkin. “Christian or Jew,” he said, loud enough that it brought one of Sophia's friends from the kitchen. “The fact remains, Columbus wanted to discover the Ark of the Covenant and restore it to Israel. You see . . .” He moved to the front of his chair, rendering its back legs helpless above the floor. “He didn't know he was going to discover what would eventually be called the Americas. He thought he was going to Asia. He thought someone had stolen the Ark and taken it to China. He didn't realize there was a huge landmass in the way and neither he nor any of the scholars of the time understood just how big that landmass really was.” Vespucci looked Winters in the eye. “There is so much more I could tell you.”

“Tell me this,” Winters said. “How is anyone ever going to prove that this was what was going through Columbus' mind? Sophia told me that he wrote things purposely to send people off the track—”

“Would he lie to himself in his own journal?”

“You wouldn't think so but—journal?” Winters frowned. “What journal?”

Vespucci gave Sophia a stricken look. “He does not know about the journal, either?”

“As you've said, Gilberto, there is so much to tell.” Sophia turned to Winters. “In his notes from the fourth voyage, Columbus wrote that many in Andalusia—that's the southern part of Spain—wished to take his discoveries from him but that he had received prophecies from Almighty God about his end, the end of the earth—”

“Right,” Winters said. “That's in the
Book of Prophecies
.”

“Not all of it, apparently. In those same notes he wrote that all of it—the conspiracies, the prophecies, the signs he saw in the heavens—had been set down in his most private journal.”

“Have you seen it?” Winters asked.

“No one has seen it.” Vespucci answered.

“Many scholars do not believe it ever existed,” Sophia said.

“But it did,” Vespucci insisted. “The Admiral of the Ocean Sea would not have said so in his personal writings if it were not so!”

The bulbous nose was scarlet and the veins along Vespucci's jawline seemed to pulse. Sophia reached over to him and ran a hand up and down his arm. “You and I know that, Gilberto,” she said in a soothing tone. “Many faithful people know it too. We do not need to concern ourselves with the others.”

Yeah, and it wasn't a good time for Winters to align himself with “the others,” even though all of this seemed more like wishful conjecture than anything else. The question was, why did Sophia think he needed to know about this . . . theory?

“You have been a help to us,” she said to Vespucci. “But we must allow you to return to your work.”

Vespucci reluctantly agreed, good-byes were said, and Sophia escorted him to the door. Winters grabbed the opportunity to take care of the bill and pour himself another cup of coffee.

“Listen,” he said when Sophia returned to the table, “I hope I didn't come across as a jerk.”

“Your skepticism was clear to me,” she said. “But I don't think Gilberto noticed it. He is so enraptured with the stories he seldom notices how anyone reacts to them.”

“Good. I wouldn't want to offend him.”

She didn't say anything. The woman was hard to read. “So,” he said, “what was that all about? I mean, in terms of my genealogy?”

“Were any of your mother's relatives practicing Jews?”

Winters started to shake his head, but he reconsidered. “You know, I remember talk about my great-grandfather being Jewish, but he'd never admit it.” He thought some more. “After he came to America he attended the Episcopal Church. And did so for the rest of his life. He's buried in the church cemetery.” Winters shrugged. “Still, there was no reason for him not to own up to it if he was. He didn't live during the Inquisition.”

“No, but there weren't that many generations from the Inquisition to your great-grandfather. There was a tradition that if you were Jewish and you converted to Christianity you needed to give every outward sign of that conversion you could so that no one would mistake you for someone who converted in word only and not from the heart.”

“It was still that big a deal, even so many years after the Inquisition?”

Sophia grimaced. “Before the 1960s, Jews were as discriminated against here as blacks were in your country.”

“You're not serious.”

“If they were interested in fitting in, the last thing they wanted was to be labeled as Jews, and the easiest way to avoid that would have been to show a solid, incontrovertible conversion and to emphasize their Spanish heritage. What?”

Winters realized he'd been staring at her, mouth slightly open. “Sorry,” he said. “Your English vocabulary is impressive. I don't know that I've ever used the word ‘incontrovertible.' Maybe I should start.”

“Are you mocking me, Mr. Winters?” she asked.

Winters went cold for a second before Sophia laughed—a sound he hadn't heard from her before.

“Now, back to the issue—”

“I do remember we'd be watching TV,” Winters said, “and there would be something about discrimination against African Americans
and Mom would say, ‘We had nothing to do with that. We're Spanish.'”

“That is precisely what we're referring to here.” Sophia's eyes went birdlike. “We must track down all these small hints to see if any of them lead us somewhere.”

Winters had a sinking feeling in his chest. “Don't take this the wrong way,” he said, “but aren't we grasping at straws?”

“Research is my area of expertise,” she said, chin tilted up. “This is how it is done.” She curled her fingers around her clutch bag and stood. “Come. We have miles to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Alba de Tormes,” she said. “Your hometown.”

Tejada summoned every internal resource he had—the power of Abaddon, the pride of the office of CEO, and the reluctance to spend the rest of his life in prison—to keep himself from placing his hands around Philippe Prevost's pencil neck and shaking him.

Self-control achieved, he stepped from behind his desk, perched on its front edge, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Give me the bottom line. That is all I want to hear. Not how little the Russians trust me. Not how much influence they believe I have over you. Simply tell me—are they in or are they not?”

Prevost's face went deathly pale. “They are not.”

“Summarize for me where that puts us.”

Prevost was clearly rattled. “What you have not allowed me to explain—”

“
Summarize
,” Tejada demanded.

“Okay,” Prevost began in a halting voice. “The Russians . . . and the Americans . . . want to maintain the currency as it is. The Chinese want everything to switch to the yuan. The European Union and Great Britain would like to go along with us, but they are wary of the Russians.”

“Then we have failed in this part of the plan.”

Tejada was sure the small sag of relief in his nephew's shoulders came from Tejada's choice of pronoun. If Prevost had been any kind of man, he would have taken responsibility for the failure, but there was no time to call him on that now.

“I see only one thing to do,” Prevost said.

“What?”

“That dramatic event you spoke of.”

“Yes,” Tejada sighed. “That's about all that's left.”

“I don't suppose you're going to tell me what it is.”

“No,” Tejada said. “I don't suppose I am.”

“What is my next step then?”

Tejada slid from his perch at the edge of the desk and moved around to the chair.

“I will contact you,” he said, picking up a file from the desk.

“And in the meantime?”

Tejada didn't answer but kept his eyes focused on the file in his hand. He heard Prevost leave the room and a moment later, the door opened again. “We have nothing more to talk about,” he said, his eyes still trained on the file.

“We have said nothing yet,” a voice replied.

Tejada looked up to see Molina standing across the room. “I thought you were my nephew returning for a replay. Come in.”

Molina crossed the office to the desk but didn't take a seat.

“You made contact in Washington?” Tejada asked, anticipating the reason for Molina's visit.

“I did,” Molina replied.

“And?”

“The process has begun.”

“Any resistance?”

“As expected, yes,” he said. “But it has been handled.”

Tejada didn't ask how. The less he knew the better, a philosophy he could never get across to Prevost. “They will wait for our signal, then,” Tejada said instead.

“Yes.”

Tejada folded his hands on the desk and examined his knuckles. “I had hoped to avoid this, Carlos. But it seems inevitable.”

“Anything else?” Molina asked.

“Yes, in fact, there is.” Tejada said. “You recall Snowden's associate, Maria Winters.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She will be returning soon to work with me on a few matters. I'd like for you to provide better office space for her and more than adequate living arrangements. Make sure she has everything she needs. And make sure you keep the Soler woman as her assistant.”

Molina nodded. Tejada searched his face for a hint of reaction but found none.

“Do you have a problem with
Señorita
Winters?” he asked.

“May I speak freely?”

“When you are not speaking freely you are not speaking at all.”

“She has an agenda.”

“Who among us does not?” Tejada watched Molina's neck stiffen. “My apologies, Carlos. If you have a serious concern, I don't mean to make light of it.”

“I would like permission to research her background and put her under surveillance.”

Tejada forced his brow to remain smooth. “Only in terms of her work here,” he said. “Her social life is off-limits.”

“It's difficult to keep them separated.”

“Find a way.”

The air became electric with tension. Tejada didn't want to leave it
that way. “I appreciate your concern,” he said. “I know you have only my best interests and those of Catalonia at heart. All the more reason to keep your focus there, as you do so well.”

Molina seemed to relax.

“And,” Tejada continued, “since she seems to have an aversion to Louis, perhaps you should meet her at the airport. That will give you a chance to begin your ‘surveillance.'”

Their eyes met. Tejada smiled. Molina did not.