The Judas Strain - James Rollins [72]
“Though they feared it, whoever edited the book also worried about destroying the map completely. So the writer, along with a handful of others, rewrote the map in a code that would protect and bless it.”
Gray nodded his understanding. “So they buried it in angelic script.”
“But who inserted the page?” Vigor asked.
Seichan shrugged. “It was unsigned, but there were enough references on the page to suggest that the Polos’ descendants had handed Marco’s secret book over to the papacy following the ravage of the Black Plague in the fourteenth century. Maybe the family feared the plague was the same pestilence that struck the City of the Dead, come at last to destroy the rest of the world. It was then the book was added to the archives.”
“Interesting,” Vigor said. “If you’re right, it might explain why all trace of the Polo family vanished about then. Even Marco Polo’s body vanished out of the Church of San Lorenzo, where he’d been buried. It was as if there was a systemic attempt to erase the Polo family. Did anyone ever date that rambling new page?”
Seichan nodded. “It was dated to the early sixteen-hundreds.”
Vigor squinted his eyes. “Hmm…another great outbreak of bubonic plague swept Italy at about that time.”
“Exactly,” Seichan said. “And it was also at that time that a German named Johannes Trithemius first developed the angelic script. Despite his claim that it was a script from before man walked the earth.”
Vigor nodded. He had performed his own historical study of angelic script. Its creator believed that by using his angelic alphabet—supposedly gained from deep meditative study—one could communicate with the heavenly choir of angels. Trithemius also dabbled in cryptography and secret codes. His famous treatise, Stenographia, was considered to be of occult nature, but it was actually a complex mix of angelology and code breaking.
“So if you wanted to hide a map during that time,” Gray concluded, “one you deemed evil, then locking it up inside angelic script might seem a good way to ward against its dangers.”
“That is exactly what the Guild came to believe. There were clues in that secret page as to the location of this coded map, a map now carved onto an Egyptian obelisk and hidden in the Gregorian Museum of the Vatican. But the obelisk had vanished, lost in time, shifted around. Nasser and I played a cat-and-mouse game searching for it. But I won. I stole it from under Nasser’s nose.”
Vigor heard the bitter pride in her voice, but he frowned and searched the others’ faces. “What obelisk are you all talking about?”
7:42 A.M.
IN SKETCHY HIGHLIGHTS, Gray explained about the Egyptian obelisk that was used to hide the friar’s cross and described the code painted in phosphorescent oils.
“Here is the actual text.” Gray handed over his copy.
Vigor studied the complex jumble of angelic code and shook his head. “It makes no sense to me.”
“Precisely,” Seichan said. “The rambling letter in Marco’s text also references a key to the map. A way to unlock its secret. A key hidden in three parts. The first key was tied to the inscription in the room where the secret text was originally hidden.”
“In the Tower of Winds,” Vigor said. “A good hiding place. The tower was under construction during that century. Built to house the Vatican Observatory.”
“And according to the false page in Marco’s book,” Seichan continued, “each key would lead to the next. So to begin, we need to solve that first riddle. The angelic inscription in the Vatican.” She turned fully to Vigor. “You claimed you’d succeeded. Is that true?”
Vigor opened his mouth to explain, but Gray placed a hand on his arm. He wasn’t about to give Seichan all of their cards. He needed to hold at least one ace in the hole.
“Before that,” Gray said, “you’ve still not said why the Guild is involved in all this. What gain is there in pursuing this historical trail from Marco Polo to the present?”
Seichan hesitated. She took a deep breath—whether to lie or steel herself for telling the truth, he wasn’t sure. When she spoke, she confirmed Gray’s own growing