weeks, but we can do it in the papal apartments.’
‘And the prognosis?’ Felici asked matter-of-factly.
Dr Rossi considered his answer before replying. ‘Normally there is a reasonable chance of a cure, and it’s possible His Holiness may go into remission for several years. On the other hand, with the pontiff’s advanced age …’
‘How do we monitor his progress?’
‘We’ll carry out cytology every three months. Any cancer cells in the bladder tend to flake off, so they’ll show up in urine tests.’
‘Good,’ Felici said, thinking out loud. ‘For the moment this can all be put down to routine check-ups.’
‘And the Curia, Eminence?’ Rossi asked. ‘The other cardinals may be a little put out if we keep them, come si dice … how do you say it? Out of the loop?’
Felici masked his irritation. ‘Unfortunately, Doctor, the Curia leaks like a sieve. You handle His Holiness’s condition, and I will handle the media and the Curia. I’ll have a draft media release sent over and I’d appreciate your comment.’ Felici stood and offered Rossi his hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ he said, showing him to the door.
Felici buzzed for his private secretary. Father Cordona appeared almost immediately. ‘Eminence?’
‘I’d like a list of every foreign cardinal visiting Rome over the next few weeks, together with the names of anyone else in their delegations, the purpose of their visit, and their program while they’re here.’
‘Certainly, Eminence. Monsignor de Luca is waiting.’
‘Show him in.’
Father Cordona ushered in the head of the Holy Alliance and closed the heavy double doors behind him.
‘Have a seat, Monsignor,’ Felici said, offering the hard-backed chair in front of his desk, his usual urbane manner replaced by an icy determination to get to the bottom of the cipher. ‘So … what do you have for me?’
‘Not a lot, I’m afraid, Eminence,’ de Luca replied, extracting a crimson file from his soft leather briefcase. ‘This particular code or cipher is like no other we’ve ever seen.’ The greying Jesuit had been the head of the Holy Alliance for nearly ten years, carrying on a tradition of Vatican spymasters that had been central to the papacy and the Holy City for centuries.
‘Code or cipher? There’s a difference?’
‘Ciphers are mostly focused on a single letter that will stand for another letter or number, Eminence. Codes, on the other hand, can stand for a single letter or a symbol or even a paragraph. The ancient Egyptians and Chinese used simple substitution codes, as did the Hebrews when they wrote the book of Jeremiah. But that was schoolboy stuff, where the alphabet was reversed and Z stood for A and Y stood for B, or where one alphabet is superimposed on another, but out of sync by a number of spaces, so Z might stand for D and so on. The Inca, however, left no written documents. We’ve assumed the friars who were with the conquistadors transcribed these documents from an oral history, but even allowing for a much greater degree of sophistication on the part of the Inca, our most powerful computer programs haven’t been able to unravel the cipher.’
‘There’s no key?’
De Luca shook his head. ‘Not that we can find, and we’ve compared the Inca to other tracts and beliefs such as Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, the Jewish Kabbalah …’
Felici wrinkled his nose in disgust. There was only one religion, one true faith, and the rest he held as heresy.
‘Leaving aside the Kabbalah,’ the Vatican spymaster continued, conscious of the cardinal’s annoyance, ‘we’ve made other comparisons. For example, there’s a mathematical system in the Hebrew writings known as Gematria , where every letter in the Hebrew alphabet is assigned a number. It’s complex, but in essence, where the letters of different words add up to the same number, a hidden connection between the words can be revealed, but this does not appear to apply to the Inca
‘And the prognosis?’ Felici asked matter-of-factly.
Dr Rossi considered his answer before replying. ‘Normally there is a reasonable chance of a cure, and it’s possible His Holiness may go into remission for several years. On the other hand, with the pontiff’s advanced age …’
‘How do we monitor his progress?’
‘We’ll carry out cytology every three months. Any cancer cells in the bladder tend to flake off, so they’ll show up in urine tests.’
‘Good,’ Felici said, thinking out loud. ‘For the moment this can all be put down to routine check-ups.’
‘And the Curia, Eminence?’ Rossi asked. ‘The other cardinals may be a little put out if we keep them, come si dice … how do you say it? Out of the loop?’
Felici masked his irritation. ‘Unfortunately, Doctor, the Curia leaks like a sieve. You handle His Holiness’s condition, and I will handle the media and the Curia. I’ll have a draft media release sent over and I’d appreciate your comment.’ Felici stood and offered Rossi his hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ he said, showing him to the door.
Felici buzzed for his private secretary. Father Cordona appeared almost immediately. ‘Eminence?’
‘I’d like a list of every foreign cardinal visiting Rome over the next few weeks, together with the names of anyone else in their delegations, the purpose of their visit, and their program while they’re here.’
‘Certainly, Eminence. Monsignor de Luca is waiting.’
‘Show him in.’
Father Cordona ushered in the head of the Holy Alliance and closed the heavy double doors behind him.
‘Have a seat, Monsignor,’ Felici said, offering the hard-backed chair in front of his desk, his usual urbane manner replaced by an icy determination to get to the bottom of the cipher. ‘So … what do you have for me?’
‘Not a lot, I’m afraid, Eminence,’ de Luca replied, extracting a crimson file from his soft leather briefcase. ‘This particular code or cipher is like no other we’ve ever seen.’ The greying Jesuit had been the head of the Holy Alliance for nearly ten years, carrying on a tradition of Vatican spymasters that had been central to the papacy and the Holy City for centuries.
‘Code or cipher? There’s a difference?’
‘Ciphers are mostly focused on a single letter that will stand for another letter or number, Eminence. Codes, on the other hand, can stand for a single letter or a symbol or even a paragraph. The ancient Egyptians and Chinese used simple substitution codes, as did the Hebrews when they wrote the book of Jeremiah. But that was schoolboy stuff, where the alphabet was reversed and Z stood for A and Y stood for B, or where one alphabet is superimposed on another, but out of sync by a number of spaces, so Z might stand for D and so on. The Inca, however, left no written documents. We’ve assumed the friars who were with the conquistadors transcribed these documents from an oral history, but even allowing for a much greater degree of sophistication on the part of the Inca, our most powerful computer programs haven’t been able to unravel the cipher.’
‘There’s no key?’
De Luca shook his head. ‘Not that we can find, and we’ve compared the Inca to other tracts and beliefs such as Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, the Jewish Kabbalah …’
Felici wrinkled his nose in disgust. There was only one religion, one true faith, and the rest he held as heresy.
‘Leaving aside the Kabbalah,’ the Vatican spymaster continued, conscious of the cardinal’s annoyance, ‘we’ve made other comparisons. For example, there’s a mathematical system in the Hebrew writings known as Gematria , where every letter in the Hebrew alphabet is assigned a number. It’s complex, but in essence, where the letters of different words add up to the same number, a hidden connection between the words can be revealed, but this does not appear to apply to the Inca
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