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“I’ve decoded the manuscript. I invited your better half to come and join me for coffee while we go over it. The invitation extends to you, of course, unless you’re otherwise occupied.”
Sam blinked twice and glanced at Remi. “That’s great news. You’re a magician. We’ll be there in two shakes.”
“Take your time. I’ve no pressing engagements now that I’m purer than a nun’s prayers.”
“Or sober at least.”
“That also. See you soon.”
Sam tossed the phone on the bed. “Just a suggestion, but today might be a good day to hurry in the shower.”
“I’ll be ready in five minutes,” Remi said, already on her way into the bathroom. “This is exciting. I love this part. When it all comes together.”
Sam smiled. “Me too.”
Lazlo was sitting on his room’s small brown sofa when they arrived. He rose to greet them and moved to a circular table in the corner, where the notebook computer was displaying its screensaver.
“Please, take a seat. I suspect you’ll be here for a while,” he said, indicating two folding chairs he’d obviously requested in anticipation of the meeting.
“You look better, Lazlo,” Remi said, studying his face, noting the clarity in his eyes.
“Thanks, Remi. You’re a persuasive lady—in the best possible way, I mean.”
“So what have you got for us?” Sam asked as he sat next to Lazlo.
“Ah, where do I begin? First, the code. It was a substitution cipher and the original underlying text was written in Latin—or every other word was, alternating with Spanish. That’s more than a little unusual, but it suggests to me that the author wasn’t a conquistador—rather, he was a member of the clergy or an educated nobleman. I won’t bore you with all the technical details; the short version is, I’ve only encountered anything similar from that era once before and that was an encoded document intended for the Pope’s eyes only. I entered it on my list purely out of habit and thank goodness I did. Because when I ran the text through that program, it identified the encryption pattern. And, from there, it was child’s play.”
“Interesting. So it was a priest?” Remi asked.
“You’ll have to be the judge of that.”
“Why didn’t it show up in our database?”
“Probably because you haven’t spent the last two decades compiling the most complete list of encryption techniques ever assembled,” Lazlo said with the slightest hint of a smile.
“So what does it say?”
“Once I translated all the Latin into Spanish, it seems to be a report on an oral tradition the author dragged out of a highly placed Aztec prisoner—a holy man. Perhaps one of the most esteemed. Anyway, this man told the author about a supposedly great treasure that was to be found in sacred ground. Gemstones, rare icons, and something given to his predecessors by one of their gods.”
“A god?”
“That’s what it says. Loosely translated, I took it to mean ‘the Eye of God.’”
Remi sat back. “No. It’s ‘the Eye of Heaven,’ although the Toltecs didn’t have a specific belief in heaven that we can determine. Too little’s known about them, though, to say that with conviction. But I can see how in grappling with a concept like an afterlife, Christians would naturally use words that were the most familiar to them.”
“God, heaven—to my ears, it amounts to the same.”
“Does it offer any direction to where this Eye of Heaven can be found?” Sam asked.
“In a roundabout way. Near as I can tell, it’s in the burial chamber of one of their supreme beings. Unpronounceable.”
“Quetzalcoatl,” Remi murmured.
“That’s close enough.”
“And does it say where this chamber is?”
“Near a holy place dedicated to the god, of course.”
