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Garza stared at her in disbelief. Has everyone gone mad?
“We know you framed Bishop Valdespino!” Martín declared, striding toward him. “And the palace wants to publish your confession right now!”
The commander had no reply.
Halfway across the room, Martín spun around abruptly, glaring back at the young guard in the doorway. “I said a private confession!”
The guard looked uncertain as he stepped back and closed the door.
Martín wheeled back toward Garza and stormed the rest of the way across the floor. “I want a confession now!” she bellowed, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling as she arrived directly in front of him.
“Well, you won’t get one from me,” Garza replied evenly. “I have nothing to do with this. Your allegations are completely untrue.”
Martín glanced nervously over her shoulder. Then she stepped closer, whispering in Garza’s ear. “I know … I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
CHAPTER 68
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BREAKING NEWS
OF ANTIPOPES … BLEEDING PALMS … AND EYES SEWN SHUT …
Strange tales from within the Palmarian Church.
Posts from online Christian newsgroups have now confirmed that Admiral Luis Ávila is an active member of the Palmarian Church, and has been one for several years.
Serving as a “celebrity” advocate for the Church, navy admiral Luis Ávila has repeatedly credited the Palmarian pope with “saving his life” following a deep depression over the loss of his family in an anti-Christian terrorist attack.
Because it is the policy of ConspiracyNet never to support or condemn religious institutions, we have posted dozens of outside links to the Palmarian Church here.
We inform. You decide.
Please note, many of the online claims regarding the Palmarians are quite shocking, and so we are now asking for help from you—our users—to sort fact from fiction.
The following “facts” were sent to us by star informant [email protected], whose perfect track record tonight suggests that these facts are true, and yet before we report them as such, we are hoping some of our users can offer additional hard evidence either to support or refute them.
“FACTS”
• Palmarian pope Clemente lost both eyeballs in a car accident in 1976 and continued to preach for a decade with his eyes sewn shut.
• Pope Clemente had active stigmata on both palms that regularly bled when he had visions.
• Several Palmarian popes were officers of the Spanish military with strong Carlist ideals.
• Palmarian Church members are forbidden from speaking to their own families, and several members have died on the compound from malnutrition or abuse.
• Palmarians are banned from (1) reading books authored by non-Palmarians, (2) attending family weddings or funerals unless their families are Palmarians, (3) attending pools, beaches, boxing matches, dance halls, or any location displaying a Christmas tree or image of Santa Claus.
• Palmarians believe the Antichrist was born in the year 2000.
• Palmarian recruitment houses exist in the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, and Ireland.
CHAPTER 69
AS LANGDON AND Ambra followed Father Beña toward the colossal bronze doors of Sagrada Família, Langdon found himself marveling, as he always did, over the utterly bizarre details of this church’s main entrance.
It’s a wall of codes, he mused, eyeing the raised typography that dominated the monolithic slabs of burnished metal. Protruding from the surface were more than eight thousand three-dimensional letters embossed in bronze. The letters ran in horizontal lines, creating a massive field of text with virtually no separation between the words. Although Langdon knew the text was a description of Christ’s Passion written in Catalan, its appearance was closer to that of an NSA encryption key.
No wonder this place inspires conspiracy theories.
Langdon’s gaze moved upward, climbing the looming Passion facade, where a haunting collection of gaunt, angular sculptures by the artist Josep Maria Subirachs stared down, dominated by a horribly emaciated Jesus dangling from a crucifix that had been canted steeply forward, giving the frightening effect that it was about to topple down onto the arriving guests.
To Langdon’s left, another grim sculpture depicted Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss. This effigy, rather strangely, was flanked by a carved grid of numbers—a mathematical “magic square.” Edmond had once told Langdon that this square’s “magic constant” of thirty-three was in fact a hidden tribute to the Freemasons’ pagan reverence for the Great Architect of the Universe—an all-encompassing deity whose secrets were allegedly revealed to those who reached the brotherhood’s thirty-third degree.
“A fun story,” Langdon had replied with a laugh, “but Jesus being age thirty-three at the time of the Passion is a more likely explanation.”
As they neared the entrance, Langdon winced to see the church’s most gruesome embellishment—a collosal statue of Jesus, scourged and bound to a pillar with ropes. He quickly shifted his gaze to the inscription above the doors—two Greek letters—alpha and omega.
“Beginning and end,” Ambra whispered, also eyeing the letters. “Very Edmond.”
Langdon nodded, catching her meaning. Where do we come from? Where are we going?
Father Beña opened a small portal in the wall of bronze letters, and the entire group entered, including the two Guardia agents. Beña closed the door behind them.
