﻿The Theatre of the Apocalypse Part Two By UD Sandberg Copyright 2013 UD Sandberg Smashwords Edition All images copyright © are in the public domain. PART TWO Dr. STRANGELOVE AND THE SAPPHIRE BOX OF EDFU 17 Vienna April 3 Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner's desk had been filled with reports of burglaries, vandalized garbage bins, stolen bicycles and other low priority crap. He had a clearing percentage of approximately zero the first week. Approximately zero the second. But the boss was easy on him and for his sake they jumped the statistics at their weekly meeting. It was three weeks ago he ate dinner with his wife. Three weeks ago he fell asleep next to her. It had never been such a long time now, and although it didn´t show on the surface, Alexander suffered. The last day he surfed on similar events. He had read about gangs in London, Hackney, Enfield and Lambeth. Read about the drugs in Amsterdam and the increasing violence in Stockholm of all places, the hooligans, riots, left and right political demonstrations. He got stuck on one thing that happened just about a year ago. Outside a 7-Eleven store in central Stockholm on the street of Götgatan. The event had attracted attention in German and English newspapers. He recognized himself in the story. Alexander fell asleep on the desk, exhausted by his own indifference to work and everything else. He woke to the desk vibrated. The phone rang. It was his wife, Lisa. She was on her way to the hospital. She said she had arranged a babysitter if he wanted to work late. A few days later, he was equally drawn down in the shit. His boss came into the room, Kontrollinspektor Simon Bauer. He explained that they had major problems with the burglary of the City Hall Offices, they tried to bury the matter in the press, but they were just as pushy as usual and he needed help. He needed someone of Alexander's caliber to at least investigate the crime scene. He would prefer that he took over the case, but did not ask out of respect for what has happened. Wagner agreed to go to Bartensteingasse and examine the site. The clock was after eight, dusk fell and the tranquility was back again on Ring Strasse. Trams with tourists flowed through avenues like safari buses. UN officials were heading home in their German cars. Wagner parked outside a shop selling copiers and other office products. The City Hall Offices was empty of people. The gate had new fittings that did not fit into the old port. He met up manager David Haas at the entrance. Haas showed him around and explained the sequence of the events. Due to lack of power, they had no video footage from the burglary. He showed him the cavity between the Storage Room 16 and 17. The stench was still there even though they had disinfected the area after they completed the crime scene investigation. When they stood in the corridor outside the storage room Wagner asked. ”Do you have something valuable here that you can imagine that people can sell?” Haas pondered. ”Not that I can think of. Nothing unique. We have modern IT equipment as everyone else. Fairly advanced large scanners, some special equipment for preservation but most are shot at another facility that has not had any break-ins.” ”Is there anything else you can think of that at first glance has no value, but that might be interesting for other reasons?” ”Like what?” ”Tools, documents that only you have and no one else in Austria or in the world?” Haas shook his head. They went on in the hallway. Wagner tried to keep the concentration up but it was difficult. He rubbed his hands on his face. Asked. ”What room were they in?” ”We know they were in the Storage Room 16 due to the cavity and in an office at the entrance where we found a broken radio.” ”Missing something from those rooms?” ”No, we have gone through all the cabinets.” ”You are sure that they were not in any other place.” ”Almost.” Wagner sighed. ”Light up the hallway.” Wagner looked at the lock to the Storage Room No. 16. It was worshiped, small flakes of metal had come loose from the lock. He showed it to Haas and instructed him to start at the end of the corridor and look for similar damage. Wagner investigated the doors the other way. After a few minutes Haas shouted. Wagner examined the lock on the door to the Storage Room No 18. Haas was right. The lock was damaged, albeit a bit. They unlocked the door and were met by ten rows of metal cabinets. ”What's in the cabinets?” ”Different things, detailed sketches, drawings, applications. From the 1600s until 1902.” Wagner stifled a yawn. He looked at his cell phone. She had already fallen asleep. ”I start at one end. We go through cabinets.” It was close to midnight when Wagner arrived at Cabinet 7799 A: t He put his mobile on top of the cabinet. Pulled out the first box. He rubbed his eyes again. Started to browse the file cases. He pulled the drawer. Looked over at Haas. Frowned. He pulled out the drawer again. He checked the order of the acts. Because he was tired he counted aloud to not lose count. ”1891:31, 1891:32, 1891:34. ... Haas. Come here.” Haas hurried to Wagner. ”Look, it seems to be missing a file here. Can you check in the record what it is?” Haas started a computer that stood at the entrance. He logged in the record and sought after ref 1891:33. Meanwhile Wagner examined the lock on the cabinet and the metal cover on the upper side was bulging out. He felt on the inside and noticed that the paint was scratched, as if someone had broken into the cabinet with a crowbar. Haas came back. ”I found the file in the record.” ”What is it?” ”It´s a floor plan of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.” * The Castle Ruotkerspurch, Riegersburg June 13 Ludwig peed. His urine was clear as happy pack1. The inmate in the cell next to him in the C building had called the urina spastica. Something you apparently got sometimes after an attack. He felt beat but somehow grateful. He had survived. His left hand was like a handball. Otherwise, he felt okay. It felt like the warm spotlights were gone. He was able to stay behind the curtain, without longing to return to the spotlight like Norma Desmond. They left him in peace. For once, August and Ludwig ate lunch at the same time but it would be a lie to say that they did it together. Since I´m the one who knows Ludwig best in this world, I know that he dislikes small talk, he can do it a few times with the same person but tires quickly. They sat in silence for much of the meal, it was not until August cut up a green asparagus as someone said something. Although Ludwig did not really understand what he meant, he was still happy that August said something. ”Look at this asparagus, Ludwig.” August took a bite. ”If I just bought it, or even worse, Laura had to buy it, the experience would be totally different and much inferior. Since I have grown it myself in my herb garden, I put the seed, watered, cared for it, and then harvested it, the experience is much greater.” Ludwig didn´t know what to say, he was most surprised that August said anything at all. He also had no experience of anything like this and could not think of anything to say. He just nodded. After lunch, Ludwig put on his workout clothes. Ran down to the village and up the hill. On the way back, he saw a van driving up to the castle. When he came to the courtyard, it turned around and drove away. Ludwig read the text on the side of the car. It said Belgravia Fine Art Services. He ran and opened the door. In the foyer he found August with four packets. ”What was that car?” ”A delivery”, August said and put the packets in front of each other. ”A delivery of what?” August looked up. ”Why, aren´t you curious?” ”Is it really that secret?” A small smile broke out on August's otherwise stiff lips. ”Maybe you´re right. It´s not a secret. It was open auctions at Christie's. It´s just that that I don´t think you're interested.” August tore away the papers on the packets. Turned the paintings at Ludwig. ”Look, this is nothing for you”, he said somewhat condescending. Ludwig was dumb. Unable to believe his eyes when he looked at the four paintings that stood before him. It was visual arts at its very best, paintings by Turner, Friedrich, Wilson and Linnell. He asked. ”Is it original paintings?” ”Well otherwise, I have been cheated. I presume that you have not seen them before. This is a winter landscape by - ” Ludwig interrupted August. The last time he had thought about it was when he left with the train from Berlin to Vienna. ”Caspar David Friedrich, painted in 1811” August laughed, visibly surprised. ”Well, there you go. I didn´t think you knew. Do you like the romantics?” Ludwig nodded. He stared at Caspar´s suggestive painting. A praying man leaned against a rock in a grand kid. His crutches were abandoned a few meters behind him. A barren, desolate winter landscape surrounded the poor man. A cathedral loomed in the background, wrapped in gothic fog. Ludwig helped August with the paintings upstairs. They bore them to August's salon where Ludwig for the first time set foot. He painting of the woman that hung above the fireplace looked even better up close. They plucked down some paintings. Nailed up the new. Once everything was in place they stood in the middle of the room and admired the works. ”Aren´t they amazing?” August said, but it was not a question. It was a statement and Ludwig agreed. August said. ”There is something special, I can´t put my finger on it. But the four have something in common. Although Turner's painting of Caligula's palace ruins at first glance have nothing in common with Linnell´s harvest societies or Friedrich´s cripple and Wilson's house.” ”They all have a very special light. Like that of the Caravaggio painting you have down there in the foyer. They are like the disciples or something to him, the Light Master.” August looked approvingly at Ludwig. ”Good observation, Ludwig. But there is something more. Something, yes, I cannot ... ” Something very strange happened. Suddenly both of them said the same thing, almost in chorus. ”... It is as if there´s something hidden in these landscapes.” They looked at each other. August laughed. ”Well, Ludwig”, he said and sat down on the sofa that stood in front of the fireplace. ”You know”, August continued. ”If you're interested, I'll tell you something. At Christie's in London, a few years ago I met an old relative of Mr Friedrich. It was of course long since he died, before the middle of the 1800s. He seemed to be in financial trouble because he was anxious to get rid of the few works of art that were left in the family. I invited him to lunch because I was curious about what he knew about him. He told me that Mr. Friedrich, despite his three children and loving wife and a host of friends remained a hermetic shell during his whole life. That he, like so many other artists, painted his inner self and it became all too often lonely cemeteries and desolate horizons. He was a devout Christian and in his paintings, you can almost imagine that he believes that God has forsaken the Creation. And he trembles before this discovery. Before Friedrich celebrated artists always painted winter landscapes with motifs of people skating or something else horrible common but Mr. Friedrich exposed the naked nature for what it is. Death is the only living thing in his art, death symbols as owls, tombs, cemeteries, vultures and ruins fill his paintings. And it expresses what we all in one way or another will face.” It was quiet for a few minutes. Ludwig stood enchanted, looking at Friedrich. August stood beside him again and said. ”Ludwig, we have earned some time off. Want to play a game of chess with me?” Ludwig was surprised by the question but immediately said yes so as not to seem rude. He asked to shower first and change clothes. * Vienna June 13 Juan, Marco and Luca slept on each bunk. Matteo sat in the glow of a table lamp. The curtain was pulled in front of the street from the basement they had installed themselves in. Matteo copied up another copy of the plan of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Lined up marking pens. On the table were a green, blue, black and a yellow pencil. There was one for each man. He drew their way through the museum. Circled the time at each station. He stood up to get a better overview. He checked that the snakes did not tied knots on themself. The timetable was in line. The operation was floating on like the sand in an hourglass. Montepulciano manuscripts lay next to the plans. He leaned back. The chair creaked slightly. The men slept on. He was proud. A bit pompous it might seem but Matteo was proud, really proud that they worked in the Great Doctor's spirit. To really understand Matteo and his brothers in arms, it is important to understand that he viewed them as if they were Bellarmine´s disciples and they were loyal to him with their life. They were soldiers, on a mission according to a centuries old instruction written by one of God's prophets. Matteo told himself that the eternal has patience. He could glimpse the light behind the curtain. The evenings got longer. The nights shorter. The days brighter. The summer solstice approached. The Theatre was within reach. He was confident that they would get there. The Four-leaf Clover would show the way in the museum. * Ludwig hurried back to the lounge, he did not want the good atmosphere to disappear if August had second thoughts. ”Brandy?” August asked, when Ludwig came back. ”I´m good. I can drink water. ” Ludwig had been drunk once after Ella. All discomfort strengthened. Everything at the bottom of the pot floated to the surface. It was not something he wanted to repeat. They sat at a table in the corner of the salon where the chess board was set up. August had lit a bonfire. The flames cast light and shadow on the paintings. Ludwig found that the salon had an air of a gentleman's club to it. Two rounded leather armchairs stood next to a drink cart. ”White? If you are unsure, it is better to be white. Statistically, you have a small advantage. But you can be calm. I'll be nice to you”, August said confidently as if he's never done anything else than playing chess. ”Sure, I can be white.” Ludwig moved a farmer two steps to frame E4.2 Although he knew he could ruin the evening, he could not hold it in any longer. ”August. I've been here a while now.” ”Mm”, August studied the board. He moved a farmer. Frame B6. ”It would be much easier for me to work down in the library if I knew why. Why don´t you do it yourself? ” August took a sip of cognac. Looked at Ludwig. ”Make your move.” Ludwig sighed and moved a farmer to frame D4. August looked at the board. Moved out his right runner behind the relocated farmer. Frame B7. August stood up and walked to the fireplace. Picked up a piece of wood. He held it in his hand for a moment turned away from Ludwig. From where Ludwig was sitting it looked like as if he thought about it because he did not move, he just stood still and held the wood. After a while August put the log in the fireplace and came back and sat down. He looked out across the board, did not meet Ludwig´s eyes and said with sacrifice in his voice. ”Ok, Ludwig. Perhaps it is time that you find out. If you must know, I couldn´t do it. I feel like a pansy in many ways, you know. But believe me, I've tried several times but I cannot do it. You should know that I have tried. Despite all this weight on my shoulders, I cannot persuade myself.” He looked up and straight into the eyes of Ludwig. ”It's my wife's books. She walked3 away”, August looked away.”She was killed some time ago. The police are hand fallen and cannot do anything. I am convinced that she was doing something dangerous, something that she could not reveal to me, and that was why she was murdered.” Ludwig swallowed. He lamented the loss. ”Is it her on the painting there?” Ludwig noticed that his fingers shook as he pointed to the painting above the fireplace and quickly took back his hand. August nodded. ”Victoria.” There was silence. August looked at Victoria. ”It's your turn, Ludwig.” August drank more brandy. Ludwig moved his right hand runner to frame D3. Ludwig said. ”If you want we can end the game.” ”No, Ludwig. Never mind. If you're afraid I'll beat you in a few simple moves I promise to be nice. Give me your best match now, I beg you.” August pressed forward a smile. For Ludwig, it seemed to be real, which it was and Ludwig could not help but to agree to his proposal. It was August's turn. August moved a farmer to f5 frame. Ludwig countered continue to take it. Frame F5. August attacked Ludwig´s defense with a runner. Picked a farmer on frame G2. Ludwig took courage. Moved his lady to H5. August threatened Ludwig´s lady with a farmer on the G6. Ludwig took August´s farmer with a farmer on G6. August looked a little anxiously at Ludwig´s lady. Moved out a horse to F6. Ludwig took a farmer in front August's left tower on H7 and then said a little quiet, almost as if he thought it was a bit embarrassing, like he wasn´t authorized. ”Check.” August looked at the board. Lit up in a smile. ”That you shouldn´t have done. Now I will take your lady”. Ludwig looked at August's horse which took his lady. H5. Thought for a moment. Then he played surprised. ”Damn.” He drank some water and then said. ”But if I do this then.” Ludwig took his runner to G6. Said with a little more courage and confidence. ”Check.” August looked worried on the board. On his king and lady. On the horse behind the runner. At Ludwig´s runner. He didn´t know why but Ludwig waited a few seconds, but then he said. ”Mate.” August's eyes went back and forth. ”But ... you sly devil.” Ludwig noticed that August was annoyed. After a few minutes he got up and without saying anything, he went to a cupboard. He turned on some controls. It crackled through the speakers. Gentle piano. It was Beethoven. The melancholy Moonlight Sonata. August sat down on the couch and asked Ludwig to sit beside him. He congratulated the victory and pointed to Victoria's portrait and said. ”I hope you show humility for an old man especially when he loses in his own salon in the presence of his own wife.” August crossed his legs and continued. ”That painting is rather old, I ordered it after just a few years. She was very beautiful as you can see, and yes, I am of course biased but she did not have many flaws. Despite her appearance and background, she was still always humble and warm, something I always wanted to be myself but I rarely attained that but she helped me, she really did.” Ludwig noticed that August held back, but that he still wanted to talk. Ludwig said nothing just listened. August continued to talk as he looked lovingly at Victoria's portrait. ”Many years ago, I was recruiting a research director at one of my industrial companies, who would be stationed at our headquarters in Vienna. We had 48 candidates of which one was a woman. Since I hire all key management positions myself in my company and there are many recruitments each year they easily become monotonous, so for fun I thought I would test them. At each interview, I asked the same question. ”If I give you a pen and a paper, can you solve a cubic equation?” We had all of the applicants for an interview and all the men answered yes to my question. The only one who answered different was the woman, who said she was hesitant but she would try. To the surprise of many, I put out a paper and a pen, and a cubic equation that reminded of Ferro's formula. I told them they had five minutes and then left the room.   ”How'd it go?” ”The only one who managed to solve the equation was the woman. And it was the first time I met Victoria.” August fell silent for a moment. ”But anyway. I did of course give her the job, perhaps not only because she solved the equation but for various reasons, she didn´t accept. At the time I thought she was crazy, she suddenly got the idea that she would read the history of art of all subjects. But but. We met a few years later on a Stube in the Alps. We bumped into each and a few days later on the slopes and then on the Stube again where she gave me a message on a small linen napkin.” Ludwig lost focus on August´s story. He felt something in his stomach. His heart was beating hard and wanted out of the chest. In the fireplace, he saw the monkey. He looked away. At Friedrich praying man the monkey grin hid in the desolate winter landscape. The wind outside the castle sounded like distant sirens. He heard someone ask what they looked like. August turned to Ludwig. ”It came so sudden. We had so many years ... ” He took a deep breath. Looked up at the portrait of Victoria above the fireplace. Stumbled through the words. ”I don´t understand why she could not have told me. That she did not even said a word.” Ludwig saw August grab ahold of his pants. Squeezed the fabric. An effort to maintain composure. From an inside pocket of his jacket he pulled the linen napkin, he talked about. The message had disappeared with time, it was, after all, over 40 years ago. But the love was still as strong as ever. August stood at the window and looked out into the darkness. ”Imagine that the one thing that give you meaning in life, everything that is worth something, joy, the desire to get up or lie there and look at her, the will to live, is also the one that robs the same thing. It´s only love that can crush your heart. I have thought several times of taking my life. And like Goethe and his young Werther I get pissed off at anyone who thinks that it is cowardly. It is like standing at the side of someone's bedside and talk sensible words to the sick in the hope that he will get well. Give it time. Shut up, I have an incurable disease - try to reason with my cancerous tumor!” The Moonlight Sonata started over. August went to the stereo to change the music. 18 The Castle Ruotkerspurch, Riegersburg June 13 August switched to Rachmaninov. When August told Ludwig about Victoria, he was eager to resume the search for the explanation to her mysterious death. ”I have thought of one thing, Ludwig. Victoria's diary entries in the books that you have found.” August opened the leather-bound notebook. ”It was primarily these two dates I thought of.” He pointed to a few lines in the book: November 25 Where in Reproba and Über is the CE-cipher? December 14 5 signs in the Four-leaf clover x 3 signs (Capita et bos) x (Lateranense, Matteiano, Flaminio) = Illustro. As he wrote: Priscus Latina. ”Here Victoria mentions three things I find interesting, namely Reproba and Über and the Four-leaf Clover. Have you heard of these before? ” Ludwig knew at least some of the names but could not place them. It was unlike Ludwig but I guess he was under a lot of stress that pushed away the memory, even twisted it a little. I say this because almost four years ago, Ludwig showed me a picture of Reproba-pamphlet and its ciphers that were on the front. ”I don´t think so”, Ludwig said after a while, but he was unsure. ”I'm sure Victoria with Reproba refers to the pamphlet Reproba informatio ab Deus - occultus venalicium in praedestino vicis versus the Über-pamphlet Über die drei Juristen, die das Ende der Welt vorausgesagt haben und wie die Welt geendet hat. Both written around the turn of the year 1600. The first in Rome and the other one in Prague. What is meant by the Four-leaf Clover is a bit difficult to describe, but it is a guide, one might say.” August lowered Rachmaninov. ”These three are intimately connected with an ancient holy temple that has long been sought after and disappeared several hundred years.” Ludwig began to understand what it was about. When Ludwig came to the castle, he had never believed that August would say what he said now. August stood under the painting by Turner. The lamp in the frame lit up Caligula's palace ruins in the darkness behind August. He poured himself a glass of brandy and offered Ludwig once again but he declined once more. August asked. ”Have you heard of The Umbrarum Regni ab Quinque Porta Theatrum – The Theatre of the Five Gates in the Kingdom of Shadows?” Ludwig finally remembered the Reproba-pamphlet. He said. ”Yes, I do, but it´s about the same thing with the Theatre as it is with El Dorado. Everyone knows what it is but no one knows what it is. A lost city built of gold. A lost sacred temple. There is not much more than that that is known. What I remember anyway, it´s supposed to be a sort of ancient ritual site based on some ancient philosophy. I have a faint recollection that it was believed that the Renaissance philosophers and magicians Giordano Bruno, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino had something to do with it all, what exactly I don´t remember.” August didn´t move an inch. ”Well, it is based on much older sources than Bruno, Ficino and Pico. I'll refresh your memory, Ludwig. Unlike El Dorado's the Theatre is well documented but the location is unknown.” August took a sip of his brandy. He asked Ludwig to sit at the chessboard. He sat down opposite. ”What they amused themselves with in Greece and Rome after the coming of Christ had its origin in the divine knowledge attributed to the man known as Thoth in Egypt, as you probably heard about. He is also called Hermes or Hermes Trismegistus in ancient Greece, the thrice greatest Hermes, because he was considered the greatest king, philosopher and priest.” August opened a book on Egyptian hieroglyphics. Showed a picture of an ibis bird from the Karnak temple in Luxor. ”He is depicted that way often. Thoth lived for thousands of years in ancient Egypt. He was the one who instituted the Egyptian laws. He was a writer, to say the least. Creator of scripture and philosophy. He had such power that he pretty soon was considered a god. He even helped this myth along by using a mask that consisted of an ibis head.” August took another sip. The brandy trickled through his teeth. He went to a table where there was a thick book with a black cover. Took it to Ludwig. Struck up a page with a strange picture. He explained that the page was an excerpt from the General Inquisitor Roberto Bellarmine´s notebook Theatrum Diabolus, which since many years was in his possession. Bellarmine, August explained, had been looking like crazy for the Theatre in the late 1500s as a personal vendetta and because that he along with many others seeked the Theatre for purely selfish reasons, a fact the Great Doctor never acknowledged. August pushed the book closer to Ludwig. Pointed the image. It depicted Moses standing on Mount Sinai, where he just given the stone tablet of the law to the people. In the shadows, he was given a book in secret by an ibis-masked man who said August was Thoth. ”This picture depicts a widespread perception within this esoteric. It is based on Moses received two tablets of stone, one of the law that he taught to the people, and one where the correct interpretation of the law stood. The latter version has long been gone and hidden. The people deserved and did not understand more than a simple truth. You've probably heard of something that is hermetically sealed, an airtight construction that a tin or so. It originated in Hermes and his teachings that were inaccessible to the masses.” The phone rang. August went and answered. He spoke German, quick and short. After just a few minutes la August on. ”Excuse me, Ludwig. An old friend of mine walked away a week ago. I am his closest. I am trying to arrange the funeral. I have to go to Vienna one day to the mortuary to arrange a death certificate. I'm sorry, where was I? ” ”Thoth´s doctrine.” ”Oh, yes. Thoth´s doctrine. The original truth which is said that he uncovered and wrote down in a book. The book is said to be the only holy scripture, which everything else holy supposedly is based on. It contains something absolutely amazing and awe-inspiring.” August stopped and looked at Ludwig with big eyes. Ludwig saw his expression went from teaching to severe. August spoke with a lower voice, as if to emphasize the importance of his words. ”In Thoth´s book, the key is buried. Thoth describes his great discovery: a magic that has such power that it hardly can be described. This magic is so inaccessible and secret that only one man existed who managed to come into possession of it except Thoth. There was a man who lived in the 1500s. He was called The Nolan. It was the notorious magician from Nola, Giordano Bruno.” Ludwig didn´t budge. Like Michele, he had heard the story before. August continued unabated. ”Where Thoth´s book has been hidden has varied through time. Ac-cording to the myth, Thoth foresaw the great flood, which is described in the Bible and built the pyramids to preserve it. This has been known to the Arabs and it has also made its mark in what they call him. Haram, which means pyramid, reflects Hirmis which is Arabic for Hermes, which then goes back to the Greek name of Thoth. Later the book was hidden in the library of Alexandria, where it remained for many centuries until the library tragically burned down and the book was brought out of the old country to Greece and Athens. But the Theatre was never built in ancient Athens because of all the wars with Sparta and the Roman Empire. Since this never occurred the knowledge fell into oblivion for quite some time. A few scholars knew of the divine knowledge during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It was not until the Renaissance that something happened. Corpus Hermeticum, the famous corpus of the hermetic religion, rediscovered in the ancient Roman province of Macedonia in the 1400s and was taken by a monk to Florence where the translator and humanist Marsilio Ficino was ordered by his master, Cosimo de'Medici to wait with translations of Plato to translate this work from Greek into Latin. Can you imagine why, Ludwig?” Ludwig shook his head though he had his suspicions. ”Because what both Medici and Ficino were after, the root of the Renaissance, the great rebirth, was the old heritage. Prisca Sapientia. The original truth. And part of it was described in the Corpus Hermeticum. Medici and Ficino understood, therefore, that in their hands was the key to the secret of the Creation. The truth that Judaism, Christianity, Islam and philosophers had distorted over the years.” Ludwig sat quiet and repeated to himself that the castle was the perfect hiding place. He did not want to upset his employer by arguing against him. ”Me and Victoria was like many others interested in finding the Theatre but like everyone else we failed because like everyone else we couldn´t find the Four-leaf Clover which is said to be a small box with directions to the Theatre, the path is also said to be in Thoth´s Brotherhood´s scripture Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. We could not find the cipher in the Reproba and Über-pamphlets. But that was 20-30 years ago. I cannot for the life of me understand why she'd started to look for it now, and even less understand why she didn´t tell me. Anyway, so, if I remember it correctly, according to our previous research Thoth´s book is hidden in the Theatre, which has become its final resting place. The 1400's the book was transported out of Greece to Italy where the Theatre would be built, but in fact it was first built there later, when I do not remember. I am fairly confident that it was built either in Florence or Rome, the only question is where. But the even bigger question of course is why Victoria started to make inquiries of this now. I would love to talk to Loretta Colonna about it all, she is the curator at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Victoria mentions her in her last diary entry on January 9.” * Vienna June 13 Matteo drove in circles with Marco in the car. They ran on Babenbergerstrasse past the Museum Quartier and Naturhistorisches Museum and into the parkway on the Ringstrasse. In his hand Matteo held a notebook in which he noted the traffic, wrote down alleys and side streets which was not unidirectional. He put the notebook aside and opened an atlas. He looked out the window and down the atlas, he followed with his finger the way out of Vienna from Kunsthistorisches Museum. He put a ruler over the book and measured the distance and recorded the time. * August disappeared in a thought. Murmured. ”Could it have anything to do with the Theatre as a portal to the afterlife? But why would she? ” ”What?” ”Forgive me, Ludwig. I was just thinking of what reasons she might have had but I cannot think of any.” Ludwig thought about what August just said. I think it was here that the first thought was awakened by Ludwig, in any case, it was the first seed and he didn´t see it himself but it was there and would grow strong faster than he could have imagined. August sat quiet and drank his brandy. His words about the afterlife echoed in Ludwig's head. He saw the mushroom cloud from Dr. Strange Love's final scene and the song at the end of the movie cranked up and ran. He heard Vera Lynn sing We'll meet again, don´t know where, don´t know when. Pictures of Ella and the monkey-ass blasted through. They stood on the sidewalk outside the store. His buddies laughed at Ludwig. The sky was dark. The street was dead quiet except for the cries. He recognized the screams. Ludwig did not want to see more. He concentrated on what August said to pierce the images. He said.   ”I have thought of another diary entry Victoria wrote. Namely, the most recently dated”, he still heard Vera Lynn in a low tone, she sang But I know we'll meet again some sunny day. Ludwig pointed to the last line of the page in the notebook. January 9 Despite Loretta´s warnings - could it really be them? I must try, it is soon the summer solstice. ”What does she mean by the summer solstice?” August sat up. ”I have a faint recollection of that. It's so long ago I tried to find the Theatre. I think there is something about it in the Theatrum Diabolus.” August browsed Bellarmine´s book a few minutes. ”Here we have it.” August translated freely from Bellarmine´s sometimes intricate ecclesiastical Latin. ”Bellarmine writes here that since Thoth´s book was written, there has always existed for some Theatre, called a Millennium Theatre. According to the myth, it exists for a thousand years at a time and is never built on the same spot again. No one knows how they are built and no, not that I know of, either, which is not part of the Brotherhood has ever found any Theatre. The first one was built probably in Egypt. Exactly 1000 years after the Theatre has been built, it will be destroyed on the brightest days that year. Hence the summer solstice, I guess.” August pointed to the notebook and said. ”Here, Bellarmine wrote down more precisely when the current Theatre is believed to have been built. Wait, I'll get a pen and paper.” August rose and disappeared into the corridor. When he came back, he sat down at the chess table. August wrote in the notebook and translated. Then read aloud. When the Holy See was occupied by Sergius IV, when the abbot Alfricus Grammaticus went out of the way, the Master Xenon built the underground Theatre to let it stand for a thousand years until the sun is high just like in Abu Simbel, when the light of the longest day pushes through, it shall be destroyed and never in the same place built again. ”Can you please get my computer, Ludwig?” Ludwig went down to August's office and came back with the computer. August opened Wikipedia. Read aloud. ”Sergius IV reigned 1009-1012, but it is not an exact year ...” He glanced at his notes. ”... Alfricus Grammaticus died 1010th It means that the Theatre ... ” August paused. ”... Reaches its millennium in 2010, or this year. When is the summer solstice this year? ” August sat back, startled. ”It's like Victoria says.” He looked at Ludwig. ”It is June 21 this year.” He looked at his watch. ”It's June 13 today. In eight days the Theatre disappears.” Ludwig took a sip of water. The Theatre and Ella ran loops one another in his skull. ”You said you could not find the cipher in the Reproba and Über-pamphlets.” ”That's right.” ”Does that mean you have the pamphlets?” ”Yes, of course. It would have been hard to look for the ciphers without them.” August smiled. ”Can I see if I find anything?” August's eyes narrowed. ”If I didn´t find anything, why would you?” Ludwig had never been particularly cocky but without thinking, he said. ”You certainly did not think I'd beat you in chess, either.” Something black came over August's eyes, but it disappeared quickly. ”Ok, Ludwig. The coffin is in Victoria's chambers.” Ludwig hadn´t even taken notice of it but now that August mentioned it he could immediately place it. August didn´t want to waste a second. They went down into the library. * Vienna June 8 Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner tried to remember when he learned a few years before his seven-year old son Felix to fold a fighter plane of paper. The fighters he made now were just lame gliders. They were gathered in a pile near the trash can at the door. A little jaded, he read the reports from Stockholm and the 7-Eleven incident which he stuck on earlier. The key persons in the incident were a bunch of guys who had distinguished themselves in the usual way. A passive collection of spectators spoke about the shock and that everything happened so quickly. All that's awful is not fast, but this really was. Alexander managed to get into the right parts of the Swedish websites, some items were translated into English. He saw pictures of a pile of roses. He saw children pictures of the victim in the tabloids. There were reports from the victim's home town. Pictures of swings, riding schools, video stores. And there were also wicked portraits of the supposed perpetrators. In order for you to see how fucking wrongly lit they were.4 The idiots of the hills of Södermalm in Stockholm lit the spark in Wagner which he had soaken in water so far. He didn´t ponder why this incident got him moving but he went into action immediately. He called an old friend who worked at a prison outside Vienna. After some persuasion the friend succumbed. If there was something Alexander could be it was stubborn and he was an expert at persuading people. Wagner took a patrol car, put on the sirens and drove at high speed to the prison. The friend let him in and left him alone outside the cell. Before he left, he tried to calm Wagner. He did not listen. He stood still and thought of Felix. No words penetrated his barrier. The anger went through him like an earthquake in a city. His hands shook, his legs shook. His face was hot. He put his hand on the handle and started pressing. He put his forehead against the door. Released handle. Clenched his fist and bit on it. When he came back to the office there was a note on his desk. His boss Simon Bauer thanked Wagner for helping him with the City Hall Offices, but the case had stalled. The plan of the Kunsthistorisches Museum was gone and it did not appear to have any bearing on the matter. All tracks were cold. 19 Rome year 1599 No one could say that Rome was particularly glamorous at Michele's time. Especially not if comparing with the emperor´s Rome or before the pillage of Rome 1527. Michele braved the rain and pulled over a broken coat. The rain pattered against the cloak but he did not care. He walked up and sat down on a cold stone at Monte Caprino. Inside the poor man’s house the residents chattered and he could no longer listen. From the goat hill he had a good view of Rome. A cattle market was still ongoing down on the Forum Romanum. On the other side of the Palatine was the Circus Maximus, once a huge arena, now there was only a barren field and a shed. Fabrizio and Mario had shown him around and helped him find a place in a house for the poor before they moved on to Genoa with a dispatch. Besides the neighborhoods around Campo de'Fiori and Piazza Navona there was nothing to see in Rome. They had gone around on Campo Marzio and watched the artists at the church Trinita dei Monti at Platea Trinitatis, which we now call the Piazza di Spagna, and walked past the Aracoeli Church and the Palatine hill where the poor huddled in small sad sheds. A thick-skinned man would do for a few months without going under in the dilapidated Rome but without the skin on the nose you would not last the night. The poor who constituted the majority of the people in the city screamed for the bread that the fraternities gave out, screamed for the blessing from the Cardinals, who lived in the palaces around Piazza Navona, although they had long forsaken God and hope. They were screaming for mercy and a way out of the hell that Rome had turned into. They screamed for something to believe in. A desire to find peace. The rest of the city was the same everywhere you looked. It was sheds, brick houses and crumbling churches all around and in the alleys beggars starved to death. If it were not for the palaces it could have been any city. Or village, the grass of the countryside was reclaiming large parts. Half the city was grass. Gone was the pompous, ancient Caesar Rome. In the great days of Rome the goat hill where Michele now sat was called the Tarpeian Rock. The grandiose Capitol - Caesar, Augustus, Nero waved happily to the mob below. Then they executed highwaymen to the people's delight here, now there were just wandering goats. Michele went back down to the poor house and picked up his brushes and cloths. He took a detour around Piazza Navona, where most people were in circulation and stood in a small piazza outside a Jesuit-monastery. The rain stopped and a cold mist lay over the city. He would not get much sold on the piazza when few people moved around there but Michele dared not risk bumping into Sciarra and his men by standing in the Piazza Navona. He took a seat in a corner of the piazza, so that he saw the stream of people coming from both directions. He set up the easel and began to paint still lifes and landscapes. After a few hours he looked in his purse. A few scudi he had received. He needed a lot more to make up the debt with Sciarra and it would take years on the piazza. Four other painters stood in line and painted and the competition for the few monks who were there was fierce. When afternoon came people started to whisper and tassle around Michele. He painted the Piazza del Popolo from memory and added color to the obelisk that stood in the middle of the square. A monk and a few old women stood and pointed to Michele. They pointed to his painting and whispered. But none came. He wondered what it was. He felt uneasy. He packed up and went back to the poor house. It warmed in his chest when he saw what awaited him inside the workhouse. On his straw gurney was a dispatch from his father as he made it known a few days earlier that he moved into a house at the Palatine Hill in Rome. The neighboring boy Michele paid for taking care of his father while he was away had written the letter that Fermo dictated. Fermo announced that everything was fine in Caravaggio, the weather had become milder and winter was about to go over into spring. In the margin the neighbor boy wrote that it had begun to show small black lines on his father's right hand. Michele put the letter along with his brushes. He went to see the painter Prospero, whom Fabrizio and Mario introduced to him at an inn in a square between the parishes San Andrea delle Fratte and San Lorenzo in Lucina. The darkness fell. He went uptown. He went to the inn Lion near Platea Trinitatis where artists and the unemployed soldiers from France and Spain lived. He stood under a lamp of the Lion and awaited Prospero. He drove his fist into his pocket and took out all the money he had. In his hand were a few coins. Prospero greeted Michele with a pat on the shoulder. They went in and drank wine. It tasted earth but it did nothing. It had yeast, that was all that counted. They stood outside when they had finished their wine. A calm lay across the piazza but it seethed with life inside the taverns. Opposite each other across the piazza was the Inns Falcon and The More5, the first belonged to the Spaniards and the other the Frenchmen, both full of unemployed soldiers. Queen Elizabeth had crushed the Armada. The Dog Turks, as they were called in Rome, was still licking their wounds after the defeat at Lepanto. The only war was between France and Spain, and there were many who did not find work. Tragically, all lived for the violence, there was not much else. A stone smashed the glass on The More, and the Spaniards poured out. They met the Frenchmen on the piazza. The adrenaline pumped. Everyone wanted to get rid of that damn eel that twitched in their chests. The Spaniards and the Frenchmen were running against each other. Michele and Prospero stayed away. The gang war was over only after a few minutes. Many of them were tired. Fed up. Some had taken flight in the dark alleys that ran from the piazza, others remained on the ground and coughed blood. But wherever they were, they all could feel it. From the alley, the dark catacombs, from the stars above. No matter how strong they were in the fight, they were all just as scared. Cautiously, they looked at the sky. An almost completely black thundercloud was above them like a bucket of hot water over a torture victim. Typically they didn´t care about a storm, but this cloud rumbled and inside their skin there was a creeping feeling that it was not thunder. It was the same nasty beast that scared Fabrizio and Mario as far away as Prague. Somewhere above them they thought they could see Giordano Bruno, magician from Nola. In their eyes, it was a truth that could not be contested: The Beast was over Rome. Although we are now sitting on hindsight they did not know then, they were convinced that they lived in the last days. The beast was Anti-Christ and the dilapidated Rome was Sodom. Over the piazza a couple of crazy eyes met Michele. Michele thought he looked like Goliath, big as two men he raised himself above the others. It was Marco Sciarra. His eyes glowed in the dark as the poison teeth of a cobra. He quickly gathered his men around him and ran across the piazza towards Prospero and Michele. They ran into an alley and ran for their lives along the rows of houses. With his vast carcass Marco could not keep pace but three of his men kept up the hunt. Nearby Piazza Navona, they came to a dead end. The men drew their swords against Michele and Prospero, who was unarmed. Inferior they kicked and screamed against Sciarra´s men who cut up Michele's arm and made an incision in the leg of Prospero. They managed to free themselves and ran all they could against the Tiber. When they reached the piers they threw themselves into the dark water. Marco´s men stayed on the piers. Prospero and Michele barely managed to cross the river to the beach on the other side. Marco´s men turned and ran back to the piazza. Prospero and Michele rested on the beach near the castle where The Nolan was imprisoned. Prospero said desperately. ”What was that?” Michele hesitated. He felt that he owed his friend an explanation. ”It was Marco Sciarra and his men. They're after me.” ”Why?” ”In Florence, they won over me in a dice game.” ”Did you borrow money from them?” ”No, not that way. I bet a promissory note from the Monte di Pietà.” ”Is the person not good for the debt that they will recover?” ”You could say that. I forged the promissory note.” Prospero did not know what to say and kept his mouth shut. He looked at Michele and saw that he knew that he had done something stupid so there was no need to call attention to it. After a while, Prospero said and nodded to the castle, where a crowd had formed. ”If we had the Nolan´s powers then this wouldn´t have hurt so much.” ”What do you mean?” ”You know what I mean, don´t you?” Prospero pointed toward the crowd standing outside the castle. ”Half of all those cuckoos are seeking his healing powers.” ”Healing?” Michele looked at the crowd and the castle. 20 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna June 13 Bellarmine´s disciples had split up. Luca and Marco took the exterior of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and photographed it with large lenses. They had been given the task to think about escape routes. Trucks came and went from the museum and Luca noted how the deliveries were received and by whom, how they were unloaded, which doors were opened. Marco took the pictures. They were just at for fifteen minutes at a time so as not to attract attention. When they were done, they went to the Hofburg and sat in the park. They waited for a moment, then went back and continued. Matteo and Juan took the interior. They went through all the rooms in the museum disguised as tourists with compact digital cameras and guidebooks. They stopped in front of paintings and spoke Italian. They paid particular attention to the Egyptian collections many rooms on the lower floor. They checked in the head that the drawing was accurate. Tourist currents flowed through the halls, and they went with. Stayed no longer than five or ten minutes at a time in Saal XIII. The hall was inaccessible. It laid in the back of one of two corridors where the halls ran in a row. Matteo memorized where the guards had their stations, how many they were, how often they went their rounds. They were happy about the suggestive lighting the museum had selected. The lighting was subdued and complicated identification with the archaic technology they used with CCTV cameras. In the basement they laid the up plan based on the great material they had acquired. They checked on the operation lines Matteo had drawn. In only one day they would use their four invitations to the private event that the museum would hold with Tate Britain. * The Castle Ruotkerspurch, Riegersburg June 13 They walked up to the coffin which stood at one of the bookcases. Ludwig stood beside. August opened the lid. Ludwig brought a lamp and directed light downwards. August asked. ”What do you know about Thoth Fraternitatis – Thoth´s Brotherhood?” ”No more than what is generally known. It was a secret society that was established by some lawyers at the Sapienza University in Rome in the late 1500s. They were fascinated with the Theatre, possibly the Theatre´s protectors as well. They wrote a huge corpus about it all. Said to contain that secret pilgrimage route to the Theatre. But it has been gone for quite a while what I understand, yes, if it even existed.” August leaned forward and opened the chest. On the coffin floor were two pamphlets and a thick corpus that August with some effort picked up. ”Please, Ludwig, read it and find the way.” Ludwig could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the over 400 years old ink strokes in Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. He flipped gently. The fascination felt throughout the body. All books and old manuscripts he had studied at the Royal Library couldn´t even begin to measure up to this. He shoveled away the books from the pile of the Church Fathers and put down the corpus on the table carefully. He read for a while. Flipped up a dozen pages. Discovered to his dismay that almost all of the text was encrypted. Except for the title page, there was not a sentence in Latin, he could decipher. In the meantime August took up the other two scriptures. ”Do you remember when I was sitting alone down here, after you had shown me the diary notes that Victoria wrote?” Ludwig saw his fist covered in blood. August continued. ”What I did was I read these two pamphlets, Reproba and Über. I thought I would find something but I did not. Just like 20-30 years ago.” Ludwig nodded. Now he understood what Victoria meant by the notes, at least parts of them. August held up the pamphlets. ”I cannot for the life of me figure out what Victoria might have meant. But I'm pretty sure that if we find the cipher, we are a long way to explain what happened to Victoria. The pamphlets are only Thoth´s Brotherhood´s tanks about the Theatre, about the original truth. A lot of text about the secret society.” August gave the pamphlets to Ludwig. He flipped a little fast through them. Reproba was quite short, while the German one was about twenty pages long. ”Unfortunately, someone scribbled on the front of both so I have no pristine original documents.” On the front of both pamphlets, there were a lot of letters written helter-skelter. There were streaks crisscrossing. It looked like when someone scribbled haphazardly during a long telephone. He vaguely recognized the picture of the front page from a book he read several years earlier. He wondered why this front page was known. Ludwig looked at the title page. Turned on the pamphlets. Read some letters aloud. Took out his notebook. Struck up a page. Drew some figures. Took a half step back. A whiff of nostalgia came over him, the good old days when he first came into contact with ciphers. One of the many lonely evenings in his youth. It actually took longer than I thought, but after a while Ludwig knew what it was. After reading for a while, he noticed that in front of him, he had something that he never thought he would come in contact with. He knew the cipher by heart, but had to read it several times before he could believe it. Ludwig exclaimed. ”But here on the Reproba pamphlet ... It's part of the Codex Enigma cipher!” August looked at Ludwig and shook his head. ”It's just a lot of doodles.” Ludwig shook his head. He was convinced. It was the Codex Enigma cipher. One of the most famous and enigmatic ciphers. He could not even count all the code breakers who had failed when they tried to solve it, including himself. But the reason it was so difficult was that the cipher was incomplete so it was virtually impossible to crack. It is perhaps unfair to compare the Codex Enigma cipher and Vigenèrekryptot because the CE-cipher has always been incomplete. In any case the CE-cipher has an almost equally long history as the Vigenère-crypto which has been called ”le chiffre indéchiffrable,” because it for several hundred years was considered impossible to crack. Until Charles Babbage in the 1800s deciphered it. No one in over 400 years had managed to crack the Codex Enigma-cipher. When he saw the cipher Ludwig forgot all other shit: The prison escape, the monkey-fucker, Ella. The cipher swept away everything. Secure in the belief Ludwig said. ”No, I don´t think it´s a lot of doodles. Have you tried to put together the doodles from the two title pages?” ”But Ludwig, it's just doodles. Why would I do that? ” Ludwig didn´t care what August said. He brought the pamphlets close to the eyes. Zoomed in. Looked at Reproba. At Über. He could not believe it. He was eye to eye with the Enigma-cipher´s known fragment on the front of the Reproba-pamphlet. Then the rest of the cipher could not be far away. He compared the pamphlets the titles pages. He then said. ”It may be as you say, it could be just someone scribbling. But when there are letters stacked in this way, it is usually a cipher. You see, it is far too neatly to be pointless graffiti. Unless the known fragment of the Codex Enigma-cipher always been a forgery, I am completely convinced that this is the complete cipher.” August opened his eyes. ”But I must say I'm surprised at the method. In this case”, Ludwig continued, ”it's probably a simple encryption method using a scytale or something like that ”, he said spurting with confidence. Ludwig had been interested in cryptograms ever since he was little. In fact, the first time we met he sat alone at a table at a party and scribbled as he looked at his cell phone that showed a picture of a sophisticated pattern that he tried crack. For example, I know that the Steganographia-cipher in August´s ad he encountered when he was eight years old. He told me that many evenings when he was alone, he had read about ciphers. When no one asked. When no one called. When the others were out and hung out, drank beer and drove the scooter Ludwig solved ciphers. August looked at Ludwig. He was impressed but disappointed in himself that he himself hadn’t seen it. * Vienna June 13 Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner had sharpened his statistics the last month and ended well above average. The desk was getting clean. By the trash can there wasn´t any longer any failed paper fighters. Acts lay in neat piles on his desk and in file folder holders in his cabinet. Each pile was equipped with a small note with register date, serial number and keywords that would make Alexander remember what the case was about. He had decided to give up hope. He kicked the shit right out of the house, into the rubbish heap. He had at least one child left. It was less safe with his wife, though.6 He bought a bouquet of flowers and a box of Belgian chocolate on the way home. He waltz home happy for the first time since January 21 in the morning. But his plan went to hell. Four hours later he was sitting alone on the couch. His daughter had fallen asleep. An empty beer stood on the coffee table. He had a cold one in his hand, condensation ran down over his fingers. The flowers and chocolates were in a bag in the kitchen. Lisa had crossed the threshold as soon as he got home and went off to the hospital. She had looked at the presents as if it were an insult. In Lisa the hope was still alive. * Ludwig tore out a piece of paper from the notebook lying on the desk. Wrote down the letters from Reproba ... because it was written first. Then filled in the letters from the Über ... The more letters Ludwig wrote down, the more it looked like a pattern emerged. August saw with amazement the cipher. ”It was ... I actually think you're right, Ludwig. But is it not a bit too many characters for a normal scytale cipher?” He didn´t answer. He was busy. He tore a strip from the letter loop. August tried to keep up. He went and fetched a book ladder made ​​of round rods. Ludwig wrapped the strip around the steps. ”Do you see anything?” August asked eagerly. Ludwig did not respond. He tried to read the strip, he went from the bottom to the top, diagonally, but found nothing. After a while he said that it was not possible to deduce anything. ”I think we need something bigger. You don´t have a stick or a beam down here that is a little thicker. As thick as a bread rolling-pin.” August walked briskly out to the rotunda. He soon came back with a thick, rounded beam. Meanwhile Ludwig tested the letters to see if it was a numbered crypto hiding in the letters. He gave the letters numbers, two, four, eight, sixty-four and translated from A, Q, T, R several times. He concluded that it didn´t appear to be a numeric cipher. Ludwig wrapped the strip around the beam. Adjusted several times. Eventually he wrote a new strip that he hung around the beam. Took a step backward. The eyes back and forth. He adjusted a final time. ”There we have it”, Ludwig said content.”Now I think we have something that is reasonably readable.” The strip read: Ludwig tore off a piece of paper from the notebook. They helped to carve out the words from the Codex Enigma-cipher. It formed a few Latin phrases. Parilis bapitzare discipulus, suscipere venias acclamatio, ambulare per divinus imperium orbis, sine delego Matteus peccos in duodeviginiti et viginiti et duo signum. Peto sub terra theatrum devoveo ad ars Lullus intentio infreno ex obscurus strues lampas lumen processus et aspicio homo letum sublime. Demonstro vestrum dignus, ingredi semita quinque tentatio. Vos mos reperio semita in Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. Ludwig turned to August with the paper. ”I think you are better at Latin than I am. It's probably easiest if you translate.” August took the paper. Sat down at Victoria's desk and translated. Equal to the disciples of the Baptist, receive the consent of the graces, wander through the spheres of the divine realm without committing sins in the signs of Matthew in the eighteenth and twenty-second mark. Search for the underground Theatre dedicated to the lullian art in order to break free from the torchlight of the dark masses and behold the human annihilation from a distance. Show yourself worthy, walk the Path of the Five Trials. You will find the road in Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. August looked surprised at Ludwig. It had been in front him the whole time. ”How the hell did you know?” Ludwig shrugged. ”It just looked like it. When it comes to ciphers that are older than the 1700s, which Codex Enigma-cipher is by many years, they tend to be not particularly sophisticated. Then, for example, something as common as PGP would have been much more difficult. That I hadn´t been able to do without a computer.” When they had read the decrypted message August complained. ”Damn! We already know that the path is in Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. How are we supposed to find it among thousands of pages?” August hit a hand on the table. He knew the cipher meant he was one step closer to what happened to Victoria. It felt like he took one step forward and two steps back. Ludwig stood silent and looked over his shoulder. He read the message over and over again. He thought he saw something. Inconsistencies or clues. A four-leaf clover among the dandelions. ”Wait, August. Why would they write that we find the way in Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. Was not this common knowledge among intellectuals in the 1500s that the pilgrim´s path was described in the corpus?” August nodded. ”That ought to mean that there is something more in the cipher, right?” Ludwig read the message again. Thinking out loud. ”In addition to the roads is five, there are no other hidden numbers than in the first sentence.” ”What are you talking about?” ”I think the location of the message in the corpus which leads to the Theatre is in this text. Otherwise, this message is worthless. If you spend time creating a cipher it often means something, right?” August and Ludwig read the translated text and the Latin version loud a few times. ”The first sentence is the only sentence except for the path of the five trials that can be translated into numbers and thus can be translated into page numbers”, said Ludwig safe. ”You're probably right, Ludwig. Good!” August read the first sentence several times as he scribbled on a piece of paper. He retrieved his laptop from the salon. Beat up some keywords in Britannica. Glanced through a couple of articles in JSTOR. Flipped through a PDF of the New Testament. Wrote it all up in a Word-document. He made a table with two columns, at the left he wrote Baptist, graces, spheres, Matthew´s sins and the solution to the right. ”You are absolutely right, Ludwig. Look at this.” He swung the screen against Ludwig. ”The Baptist’s disciples are thirty in number, the Graces are three, they probably counted seven divine spheres, this is before the scientific revolution in the late 1600s and thus was the old Ptolemaic and Aristotelian worldview still prevalent. So far nothing unusual, nothing difficult. However, the last here. Matthew´ sins in the eighteenth and twenty-second mark I don´t understand.” August looked at the cipher and said. ”It could possibly be the talk of the eighteenth sphere, i.e., the moon, and the twenty-second realm, i.e. earth, in Robert Fludd´s Utriusque Cosmi from 1617. But the question is what it has to do with Matthew´s sins?” ”My only thought is that it is the Bible. Matthew 18:22.” August moved. Ludwig sat down at the computer. Went into Google Scholar. Checked out Robert Fludd´s book first but thought it was too far-fetched and also written a few years too late. He surfed to bibeln.se7. Wrote in Matt 18:22 in the search field. They leaned over the computer and read the verse. Lord, how oft shall my brother do injustice to me and still get forgiveness from me? As many as seven times? ”Jesus answered,” I tell you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. Ludwig entered 77 in the Word document in the right column of Matthew. August counted out quickly that they would go to page 117 (30 +3 +7 +77). He opened it in Corpus. ”But what the heck ...” On the side of Thoth´s Brotherhood´s corpus was only a blank page. Disappointed August laid the corpus on the table. But Ludwig knew that something was wrong. He recognized the section from the Bible. He remembered the Cinematheque in Stockholm. An autumn when it was Vilgot Sjöman theme. They had seen the movie 491 in Salon Victor at Filmhuset8. He saw Ella lean on him, she was just about to say what she always said before a film when he shook it off. He googled the 1917-year translation of the Bible. Compared with the translation from the year 2000 that bibeln.se used. Also compared with international editions. He discovered a deviation. ”August, look here.” What they found was an anomaly interpretation. In the older version, it was: Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother if he sins against me? Is seven times enough? ”Jesus answered him,” I tell you: Not seven times, but seventy times seven. They counted out quickly what it was and changed the Word document, ensuring that they were on the right track. They stood beside each other at Victoria's table. August was hot in the body. He was one step closer to an explanation of why Victoria had been taken from him. They flipped to the page 530. 21 Rome Year 1599 * * * Master, I think the Truth has begun to take possession of them. I can feel something in the air here. The Truth begins to embrace Rome and the world. It has been fast in motion Master Pletho fetched the manuscript from the mountain monastery. The day is getting closer when the General Inquisitor Bellarmine will kneel before our Order. Christianity's hegemony will now be broken forever and the Truth will finally break through. Your humble servant Rome in the holy year MDIC 22 The Castle Ruotkerspurch, Riegersburg June 13 Since the page marks were sporadically exposed and did not follow any pattern, it took a while before they came to the page 530 of the Brotherhood´s corpus. The brothers had been sloppy or it was time that faded the page numbers, in which case the pagination disappeared after just over two hundred pages. They flipped gently and counted aloud. Every twenty page they set a bookmark. Sand was sprinkled in the corpus to better preserve the ink, it fell out while they browsed. The sand lay on the table and crunched when Ludwig put his hand over. They turned the page to the page 530. Both were somewhat surprised when they saw what was at the top of the page. It was a picture of an eagle. After reading through the page a few times both August and Ludwig found that there was a similar encryption used in the pamphlets. Ludwig laid the Latin text before August. He sat down at the table. August drew a line under Ludwig's text and translated. Head to Sena Julia where the Path of the Five Trials begins inside the gate of the Barbarian's house. Listen to the conversation between the law-giver and the receiver. Then insert the most common symbols in the Four-Leaf Clover. Let this be your Egyptian Virgil. They read the message a dozen times. After a while, said Ludwig. ”I understand nothing. Do you? ” ”I'm still overwhelmed that we have found this.” August read the text again. Then he said.   ”I understand some. Sena Julia is the name of an ancient Roman colony that Augustus founded. The modern name of Sena Julia is the city of Siena in Tuscany in Italy.” Ludwig leaned against the table. ”So it is in Siena the Pilgrim´s path to the Theatre begins. What does it say? Inside the gate of the Barbarian's house.” Ludwig was thinking out loud. ”Barbarian´s house.” He went through the old myths to find the house. He thought of the old temple in Greece, the Parthenon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. ”The Barbarian´s house, it may have something to do with the roman colony? Attila and the Huns and those who invaded Italy and Siena. They built a house called that way? ”It could have been a ritual place for barbarians as well, which is located in Siena,” said August. ”But it does not seem likely.” They hung over the text for a few minutes. Ludwig gently massaged his hand which still ached after he struck it against the toilet. He started the computer out of standby mode and searched on Google, Wikipedia and JSTOR for Barbarian´s house but he found nothing. ”I think this is a red herring, Ludwig. The more I think about it. I was in Siena for God's how many years ago and the small town has nothing barbaric about it. And the only thing that's there, besides low medieval houses, is the Piazza del Campo with its annual Palio horse race, and of course the cathedral.” Ludwig was struck by a thought. ”Do you have any photos of the Siena Cathedral?” ”I think so. Why do you ask? ” ”I just want to check something.” August went to get an art book. Ludwig heard him move a book ladder out in the rotunda. It was cold in Victoria's room, the mountain cooled the summer heat outside. August came back after a few minutes with a great book in his arms. Ludwig flipped to a spread of the Siena Cathedral whose image confirmed his suspicion. * Vienna June 13 The disciples sat in a circle on four chairs, Matteo, Marco, Luca, and Juan. Hard copies of the pictures they had taken were pinned to the walls. A dark curtain was drawn to the window facing the street. They had gone through the plan four times in three hours. It was something Father Carlo had taught them, and they had also seen it in the Great Doctor, discipline and accuracy were commandments. The plan had five steps. Matteo and Luca were scouts. Juan and Marco performers. The scouts would fix that the doors were open after all had gone home. Juan and Marco would hide in the museum at night. They would go out from the porter´s office where all four would meet again. The next step was the drive against Italy during the wee hours. There was going to be fewer guards. Attention would be directed to something else than the security of the museum during the evening. Night Rounds was going to be easy to maneuver. The mobilization after the alarm was going to be manageable. The plan was simple, it was going to be easy to take the Four-Leaf Clover from its pedestal. * ”Watch this.” Ludwig directed the image of the cathedral so that August would see. ”How is this façade different from other churches in Florence and Rome, and almost all of Italy for that matter?” August put his index finger to his mouth. Shook his head. Ludwig continued. ”Although it´s a Tuscan style, it's not Baroque, not Renaissance and not Romanesque. This is nothing more than a Gothic style on this facade and it is extremely rare in Italy, even if it exists in some places in an Italian style.” ”Out with it, Ludwig.” ”My point is that Giorgio Vasari, he was the Renaissance painter and biographer who coined the term Gothic art. I remember it from my first semester in the history of the university. Even if you do not think about it, it´s initially a rather derogatory term. Gothic art, meant Vasari, was such that came from the German and the forests in the north. Possibly from France also. But above all Gothic meant something that was unpleasant, unclassical and particularly barbaric. As was with the Goths who invaded the Roman Empire in the 400's.” ”So you mean to say that Barbarian house is Siena Cathedral? That´s a very strange name for a church.” ”If that´s the case. But there are some things I don´t understand”, said Ludwig, more enthusiastic than he thought he would be. But I knew him, he was just happy to be himself again, although he realized that it would only be for a few measly minutes. Ludwig continued. ”Look at the line that says Listen to the conversation between the law-giver and the receiver. Then insert the most common symbols in the Four-Leaf Clover. The conversation is probably some sort of expression that is in the Siena Cathedral, but then it says the you should insert something, which is probably a code, in something called the Four-Leaf Clover, that I don´t understand. What is the Four-Leaf Clover? Is it the same thing as Victoria wrote about in her notes, that about Caravaggio and the light?” ”Yes, Ludwig, it's the same Four-Leaf Clover as Victoria writes about. But we have a problem there. It seems that we need the Four-Leaf Clover to continue this search. The question is if Victoria had found out where the Four-Leaf Clover is.” ”Have you any idea where it might be?” ”No, and in fact I have not the faintest idea. It was meant to have been taken out of Rome with Thoth´s Brotherhood´s corpus and these pamphlets but something happened along the way. It is believed that it was stolen. It´s not listed in any probate, auction list or anything written since the 1600s.” ”It seems that Victoria, despite your failure when you were looking for the Theatre many years ago, finally found out where it was. She writes about the Four-Leaf Clover in her diary.” August remembered the penultimate note on 14 December. He said. ”I see no other possibility than that we go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna tomorrow and talk to Loretta. Hopefully she knows something about the whole thing.” Ludwig shuddered. He hadn´t had any thought that his work would lead him away from the castle and his hideout. He wasn´t very keen on strutting around in big cities like Vienna, even though he was as late as the day before only wanted in Sweden. He dared not even think about what would happen if August found out his secret. August continued. ”It would be easier for me if you came with.” August looked kindly on Ludwig, as he asked a question he thought Ludwig would appreciate. ”Do you want to go to Vienna?” Ludwig quickly realized that August would think it was strange if he did not accept the proposal. He understood that in August's eyes, he had no reason not to do it. In order not to seem suspicious Ludwig accepted the proposal reluctantly. He thought that they would soon be back at the castle. * Vienna May 15 Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner solved9 a ticket to the Belvedere Palace in the middle of Vienna. With heavy steps he went to the hall with Egon Schiele paintings. When a couple got up from a bench he sat down and stared straight ahead. Some visitors whispered next to him. They saw the resemblance between him and a self-portrait of the artist. Wagner saw a painting by Egon Schiele: The Death and the Maiden. The woman embraced Death. Death kissed her on the hair and held a hand to her head. Death had dark, square eyes that were as empty as the eyes of a mannequin staring out the window of a deserted street. 23 Rome Year 1599 The General Inquisitor Bellarmine looked at the crowd that formed outside Castel Sant'Angelo near the Tiber River and Ponte Sant'Angelo. Under his arm he had his notebook Theatrum Diabolus. If he had known that it would help Ludwig a few hundred years later, he had probably burned it on his deathbed, his quest was personal and he did not want to leave it to someone else. Bellarmine still held a thumb on the page where he just completed the painting of Mount Sinai, where Thoth and Moses met, as if he still wanted to feel the scene. Some in the crowd recognized him. They shouted with their hand in front of their mouth that he should release the Nolan. According to them, Giordano Bruno was dangerous. Only God knew what he would do if he was imprisoned for a long time. The General Inquisitor´s boldness was not desired, especially not now, when Rome was in the condition it was. In the castle he met Francesco Pulzone, a Dominican from the Inquisition, who was to read out the charges against the Nolan. While one of the guards unlocked the door to the cell Francesco whispered. ”Something tells me that the Nolan will not ask for mercy.” Francesco Pulzone had no idea how right he was, more than he probably wanted. You never forgot the first time you saw the Nolan. It had Bellarmine´s allies in Paris and London all said. His cell was ample but without windows. It was quickly filled by a half-dozen guards, Francesco and Bellarmine. A sudden discomfort affected everyone who walked into the cell. They felt weak. It felt like a snake coiled under the skin on them. Giordano Bruno sat motionless on his haunches in the middle of the cell. He had a dark cap on and a hood over his head. The arms were tied behind his back. The legs were tied with strings tight across his skin. The head was directed to the stone floor. Francesco read out the charges. ”Giordano Bruno of Nola. You are accused by the Holy Inquisition of the following serious crimes. You have blasphemed the Trinity, transubstantiation, saints’ works and relics, the sinlessness of Christ ...” When Francesco pronounced sinlessness the Nolan began to move his head up from the floor. It was as if an Indian whistled up the cobra out of the basket. Francesco fell silent. Everyone in the cell followed him. The prisoner towered over the bunch. Exposed his face. Francesco and Bellarmine gaped. The guards looked at Giordano Bruno with horror. The prisoner fixed them with his gaze. He had black eyes that were close to the eyebrows. They saw a crouching tiger, a hidden dragon. Francesco squeezed out the words. ”Giordano Bruno of Nola. How do you plead to these accusations?” There was silence for several minutes. The men fidgeted. They had a hard time not thinking about the Nolan´s allegedly diabolical power drawn from the depths of the mysterious Theatre. Not after that face. The snake wriggled forward. Became greater under the skin on them. The Nolan took a deep breath. When he breathed out all the candles flickered in the room; then some extinguished. He leaned forward. The hood fell over his head. The Nolan lay down on the floor. Uttered not a word. All but Bellarmine ran out of the cell. The General Inquisitor stood with an amazed gaze. Without thinking about how dangerous it was, he approached the prisoner. Smelled him. Looked at his arms, hands and feet. Listened to his breath. He suddenly felt strong, for a moment, he felt that it was he who was the snake-charmer that had lulled the cobra. Bellarmine would soon learn how wrong he was. Faint cries from the crowd outside penetrated the cell. They screamed about the dangerous beast. Bellarmine was convinced. In the Theatre. He felt envy struck over him. Warm waves washing over his chest. In the Theatre. The Nolan had met God in the Theatre. Bellarmine heard the warning shouts in the backhead10. All clerics, all lay people, all who had encountered the Nolan. They said he should be wary of the Nolan. But Bellarmine was determined and stubborn. There was no turning back now. He was going to the Theatre at all costs. He would meet God and discover the secret of Creation. 24 The Castle Ruotkerspurch, Riegersburg June 14 Ludwig had woken up several times during the night, nervous about what would happen in Vienna. I remember that he always had a hard time sleeping when his routine the next day would be broken by any means. But it had gotten better in recent years, until his life was turned upside down last January. In the morning August and Ludwig went down the hill from the castle with a light pack. Ludwig had been requested by August to bring both laptop and camera, just in case they needed it. The driver had brought around the car. While they went to Vienna Ludwig thought how he would ask for his salary. During the night, he had realized how dangerous it was to go to Vienna. It was time to change the hiding place, the castle had been perfect but now it was time to move on. A few hours later they were in Vienna. The car stopped outside the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Babenbergerstrasse. They went out and waited in one of the museum's many halls. A stressed Loretta met up. She was in her forties. She was Italian-German, since long the women in her family were brunettes which she was. She had glasses and an old trouser suit that had faded slightly in color. August presented Ludwig as one his employees. They went to her office. Although Loretta was stressed, it was easy to see that she liked August. Loretta sat behind her desk. Ludwig and August sat in armchairs opposite. August and Loretta looked at each other as one look at each other when an old mutual friend has passed away. No words were needed. The sorrow was there to share. Eventually August turned away and took up his notebook. ”I wonder if you can help me, Loretta”, said August in English so that Ludwig would understand. He pushed the book to her. Beat up the right side. ”Can you read these diary entries that Victoria wrote?” Loretta put it in front of him. Read for a minute. Looked up tearfully. August said. ”I am particularly interested in the last entry. The first sentence.” January 9 Despite Loretta´s warnings - could it really be them? I must try, it is soon the summer solstice. ”To my knowledge, we know no other Loretta than you, Loretta. Why did you warn her?” Loretta shook her head. ”I don´t know.” ”Think now, Loretta.” ”The only thing I can think of was that I did on a few occasions say that we had had some attempted theft of the Sapphire Box of Edfu and it happened that it went around some shady people here at the museum.” ”Who were they?” ”That said, it was just general warnings, I would not call it warnings really. Not more than asking someone to drive carefully or call someone when you're on your way home through a dark park. The shady people were someone that the guards had noticed but it turned out that there was never any reason to suspect anything.” August got back the notebook. Said after a while. ”Did you see her much the last time, Loretta?” Loretta suddenly felt uncomfortable in her chair. She stood up to take coffee from a coffee maker next to her desk. Unable to meet August's gaze. Didn´t want to trespass Victoria's confidence. ”Why do you ask?” She said with her back against August. Loretta had great difficulties to lie. Especially to her friends. Loretta turned around. ”Did you meet her or not?” ”Yes, she spent some time here at the museum.” ”What was she doing here?” ”But August, what are you looking for?” August's eyes narrowed. He did not raise his voice, but lowered it slightly. The words were sharp. ”What I am looking for? My wife of 40 years has been murdered. The only person on this earth I ever loved. Do I need to explain it to you?” August's words cut to the heart of Loretta. She didn´t want to lie to him. Were unable to hold back. She knew, just like many others had experienced through the years, he was too sharp to not understand that she was hiding something. ”Okay, okay, August. I apologize. She was here to study the Sapphire Box.” ”Why?” ”She thought the Sapphire Box was the Four-Leaf Clover.” August's suspicions were confirmed. ”She was looking therefore for the Theatre.” Loretta nodded. ”But why ... after all this long time. Why didn´t she tell me?” ”August”, Loretta reached out to take August's hand. He let her. ”This is really hard to say but”, Loretta sniffled. Her voice trembled, ”but Victoria was sick. Very sick.” ”What?” ”Victoria didn´t think want me to say anything, but about a year ago, she was told that she had a very serious form of cancer. She was dying. She didn´t have much time left.” August released Loretta's hand. ”In pure desperation, I suppose, but, yes, she had decided that if she could just get to the Theatre, well, you know the myths August as well as anyone else.” August was silent. Even though she was dead, he got depressed that she had a terminal illness. He felt helpless. ”That´s why she couldn´t say to you that she was looking for the Theatre. Victoria told me she had practiced several times to break it to you but then she had been forced to reveal her illness to you. How hard she tried, she didn´t have the heart to do it. She knew you would suffer so much, she was not able to expose you to it.” A colleague knocked on the door. Loretta was short in the call. Told him to close the door behind him. When her colleague left August said. ”You don´t think her death had something to do with her examining the Sapphire Box?” ”No, not really. That said, the suspicions we had against those who were here at the same time turned out to be baseless.” ”Do you think Victoria was right, that the Sapphire Box of Edfu is the old Four-Leaf Clover?” ”I don´t know but she seemed very confident when I spoke to her about it.” August changed his tone. He spoke clearly. Stared into Loretta's eyes. The corners of his mouth dropped. ”I want to examine it, Loretta.” ”It´s impossible, August.” ”Nothing is impossible, Loretta. Especially not when the impossible is behind a booth that you can unlock.” Loretta shook her head firmly. ”No, August. Even before we had the attempted theft in recent times was the granting of research of the Sapphire Box extremely restrictive because of its value and age, you know.” ”You're the damn curator, Loretta.” ”It would look really bad, August. I don´t see the point either. I'm so terribly sorry, August, but it is absolutely impossible.” ”Name your price.” Loretta looked injured. ”August. Stop it.” Loretta knew very well how stubborn August could be. ”1 million, 2, 100 million. For me it doesn´t make any difference, Loretta.” ”August, you know I would grant you this for free if I could. No money in the world is worth more than the friendship that exists between me and Victoria and you. But I simply can´t.” August knew it was the end. Loretta looked at him and said. ”Drop the Theatre, August. Even though Victoria tried and I understand that you want to follow in her footsteps. It will be impossible to find it and if you're unlikely to do it, it is far from certain that all its great myths are true.” August replied low. ”If Victoria felt that she had good reason to look for it and believe in it all, as we once did in our youth, then so have I. Fuck me if I wouldn´t try.” ”I'm certainly can´t know how you feel. I know only that I lost my closest friend. But I beg you, don´t do anything stupid, August.” August didn´t answer. Loretta stood up. ”It's terrible to leave you like this now but unfortunately I have to go and prepare myself. I'm holding a small soiree tonight, together with Tate Britain. A lecture on Turner. If you´re here in Vienna tonight, you might want to come?” After some reflection August said yes for the both of them. Loretta gave time, place, attire. They said goodbye. After the conversation with Loretta August wasn´t the same again, at least not in terms of the past few days. He was short in tone and jittery. He took Ludwig's arm and pushed him forward as if he thought he was going to struggle. ”Ludwig, follow me here. We are going to the Egyptian collection on the first floor.” Ludwig nodded. He had understood from the armchair. They went down to the entrance and into the halls of the great Egyptian collection. They walked through the rooms and saw human mummies, animal mummies, ancient coins and clay pots. There were images of Egypt's many gods, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Ra. When they had gone through all the halls, they came finally to the last: Saal XIII. Both walked slowly towards the center of the room. Alone in the center of the room it sat in a glass case. On a pedestal. It was a round box with four cloves. Not more than ten centimeters in diameter. It was covered with blue sapphires that shimmered in the subdued lighting. The plaque in front of the booth said: The Sapphire box of Edfu 3rd century BC Egypt, Edfu * Harmoniegasse, Vienna June 14 A few kilometers northwest of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Ludwig and August Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner lay beside his five year old daughter Julia. He looked at the clock, 21:06. In his lap laid a book: 1, 2, 3 by Elmo from the Muppets on Sesame Street. He heard his wife Lisa clatter in the kitchen. She washed the dishes from the dinner and put in the dishwasher. Took out a tablet under the sink. Pulled back the cabinet door hard. Slammed the door of the machine. Turned the knob and started. A faint hum was heard. A chair pulled out. Elbows on the table. The hands on the face. Alexander heard a faint sobbing. Alexander stood up carefully. He saw Julia drilling her head into the pillow. He smiled. He didn´t look toward his son Felix empty bed. The light in the hall was dimmed, he lit it and went out to the kitchen. He pulled out a chair and sat down. He took Lisa on her arm. She pulled away. ”Lisa, come on now, we can´t have it like this, you understand that. Sometime we need to talk about it.” Lisa looked up from the table. She had black splash of mascara around her eyes. ”Do what you want, stay here and talk, talk, talk. I will go to the hospital in a while.” ”But -” Lisa left the kitchen and went to the toilet. Alexander heard that she locked the door. She just got colder and colder. Since six months they barely spoke to each other. They never had sex. Lisa disappeared into herself. He longed for a scolding. That she was going to throw something into the wall. Losing her temper over not being able to open a can of crushed tomatoes. That she would call him Egon because he looked like the artistic prodigy Egon Schiele. Something that he hated, but he missed it tremendously. Unlike many other couples they knew they had retained their language when they had children. Not jumped into the negotiating grave and schedule swamp. Not started calling each other mom and dad. But now it all crashed together. He went back to Julia. Lay down. Felt her warmth. Smiled again when he saw her chest going up and down. She hugged her pillow. He listened to her breathing. He looked over at Felix bed. Above the bed were pictures of Spiderman. Felix had looked on wide-eyed when Alexander a year earlier set them up. On the bed was a drawing pad with half-filled shapes. Beside the pillow was Elmo - his favorite cuddly toy. At the next table were his first school books which he received as late as last year. Unlike Lisa, he went through what had happened several times a day. Although it was six months ago, he remembered it clearly. * August looked like a possessed man when he looked at the Sapphire Box. He stood silent for a few minutes. Along with Ludwig he examined the green malachite-stones the Egyptians took from the Sinai mountain where Moses received the Commandments and the exquisite blue sapphires that gave the box its name. Ludwig saw the picture from the Theatrum Diabolus in front of him, the Bellarmine drawing of the scene when Thoth gave Moses the secret law that was unavailable to the masses. Ludwig looked around. He formulated his head about how he would ask for his salary and terminate his employment. But he thought it was best to wait until August calmed down.   August stared at the box for a few minutes. He said. ”It's a little funny. Sapphires are considered to have a magical ability to cure envy. I rather think that they are the cause.” He looked at Ludwig. The eyes narrowed again. They spoke for themselves. Ludwig knew. He knew what he was going to say. August said. ”I got to have that.” Ludwig looked at him. He understood that August certainly often got his way, but he didn´t think he was crazy but he was unsure. When August had talked about the Theatre all had fallen into place. His days in Victoria's chambers had become intelligible. ”But August, you can´t be serious. You aren´t seriously thinking about stealing it?” ”Scchh! Lowering your voice, Ludwig!” Ludwig was going to say that the guards could hardly understand Swedish but refrained, afraid to make August even more upset. August shook his head. Looked at his watch. It was seven days left. ”You don´t understand Ludwig. But maybe you don´t really know what it's like to lose someone. I have only a few days, I may not get anywhere but I don´t care. Victoria tried and I will not disappoint her by giving up where she, well, in which case I will for sure get closer to what happened.” August swallowed. Suddenly he sounded deadly serious. ”The only thing I care about now is to get to the Theatre. And as long as I have the chance I will take it.” Loss. Ludwig looked at August and fidgeted. He felt a need to tell him but he remembered how it used to be. Every time he had entrusted himself to anyone, opened up, it had backfired on him. His weaknesses were exploited in sensitive positions. Laughed about at parties, at least as he saw it. I know they didn´t mean anything bad but Ludwig couldn´t understand that, not then anyway. Once he opened up now, let down his guard, he repented always afterwards. A creeping anxiety crept over him, as if he had been unfaithful to himself. He had just opened for Ella. August stared at Ludwig. He was about to say something but held back. Ludwig said. ”You´re just going to take it now? You will get no longer than two meters.” ”I know. I'm not stupid, Ludwig. I will not do anything now. That soiree that Loretta is hosting tonight. She'll be so mad at me but I don´t care. You saw the message in the Brotherhood´s corpus. There's nothing else to do. I must have the Four-Leaf Clover.” The monkey grinned in the skull of Ludwig. He saw how the monkey-fucker caressed Ella´s cheek. Smiled his smarmy smile. The warmth came over the temples. It ached in his hand that he had punched on the toilet bowl. He hoped that the nightmares would stop. That they could at least come only when he slept so he could wake up from it, not like now when he lived in the shit all the time. For over a year they had swarmed over him around the clock. He was powerless. The light in the room came on the loose. It spun for Ludwig. The room spun into a cold January night. Ludwig saw someone walking away on the street. A guy pissed in a staircase. At his side was Ella. Ludwig flexed his fist. The memories mixed together. All his memory wires was so damaged that they flowed together and formed new terror patterns. He felt the hard bench in C-building on the back. The warders with inferiority complex. The attorney. The judges and jurors who wronged him. If he returned, they would imprison him again. Given what he had done, he would remain in the C-building the rest of his life. They never stopped coming. Ludwig knew it too well. I remember that I was close to tears the first time Ludwig told me that he remembered basically everything that happened to him, verbatim, all colors, expressions, and I discovered pretty quickly that he often focused on the negative. But he was not bitter, he just stated that he didn´t understand some things. In a notebook from the seventh grade, I found a poem he had written on a Swedish lesson, which he never leaved to the teacher. In the memory catacombs alive still the rotten corpses beyond the graves and in the aisles, they run like a track from a zombie soundtrack hack a broken record Well now, everything dies, baby, that´s a fact But maybe everything that dies some day comes back Ludwig felt he had to go out. He could not wait any longer to ask August about his salary. He had to move on. ”August, it might be inconvenient but” August did not listen, but grabbed Ludwig's arm and pulled him aside. Ludwig looked down at his arm and then at August. ”What are you doing?” ”Ludwig, I want you to help me.” Ludwig looked surprised at August. He looked away and laughed. Hoped that he wasn´t serious. But it you couldn´t misunderstand August's gaze. He looked seriously at Ludwig. Ludwig felt uneasy. August lowered his voice. Snapped his gaze in Ludwig. ”I know who you are, Ludwig.” Ludwig solidified. It iced the joints. He tried to get out of the grip, but it wouldn´t go without resorting to violence. He concentrated on not moving a muscle. ”I know what happened in Sweden. I know who you are.” ”What are you talking about?” ”Do you think I am that stupid that I didn´t look you up. If you hadn´t been so good at what you do, I had sent you away a long time ago.” To say that the world collapsed around Ludwig would be a serious understatement. Ludwig felt the heart beating against the chest as hard as someone who is buried alive beat against the coffin lid. He checked immediately around him, whether it was police officers around them or were on their way. But he didn´t see any. August leaned closer to Ludwig. ”I know you escaped from prison, Ludwig Norén. If you do not help me, I have a lawyer a call away. If he doesn´t hear from me at eight o'clock each morning and evening he calls the police and tell them where you are.” Ludwig did not utter a word. None of them turned away their eyes. Ludwig struck despair into anger for a short while. He looked cursed at August and said. ”Are you kidding me?” ”Not for a second.” An elderly woman dropped the case for her camera on the floor. A guard was quickly on the scene and picked it up for her. She smiled and thanked him. The guard went back to his corner. August released Ludwig´s arm. ”You have five minutes to decide. Then I'll call.” Ludwig went off to the bathroom and locked himself. He rubbed his hands in the face, kicked on the toilet seat. He thought about what he could do. It was hell, fucking hell. He swore that he hadn´t understood how easily he sat in that leghold trap. But it changed nothing. He was hooked. He knew he had no choice. Ludwig went back and accepted. August said. ”Remember now Ludwig, it´s more in your interest that we succeed in this, otherwise you can go home with double judgment.” Ludwig did not respond. They stood for a long while and watched the Sapphire Box. Eventually Ludwig said. ”But we can´t just take it.” ”Have you any idea?” Ludwig looked around. There were cameras everywhere. Ludwig knew the museum had had a high profile theft of its art piece Saliera just a few years ago and he thought that the museum was probably hyper sensitive to theft. He thought about what Loretta had said about the theft attempts against the Sapphire Box, which probably meant that the security was rigorous. A guard sat leaning against the wall on a pallet. It crackled low on his walkie-talkie. A camera panned the hall slowly. Cameras, guards, outside was the city police. Ludwig looked at August. They were dwarves at the Colosseum, secure prey for tigers and gladiators. Ludwig said. ”It's no use trying to get Loretta to show us, given all the times she denied. There is also no point in trying to break in here at night. We wouldn´t know what to do. The only way that I see it, is that we take it tonight during Loretta's soiree. There are less people here. The museum is shut down for the evening. There are probably fewer guards. But August, are you really sure of what you are doing?” Ludwig tried to get out of the grip, but he understood that it was probably a stillborn project to try to persuade August. But it was worth every attempt to get out of the leghold trap. He continued. ”Is not it better to listen to what Loretta said and forget about this?” August looked at Ludwig as if he was going to kill him. He was serious. ”Not a word, Ludwig.” He pointed to the phone in his hand. ”Not a single fucking word.” Ludwig swallowed. August said after a moment with a slightly softer tone. ”But you're right, Ludwig, the soiree is best. But only if we do it as fast as possible. God knows how much that lies between the Theatre and the Four-Leaf Clover.” They sat on a bench in a hall next to Saal XIII. Two stone statues sat on each pedestal. An elderly couple walked hand in hand past them. They walked out of the museum and sat in the park in front of the entrance. They did not know where to begin. Threw out nonsense. Talk bordering on idiocy. Ludwig thought of the movies he had seen the famous thefts, and the books he read to get inspiration for their daring coup: Rififi. Inside Man, the theft of the Gardner Museum, The Great Train Robbery, Heat, P3 Documentary about the art coup11. They tried to come up with at least a good idea. Getting something that was useful. Ocean's Twelve. Inca Gold. Art History Mysteries. Hudson Hawk. Adele's Wish. Amazingly a few approaches crystallized after an hour. They walked around the park and walked along the Babenbergerstrasse. After about an hour, they had come up with a plan. But it would take luck and a lot of skill if they were going to succeed. They went back to the museum to test some of their planes. August stood up while a smaller group of seniors came into the hall of theSapphire Box of Edfu. Ludwig went off into one of the two corridors that were in the Egyptian collection. One ran from the entrance, the other to a large, anonymous hall with toilets. Both were closed with large ports. He walked out to the door to the hall with toilets. Beat a god with his eyes.12 He saw no cameras. He returned to Saal XIII and August. Nodded. He stood some distance down the hallway. August walked around the senior citizen group, who stood and admired the Sapphire Box. He stumbled and fell into one of seniors. Leaned against the glass case. An alarm went off. Ludwig heard a cry from one of the seniors. Half a minute later the door opened into the corridor facing the entrance. Three guards came running. They ran all the way along the corridor until they reached the hall lying next to Saal XIII. Ludwig returned. August helped one of the ladies to a bench. The guards recovered the alarm. Made sure that all was well. When they were finished August went up to Ludwig and said. ”Perfect. The hallway was free huh?” ”Yes and no cameras outside the toilets.” They walked out of the museum. Pulled up pen and paper. Wrote down what they needed. Picked out money from an ATM. Shopped at shops that were along Mariahilfer Strasse. August bought cardboard, tape, stamps, scissors, a velvet pouch, cords, gloves, glue, pens, paper. In order to hide from the cameras they had planned to have some long pieces of fabric on. August came to think of his old friend who was a priest by profession who reasonably should have some kaftans at home. They went there instead of chasing halfway across town. August had the keys to his apartment at Kruger Strasse, behind the State Opera. They took a taxi there. It was a mess in the apartment. August searched the closets when Ludwig came up with an idea. He explained the idea to ​​August who said flatly no, but Ludwig was able to convince him. Ludwig ran out on the town. Come back after fifteen minutes. In the bag he had graphite powder, wood glue and transparent paper. Ludwig rigged August's laptop. Power on the camera. After a while Ludwig finished. August put forth some kaftans that had a hood. Cut them. Custom their length. They checked in the Hotel Sacher near the museum. The hotel was in Vivaldi's old home. August paid and arranged a suite with two bedrooms. They rested after the long day, tried to gather strength for the evening. Ludwig lay on his bed and tried to calm down but it was difficult. He looked at the ceiling. BBC was on in the background. His pants were thrown over an upholstered armchair. He thought of what Loretta had said. From what he had understood from their conversation. * Cellar in Vienna June 14 The curtain was still drawn against the street. Matteo took care of his tuxedo. He stretched out his arms and straightened his bow tie. Looked at himself in the mirror. Luca tested radio equipment, set up the frequencies. Juan laid up his weapon on his bunk, checked the magazine, disassembled his Sig Sauer P225. He cleaned it by pulling a bore snake through the spout. It was clean as a virgin. Marco went through what routes they would drive against Italy. They would stay on the smaller roads. He estimated the time. They would have to drive carefully. Don´t draw attention to themself. Don´t let the eagerness press down the accelerator pedal. They gathered in a circle and went through the layup at the museum one last time. 25 Harmoniegasse, Vienna June 14 In separate directions, they all laid and rested. While Ludwig was resting on his bed at the Hotel Sacher Alexander rested with his daughter Julia. Soon, however, they would get acquainted with each other and they would find that they had more in common than they may have thought at first. On Julia's bedside table was a pink radio with a teddy bear on top. Alexander stretched over her and turned on the radio low. He navigated to Radio Ö3. Lisa came out of the restroom and pulled on her coat out in the hall. She was about to take her usual trip to the hospital. Alexander kissed his daughter on the forehead. He thought of the Wednesday six months ago. He had fetched their seven-year old son Felix from school. They had gone to Schottentor not far from Harmoniegasse where they lived and gone into a bank to pay an overdue bill. Suddenly they heard a voice shouting, instructing everyone to lie down on the floor. A man in a balaclava holding a gun in the air. Targeted it around the room. Everyone did as he said except Alexander. His police instincts switched on. He saw how he moved. Gaps in his voice. If he was used to this, if it was the first time, if he could handle the pressure. If he was dangerous. Alexander thought he could talk him out of it. People around him lay on their stomach with their face to the floor. He crouched and approached the man. He tried to urge him to calm down. The robber aimed the gun at him. He screamed and warned him. Aimed against Alexander's stomach. Alexander said. ”Quiet now, just be calm. We can solve this. Believe me, you do not want to do this.” The robber moved nervously. Shouted at him to stop. Alexander felt that he began to gain control. He held up his hands. Kept an eye on the robber's trigger finger. The harrowing gun. The desperation in the man's voice grew. Alexander should have known it was a tornado, but he was so close. When he was three feet away, he saw the robber squeeze the trigger. Alexander jumped aside. A shot went off. He threw himself on the legs of the robber. Wrestled him down easy. Received direct help from some security guards. Around them, several cried. Some gathered in a circle behind Alexander. He looked after Felix. He lay on the floor a few feet away. Alongside his little body floated a pool of blood on the floor. A few hours later, Alexander was still there. The radio newscast came on. He screwed up. Some president had visited a country. Held a speech and praised the country's development. Then came the main news. Just now had a theft occurred at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Lisa came through the bedroom door and stood in the doorway to say that she would go back and spend the night in the hospital. When she heard the radio she said. ”If you are called to that” Alexander interrupted her. ”I will not be called. I've been busy with other matters. They will not put me on the field for a while.” The newscast was short on details. Alexander lowered the volume. ”Hey, I meant what I said, we need” It vibrated in his belt on Alexander. Lisa sighed. Turned on her heel. Hung up her jacket and took off her shoes. It was Alexander's boss that rang, Kontrollinspektor Simon Bauer. * Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna June 14 A few hours earlier, a murmur met August and Ludwig in the entrance of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Loretta met up. She had changed clothes and put on a tight dark dress. On her chest was a colorful brooch. She greeted and hugged August and explained who they were for the attendants, although it was obvious that Mr. Iacobi didn´t need any introduction. She gave them two glasses of wine and said. ”Unfortunately I have to rush immediately. It was really nice to see you again, August. We have to see each other a little more often. As before! And you also Ludwig. Hope you have a good time tonight.” Loretta went to prepare. Nearly a hundred people were at the museum. They mingled in the baroque cafe one floor up where Loretta lecture would be held. August was acquainted with many of them and told Ludwig that he had to prepare to look friendly. Ludwig immediately noticed that August was well known. They went upstairs and visited several briefly. Ludwig discovered that many glanced at August from their company as they stood in groups of three, four, five and drank white wine poured by men in white uniforms. All were eager to greet August and present their friendship with him to boast that they knew the man with the largest art collection in the room and above all with the greatest wealth and as old money in the family that they were almost rotten. Ludwig felt small and alone, but he was so nervous that he barely cared about it. Loretta got up on a stage. Beat with her fingers on the microphone. She started talking about Turner´s light, how he owed Caravaggio his right hand. Showed a slide show on a projector screen alongside. Half an hour into the lecture August and Ludwig met near the stairs. They went down a half a flight towards the entrance, the entrance doors were locked. Only one guard patrolled on the ground floor. The rest of the guards were scattered in the baroque cafe where Loretta stood and spoke. When the guard at the entrance went into the hall with the toilets, they hurried down the stairs. Went the other way around the toilets. Sneaked into the men's. Carefully locked the door to one of the toilets. They stood in silence for a few seconds. Listened to the guard´s steps outside that disappeared after a while. They changed into the caftans. Gloves on their hands. Left the bag inside the bathroom. Locked from the outside with a small pocket knife. They tried the door to the Egyptian collection. It was open. They went in and crept across the floor, trying not to make it squeak. Adrenaline spread in the body in both. The lighting was more subdued than during opening hours. Crannies offered pockets of darkness. They walked slowly from room to room along the walls, hidden by the darkness. They watched the cameras. They didn´t pan. The museum used an old CCTV-system. They waited for over five minutes in the room before Saal XIII. It felt like an eternity. The glass case in Saal XIII was only a few meters away from them, but it seemed so far away. They waited and made sure that nobody discovered them on the cameras. They heard distant laughter from the baroque cafe one floor up. It hummed faintly in the hallways. No one came. Nervously, they sneaked into the Saal XIII and up to the glass case. They crouched at the booth and felt for brackets on the glass. Ludwig had not folded back the pocket knife. Didn´t want to slip it in his pocket unfolded. After half a minute, he had not yet folded it together. He was stressed. He got no grip with gloves on. August looked nervously when Ludwig pulled off one glove. He whispered as low as he could. ”Careful, Ludwig.” Ludwig dropped his balance for a second. He had no choice, he had to put the bare hand on the floor. ”Hurry up”, whispered August. Ludwig felled together the pocket knife. Put it in his pocket. Pulled on his glove. They looked at each other under the hoods. They went after it after three. Lifted the glass cover upwards. It was heavy as hell. The alarm went off immediately. They were unable to dislodge it. Sirens howled. A red light flashed in the corner of the room. The alarm turned on the adrenaline significantly. Stress transformed the room into a sauna. The alarm screamed so loud that they dared to talk to each other. August said. ”Can you see if it is screwed on in some way?” Ludwig checked quickly by the booth. He shook his head. ”How does it look from your side?” ”I see nothing, it's too dark!”, said August with panic in his voice. It took too long. 20 seconds passed. Sweat ran down their backs. Ludwig urged August to one side of the glass case. Instead of lifting it, they tried to push it aside. They amassed so much strength that it stung. It did not take more than three seconds before it relented. The glass case fell to the floor with a thud. The thick glass didn´t shatter but filled with cracks. August quickly took the Sapphire Box of Edfu from its pedestal. They ran along the corridor. Halfway through they heard the door of the entrance was torn up. They heard several guards feet thud on the floor. To August and Ludwig´s great joy the guards came the same way as they did earlier in the day. They were sheltered in the corridor at least for half a minute. When the guards ran by where they stood, they ran out to the door they came through. Without breath they ran into the bathroom. Locked up with the pocket knife and locked themself inside. Ludwig pulled off August's caftan and his own. He picked up the scissors from the bag and cut the caftans. He flushed down bits of tissue in the toilet. Meanwhile he saw in August put the Four-Leaf Clover in the velvet pouch and tightened. From the bag he picked up the cardboard and folded it over the pouch. He picked up string and ribbon around the package and taped it all together. They crept out into the hall. There was chaos at the entrance. Guards ran back and forth while some guarded the main door. All the guests had come down the stairs and gathered at the entrance. They talked to each other and tried to figure out what was going on. Some held their hands over their ears because of the alarm. Two guards guarding the exit. Rejected a few who wanted to go out and escape the high signal. August and Ludwig went apart. They snuck into the crowd from different directions. Ludwig saw August snake through the groups. He staggered across the floor of the entrance to the other side. He stopped at a small souvenir corner where there was a desk with postcards and audio guides. Behind the counter were a few statues to buy copies of the Saliera and the Sapphire Box of Edfu. He approached a box that stood next to the counter. He looked around. When some guards ran past, he quickly put the package into the box. What they could see no one saw anything. * Alexander ran out on the Ringstrasse. He had not showed to Lisa but he was happy to be out on the field again. Glued at that desk shoveled away the anxiety as well as a bed of nails. He threw out the juice mixer13 on the roof. Honked at cars that didn´t move. Pressed the gas. Drove past some trams. Felix was with him. As always. Alexander went on autopilot. Ticked between the cars. Returned to the Wednesday. Felix had like his father didn´t lain down on the floor but Alexander had not noticed it, he hadn´t even thought about it. Felix had bravely stood behind his father as his assistant. The robber had missed Alexander's stomach and shot Felix in the chest at the heart. A blessing in disguise, if there was such, was that the robber had a low-caliber weapon. Because of this the shot had stayed in the pericardium, scratched the inner pericardium on little Felix, but not penetrated his heart. It had, however, caused extensive damage. Felix had low blood pressure and lack of oxygen in the brain. He fell almost immediately into a coma. A few days later, Lisa and Alexander met the doctor. They had high hopes that Felix would wake up during the day. While they waited the doctor asked them to accompany him to his office. He sat down obviously troubled and turned up the journal. He said. ”Felix has serious injuries. The extent we do not know yet. You should be prepared for the fact that he may never be restored. Furthermore, we are fairly certain that he does not know what happened.” The doctor looked at the parents, tried to soften the words. Failed. ”When he was shot, he fell with his head against the floor pretty hard, which probably has caused memory loss and while in the ambulance, he had a pretty severe stroke that have damaged the temporal and occipital-lobes. That makes this a very terrible scenario.” The doctor paused. It was never particularly easy, but even more difficult when it came to a seven-year old child. ”What”, asked Lisa with tears in her voice. ”The damage in the brain has unfortunately made him both blind and deaf. We do not yet know if this is permanent. It may well be that he regains those abilities. Children have a much greater ability to heal these kinds of injuries than us adults.” Lisa moaned out some words. ”What do you mean? Is he blind or not? ” ”Yes, he is. But it is the brain that causes this, not anything else. There is nothing wrong with his eyes or ears, but just, what should I say, it's the part of the brain that control sight and hearing that is damaged.” The doctor looked at Lisa and Alexander. ”We'll hopefully find out more when Felix wakes up.” They went to Felix and waited for four hours. Lisa had her eyes fixed on his son the whole time. Alexander went back and forth. Put the TV on in the room. Lisa glared at him. He turned off. Eventually, Felix move like a sleepy baby. He fumbled with his hands. Lisa rushed. Alexander's heart was pounding. The doctors told them to be careful. ”Felix, do you hear me?” asked Lisa. She got no answer. She looked at her son. Shook her head. Alexander gathered. Said aloud. ”Felix, can you hear me?” Felix did not respond. Lisa took her son's hand in his. Caressed it with her thumb. Tears ran down her cheeks. Suddenly Felix sat up. His little body began to shake. He jerked his hand away from his mother and screamed. He hit around them in panic. All the movements caused him to fall out of bed. The drip scaffold fell after. Felix floundered like a fish on land. He was completely helpless. Thrown into a world that was not his own. The doctor and the nurse shoved them aside. Took out a syringe. Gave him a sedative. They were taken out of the room. A few hours later, they found out that it was as they feared. Felix was blind and deaf and probably had no memory of what had happened. He was locked in a dark coffin. Without knowing why. Felix fell back into a coma. It tightened sharply in his chest every time Alexander thought of what his son went through that moment. He could not understand. Waking up and not knowing where you are. You don´t see anything. Can´t hear anything. No one is saying what happened. Just darkness. Total silence. And hands that touch you. Alexander started working again after a month. His work began his cave. Lisa quit her job and was in the hospital almost constantly. No improvements were made. Felix had some breath above the surface now and then, but no sign that anything was better. He thought of Julia. His sister was only a few years younger. Her brother had already lost six months of his life. Alexander approached the Kunsthistorisches Museum. He picked up the mobile phone and called his boss. ”Bauer, it's me. I'm almost there. Who did you send?” ”There are some blue there already but the ones who will be part of your team is Mayer and Berger. Weber will too.” Alexander swore quietly. Compressed teeth against each other. ”Come on. Do you have any others?” ”No, they are competent. They have 40 fucking years of service between them.” Alexander knew it would not be enough with hundred when it came to those two. He was angry. ”You call me to a fucking highlighted event and you throw me those stars. What happened to the two external services we were promised? They were supposed to be out as early as last year.” ”Alexander, calm down. You know what the situation is.” ”Fine, do not expect any great deeds. I'll let you know later.” * Ludwig and August was not far off when Loretta was introduced to Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner, who would lead the investigation into the theft. She quickly discovered that it was a fast-talking man who was pretty tall. He was muscular, dressed in a dark suit. He was around 40 years old but had a boyish face and as an art historian as she was, she could not fail to see, no one else didn´t that had seen his self-portraits, he was obviously much alike the Austrian prodigy Egon Schiele. His face was like a downward pyramid. Pointed to a pole at the chin. Empty, dark eyes. Bushy black hair. They stood at the souvenir counter, next to all people. Loretta said. ”Everyone is pretty tired here. The guests want nothing more than to go home.” Wagner shook his head. ”Everyone is kept here until I decide they must go.” Loretta made a face. ”Then you'll probably have to say it to them. We've just got off the alarm. We have many old people here.” Alexander went from Loretta. Took a chair from the souvenir corner.  Stood up. Silenced everyone. ”I am Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner, responsible for this investigation. You will soon be able to go home. But first, everyone, without exception, is going to be heard by me and my colleagues.” An older gentleman, a member of high society, in hat and finery raised his voice. ”You cannot mean that. There's no reason to do this now.” Alexander jumped down from the chair. Went up to the gentleman. Egon flexed his jaw. ”That I mean. The sooner the better. If you are friendly and come with me.” He turned to Loretta. ”I need three rooms. Where can I find them?” Loretta showed the way. Alexander handed the gentleman to her. Went out to the entrance again. Reluctantly, he met up with the stars. It was Revierinspektor Julian Berger and Revierinspektor Tobias Mayer. They were two almost identical men in the upper age of 50. Alexander thought they looked like buffoons from the Tyrol, like chip ´n´dale. In his opinion, they were tired, dull men who did everything for a little overtime, which they did too little on. After each shift, they sat in a pub with other weary policemen and shivered for every sip they poured down. Rested a butt in his mouth. Continued the competition they had been doing for 20 years. To be the first to put a dart arrow in the 20-box on the triple ring. Real genuine stars in Wagner's book. Wagner had after all these years great difficulty to keep them apart. Alexander held back his frustration. Asked them to divide the crowd into three groups. They would be responsible for one respectively. If they did not have anything interesting to say, they would be released immediately. Wagner put two guards at the entrance that would write everyone's name and take a photo of everyone who passed out14. A few hours went by. The guards and uniformed police officers searched the museum. Although no one had leaved the museum, they could not find the Sapphire Box of Edfu. 26 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna June 15 It was an uneasy atmosphere in the lobby of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. August and Ludwig did not say a word. They only watched the guards and guests and the police. Listened to what the other had said when they returned to their companions. When they then met with the police they said the same thing they heard other groups say. They were photographed and stated their names. None of them had an idea to give a false name. August was well-known, especially by the people that were at the museum, so it would only draw suspicion to himself if he said a false name. Ludwig said his name but changed his mind soon after. But it was too late. He could not imagine that it would mean anything. Ludwig was not often wrong but this time he was. They were released almost immediately. They went to their suite at Hotel Sacher. They sat down on the couch and looked at each other. None of them could believe it, it had gone the way. It was hard to grasp what they had done. They were up in speed. They almost had not realized that they had left the museum. They didn´t have the Four-Leaf Clover in their hands but the most risky part of the plan was over. At least that was what they thought. The adrenaline kept them going. Sleeping was not an option. August asked Ludwig to start the computer while waiting for the next step. Meanwhile, he went off to the toilet. When Ludwig heard that August locked the door, he ran into August's bedroom and took his cell phone from his nightstand. He stood in the doorway to hear when August came out. He flipped to the call history. Memorized the dialed numbers. He put back the mobile phone and sat down at the computer. He surfed in on a search page for phone numbers. Google Translate helped him with the elements of the German as he could not translate itself. He entered the numbers from August's phone and searched. August did not bluff. The last number dialed went to Bauer, Leitner & Ender law firm based in Vienna and New York. August came out of the toilet. ”Have you found anything, Ludwig?” ”I'm just about to start looking.” ”The faster you help me to get to the Theatre, you are relieved of your duties, so it is in your interest to saddle on all your senses.” Ludwig did not say anything but just stared into the screen. August was curious about the code. The Siena Cathedral. He took out a piece of paper upon which he had written down the code and read a few lines. Listen to the conversation between the law-giver and the receiver. Then insert the most common symbols in the Four-Leaf Clover. They linked up to the hotel's wireless network. Searched for pictures of the Siena Cathedral on Wikipedia, Panoramio, Picasa and Flickr. On WordPress Ludwig found a blog of a fanatical American who wrote about his many trips abroad. He had documented the Siena Cathedral in every detail, written about what ISO each image was taken with, and so on. They went through the material thoroughly but found nothing. Went through it again, just as carefully. Found still nothing. Both realized that it wasn´t solvable behind book and the computer. They had to go to Siena. But for that, they needed the Four-Leaf Clover. * Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna June 15 The Kunsthistorisches Museum was all quiet in the morning around five o'clock. Janitor Lukas Gruber had heard the news of the theft of the Sapphire Box of Edfu. This did not prevent him from doing the same thing that he had done over the past ten years. Lukas larmed off. Hung up his jacket. Did his usual rounds. Unlocked doors. Put out the painting equipment that a few artists who came to the museum needed. They replicated the Tower of Babel by Bruegel this time. He went down to the entrance. A trash can was knocked over the floor. He gathered up the debris. Went on up and emptied the garbage in the trash. Put it in his corner. Unlocked the glass doors to the cash offices. Went to the souvenir corner. Started the register, even if the museum would probably be closed on a day like this. Laid a few audio guides on charge that had fallen off. Rolled away the box with postcards to his office. Emptied it in the outgoing mail that the postman would get in an hour. Put on his own computer. Logged in. Checked his email. Looked to see if the superintendent had written anything about yesterday's theft. She had. Clicked up the email. He threw up his feet on the desk as he read. The museum would be open, but the Egyptian collection would be closed that day. Lukas peeled a banana. Opened the door. The sun was shining. He shook out a cigarette from a Prince-pack and stood on the loading dock and lit. 27 Rome Year 1599 In late May, it was in Rome as it was in Vienna 400 years later. Not many knew where the Sapphire Box was. It was carefully guarded by Thoth´s Brotherhood and it would be some time before Michele came in contact with it. The thoughts that occupied his time the day after he was chased by Sciarras men, however, had to do with the Brotherhood and especially the Nolan. The crowd outside the fort had put ideas into his head. He wondered if they knew something that he didn´t know. He remained a long time in bed, thinking. Unbeknown to him these thoughts brought him closer to the Sapphire Box and Ludwig. When I see it in the distance, I understand that it must have been unclear to those involved what happened but from where I stand the events stand as clearly as the Evening Star over a dark sea and the effects of the butterfly's wings are impossible not to see. In the evening met Michele Prospero in his home in Campo Marzio. Prosperino had persuaded him to paint a picture of him to bring around to the studios in hopes of finding employment. Prospero set up an easel in the corner of the room upstairs. Michele looked out across the street from the window opening. He saw how the light fell into the room and adjusted the amount of light through the window hatch. It was here that the famous Turner light was born which Loretta would give a lecture about a few hundred years later.   Prospero changed into clean clothes while Michele stretched the linen canvas over the frame. Laid out brushes. Ripped the color pigments, put out the linseed oil. Prospero stood with a fruit basket in his arms and posed. Michele put the brush to the linen. Founded the cloth in black as he always did. Michele was an exceptional painter, perhaps the best that had existed even though he was hampered by the passage of fairly mindless orders, mainly from the church. He always painted directly onto the canvas, never made drawings that were comme il faut. I think I can explain it best by saying that he was Achilles when he painted although it sounds dramatic. But just as for the great warrior it came naturally to him where he would lay the cut, it was just as natural for Michele where he would paint the first brushstroke. The brushstrokes Michele brought to Rome the eternal city had never seen before. His palette, drama, constitution and light always left his spectators wondering what he carried within him. He saw that no one else saw. He had the ability to see beyond the naked eye. See into the light. It was also what Thoth´s Brotherhood would soon see in him, an ability Michele himself did not really understand the extent of. Like all Prospero became deeply influenced by the young artist. When Michele turned the canvas Prospero just went numb. He stood with the finished painting in front of him. Looked wide-eyed at Michele. ”I've never seen anything like it. How are you, how did you do that” Prospero stared and disappeared into the painting. The next day Prosperino called in Michele to a whore named Fillide, which I understand was very much appreciated at this time in Rome, at the brothel Angels on his bill. Reluctantly, he went along with it. He went to her in a private room, a separated room with strings from the lounge outside. Prospero was right. Fillide was a sight to behold. She was well-dressed to be whore. She sat like a blue sapphire in the mud and lit up the brothel. She wore amber-colored gloves and a scarlet taffeta dress. Prospero said that she was a luxury whore worthy a cardinal and it would not be long before she became a courtesan. It was the opportunity to enjoy the fruit while it still remained. A medallion hanged off her dress. It looked like a coin attached to a necklace. A circle with two lines, full of strange characters. When she moved it dangled back and forth. She pulled off her gloves as she said. ”So you are Prosperino´s friend. He showed me the painting yesterday. Was it really you who painted it. You seem so unpolished compared to it.” She sat in the lap of Michele. Put her mouth on his neck. Massaged. Faked a few groans. Michele looked up at the ceiling. She let her fingers fall on the cheek. They kissed. A deep voice came from the salon. Michele pushed Fillide aside. Stood beside the curtain to the salon. Brought it slowly to one side so that a small run occurred. It was Sciarra. He had Prospero against a wall with a knife to his throat. Michele buckled cheeks. From the room Michele heard Prospero refuse to tell Sciarra where Michele was. The knife´s egg touched his neck and small blood streaks ran down his shirt. Prospero stood firm. Ranuccio, the brothel patron, collected reinforcement and eventually removed Marco and his men from Prosperino. When they were gone Michele went out to Prospero. He fetched a jug of water and threw it on the shirt and neck. Thanked for his loyalty. While Prosperino calmed down Michele went back to Fillide. Pulled the curtain. He put her down on the bed. He towered over her and spoke softly. Fillide heard the desperation in his voice. ”If you say something to them men where I am, I cut your throat!” Fillide smiled. ”Calm down. We'll get along.” Fillide drew her fingers along his collar and smiled. Michele looked at her locket which a wheel with strange symbols on it. Fillide said. ”Oh, my heart, that you will never understand.” He stared at her. Released the locket with his eyes. He pulled away the curtain and went out to Prospero. Fillide looked after him. She called for Prosperino. Michele went to order a jug of wine. Prospero sat on the bed and leaned against the wall. ”All right, sweetheart?” Prosperino touched his neck. He had blood on his hands. ”It's all right.” ”Tell me, your friend, Michele. Where does he live?” ”Why do you ask?” ”I might have a buyer for his painting.” ”That would be something. He lives in the poor house at the Palatine.” ”Prospero. You do me a favor, right? ” ”Anything for you, Fillide.” ”You say nothing to him. I want it to be a surprise. I like him.” Prospero promised. He went back to his friend. Fillide looked after the two. She took out a piece of paper, wrote a few lines and then gave it to a boy. She patted him on the head and whispered in his ear. He ran out on the town without a peep, happy to do Fillide a service. Michele and Prospero went from Angels when it got dark. They had no lantern with them, but made their way by feeling with their hands after the walls. They hid for other men carrying lanterns. They parted at Prospero's home in Campo Marzio. Michele went to the Palatine Hill. A dispatch from Fermo was waiting on his bunk. He picked up the letter. The neighborhood boy wrote that the black lines wrapped around Fermo´s fingers a few laps now, and that his father was cold in the shed. Fermo had specifically instructed him not to write about it but he wanted to do it anyway. Money for food was running out and he would have to get another shipment of money. The Capuchins which had outlets in Caravaggio had recently closed down and he had to get into Milan to get hold of cheap bread. Michele took out his purse. He had less money now than he had when he came to Rome. Perplexed, he went out on the town again. He went through the palace district at Piazza Navona and down to the Tiber. He looked to the castle. The crowd had become even bigger. He thought of what Prospero had said. A man in Caravaggio had healing powers. He had cured the plague from several of the village but had not succeeded with his mother, Lucia. It had gone beyond the man´s power. He was powerless in the later stages of the plague. Against the Nolan the village healer would have been a wet mark on the floor. He thought about the miracles that the Nolan had issued. On the rotting oak and when he walked on water in front of hundreds who stood on the Ponte Sant'Angelo. In the Castel Sant´Angelo he was. He who had gained his strength from the Theatre. Like a bolt from a clear blue sky it struck Michele. Sciarra and the father. It could solve all his problems. He knew it was difficult, almost impossible. Even the church would be more merciful to him if he was caught searching the temple than if Sciarra got him. But if he would succeed it wasn´t going to matter. When he stood in the piazza outside the Jesuit monastery and painted the day after, he saw two sbirris that pulled a cart behind them. The cart was filled with pamphlets. On the title page on some of them, he saw Thoth´s Brotherhood´s symbol which he had seen in the graffiti on the wall at Piazza del Popolo. He packed up his stuff and put them in the bag. He sneaked after the guards. 28 The cellar in Vienna June 15 The leader Matteo looked out the window to the street. He pulled back the curtain and turned to the other three. Said sharply. ”What happened? What the hell happened?” Luca replied but did not think about how stupid he sounded. ”Somebody took it before us.” Matteo hit him over the head for having pointed out the obvious. ”What was that?” Matteo went through the evening. He had no idea. Luca shook his head and said. ”Marco, do you have any idea?” ”No, I can´t remember anything that stood out.” Juan cleared his throat. ”But I can.” They saw him in the corner as he was sitting in. He was of Spanish descent. With bloodlines straight into the Granada Moors. He walked out of the corner. ”I had my eye on that little one throughout the evening. He crept around. I saw it on him. Nervous guy. Then when they both disappeared and when the alarm went off it was no question about it.” ”Both? Was that not only he, then?” ”No, it was two. A young boy and an old man.” ”Do you know who it was, they have the Four-Leaf Clover?” ”I'm quite sure that they do not have the Four-Leaf Clover. It would have been impossible for them to smuggle it out. They were searched like everybody else when they left.” Juan put his Sig Sauer on the bed. Touched the magazine lock. Plucked out the magazine. Continued. ”But they've hidden it somewhere. It is left at the museum. I'm convinced.” Luca said eagerly. ”Shall we go there now, do our own search?” ”No”, said Matteo. ”It is useless. The police are already there. They probably have double security forces as well.” Matteo turned to Juan. ”Did you find out who they were?” Juan nodded. ”I positioned myself behind them in the queue on the way out of the museum. I heard their names. Then I followed them to their hotel.” ”You're sure you know them?”, said Matteo. ”Quite sure. But you will be surprised. The young one was named Ludwig Norén and the old man is none other than that rich man´s snob August Iacobi. They are staying at Hotel Sacher here in Vienna.” * Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna June 15 Loretta had only slept a few hours when she met Gruppeninspektor Wagner in the empty entrance in the morning. She was introduced to the other two policemen in Wagner's group, Tobias Mayer and Julian Berger. She took them to Saal XIII where the glass case still was lying on the floor. ”No one has touched anything in here, I suppose”, asked Wagner. Loretta shook her head. ”No, we had the door locked in here all night, not even the night guards have been in there.” Wagner talked fast. ”Good, I want you to seal off this whole part of the museum today and maybe even the next day. Since we have little time, I want to put up a temporary center here in the room next to Saal XIII so we have easy access to all your digital and analog materials. You have a wireless network here?” ”Wireless and wired.” ”Good, we´ll use both. The wired on the sensitive stuff so we can be sure that no one is listening. It would be good if you let someone clear away objects in here so we don´t knock over something valuable, and if you would be so kind and arrange some chairs and tables.” ”Do you need anything else, telephones, computers?” Loretta said helpfully. ”No, we have those ourselves. I have a civilian technician. His name is Max Weber. He uses his own equipment when he is working. He comes in a while. Consequently, he has no police identification. Tell the guards so they will let him in. Anyway, you could carry out some screens for him.” Loretta nodded. Called then the caretaker and some conservationists who helped her carry items to the adjacent rooms. The policemen with Wagner in front bore out tables from the offices behind the exhibition halls. Rigged with extension cords. Turned out folding chairs. Put up lights. Max Weber came in after half an hour. Threw a latte in a plastic container in the trash. Greeted Loretta. Nodded to Wagner, who patted him kindly on the back. Showed him where he could set up his little command center. Weber was around thirty. Looked like a Scandinavian. A wet Hitler's dream. Blonde. Blue eyes. Swimmer´s shoulders. Wore tight, ripped jeans and a T-shirt with Kafka quotes. Under his arm he had two laptops and two dolls15. A small MacBook Pro and a larger HP. He plugged into the power strip. Drew cords. Wired in mouse, keyboard. Tablet. External hard drive. Paired screens that they set up with the dolls. Plugged into the computers. Loretta linked him up with the museum's IT-manager. Granted access to their network. The IT-manager piloted him through their file system. Showed him where everything was, how it was stored, etc. Gruppeninspektor Wagner looked at his group. Berger and Mayer. Weber. The best he had was not a cop. He had worked with Max many times before. He was young and smart, with almost as high work capacity as his own. Knew all that he himself had not mastered. Ones and zeros. Wagner could sniff a lot in reality. According to him, he was damn good at it. But Max had the electronic nose. He instructed Max to help the stars to put up a bulletin board with all the pictures taken of the guests the night before. Pair them with their names. It took a few minutes. Alexander spoke to Loretta about the evening. If she had registered any discrepancies. If she had any suspicion on the lye. He noticed after a while that the work on the board took too long. He was impatient and went to help. Half an hour later, everything in the center was finished. Julian and Tobias went out to buy coffee and relieve abstinence with a cigarette. Max fueled16 over the video material to his external hard drive. Wagner sent forensic experts who arrived from Schottenring to secure biometric material at the crime scene. They lit up the room with UV light. Penciled with toner for securing fingerprints on the glass case. An hour later, they had not found anything. Wagner allowed them to continue while he himself sat down and started going through surveillance films with Max. the computer technician briefed him on the movies he had seen so far. Wagner said. ”We must assume that they were at the event. According to the guards no one came in or out once all the guests have arrived. We can trust them until further notice. They have caftans wearing when they go through the hallway here and we have no pictures of when they switched clothes. Is that true?” Max nodded. Wagner thought that the theft had nothing to do with the incident at the City Hall Offices, given that the floor plan of the museum was stolen from there. But evidence from the crime scene was substandard and not much to build on. A large, round man stood behind the two. It was the Safety Manager at the museum. He breathed audibly. Wagner and Max turned around. He said. ”Excuse me, Mr. Wagner, my name is Florian Müller. I am a security officer here at the museum. I heard you were talking about the caftans their eventual dressing room. I think it's possible that they switched on the toilet outside the corridor here. We still have no camera there. As you can see, we have both CCTV and CCDP-systems here. We are about to replace and modernize our surveillance and have not been able to cover that area yet. I'm afraid the old CCTV cameras are of rather poor resolution.” ”I understand”, muttered Wagner. He turned to his technician. ”Bring out the pictures of the theft itself. I want to see if they made a mistake.” Müller was still hanging. They looked at the movies a few times. Examined how the thieves struggled with the glass case, how they ran away. ”I want to follow their every move. One more. Do we have a different angle?” Max fingers danced like drumsticks over the keyboard. Alexander looked away from the monitors. Became slightly nauseated of all the windows that bounced back and forth. ”Well then, we have an abundance of cameras. Most of the older standard of CCTV with rather poor resolution, as Mr. Müller told you about.” Max turned to Florian. ”What kinds of video recordings do you have here? 25-hour? Do we have the whole evening, someone hasn´t committed any mistake?” Florian Müller cleared his throat. ”No, I double checked with the officer in charge an hour ago. We have a schedule and the bands were replaced as routine, shortly after the museum was closed to the public yesterday. The CCDP-feed have no such practice, as you probably know, because we store them digitally directly.” They looked at the file from a different perspective. Alexander leaned forward. Julian and Tobias came back. They smelled coffee and stank of smoke. They gave a plastic cup to Alexander, who waved off the gesture and ignored them. He said. ”Wait. Rewind. What the hell is he doing, you see, Max?” In the corner of his eye he saw one of the stars rubbing his hand in his stubble as he processed the material in his empty ball. Looked confident. Certain of discovering those little details that real cops just might discover. ”I think so. Wait. I think we can see better from another angle.” Max opened a file on the external hard drive where he had moved the material. ”That's it.” Max enlarged frames. It became somewhat blurred but still looked slightly better. They squinted. ”What does he have in his hand, a pocket knife?” ”I would say it”, said the pro Julian to Alexander. He took two steps forward and put on a detective face. Wagner ignored him. ”What does he do, he tries to get it together or what?” They enlarge the images with 10x zoom and 1/32 of the speed of uptake. They saw one of the perpetrators struggle with getting together what looked to be a pocket knife. ”I can´t believe it´s true. It looks like he does not get it together. Rewind”, said Wagner. They looked again. Max said. ”Yes, that's right. He takes off his glove.” Alexander patted Max on the back and said. ”And that my friend, you stumble and make your first mistake.” They watched as he staggered and had to rely on the floor with his naked hand. Alexander called for the forensic scientists. Showed them the recording. Sent them back with carbon powder and brush. Meanwhile, Wagner called to Haag to speak with Europol agent Nora Smith that he had cooperated with in other cases. He asked for access to the biometric databases that Interpol administrated and the databases of United States, US-VISIT and IAFIS. He spoke quickly and gave orders. He hung up and turned to Max, who was used to working fast. ”Bring out the IP range we are on here so that Haag can enter it. They will call back in five minutes with a login name and key. Now you fucking bastards we are rolling the ball!” Alexander went into the forensic techniques with attack adrenaline. He did not think he would feel this good. According to Wagner, it was ten minutes into the first half and he had already kicked a ball in the cross. Even Julian and Tobias looked elated out. Nodded at each other. They had helped with their weight and experience. But even if it currently looked good for Alexander and his team the situation would not at all develop in the way they thought. It were about to get much more complicated. Wagner cheered, indeed the pocket knife man had left a trail of bread crumbs like Hansel and Gretel. The forensic technicians secured the fingerprint, photographed it and scanned it. Max took it up on one of the screens. Enhanced contrast. Wiped out the noise. Nora Smith called back. They had access to the databases. Max uploaded the image into the interoperability program for fingerprints. Several points analyzed in the fingerprint and compared against databases abroad. At the same time they runned it against their own database in Austria and rather quickly found that they had no impact. ”Hi, please tell me that we have a file on this guy.” Max sat facing the screen. Shook his head. After a while, a green box popped up on one of the screens. It was the database US-VISIT (IBIS). They had received a hit from America's famous, controversial database of biometric data of all travelers who came to the U.S. after September 11. He who had stumbled near the glass case had visited the United States in recent years. ”Perfect. Now we check his whereabouts. If he lives nearby or has used a credit card at a hotel.” Reluctantly Alexander turned toward one of the stars. ”Tobias, you check with the credit card companies. Ask someone at the House17 to fix records also. If you have problems, you call Nora Smith in Haag.” Tobias trotted off with his phone. He was escorted by Julian who stopped at the bulletin board, and occupied himself with some decent reconnaissance of the old school. He was looking for eccentric facial expressions. The debt that was written on the face. Great judge of character that he was. The Pro was back surprisingly quickly with details of their suspect. He had got hold of credit cards, phone numbers, occupation and details of accommodation. He gave the information to Wagner. ”Oh, it was not far. Let's hope he's there.” Alexander stood up and summoned his troops. ”It seems that we can finish this faster than I had thought. Julian, you call for reinforcements. Max, you stay here and get more evidence if you can with our forensic scientists. Okay, here we go!” Alexander left the central with Julian and Tobias going towards the State Opera and Hotel Sacher. 29 Rome Year 1599 * * * Ciriaco my friend The crowds are full of life outside Castel Sant'Angelo. We will arrange newly pressed editions of the Nolan´s book, The Shadow of Ideas. I suggest that we let the bookshop at Via Ripetta (Girolamo) near Augustus Mausoleum press this edition. Also make sure that the other bookshops increase production and distribution of pamphlets. The time for the Truth is now. Pay them double if they are scared. When you are there, let the kind Girolamo show you his exquisite print of Dante's Divine Comedy. That you will not forget. Our girl was quicker than the Jews and informs me that she had found someone. He will be the Martyr of Theatre. But unlike Paul and Peter, he will not know about it or even want it. But he will do it anyway. your brother Rome in the holy year MDIC The jurist Constantino della Porta burned the seal on the letter. He walked down the stairs to Piazza San Luigi dei Francesi and submitted it to a runner. He returned to the faculty, bolted the door of his room at Sapienza University and sat down again at his writing desk. He took ink from his inkwell. Turned up a linen paper and wrote another letter. * * * Master The events are proceeding as Master Pletho anticipated. The Nolan reveals himself to them. Your humble servant Rome in the holy year MDIC 30 Hotel Sacher, Vienna June 15 Ludwig was awakened by a loud noise. There were sirens sounded outside. Pictures of the C-Building and his jump over the wall flickered but they disappeared quickly. He flew out of bed and glanced out the window. He saw a caravan of police cars that went to the direction of Operngasse against Albertinaplatz where Ludwig´s window was. His heart was pounding. The sweat came right away. The cars turned one by one into Philharmonikerstrasse where the hotel entrance was. Ludwig ran to the salon but no windows had views towards the entrance. He screamed. ”Damn it!” August rushed out of his room. ”What is it, Ludwig?” August immediately heard the sirens. Looked to Albertinaplatz. ”Hell!”, roared August. ”What do we do?” ”Relax, do not worry now, Ludwig.” But August himself was not calm, far from it. August pondered. A thousand thoughts raced through his head, a swarm of thoughts, which was a new situation for August who was almost always calm when he would take a decision. He told Ludwig that he would pack his stuff, computer and camera. Stand ready at the door. The sirens bounced between the walls, but stopped after a while. The police had stopped. It was paralyzing, a faint glow from the juice mixers appeared at the Staatsoper opposite. August and Ludwig were sure that they were outside the entrance. August threw his stuff together and waited. They opened a window. They thought they heard postings from an inspector. Both jumped when the phone rang. They looked at each other. Thought it was over. Ludwig thought. It felt like he had a vise around his head. He thought of the pocket knife and the hand on the floor at the Sapphire Box´s glass case, whether it was because of that the police were there. August approached cautiously phone. He picked up the receiver. It was a short conversation. The vise tightened when August hung up. Ludwig asked. ”What did they say?” August looked pale. ”It was the front desk. They want me to come down. There were a lot of people down there. Hardly heard what she said. It was a bloody gurgle. I did not ask what it was about before she hung up.” They pondered the situation for a few long seconds. They had no choice. August said. ”We are going down. If there are police down there, we run through side entrance against Operngasse and take a chance that they don´t have any postings there.” Ludwig nodded. August tried to shake off the fear. He opened the door and went out. Ludwig went shortly after. They went into the elevator and pressed the ground floor. It felt like the elevator went in slow motion. August took a deep breath when the elevator plinged. The lobby was full of people. Many stood along the windows on tiptoe and looked out. The light from the juice mixers flowed into the lobby. The police had parked outside. Some men in dark suits stood at the front desk. They looked at August and Ludwig when they came towards them. * Further ahead Alexander saw that a Revierinspektor already had arranged the roadblock. The tape, juice mixers, uniforms acted as a vacuum cleaner. People joined in quantities and looked for what was going on. Hands that held cell phone cameras were hovering over the heads of the people who stood outside the barricades. The crowd prevented him from driving into Philharmonikerstrasse. The large police force and the blockade made ​​it impossible for their guy to escape. If he was still at the address. Alexander parked the car on the sidewalk and walked towards Hotel Sacher´s entrance. * The suits looked away when August came closer. He winced as the concierge said. ”Mr. Iacobi?” August nodded. He did it gently, trying to hide from everyone else that he was Mr. Iacobi. Sweat beads had settled in the creases in his forehead. The men in dark suits moved closer. ”Mr. Iacobi. Can you please come with me?” Through the window he saw Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner. Felt like someone cut him in the stomach. The men in dark suits were taken care of by another desk clerk to their great surprise. Wagner walked past the entrance. A man in shorts and baseball cap held out an electronic plate to August. Asked him to sign. Without thinking about it, he did it. The man in shorts held out a package with large letters, it said EXPRESS. August turned around. Looked at the people who were glued to the windows. Looked at the package. Then came the calm in tiny doses. When they were back in the suite August and Ludwig laughed when they looked at each other in spite of their conflicting arrangement, amazed that the plan probably had gone without a hitch. They put the package carefully on the salon marble table. Picked up a pair of scissors. Carefully cut the tape. Ripped off the cardboard. Folded around the small velvet pouch. Lifted gently to one side. Laced up. August shook when he lifted the Sapphire Box of Edfu and put it on the table. ”Unbelievable”, said August. They looked at it from all angles. On top of the box there were four cloves in a ring. Ludwig carefully held the box. Spun slowly. The crowning piece was in the middle on top of the Four-Leaf Clover. Surrounded by the four cloves. It was a gilded caduceus that rose from the Four-Leaf Clover´s foundation. Ludwig began to fiddle on the caduceus. ”No!”, roared August. ”Do not touch it for God's sake. Do not turn the caduceus. Cannot you hear how something torn inside?” Ludwig put the box back on the table. ”How is it that no one has found what is in it, if there is anything?” ”Look at the clovers, Ludwig, they're like recessed into the surface. It does not look like they can be opened. I do not think the idea has beaten them, it is too sensational, they probably just thought that it´s a trinket.” ”How can we bring the most common symbols of this, as it says in the statement from Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis?” August felt the area around the clovers. Found two rings. It felt as if they had springs in it. He pulled one ring counterclockwise. Nothing happened. The other counterclockwise. Nothing. Started over. After a moment he pulled the top ring clockwise and the lower ring counterclockwise. Then it clicked. The rings fell off the box. Exposed a series of symbols. ”This is probably the real reason that nobody found what is in it. Just as Loretta said, little research has been conducted on this box over the years.” They looked at the row of symbols that appeared. The line ran around the entire piece. It consisted of Latin letters. ”It´s probably on these letters we are supposed to insert the most common of symbols.” They examined the box for a few minutes of silence. Ludwig asked. ”Where does it come from?” ”No one knows. But the first time it appears in history is in a picture that depicts Thoth from the 1200s BCE. The General Inquisitor Bellarmine had copied it in his notebook.” August brought forth the notebook. Flipped to an up-beat18 with a folded picture. Cautiously he folded it out. ”You may be familiar with the legend of what happened to Pharaoh Ramses II's army when they came to the city of Kadesh in Syria.” ”I've heard of it yes. They ran into some kind of obstacle and Ramses falsely proclaimed it as a victory even though it was rather that they suffered a major defeat. This was before cell phone cameras and YouTube.” ”Exactly. Thoth was living at the time, near Kadesh in Syria. No one knows how long he lived, only that he had become biblically old because of the power he had. When Ramses II and his army of 5000-6000 men rode toward the city they met Thoth on a field outside of Kadesh. Here we can see the Four-Leaf Clover for the first time.” August pointed to the picture. It showed a huge, flat sandy field. At one end was Ramses II and in front of him, like a giant shield, stood his army. ”Look closely at the picture, Ludwig. At a first glance they look to be bravely rushing against Thoth, but if you look closely you can see how the fear is entrenched in their faces.” They brought the image closer. Checked out the soldiers. According to Ludwig, it looked as if the picture let out a muffled cry. He had never seen anything like it. The images in the Theatrum Diabolus are incredible and as I understand it Bellarmine has painted them all himself. He rarely opened the notebook for others. The contrast between the pictures and the man Bellarmine is huge, who was known to be a hard man. He draws with soft lines and had an amazing eye, maybe not in the class of Caravaggio, but near. It's like he put down all his care in the images and had no sympathy left for the world. That's what Ludwig and August saw on this day. Ludwig was fascinated. The men in the front line twisted in horror and the army were in the process of turning around as if they had encountered an army ten times their own size. At the other end of the sand field stood Thoth alone. He had his mask of the Ibis bird on him and actually looked like a god-like creature. He had a belt where the Four-Leaf Clover was stuck as a buckle. He had a knee and a hand in the sand. The other hand was extended towards the army. In his hand shone a blinding light as a supernova that stretched to Ramses II's army. August circled some of the men in the army with his finger. If you looked really close you could see that their faces writhed. The horses reared. ”Even if this image is quite known the Four-Leaf Clover is traditionally believed to have its origin in the temple at Edfu in Egypt, just south of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. A temple dedicated to the god Horus, who is the son of the Egyptian Creation family with Isis and Osiris as parents.” ”Okay, I had no idea. I cannot say I know a lot about the Egyptian mythology.” Without saying anything August went out of the room. He brought his computer. He opened the browser and went through various photo folders where pictures of trips across the world were stored. He opened up a folder of photos from a trip they had made to Egypt. A cruise on the Nile. August flipped past pictures of the guides and the dinners. He showed temples along the Nile with images of the gods Osiris, Isis, who gave birth to the savior Horus and pictures of Thoth where he was depicted as a God with his Ibis-mask. He stopped at the picture of a temple with high pylons. Carved in stone were figures of enormous dimensions. ”This is important, Ludwig. Here is the Horus temple in Edfu. According to the myth, Thoth hid the Four-Leaf Clover here long ago. The box has always contained the path to Thoth´s book and subsequently also the path to the Theatre where Thoth´s book now is said to be. Although the path has been described in other ways, on the obelisks of Rome and in ancient burial chambers, the right path has always been in the Four-Leaf Clover.” Ludwig came to think of Victoria's notes and what she wrote about the obelisks Lateranense, Matteiano, Flaminio and the diary note about Illustro and Caravaggio, but his thinking was broken by August. August pointed to clovers on the Egyptian box. ”According to legend, the path should be described on linen paper in these four clovers.” ”Victoria wrote about the five signs in the Four-Leaf Clover. Capita et bos in her notes. Should signs be here somewhere?” ”That's the question. I don´t really know what she meant. They are probably somewhere in it.” ”Isn´t possible that the signs are on the obelisks?” ”Well, it's highly possible. At least the sign for a head is very common, so I would think so. But I don´t see what good it does for us if we find the signs on the obelisks, I mean, they're certainly there but I find it hard to see what they'll tell us. I think the easiest way is that we try to get into these clovers.” ”Why don´t we open it, then?”, said Ludwig. ”It's not quite that simple. In all probability you have to push the right word or code on these alphabet keys.” ”There´s no need for that. Just rip it open.” ”You obviously don´t know what was about to happen when you were turning the caduceus? I've read lengths about these boxes. There are certainly a lot of needles and other mischief in there, which are designed to tear apart the messages if you try to break into it. You have to solve the codes to access the clovers.” Ludwig twisted and turned on the box for a few minutes in an effort to find possible inputs. He found none. The Four-Leaf Clover was a compact masterpiece. ”It's probably easiest if we try to solve the first message”, said August. August picked up the paper that they had written from page 530 in Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. Head to Sena Julia where the Path of the Five Trials begins inside the gate of the Barbarian's house. Listen to the conversation between the law-giver and the receiver. Then insert the most common symbols in the Four-Leaf Clover. Let this be your Egyptian Virgil. August explained to Ludwig. ”It is this code we need to solve in order to get into the Four-Leaf Clover´s first chamber.” Ludwig looked at the box and the clovers. He thought that it could not be that hard. The cipher in the Corpus had proven to be a joke, at least for Ludwig. He asked. ”Have you any idea what it is then? Then insert the most common symbols in the Four-Leaf Clover.” ”No, I have not. It's like I said a lot of years since I was in the Siena Cathedral. How hard I try, I can´t remember anything more than a few mosaics.” Ludwig continued to investigate the box. He wondered if a tiny screwdriver might be possible to coax the foundation. But in his eyes, it seemed impossible. The Bear and the Rat who stole it from the coffin in Riegersburg had cut themselves severely when they tried to cut loose the sapphires and the malachite-stones and even when they tried to open it. It was impossible, they would have to crush it to get it open and that would destroy its contents. The juice mixers still shone against Staatsoper outside but August and Ludwig was no longer concerned for them. They thought that it probably would have been an accident. They sat in silence for a long time in front of the Four-Leaf Clover. The laptop went down to sleep. The fan stopped buzzing. Finally a tired August said. ”Can you think of anything, Ludwig?” Ludwig shook his head. August put the Four-Leaf Clover in a bag. ”We have no choice. We must go to Siena. It's probably just as well. Sooner or later we must go to Italy.” Ludwig looked at August. ”How long will I have to -” August interrupted. ”As long as it is required, Ludwig.” Ludwig sighed. ”August, are you really sure about this. Isn´t it better to give up on this, I mean the Theatre, how many have tried and failed? There's not a chance that we will get there how much we try and unlike the rest who tried the police will sooner or later start chasing us.” August sat next to Ludwig. ”I know what you're trying to do. You might win over me in chess, you might even be smarter than I am but I can read you like a book, do you understand? One thing you should learn. Do not try to convince me of anything, feel free to try different angles on a problem but do not try to make me change my mind. It will not happen. If I doubt your wholehearted help a single second I throw you to the police as soon as I would throw away bad eggs.” August stood up. Looked down on Ludwig. ”Do we understand each other, Ludwig?” Ludwig felt there was no point to fight. He looked out the window. Tried to locate the police. Saw only the light from the juice mixers. He said resignedly. ”Sure we are.” ”Good. Pack your stuff.” They took with them their belongings, checked out and stepped into a Mercedes outside the lobby. August announced to the driver that he would drive them to Südbahnhof. As they drove away on Philharmonikerstrasse they saw the police cars parked on the other side of Hotel Sacher, at the hotel's café. They had cordoned off an area around Krugerstrasse. At Südbahnhof August withdrew as much money as he could from the ATM. He bought tickets for the night train to Florence, and from there they would take a taxi the last bit to Siena. * Annoyed, Alexander Wagner looked at the tired Julian when he threw a cigarette on the ground and pressed his shoe against the butt. Wagner then gave the order to go into the apartment at Krugerstrasse. Some uniforms had ringed the bell without results. They rammed the door with a battering ram. The thin wooden door folded itself and splinters flew in the air. They stormed the apartment with a roar. After a few minutes Wagner heard on his radio that no one was in the apartment. He went up. It was a mess in the apartment. Clothes were thrown over chairs. Closet doors were open. Dirty dishes stood on the kitchen table next to a bottle of wood glue. Pulp magazines and mail lay in a heap in the hall. It was as if no one had lived there for a long time. ”Damn it!”, cried Wagner. He grabbed Julian and roared. ”Lighten the bastard with a nationwide alert. Notify Nora Smith in Haag.” [ Notes October 14 ] The Cathedral The last three days I have been in Siena. The cathedral was closed yesterday due to renovation, but reopened today. I've been there a total of four times, talking to guards, guides and cashiers. I showed a picture of August to the woman in the gift shop two days ago, but she didn´t recognize him, but the woman standing there today did. What she told me is consistent with the Manuscript. She said that she had never been so scared. Her testimony confirms Coetzee´s story and if it´s indeed true, I understand her. Kunsthistorisches Museum When I was in Vienna, I had the opportunity to talk with the janitor at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, who also confirmed the Manuscript´s version, he seemed to hold Victoria Iacobi up to a near saintly status. He also told me that he was glad that justice now had been done. After a little help from an acquaintance, Mr. Wolfgang Klose, who works as a doctor at Vienna's major hospital, Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Wien, I got hold of the autopsy technician Mr. Steiner at St Joseph Krankenhaus but he was reticent, hesitant to talk to a journalist. But he could at least tell me about his collaboration with Alexander Wagner, which in large part anyway corroborates with the Manuscript. It was a strange process that Coetzee describes, with the morgue and everything, but it´s true none the less. Loretta C again declined an interview when I called and when I was there a week ago. The Inscription The inscription on the floor mosaic in the Siena Cathedral is hard to miss. If you furthermore put it in perspective, in the light of the Manuscript, it becomes all the more amazing. But I have, just like Ludwig, great difficulty knowing what to think or believe about it all. Pagan images in Christianity´s castle, so to speak. I´ve been there before but never thought of what Coetzee describes. Fascinating with these floor mosaics. Thoth Fraternitatis, Bellarmine and Theatrum Diabolus Giorgio finally got in touch yesterday. He confirmed that the Great Doctor indeed kept a record of his search for Thoth´s Brotherhood. The notebook was entitled Theatrum Diabolus. Giorgio also found a letter, which is consistent with the symbol, the caduceus, that Bellarmine is said to have acquired at the turn of 1600, which once again confirms the activities of Thoth Fraternitatis and their influence over the General Inquisitor´s actions. According to Giorgio it´s also said that Medici´s man in Rome at the time, the great cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, could have been involved in the Brotherhood, which means that it branched all the way up to the highest part of the Vatican. Giorgio tells me that in Palazzo Avogadro, which Del Monte owned, in his private studio the cardinal had a massive portrait of Thoth. The Capitoline Hill Today I received additional material from my contact at the Rome police. He sent a film, he only got the light from his iPhone running so it appears quite a bit dim. However, I now see clearly the caduceus on the wall and next to it is a constellation that shines over what I think is supposed to be Earth. I don´t know what it means yet but I wonder if it has anything to do with what August told Ludwig about the Three Kings and the birth of Jesus. Notes