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Overview
Someone has hacked into the pope’s personal computer—not to spy on the Vatican or to spread a virus, but to send an urgent plea for help: SAVE OUR LADY OF THE TEARS. The crumbling Baroque church in the heart of Seville is slated for demolition—and two of its defenders have suddenly died. Accidents? Or murders? And was the church itself somehow involved?
The Vatican promptly dispatches Father Lorenzo Quart, their worldly and enormously attractive emissary, to investigate the situation, track down the hacker—known only as “Vespers”—and stay alive. Thus begins a sophisticated and utterly suspenseful page-turner that has taken its readers by storm.
“An elegant thriller that is as much about the elusive quest for happiness as it is about solving the murders.” —The Denver Post
“An indelible tale of love, faith, and greed.” —People, Page-Turner of the Week
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780547630083 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Sales rank: | 276,288 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
ARTURO PÉREZ-REVERTE is the author of many critically acclaimed novels, including The Club Dumas, The Flanders Panel, and the Captain Alatriste series. A retired war journalist, he lives in Madrid and is a member of the Royal Spanish Academy.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The hacker broke into the central Vatican system eleven minutes before midnight. Thirty-five seconds later, one of the computers triggered the alarm. Rapid changes on the screen tracked the progress of the automatic security protocols. The letters HK appeared in a corner, and the duty officer, a Jesuit inputting data from the latest census of the Papal State, picked up the telephone to inform his superior.
"We've got a hacker," he said.
Father Ignacio Arregui, also a Jesuit, came out into the hallway buttoning his cassock and walked the fifty meters to the computer room. He was thin and bony, with shoes that squeaked as he passed the frescoes in the dimly lit corridor. He glanced out of the windows at the deserted Via della Tipografia and the dark facade of Belvedere Palace, muttering to himself. Being woken bothered him more than hackers in the system. They got in quite often, but their forays were usually harmless. Generally they kept to the outer security perimeters, leaving only slight traces of their presence — a message or small virus. Hackers liked attention. They were mostly teenage boys surfing the Net for ever harder systems to crack. Microchip junkies, tech addicts, getting their kicks trying to break into Chase Manhattan Bank, the Pentagon, or the Vatican.
The priest on duty was Father Cooey, a plump young Irish Jesuit with glasses. Bent over his keyboard, he frowned as he followed the hacker. He looked up, relieved, when Father Arregui came in.
"You don't know how glad I am to see you, Father."
His superior stood beside him, hands on the table, watching the blue and red icons blinking on the screen. The automatic search system was keeping in constant contact with the intruder.
"Is it serious?"
"It might be."
In the past two years there had been only one serious case, when a hacker managed to slip in a worm program that multiplied inside the system until it crashed. Decontaminating and repairing the network had cost half a million dollars. The hacker was tracked down after a long and complicated search. He turned out to be a sixteen-year-old boy from a small village in Holland. Other serious attempts to corrupt the system with killer viruses — by a Mormon from Salt Lake City, a fundamentalist Islamic organization based in Istanbul, and a mad priest who opposed celibacy — had all been stopped before they could do too much damage. The priest, a Frenchman, working from the computer of his lunatic asylum by night, had pestered them for six weeks and managed to infect forty-two files with a virus that filled the screens with Latin insults.
Father Arregui pointed at the cursor, now flashing red:
"Is this our hacker?"
"Yes."
"What have you called him?"
They always gave them a name — it made identifying and following them easier. Some were like old friends. Father Cooey pointed to a line on the screen.
"Vespers," he said, "because of the time he appeared. It was the first name that came into my head."
On the screen, files appeared and disappeared. Father Cooey watched them intently. He moved the cursor to one of them and clicked twice. Now that his superior was there to take responsibility, he was more relaxed, expectant even. Any hacker was a challenge to his expertise.
"He's been inside for ten minutes," he said, and Father Arregui thought he heard a tone of admiration. "At first he just looked at the different entry points. Then he suddenly slipped in. He already knew the way. He must have visited us before."
"What do you think he's up to?"
Cooey shrugged. "I don't know. But he's pretty good, and he's quick. He's using a three-pronged approach to get past our defenses. He starts by trying simple permutations of names of known users, then tries names from our own dictionary and finally a list of 432 passwords." As he said this, the Jesuit twisted his mouth slightly, as if suppressing a smile. "Now he's probing the entrances to INMAVAT."
Father Arregui drummed his fingers anxiously on one of the computer manuals littering the table. INMAVAT was a confidential list of the high-ranking members of the Roman Curia. Access was possible only with a secret personal code.
"Signal tracker?" he suggested.
Cooey jerked his chin toward the monitor at the neighboring table, as if to say, "I've already thought of that." Connected to the police and to the Vatican's telephone network, the system recorded all information on an intruder's signal. It even contained a trap, a series of paths that slowed intruders long enough for them to be located and identified.
"This won't get us very far," said Cooey after a few moments. "Vespers has hidden his entry point by jumping between different telephone networks. Every time he makes a loop through one of them, we have to trace him right back to the exchange. He'd have to be here a long time before we could do anything about him. And he'd still be able to do some damage, if that's what he wants."
"What else could he want?"
"I don't know," the younger man answered, looking both intrigued and amused. He went on, his face serious again. "Sometimes they just want to have a look around, or leave a message — 'Captain Zap was here,' that kind of thing." He paused, watching the screen. "But this one's going to a lot of trouble just for a saunter around the system."
Father Arregui nodded twice, still absorbed in what was happening on the screen, but then he seemed to come to. He glanced at the telephone inside the cone of lamplight. He reached for it, but his hand stopped midway.
"Do you think he'll get into INMAVAT?"
"He just has."
"Dear God."
Now the red cursor was flickering rapidly, moving down the long list of files on the screen.
"He's good," said Cooey, no longer hiding his admiration. "God forgive me, but this hacker is very good." He paused and smiled. "Diabolically good."
He'd given up on the keyboard and was now simply watching, his elbows on the table. The restricted-access list was there on the screen, in full view. Eighty-four cardinals and high-ranking officials, each given with a corresponding code. The cursor moved up and down the list, twice, then stopped with a flicker beside V01A.
"Swine," muttered Father Arregui.
The data transfer log was registering a tiny decrease in free memory. The intruder had cracked the security lock and was transferring a file into the system.
"Who's V01A?" asked Father Cooey.
Father Arregui didn't answer immediately. He unfastened the collar of his cassock and passed his hand over his head. He looked at the screen again in disbelief. Then he picked up the telephone receiver slowly and, after another moment's hesitation, dialed the emergency number of the Vatican palace secretariat. It rang seven times before a voice answered in Italian. Father Arregui cleared his throat and announced that an intruder had broken into the Holy Father's personal computer.
CHAPTER 2
The Man from Rome
He carries a sword for a reason. He is God's agent.
— Bernard de Clairvaux, EULOGY OF THE TEMPLAR MILITIA
At the beginning of May, Lorenzo Quart received the order that would take him to Seville. A low-pressure system was moving toward the eastern Mediterranean, and that morning it was raining on St. Peter's Square, so Quart had to skirt the square, taking shelter under Bernini's colonnade. As he walked up to the Portone di Bronzo, he saw the sentry standing with his halberd in the gloomy marble-and-granite corridor and preparing to ask for identification. The man, tall and strong, with a crew cut, was wearing the red, yellow, and blue-striped Renaissance uniform and black beret of the Swiss Guard. He stared at Quart's well-tailored suit, matching black silk shirt with a Roman collar, and fine, handmade leather shoes. The guard seemed to be thinking, Definitely not one of the gray bagarozzi — the officials of the complex Vatican bureaucracy who passed through every day. But neither was the visitor a high-ranking member of the Curia, a prelate or monsignor. They wore a cross, a purple trim or a ring at the very least, and they definitely didn't arrive on foot in the rain. They entered the Vatican palace by another gate, St. Anne's, in comfortable chauffeur-driven cars. Anyway, despite gray hair cut short like a soldier's, the man looked too young to be a prelate. He stood politely before the guard and searched among the various credit cards in his wallet for his ID. Very tall, slim, sure of himself, he looked calmly at the Swiss. His nails were well kept, and he wore an elegant watch and simple silver cufflinks. He couldn't have been over forty.
"Guten Morgen. Wie ist der Dienst gewesen?"
The guard stiffened and held his halberd straight, not so much at the greeting — in perfect German — as at the sight of the letters IEA in the upper right-hand corner of the man's identity card, next to the tiara and the keys of St. Peter. The Institute for External Affairs was entered in the thick red volume of the Pontifical Yearbook as a department of the secretary of state. But even the newest recruits to the Swiss Guard knew that for two centuries the Institute had been the executive arm of the Holy Office and now coordinated all the secret activities of the Information Services of the Vatican. Members of the Curia, masters of the art of euphemism, referred to it as God's Left Hand. Others called it the Dirty Work Department, but only in a whisper.
"Kommen Sie herein."
"Danke."
Quart walked past the sentry through the ancient Portone di Bronzo and turned right. He came to the wide staircase of the Scala Regia and, after stopping at the checkpoint, mounted the echoing marble steps two at a time. At the top, beyond glass doors guarded by another sentry, was the Courtyard of St. Damaso. He crossed it in the rain, watched by yet more sentries in blue capes. There was a sentry at every door of the Vatican palace. After another short flight of steps Quart stopped outside a door with a discreet metal plate: INSTITUTO PER LE OPERE ESTERIORE. He took a tissue from his pocket and wiped the rain from his face, then bent down and wiped his shoes. He squeezed the tissue into a ball and threw it into a brass ashtray by the door. At last, after checking his shirt cuffs and smoothing his jacket, he rang the bell. Lorenzo Quart was perfectly aware of his failings as a priest: he knew he lacked charity and compassion, for instance. And humility, despite his self-discipline. He may have been without these qualities, but he was thorough and adhered strictly to the rules. This made him valuable to his superiors. The men waiting behind the door knew that Father Quart was as precise and reliable as a Swiss Army knife.
The room was in semidarkness. There was a power outage in the building and the only light — from a window facing the Belvedere Gardens — was dim and gray. A secretary left, closing the door behind him; Quart then entered and stood in the middle of the room. He knew the room well. Its walls were lined with bookshelves and wooden file cabinets partly covering frescoes of the Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, and Ionian seas by Antonio Danti. Ignoring the figure standing at the window, he nodded briefly to a man sitting at a large desk covered with folders.
"Monsignor," he said.
Without a word, Archbishop Paolo Spada, director of the Institute of External Affairs, smiled at him conspiratorially. He was from Lombardy, a strong, solid, almost square man, with powerful shoulders beneath a black suit that bore no emblem of his ecclesiastical rank. With his large head and thick neck, he resembled a truck driver or boxer, or — perhaps more appropriately in Rome — a veteran gladiator who had exchanged his sword and helmet for a priest's habit. This impression was reinforced by his black, bristly hair and huge hands, with no sign of an archbishop's ring. He held a brass letter opener shaped like a dagger and waved it in the direction of the man at the window.
"I assume you know Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz."
Only then did Quart look to his right and greet the motionless figure. Of course he knew him. His Eminence Jerzy Iwaszkiewicz, Bishop of Krakow, promoted to cardinal by his compatriot Pope Wojtyla, and prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, known until 1965 as the Holy Office, or Inquisition. Even as a thin dark shadow at the window, Iwaszkiewicz and what he represented were unmistakable.
"Laudeatur Jesus Christus, Eminence."
The director of the Holy Office remained silent. It was Monsignor Spada's husky voice that intervened: "You may sit if you wish, Father Quart. This is an unofficial meeting. His Eminence prefers to remain standing."
He'd used ufficioso for "unofficial," and Quart caught the nuance. In Vatican parlance, there was an important distinction to be made between ufficioso and ufficiale. Ufficioso conveyed the special sense of what is thought rather than said, or even, what is said but always disowned. Quart glanced at the chair the archbishop had indicated, and gently shook his head. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood in the center of the room, calm and relaxed, like a soldier awaiting orders.
Monsignor Spada regarded him approvingly. The whites of the archbishop's small cunning eyes were streaked with brown like those of an old dog. This, together with his solid appearance and bristly hair, had earned him a nickname — the Mastiff. But only the most highranking, secure members of the Curia dared use it.
"Pleased to see you again, Father Quart. It's been some time."
Two months, thought Quart. Then, as now, there had been three men in the room: himself, Monsignor Spada, and a well-known banker, Renzo Lupara, chairman of the Italian Continental Bank, one of the banks involved with Vatican finances. Lupara had a spotless reputation. He was handsome, elegant, and a happy family man blessed with a beautiful wife and four children. He had made his fortune using the cover of Vatican banking activities to get money out of the country illegally for businessmen and politicians who were members of the Aurora 7 lodge, of which he himself was a member and holder of the 33rd degree. This was exactly the sort of worldly matter that required Lorenzo Quart's special skills. He spent six months trailing Lupara through offices in Zurich, Gibraltar, and St. Bartholomew in the West Indies, and produced a lengthy report on his findings. Lying open on the desk of the director of the IEA, it left the banker two choices: he could go to prison, or he could make a discreet exit, thus saving the good name of the Continental Bank, the Vatican, not to mention Mrs. Lupara and her four offspring. Staring blankly at the fresco of the Tyrrhenian Sea in the archbishop's office, the banker had clearly grasped the thrust of Spada's speech, which was most tactfully expressed and illustrated with the parable of the bad slave and the talents. Then, despite the salutary moral that, technically, an unrepentant mason always died in mortal sin, Lupara went straight to his beautiful villa in Capri and leaped, apparently without saying confession, from a terrace over the cliff. According to a commemorative plaque, Curzio Malaparte once drank vermouth at that very spot.
"We have a matter suitable for you."
Quart stood listening to his superior, conscious that the dark figure of Iwaszkiewicz was watching him from the window. For ten years, Monsignor Spada had always had a matter suitable for Father Lorenzo Quart. These all came with a place-name and a date — Central America, Latin America, the former Yugoslavia — and were listed in the black leather notebook Quart used as a travel diary. It was a kind of logbook where he had entered details, day by day, of the long journey taken since he acquired Vatican nationality and joined the operations section of the Institute for External Affairs.
"Take a look at this."
The director of the IEA held out a sheet of computer paper. Quart went to take it from him, but at that moment the outline of Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz shifted uneasily at the window. Still holding the paper, Monsignor Spada gave a small smile.
"His Eminence believes this to be a delicate matter," he said, looking at Quart, though his words were obviously intended for the cardinal. "And he considers it unwise to involve anyone else."
Quart drew his hand away without taking the document and looked calmly at his superior.
"Of course," added Spada, his smile almost gone, "His Eminence doesn't know you as I do."
Quart nodded. He asked no questions and showed no impatience; he waited. Spada turned toward Cardinal Iwaszkiewicz. "I told you he was a good soldier," he said.
There was a silence. The cardinal stood against the cloud-filledsky and the rain falling on the Belvedere Gardens. Then he moved away from the window, and the gray light, cast diagonally, revealed a bony jaw, a cassock with a purple collar, and the gold cross on his chest. He extended the hand on which he wore his pastoral ring, took the document from Monsignor Spada, and handed it himself to Lorenzo Quart. "Read this."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Seville Communion"
by .
Copyright © 1995 Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Title Page,
Contents,
Copyright,
Epigraph,
Map,
The Seville Communion,
The Man from Rome,
II Three Villains,
III Eleven Bars in Triana,
IV Seville Oranges and Blossoms,
V Captain Xaloc's Twenty Pearls,
VI Lorenzo Quart's Tie,
VII The Bottle of Anis del Mono,
VIII An Andalusian Lady,
IX It's a Small World,
X In Ictu Oculi,
XI Carlota Burner's Trunk,
XII The Wrath of God,
XIII The Lovely,
XIV Eight O'Clock Mass,
XV Vespers,
Now read The Queen of the South,
