ALREADY ON THE STREET, he looked at the clock. It was midnight. He decided he could continue investigating in his apartment, even though it would cost him staying awake all night. He had a hunch. It meant he wouldn't rest until he proved he was right. Sleep was impossible.
He turned on his office computer. Then he went to the kitchen to make coffee. Minutes later, he sat at his desk with a steaming cup in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other. He left the stack of papers that comprised Fulcanelli's work on an empty chair against the wall. Now he would test his hypothesis. He would have time to read the book another time.
On the PC screen, he could see the icons of various programs, with a paradisiacal image as a backdrop. Not long ago, he had downloaded Google Earth from the internet, a search engine for aerial images of the planet's most iconic locations.
Rosendo Flores, the neighbor in the adjoining apartment who was studying computer science, came to visit him one night, several months after the September 11th tragedy. They watched a basketball game and drank beer until late.
After a brief conversation about places marked by misfortune, Greg confessed that he'd like his friend to visit New York to see the so-called Ground Zero up close, stating that he intended to do so next year. Rosendo laughed, telling him that if that was his fancy, perhaps he could take a look at the place without having to leave home — he just had to ask, please.
Believing it to be a joke, he bet a dinner that his interlocutor wouldn't be able to keep his promise. What was his surprise, however, when young Rosendo went to the computer and entered a name into Google. Shortly after, he downloaded a highly interesting program called Google Earth, which allowed him to see the image of the planet reproduced on the screen, just as it could be seen from the Moon.
Using the mouse wheel, he moved closer to the globe. He focused on North America, the northeastern United States. He got closer and closer, until they could both see Manhattan Bay, but the altitude was still immense. It was surprising to Greg to see how slowly he could descend, and how the buildings became voluminous and visible on a screen where, just moments before, all he could make out was a green and brown conglomeration of forests and mountain ranges.
There, before his eyes, he could see, from above, the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty, cargo ships sailing along the Hudson River, and the peaks of New York's tallest skyscrapers. And, in the southwest corner, a vast void created by the collapse of the Twin Towers, a gaping hole now occupied by trucks transporting debris and by workers tasked with cleaning up the area. It was dramatic and, at the same time, compelling.
He hadn't used the program again since, but the moment was right to put his plan into action. He clicked on Google Earth without wasting time. He rotated the planet until he focused on the European continent. He zoomed in, aiming to search among Spain's most emblematic cathedrals. He decided to take a look at Toledo, precisely because it was in that city that Viana had purchased the manuscript and also because it was the most alchemical of all.
What appeared before his eyes left him perplexed. It was the first time he had seen a cathedral from the air. The precision with which the master builders had worked truly astonished him. The sanctuary was shaped like a cross, just as Umbert had told him, though he had never imagined the lines could be so perfect and sublime.
Then he printed the image.
Seconds later, he had in his hands an aerial view of old Toledo, with the cathedral at its center. He took a measuring tape from the shelf on the table. He measured only the length and width of the cross that formed the sanctuary's vault, not the actual distance to the temple, since the rear of the presbytery extended for another twenty meters due to the rounded structure formed by the various buttresses. The scale was proportional, which is why it should faithfully represent the building's roof height. The nave's body measured four centimeters, according to the aerial photograph, while the transept, from side to side, measured two and a half centimeters. With these numbers written on a notepad, Gregory began dividing them. The result: 1.6.
Did he need any further proof that God was represented by a number, the most perfect of all, and that cathedral builders were the keepers of the secret? No. He believed that this was enough.
He was about to leave the paper on the table when he saw that at the bottom of the image there was a series of numbers:
Pointer 39°51'27— N 04°01'26— W
Obviously, this was the exact longitude and latitude of the place where the cathedral of Toledo was located.
His heart began to race wildly, while a cold sweat broke out on his back, especially along his spine. He remembered the numbers written on the return address of the letter, and for a moment it occurred to him that they might represent the location coordinates of the Ark of the Covenant. If it were true that they wanted to help him with a definitive clue, perhaps they had provided him with the solution to the riddle, to see if he could decipher it himself, in the old Masonic style.
He took the airmail envelope from his shirt pocket, holding it upside down. Then he wrote down the numbers from the Google Earth search engine, adding degrees, minutes, and seconds. He clicked — search — and slowly, the sphere began to spin, slowly approaching its destination. Gregory Evans began to sweat, first on his hands, then on his forehead, when he realized that the image had stopped at one of the most frequented tourist spots in the world.
There it was. Before him lay the lost city of Enoch and the pillars that divided it, as the letter signed by Balkis said, or the columns that were buried in the sand that spread with the Flood, according to the version of Iacobus of Carthage.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The truth is that the image of the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre, seen from above, was a superb spectacle.
The Ark of the Covenant was hidden on the plain of Giza. And perhaps the Widow's Sons were also there.