code. She said you knew it.”
“Of course,” Francesca said to Griffin. “She insisted I ask for the code, and that was how I would know you. Dumas told us the code this morning. You confirmed it. All for one and one for all.”
“That can’t be right,” Griffin said. “There has to be a combination of letters and numbers, or the program wouldn’t accept the password to begin with.”
Francesca said, “Maybe substituting the numeral one for the word one?”
Two chances left, he thought. “Try it.”
Francesca typed in the new variation, “Allfor1and1forall.” The cursor stopped blinking.
“Damn it,” Francesca said.
Not good, Griffin thought. Alessandra hadn’t counted on dying, obviously, but she’d certainly taken the precaution to protect the information if she couldn’t be there. “If not that, what code would she have used?”
“Maybe,” Xavier said, “there isn’t anything so drastic as a special code. She knew the professor and I were going to meet. Maybe we simply enter our individual codes together. They have the letter numeral combination.” Xavier angled the computer his way to look.
Griffin stopped him. “Alessandra was too meticulous to combine two known codes. We have one try left. If we don’t get it, it’s over.”
Francesca said, “Surely the government has something they can hook up to it, and figure out what the hell it should be?”
“Which,” Griffin said, “entails time and resources we don’t have at the moment. We need to think about this.” And quickly, he realized. With less than six hours to search unknown caverns for something they didn’t even know existed, the odds were not stacked in their favor.
Sydney reached for a napkin. “I’ve got it.” He certainly hoped so. “I think Francesca was on to something, replacing the words with numbers, but if Alessandra was as meticulous as you say, and as paranoid as Xavier, she’d go further if at all possible. She’d replace everything.”
Francesca said, “Like the word ‘for’ with the numeral four?”
“Even more so. Especially if she was entrusting that someone else was going to bring that code back, and there was the possibility of being overheard or intercepted. Think license plates.”
“License plates?” Griffin asked.
“Anyone have a pen?” Sydney said. Xavier pulled one from the pocket of his backpack. She wrote on the napkin, then turned it for everyone to see. L41N14L. “L equals all and N equals and.”
“Yes,” Xavier said. “I can see her doing that.”
“Well?” Sydney asked.
“Type it in,” Griffin said.
32
Sydney typed in the combination, let it sit there a moment, her finger poised over the enter key. It seemed they all held their breaths. What if she was wrong? What if she was the one responsible for the loss of all the information? She glanced at Griffin. He gave a slight nod. Reassurance. She needed that, and she pressed the key, felt Griffin tense beside her. How long would it take to send the computer to forensics, recover the info, if she screwed this up?
Suddenly the picture disintegrated into pixels that dropped to the bottom of the screen. What was left was a white background, with a few lines of type, reading: “Observe with an attentive eye and with veneration the urns of the heroes endowed with glory and reflect with astonishment on the precious homage to the divine work and the tomb of the deceased and when you have given due honor, contemplate profoundly and distance yourself.”
“What does it mean?” Sydney asked.
“It’s the translation from the side entrance to di Sangro’s chapel,” Francesca said.
“Then we’re on the right track.”
“Yes, but we knew that. This is something else. Almost as important as the third key. Maybe it is the third key. I remember overhearing a phone conversation she had with her friend, the anthropologist, talking about this very thing.”
Griffin ignored the dark look Sydney tossed him at the mention of Tasha’s occupation. “This conversation you overheard,” he said. “Do you recall what Alessandra or this friend of hers thought it meant?”
“A hidden meaning. Subtext,” Francesca replied. “Now that I think about it, I wonder if that has something to do with the second key, the one we couldn’t find.” She gave Xavier a brief rundown on their trip through the Capuchin Crypt, then added, “Di Sangro was all about hidden meanings. His entire chapel is filled with Masonic symbolism and iconology.”
“So we have to interpret it right or we’re caught in this trap he’s set up?”
“Exactly.”
And Xavier said, “We believe he modeled it much like the deadfall traps in the ancient Egyptian tombs. That may be why everyone thought Egypt