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• How did Rivera know about Madagascar?
She slid the pad back to Sam, who said, “I have an idea about one of these . . . What are they after? We suspect Rivera works for the Mexican government, correct?”
“It’s a safe bet.”
“We also know the current administration, President Garza’s Mexica Tenochca, came into office on a wave of ultranationalism—pride in Mexico’s true, precolonial heritage and so forth. We also know Rivera and his goons all have Nahuatl-Aztec names, along with most of Mexica Tenochca’s leaders and cabinet members. The ‘Aztec Groundswell,’ as the press called it, won them the election.”
Sam looked around the group and got nods in return.
“What if whoever Rivera works for knows the truth about the Aztecs? What if they knew long before the election?”
Remi said, “We did find what might be nine tourist murders in seven years in Zanzibar. If our hunch about them is correct, the cover-up goes back at least that far.”
Sam nodded. “If Blaylock truly found what we think he found, this could turn Mesoamerican history on its head.”
“Is that enough to kill for?” Wendy asked.
“Absolutely,” Remi replied. “If members of the current government won the election based on a lie and the truth comes to light, how long before they’re drummed out of office? Or even its leaders arrested? Imagine if after George Washington was elected America’s first president, it was proven he was a traitor. It’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, but you get the idea.”
“Then, potentially, we’re talking about President Garza being directly involved in this,” Pete said.
Sam said, “He certainly has the kind of horsepower that’s been backing Rivera from the beginning. At this point, all we’ve got to go on is Blaylock’s journal and letters. My gut is telling me the answers are hidden there.”
“Where do you suggest we start?” Selma asked.
“His poem. Do you have it?”
Selma flipped pages on her pad, then recited,
In my love’s heart I pen my devotion
On Engai’s gyrare I trust my feet
From above, the earth squared
From praying hands my day is quartered, the gyrare once, twice
Words of Ancients, words of Father Algarismo
“The first two lines we already figured out—he’s talking about the bell and Fibonacci spirals. Now we just need to figure out the last four lines.”
THEY BROKE INTO GROUPS. Selma, Pete, and Wendy worked on Blaylock’s letters to Constance Ashworth, searching for any clues they may have missed, while Sam and Remi retreated to the solarium to pore over Blaylock’s journal, which Selma had loaded onto their iPads.
Side by side, they reclined on chaise lounges partially shaded by potted palms and billowing ferns. The sun streamed through the skylights and cast dappled shadows across the tiled floor.
After an hour, Sam muttered, half to himself, “Leonardo the Liar.”
“Pardon?”
“That line from Blaylock’s journal: ‘Leonardo the Liar.’ Clearly Blaylock was referring to Leonardo Fibonacci.”
“Of the sequence-and-spiral fame.”
“Right. But why did he add ‘the liar’?”
“I meant to ask what that’s all about.”
“The Fibonacci sequence wasn’t discovered by Leonardo; he simply helped spread it around Europe.”