AFTER SEVERAL HOURS of intense work, during which he had to isolate the different frequencies of each of the letters and numbers and replace some of the most frequently used vowels and consonants with signs, Greg managed to put the manuscript aside, to rest a little and organize his tense thoughts. He took this initiative before the effort consumed him.
Although he was willing to decipher the cryptogram that very night, despite the inconvenience of having to stay awake the whole time, he needed to close his eyes and pretend that none of this was really happening, that is, that it was just another one of his nightmares.
He sat down, scratching the bridge of his nose. After closing his eyelids and resting his head on the sofa, he regained the lucidity he needed so much. It was not only important to translate the parchment, but also to discover the meaning of the phrases that accompanied the message and that Viana wanted him to decipher.
In fact, his subconscious kept warning him that he had to remember where he had heard about the crack in the chain link. This was a novelty for him, since he had hyperthymesia and his memory had never played tricks on him.
I must really be tired...
Then, motivated by the excitement of unexpectedly recovering his memory, he opened his eyes, throwing his body forward.
— How is it possible that I could have forgotten something like that! — he exclaimed, regretting his stupidity. — Jorge did nothing more than remember my own words."
THE LAST TIME THEY BOTH ate together, at Wellington, talking about the artistic references of the various cathedrals in Spain, his father-in-law, a famous historian in the style of Indiana Jones, Dante Monroe, had told him a certain story about an enormous stone chain that surrounded the upper base of the Velez chapel, located at the back of the cathedral in Murcia.
The legend, which he had the opportunity to hear from his father-in-law, a history teacher, when he was a teenager, said that the artist, after finishing his magnificent work, decided to break one of the links on purpose, without anyone really knowing why. Then, the teacher challenged his son-in-law to see if he could distinguish the crack from the damaged link. In fact, no one present saw anything. To him, it seemed like the master was joking.
Viana undoubtedly considered the fact important enough to quote the phrase at the end of the text. It was not something that could be ignored. Furthermore, he found it strange that Nostradamus's quatrain also mentioned chains, as if there were a connection between the one described in the Centuries and the enormous stone links that surrounded the Vélez chapel.