PALEMBANG, SUMATRA, INDONESIA
THE TIRES CRUNCHED ON GRAVEL AS SAM PULLED THE CAR OFF the road and coasted to a stop beneath the boughs of a kapok tree. A steady stream of compact cars and scooters whizzed past Sam’s door, honking and swerving as though trying to beat a checkered flag.“Okay, you win,” Sam said to Remi. “But before I risk my life and step into this traffic to ask for directions, let me see the map one more time.”
While like most men, Sam prided himself on being equipped with a supernatural internal compass that kept him from ever being lost, he’d also learned to concede those rare times when that compass seemed to be in temporary disrepair. Now was one of those times.Trying to conceal her smile, Remi handed him the map and sat quietly while Sam studied it. “It’s gotta be around here somewhere.”
“I’m sure it is.”
As was the case with many of Sam and Remi’s revelations since finding the Shenandoah ’s bell buried in the sand off Zanzibar, Winston Blaylock had, as the saying went, been there and done that. In this case, one of the latitude and longitude points they’d deciphered from his dot-grid system happened to fall where Javier Orizaga, S.J., had spent the final years of his life. It was no coincidence, they knew. Still, there were many questions unanswered.
Having spent years hunting for the origin of his “great green jeweled bird” and discovering along the way the true story of the Aztec Empire, had Blaylock heard of Orizaga’s codex and come here looking for a copy or had he found the codex elsewhere and deduced the location the same way Sam and Remi had? Similarly, what had brought Orizaga here: a quest for treasure or for the history of a people whose destruction he witnessed?
AN HOUR AFTER THEY’D ended their video-conference meeting with Professor Dydell, he’d called back with the name of the village Orizaga had called home the last two decades of his life: Palembang, Sumatra.
While Palembang, the “Venice of the East,” might have been considered just a hamlet during the sixteenth century, today it was not only the oldest city in Indonesia, dating back to the seventh century, but also the biggest in southern Sumatra, boasting a population of 1.5 million.
Neither Sam nor Remi had any grand ideas about what, if anything, of value they’d find by investigating Orizaga’s adopted homeland. However, all the hoops they’d jumped through since Zanzibar seemed to be leading them in one direction. Blaylock’s quest, his journal, the maps, the codex, Orizaga himself, and now the lab report-all of it pointed toward an unknown location in Indonesia.“IT WOULD HAVE MADE our lives so much easier if Orizaga had left an address,” Sam said. “It’s a bit inconsiderate, really.”
“I’m sure if he’d known we were coming, he would have,” Remi replied. “Did the woman at the last place say the house was red or green?”
“Green.”
Since arriving in Palembang the previous day, they’d visited six local museums or historians said to specialize in the pre-Dutch colonial period of the city’s history. So far, none of the curators had heard of Orizaga, and each one had suggested Sam and Remi go to the city’s administrative building and peruse centuries’ worth of microfiche newspapers for any mention of their friend.
Sam traced his finger along the map, occasionally ducking his head so he could see the nearby street signs through the windshield. He folded the map and handed it back to Remi with a confident smile.“I know where I went wrong.”
“In general or with the directions?”
“Funny lady.” Sam put the car in gear, waited for a gap in traffic, then veered out and accelerated.
TWENTY MINUTES OF WINDING down backstreets brought them to an industrial park filled with warehouses. Behind this they were surprised to find a quiet, tree-lined residential cul-de-sac. The houses were small and old but well kept. At the end of the circle Sam pulled to a stop before what could have passed for a ranch-style house in Anytown, USA: kelly green with brown shutters and a white picket fence half hidden by red-flowering vines.
They walked up the path, mounted the porch steps, and knocked on the front door. They heard the click of footfalls on wood. The door opened to reveal a mid-fifties white man in crisp khaki pants and a button-down white shirt.“Yes, good afternoon,” he said with an Oxford accent.
“We’re looking for Sukasari House,” Remi said.
“You have found it, madam. How can I help you?”
“We’re looking for someone-a monk-who may or may not have lived in this area in the sixteenth century.”
“Oh, well, is that all? I thought you’d come to try to sell me a vacuum or some pots and pans,” the man said with a wry smile. “Please, come in.” He stepped back to let them into the foyer. “My name is Robert Marcott.”“Sam and Remi Fargo.”
“Follow me. I’ll make some tea and then tell you everything I know about Indonesia in the fifteenth century.”
“Pardon me for saying this,” Remi said, “but you don’t seem surprised by our question.”
“I’m not. Here, come sit down. I’ll explain.”
He ushered them into a study enclosed by floor-to-ceiling book-cases. The floor was covered with a Persian rug; on top of it were a few rattan furniture pieces around a coffee table. Sam and Remi sat on the sofa.
“I’ll be just a moment,” Marcott said, then disappeared through a side door. They heard the clinking of china, then a pot whistling. He came back in with a tea service, filled their cups, then sat down across from them.
“Who pointed you in my direction?” Marcott asked.“A woman named Ratsami-”
“Lovely woman. Knows nothing about Sumatran history prior to the twentieth century.”
“She was under the impression this was a museum.”
“A bit of a language gap, I’m afraid: historian versus museum. While the official language here is Indonesian, dialects abound. I gave up trying to correct people. Ten years ago I wrote a book on Christianity in Indonesia. Evidently, it turned me into a museum.” Marcott got up, walked to a nearby shelf, retrieved a book, and handed it to Remi.“God in Java,” she read.
“It could be worse. Almost was. My publisher wanted to call it Jesus in Java .”
Sam chuckled. “You chose wisely.”
“I would have been inundated with people wanting to know the religious significance of coffee. It would have been a nightmare. At any rate, I came here to research the book, fell in love with the place, and stayed. That was fifteen years ago. You’re looking for a monk, you said?”“Yes, a man named Javier Orizaga, a Jesuit. He would have arrived here in the late 1520s, probably-”
“Ah, Orizaga. Fifteen twenty-eight,” Marcott said. “He lived about two miles east of here, in fact. Of course, the hut is no longer there. I think it’s a burger restaurant now.”
“What can you tell us about him?” asked Remi.
“What do you want to know?”
“How much time do you have?” Sam countered.
“Unlimited quantities.”
“Then tell us everything.” “You’re going to be disappointed. He was an interesting man and he worked hard to help the locals, but he was just one of thousands of missionaries that came here over the last half millennium. He opened a Bible school, helped at local hospitals, and spent a lot of time in rural villages trying to save souls.”“Have you ever heard of the Orizaga Codex?” Sam asked.
Marcott narrowed his eyes. “No, but, based on the name, I somehow think I should have. Am I about to be terribly embarrassed?”
“I don’t see why,” Remi said. She gave Marcott the short version of the codex’s history, leaving out the specifics about its content or origin.
Marcott smiled. “Fascinating. Did this codex ingratiate him with the Church or was it the opposite?”
“The opposite.”
“Then it was sympathetic to the Aztecs. I wish I had known all this about him. I might have devoted a whole chapter to him. There was one interesting story, but it didn’t really fit into the book so I left it out. He died in 1556, twenty-eight years after arriving here-or, at least, that’s when he was last seen.”“I don’t understand,” Remi asked.
“The story goes that in November of that year, Orizaga announced to his followers and colleagues that he believed he’d discovered a sacred place in the jungle-he didn’t say where exactly-and that he was going to find the . . . What was it?” Marcott paused, tapping his index finger on his lower lip. “Oh, yes. He called it the seven caves or
