Then there was the report from the cryptographer, a man in Idaho. His specialty was finding hidden messages in famous books—theBible, the Constitution, things like that. He’d gone through every book of the King James Bible with at least twenty-threechapters and twelve verses in the twenty-third chapter—nineteen books. Taking the first letter of the fourth word of eachverse resulted in a set nineteen letters long. Gibberish, but the man had been able to reorder them into something that madesense.
A message, if you decided you wanted to see it that way: “God quit the sad task,” with two letters left over. W and D.
The cryptographer hadn’t known what those last two letters meant—Will Dando had commissioned the reports using his John Biancoalias.
And it didn’t mean anything—it couldn’t. The King James Bible was first printed in 1611. Will had looked it up. The wholething was tinfoil hat conspiracy theory nonsense.
But it also wasn’t great.
Will set down the report in his hand and lifted his cell—a new, razor-thin model he’d bought upon his arrival in Uruguay.He wondered how many texts and voice mails were sitting on his old phone, waiting for him to come into range of a U.S.-basedcell tower, probably ninety-nine percent of which were from Hamza.
Will thumbed it on, checking the time. It was getting late, almost eleven in the morning. Now or never.
He lifted his lime/mint/rum concoction, draining it—fortification.
Will gathered the reports together and shoved them in a shoulder bag. He stood and walked over to the concierge desk. Thewoman smiled as he approached, the same smile he’d seen her give to a hundred other guests. Will sat in one of the two chairsopposite her, setting his bag on his lap.
“Buenos días, Señor,” she said. “I am Iris. How may I help?”
Her English was perfectly imperfect. Her name sounded like water hitting the basin of a fountain.
“Good morning,” Will answered. “I was wondering if you could tell me about the performance of The Tempest this evening?”
“Ah,” she said, “an Oracle tourist, then.”
“I . . . suppose,” Will answered. “Is that bad?”
“Not at all,” the concierge replied. “The city is full of people like you, from all over the world.”
She gestured out at the packed lobby.
“I have never seen the Hotel Carrasco so full, in fact,” she continued. “A wonderful thing. Keeps us busy.”
Iris pulled out a city map from a drawer in her desk and unfolded it. She took a pen and marked the location of the hotelwith an X, then drew a line northeast along the beachfront—across the street from the hotel—to a large green area.
“The government has set up screens in many locations around the city, for people to watch the play live. It’s a bit of a festival—weneed no excuse in Montevideo to celebrate, as you will see.”
She tapped the green area on the map.
“Here is the Parque Roosevelt. It is the closest public screen to the hotel, just a short walk along the beach. I think youwill enjoy it—a very lovely spot, and there will be many vendors with food, beer, everything you might want.”
Will looked at the map, then back up at the concierge.
“Where is the actual show happening, though? Which theater?”
The concierge tilted her head at Will—she hadn’t stopped smiling, but he caught a little sense of How much of my time do you think you’re entitled to this morning? Did you not notice when I mentioned how busy the hotel happens to be? from her posture.
Iris tapped another spot on the map, a good way to the hotel’s west, in the center of an area labeled “Ciudad Vieja.”
“Here. The Teatro Solís. A beautiful place, very old—but there are no tickets. They have been gone for months, from the momentthe prediction about the standing ovation for José Pittaluga appeared on the Oracle Site.”
“None at all?” Will asked. “Isn’t that what you . . . can’t you guys get tickets to anything?”
He felt incredibly awkward. He knew there was a way these things were done—Hamza would know, probably—but Will wasn’t surehe’d ever even stayed in a hotel with a concierge before, much less one that looked like Buckingham Palace.
Fortunately, Iris seemed to be willing to meet him halfway.
“Ordinarily, yes, of course,” she said, “but tickets to the forty-third performance of Pittaluga’s Tempest are not like restaurant reservations. There may be a few seats available here or there, but the cheapest I have heard istwo hundred and seventy-five thousand Uruguayan pesos. Over ten thousand U.S. dollars.”
“That’s fine,” Will said.
Iris froze briefly, just for a fraction of a second. Will understood. When she’d first seen him, she’d put Will in a box.His clothes, maybe his demeanor . . . they suggested he was a certain type of person, at a certain level. He might be stayingat the Carrasco, but it was a stretch. Or maybe he wasn’t paying with his own money—he was an assistant to a real guest, perhaps.Something like that.
But now, with just a few words, Will had put himself in another box, and Iris had to adjust. Recalibrate her expectations.
“Señor,” she said, speaking deliberately, “I would of course be happy to assist, but before you spend such a significant amount,let me tell you something about José Pittaluga. No one is expecting a masterpiece this evening.
“He has been part of our theater for many years. He is short, and he is round, and his roles are rarely of the significanceof a Prospero. He has been a bit player, as you say. A comedic actor. A clown.
“The producers of The Tempest hired him for the role because the Oracle named him on the Site. He was not even auditioning for the part. They simply sawan opportunity and took it.”
She looked down at the spot on the map where she had circled the Teatro Solís.
“My understanding is that they have done very well—every show sold out. But the reviews have been . . . unkind.”
Will nodded.
“I know. People want a piece of the Oracle, however they can get it. I’d still like to go. I just want to be there. To seeit. It’s history,
