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.""Maybe.But who were those two passengers the manifest identified only with the initials N.E.and J.L.T?"Coy rubbed his neck, amazed."You have the manifest from the Dei Gloria?'"Not the original, no.But I have a copy.I got it from the naval archives at Viso del Marques.I have a good friend, a woman, who works there."She gave no more details, but it was obvious that something was going through her head.Her lip twisted, and her expression was no longer soft.Tintin had exited the scene."Besides, there's something else."She said that and again stopped, as if that "something else" was information he was never going to hear.Quiet, silence, for a long while."The ship," she said finally, "belonged to the Jesuits, remember? To Fornet Palau, a shipowner from Valencia who was their straw man.And another thing.Valencia was the destination.All this happens on February 4, 1767, two months before the royal decree of Charles III ordering 'the banishment of the Jesuits from Spanish domains and the appropriation of their temporalities___ ' Do you have any idea what that meant?"Coy said he didn't, that eighteenth-century history and Charles III were not his forte.So she elaborated.She did so very well, with few words, quoting key dates and facts without getting mired in superfluous details.The popular uprising of 1766 in Madrid against minister Esquilache, which shook the security of the monarchy and was said to have been instigated by the Society of Jesus.The Ignatian order's resistance to enlightened ideas spreading through Europe.The enmity of the monarch and his desire to rid himself of them.The creation of a secret council presided over by the Conde de Aranda, which prepared the decree of expulsion, and the unexpected coup of April 2,1767, the immediate expulsion of the Jesuits, the seizure of their wealth, and the subsequent dissolution of the Order by Pope Clement XIV That was the historical context in which the voyage and tragedy of the Dei Gloria had taken place.Of course, there was no proof of a direct connection between one thing and the other.But Tanger was a historian, she was trained to evaluate events and to find relationships among them, to formulate hypotheses and develop them.There could be a connection, or perhaps not.In any case, the Dei Gloria had gone to the bottom.At the very least, to sum it up, a sunken ship was a sunken ship—stat rosa pristina nomine, she recited cryptically.And she knew where."That," she concluded, "is justification enough to look for it."Her expression had hardened as she spoke, as if at the hour of dealing with facts the ghost of the girl that had emerged as she looked at the pages of Tintin had faded away.Now the smile had disappeared from her lips and her eyes were shining resolutely, not provocatively.She was no longer the girl in the snapshot.She was becoming distant again, and Coy was annoyed."Tell me about the others.""What others?""The Dalmatian with the gray ponytail.And the melancholy dwarf who was watching your house last night.They didn't look like historians, not by a long shot.I don't think the expulsion of old Charles III and the Jesuits would ever raise their limp pricks."She seemed to be taken aback by his vulgarity.Or maybe she was just searching for an adequate response."That has nothing to do with you," she said slowly."You're wrong.""Listen, I'm paying you for this job."For the love of God, he said to himself.That's a serious mistake, beautiful.That is a really serious mistake, one that's unworthy of you—coming out with shit like that at this point in the game."Pay? What the fuck are you talking about?"He saw clearly that Tanger was flustered.She lifted a hand.Take it easy, cool down, I was wrong.Come on, let's talk.But he was furious."Do you really believe I'm sitting here because you intend to pay me?"He immediately felt ridiculous, because in fact he was.He stood up, overturning his chair so abruptly that Zas retreated, unsettled."You misunderstood," she said."Really.I'm only saying that those men have nothing to do with it."Nothing to do with it," she repeated.She seemed frightened, as if all of a sudden she was afraid she would see him jerk open the door and stalk out, as if until that moment she had never considered the possibility.That gave Coy a twisted kind of satisfaction.After all, even if it was just self-interest, she was afraid she might lose him.That made him enjoy the situation.A crumb is a crumb."They have enough to do with it that I want you to clarify it for me or you'll have to look for someone else."It was like a nightmare, but a nightmare that was strengthening his self-esteem.All very bitter, treading on the verge of rupture, of an end to it all, but he couldn't turn back."You aren't serious," she said."You bet I'm serious
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