The Salvador Dalí Formula: a gripping psychological intellectual thriller Read online

  The Salvador Dalí

  FORMULA

  D. L A B O V I C H

  The thoughts and quotations of theorists, artists, and scientists mentioned in this book, as well as the descriptions of works of art, are accurate and real. The secret knowledge, the laws, and the descriptions of the experiments in this novel were awarded several Nobel Prizes, and they have been implemented and proven many times.

  All the characters and the plot in this novel are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The Salvador Dalí Formula

  COPYRIGHT © 2023 ebook by Dusica Labovic Muzychenko

  (Pen name D. Labovich - for the thriller series)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  www.dusicalabovic.com

  Dedication

  For the most enlightened person I have ever met,

  my father, Radojica M. Labović.

  Thanks

  I thank my husband, a physicist for the clarification and cooperation in understanding the Copenhagen interpretation, retro-reasoning, and other laws of quantum physics, whose evidence can only rely on the existence of God.

  “If the growth of Christianity had been arrested by some mortal malady, the world would have been Mithraic.”

  Ernest Renan

  “Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”

  Salvador Dalí

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Epilogue

  Notes about pictures:

  A word about the author...

  Prologue

  January 25th, London 1989

  A man in a leopard fur coat swayed from the highest spike of the massive dark iron gate leading to the Palace of Westminster.

  A leather rope, tied around a small wooden cross dug into the skin of his emaciated neck. His thin, black mustache turned up like bull horns, curving against his sunken cheeks. The irises of his bulging eyes showed serenity, hinting he had finally found peace with God. The deceased clutched a stone tied with a Solomon’s knot.

  The fresh pool of blood glimmered like a small, calm pond under the dim light of a streetlamp on the asphalt. Police sirens howled in the distance a few feet away. The driver of a black Rolls-Royce stepped on the gas as sounds of a crying child rang out in the street.

  * * *

  A few hours earlier...

  While the wind carried the barking of dogs and the voices of the nearby pub, a man in a leopard fur coat walked sluggishly along the narrow stone path along the Avon River.

  “I must end this agony, Donald Wilson,” the man said. He picked the lock to his colleague’s two-story house, a respected physics teacher from Salisbury.

  The smell of vanilla pancakes filled the air. He hadn't put anything in his mouth in a long time. Work comes before pleasure; he recalled the words from a letter he had recently received from Wilson. In the letter, Wilson informed him of his departure to France. He entered the narrow corridor and impatiently began searching for a secret place. The upstairs door suddenly slammed shut, and he jumped onto the first step, finding himself face to face with the figure of a Viking in a picture hanging above the stairs. The Wilsons valued history a lot. For generations, they passed on stories about the successes of their ancestors, and they were faithful guardians of souvenirs of the past. As he recalled Wilson's boasts, the Viking's gaze seemed to laugh in his face. The stranger felt the breath of deception. Everything was different now. History is a lie. And Donald Wilson knows it. As he fought the anger in his mind, he thought about his decision. Nothing made sense anymore. If he does not complete the task tonight, he will forever remain under the rule of the Adept. Or he will be killed.

  He entered the kitchen and moved the table covered with the greasy traces of children’s fingers. He unfolded the carpet from over the door on the floor. The smell of the damp, cold earth wafted through the small slit. He descended into the hidden passage that led to the secret archives of Donald Wilson. In front of a mirror over a desk cluttered with souvenirs, notebooks, and books, he saw his reflection. He took a thin, overly curled, artificial mustache from his pocket and glued it over his lips.

  “You took a great secret to the grave. Salvador Dalí, rest in eternal glory,” he whispered.

  He approached the right wall and bowed before the portraits of Salvador Dalí, Einstein, Newton, and Galileo. He kissed the icon of the Sistine Madonna, the last picture hanging in the row.

  He opened drawers and leafed through scattered notebooks, crumpled sheets of paper, and books with the old Oxford library stamp on the cover. Under the book, Metaphysics in Contemporary Physics, someone had drawn an image of a key, the round head centered over a cross. A former teacher had told him about a network that used symbols to keep secret passwords among scientists and priests. It was no ordinary key. It was the ANKH, an Egyptian hieroglyph, a magical symbol of wisdom, and the key to secret knowledge.

  He circled the room, searching for a secret place that could have a keyhole. He moved the icon of the Sistine Madonna aside, revealing a carved-out square in the wall. It had a small hole. He inserted the key, and the concrete door opened. It hid a gilded urn crusted with gems in its center and runic letters carved in its body above the symbol of an equilateral cross within a circle.

  He took the urn in his hands. The wood material of the base gave it an unexpected lightness. He lifted the urn and shook it, not caring if the dust of the dead came out of it. A paper folded into a square fell to the floor. He grabbed it, unfolded it, and stared at a formula that resembled an odd rebus. Fear and pity filled his eyes. Adept was right. The world was created by God. I will have to make sacrifices.

  Under the formula was the inscription, Atom Dalí.

  Chapter 1

  London, January 18th, 2019

  A small, red brick house with a roof partially covered with greenish moss in the suburbs of London echoed the impure tone of “Feeling Good” by Michael Buble. Charles Clark, a reporter at a small London TV station called UK-Minutes, contemplated the strange message that had just landed in his inbox. If only I could wake up as a genius. Anything I ever wanted to accomplish—I would accomplish. Everything I ever dreamed of—would become a game for me.

  Charles rubbed his eyes, tucked his feet into his woolen slippers, put on a blanket, and walked over to a cheap plastic desk. He opened the email on his laptop and clicked again into the odd message. An invitation to a press conference celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the death of the most mystical figure in the history of art. The genius of the twentieth century, the Surrealist Salvador Dalí. Journalists from around the globe were invited to the renowned Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, as most people knew it, in New York.

  “Salvador Dalí January 23rd, 1989 ‒ January 23rd, 2019”

  Signed by Julian Mellon, art historian

  Organization The Great Five

  Museum of Modern Art, New York

  Charles nibbled on an old, salty cracker left on the table from last night. As usual, he had just taken the prize coupon from the bag and
put it in his leather jacket pocket, hanging messily on the armchair. The notion of being a loser again flashed through his mind.

  It had been more than half a year since he no longer shared the rent with his ex-girlfriend. He was not only a loser in the material sense, but evident in other areas as well. He spent two hours commuting from home to work, adding up to four hours of travel a day, twenty hours a week, and eighty hours a month—too much time spent doing nothing. During this time, Charles would scratch gambling tickets from kiosks or markets near bus stops.

  “When are you going to accept that you’re a loser?” his ex would ask when they fought.

  “To become a winner, first you must become a diligent participant,” he’d reply through his teeth while lifting weights in the room’s corner.

  He still had the will to live, even if it manifested as childish nonsense. It was as if that was the last time he laughed. He knew he was a magnet for failed events, and girls easily realized he was an Egoist no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Change hadn’t come for many years, and Charles increasingly hoped that after forty, nothing would bother him anymore. Neither penniless, nor did he have a girlfriend in bed. He still blindly wanted to believe in the theory of evolution, according to which all the characteristics that man inherits from his ancestors play a huge role in the process of survival. And now, just at the moment when it seemed to him that there was no deeper bottom than the one he fell into, he received an invitation that could mean someone in the world of journalism still considers him worthy of recognition. Just as his late parents were once deemed worthy of recognition.

  The sound of the phone suddenly echoed through the cold room. It was his friend and colleague, Ethan Cox.

  “Charles, did you see the email?”

  “I’m reading it now.”

  “The media director has lost his mind. He says an incredible scandal is going to happen at the MoMA. This news will shock the world but most of all the UK.”

  “What the hell is this about?”

  “I have no idea, Charles, but we must be there.”

  “Shouldn’t they have invited someone from the BBC or ART TV?”

  “Who says they didn’t? But our small television will be among them.”

  “What a challenge,” Charles said enthusiastically.

  “You have a few days to prepare.”

  “A few days? But I have to have original questions.”

  “Charles, this is your chance. You received an invitation from the Great Five organization. That's a big thing.”

  Ethan was nearing forty and wasn’t engaged in a career he was passionate about, much like Charles. Losers with women as with finance. And they never admitted to each other that they were losers, not even after four pints of beer on a Friday night. Was Ethan telling the truth? Their lazy media director never cared about the image of their small TV station nor the unnecessary expenses for travel costs. Charles had a limited understanding of art, but his ever-increasing debts left him with no choice in going to New York. If he didn’t earn some extra money in a few weeks, his landlady would finally kick him out of his apartment.

  He walked over to the small bookshelf and ran his fingers over the larger hardcover books. Among them were titles such as Journey Through the World of Architecture - For Beginners, Architecture in Ancient Times, Architecture as Art, Contemporary Architecture… The repulsive sensation returned as he reluctantly accepted he was doing something he didn’t enjoy. He clenched his teeth, feeling the hatred of his past decision swell in his chest. He had walked away from the Faculty of Architecture and chose the job of a journalist, which he loathed. The line of least resistance had always been his strong suit, but it was hitting him on the head. He had to deal with a topic not at all interesting to him. Salvador Dalí. Surrealism used to attract Charles only in architecture, apart from Dalí’s pioneering role as a Surrealist and the many streets, cafes, and galleries bearing his name in almost every capital of Europe. He knew almost nothing about the artist and his works.

  On the shaft, he did two exercises. The equipment he'd bought at a closing sale at the Onix gym down the street was battered, just like his mood. He hated everything in his life lately, even his athletic physique. Although he inherited his facial features from his father, his tall, muscular body resulted from an unhappy childhood. If not spiritually, he had to get strong, at least physically. Just like those days in that infinitely long room on the third floor of the Merlon Orphanage, where his only possessions were one bed among a hundred identical cots and the memory of his parents, he felt indifferent.

  Charles approached the window bordered by damp steam and looked past green fields with foggy borders. Merlon Orphanage had a view similar to this. Nothing had changed. A storm was coming again, suffocating his last hope.

  “Feeling Good” stopped sending a message of absurdity. His inbox alerted him to another email. He approached his desk and opened the new message. Its subject was blank. The sender’s name was “Adept.” He clicked on the touchpad, and a strange formula entitled “Atom Dalí” opened before his eyes.

  Atom Dalí

  The email had an attached JPEG file. He clicked to open it. The sight of the picture was so gruesome it made him feel sick to his stomach. The dark shadow of the past lurked to swallow him whole.

  Chapter 2

  For several hours, Charles hadn’t seen a single cloud above the ocean. He doubted he was doing something good. He watched Ethan calmly read the airline menu. Two people flying to the same job can have completely different goals and dispositions, he thought to himself, getting angry at Ethan. He would usually entertain himself while Charles conducted the conference talks. This time, he didn't like Ethan's tourist attitude either. He could imagine a few days in New York spent with him. Ethan would waste all the money in the hotel bar. He was increasingly sure that a little more money as a bonus for a business trip would not drastically change his financial situation. He would need to find alternative accommodations when he returned.

  He turned to the window, trying to distract himself. It was that time of year he always avoided remembering, but the email he received from the Adept forced him to think about his parent’s grave, and what he had buried there. He studied the familiar architecture of the Palace of Westminster in London, remembering the first time he saw this magnificent building. The gleam in the eyes of a small child from the south of England shone like a precious stone. His mother had said, “We will start a new life in France. Paris is an exquisite city, more beautiful than Salisbury. You’ll like it.” Father had been packing suitcases into their family camper. Charles was proud of his father. That night, his father had something important for Parliament. “From London, we go straight to the English Channel.”

  Then darkness came. That was the same night he lost his parents. Through the small window of a Mercedes camper, he saw his dead father, in a pool of his own blood, carried away. That night, only he survived.

  A man had hung from the gate of the Westminster Palace, the same building that looked so harmless now. Just like the one from the photo he got in the email. When Charles zoomed in on the photo, a small wooden cross hung from the dead man’s neck. His tall, thin mustache, reminiscent of Salvador Dalí, terrified Charles.

  Paranoia was hitting him harder. He tried to push the terrible image out of his head and turn his thoughts to the passengers. A young couple with headphones in their ears hummed in the seat in front of him. At the entrance of the middle part of the plane, there was a queue for the toilet. A red-haired woman held a child in her arms while the father entertained him by waving a stuffed doll in front of him. Sardines and champagne had just been served in the seat behind Ethan. Charles felt the heavy smell of the depths of the sea and felt severe dizziness. The murmur from the surrounding passengers irritated his nerves as he tried to drive away his thoughts and memories. He glanced at the MoMA brochure he had bought at the airport. While reading the article about Salvador Dalí, Charles came across the interesting paintings Virgin Mary and Gala, whose portraits were made up of atoms, and the painting with mystical melting clocks, The Persistence of Memory.