The intrusion into Banco Cartujano’s internal system turns a childish computer nuisance into a warning about the bank’s vulnerability and Pencho Gavira’s most consequential business secret. An intruder places an enigmatic Gospel message inside the bank’s internal mail archive and releases a bouncing-ball virus; the virus is easy to remove, but the ease of entry makes Gavira fear that the attacker may also have approached confidential records about the redevelopment of Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas.

The message and the virus

Gavira sees the message on his computer, embedded in the internal email file. Its language invokes stripped vestments, a temple that could not be destroyed, the rejected stone that becomes the cornerstone, and the memory of those taken away. The reference connects the intrusion to the proposed operation involving Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas, though the message does not identify its sender or explain precisely what the sender intends.

The accompanying virus is deliberately comic and, as far as Gavira knows, harmless. A small ping-pong ball rebounds from the four edges of the screen, doubling each time until the balls collide and burst in a mushroom-cloud effect, after which the sequence begins again. The bank’s computer department is working to clean it and to check for other, more destructive hidden viruses. Its spectacle may look like a joke, but the prank demonstrates that someone has crossed the bank’s digital defenses.

Gavira assesses the breach

Gavira is less concerned by the virus itself than by the intruder’s ease of access. He considers two possibilities: the attacker might be a bank employee or a joking hacker. Either way, the penetration is disturbing, and the scriptural allusion appears connected to the church redevelopment. He thinks it unlikely that a hacker has deciphered the security key to his confidential files, but cannot rule it out. The assumption that intruders usually leave traces offers no reassurance: he concludes that the bouncing ball was placed inside the system, not outside it, and decides to delete the file as a precaution.

That response reveals the practical stakes of the incident. Gavira’s protected computer records include the documentation for a small, exclusive luxury hotel project in northern Santa Cruz, intended to attract Saudi investors buying Puerto Targa. The scheme depends on the redevelopment of the church area, and Gavira regards it as essential to buying time and securing credit while he consolidates his position at the bank. He also keeps a report on his management and other secrets in the same protected collection, with backup copies on floppy disks and CDs in a safe beneath the Klaus Paten painting in his office. The intrusion therefore threatens more than a machine: it puts a precarious financial strategy and potentially damaging information within reach of an unknown outsider.

A joke with a pointed target

The scene places the bouncing ball beside the intruder’s solemn religious language. Its multiplying collisions turn the screen into a comic spectacle, while the message invokes a temple, rejected stone, and remembered loss. This contrast gives the hack its particular menace: the intruder can make light of the bank’s technology while directing a serious, if unexplained, warning at the church project. The incident establishes neither the attacker’s identity nor whether the confidential files have been accessed; its force lies in leaving Gavira unable to distinguish a prank from a breach with consequences for his plans.