The Last Gospel

by David Gibbins

  ‘Everyone ready?’ Maria said, slinging her pack and clipping on her waist strap, then turning back up the ramp. ‘Maurice and I have learned the hard way that when you get the go-ahead in this place, you go-ahead pronto. It’s about two hundred yards due west from here, but we have to go out of the site and down some back alleys. We’ll be met at the entrance.’ She eyed Costas’ camera bag. ‘And watch your valuables, right? Remember where we are.’

  7

  Twenty minutes later, Jack and the others stood outside a low door at the end of a dark alley in the modern town of Ercolano. They were above the buried remains of the Villa of the Papyri, one of the greatest archaeological sites ever discovered, much of it still entombed under the streets around them. Jack’s excitement had increased as they came closer, though the narrowing walls of the alleyway seemed to accentuate the unease he had felt since talking to Hiebermeyer and Maria. It had become hot in the midday sun, and they gathered in the shade against the wall. The scene was astonishingly similar to an excavated street in ancient Herculaeum a few hundred metres away, and for a split second Jack felt completely displaced, uncertain whether he was in the past or the present. He was brought back to reality by the tinny echo of a Vespa scooter as it hurtled down a nearby alley, and by the distinctly modern smells that rose up around them. The sides of the alley were strewn with rubbish, and an alcove beside the doorway was scattered with used hypodermic syringes.

  ‘Watch your feet,’ Maria said. ‘It’s a favourite local shooting-up place.’

  ‘Opium,’ Costas said. ‘Plus ça change.’

  Maria looked at him questioningly. ‘Later,’ Jack said. ‘We’ve got some fabulous news. An incredible discovery. But let’s do what we’ve got to do here first.’

  The door opened, and an armed security guard appeared. Hiebermeyer spoke a few halting words of Italian and the man looked dubiously at Jack and Costas. He shook his head, grudgingly took the permit papers Hiebermeyer offered him and pushed him back out into the alley, shutting the door again in his face.

  ‘This happens every time,’ Hiebermeyer said, his teeth clenched. ‘There’s always a new guard, and they always need to see the paperwork. Then they insist on keeping the papers, and I have to get new ones issued by the superintendency in Naples. It took two weeks before they’d let Maria in.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can stand it,’ Costas said.

  ‘Patience 101,’ Jack said. ‘Mandatory introductory archaeology course.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how you passed that one, Jack.’

  ‘I bribed Maurice to sit the exam for me.’

  The door reopened, and the guard jerked his head. Hiebermeyer ducked through and the others filed after him into a small grey courtyard. The guard waved his sub-machine gun towards another entrance. Costas caught his gaze for slightly too long, and the man’s look froze.

  ‘Don’t,’ Jack said under his breath. Before they realized what was happening, the guard was beside them and had casually sideswiped Costas, knocking him into the wall. Jack took Costas by the arm and quickly led him behind Maria and Hiebermeyer towards the other entrance. The guard remained rooted to the ground, watching them, then they heard him sidle away. They passed through the entrance into another small alleyway.

  ‘Nobody does that to me,’ Costas seethed, brushing the graze on his arm and trying to push Jack away.

  ‘Keep cool,’ Jack said quietly, keeping a vice-like hold on Costas and steering him forward. ‘It’s not worth it. A little man in a uniform.’

  ‘With thirty rounds of nine millimetre,’ Maria murmured.

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be the star attraction around here,’ Costas grumbled to Hiebermeyer as Jack released his hold. ‘Distinguished foreign archaeologist, flown in from Egypt to help excavate one of the most important sites ever found.’

  ‘That’s the public face of it,’ Hiebermeyer said, keeping his voice down. ‘Come through that entranceway, and it’s a different story. They won’t even let a film crew in here. This place has been shut down for two hundred years, and somebody somewhere wants it to stay that way.’

  ‘None of the villa’s open to the public?’

  ‘After intense international lobbying, a small section was opened with great ceremony a few years ago. We passed the entrance on the way. For the first time, people can visit some of the eighteenth-century excavations. They made a big show of it, even got Prince Charles over from London to cut the ribbon. You’ve no idea how many scholars and philanthropists have been trying to kick-start work on this place. But from our point of view this progress has been a mixed blessing. It’s allowed the authorities to paint a picture of huge achievement, diverting attention away from the most pressing need, which is to resume the excavations.’

  ‘So without the earthquake last month that opened up this new tunnel, we wouldn’t be here,’ Costas said.

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘Thank God for natural catastrophe.’

  ‘You could say that about this place.’

  ‘It’s bizarre,’ Maria said quietly as they reached the end of the alley. ‘It’s as if they hate us being here, and have done everything in their power to impede us. It took a geologic age for Maurice to get an extractor fan in to clear out the toxic gas from the tunnel. But in the press releases, Maurice is the big star. He’s all over the papers here. Then, once we’re inside, it’s as if they actually want us to find something, but only enough to allow them to shut the whole place down again for good.’

  ‘That’s just about the stage we’ve reached now,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘I’m convinced this is the last time we’ll be let in. You’ll see why in a few minutes. Okay. Here goes. Best behaviour.’ He led them round a corner into a deep trench, open to the sky, like the foundation pit for a large house. The walls were grey volcanic mud, identical to the main site of Herculaneum, and they could see fragmentary courses of ancient masonry and the odd Roman column sticking out. Half a dozen workmen and a woman with a clipboard were clustered round some tools and planking on the far side of the pit, and two more armed security guards were loitering and smoking in another corner. The guards grasped the barrels of their sub-machine guns and peered suspiciously at his companions. Hiebermeyer took a deep breath, nodded courteously and proceeded to lead the entering group briskly across the floor of the pit. ‘The guards are here to prevent the site being pillaged at night.’

  ‘That’s a joke,’ Costas said. ‘Those apes look like they were recruited from the local drugs gang.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Maria said urgently. ‘There’s some authority behind all this that even keeps the guards in control, and I don’t think it’s the Mafia.’ She took the lead, navigating her way around piles of ancient masonry towards a wooden structure against the other side of the pit, which evidently concealed some kind of entranceway. The workmen all glanced up briefly as they passed, but the woman studiously ignored them. She was dark featured, Neapolitan, with wavy black hair going prematurely grey, wearing jeans and a loose-fitting white shirt. A superintendency ID hung around her neck and she wore an orange hard hat. She slipped on a pair of sunglasses as they passed.

  ‘She’s our guardian angel from the superintendency,’ Hiebermeyer murmured.

  ‘No meet and greet?’ Costas said.

  ‘No chance. They’re under strict orders not to fraternize with the enemy.’

  ‘Dr Elizabeth d’Agostino,’ Jack murmured, fiddling with his cell phone. ‘An old friend of mine.’ He slipped the phone inside his bag.

  ‘That’s her,’ Hiebermeyer murmured. ‘She knows her stuff, but someone’s definitely put a gag order on her.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Jack?’ Maria said.

  ‘I don’t want to muddy the waters,’ Jack murmured. ‘We have a history.’ He glanced again at the woman, his expression troubled, and then looked back at Maria. ‘As you said, when you get the go-ahead here, you go ahead. I’ll try to have a word with her later.’


  Costas looked at Hiebermeyer. ‘Do the superintendency people join you in the tunnel?’

  ‘Officially, no. They’re afraid of a collapse. That’s the official reason why they’ve refused to authorize a full excavation. Any further tunnelling will increase the risk of collapse, threatening the modern town above. Far better to seal up the tunnel again for another two hundred years.’

  ‘And unofficially?’

  ‘Yesterday, as soon as we found what they wanted, Dr d’Agostino and those workmen were in there like a shot. I imagine they’ve been trying to get the statue out while we’ve been gone. But she wasn’t with us when we went further into the tunnel, and you’ll soon see why they won’t have tried on their own.’ Hiebermeyer pulled at the lock on the door of the wooden structure, then signalled with his hand to one of the guards. ‘We have to wait for the guard to unlock it for us,’ he grumbled. ‘Another little ritual.’ The guard saw him, but pointedly continued talking to the other guard, doing nothing. The workmen started up an electric drill, putting them out of earshot. ‘The guards know perfectly well what I want. All in their own time.’

  ‘Welcome to the Villa of the Papyri,’ Costas said ruefully.

  ‘I didn’t think it was going to be this bad,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘There are some excellent archaeologists here, and I have good friends in the superintendency,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘They do what they can. But they have to battle the system. Some end up thriving on it, getting sucked in. Only here even those people seem subdued, oppressed, as if they’ve been locked down by some bigger force. Others fall by the wayside, get eliminated.’

  ‘You mean offed?’ Costas said in a hushed voice. ‘They really do that here?’

  ‘Usually not quite that dramatic, but sometimes. A car crash, a boating accident. Usually it’s more mundane. Threats, bribery, intimidation, tampering with personal financial records. People can easily be brought down in this place, if they’re honest.’

  ‘If they’re honest,’ Costas repeated, shaking his head.

  ‘But there are some good ones who do reach the top and hang in there,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘The current chief superintendent is one of them, our lady’s boss. We wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t given the go-ahead, against all kind of pressure from somewhere. Needless to say, he has permanent bodyguards, but then that’s not uncommon for officials in Naples.’

  ‘I still don’t understand what the Mafia could want with this place,’ Costas said.

  ‘I don’t even know for sure that the Mafia are involved. Nobody seems to know. You just have to assume it. It’s not only the trade in stolen antiquities, and you can rest assured that goes on here. There’s also a huge amount of money tied up in archaeological tourism.’

  ‘Speaking of archaeology, what’s the story here?’ Costas said.

  ‘It all began in 1750,’ Hiebermeyer said, suddenly animated. ‘A Swiss army engineer named Karl Weber took over the excavations at Herculaneum. A few weeks later a well-digger discovered a marble floor, probably right about where we are now. Eventually they tunnelled all over this place, and Weber realized they had a huge villa, bigger than anything else they’d seen. It was smash and grab, statues, mosaics, anything. Then they started finding carbonized scrolls. They didn’t realize what they were, and some of the diggers even took them away and used them as firelighters, believe it or not. Then they realized they were papyrus. Eventually most of the legible ones were interpreted as part of the Greek library of an obscure philosopher called Philodemus.’

  ‘He was probably patronized by the rich owner of this house,’ Jack said. ‘A kind of philosopher mascot. Whether or not there was a Latin library too has always been the big question.’

  ‘And the tunnel, the one we’re going into, the one revealed by the earthquake?’ Costas asked.

  ‘It’s one of the early tunnels, dug by Weber’s men, heading towards the area of the villa where the library was found. It was sealed up while Weber was still in charge.’

  ‘Any idea why?’

  ‘That’s what we’re here to find out.’

  ‘Do we know who owned this place?’ Costas said.

  ‘That’s the beauty of this period, leading up to the eruption,’ Jack replied. ‘We know a lot of the names of aristocrats from the Roman historians, from Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, half a dozen others.

  ‘Cue your first treat,’ Hiebermeyer interrupted, beaming. ‘What alerted the superintendency to the earthquake’s effect on this site was that part of the solidified mud wall in this trench collapsed, over there. We may as well look at it now while our guard finishes his cigarette.’

  They made their way past the group of workmen, who were now clearing away chunks of rocky conglomerate, and came to a gap where a section had fallen away from the trench wall. Elizabeth d’Agostino was standing only a few metres away with a clipboard, talking rapidly to a man with the same ID around his neck, evidently another inspector. Jack tried to catch her eye, but failed. ‘It’ll be months before they clear all this,’ Hiebermeyer muttered to Jack as they picked their way through the rubble. ‘Every possible reason for delay will be found. Someone, someone really big, wants this place shut down, and I think they’re going to have their way.’

  ‘Not if we can help it,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘There are three big forces at play around here,’ Hiebermeyer continued quietly, mopping the sweat off his brow. ‘The first is the volcano. The second is the Mafia, organized crime.’

  ‘And the third is the Church,’ Jack said.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Pretty volatile mix,’ Costas said loudly, then coughed as he saw the inspector glance at them.

  ‘Makes doing archaeology in Egypt seem like a piece of cake,’ Hiebermeyer murmured. ‘Sometimes I think they’re wishing for another eruption, to seal this place up for ever. It seems that the huge loss of life that would result, the destruction of these sites and all the archaeology and the loss of tourist money would be nothing compared to the danger of what might be found here. What that might be, I don’t know, but someone’s frightened of something. I suspect someone powerful in the Church is worried about a great revelation, an ancient document that might undermine their authority. Look how much obstruction there was when the Dead Sea Scrolls were revealed in Israel. Another pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius would eliminate the threat here for all time.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’ve found enough to keep the door open before that happens.’

  ‘You’re going to be amazed,’ Hiebermeyer whispered, looking at Jack intently. ‘What we’ve found. Trust me.’ They reached a table covered with safety gear, and he turned and spoke loudly. ‘Hard hats on. Health and safety regulations.’

  ‘They have those in Naples?’ Costas said pointedly. The inspector looked around again, and Jack shot Costas a warning look. They both donned orange hard hats, followed by the others. Everyone followed Maria and stooped in file under the overhang into a cavity about five metres deep, decreasing in height to the point where Maria at the far end was forced to squat down. Costas crawled in beside Jack and pressed his hand on the irregular grey surface above them.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Jack said. ‘Hard as rock.’

  ‘Must have been a nightmare to excavate.’

  ‘Here we are.’ Hiebermeyer pointed. Emerging from the solidified mud in front of them was a smoothed slab of masonry, veins of blue and green visible on the polished white surface.

  ‘Cipollino,’ Jack murmured, stroking the surface appreciatively. ‘Euboean marble, from Greece. Very nice. No expense spared in this villa.’

  Hiebermeyer flicked on the headlamp on his hard hat, and immediately they could see that the slab was covered with an inscription. It was in three lines, bold capital letters carved deep into the marble:

  HBOYΛHKAIOΔHMOΣΛEYKIONKAΛΠOPNION

  ΛEYKIOY YION ΠEIΣΩNA

  TONAYTOKPATOPAKAIΠATPΩNATHΣΠOΛEΩΣ

  ‘It’s Greek!’ Costas exclaimed.

&n
bsp; ‘These kinds of inscriptions were highly formulaic,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘You find them in Egypt too, from the time before the Romans when the Greeks ruled. It reads “The council and the people honour Leukios Kalpornios Peison, the son of Leukios, the ruler and patron of the city.” ’

  ‘Ruler and patron,’ Costas whistled. ‘The local Mafia boss?’

  Jack grinned. ‘I remember this. There’s an identical inscription in Greece. Calpurnius Piso was Roman governor on the island of Samothrace, in the Aegean. He must have brought this back as a memento.’

  ‘Along with a shipload of statues and other art,’ Maria murmured. ‘Maurice showed me the stuff they found here in the eighteenth century, in the Naples museum. It’s incredible.’

  ‘This particular Calpurnius Piso was probably the father or grandfather of the one we know most about, who lived in the time of the emperors Claudius and Nero,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘That later Calpurnius Piso seems to have been especially loyal to Claudius, but hatched a plot against Nero that failed. Piso retired to his house, maybe this very one, where he opened his veins and bled to death. That was in AD 65, eleven years after Claudius’ death and fourteen years before Vesuvius blew. We don’t know who the owner of the villa was at the time of the eruption, but it was probably another family member or this inscription wouldn’t still be here. Maybe a nephew, a cousin, someone who escaped Nero’s purge of the family following the assassination attempt.’

  ‘So this clinches it,’ Jack said, eyeing Hiebermeyer. ‘This really was the home of Calpurnius Piso. Another small step for archaeology. Congratulations, Maurice.’

  They moved out into the open courtyard again. Hiebermeyer took off his hard hat and jerked his head towards the looming presence behind the rooftops. ‘Don’t congratulate me, Jack. It was the volcano that did it, not us. This inscription was revealed by the earthquake. It’s what alerted the authorities to what else might have been revealed, old excavation workings that might have opened up. Then they saw the tunnel entrance.’