Temple of the Gods

by Andy McDermott

  Cold, angular steel. She grabbed the gun, trying to flip it round to get a proper hold—

  Agnelli gripped her wrist.

  He was too strong for her to pull free, dragging her towards him. She lashed out with her other hand, hitting the side of his face, but before she could go for his eyes he bashed her hand against the floor.

  She gasped in pain. Agnelli pounded her hand down again, harder. The pistol jolted loose and clacked on to the stone. The Italian batted savagely at her body with his other arm, then scrambled for the weapon—

  A bell sounded, its clamour echoing through the catacomb.

  Agnelli let out a gasp of horror as he realised what it meant. The wounded Popadopoulos must have managed to drag himself to the archive entrance and set off the alarm. More members of the Brotherhood would be on their way – and the old man would tell them everything.

  He abandoned the gun and leapt back to his feet, scrambling down the tunnel. Ribs aching where he had hit her, Nina found the pistol in the blackness, then quickly followed the panicked Italian.

  She soon reached the lit junction and paused, listening. Agnelli was heading deeper into the tunnels. She ran after him. Where was he going?

  Another exit, maybe one even Belardinelli didn’t know about. The old man had said that Agnelli spent a lot of time exploring the catacombs.

  The bell faded as she went further into the maze. She noticed that some passages were unlit, their loculi empty. Not even the Brotherhood’s vast collection of stolen records could fill the space donated to them. But the running man was following the lights, with a specific destination in mind . . .

  She slowed sharply as she realised she could no longer hear Agnelli’s steps. But he couldn’t be far away; she had been gaining on the lumbering youth. Cautious, gun raised, Nina advanced. There was a room ahead, a larger chamber than any she had seen so far – and straining sounds of movement came from it.

  A glance through the entrance simultaneously told her the room’s purpose and excited her aesthetic and archaeological sensibilities. It was a crypt; not the dank Gothic tomb of vampire lore, but a high-ceilinged space decorated with elaborately carved pilaster columns and painted friezes, tiers of large burial nooks built for the members of an entire family round the walls.

  But no Agnelli.

  Confused, she warily entered. The crypt was lit by only a single bulb above the entrance, the farthest corners in shadow. She aimed the gun at each in turn, but still saw no sign of the Italian – until a noise from above made her whip the weapon up.

  Despite his size and weight, Agnelli clearly had some skill at climbing. He had scaled the loculi before pulling himself up one of the pilasters, and was now over twenty feet above and still ascending. ‘Stop!’ Nina shouted, taking aim.

  He ignored her, toes scrabbling at footholds as he headed for a dark opening where a block had either fallen or been removed from the vaulted roof. She repeated her command, but knew she couldn’t shoot an unarmed and terrified man – and also that if he died, which a gunshot wound and the subsequent fall would all but guarantee, there was no way to discover who had paid him to photograph the Kallikrates text. All she could do was watch in impotent frustration as he reached the opening and squeezed inside.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ she spat as she realised where his escape route led.

  Into the Vatican.

  The city state’s own catacombs – those which had been mapped, at least – were centred beneath the vast basilica of St Peter. If Agnelli had discovered a way into the Vatican’s lower levels, from there he could enter the basilica itself . . . and then simply walk out into the streets of Rome.

  Nina shoved the gun into a pocket and started after him. ‘Two places in two days where I’ve been shot at,’ she muttered as she climbed. ‘If I get back to New York and someone tries to kill me there, I’m gonna kick their ass so hard . . .’ She reached the uppermost niche and took hold of the column set into the wall. It didn’t look the least bit safe – though the fact that someone of Agnelli’s bulk had scaled it without breaking it apart gave her some limited reassurance.

  Without the secure footing of the loculi, her ascent was now much slower. As she inched her way closer to the opening, the muffled sounds of Agnelli’s passage through the narrow tunnel faded. He was getting away from her.

  ‘No you goddamn don’t,’ she growled, pulling herself higher and refusing to succumb to the awful temptation to look down at the ever-increasing drop. Instead she fixed her eyes on the dark hole as she brought herself within reach. It was a few feet to the pilaster’s side – she would have to stretch across to it, taking her weight on one hand.

  No choice. Nina took a deep breath, then clutched the ancient stone as tightly as she could with her left hand as she reached out with her right, hooking her fingers over the lip of the new passage—

  Her left hand slipped.

  She screamed, clawing desperately at the wall. Her right foot jolted from its hold, leaving her suspended and straining between two very precarious points like a human tightrope. She scraped her toe against the ancient stonework for a terrifying eternity before finally finding purchase on a jutting brick. That gave her just enough leverage to bring her left hand up to the hole and grip the edge. A few seconds to recover her breath, then she pulled herself into the low passage.

  Heart rate dropping from that of a frightened rabbit, she looked ahead. The passage, what she could see of it in the dim light from below, was about thirty inches wide and slightly lower, angling upwards into darkness. She could hear a distant rustle as Agnelli crawled up the incline.

  The gun was a hard lump pressing into her side. She drew it and headed after him.

  Very quickly, she was in total darkness. An instinctual fear rose: simple unreasoning terror at being in a confined space, unable to see. ‘If he can fit,’ she whispered to herself in an attempt at reassurance, ‘so can I. I don’t have a fat ass. Well, it’s not huge or anything. I mean, I work out. Kind of. When I have the time . . .’

  The distraction did its job, the encroaching panic retreating. Looking ahead, she saw a faint glimmer of light marking the tunnel’s end. It was mostly obscured by the silhouetted form of Agnelli – who as she watched pulled himself out and disappeared.

  Her anxiety returned, but now for a more concrete reason. Agnelli might be waiting in ambush at the top of the shaft. She slowed as she drew nearer, listening intently. Nothing. Had he already fled – or was he preparing to smash a brick down on her head?

  She hesitated a foot short of the exit . . . then scrambled through as quickly as she could.

  No stones dashed out her brains. Agnelli had already left the softly lit chamber. It appeared to be an archaeological excavation, crumbled walls having been dug out of the pale brown soil. But there was no indication that the dig was an ongoing project; instead it seemed frozen in time, as much a part of history as the ruins it had unearthed . . .

  Nina suddenly knew where she was.

  Beneath the Vatican, uncounted tombs and burial chambers dated back as far as Imperial Rome, layer built upon layer over centuries. The passage from the Brotherhood’s maze of archives emerged in the Scavi, a necropolis hidden under St Peter’s basilica. It had been unearthed in the 1940s at the instigation of Pope Pius XII during a search for the tomb of St Peter himself. Since then, the site had been left largely untouched – partly out of reverence, and partly for the more pragmatic reason that it was directly below the magnificent bronze baldachin of St Peter within the basilica, and further excavations ran the risk of damaging the foundations. Agnelli must have discovered the passage during his explorations of the catacombs – and now had his own private emergency exit into the Vatican.

  That thought spurred her back into action. She clambered over the ruins to a low opening in one wall. Drifting dust motes told her that Agnelli had squeezed through the gap not long before, dislodging chunks of crumbling plaster. She followed with more care, emerging in a narrow brick-lined
passageway. Holes in the walls led to other ancient chambers, including St Peter’s tomb, but Nina’s concern was something of more recent construction. A doorway led to a flight of metal stairs, heading upwards. Between the necropolis and the basilica were the Vatican grottoes: the tombs of the popes.

  Nina pounded up the stairs. A sound reached her – the low echoes of many voices speaking in hushed reverence. The Scavi was only opened for a handful of visitors each day, but the tombs above were a destination for pilgrims from all over the world. At the top, a door was swinging closed. She flung it back open and rushed through.

  Agnelli had clearly been through here – several people on their way to view the nearby Clementine Chapel were staring in shock down a hallway, having just been barged aside by the fleeing Italian. Nina added to their outrage by following suit.

  ‘Excuse me! Sorry,’ she called out as she ran down the hall, weaving between the visitors.

  Agnelli was leaving an audible trail of protesting voices. She followed it, emerging from the hall into a larger and more spacious section of interconnected chapels and shrines. This part of the grottoes was much busier: the tomb of John Paul II, a recent and highly venerated pope, was situated within.

  Nina slowed, scanning the throng of pilgrims. Where was Agnelli? Trying to blend in with the crowd – or using them as cover to escape?

  A woman’s cry told her it was the latter. She saw an elderly lady in black lying on the pale marble floor, her companions still reeling. Agnelli’s path was as clear as a ship’s wake.

  ‘Let me through!’ Nina shouted as she ran after him. Even giving a warning, she still had to sweep an arm ahead of her like a snowplough to push past the startled mourners – until a shriek of ‘Pistola!’ told her that someone had seen her gun.

  The chamber erupted into chaos, frightened people scattering in all directions. Nina cursed. She had briefly spotted Agnelli’s distinctive haircut over the crowd – now it was lost again in the confusion.

  A man called out ahead. From his authoritative tone he was clearly a member of the Vatican’s staff, trying to restore order. A woman shouted behind her; Nina’s Italian was limited, but she knew enough to pick out capelli rossi – red hair. Two attendants in dark uniforms swung in her direction, yelling ‘Scostare, scostare!’ as they pushed people out of their way.

  Nina ducked lower, angling away from the guards into the milling mass. She could no longer afford to be polite – if she were caught, by the time she explained the situation Agnelli would have escaped.

  A broad set of steps ahead. She jumped them, almost slipping on the marble as she landed and careering against a burly man. The gun was snagged from her grasp by his camera strap and clattered to the floor. Shit!

  No time to stop and pick it up. All she could do was keep running. Another glimpse of Agnelli. He was heading along the right side of the new room, passing the tombs set into the alcoves along it.

  He rushed into one of them. Nina glanced back. One of the guards had tripped on the steps, bowling over a tourist as he fell. His comrade was lost to sight behind a knot of panicking people.

  She reached the alcove, home to a stone sarcophagus, and charged through the doorway behind it. Ahead was a museum, archaeological discoveries from beneath the Vatican on display behind glass. No time for sightseeing; she continued to chase Agnelli through the rooms. He now had something in his hand – a phone, she realised.

  Who was he calling? And was he trying to get help – or backup?

  The panting Agnelli ran up a flight of stairs, thumb clumsily swiping over his phone’s screen. Once he got outside into the Piazzetta Braschi, he would finally have cell reception and be able to call the number his contact had given him for emergencies.

  Until now, his idea of what might constitute an emergency had been the Brotherhood becoming suspicious that he had secretly passed on information from the archives – not a madwoman chasing after him with a gun. The Brotherhood had killed her parents, and tried to kill her; after the ferocity with which she had attacked him in the catacombs, he had no doubts that she wanted to return the favour.

  The thought sent a resurgent wave of fear through him, blowing away his fatigue. He glanced back. She was gaining. Oh, God help me!

  Even in this holiest of places, God couldn’t assist him directly – but there was someone who could. He reached the top of the stairs and threw open a heavy door, tapping furiously at the screen as the phone finally got a signal. ‘Come on!’ he gasped as he ran into the square, turning to head for an archway that would take him out of Vatican territory back into Rome—

  He stopped abruptly. Beyond the arch, two men in brightly coloured uniforms and black berets were sprinting towards him: Swiss Guards. Their elaborate, old-fashioned clothing might have looked ridiculous, but anyone who took the soldiers themselves lightly would quickly regret their mistake.

  That escape route blocked, he ran for another. Nearby was an entrance to the basilica itself. He could get away through St Peter’s Square—

  A voice from the phone. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Copel!’ Agnelli cried in relief. ‘It’s Paolo, Paolo Agnelli! I’m in trouble – I need your help, now!’ Another look back as he reached the doorway. The redhead had just burst from the grotto entrance, the Swiss Guards veering to follow her as they passed through the archway.

  ‘Where are you? What’s happening?’

  ‘I’m in the Vatican,’ he said as he raced down a narrow connecting corridor. ‘The Brotherhood know what I did for you – and Nina Wilde’s chasing me!’

  Another voice in the background, a woman’s, said something in English with a tone of aggrieved disbelief. ‘Paolo,’ said Copel after a moment, ‘get to the Piazza del Sant’uffizio. We can meet you there in three minutes.’

  Even through his panic, Agnelli was surprised. ‘You’re that close?’

  ‘Just get there.’ The line went silent.

  He had no further time to think about the oddness of the situation. Instead, he hauled open another door, and entered the great basilica of St Peter.

  Nina pounded down the corridor. She was gaining on Agnelli – but the two Swiss Guards were closing on her much more rapidly. She had to slow them down . . .

  A fire extinguisher was mounted near the door into the basilica itself. She plucked it from the wall as she ran past, tugging out the safety pin, then spun to wedge it in the door jamb as she pulled the heavy door shut.

  Its weight forced down the lever – and a choking gush of carbon dioxide gas spewed from the nozzle. The Swiss Guards retreated from the freezing cloud, coughing and hacking.

  Nina didn’t wait to see if her improvised smokescreen had worked. Instead she pursued Agnelli through the basilica. Even in her flight, the building’s sheer scale and magnificence were awe-inspiring, the ceiling so high and the supporting pillars so huge that people seemed nothing more than toy figures beneath them. Glorious statues and paintings flashed past, altars and monuments to saints and popes, but she couldn’t afford to give the antiquities more than the briefest glance as she fixed her gaze on the Italian ahead. The two running figures were drawing attention, but the commotion from the grottoes hadn’t yet reached the vast church, the worshippers bewildered rather than scared.

  Agnelli reached the doors, swatting aside an attendant who tried to block his path. He ran out into the open. Nina hurdled the fallen man and followed, finding herself looking out across the huge expanse of St Peter’s Square. The name was something of a misnomer; the western end in front of the basilica was a trapezoid, beyond it a great elliptical plaza, at the centre of which was a towering Egyptian obelisk. The nearer part of the square was hemmed in by the walls of long galleries, but the plaza was in the embrace of towering colonnades to the north and south – through which could be reached the streets of Rome.

  Agnelli was running for the southern colonnade, having knocked down a barrier to cut diagonally across the square instead of being channelled around its edge. She raced afte
r him, startled tourists watching her. Some had cameras and phones raised. Great, she thought, I’m going to be in the news again . . .

  That was something to worry about later, after catching Agnelli. He was about thirty yards ahead, gaining a second wind now that escape was in sight. The Italian ran for another section of barrier. Much to Nina’s astonishment, the overweight youth successfully hurdled it with barely a break in his stride. Reaching it a few seconds later, she was forced to halt and scramble over the metal obstacle, losing precious time. By the time she cleared it, Agnelli had reached the colonnade and ducked between its great stone pillars.

  She followed. When she regained sight of him, he was on a wide street, the Piazza del Sant’uffizio – outside Vatican territory, a gate to her right marking the boundary of the Holy See. The Italian looked about frantically, apparently expecting to see someone in particular. The person he had phoned must have arranged to rescue him.

  ‘Agnelli!’ she tried to shout, but it came out as a strangled croak. In her adrenalised state she hadn’t realised how tired she was becoming, but her muscles were now rebelling against their endocrinal manipulation. ‘Stop!’

  If he heard her, he showed no sign. Instead the Italian kept running, himself showing growing fatigue that not even fear could overcome. He was still searching the street with increasing desperation—

  Tyres screeched. Nina leapt for the sidewalk as a glossy black Range Rover with darkened windows skidded round the corner behind her and swept down the street, engine roaring. Agnelli turned to face it, face filled with relief.

  The Range Rover didn’t stop.

  Its blocky nose hit him square on, sending him flying into the air, broken limbs flailing. He smashed down on the tarmac in a heap – and the 4×4 drove right over him with a horrible crunch of bones. Pedestrians screamed and ran for cover as the big SUV made a skidding handbrake turn to power back the way it had come.