by Jon Tracy
Tom’s now sweating hard and feeling weak.
He rests against the brick wall of a shutdown clothing shop, another victim of Europe’s savage economic downturn.
A police siren breaks the heavy hum of passing traffic.
He slides into the darkness of a doorway as Carabinieri patrol cars screech around the corner and head south.
Guilio comes out of the shop with a handful of white bags, his eyes fixed on the direction where the cop cars are headed. ‘I’ve got fasciature – bandages – to make a sling, and something a little special for you.’ He looks mischievous. ‘Let’s get out of sight so I can strap you up.’
They head around a corner and down a shadowy alleyway.
The first drops of a shower fall as Tom strips to his waist so Giulio can make a sling and arrange the arm in a position that takes some pressure off his right shoulder.
‘Feels as awkward as hell,’ he complains. ‘I dread to think how I’m going to cope when I need the toilet.’
Guilio’s worrying about more important things, like how useful the guy is going to be.
Maybe taking the walking wounded into battle isn’t a good idea after all.
He pulls a small white box out of his jacket pocket and shakes it. ‘We struck lucky. Some old lady was collecting her prescription of oxycodone and I picked it out of her basket. It’s going to help you a lot more than a few Advil.’ He unscrews the bottle and passes it over. ‘No point measuring it. Take a swig now, and if you’re still hurting badly, take another.’
Tom slugs some back and feels even guiltier. The pensioner was probably given the opioid because she was in a lot of pain, and now she’s going to be without relief because of him.
‘Okay, let’s move again.’ Guilio takes the bottle back and pockets it. ‘We’ve not got much further to go.’
He’s lying.
After another fifteen minutes of hard walking, Tom feels less pain but is dizzy and drained.
He gets a brief rest while Guilio ducks into a hardware-cum-convenience store and returns with two carrier bags bulging with new purchases and a rucksack. He opens the sack and empties the bags into it. ‘There’s a sandwich shop three doors down.’ He ties the rucksack up and swings it over his shoulder. ‘Let’s get some food and see if we can build your strength up.’
Ten minutes later they’re sitting on stools, wolfing down ciabattas with prosciutto, mozzarella and tomatoes, along with several litres of cool water and enough espressos to fuel them to the moon and back.
Guilio settles the bill.
Back outside, the showers of the last hour have turned into heavy rain. The black skies do their worst and the two men are soaked to the skin as they approach San Sebastian Gate and the start of the Via Appia Antica.
‘Do you know where you are?’ asks Guilio.
Tom does.
He looks up at the huge block of marble that forms the base of the gate, and its magnificent crenellated towers. ‘This is the start of the Appian Way.’
‘That’s right. Italy’s Route 66. The most famous road in our country.’ He points to the archway. ‘This is the bit of ancient highway that gave birth to the famous saying “All roads lead to Rome”. It was started three hundred years before Christ and ran for more than three hundred miles, finishing at Brindisi on the Adriatic. From there, ships left for Egypt, Greece and North Africa. This road we’re walking on carried Rome’s armies to some of their greatest victories.’
‘Let’s hope it does the same for us.’
Guilio laughs. ‘It wasn’t all good. It was also the place where more than two thousand members of Spartacus’s beaten slave army were crucified.’
They trudge on in silence.
Set back on their left is the Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis, the Church of Santa Maria in Palmis.
Tom doesn’t need any history lesson on this landmark. It’s home to a slab of marble said to bear the imprints of Christ’s feet. The spot where St Peter had a vision as he was escaping from Nero’s soldiers. Christ is reported to have been walking past him back into Rome, when Peter turned and shouted: ‘ Domine, quo vadis? ’ – ‘Where are you going, Lord?’ Christ answered: ‘ Eo Romam iterum crucifigi’ – ‘I am going to Rome again to be crucified.’ Peter took this as his cue to turn around and head back into the city and accept his own death and martyrdom.
Guilio shouts, ‘Through here.’
By the time Tom looks up, his guide has disappeared again.
The only place he can have gone is through an implausibly narrow gap in a large ancient wall.
Tom breathes in and painfully crushes his damaged shoulder through the gap.
Guilio is waiting for him. He’s crouched down, pointing at something on the horizon. ‘You see in the distance the Catacombe di San Callisto?’
Tom can’t. ‘No, not really.’ He puts his hand tenderly on the reawakened pain in his shoulder.
‘Trust me, it is there, the famous Catacomb of Callixtus.’ He points beyond a line of cypress trees. ‘And over there are the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian.’ He stands up. ‘We are now between the two.’ He floats his hand in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc. ‘Beneath our feet are a hundred acres of hidden catacombs, tunnels and galleries, some up to twelve miles long. There are more than half a million tombs and tens of millions of secrets buried right underneath us.’
‘And Valentina is being held down there?’
Guilio looks at him distrustfully. ‘Valentina and Anna.’
Tom knows this is the moment.
He can’t put it off any longer.
The time has come to tell Guilio that Anna is dead.
117
Guilio can tell that something bad is about to be said.
He’s right.
Tom gives him the truth. ‘Anna’s dead.’
The words drop like stones down a deep well.
It takes several seconds for them to make an impact.
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry. She died in hospital.’ Tom moves closer, extends his hand to Guilio’s arm.
Guilio smashes it away. ‘Dead? She’s dead and you didn’t tell me?’ Blood flushes to his face. His hands ball up into fists.
‘I couldn’t. Louisa’s life was in danger and now Valentina’s is.’
‘Aaaw!’ Guilio vents a deep scream and with both hands punches his own head. ‘No! No! No!’ He sinks to his knees on the wet ground and doubles up.
Tom stands over him.
He puts a calming hand to the back of Guilio’s head. ‘I’m very, very sorry. She died of a heart attack. I don’t know all the details, but I know everyone was shocked. They really were all trying to help her.’
Guilio doesn’t look up.
He can hear Tom but his words are muffled clouds blown around by a hurricane of emotion.
Already he’s starting to blame himself.
He promised Anna he would look after her, wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He told her not to be afraid, that he would always be there for her.
But he hadn’t been.
He’d failed her.
No two ways about it. When she needed him most, he’d been somewhere else.
He let her down and now she’s dead.
Tom moves away a few paces. Guilio has literally been struck down with grief and he understands that he needs space.
He has to come to terms with the initial shock.
Tom has stood many times with the loved ones of those who have just died, and he knows that acceptance of their death comes in waves. Slow waves. Only today, there’s no time for slow. Every second that Guilio spends crying and grieving brings Valentina closer to death.
Yet he has to be patient.
If Guilio shuts down, he’s lost.
He has no idea where the opening to the so-called womb is, or where to go even if he manages to get inside.
And he has no weapons.
Until now, he hasn’t even thought about such a thing.
He touche
s his pocket and feels the cell phone. The Carabinieri will have traced it by now; they’ll have a lock on it, he’s sure of that.
But will they arrive in time?
Too early would be disastrous.
Too late could be fatal.
Guilio stands up.
He turns.
His face is heavy with despair and loss.
Tom can tell he’s close to losing him. ‘Anna believed in God. I know she did, and you certainly know she did.’ He walks slowly forward and tries to bridge the chasm rapidly opening between them. ‘She is at peace now. She’s no longer frightened and can no longer be hurt by these people.’
‘She’s dead.’ Guilio’s face contorts. ‘Dead! You can’t get more hurt than that.’
‘I know. And these people must be held accountable for that. You can help make them accountable.’
Guilio stares blankly across the fields.
Tom hasn’t reached him. The gap is too big. He puts his hand on Guilio’s arm and is relieved that this time it’s not brushed away. ‘You can’t save Anna, but you can save someone who cared for her. Someone who wanted her to be looked after and who risked her life not just to help her but to catch the people who had hurt her.’
Guilio understands what Tom is saying.
He also knows he’s being manipulated.
But he can’t simply walk away, even though that’s what he wants to do. He can’t run to the loneliest spot on the earth and cry his lungs out like he needs to do.
Something won’t let him.
He tried to protect Anna because it was the right thing. And he knows that walking away from Tom and the woman he loves would be wrong.
‘I’ll help you.’ He nods several times, more as though he’s confirming things to himself than to Tom. ‘I’ll help you, even if it’s the last thing I do.’
118
A shaft of honey-coloured sunlight forces its way through a crack in the dark, thunderous sky.
Guilio walks towards a lightning-blasted apple tree and swings on a thick dead branch until it splinters away.
Once he’s broken it off, he rubs the splintered end on the field wall until it sharpens into a spike.
He walks back to Tom and throws the stake into the ground just in front of him. He slips off his newly bought rucksack, puts his hands around the back of his neck and unclasps a rope necklace from beneath his shirt.
Tom recognises the black triangular stone dangling from it.
It’s identical to the one Anna had.
The same as the shape drawn on the confessional wall at the Sacro Cuore del Suffragio.
Guilio digs into his pocket and produces a spool of what seems to be fishing line. He ties it to the clasp on the necklace and then moves to the right-hand corner of the field.
Tom follows him, bemused and fascinated.
‘You can help,’ Guilio announces as he squats. ‘Hold this for a moment.’
Tom takes the spool.
Guilio places the longest edge of the scalene pendant on the ground, with the shortest edge to his left.
‘Give me the spool for a second.’
‘Sure.’ Tom hands it down.
Guilio makes sure the rope and the line attached run as precisely as possible along the upward slope of the triangle.
He stretches out a third of a metre of line and then stands up and presses it into the ground.
He checks the angle again, adjusts it a fraction and then turns to Tom. ‘Take this end and walk in a straight line until I shout stop.’
Tom wants to ask a dozen questions, starting with why, but he doesn’t.
As he walks, Guilio shouts for him to move a little to the left or a little to the right.
‘Okay! Stop!’ Guilio slowly moves towards him, checking the lie of the line as he goes.
‘This isn’t the middle of the field,’ says Tom. ‘I’m no expert but I can tell it’s not the centre.’
‘That’s fine. I don’t want it perfectly in the centre. That’s the whole point.’
As Tom takes up his position, Guilio retrieves his pendant and fishing line and swings the new rucksack over his shoulder again.
Next, he traipses to the left-hand corner of the field and repeats the entire process, with the shortest side of the triangle now on his right.
He ties it down and walks slowly. Makes sure the line is meticulously straight until he reaches a point just past where Tom is standing.
‘Here!’ he says triumphantly as the lines cross.
‘Really,’ says Tom with more than a touch of sarcasm. ‘And what exactly is here?’
‘Be patient.’
Guilio drops to the ground. He puts his ear to the turf and systematically slaps all around the spot.
He pauses, undoes the pull-cord on the neck of the rucksack, searches inside and pulls out a gleaming garden trowel.
Tom watches as he digs, but still can’t see evidence of anything except scuffed-up grass and soil.
Guilio’s working up a sweat.
He digs and scrapes one way, turns and digs the other.
Soil stacks up around him like he’s a human mole.
He stands and scrapes the trowel in a circle, stopping every now and again to shift stubborn stones and thick lumps of clay.
He gets down on his knees again and dips his hand into the thin circular trench, which is less than a metre in diameter.
He starts pulling up huge chunks of turf.
Tom’s not sure what he expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t this.
In the cleared circle something flat, cream-coloured and round becomes visible.
It’s a giant marble disc.
A kind of manhole or storm-drain cover like the Bocca della Verita.
On it is the face of a woman.
The goddess Cybele.
Guilio brushes away the soil.
Tom now sees that her face is covered by lines – the lines of a pentagram.
119
The cell stinks.
Valentina tracks the stench to an unemptied slop bucket by the far wall.
She almost heaves.
Was this used by Louisa?
The thought gives her some strange comfort. They were careless with Louisa. They let her have a phone; they let her trick them into taking her out of here.
There’s still hope.
Still hope.
She picks up a rough blanket from the back of the cell. It smells of a woman’s perfume. Louisa’s, she’s sure of it.
Through the bars she sees the other cells. Three of them, she thinks.
A child is moving in one of them.
She only catches a glimpse of the girl, but she looks very young. Pre-teen? Most likely.
What kind of monsters would keep children underground?
Valentina knows the answer.
‘Hello!’ she calls tentatively.
Her voice echoes thinly in the stagnant air.
‘Hello! Is there anyone there?’ She waits several seconds. ‘I’m a police officer, who’s out there?’
Nothing.
Valentina is sure the kid’s still there. She’s certain she’d have noticed them bringing her down here.
‘Listen, I know you’re there. I want to help you.’
Nothing.
And then a mumble.
An answer. Too meek to be understood, but still an answer.
‘My name’s Valentina. What’s yours? What are you called?’
Wall torches suddenly flicker.
A door’s been opened. A draught has blown them.
She hears footsteps off to her right. No matter how hard she presses her face against the iron, she can’t see anything.
‘Move back!’
The voice is loud and surprisingly close.
Valentina’s as frightened as she’s ever been.
But she doesn’t move.
Shooter grins through the bars as he puts a key in the lock. ‘I told you to move back. Looks like I’m going to have to
teach you a lesson in obedience.’
120
All five corners of the pentagram are marked by what look like small slits filled with earth.
But they’re more than that.
They’re locks.
Only by working anticlockwise and putting alternate angles of the triangular pendant into the slits is Guilio able to flip off the fastenings that are holding the cover down.
He stands up, breathless. ‘This is one of the secret entrances, an emergency way into the womb. Once inside, you will need to follow me and do exactly as I tell you.’ He looks at the American to check he has no problems with what he’s just said.
Tom uncaps the bottle of oxycodone. ‘I understand. I’m on your coat tails.’ He takes several swigs of the medicine. He knows he’s going to need all the painkiller he can get for what’s about to happen.
‘Good. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s going to be dangerous in there. There are several tunnels that will take us through to where the sisterhood lives. Not all of them are safe.’
Tom screws the cap back on the bottle and slips off his coat. ‘Subsidence, you mean?’
‘That’s a risk, but it’s not what I meant. Some are deliberately unsafe. They have been designed to protect those in the womb and kill intruders.’
‘But you know your way, right?’
‘I think so.’
‘You think so?’
Guilio manages a grim smile. ‘Just as there was a sequence to follow to unlock that hatch, there are sequences when we get inside. If I get one of those wrong, then we’re in trouble.’
Tom unbuttons his shirt and struggles with the sling.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I have to get out of this. I’m no good to you or myself with only one hand free.’
Guilio knows he has a point. Better to hurt a cracked shoulder bone than to die trying to protect it.
He helps with the bandage. ‘How does it feel?’
Tom stretches his fingers. ‘Pins and needles from having it elevated, but I’ll be fine.’
Guilio doubts it. One whack on the cracked bone and the guy is in a world of pain. He crouches and dips into the rucksack. ‘Torches.’ He passes over a black rubber flashlight and jams one in his own belt. ‘And weapons.’ He smiles as he holds out a fistful of household tools.