The Last Sicarius

by Van R. Mayhall Jr.

  “There are only two such obvious places in the church,” the monsignor said. “One is the tomb, which we have searched in detail, and the other is the full-size statue of Irenaeus we observed on our way out of the church.”

  Both turned toward the figure of Irenaeus that stood on the right ascending side of the church near the altar rail. Cloe studied the icon of the saint as she slowly walked toward it. It seemed completely unremarkable, but as she got closer, she could see from the style and detail that the statue was very old, much older than this nineteenth-century church. The porcelain figure was garbed in a ceramic robe-like cassock that replicated the coarse cloth of the day. A large rosary surrounded his waist like a sash or belt. He had a staff with a crook at the top that reminded Cloe of a shepherd’s walking stick.

  They both studied the staff closely. Finally, the monsignor straightened and said, “I think we may have found our key.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Cloe called to the others, and soon J.E. and the camerlengo were also closely examining the staff. It extended from above the head of the life-size statue to near his left foot on the base of the work.

  “I don’t see any breaks in the rod,” said the monsignor. “It seems to be made of one piece. Surely the whole thing is not the key.”

  “Mom, the keyhole in the tunnel had a unique shape to it,” said J.E. “Look at the end of the shepherd’s crook. That’s the only place we can clearly see the cross section. It’s close, but it’s not the same as the keyhole.”

  “J.E., can you show us the picture you took?” asked Cloe.

  Cloe stood back as J.E. pulled out his cell phone and pulled up the picture of the keyhole. They all stared at it and at the end of the staff.

  The monsignor said, “The staff is solid stone or very hard wood. Even if we could get a section from it, I do not believe it is a match for our keyhole. It seemed promising at first, but it’s not the key.”

  “Well then, where is the key?” questioned Father Sergio.

  Cloe had continued examining the statue as they discussed the rod. Her eyes now fixed upon the large cross at the end of the heavy rosary around the saint’s waist. It also seemed to have been constructed of porcelain or some similar ceramic material. It had been painted in incredible detail.

  “Hmmm,” she said. “What’s that writing at the foot of the cross? Are those numbers? I haven’t seen that before.”

  The monsignor peered at it and said, “It’s Greek, which is a little unusual itself here in a Roman province. Cloe, what does it say?”

  Cloe looked closer, studying the inscription. “It’s a number, 177,” she said. “There does not seem to be any punctuation. Could that be a year?”

  “Perhaps,” said the monsignor, considering the possibilities. “That would be about the right time for the creation of the original church, plus or minus.”

  “But where does that take us?” asked J.E. “What else happened in 177 AD?”

  “Nothing comes immediately to mind,” said the monsignor dejectedly. “Wait a minute. Some of the early martyrs of the new Church were executed here about that time. In fact, one of the most famous, Blandina, was martyred in about 177.”

  “I don’t see how that connects to anything,” said Cloe.

  “Hold on,” said the young camerlengo. “What if it is not a year? What if it is 1-77 or 17-7 or 1-7-7? Could that mean something?”

  “The ancients didn’t use the month, date, and year convention as we do,” responded Cloe. “I don’t see what the others could mean.”

  “First-rate thinking,” said the monsignor. “But in ancient times the number one was sometimes code for the first book of the Gospels—Matthew. This code was used for the first three hundred years or so of Christianity because of the Roman persecutors. Early Christians needed to be able to cite the Gospels in a way that was not immediately obvious. Perhaps it is a reference to scripture.”

  “That would make sense, but what might it mean?” asked Cloe.

  “It may be a reference to the seventh chapter of Matthew, line seven,” said the monsignor.

  “But what does it say?” queried J.E.

  “It says, ‘Knock and the door will be opened to you,’ or words to that effect,” whispered the young camerlengo, fingering but not opening his pocket Bible.

  “Okay, then we have found our key,” replied J.E. “We just have to figure out exactly where it is. The cross is square, so it’s not the key.”

  The monsignor examined the boxy crucifix carefully and said, “Perhaps there is something inside the cross. It may be like a Chinese puzzle, possibly sliding open if we can find the trigger.”

  “Possibly, but would it even still work after so many years?” asked the camerlengo.

  Cloe moved forward and took off one of her shoes. “I have an idea,” she said. With that she smacked the cross with a wicked blow with the heel of the shoe. Both priests grimaced at the smiting of the religious relic.

  The cross shattered, and everyone but Cloe gasped as the strange object that had been concealed within its hollow interior was revealed. The gray-green article gleamed in the low light of the church.

  “Gentlemen,” said Cloe. “I think I can say that we have now found our key.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Wow, Mom … how did you know?” questioned J.E. excitedly.

  “I didn’t know. It was just a guess,” responded Cloe, grateful she had not damaged the statue for nothing. “But with the message on the cross itself, I had a good feeling it might be a sort of container for our key, based on the process of elimination. As someone once said, when you eliminate the likely possibilities, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the answer.”

  The monsignor chuckled. “Or words to that effect,” he said, recognizing the loose reference to one of the favorite sayings of literature’s greatest detective.

  “Whatever,” said Cloe, smiling. She knelt on one knee and studied the instrument in what remained of the crucifix. It was large, about the size of an old-fashioned jailhouse key. But it seemed to be made of the same material as the interior of the lock in the tunnel. “If I’m not mistaken, this is jade, just like the lock mechanism,” said Cloe. “Look at the pattern of the key. It’s designed to mesh with the interior gears of the lock.”

  She removed the key from what was left of its hiding place and held it to the light. Though it gleamed only faintly in the low light of the church, it mesmerized its onlookers as surely as if they had found the lost cache of Solomon’s gold.

  Cloe ran her fingers over the oddly shaped device. “J.E., shine your flashlight on the very bottom of the key.”

  He pulled the light out and shone it where directed, and there, Cloe clearly saw two marks that she had seen before. “Yuhd and shin,” she said with growing excitement.

  “Sorry, but what’s that mean?” asked the young camerlengo.

  Cloe, the dead languages expert, assumed her professorial role and said, “These are ancient Phoenician letters roughly translating into English as I and S. No one speaks this language anymore, so it was put here hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago.”

  “Well, it’s obviously the sign of our friends the Sicarii,” interjected J.E. “It’s the same as you found in Irenaeus’s death mask the last time here.”

  “Imagine,” said the monsignor, “once again, we are following the trail they left, perhaps almost two thousand years ago.”

  ***

  Soon they were back in the tunnel facing the ancient door. Cloe held the key they had extricated from the cross of St. Irenaeus. “How shall we do this?” she asked.

  J.E. responded, “Let me have the key. Everyone else needs to go up the tunnel shaft a ways, just to be safe in case something unexpected happens.”

  But what about you? Cloe thought.

  Reading her face, J.E. said, “Mom, I’m as fit as anyone here and, if something bad goes down, best able to get out of the way.”

  She couldn’t refute that,
so she handed him the key and slowly moved up the tunnel, calling out, “Be careful, J.E.” She wanted to add something about how much she loved him, just in case, but she knew this would embarrass him. When everyone was clear, J.E. moved to the door. As Cloe watched intently, he bent down and inserted the key into the mechanism.

  He turned to Cloe and flashed her a great Lejeune smile. Her heart almost burst. She continued watching closely as he exerted a bit of pressure on the handle of the key. Cloe saw it rotate. “J.E., it’s turning,” she whispered.

  Gears began to grind, slowly, reluctantly, after all these years. The area over the shaft where J.E. now stood began rumbling and vibrating, softly at first but then more violently. The ceiling above him appeared to ripple.

  “Run!” cried the camerlengo. “It’s coming down! It’s a trap!”

  Dust and spoil poured out of the overhead space, but it held. The noise abated, and the tunnel became as quiet as a grave. Then there was a click.

  “What was that?” asked Cloe.

  The monsignor peered into the gloom and said, “I think the door has been opened unto us.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Cloe stepped forward and studied the portal. The lock had given up its secrets, and the door was now ajar.

  “Careful,” cried the camerlengo. “Everything could still come down.”

  “I don’t think so,” said the monsignor. “If it was going to collapse, it would have done so when the key was turned.”

  J.E. grasped the edge of the door and began to pull it open. They all looked inside.

  “It’s just a wall,” said Cloe, disappointed. “The door opens to a wall.”

  J.E. had his light on the mass behind the door. “It’s made of mud or something like that.”

  “Very old mud,” said Father Sergio. “These are mud bricks that were common for building purposes many, many years ago.”

  “So if there was anything here, it has been sealed,” concluded Cloe.

  They all gathered dejectedly and sat down in front of the brick wall that sealed off whatever lay behind the Sicarii door.

  “Now what?” asked the camerlengo.

  “Well, now it’s time for some modern military technology,” said J.E. He grabbed the toolbox-size container he had brought into the tunnel and snapped the clasps on it. Soon, he had in hand a device that looked a little like a portable x-ray machine from a dentist’s office.

  “J.E., what is that?” asked Cloe. “I thought that was a toolbox.”

  “If I could hazard a guess, I would say that is a ground-penetrating radar machine,” interjected the monsignor, smiling and reading the large warning label pasted on the side of the device.

  “Right you are, Padre,” replied J.E. “We’ll warm this baby up and see what we are dealing with here. It can tell us what’s back there and about how far.”

  Cloe watched as J.E. activated the battery pack and pressed what looked like a very large bore barrel against the wall. He studied a screen at the back of the machine.

  After a few minutes, J.E. had completed his examination. “The wall is only inches deep, maybe twelve to fifteen inches. There’s definitely a space or passageway behind it,” he concluded.

  Excitement was again building in Cloe. “Now what?” she asked.

  “Well, we don’t have any tools, so I have to go back up to the van and get the rest of the stuff I brought.”

  “Why not just call Father Anton and get one of the Swiss to bring the tools here?” asked Father Sergio.

  “I haven’t been able to get a cell-phone signal since we entered the tunnel, Serge. Anyway, I want to check on our security,” responded J.E.

  ***

  A few minutes later, J.E. returned with two pickaxes and a shovel. He also had a small toolbox. “We’re being watched,” he said.

  “What do you know?” asked the monsignor.

  “I spoke with Father Anton,” replied J.E. “He and the Swiss have sighted at least two people observing the compound and our activities.”

  “They might be agents of the Kolektor’s forces or of this new stranger, the heir,” replied the monsignor.

  “Either way, I think we can count on them knowing who we are and what we are about,” concluded Father Sergio. “Perhaps we should consider leaving and coming back another time.”

  “No,” said Cloe. “We have come too far, and we are too close. But we must hurry.”

  They all turned to the wall, and with one of the pickaxes, J.E. struck it with a mighty blow. The barrier absorbed the strike with little apparent damage.

  “Well, I think we have our work cut out for us,” said Cloe.

  Each of them took turns with the picks and shovel. After about twenty minutes, they had cleared a hole large enough for them to enter. J.E. stepped up to it.

  “Whoa, J.E.,” Cloe said. “Remember, the exterior of this passage was booby-trapped. Let’s see what our lights can reveal.”

  All four of them shone their powerful little lights into the gloom on the other side of the barrier.

  “There’s not too much here,” said the camerlengo. “It’s just a short hallway framed up with wooden timbers like the tunnel.”

  “The walls are earthen like the tunnel,” added the monsignor. “They appear to have been excavated about the same time. I don’t see anything that looks like a trigger for a trap.”

  “The ancients were tricky,” said Cloe. “They seem to have spent a good deal of time thinking about keeping intruders out of their tombs and other secret places or making them pay the ultimate penalty if they did gain access. Let’s proceed very carefully, one at a time, and stay close to the walls. If there is some kind of pressure switch for a trap, it will be in the middle of the passage where people could be expected to walk and step on it.”

  She turned to enter, but J.E. said, “Mom, I’ll go first.”

  “You have the radar, and you are the only one who knows how to operate it,” she replied. “I got this.”

  Cloe entered the short tunnel, and the others followed. She pressed against the dirt wall and crab-walked sideways along the passage. With each step she worried she would spring some hidden latch, causing disaster. The light was bad and the air increasingly hard to breathe. Sweat broke out on her brow even though it was cool here underground. She realized she had so tensed her shoulders that her neck had begun to ache. How could walking such a seemingly short length of passageway take so long? But after a few more paces, she reached the end.

  “Thank God,” she said. She felt she had finished a marathon.

  “Well, there’s nothing here,” said Father Sergio. “It’s a dead end.”

  J.E. trained the radar on the left-hand wall. He repeated the procedure on the right-hand wall and then on the wall at the end of the tunnel. After a thorough examination he said, “Nothing.”

  “Could it be we have missed something?” asked the camerlengo.

  “I don’t see how,” said J.E. “The radar shows nothing within its range, which is considerable. Perhaps there was a cave-in that filled completely in if this area was once the library.”

  “Remember,” commented the monsignor, “when the possible fails us, what is left must be the answer. Try the floor.”

  Cloe watched as J.E. scanned the radar over the floor of the small cavity. His shoulders slumped as he studied the readout on the machine.

  “Nothing!” he said. “It’s a dead end.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “We are not quite finished,” said the monsignor.

  “Albert, we have carefully examined the walls, the end of the tunnel, and now the floor,” responded Cloe. “We’re done … Wait!”

  “Mom, what?” quizzed J.E.

  “The monsignor is right … No matter how unlikely, whatever is left must be the answer,” replied Cloe. “J.E., scan the ceiling.”

  J.E. worked the instrument against the ceiling, and a few minutes later, he nodded. “There’s something up there.”

  “How could that be?
The ceiling is a good eight to nine feet from the floor. Still, if we have learned anything about the ancients, it is to expect the unexpected,” commented the camerlengo.

  “It’s the last place anyone would look,” said Cloe. “Without the ground-penetrating radar, we would not have had a clue.”

  “Okay, everyone spread out and look for some sort of trigger or access,” said J.E. “Something’s up there, and we are going to find it.”

  Twenty minutes later, they had examined every inch of the space.

  “I couldn’t find anything,” said the camerlengo.

  Cloe realized none of them had found anything. It was a mystery, just like the keyhole. Could it be? she wondered. “J.E., where’s the key we used to get in here?” she asked.

  “Here,” he said, patting his pocket, “but I don’t see anyplace to use it.”

  “Oh my God,” the monsignor whispered.

  “Look at the door we entered,” Cloe mused. “We used the key on the outside to get in. What do you see?”

  J.E. and Father Sergio rushed to the door and examined it carefully. The monsignor grinned at Cloe.

  Father Sergio said simply, “There’s a keyhole on the inside of the door.”

  The short shaft was absolutely silent while its occupants considered the implications.

  “Why would there be a keyhole on the inside?” asked the camerlengo.

  “Yes … exactly!” said J.E.

  “J.E., close the door and engage the mechanism,” said Cloe.

  “Wait a minute,” suggested the camerlengo. “If you close the door, what if we can’t get out?”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be the problem. There’s a latch on the inside, so this was not meant to trap people in here, but to prevent them from entering—and then even if they did enter, they would find nothing. Ingenious!” concluded Cloe.

  J.E. swung the door closed, and everyone heard a click.

  “Now, J.E., I suggest you insert the key and turn it,” said the monsignor.