The Illumination

by Karen Tintori

  She slid it across the polished wooden floor toward the priest.

  “You might need this if we’re going to get out of here, Father. Where does that underground passageway lead?”

  37

  D’Amato was crouched behind a statue of the Virgin Mary. He was hiding in one of the two front alcoves carved into the stone walls. He was a third of the way down the sanctuary, on the same side as the door to Caserta’s office, pinned down by the gunmen.

  He knew there were two of them out there. No more—unless there were others stationed outside. And unless he was mistaken, he’d wounded at least one of them. He’d heard a stifled cry after the first round of shots. They were hiding now like he was, concealed in an alcove on the opposite wall—not the alcove directly across from him—the one nearer the back of the church.

  D’Amato was worried about the crash and the gunshot he’d heard in the priest’s office. Thirty feet away, he could see the door—it was closed, exactly as he’d left it.

  His throat was dry. He prayed Natalie was still alive and that she still had the pendant.

  There was no way he could get from the alcove to that door without stepping into the line of fire. He couldn’t get to the trapdoor beneath the main altar either. A beam of sunlight colored by the stained-glass windows slanted directly across the path he’d have to take.

  The only other light in the gloom of the church was the flicker of the votive candles lined up before the saints in each of the four alcoves.

  He stared hard at the door to the priest’s office, willing it to open. Slowly, stealthily, it did. His gaze swung to the alcove where his assailants were crouched.

  He wondered if they’d noticed it, too.

  He could see Natalie, Caserta, and Calo from the corner of his eye. They were sprinting low toward the main altar. Seizing an unlit votive cup, candle and all, D’Amato lobbed it across the pews like a baseball. It crashed not three feet short of the alcove from where the last shots had been fired.

  Gunfire roared toward the splintering glass, and he dove from his alcove, flattening himself against the cold slate floor. He fired furiously at the alcove catty-corner from him, covering Natalie and the clergymen as they scurried and ducked beneath the altar.

  Then a man’s voice rang out.

  “Natalie Landau!”

  It boomed through the cold vaulted space. D’Amato recognized it at once. The voice on his cell phone in New York, the voice that had demanded the Eye of Dawn.

  “I’m not a greedy man,” the voice called out. It was an arrogant voice, thickly accented. An Iranian accent, D’Amato thought, as he began crawling noiselessly along the sides of the pews, inching his way toward the main altar.

  “I offer you a trade, Natalie Landau,” the man continued. “An eye for an eye. Your sister’s necklace for the Eye of Dawn. If you come forward now and bring it to me, I’ll even let you and your friends leave this place alive.”

  Silence met his words.

  D’Amato crabbed on, hidden by the shadows and the low pews. The altar was only a dozen feet away. He heard the soft scrape of stone on stone coming from behind it. They were opening the trapdoor leading to the passageway.

  “You couldn’t shoot your mother if she was standing right in front of you!” D’Amato called. His words drew gunfire, but he was already rolling, propelling himself another ten feet closer to his goal as the bullets began to fly.

  He heard footsteps crossing the church, hard shoes running on slate, and then, surprisingly, more shots, this time coming from behind the altar. Which one of them got hold of a gun?

  Crouched behind the front pew, he spotted two men in silhouette slinking down the aisle on the other side of the church. Despite the shots Natalie, Calo, or Caserta had fired to slow them, they were still making for the altar.

  The man in the rear was limping—wounded—just as he’d thought. D’Amato took aim and counted, noting how many seconds it took for the injured man to appear in the gaps between the pews. An instant before he knew his target would be in position, he fired. The bullet pierced the man’s spine, and he went down like a puppet whose strings had been slashed.

  One down. One to go. D’Amato had no idea if he’d shot the ringleader with the Iranian accent or a sidekick.

  Suddenly, more shots rang out from behind the altar. As D’Amato saw the surviving gunman dive for the floor, he scrabbled across the remaining distance to the altar, up the three marble steps, and rolled behind it. Natalie, Calo, and Caserta knelt in the shadows, staring at him, white-faced.

  Calo was injured. His mouth was swollen and caked with blood, but Natalie and Caserta looked okay. The priest had a Walther in his hand, and looked like he knew exactly what to do with it.

  With relief he spotted the gap in the marble floor, only two steps to the right of where Caserta would stand to celebrate Mass. The large, circular trapdoor had been rotated away, revealing an opening just large enough for one person at a time to slip down into the dark recess.

  “I’ll wait and try to get this guy, you start—”

  “We’re all going down together,” Natalie whispered frantically, but before she could finish the sentence, more men burst through the doors of the church, shouting in Arabic.

  A hail of bullets rained into the altar.

  “Natalie, you go first,” the priest implored. “You have the tzohar.”

  Natalie slung her shoulder bag across her chest, and Rabbi Calo steadied her as she slid her legs into the narrow opening, scrabbling for a toehold.

  “The ladder is to your right. It’s rusted, but it’s strong,” Caserta whispered, as D’Amato leaned around the altar to fire off another round.

  “Get them! They have no escape,” the Iranian bellowed at the newcomers. “The woman has the Eye of Dawn!”

  Natalie’s head disappeared below the floor as D’Amato fired again, trying to pinpoint the shooters’ locations, alert for any sounds of approach.

  “Can I lock this thing behind me?” he asked Caserta as the priest swung himself through the trapdoor after the rabbi.

  “You’ll find the lock as soon as you slide it back in place. Hurry,” the priest urged.

  And then he, too, dropped from sight, and the only sounds D’Amato could hear were the soft scrapes of leather soles against the ancient metal rungs and the insistent pumping of blood in his ears.

  He fired off a hailstorm at the three men charging toward him, emptying his chamber. And then he dove toward the opening, swung himself down, and heaved the heavy tile back into place above him.

  Darkness swallowed him, black and thick as tar. From below, he heard an intake of breath, and the footfalls ceased.

  Suffocating on the pungent, acidic smells of centuries-old mold and decay, he flailed his fingers against slime and cobwebs and cold marble in search of the latch. He couldn’t even see his hand as he groped desperately, blindly.

  Where the hell is it?

  38

  Natalie fumbled with the zipper on her shoulder bag, one hand still clinging to the ladder, the darkness smothering her like an Egyptian burial cloak. Her nostrils stung from the stench of dead air—an odor she knew well from countless digs. Breathing shallowly, she groped through her bag for her penlight.

  “Hold on, I’ve got a light in here somewhere,” she called softly upward.

  A moment later her hand closed on the miniflashlight, and she yanked it out. A slender beam of light pierced the blackness.

  “Let there be light,” Rabbi Calo’s voice chirped out, several feet above her.

  She swung the beam toward her feet and saw she was nearly at the bottom. The ladder ran perpendicular to a shallow ghostly staircase carved from the subterranean stone but its steps were crumbling and impassable now.

  “Not much farther,” she called up. “How are you managing, Rabbi?”

  “Don’t worry about me.” His words floated down to her. “It’s only a tooth. A tooth can be replaced.”

  D’Amato’s voice c
ame from somewhere above the rabbi’s. It was as grim and solid as the walls. “Where does this passageway end up? In the catacombs?”

  “No, not at all. Contrary to what many believe, the early Christians never did hide in the catacombs.” Father Caserta’s voice wheezed as it echoed off the dank walls. “They wouldn’t have built an escape tunnel straight to where the Romans knew they buried their dead.”

  “And they couldn’t have lived long in the catacombs even if they’d tried to hide there,” Natalie added, keeping her tone low, although she estimated she’d descended at least twenty feet and could no longer be heard by anyone still in the church. “The air was too toxic from the decaying bodies.”

  Suddenly her foot touched solid ground, and she called up, “I’ve hit bottom.” Stepping clear of the ladder, she shone her penlight in an arc.

  She found herself at the entrance to a small passageway, no more than three feet wide, its roof no higher than eight feet. Just ahead, the tunnel branched off in two directions. Uncertain, she waited for Father Caserta to lead the way.

  She swiveled the light back up to shed pale illumination on the rusted ladder. Rabbi Calo had just reached the bottom rung; Father Caserta was only a dozen steps above him. Their movements were slow and cautious, their faces drawn.

  She shivered in the damp of the tunnel and groped in her bag for the pendant, trying to accept the enormity of what she’d learned just before the attack.

  The legends of the tzohar, the light of creation. She knew she was carrying an ancient pendant, but it was too big a leap to conclude that this was the legendary biblical gem. A tiny treasure from the Middle East, which had crossed the ocean to come into her possession.

  What I think doesn’t matter, she thought. If others are convinced this pendant is truly the tzohar, it’s no wonder they’re willing to kill me to get it.

  D’Amato was the last to jump free of the ladder. He glanced around, dusting his palms off on his pants.

  “So where exactly did the early Christians hide?” he asked, scanning the dank, claustrophobic space.

  “They hid here. And in other similar subterranean chambers,” Caserta explained. “It wasn’t until A.D. 380 that Christianity became the state religion. Before then, if the followers of Jesus wanted to avoid being thrown to the lions as a sporting event in the Coliseum, they often had to escape underground.”

  “And our way back to daylight is . . . ?” D’Amato queried.

  “May I?” Father Caserta held out his hand for Natalie’s penlight and headed for the passageway on the left. “The one on the right is blocked off about a hundred meters ahead. This one will take us out into the ruins of an eleventh-century abbey.”

  “How far?” Natalie asked, trailing close behind him in the narrow corridor.

  “A little more than three kilometers,” the priest told her over his shoulder.

  “About two miles,” D’Amato translated.

  “Those men back there—you’ve met them before?” Rabbi Calo asked her. He was trudging slowly, his injury taking its toll. One hand cradled his damaged jaw.

  “They were involved in my sister’s murder. And they came after us in New York.”

  “You’ll remain in grave danger as long as you’re carrying the tzohar,” Calo cautioned. “What do you plan to do with it?”

  “I think the best way to find out what this pendant really holds is to take it to Israel. If you’re right, Rabbi, that’s where it was stolen from in the first place. And if you’re not . . .” She exhaled. “The Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem is among the best in the world at studying ancient Middle Eastern artifacts.”

  Calo nodded approvingly. “Yes, take it to Israel. That’s where some say it shone long before the world existed,” he said. “For another of our legends recounts that the tzohar shone from the place that would become Jerusalem even before God spoke the world into existence.”

  “So the legends are contradictory,” D’Amato said from the rear. “How do you know what to believe?”

  “As with everything else in this life, that is something each person must decide for him- or herself,” the rabbi said in the darkness, his voice labored. “But I believe your decision is the right one, Ms. Landau. The tzohar must return to its home. Jerusalem. The Israel Antiquities Authority will know best how to study and safeguard it.”

  On that, she agreed with him completely. The IAA had been established in the early nineties to collect, study, and preserve Israel’s cultural and archaeological treasures. Its headquarters was in the Rockefeller Museum just outside the Old City.

  Now all she had to do was get it there.

  A short distance later the tunnel narrowed, its roofline slanting to less than six feet, forcing D’Amato, like Caserta in the lead, to duck his head as he walked. He tried his cell phone. There was no signal underground, not that he’d really expected one.

  “When we get to the abbey, Father, take the rabbi to the hospital.”

  “And you and Ms. Landau? How will you get away?” the priest murmured in the darkness.

  “We’re working on it.”

  More like we’re making it up as we go along, Natalie thought.

  “I have an idea,” Rabbi Calo offered. “You can use my car.” His hand was already in his pants pocket, withdrawing a set of keys. “It’s a red Fiat with a dent in the passenger door—it’s parked in the lane behind the gelateria two blocks north of the synagogue. Drive to Florence. I have a cousin there who’ll bring it back to me.”

  “Best plan I’ve heard all day.” D’Amato pocketed the keys. “The trick is going to be getting back to your car without an entourage of bullets.”

  39

  There had been only one cab in the vicinity when the four of them emerged at last from the tunnel and stumbled through the crumbling abbey and out into the sun. Both Calo and Caserta had insisted D’Amato and Natalie take it. Neither spoke as the cabbie circled back toward the Great Synagogue of Rome.

  “Drop me off here,” D’Amato ordered suddenly, wrenching Natalie from her thoughts. They weren’t anywhere close to the gelateria yet. As she turned to him in surprise, he leaned over and spoke tightly in her ear.

  “We just passed two NSU agents—I recognized one of them. He’s former CIA. We worked together briefly in Jerusalem.” D’Amato scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I don’t know the agent with him, but they always work in pairs, and they have to be looking for us. They’re only two blocks away from the synagogue—that’s no coincidence. They must have tracked us there.”

  “NSU?” she whispered back.

  “National Security Unit. It’s a top-secret terror-fighting agency—Homeland Security’s version of the CIA.”

  “They’re after us, too?” Her heart sank.

  “Not if I can help it. I’m going to draw them off.” He thrust the keys into her palm. “You get the car, pick me up on the Via del Corso near the Spanish Steps. Know where they are?”

  She nodded, bracing herself.

  “There’s a Benetton on the corner. Keep circling until I find you. Can you drive a stick?”

  “It’s what I learned on. D’Amato . . .” Her voice trailed off as the cab slid into the curb and he shoved his door open. He glanced back at her, waiting.

  “Be careful.”

  His eyes were unreadable.

  She sucked in her breath as he sprang from the car and loped off, back in the direction they’d just come from.

  “It’s up a few more blocks,” she told the driver, her fingers clamped around the car keys. “The gelateria.” She suddenly felt like she’d never see D’Amato again.

  As the cab stopped to let her out, she scanned the clusters of people sitting outside the ice cream shop. They all looked like natives or casual tourists. Laughing. Dipping spoons into brightly colored gelato, enjoying the welcome sun and the spring day. Her own stomach rumbled with hunger as she pushed some bills at the driver and bolted from the cab, sprinting toward the rear of the building, car ke
ys at the ready.

  But even as she zeroed in on the rabbi’s Fiat ahead, a man moved quickly into her peripheral view.

  Her head snapped to the side to look at him. Then her breath caught.

  She’d seen him before. The last time he’d been wearing a baggy gray sweatsuit. Today his tall, muscular body was encased in jeans and a hoodie. But there was no mistaking the powerful physique. The way he moved. It was Ski Mask.

  The thug from the museum.

  He spotted her at the same instant. A smile broke across his wide face, and he started forward.

  She ran for the car, darting down the middle of the street, pressing the remote key frantically. He was ten paces away—she could still make it. But as she flung the door wide and threw herself onto the warm leather, he came on with a burst of speed that propelled him over the hood of the car in a split second.

  She couldn’t close the door in time, let alone lock it. He reached in, seized her arm, and yanked her out, shoulder bag and all. She was pinned between him and the car, staring up into those amber-flecked brown eyes.

  “Give it over, and I won’t have to hurt you.”

  His voice was hushed, almost fervent. In it she heard the same soft trace of a drawl she’d heard in the museum.

  How did he find me?

  “Is it in your bag?” he demanded. “Or your pocket? Give me the Light now. I don’t want any accidents, like I had with your sister’s buddy, Sutherland.”

  “Rusty!” Natalie choked out. He must have followed Rusty to the Devereaux . . . waited for him to come out. . . . Horror swallowed her. He came back to the museum looking for the pendant when he didn’t find it on Rusty.

  “No one’s here to help you this time. So do us both a favor—just give me the Light.”