The Lost Apostles

by Brian Herbert

  “She’s not offering to give up the Vatican,” Lori said, “or to return the Pope.” Her chair had a hard cushion, with an unfortunate lump in the middle. She shifted to one side, trying to get more comfortable.

  “I noticed,” the NATO Commander said.

  Next, Lori passed Deborah Marvel’s letter to him. “This tells us where Martha of Galilee is being kept, on the third floor, at the southwest corner of the Vatican Palace.”

  Lori explained how she had eleven authentic she-apostles in her care, while Dixie Lou had a dozen fakes, and what sounded like one real one, Martha of Galilee. While the girl spoke, the General nodded and said he knew all that, then read the Marvel letter.

  “I wonder if this woman is lying,” General Selkirk said, as he finished the letter and set it down. He rubbed his mustache thoughtfully.

  “I don’t think so,” Lori said. “I think she’s telling the truth and we need to move fast, before the information gets stale.”

  Selkirk gazed at Lori across the desk’s black, gleaming surface.

  “I just sent Dixie Lou a message saying I needed twenty-four hours to reply,” Lori said. “I didn’t respond to Deborah Marvel at all.”

  Clearing his throat, General Selkirk said, “Tomorrow, I want you to send the Grand Messenger a note that her proposal is acceptable, but tell her you and the she-apostles can’t get through NATO lines, because you’re being watched too closely.”

  “Acceptable? But I don’t want to be High Priestess of the Holy She! I just want the she-apostles safe, all twelve of them.”

  “He’s right,” Zack said to his daughter. “We need to reply or she might do something crazy.” He grimaced. “As if she hasn’t already proven herself a nutcase.”

  Selkirk leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. “This is just a delaying tactic, Miss Vale, so that we can make full preparations.”

  “For what?” Lori asked. She fidgeted in her chair, couldn’t seem to get comfortable.

  “For our best attack option,” he said, in a tone that she found irritatingly patronizing, as if he were talking to a child.

  “We need to protect Martha of Galilee at all costs,” Lori said, “so I want you to include me when your assault squad goes into the Vatican.”

  General Selkirk’s eyes opened wide. “Out of the question.”

  “Hear me out,” she insisted. “Please. Let me explain.”

  The Scotsman looked imploringly at the teenager’s father, but Zack said, with a bemused expression, “I can’t keep her under control, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Martha of Galilee is incredibly important to the Christian community and to all of humankind,” Lori said. “We are at a critical turning point in history, where the child’s death could have huge, catastrophic consequences. Much more is at stake than the loss of the Vatican or the Pope. I’m talking about something else.”

  Catastrophic? the General said. Admittedly, it would be tragic for the child to be killed, but catastrophic? I can’t see why.”

  “I’m only beginning to understand what’s going on myself,” Lori admitted, “so it may be difficult for me to explain. But the phenomenon of the she-apostles is real, not a circus sideshow act or a scam. The gospels of eleven she-apostles in the Holy Women’s Bible are real, and Martha of Galilee has the final gospel, the information needed to complete this momentous and pivotal holy book. If she dies, her secrets go with her, and there may never be another opportunity to find out.”

  “You are well spoken for your age,” Selkirk said, “but I don’t believe any of that garbage about female apostles of Jesus. However, just for the sake of discussion, I’ll suspend my disbelief for a moment. Let’s suppose that they really are reincarnated apostles. If Martha dies, can’t she just be reincarnated again?”

  “General, it took almost two thousand years for these reappearances! It could take another two millennia for them to come back, or this could be our only opportunity at salvation.”

  “What about the male apostles, Peter, John, Matthew, and the others. Why haven’t they come back?”

  “I don’t know. I only know that these are the women who followed our Lord Jesus.” Lori’s voice grew passionate, louder. “They’re here to tell the true story of women, the story that has been suppressed by powerful men, the story that needs to be told today. Women are finally ready to hear it. The world is ready to hear it!”

  General Selkirk shook his head. “We have a mission to accomplish here, and we can’t be distracted by a teenage girl getting in the way. We can’t divert any resources to worrying about your welfare.”

  Gripping the arms of her chair, Lori said, “You need to rescue the Pope, right?”

  He hesitated. Then: “Right. And save the antiquities.”

  “What about the children that Dixie Lou has in there?” Lori asked. “And the skeleton Vatican staff? I assume you have contingency plans to protect innocent lives.”

  “Of course. We’ll try to save everyone we can.”

  “Aren’t the children more important than antiquities? Isn’t Martha of Galilee more important than things?”

  “Maybe the antiquities should come first. They are priceless, you know. Especially the Michelangelo and Bernini sculptures and paintings. It depends on how you look at it.”

  “You didn’t hear anything I said about Martha, did you?” Lori said, ignoring the hand her father placed on her forearm.

  “Now wait just a minute, young lady. I’m granting you my valuable time because your father is the President’s brother. Yes, I’m listening, but I have to make the final decisions.”

  “Martha is essential to the future of Christianity,” Lori said. “The Pope is a great and good man, and he needs to be saved, along with the last she-apostle.”

  “So many problems,” General Selkirk said, gesturing with his hands for emphasis. “The greatest art treasures in the world, the Pope, and a reincarnated apostle of Jesus. How much pressure can be put on me?”

  Zack flashed his own identity card, a hard piece of glittering, electronically impregnated film. “I’m Special Adviser to the President of the United States,” he said. “I want my daughter included in this mission, and I’ll pull whatever strings necessary to get it done.”

  Lori looked at him appreciatively.

  Rising to his feet, the General said, in a biting tone, “Is your brother going to call from the Oval Office and order me to include his niece when we go into the Vatican?”

  “If I ask him to. I am his older brother, you know.”

  “Don’t get all worked up, Markwether.”

  “Are you completely out of touch, Selkirk? Don’t you watch the news or read intelligence reports? My daughter is no ordinary teenager!”

  “I know who she is, I know who you are, and I know the stories about paranormal events. Just give me some time to think about it. I’ll let you know tomorrow morning.”

  Lori and her father rose to their feet at the same time, and she said, “We need a special unit to rescue Martha, giving her equal priority with the Pope.”

  “You don’t ask for much, do you?” the beleaguered Commander said, as he escorted his visitors to the door.

  Chapter 37

  There are ways within ways, secrets within secrets. If you dig deeply enough to solve any problem, you will always find an answer.

  —The Quotations of Lori Vale

  Built in the second century AD as the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s Mausoleum, in medieval times it was converted to the impregnable papal fortress, Castel Sant’Angelo. An immense, thick-walled citadel, it became the fortified home of popes, and a sanctuary whenever the Vatican found itself in danger of military attack. Multiple corridors connected it to Vatican City, a few blocks away—one an overhead, covered walkway—the Passetto Vaticano—and the much more arcane subterranean passageways.

  It was through the tunnel system that Pope Gregory VII may have escaped from King Henry IV of Germany, who in 1082 took control of St. Peter’s an
d the Vatican and installed the unelected Pope Clement III as his puppet. That was the original St. Peter’s—predating Michelangelo’s church. When the new cathedral was built in the sixteenth century, the passageway was left open and the secret of its existence zealously guarded. In modern times, the tunnel was blocked off, by order of Vatican authorities.

  Now, operating through intermediaries to conceal who was doing it, NATO arranged for Castel Sant’Angelo to be temporarily closed to public tours, under the guise of performing construction work required by life safety codes. Large trucks began arriving, and onlookers were kept at a distance. Out of sight of the public, contractors and engineers exited the trucks and filled the lower levels of the building, hurrying through corridors that led past ancient dungeons and torture chambers, taking with them the tools of their trade.

  Lori, her father, and Alex were in their midst, and only partially because of Zack’s relationship to the President of the United States. That morning, a sheepish General Selkirk had admitted to Lori’s father that his own wife had demanded the teenager’s inclusion. “Don’t you realize how important she is?” the wife had shouted at him. “Do whatever she wants!” So, to maintain the peace of his household, he consented to Lori’s inclusion in the mission, along with the two men.

  He also ordered a reconnaissance mission to check the subterranean routes between Castel Sant’Angelo and the holy city. . . .

  * * *

  Beneath the streets of Rome, half a dozen engineers faced a wall built of tightly-fitted stones, streaked in black, brown, and green. The men, culled from various allied armed forces, wore different national uniforms. The area was illuminated by their powerful helmet lanterns.

  NATO Commander Kenneth Selkirk stood off to one side with armed soldiers. In a thick Scottish brogue, he asked, “What’s the probe say?”

  A young American engineer pressed an electronic device against the wall. “Might be a hidden tunnel here, sir, but if so, it’s been closed off. I can’t read what’s on the other side. The wall’s too thick, or it has something to do with materials behind these stones. I don’t think anyone installed masking electronics here, not with a wall this old.”

  “Don’t assume anything,” a grizzled, paunchy engineer said, in French-accented English. “There are ways of making things appear old.”

  Looking on, Lori considered what she had learned from her father: Over the centuries, Vatican authorities had intermittently closed and reopened the secondary Sant’Angelo escape tunnel, but the research that Zack did was only of limited utility. Twenty centuries after Christ, only church leaders had the records of exactly where the hidden tunnel was, and how to open it back up.

  Now, staring at the wall where the tunnel might be located according to the instruments and documents, the engineers shook their heads and muttered among themselves. “We don’t know how much material we have to break through,” the Frenchman said. The other engineers called him Marseille, but that might have been a nickname based on the French city, perhaps his hometown. Sometimes Lori liked to speculate on things like that. Another engineer, who conferred frequently with the Frenchman, was a US Army sergeant.

  “Bust through anyway,” General Selkirk ordered. They were several blocks away from the Vatican, and he was not worried about making noise yet.

  It took almost an hour for their construction crew to drill into and knock down part of the wall, enough for people to get through. They probed with flashlights, and a short distance away they encountered a second wall, this one built of oversized, reinforced bricks. A pair of large rats squealed and scurried out.

  In another half hour, they penetrated that barrier, too. The French engineer stepped through first, then the others. Following them, Lori saw that the tunnel curved to the left.

  “Goes in the wrong direction,” Marseille said, splashing the illumination of his powerful flashlight ahead. He’d been checking his compass. Warily, the reconnaissance team proceeded through the passage, and presently the tunnel widened. Soon, they encountered what appeared to be three blocked tunnels. The Frenchman cursed in his own language.

  Checking his compass again, he said, “None of these tunnels point in the right direction.”

  “Which way now?” Selkirk asked.

  As the men studied the available documents, without finding anything of help, Lori felt a strong impulse. She went to a place on a wall and touched her open palms on its cool, damp surface of rock and mortar, then pressed the side of her face against the ancient wall. Strange images filled her mind, pulsing amorphous shapes in human form. Startled, she pulled away, and her mind cleared. Summoning her courage, she again pressed herself against the wall, and the images returned.

  “What’s she doing?” a man asked.

  Another: “Not sure.”

  “Leave her alone,” Zack said.

  Lori moved down the corridor a ways and touched her hands and face to the wall several times, without achieving the same result. Then she returned to the original spot on the wall that she had first selected, and the strange visual experience returned, even more sharply this time. She envisioned the tunnel open on this spot, and people hurrying through it in white, purple, and red robes, like phantoms from the past.

  “Punch through,” she said, with a feeling of absolute certainty. She moved to one side, folded her arms across her chest and stared at the French engineer.

  With a ferocious scowl, Marseille said, “But that’s not even one of the blocked tunnels.”

  “I suspect tricks,” Lori responded, “set up by the Popes to throw their enemies off, to confuse them.” She tapped the wall. “The real tunnel lies on the other side.”

  “My daughter may be right,” Zack said, obviously trying to be supportive, although she detected doubt on his face. “This could be a clever labyrinth of barricades and false passageways set up to protect the Vatican, to keep the Pope’s backup escape route from being accessible to attack.”

  Another rat ran by, squealing.

  “At least the rats seem to know their way around in this maze,” Alex quipped. This elicited chuckles, but they quickly tailed off as the group considered the predicament.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Zack said. “Break through the wall.”

  “Do it,” General Selkirk said.

  The section of wall, which on this side had appeared to be as thick as the others they had encountered and was impervious to electronic probing, proved to be only half the thickness. As the construction crew took the stones apart, Lori thought it was designed to be easy and quick to open, in the event of emergency. A tunnel opened up on the other side.

  “You were right, lassie,” Selkirk finally said to the teenager, patting her on the shoulder. “You’re our new secret weapon.”

  She smiled.

  This time a heavy iron door lay a short distance into the tunnel, with a rusty lock mechanism. They broke it open, and beyond that found a long passageway that they hurried into, excitedly. The way curved around to the right, then straightened.

  The Frenchman checked his compass as the squad proceeded, with helmet lights showing the way. “Oui, now we are going in the correct direction!” he exclaimed.

  Finally the tunnel turned to the left for a short distance, then sloped slightly upward and widened as it came to an end. Four heavy iron doors lay ahead of them, each much larger than the first one they had encountered, with more elaborate lock mechanisms.

  “Whew!” one of the engineers said, as he examined the obstacles. “These babies are built. We’ll have to use muted explosives.”

  “Which door do we go through?” General Selkirk asked.

  All eyes looked at Lori. As the men turned, their helmet lights focused on her, bathing her in a pool of illumination.

  The teenager hurried forward, pressed her open palms against each of the old doors, and then touched the side of her face against the surfaces. She hesitated, trying to decide between the two at the center. Both were important passageways
, filling her mind with phantoms from the past.

  “This one,” she finally said, designating the one on the right.

  “You’re sure?” Selkirk asked.

  She took a deep, excited breath. “This is this way we want to go,” she said. “No doubt about it.”

  “Sir, we’re almost to Vatican City,” the American sergeant said, to General Selkirk. “Maybe we shouldn’t go any farther today?”

  “You’re right. We’ll break through when we’re ready.” He looked at Lori and her father, and said to them, “I like this. It gives us the element of surprise. Obviously the women didn’t examine this tunnel system, because it hasn’t been disturbed for a long time. We’ll mobilize at Castel Sant’Angelo and pour through the tunnels, with airborne commandos and other forces standing by, ready to go at the right moment.”

  “Good,” Zack said.

  “We’re calling it Operation Deliverance,” General Selkirk said.

  While the engineers took photographs and scribbled notes, Lori thought back to the sensations she’d felt when holding hands with she-apostles, and afterward when flying from North Africa toward Rome, and she’d known the correct way to go, without knowing exactly why. Now she wondered if this was similar. Was she following a scent of a different sort now? Had Martha of Galilee been taken this way, through a tunnel? In view of the obstacles they had encountered so far, she didn’t see how that could be possible. Still, she was sure it was the best route to the child, the best way to rescue her.

  But how do I know that?

  Lori felt her consciousness opening up, making neural pathways available to her that she had not known existed before. Somehow, her ability to detect lies while interrogating Wendy Zepeda and the two guards was linked to this burgeoning ability.

  Truth without words.

  In her mind, Lori Vale could envision a subterranean pathway on the other side of the door, a stairway, and a corridor that led to the Vatican Palace, where the corrupt women were keeping Martha of Galilee.

  And Lori couldn’t wait to go.