Griffin’s brows raised slightly at the number. “And where is this crypt located?”
To which Xavier replied, “Hard to say. Countless churches and cathedrals in Italy were built atop older churches, which commonly were built atop underground crypts for burial purposes. There’s a lot of bones down there.”
And Francesca said, “Everything I have heard on the keys directs us to a bone chamber of some sort. Since the first key was an inscription by a skull, and that led us to the Capuchin Crypt, I have to think we may be looking for another skull, or if it is truly leading us to a Templar map, a skull and crossbones.”
Sydney glanced over at the computer and the phrase from the chapel entrance. “How does this old quote help us?”
“That,” Francesca said, “is what we hope to find out once we get to the right location.”
“In other words,” Griffin said, copying the phrase onto a napkin. “Like the missing second key, you don’t have the answer.”
Francesca shook her head. “No. Not yet. But if time is of the essence, then what choice do we have?”
“No choice,” Griffin said.
Xavier smoothed out the map. “Here is the last place I was able to explore, using the coordinates we pieced together before-” He cleared his throat, took a breath. “-the last time I saw Alessandra.”
Sydney wanted to reach out, touch his hand, tell him it would be okay, but she knew it was a promise she couldn’t make, and he continued with “This is where di Sangro lived. And over here is a long section of tunnel that was known to have led to an underground marketplace back in the first and second century A.D. Di Sangro spent his fortune retrofitting his church, but it’s believed he was also retrofitting the caverns below it near that marketplace. It’s here that makes the most sense, because they could enter the tunnel without being seen from the outside, work as long as they needed, and no one’s the wiser.”
Griffin studied the map. “Do you think he went to the trouble of booby-trapping this chamber?”
“Legend aside, it would have taken a genius to design it, and the expertise of master masons to pull it off. Di Sangro was a genius in his own right. He ruined his own reputation, allowed himself to be shunned by society to protect the greater good, guarding this map. Which is a long way of saying yes, I do believe it. Without the key, anyone who enters the cache and disturbs the treasure will be crushed.”
“And these other paths,” Griffin said. “Where do they lead?”
“To here,” Xavier replied, pointing to each direction on the map. “This is my best estimation of where we want to end up. My cousin and I have done some exploring at this location, but we hit a dead end going down into a cistern. This time, I think we need to go up further in the tunnel, not down.”
Griffin leaned in for a better view. “It doesn’t look all that far.”
“Even so, I have to warn you, we’ll be heading into an area that, if you’re the least bit claustrophobic or afraid of the dark or heights, might make you uncomfortable.”
Okay, probably not the time for Sydney to mention her fear of the dark. But that’s what flashlights were for. Aloud, she said, “Heights? We’re going underground.”
“When you’re hanging from a rope with nothing beneath your feet but unending darkness and over a hundred-foot drop, it really doesn’t matter what you call it.”
At which point she had to remind herself this wasn’t about her and what she feared, especially when Griffin said, “You’re welcome to stay behind.”
“So you can get all the credit for rescuing Tex? Don’t think so.”
“To the tunnels, then.” He smiled, but it was grim, and she gathered that traveling to the center of the earth wasn’t his idea of fun, either.
Xavier’s cousin, Alfredo, met them at the basilica, handing them each a small pack containing extra rope, a hard hat with headlamp, gloves, water, and a flashlight from the back of his utility van. He eyed each of them, judging their sizes, then gave each a bright orange jumpsuit with reflective strips across the chest and back and sleeves. Apparently he had plenty to spare. “It’s a steady fifty degrees down there. Chilly. These will help keep you warm, and protect your skin and clothes from those tight spaces.”
Sydney took the pack, realized it was too small to put her travel bag with her sketchbook into it, and decided to leave the travel bag behind in Alfredo’s van. She pulled on the jumpsuit, then started toward the entrance to the catacombs beneath the basilica, when Griffin stopped her. “Take these,” he said, handing her a folding knife and a semiauto from his backpack, the Beretta they’d taken from their earlier assailants.
From the weight of it, it felt fully loaded, and she ejected the magazine, saw there were fifteen rounds. “You think it’s Adami’s men following us?”
“Like his man said when I called him at the train station to ask that very question, he has no need to follow when he knows where we are going, and where we’ll end up.”
“If it’s not his men, then who?”
“Someone who knew enough to follow us on a train to Naples-which makes me wonder if it isn’t whoever stole the professor’s computer. We’re assuming we lost the man at the hotel, and we got to Xavier first, but as of now, we have no way of knowing that Xavier or his cousin were not being followed.”
Sydney glanced over at Xavier and Alfredo, who were helping Francesca with her jumpsuit. Suddenly the thought of walking through tunnels or rappelling into the vast depths of a cistern no longer bothered her.
Being murdered and left behind in some long-forgotten chamber, knowing that her bones might not be discovered for centuries, was far worse. “I’ll keep an eye out,” she said, replacing the magazine, then putting the weapon in the pocket of her coveralls. She started toward the others.
“There’s something else. Something I haven’t told you.”
He stepped in close. But then Xavier called out that they were leaving, and Griffin moved away, saying, “It can wait.”
His face held that stubborn, closed look she was beginning to recognize, the one that told her he wasn’t about to reveal his secrets to her or anyone else. “Let’s do this,” she said.
“You sure?” he asked.
She wasn’t. Not sure of anything. Especially not him. Even so, her answer was to pick up the pack that Alfredo had given her and walk over to where the others stood waiting.
Sydney eyed the larger packs carried by Xavier and Alfredo. The equipment hanging from both reminded her of what a mountain climber might carry, and then some. “How long are we going to be down there?” she asked.
Alfredo shrugged. “Judging from the distance, and depending on how much obstruction lies between here and di Sangro’s tunnel, not more than a few hours.”
She could only hope that’s all it was. A few hours of walking through the caves she could live with. As long as they were back in time. She and Griffin looked at their watches at the same moment. Not quite five hours before they had to deliver this lost map to Adami.
They filed into the entrance of the tunnels below the basilica. Sydney saw the yellowish rock, and decided it wasn’t as bad as she’d first imagined. They continued on, for what seemed an eternity, the temperature cooling as they descended, then remaining steady. The perfect wine cellar, she thought, grateful for the jumpsuits Xavier’s cousin had provided. In all, their journey consisted of winding through a labyrinth of switchback steps, long passageways, and endless tunnels that seemed to lead down.
And down.
The intense quiet felt surreal. Their breathing seemed to echo off the walls, and the only other sounds heard were their footsteps as they trudged along the rough-hewn floor, and the rattle and clang of equipment hanging from Xavier’s and Alfredo’s packs.
Alfredo broke the repressive silence, telling them that the passageway they were walking through was discovered after a devastating earthquake in the 1980s. He pointed to narrow openings seen along one side. “Crypts,” he said. “After the earthquake, t
hey found huge piles of bones, probably from burials dating back to the 1500s.”
To which Griffin said, “We’re sure one of those isn’t the so-called bone chamber we’re looking for?”
“No,” Xavier answered. “What we’re looking for is a specific sign. The crossbones. I found something that looks like it much farther on, but that’s the dead end I was telling you about. That’s what we’re hoping to find this time around. The secret tunnel into the bone chamber.”
They passed through other tunnels where the archways were shored up with thick timber, something Sydney hoped had been reinforced over the years. And then they had to crawl through low cramped tunnels that led to narrow ledges with sheer drops, and she didn’t dare look down. Every now and then, however, she thought she heard something behind them. Because of the echoes, she couldn’t tell if it was her imagination playing tricks-not that she was about to take a chance. Especially when a small pebble skittered past her feet. “What was that?”
Alfredo seemed unconcerned. “Could be we knocked something loose on our way down. Sometimes the earth shifts, and things just fall.”
Sydney looked over at Griffin, who gave a slight nod, as if to say, like her, he was on guard. They slowed their pace, staying to the rear.
Finally they entered a low-ceilinged cavern, and Xavier swung his light out before them, revealing a vast squared-out area where, in the center on the ground, there appeared to be a large hole.
“That’s where we’re going,” Xavier said, pointing.
“Into the hole?” Sydney asked, changing her opinion of the entire affair in an instant, and not in a good way.
Xavier laughed when he saw where she was looking. “Not down. That massive cistern is one of the dead ends. The one I told you we already checked out. We’re going through that tunnel. There’s supposed to be a hidden passageway up there, which I hope is actually the secret tunnel that leads to the bone chamber.” He shone his light past the cistern, then above, where carved in the yellow tufo was what appeared to be an upside-down skull and crossbones. “If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.”
“Are you sure it’s not just some old graffiti?”
“Actually there is a lot of old graffiti, especially down that cistern,” he said, pointing to the large hole in the ground, the one she was grateful they weren’t going into. “But since we’re specifically looking for the signs di Sangro’s men left for us, then this has to be the way.”
Griffin moved toward it. “Why is it upside-down?”
“Not sure,” Xavier said. “Possibly to keep others from recognizing it or paying any attention. I believe there is a hidden opening that leads into another chamber, something that isn’t readily identifiable as a door. With the crossbones on top, maybe they didn’t want to be too obvious.”
“Or,” Griffin said, “it’s a warning.”
“A warning?” Sydney replied, turning her head, trying to view it from different angles. Xavier swung his light across the carving, into the opening, and she could have sworn that a shadow appeared in the form of an arrow. “As long as it’s not telling us to go down. Please tell me that’s not a crude arrow pointing down.”
“Like I said, there’s not a lot down there,” Xavier said, aiming his lamp on the wide opening on the floor of the cave. “A big cistern that leads to nowhere. We’ve already explored it. You can see the top of the ladder anchored at the edge.”
Griffin walked over, looked down the opening. “How far down does it go?”
Alfredo answered. “Maybe an additional thirty meters beyond that ledge,” he said, shining his light into the cistern. “It’s actually a marvel of engineering. Narrow at the top like a bottle, then widening as it gets deeper to make sure it’s structurally sound and doesn’t collapse in on itself,” he said, moving to Griffin’s side, and shining his flashlight down. “Like Xavier said, that’s not where we want to go. Follow the crossbones.” Alfredo turned, shone his light on the carving of the inverted crossbones.
The light drew Sydney’s gaze to the top of the tunnel’s entrance, where she saw the skull and crossbones waver in the light, then disappear in a shadow as he aimed the beam up the long tunnel. “This way,” Alfredo said, starting forward, his voice echoing up the passageway.
Xavier and Francesca followed him in, but Sydney hesitated again, trying to decipher what she’d actually seen.
Griffin stopped beside her. “Something wrong?”
She whispered. “I swear there’s an arrow up there.”
“An arrow?”
Instead of trying to explain, she took her own light, moved it across the entrance of the tunnel and over the skull and crossbones in a sweeping fashion, much as Xavier had done. Perhaps it was the way the thing was carved in the tufo, merely a coincidence in the play of shadows, and she glanced over at Griffin.
“You think that’s an arrow?” he said.
“Pointing down.”
And before either had a chance to look further, there was a sharp crack of gunfire. It echoed around the cavern, making it impossible to pinpoint it.
Yellow tufo dust fell from the tunnel entrance. “Run!” Griffin shouted into the tunnel at Francesca. “Turn off your lights!”
Alfredo froze. Francesca and Xavier pulled him up the tunnel, away from the gunfire. Griffin and Sydney each took one side off the tunnel entrance, tried to press themselves into the walls for cover. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing, she thought, switching off her light, pulling her glove off with her teeth, then drawing her weapon from her jumpsuit pocket.
She glanced toward the path they’d taken from the basilica, saw a muzzle flash, then another. The gunshots echoed across the cavern. At least two shooters, maybe more. She closed one eye to preserve her night vision. Hoped the reflective stripes from the jumpsuits didn’t make them more of a target. Aimed. Fired.
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“We’re sitting ducks here,” Griffin said. “We’re going to have to try to make it up the tunnel. Follow the others.”
Sydney fired off two more rounds, hating herself for even thinking about what she was going to say. “No.”
“No?”
“We need to go down.”
“No. We don’t separate.”
“If we go up, we’re leading them right to the others. Xavier knows his way around here. He thinks there’s a hidden passage up there. The arrow pointed down, and we may be their only chance for escape.”
“It was an anomaly. Shadow play.” A shot hit the tufo above them. Dust rained down.
“From everything I’ve heard on this di Sangro guy, he was far too intelligent to let some shadow get in the way. The skull and crossbones is upside-down, so it makes sense the arrow would clarify.”
He fired off a round, then, “How sure are you about this?”
“You have a better idea?”
She heard him taking in a deep breath, as though coming to a weighty decision. “We go down.”
God, let me be right, she thought.
He fired again.
Answering gunshots. Sydney pressed herself into the wall, then leaned out, fired a couple more rounds.
“Ready?” Griffin said.
She looked over to where she thought he was on the opposite side of the tunnel entrance, imagining she could see him in the dark. “Yeah.”
“Cover me, wait a second, then follow.” Griffin fired twice, then ran into the main cavern.
Sydney fired. Again and again. Figured she had about seven rounds left. Someone or several someones were running down the main entrance. She waited a heartbeat, jumped out, fired a volley, then ran like hell.
Griffin flashed a light on then off. He was perched halfway into the entrance of the cistern in the floor, one hand gripping the ladder anchored to the tufo. He dared the light again, then tossed her a rope, looped at one end. “Put this around your middle and pull tight.”
She tucked her gun into her waistband, grabbed the rope, slipped it on, pulled. “I alread
y hate this idea.”
Griffin was heading down. “If you fall, try not to take me with you.”
“I really, really hate this idea.”
“You said that,” he replied, then disappeared from view. The light from his headlamp cast an eerie glow from the depths of the cistern. It was just enough light to let her see the flexible-sided ladder, which, in her mind, didn’t look sturdy enough for one person, let alone two at once.
Shouts from the tunnel entrance, one saying, “This way!” gave her all the impetus she needed to get on the ladder and start down. She sat on the ledge, grabbed the top of the ladder, then felt for a rung with her foot as she let herself over.
Griffin called up, “Keep your body close to the ladder, and your hands no higher than your face.”
She took the first step down, trying to ignore the vibration of the cables that reminded her of all the nothingness between her and the bottom of the cistern. The damned thing held Griffin, surely it could hold her.
Foot down, hand down. Foot down, hand down. The ladder swayed beneath her weight, and she glanced up, saw an even brighter light sweeping over the top of the cistern entrance.
“They’re going down!” someone shouted.
The word down echoed through the chamber below them.
Griffin no doubt heard it. “I’m turning off my lamp.”
The world around her went black.
The Bone Chamber Page 32