The Bone Chamber

by Robin Burcell

  “What should we do?” Xavier said.

  “Dumas?” Francesca asked.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “We need a distraction,” she said.

  “Short of calling them over here, what do you suggest?” Dumas said.

  “Exactly that. Xavier and I can pull them off, we owe them that much. When they follow us, you get over there, watch out for Griffin and Sydney. If they make it out, you give warning. Give us an hour to meet back with you.”

  “Where?” Dumas asked.

  The only place she could think of was the café around the corner from the hotel where Griffin had the room. She knew he had to eventually make his way there to rescue his friend. Alfredo and Dumas would return to the café, then call the police if they weren’t back in an hour.

  Dumas nodded, and she put her hand on his arm. “You need to not stand out,” she continued. “If any of these men are the ones who shot at us up on the Passegiata, they might be looking for a priest. Perhaps you can remove the clerical collar?”

  Dumas reached up, pulled it off, unbuttoned the top collar of his shirt, and instantly transformed himself from man of God to man about town.

  She turned to Xavier. “Ready?”

  “Yeah,” he said, though he didn’t look too sure.

  They hurried across the street, heading toward Adami’s men. She took Xavier’s map, pretended to be looking at it with him. “We have to get their attention,” she whispered. “We need them to follow us away from the chapel, and then we’ve got to lose them.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Let’s hope not,” she said, looking up over the top of the map. “Because here they come.” And then she lowered the map, looked the men directly in the eye, gave her best impression of surprise, then screamed. “Oh my God! They found us!” She grabbed Xavier’s hand. “Run!”

  Sydney ducked behind an urn filled with gold, drawing her weapon. A bullet ricocheted off the urn next to her, cracking it. By some small miracle, it didn’t break. But sand started sifting through between it and the urn beside it.

  Griffin crouched beside her, hefted his gun in his hand. “We need to get out of here. That sand moves, we’re as good as dead.”

  “We’re as good as dead anyway, if we don’t know which tunnel to take.”

  They crouched even lower as another shot rang out. “And which one would you take?”

  “Let’s give the guy credit for being a mad genius. He sent us down a specific path. That means he’s logical. The bone clock at the crypt. His watch with the same time, and clocks that aren’t clocks could be considered compasses. The tunnel that points north.”

  “Then I’ll cover you, and you go for it.”

  “And what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Hold them off. At least one of us gets out of here alive.”

  “Are you nuts? You’re going to sacrifice yourself?”

  “You think of a better idea?”

  “Not at the moment. But hell if I’m going to let you lord it over me from eternity. And if they kill you, what’s to stop them from following me up the tunnel? I’ll be a sitting duck.”

  Griffin peered around an urn, aimed, fired. The shot echoed throughout the cavern. “We’re about to run out of ammo, which makes it a moot point.”

  Sydney glanced back at the corpse. “I have an idea,” she said. “I need you to go to the north tunnel.”

  He didn’t move.

  “I am not her. Trust me on this,” she said. “For once.”

  “Why?”

  “I can reach the tube without exposing myself by scooting on my belly behind that chest. You can’t. If you’re already at the tunnel, you can cover me.”

  “And then?”

  She took a breath, smiled. “And then we save the last couple shots to see if di Sangro knew what he was doing. We bring this place down.”

  35

  Sydney kept an eye on the two men, wondering if she’d truly lost her mind, thinking she could spring di Sangro’s trap. What if it was an elaborate hoax, like the curse in the pyramids to ward off grave robbers? Or what if the sand was merely there to keep some deadly plague hidden and out of sight?

  Griffin fired off two rounds. “This plan of yours…I’m not sure we have enough ammo to break these urns and try to keep them at bay.”

  “I’ve already thought of that.” By her calculations, she had maybe three shots left. “Just watch for my cue, and get ready to cover me.”

  He crouched beside the urn. Sydney nodded once, then popped up, shouting as she fired two rounds. One of the men cried out, hit. She ducked back. Hope he’s dead, she thought, then glanced over toward Griffin. He was halfway across the cavern, crouching behind one of the manmade stalagmites. She turned back to her targets; both had moved closer. Great. The man she’d hit wasn’t dead, just grazed on his shoulder. One shot left. Griffin nodded. She popped up, took her last shot, prayed Griffin made it, then dropped flat to the ground. She scooted past the skeleton, then yanked on the tube beside it. It was wedged tight. She pulled harder. The moment she did, she heard something move. Shift. Sand slid to the floor from the rocky shelf behind the body. No time to wonder. A shot hit the urn above her head. The report echoed off the walls.

  This was it. Keeping well to one side, and out of sight, she held the tube up over the urn that had been cracked, yelling, “I give up. Don’t shoot!”

  A sharp report echoed across the cavern. The urn broke apart. Sand poured forth from behind it, and she yelled, “Now!”

  Griffin fired off his last rounds. Tube in hand, Sydney scrambled toward the north tunnel.

  Suddenly a low rumbling noise seemed to shake the very stone itself. The floor beneath them vibrated. Dust rained down, into her eyes, rattled against her helmet like dried rice. She hesitated.

  “Move,” Griffin yelled.

  She sprinted toward Griffin and the tunnel. He grabbed the tube, lifted her in. He climbed in after her, and she caught sight of the two men, no longer watching them. Both looked up at the ceiling.

  “Forget them,” he said.

  She scurried forward. The space, though wide, was barely high enough to crawl on hands and knees, and at some points, not even that high. After twenty or so feet they rounded a corner, and the path began a sharp incline. Sydney scurried up, her eyes watering against the dust. Bits of tufo stung her face, her back. Suddenly the floor rippled beneath her, the air tasting of crushed rock. She started sliding down. Griffin grabbed her by the shirt, braced himself. A pressure in her ears pushed then released, as though the air was sucked out of the tunnels. A second later, she looked down, the dim light from her helmet revealing the blocked passageway below. The entrance was gone. No space at all. The rumbling continued as rock below them seemed to settle. There was no way back.

  Only up.

  Almost straight up.

  “How the hell-”

  “Like Santa in a chimney,” Griffin said.

  Francesca and Xavier fled around the corner, then down one of countless narrow streets, this time into the midst of the open-air market, crowded with locals and tourists alike, all talking about the minor earthquake they’d felt. The two ducked behind a cart filled with ice and fresh fish, then dared a peek around the edge to see if they were still being followed.

  “You see them?” Francesca asked.

  Xavier nodded, trying to catch his breath. “Yeah. Don’t think they saw where we went, but give it a minute or two and they’ll trip right over us.”

  “We really need to get out of this. Preferably in one piece.” And without anyone else around them getting hurt, she wanted to add. She was tired, too tired to run. Playing cat and mouse was a lot harder than she thought, and any momentary admiration and envy at seeing Sydney Fitzpatrick in action made her truly appreciate her own choice of going into academia. She ignored the thought that it was that very pursuit for historical significance that had started this mess, and she leaned against the cart, tried to ca
tch her breath. That was when she saw the catwalk between the buildings, barely visible behind the awning that covered the pushcarts of fruits and vegetables spread out before it. The vendor called out in Nepalese that he had fresh produce for sale. “You have any idea where that leads?” she asked, pointing to the catwalk.

  Xavier looked over. “Back to the basilica. Why?”

  “I think we need to slip through there.”

  The two men chasing Francesca and Xavier stopped in the middle of the market square. “They can’t have gone far,” the first said.

  “Over there. That’s where I saw them last. By the fish.”

  “If we find them, I vote we finish them here, now.”

  “Idiot. There are too many witnesses. We do it right. Stick our gun in their ribs, frighten them, get them to tell us where their friends are. Then we take the map and kill them. Adami has no idea we are here, and Mr. Westgate doesn’t want to lose the map to him.”

  “What about the witnesses?”

  He didn’t answer, apparently because the question needed no answering. There were to be no witnesses. Period. Francesca dared a look from where she hid. The man started toward the fish cart, then stopped just in front of it, looking around. “You see them?”

  “No.”

  “Fresh fruit!” cried the vendor across the street.

  The man ignored him.

  “Fresh fish!” called the vendor beside the two men.

  They started to move away, but the first man stopped. “I am looking for my friends,” he asked the vendor. “A man and a woman. Americans.”

  “The woman, red hair?”

  “Yes.”

  The vendor narrowed his gaze. “Your American friends, they almost knocked my cart over.”

  “They are in trouble. My apologies. Which way did they go?”

  “Through there. I heard them say something about the basilica,” he replied, pointing across the street toward the catwalk.”

  “Grazie.”

  He gave a shrug, then turned away, calling out, “Fresh fish! The freshest!”

  “Hurry,” the first man said. “They may have a car parked at the basilica.”

  “Fresh fish!”

  Francesca’s breath caught. They ran right past her. She waited until their footfall faded down the catwalk before she emerged. She dug all the money she had from her pocket, then handed it over to the fish vendor the moment the two henchmen disappeared from sight at the other end of the catwalk. “Grazie, signore.”

  The vendor smiled. “My pleasure, signorina. If you are smart, you and your friend will go to the end of the street, then turn south. My friend has a horse and cart for tourists. He can give you a ride to wherever it is you need to go. Tell him that Pietro sent you. He will help.”

  They thanked him again, then raced down the street, where, as promised, his friend waited and gladly took them on at the mention of Pietro’s name. Within minutes they were seated in a covered carriage, the sound of the mare’s hooves clopping down the cobbled street at a brisk trot. Xavier offered the man some money, but he refused, saying he was going that way anyway, and their thanks was enough. Fifteen minutes later, he dropped them off a half block from the coffee shop where they were to meet Dumas.

  Sydney watched as Griffin took the rope from his backpack, the one they’d used the first time, then looped it around her waist. That done, he shimmied up a few feet into the tunnel to show her it could be done, his back wedged against one wall of the tunnel, his feet against the other. She followed him up, thinking it was rough enough to allow some hand purchase, and wasn’t as hard as she first thought. Nor as easy, she realized. Especially after another shift of stone, as though the earth finally settled. She looked down. Nothing but blackness, an unsettling feeling, not having any idea how far they’d traveled. Or how far she’d fall if she slipped. The very thought made her dizzy.

  “Don’t recommend that,” Griffin said.

  “Now you tell me. How much farther?”

  “Hard to say. Another ten feet?”

  She could do ten feet.

  After about fifteen, she figured he’d lied to her. Probably a good thing. She’d lost her right glove when she’d pulled it off during the firefight down in the cistern. And now her nails shredded against the rough surface, the rock dug into her fingertips. She was stretched out, one foot on each wall, her hands gripping the sides.

  A low rumble pulsated along the tunnel walls.

  “Griffin?”

  “Just the earth settling. Don’t worry.”

  But the rumbling didn’t stop. It grew louder, deeper, vibrated through the stones into her bones. She braced herself against the walls, tried to hold on. Rocks hurtled down, hit her helmet, her arms. The earth shuddered one last heave. Her bloody hand slipped, and she plunged down into the blackness, nothing beneath her feet.

  36

  Francesca and Xavier met Dumas at the café, and Francesca’s pulse shot up again as a third fire truck zipped past. Alfredo had left to get his van, in case they needed more equipment for a rescue. He had not yet returned. A second building midblock had collapsed, just sank into the earth, and, from the talk around them, the citizens of Naples were blaming it on yet another crumbling tunnel, long forgotten, finally giving way.

  Xavier shook his head. “How does a man set a trap that lasts over two hundred years?”

  “Like da Vinci before him,” Dumas said, “di Sangro’s genius was unparalleled.”

  “But to what end?” Francesca wondered aloud. She’d studied every nuance about the prince and even she was having difficulties comprehending that his trap was real. Or perhaps she didn’t want to believe it. To do so meant that there was no hope.

  “From what I gathered from the documents that you uncovered at the Vatican, di Sangro’s sole purpose was to protect that which he sought to hide, from those he hoped to hide it from. Why else leave such enigmatic clues?”

  “Enigmatic?” Xavier said. “Or purposefully deceitful? Maybe he really was the monster that some historians thought.”

  “I don’t believe so,” Dumas said. “Misunderstood, as those who are too far ahead of their time often are. But in this instance, he had a purpose. Perhaps one the church didn’t see as clearly as he did at the time. To protect mankind.”

  Francesca watched the crowd surge forward, no doubt trying to see what, if anything, or anyone, was left in the collapsed building. “If di Sangro went to such trouble to give specific clues on the door of his chapel, warning of a trap, or how to avoid it, then there could equally be a specific escape route.” She turned to Xavier. “Where was it you thought his tunnel came out?”

  “Originally? Where we came out.”

  “Any other guesses, now that we know that wasn’t the right way?”

  And Dumas, staring at the fallen building, said, “Let’s hope it wasn’t there.”

  Xavier took out Francesca’s map, spread it across the tabletop. “This is the cistern they went down, and here’s where we came out…” He pointed to the area where the building fell through. “It was obviously to one side of the cistern, probably off that ledge near the top, some hidden passageway. If di Sangro had a route planned out, it would be on the outskirts of the cave-in.” He drew a circle with his finger around the building. “Somewhere in this area, or this one. Perhaps they were lucky.”

  “As much as I don’t like it,” Dumas said, “we will need to split up again, the better to cover both areas.”

  “Then that’s what we need to do,” she said. “We need to find them before Adami’s men do.”

  “Sydney!”

  Blackness. Pain. It was several moments before Sydney dared breathe, dared move. And several more moments before she realized that she was suspended by the rope, hanging, spinning. “Griff?”

  “You’re okay?” His voice sounded a million miles away.

  “Yeah. Sort of…Oh my God. The map!” She reached back, felt it still strapped across her shoulder, looked up, tried to see
him, but her eyes filled with dust, still raining down from above.

  “Can you climb?”

  “I’m sure as hell gonna try.” She reached out, touched the wall, tried to stop the turning, then braced both her feet against the tunnel walls. As soon as she started climbing, the rope seemed to loosen from around her chest, and she felt like she could breathe again.

  “You’re doing good. Keep going.”

  She had to stop to rest, tried to ignore the pulsing pain in her hand. “You know this is hell on my manicure.”

  “Didn’t think you were the manicure type.”

  “You know me. All about fashion and accessories. A real girly girl.”

  Toward the top, however, the passageway widened, and she couldn’t find purchase, her hands and feet slipped. She finally had to stop. “I can’t make it.”

  She could hear Griffin breathing above her. “Just a bit more.”

  Her foot slid on the tufo. “I’m losing my grip. It’s too wide.” And just when she was sure she couldn’t hang on another second, just when she knew she was going to fall again, drag him down with her, the rope pulled tight beneath her arms.

  “I’ve got you,” he said. “I’m going to pull you up.”

  “Whose idea was it to get on that plane to Italy?”

  “We’re almost to the surface. Just a couple more feet.”

  He helped her to the top, then over the edge, and she collapsed next to him. She’d been climbing on sheer adrenaline, of which there was none left at the moment. As she caught her breath, she looked over at him. “I’m going to have rope burn in places no rope should ever be.”

  He laughed. “That’ll be foremost in my mind next time I decide to climb through tunnels in Naples.”

  “Figures,” she said, staring up at the ceiling, at the shadows.

  “You want, I could-”

  “Is that light up there?”

  “Where?”

  She pointed straight up.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.