by John Lyman
As soon as they were clear of the church and walking through Vatican Square, they began to breathe a little easier.
Morelli pulled at his collar. “We have to get into that newly discovered area right away. I think the cardinal’s assistant knows we’re looking for something, and he’ll be watching our every move. We’ve got to find another way in. Today.”
“What’s the hurry, Anthony? Maybe this would be a good time to rattle some cages. Why not enlist Marcus’s help in getting Emilio off your back?”
“I don’t want the cardinal directly involved for reasons I’ll go into later.”
“Why? Don’t you think he would understand, especially if he knew about the code?”
“I’ve filed several requests with his office to do a complete archaeological excavation of the newly discovered area. My application was answered by having that wall constructed by Emilio over the entrance. The cardinal’s assistant is intentionally blocking my research for some reason. If we don’t find the seal soon, I fear we will never be allowed to go anywhere under the Basilica again.”
John was deep in thought as he ran his fingers through his beard. “Father, do you remember the drawing of a tunnel entrance we saw in the old plans of the first Christian church ... the one that once occupied the site of the present church?”
Morelli had to think for a moment. “You mean the ancient tunnel we thought might lead underground from the Vatican and end somewhere under the Forum?”
“Yes, that’s the one. After we looked at those plans, I drew a line on a map from the tunnel entrance to the Forum. It led right to the church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami.”
“Saint Joseph of the Carpenters?” Leo asked.
“Yes,” Morelli said. “That’s the English translation. The church was built in the sixteenth century above Mamertine, the old Roman prison. According to Christian legend, that’s where Saint Peter was imprisoned.”
“What’s that church got to do with finding the seal?” Leo asked.
Morelli was starting to get excited. “I think I see what our young friend is getting to. The old prison was once a cistern with access to the city’s main sewer, the Cloaca Maxima. There had to be a tunnel there sometime in the past that ran under the Vatican at the same level of the ancient area that’s been sealed off from us. If the tunnel still exists, it should take us directly beneath the Basilica. The seal has to be located in that area.”
Bound together for the moment in a brotherhood of conspiracy and armed with the beginnings of a plan, they sprinted across the square to the BMW parked along a side street with its top down. Squeezing into the cockpit built for two, the three men raced across the city toward the ancient Roman prison.
Chapter 6
The overcrowded BMW came to a halt on the Via Dei Fori Imperiali, close to the Forum of Caesar. John and Leo hopped from the car in front of the church, while Morelli searched out a spot to park among the crowds and large tour buses that lined the streets around the most ancient part of the city.
Jogging back to the church from his distant parking space, Morelli was out of breath as he motioned for the other two to follow him. “My department got an e-mail the other day from Cardinal Lundahl’s office. Apparently, the region below the church surrounding the ruins of Mamertine Prison has been closed temporarily due to structural concerns. That means the tourist entrance in the back of the church that leads down to the area will also be closed, but there’s a hidden alcove behind the altar with an old circular stairway we can use to go below.”
They paused at the main doorway to the sixteenth -century church, where Morelli left a hefty donation in a steel box mounted to the wall next to a hollowed-out piece of carved stone brimming with holy water. The three entered with a group of worshipers and fell back, stopping next to a small wooden door that led behind the altar. They waited impatiently, knowing they had to choose the right moment to pass unobserved through the doorway.
Multicolored light from a row of stained glass windows above painted an elderly woman leading a slow-moving dog in their direction. She inched by the trio and smiled as the aging dog stopped to sniff John’s leg. This was the only church in Rome that welcomed animals, and people from all over the city brought their beloved pets here to be blessed. The woman and her dog rounded a pillar, and when it seemed like they were finally alone, the men opened the door and slipped into a dark hallway. Looking ahead in the faint light, they moved along through the tight space until they reached some circular metal stairs that descended below the church.
The three circled down into the darkness on the rusty iron stairs, passing a small, long-forgotten medieval Christian chapel that had been excavated between the church above and the old Roman prison below. Reaching the bottom, they stepped out into a dank-smelling, dimly-lit passageway constructed sometime around 640 BC by Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome.
“Are we close to the area where Saint Peter was held, Father?” John asked.
Morelli pointed to the wall behind John. “It’s on the other side of that wall. There’s a small dungeon-like cell there that once held Saint Peter and possibly even Saint John. It was said that Peter received several angelic visitations while he was imprisoned in that cold stone room and that he baptized his guards from a spring that miraculously appeared one day.”
John breathed in the musty aroma. “It’s hard to believe actual miracles and angelic visions have occurred here, right where we’re standing now.” He touched the wall outside the cell and conjured images of what the scene inside must have been like then.
Morelli took out a map and looked up and down the empty passageway. “Speaking of miracles, it will be a miracle if we can find that tunnel. It’s probably been sealed off somewhere behind the thick outside wall for hundreds of years, if not longer.”
Many of Rome’s buildings had ancient ruins for basements. Restaurants and private homes used them for wine cellars, and many still had original Roman frescos covering the walls. The whole city was honeycombed beneath with interconnecting tunnels, most of which had been blocked off for security reasons.
A voice punctuated the darkness behind them. “Can I help you, Fathers?”
The three men froze in place before slowly turning to face a weathered-looking man holding a broom. The man had a kind face with wide eyes and a perpetual smile.
“Yes,” Leo said. “We’re looking for a tunnel that runs west from here to the Vatican.”
The other two turned and stared at Leo with their mouths gaping open. What was he thinking? He had just given away their plan, and it was only a matter of time before they would be escorted out of the building by security or, worse, arrested. Italian jailhouse cuisine was one step closer to becoming a reality.
“Oh, the tunnel,” the man said. “Come with me, Fathers.”
Morelli leaned over and whispered in Leo’s ear as they followed behind. “You’re either crazy, lucky, or brilliant. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Neither,” Leo whispered back. “I don’t think that janitor is part of some grand conspiracy to keep us from discovering an ancient chapel. He’s just a working class man who enjoys helping people, especially priests. Anyway, at this point, what have we got to lose?”
The man led them down the brick hallway to a freshly excavated area cordoned off with yellow construction tape. Beyond the barrier, a seemingly endless dark tunnel stretched out before them.
The man paused to light a cigarette. “The archaeologists who were here yesterday dug away this wall and found the tunnel.”
A sudden chill ran down Morelli’s spine.
The janitor took a deep puff and exhaled the smoke. “They didn’t want to go any further until they had a map of the catacombs. The priest in charge told me that some other priests from the Vatican would be coming back with a map. Are you the ones with the map? We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
“Did the archaeologists who found this tunnel mention who they were working for?” Morelli a
sked.
“Yes, they were priests, just like you, Father. They work at the Vatican. Don’t you work for the Vatican?” The man’s perpetual smile was beginning to fade.
Morelli took the man by the arm. “Yes, of course, my friend. We just have so many people working on so many projects, we can’t keep them all straight. We had some extra time today and wanted to see the tunnel for ourselves.” Morelli sighed with the knowledge that he would be admitting to these lies in his next confession.
The man’s smile returned as Leo glanced in the direction of the tunnel and winked at Morelli. “We might as well check out the area while we’re here, Father.”
“Yes, we have to be at another project tomorrow. We’ll just survey the tunnel right now to make sure it’s the right one and report our findings back to the Vatican.”
The man looked bored. “Molto bene, Fathers. Mi scusi, but I must finish with my duties.” With his cigarette dangling from his lips, he hefted the broom across his shoulder and walked off down the hallway. As soon as he rounded the corner, the three began to breathe normally again.
Stepping over the yellow tape, they noticed several lanterns and large flashlights in boxes and shovels and pickaxes stacked against the wall. Gathering up flashlights, a lantern, and a pickax, the men made a last check of the empty hallway before entering the tunnel.
“What if he tells someone we’re down here?” John said, turning his head to look back over his shoulder.
“I’m more worried about the people who uncovered this tunnel,” Morelli said. “As the chief of Vatican archaeology, I think I would have known about a group of ‘archaeologist priests’ from the Vatican doing an excavation under Mamertine Prison. Whoever they are, they aren’t from my department.”
Morelli’s fear of an evil conspiracy now seemed closer to reality as Leo peered ahead into the darkness of the tunnel. “This just keeps getting stranger by the minute. Do you think they’re looking for the same thing we are, Anthony?”
“Yes, and that makes me even more anxious to get into that deeper area and find the seal. There’s only one explanation for them using this tunnel to access the catacombs beneath the necropolis, and that’s secrecy.”
Leo felt a twinge of fear as they began moving cautiously into the maze of catacombs that snaked beneath the city. All three men were well aware of the stories of people actually getting lost and dying in these ancient subterranean graveyards.
The tunnel had obviously been sealed off for centuries. Debris littered the hard-packed earthen floor. It consisted mostly of plaster that had once been used to seal ancient tombs, rocks from minor cave-ins, and, disturbingly, human and animal bones. The animal bones were left over from feasts held long ago in the catacombs by family and friends who came to honor their dead, while the human bones were the result of grave robber activity over the years. The tunnel was otherwise in surprisingly good shape for its age, probably dating to around AD 100.
“How far do you think it is to the area beneath the Basilica?” John asked.
Morelli shined his light ahead. “About a mile. Of course, it seems farther when you’re underground.”
The men trudged forward through the maze, coughing now and then in the fetid air saturated with carbon dioxide. For the next hour and a half, they trekked through the dark labyrinth, crossing intersecting tunnels and trying to stay on a straight course to the Vatican. Morelli produced a thick piece of yellow chalk and began to mark the walls with an arrow when they passed an intersecting tunnel. He wanted to provide them with a sign if they got lost or accidentally doubled back in the maze.
John had tried in the past to use GPS to locate positions under the Vatican, but the device never seemed to work this far underground. The only way they would know when they had arrived at the area below the Basilica was their knowledge of the site.
The men were becoming exhausted from the long walk in the stale air, but the prospect of discovery pushed them on. After climbing and descending a series of steps, they rounded a slight curve and entered a large open area that rose almost twenty feet above their heads.
Morelli shined his light on a sloping pile of rubble that tumbled down from a newly constructed wall above. “There. That’s the wall Emilio had built to keep me out. We are now directly under the Basilica. This is the area we first entered a few months ago after a workman’s shovel pushed through into this section of the catacombs by accident. This site is definitely Christian, not pagan. The ancient Christians probably inhabited it when they were still being persecuted by the Romans. They hid from their persecutors down here and prayed together. This area must have been dug out around the time of Nero, the mad emperor who burned down half of Rome.”
Leaning on his pickax, John shined his light around at the crumbling red-and-white-colored plaster that still covered several of the intact tombs. “We’ve already checked out most of this area, Father. Where do you want to start?”
“Let’s look in the last section we mapped. We didn’t have a chance to examine the walls or all the little nooks and crannies. Pay careful attention to anything that looks like a tomb. Sometimes the ancients painted seals to indicate the location of something or someone of importance.”
Leo craned his neck to gaze up at the ceiling. “Is there any way we can find out where the queen’s tomb above us is located?”
Morelli and John looked like they had both been struck by lightning.
“Of course!” John said. “Under the tomb of the queen!”
“Brilliant, Leo.” Morelli retrieved the map case he always carried with him on excavations and removed three diagrams. The first was a modern blueprint of the grotto under the Basilica, the second was an archaeological diagram of the fully explored necropolis below that, and the third was a crude and hastily drawn map of the section of the catacombs they were standing in now.
Placing the diagrams on top of each other and holding them over the light of the lantern to make the drawings transparent, Morelli could see exactly where the tomb of the queen was in relation to their present location. He circled the corresponding spot on the crude map of their current location, and voila, he knew exactly where to start looking.
“You’re a genius, Leo,” Morelli said.
“Not too shabby, sir,” John added.
Morelli’s mood changed. He was seized by the fever of discovery and took off down a side tunnel that he had explored only briefly before the area was blocked off. Holding the lantern above his head, he slowed his pace and began scanning the walls. The other two followed his lead and bathed the walls with their lights.
It took every ounce of the men’s strength to carry on in the oxygen deprived atmosphere of the catacombs. The high concentration of carbon dioxide made them feel sleepy and slightly disoriented. John was trying to stifle a yawn when he suddenly stopped next to a plain section of tunnel wall and stared above his head. He rubbed his eyes and looked closer.
“Fathers, I think I found it!”
The two priests aimed their lights at the spot. Above them, faded with age and grime, was undoubtedly a seal of some kind. Despite the stain of time, the border of the seal was more colorful than the surrounding walls and appeared to glimmer in the light, while in the center, the trio could see what looked like a painting under a layer of dust.
“Did you bring a brush?” Morelli asked John.
“Yes.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small house painter’s brush. “Here you go, Father.”
Morelli began to gently sweep away centuries of caked-on dirt. As the colorful painting was slowly revealed, the three men let out a collective gasp. Encircled by a shining golden ring, the painted surface displayed the representation of an event that could not have occurred in ancient times. They were all staring at the unmistakable portrayal of a city engulfed in flames with the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb rising above the surface.
Chapter 7
The men were clearly astonished as they continued to stare openmouthed at the se
al.
“Well, you were right about recognizing the seal when we found it, Anthony,” Leo finally said.
John reached out and ran his hand over the raised surface. “Yeah. I don’t think we need the code to tell us this is what we’re looking for.”
With eyes glistening like a father admiring his newborn baby, Morelli gazed up at the gold-ringed seal on the wall. “This is astounding. I believe Lev and his team will be able to verify it, but I’m almost certain this is the seal we’ve been searching for.”
A blinding flash of light caused Father Morelli’s heart to skip a beat. He spun around to see Leo taking pictures of the seal with a small digital camera.
“Good idea, Leo. We can e-mail those pictures to Lev in Israel tonight. Hand me that pickax, John.”
“Why don’t you let me do the honors, Father? Remember your bad back.”
“Be very careful, John. Try to keep the entrance hole as small as possible.”
“What are you doing, Anthony?”
“What we are doing, my dear Father Leo, is knocking loose those bricks beneath the seal. If I’m right, the ancient chapel is right behind that wall.”
The two priests shined their lights on the spot as John began to swing the pickax. They noticed that the section of the tunnel wall they were looking at had a distinctly different look from any of the others they had seen in the catacombs. Unlike the rest of the tunnels, which were carved out of the soft, reddish, volcanic tufo rock that supported the city, this wall was constructed out of large, pinkish-colored limestone blocks. John brought the sharp end of the pickax against the stone, slowly chipping away at the mortar holding it in place until one of the solid blocks gave way and fell into an invisible space beyond. It was for moments like this that every archaeologist lived: the possibility of a sealed-off room, unseen for centuries, with untold treasures waiting on the other side.