“Don’t try to put this on Tasha. You’re the one who couldn’t trust anyone. Maybe if you didn’t have that little flaw, things might have been different.”
He wanted to rail at her, but all he could do was say, “You’re right.”
She stared at him for several seconds, as if refusing to believe he wasn’t going to argue. Finally she said, “Fine. Truce. Now where the hell is this map, and how do we get out of here?”
“I’m not sure we should be searching for anything but the way out, since we have no idea what the trap is. Death by crushing or disease. We can always come back.”
“What about Tex?”
“We can’t save him if we don’t save ourselves.” Griffin eyed the wide tunnel. “Is he or isn’t he pointing to the way out?”
“Maybe we’re being too literal.”
He looked back toward her, saw she was kneeling on the ground before the corpse. “Please don’t touch anything.”
“Do you realize he’s sitting next to a leather tube? Like something you might carry a map in?”
Griffin leaned down, saw what she was looking at. Sure enough, next to the corpse, between it and the large chest, was a leather tube, maybe two feet in length, and three inches in diameter. Out of everything in the chamber, this was the oddest. It wasn’t gold, didn’t look valuable at all, and he was half tempted to pull it out. But on closer inspection, he realized that the tube was acting like a stopper. Move it and the sand would be released…“Like a ballast.” He looked around, pointing. “Move his body, to get to the chest beneath him, the gold piled behind him, and the sand is released.”
“It’d be nice to come back after the place was surveyed by engineers first.”
“We don’t exactly have that luxury.” He looked at his watch. They had two hours and twenty minutes left to trade the map for Tex. Hell. What was he thinking? There would be no trade. The map was not to leave their hands.
A feeling of helplessness swept through him. Not only was Tex’s life in the balance, at the moment, their lives were as well.
Sydney reached out, touched his arm. “We’ll figure this out.”
“How?”
“Francesca said that there were three keys.”
“And we know of only one of any certainty.”
“No, we know the third is the inscription from his door. And we were at the Capuchin Crypt where the second was, so maybe we can apply that knowledge?”
She was right. They’d been everywhere that Francesca had been. Maybe they could work this out…“Okay,” he said, wanting to pace, to think it through, but knowing any unnecessary movement could prove fatal. “Alessandra went to the trouble of saying the key is below Sansevero, and here, allegedly, is the Prince of Sansevero, or a man bearing his crest. And he’s sitting on a tube that might or might not be the missing map. Yank it out and run?”
“Run to where? If he was that smart, and he took the trouble to set up this elaborate trap, then there has to be something more to this. What was that inscription on the door again?”
Griffin took out the napkin that he’d written it on, and read, “‘Observe with an attentive eye and with veneration the urns of the heroes endowed with glory and reflect with astonishment on the precious homage to the divine work and the tomb of the deceased and when you have given due honor, contemplate profoundly and distance yourself.’”
She blew some dust off the top of one of the urns. “Urns filled with gold coins. ‘Urns of the heroes’?”
“Assuming this saying is filled with subtext, then yes.”
“‘Contemplate profoundly and distance yourself,’” Sydney said, repeating the inscription from the door. “Distance ourselves as in not being too literal, or as in get the hell out of here, because of a deadly plague or major collapse?” She walked a few steps away, careful not to stray from the narrow path, and cocked her head, stared at the corpse, his leathered face. “What was so important that we had to go to the Capuchin Crypt before we came here? What’s the commonality between this place and the Capuchin Crypt?”
“Besides all the gold? About three thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine more sets of bones. Clearly a warning that death is imminent.”
“Or that time is endless, especially if you take into context the first key, ‘Here lies dust, ash, and nothing,’” she said, walking up, looking at the pocket watch the skeleton held. “It reads exactly twelve, just like the Capuchin Crypt. Well, sort of. The clock made of bones that wasn’t a clock. Endlessly where midnight should be, considering it only had six numbers on it.”
“Maybe it has nothing to do with time,” Griffin said. “If his pocket watch were a compass, the two hands would be pointing due north.” He looked toward the tunnel directly opposite the watch’s hands. It was the smallest passageway. “A deliberate position of the body and the watch? Or mere coincidence?”
“Anyone could read anything into any of these clues,” she said, looking around. “You think there’s any truth to this trap thing? That if anything’s moved, it’ll set it off?”
Again he took stock. “Move his body to get to the chest beneath him, the gold piled behind him, and the sand is released. Like you said, our safest course of action would be to leave and return with a very knowledgeable bunch of engineers.”
“Yet here we are.”
A shout from the tunnel they’d entered stopped them. If there was any doubt as to the intent of the newcomers, the sharp crack of gunfire dispelled any hope they were there for a rescue.
Francesca’s limbs were stiff and sore by the time they finally climbed down from the crevice, not daring to leave the relative safety of the dark until they no longer heard the echoing of the footsteps in the tunnel below, and even for several minutes after that. The route they took back was not the same as the one they’d taken, Alfredo leading them a different way after overhearing the two men talk about others posted outside. But finally they were out and Francesca squinted against the bright sunlight as Xavier helped her from the secret passageway that led to the street behind the Cappella Sansevero. The moment she was free and clear, he and Alfredo slid the massive stone door closed, rendering it invisible to any who might pass by. She wasn’t sure they’d be able to find it again if necessary.
“This way,” Xavier said, leading her around the corner.
She followed, only to stop short on seeing the dark-clad man standing at the edge of the building. “Father Dumas.”
“
Xavier looked from one to the other. “Who is this?”
Dumas gave a slight bow and introduced himself.
“A friend of Alessandra’s,” Francesca said. “Exactly what sort of friend, I’m not sure.”
Xavier frowned. “I don’t recall Alessandra mentioning him before.”
“Be that as it may,” Dumas said, “I am what she says. And if the two, or rather three of you had any sense,” he said, apparently noticing Xavier’s cousin for the first time, “you would realize that you are in danger. Where are the two agents?”
“In the tunnels,” Francesca said. “We were ambushed.”
“That’s not surprising,” Dumas said. “You were followed here.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” she replied.
“There are several of Adami’s men in the area, as well as some others I do not recognize, and if you insist on going that direction, you will run right into them.”
She hesitated, not sure what to believe. “And how do I know you’re not one of them?”
“You do not. Again, where are the two agents?”
“Below. They covered us so we could escape. Two men were down there, shooting at us. We would’ve been killed had we not hidden and had Xavier and Alfredo not found the passageway out. We need to get help.”
“Did the agents give you anything? Did you find the key?”
Francesca stared in disbelief. “Did you not hear a word I said? They’re in trouble.”
“And if they moved anything without having found the key, they’re about to be smashed into bits, with nothing
