put it almost two millennia ago.
After unlocking the solid door, he once again moved aside so Sana could precede him.
Then, after relocking it, he pushed past his wife to descend quickly to the level of the Roman-era cemetery. He was ready to turn west but sensed Sana wasn’t behind him.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked as he looked behind to see her descending slowly, her headlamp and flashlight moving erratically in rapid arcs.
“I don’t like this,” Sana said.
“What don’t you like?” Shawn demanded, and under his breath he murmured, “What the hell now?” They were just beginning, and he was already finding his wife a progressively frustrating handicap. For a moment he thought about having her wait in the car, but then he remembered he needed her. What he was planning was defnitely a two-person job.
“My lights don’t seem to reach the ceiling. It gives me a strange feeling.”
“The ceiling has been purposefully darkened so visitors don’t see the steel supports. It’s for atmosphere.”
“Is that what it is?” Sana said. She reached the ancient cemetery level and allowed her lights to play across the dark entrances of the mausoleums.
Shawn rolled his eyes.
“This place is even eerier at night than during the day,” Sana remarked.
“Because the freaking lights are turned off, for shit’s sake,” Shawn growled.
“What was that noise?” Sana demanded with desperation.
“What noise?” Shawn questioned with near equal concern.
For a few moments of frozen panic they strained to hear sound—any sound. The silence was deafening.
“I don’t hear anything,” Shawn said finally. “What did you hear?”
“It sounded like a high-pitched voice.”
“Good grief! Now you’re imagining things.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, but what I’m not sure is whether you can do this. We’re so close.”
“If you’re sure I didn’t hear anything, let’s finish this and get out of here.”
“Can you calm down?”
“I’ll try.”
“All right, let’s go, but stay close.”
Shawn led the way west in the direction of Peter’s tomb. Sana followed a step behind, avoiding glancing into the mausoleums as they passed their dark, foreboding entrances.
Suddenly, Shawn stopped, and Sana jolted into him.
“Sorry,” Sana said. “You have to let me know if you stop.”
“I’ll try to remember,” Shawn said as he pointed off to the left with his flashlight.
“There’s the Roman sarcophagus I pointed out this afternoon. That’s where we’ll put our excavated debris. Do you think you will be able to bring it back here while I dig?”
“You mean by myself?”
Shawn silently counted to ten. “If I’m digging, of course it would be by yourself,” he said impatiently.
“We’ll see,” Sana said. The idea of wandering around in the necropolis alone was daunting, and hardly alluring. All she could hope was that somehow she’d adjust.
Shawn held his tongue. Instead, he continued on, rounding the southern tip of the red wall. Despite the climb, Sana stayed close. A few moments later, they were standing in the large chamber on the east side of Peter’s tomb complex near the original monument called the Tropaion of Peter. Shawn shined his flashlight down through one of the many glass panels of the deck, which had been built to allow modern-day tourists to see into the tomb’s interior.
“We’re almost there,” Shawn commented, his voice brimming with excitement. “We’ll soon be at the level of the floor of Peter’s tomb.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Sana said. “Let’s get on with this.”
“Right!” Shawn agreed with alacrity. It was what he wanted to hear.
Lifting the three-quarter-inch glass panel in the far corner that served as access to the lower level took considerably more effort than Sana expected. After much straining, they got the panel on end and leaning against the wall.
“Let me go first,” Shawn said. Sana nodded. Descending below the glass deck was the part that she was looking forward to the least, and if she was going to have a problem with claustrophobia, this was where it would begin.
Shawn took the time to strap on his knee pads and pull on his work gloves, and advised Sana to do the same. From then on they would need to be crawling about, as the height of the excavated floor to the glass deck didn’t allow either of them to walk upright.
Sitting on the edge of the deck with his feet dangling though the open space, Shawn inched himself forward and then swung down to stand on the earthen floor. After Shawn had ducked down and moved away from the opening, Sana mimicked his motions, and soon they were crawling ahead, pushing their respective buckets in front of them.
The floor was what Shawn had originally described, a kind of compacted clayish dirt mixed with gravel. Although Sana was becoming progressively anxious as they moved away from the opening in the deck, she was encouraged by one thing. The dirt, unlike the other areas in the necropolis, was bone-dry, suggesting the ossuary, if they found it, would be as well.
After advancing diagonally under the glass deck, they reached the section of the excavated space that extended under the level above. The ceiling now matched the hardpan of the floor. Sana noticed that there were no supports, and she stopped crawling, eyeing the ceiling with distrust.
Shawn continued forward for another ten feet and stopped to shine his flashlight down a tunnel to his left. “Here we are,” he said. He turned to see that Sana had halted about eight feet back. He waved to her to follow him. He wanted to show her where he believed they were going to find the ossuary.
“Is it safe?” Sana questioned while eyeing the ceiling.
“Perfectly safe,” Shawn said, following her line of sight. “The dirt at this level is like concrete. Trust me! You’ve come this far. I want to show you where I’ll be digging.” Reluctantly, Sana crawled forward and found herself looking down a narrow tunnel about four feet wide, three feet high, and five feet deep. At the mouth of the tunnel and at its end were supports of rough lumber, each consisting of two stout vertical members and a thick crossbeam forming a truss.
“Why are there supports in there and not here?” Sana asked. She couldn’t help but worry that nothing was holding up the ceiling above where she and Shawn were currently crouching.
“The first support here at the lip is holding up the graffiti wall, while the inner one is supporting the foundation wall for the vault of Peter’s tomb. The space beyond the inner truss is the interior of the tomb. If you want to crawl in there, you’ll be able to see a notched niche in the base of the red wall if you look to the right. That’s where the bones the pope claimed were Saint Peter’s were found, the ones they have a level up in the Plexiglas boxes.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Sana said. The thought of crawling on her stomach through the low tunnel into Peter’s tomb made her queasy and awakened the claustrophobic fears she’d been trying to suppress. It took all of her self- control to keep from fleeing back out to the area under the glass deck and then back up through the opening to the gallery above.
“Let me show you something else,” Shawn said as he crawled into the tunnel and then rolled over on his back. He pointed up at the ceiling using his flashlight and tapped the ceiling between the two trusses. “The ossuary will be up here, if it wasn’t discovered by accident when either the red wall or the graffiti wall was erected. Now, hand me the drill and the goggles. I’m going to probe a bit and see if I can make contact with stone.” Sana concentrated on Shawn’s commands to avoid thinking about the entire mass of Saint Peter’s Basilica pressing down on top of her. When Shawn was ready to begin, she said: “If you don’t mind, I’m going to move out to the more open area under the glass deck. I’m having a bit of trouble breathing here.”
“Suit yourself,” Shawn said, distractedly. He was thrilled to be back to field archaeology. After he put the pail
