the skin began to separate as the entire outer layer fell away in sheets revealing liquefied underlying tissue. Blood was flowing from every orifice of the body until soon, the twitching remnants of what had once been a living, breathing, human being was nothing more than the rapidly disintegrating repository of an alien invader, the likes of which the world had never seen before.
Those not affected huddled and prayed in their apartments, while outside, hundreds of men wearing blue biological protection suits roamed empty streets in an effort to contain and track the origin of the grotesque disease. The blue-suited men swarmed over the city taking samples. They took samples of air, samples of blood, samples of water-they swabbed everything from subway cars to door knobs to family pets, all in an attempt to find anything that might give them a clue as to what kind of pathogen was raging throughout the city and killing thousands.
Then, forty-eight hours after the horror had descended on New York, as the men in blue continued to sample and swab and collect bodies for disposal, a planned event unknown to them was already taking place. The mystery pathogen was now retreating, disappearing almost as rapidly as it had appeared. Within hours, it would vanish completely without infecting anyone else, leaving behind no trace of its identity or place of origin-
CHAPTER 6
The mood inside the papal apartments was somber when Cardinal Leo and Bishop Morelli entered. The old Jesuit secretary led the men to the library, where they found Pope Michael engaged in a serious sounding discussion with a man they both knew well.
“Ah … you’ve found him,” the pope said, rising from his chair.
“Yes, Your Holiness. He was just standing out there in the middle of the square.”
A distinguished-looking man with a full head of curly gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard rose from his seat and rushed over to take Leo’s hand.
“Cardinal! It’s good to see you, my friend.”
“Lev! How are you … and how’s your beautiful daughter, Ariella?”
“She said to tell you she sends her love, as do your other friends back in Israel.”
Leo smiled when he noticed that Professor Lev Wasserman had traded in his usual khaki field shirt and knee- length shorts for a blue dress shirt and a pair of tailored gray slacks-clothes he was definitely not comfortable in. However, this was the Vatican, and shorts were not allowed, even for a world-class mathematician with a doctorate in archaeology.
“Are any of the others coming to Rome?” Leo asked.
“I’m afraid not, Cardinal.” Lev turned toward Morelli and raised an eyebrow in his direction. “He doesn’t know yet, does he, Anthony?”
“He just returned from a sabbatical at my house in the country.”
Leo’s piercing green eyes scanned the room.
“I don’t know
The pope set his wine glass on the table and motioned for the others to follow. “Come, Leopold, I think it’s time we brought you up to speed.”
The three men followed the pope out of the papal apartments past two Swiss Guards who immediately snapped to attention when they saw Pope Michael heading for his private elevator. Once inside, the group squeezed together in silence as the elevator descended below the palace and stopped. As soon as the doors slid open, they saw a sight very familiar to all of them.
Beyond the open doors of the elevator lay the crumbling ruins of a section of ancient catacombs that had been hidden beneath the Vatican for almost two-thousand years. For centuries they had been covered over and forgotten until a construction crew, working below the basilica the year before, had accidently crashed through a wall, thus providing Morelli and his team of Vatican archaeologists a window to a sealed off labyrinth that snaked beneath the city. It was down in this area, following clues from a hidden code discovered in the Old Testament by Lev Wasserman, that they had discovered the secret chapel.
Leo was shocked to find that the pope had direct access to the catacombs from his private elevator in the Apostolic Palace. “I didn’t realize your elevator descended into the catacombs, Your Holiness.”
“Bishop Morelli had the work done a few months ago. We’re now four stories underground. I got tired of squeezing through holes and crawling down over piles of rubble to reach the chapel. I go there quite often you know … it’s a very spiritual place to think.”
Following a path lit by construction lights mounted on tripods, the three men followed along behind the pope until they reached a twisting tunnel that had been dug two thousand years before through the reddish volcanic rock that formed the foundation for the entire city of Rome. After walking up a slight incline, they turned a corner and came face to face with the pinkish limestone wall of the ancient chapel.
The only way inside was through a jagged hole that lay before them. When first discovered by Morelli, along with Leo and a young candidate for the priesthood by the name of John Lowe, they had been unable to find any entrance. Using a pickaxe, they had knocked out a section of the wall before crawling inside to discover an immense ballroom-sized space. With the exception of a raised stone altar that lay beneath a five-foot-high cross carved into the wall, the gigantic room was empty.
Standing to the side, the pope extended his hand toward the opening, indicating his desire for the others to enter the chapel first. Only Morelli held back.
“Aren’t you coming, Bishop?”
“I’ll be along in a moment, Your Holiness. I want to check the progress of the excavation along the back wall.”
Morelli disappeared around the corner, while the others ducked through the small opening and entered the chapel. Once inside, they all stood there in silence, for it had been within this very space that they had all been allowed a brief glimpse into a spiritual battle between the forces of heaven and hell-a battle that continued to rage out of sight in a cosmic realm usually not visible to mortal man, even though the eventual outcome would one day determine the fate of everyone on the planet.
Looking at the ancient stone, they could feel a palpable energy all around them, as if the angels had left something behind, an invisible message that had the quality of aura-left there in the chapel to remind them of the vision they had all seen with their own eyes.
Unlike before, when they had only lanterns and flashlights to illuminate a space that was as dark as a mine when the lights were turned off, the room was now bathed in floodlights and littered with the tools of construction workers. The ancient structure was undergoing preparation for the construction of a modern underground center that would allow visitors to view the ancient chapel without disturbing it.
The pope cleared his throat and looked straight at Leo. “So, Cardinal, you haven’t heard anything for the past week … not even a newspaper?”
“Nothing, Your Holiness.”
“Well then, I’m afraid we have some disturbing news for you.”
Leo stiffened. “I noticed that the city seemed deserted, and people look frightened.”
“That’s because most of them are staying indoors. Every commercial mode of transport in the city … the whole world in fact … has been put on hold.” The pope paused. “A mysterious and deadly virus was unleashed in New York City. Thousands have died, Leo.”
The cardinal’s green eyes narrowed. “Is it spreading?”
“No, it seems to have stopped as suddenly as it began. Surprisingly, it hasn’t appeared anywhere else in the world … at least not yet.”
“That’s good news … isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid not. It was a biological attack, which means whoever dispersed the pathogen still has the ability to do it again.”
“A biological attack!” A familiar sense of dread descended over Leo. “Terrorists?”
“That seems to be everyone’s best guess for now, although a number of bad actors could be involved. A
