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 seal.
“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.
Knocking out two more large stones, the hole was now large enough for a man to poke his head through. John laid the pickax aside and peered into the void. “There’s definitely a hollow space here.”
Father Morelli pushed in beside him and shined his light into the blackness. He backed away and let out a loud whoop while slapping John on the back.
“It’s huge!” Morelli exclaimed. “It’s the size of a ballroom … it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen in any of the other catacombs under Rome.”
John lifted up the pickax again and continued knocking away the stone blocks until a small two-foot by two- foot opening stood in a cloud of dust before them. Without a word, Father Morelli squeezed through the opening. John grinned at Leo and motioned him forward. Leo felt a sudden rush of excitement. “Go ahead, John. I’ll follow you.”
Once inside, the men’s voices echoed in the space as they began shining their lights around, looking for evidence that this was the ancient hidden chapel they had been searching for. The immense room was totally empty except for a large, rough-hewn stone structure built atop a raised area at the far end. Morelli and the others noticed right away that the eerie and unusual space was constructed of the same stone blocks they had seen outside in the tunnel.
“I’m beginning to wonder if the people who created this room transported their building material to Rome from somewhere else,” Morelli said. “It appears that this area was excavated just for this room and lined with this pinkish-colored stone for some specific reason.”
“Why would they do that?” John asked.
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Morelli said, eyeing the opposite end of the space. The scene had a dreamlike quality to it as he approached some steps leading to a raised area supporting a structure that resembled an altar. It consisted of a long, flat slab of gray stone supported by two massive four-foot-high carved blocks of stone, each several feet thick and placed six feet apart. Above the altar was the unmistakable image of a five-foot tall Christian cross carved into the wall.
There was no doubt among the three men that they had just discovered a very different and ancient Christian place of worship. They paused to look up at the beautifully carved cross before resuming their exploration in silence, slowly walking back and forth, illuminating the walls, floor, and ceiling with their lights.
“This is definitely not what I expected,” Father Morelli said, finally able to bring himself to speak. The other two were just as dumbstruck by the discovery.
Looking for symbols or anything that looked like writing, Leo walked along one of the walls and shined his light up at the ceiling fifteen feet above their heads. “What do you think, Anthony? Is this the chapel?” The sound of his voice reverberated in the empty space.
