The Secret Chapel

book was probably on the helicopter. Sweat caused by the adrenalin-fueled response to fear ran down their collars as one of the men opened his cell phone and hit re-dial.

Chapter 37

Leo and John were literally hiding in the bushes. Twenty minutes earlier, the helicopter had dropped them off in a darkened field. They watched the traffic on a narrow road leading into the village of Portenza before slinging their backpacks over their shoulders and walking quickly out of the brush onto the edge of the road. Dressed casually in polo shirts and jeans, the two looked like tourists backpacking through the countryside.

“It seems like only yesterday that we were trying to get out of Italy,” John said, squinting at the sunrise peeking over the surrounding hills. “What time does our train leave?”

“Six forty-five exactly,” Leo said. “Italian trains are always on time, so we can’t be late. From what I could see when we flew in, the village should be just ahead.”

The two picked up their pace, peering inside every vehicle that passed for signs of out-of-place men in suits. John nudged Leo when Moshe and Alon drove by in their rental car without acknowledgement. Keeping a low profile, the two Israelis continued into town and parked a block away from the train station so as not to draw any attention to Leo and John.

Entering the outskirts of the small town, Leo and John made their way through sleepy streets to an Italian train station built in the typical style of the 1930s. The interior was spacious, with high ceilings towering above, supported by square green marble columns. The Italians seemed to love the colors of green and yellow, and this building was no exception. The entire station was done in a green and yellow color scheme, with green and yellow tiles on the floor surrounded by yellow-tiled walls. Even the signs displaying arrival and departure times were yellow.

The only deviation from this theme was the brown wooden ticket window where Leo and John purchased their tickets using cash. Daniel had painstakingly made some false IDs for them, but the agent didn’t seem interested and never asked for identification.

Taking a final look around the inside of the station, they passed through a pair of immense two-story wooden doors onto a concrete platform located outside above the rails. Stealing glances at the other passengers lining the platform, they took seats on a bench resting against the station’s red brick wall. Both felt the same edginess that had gripped them when they had escaped from Italy the week before. It was 6:35 AM, and they could see the bouncing headlight of a train approaching in the distance. If nothing happened in the next ten minutes, they would soon be on their way to Rome.

The dark blue train screeched to a stop, and a few passengers stepped off while an equal number clambered onboard. Leo and John climbed the metal steps into a dingy railway coach that was beginning to show its age. They turned down a narrow, window-lined passageway and walked through the smoke-stained car while peering into separate wood-paneled compartments built to hold six passengers each on facing brown-upholstered bench-type seats.

“Here’s one,” Leo said. He stepped into a vacant compartment and looked through the oversized window at the now-empty train platform for anyone that seemed suspicious. John eyed the seats and stuffed the backpack onto an overhead shelf before sitting by the door.

A sudden jerking motion signaled movement as the engine began pulling the train away from the station. The aged train slowly increased speed until the scenery was flashing by their windows in a blur of green. Leo was restless and stood, pacing the compartment and poking his head out into the narrow passageway. “I think I’ll get some coffee and a paper in the dining car.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” John asked.

“No, you’d better wait here with the backpack. You want some coffee?”

“That’d be great,” John said. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat as Leo exited the compartment.

Leo peered into every compartment as he walked through the connecting passages toward the front of the train. The only other passengers he saw appeared to be the local Italian gentry who seemed surprised when they looked up and saw someone who appeared to be a tourist within their midst. Not good, he thought. Anything that made them stand out from the crowd was not to their advantage, and he and John seemed to be the only tourists on this train.

Stepping into a wood-paneled coach from another era, Leo approached a marble-topped counter and ordered a small cup of dark espresso. He grabbed a paper and tried to look casual, sipping his coffee and glancing at the pictures of the devastation in Houston spread across the front page under bold headlines in Italian. A sense of urgency gnawed at his already unsettled stomach.

The priest folded the paper and offered it to an attractive middle-aged woman standing next to him. They made small talk for several minutes before Leo decided that it was probably unwise for him and John to remain separated for too long. He ordered coffee to go for John and tapped his fingers nervously on the counter as he and the woman next to him continued to smile at one another. She turned and leaned forward while laying her hand on his. “It’s a long ride into Rome,” she said. “Why don’t we have another cup of coffee and sit at one of the tables?”

It was obvious to Leo that he had been a little too charming. Forgetting John’s coffee in his haste to retreat, he excused himself from the disappointed woman and began making his way toward the back of the train.

Entering one of the tight connecting passageways, Leo stepped right into the path of two well-groomed men wearing suits. Leo froze and tried to think as the train swayed from side to side over the worn tracks. He had looked into every compartment on the way to the dining car, and these men hadn’t been in any of them. He held his breath as the two men squeezed past with only barely perceptible nods.

Walking quickly through the next car, Leo looked back over his shoulder at the men who appeared to be continuing on toward the front of the train. The train lurched around a bend just as he reached his compartment, forcing him to grab the edge of the doorway before stumbling inside. It was empty. No John … no backpack. He stepped back and looked up at the compartment number posted on a bronze plaque over the door. It was the same compartment they had been sitting in.

Looking up and down the empty passageway, Leo felt his heart beating in his chest as panic began to settle in. Abandoning the need to maintain a low profile, he raced toward the end of the train, systematically looking into every compartment until he came to the end. No John. He turned and retraced his steps, wondering what to do next. He knew that he hadn’t passed John when he was returning from the dining car. In his panic, had he missed him somehow when he searched the rear section of the coach? He swirled around just as a thin wooden door opened, almost hitting him in the face. It was John holding the backpack.

“What are you doing?” Leo asked breathlessly. “This is not a good time to disappear on me.”

“I had to use the bathroom, Father.”

Leo worked to slow his breathing. “Sorry, John … guess I’m a little jumpy … but from now on, we stay together. If one of us goes to the bathroom, the other waits outside the door.”

“I know, Father. That was a dumb move. I should have waited until you got back. Did you get my coffee?”

“I forgot, but we can’t go back to the dining car. I just passed two guys in suits heading in that direction. I could swear that I looked in every compartment on the way there, but I missed those two somehow. Anyway, it’s probably nothing, but I think it’s safer to stay in our compartment until we reach Rome.”

The two returned to their compartment as the long blue train left the fields behind and began hugging steep mountain cliffs. Speeding through a series of tunnels, it turned inland again and passed through the remote and wild regions of Basilicata and neighboring Calabria, two of the poorest regions in Italy. Greek, Roman, and Norman ruins dotted the landscape outside their windows. Calabria still retained its frightening reputation for crime and banditry thanks to the ‘ndrangheta, the violent first cousin to the mafia. Due in part to the Aspromonte and Sila mountain ranges, the rugged landscape they were traveling through had blocked change and left the region much as it had been for the past one hundred years.

The train snaked its way northward back to the coast, where it moved through Naples into the Lazio region of