“Some of this wine has been here since before we were born, Father.”
“Where’s the entrance to the tunnel you told us about?” John asked.
Arnolfo looked down at the floor. “You’re standing on it.”
The group studied the two-inch thick stone blocks that covered the floor as Arnolfo grabbed a shovel from a dusty corner. Placing the edge of the shovel blade between two large rectangular stones, he pried the edge a few inches high while Alon and Moshe lifted it up and shoved it aside. After lifting several more stones, they revealed the hard-packed dirt beneath. Arnolfo began digging, and within minutes, he had struck the wooden cover his grandfather had placed there over fifty years earlier. He gingerly pried the rotting wood up, and immediately, the room filled with the dank smell of the ancient tunnels beneath.
John turned his nose up at the smell. “I love the smell of catacombs in the morning.”
“It’s late afternoon,” Arnolfo said, not getting the joke.
Leo looked around at the others before glancing at Arnolfo and pulling Moshe aside. “I think it would be better if you stayed here with Arnolfo and guarded this entrance.”
“What?” Moshe looked offended. “Lev gave me strict orders to stay with you.”
“We have Alon, and besides, I’m not entirely helpless. I don’t want to leave Arnolfo and his family here without someone like you to watch over them. If the Vatican security men come to the hotel, you’re the only one who can keep this entrance safe if we need to make a hasty retreat.”
“I see what you mean, Father. No one will follow you down that hole.”
Everyone gathered around and peered down into the dank opening. Air began to rush in and out from the tunnel below, as if they had uncovered the hidden lair of a sleeping prehistoric animal that was breathing deeply in its nest.
Arnolfo pulled a wooden ladder away from the wall and lowered it through the narrow entrance while Alon pulled a headlamp from his backpack and was the first to descend to the tunnel floor below. One by one, the others disappeared through the hole until only Arnolfo and Moshe remained in the wine cellar above. Arnolfo called out to Leo as he descended the ladder. “Do you want me to come with you, Father?”
Leo poked his head back up through the opening. “No, my friend. We need you to stay here with Moshe and help keep a watch over this entrance and the street outside the hotel.”
Moshe held up his walkie-talkie. “I’ll lock the door at the top of the stairs and call you if there’s any trouble.”
Leo reached the floor of the tunnel and switched on his light. The illuminated group was looking around and trying to decide which way to go when, without warning from above, the figure of a man descended the ladder behind them. It was Lev.
Ariella ran to him and stretched her arms around his neck. “Father! What are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay with the boat.”
“I could say the same thing about you. I had an overpowering need to be here with the rest of you. We all started out together in the desert, and we should all be together for this.”
A feeling that something wasn’t quite right had been nagging at Leo all day, and now, with Lev’s arrival, he realized what had been bothering him. “I don’t know what we were thinking. All of us who descended into the cavern under the desert and retrieved the book should be here now. We’re all a critical part of the plan.”
Lev switched on his headlamp. “I know. We almost made a terrible mistake. I started thinking about the section of the code that said
Lev’s last sentence got everyone’s attention. They all made a mental checklist of anything they might have forgotten. Alon was the first to break the spell of self-doubt that had the team frozen in place. “Well, we’re all here now, so let’s go.”
Everyone grabbed their backpacks and let the beams from their lights guide them through the tunnel into the maze of the catacombs.
Alon looked back over his shoulder from his place in the lead. “Are we headed in the right direction, Father?”
“We’ll soon find out.” Leo could surmise from dead reckoning that the tunnel they were in now ran in the general direction of Vatican City, but they were in uncharted territory, and since only he and John had been to the chapel before, he wanted John’s opinion.
“What do you think, John?”
“This tunnel is probably very close to the one we used before, Father. We passed a lot of intersecting tunnels before we ended up in the area beneath the Basilica where we discovered the ancient chapel. This has to be one of them.”
The shaft of light from Arnolfo’s wine cellar receded in the distance as they pressed on to what would most probably be another confrontation with a force they still knew very little about. No one had to say it, but they all knew in their hearts and minds that their final battle with evil lay ahead in the darkness beyond.
Chapter 42
Alon continued leading from the front. His head was on a swivel, peering ahead and then behind as they made their way toward the jumble of chambers and tunnels. The memory of the last time they had been in a tunnel was still fresh in his mind. “Did you bring your holy water, Father?”
“I’ve got plenty. How’s everyone doing?”
“We’re fine. This can’t be any worse than the last time,” Ariella said, instantly regretting her words. Already, the dank smell of the catacombs, along with the lack of fresh air, was beginning to make them all a little lightheaded. Everyone dreaded another encounter with the demons, and for some reason, the fear they felt here was even stronger than that they had experienced in the desert.
Arriving at the end of the tunnel where it dead-ended into a larger tunnel, John pointed excitedly to the wall straight ahead. “Look, Father.”
Morelli’s yellow chalk mark was on the wall of the intersecting tunnel in front of them, pointing to the right. They turned in the direction of the arrow, picking up the pace with the anticipation of getting to their destination as quickly as possible.
The group shined their lights down every tunnel they crossed in an effort to mark their progress. They were in a gigantic ancient maze, and even though a tunnel might look familiar, they could easily get turned around and start heading in the opposite direction.
Leo was behind Alon when they rounded a corner and entered a large space where the ceiling rose almost twenty feet. Leo stopped for a moment to get his bearings and called out to the others. “I think we’re under the Basilica. The tunnel to the chapel is a little farther ahead.”
Alon was preparing to call Moshe on his radio when a bright light suddenly filled the space.
“Vatican security! Halt!”
The five shielded their eyes from the light as several uniformed and plain clothes Vatican security officers flooded out of side tunnels and surrounded them.
A short middle-aged priest with heavy eyebrows stepped forward accompanied by a young dark-haired officer with cold gray eyes. “May I ask what you are all doing down here? This area is off-limits-and you are all trespassing.”
Leo immediately recognized Emilio. He thought hard, dozens of explanations running through his mind. Why hadn’t he prepared for something like this? He uttered the first words that came to mind. “We were touring the catacombs and got turned around. These are some of my friends, Emilio.”
The diminutive priest stared at Leo with contempt. “What a coincidence that you got lost right under the Basilica, Father. I think we both know why you’re down here. Unfortunately this is now a matter for the police. You are under arrest. Please come with us.”
Leo shot Alon a glance and faced Emilio. “Since when do priests arrest people?”
