The Bone Chamber

36

Francesca and Xavier met Dumas at the café, and Francesca’s pulse shot up again as a third fire truck zipped past. Alfredo had left to get his van, in case they needed more equipment for a rescue. He had not yet returned. A second building midblock had collapsed, just sank into the earth, and, from the talk around them, the citizens of Naples were blaming it on yet another crumbling tunnel, long forgotten, finally giving way.

Xavier shook his head. “How does a man set a trap that lasts over two hundred years?”

“Like da Vinci before him,” Dumas said, “di Sangro’s genius was unparalleled.”

“But to what end?” Francesca wondered aloud. She’d studied every nuance about the prince and even she was having difficulties comprehending that his trap was real. Or perhaps she didn’t want to believe it. To do so meant that there was no hope.

“From what I gathered from the documents that you uncovered at the Vatican, di Sangro’s sole purpose was to protect that which he sought to hide, from those he hoped to hide it from. Why else leave such enigmatic clues?”

“Enigmatic?” Xavier said. “Or purposefully deceitful? Maybe he really was the monster that some historians thought.”

“I don’t believe so,” Dumas said. “Misunderstood, as those who are too far ahead of their time often are. But in this instance, he had a purpose. Perhaps one the church didn’t see as clearly as he did at the time. To protect mankind.”

Francesca watched the crowd surge forward, no doubt trying to see what, if anything, or anyone, was left in the collapsed building. “If di Sangro went to such trouble to give specific clues on the door of his chapel, warning of a trap, or how to avoid it, then there could equally be a specific escape route.” She turned to Xavier. “Where was it you thought his tunnel came out?”

“Originally? Where we came out.”

“Any other guesses, now that we know that wasn’t the right way?”

And Dumas, staring at the fallen building, said, “Let’s hope it wasn’t there.”

Xavier took out Francesca’s map, spread it across the tabletop. “This is the cistern they went down, and here’s where we came out…” He pointed to the area where the building fell through. “It was obviously to one side of the cistern, probably off that ledge near the top, some hidden passageway. If di Sangro had a route planned out, it would be on the outskirts of the cave-in.” He drew a circle with his finger around the building. “Somewhere in this area, or this one. Perhaps they were lucky.”

“As much as I don’t like it,” Dumas said, “we will need to split up again, the better to cover both areas.”

“Then that’s what we need to do,” she said. “We need to find them before Adami’s men do.”

“Sydney!”

Blackness. Pain. It was several moments before Sydney dared breathe, dared move. And several more moments before she realized that she was suspended by the rope, hanging, spinning. “Griff?”

“You’re okay?” His voice sounded a million miles away.

“Yeah. Sort of…Oh my God. The map!” She reached back, felt it still strapped across her shoulder, looked up, tried to see him, but her eyes filled with dust, still raining down from above.

“Can you climb?”

“I’m sure as hell gonna try.” She reached out, touched the wall, tried to stop the turning, then braced both her feet against the tunnel walls. As soon as she started climbing, the rope seemed to loosen from around her chest, and she felt like she could breathe again.

“You’re doing good. Keep going.”

She had to stop to rest, tried to ignore the pulsing pain in her hand. “You know this is hell on my manicure.”

“Didn’t think you were the manicure type.”

“You know me. All about fashion and accessories. A real girly girl.”

Toward the top, however, the passageway widened, and she couldn’t find purchase, her hands and feet slipped. She finally had to stop. “I can’t make it.”

She could hear Griffin breathing above her. “Just a bit more.”

Her foot slid on the tufo. “I’m losing my grip. It’s too wide.” And just when she was sure she couldn’t hang on another second, just when she knew she was going to fall again, drag him down with her, the rope pulled tight beneath her arms.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’m going to pull you up.”

“Whose idea was it to get on that plane to Italy?”

“We’re almost to the surface. Just a couple more feet.”

He helped her to the top, then over the edge, and she collapsed next to him. She’d been climbing on sheer adrenaline, of which there was none left at the moment. As she caught her breath, she looked over at him. “I’m going to have rope burn in places no rope should ever be.”

He laughed. “That’ll be foremost in my mind next time I decide to climb through tunnels in Naples.”

“Figures,” she said, staring up at the ceiling, at the shadows.

“You want, I could-”

“Is that light up there?”

“Where?”

She pointed straight up.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“Where are we?”

“Sort of looks like an unfinished basement, if I had to guess. Maybe the opening was blocked until the cave-in.”

She closed her eyes in relief, opened them again, worried that the light from the windows above would disappear, that it had all been a dream. But no, it was still there. And in that moment, she reached out, felt the round shape of the tube from the cavern. “What time is it?” she asked.

Griffin looked at his watch. “We have less than an hour before Adami expects us to contact him.”

Together they moved to the window. Griffin opened it, about to help Sydney out, but stopped at the sound of the sirens.

“What’s going on?” Sydney whispered.

She peered out the window they’d almost climbed through, saw general chaos with people running in every direction, then froze at the sight of dark-clad legs walking toward their window. She looked up, saw Dumas looking down at them.

“Need a hand?” Dumas said.

Griffin hesitated. He glanced over at Sydney, then turned his attention back to Dumas. “As it turns out, yes.” Griffin held up the window, and Sydney handed him the tube, then allowed Dumas to help her out. Griffin followed.

Dumas eyed the leather tube that Griffin now carried, but said only, “This way.” They followed him down the street to a small car parked about two blocks away. “The professoressa and her friend were most insistent on helping draw off the men searching for you. A favor returned, she said. They are watching for you on the other side of the collapsed building. His cousin has returned to start a search-and-rescue operation for the both of you. He should be back shortly.”

“These men the professor and Xavier drew off? How many?”

“Two chased after them, and just before the collapse I saw another two. Conjecture, of course, based on their inordinate interest in the known locations of that particular tunnel entrance. I recognized Adami’s men. These others, I do not know them. Someone else is after this thing.”

“There were at least two down in the tunnels that we know of. I doubt they’re coming up.”

They piled into the car, Sydney in the front passenger seat, Griffin in the back. “What about Francesca and Xavier?” he asked.

Dumas pulled out and into traffic. “The young man, Xavier, seems to have a grasp of these streets that will serve them well. I will meet up with them after I take you wherever it is you need to go. First I intend to see if we are being followed. I take it you found the key? That is what is in the tube?”

Griffin saw Sydney’s shoulders tense as she said, “What makes you say that?”

“The collapse,” Dumas replied. “After the professoressa fled the Vatican, Father Martinez brought me the documents she’d been researching. It was there I found the passage about di Sangro. Depending on how you interpreted it, it could mean one of two things. Whosoever found the key and moved it would meet a most untimely death, turning their corpses into dust, or, whoever finds the key must choose the right time and direction to avoid such a fate.”

“The eternal clock in the Capuchin Crypt,” Sydney said. “We chose to interpret it as a compass that indicated north. That’s the direction we fled.”

“And a good thing you did,” Dumas said, expertly weaving in and out of traffic with the finesse of a local cabbie. “How did you guess in time?”

“Lady Luck,” Griffin said, as he leaned back, far too exhausted to explain. But he couldn’t help but think of their near escape.

“Or perhaps,” Dumas said, “God was watching over you.”

“As were you, it seems.”

Dumas didn’t reply, and Griffin felt only slightly guilty. He had no doubts as to Dumas’s loyalty. The church first, their mission second. That he’d come here to warn them was something, at least.

Dumas slowed as a bus pulled out in front of him, then glanced in his rearview mirror. “I am not sure what your plans were, but it seems I underestimated the number of men following you. The man in the car directly behind us made a point to let me know he is armed.”

Griffin shifted in his seat, looked out the back, recognizing the man in the front passenger seat as one of the two men who had followed them from the Capuchin Crypt. So much for his plans for quietly leaving Naples with the map.

“What is it you’d like me to do?” Dumas asked.

“Drive us to the hotel,” he said, not wanting to give Adami’s men any inkling that he intended to do anything but trade the map for Tex. Returning to the hotel would allow him to regroup, come up with an alternate plan. Or destroy the map if need be…

Dumas did as he was told, stopping the car in front of the hotel.

Griffin opened the car door. “You’re not even curious as to what this is?” he asked, tapping on the leather tube.

“I’ll find out in good time when you return it to the Vatican.”

“The Vatican?”

“The papal seal on the end?” he said, reaching out, touching the tooled leather. “That shows it is Vatican property. And the records the professoressa found confirm it. But I am a patient man if nothing else.”

Good thing, Griffin thought, because this map wasn’t going anywhere near the Vatican.

Sydney pushed through the door the moment Griffin inserted the key. “Let’s open that thing up and see what’s in there,” she said, walking to the table by the window and clearing the hotel’s literature from it. She looked up to see why he hadn’t immediately followed her. “Well?”

“This thing’s over two hundred years old at the least.”

“And at a constant fifty degrees, probably preserved better than if it was in some museum.” He didn’t move. “What? You think it’s going to disintegrate the moment you unlatch the top? At least take a look before we have to hand it over. If it seems crumbly, we wait. If not, I say pull the damned thing out and let’s see it. I’d like to see what we almost died for.”

He pushed the door closed, then walked over to the table, in no particular hurry.

Sydney tried to keep the impatience from her voice. “Anytime.”

Surprisingly, he handed the tube to her. “You rescued it. The honor should be yours.”

And suddenly she wasn’t sure she wanted it. What if she opened it, and she was the one responsible for destroying a piece of history? That thought lasted until the moment her hand gripped the still supple tube. Now that the danger was seemingly over, and they were no longer running, she had a moment to admire the intricate hand-tooled leather. The case itself was probably worth something, she thought, running her finger over the elaborate papal seal tooled on the top. She slid the thin leather strap up, allowing the top to be lifted. The edge of a rolled parchment was visible just inside, and she touched it with her finger. “It feels sturdy.”

“Slide it out.”

“Shouldn’t we be wearing gloves, or something?”

“Now you’re worried?”

“Maybe we should wait for Francesca. She is the expert, after all.”

Griffin’s answer to that was to grab several tissues from a box on the bathroom counter, then return and hand them to her. “Happy? Take the damned thing out.”

“I’d be happier if we had a camera,” she said. “What about the camera on your phone?”

“No. No photos.”

She looked up at him, wondered why he was so adamant, but figured he had his reasons. “It’s your mission,” she said, using the tissue to keep her fingers from touching the parchment as she carefully slid it partway from the tube, revealing a fleur-de-lis on the top corner. That was the only marking on the outside of the parchment. With Griffin’s help, they unrolled it onto the table, weighting it down with a telephone book on one side and an empty ice bucket on the other.

“This sure as hell doesn’t look like any key or map,” she said. It was a drawing of a large labyrinth, and with it what appeared to be a legend down the right side, unfortunately in some language that Sydney could only guess at. There was a coat of arms in the bottom left corner, with the Templar cross situated above another fleur-de-lis. “What do you think it’s for?”

“I have no idea.”

They stared at it for several minutes, and when nothing seemed to present itself, Sydney said, “You get the feeling that out of all the things down there, maybe this wasn’t the thing to grab?”

“Like we had a lot of time to think about it?” The muted ring of Adami’s cell phone sounded through Griffin’s pack. Sydney’s heart skipped a beat with each ring. Tex, she thought as Griffin pulled the pouch from his pack and then removed the phone, opened it.

He signaled for Sydney to move next to him, and he held the phone so that they both could hear.

“You’re back.”

“Yes,” Griffin said. “Where’s Tex?”

“I see you have the map?”

See? “We have it.”

“Do not leave the room until we get there.”

“And when will that be?”

“Enough time for the both of you to take a shower. You look a bit dusty.” He disconnected.

Griffin tossed the phone onto the bed. “How did we not figure he’d have cameras set up in this room?”

“We had other things on our mind. What should we do?”

He looked around the room, perhaps trying to see where the camera was situated, then moved in close. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said, lowering his voice. Then, louder, said, “Adami’s on his way. I for one am going to take a shower.”

He disappeared into the bathroom, and while he was gone, she tried to determine why he was against taking a photo of it. Then again, if this room had cameras, Adami would know the moment they tried to snap a photo.

Griffin stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later, towel-drying his hair, dressed only in his pants. He draped his shirt over the chair. “Dumas hasn’t called?”

“Not yet.”

He walked over to take another look at the map, when there was a knock at the door. Griffin strode over, peered through the peephole, then backed away. “It’s Dumas. He’s with Francesca. And there’s someone standing beside them.”

“Who?”

“Our friend from the Capuchin Crypt,” he said quietly, then pointed at the map.

She lifted the ice bucket, allowing the parchment to roll up on itself. She rolled it tighter, then dropped it into the tube.

“Hold on,” Griffin said loudly, grabbing his shirt. “Let me throw on my clothes.”

“What do you want me to do?” she whispered.

“Hug me for good luck.”

It took a moment for his odd request to sink in, and then she thought, cameras. She stepped into his arms, felt his skin, warm, moist against her, as he whispered, “Take it in the bathroom, pretend to be taking a shower, and destroy it.” She looked up, about to protest, but he held her tight, his whisper filled with urgency. “We’re out of ammo, and Tex or no Tex, if we can’t get the map out of Naples, I’m under orders not to let it leave our hands-even if we are killed in the process. We have to destroy it.”

His words sent a chill through her. She couldn’t believe he would willingly let his friend die. But she knew the hopelessness of the situation the moment she looked into his eyes, saw the pain, the resignation. As much as he wanted Tex safe, it had always been about the map, keeping it from the enemy.

She took the tube, carried it into the windowless bathroom, closed the door, locked it. She turned on the water to the shower, then looked at her reflection more ghostly than real through all that steam, and in that moment, she realized the full weight of Griffin’s dilemma. He was under orders not to let Adami have the map. But could she really think that he’d choose the map over Tex’s life? Even then, he couldn’t just turn over the map, when they knew what it might lead to. If there was any truth to this whole biblical plague thing-and so far everything she’d seen led her to believe it was all true-then everything they did from this moment on could mean countless lives saved…

Griffin’s bosses wanted the map. Impossible with Adami’s man outside the door.

But the impossible meant the map had to be destroyed. She took out the knife Griffin had given her, removed the map from the tube, unrolling it on the bathroom counter. She poised the knife over the map, intending to cut it to shreds, before flushing it, and it occurred to her what sort of history she was about to decimate.

But it wasn’t history that came to mind. It was Tex. One life or thousands of lives?

How did one choose?

“Dumas,” Griffin said, opening the door. “I see you brought company.”

Father Dumas gave an apologetic shrug. “The professoressa said that you’d want to see this man. He says his name is Silvio and that Adami sent him. He wants to know if you have the map.”

“I do. Where’s Tex?”

Silvio, his hand in the pocket of his overcoat, no doubt holding a weapon on them, barged into the room, looking around. “Signore Adami will bring your friend, once I call to confirm the map is here. Where is it?”

“Surely you saw the map on the monitor?”

“Until I verify that it is real, no exchange will be made.”

“It’s in the bathroom with my associate. I’d get it, but the door’s locked and she’s taking a shower.”

Silvio pulled his hand from his pocket, revealing the pistol he’d been hiding. He pointed it at Griffin. “I’d suggest she hurry. We are to meet Signore Adami out front with the map in hand in exchange for your friend. And he wants to know that he has the only copy, or the deal is off.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Griffin shouted Sydney’s name.

“I’m washing my hair,” she called back.

“Hurry.”

Griffin leaned against the bathroom door, heard the blow dryer start up, and wondered what the hell Sydney was doing in there.

Adami’s man stood in the center of the room, his arms crossed. “You’re sure she’s going to come out?”

“She has to. There are no windows.”

“What’s taking her so long?”

“She’s a girl. That’s what they do.”

The man’s phone rang. He flipped it open, said, “Pronto.” Then, “Adami is here. He wants reassurance that the map is here. Now.”

“No cameras in the bathroom?”

“We are not without some scruples,” he said, which was when Griffin wondered if there really were cameras in the room at all. Griffin had purposefully taken a shower just in case there were cameras in there, in order to steam the things up. He was not about to destroy the map and let anyone see it being done. Adami had no scruples, and he doubted that anyone who worked for him did, either. Definitely not this man, who demanded, “Let me see the map or Adami leaves with your friend.”

“Sydney! The map. I need it now.”

He heard the blow dryer shut off.

A few seconds later, the door opened a crack, and Sydney stepped out, holding the tube, her hair looking damp, as though she hadn’t bothered to dry it all the way.

“The map,” Griffin said, nodding toward Sydney.

“Show me.”

Sydney unbuckled the lid. His heart skipped a beat as he peered in, saw a bit of yellowish white. It was there, he realized, watching her tipping it upside-down to slide out the parchment partway. He wanted to throttle Sydney. She was supposed to have destroyed it. Francesca sucked in her breath at the sight of the fleur-de-lis on the outside corner. When she tried to move closer, Dumas put his hand out to stop her, and Sydney tapped the rolled parchment back into the tube and handed it to Griffin.

The man said into the phone, “It appears to be the map…”

“Satisfied?” Griffin asked.

“Signore Adami will be once he is assured there are no copies. I’ll need to search the room and the bathroom, as well as any of your possessions.”

“All yours,” he said, indicating the man could check the hotel room.

Adami’s man walked through the room, looking in Griffin’s backpack, the armoire, then behind it. He ripped off the sheets, checked beneath the mattress, around and beneath the bed, then in the drawers of the small bedside table, as well as the desk. And that confirmed it for Griffin that there were no cameras. They would have known that he and Sydney came straight in, opened the map, and then took it into the bathroom. He no doubt knew they were dusty because he had someone posted out front, and that person had seen them walk in. The man pocketed a small pad of paper he found in the desk drawer.

Griffin looked Sydney in the eye, trying to figure out what she was up to, why she didn’t destroy the map as ordered. “He wants to check the bathroom, to make sure there is nothing hidden in there.”

“Have at it,” she said, pushing the bathroom door wide open.

Adami’s man walked inside, looked around, peeked behind the door and into the shower, then came out. Into the phone, he said, “All clear.” He listened a moment, then told Griffin, “He’s waiting downstairs in the car.”

“I want to know my friend is safe before we go down there.”

“You don’t call the orders.”

“Then you don’t get the map.”

He nodded, said into the phone, “He wants to talk to his friend…” He handed the phone to Griffin.

“Tex?”

“Griff? I told you not-”

And then Adami saying, “Bring me the map. You have five minutes, or your friend dies.”