CHAPTER TWO
1891 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Remi hissed in fear and frustration. Less than a kilometer away from the catacombs, and now some irate farmer was going to call the police on them. What terrible luck!
But where was the farmer?
Remi looked all around and didn’t see anyone else on their side of the stone fence. Then she realized the shouting came from the other side.
“Yes, you! There’s nothing to see here.”
Remi peeked over the wall again. A middle-aged farmer, all strong arms and scowl, stomped across the pasture toward the two men from the Society of Devout Students, who had pushed through the hedge and stood at the edge of the field.
The two men didn’t even bother to answer. They simply looked around, Remi ducking down, and then when she dared a peek again she saw them passing back through the hedge.
“Now what?” Daniel asked.
Good question. They were safe for the moment, but their pursuers knew roughly where they were. They would assume Remi and Daniel would either skirt the Appian Way in the direction they had been heading since they got off the bus a couple of kilometers up the road, double back and return the way they came, or strike off across the fields.
The sound of a car gave her an idea. On the opposite side of the fields from the Appian Way stood a scattering of trees and bushes, and as she looked she could just see the top of a car passing by on a sunken road. She watched, and the car moved along, paralleling the Appian Way before going out of sight behind the farmhouse and a row of closely planted trees.
“Let’s get on that road,” she said, pointing.
“Good idea,” Daniel agreed. “I’ll turn on Google Maps and when we get parallel to the catacombs, we can cut across the fields and get to it.”
It seemed like a sound plan, but the stone wall was so low they had to crawl the whole way to the road so as not to get spotted by that irate man protecting his cows.
Daniel grumbled all the way. Remi couldn’t make out most of what he said, but the words “extra-large gelato” were among them.
“You and your stomach,” Remi chuckled.
“You and your historical obsessions.”
“Touché.”
They got to the road—a narrow, two-lane affair—and slid down a low embankment to get onto the shoulder. They walked along it. Only rarely did a car pass. Daniel got on his phone and brought up their position on Google Maps.
“We’re almost there,” he announced. “Isn’t technology a wonderful thing?”
“They have it too,” Remi said, looking around nervously. “What if they brought a car and decide to check this road?”
“Then we give them nothing. We leave and come back another day.”
“Another day? We can’t afford to wait another day!”
“I don’t think they’ve figured it out. I think they’re simply following us. Riding on your research’s coattails. I’m sure you’ve had rival academics do that before.”
Remi smiled ruefully. “Indeed I have.”
They came to the spot indicated on the map and found themselves beside another pasture with a few grazing cows. They waited for an oncoming car to pass before hopping a low fence and making their way across.
Remi checked her watch. The tour would start in ten minutes. They had to time this just right. If they got there too soon, the men following them would have a better chance of coming across them. Too late, and they wouldn’t get in. Each system of catacombs only allowed a limited number of people in per day in order to preserve the fragile monuments.
They crossed the field without seeing anyone and got to the hedge. Google Maps showed the entrance to the Catacombs of St. Mark to be right on the other side. They paused for a minute, unsure when to break through and reveal themselves before the sight of a farmer walking in the next field over prompted them to make a move.
They chose the worst possible time. Just as they pushed through a thin part of the hedge, spotting a small, nineteenth-century brick building put atop the catacomb entrance with a sign advertising it, a crowd of tourists came out the door. The previous tour. A few other people stood nearby waiting to join the tour she and Daniel had signed up for.
They all stared at the two people breaking through a hedge.
“Hi!” Daniel said in a cheerful tone. “Call of nature. Didn’t want to be caught short in the catacombs, eh?”
Remi rolled her eyes.
One of the men grinned, pointed to the dirt on their knees, and said in an English accent, “Looks like you were doing more than having a s***h, mate.”
Several giggles from the crowd. Remi felt the urge to sink through the ground.
Most of the crowd dispersed as the previous tour moved on and the few people for the next one lined up. As she brushed off her pants, Remi took a look around. No sign of the men from the Society of Devout Students.
They passed through a narrow doorway, an attendant checking the electronic tickets on their phones, and assembled in a small foyer. A few photos of the catacombs hung from the walls. The others studied them as Remi fidgeted.
“Relax,” Daniel whispered. “We shook them.”
“I’ll relax when we get to the Chapel of the Four Gospel Evangelists.”
“Hello, everyone!” a young woman called in English from the doorway that she was locking. Apparently she was the only employee here. “Welcome to the tour. My name is Anke van der Berg. I am a Dutch graduate student at the Classics and Ancient History department at Sapienza University in Rome.”
Remi nodded in appreciation. That was the best department in Italy, and courses were taught in Italian, so this woman’s Italian must be as good as her English. She seemed intelligent and eager, the kind of enthusiastic graduate student that Remi appreciated.
And that made her feel very bad about the terrible, horrible thing they planned to do to her. Remi hoped it wouldn’t cost this nice young woman her job.
She hoped it wouldn’t cost Remi and Daniel their jobs either. At least they had paid for their tickets with an anonymous app.
“Construction of the Catacombs of St. Mark began in the second century A.D., around the same time as several of the other networks of catacombs along the Appian Way. The tunnels and tombs run for more than five kilometers on three levels. In this tour we will see just a part of them, the most stable tunnels with the best artwork.”
Except for the Chapel of the Four Gospel Evangelists, Remi added silently. That’s a bit too out of the way, at the end of a supposedly unstable tunnel. Or did someone in the Italian government just say it was unstable to keep the chapel from prying eyes?
Anke went on.
“We’ll head on down those stairs right over there. While you are on the tour, please watch your head because the ceiling is low in places and please do not stray from the lighted path.”
Daniel snickered. Remi elbowed him.
“So if you’ll follow me, we can—oh!”
A furious pounding at the door made her open it.
“Sorry we’re late,” said a brusque voice. Remi’s heart clenched. She recognized that voice.
A moment later her worries were confirmed as Father De Sanctis of the Society of Devout Students walked in, his two goons in tow.
She had a bit of history with this man. On an earlier case, he had been a suspect in murdering a string of members of his society, although in the end it turned out he was only hiding out, thinking he would be the next victim.
Father De Sanctis was an older man with a neatly trimmed white beard, but he was fit and healthy. Remi knew this because she had fought him once, back when she tried to detain him on suspicion of murder. She won, but only because she pepper sprayed him. He hadn’t forgiven her for that, and given his overall personality she hadn’t regretted it either. Was feeling good about pepper spraying a priest a sin? She wasn’t sure. The nuns at her Catholic school had never covered that topic.
“Welcome to the tour, Father,” Anke said in a perky voice, noticing his priest’s collar. “You’re just in time. We were about to head downstairs. You almost missed us.”
Father De Sanctis looked right at Remi and smiled. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Remi and Daniel exchanged glances. Her partner gave her a brief, reassuring nod as if to say, “This changes nothing.”
Darn right it doesn’t. If we could have put them off the trail I wouldn’t have minded coming back tomorrow. But now that they’re here, now that they know the answer lies in the catacombs, we’re going to have to go through with it.
That simultaneously thrilled and terrified her.
The visitors began to file down the stairs. Father De Sanctis got right behind Remi and whispered into her ear, “You’re not as clever as you think you are.”
“We’ll see about that,” she grumbled.
They walked down a narrow staircase. A cool breeze wafted up from below. Remi ducked a little from the low ceiling, hoping Father De Sanctis would bump his head. Sadly he didn’t.
They ended up in a small room from which two stone tunnels branched. The tunnels were narrow enough that Remi could have spread her arms and put her palms flat on both walls. The arched ceiling was almost low enough to touch. Lights were strung at far intervals along the ceiling, giving a dim light. They were powered by a switchbox by the staircase. Daniel positioned himself next to it. She and her partner had memorized the layout of the catacombs from an archaeological report before they came, and knew exactly where they were going.
Once the visitors were all assembled, the tour guide turned to them. “Our first stop will be down this hallway, where we will see one of the oldest Christian tombs in the catacombs. You’ll notice on the wall is a simple carving of the Chi-Rho, the first two letters of Christos, Christ’s name in Greek. This was a popular Christian symbol in the days of early Christianity. Now if you will follow me …”
They guide moved off down one of the corridors, the tourists filing behind her. Father De Sanctis stood by Remi, not moving, so Remi made a move as if to follow the tour.
That’s when Daniel flipped open the circuit box, pulled a heavy steel flashlight out of his pocket, and smashed the connection.
The entire catacombs were plunged into darkness.
- Writer
