The Lost Apostles (29 page)

Chapter 37

There are ways within ways, secrets within secrets. If you dig deeply enough to solve any problem, you will always find an answer.

—
The Quotations of Lori Vale

Built in the second century AD as the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s Mausoleum, in medieval times it was converted to the impregnable papal fortress, Castel Sant’Angelo. An immense, thick-walled citadel, it became the fortified home of popes, and a sanctuary whenever the Vatican found itself in danger of military attack. Multiple corridors connected it to Vatican City, a few blocks away—one an overhead, covered walkway—the
Passetto Vaticano
—and the much more arcane subterranean passageways.

It was through the tunnel system that Pope Gregory VII may have escaped from King Henry IV of Germany, who in 1082 took control of St. Peter’s and the Vatican and installed the unelected Pope Clement III as his puppet. That was the original St. Peter’s—predating Michelangelo’s church. When the new cathedral was built in the sixteenth century, the passageway was left open and the secret of its existence zealously guarded. In modern times, the tunnel was blocked off, by order of Vatican authorities.

Now, operating through intermediaries to conceal who was doing it, NATO arranged for Castel Sant’Angelo to be temporarily closed to public tours, under the guise of performing construction work required by life safety codes. Large trucks began arriving, and onlookers were kept at a distance. Out of sight of the public, contractors and engineers exited the trucks and filled the lower levels of the building, hurrying through corridors that led past ancient dungeons and torture chambers, taking with them the tools of their trade.

Lori, her father, and Alex were in their midst, and only partially because of Zack’s relationship to the President of the United States. That morning, a sheepish General Selkirk had admitted to Lori’s father that his own wife had demanded the teenager’s inclusion. “Don’t you realize how important she is?” the wife had shouted at him. “Do whatever she wants!” So, to maintain the peace of his household, he consented to Lori’s inclusion in the mission, along with the two men.

He also ordered a reconnaissance mission to check the subterranean routes between Castel Sant’Angelo and the holy city. . . .

* * *

Beneath the streets of Rome, half a dozen engineers faced a wall built of tightly-fitted stones, streaked in black, brown, and green. The men, culled from various allied armed forces, wore different national uniforms. The area was illuminated by their powerful helmet lanterns.

NATO Commander Kenneth Selkirk stood off to one side with armed soldiers. In a thick Scottish brogue, he asked, “What’s the probe say?”

A young American engineer pressed an electronic device against the wall. “Might be a hidden tunnel here, sir, but if so, it’s been closed off. I can’t read what’s on the other side. The wall’s too thick, or it has something to do with materials behind these stones. I don’t think anyone installed masking electronics here, not with a wall this old.”

“Don’t assume anything,” a grizzled, paunchy engineer said, in French-accented English. “There are ways of making things appear old.”

Looking on, Lori considered what she had learned from her father: Over the centuries, Vatican authorities had intermittently closed and reopened the secondary Sant’Angelo escape tunnel, but the research that Zack did was only of limited utility. Twenty centuries after Christ, only church leaders had the records of exactly where the hidden tunnel was, and how to open it back up.

Now, staring at the wall where the tunnel might be located according to the instruments and documents, the engineers shook their heads and muttered among themselves. “We don’t know how much material we have to break through,” the Frenchman said. The other engineers called him Marseille, but that might have been a nickname based on the French city, perhaps his hometown. Sometimes Lori liked to speculate on things like that. Another engineer, who conferred frequently with the Frenchman, was a US Army sergeant.

“Bust through anyway,” General Selkirk ordered. They were several blocks away from the Vatican, and he was not worried about making noise yet.

It took almost an hour for their construction crew to drill into and knock down part of the wall, enough for people to get through. They probed with flashlights, and a short distance away they encountered a second wall, this one built of oversized, reinforced bricks. A pair of large rats squealed and scurried out.

In another half hour, they penetrated that barrier, too. The French engineer stepped through first, then the others. Following them, Lori saw that the tunnel curved to the left.

“Goes in the wrong direction,” Marseille said, splashing the illumination of his powerful flashlight ahead. He’d been checking his compass. Warily, the reconnaissance team proceeded through the passage, and presently the tunnel widened. Soon, they encountered what appeared to be three blocked tunnels. The Frenchman cursed in his own language.

Checking his compass again, he said, “None of these tunnels point in the right direction.”

“Which way now?” Selkirk asked.

As the men studied the available documents, without finding anything of help, Lori felt a strong impulse. She went to a place on a wall and touched her open palms on its cool, damp surface of rock and mortar, then pressed the side of her face against the ancient wall. Strange images filled her mind, pulsing amorphous shapes in human form. Startled, she pulled away, and her mind cleared. Summoning her courage, she again pressed herself against the wall, and the images returned.

“What’s she doing?” a man asked.

Another: “Not sure.”

“Leave her alone,” Zack said.

Lori moved down the corridor a ways and touched her hands and face to the wall several times, without achieving the same result. Then she returned to the original spot on the wall that she had first selected, and the strange visual experience returned, even more sharply this time. She envisioned the tunnel open on this spot, and people hurrying through it in white, purple, and red robes, like phantoms from the past.

“Punch through,” she said, with a feeling of absolute certainty. She moved to one side, folded her arms across her chest and stared at the French engineer.

With a ferocious scowl, Marseille said, “But that’s not even one of the blocked tunnels.”

“I suspect tricks,” Lori responded, “set up by the Popes to throw their enemies off, to confuse them.” She tapped the wall. “The real tunnel lies on the other side.”

“My daughter may be right,” Zack said, obviously trying to be supportive, although she detected doubt on his face. “This could be a clever labyrinth of barricades and false passageways set up to protect the Vatican, to keep the Pope’s backup escape route from being accessible to attack.”

Another rat ran by, squealing.

“At least the rats seem to know their way around in this maze,” Alex quipped. This elicited chuckles, but they quickly tailed off as the group considered the predicament.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Zack said. “Break through the wall.”

“Do it,” General Selkirk said.

The section of wall, which on this side had appeared to be as thick as the others they had encountered and was impervious to electronic probing, proved to be only half the thickness. As the construction crew took the stones apart, Lori thought it was designed to be easy and quick to open, in the event of emergency. A tunnel opened up on the other side.

“You were right, lassie,” Selkirk finally said to the teenager, patting her on the shoulder. “You’re our new secret weapon.”

She smiled.

This time a heavy iron door lay a short distance into the tunnel, with a rusty lock mechanism. They broke it open, and beyond that found a long passageway that they hurried into, excitedly. The way curved around to the right, then straightened.

The Frenchman checked his compass as the squad proceeded, with helmet lights showing the way. “
Oui
, now we are going in the correct direction!” he exclaimed.

Finally the tunnel turned to the left for a short distance, then sloped slightly upward and widened as it came to an end. Four heavy iron doors lay ahead of them, each much larger than the first one they had encountered, with more elaborate lock mechanisms.

“Whew!” one of the engineers said, as he examined the obstacles. “These babies are
built
. We’ll have to use muted explosives.”

“Which door do we go through?” General Selkirk asked.

All eyes looked at Lori. As the men turned, their helmet lights focused on her, bathing her in a pool of illumination.

The teenager hurried forward, pressed her open palms against each of the old doors, and then touched the side of her face against the surfaces. She hesitated, trying to decide between the two at the center. Both were important passageways, filling her mind with phantoms from the past.

“This one,” she finally said, designating the one on the right.

“You’re sure?” Selkirk asked.

She took a deep, excited breath. “This is this way we want to go,” she said. “No doubt about it.”

“Sir, we’re almost to Vatican City,” the American sergeant said, to General Selkirk. “Maybe we shouldn’t go any farther today?”

“You’re right. We’ll break through when we’re ready.” He looked at Lori and her father, and said to them, “I like this. It gives us the element of surprise. Obviously the women didn’t examine this tunnel system, because it hasn’t been disturbed for a long time. We’ll mobilize at Castel Sant’Angelo and pour through the tunnels, with airborne commandos and other forces standing by, ready to go at the right moment.”

“Good,” Zack said.

“We’re calling it Operation Deliverance,” General Selkirk said.

While the engineers took photographs and scribbled notes, Lori thought back to the sensations she’d felt when holding hands with she-apostles, and afterward when flying from North Africa toward Rome, and she’d known the correct way to go, without knowing exactly why. Now she wondered if this was similar. Was she following a scent of a different sort now? Had Martha of Galilee been taken this way, through a tunnel? In view of the obstacles they had encountered so far, she didn’t see how that could be possible. Still, she was sure it was the best route to the child, the best way to rescue her.

But how do I know that?

Lori felt her consciousness opening up, making neural pathways available to her that she had not known existed before. Somehow, her ability to detect lies while interrogating Wendy Zepeda and the two guards was linked to this burgeoning ability.

Truth without words.

In her mind, Lori Vale could envision a subterranean pathway on the other side of the door, a stairway, and a corridor that led to the Vatican Palace, where the corrupt women were keeping Martha of Galilee.

And Lori couldn’t wait to go.