The Bone Chamber

34

Francesca tried to catch her breath, leaning against the rough wall of the tunnel, while Xavier and Alfredo felt around with their hands. The passageway they’d taken led up, and they’d run the entire way.
“What exactly are you looking for?” she asked, her voice low.
“I just don’t understand it,” Xavier said.
“Understand what?” she replied, not liking the worry in his voice. She had enough to worry about right now, like what had happened to Sydney and Griffin. Were they still alive? Bleeding and injured down in the cavern? The two agents had sacrificed their own safety so the three of them could get away. But how the hell were they going to get help to them if they couldn’t avoid being shot by the men who were chasing them?
“There should be a sign,” Xavier said. “A skull and crossbones that tells me this is the right passageway, just like the one in the tunnel below that led us up here.”
“You mean this might not be the right way?”
Alfredo slammed his hand against the stone wall. “It’s certainly looking that way.”
“Calm down,” Xavier said. “Maybe the signs change. Maybe it’s not supposed to be a skull and crossbones. Maybe that’s one of the things we’re supposed to learn.”
“For God’s sake,” Francesca said. “This is not the time to make that discovery. We should have known this before we even set out.”
“Yeah?” Xavier whispered harshly. “And when was that? Between the five minutes I’d learned you wanted to meet me and the announcement that Alessandra was murdered? You’ve had a hell of a lot longer to look at the flash drive she sent, so get off my case.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
“Not a lot. By all calculations, this should lead to the passageway that di Sangro plotted out.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure where it’s not, and it’s not here.”
“Actually,” Alfredo said, “if I had to guess, this passageway leads right back to the basilica. We’ve gone in one big giant circle.”
“I wonder if that’s what Sydney saw down in the main cavern.”
Xavier stopped pressing on the wall. “What are you talking about?”
“Right before those men shot at us, she called Griffin over. I think she realized something was off down there.”
“Well,” Alfredo said. “Whatever it was, we have to be grateful, or more than likely we’d all be dead,” he said, as he and Xavier continued to push on the rock wall with their gloved hands. “We’d have been sitting ducks if those men had followed us up here right away. All we can do now is hope that your agent friends were able to fight them off and discovered the right passage, and we can get the hell out of here before those guys find us.”
A scuffling sound echoing up from the passage below sent her heart racing. “They’re getting closer.”
“Look there!” Xavier said, pointing his flashlight beam toward a crevice in the wall, narrow at the base but widening as it rose. The light bounced off the tunnel walls into a ceiling that seemed to disappear into a deep blackness. “We’ll make them think we’re gone.”
Alfredo began climbing up the V-shaped crevice. He reached down for Francesca’s hand, pulled her up, as Xavier boosted her from the floor, then followed. Inching their way inward and upward, they didn’t speak. Suddenly Xavier reached over, gripped her arm, his fingers digging into her in warning.
She needed none. She heard the two men coming up the tunnel, and she held her breath, praying they wouldn’t hear anything. Beside her, Alfredo’s foot slipped, knocking loose a bit of tufo that skittered down the crevice into the tunnel below, and she thought this was it. They were caught.


“You hear that, Vinny?”
“You shut up long enough and I might.”
Francesca’s heart pounded at the realization of just how close the men were to their hiding spot.
“It’s coming from up there,” the first man said.
“It’s them. It has to be.” Francesca heard what sounded like a gun being racked, as though one of the men was checking his weapon, checking to see if he had enough ammunition. “Hurry. They might be getting away.”
“What’s your rush? Even if this tunnel does lead out, we have someone posted on almost every street corner around the basilica. They can’t get farther than that.”
“Yeah, well we need to be there when they find what they’re looking for.” A light bounced off the tunnel walls. She closed her eyes, pressed her face into the rock. Please don’t let them find us…
“Why do you suppose Mr. Westgate wants to get this thing?”
“Because Mr. Westgate’s boss wants to get power over Adami.”
“How’s some stupid map gonna get him that?” Vinny asked. “They both got more money than God. Seems to me that if we were smart, we’d get the map for ourselves.”
“And have both Adami and Mr. Westgate’s boss after us? You got a death wish?”
“Just thinking aloud.”
“What the hell?” She heard their footsteps stop, heard some shuffling. “They’re gone! I could’ve sworn I heard something coming from up this way.”
“They must have gone out a different tunnel.” Francesca dared a look over Xavier’s shoulder, caught a glimpse of the light beam as it swung the opposite direction.
“Now what?”
“The only thing left. We go after the two down in the cistern.”


Griffin stared at the mass of urns before them, certain they were filled with gold—not that he was about to disturb the tufo dust to find out. Even so, he couldn’t help but wonder if they were the first in centuries to look upon this chamber. The treasure reported to be a deathtrap by the mad genius.
“This is what they’re killing for,” she said. “Gold.”
“I’m fairly certain it’s more about where it’s reported to have come from, assuming it really is Templar treasure from Solomon’s Temple.”
“You believe that?” Her voice was quiet, filled with awe, perhaps at the thought that they could indeed be standing amid something historic. “Do you think the Templars became Freemasons, all as a duty to protect this?”
“The gold or the map? The bigger question is what’s the secret of getting out without being crushed, or releasing some disease. There’s a reason di Sangro chose to hide this treasure, even at the cost of his reputation. He took an oath.”
“My. You were listening in class.”
“Very funny,” he said. “If Francesca is correct, and others in the past knew the treasure existed, the danger would have to be very real in order for someone to leave this amount of gold alone. Sort of makes you wonder about the loyalty of whoever set this up. Who was it who walked away from all this, and wasn’t tempted?”
“I’m thinking whoever put him here.”
She pointed to the interior of the cavern, her headlamp shining on a wide rock formation near the center, where, surrounded by even more urns, it appeared as though a man sat resting, his back to a large chest, his hands crossed over his midsection, as though someone positioned him after he died. Together, they walked over, touching nothing, carefully weaving around the rock columns, the chests and urns, their footsteps echoing off the cavern roof. Griffin looked around, trying to decide if there was any truth to the possibility that the place was an elaborate trap, meant to snare di Sangro’s perceived enemies. As they approached, it became apparent that the dead visitor, a male, had indeed been resting there for quite some time, perhaps a century or more, judging from his clothing. Like the monks in the Capuchin Crypt, this man seemed well preserved, no doubt due to the constant cool, dry temperature of the underground cavern. “Prince of Sansevero?” Griffin asked.
“A good guess, since his clothes seem a bit too fancy for a mere laborer,” she said, nodding at the bunch of lace at his throat. “And he’s wearing a Masonic ring.”
“The shield behind him, that would be the crest we saw on the computer,” Griffin said, nodding toward a blue and gold crest beneath a crown. “Definitely royalty.”
“Royalty or not, what if he died because he couldn’t find his way out?” She pointed to the numerous openings throughout the cavern.
“Any one of those could be the way out, or simply part of the maze we’re already lost in.”
She looked down at the corpse again, eyed the ring, careful not to touch anything. “Okay. Let’s say this is Raimondo di Sangro. It might be my imagination, but could we be looking at a very obvious skull and crossbones, sort of what was carved over the tunnel in the upper chamber? That is supposed to be the sign the Templars took up after they were hunted down. Maybe this one happens to be pointing at something with his right hand?”
Griffin saw exactly what she meant. Every finger but his right index was folded. “Pointing to the way out? Or better yet, to this missing key?”
“Or the way that leads to death? And what’s with all the sand piled up behind him and these urns?”
“Good question.”
“We need to think about this,” she said. “Francesca told us that Alessandra and Tasha were talking about subtext. Freemasons were all about symbols and the hidden meaning…”
“The skull and crossbones led down. If this is a trap, it’s a trap for the unwary, for those who aren’t supposed to be here. Assuming what the good professor told us was correct.” He glanced over at the tunnel opening, the one the corpse seemed to be pointing toward. It was tall, cleanly carved, and wide enough for two to walk abreast. The others were of varying sizes, and all far more claustrophobic-looking. “It could be any one of these. Seven openings, including the one we just came through. Maybe they all lead to the same place?”
“That shadow arrow I saw up there clearly pointed down. And yet the entrance was hidden from any who dared venture into that cistern, and now we have Dead Guy here, pointing to God knows where.”
“Pick one?”
“And hope we don’t end up as two more bone markers, pointing out the road that led us to our deaths?” she asked.
“Or end up as pancakes.”
She looked over at the tunnels, then grinned. “How much you want to bet it’s going to be the smallest, darkest tunnel?”
“Some secrets should never be shared.”
Her smile faded. “Yeah. And some things, especially about friends, should never be secret, but it’s a little late for that, isn’t it.”
Moment of levity over. Not that he blamed her. “Look, I know it’s late, but I’m sorry about what happened. If I could change things, I would.”
She refused to look at him.
“Truce?”
This time she looked right at him. “Fine. Only because we need to get out of here. But understand this. Any chance we had of liking each other ended the moment you let her lie to me, and then never told me.”
“You’re taking this far too personally.”
“Personally?” She stood up straight, putting both hands on her hips. “Personally?”
“She was working for the government. It was a job. She was doing it.”
“Don’t try to put this on Tasha. You’re the one who couldn’t trust anyone. Maybe if you didn’t have that little flaw, things might have been different.”
He wanted to rail at her, but all he could do was say, “You’re right.”
She stared at him for several seconds, as if refusing to believe he wasn’t going to argue. Finally she said, “Fine. Truce. Now where the hell is this map, and how do we get out of here?”
“I’m not sure we should be searching for anything but the way out, since we have no idea what the trap is. Death by crushing or disease. We can always come back.”
“What about Tex?”
“We can’t save him if we don’t save ourselves.” Griffin eyed the wide tunnel. “Is he or isn’t he pointing to the way out?”
“Maybe we’re being too literal.”
He looked back toward her, saw she was kneeling on the ground before the corpse. “Please don’t touch anything.”
“Do you realize he’s sitting next to a leather tube? Like something you might carry a map in?”
Griffin leaned down, saw what she was looking at. Sure enough, next to the corpse, between it and the large chest, was a leather tube, maybe two feet in length, and three inches in diameter. Out of everything in the chamber, this was the oddest. It wasn’t gold, didn’t look valuable at all, and he was half tempted to pull it out. But on closer inspection, he realized that the tube was acting like a stopper. Move it and the sand would be released…“Like a ballast.” He looked around, pointing. “Move his body, to get to the chest beneath him, the gold piled behind him, and the sand is released.”
“It’d be nice to come back after the place was surveyed by engineers first.”
“We don’t exactly have that luxury.” He looked at his watch. They had two hours and twenty minutes left to trade the map for Tex. Hell. What was he thinking? There would be no trade. The map was not to leave their hands.
A feeling of helplessness swept through him. Not only was Tex’s life in the balance, at the moment, their lives were as well.
Sydney reached out, touched his arm. “We’ll figure this out.”
“How?”
“Francesca said that there were three keys.”
“And we know of only one of any certainty.”
“No, we know the third is the inscription from his door. And we were at the Capuchin Crypt where the second was, so maybe we can apply that knowledge?”
She was right. They’d been everywhere that Francesca had been. Maybe they could work this out…“Okay,” he said, wanting to pace, to think it through, but knowing any unnecessary movement could prove fatal. “Alessandra went to the trouble of saying the key is below Sansevero, and here, allegedly, is the Prince of Sansevero, or a man bearing his crest. And he’s sitting on a tube that might or might not be the missing map. Yank it out and run?”
“Run to where? If he was that smart, and he took the trouble to set up this elaborate trap, then there has to be something more to this. What was that inscription on the door again?”
Griffin took out the napkin that he’d written it on, and read, “‘Observe with an attentive eye and with veneration the urns of the heroes endowed with glory and reflect with astonishment on the precious homage to the divine work and the tomb of the deceased and when you have given due honor, contemplate profoundly and distance yourself.’”
She blew some dust off the top of one of the urns. “Urns filled with gold coins. ‘Urns of the heroes’?”
“Assuming this saying is filled with subtext, then yes.”
“‘Contemplate profoundly and distance yourself,’” Sydney said, repeating the inscription from the door. “Distance ourselves as in not being too literal, or as in get the hell out of here, because of a deadly plague or major collapse?” She walked a few steps away, careful not to stray from the narrow path, and cocked her head, stared at the corpse, his leathered face. “What was so important that we had to go to the Capuchin Crypt before we came here? What’s the commonality between this place and the Capuchin Crypt?”
“Besides all the gold? About three thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine more sets of bones. Clearly a warning that death is imminent.”
“Or that time is endless, especially if you take into context the first key, ‘Here lies dust, ash, and nothing,’” she said, walking up, looking at the pocket watch the skeleton held. “It reads exactly twelve, just like the Capuchin Crypt. Well, sort of. The clock made of bones that wasn’t a clock. Endlessly where midnight should be, considering it only had six numbers on it.”
“Maybe it has nothing to do with time,” Griffin said. “If his pocket watch were a compass, the two hands would be pointing due north.” He looked toward the tunnel directly opposite the watch’s hands. It was the smallest passageway. “A deliberate position of the body and the watch? Or mere coincidence?”
“Anyone could read anything into any of these clues,” she said, looking around. “You think there’s any truth to this trap thing? That if anything’s moved, it’ll set it off?”
Again he took stock. “Move his body to get to the chest beneath him, the gold piled behind him, and the sand is released. Like you said, our safest course of action would be to leave and return with a very knowledgeable bunch of engineers.”
“Yet here we are.”
A shout from the tunnel they’d entered stopped them. If there was any doubt as to the intent of the newcomers, the sharp crack of gunfire dispelled any hope they were there for a rescue.


Francesca’s limbs were stiff and sore by the time they finally climbed down from the crevice, not daring to leave the relative safety of the dark until they no longer heard the echoing of the footsteps in the tunnel below, and even for several minutes after that. The route they took back was not the same as the one they’d taken, Alfredo leading them a different way after overhearing the two men talk about others posted outside. But finally they were out and Francesca squinted against the bright sunlight as Xavier helped her from the secret passageway that led to the street behind the Cappella Sansevero. The moment she was free and clear, he and Alfredo slid the massive stone door closed, rendering it invisible to any who might pass by. She wasn’t sure they’d be able to find it again if necessary.
“This way,” Xavier said, leading her around the corner.
She followed, only to stop short on seeing the dark-clad man standing at the edge of the building. “Father Dumas.”
“Professoressa,” he said, with a slight nod to his head. “You are a hard woman to track down.”
Xavier looked from one to the other. “Who is this?”
Dumas gave a slight bow and introduced himself.
“A friend of Alessandra’s,” Francesca said. “Exactly what sort of friend, I’m not sure.”
Xavier frowned. “I don’t recall Alessandra mentioning him before.”
“Be that as it may,” Dumas said, “I am what she says. And if the two, or rather three of you had any sense,” he said, apparently noticing Xavier’s cousin for the first time, “you would realize that you are in danger. Where are the two agents?”
“In the tunnels,” Francesca said. “We were ambushed.”
“That’s not surprising,” Dumas said. “You were followed here.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” she replied.
“There are several of Adami’s men in the area, as well as some others I do not recognize, and if you insist on going that direction, you will run right into them.”
She hesitated, not sure what to believe. “And how do I know you’re not one of them?”
“You do not. Again, where are the two agents?”
“Below. They covered us so we could escape. Two men were down there, shooting at us. We would’ve been killed had we not hidden and had Xavier and Alfredo not found the passageway out. We need to get help.”
“Did the agents give you anything? Did you find the key?”
Francesca stared in disbelief. “Did you not hear a word I said? They’re in trouble.”
“And if they moved anything without having found the key, they’re about to be smashed into bits, with nothing you or I can do about it. So answer me again, do you know if they found the key?”
“Sydney thought she knew where it was…”
Dumas held her gaze for an instant, mumbled a quick “God be with them,” then said, “I’d suggest we put some distance between us and here.” Dumas pulled her back from the street. “I recognize those two near the corner.” He nodded toward the pedestrians crossing the square, then the two men lurking at the fringes. “I saw them outside the train station.”
“You’ve been following us, too?” Francesca said.
“Someone needed to.”
“I think we should split up,” Xavier said. “Make it harder for those men to track us.”
“No,” Dumas replied. “It’s too dangerous. Griffin and Sydney could be dead for all we know. And if not, they soon will be.”
“But what if they find their way out?” Francesca asked. “We need to watch out for them, warn them.”
Dumas seemed ready to protest, and she added, “If di Sangro wasn’t the monster many have painted him to be, there was an escape route, and Sydney and Griffin are making their way through it now.”
“Then we must look for them,” Dumas said. “But together. We’ve come too far to split up now.”
Indeed, she thought, not trusting Dumas at all. How was it that he’d arrived just where they’d exited? Divine intervention, or something far more earthly? “Together, then,” Francesca said. “Xavier. You and Alfredo work your magic, and let’s find where those two will emerge before Adami’s henchmen do.”
Alfredo knew the streets of Naples like the back of his hand, and between that knowledge and Xavier’s calculations, they estimated a few block radius of the original tunnel entrance. The main problem as Alfredo saw it was that nearly every house in this area had access to the tunnels. Most accesses, however, were unused, many long-forgotten, others in complete disrepair. He decided, however, to concentrate their efforts not too far from di Sangro’s old basement, deciding that the prince probably had several routes out of his family’s home, for the sole purpose of keeping his affairs secret. They set up across the street, keeping in the shadow of a delivery truck. Xavier double-checked his map and nodded. “There. That’s where I think they’ll emerge.”
He pointed, and just as his hand came up, Francesca saw two men walking right toward that location. She recognized one from the hotel lobby. “If that turns out to be the escape route, they’re going to run right into those men,” she said, pulling Xavier’s hand down in case the men should look up and in their direction.
“What should we do?” Xavier said.
“Dumas?” Francesca asked.
“I’m thinking.”
“We need a distraction,” she said.
“Short of calling them over here, what do you suggest?” Dumas said.
“Exactly that. Xavier and I can pull them off, we owe them that much. When they follow us, you get over there, watch out for Griffin and Sydney. If they make it out, you give warning. Give us an hour to meet back with you.”
“Where?” Dumas asked.
The only place she could think of was the café around the corner from the hotel where Griffin had the room. She knew he had to eventually make his way there to rescue his friend. Alfredo and Dumas would return to the café, then call the police if they weren’t back in an hour.
Dumas nodded, and she put her hand on his arm. “You need to not stand out,” she continued. “If any of these men are the ones who shot at us up on the Passegiata, they might be looking for a priest. Perhaps you can remove the clerical collar?”
Dumas reached up, pulled it off, unbuttoned the top collar of his shirt, and instantly transformed himself from man of God to man about town.
She turned to Xavier. “Ready?”
“Yeah,” he said, though he didn’t look too sure.
They hurried across the street, heading toward Adami’s men. She took Xavier’s map, pretended to be looking at it with him. “We have to get their attention,” she whispered. “We need them to follow us away from the chapel, and then we’ve got to lose them.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Let’s hope not,” she said, looking up over the top of the map. “Because here they come.” And then she lowered the map, looked the men directly in the eye, gave her best impression of surprise, then screamed. “Oh my God! They found us!” She grabbed Xavier’s hand. “Run!”


Sydney ducked behind an urn filled with gold, drawing her weapon. A bullet ricocheted off the urn next to her, cracking it. By some small miracle, it didn’t break. But sand started sifting through between it and the urn beside it.
Griffin crouched beside her, hefted his gun in his hand. “We need to get out of here. That sand moves, we’re as good as dead.”
“We’re as good as dead anyway, if we don’t know which tunnel to take.”
They crouched even lower as another shot rang out. “And which one would you take?”
“Let’s give the guy credit for being a mad genius. He sent us down a specific path. That means he’s logical. The bone clock at the crypt. His watch with the same time, and clocks that aren’t clocks could be considered compasses. The tunnel that points north.”
“Then I’ll cover you, and you go for it.”
“And what are you going to do?” she asked.
“Hold them off. At least one of us gets out of here alive.”
“Are you nuts? You’re going to sacrifice yourself?”
“You think of a better idea?”
“Not at the moment. But hell if I’m going to let you lord it over me from eternity. And if they kill you, what’s to stop them from following me up the tunnel? I’ll be a sitting duck.”
Griffin peered around an urn, aimed, fired. The shot echoed throughout the cavern. “We’re about to run out of ammo, which makes it a moot point.”
Sydney glanced back at the corpse. “I have an idea,” she said. “I need you to go to the north tunnel.”
He didn’t move.
“I am not her. Trust me on this,” she said. “For once.”
“Why?”
“I can reach the tube without exposing myself by scooting on my belly behind that chest. You can’t. If you’re already at the tunnel, you can cover me.”
“And then?”
She took a breath, smiled. “And then we save the last couple shots to see if di Sangro knew what he was doing. We bring this place down.”