The Book of Spies

32

Rome, Italy
IN THE dark dirt tunnel, Judd followed Yitzhak, Eva, Roberto, and Bash. Their shoes stuck and sank, slipped and slid on the narrow muddy ledge a foot above the stream. Time passed, and the enclosure grew claustrophobic, the noise of rushing water oppressive. Their flashlights did little to ward off the bleakness.
Commanding everyone to stop and be silent while he listened, Judd checked behind again. It had been a half hour, and there was still no sign of pursuit. They resumed their slow pace. Roberto's breathing was labored.
"How are you doing, Roberto?" he called over the shoulders ahead of him.
"I am trembly but well."
"Let us know when you want to take a break."
Roberto nodded, then asked worriedly, "How deep do you think the water is, Yitzhak?"
"No way to know." The professor paused. "Eva, it's time you explained what's going on."
"If I did, I'd only put you in more danger."
"When we get out of here," Judd assured him, "Bash will take you and Roberto to a private doctor who'll keep his mouth shut. Then when Roberto is treated, he'll find you a place to hide out. Don't go home until you get word from him that it's safe. He has his own work to do, so say nothing about him--or us--to anyone."
The professor thought about it. "Who are you, Judd? You and Bash?"
"All you need to know is we're helping Eva. I brought Bash and a couple of other people in to back us up."
Yitzhak's voice toughened. "In the kitchen, Angelo said he might be a 'supporter' of the Library of Gold. In the book club. What does that mean?"
"That's something else you should forget about," Eva told him.
The professor hesitated. "You're asking a lot, but I'll do as you say."
As they continued on, their flashlights revealed ancient Rome embedded in the dirt walls--fragments of pottery, spearheads, pieces of marble tiles, and chunks of brick. They stopped for Roberto to rest, then resumed their treacherous journey.
When they heard the scurrying of rats, Bash said, "Someone told me the rats under Rome were as big as cats." His skateboard was clamped low on his chest, one arm wrapped around it.
Yitzhak chuckled. "You've been drinking with unsavory people."
"I don't like rats," Bash admitted. "Does anyone other than crazy lab people like rats?"
"I'm more concerned about the albino creatures," the professor said, baiting him.
"Albino rats?" Roberto steadied himself by pressing his hand against the wall. Then he stared at his muddy palm.
"Yes, but they're not here--they're in the Cloaca Maxima," Yitzhak said. "In any case, we don't want to go that far. For those of you who don't know, the Cloaca isn't an ordinary sewage conduit--it's a huge, fast-moving river of crap. It was built twenty-five hundred years ago, but Rome is still using it. No one's safe going into it without covering every inch of themselves with boots, gloves, hooded suits, and masks."
"I wish I'd known," Eva said. "I would've brought my wet suit."
"Reminds me of a root canal I once had," Bash said. "Bad outcome."
"The stink is memorable," Yitzhak went on. "A bouquet of mud, diesel, feces, and rotting carcasses. Rat carcasses."
Bash groaned.
Judd laughed. "You get an A-plus for tormenting students, Professor."
The professor glanced over his shoulder, his round face grinning.
They fell silent as the underground passage descended steeply, and the air grew cold and clammy. Ghostly stalactites hung from overhead rocks, caused by the seep of calcium-rich groundwater. Then as the tunnel made a sharp bend, the noise of racing water quadrupled--and a stench of rot wafted toward them. Dizzying in its intensity, it carried all the horrific odors Yitzhak had described.
Judd's nose burned. "The Cloaca can't be far ahead."
"We cannot go into the Cloaca," Roberto said nervously. "Let us turn back."
"Not just yet--"
But before he could finish his sentence, the professor screamed. His arms lashed up over his head, and his feet flew out from under him. He twisted, his hands scrambling against the rough dirt wall, seeking purchase as his feet dropped into the water. If the stream were fast and deep enough, it would carry him into the big sewer.
Before Judd could jump in to help, Eva grabbed the professor's arm. "I've got you."
The current caught the professor's legs. He was being pulled away.
"Face the bank, Yitzhak," Judd ordered. He leaned out to peer around Bash and Roberto. "See if your knees can find a slope."
"You can do it!" Eva's hands were white from tension. Her jaw muscles bunched as she held on to him.
Sweat coated Yitzhak's bald head as he turned slowly away from the current until he faced Eva. His free hand grabbed her arm, and he curved his back and hunched his hips.
"Come on. Come on." She was bent nearly double, her profile strained, as she held on to him with both hands.
Yitzhak grunted and lifted one knee out of the water, then the other. As less water dragged at him, she helped him inch upward. Finally he was out. With a shudder, he planted his feet on the narrow shelf, standing between Eva and Roberto.
"You are in one piece, Yitzhak?" Roberto asked, patting his shoulder and back.
He peered down at his trousers, now laminated to his legs. Water streamed out of his shoes.
"Right as rain." He gave a sober smile. "Thank you, Eva."
"What made you slip, Yitzhak?" Judd said. "Check around your feet. What do you see?"
There was a pause. "You're right. Here's the top of a skull. I didn't see it before. It must've been hidden under the mud."
"Are there more skulls?" Eva slid her foot along the ledge, moving the muck away.
"I've found another one," the professor announced.
"So have I," Eva said.
The professor shone his flashlight along the cave wall above them, then ran the beam back and forth, lower and lower until he reached the wall's intersection with the bank.
"Here's a small opening." He crouched and aimed his flashlight into it.
"What's in there?" Eva squatted beside him.
"I can't tell. Help me dig, Eva."
"We'll do it," Judd told them. "Come on, Bash."
The others moved ahead, and Bash sat on his heels in front of the hole. He plowed the nose of his skateboard into the wet dirt, scooping piles of it back onto the ledge, where Judd slid the dirt into the stream. They continued a half hour, taking turns until the hole was three feet in diameter and formed a tunnel two feet deep. A scent of musty age wafted toward them.
Judd beamed his flashlight into the small passageway and crawled through. Standing erect, he inhaled sharply as he shot his light around. He had entered a gray world of the dead. Age-bleached skulls pinioned one on top of another blanketed the walls from the floor to the vault ceiling.
He moved into the center of the large crypt and turned, continuing to shoot his flashlight over the eerie scene. It was like a macabre carnival. Skulls arched around nooks, framing stone walls on which faded crosses and religious symbols had been painted. Full skeletons dressed in tattered brown monk robes reclined on stone benches as if awaiting the call to prayer.
"My God." Eva took a deep breath as she walked up to him. "The only time I've seen an ossuary like this was in a history magazine."
"It's impossible to know what Rome's underground has in store." The professor joined them, supporting Roberto. "Buried passageways, latrines, aqueducts, catacombs, firehouses, access tunnels--and that's just the beginning. It looks to me as if this crypt belonged to the Capuchin order. That means some of the bones could date back five centuries."
"There's got to be thousands of them," Bash decided. "But how in hell do we get out of here?" Beneath his shorts, his bare knees were coated in mud--but then, all of them were muddy now.
"I'm hoping that way." Judd aimed his flashlight at the end of the room, where a tall arch of skulls wreathed worn stone steps leading upward. "Roberto, do you want Bash to carry you up?"
Roberto pushed himself away from Yitzhak. "I will do it myself."
Judd nodded, and he led them past mounds of bones and up a stone stairwell, where more crosses and religious symbols were painted. As they turned the corner of a landing, the wall above their heads displayed pelvic bones arranged like angel's wings.
He stopped, listening to Roberto's panting breath behind. He turned. "Carry him, Bash."
Before Roberto could object, Bash handed his skateboard to Eva and swept the small man up into his arms. "Combat victims get special treatment. Hey, it's a free ride."
Roberto looked up into the muscular young face. "This is not an unpleasant fate. Thank you."
Finally they reached the top, where an ornate iron door blocked their path. Judd peered through the grillwork--there was another stairwell on the far side, this time of modern cement.
"I hear traffic," Eva said, excited.
Judd tried the door. "Locked, of course." They were silent, and he could feel their exhaustion. "I seem to be shooting out a lot of locks these days."
Telling them to stand back, he screwed his sound suppressor onto his Beretta and fired. Metal dust spewed into the still air. The popping noise bounced off the stone walls.
He pushed open the door and gazed up. "Blue sky."
"Hallelujah," Eva said.
They resumed climbing, Judd still leading. As he neared the top, he stopped and rose up to see. They had emerged into a ruins of toppled columns, slabs of travertine, and chunks of granite scattered among dirt and weeds between two ancient buildings. Behind the area was another old building. A commercial chain-link fence blocked the ruins from the sidewalk and street.
He turned back. Their expressions were expectant as they stood beneath him in the stairwell. "I don't know exactly where we are. At least it's an open area. All of us are dirty, but it's the blood that'll draw the kind of attention we don't want. That means you--Eva and Roberto."
In seconds, Eva was out of her jacket. Her green shirt was clean. As she turned the jacket inside out and tied the arms around her waist, Bash lowered Roberto onto his feet. Judd studied him. He was standing erect, but his skin color was slightly pink, perhaps feverish. The handkerchief was gone from his shoulder, lost somewhere along the way. Blood coated his white shirt. Gingerly he unbuttoned it.
"Bash, give Roberto your T-shirt," Judd decided.
Bash took off his jacket and peeled the black T-shirt up over his head.
Judd checked Roberto's gunshot wound, a ragged slash through the top of his shoulder.
"You're going to be fine," he said. "Probably hurts like hell, though."
"The pain is a small matter. We are free." Roberto stood motionless as Yitzhak tugged the T-shirt down over his head.
"Take the professor and Roberto," Judd told Bash. "Eva and I'll wait until you're gone. You'll have to break through a chain-link gate to get out of here."
Bash grinned. "After this . . . a piece of cake."
"So now we leave you." The professor smiled at Eva. He was wet and bedraggled, but his optimistic disposition shone through. "Be well, and even though I don't understand anything that's happened, my heartfelt thanks." He hugged her, then shook hands with Judd. "We've had an adventure. Next time we meet, I hope it'll be boring."
Roberto kissed Eva on both cheeks. "You must stay in touch."
"I will," she promised.
Finally Judd and Bash faced each other. "There's no way the Charboniers should've known we were going to Yitzhak's house," Judd told him, choosing his words carefully. "I'll call our mutual friend and fill him in. We have a leak somewhere."
The young spy nodded soberly, and they shook hands. Then he led Roberto and Yitzhak up the steps into the ruins.
Eva joined Judd, and they climbed so they could watch the trio approach the fence. Bash looked around. When there was no one on the sidewalk, he used his skateboard to smash open the padlock. Soon they were out the gate and walking away, the tall young man and his two older charges.
"We have to assume the Library of Gold people have figured out who you are now, too," she told him. "So we can't use your credit cards, and obviously we can't use mine. It's a long hitchhike to Istanbul."
"I have an extra set of ID on me. I'll buy the tickets. What's worrying me is whether they'll follow us to Istanbul."