As the group cleared the helicopter’s dying roar, David explained. “The catacombs are just ahead. For sanitary reasons, the Romans wouldn’t allow their citizens to bury their dead inside the city walls of the capital of Mdina. They built an extensive subterranean network of catacombs—burial chambers—here in Rabat, just beyond the city walls.” David wanted to add more—the historian in him could hardly resist. The catacombs in Rabat held the bodies of Christian, Pagan and Jewish bodies, laid side by side, like members of the same denomination, an act of religious tolerance almost unheard of in Roman times, where many officials routinely persecuted religious leaders.
At the same time that the families of Pagans, Jews, and Christians were laying their loved ones to rest in adjacent subterranean burial chambers in the catacombs of Roman Malta, a man named Saul of Tarsus, a Jew and a Roman citizen, was zealously persecuting the early followers of Jesus. Saul had violently tried to destroy the upstart Christian church in its infancy, but later converted to Christianity on his way to Damascus—after Jesus’s death on the cross. Saul of Tarsus would become known as the apostle Paul, and the catacombs in Rabat had been renamed in his honor.
David focused on the task at hand.
They ducked down another alley and he stopped at a stone building. The sign read:
MUSEUM DEPARTMENT
S. PAUL’S
CATACOMBS
Janus pushed the iron gate open, then the heavy wood door, and the group wandered into the museum’s lobby.
The large marble-floored room was quiet, eerily still. The walls were adorned with placards, photos, and paintings. Glass cases were filled with stone items, and smaller artifacts David couldn’t make out crowded several corridors off the main room. Yet all eyes focused on David.
“What now?” Chang asked.
“We set up camp here,” David said.
As soon as the words were spoken, Kamau cleared off a table, set down his duffel bag, and began sorting their weapons: handguns, assault rifles, and body armor.
Janus rushed to Kate and held a hand out for the backpack. “May I?”
Kate handed him the backpack absently, and Janus began setting up a research station. He powered up the computer and connected it to the thermos-like device that Martin had given Kate to extract DNA samples.
Janus placed the sat phone on the table. “Should we call Continuity? Report our status?”
“No,” David said. “We only call when we have something to report. No sense in… revealing our location.”
He glanced at the phone. One member of the team had been doing just that—revealing their location. He grabbed the phone from the table and handed it to Kate. “Hang on to this.”
Shaw stood a few feet from Kamau, watching him sort the weapons and armor. David locked eyes with him and they each stared for a moment.
Shaw broke off first. He strolled nonchalantly to one of the small tables flanking the stairwell that descended into the catacombs. He picked up a folded brochure and began reading it.
“What now, David?” Shaw asked casually. “We wait for a medieval knight to come wandering out and we ask him if he’s seen an old stone box?”
Janus spoke up, trying to break the tension. “I want to point out the urgency of our situation—”
“We’re going in,” David said.
Kamau took the words as a cue. He attached his own body armor and handed another set to David.
“It’s a needle in a haystack,” Shaw said. He held up the brochure. “The network is extensive. Only a few of the catacombs are normally open to the public, but this… device could be anywhere down there. We’re talking miles of tunnels.”
David tried to read Kate’s expression. It was emotionless, almost cold. Was she having another flashback?
“I feel we should split up,” Janus said. “We can cover more ground.”
“Wouldn’t that be… dangerous?” Chang said sheepishly.
“We could go in teams of two: one soldier, one scientist in each one,” Janus said.
David considered the proposal. His other choices were leaving someone behind, here in the museum, where they could close the catacombs or acquire backup. He had no good options.
“Okay,” David said. “Shaw and Chang, lead the way.” David wanted to put his two suspects together, have them break off first, put distance between them and the rest of the group. “Kamau and Janus next. Kate and I will bring up the rear.”
“We have no bloody clue what’s down there,” Shaw half-shouted. “I’m not going down there unarmed. You can shoot me if you like, David.”
David walked to the table, picked up a tactical assault knife and threw it at Shaw, point first. Shaw caught it by the handle. His eyes flashed.
“You’re armed. You’re going first, or I will shoot you. Try me.”
Shaw paused for a moment, then turned and led the way down the stairway, followed closely by Chang and then the other four.
CHAPTER 84
St. Paul's Catacombs
Rabat, Malta
The catacombs were musty and dark. The museum lighting system wasn’t functioning, but the glow of the LED lanterns revealed a scattering of display cases and write-ups where tours would pause and read about the chambers.
After about ten minutes, the tunnel split.
“We rendezvous in the lobby in one hour, no matter what. Turn back if you don’t find anything,” David said. “Try to make a map of where you’ve been.”