Part 15 (1/2)

Flinders swung around to Skarda- Then an earsplitting boom tore a scream from her throat and the ceiling exploded in a maelstrom of shattered marble.

___.

With the sound of Flinders' scream in her ear, April was slammed to the hard floor, instantly rolling to her right as great slabs of marble and limestone crashed down around her. Red-hot pain seared her stomach just below her ribcage. Somehow she managed to hang onto her lamp. It speared through the dust-hazed darkness.

Caught completely off guard, Jaz and her two men had disappeared in a cataclysm of smoking rubble, sending great plumes of dust shooting toward the ceiling.

Half-dragging Flinders, Skarda angled to his right, helping April to her feet. Blood soaked her s.h.i.+rt. With a wince she yanked a sliver of marble from her stomach and threw it aside.

A second explosion shook the ceiling, followed by a third. A pillar toppled and smashed, sending drums of broken marble hurtling across the floor. One of Jaz's men had clawed his way out of the pile of rubble and now was staggering forward, only to be crushed under the inexorable onslaught of the rolling column. A gory red stain gushed over the floor.

Running, stumbling, Skarda glanced up, seeing a hole blasted through the vaulted ceiling and the solid bedrock above it to reveal the star-filled sky. And framed by the hole, the ugly silhouette of the Mi-25, its rotors whipping out a blur of motion. Black lines snaked down. Men in red jumpsuits rappelled into the chamber.

”At least they're consistent,” April said.

Flinders turned her head back to the statue, her legs like rubber sticks. She was dead weight.

Skarda tightened his grip on her arm. ”Come on! We have to get out of here!”

Lurching through the doorway, they fled down the hallway toward the staircase.

___.

Twenty minutes later, in clean air of the desert, they crouched in the shadow of the Sphinx's hind haunch, watching the strobing lights of police cars and fire engines. The wail of sirens fractured the night and spotlights raked over the bulk of the ancient monument.

The Mi-25 had disappeared.

Tears rolled down Flinders' cheeks as she stared at the Sphinx. Where once its left paw had gripped the desert sand for centuries now a smoking hole gaped, the limestone blocks blown to rubble. A quarter of the famous face had been wiped away.

”They just want to find the Tablet,” she whispered. ”They don't care what they destroy.”

Skarda turned to catch April's eye.

Whatever was happening, he had the gut feeling they were quickly running out of time.

___.

Below the desert floor rubble s.h.i.+fted, sending broken stone cascading in a mini-landslide. Hacking out a mouthful of dust, Jaz power-lifted the dead man from her chest and face, his body broken and twisted from the impact of the falling stones. Jagged white bones protruded from his mangled flesh. But he had served his purpose. When the ceiling blew apart she'd grabbed him and hugged him on top of her like a s.h.i.+eld.

Climbing to her feet, she shook the debris off her clothing. She'd heard the beat of the helicopter's rotor. She listened to the invaders come and leave.

Under the fallen barrel of a broken pillar she spotted the arm of her second man flung out on top of a pool of coagulating blood, gleaming slickly in the starlight.

In the darkness she grinned. She knew where she had to go.

THIRTY-TWO.

Vatican City, Italy AT the Porta Sant' Anna April braked the rented BMW in front of the bronze gate and said ”Archivio” to the stern-faced Swiss Guard who challenged them. She flashed the scholar's pa.s.ses Candy Man had arranged for them, scowling in suspicion as he inspected the doc.u.ments line-by-line. Then he pointed ahead and waved them forward. On their left, past the squat round tower of Nicholas V, Skarda could see the towering walls of the Vatican Palace and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, rising above the tightly-packed complex of buildings. A few feet later, they were stopped by a policeman, who demanded to see the same pa.s.ses.

Following the course of the street, they entered a wide gateway that opened onto the Cortile de Belvedere, the courtyard of the complex that housed the Vatican museums and the Library of the Holy See. They parked beyond the main entrance to the Vatican Library, then climbed out and walked to the nondescript entrance of the Secret Archives, where another of the Swiss Guards examined their pa.s.ses.

Inside, past a modern gla.s.s door, two men in business suits sat behind a desk. Again they showed the pa.s.ses. One of the men nodded, and, without a word, motioned for them to follow him. Pa.s.sing through a metal detector, the man led them into a library whose white walls rose up in a series of arches above rows of gleaming nineteenth-century study desks, now about half-occupied by scholars from all over the world.

Ordinarily, a scholar's access was stopped here: library rules allowed for requested books and folios to be brought to this study room while the requesting scholar waited. But Candy Man had hacked into the Vatican's computer system to allow them full access. If their guide thought anything was unusual about their freedom, he wasn't showing it on his face.

Moving noiselessly through the study room, he led them to a rickety-looking elevator, where they descended to the lowest level, the concrete-walled bunker of the Archivum Secretum Vaticanum. When the doors wheezed open, the man allowed them to pa.s.s by him, making no move to step out.

”You have one hour,” he intoned ominously in a thick Italian accent. For the first time emotion flickered across his face. He wasn't happy about leaving these strangers here unattended.

The doors closed, stranding them.Without windows, it was dark, like an unlit, cavernous warehouse. Flinders led the way, moving down a constricted corridor between ochre-colored floor-to-ceiling steel bookcases packed tightly with bound volumes. But as she walked, overhead lights from the low ceiling winked on in concert with her steps.

”This place is amazing,” she said. ”There are fifty-two miles of doc.u.ments here, called fondi, most uncatalogued, going back to the eighth century CE with the Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontific.u.m. Think of all the centuries of this stuff-state and diplomatic papers, correspondence, records of trials, papal bulls, and archives of private families! There are original letters from Michaelangelo, Henry VIII's plea for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, letters about the trials of the Knights Templar-incredible! In 1810, Napoleon raided the Vatican and had everything transported to Paris in fifty wagons, but it was returned about five years later.”

”Maybe he took the Tablet,” April suggested.

Flinders turned to her, shooting her a curious look. ”I never thought of that! But it wouldn't surprise me. Let's put it on the list!”

They moved through the pools of light, with darkness ahead and behind, as each clicked on and off as they pa.s.sed. Ahead the corridor ended. Candy Man had provided the layout of the Archives at this point, which both Skarda and April had committed to memory, since neither cell phones or laptops were allowed inside the library.

At the end of the corridor a black iron gate was closed on a ma.s.sive wooden door, equally painted black. A heavy padlock secured the gate. Dropping to her knees, April worked a cylinder of plastic from the tip of her bootlace.

An improvised lockpick.

Thirty seconds later the lock clicked open. She swung open the gate, going to work on the next lock that secured the wooden door. Finished, she pushed it open on creaking hinges, revealing a black rectangle of darkness.

Turning to Skarda, she frowned. ”It's too easy,” she said. ”If they're hiding something important, why leave it so unsecured?”

He smiled. ”We're in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Vatican,” he answered. ”n.o.body gets in here. It's just that we have pa.s.ses supposedly issued by a Cardinal Bishop.”

But she shook her head, not liking it. Her intuition was jangling.

April entered first, followed by Flinders and Skarda. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that they were in a rectangular room with a steel vault at the far end. On the right side of the vault was a modern keypad entry system.

April strode confidently forward, quickly punching in a code. Candy Man had hacked into the manufacturer's files and had accessed the code the Vatican stored there in case of emergency: ”0 ANNO DOMINI”.

Year Zero A.D.

A soft electrical click came to their ears and April pulled the vault door open, making no sound. Skarda saw a small chamber, about the size of a shower stall, with a doorway at its far end. A faint hum came to his ears.

”Remote evaporator coils and dehumidifiers,” April said. ”They're keeping the temperature and humidity constant in there. Probably low oxygen levels, too.” For a moment she considered, then said, ”You two go in. I'm going to stay out here. Just in case we have visitors.”

Flinders shot a nervous glance at Skarda. He threw her a grin and strode forward, opening the door to a faint hiss of air. Inside, the vault room widened considerably, its light gray steel walls running straight back and disappearing into the gloom. The air was bone-dry and chilled. Immediately he sucked in a sharp breath as his lungs reacted to the lowered oxygen level.

”We're going to have to work fast,” he told Flinders. ”Not enough air in here.”

Running her hand along the wall, she found a light switch and flicked on a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. Now Skarda could see that the vault ran back about fifty feet, with metal shelves lining the walls on three sides from floor to ceiling, crammed with stacks of leather-bound books, papyrus rolls in silicone sleeves, vases, jewels, and marble statues. A yellow gleam caught his eye. He moved toward a spot on the opposite wall where gold bars lay stacked in a pile of ten by twenty. Peering closer, he saw they were marked with numbers and swastikas. n.a.z.i gold.