William Tyree - The Fellowship

“What I said was that I didn’t own a computer. And that was the truth. I did that to honor a promise to Madge. But I might have mosied down to the hotel every once in a while. The night desk manager was very accommodating.”

As they pulled into the car rental return lot, Carver powered up an IP-anonymous browser on his phone, then logged onto the mission cloud. Arunus Roth had just uploaded a message he’d titled URGENT — FOR REAL–CALL ME!!! There were no other details.

He did so. Roth answered on the first ring.

“Where have you been?” he said breathlessly. “I’ve been calling you for hours. There’s a break in the Adrian Zhu disa-“

Carver cut the kid off before he could say another word. “Per Julian, Crossbow is on hold. I thought he’d made that clear.”

“This isn’t about Crossbow per se,” Roth clarified. “But it may be related. Just hear me out, bro.”

“You’ve got 60 seconds. And don’t call me bro.”

“Zhu’s last known location was at a hotel parking garage in the Rome suburbs. After that, the GPS stopped chirping. Tom Callahan called last night. It seems the morgue contains a couple of bodies that were found in the garage that night.”

Carver’s hopes for resuming the operation suddenly faded. “Did Callahan ID the bodies?”

“Neither one is Adrian Zhu, if that’s what you’re wondering. But here’s the part that’s relevant to us. One of them was carrying an octagon-shaped piece of fabric.”

Carver signed off as Nico put the car in Park.

“Change of plans,” Carver said. “Your homecoming will have to wait. We’re headed to Italy.”

For the first time all day, Nico cracked a smile.

The Villa

Rome

Adrian Zhu had no idea how far they had already descended. A hundred meters? Two hundred? Looking up through the center of the coiling iron staircase, the light from the villa, where they had left the Shepherd in a state of prayerful meditation, was rapidly shrinking away. The helix-shaped staircase seemed to plunge endlessly into the blackness below.

Lars was at his side now, leading him behind a small group of armed guards. The tuff rock surrounding the staircase had been recently excavated. The ironwork vibrated beneath his feet. Somewhere in the distance, a group of generators hummed, no doubt powering a series of small lights strung along the vertical passage.

In a few minutes, he would finally see the lab that he had so meticulously designed from the other side of the world. Creating a world-class paleo-DNA lab was difficult under the best of circumstances, but Zhu had done so in complete secrecy. The power that had come with the Chinese government contracts had been offset by a great deal of oversight. It was assumed that his phones, email and all other forms of communication were compromised, if not by the Chinese, then by the prying eyes of American intelligence. He had therefore conducted his work in person, in the rear of a Beijing mahjong parlor owned by a local Fellowship elder. Over the past three years, Lars had made 22 trips in and out of the country to meet with him, going over the exact equipment, procedures and staffing necessary to make the project possible. What they were attempting to do would surpass anything accomplished in world history. There was zero room for error.

His anxiety was coupled by a nervousness that he had never known. Maybe the assault in the hotel parking garage had rattled him more than he had thought. Each time he looked down, the movie began again in his head. His attempts to break away during the opera’s intermission. His pathetic assault on his business partner, Spencer. The sight and smell of Spencer’s flesh on the grill of the Range Rover. The relentless pounding of machine gun fire against the vehicle. The fear that he would be killed, and everything he had worked for, everything he had put at risk, would be lost. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

But wow, he did fear evil. He couldn’t help it.

“Watch your step,” Lars said as their feet finally touched earth. They entered a cavern that was 20 feet tall and more than 60 feet wide. Above a particularly magnificent archway, Zhu gasped as he saw an enormous relief of Mithra slaughtering a bull.

“What is this place?”

“As far as we can tell, this is a branch of the underground Caracalla baths complex. An excavation just like it was unearthed a few years ago in another part of Rome.” He allowed Zhu only a moment to take in the majesty of the relief before nudging him forward. “Come. We have work to do.”

The next chamber was filled with more security personnel. Lars spoke to each of them as they passed, alternating between German, Italian and English. Zhu couldn’t understand much of what they said, but the immediacy of their responses suggested complete obedience.

“The One from the East,” someone said in English. The guards, all of them, removed their caps as Zhu passed with his entourage.

He was taken through a full-body scanner like the ones they had in airports. Beyond it was a narrow tunnel filled with floorboards.

“There’s going to be a little noise now,” Lars said. “Step lightly, please.”

The boards squeaked, like chirping birds, as they walked. The nightingale floors the Shepherd had spoken of. The sounds echoed in the symmetrical cavern, and the effect was that of a massive flock of birds raising hell.

They came to a spacious open-air lift that appeared large and sturdy enough to support a commercial truck. It moved slowly up and down at regular intervals. There were no doors or buttons, and only a single rail prevented occupants from falling from the platform and into the chasm below.

“I see you didn’t invest much in infrastructure,” Zhu said.

Lars nodded. “The Shepherd insisted that the construction be minimally invasive of the ruins.”

The descent was mercifully short. The air was suddenly much cooler. When they exited, he stood before a spotless glass-encased laboratory. At least a dozen people were working inside, making preparations for the Great Mission. Just as Zhu had specified in his instructions, the lab workers were wearing full body suits, with two layers of booties, and additional hoods, sleeves and gloves over the initial layer of outerwear.

Zhu was clearly pleased. “It’s just like we talked about. How do we go in?”

Lars pointed to an exterior chamber at the far end of the room. “You and your assistants change there. Then you enter a secondary chamber equipped with an air shower. Per your requirements, each working area is in a self-contained chamber with its own individual climate control. All the equipment you requested was sterilized in a dedicated room before its introduction to the environment.”

Across the chasm was a vast chamber with algae-damaged walls that had once been frescoed. Still, there were elaborately carved fountains, and in one place, a pool covered with ivory veneers and containing beautiful blue water. A vaulted ceiling was adorned with a mosaic depicting a chariot race. And beyond the chamber, a throne room.

Lars pointed to the stone-carved throne. Hundreds of tiny craters lined the arms and edges where jewels had once bedazzled it. “We believe that Nero himself sat there.”

The grin on Zhu’s face grew even wider. Only the Shepherd could have had such a brilliant idea. The Great Mission would be consummated in the house of one of the most notorious persecutors of Christians, whose intolerance had quite literally driven the movement underground. Filled with renewed inspiration, Zhu turned back toward the lab.

“ And you shall use wisdom to create life ,” Lars quoted the Living Scriptures. “ Just as I have, for I have made you in my likeness ."