Andy Mcdermott - Temple of the Gods

Despite his size and weight, Agnelli clearly had some skill at climbing. He had scaled the loculi before pulling himself up one of the pilasters, and was now over twenty feet above and still ascending. ‘Stop!’ Nina shouted, taking aim.

He ignored her, toes scrabbling at footholds as he headed for a dark opening where a block had either fallen or been removed from the vaulted roof. She repeated her command, but knew she couldn’t shoot an unarmed and terrified man — and also that if he died, which a gunshot wound and the subsequent fall would all but guarantee, there was no way to discover who had paid him to photograph the Kallikrates text. All she could do was watch in impotent frustration as he reached the opening and squeezed inside.

‘Son of a bitch !’ she spat as she realised where his escape route led.

Into the Vatican.

The city state’s own catacombs — those which had been mapped, at least — were centred beneath the vast basilica of St Peter. If Agnelli had discovered a way into the Vatican’s lower levels, from there he could enter the basilica itself… and then simply walk out into the streets of Rome.

Nina shoved the gun into a pocket and started after him. ‘Two places in two days where I’ve been shot at,’ she muttered as she climbed. ‘If I get back to New York and someone tries to kill me there , I’m gonna kick their ass so hard…’ She reached the uppermost niche and took hold of the column set into the wall. It didn’t look the least bit safe — though the fact that someone of Agnelli’s bulk had scaled it without breaking it apart gave her some limited reassurance.

Without the secure footing of the loculi , her ascent was now much slower. As she inched her way closer to the opening, the muffled sounds of Agnelli’s passage through the narrow tunnel faded. He was getting away from her.

‘No you goddamn don’t,’ she growled, pulling herself higher and refusing to succumb to the awful temptation to look down at the ever-increasing drop. Instead she fixed her eyes on the dark hole as she brought herself within reach. It was a few feet to the pilaster’s side — she would have to stretch across to it, taking her weight on one hand.

No choice. Nina took a deep breath, then clutched the ancient stone as tightly as she could with her left hand as she reached out with her right, hooking her fingers over the lip of the new passage—

Her left hand slipped.

She screamed, clawing desperately at the wall. Her right foot jolted from its hold, leaving her suspended and straining between two very precarious points like a human tightrope. She scraped her toe against the ancient stonework for a terrifying eternity before finally finding purchase on a jutting brick. That gave her just enough leverage to bring her left hand up to the hole and grip the edge. A few seconds to recover her breath, then she pulled herself into the low passage.

Heart rate dropping from that of a frightened rabbit, she looked ahead. The passage, what she could see of it in the dim light from below, was about thirty inches wide and slightly lower, angling upwards into darkness. She could hear a distant rustle as Agnelli crawled up the incline.

The gun was a hard lump pressing into her side. She drew it and headed after him.

Very quickly, she was in total darkness. An instinctual fear rose: simple unreasoning terror at being in a confined space, unable to see. ‘If he can fit,’ she whispered to herself in an attempt at reassurance, ‘so can I. I don’t have a fat ass. Well, it’s not huge or anything. I mean, I work out. Kind of. When I have the time…’

The distraction did its job, the encroaching panic retreating. Looking ahead, she saw a faint glimmer of light marking the tunnel’s end. It was mostly obscured by the silhouetted form of Agnelli — who as she watched pulled himself out and disappeared.

Her anxiety returned, but now for a more concrete reason. Agnelli might be waiting in ambush at the top of the shaft. She slowed as she drew nearer, listening intently. Nothing. Had he already fled — or was he preparing to smash a brick down on her head?

She hesitated a foot short of the exit… then scrambled through as quickly as she could.

No stones dashed out her brains. Agnelli had already left the softly lit chamber. It appeared to be an archaeological excavation, crumbled walls having been dug out of the pale brown soil. But there was no indication that the dig was an ongoing project; instead it seemed frozen in time, as much a part of history as the ruins it had unearthed…

Nina suddenly knew where she was.

Beneath the Vatican, uncounted tombs and burial chambers dated back as far as Imperial Rome, layer built upon layer over centuries. The passage from the Brotherhood’s maze of archives emerged in the Scavi, a necropolis hidden under St Peter’s basilica. It had been unearthed in the 1940s at the instigation of Pope Pius XII during a search for the tomb of St Peter himself. Since then, the site had been left largely untouched — partly out of reverence, and partly for the more pragmatic reason that it was directly below the magnificent bronze baldachin of St Peter within the basilica, and further excavations ran the risk of damaging the foundations. Agnelli must have discovered the passage during his explorations of the catacombs — and now had his own private emergency exit into the Vatican.

That thought spurred her back into action. She clambered over the ruins to a low opening in one wall. Drifting dust motes told her that Agnelli had squeezed through the gap not long before, dislodging chunks of crumbling plaster. She followed with more care, emerging in a narrow brick-lined passageway. Holes in the walls led to other ancient chambers, including St Peter’s tomb, but Nina’s concern was something of more recent construction. A doorway led to a flight of metal stairs, heading upwards. Between the necropolis and the basilica were the Vatican grottoes: the tombs of the popes.

Nina pounded up the stairs. A sound reached her — the low echoes of many voices speaking in hushed reverence. The Scavi was only opened for a handful of visitors each day, but the tombs above were a destination for pilgrims from all over the world. At the top, a door was swinging closed. She flung it back open and rushed through.

Agnelli had clearly been through here — several people on their way to view the nearby Clementine Chapel were staring in shock down a hallway, having just been barged aside by the fleeing Italian. Nina added to their outrage by following suit.

‘Excuse me! Sorry,’ she called out as she ran down the hall, weaving between the visitors.

Agnelli was leaving an audible trail of protesting voices. She followed it, emerging from the hall into a larger and more spacious section of interconnected chapels and shrines. This part of the grottoes was much busier: the tomb of John Paul II, a recent and highly venerated pope, was situated within.

Nina slowed, scanning the throng of pilgrims. Where was Agnelli? Trying to blend in with the crowd — or using them as cover to escape?

A woman’s cry told her it was the latter. She saw an elderly lady in black lying on the pale marble floor, her companions still reeling. Agnelli’s path was as clear as a ship’s wake.

‘Let me through!’ Nina shouted as she ran after him. Even giving a warning, she still had to sweep an arm ahead of her like a snowplough to push past the startled mourners — until a shriek of ‘ Pistola! ’ told her that someone had seen her gun.

The chamber erupted into chaos, frightened people scattering in all directions. Nina cursed. She had briefly spotted Agnelli’s distinctive haircut over the crowd — now it was lost again in the confusion.