Gregg Loomis - The Julian secret

Rome

Outside the City Wall, South of the Tiber

Month of Julius A.D. 362

Demetrius did not like being among the dead at night. If the purpose of being here was to visit a tomb, perhaps to lower food to the spirit of someone departed, then it should be done in daylight when the gods could see and note the piety with which the ancestors were treated. The same would be true if this were a funeral procession. Night was the time of evil and the underworld, the time of Pluto or whatever name these Romans had for the master of Hades.

But Demetrius was a Greek, a mere slave, who did not get to choose the time and place of his labors.

Even in the poor light of stuttering torches, though, it was obvious that Sextinus, his master, was unhappy even if he was carrying out a command of the Emperor himself. The other slave, a Gaul whose tongue had been cut out for some minor disrespect, was clearly as unhappy as Demetrius. Not only were the streets between the tombs dark, it was said that at night deadly serpents came out from the Tiber's swamps at the foot of the hill below to devour whatever might remain of the recently deceased.

Demetrius was terrified of snakes, particularly those rumored to be large enough to swallow a man whole.

Ahead, a structure larger than the others blotted out the stars. With whispered curses, Sextinus urged them forward, to carry the burden the two slaves shared next to the foundations of the temple.

Or at least, Demetrius thought of it as a temple.

Actually, it was a palace, the residence of the high priest of that religion the Emperor Constantine had embraced nearly four decades ago, a belief that worshiped a god with no name and his son, a Judean who had been crucified and supposedly risen from the dead.

Rising from the dead was a fairly common trick for gods and goddesses, Demetrius thought. The Egyptians' Isis did it every spring with the flooding of the Nile. There was Orpheus, who went to Hades to retrieve his wife, Mythrin, the subject of Mythrinism, a religion ever popular these days, and any number of Persian gods who jumped up out of their graves as though simply waking from a mortal's sleep.

But there was something different about this religion. Christianity, that was its name. Whatever the difference, it had infuriated the Emperor enough to commence purges that had been unknown for years.

That religion, Demetrius was sure, was why he and the other two men were here tonight, to dig into the under pinning of the temple/palace and place two amphorae there and then replace a part of the foundation itself so that anyone attempting to remove the amphorae would risk bringing the whole structure down on his head.

What was in those clay vessels? Not wine or olive oil. They were far too light for that. It made no sense. But then, emperors didn't have to.

The Vatican, April 1939

Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII for less than two months, hurried along the dimly lit corridors of the grotto, the name only half-humorously given to the lowest parts of St. Peter's Basilica. Ahead of him, Father Emilio Sargenti turned to wait impatiently for the older man to catch up.

"Slower, Emilio," Pius puffed. "Even if what you think is true, it win not go away."

The young priest stopped, making an unsuccessful effort to hide his impatience. "Of course, Your Holiness."

At a slower pace, they threaded their way between effigies of past pontiffs reclining on marble sarcophagi.

Although many might find the company of the dead macabre, Pius often retreated here to pray alone.

To pray and conduct a private, personal exorcism of the demons he was convinced inhabited the soul of Adolph Hitler, demons he had had an opportunity to witness firsthand as the Papal State's envoy to Berlin only a year or so ago. The man was capable of enormous evil. Swallowing sovereign nations, pogroms, and, if Father Sargenti had found what Pius suspected, doing irreparable damage to the Church itself.

The German dictator was temporarily forgotten as the younger man stooped and directed a flashlight beam at a dark corner. "There, just next to the wall!"

Pius tugged at his white cassock and knelt to see better. This was the niche his predecessor, Pius XI, had chosen for his tomb. In preparing space for it, the discovery had been made.

"Can you see it?" Impatience was creeping back into Father Sargenti's voice. "See the bricks, the dome of the vault underneath this floor?"

Pius saw clearly. He sat back on his haunches. "It's hardly surprising, Emilio. Before Constantine built the first papal palace here on the Vatican Hill, the area had been a cemetery for hundreds of years, first the pagan Romans, then the Christians. In fact, the area was a necropolis, streets running between mausoleums honoring the dead. You've hit the top of one of those, that's all."

Of course, that wasn't all, and both men knew it.

Near Werfen, Austria

May 16, 1945

In the Tirol, spring comes slowly and with great caution. It was no surprise to the man riding in the railroad engine's cab that patches of snow lingered along those parts of the track shaded by towering conifers. The breeze whipping through the glassless windows was raw and smelled of the forest rather than cordite, sulfur, and death, odors the man had lived With for so long.

The air was so cold, it burned the lungs.

He smiled. Even though he would not be here for long, it was good to be coming home, to return to his native land, a country he had seen but little in the turbulent last few years. He was delighted to watch the icy streams cascade down verdant hills and through grassy meadows. A doe, pregnant with a fawn to be born soon, stood wide-eyed, watching the train chug along before showing her white flag and disappearing into the shad ows. Overhead, an eagle cut endless circles into the cloudless sky.

Nothing had changed here. The mountains, the trees, the tumbling waters that murmured to themselves as they raced downhill were the same, oblivious to the fact that the entire world was a place far different from when he had last set foot here. In the man's opinion, the changes had not been good.

Ordinarily, a train ride from Budapest to Vienna would take perhaps a half a day or so, perhaps three hundred kilometers. In today's world, the ride wasn't even possible. The tracks, bridges, and tunnels between the two Eastern European capitals had been bombed into so much steel and stone rubble. That was the reason for traveling to a village more than twice the distance from the Hungarian capital, a necessary detour.

At least, that was what he had been told. He didn't believe it.

His disbelief was justified seconds later. Rounding a gentle curve, he saw two American half-tracks across the rails. He recognized the specially mounted fifty-caliber Browning M1 heavy machine guns as the best heavy automatic weapon of the war. The sun twinkled on the brass shells in belts already fed into each breech. On one side was a Sherman tank, the black mouth of its turret cannon turned in the train's direction. On the other was a line of deuce-and-a-halfs, two-and-a-half-ton trucks, canvas covers in place to shield the contents of the beds from curious eyes. About a dozen men in American combat uniforms, some swaddled in great coats, stood around, each carrying a rifle. Even at this distance, he could see the shoulder patches of the 15th Infantry Regiment.

The grade had slowed the train to a near walk. Stopping took little effort.

"Herr Sturmbahnfuhrer…?" The engineer asked.

Without taking his eyes off the Americans, the man replied in German, ''You are not to refer to me so. I am simply Herr Schmidt."

The engine exhaled deeply, geysers of steam venting into the crisp air, as the man swung down from the cab. He was dressed in Tirolian attire: lederhosen, green wool socks, and a felt hat sporting a brush of mountain goat hair. Though his shirt was short-sleeved, he carried his jacket under one arm and kept his hands visible at all times so there would be no mistake made as to whether he was armed. He walked along the short stretch of track deliberately, as though each step had its own significance. He carried himself ramrod straight, like a soldier marching at attention.