Jon Tracy - The Rome Prophecy

He must have to pull, push, slide or lift something.

But what?

The soldier looks at him quizzically.

The book doesn’t move. The statue doesn’t move. Nor does the wall in front of them.

They push and pull some more.

Nothing moves.

The soldier lifts the light to Tom’s face. ‘What did you expect to happen?’

‘Good question. I’m not sure. Something to open, I guess.’

The soldier gives him a sympathetic look. ‘Okay, come on, we should get out of here.’

They turn around and head towards the exit.

On the far wall, over to the left, the soldier’s light picks out something.

A passageway.

Tom grabs his arm and points the flashlight at the opening. ‘Was that there before?’

The soldier shakes his head. ‘No. I checked the whole place and I didn’t see it.’

Tom heads towards it.

‘Wait!’ The soldier gives him a stern look and nods at the gun in his hands.

Tom sees his point.

He follows a couple of metres behind the officer.

Partway through the opening, he knows what kind of place they’ve entered.

It’s a graveyard.

A columbarium.

Identical to the one Anna described in her crazed writings as Cassandra.

The place is vast.

High walls are filled with what look like dovecotes, personal spaces for ancient cremation urns.

Tom examines the edges of the shelves. They’re marked with Roman numerals. The one he’s looking at says DXX and the one next to it DXIX. He knows he’s standing at 520 and 519. He follows the numbers down and back towards the entrance. On the bottom shelf, he finds what he’s looking for.

The amphora is painted with the face of Cybele.

A face that to Tom still looks disturbingly similar to Anna. He wonders what he’s found.

Just a pot of old ashes?

Or the remains of the oldest and most famous prophet goddess the world has ever known?

He’s no archaeologist, but he already senses something strange about this find.

The Cybele pot and those immediately around it aren’t as dusty as the others. Come to think of it, the entire shelf is relatively dust-free.

Tom carefully moves all the pots off the bottom shelf.

He pulls it.

It takes a good tug, but it comes free.

He stares down into a narrow trench.

A trench filled with books.

Books full of secrets.

Secrets people hoped to take to the grave with them.

The outside of the unassuming farm has been turned into a military compound.

In the centre is a four-wheel-drive Mercedes Unimog, the size of a small barn. It’s stacked with equipment and stands ready to tow vehicles away, bulldoze down walls and perform all manner of muscular tasks.

Several Iveco armoured vans have already been loaded with prisoners. A soldier slaps the side of one and it heads off down the dirt road, flanked by BMW R85 motorcyclists, blue lights flashing.

Up above, an Augusta-Bell helicopter keeps constant watch as the prisoners are taken down the Appian Way and back towards Rome.

Tom sits on a stone trough and draws breath.

He watches Valentina’s heart breaking as she says goodbye to Sweetheart. The child is being taken away by social workers, and the parting seems to be hurting her every bit as much as it’s hurting the kid.

She joins him at the trough, puts her left hand on his thigh and her head on his shoulder.

He takes her hand. ‘Is she all right?’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s even in the same postal code as all right.’

He squeezes her fingers. ‘There’s no more you can do. You have to leave her to the experts now.’

She looks up at him. There are no tears in her eyes; just disbelief and disgust. ‘Silvestri says they freed almost a dozen kids. Some are even younger than that little girl.’

‘How many of the cult have they arrested?’

‘A dozen men. All guards, by the look of it.’ She glances towards the front of the farm. Mater is being lifted on a gurney into an ambulance. ‘Along with the old witch, they’ve taken four women of about her age and another two or three who seem to be in their forties.’

Tom wipes rain from his forehead. ‘The tip of the iceberg.’

Valentina knows what he means. ‘Under interview, some of the old birds will start singing. They won’t want to spend the rest of their lives in prison and should give up a good number of the other members.’

Tom turns further towards her. ‘Down in the place where the lion killed Anna’s friend, we discovered a secret chamber, a columbarium.’

‘One of those old Roman resting places for the poor?’

He nods. ‘We found a stack of books in there, all marked with the number X. They’re being lifted out by your forensics people.’

She’s intrigued. ‘Do you know what they are?’

He thinks he does. ‘The one on top was the most recent one. It was like a cross between an address book and a diary. On the left were telephone numbers and email addresses. No names. On the right were descriptions of the rituals they’d performed with children and names and descriptions of the children. I saw several pages talking about new arrivals and the initiation ceremonies they had to endure.’

Valentina drops her head and feels sick.

Tom puts his hand on her shoulder and rubs it. ‘The books go back years, maybe even centuries. The Tenth Book has nothing to do with wisdom or prophecies; it’s a never-ending paedophile directory and diary, that’s all.’

Valentina looks up and her face is hardened by anger. ‘You’re wrong, Tom. Wrong because it contains the greatest knowledge of all: information on how to find these sick animals, and probably enough evidence to get convictions and send them to their own damned cells.’

Three days later

Valentina and Tom are shown through to Lorenzo Silvestri’s office.

Neither of them is sure why they are there.

Lorenzo called and said they were to come. Valentina hardly questioned it. She’s learned the painful way that it’s best not to disobey the orders of a Carabinieri major.

The time of the meeting is seven p.m., and that gives her a clue. That and the fact that Lorenzo said they should both look smart. She thinks he’s a good guy, and is guessing that she and Tom are being invited along to share a glass of wine with the troops, get a slap on the back and hopefully an update on the case.

Lorenzo greets them both with a smile as broad as the Tiber. ‘Capitano Morassi.’ He spreads his arms wide. ‘You look even more magnificent than in Vanity Fair.’

She almost blushes. ‘You saw those shots?’

‘Valentina, everyone saw those shots.’ He embraces her warmly. ‘And Signor Shaman.’ He pretends to stand back and admire him. ‘Take away that sling and you look the perfect companion for our capitano.’ He extends his hand and shakes Tom’s firmly before pulling him close and kissing both cheeks. ‘Sit down, please sit down.’ He gestures to two black plastic chairs on the other side of his unassuming glass desk.

Lorenzo sits and folds his arms contentedly. ‘So – I have much to tell you. Where should I begin?’

Valentina helps him out. ‘How’s the little girl we found in the cells?’

He nods. ‘She’s very well. She’s called Cristiana, is eleven years old and has written a letter for you.’ He searches the top of his desk. ‘I’m sorry; I thought I had it here.’ He reads the disappointment in Valentina’s eyes. ‘I’ll find it later, don’t worry.’

He picks a manila file off a stack of three trays. ‘First, let’s tidy up some loose ends.’

Both Tom and Valentina note his change of tone. Perhaps this isn’t going to be any kind of celebration after all.