Shrouded in Silence (12 page)

12

T
he afternoon had nearly faded when Jack and Michelle Townsend gathered around the conference table in the side room in their offices. The door had been left open to hear anyone coming through the front door entry. Papers and manila folders lay strewn across the old table as well as a few books.

"Let's begin by bringing each of us up-to-date on what we've discovered so far," Jack said. "Michelle, what's coming up as you sit in there hour after hour and pound on that computer?"

"I'm not having much luck," she said. "I've been trying to access The Royal or Ancient Library of Alexandria via the Internet to find some ancient documents, but I don't get much beyond mention of its existence. I've tried a number of angles but the doors just aren't opening for me."

"Hmm," Jack mused. "Not surprised. What we're looking for is simply going to be much more secluded. Dov, what'd you come up with?"

The young man shrugged. "Most of what I've turned up is rather pedestrian. My guess is that while a street was being repaired, the workmen broke through the top of an ancient storage room where documents had been stored by the Roman government centuries ago. I'm not sure it's worth much more rummaging, but that's not the big news."

"Don't sit there grinning," Jack said. "Lay the heavy stuff on us."

"You were right to tell me to keep probing. I found the basement under the basement," Dov said. "When I started looking into this material, I realized it was far too dusty and dirty to be sitting around in those gorgeous Secret Archives rooms. Poking around in the storage area led to the discovery of secluded stairs that wound down to an entirely different level underneath. I found the area where the Vatican stores the ancient material that has never been cataloged. There's also a large space in the back where they are doing archaeological digging in a first-century landscape. Far out or what?

"You've found the goldmine!" Michelle exclaimed.

"Dov, you've made a breakthrough," Jack said. "Yes, this is highly important. I didn't even know that a hidden area existed below the library. You're discovery is significant. Earlier, I didn't find anything that offered a significant lead on where to look for the first-century clues, but finding the hidden basement means we're certainly searching in the right area."

Albert Stein twisted the dials for a moment, cursed, and slammed his fist against the inside wall of the large van parked only two blocks from the Santa Maria Church. "I can't pick up enough volume," he screamed at Klaus Bruchel. "I'm missing important parts of what they are saying." He glanced around at the reception devices and batteries that filled the back portion of the van, giving it the look of a make-shift electronics laboratory. "Where did you hook up that MicroPower transmitter?"

Burchel shrugged. "It's on the underside of one of the desks," the young man said. "I think they must be sitting in another room. Probably the conference room. That's the best that I can tell you."

Stein cursed again. "You should have thought of that possibility, you fool." He turned up the volume again and put the earphone back over his head. A low hum made the sound somewhat distorted. He listened more intently.

A few words filtered in. "And Dov continues to work on the
Sarajevo Haggadah,"
Jack Townsend said. "Finding any —— there, Dov?"

The microphone popped and Stein missed half of the sentence."—— comparing the Hebrew forms," Dov Sharon answered. "—— not getting much, but I find it more than interesting. Because Bosnia was under the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire when the book surfaced in 1894, it was natural that it be sent to Vienna because the city was the hub of critical scholarship in those days. Unfortunately —— mishandled the rebinding of the
Haggadah."

Stein jerked off the earphones. "It's makes no sense that they are fooling around with that ridiculous Jewish Passover book." The man muttered under his breath. "Their interest has to be elsewhere. Makes Townsend sound like he's lost his mind. Good God! They're not a bunch of idiots! Stein put the earphones back on his head.

"I'd suggest we stay on our original track," Jack Townsend said. "Dov, —— stay with your research and we'll look —— of the library. Michelle, I want you to concentrate on Irenaeus. Since he was a disciple of Polycarp, that Church Father —— in touch with. —— Maybe, you can come up with a lead —— in the past."

"OK," Michelle said. A sudden burst of static knocked out much of what she said. "—— shift to a new area easily I will ——" The static knocked out her response. "—— later —— return to —— was."

"Good," Townsend said. "We'll start tomorrow."

Stein cursed. "Sounds like they are sitting around a table. I can only pick up enough to make matters worse." He pointed his finger at Burchel. "You've got to get back in that house and wire up that additional space. You must do this work tonight. They are obviously pursuing some venue of importance. Get back in there and wire up that space."

Klaus Burchel nodded. "Do you see any dangers in returning so soon?"

"Of course! That's why you'd better do it right this time."

13

A
n unexpected fall rain dumped a rapid downpour across Rome in the late evening. Standing outside in the black pants and coat he had worn the first time he broke into the Townsend's offices, Klaus Burchel huddled against a building across the street from Santa Maria Church and watched the church's guttering pour the night's runoff into the street. Lightening crackled and lit up the dark sky; thunder pounded on his eardrums. Burchel's umbrella kept the splattering rain out of his face, but the thunderstorm proved too fierce to keep him from getting wet in the cold rain.

If he could get inside the church and hide until the middle of the night, the cloudburst might pass over. Klaus glanced at his watch. Even though it was only 10:00, the church doors appeared to still be open. Couldn't be many people in there at this hour. Stein wouldn't like it, but the demanding jerk didn't have to stand out in the rain with a backpack on either. Enough of the fall weather had already arrived that the coldness had started to cut to the bone. Shifting his weight back and forth on his damp feet, he finally decided it was worth the effort to get inside the church. Turning the collar on his coat up, Klaus made a mad dash across the street and up the steps of the church. With a hard yank, he pulled the massive front door open and slipped inside.

Since night had fallen, light inside the church had become dim. The high altar hovered in the dimness of candlelight, leaving the nave filled with shadows. For a moment, Klaus considered ducking under a pew until he dried out, but someone might still be around and could see him. Big trouble would erupt from getting caught looking like a curled-up dog hiding in a corner. In fact, he needed to quickly find a room to hide in. Only then did he notice the dark entrance to his left and the stairs leading down into the blackness. Without further thought, he bounded down the ancient stone steps.

Only at the bottom of the stairs did he realize that he had stumbled into the crypt that ran under the entire church. A brass plaque on the wall explained that the Capuchin monks had once used the building as a monastery and more than four thousand monks had been buried there between 1528 and 1870. The graves situated around him were considerably more than he bargained for. Klaus shuttered. Barely making a sound, he crept forward into the funerary.

Klaus realized that his bravado and swagger on Rome's streets had been an attempt to cover his extreme superstitiousness. Growing up in Germany in a time of economic and social upheaval, he had worried that monsters hid in his closet at night, waiting to devour him as soon as he went to sleep. The blackness of the unseen in the dark always appeared filled with creatures of death ready to flay him with razors. The craziness of those childhood fears arose again in the shadowy gloom of the ancient cemetery surrounding him.

Pressing against the stone wall, he turned a dim corner and came face-to–face with a skeleton shrouded in a deteriorating brown robe tucked in a recess in the basement wall. The boney jaw hung at a skewed angle as if it were about to drop from the face at any moment while the bones of the hand dangled from under the brown robe. The obscure darkness of the skeletal eyes seemed to stare directly at him. Klaus's mouth went dry, and he leaped backward nearly falling on the rock floor. His heart roared like a drilling rig pounding on solid rock. He started to run, but saw nothing opening before him accept more murkiness. Backing up against the granite wall, he tried to catch his breath and fight off the certainty that death was stalking him down these corridors. Reaching around to his backpack, Klaus rummaged through the contents until he found a large hunting knife in a leather sheath. Pulling it out, he tucked the blade in his belt where he could grab it at a moments notice.

Surely, no one came down into these crypts at night. At least, he couldn't imagine such a thing. Probably the candlelights of the crypt were kept lit day and night so a person wouldn't have to worry about being left alone in the total darkness. All he could do was suck it up and stay crouched in the shadows. It was either that or go back out in the cold rain.

Klaus pulled the knife out of his belt and crawled back in a black corner with the blade pointed at anyone that might show up unexpectedly. Even though he had the gun Stein had given him, he knew that the sound of a gun firing would bring the police. Klaus couldn't have that. There was no choice but to fight off the fear that kept boiling up inside of him. For a moment, he thought about this stinking job he'd taken with Stein and cursed the fact he'd ever gotten into it. Then, again, he needed the money and the opportunity to disappear before the police caught him. What a stupid mess he'd gotten himself into.

Father Raffello awoke with a sudden jerk and nearly fell out of his chair. He blinked several times before staring at his wristwatch. It was 2:25 in the morning! How had he done such a thing? Fallen asleep on the job! The priest couldn't believe his slovenly behavior. He must have drifted off somewhere around 10:00 in the evening and left the front door of the church unlocked. Good heavens! How could he have done such a thing? Never, never had he drifted off in sleep like that before! Who knows what in the world could have happened with the edifice remaining wide open. Even though he was eighty, Father Raffello prided himself on running Santa Maria with skill and precision. How had he done such a thing? Terrible. Terrible.

Slipping off the chair he was sitting on in the confessional booth, he stood up and then abruptly stopped. He hadn't simply awakened; something had awakened him. A noise. A sound. Something unexpected. Pushing the curtain aside, he peered out into the nave. The creaking noise came again. Someone was coming into the church at 2:30 in the night? No, someone was going out.

Father Raffello took a deep breath. No person could have been walking around in the church all this time and not be up to no good. He shot a glance at the altar to make sure they hadn't tried to carry off the great golden candlesticks, but there they were in position with candles burning as always. But what about the poor box? A thief could have grabbed the money for the poor.