Chapter IV

Though the temperature inside the Vatican was cooler, the pressure was rising quickly.

GREGG APPROACHED THE POPE, making sure that the recent excitement was not too much for him. “Sir, is there anything I can get for you?”

The Pope sat back on a large brown leather couch, his breath beginning to calm to a normal rate. His light blue eyes studied the ‘Safe Chamber’, a secure room from which the most important members of the Vatican could safely wait out any dangers from the outside. The room, constructed of sheets of steel and Kevlar that were alternating for several feet outward had its own oxygen supply and filtration system, as well as water and food for up to two months. There were secure communication lines (in the event of a war, or catastrophe) and monitors to the outside to let them know what the radiation or biological levels were.

It was thought that in the event of a nuclear or biological war, the Pope would be the last man standing. But all of that was speculation.

The Pope looked across the chamber, past its dull grey walls and polished concrete floor, to Belsito Pasquale, the Papal Nuncio. “Belsito, is all of this related?”

The Papal Nuncio walked slowly towards the Pope, passing several Cardinals including Cardinal Delatorre, and spoke softly, “We don’t know anything yet, John. It’s best not to speculate. I know that our Security Staff are quite proficient at—”

“Don’t sugar coat this,” the Pope said with a wave of his hand. “I’m not he press secretary. This violence has followed us around the world. Over oceans and mountains and everything else. People are dying and we are responsible.”

Nervously, the Nuncio approached the couch, “We don’t know that. We don’t know anything, yet.”

The Pope eyed him skeptically and raised a finger. “You, my friend, know more than you are telling me. I suspect that you know much more. Our house has gotten dirty, and we all know it.”

“John,” the Nuncio said as he sat down beside the Pope, “I think that it would be best if we discuss this at a better time.”

“We seem to have plenty of time,” Cardinal Delatorre said as he approached.

He looked at both the Pope and the Nuncio. “I have heard things. We all have,” he said as he pointed around the room at the other clergy members. “If all we have are rumors, what then are we to believe?”

The Pope looked at the Nuncio. “Belsito, perhaps you should enlighten us?” Just then a few beeps and a large amount of static seemed to fill the room.

Gregg adjusted his radio as the room fell silent, as they listened,

“ . . . -an dow-, I re-eat, man -own. Over—”

Gregg made a sharp turn towards the sealed door of the chamber, “Say again, Over—”

There was more static, and then suddenly Ritti’s voice came through quite clearly, “We have two men down. Pablo is dead, and Donnie is down.”

“Where are they?” the Pope asked as he stood, now very alert. Gregg turned back to him without an answer.

“Gregg, where are they?” the Nuncio asked carefully.

“I believe they were in the tunnels, near one of the Translation Chambers.” Almost as if they had been programmed, the Pope, the Nuncio, and Cardinal Delatorre turned and faced each other with panicked expressions on their faces.

“Where is Thomas?” the Nuncio said, knowing what was at stake. Gregg brought the mic close to his face, “Gregor to Ritti. Over—”

“. . . hiss . . . hiss . . . Go for Ritti—”

Gregg’s eyes quickly glanced at the three most important religious figures in the Vatican, maybe in the world, “Do we have a location on Thomas, from Translation Chamber five?”

There was lots of hissing, and plenty of static . . . but no answer.

The thing that kept going through Thomas’s mind was, ’keep running, don’t look back.′ That was the last thing he could remember of Pablo, his best and only friend for the last thirty years of his life. There had not been one day since they had met that they had not seen each other. He had always been kind to Thomas, even when nobody else had wanted to associate with him. Thomas was different, but Pablo had never minded that.

’Keep running, don’t look back!′ And that’s what he did.

He had the map in his left hand, though he knew the tunnels well enough that he probably didn’t need it. His ears were still ringing from the gunshots. Donnie, the investigator from up top, seemed nice enough to him that it was hard for him to believe that he would have tried to kill Thomas. But then, anything was possible, now. And beyond all of this, there were things that Thomas knew that nobody else on earth could possibly know.

At least, not any other humans.

‘Keep running,’ he thought as he neared the dead end. In his right hand was the tiny phone that Donnie had given him. As he approached the bricked wall he looked for three tiny holes, about the width of a small coin. Pablo had said that they would be near the floor on the left-hand corner. “They will unlock the passageway,” Pablo had explained.

Thomas, wearing an old pair of jeans and a faded brown t-shirt, kneeled down, using the blue light from the small phone to illuminate the left-hand corner.

The yellow passageway lights had stopped about thirty feet back, so it was actually quite dark. His eyes darted about looking for the three holes. He couldn’t find them! The sounds of shouting startled him. They were coming now. He didn’t have time. They were going to kill him for sure this time. There was no way they’d let him live after all of this.

Peter led the other six guards up to the bodies. There was blood everywhere. “We need medics down here now!” he ordered. Holstering his gun he approached his fallen friend. Donnie’s eyes were shut and he was curled up into the fetal position with his back against the wall. He felt for a pulse, but that had left long ago. “What the hell happened?” he said to himself.

“Anything?” one of the Swiss Guards asked as he kneeled near Peter. Peter shook his head without answering.

Another guard passed them with his pistol drawn, dawning a pair of night vision goggles and stared down the tunnel. “Thomas pulled a runner, eh?”

Peter stood up, briefly glancing at the bits of skull and brain matter that were splattered just about everywhere around them. He couldn’t imagine that two people could have had all that blood. There was a salty, copperish smell and Peter started to feel sick to his stomach. Taking deep breaths he walked past the carnage. “Where does he think he’s going?”

“He’s probably pissing his pants, sir. I don’t think he’s accustomed to blood and guts,” the guard said, motioning his head back towards the bodies.

Peter lifted a radio to his mouth, “This is Peter. Over—”

Ritti’s familiar voice responded, “Switch to alternate frequency. Over—”

Peter used the small keypad on the radio to switch to their emergency frequency.

It would buy them some privacy. “Peter to Ritti, how comms? Over—”

“Five by five, Peter. What’s going on down there?”

“Pedro’s dead. Donnie’s dead. And Thomas is somewhere in the tunnels.” There was a long pause and then the Colonel’s voice came back, “Find him, please. He is very important. Over—” “He’s quite scared, sir.” “Wouldn’t you be, Peter?”

“Roger that, sir. I’ll get him back.”

“Peter . . .” Ritti said, his voice much lower now, “keep him alive, even if that means you have to take somebody else down.”

“Roger that, sir,” Peter replied, knowing what he meant. He couldn’t trust anyone, from this point on.

“Use this frequency to update me every five mikes. Over—”

“Back in five, sir. Out.” Peter lowered the radio and gathered the other guards. He explained that they must be very careful not to hurt or scare Thomas. He informed them that their only job now was to find and to protect the frightened translator. Peter and the other six guards came up with a plan to systematically check every nook and cranny of the tunnels, a mere 5 kilometers of dimly lit tunnels extending in all directions.

A needle in a concrete haystack, in the dark.

He appointed two guards to stay at their location, and guard the bodies until medical staff could sort the mess out. “Nobody is to touch the bodies, or move them, until pictures have been taken. We’ll need to make sense of all of this at a later time.”

And with that Peter and the other four guards headed out into the tunnels.

Thomas slid his fingers back and forth along the wall, trying to feel any indentions. “Damnit!” he whispered as his search became more frantic.

Maybe he had heard Pablo wrong?

Maybe Pablo was mistaken?

Maybe he was loosing his mind and all of this was a nightmare?

He placed his hands on the cold floor and lowered his head. He took several long, deep pulls of cool air. The voices echoing through the tunnels were getting closer. “Come on, Thomas. You solved the Prophecies of Jesus Christ, surely you can find a few silly little holes.”

He looked up at about knee level and right in front of him were three holes equally spaced from each other as if they were the points of a triangle. They were no bigger than the size of a two-euro coin, but there they were. He had been looking too close to the floor. He blew a quick blast of air at them and the dust spit back at him like a tiny volcano erupting. He felt the urge to cough and buried his mouth in his shirt to conceal the noise. It still sounded like a car bomb going off, to him.

Slowly, now knowing exactly what to expect, he took a small black writing pen and slowly inserted it into the top hole. He felt something push free, but there was no noise. Nodding to himself he pressed the pen into the second hole, and then into the third. Still nothing. As he pulled the pin out of the third hole he heard something behind the bricked wall. It sounded like several large thumps with a grinding noise.

Jumping to his feet, thinking that everyone in the tunnels who was trying to kill him had probably heard it too, he pushed against the wall. Nothing happened. He pushed harder. Nothing. He leaned all of his body into the door. Nothing.

Out of pure frustration he kicked the wall and the bottom right quarter of the wall fell aside, on some kind of hinge. He instantly heard the sound of running water.

He kneeled down and saw some light coming from underneath a small, circular plate of brown something. It looked like wood, but after Thomas pushed on it, it must have been rusted metal. Using his feet he kicked on the plate, pushing it aside to reveal a tube leading downward. There was light far under the water, which came up to about a foot from the top. Now was the part where he would have to hold his breath.

Twenty feet, Thomas. You can hold your breath for twenty feet, can’t you? He hoped so. It wasn’t something he often practiced.

Thomas heard footsteps coming from somewhere. They were on to him, now, he just knew it. Looking at the tube, and the water inside he wondered if this was to become his tomb.

Keep running, never look back.

“I’m a genius,” he said to himself. And with that he took three quick breaths, then three long breaths, each time letting all of the oxygen into and completely out of his lungs. One final breath and in he went, head first. He hadn’t been swimming since he was a small child. The water was cool, and scary, but he was finally submerged in silence. No footsteps. No bullets. Just the sound of

the water’s current racing past. As he pawed his way through the tube the light grew brighter, his air was getting low, and he felt his body start to tingle.

Twenty feet, Thomas. You can hold your breath for twenty feet, can’t you?

Peter and the other guards jogged from one passageway to the next. They started with the largest circle, or loop, and worked their way inwards. The centermost circle was about the size of a small city block. In it were several research chambers, and a large vault which kept all kinds of things that were way above Peter’s pay grade. Nobody was allowed in the vault except for the ‘three’: the Pope, the Papal Nuncio, and Cardinal Delatorre. Long ago it had been staffed by researchers, but some security leaks had made that a thing of the past. Now, it was a place where only the three could go.

“Thomas!” Peter yelled into the musty darkness, “We’re trying to protect you. I’m a friend of Donnie’s. We can help you.” He realized that he sounded like some cheezy police negotiator on one of those cop shows that Television Italia is always showing late at night. But what else could he say? He didn’t want to split the guards up because at this point we wasn’t sure who he could trust. He knew all of them well, but then . . . he thought he knew Pablo, too.

Knowing that this was pointless, he broke the group up and sent men in all directions. Do not draw your weapons for any reason, he stressed to them. We need to help him, he thought. He was taking a huge change, but he had no options.

It wasn’t two minutes later when he hear the yell, “I’ve got something, here!”

Over the radio, one of the guards explained, “Second circle, just off the main tunnel I found a dead end with a . . . like a sewage drain or something. Over—” A minute after that the five of them were kneeling over a water filled tube that protruded from behind a secret door of some kind. “How did he find this?”

Peter stood up and toggled the alternate frequency, again. “Peter to Ritti.

Over—”

“What have you got?”

“We found a drainage pipe hidden behind a wall. We’re pretty sure that’s where Thomas went,” Peter explained, his voice thick with frustration.

“How long?”

“A minute or two, maybe five. It’s hard to be sure. Over—” “Some climb over the fence . . . some go under,” Ritti said flatly. “What now?”

“Leave two men there, and the rest of you head to the location of the bodies and secure that scene. I’ll have Dimitri try and get to the other side of that wall.”

“Sir,” Peter said, “if I’m not mistaken there is a river on the other side.”

“Wonderful,” Ritti responded, and it was with a fair amount of sarcasm.