The Tombs fa-4

by Clive Cussler

  “True,” said Sam. He watched the two fuel men disconnect the hoses from the private jet. “It looks as though we’re almost ready to head to our last stop.”

  “I am,” she said. “I want a view of Rome, a nice hotel, a bath, and a dress that shows how little I’ve eaten since Moscow. And I want to sleep in a bed for at least one night instead of being out digging holes.”

  “That all sounds within our reach,” Sam said. “Just one last dig and we’re done.”

  ABOVE ROME

  SAM AND REMI’S PLANE DID NOT COME IN TO LEONARDO da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, the huge international hub with forty million visitors a year. Instead they flew into Ciampino Airport, fifteen kilometers southeast of Rome. They had no luggage except a laptop computer, so they passed through customs quickly.

  It took much longer to get through the Roman traffic to reach the St. Regis Grand Hotel. The hotel was spare and elegant on the outside but luxurious inside, with ornate public spaces adorned with vases of flowers. At the desk was a message from Professor Albrecht Fischer, inviting them to his suite on the tenth floor. Remi said, “I’m going to buy myself some clothes, take a bath, and then I’ll be ready to see people.” She looked at Sam, who said nothing.

  “And I’d better get you some clothes too,” she said. “You look as though you’ve been digging for bones like a dog.”

  “A noble beast engaged in a noble profession, but I’d better go with you,” said Sam.

  They checked in, then asked the concierge to get them a driver to take them to the right stores for buying the best-quality ready-made clothes. They both bought new casual attire, and Sam bought a suit while Remi bought a cocktail dress, shoes, and purse. They took a cab to their hotel and retired to their suite for an hour before they came to Albrecht’s room and knocked.

  The door swung open, and it looked as though a party was in session. There was Albrecht, and Selma Wondrash was across the room carrying around a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Pete Jeffcoat and his girlfriend and coresearcher, Wendy Corden, were acting as bartenders. Tibor Lazar and his brother János sat on a couch. There was a large table set for dinner.

  “Sam! Remi!” Albrecht called out as though announcing them. “Welcome to our humble abode.” People stood up and surrounded them and then put wineglasses in their hands. Remi whispered in Sam’s ear, “This is like a dream.”

  “It is,” he said. They took seats at the big table. “Sorry we’re late,” he said. “We arrived wearing the clothes we wore in a fistfight.”

  “We’ve been eager to talk about the tomb,” said Selma. “Albrecht wanted to wait for you.”

  Albrecht stood. “All right,” said Sam. “Go ahead.”

  Albrecht said, “Well, what I believe we’re going to find is the chamber containing Attila’s remains. His message to us—to the people who found the five treasures, whoever they turned out to be—was very clear. He wanted to be buried as the guest of a daughter of the Flavian emperors.”

  “Which were the Flavian emperors?” asked Sam.

  “Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, a father and two sons, who ruled Rome from 69 to 96 C.E. They built the Colosseum. Vespasian was a general commanding the eastern forces who essentially took the throne by showing up in Rome at the head of his army. That made him a hard man to argue with. Titus and Domitian inherited.”

  “Why would Attila care about them?”

  “I’m not sure. They were strong emperors who ruled near the height of Rome’s power. They were the first emperors who tried to take over Dacia on the Danube as a colony, and that was near the Huns’ territory, but it didn’t happen until some time after the Flavians died.”

  “Then it doesn’t seem like enough,” said Remi.

  “Connections are tricky. As everyone here knows, the Roman who fought Attila at Châlons, France, was named Flavius Aëtius. He was not an aristocrat from Rome but was born in what is now Bulgaria. He was sent as a young man to be a hostage of the Huns at the court of Attila’s uncle Ruga. He and Attila were friends. The name may be part of the attraction. Maybe it symbolized the ruling class of Rome for Attila.”

  “And you said that Attila was a hostage too,” said Remi.

  “Yes. Attila was sent to Rome by his uncle, King Ruga, at the age of twelve in 418. He was there for at least two years, I believe. What he saw was extreme wealth, along with extreme corruption and murderous conspiracies. He saw that Rome was the ultimate prize for a conqueror. He also observed and studied the practices and strategies of the Roman army, the best in the world—its strengths, methods, and its weaknesses. Since he was from a warlike people, this was probably of most interest to him.”

  “And that made him want to be buried like a Roman?”

  “It made him realize that Rome was the greatest empire of his era and that it was vulnerable to him. He wanted to conquer it. The burial would have been secondary, a sign he had won.”

  “And you said you knew exactly where he wanted to be buried in Rome.”

  “A crucial point is that none of the early Roman emperors were buried. The custom was to cremate them. If Attila wanted to be buried, as his father, uncle, brother, and other relatives were, as well as Huns as far back as we know about them, his choices were limited. For nearly all of Roman history, it was illegal to bury a body anywhere within the limits of the city.”

  “So what happened?” asked Tibor.

  “What happened was, the catacombs. The early Christians believed in the resurrection of the body, so they wanted to be buried, just as the Huns did. They began to dig tunnels at the edge of the city and bury people there. The first were the Catacomb of Domitilla. She was a daughter of the Flavians, a niece of Vespasian, and first cousin of both Titus and Domitian. The land originally belonged to her. Like all of the forty other catacombs that came after it, this one was dug along one of the major roads.”

  “How long will it take us to find the Catacomb of Domitilla?” asked Tibor.

  “Not long,” said Albrecht. “The address is 282 Via delle Sette Chiese. It’s just west of the Via Ardeatina and the Appian Way.”

  “You mean it’s that simple? It’s right there in the open?”

  “Not exactly,” said Albrecht. “With Attila, nothing ever seems to be simple. The Catacomb of Domitilla held one hundred fifty thousand burials. It’s fifteen kilometers of underground passages on four levels. Each tunnel is about two meters wide and over two meters high, with shelves, or platform-shaped depressions, that hold the bodies of the dead. There are offshoots and rooms, each of which has more shelves dug into the rock. This kind of rock is called tufa, which is a soft volcanic stone that hardens after it’s exposed to air. It’s what is under all of Rome. If you wished to bury someone, you would find an unused spot or extend a tunnel to make one, then hollow out a shelf in the wall and put the deceased in it. Next, you would seal the space with a slab. Carved into the slab was the name of the deceased, his age, and the date of his death.”

  “But why did Attila choose a catacomb?” asked Remi. “And how would he even know about them?”

  Albrecht said, “I’m sure that elucidating and explaining what Attila did will take up most of the rest of my career. Rome was the most famous place in the world. People talked about it. Attila was probably taught to admire the Flavians, two of whom are included in the group historians call the five good emperors. Many of the Flavian family were buried in the oldest parts of this catacomb. He also knew that the desecration and looting of monarchs’ graves was a concern. We know he left instructions, going to great lengths, to hide his grave. We know Attila was very cunning. Because Rome was full of people from every country in the Empire, he probably knew it would be possible for a small burial party of Huns to look innocent long enough to enter a catacomb that was outside the city limits. To hide his grave among the graves of a hundred and fifty thousand, most of them Christians who owned little that could be left as burial goods, seems to be very much the sort of thing Attila might do. And of course we have h
is word that this is what he did.”

  “The word of a twelve-year-old?”

  “One of the things we know is that people who underestimated this man usually died. And there is another reason to have faith in the young Attila.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That year, Attila was the one chosen as hostage, not his older brother Bleda or anyone else. This was Ruga’s best chance to get a spy into the most important court on earth. It was also Rome’s chance to form a relationship with the youth whom they believed would one day be leading the Huns. Both sides agreed on who that would be—the twelve-year-old Attila.”

  “All right,” said Sam. “We know where the tomb is, and all the members of the partnership are here. Let’s plan how we’re going to accomplish this.”

  “I’d like to have all of us there for the finish,” Remi said. “Even if we’re fifteen hundred years late and the tomb has been looted, we all work to follow his instructions to the end.”

  “Remi is right to mention the possible end,” said Albrecht. “Some of the catacombs were looted by Visigoths, Lombards, early medieval scavengers. It’s possible we’ll find nothing. But the Catacomb of Domitilla is the least compromised.”

  Sam said, “What are the legalities?”

  Selma said, “We’ve done some looking into it. The people of Rome abandoned the Catacomb of Domitilla by the ninth century, then forgot it existed. In 1873 it was rediscovered. Because most of the catacomb was an early Christian cemetery, it was placed under the ownership of the Catholic Church. In 2007 the Pope appointed the Divine Word Missionaries, an organization of priests and monks, to act as administrator. At the moment, about sixteen hundred meters are open to the public, but they’ve been cooperative about projects to explore, map, and photograph the rest of the catacomb for historical purposes. It’s by far the oldest and biggest, and the one that still contains the bones of its original dead. We’ve called Captain Boiardi of the Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale. He has agreed not only to provide security but also to intercede for us with the Divine Word Missionaries. He’s telling them about the way you called in the authorities after the Mantua excavation.”

  “Wonderful,” said Remi. “He’s somebody we want on our side.”

  “He called a while ago and asked for you and Sam. I told him I worked for you, so he said to tell you he would be here as soon as he could. He has the Ministry of Culture approving this as a joint project. Anything that’s dated before the ninth century B.C. or after the fourth century A.D. will be granted a license for possible export to the U.S. Anything else will be negotiated case by case.”

  “Those are generous terms,” said Sam.

  “It will be good to have official backing,” Albrecht said. “Going into a catacomb is like a cave expedition. The floor is hard, smoothly finished, and reasonably level and dry. But beyond the areas open to the public, it’s not very different from the way it was in 300 C.E. There will be no electricity. None of the deceased will have been removed from their crypts and sepulchres. We’ll use what we bring and, when we go, we’ll leave nothing behind. This is a fifteen-kilometer archaeological site. We map and photograph, but, to the extent that we can avoid it, we touch nothing. We’ll have to be very deliberate, attentive, and patient because the tomb will be hidden somehow. What we’re after is one of the great treasures of the ancient world. Attila started thinking about this tomb when he was twelve and didn’t stop until he died thirty-five years later. All we can assume is that finding it will not be easy.”

  Sam said, “I think we’d better all decide how we’d like to do this. I suggest that before we go down there, each of us think about our capabilities. If you don’t think you’re up to walking ten miles on a stone surface carrying a backpack, then you should remember that going there and back is twenty miles. If you have a hint of claustrophobia, it’s better to realize it now. There’s nobody in this room who hasn’t earned the right to be down there. But we’ll also need a team to remain on the surface to watch the vehicles, take charge of anything we bring up, deal with the authorities, and so on.”

  The group all looked at one another appraisingly, but at first none of them spoke. Finally Selma said, “I’ll be worth more upstairs.”

  “I’ll go down,” said Tibor.

  “So will I,” said János.

  “I think I need to be down also,” said Albrecht. “I know what we’re looking for.”

  “I’m going down,” said Sam.

  Remi said, “Me too.”

  Wendy said, “I’ll stay with Selma.”

  “Thank you,” said Selma. “I was beginning to wonder if I was going to be all alone.”

  “I’ll stay up too,” Pete said.

  Sam said, “Unless I have Boiardi wrong, I think he’ll supply a couple of Carabinieri to serve up on top too. If we find the treasure, the police will be the best ones to guard it. Next, let’s plan the equipment we bring down there. There will probably be Tibor, János, Remi, Albrecht, and me. I figure Boiardi and two Carabinieri will make it eight. We should each have a wheeled pushcart. The wheels should be large and inflated, like the tires of a small bicycle. That way, nobody has to carry a seventy-pound pack, and, if we find the tomb, we can begin removing objects on the first trip to the surface.”

  “If carts like that aren’t available, I’ll have some fabricated,” said Selma.

  “When do you think we’ll be ready?” asked Remi.

  Selma said, “Today is Thursday. The catacomb is closed to visitors on Tuesdays. If we can complete the negotiations with the administrators by then, that would be the time to start.”

  There was a knock on the door and then several waiters with carts brought in their dinner. The whole group adjourned to the large table and continued their planning over a feast. Selma had ordered a wide variety of dishes and the wine to go with them. There were seafood dishes, others of carved beef, lamb, chicken. There were pasta dishes and several kinds of salads. The next knock came about ten minutes into the feast. Sam went to the door.

  In the open doorway stood Captain Boiardi, dressed in a dark civilian suit instead of a black uniform. Sam said, “Captain. I’m glad you could come so soon.”

  “If you would save more policemen’s lives, I’m sure you would always have excellent service.” He embraced Sam heartily and slapped his back. “Good to see you, Sam.” He took Remi’s hand and kissed it. “Remi, it is a delight to see you again. You soothe my eyes after the long drive.”

  “Please come in and make yourself part of the party, Captain,” she said. “Do you have any of your men with you? They’re welcome to join us too.”

  “No,” he said. “You remember the trouble we had last time because we were noticed leaving Napoli. This time we’ve split up and divided the stops we must make. I gave myself the most pleasant.”

  “Thank you,” said Sam. “Let me get you something to eat and drink. If we don’t yet have what you like, we can order anything. We’re in a hotel, after all.”

  “I’ll have a soft drink,” he said. “Otherwise, water. I still have meetings this evening.”

  Sam gave him a glass of ginger ale, and they sat at the table. Boiardi said, “The Ministry of Culture has approved our proposal of a joint project in the catacomb. They have also granted a permit to excavate, secured the cooperation of the Divine Word Missionaries, and sent my squad to assist. When do we go in?”

  “We’d like to start Tuesday, when the catacomb is closed to visitors.”

  “Perfect,” said the captain. “We’d rather not waste men on crowd control.”

  “How did you get the Ministry to act so quickly?”

  “You placed the first treasure—the one from Mantua—with the Ministry voluntarily and that showed you to be responsible and legitimate. You fought and saved Carabinieri from criminals, proving yourselves to be true friends of the nation, of historical study, and of me, Sergio Boiardi.”

  “I’m certainly glad we did,” said Sam. “We plan to as
k the Ministry to take physical custody of what we find this time too.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “We’ll be prepared to transport any finds to a space in Il Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli right away.”

  “Will you be coming down in the catacomb with us?”

  “Yes. I and two other men will join you. I will also have three men at the entrance with trucks, a radio link with the Rome police, and a first-aid station.”

  “Thank you,” said Sam. “Can you be ready to go in on Tuesday?”

  “We could go tomorrow.”

  “Tuesday will be fine,” Sam said. “What time do you think we should start?”

  “Four a.m. would be good. The traffic in Rome became impossible the day Caesar was assassinated,” said Boiardi. “We’re waiting for it to clear.”

  BENEATH ROME

  AT FOUR A.M. TUESDAY, THE MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION gathered inside the walls of the Catacomb of Domitilla at 282 Via delle Sette Chiese. It was not yet light out, but a representative of the Divine Word Missionaries named Brother Paolo was there to admit them. He wore the brown robe of a monk, but his bespectacled face seemed more like that of a businessman than a monk, and his socks and shoes were like those someone might wear going to an office. The total effect was like a man caught in his bathrobe before leaving for work.

  They followed him down a set of narrow steps to the front doors of a fourth-century church. Only the roof and a single row of windows were visible above ground level, and the interior of the church seemed very old. It was bare, more a relic now than a place of worship. The group brought their gear down into it, and Brother Paolo showed them its three naves, then pointed out the doorway that led to the catacomb and sent them on their way.

  It took the explorers about a half hour to get their carts down the first three sets of stone steps to the level where they were to begin their search and then to fill it with their equipment and supplies, which was in backpacks. In the days of preparation, the quantity of these items had been gradually pared down to the essentials—light, photographic gear, tools, water, and food. Now each of the explorers strapped a light to the forehead with an elastic strap.