Brotherhood of the Tomb

by Daniel Easterman

  We can’t be sure. Perhaps it’s a coincidence.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘We can’t take that risk. What about Roberto?

  If O’Malley hasn’t rung, they’ll be opening those letters now. Can we reach Roberto? His apartment? His office? Do you have the numbers?’

  She recited them from memory.

  He called the orderly and had him wheel him into the corridor, where the public telephones were situated. The orderly found him a handful of gettoni and left him alone while he called.

  There was no reply from Roberto’s apartment. He tried his office number. Just as he was about to give up there as well, a man’s voice answered.

  ‘Pronto.’

  ‘Pronto. I’d like to speak to Roberto Quadri, please.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘A friend. It’s urgent I speak to him. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Signor Quadri was killed last night. A car crash on the Via del Corso. I’m very sorry. He was taken to the San Giovanni hospital. I’m sure they can give you more details there.’

  Patrick put the phone down. He sat staring at the receiver for a moment, then stood up. The orderly rushed over.

  ‘Signore, I don’t think ...’

  Patrick pushed him out of the way. He ran back to the cubicle where Francesca was waiting for him.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he said. ‘Find some clothes. We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to stop this thing ourselves.’

  The nurse who had been with Patrick earlier came running up, followed by a man dressed in a white coat.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this? I told you to stay in bed! What do you mean ... ?’

  Patrick shoved her aside and walked up to the doctor. He was young, probably just qualified, and looked as though he had had a busy night.

  ‘Please don’t argue,’ Patrick said. ‘This woman and I are checking out of here. I’m taking complete responsibility, do you understand?’

  ‘But, you can’t...’

  ‘It’s an emergency, do you understand? I don’t have time to argue.’

  He ran into his own cubicle and opened the bedside cupboard. His clothes were there, looking very much the worse for wear. They had been burned and soaked and covered in a variety of unpleasant-looking stains. He ripped off the gown he had been wearing and pulled on his shirt and trousers.

  ‘Please, signore, you’re in no condition to leave!’ The nurse was determined to assert her authority.

  ‘Vaffanculo!’ snapped Patrick.

  He pulled his shoes on and hurried back to Francesca’s cubicle. She looked as bad as he did. He wondered how far they would get before the police hauled them in.

  ‘Before we go,’ he said, ‘I have something to tell you.’

  ‘About Roberto?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You’d better sit down,’ he said.

  They found a cab at the hospital entrance, at the top of the Via dei Quattro Coronati. The driver did a double-take when he saw them, but shrugged his shoulders. Some strange sights walk down the steps of hospitals. Francesca told him to go straight to the Via della Rotonda near the Pantheon, where Roberto’s apartment was located. She had taken the news of his death curiously well. Perhaps an abrupt exit had seemed better to her than the lingering death he had been facing for so long. Any tears she might shed could wait for later.

  She had a key that let them into the building and another to the apartment itself.

  Someone had got there before them. The place had been ripped apart. In Quadri’s study, papers lay strewn over everything. Filing cabinets lay open, their contents gutted. Empty box files had been heaped up in one corner. The Brotherhood was making certain no loose ends remained untied.

  Francesca dashed out of the study to the kitchen. Patrick followed her. Broken plates and empty jars littered the floor. She picked her way through them to the sink and put her hand inside the cupboard underneath. Taped to the roof of the cupboard, as in her own apartment, were two Berettas. Without a word, she handed one to Patrick.

  ‘What now? he asked.

  She looked at him, then down at herself.

  ‘We can’t stay in these clothes,’ she said. ‘We have to get into the Vatican, and I hardly think the Swiss Guards will let in anybody looking like us.’

  There were some of her own clothes still hanging at the back of Roberto’s wardrobe. While she changed into them, Patrick took a shirt and suit to the bathroom. By the time they had finished, they still looked distinctly odd, but they might just make it past a suspicious sentry.

  ‘What about transport?’

  ‘The van is still parked in the Via Grotta Pinta. It’s just a short walk from here.’

  ‘And when we get there?’

  ‘We find Fischer. Or Fazzini. And we put a gun at their heads. What have you got to suggest?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Nothing, I guess. If we had time ...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d look for Migliau. You say he’s the head of the Brotherhood. That means he must be behind this whole operation today. And that means he must be in Rome. It wouldn’t make sense for him to be in Venice.’

  ‘He has a lot of subordinates.’

  ‘In that case, why disappear at all?’

  She frowned.

  ‘Yes. You’ve got a point. But, as you say, we don’t have time.’

  In his mind’s eye he saw the television screen and the faces of dead children.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We don’t have time. But if you knew he was in Rome, where would you look?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Anywhere. No special place. The Seven live in Jerusalem now. The Dead are in Egypt.’

  ‘Dermot said they had brought in one hundred of the Dead. Where would they stay?’

  ‘In different houses, hotels even.’

  ‘But they’d have to come together at some point for briefings. There’d have to be a central point.’

  She thought.

  ‘It’s just possible that...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Centuries ago, very early in their history, the Brotherhood had members in Rome. Not many, a few hundred at the most. But they had separate catacombs from the other Christians, where they buried their own dead. During the Decian persecutions, they met down there.’

  “What were they called? Did they have a name?’

  ‘I don’t think so. No, I’m wrong, they did have a name. I remember now. I was taken there once as a child. I must have been ten or eleven. They frightened me and I wouldn’t stay inside. My father called them the Catacombe di Pasqua. The Easter Catacombs.’

  Patrick stared at her.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then that’s it,’ he said. There was a note of triumph in his voice. For the first time he thought he was one step ahead of his enemy. ‘That’s where Migliau is. Not the Easter Catacombs, Francesca. The Passover Catacombs.’

  FIFTY-FIVE

  They fought through a growing crush of early morning traffic, forcing the van between cars and buses, breaking every rule of driving, even the Italian variety. Francesca drove south, past the Colosseum and down onto the Viale delle Terme di Caracalla. The catacombs, like so many others, were situated on the Via Appia Antica, the old Appian Way that had once taken Roman armies as far as Brindisi.

  After the Porta San Sebastiano, where the Appian Way began, most of the traffic was heading into the city, and they were able to make some headway. The narrow road led them through open country, flanked on either side by the ruined tombs of the Roman upper classes.

  Patrick felt a wave of desolation pass through him. The old tombs, for all their pomposity, were as broken and pitiful as the bones that lay in them. He thought of Brother Antonio dreading the resurrection lest a legless man dispossess him of part of himself. A joke, perhaps, yet one rooted in our longing for completeness. But crack open the tombs and what do you find? Pulvis cinis et nih
il. He looked at Francesca. She had been buried and had returned - in body, he thought, not in spirit. Her old self had been left mouldering in the tomb.

  They turned off just after the Catacombs of Praetextatus, onto the Via Appia Pignatelli.

  ‘The old Jewish catacombs are just over there on the right,’ she said, pointing. ‘The Brotherhood built theirs near them. If anyone stumbled across them, they were meant to think they were just more Jewish tombs and leave them alone.’

  They stopped about half a mile along, near a small farmhouse.

  ‘The catacombs are beneath that farm,’ she said. ‘The people who own it are members of the Brotherhood. We may have to force our way in.’

  They knocked at the door of the main building, a ramshackle affair that might have looked deserted but for the plume of smoke curling from the chimney. A tall man of about thirty-five dressed in a check shirt and muddy cords appeared in the doorway. He scowled at them and made ready to slam the door in their faces.

  ‘Che cacchio desidera? What the shit do you want?’

  ‘My name’s Maria Contarini. I have an urgent message for Cardinal Migliau from the Seven.’

  He frowned and looked from her to Patrick.

  ‘Cardinal Migliau? The Seven? What are you talking about?’

  For a moment, Patrick’s heart sank. They had guessed wrong. Then another man stepped out of the shadows behind the first. He was younger and dressed in tight-fitting black clothes.

  ‘What do they want, Carlo?’

  ‘Says her name’s Contarini. Says she’s got a message from the Seven. For Cardinal Migliau.’

  The younger man stepped into the light. He was suntanned and muscular looking.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked. He seemed edgy.

  ‘I told your friend. Maria Contarini. With a message for the Cardinal. A personal message. You’re to take me to see him.’

  ‘Contarini? From Venice?’

  ‘Yes. Listen, I don’t have much time ...’

  We’ve been looking for someone of your name. Francesca? Is that it? Francesca Contarini. You look..,’

  He froze as she took the Beretta from inside her coat and aimed it at his forehead. Patrick took her lead, drawing his own gun before Carlo could make a move.

  ‘Easy now,’ Francesca said. ‘Come out here and put your hands on the wall, high as you can reach. You too, come on.’

  They got the two men outside and spread them against the wall. Patrick frisked the younger man and found a Browning Hi-Power in a shoulder holster. Carlo was unarmed.

  ‘How many inside?’ Francesca asked.

  ‘Go to hell,’ said the young man.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘How long have you been dead?’

  ‘Not as long as you’ll be.’

  ‘Don’t count on it.’ She turned to Patrick. ‘Let’s get them inside and tied up. Keep them covered while I check the house.’

  She slipped round the door, crouching low, her gun at the ready. The house was silent. No one challenged her. The place was little more than a one-storey wooden shack with half a dozen rooms. It took Francesca less than a minute to confirm that the coast was clear.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she shouted. ‘Bring them in.’

  While she took her turn watching their prisoners, Patrick found rope in an outhouse. They tied the two men back to back on the floor in what looked like an extraordinarily uncomfortable position.

  ‘They teach you to tie like that in Egypt?’ Patrick asked.

  Francesca nodded.

  ‘Along with the knitting,’ she answered.

  The entrance to the catacombs was in the outhouse. Francesca remembered it clearly from her previous visit. A small trapdoor opened onto a flight of wooden steps. Beside it, half a dozen kerosene lamps hung on hooks. There was a box of matches to hand. They each took a lamp and lit it.

  Francesca hung back at the top of the steps.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Patrick.

  She shivered.

  ‘I told you, I couldn’t face this place when I was a child. The bodies are still down there, you know. Or what’s left of them. Thousands of loculi, a mile or more of passages. And only what light you can carry with you.’

  ‘Sounds like a nice place to take little girls for a day out. Would you like me to go first?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Funny though, isn’t it?’ she smiled. ‘Here I am, the ghost, frightened of a few musty old tombs, while you slip in without a care.’

  ‘What makes you think I’m not scared shitless?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I do this sort of thing every weekend for kicks.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  Holding the lamp in one hand, he swung his legs over the edge onto the ladder and began to climb down. Francesca waited until his head was clear, then followed him gingerly.

  The ladder ended about forty feet down. Patrick stepped off, turning the knob on the side of the lamp to increase the illumination. He found himself in a broad paved area that led to a low, monumental doorway. The walls and edges of the doorway itself were painted with rows of symbolic motifs: vines, bowls of wine, lotus and acanthus leaves, peacocks, doves, and angels with gentle, faded wings.

  Francesca joined him, adding her light to his.

  ‘Do you have any idea of the layout of this place?’ he asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not a very clear one. It’s on several levels. They’re divided into passages with niches for the dead. I remember some larger tombs as well, and some side chapels. My father told me the large tombs contained the sarcophagi of martyrs or members of the Seven and the Pillars who’d died in Rome.’

  Patrick took his gun out.

  ‘I’ll leave the ghosts to you,’ he said.

  She did not smile in reply.

  They met their first ghosts moments later, as they passed through the doorway. The narrow passage swelled to form a small antechamber where mourners had held the funeral agape. Its stucco walls were covered from floor to ceiling with paintings, small portraits, each about ten inches square. The style was that of Roman Egypt, the faces replicas of those painted on mummy cases of the period - honest, lifelike representations of men and women who had lived and breathed some eighteen centuries ago.

  Everywhere Patrick and Francesca looked, their eyes met the steady gaze of the dead. There were family groups marked out by a border of lilies or laurel, couples side by side, fathers, mothers, lovers - all serious and composed in death. Francesca shuddered and took hold of Patrick’s arm.

  ‘I’d forgotten this,’ she whispered. ‘They’re so alive, they seem to be accusing us. Or waiting for us to join them.’

  ‘If we don’t find Migliau soon, they won’t have long to wait. Come on, through here.’

  Cobwebs hung at intervals like tattered flags in a dark cathedral. Patrick felt them brush his face as he moved along the first narrow passages, hemmed in by row upon row of marble slabs. Some of the slabs had fallen away, revealing pathetic heaps of cloth and bone.

  At its end, the passage opened out again, becoming a mortuary chapel. A simple altar stood by one wall, flanked by twin sarcophagi. Above it, angels hovered, wingless in God. The face of Christ looked down, bearded, large-eyed, a man on the verge of Godhood, his hands outstretched to receive his sacrifice. Patrick shuddered.

  There was a sound of feet climbing steps a few yards away. A light appeared, then a voice called out.

  ‘Paolo? Che cosa stai facendo?’

  Patrick put down his lamp and pulled Francesca back against the wall of the chapel. The light wavered, then started in their direction. A man came into view, carrying a lamp like theirs. Patrick grabbed for him, taking him off balance and completely by surprise. He tried to cry out, but Patrick had already thrust an arm hard against his mouth, choking off his scream. The man’s lamp dropped to the ground, splintering and bursting into flames. Francesca hurried forward and stamped them out. />
  With an easy movement, Patrick brought the gun to the stranger’s head and hissed in his ear.

  ‘One sound out of you and you really are dead. Capisce?’

  The man grunted and made what seemed like a nodding motion. Francesca frisked him, taking his gun.

  ‘Okay, listen,’ Patrick whispered. ‘We’ve come for Migliau. I want you to take us to him. Understand?’

  The man struggled, trying to break free. Patrick tightened his grip.

  “Which way? Down the stairs?’

  The man jerked his head. Patrick turned him and pushed him towards the opening out of which he had come. At the top of the stairs, he released his grip and took his lamp from Francesca.

  ‘Go down one step at a time,’ he told the man. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

  The prisoner seemed about to protest, then thought better of it. One by one, he descended the flight of stone steps. Patrick followed him closely.

  Ten steps from the bottom, the man jumped. He landed awkwardly, stumbled, and got to his feet.

  ‘Aiuto!’ he shouted in a loud voice. ‘Astolfo! Alberto! Correte qui presto!’

  Patrick shot him as he started to run, pitching him back against a funerary slab. Followed closely by Francesca, he rushed to the bottom of the stairs. They had no choice. They had to go on. Migliau must be here. Patrick glanced at his watch. It was nearly nine o’clock. Just over an hour to go.

  ‘Patrick, quickly - change into his clothes! They don’t know who fired. The acoustics are bad, they may not be able to distinguish one voice from another. Hurry!’

  Patrick shouted, ‘It’s all right! I’ve got him,’ then hurried to do as Francesca had suggested. He ripped off Roberto’s suit and pulled on the trousers of the dead man. He heard footsteps running further along the passage, then voices.

  ‘Nico? Che succede? Was that you? Who were you firing at?’

  ‘An intruder. It’s okay, I got him.’ Patrick’s voice was muffled and distorted among the tombs.

  Lights appeared, still some distance from them.

  ‘Hurry, Patrick! Don’t bother with the shoes.’

  Just in time, Patrick pulled the man’s sweater over his head. He moved behind Francesca, holding his gun at her head.

  There were three men, all holding lamps and guns.