Vigor placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Mi dispiace…” he apologized.
The man shrugged, his voice surprisingly firm. “I still have my sheep. Houses can be rebuilt.”
“We must reach a phone,” Rachel said softly to Gray. “General Rende and the Vatican have to be alerted.”
Gray knew that cutting their lines of communication had only been a delaying tactic, to buy the Dragon Court and thus the Guild a bit more time. He glanced to the western skies.
The sun was gone. Only a crimson glow marked its passage.
The Dragon Court was surely already on the move.
Gray spoke to the caretaker. “Giuseppe, do you have an automobile?”
The old man slowly nodded. “Around back.” He led the way. Behind the burning cottage stood a stone-shingle detached garage, more a shack. It had no door.
Through the opening, a shape filled the space, covered by a tarp.
Giuseppe waved his crook. “The keys are inside. I filled it with gas last week.”
Monk and Kat went ahead to clear the car. Together they pulled the tarpaulin aside, revealing a classic ’66 Maserati Sebring, black as obsidian. It reminded Gray of the early Ford Mustang fastbacks. Long hood, muscular, meaty tires, bred for speed.
Vigor glanced to Giuseppe.
He shrugged. “My aunt’s car…barely driven.”
Rachel walked toward it in a happy daze.
They quickly climbed inside. Giuseppe agreed to wait for the fire department, continuing his post as caretaker of the catacombs.
Rachel slid into the driver’s seat. She knew the streets of Rome the best. But not all were happy with this choice of driver.
“Monk,” Rachel said as she turned the key and the engine roared.
“What?”
“Maybe you’d better close your eyes.”
9:22 P.M.
AFTER A brief stop at a bank of public telephones, Rachel pulled away from the curb. She sped into traffic, earning an irritated beep from an angry driver. What was his problem? A full handspan stretched between her car and the Fiat behind her. Plenty of room…
The Maserati’s headlights speared ahead. Full night had descended. A line of brake lights wound toward the center of the city. She raced around and between the other cars, mere obstacles. She dove into the oncoming-traffic lane at times. The empty stretches on the far side were a shame to waste.
A groan echoed from the backseat.
She sped faster.
No one voiced a real complaint.
Back at the phones, Rachel had attempted to contact General Rende, while her uncle had called Cardinal Spera. Neither had been successful. Both men were at the memorial service, already under way. General Rende was personally overseeing the Carabinieri force that guarded St. Peter’s Square. Cardinal Spera was in attendance at the service. Messages had been left, the alarm raised. But would it be in time?
Everyone was at the memorial mass, only steps from where the Dragon Court would strike. The crowds of people acted as the perfect cover.
“How much longer?” Gray asked from the passenger seat. He had his pack open on his lap and worked rapidly. Too busy with the road, she had no time to see what he was doing.
Rachel sped past Trajan’s Market, the ancient Roman equivalent of a shopping mall. The crumbling semicircular building was set into the Quirinal Hill. It was a good landmark. “Two miles,” she answered Gray.
“With the memorial crowds, we’ll never reach the front entrances,” Vigor warned, leaning forward from the backseat. “We should try for the railway entry into the Vatican. Aim for Via Aurelia along the south wall. We can cross the grounds behind the basilica. Go in the back way.”
Rachel nodded. Already the traffic congested as the flow bottlenecked toward the bridge over the Tiber River.
“Tell me about the excavations under the basilica,” Gray said. “Are there any other entrances to it?”
“No,” Vigor said. “The Scavi region is self-contained. Just under St. Peter’s lies the Sacred Grottoes, accessed through the basilica. Many of the most famous crypts and papal tombs reside there. But in 1939, sampietrini workers were digging a tomb site for Pope Pius XI and discovered another layer beneath the Grottoes, a huge necropolis of ancient mausoleums dating back to the first century. It was named simply the Scavi, or Excavation.”
“How extensive is the area? What’s the lay of the land?”
“Have you ever been down to the underground city in Seattle?” Vigor asked.
Gray glanced over his shoulder to the monsignor.
“I once went to an archaeological conference there,” Vigor explained. “Beneath modern Seattle lies its past, a Wild West ghost town, where you can see intact shops, streetlamps, wooden walkways. The necropolis is like that, an ancient Roman cemetery buried beneath the Grottoes. Excavated by archaeologists, it’s a maze of gravesites, shrines, and stone streets.”
Rachel finally reached the bridge and fought her way across the Tiber River. Once on the far side, she left the main flow of traffic, circled out, and headed away from St. Peter’s Square. She swung to the south.
After a few serpentine turns, she found herself running alongside the towering Leonine Walls of the Vatican. It was dark here, with few streetlamps.
“Just ahead,” Vigor said, pointing an arm.
The railway spanned the road atop a stone bridge. It was here that the Vatican’s railroad line exited the Holy See and joined Rome’s system of tracks. Popes throughout the century had toured by train, leaving from the Vatican’s own railroad depot within the walls of the papal state.
“Take that turn before the bridge,” Vigor said.
She almost missed it in the dark. Rachel yanked the wheel, fishtailing off the main avenue and onto a gravel service road that climbed steeply. Tires spat rooster tails of gravel as she fought her way to the top. The road hit a dead end at the tracks.
“That way!” Vigor pointed to the left.
There was no street, only a narrow sward of grass, weeds, and chunky rocks that paralleled the railroad tracks. Rachel twisted the wheel, bumped off the service road and onto the side of the tracks.
She shifted gears and rattled her way toward the archway through the Leonine Wall. Her headlights bobbled up and down. Reaching the wall, she manhandled the Maserati through the opening, traversing the gap between the wall and the tracks.
Ahead, her headlights splashed across the side of a midnight-blue service van that blocked the way. A pair of Swiss Guards, in blue night uniforms, flanked the van. They had rifles out, pointing at the intruder.