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“I don’t understand. Why would Rudolfo let you do this?”
“Listen, I couldn’t understand anything anyone was saying up there. I’ll tell you everything that happened, but first, tell me, what did the medics say about the professor? How bad is it?”
“They won’t know until they get him to the hospital. But the bleeding had stopped and that’s a good sign. They said if he lives, that you’re the one who—” She stopped talking, reached down and picked up something off the mosaic floor.
“Why is this broken?” Her voice shook and so did the hand that held the piece of shattered fruitwood box. “Where is the rest of this?” She was back on her knees, frantic again.
“Gabriella.” Josh knelt down beside her and put his hand on her shoulder, to stop her, to comfort her, to prepare her for what he was going to tell her. Her skin felt warm through the shirt. “The security guard took what was in the box with him. That must have been what he came for. I’m guessing what that means is that he took what you and the professor think might be the Memory Stones.”
Her face distorted into two expressions at the same time, something Josh wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before: her eyes showed utter devastation, but her mouth set in a line of cold fury. She stared down at the pieces of wood she still held. Two seconds went by. Five. Ten. Finally she lifted her head up. All the vibrant rage and deep sadness had left her face. Only a look of resolution remained. He was surprised at her resilience.
“There’s no time to talk about this now,” she said. “Too much to do. The police are going to figure out another way to get down here and are going to want to know what happened.” She looked back at the broken body and the wood fragments and splinters. “I need to get to the hospital. They wouldn’t let me go with them in the ambulance. I’m not family, they said.” She shook her head as if she was clearing her thoughts, and her curls danced. Josh thought of Sabina’s curl, escaping from her braid during the robbery.
“Before I leave I need to make sure I get rid of anything that might make them ask too many questions about this area… .”
She peered into the tunnel’s blackness. “Do you have any idea how you’ve corrupted this site?” She took a deep breath, then turned to him. “What made you start digging there, anyway?”
Her eyes bored into him. There was no way he could explain it all to her now, even if he wanted to—and he didn’t know if he did. “I saw the discoloration on the wall and there was something about the size and shape of it that suggested there was something beyond it.”
Josh wasn’t sure she believed him, but she didn’t press him. “Will you help me close up the tunnel? I don’t want them traipsing through here. Who knows what they might disturb.”
They worked side by side as quickly as they could, shoveling dirt back into the opening, packing it down, piling on another layer. Between digging this out the first time and then crawling in the tunnel, the skin on Josh’s palms was shredded.
“I don’t care about anything now except that when the police talk to you about what happened down here, you lie, make up something, say anything you want, but don’t tell them about this tunnel. No one can go in there who isn’t connected to the dig before we get in there ourselves. When they come down, somehow we have to make sure they get their samples and photos and get out. I need to seal off the site until … If you say anything, if you suggest there’s a passageway here, they’ll insist on examining it. No one has been in that tunnel since this tomb was closed. Anything we might find in there will be priceless. A totally unique find. Can you do this, please?” Her voice was huskier as she elicited her promise, as if even voicing it had to be done in secret.
“Since the tunnel won’t help them find out who did this, no, I won’t tell them.”
“You promise?” She was still concerned. “Where will you say you were during the shooting?”
“I’ll say I was outside. Heard the gunshot, saw the guard running away and came down here to help.”
She nodded and went back to work.
Now both Malachai and Gabriella had asked him to lie to the police. He wasn’t eager to become involved with the investigation either, but not because he was trying to hide anything.
He wasn’t as sure about either of them.
“Josh, hurry. Please. We can’t have much time left.”
Despite his lacerated hands he went back to scooping up the dirt, packing it down and then piling on another layer, wondering if the woman who had been buried had known there was an escape route so very close by. He breathed in some of the dirt—coughed—thought about how amazing it was that no one had discovered the tomb or the tunnel for sixteen hundred years, and wondered how many secrets were buried here alongside Sabina’s heartbreaking form.
Chapter 14
The scraping sound emanated from the opening. They both looked up in time to see an aluminum ladder descending. One black loafer on the top rung. And then another as the man appeared from the bottom up.
“I’m Detective Alexander Tatti with the NTPA,” he called down in better English than any of the other policemen had used. “And we have a new ladder, as you can see,” he added as he proceeded to climb the rest of the way down.
“The Nucleo per la Tutela del Patrimonio Artistico protects Italy’s art, finds and retrieves stolen works,” Gabriella explained to Josh as she moved away from the freshly refilled alcove and got down on her knees by the mummy.
“Thank goodness you’ve come,” she said to the detective in a voice dusted with sugar. “Thank you for bringing the ladder. I’ve been going crazy stuck down here for the past forty-five minutes. I need to go to the hospital. Do you know how the professor is? Do you have news?”
Tatti finished his climb with surprising agility for a man who appeared, from the lines in his face, to be near retirement age. “He’s in intensive care. They won’t let you in yet. So you might as well stay and help me out on this end. All right?”
She nodded.
Unexpectedly, he didn’t barrage either of them with questions. Not right away. Instead, he made a slow and careful examination of his surroundings with an expression of reverence on his face. Josh liked him right then, for noticing where he was, for paying it some sort of tribute before he proceeded to defile it further.
After he had made a 360-degree circle, his glance returned to Sabina. He took six steps to her side and crouched down so he was on her level.
“How old is she, would you say?”
“We estimate she was buried here in 400 A.D.,” Gabriella answered. “Or do you mean how old was she when she died?”
“I mean when she was buried and when she died. Both.”
“There’s little wear on the few joints that we were able to see. We’re guessing about twenty-two.”
“Was she disturbed during this morning’s incident?”
“Yes, very badly.”
“Yes? How?”
“She was completely intact when we found her. Last night when I left … it was extraordinary … Now …” Gabriella looked at Sabina. “Now she’s broken apart, here and here … .” She pointed to the mummy’s waist, her neck and her right hand. “She had been holding on to that box. Or what’s left of it.”
“What box?”
Josh could see Gabriella flinch. She hadn’t meant to draw the detective’s attention to the broken receptacle. But now she was trapped. She pointed across the room to the splintered wood.
“What was in it?”
She shrugged. “It was sealed. We hadn’t opened it yet,” she lied. “Now you know everything I know. Can I go to the hospital?”
“As I said, the professor is in intensive care. His wife is with him. As soon as there is news, they will call me and I will tell you. Or if we are done sooner than that, you can go over then. In the meantime—” his accent was pleasant, giving a lilt to the English words “—you expect me to believe that you found this mummy holding on to a box and you didn’t open it?”
“Yes. We have protocols. We go slowly. Everything was a surprise. One more could wait. We wanted to examine the seal before we destroyed it.”
He turned around to Josh, flinging questions so fast there was no time to duck. “You are?”
“Josh Ryder.”
“The man who called the ambulance?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Ryder, what was in the box?”
“I have absolutely no idea.” Josh’s turn to lie.
“What were you doing down here?”
“I had just met the professor, he was telling me about the find.” Damn, had he screwed up? Had he just admitted he was in the tomb?
“What time did you get here?”
“Around six-thirty this morning.”
“Why so early?”
“I don’t need much sleep.”
“I talked to Dr. Samuels while I waited for the ladder. He told me that you are from New York, that the two of you had an appointment to meet Professor Chase at the hotel at eight o’clock but that you didn’t show up.”
“No, I was here.”
“That’s what is so confusing. Why would you come here a few hours before you were going to be brought here by Professor Chase? Was there something here that couldn’t wait?”
Gabriella listened just as intently as Tatti; after all, she didn’t know what had happened, either.
“I couldn’t sleep. Jet lag. Too much coffee. I don’t know. I took a walk.”
“You took a walk. Fine. You could have walked anywhere. Why here? Why didn’t you wait? Why did you come here alone without your associate and without Professor Chase?”
“I told you. I was restless.”
“How did you get here? There is no car for you.”
“No. I said I walked.”
“You walked? Walked from where?”
What was it about Tatti that seemed so familiar?
“From the hotel. The Eden. We’re staying there.”
“I really need to go to the hospital,” Gabriella interrupted.
“Professor Chase, please. As I have said, the doctors are going to call me as soon as they know anything. This is the scene of a murder attempt, and you know the man who was attacked. You might also know who attacked him. There are also, potentially, priceless artifacts here. You are the only one who knows what they are, where everything was, what has been moved, what might have been taken if something was taken. You will do me more good here than you will do him there. At least for now.”
Turning his attention back to Josh, he picked up where he’d left off.
“So. Yes. You said you walked here from the Eden?”
“Yes.”
“You evidently like to walk.”
It wasn’t a question, and Josh didn’t answer it. He was still trying to figure out what was so familiar about Tatti. When he realized it he almost laughed. It wasn’t some memory lurch. Every one of the detective’s mannerisms seemed borrowed from one of two Hollywood stereotypes, either Inspector Clouseau or Detective Columbo.
“Now, Mr. Ryder. Please.” He let his exasperation show. “Tell me what the truth is about what really happened.” He was a movie star playing the part of a real-life detective.
“I did tell you. I slept badly. I woke up, I took a walk.”
“It’s ten kilometers from the Eden, Mr. Ryder. Exactly what time did you leave the hotel?”
“I’m not sure, I wasn’t paying attention. It was still dark.”
“Professor Chase, did Mr. Ryder or Dr. Samuels know the address of this site?”
“No. We didn’t tell them. But despite all our efforts it has been in the press.”
“Yes, it has.” Tatti nodded. “Is that how you found it, Mr. Ryder? From the newspapers? From a taxi driver?”
“No. No one told me. I didn’t know where I was walking. Ask the emergency operator. I didn’t know where I was when I called.”
“She told us that you had to call someone on the phone to find out the address. But that might be a very convenient ploy, no? You pretend you don’t know where you are so as not to look suspicious.”
Again, it wasn’t a question, so Josh didn’t give him an answer.
“Let’s assume you are telling me one truth. How can you explain that truth? How can you make sense out of leaving your hotel at, say, five o’clock in the morning, and finding your way here?”
“I can’t.”
“What do you take me for, Mr. Ryder, a fool? What were you doing here?”
All Josh could think of was the explanation Malachai gave to the children he worked with: the five-, six-, seven- and eight-year-olds who were frightened by the power of the stories in their heads. “You are unforgetting the past, that’s all. It might seem scary but it’s really quite wonderful,” he would tell them.
That might have been what Josh was doing there, but it was the last explanation he was going to give.
Gabriella interrupted the detective and begged him to conduct the rest of the interview outside of the tomb. “This is an ancient site that we’ve just begun to work on. I need to protect it and close it down as soon as possible.”
Tatti promised her they would work as quickly and carefully as possible and leave as soon as they could, but not quite yet. He turned back to Sabina, and his eyes rested on her. For a few seconds, it was totally silent in the tomb. And then he asked Gabriella, once more, what she thought had been taken.
She was losing her patience. “We’ve been over this, haven’t we?”
“We have. But I’m still not satisfied that you and the professor found this tomb, excavated it, started to catalog its contents and yet never looked inside the box. Weren’t you curious?”
“Of course. But there is a protocol. To us, every inch of this tomb is as exciting as what might be in the box. The very fact that the woman buried here was comparatively incorruptible was of greater archaeological and scientific importance—even religious significance—than some trinket inside a box.”
“So it was a trinket?”
She flew into a rage at that and spoke to him rapidly in Italian. Surprisingly, he seemed to be agreeing with what she said and nodded along with her tirade. When she was done, he climbed up the ladder and stayed perched there, half in and half out, as he called over the two policemen who had first arrived at the scene and had spoken to them.
Gabriella waited by the bottom of the ladder, watching him, listening to what he was saying. Beneath her anger, she was still extremely anxious. Twice, she glanced at her watch. Several times she looked over at Sabina with a curious, questioning expression in her eyes. And although Josh didn’t know Gabriella yet, he knew she was wishing that the mummy could communicate, that Sabina could tell them what she’d seen, who had come down here and invaded this sacred space.
For the next few minutes, while the detective continued his discussion with the two officers, Josh struggled not to lose touch with reality and give in to where his mind wanted to go. Tried not to think. But the images were crowding in, demanding attention, refusing to go away. He held his camera up to his face and focused on Gabriella while she listened to the detective talk with his minions. From behind the lens he examined her face—the broad forehead, the high cheekbones. The intelligent eyes.
He remembered a sculpture in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a head entitled The Muse, by Brancusi, made of highly polished bronze: golden, spare, cerebral. Wide almond eyes, perfect oval face.
