Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [66]
She soon reached the lit junction and paused, listening. Agnelli was heading deeper into the tunnels. She ran after him. Where was he going?
Another exit, maybe one even Belardinelli didn’t know about. The old man had said that Agnelli spent a lot of time exploring the catacombs.
The bell faded as she went further into the maze. She noticed that some passages were unlit, their loculi empty. Not even the Brotherhood’s vast collection of stolen records could fill the space donated to them. But the running man was following the lights, with a specific destination in mind . . .
She slowed sharply as she realised she could no longer hear Agnelli’s steps. But he couldn’t be far away; she had been gaining on the lumbering youth. Cautious, gun raised, Nina advanced. There was a room ahead, a larger chamber than any she had seen so far – and straining sounds of movement came from it.
A glance through the entrance simultaneously told her the room’s purpose and excited her aesthetic and archaeological sensibilities. It was a crypt; not the dank Gothic tomb of vampire lore, but a high-ceilinged space decorated with elaborately carved pilaster columns and painted friezes, tiers of large burial nooks built for the members of an entire family round the walls.
But no Agnelli.
Confused, she warily entered. The crypt was lit by only a single bulb above the entrance, the farthest corners in shadow. She aimed the gun at each in turn, but still saw no sign of the Italian – until a noise from above made her whip the weapon up.
Despite his size and weight, Agnelli clearly had some skill at climbing. He had scaled the loculi before pulling himself up one of the pilasters, and was now over twenty feet above and still ascending. ‘Stop!’ Nina shouted, taking aim.
He ignored her, toes scrabbling at footholds as he headed for a dark opening where a block had either fallen or been removed from the vaulted roof. She repeated her command, but knew she couldn’t shoot an unarmed and terrified man – and also that if he died, which a gunshot wound and the subsequent fall would all but guarantee, there was no way to discover who had paid him to photograph the Kallikrates text. All she could do was watch in impotent frustration as he reached the opening and squeezed inside.
‘Son of a bitch!’ she spat as she realised where his escape route led.
Into the Vatican.
The city state’s own catacombs – those which had been mapped, at least – were centred beneath the vast basilica of St Peter. If Agnelli had discovered a way into the Vatican’s lower levels, from there he could enter the basilica itself . . . and then simply walk out into the streets of Rome.
Nina shoved the gun into a pocket and started after him. ‘Two places in two days where I’ve been shot at,’ she muttered as she climbed. ‘If I get back to New York and someone tries to kill me there, I’m gonna kick their ass so hard . . .’ She reached the uppermost niche and took hold of the column set into the wall. It didn’t look the least bit safe – though the fact that someone of Agnelli’s bulk had scaled it without breaking it apart gave her some limited reassurance.
Without the secure footing of the loculi, her ascent was now much slower. As she inched her way closer to the opening, the muffled sounds of Agnelli’s passage through the narrow tunnel faded. He was getting away from her.
‘No you goddamn don’t,’ she growled, pulling herself higher and refusing to succumb to the awful temptation to look down at the ever-increasing drop. Instead she fixed her eyes on the dark hole as she brought herself within reach. It was a few feet to the pilaster’s side – she would have to stretch across to it, taking her weight on one hand.
No choice. Nina took a deep breath, then clutched the ancient stone as tightly as she could with her left hand as she reached out with her right, hooking her fingers over the lip of the new passage—
Her left hand slipped.
She screamed, clawing desperately at the wall. Her right foot jolted from its hold, leaving her suspended and straining between