Suddenly, Shawn stopped, and Sana jolted into him.
“Sorry,” Sana said. “You have to let me know if you stop.”
“I’ll try to remember,” Shawn said as he pointed off to the left with his flashlight. “There’s the Roman sarcophagus I pointed out this afternoon. That’s where we’ll put our excavated debris. Do you think you will be able to bring it back here while I dig?”
“You mean by myself?”
Shawn silently counted to ten. “If I’m digging, of course it would be by yourself,” he said impatiently.
“We’ll see,” Sana said. The idea of wandering around in the necropolis alone was daunting, and hardly alluring. All she could hope was that somehow she’d adjust.
Shawn held his tongue. Instead, he continued on, rounding the southern tip of the red wall. Despite the climb, Sana stayed close. A few moments later, they were standing in the large chamber on the east side of Peter’s tomb complex near the original monument called the Tropaion of Peter. Shawn shined his flashlight down through one of the many glass panels of the deck, which had been built to allow modern-day tourists to see into the tomb’s interior.
“We’re almost there,” Shawn commented, his voice brimming with excitement. “We’ll soon be at the level of the floor of Peter’s tomb.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Sana said. “Let’s get on with this.”
“Right!” Shawn agreed with alacrity. It was what he wanted to hear.
Lifting the three-quarter-inch glass panel in the far corner that served as access to the lower level took considerably more effort than Sana expected. After much straining, they got the panel on end and leaning against the wall.
“Let me go first,” Shawn said. Sana nodded. Descending below the glass deck was the part that she was looking forward to the least, and if she was going to have a problem with claustrophobia, this was where it would begin.
Shawn took the time to strap on his knee pads and pull on his work gloves, and advised Sana to do the same. From then on they would need to be crawling about, as the height of the excavated floor to the glass deck didn’t allow either of them to walk upright. Sitting on the edge of the deck with his feet dangling though the open space, Shawn inched himself forward and then swung down to stand on the earthen floor. After Shawn had ducked down and moved away from the opening, Sana mimicked his motions, and soon they were crawling ahead, pushing their respective buckets in front of them.
The floor was what Shawn had originally described, a kind of compacted clayish dirt mixed with gravel. Although Sana was becoming progressively anxious as they moved away from the opening in the deck, she was encouraged by one thing. The dirt, unlike the other areas in the necropolis, was bone-dry, suggesting the ossuary, if they found it, would be as well.
After advancing diagonally under the glass deck, they reached the section of the excavated space that extended under the level above. The ceiling now matched the hardpan of the floor. Sana noticed that there were no supports, and she stopped crawling, eyeing the ceiling with distrust.
Shawn continued forward for another ten feet and stopped to shine his flashlight down a tunnel to his left. “Here we are,” he said. He turned to see that Sana had halted about eight feet back. He waved to her to follow him. He wanted to show her where he believed they were going to find the ossuary.
“Is it safe?” Sana questioned while eyeing the ceiling.
“Perfectly safe,” Shawn said, following her line of sight. “The dirt at this level is like concrete. Trust me! You’ve come this far. I want to show you where I’ll be digging.”
Reluctantly, Sana crawled forward and found herself looking down a narrow tunnel about four feet wide, three feet high, and five feet deep. At the mouth of the tunnel and at its end were supports of rough lumber, each consisting of two stout vertical members and a thick crossbeam forming a truss.
“Why are there supports in there and not here?” Sana asked. She couldn’t help but worry that nothing was holding up the ceiling above where she and Shawn were currently crouching.
“The first support here at the lip is holding up the graffiti wall, while the inner one is supporting the foundation wall for the vault of Peter’s tomb. The space beyond the inner truss is the interior of the tomb. If you want to crawl in there, you’ll be able to see a notched niche in the base of the red wall if you look to the right. That’s where the bones the pope claimed were Saint Peter’s were found, the ones they have a level up in the Plexiglas boxes.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Sana said. The thought of crawling on her stomach through the low tunnel into Peter’s tomb made her queasy and awakened the claustrophobic fears she’d been trying to suppress. It took all of her self-control to keep from fleeing back out to the area under the glass deck and then back up through the opening to the gallery above.
“Let me show you something else,” Shawn said as he crawled into the tunnel and then rolled over on his back. He pointed up at the ceiling using his flashlight and tapped the ceiling between the two trusses. “The ossuary will be up here, if it wasn’t discovered by accident when either the red wall or the graffiti wall was erected. Now, hand me the drill and the goggles. I’m going to probe a bit and see if I can make contact with stone.”
Sana concentrated on Shawn’s commands to avoid thinking about the entire mass of Saint Peter’s Basilica pressing down on top of her. When Shawn was ready to begin, she said: “If you don’t mind, I’m going to move out to the more open area under the glass deck. I’m having a bit of trouble breathing here.”
“Suit yourself,” Shawn said, distractedly. He was thrilled to be back to field archaeology. After he put the pail next to his body, he tried the drill. Its whine seemed particularly loud in the confined space. Satisfied with the drill’s performance, he put the tip of the bit up against the ceiling. The bit cut through the hardpan like a knife through butter. Within seconds it buried its four-inch-long shaft up to the hilt. Dry dirt rained down mostly on his chest, although some went into the bucket. Mildly disappointed not to hit stone on the first attempt, he pulled the drill bit out and moved six inches to the left and tried again.
After thirty minutes he still hadn’t hit stone, despite covering the ceiling with dozens of probing holes. He was ready to switch to the masonry hammer and chisel when he noticed something: The excavators had not burrowed under the vault’s supporting wall as he’d thought, but rather had poked directly through its base. When he looked carefully, Shawn could actually see butt ends of the wall’s brick just outside the vertical supports of the inner truss.
“My God!” Shawn called out for Sana’s benefit. He couldn’t see her, but he knew she was out in the area under the glass deck. He knew where she was because of her impatient questions every five minutes on how he was doing. By the sound of her voice, he could tell she was getting progressively anxious, but there was nothing he could do about it other than keeping her in the loop about his progress.
“Did you find it?” Sana responded hopefully.
“No, not yet, but I discovered something else. The vault foundation goes down deeper. The ossuary had to have been deeper as well. If it is still here, it’s got to be on the right of the tunnel in the direction of the red wall.”
After picking the drill back up and turning onto his left side, Shawn began making holes in the tunnel’s right wall. The first one was midway from the floor to the ceiling and midway into the tunnel, with the result the same as all the holes in the ceiling. Pulling the bit free, Shawn started a second hole at the same level but deeper into the tunnel. Just three inches in, he hit something hard enough to make the drill practically leap out of his hand. Encouraged, he started another hole three inches above the last. He held his breath as the drill bit knifed through the hardpan. Again, the drill bit hit a hard surface.