“Our problem is that we don’t have any kind of detailed directions,” Bronson said,
“so we’re going to have to check anywhere that looks a likely location. Neither these maps nor the diagram from the skyphos is going to be of much help to us now.”
“And what do you suggest would be a likely location? If Marcellus buried something in the ground, there are definitely going to be no visible signs of that now, not after all this time.”
“I don’t think we’re looking for an earth burial. Whatever was hidden was too important for that, so I think the hiding place will be in a cave or man-made stone chamber. And the entrance would nave been covered, probably by rocks or hefty slabs of stone, so that’s what we need to look out for.”
II
Gregori Mandino picked up the phone on the third ring. He was expecting—and hoping—it was Pierro with the news that he’d cracked the diagram on the stone, but the caller was Antonio Carlotti, his deputy.
“Some unusual news, capo, ” Carlotti began. “You told me the Englishman and his ex-wife had probably left Italy by now to return to Britain?”
“Yes. Why?”
“We still have the Internet monitoring software running, and some relevant searches have just been reported from Santa Marinella.”
“Where?”
“Santa Marinella. It’s a small coastal town northwest of Rome.”
“What searches?” Mandino demanded.
“More or less the same as those we detected from Cambridge. These came from a wireless network connection in a small hotel in the town. They were detailed searches for anything to do with Nero and Marcus Asinius Marcellus.”
“That must be Bronson. What the hell is he still doing in Italy? And why is he still following this trail? When were these searches recorded? Today?”
“No—yesterday evening. And there are a couple of other oddities. Those searches were followed by one for a groma. It’s an ancient surveying tool used by the Romans.
And we traced other activity on the same network. Someone downloaded the Google Earth program. That’s the—”
“I know what it is, Carlotti. Which areas did they look at?”
“We don’t know, capo. Once the computer accessed the Google Earth server, we could no longer monitor its activities. The user was effectively working inside a closed system.”
“I don’t like the sound of this. Bronson’s still in the area. He’s finding out something about Roman surveying techniques, and the fact that he then went onto Google Earth might mean he’s following some kind of trail. Anything else?”
“Yes. As soon as I heard about these searches I asked one of my contacts in the Santa Marinella area to find out who’d been staying in the hotel there. He called me back a few minutes ago. There were two English guests—a man and his wife—there last night, but the hotel staff didn’t get their names because they paid the bill in cash. All the receptionist remembered was that they spent most of the evening in their room.
And they know they used the Internet because they were charged for it. They were driving a British-registered Renault Espace and checked out early this morning.”
“That confirms it, then. What did you do?”
“I tipped off one of my contacts in the Carabinieri. But it’s the last piece of information that worries me most, in view of what happened with the scroll.”
“Tell me.”
“According to one of my other contacts in the Carabinieri, this morning a Toyota Land Cruiser was hired from a garage in San Cesareo, near Rome, by a woman named Angela Lewis, who paid for two days’ hire by credit card.”
“Damn,” Mandino muttered.
“It looks like Bronson’s following the same trail as us, though I don’t understand how,” Carlotti said. “Are you sure that stone at the house hadn’t been exposed before?”
“Definitely not, but somehow he must have got hold of another copy of the diagram showing the location of the burial. And if he’s hired a jeep, he must have worked out where to start his search. Hang on a minute,” Mandino said, as another thought struck him. “The Toyota was hired in San Cesareo this morning, you said?”
“Yes.”
“Right, at least that gives us a starting point. Get the Carabinieri looking out for the Toyota.”
“Already done, capo. Anything else?”
“No. Until we find out where he’s heading, there’s nothing more we can do.”
Mandino ended the call, then dialed Rogan’s number.
“Give the phone to Pierro,” he instructed, as soon as Rogan answered.
“Pierro.”
“Mandino. Any luck with matching the diagram?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure that with time we can—”
“We don’t have time,” Mandino snapped. “I’ve just heard that Bronson has hired a jeep from a garage over to the east of Rome, and that could mean that he’s already deciphered the diagram. Where have you been looking?”
“Mainly to the north of the city, because I believe Marcellus owned estates in that area.”
“It looks to me like Bronson’s better at this than you are, Pierro, and you’re supposed to be the expert. I suggest you start looking somewhere to the east of Rome, and quickly. If he finds the tomb before we do, I will be most displeased, and you really don’t want that to happen. You know what’s at stake.”
23
I
“Anything?” Bronson asked, as Angela walked through the long grass toward him.
They’d been searching for about two hours and had found precisely nothing, apart from a handful of fired shotgun cartridges. At first they’d looked together, following a logical grid pattern, then split up in order to cover more ground.
“Sod all,” Angela replied. “I’m fed up, hungry and thirsty. I’m taking a break.”
The two of them walked back down the slope to the Toyota. Bronson opened the doors and turned on the engine, letting the welcome chill of the air-conditioning waft over them. Angela pulled out the packets of sandwiches and offered Bronson a choice.
“I’ll have the chicken salad,” he said, and ripped open the cellophane.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Angela asked, peeling apart a ham sandwich and looking with some uncertainty at the pinkish meat inside.
“Frankly, no. The dot on the diagram on the skyphos has to cover a fairly large area on the ground. If someone had invented the compass and given one to Marcellus to provide accurate bearings, it would have been a hell of a lot easier. As it is, we’re really stumbling around in the dark.”
“You’d really expect him to leave some sort of a marker so that he could find the exact location again if he needed to,” Angela said. “All these cliffs and slopes look pretty damn similar to me.”
“What kind of marker?”
“I don’t know—an arrow carved on a rock, something like that.”
“He might have done,” Bronson pointed out, “but the mark might have weathered away to nothing over the centuries.”
“That’s very encouraging. Thanks.”
“Let’s have a drink,” Bronson suggested, “and then we’ll try again.”
Three hours later they were still searching. They’d scoured the entire plateau from one side to the other. Bronson had climbed onto the upper slope of the feature and checked it out—but had found nothing—while Angela had clambered over the piles of irregular rocks that formed a kind of rough perimeter of the plateau itself.