This was no water cistern.
He came up for air, then quickly looked down again. Out of nowhere he had an image of Elizabeth, then of Helena, and for a split second he thought he saw something, a trick of the light perhaps, a reflection of his own form floating over the edge of the shelf. He jerked his head upwards, gasping for air, and his headlamp slipped off, spiralling down out of reach through the water. He blinked hard, then looked down again. The shelf was lost in darkness, and all he could see was the bottom of the pool where the light had fallen, a blurry image of shadows and light. He took another breath, then arched his back and dived, pulling himself down with strong strokes, relishing the freedom of being underwater again, where he belonged.
Then he saw it.
A stone cylinder resting on the bottom, white, just like ones he had seen before, in an ancient library under a volcano, a library once owned by a Roman emperor who had come here to the Holy Land to seek salvation in the words of one who had dwelt beside the Sea of Galilee.
Then he realized.
Everett had found the tomb.
He reached down.
24
J ack crawled back to the entrance of the tunnel where he and Costas had removed the stone block, pushing his bag ahead of him. He dropped it on the floor of the chapel, then stretched his hands down and used them to walk himself out. He had still been dripping wet when he put his clothes back on, but he hardly noticed the cold and damp. All he could think about now was getting out and to safety. He looked around. The candles in the chapel were still lit, but there was nobody to be seen. ‘Costas?’ he said, his voice echoing back down the tunnel. ‘Helena?’ There was no reply. He squatted down, putting the strap of his bag over his neck. He shook his hair and wiped his face. Maybe they had gone back to the first chamber, to the Chapel of St Helena. He checked his watch. Twenty minutes to go. He prayed that Morgan had made it. He clutched his bag. Whatever happened now, the world would know.
He got up and walked cautiously towards the chapel entrance, then out into the passageway. He wiped his face again with the back of his hand, and saw how grimy he was. Ahead of him was the grated door into the Chapel of St Helena, wide open. He could see the candlelight flickering over the central columns of the chapel, and in the gloom at the back the steps that led up to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He took a few steps forward, then stopped. Something was wrong. Then he heard a sound, out of place, metallic. The sound of a gun cocking. So this was it. He braced himself, his heart pounding. He had no choice now. There was only one way out. He walked slowly into the chapel.
‘Dr Howard. We meet again.’
The voice was instantly familiar, with the hint of an east European accent. It was the voice of a man from another underground place two days before, a man Jack had only seen in shadow. He suddenly felt a cold grip in the pit of his stomach. Helena had been right. Jack said nothing, but made his way cautiously over the irregular stone floor, keeping his eyes averted from the candles to accustom them to the gloom. The figure stood in front of him, in the shadows again, beside the chapel altar and a statue of a woman holding a cross: St Helena. Jack stood still, his feet apart, glancing from side to side, trying to discern others in the darkness.
‘Show them to me,’ he snarled.
There was a pause, then a sound of fingers clicking, and someone in a dishevelled monk’s robe was pushed forward, tripping and falling heavily on one elbow. It was Yereva, her face bruised and swollen. ‘I didn’t say anything, Helena,’ she blurted out, peering into the darkness behind her. ‘They followed me.’ Then Jack saw the silencer of a pistol rammed into her neck, and she was yanked back into the shadows.
‘You see, we knew where you were all along,’ the man said to Jack, his face obscured. ‘We have eyes and ears everywhere. Many willing brethren.’ Jack saw him click his fingers again. Another figure was pushed out from the shadows, a bearded man wearing an episcopal robe, a bishop, clutching an ornate Armenian cross to his chest. Jack saw the silencer thrust out of the darkness towards the man, who looked imploringly at Jack, twisting sideways. Jack looked back towards the man in the shadows, and snorted. ‘One of your willing brethren?’ he said.
The bishop spoke rapidly in his own language, beseechingly. The man in the shadows turned on him, his voice low, vicious. He said something in Latin. The bishop stopped talking, stood rooted to the spot, then started shaking, weeping.
‘You see?’ the man said, turning to Jack. ‘Everyone is willing, who serves our cause.’
‘Show me them,’ Jack snarled again.
The man spoke into the darkness to one side, in Italian. ‘ Pronto ,’ he said. The fingers snapped again. There was a tussle, and a grunted exclamation. Costas was suddenly pushed into the candlelight, tripping and then standing upright, a strip of duct tape over his mouth and his hands tied behind his back. He was breathing stentoriously, sucking in the air through his blocked sinuses, his chest heaving. Jack could see a silencer behind his neck, and the dark outline of a figure behind. A man with his arm in a cast. Jack’s mind was working overtime. Their assailant in Rome. Costas caught sight of Jack, his eyes wide, desperate.
‘Take off the tape,’ Jack snarled. ‘He can’t breathe.’
‘He has nothing further to say,’ the figure by the altar said. ‘And nor do you.’
Jack suddenly knew, with cold certainty. This was no longer a sanctuary. It was an execution chamber. He glanced at his watch. Only ten minutes to go. He needed to string it out. ‘I take it that little affray out in the streets was no coincidence,’ he said. ‘The knifings by the Wailing Wall, the curfew, the power cut.’
‘It served our purpose,’ the man said. ‘And it has always been easy to infiltrate extremist groups, on both sides.’
‘When we met before, you said you wanted an end to it.’
‘I needed to convince you.’
‘You told us the truth about the concilium, about Claudius and the last gospel.’
‘I needed to convince you. Enough for you to carry on your quest, to bring us to this place. You have served our purpose well. From Narcissus we knew that Pliny had taken what Claudius gave him to Rome, and that Claudius had visited the tomb in London. The rest was your work. The Getty Villa, the nunnery at Santa Paula, here. It was not difficult to follow. Your young American colleague trusts his friends too much. Not that it need concern him now.’
‘Jeremy.’ Jack felt another cold jab in the pit of his stomach.
‘He is alive. For the time being. As are your colleagues in Naples. Safe in the folds of our extended family.’ The man nodded towards the shadowy figure behind Costas. ‘When the time comes, it will be quick. A bullet in the head, another soul sent to hell. That has always been their way.’