“Fathers, I think I found it!”
The two priests aimed their lights at the spot. Above them, faded with age and grime, was undoubtedly a seal of some kind. Despite the stain of time, the border of the seal was more colorful than the surrounding walls and appeared to glimmer in the light, while in the center, the trio could see what looked like a painting under a layer of dust.
“Did you bring a brush?” Morelli asked John.
“Yes.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small house painter’s brush. “Here you go, Father.”
Morelli began to gently sweep away centuries of caked-on dirt. As the colorful painting was slowly revealed, the three men let out a collective gasp. Encircled by a shining golden ring, the painted surface displayed the representation of an event that could not have occurred in ancient times. They were all staring at the unmistakable portrayal of a city engulfed in flames with the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb rising above the surface.
Chapter 7
The men were clearly astonished as they continued to stare openmouthed at the seal.
“Well, you were right about recognizing the seal when we found it, Anthony,” Leo finally said.
John reached out and ran his hand over the raised surface. “Yeah. I don’t think we need the code to tell us this is what we’re looking for.”
With eyes glistening like a father admiring his newborn baby, Morelli gazed up at the gold-ringed seal on the wall. “This is astounding. I believe Lev and his team will be able to verify it, but I’m almost certain this is the seal we’ve been searching for.”
A blinding flash of light caused Father Morelli’s heart to skip a beat. He spun around to see Leo taking pictures of the seal with a small digital camera.
“Good idea, Leo. We can e-mail those pictures to Lev in Israel tonight. Hand me that pickax, John.”
“Why don’t you let me do the honors, Father? Remember your bad back.”
“Be very careful, John. Try to keep the entrance hole as small as possible.”
“What are you doing, Anthony?”
“What we are doing, my dear Father Leo, is knocking loose those bricks beneath the seal. If I’m right, the ancient chapel is right behind that wall.”
The two priests shined their lights on the spot as John began to swing the pickax. They noticed that the section of the tunnel wall they were looking at had a distinctly different look from any of the others they had seen in the catacombs. Unlike the rest of the tunnels, which were carved out of the soft, reddish, volcanic tufo rock that supported the city, this wall was constructed out of large, pinkish-colored limestone blocks. John brought the sharp end of the pickax against the stone, slowly chipping away at the mortar holding it in place until one of the solid blocks gave way and fell into an invisible space beyond. It was for moments like this that every archaeologist lived: the possibility of a sealed-off room, unseen for centuries, with untold treasures waiting on the other side.
Knocking out two more large stones, the hole was now large enough for a man to poke his head through. John laid the pickax aside and peered into the void. “There’s definitely a hollow space here.”
Father Morelli pushed in beside him and shined his light into the blackness. He backed away and let out a loud whoop while slapping John on the back.
“It’s huge!” Morelli exclaimed. “It’s the size of a ballroom … it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen in any of the other catacombs under Rome.”
John lifted up the pickax again and continued knocking away the stone blocks until a small two-foot by two-foot opening stood in a cloud of dust before them. Without a word, Father Morelli squeezed through the opening. John grinned at Leo and motioned him forward. Leo felt a sudden rush of excitement. “Go ahead, John. I’ll follow you.”
Once inside, the men’s voices echoed in the space as they began shining their lights around, looking for evidence that this was the ancient hidden chapel they had been searching for. The immense room was totally empty except for a large, rough-hewn stone structure built atop a raised area at the far end. Morelli and the others noticed right away that the eerie and unusual space was constructed of the same stone blocks they had seen outside in the tunnel.
“I’m beginning to wonder if the people who created this room transported their building material to Rome from somewhere else,” Morelli said. “It appears that this area was excavated just for this room and lined with this pinkish-colored stone for some specific reason.”
“Why would they do that?” John asked.
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Morelli said, eyeing the opposite end of the space. The scene had a dreamlike quality to it as he approached some steps leading to a raised area supporting a structure that resembled an altar. It consisted of a long, flat slab of gray stone supported by two massive four-foot-high carved blocks of stone, each several feet thick and placed six feet apart. Above the altar was the unmistakable image of a five-foot tall Christian cross carved into the wall.
There was no doubt among the three men that they had just discovered a very different and ancient Christian place of worship. They paused to look up at the beautifully carved cross before resuming their exploration in silence, slowly walking back and forth, illuminating the walls, floor, and ceiling with their lights.
“This is definitely not what I expected,” Father Morelli said, finally able to bring himself to speak. The other two were just as dumbstruck by the discovery.
Looking for symbols or anything that looked like writing, Leo walked along one of the walls and shined his light up at the ceiling fifteen feet above their heads. “What do you think, Anthony? Is this the chapel?” The sound of his voice reverberated in the empty space.
Morelli grinned at his friend. “This has to be it. The same reference in the Bible code that refers to a seal also mentions an ancient chapel, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the seal outside is the one we were looking for. Somewhere here, there’s a message, a message from the past that was meant for us now, in the present.”
Father Morelli was barely able to contain his excitement as he walked from one side of the space to the other in triumphant glee.
Stopping to catch his breath, Leo wiped the dusty sweat from his face. “You know, Anthony, I’m just as excited as you are about finding this chapel, but have you given any thought to the fact that, if the code is correct, this discovery means that there could be some very dark days ahead for the world?”
“We’re only excited because finding this ancient chapel validates the code, Father. The future of mankind is in God’s hands. Since the information we found in the code led us to this exact spot, does this not prove that the hidden code in the Old Testament is real? We may have received a message from God himself written thousands of years ago. Is this not reason enough to be excited? I would have thought you of all people would have understood the meaning of this.”
Morelli seemed spent. He sat down on the stone floor and let the meaning of the moment soak in. An exhausted Father Leo sat down on the floor beside him.
“Anthony, I want to learn more about this code in the Bible. If what you say bares any truth at all, we can all rejoice at the implications. However, I have to admit, I’m very concerned at the thought of where all of this will take us.”
“I promise you, Leo, that tomorrow we’ll go over all the data we’ve collected up to this point. But I tell you now, there is no other explanation for our being led to this exact spot except for the hand of God himself.”
Following his inspection of the chapel, John walked over and joined the two priests. “Except for the altar, there’s nothing else here. It’s just a bare room with no doorway.”