Next to him, Wallis made a silent prayer to the image above of Jesus Christ on the Crucifix. Sam turned to Mioli. “What about the other thing?”
“There’s a lot of strange images in here, which one are you referring to?”
“The frozen beast.”
Mioli smiled. “You want to see it?”
Sam nodded. “Without it we have little but your speculation to go on.”
“Right this way.”
Sam was about to ask Wallis if he wanted to come have a look at it too, but decided not to interrupt the pious man’s silent prayers. He followed Mioli along the lava tube until it reached a solid wall of ice. It appeared an ancient glacier had forced its way into the tunnel many years ago. Inside the ice, about five feet deep, a large wooly mammoth stared back at him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sam set up his drill and took two separate core samples from the wooly mammoth. He placed them in vacuumed sealed containers and then placed a liquid sealant into the holes created by the drill. If it turned out not to be a hoax, someone would one day want to come back and study the find. It wouldn’t be him, and it wouldn’t be for a long time, but that didn’t mean Sam wanted to damage the discovery by exposing it to the hostile effects of air.
He secured the two samples and turned to Mioli. “You said there were other drawings?”
“There are more drawings, but I want to show you something else first.” Mioli smiled, like a magician about to perform his greatest act, saved until last. “Mr. Wallis, you’re going to want to see this, too.”
Wallis sauntered over to meet them, shining his flashlight along the walls as he went. “I’ll follow you.”
Sam followed Mioli deeper into the tunnel. The tunnel changed direction where the ice glacier had once penetrated the lava tube, as though it had been pushed further to the left, before turning on itself and descending much deeper into the mountain.
Mioli walked with the brisk stride of a young man, full of impatience. There were more paintings along some of the walls that Sam would have liked to look at, but Mioli was determined they should go where he suggested first.
After a few minutes Sam felt his ears equalize under the change of pressure. He started to wonder how deep they’d come. He glanced behind, where he saw Wallis’s flashlight keeping up from behind. He began to become concerned after following the ancient tunnel for thirty or more minutes.
He increased his pace and caught up with Mioli. “How much further?”
“Not far. Trust me. You’re going to want to see this.”
“Why?”
Mioli smiled. “Because I think the rest of the cave drawings at the entrance were merely a sign. A hint of the future or the past. Maybe even a message from the past to the future. But the whole purpose of this place is located at the end of this tunnel.”
Sam nodded in silence. He was happy to go along with it for the time being.
The tunnel rounded another bend and dipped steeply so that Sam had to grip the edge of the tube to stop him from sliding down into the darkened abyss. About forty feet down the tunnel leveled out and the lava tube came to an ending of solid obsidian. At the middle of the jet-black wall a small alcove glared at him.
“Well,” Mioli asked, “What do you think?”
Sam stared at the alcove. It took a split second to recognize the image, because the glossy appearance of the obsidian made it difficult to determine the shape. Now that he’d recognized it, the image was obvious — it was shaped like a human skull. The resting place for a human skull.
“A little macabre, if you ask me.”
“But it’s piqued your interest, hasn’t it?”
“You mean, why someone all those years ago would have gone to the trouble of creating such a spectacle all the way down here?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s obvious isn’t it — the strange alcove must serve a purpose.”
Sam nodded, knowing Mioli was right. Such effort must have meant there was indeed a significant purpose to it all, but what that was, he had no idea. He flashed his light over it again. There was space for four small pendants to fit, a small recess, carved meticulously into the ancient lava rock. Sam ran his hand over the alcove and the four individual recesses in front. They were arranged at the ends of a shallow carving in the shape of a crucifix, but there was something else where the two crossed. It was hard to make out exactly what the shape was. It could have been an animal or a person. Whatever it was, it would have taken a master craftsman a lifetime to achieve the degree of precision for such masonry. He ran his fingers along the tiny grooves. Not masonry, this quality of work was in the field of lapidary — jewelry worked into the natural glass.
Behind him, Sam heard Wallis in a cross between a controlled fall and a slide down the steep section of the tunnel. He was breathing heavily as though the climb had finally shaken his usual resolve, but he reached Sam without stopping. His eyes were fixed in a steely gaze, as though he’d seen or recognized something that had affected him to his very spiritual core.
Sam glanced at Wallis. “What do you make of this?”
“I have no idea.” Wallis shook his head as though the question was entirely irrelevant. “But I’d sure like to know what that man’s doing here.”
Fear is unique. It’s like wildfire. Dormant while it’s confined, but spreads quickly as soon as it breaks free and catches. Right now, Sam felt that fear spread through him in an instant. His muscles tightened, and his chest pounded as his eyes followed the beam of Wallis’s flashlight.
There at the end of the obsidian vault, in a yellow jacket was the body of a man lying on his back. His chest was covered in dried blood, evidence of multiple gun shots taken long ago. His eyes stared vacantly upward, as though permanently fixed with hatred and regret.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sam’s eyes darted to the deceased man and back to Mioli. Gianpietro breathed out gently. He looked guilty as hell, but not surprised. To Sam, it looked more like he’d been waiting for this, and now it was just another part of the parcel he’d sold to the Catholic Church. Wallis looked no less concerned now that he realized the man was dead.
Talking to Mioli, Sam asked, “Was he here last time you were down here?”
“Who?” Mioli replied. Wallis and Reilly looked at him as if he were insane. Both had their flashlights trained upon the dead body. Then, Mioli, glancing at the body, casually said, “Oh the stiff? Yeah, he was here last time.”
Sam knelt down to search the man. “And you didn’t think to mention it when the find went to auction?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“Not relevant?” Wallis spoke with a quiet reserve that somehow had the ability to afflict more fear in a person than had he been yelling. “You sold a discovery in which you knew someone was murdered!”
Mioli shrugged. “I didn’t realize he was murdered.”
“Not murdered?” Sam repeated the word. “There are one, two, three, four, five shots through his chest. What did you think happened to him — he slipped and fell to his death?”
Mioli pointed upward. There upon the ceiling was a perfectly round opening that potentially led hundreds of feet above them. “Yeah, I just assumed he fell from somewhere up there.”
Sam looked at the ceiling. He could almost see how Mioli assumed the man had fallen to his death and dismissed it as one of hundreds of tragic climbing accidents where the body is never discovered. That’s assuming that Mioli was like most people and didn’t go to the trouble of inspecting the body closely enough to notice the bullet wounds. Still, one would think he might have mentioned the presence of a dead man at his great discovery.