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.”
Morelli began to sense that something wasn’t quite right. “I think we’ve spent enough time down here for now. The carbon dioxide levels are too high for us to stay any longer. Let’s move out into the tunnel and replace the bricks in the hole we made. Until we know the chapel’s true purpose, we need to keep its location a secret.”
The trio began to gather the stone bricks that had fallen inside the chapel and piled them in the tunnel by the entrance. They worked quickly to fit all the bricks back into the hole while using the water from their canteens to moisten the powder-like mortar that had fallen to the floor. Scooping up the mud-like substance, they smoothed it into the spaces between the stones.
When they were almost finished with their reconstruction, Leo’s eyes fell on a lone brick lying on the earthen floor. In their haste to enter the chapel, they had forgotten to check the loose bricks for any marks or symbols. He stepped closer and shined his light on the stone. His breath began to come in shallow gasps as he reached down and brushed away some of the dust that covered part of the image he was staring at.
“Anthony… John… I think you two need to see this.”
Father Morelli and John shined their lights down on the stone brick. On its painted surface, they saw the clear and unmistakable image of a modern jet plane hitting one of two very tall towers.
“Oh, my God,” John said. “It’s 9/11!”
All three looked at one another in disbelief. The ancient image depicting a modern event on a brick from inside a chapel sealed for nineteen centuries was too much to process at the moment.
“We need to take that brick with us,” Morelli said.
John concentrated on composing himself before grabbing the brick and shoving it into his backpack. “We really have to go, Fathers.”
The three men finished sealing off the chapel in silence. They used existing tunnel debris to fill in the hole left from the missing brick and began making their way out of the long-forgotten section of the ancient Christian catacombs.
Leo felt himself sway as the tunnel walls began to close in around him. “How much farther is it, Anthony?”
“I don’t think we’ll have to go all the way back to Mamertine Prison. On the way here, I noticed an older side tunnel that appeared to lead in the direction of Castel Sant’ Angelo, and if we can find an exit there, we should be breathing fresh air in fifteen minutes.”
The exhausted men made their way through a series of right and left turns until they came to a crumbling side tunnel. Trading looks, they entered the narrow passageway and followed it until they came across an old wooden ladder that led to a covered opening above their heads.
Leo climbed up and found the name of the castle engraved on a heavy metal cover sealing the exit. He pushed as hard as he could with little success before John climbed up beside him with the pickax. They placed one end of the axe under the edge, and after some levered pushes, the cover inched away from the opening. Breathing even more heavily now, they all climbed up into a basement room of the ancient castle and collapsed on the floor.
The massive fortress of Castel Sant’ Angelo was named after the Archangel Michael. It was built in AD 139 as Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum. In the year 590, the Archangel Michael appeared above the mausoleum to Pope Gregory the Great. Returning his sword into its scabbard, the angel signaled the end of a plague. Since then, the castle has served as a medieval citadel, a prison, and as a residence to popes in times of political unrest.
The lower levels were composed of stone cells, which were used mainly for storage. It was into one of these cells that the three men had climbed before collapsing from exhaustion and lack of fresh air. After resting for several minutes, they slid the heavy cover back over the manhole and continued to breathe in the oxygen-rich air.
John raised himself to his feet and walked over to the only exit in the room. He lifted a heavy metal latch on the door and peered out into a brightly lit hallway. Backing into the other two, John held his finger up to his lips and quickly closed the door.
Two security guards in impeccable dark blue uniforms were coming directly at them from a stairway at the far end of the hall. Had the guards seen him open the door? Footsteps stopped in the hallway outside. The three men listened. They could hear voices, then laughter, as the footsteps trailed off in the distance. John inched the door open and looked out into the empty hallway before glancing over his shoulder. “If we have to join another tour to get out of this place, I’m buying a full-season tourist pass.”
The nervous trio stepped into the hall and made their way unseen up the stairs to an outside door that opened onto a street teaming with tourists. Catching a few stares, the tired, dirt-covered men stumbled out into the bright sunshine and summoned the last of their strength to make their way back toward the Vatican.
Morelli stomped the sidewalk in an effort to shake the dirt from his shoes. “I’ve got to take a shower and go pick up my car. I’ll meet you at your hotel in a few hours, Leo.”
Almost too weary to speak, Leo nodded before stopping to gaze up at the statue of Saint Michael perched on the summit of the castle. He turned toward Morelli. “Did we really just use the Bible to find an ancient hidden chapel?”
Morelli smiled. “Amazing, isn’t it.”