saw him.”
“Locked below, they wouldn’t know. I can’t.”
Marc held out his hand for the phone. Rafiq handed it over.
Marc positioned his thumb on the send button, gripped the steering wheel tightly with his other hand, and then couldn’t help it. Forgive me. He pressed the button, tossed the phone onto the seat, then stabbed his foot on the gas pedal. There was a sixty-second delay in the first charge. The longest sixty seconds of Marc’s life.
The explosion rocked the air, and a moment later, the second explosion that incinerated everything inside the warehouse hit. He glanced in his rearview mirror, saw a fireball rising in the sky.
Sydney eyed the tunnel. No way was she going in. She’d had a fear about dark spaces ever since the murder of her father, and that little tunnel seemed awfully dark to her, not that she was about to reveal her secrets to Griffin. “You go after her,” she said.
Griffin shone his light into the tunnel, then looked at Sydney. “After you.”
“Somebody should probably stand guard here, don’t you think?”
“Spider phobia?”
She was tempted to tell him the truth, but then heard Francesca call out, “There’s actually a shaft of light coming in from above. You have to see this.”
“Well?” Griffin said.
“I scoff at spiders. But you have the flashlight.”
He moved beneath the steps, shone his light into the tunnel that was hidden from view until one moved all the way into the niche. Here goes nothing, she thought, dropping her sketchbook into her shoulder bag, then trying to tamp down the fear that she’d be in the middle of the tunnel and Griffin’s flashlight would go out and she wouldn’t be able to find her way.
His flashlight was not going to go out. That’s what she told herself as she crawled after him, then came to a turn, and realized that it led to more stairs, these leading upward.
This stairwell was even narrower than the one they’d taken to descend into the columbarium. She could stand, but the ceiling was low and Griffin had to stoop as they ascended what seemed to be about two stories. And as the professor had promised, there was a bit of light coming in through the arched ceiling at the top of the steps where Francesca was waiting.
“What is this place?” Sydney asked, moving next to Francesca.
“It seems to be some sort of private viewing area of the columbarium we just left.” She pointed over the ledge, and Sydney looked out, realized they were indeed looking at the chamber from above. A stunning view, and she started a new drawing to capture the center of the mosaic floor below. From this height, the center of the mosaic appeared to be a large circular labyrinth, unrecognizable from the ground level, due to the proximity.
While Sydney sketched, Francesca began an earnest search, directing Griffin to help. Sydney was nearly finished when Francesca called out. “There’s something scratched on the wall below this painting.”
Sydney drew her gaze from the lower chamber to the wall where Francesca was standing. Another skull. While the mosaic of the skull and symbols they’d seen in the lower chamber might loosely bear resemblance to something Masonic, there was no doubt in Sydney’s mind of a Masonic connection with this painted skull. Above and below it, in much sharper detail than the first-century version, was a definite Masonic square and compass. And below it, as Francesca indicated, was something etched into the wall: “Hic iacet pulvis cinis et nihil.”
“Latin?” Griffin asked. “Meaning what?”
“‘Here lies dust, ash, and nothing,’” Francesca translated, her voice filled with excitement. “It has to be the key.”
“The key to what?” Griffin asked.
“That leads to the next clue,” she said quickly.
“Then by all means,” he said to the professor. “Lead us on.”
They returned the columbarium gate key to Signore DeAngelis, who was delighted when Sydney presented him with a sketch of the maidenhair ferns growing among the loculi. Griffin kept careful watch on Francesca, insisting that she would remain with him from this point on, as they walked down the stairs and up the street to where they’d left the van. The stone walls on either side of the street towered overhead, and they walked single file as cars zipped past them on the narrow road.
“So it seems you have found the first sign,” Griffin said, when they’d reached the van. “Where is it leading to next?”
“Right now I have no idea,” Francesca replied. “It will take more research. Perhaps another trip to the