She had definitely caught his attention, any lingering irritation replaced by intrigue. ‘What about it?’
‘Like I said, the Jewish Christians would probably choose the initial meeting place. It’d be somewhere they knew, and large enough to accommodate a lot of people, from the sound of it. So the most likely location would be at Rome’s main synagogue.’
‘And was that the Villa Torlonia?’
‘The excavations there uncovered a large area that had once been an open-air meeting place. In other words, a synagogue. Although…’ She hesitated. ‘Nobody knows for certain.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It seems likely to have been a synagogue, but maybe it was just a courtyard — or maybe it was nothing to do with the catacombs at all. There are even some arguments about the age of the catacombs themselves; some of the more recent surveys suggest they pre-date Christianity by a couple of centuries, but quite a few people still insist that they’re from the first century AD, which would probably be far too late for these Elders of yours to have hidden anything down there.’ A nervous shuffle of her papers. ‘Which is why I’m warning you right now that I can’t be sure I’m correct. I’ve given it my best shot, but I can’t guarantee anything.’
Cross leaned forward, his cold eyes regarding her intently. ‘Then convince me that you’ve done the absolute best you can.’
Nina paused, realising her mouth had gone dry. Her captor had been a CIA agent, trained in intelligence-gathering, and also in determining if that intelligence were true. That almost certainly meant he was experienced in questioning his sources… and interrogating them, if necessary.
If he didn’t accept her assurance, or worse, thought that she was stalling, or lying…
‘You’ve got my husband. You’ve got me. You’ve got my baby.’ She pushed the chair back, rising to show him the swelling below her stomach. ‘The only way we’re all going to get out of this alive is if I do everything I can to help you. You’ve made that pretty damn clear. Well, I want to be back home and safe with my family. I want—’ Sudden emotion made the words catch in her throat. ‘I want to have my baby. And I want Eddie to be there with me. That’s how you can be sure I’m doing the best I can.’
Her hands were shaking; she clenched her fists to cover it. Cross maintained his icy stare for a long moment… then sat back. ‘I believe you, Dr Wilde. For now. So,’ he said, slightly more casually, ‘you think the angel is in the catacombs of the Villa Torlonia. Where? And how do we find it?’
Nina didn’t answer him immediately, struggling to settle herself. ‘I don’t know yet,’ she finally told him. ‘The catacombs aren’t open to the public because of the levels of radon gas. They very occasionally run tours, but only for limited periods. Anyone going down there would need specialist equipment — masks, breathing gear.’
Cross typed something on a touch screen. ‘Okay, noted. How big are the tunnels?’
‘There are over nine kilometres — more than five miles — of catacombs. And nothing resembling your angel has ever been found there, so it’s not at the villa’s museum. If it’s down there, it’s hidden.’
He ran his finger down the pad, then tapped at it. The video wall flicked into life, showing a somewhat pixelated copy of the catacomb map she had consulted on the laptop. ‘These are the tunnels?’
‘Yes.’ She realised that he had called up a list of all the web pages she had checked in her research. ‘The burial chambers are predominantly Jewish, although some Christian epitaphs have been found down there too. Depending on which dating scheme you accept, they were in use for between three and six centuries, so there’s a lot of ground to cover.’
Cross stared at the map as if studying a battle plan. ‘Nothing’s been discovered that looks anything like the temple I found in Iraq?’
‘No. Although I saw some photos that’ll give you an idea of what it’s like down there.’
He swiped back through the menu. The map disappeared, replaced by a photograph of the catacombs. Narrow, damp tunnels wound through the earth, burial niches — loculi — carved into the walls. Some of the rectangular nooks were surrounded by decorative frescoes.
These in particular caught Cross’s attention. ‘The paintings. Are there more like them?’
‘There are more photos; see for yourself,’ Nina told him. ‘Most of the tunnels are plain, but some of the larger chambers are quite ornate.’
More images flashed up, the seemingly endless passages disappearing into darkness — then Cross abruptly straightened. ‘What’s that?’
Nina examined the new picture. It showed part of a ceiling, an image inside a circle picked out in grey and reddish-brown painted lines. ‘It’s a menorah. You know, a Jewish candlestick? Don’t tell me they didn’t have Hanukkah where you grew up.’
‘I know what it is,’ he snapped. ‘Is that the only one down there?’
‘No, there are quite a few of them. There should be pictures of a pair of menorahs on a wall — it’s the most famous part of the place.’
Cross flicked impatiently through more photographs to find them. An arched wall bore two large circular paintings of the seven-branched candle holders, a wide mouth-like split in the stonework beneath them making the whole scene resemble a cartoon ghost.
‘Why is that important?’ asked Nina, seeing his intense interest in the scene.
‘The temple in Iraq — there was the symbol of a menorah right above the angel. Wait, look.’ He stabbed at the pad. The picture he had showed to Nina on her arrival filled the screens. He zoomed in on the niche. ‘There.’
It was hard to make out clearly through the dirt, but there did indeed appear to be the image of a menorah inscribed on the gilded wall. ‘You think it’s a marker?’ she asked. ‘The menorah’s a symbol showing the statue’s location?’
Cross stared at the picture, then swiped back to the photos of the catacombs. ‘It could be,’ he said, almost to himself, before turning to Nina and saying more forcefully: ‘It is! I’m sure of it! It tells you where to find the angel; the Elders hid it somewhere in the catacombs.’
‘Where, though? There were a half-dozen menorahs just in those photos, and they were only from a small part of the whole system.’
‘We’ll have to search. We need to find the one with the Akkadian and Hebrew symbols for the twenty-four Elders above it. The angel’s wings are made of metal — once we locate the right menorah, we can use detectors to find it.’
‘Assuming someone hasn’t already.’
‘You said it yourself: nobody’s found anything resembling it before.’
‘The catacombs have been there for a long time,’ Nina cautioned. ‘Someone could have taken it two thousand years ago.’
Cross shook his head. ‘No. It’s there, somewhere. I know it. I know.’
Alarm rose within her. Her captor had made his decision based on nothing more than her educated guess — which with the limited time and research materials available was practically only a hunch. ‘And what if it’s not there? What happens to me — and to Eddie?’
He didn’t respond, which unnerved her all the more. Instead he brought up a new app on one of the pads. After a few seconds, the sound of a dialling tone came over the speakers.
The call was quickly answered. ‘Prophet?’ came Simeon’s voice.
‘Where are you?’ Cross asked.
‘We arrived in Athens about an hour ago and met the others.’
‘Is the jet still there?’
‘It’s ready whenever we need it.’
‘You need it. Tell the pilot to arrange a flight plan for Rome, as soon as possible.’
‘The angel’s in Rome?’ said Simeon, with clear excitement.