Elisa grabbed Jake by the arm and whispered, “This would be a great place to make love.” Then she followed the professor through a small passage that each had to duck to get through.
Wow. He couldn’t argue with Elisa. What had he gotten himself into this time? He ducked and followed the two women.
The lights in this area did not exist. Jake was carrying a small kerosene lantern, which hissed as he made his way toward the women ahead. Sara had a small head lamp on and Elisa carried a pen light. The professor was on her knees examining a non-descript tomb with what appeared to be Greek writing, much like the one they had photographed in Taormina. Suddenly she started digging away at the damp alluvial sand in front of the tomb. Moments later and another stone was exposed, and Sara worked feverishly to removed the sand from the surface. Jake came over and helped her, and once the writing on this stone materialized, he removed a water bottle from his small backpack and poured enough moisture on the stone to make the letters and symbols stand out clearly.
Sara stood up in awe. The stone seemed to take her breath away. Then she took a number of photos with her digital camera, the flash blinding them temporarily each time.
“This is amazing,” Sara finally said as she viewed the images on the LCD screen on the back of her camera.
“What is it?” Jake asked.
“To the casual observer it’s just Greek writing, although in the ancient Doric or Dorian dialect.” She looked up to Jake now and smiled, as if she’d gotten exactly what she wanted for Christmas. “But this is more.”
Elisa stooped down for a better look. “How so?”
“My God,” Sara said, and then placed her hand over her mouth. When she recovered somewhat, she continued taking photos as she said, “This is not a tomb at all. It’s the work of Archimedes himself.”
“Are you sure?” Jake asked.
“It has to be,” Sara said. “Look, this here is not writing. It’s not some homage to the dead. This is mathematics. More precisely it’s calculus.”
“Okay, I’m just a layman here,” Jake said, “but why is this important?”
Sara looked like she might faint. Finally she whispered, “Because calculus, according to everything we know, was first developed around the year 1700 by Sir Isaac Newton. Now it looks like Archimedes beat Newton by almost two thousand years. To a mathematician this is like porn. This could be the most important discovery on Archimedes since…ever. Very few documents can last over two thousand years. Archimedes was known to cut his principles into stone and engrave them on various mediums he hoped would last through time.”
“How can you be absolutely sure?” Elisa asked.
“Because the only actual writing on this tomb in rough translation says, ‘Rise above oneself and grasp the world.’ This quote is quite famous and attributed to Archimedes. This must have been like his signature. Carbon dating will confirm what I believe. I’m certain. This stone should be in a museum.”
“All right,” Jake said. “Let’s get out of here and find a way to report it without having every math geek in the world turning this place into a shrine.”
Sara looked wistfully at the stone and agreed with a nod. “Right,” Sara said. “But first we must make it look like it did before we came. The sediment here could be thousands of years old. It was either buried here on purpose, or flooding of the catacombs layered the sand here over time.”
As she shifted the damp sand smoothly over the top of the stone, Jake added a little more water to make it look like they had never been there.
They started to head out when Jake stopped them. “Sara, have you made any marks on your digital or physical map of these catacombs indicating this location?”
“No.”
“Good. Don’t do so. We’ll have to go from our memory.”
Sara agreed with a nod and they continued out through the low passageway. Eventually, after a number of wrong turns they got closer to the entrance, where the lights were more frequent, yet it was still not the best visibility.
Then the lights went out completely and the three of them stopped in their tracks.
“What now?” Elisa asked.
“The Vatican forgot to pay its bill,” Sara provided, followed by a nervous laugh.
Jake, on the other hand, slipped his gun out of the holster on his left hip and placed it alongside his right leg.
Suddenly there was yelling from multiple locations in front and on both sides of them. Jake threw the kerosene lantern and the light went out. Then in the relative darkness, he backed up slightly against the limestone wall. Only the headlamp from Sara and the hand-held penlight from Elisa gave him any indication of his surroundings.
The Greek yelling, which Jake didn’t understand, was followed by additional screaming in Italian. He aimed his gun toward the screams, but he couldn’t fire not knowing for sure his target of if one of the women might be in the line of fire.
The Italian said to put down their guns. Greek was probably the same, but Jake couldn’t be certain.
When the headlamp started moving forward, Jake yelled, “No, stay put.”
“They’ll kill us all.” It was Sara.
Then the pen light went out and Jake could hear shuffling feet coming closer to him.
More yelling and Jake’s head was filled with uncertainty.
“Jake?” Elisa whispered.
“Here,” he said quietly.
By now the head lamp was closer toward the entrance and then a scuffle and the light went out.
“Sara,” Jake yelled, his voice echoing through the catacombs.
Nothing.
When he yelled for the professor again, all that came back was the sound of gunfire, sending him toward the ground. He quickly returned fire, shooting high into the ceiling so as not to hit Sara.
“You will not leave here alive,” said a man’s voice in English with a heavy accent.
Jake reached out and felt the leg of Elisa. He moved his hand up her body until the two of them lay side by side. “Are you all right?” he whispered.
“Yes. What do we do?”
“Come with me.” He pulled her to his feet and back the way they had come. In about ten feet they reached the entrance to another corridor, which they slid into. At least now they would have some cover.
The Italian continued to yell at them, taunting and trying to draw their fire. Jake wished like hell he had his night vision goggles, but he had none of his usual toys on this trip.
“What now?” Elisa asked him.
“I’m not catching everything they’re saying,” Jake said. “Is it slang?”
“It’s Sicilian slathered with Mafia slang,” she said. “He says he will kill us both. But not until he’s filled me with his…”
“I got that. He needs to be taught a lesson in civility.” Jake listened carefully and said, “There’s more than one of them. Probably the gunman that got away, along with the driver. Maybe a couple of reinforcements considering the amount of shuffling out there and whispers.” He had to believe the Greeks had Sara and were whisking her away at this moment. Probably already out the catacomb entrance. That was good and bad. Bad because they now had Sara. Good because that meant anything that moved would be a potential target. He aimed around the corner and waited to hear anything at all. Any noise.
There. Jake shot twice and went back behind the edge just as a number of guns rang back toward him, bullets glancing off the stone walls.
“Are you all right?” Elisa asked, her hands touching him.
“Shh.”
This time Jake got down to his knees, put his gun up over his head, and shot once, waiting for return fire. When the flashes came, he aimed for the flash on his left and fired twice. He could hear the distinct sound of bullets penetrating flesh with a thud, and then a body hitting the dirt and stone floor.