Map of Bones/Chapter 2

The Eternal City

July 24, Noon
Rome Italy

Rachel Verona climbed down the narrow stairs that led deep under the Basilica of San Clemente.

The excavation of below the churgch had been under way for two months, overseen by a team of archaeologists from the University of Naples.

Her guide, Professor Lean Giovanna, the project leader, was helpful. Comments mentioned and good.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Rachel stepped into water. They reach into the man made grotto. They look around the grotto. Professor had two graduate students. Sadly, one of the statues had pieces left and only parts were remained. A lot of things could have happened. Rachel said they prefer photographs intact.On the marble had I I.The statue had been hacksawed, the work of modern theieves. The market was valuable, only surpassed by drugs. Rachel looked at the item, hoping to get something. She asks Robert. Robert does not object. It was not uncommon for members of organized crime to play, peititon, or coerce cooperation among site workers. Such cooruption was rampant. She had kept herself thinking this could have been Tia as well, or even Professor Giovanna.

1:34 P.M.
Checking her watch, Rachel moved quickly. She got into her Mini Cooper and immediately was phoned by someone in the Vatican. Uncle Vigor, the Monsignor Vigor Verona, head of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology.

He tells her that she is needed at the Vatican and has to pass through St. Anne's Gate. Her uncle needed her for a week. Driving, she drove onto the Via Labicano and headed across the city, crossing the Tibre River. Visitors considered Roman drivers ill-tempered, short of patience, and heavy of foot. Rachel found them sluggish.She paied attention. Someone was following her in a black BMW sedan, five cars back.

2:05 P.M.
Rachel pulls into an underground parking garage outside the walls of the Vatican. The BMW disappeared. She told herself it could have been tourists or something.

As usual, tourists in the Vatican. Entering, she was let in by one of the Swiss guards. Her destination: The Apostolic Palce, the home of the pope. Rachel marched forward. Getting in, she gets to the best place. Her uncle had a ton of students. Was there something to be done. But she would not have gotten anything with respect to the Vatican's strict Code of Silence.

Jacob had led her there. He was a seminary student from the US. She entered

Rachel! Her uncle called to her. He was at his desk in a corner with nother priest. This is Father Torres. Vigor called for jacob to bring drinks.

“Have you heard of the massacre at Cologne” 84 people died but their manner of their deaths were kept. A few were shot but the majority seemed to have been electricuted.

The cathedral was swarmed with people. Since the crime occurred in a Roman Catholic Cathedral, the Vatican has invoked its Omerta, its oath of silence. There seemed to be one motive: t he reliquary. The contents were stolen: the Bones of the Biblical Magi.

Magi as in the Three Wise Men from the Bible. Rachel could not believe it. Steal the bones but not the gold box. Uncle Vigor was requested by the secretary of the state to evaluate the provenance of those relics. They had a illustrious past. They had come through the relic collecting verve of saitn helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. He had sent his mother to co llect holy relics, the most famous being the True Cross of Christ.

Rachel had visited he Basilica of Santa Croce out on Lateran Hill. There was them there. Things made her wonder about the murders.

Someone new came in. Cardinal Spera. He was the secretary of state. Spera had said he will be arranging for a few things. He was told tha Barbarossa plundered Milan and had the bones taken but a few bones were retuned in 1906. Spera further tells them that Rachel and her uncle are both heading to Cologne as nuncios, ambassadors for the Vatican. As temporary for the moment.

3:35 P.M.
Rachel was stunned at the information. Vigor was not.

Vigor tells her that the Vatican has always had an intelligence service with full time employees that infiltrated hate groups, secret societies, hostile countries, and whereever the interests were threatened. One of them, Walter Ciszek, a priest under the name Vladimir Lipinski, had played cat and mouse with the KGB before speing over two decades in prison.

Vigor reveals he had spent over fifteen years in the service. They will be meeting up a party of American scientists, who are also investigating the attack in secret.

“why all this subterfuge” Rachel begs her uncle to explain.

Her uncle pulls her into a side chapel. One survivor was a boy and was recovering at a hospital, and witnessed the entire event; everyone died in what seemed to be electrocution occurring in a single moment. They had died or collapsed where they sat or knelt. All in common who died were the ones who took the Holy Eucharist during Communion. It was the host that killed them. And the Vatican needed answers, so that the Vigor was able to ask for a friend in the U.S. Military intelligence, someone he trust fully.

Rachel shook her head. Fortest Fortuna adiuvat.

Rachel left and got into her car. Driving around, she noticed again the black BMW following behind her. Driving around, she loses it. Quick, she calls someone. Now, two cars show up beside her. Rear window pulled down and machine guns pulled out.