The Lost Catacomb (44 page)

She
removed her own pouch belt and passed it and Bruno
’
s pouch through the opening, then handed him her
flashlight.
 
Torn between fear and
anticipation, she slipped through the wall and dusted herself off.
 
“
Do
you think it
’
s
safe to leave the oxy lamps out there?
”
she asked in belated concern, pointing in the direction of the
passageway they
’
d
just left.
 
The yellowish light
shone brightly through the rectangular opening in the wall, like a beacon.

“
Of course,
”
Bruno replied.
 
“
We
may need the light to guide us back here in case there
’
s no clear-cut outlet or if there are some other
corridors on this side that prove to be misleading.
 
We can
’
t risk getting lost.
”

He
now reached into his pouch belt and pulled out a heavy spool of bright yellow
plastic twine, luminous in the steady beam of his flashlight.
 
As Nicola watched, he began to unroll
it, fastening it securely to the legs of the stool that stood under the niche
they had just crawled through, amid the shards of the shattered limestone
plaque that had covered the opening just a short while ago.

“
Okay, we're good to go,
”
he said, satisfied
that there would be a reliable way for them to retrace their footsteps.

They
moved cautiously into the depths of the tunnel, and Bruno continued to unwind
the spool as they followed a twisted pathway for a distance of about 40
feet.
 
Finally they found themselves
at a dead end.

“
This looks like it
might be a door,
”
Bruno
said, as he aimed his flashlight at the dust-covered wall they had nearly
bumped into and then patted it down systematically with his gloved hand, from left
to right, until he heard the distinctly harsh clang of metal.
 
Removing a small whisk brush from his
pouch, he began to clean the surface, revealing a narrow door that was embedded
into the tunnel wall.

“
I don't see a lock or
handle just yet, so I think I should first try the small crowbar and see if I
can dislodge the door from the wall,
”
he said.

After
several attempts, however, he shook his head in frustration.
 
“
It
won
’
t budge.
 
The door frame is just too tightly fixed
into the
tufa
for this crowbar to work.
 
Can you hand me one of the microfiber
cloths?
 
Maybe if we do a more
thorough job of wiping this down we'll find a lock.
”

Nicola
held both her flashlight as well as Bruno's, shining them at the surface of the
door, and fifteen minutes later Bruno finally uncovered a small flat lock that
had been camouflaged in layers of grit.
 
He flicked the whisk brush over it repeatedly and then turned to
Nicola.
 
“
Can you hand me the can of WD-40? Maybe that will do
the trick.
”

He
sprayed the lock several times, and eventually, after patiently trying several
of the picklocks he had brought with him, he succeeded in opening the door,
whose rusty hinges gave way with a loud creaking groan.
 
Wedging one of the larger flashlights
into the door frame as a temporary measure, he then stabilized the opening
itself by driving several heavy spikes into the floor of the tunnel, to prevent
the door from moving.

“
I think this should
hold,
”
he said,
grabbing his flashlight and flicking it on again.
“
Now there's no way the door can swing inward.
 
With any luck, we won't get trapped
inside.
”

“
Thanks, Bruno.
 
That's just what I needed to hear.
 
I feel so much more confident now,
”
Nicola said with a
slight shudder.

“
Come on, Nicola.
 
We'll be fine.
 
But I
’
ll go in first,
”
he cautioned,
“
just in case.
”
He shone his flashlight down the narrow stairwell
opposite their point of entry, and they descended a short set of uneven stone
steps that led to a large, roughly paved landing.

“
Look, Bruno, there
’
s a light switch here,
”
Nicola cried out in
astonishment, and she flicked it on, eyeing the heavy wiring that ran up the
wall and along the ceiling, wondering who could possibly have installed it.

Momentarily
dazed by the bright lights, they gasped aloud in surprise as they found
themselves standing in front of a wide doorway to an exceptionally large
chamber, a room many times bigger than the contested
hypogeum
in the
Vigna Randanini.

The
wall immediately opposite the entry was covered by a tremendous red flag with a
black swastika on it that was suspended close to the ceiling and framed by two
sculpted bronze eagles with spears in their claws.
 
Beneath the flag there were carefully
arranged portraits of what appeared, at first glance, to be a gallery of
military personnel
—
a
large grouping of men in Nazi uniforms of varying rank, their insignias visible
on their collars, epaulets, and caps. Some appeared to be wearing the uniforms
of the SS, some those of the
Luftwaffe
, and some those of the
Kriegsmarine
,
the German navy.
 
Each framed photo,
apparently arranged alphabetically, was tagged with a small plaque indicating
name and position in the hierarchy of the Third Reich, as well as a list of
their awards for valor and dedication to the Fatherland.

The
other walls were lined with tall symmetrical glass-fronted steel cases that
stood on a heavy metal platform, with wires and piping attached to what
appeared to be a large generator, whose dull whirring hum broke the unnatural
silence of the catacomb.
 
Shaped
like upright coffins, they displayed a series of what appeared to be bodies
swaddled in heavy striated cloth, almost like mummies, but with their faces
exposed, their eyes closed, and their skin tinged a strangely bluish white.

“
What
is
this,
Bruno?
”
Nicola
asked as she approached the cases, tentatively putting out her hand to touch
them.
 
“
Are they are real?
 
Or are they wax figures?
”

“
Oh, they're real, all
right,
”
he said,
grabbing her arm and pulling her back.
 
“
Don't
touch anything,
”
he
warned.
 
“
It might be dangerous.
 
Look at all that liquid bubbling and
sloshing about in the cases.
”

“
I don't see anything
bubbling,
”
she
said as she looked around.
 
“
Where?
 
What are you talking about?
”

“
Up there,
”
he pointed,
“
at the very top of each
case.
 
Can you see it now?
 
It looks like it could be some kind of
preservative.
 
I wouldn't be
surprised if this is some sort of cryonic set-up meant to preserve Nazi
corpses.
”

“
What?!
”
she blurted out.

A
look of barely restrained hatred came over his face as he explained.
 
“
Look
at the names, Nicola.
 
Dannecker,
Goebbels, Hass, Hess
,
Heydrich, Kappler
,
Kesselring,
”
he said, picking out
names at random from among the portraits.
 
“
It reads
like a 'Who's Who' of some of the most notorious Nazi criminals.

“
It looks like someone
has frozen these bodies in the hope of reviving them at a later date.
 
Maybe the people who operated the Nazi
Ratlines moved the cadavers to this location, one at a time, in order to
restore them to life at some time in the future.
 
Maybe they were planning for a revival
of the Third Reich.
 
Or the
establishment of a Fourth Reich.
”

“
Oh, come on, Bruno,
”
she said with a look
of disbelief on her face.
 
“
That's ridiculous.
 
And impossible.
”

“
No it isn't,
”
he insisted.
 
“
Haven't
you heard of a similar technique being used in hospitals?
 
They wrap the bodies of critically ill
patients in a special fabric impregnated with a chemical coolant that lowers
body temperature just enough to prevent neurological damage and tissue
morbidity.
 
Then the patients can be
revived
—
thawed
out as it were, eventually
—
once
someone figures out what disease they have or what medications will cure them.

“
Sometimes they just
inject a biological coolant intravenously, into the circulatory system, to shut
things down in order to let the body recover from trauma.
 
My sister's a doctor.
 
She's done this kind of thing in the ICU
many times.
 
I know it sounds like
something out of a bad science fiction novel, but apparently the technology has
been around since World War II.
”

Nicola
shuddered and backed away slowly from the macabre lineup of glass-encased
bodies.
 
“
This is getting a bit too creepy for me, Bruno.
 
Wouldn't this mean that someone
—
someone
now
,
not just years ago
—
still
intends to revive these dead Nazis?
”

“
I guess so,
”
he answered soberly,
his jaw tightening with suppressed anger.
“
We just need to figure out who could have had the
means to set this up.
 
Or who would
want to do this.
 
After all, someone
must still be making sure that the generator is working and that the integrity
of the freezing system remains uncompromised.
”

“
Who could have possibly
had access to this technology?
 
Clearly the bodies have been here since the time of World War II,
”
Nicola interjected.

“
Obviously someone very
powerful,
”
Bruno
replied.
 
“
Someone with both the funds and the manpower to have
the bodies of these monsters stabilized and preserved at the time of death and
then brought, one by one, from secret locations all over Europe
—
or even South
America
—
to
this catacomb.
 
The logistics
involved are nearly unimaginable.

“
But then again, someone
did manage to do it.
 
And the only
possible reason, as we've already speculated, would be to re-establish the
Reich.
 
That's pretty obvious, at
least to me.
”

He
looked around the
hypogeum
again, momentarily lost in thought.
 
Then rousing himself from his reverie,
he turned to Nicola.

“
Look,
”
he said.
 
“
I
don't know how much time we have left.
 
We have to stay focused.
 
Remember, we're going to have to leave the Vigna Randanini itself while
it's still dark outside
and
while the
carabinieri
are too tired
or distracted to notice us. We need to start looking for what we came here to
find.
 
There are two other doorways
over there.
 
Let's check them out.
”

Motioning
her first towards a dark arch near a corner of the crypt, they flicked on
another light switch and entered the next room.
 
The chamber held carefully arranged
display cases of all shapes and heights.
 
Gold and silver objects glittered brightly on wide tables and behind
fitted glass doors in the recesses of the
loculi
.
 
Soft track lighting, strategically
angled to highlight the artwork, dazzled their eyes, flooding the room with
dizzying light that bounced off the gold and silver surfaces, creating the
illusion of an endless montage of superimposed images reflected on the
mirror-like fa
ç
ades.

In
between the
loculi
, the walls were hung from floor to ceiling with oil
paintings of various sizes, arranged by country of origin, as well as by genre
and date.

“
This isn't just a
warehouse or storeroom, Bruno,
”
Nicola whispered, as she gazed slowly around the room in increasing
astonishment.
 
“
It seems to be a
collection of some of the most valuable artwork I
’
ve ever seen.
 
If I didn
’
t
know better, I
’
d
say that it looks like a museum.
 
A
private museum of some sort.
”