Free God's Lions: The Secret Chapel by John Lyman

maze of catacombs that snaked beneath the city. All three men were well aware of the stories of people actually getting lost and dying in these ancient subterranean graveyards.
    The tunnel had obviously been sealed off for centuries. Debris littered the hard-packed earthen floor. It consisted mostly of plaster that had once been used to seal ancient tombs, rocks from minor cave-ins, and, disturbingly, human and animal bones. The animal bones were left over from feasts held long ago in the catacombs by family and friends who came to honor their dead, while the human bones were the result of grave robber activity over the years. The tunnel was otherwise in surprisingly good shape for its age, probably dating to around AD 100.
    “How far do you think it is to the area beneath the Basilica?” John asked.
    Morelli shined his light ahead. “About a mile. Of course, it seems farther when you’re underground.”
    The men trudged forward through the maze, coughing now and then in the fetid air saturated with carbon dioxide. For the next hour and a half, they trekked through the dark labyrinth, crossing intersecting tunnels and trying to stay on a straight course to the Vatican. Morelli produced a thick piece of yellow chalk and began to mark the walls with an arrow when they passed an intersecting tunnel. He wanted to provide them with a sign if they got lost or accidentally doubled back in the maze.
    John had tried in the past to use GPS to locate positions under the Vatican, but the device never seemed to work this far underground. The only way they would know when they had arrived at the area below the Basilica was their knowledge of the site.
    The men were becoming exhausted from the long walk in the stale air, but the prospect of discovery pushed them on. After climbing and descending a series of steps, they rounded a slight curve and entered a large open area that rose almost twenty feet above their heads.
    Morelli shined his light on a sloping pile of rubble that tumbled down from a newly constructed wall above. “There. That’s the wall Emilio had built to keep me out. We are now directly under the Basilica. This is the area we first entered a few months ago after a workman’s shovel pushed through into this section of the catacombs by accident. This site is definitely Christian, not pagan. The ancient Christians probably inhabited it when they were still being persecuted by the Romans. They hid from their persecutors down here and prayed together. This area must have been dug out around the time of Nero, the mad emperor who burned down half of Rome.”
    Leaning on his pickax, John shined his light around at the crumbling red-and-white-colored plaster that still covered several of the intact tombs. “We’ve already checked out most of this area, Father. Where do you want to start?”
    “Let’s look in the last section we mapped. We didn’t have a chance to examine the walls or all the little nooks and crannies. Pay careful attention to anything that looks like a tomb. Sometimes the ancients painted seals to indicate the location of something or someone of importance.”
    Leo craned his neck to gaze up at the ceiling. “Is there any way we can find out where the queen’s tomb above us is located?”
    Morelli and John looked like they had both been struck by lightning.
    “Of course!” John said. “Under the tomb of the queen!”
    “Brilliant, Leo.” Morelli retrieved the map case he always carried with him on excavations and removed three diagrams. The first was a modern blueprint of the grotto under the Basilica, the second was an archaeological diagram of the fully explored necropolis below that, and the third was a crude and hastily drawn map of the section of the catacombs they were standing in now.
    Placing the diagrams on top of each other and holding them over the light of the lantern to make the drawings transparent, Morelli could see exactly where the tomb of the queen was in relation to their present