After thirty minutes he still hadn’t hit stone, despite covering the ceiling with dozens of probing holes. He was ready to switch to the masonry hammer and chisel when he noticed something: The excavators had not burrowed under the vault’s supporting wall as he’d thought, but rather had poked directly through its base. When he looked carefully, Shawn could actually see butt ends of the wall’s brick just outside the vertical supports of the inner truss.

“My God!” Shawn called out for Sana’s benefit. He couldn’t see her, but he knew she was out in the area under the glass deck. He knew where she was because of her impatient questions every five minutes on how he was doing. By the sound of her voice, he could tell she was getting progressively anxious, but there was nothing he could do about it other than keeping her in the loop about his progress.

“Did you find it?” Sana responded hopefully.

“No, not yet, but I discovered something else. The vault foundation goes down deeper. The ossuary had to have been deeper as well. If it is still here, it’s got to be on the right of the tunnel in the direction of the red wall.”

After picking the drill back up and turning onto his left side, Shawn began making holes in the tunnel’s right wall. The first one was midway from the floor to the ceiling and midway into the tunnel, with the result the same as all the holes in the ceiling. Pulling the bit free, Shawn started a second hole at the same level but deeper into the tunnel. Just three inches in, he hit something hard enough to make the drill practically leap out of his hand. Encouraged, he started another hole three inches above the last. He held his breath as the drill bit knifed through the hardpan. Again, the drill bit hit a hard surface.

Shawn could feel his pulse in his temples. Again, he drilled a new hole a few inches away from the last and felt resistance at the same depth. His excitement grew by leaps and bounds, but he wasn’t ready to celebrate. Instead, he quickly sank more than a dozen new holes, effectively outlining a perfectly flat stone approximately fifteen inches square embedded three inches into the tunnel’s wall. At that point, he called out to Sana. “I found it! I found it!” he repeated with great excitement.

“Are you sure?” Sana yelled back.

“I’d say ninety percent sure,” Shawn called out.

With such encouraging news, Sana overcame her reluctance and returned to peer into the tunnel. “Where is it?”

“Right here,” Shawn said. He knocked with a knuckle against the tunnel’s wall at the very center of the covey of holes he’d drilled.

“I don’t see it,” Sana said, with gathering disappointment.