“This is going to take a wee bit longer than I expected. The ossuary’s top is rabbeted. Sorry, guys!”

“Take your time!” Sana said.

“Don’t hurry on my account,” Jack said.

Slowly, Shawn inched around the entire periphery of the ossuary, first softening the wax with the hair dryer, then poking in with the chisel and tapping it with the hammer until it hit up against the rabbet. When he’d gotten all the way around, he pushed in the chisel and now tried to rotate it. There was no give. Moving the chisel along in the groove, he tried again. Nothing. A new location, and nothing again. Another new location, and there was a slight cracking sound.

“I think I could feel some movement,” Shawn said. He was encouraged but concerned that if he applied too much torque, he could snap off a piece of the ossuary’s top. The ossuary had been intact for two millennia, and he wanted it to stay that way.

“Can’t you speed this up,” Sana said, beside herself with excitement. From her perspective it seemed that Shawn was dragging this part out unnecessarily.

Shawn paused and glanced up at his wife. “You’re hardly being helpful,” he snapped. Repositioning himself, he went back to work with the chisel. There was no telling how long it would take, or if it would work at all.

Just when he paused to stop and rethink the situation, there was another cracking noise, and Shawn’s heart skipped a beat. Quickly, he pulled out the chisel, expecting to see a crack in the limestone, but there was none. He ran his hand along the edge to see if he could feel a crack that for some reason he could not see, but there was no discontinuity.

Gingerly, he reinserted the chisel and tentatively began to rotate it. To his relief, the top, in its entirety, lifted off the base. It was free! He looked at the others and nodded. “This is it,” he said, grasping both ends of the top with his hands. He gently lifted it high enough for the rabbet to clear the sides and placed the top on the table. Then they leaned over and peered into the ossuary that had been hermetically sealed for two thousand years.

Chapter 21

21

9:48 A.M., SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2008
NEW YORK CITY

Dear Lord, I beseech You,” James prayed. “Show me the way to deal with the ossuary.” He was in the exquisite private chapel dedicated to Saint John the Apostle on the third floor of the archbishop’s residence, kneeling on an antique French prie-dieu beneath an ebony wall plaque.

On the plaque was a superbly rendered image of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The Mother of God was standing on clouds with two cherubs at her side. Attached to the plaque’s base was a finely wrought sterling-silver holy-water font. James had always loved the piece, and that morning its image had particular significance.