‘I have heard whispers from some old priests in their dying moments about a vault built within the grounds of Castel Gandolfo, a repository for special secrets of the Church—both valuable and embarrassing—that they do not wish anyone to find. I think the Pope was referring to that vault when he referred to Albano’s emissary.’

‘What do you think?’ Iolanthe asked Nobody.

Nobody assessed the ancient tunnel. Framed by vines and cracked with age, it looked dark, old and forbidding.

He flicked on his flashlight. ‘We need that bell to wake the world, so we don’t have a choice. We go in.’

They entered the 2,500-year-old tunnel, their boots splashing through fetid ankle-deep water, their flashlight beams sabring through the gloom.

Rats scurried in the shadows. Mould covered the Roman brickwork.

And then, about four hundred metres in, they came to an old iron gate set into the right-hand wall.

Behind it was a modern steel door, obviously heavy and seriously reinforced. It had rubber around its edges to create a seal.

The steel door stood ajar, propped open by a middle-aged priest lying slumped on the ground in the doorway, asleep.

‘He must have been standing here when the Siren bell rang,’ Nobody said.

They stepped over the sleeping body and entered the subterranean vault.

It was a modestly sized chamber. Its two side walls were lined with glass display cases containing ancient objects and treasures.

Iolanthe saw an old iron nail in one.

A plate on its glass panel read: clavus ex crucifixionem christus.

Iolanthe translated: ‘“Nail from the crucifixion of the Christ.” Whoa.’

A large stone sarcophagus covered in hieroglyphics lay in front of the far third wall. It was easily the largest item in the vault.

Iolanthe read the glyphs on it. ‘Good God. This is Khufu’s coffin. From the Great Pyramid. This is one of archaeology’s greatest treasures that has supposedly never been found.’

‘The Church also had the uraeus from the Great Sphinx at the Vatican,’ Nobody said. ‘They sure had a keen interest in ancient Egypt.’

‘Sun cult,’ Iolanthe said.

A reading desk sat in the middle of the space and on it, laid out side by side, were two ancient Roman scrolls.

Bertie scanned the first one.

‘What’s it say?’ Nobody asked.

Bertie’s eyes raced back and forth as he read the text. ‘It’s a record from the Emperor Domitian. He says, “Even under torture, the Vestals would not divulge the location of the waking bell. The virgo maximus”—that’s the head of the Vestal order—“would not tell me even when I had her sisters killed in front of her. So I had her executed, too.”’

Nobody said, ‘He sure hated those Vestals.’