The student reached to the handles of the oak rack, preparing to lift it off and expose what he had spotted.
“Don’t!” Alex called out.
“Ne!” Igor reinforced.
Vadim ignored them and lifted the top tray of books out of the trunk.
With the damage done, Alex waved the young man off. “Be careful. Carry the rack off to the side and gently place it down. Somewhere dry. We’ll want photos of that tray and books.”
Vadim sighed heavily and lumbered off with his burden.
Alex shook his head and watched after him.
“He was right,” Igor said, drawing back Alex’s attention.
Alex stepped closer and shone his light into the trunk’s depths. The next layer held similar books, but the middle row was taken up by a nine-volume set of tomes. Alex noted the titles on their spines.
“My God, it’s a complete series ofHistoriesby Herodotus.” Alex gaped at the Greek books from the fifth centuryB.C.E. “No intact collection has ever been found. I wager this set is older than the Codex A at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence. That copy has served as the model for most modern translations.”
“But why is that fourth book in the series the only one covered in gold leaf?”
Alex frowned. It was puzzling. All nine volumes were leatherbound,but the fourth in the series was adorned with gold. Its reflective shine must have caught Vadim’s attention.
Unable to stop himself, Alex reached a finger and carefully slipped the book free. Equally curious, Igor stepped closer, raising no objection. As Alex pulled the volume out, something snapped inside the trunk, loud enough to make the men jolt back.
A breath later, a thunderous boom shook the space.
Alex lost his footing. “What’s happenin—”
Igor grabbed him around the waist and shouldered him out the vault door, all but carrying him. Once across the threshold, Igor leaped headlong with Alex as the entire room collapsed behind them.
Behind Igor’s shoulder, Alex caught a glimpse of Vadim, half-turned in their direction. Then he and the others were gone, crushed under a thunderous rockfall of bricks and stone.
Outside, a wall of dust swept the two sprawled men, blinding and choking them.
Alex gasped, struggling to understand.
Igor explained, waving away the dust and helping Alex up. “The chamber... it must’ve been booby-trapped.”
“But why?” Alex moaned.
The two staggered closer to the ruins of the doorway. For several minutes, they called and shouted, but Alex knew it was futile. Even hope could not withstand the weight of that collapse. It was plain that there could be no survivors under the tonnage of rock.
More rumblings—likely aftershocks—continued, threatening further rockfalls.
Igor pulled Alex away and pointed up. “We can’t stay here.”
2:07P.M.
Fleeing the death behind him, Alex clambered up the stone steps carved out of the city’s bedrock. He clutched what he could save to his chest. His heart pounded against the flaking gold-leaf cover of the book that he had rescued, the fourth volume of Herodotus’sHistories.
He had dropped the Greek text after being thrown free of the collapse, but he had recovered it from the floor. He had briefly inspected it, shaking dust from its pages, wiping silt from its gilded cover. It was only then that he had spotted something that he still struggled to understand.
Despite that, one thing was certain.
“I can’t let this be lost...” he gasped out to the darkness, casting the beam of his helmet’s lamp up the spiraling staircase.
“Let me carry the book for you, Monsignor,” Igor offered, raising an arm. “We still have a long way to climb.”
