The Moses Virus Read online

  “Then,” Tom stated, “are you telling me that this is the work of the Church?”

  “It’s the only group I know that cares this much about secrecy and could get away with something like this,” said Pulesi.

  “When was this lab in operation?”

  “We think the lab was built decades ago, perhaps during the Second World War. I was hoping that you might shed some light on the situation.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. It’s the first I’m hearing of it.”

  “Do you think Dr. Brown knew it was there?”

  “As far as I know, his work involved hunting for the underground rooms of Nero’s palace. It sounds as if he stumbled on the laboratory, as you call it, and died as a result.”

  “I see,” Pulesi replied. “A tragic accident.”

  Tom asked, “You mentioned a highly toxic virus. But in an abandoned laboratory, empty for decades, wouldn’t a virus die?”

  Pulesi said, “We know now that traces of the virus were absorbed by a green moss whose primitive structure incubated the virus, keeping it alive. The odds of this happening are infinitesimal, but it did happen.”

  “Wouldn’t that moss be excessively dangerous?”

  “We’ve had crews scouring that area around the clock. That laboratory is spotless. We have retained a few minute samples of the virus residing in the moss, which are being analyzed under extremely rigorous conditions.”

  “When will you have any more information?”

  “We are working closely with our European and American counterparts to unravel this mystery.”

  “What group in the United States do you work with?” asked Tom.

  Pulesi replied, “The Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta. Do you know anyone there?”

  “No,” said Tom, “I’m just curious.”

  O’Boyle was right, Tom thought. The information about the virus is being circulated, and news of it will leak out.

  “I’m sure you understand this matter is highly confidential. Anyone gaining possession of a virus as toxic and contagious as this could be extremely dangerous.”

  Tom asked, “Just how dangerous is this virus?”

  Pulesi was quiet for a few seconds, perhaps debating with himself how much to reveal. Then he continued. “The virus works faster and, like the Spanish flu virus, it is particularly lethal for younger, healthier people.”

  Tom interrupted. “But why are younger people singled out?”

  “The research the CDC has done on the Spanish flu shows that deaths were most likely caused by cytokine storms.”

  “What in the world is that?” Tom asked.

  “When your immune system fights pathogens, cytokines signal your immune cells to travel to the site of the infection. Normally your body keeps this process under control, but, when the immune system encounters a new and highly dangerous invader, there is an exaggerated response called a cytokine storm.

  “If the ‘storm’ occurs in the lungs, then fluids and immune cells accumulate, blocking off the airways, resulting in death. Ironically, a healthy immune system—as found in younger people—becomes a liability since the cytokine storm is more powerful and therefore more lethal. The Spanish flu killed far more young people than anyone expected. This virus is similar to the Spanish flu in this way. There’s more, however.”

  “What do you mean, ‘There’s more’?” asked Tom.

  Pulesi said, “Every person who gets the virus spreads it to everyone he or she meets. The number affected grows geometrically. In the case of the Spanish flu, the public estimate of 50 million dead may in fact have been as high as 90 million—we just don’t know. Think about that today—with airplane travel and with a more lethal disease as well.”

  “I get it,” Tom said slowly. “I understand.”

  “Let me give you my cell phone number,” Pulesi offered. “To the extent you can, please keep me informed about any developments, and I will do the same.” As he said this, Tom admitted to himself that he had no intention of committing to tell Pulesi what he might find out.

  “One more thing,” Pulesi said. “We’ve heard rumors—very recently—that there is a considerable supply of the virus, somewhere.”

  “Can you tell me where these rumors are coming from?” asked Tom.

  “I’m sorry,” Pulesi replied, “I’ve said enough.”

  Tom asked, “If your group has scoured the underground lab, and destroyed what you found, wouldn’t that mean there’d be no supply of the virus left?”

  “Apart from what we are testing, we’ve destroyed all other minute traces that survived. The rumors have to do with a substantial supply which exists and is hidden somewhere. Certainly there is equipment in the lab designed to create large amounts. While the virus supply may have been manufactured and once stored in the lab, I can assure you that there is no virus in the underground lab. Whoever is eager to find it must look elsewhere.”

  Pulesi let this statement sink in, then continued, “You may be contacted or followed or even threatened. I hope not, but if you should be, please let me know at once. We are here to help.”

  “Threatened?” Tom asked.

  “Threatened,” Pulesi answered. “I can think of a half dozen groups of different nationalities that would do anything to possess a supply of deadly virus. Unfortunately, the newspapers present you as the only person who was present at the disaster and who, therefore, may know something.”

  Tom froze. O’Boyle had hinted that Tom was in jeopardy, and Pulesi had just come out and declared Tom’s vulnerability. Tom felt like he was standing on a precipice looking down at a dangerous fall in front of him, alone, with no one to help him. And then, oddly, he was being offered assistance from an Italian bureaucrat with some compassion in his voice. “Dr. Pulesi—thank you for your offer. I’ll keep in touch with what happens.” With this they ended their conversation.

  Pulesi walked Tom to the front entry of the building. They shook hands, and Tom left. Outside, in bright sunshine, he spotted an empty taxi, hailed it and within twenty minutes, a little after 10:30 a.m., he was walking up the front steps of the American Academy to Caroline’s office.

  Caroline greeted Tom and handed him the keys to her Lancia, telling him it was parked in front of her house next door. “The newspaper reports have turned ugly,” Caroline said to Tom. “Reporters are now speculating that the Italian government has something to hide.”

  Tom replied, “That’s the way I read it this morning. I’ve gotten dozens of e-mail requests for information. They’re grasping at straws.”

  “At least we were able to calm down the Bowens. We agreed to set up a scholarship in Eric’s name at Brown. This afternoon, they’ll be flying back to New York with his ashes and personal effects.”

  “The scholarship’s a great solution.”

  “By the way, how’d your visit go at the Swiss Institute?”

  “It was interesting, but didn’t reveal much. I confirmed that in 1943 Lily Ross Taylor was staying at the Institute after the Academy closed, and that a powerful cardinal, Paolo Visconti, asked to visit the Swiss Institute and the American Academy as well.”

  “The American Academy?” Caroline asked, surprised. “Now I’ve heard everything.”

  “This is your morning for surprises, then. Visconti insisted on seeing the Academy, but specifically the cryptoporticus, which he and his colleague spent time visiting alone.”

  “Cryptoporticus? I wonder why.” Caroline thought for a moment. “It’s a huge space, part of it being the lower floors of the library. The rest—in 1943, anyway—was filled with trunks, bicycles, books, archaeological artifacts from some of the Academy’s excavations, the photographic collection—in short, anything that anyone wanted to store until their next visit.”

  “Is it self-contained?”

  “Almost entirely. Wait a
minute. Maybe the cryptoporticus was not the cardinal’s objective. Maybe it was Trajan’s aqueduct. There would have been an old iron grate on the floor of the cryptoporticus leading to the aqueduct.”

  Trajan’s aqueduct, or the Aqua Traiana, was finished around AD 112. It was the last great aqueduct to be built in Imperial Rome. It entered Rome at the Janiculum Hill, ran under what was now the Academy’s Main Building, then down the hill, across the Tiber—on a special bridge—and underground again to the Baths of Trajan. It was rediscovered when the building was being constructed in 1913–1914.

  Tom paused, trying to picture the Roman Forum. Then he remembered—Trajan had had his public baths built over the only remaining section of Nero’s Golden House. Precisely, he thought, where Doc’s underground passageway in the Roman Forum led.

  Caroline, oblivious to Tom’s silence, said, “About a year ago, the Rome gas company was digging in the street outside the Academy and broke into the aqueduct. This brought the gas company’s work to a complete halt while our archaeologists, including Doc, documented the aqueduct. I remember that he was excited and became especially involved in all of this.”

  “I’d like to take a look if that’s possible.”

  “That’s easy to arrange. I’ll have Fabio, the head of our work crew, show you around. He knows all the nooks and crannies.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said, “but I’d rather explore it myself.”

  “Okay. Here,” she said reaching into her desk for a flashlight, “You’ll need this—it’s dark down there. I’ll have him open the grate. There’s an iron ladder beneath the grate that leads down to the floor of the aqueduct.” Then, as an afterthought, Caroline smiled and said, “Oh, by the way, watch out for the killer mosquitoes.”

  “Mosquitoes?” Tom asked.

  “A few years ago, before the recent renovation, an open grate covered the entrance to the aqueduct. The Academy that summer was overrun by hordes of vicious mosquitoes. No one could find out where they were coming from until Fabio saw them flying up through the grate leading to the aqueduct. It turned out they were breeding in a small pool of stagnant water trapped by debris from construction at the Norwegian Academy farther down the hill.”

  “Should I be worried?” Tom asked.

  “Not at all! I was just joking with you—they’ve been gone for years, and the grate’s been replaced by a solid cover. I’ll call Fabio.” Caroline picked up the phone, then paused. “You know,” she added to Tom, “if you want to go exploring down in the aqueduct and then drive to Tivoli for your lunch with Belagri, I recommend you wear a pair of our workers’ overalls. That way you won’t get your street clothes messed up.”

  Tom was about to say that he’d skip the overalls, then guessed that Caroline might be making a good point. He nodded his agreement, and Caroline called Fabio.

  Fabio was waiting at the grate on the floor of the cryptoporticus when Tom arrived. He was wearing the blue bibbed overalls everyone on the Academy’s main workforce used as a uniform. He carried a crowbar, flashlight, and had an extra pair of blue overalls for Tom.

  Fabio pried the grate open with the crowbar, its rusted hinges squealing. Tom could see the iron ladder going down a further twenty feet.

  “I will wait for you.”

  “No need,” Tom said. “I may be awhile. May I have the crowbar?”

  Fabio was a bit surprised, but handed it over. Tom thanked him again, telling him he’d return it when he was finished. Fabio waited until Tom climbed down the ladder, then left.

  At the bottom, Tom turned on his flashlight. He was on a stone floor under a vaulted ceiling in the aqueduct that had once carried one of Rome’s largest supplies of water.

  The aqueduct was large enough for Tom to stand upright, and the tunnel itself could accommodate just barely two men walking abreast. He was struck by the silence in the tunnel. As he began to walk, even his footsteps seemed to be muffled. The air was close and humid. After twenty yards or so, the floor of the aqueduct began to tip downward to follow the slope of the Janiculum Hill to the Tiber.

  Tom heard scuffling sounds. He stopped. His flashlight picked up nothing unusual. He started to walk again. He heard more scuffling. This time, his light shone on a half dozen pairs of eyes staring at him. Rats. Tom lunged toward them, and they scattered off down the aqueduct.

  Tom wondered what he should be looking for. If Cardinal Visconti had been interested in hiding something, he certainly wouldn’t leave it on the floor of the aqueduct. The sides were smooth, as was the ceiling.

  The floor of the aqueduct continued to pitch downward. Tom walked carefully on the sloped pitch. Nothing seemed out of place. Was this a fool’s errand? he asked himself. He stopped. Visconti needed a place to hide something valuable. Then it came to Tom—there must be a room whose entrance would be disguised.

  Tom moved to the edge of the aqueduct and shone the light along the wall. He stared in the direction of the beam. There was no aberration in the surface. He crossed to the other side of the aqueduct and shone the light on that wall’s surface. Nothing.

  Tom walked forward twenty feet and repeated the same procedure. On the third try, he saw a slight bulge in the wall. He walked to that spot. He spotted what looked like crumbling plaster on the wall to his right. When he shone his light at the area, it became clear that a patch on the wall was not made of the same material as the rest. He put the flashlight on the floor of the aqueduct far enough away to light the patch on the wall. Then he lifted his crowbar and chipped at the wall. Little by little, he pried the plaster away until a hole the size of a basketball revealed a wood surface beyond.

  Tom began attacking the surface plaster in earnest. Chunks began to fall on the floor of the aqueduct as the outlines of a door emerged. Within twenty minutes of tough work, he uncovered a wooden door. Tom pushed the door, which was not locked, and it swung inward with a loud creak, revealing a small room.

  When Tom examined the door, he found that it was much heavier than normal. While it appeared to be made of wood, it was a steel door covered with a wood veneer. And when the door closed, the steel fitted tightly in the door jamb.

  The room, about seven feet high and ten feet deep and wide, had been hollowed out of the earth, and then lined with steel and covered with wood. The workmanship was simple but impressive. On the side of the room farthest from the aqueduct there was a small, marble-topped table covered in dust. Just above the table, on the wall, there was what appeared to be a compartment covered by a sliding wood panel. The compartment, carved into the wall, was about as big as a large safe-deposit box. The panel was warped, and Tom had some difficulty opening it. When he had it half open, he shown the flashlight inside. Empty.

  This must have been where Visconti hid the virus, Tom thought. When O’Boyle retrieved it, he must have had the wall plastered over. It all makes sense.

  Tom closed the door to the secret room. Then he turned and began to walk back toward the ladder. Retracing his steps uphill was hard work. He found the ladder and climbed back up into the cryptoporticus. Fabio was waiting for him, and he replaced the cover over the opening to the aqueduct.

  It was getting late and Tom needed to be on his way to the Belagri lunch. He left a message with Lucia for Caroline, removed his plaster dust–covered overalls, washed his hands, and was pleased that his street clothes looked to be in reasonable shape. He went to the main entrance of the Academy and walked to the white Lancia parked in front of Caroline’s house. He got into it, started the engine, and drove off.

  Once on the autostrada, Tom went over what he knew about the tragedy in the Roman Forum. He kept coming back to Doc, who certainly knew about the Trajan aqueduct nearly a year before his ill-fated excavation. His dig was near Trajan’s Baths. Could Doc have made the connection between the two? Maybe, maybe not.

  Tom also knew that Doc and Lily Ross Taylor had spent many years on the Bryn Mawr campus.
Surely their common ties to the American Academy had made them friends. Might Lily have told Doc about meeting Visconti? Did Lily even know about Visconti’s interest in the Trajan aqueduct? Far too much was still unknown to make valid connections.

  The traffic out of Rome was light, so he had no trouble navigating his way to the small town of Tivoli, which was located slightly to the north of Rome and twenty miles to the east. For two thousand years, Tivoli has been a favorite place for wealthy Romans to escape the heat of the Roman summer.

  Tivoli’s attractions were its clean air and beautiful location on the slopes of the Tiburtini Hills. In addition, there are sulfur springs and the waterfalls of the Aniene River—which Emperor Augustus said had cured him of insomnia. Hadrian’s Villa is four miles southwest of Tivoli. It was built between AD 118 and 134 by Emperor Hadrian. The grounds consisted of 300 acres, filled with full-scale reproductions of the emperor’s favorite buildings from Greece and Egypt—now mostly ruins.

  Tom arrived at Hadrian’s Villa shortly before 1 p.m., the time Crystal had specified for lunch at the Hotel Adriano restaurant. He parked in the area reserved for visitors to Hadrian’s Villa and was surprised that there was only one tourist bus and a handful of cars. Tom thought it odd that one of the most famous Roman sites was so little visited. On the other hand, he guessed, there was little left that is not in ruins.

  As he walked from the parking area along a line of huge cypress trees, Tom guessed they might be more than fifty feet high. The Hotel Adriano was located on the way into the grounds of Hadrian’s Villa. He could see under the trees that surrounded the hotel and restaurant that there were a number of tables spaced around with enough room so that conversations at one table need not be overheard by those at nearby tables.

  On the far side of the garden, at the farthest point from the hotel itself, three people were already sitting at a large table—two men and a strikingly attractive blond woman whom Tom recognized as Crystal Close. And, Tom noted, Crystal was wearing a bright, lemon-colored dress. She was the woman in yellow.