A week later, Kevin picked Jon up at Leonardo da Vinci Airport, and they drove into Rome over the same route as the ancient Ostian Way, the final road that the much-traveled apostle Paul had used on his way to execution. About a mile before they reached the Ostian Gate, Kevin pulled his car off to the right side of the road and parked in front of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

“Well, there it is, Jon, the Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura,” Kevin said with a grin. “The scene of the crime.”

“Oh, thanks for that vote of confidence, Kevin.”

“I assumed you’d want to get the lay of the land—even before getting settled in.”

“You’ve got it.”

They walked into the colonnaded forecourt of the basilica. There, in the midst of a well-clipped lawn guarded by two sentinel palm trees, stood a great stone statue of the apostle Paul, the sword of the Spirit in his right hand.

“Much too old and much too bearded,” Jon commented. “Why do so many artists and sculptors get Paul wrong? He couldn’t have been more than around fifty-five or sixty at the time of his death—not this aged geezer. And he had only a pointed, trimmed gray beard, not those cascades of hair hanging down from his chin.”

“You’re sure of all that? You knew him well?”

“I did. We studied together in Jerusalem.” Jon smiled, then added, “All the earliest images of Paul in Eastern and Western art—even the catacombs here—show the fellow I described, not this one.”

“And of course, you Lutherans know more about Paul than us Catholics, who are fixated on Peter, right?”

“Guilty as charged!” Jon was glad that they could continue their banter despite Sullivan’s obvious concerns about Jon’s mission.

When they’d met at Johns Hopkins years ago, Kevin Sullivan had been a brilliant but bigoted student who was quite sure all Protestants were destined for hell and that salvation was impossible outside of the Roman Catholic church. For his part, Jon, the son of a Lutheran pastor in Hannibal, Missouri, was equally sure that Martin Luther had saved Christianity from the clutches of an apostate papacy. They’d spent many an evening in Baltimore hauling out theological ammunition and firing at each other, Jon ticking off all the points where he thought Catholicism had veered away from biblical doctrine while Kevin countered that Protestants wouldn’t have the Bible in the first place were it not for Catholics.

As they matured, however, each had moved from a right-wing conservatism to a centrist, more ecumenical stance. They quickly buried the religious hatchet, knowing that the true struggle was not Catholicism versus Protestantism, but Christianity versus a non-Christian world. In fact, for many years now, Jon and Kevin had been the closest of friends.

As they walked the perimeter of the forecourt and sauntered into the great sanctuary, Kevin gave a running commentary. “Okay, Jon, you know the background here. The site goes back all the way to Constantine and even earlier. But why, do you suppose, the emperor built the original basilica specifically here?”

“Eusebius might have told him. His Church History tells of an elder in the early Roman church in the 200s, a fellow named Gaius, who could point out the very spot on the Ostian Way where Paul was beheaded and buried—here!”

Sullivan nodded. “It still gives me a thrill. We’re standing at the very place where Second Acts ends. But now, fast-forward twenty centuries to the year 2000—Rome’s Jubilee year. Pilgrims came here from all over the world, but when they visited this basilica, they raised a howl of protests because they couldn’t get any access to Paul’s tomb under the high altar. And so Vatican archaeologists started digging here from 2002 to 2006, exposing what we’ll see in a moment under glass at the eastern end of this long sanctuary.”

“Right. I remember the international sensation when that Vatican archaeologist—what was his name?”

“Giorgio Filippi.”

“Right. I remember when Filippi announced that they had probably discovered the very tomb of St. Paul in a crypt under the high altar. Many of my Protestant colleagues were skeptical, of course, but Filippi’s claim had a lot going for it, including that marble slab over the crypt with the Latin inscription—PAULO APOSTOLO MARTYRO.”

“To Paul, apostle and martyr indeed. And while the earlier basilicas erected here were oriented to the west, this latest version looks to the east, yet all of them pivoted about this central shrine.”

“How come we haven’t heard a word about Paul’s tomb since then, Kev, not a word? Why haven’t they opened the sarcophagus to see if Paul’s remains are actually inside? I thought they would for sure in 2008–09—the so-called Year of St. Paul . . .”

“Well, the archpriest here is Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, and he’d have to give his permission first. But he hasn’t done so, at least not yet. I don’t know why. Maybe because many Italians would be horrified at any plan to examine the possible skeleton of St. Paul—if it’s inside. And yet this same wonderful breed of people can happily view the mummy of St. Francis encased in the glass altar at Assisi. Go figure!”

Now they had reached the end of the long colonnaded sanctuary, where the high altar dominated the basilica. Just below it were steps leading down to the crypt area. Along with a column of visitors, Jon and Kevin descended the stone staircase. There, behind a metal latticework screen, they saw the Vatican excavations under a slab of glass and one side of the actual sarcophagus exposed. Since photographs were permitted, Jon pulled out his small, slim Nikon and took a long series of shots—especially of the partially cleared lid above the exposed side of the sarcophagus. He had to wait his turn at times, since pilgrims were kneeling in front of the tomb and offering prayers.

Gathering in as much as possible, Jon spied a threshold at the opposite end of the excavation pit with a small access door. Made of simple crossed bars, the door seemed to have only a simple latch, not a lock. The passageway behind it was too dark to discern, but flash photography would take care of that. In fact, Jon’s camera was on a photography marathon, focusing on details large and small. All the while, Sullivan easily guessed what Jon might be up to but simply stood back and let him compound his own folly.

Jon thought that the passageway from the crypt must have led to a similar access door near the high altar, and his hunch was confirmed when he emerged from the crypt and found such a door directly in line with the access door inside the crypt. It also had just a latch, not a lock. More photographs.

Finally he said, “I have everything I need, Kevin. Let’s go check the visitor’s center.”

They walked over to the mini emporium at the south transept, where the faithful could purchase candles, rosaries, crucifixes and crosses of all kinds, imitation icons, plaster saints, and a multitude of guidebooks to Rome’s holy places. Like the tourist pilgrims around them, Jon purchased several color postcards as well as a booklet on the history of the basilica. On the wall over the cash register, there was a large plaster replica of the lid of Paul’s putative sarcophagus, complete with the holes through which pilgrims used to drop their written petitions and treasures centuries earlier—holes now mortared in.

The lid held a special fascination for Jon, and he photographed it from various angles. Later, he would compare the photos with his earlier shots of the real thing to determine if it were a faithful replica. Certainly the Latin phrase PAULO APOSTOLO MARTYRO seemed to shout that this was indeed St. Paul’s sarcophagus.

Just before they left the basilica, Jon remembered to pluck one of its flyers out of the tract rack. He wanted to know the basilica’s hours of admission.

The “hotel” where Jon was to stay for his three days in Rome was Kevin’s apartment on the Janiculum Hill with its great view of the Eternal City. That evening they indulged a bit at Kevin’s favorite restaurant on the Via Veneto in view of the dangers implied in the famed adage, “All work and no play . . .” But la dolce vita it was not, just a modest Italian dinner that began with pasta and minestrone and then proceeded through the next four courses, all nicely lubricated with Chianti.

After returning to Kevin’s apartment, their discussion turned to options other than the one Jon seemed to be pursuing.

“Why don’t you involve the Holy Father in this project?” Kevin wondered. “You know how much he admires you, Jon, and just a word of approval from Benedict would end Cardinal Andrea’s indecision in the matter. Your plan would then be lawful—even blessed by the church—and anything you found inside Paul’s tomb would be regarded as valid and aboveboard. But you know well enough how ugly things could turn out if you do it your way.”

Jon said nothing for some moments. He sat there, staring at the thousand pinpoints of light below that were Rome. Then he nodded. “You’re quite right, Kevin. If I were going to an alternate plan, that one would be the best option—far and away the best option. So why don’t I go that route? Several reasons. Benedict could, of course, say no—we really have no assurance that he’d say yes. And then our project—sorry, my project—fails. I’d never go against the pope’s decision on this. And is it really fair to Benedict to ask him to make such a decision? I think not. Furthermore, I could well come up with no results whatever—meaning that St. Paul is not inside that sarcophagus—and that could be embarrassing to the Vatican and disillusioning to pilgrims. Do I have the right to take away the object of their spiritual quest?”

“Nicely thought out, Jon. But what if you do discover St. Paul inside that sarcophagus? The clandestine nature of your discovery would certainly reduce its credibility, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it certainly could. And that’s why I would never have done this. You and I would visit Benedict, privately inform him of the great news, and then Vatican archaeologists could continue their work and make ‘the discovery.’ And think how nicely that would support the close of Second Acts.”

“Fair enough. But what if you—not St. Paul—were discovered ‘in the act of tomb desecration,’ as the tabloids might banner it? Then what?”

“I don’t really have a good answer there, Kevin. Possibly I’d have something of a ruined career after that. Or possibly not—once my motive was explained, namely, my desperation to find some material link to the close of Second Acts since the codex had been stolen. Besides, there’ll be no desecration or damage to the tomb whatever.”

Neither said anything for some time. Finally Jon spoke. “If all else fails, maybe I can get Benedict XVI to write me a letter of recommendation so I can get a new job somewhere.”

On that inanity, they laughed and called it a day.

The next morning, Kevin drove Jon to a builder’s supply store in western Rome so that he could, inexplicably, purchase overalls and—even more inexplicably—a dark green plastic tarpaulin. Then they returned for another visit to St. Paul Outside the Walls, where Jon spent several hours watching the tourists between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., noting when they were crowding into the basilica or leaving it comparatively empty. He also looked for any surveillance cameras inside the sanctuary and, in particular, where and when guards who patrolled the premises passed by the crypt on their appointed rounds.

At Kevin’s place that evening, Jon unpacked the special objects he had shipped inside his checked luggage on the flight to Rome. He had thought of taking the items as carry-ons, but their very exotic nature might have provoked too many questions at the security lines. Mercifully, his baggage had arrived with him, which seemed to be quite unusual lately on the world’s airlines.

First, he unpacked something that looked like a small, silvery pistol. “No, it’s not a firearm,” he said in answer to Kevin’s raised eyebrows. “It’s a Stryker high-speed surgical drill.” He pulled its trigger, and at 4,000 rpm, it emitted only a soft high-frequency sound similar to a muffled dentist’s drill. “Batteries are fully charged, and they can keep it going for at least a half hour. It even has a vacuum on it to suck up debris.”

Kevin said nothing. He simply shook his head in continuing dismay.

Next, Jon opened a small plastic case that held a drill bit with a diamond-edged cutting head less than an inch in diameter. “This one loves to eat mortar,” he said.

Finally he hauled out a thin metal wand to which were affixed two tiny strobe lights and two miniature digital cameras, with battery power supply inside the wand and all controls in the handle at its top. “Are you getting the picture, Kev?”

He cupped his chin in hand and nodded slowly.

“I got the idea from the Italian archaeologists who explore the Etruscan tombs in Tuscany. There are so many up there that they excavate only those with interesting contents. And how can they tell which those might be? They bore a hole at the top of their circular ceilings and take flash photos by lowering something like this inside. Only our model here is smaller and much more sophisticated. We might even be able to produce three-dimensional images by using the two cameras.”

“Not to burst your bubble, Jon, but I doubt that your gadget will penetrate solid marble very quickly, unless you want to spend an hour or two drilling away.”

“I won’t penetrate the marble. I plan to use one of the holes already made in the lid but mortared over. This drill should cut it almost like butter. I already promised you that I’d destroy nothing at all in the process. It’s going to be quick, painless surgery.”

“I only hope you’re right. In fact, I only pray that you’re right. And please—because of my special relationship with the Holy Father—I never helped you at all in this escapade, right? And if you’re caught, I don’t even know you.” Sullivan stopped and they both chuckled. Since Kevin had originally introduced his friend to the pope, both knew how ridiculous that proposal was. “Okay, then,” he went on, “if you are caught, get me on your cell phone. I’ll have been ‘in the neighborhood’ and will ‘rush over to help my friend’ and maybe try to get his tail out of jail if it comes to that.”

“Fair enough, Kevin. I couldn’t ask for more.”

Shortly before noon the next day, they were driving back to the basilica of St. Paul. “You look just great in that Italian repairman’s getup, Jon,” Sullivan said. “Didn’t I see you and Mario on Nintendo?”

Jon merely smiled, trying to steel himself for the peril ahead.

“But why in the world you would want to choose the busiest time of the day for your escapade is quite beyond me.”

“Noon isn’t the busiest—tourists will be leaving for restaurants—and I couldn’t bring it off if the place were nearly empty.”

“Why not? That’s when I would have done it.”

“Wrong. Same number of guards then, but fewer things to distract them . . . greater chance of detection. Tourists are my protection.”

At the basilica, Sullivan parked his Fiat near a service door in the rear and extended his hand to Jon. “God go with you, you crazy fool! I’ll be waiting out here, praying for a miracle but with my cell phone handy.”

“See you here in fifteen to twenty minutes, Kev.”

Jon hoisted his gear, walked up to the service door, and passed through it without challenge. At a very deliberate pace so that he would not attract attention and yet arrive at the crypt exactly at 11:59 a.m., Jon walked through the ranks of pilgrims in line to see the crypt and approached the railing surrounding it. It was 11:58—a minute too early—but no real problem. He slowly opened his toolbox and looked around for guards. Thank goodness noon was also the time for the changing of those guards.

A great boom seemed to explode inside the sanctuary. Although it was merely the Janiculum cannon doing its thing as it did at noon each day, the tourists were sufficiently startled for Jon to make his move. He hauled out his dark green tarpaulin and started spreading it over the glass ceiling of the crypt. “Mi scuzi! Per favore, mi scuzi!” Jon said in his best Italian accent, while nudging several pilgrims aside in the process. At the center of the tarp now covering the glass, he placed a large sign in both Italian and English:

CHIUSO PER QUINDICI MINUTI

CLOSED FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES

Then he went to the small doorway near the side of the high altar and tried the door. It refused to open. Was it locked? With prayer and a stronger tug, it opened at last. He crawled through and emerged inside the crypt. Quickly he opened his tool kit, hauled out the drill, and set it to work on his target, which was the most centrally located mortar-filled hole in the lid.

The drill purred away without making the quick progress Jon had counted on. He put more pressure on the drill. This reduced the rpm but the drill seemed to start making some penetration. Still, no breakthrough. The mortar they used centuries ago was pretty good after all, he mused. The drilling seemed to go on for endless minutes.

This was all taking too long, he realized. He pushed harder and harder, yet the material refused to yield. His concerns had become worry, and worry was now bordering on panic. He’d have to abandon his wild scheme, cut his losses, and head out ASAP. Yes, common sense dictated that he do just that. After one final push, it would be the end.

Suddenly the drill broke through. It would instantly have crashed into the lid of the sarcophagus had not Jon’s gloved left hand been waiting to cushion the blow. Trembling with joyful relief, Jon pulled the drill out and replaced it with his photo wand. It just fit into the orifice. He lowered it exactly one foot down, then turned on the strobes and started tripping the camera shutters. He twirled the wand forty-five degrees and did the same, then the next forty-five degrees, and so on until he had made a complete circle.

Next he lowered the wand nine inches further and repeated the process. He thought briefly of trying a third round but canceled the concept in the name of prudence. He quickly removed the photo wand and retrieved all his gear. As a final touch, he plugged the hole in the lid with color-matched hardening clay. Then he crawled back out of the crypt. He emerged through the door at the end of the passageway and could finally stand up again. Then his heart almost failed. One of the basilica guards was standing there, looking at him with a great frown.

“Buon giorno!” Jon said amiably, retrieving his wits. He closed the little door, ignored the guard, and walked over to the railing around the crypt, where he removed the sign and the tarp. Then he strolled casually but methodically back to the service door, wondering whether the guard was following him. But he dared not look backward. That would have been too obvious a tip-off.

When he reached the service door, Jon was sure brawny hands were about to seize him by the very scruff of his neck. But no. Thank the good Lord, his bluff had been successful.

He climbed into Kevin’s Fiat and they drove off. Jon looked at his watch. Only nineteen minutes had elapsed since they’d arrived. To Jon it had seemed more like nineteen hours.

“Do you mean to say the guard just stood there, looking at you?” Kevin asked while driving through the Ostian Gate on their way back to the Janiculum. “I find that a little hard to believe.”

“I don’t blame you. I was lucky. But it’s all in appearances, Kev, appearances. To that guard, I was just one of the many handymen tending the place. He probably sees dozens like me every day.”

“But how did you ever have the . . . the guts to pull off something like this? When you put on those duds, you must have known something as serendipitous as this could happen.”

“I got the idea from something that happened years ago when I was a freshman at Harvard. One afternoon, some students—dressed like street construction workers—brought a huge air compressor onto the corner where Mass Avenue runs into Harvard Square. They fired up the compressor, and then—with three jackhammers roaring at the same time—they started blasting away at Massachusetts Avenue, tearing up the pavement and stacking huge pieces of asphalt onto the curb. The police quickly came, of course, but what did they do? They carefully directed traffic around the construction area so the ‘city workers’ could get their job done!”

Kevin was laughing so hard, he had to pull over to the curb. Finally he asked, “What did they ever do to those pranksters?”

“Not a darn thing. After a half hour of this, they simply left the scene—air compressor, jackhammers, and all, which they had ‘borrowed’ from a university construction site.”

“They never caught them?”

“Never.”

Kevin shook his head, incredulous.

“See,” Jon said, “like I said, it’s all in the appearances, Kev.”

“Maybe it was more like you were Daniel, and the Lord himself closed the mouths of the lions.”

“Yeah, maybe so.”

That evening, they prepared to upload Jon’s precious photographs. As he attached each camera to USB cables connected to his laptop, Jon was cautious—trying to keep his own hopes in check more than to convince his friend. “You realize, Kevin, that there are plenty of things that can go wrong here. For one, we could have technical failure with one or both cameras—not the strobes, since I saw the flashing—but if the remote shutter controls failed, we’d have nothing. That’s unlikely, but not impossible. Or the camera lenses might have missed their target because I angled them wrong—although I tried hard to get the geometry straight. Or even with all the technical stuff working perfectly, there might well be nothing inside, no target.”

Kevin shook his head. “Why so negative? I’m sure there must be something inside the tomb.”

“Well, I suppose there probably are bones inside, but they might not be St. Paul’s.”

“But how would you ever know that?”

“Simple. If the skull were attached to the neck bones, then it couldn’t be St. Paul because we know he was beheaded.”

“Oh . . . of course.” With an impish grin, Kevin asked, “Is that all?”

“Well, there is one more possibility,” Jon admitted. “There’s a remote chance that we have the photos of . . . the real McCoy. Sorry, that’s a dumb phrase for something as extraordinary and sacred as this, but you know what I mean.”

“Right.”

Jon’s hand was actually trembling as he turned on his laptop. Why did the booting up take so long? Finally his screen came alive with all its icons. He double-clicked on his favorite photo-imaging program, clicked the Import button for camera #1 at the one-foot level, and waited for the images to appear. They arrived, one by one, with excruciating slowness, yet all were—well, not blank, but showing only the gray marble interior of the sarcophagus. After the eight 45-degree-angle photographs had made a complete circuit, Jon slapped his hand on the table and muttered, “Nothing! Just the same drab interior walls of the tomb. Either there’s nothing inside or my lens angles were wrong.”

“Well, try camera two, for goodness’ sake!” Kevin advised.

“Camera two? Oh yes, of course.”

Jon shook off his disappointment and returned to his laptop. The uploads from the second camera started appearing on the screen, but with the same disappointing results: nothing but shots of the interior wall. Jon clapped both hands over his eyes in dejection.

“Jon, look!” Kevin yelled. Photo number four from the second camera was coming onto the screen. It showed the top of something that was difficult to make out, but it was most definitely not part of the walls.

“Yessss!” Jon exploded. “The hole was near the eastern edge of the sarcophagus, and I aimed the wand there first. Now we’re getting the views across to the other side. And just look at seven o’clock!”

“Wow!” Kevin enthused, looking over Jon’s shoulder. “Nine o’clock is even better!” Both angles showed bones at the base of each view.

Then there were indrawn breaths: Eleven o’clock showed the top half of a human skull.

Both were silent for some time, savoring the moment. Finally Jon said, “The next series, which was taken nine inches lower, should be even better.”

Indeed, this became the series that Jon knew could make history. Both cameras clearly showed the image of a skeletal figure, ranging in height—they estimated—between five-foot-five and five-foot-eight. A shock of what looked to be salt-and-pepper-shaded hair—much on the sides, little on top—was still attached to the skull. And unless this was wishful viewing, there seemed to be a break in the neck vertebrae five and six beneath the skull.

“What do you think, Jon? Do we have a gap there or not?”

“It’s tough to tell at this point. We’ve got to avoid letting any bias color our results. In any case, we won’t be able to determine that until we enlarge the photos. Then again, if the people who buried this person pushed the head back into position, we may never know, short of a real autopsy.”

Suddenly Kevin said, “No, Jon. You’re wrong. This . . . this is St. Paul.” He knelt down, crossed himself, and took several trembling breaths, clearly overcome.

“Easy, man. How can you be so sure?”

He wiped his eyes. “Look at those pieces of purple fabric still attached to one of the ribs!”

“What?”

“And remember how Second Acts closes? ‘On his breast we placed a small cross of wood, the emblem of what has become the center of everything he preached and taught.’” Kevin stood and pointed at the latest image on Jon’s laptop. “Look closely. Look at that rib cage . . .”

Jon squinted. There it lay, on the sternum: the image of an ancient cross made of darker material that contrasted with the gray of the ribs.