The Tower by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

mouth until then. He turned to his companion and said in dialect: ‘There’s that American in the monastery who’s always wandering around underground. Could it have been him?’
    The foreigner immediately understood the word ‘American’, even though they had been speaking dialect. ‘American? What American?’
    ‘I do odd jobs sometimes for the Franciscans,’ said the second, ‘and there’s been an American hanging around the monastery the last couple of days. They say he’s studying the stuff that’s here underground. He must get in through the catacombs under the crypt.’
    Philip jumped at those words and flattened himself as best he could behind the column, holding his breath. The dust clinging to the stone was so fine that any tiny movement released it into the air and he was afraid he would sneeze and alert the intruders to his presence.
    The foreigner seemed calmer now. His attention was attracted to the papyrus open on the table. He went closer and took a long look in silence. The expression of his face changed dramatically. His brow became beaded with sweat and his eyelids blinked faster and faster. His hands neared the sheet.
    ‘What about our money?’ demanded one of the two men.
    The foreigner turned and Philip could finally see his face. He was a good-looking man with handsome features, perfectly clean-shaven, but the gelid look in his blue eyes hinted at a capacity for great cruelty. Philip shuddered.
    ‘I’ll give you your money,’ he said, ‘but first I want to make sure that you haven’t brought any one else down here.’ He picked up the papyrus with the intention of slipping it into the bag he was carrying, but one of the men tried to snatch it away. The fragile sheet ripped in two.
    ‘Idiot!’ hissed the foreigner. ‘You imbecile! Look what you’ve done!’
    ‘We’ve never brought anyone down here until now,’ insisted the other.
    ‘Then we have to look for other passages,’ said the foreigner. ‘If you’ve never brought anyone down here, it means that he got in some other way. He might even still be around. Find him.’
    Philip felt his heart sink and he tried to creep back to the collapsed wall, in the dark. But after a few steps he bumped a doorjamb and the sistrum he had with him tinkled. He muttered a curse and continued to feel his way towards the opening that let on to the peristyle.
    ‘That way!’ shouted the foreigner. ‘There’s someone over there! Quick! Don’t let him get away!’
    Philip, realizing that he’d been discovered, set off at a run, stumbling and knocking against all sorts of obstacles in the dark, but he managed to reach the entrance to the cubiculum . He heard the foreigner’s voice shouting, ‘I’ll give you twice as much if you catch him!’ and the sound of hurried footsteps. All at once, he heard a scream of pain, and couldn’t help but look back. The foreigner had run into the balustrade and was holding his right side. His face was twisted into a grimace.
    The halo of the carbide lamp was getting dangerously close now, as the other two men continued the chase. Philip crawled up the pile of stone blocks and debris towards the opening he’d made under the beam. As he was trying to get through to the other side, lamplight flooded the room and the dark shadows of his pursuers loomed up behind it.
    ‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’ shouted the foreigner, but Philip frantically dropped to the ground and rolled through the hole to the other side of the collapsed wall. He stumbled to his feet and saw the light nearing the opening from the passage on the other side. There was no time left and Philip realized he had no choice. He crawled back up to the top of the heap of debris and, as he spotted one of the two men already peering into the room, he repeatedly struck the wooden beam with his pickaxe. As soon as he saw that the beam was about to give, he scrambled down towards the wall and found the opening to the external pavement. He could hear the