CHAPTER 21

  THE FLOOD

  Uri, Mimi, and I cleared a space on the floor to dig for the mausoleum. We sandbagged the small space but quickly noticed the water was rising around us.

  Uri said, “This isn’t good.”

  Before long, the flow of water was filling the space we were trying to clear.

  “Quick, grab your packs and head back up the slope,” I said. The water was rising fast. We ran in the knee-deep water back the way we had come in and watched as the water continued rising as we made our way up the sloped waterway.

  The force of the water pushed Gianni and Cadmus completely under the water through the tunnel they were in. They were being swept away by the water through the waterway when the tunnel came to an end. The two men slammed into the dead-end. The water had nowhere to go but back. The water level in the tunnel rose fast. Gianni pushed himself up to the top of the tunnel, but the air space at the top of the tunnel was now a mere ten inches. It was barely enough room to get your face up out of the water.

  There was no room for him to go for air. He pressed his lips and mouth out of the water to suck any remaining air before he was pulled back down under the water.

  As Cadmus slammed into the dead end, he took a deep breath before the water covered him completely. He opened his eyes under the water, but with the rush of the sediment from the ground, he could not see too far in front of him. He knew he had to do something.

  While submerged, Cadmus felt for the end of the tunnel. He quickly swung his pickaxe against the blocked dead end. He aimed the pick end at the ground. He quickly realized it was made of the same plaster compound as the doorway he was able to smash open. With his pickaxe, he slammed the plaster between the floor and the sealed dead end. He refused to panic for fear he would accidentally take in a breath while underwater.

  Uri, Mimi, and I continued to run away from the rising water. The water continued to rise, making it harder for us to run in. I kept Mimi in front of me the entire time with Uri behind me, pushing me on. Finally, our bodies were running in waist-high water. We were running in a losing battle. The water was rising faster than our ascent up the sloping tunnel. We had to swim at this point.

  Gianni continued to swim as fast as possible back the way they had walked in. He struggled to find air near the surface but constantly forced his mouth to the top for the inches of air that remained. Ultimately, his efforts were in vain. The tunnel was filled with water. As he kicked to swim, he could feel his body struggle to gain momentum, and his reaction time began to slow. He could no longer hold his breath. He swam to the top, pressing his face against the dark, damp ceiling of the sewer to try to suck any air if it remained. But the air was not there. He gasped as he took one last breath and began to sink.

  Cadmus feverishly continued to hit the ground with the pickaxe as hard as he could. He too, was struggling to hold his breath. Finally, it happened. He hit the ground one more time before he dropped his pickaxe in exhaustion, and his body floated up.

  As he floated up the tunnel space, the ground broke beneath him. He closed his eyes and waited in the uncertainty of death.

  He had struck the ground enough to weaken the compounded holding back the water. The increased force of water added the necessary pressure to break through the end of the tunnel. Then the weight of the water became too great for the weakening seal to hold. The water broke through the sealed tunnel with tremendous power. It flowed freely as the size of the hole grew to ten feet wide. Before he could begin to paddle, Cadmus found himself being flushed down the hole in a waterfall that landed in the shallow water of a tunnel below. Cadmus was able to gasp for air on the drop down and managed to hold his breath as he hit the water. The drop was nearly twenty feet into a shallow pool of water,

  The rush of water pushed him deep into the pool, and he hit the ground hard and floated up. As he floated up, he could see a small ray of light shining in what looked like a cistern or storage basin used by ancient Rome. The light in the tank was limited to a crack at the top of the storage unit. He looked up and could see the tunnel above him continue to pour water into the basin. The tank was nearly 30 feet wide and just as tall. He looked for a way out, but there did not seem to be one. He did see a tunnel leading away from the tank, but the quickly moving water was filling the exiting tunnel, leaving no space to swim or climb out. Cadmus swam over to the side and was able to sit on a ledge and catch his breath.

  As Mimi, Uri, and I struggled to swim, the water suddenly pulled in the opposite direction. The water was flowing back in the opposite direction at a solid pace. As it flowed, we floated back with it until we were able to stand straight up and finally able to walk again. We watched as the water that had been stagnant for who knows how many centuries was flowing again back down the sloped tunnel.

  The three of us stopped and caught our breath. But as we realized the worst for us was over, we wondered what was happening with Cadmus and Gianni. I was again filled with dread as another one of my projects was ending in disaster. I feared the worst – death.

  “Come on, we need to find them,” I said. I immediately began to run back down the slope toward where Cadmus and Gianni had been working.

  Gianni, who had been unable to breathe, began to drift with the water as it shifted back to the direction of the hole Cadmus had created. As he drifted, he floated to the top of the tunnel and was finally able to take a short breath as the water receded down the hole. He gasped for air for a short minute before he began to be pulled in the direction of the hole. As he reached it, he grabbed onto the side with both hands and watched as the water washed over his body to the basin below. He held on for as long as he could before being dropped into the water. He hit the water with a huge splash. He finally surfaced and Cadmus called out for him to swim to the side.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Cadmus reached out and helped him get up on the ledge. They both watched as the water continued to flow over from the tunnel above. The level in the holding tank did not increase. The water continued flowing out of the tank through the open tunnel as fast as it was flowing in.

  As we ran back toward the tunnel Cadmus and Gianni had been in, we called out for the two men. The water was receding faster than we were running. It was at times hard to run on the slick ground of the aqueduct, which had been covered for centuries and was now exposed. As we continued to run, we came across one of our backpacks. Mimi reached into it and pulled out her spare flashlight to use. It was not soaked and worked just fine.

  We came to the doorway that had been broken down by Cadmus, which had caused the flooding. The water was still flowing in from the doorway but was only ankle deep. I stepped into that tunnel and looked in both directions. It was another aqueduct running parallel to the tunnel we had been traveling in. The water seemed fresh and was running quickly. I assumed the flow was from the Tiber River.

  “I doubt they would have gone this way,” I said.

  We continued down the sloped tunnel until we reached the end. At the end, we could see the hole with the water flowing very calmly into the basin below. I called out for the two men. But the splash of the water hitting below made it impossible for them to hear us.

  Uri said, “There is no other way out at this point. They must have gone down the hole.”

  Uri walked carefully around the hole. The hole was about ten by ten feet. He approached and looked down into the hole. The light from the small crack in the cistern cast shadows, and the water shimmered slightly. This made it difficult to see in all directions. Uri shouted down, “Cadmus, my friend, are you down there?”

  Uri’s loud voice echoed against the still, mostly empty tank.

  “Urian. We are down here along the side ledge,” Cadmus answered.

  Uri laughed with joy. He put his head up and yelled back at us, “They are alive!”

  I was relieved.

  Uri stuck his head back down, “Are you both alright?”

  Cadmus looked at Gianni, who was still pretty shaken up, and said, “Well, we are alive. I don’t think either one of us is planning to do any more swimming anytime soon, though.”

  We lowered a rope down with a rock tied to it so Uri could swing the weight of the rock over to them on the ledge. We raised Gianni first. The similarities to us pulling Gianni and Cadmus out with what happened in Greece were too much of a coincidence for me. I thought of nothing more.

  Once the two were out, Gianni seemed to be doing fine. He was tired, but he was getting back his strength. The five of us walked back up the tunnel toward where we had come in. As we turned down where the tunnel had forked, we could hear voices. I stopped the team, and we turned off all but one flashlight. We turned to the ceiling as a torch. Gianni approached the corner and listened. The men were speaking in Italian. Gianni came back and filled us in on what was going on.

  “It seems there was a flood. The water we discharged ended up flooding the lower east side of Rome. It sounds like teams of city workers are roaming the sewer system looking for the cause.”

  Uri said, “Little do they know the cause is walking toward them.”

  “What do we do?” Mimi asked.

  I didn’t know. We could hear men walking closer toward us. The light of their flashlights shining in our direction, we feared being trapped.

  “There had to be a manhole cover somewhere. We need to get out. Does anyone remember passing one as we walked back this way?” I asked.

  Mimi said, “Wait, I do. Back about fifty feet, there was a ladder.” We didn’t wait. We turned and walked back as quickly as we could without light and without running.

  We reached a section of the sewer that had been modernized and came across the ladder Mimi had seen before. It was like where we had entered the sewer system originally. Uri climbed up the rail ladder and pushed the cover off with all his might. It was tight. He struggled with it for a minute, and we could hear voices coming our way. Our hearts were in our throats as every beat thumped.

  Finally, Uri was able to get the manhole cover tilted, and he pushed it to the side on the street. He quickly climbed out without even looking where he was going. As he did, we heard a car horn honk. As I looked up, I could see Uri being caught frozen in the lights of a car coming right at him. We didn’t know what to expect. He closed his eyes, and the car swerved around him but continued to honk. Uri was safe, standing in the dark again.

  He reaches down for the next person’s hand, “Hurry, there is no time.”

  “Where is this manhole opening?” I asked.

  “Do not ask, Jack. Just move quickly.” He said.

  Mimi was the next person out. Uri grabbed her hand, and she was out quickly. Additional cars began to honk. It was now not just one car but many. Gianni was next. Then Cadmus told me to go next, and as I was climbing out, I could hear sirens. As I stepped out, headlights were shining on me. The picture of our escape route was finally clear to me. We were coming out onto the busiest intersection in Rome, where five streets came together,: Via 20 Settenbre, Via Torino, Via Umbrea, Via Barbarini and Via Leonida Bissolati.

  It was late at night, but that didn’t matter. It did not make any sense for two Greek men with two Americans and one Italian student to be coming out of a manhole in the middle of a busy intersection. We were caught, and the quest for us in Rome was over.”

  “Grandpa, did you go to jail?” Darius asks.

  “Yes. It was not a very proud moment for us. We spent that evening in jail. We had to wait until morning to see the police captain. With the flood water that we released, there was trouble.

  Darby asks, “What did you tell the police captain?”

  “We told him the truth. No lie would have been any better at getting us out of this situation. Without going into the details of looking for giants, I explained we were searching for the mausoleum at Sallust’s Gardens. I explained that I was a professor from the United States doing research. Lucky for us, everyone’s passports were with them, and we were all up to date.”

  “What did they do to you then?” Darius asks. “Keep you in jail?”

  “Not exactly. Mimi and I were released to our embassy, and Uri and Cadmus were released to the Greek embassy. Through our embassy in Rome, the very place I was trying to get into, we were told we had to leave Rome. We were told we were lucky the Italian government did not want to press charges for working without a permit on an archeological dig. It seemed that the news of the crypto at the embassy had encouraged others to come to Rome and do some exploring on their own as well. The police were overrun with amateurs searching for buried treasure. Lucky for us, they considered us just a few in a long list of people exploring Rome.

  The embassy asked us where we wanted to go. They didn’t care as long as we were out of Italy. Mimi told them we were not planning on going back to the U.S., just let. She wanted us to continue our travels through Europe. She was convinced that this was likely our only chance in our lifetime to see this continent. The consulate asked us to stay out of trouble and to stay on the tourist routes this time. They asked us where we would be heading next, as he was prepared to help us make travel arrangements. Mimi told him she wanted train tickets to France. He got on the phone and made the arrangements for us to get to the train.

  I turned and asked Mimi, “France?”

  She said, “What better place for us to find your giant than in Gaul, home to the kingdom of the giants?” She smiled at me. I smiled back at her. I realized this was her way to make sure I got this out of my system. She wanted to put an end to what had become a very dangerous search. I knew Mimi would want to settle down when we got back to the U.S. She wanted us to take a new course, and she knew the only way for me to get there was to find my giant so we could move on. She wanted to start a family and go back to teaching.

  I knew that this trip to France could likely be the end of the line for my search in Europe. Gaul had a long line of giants in their history. Plus, it was at the very least a less ancient time. We would be moving into the rule of the monarchs in European history. The ancient worlds of the Greeks and Romans would be behind us. Our quest would march us into the Middle Ages without looking back!”