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He had to focus Soht over this tiny island for thousands of years since Legends of alithic stone temples that predated civilizations around the world… and now soue How did it all fit together?

He turned to Kate as the helicopter landed

“Can you walk?”

She nodded

David thought she seee to put his arm around her, but she was already out of the helicopter, and the two scientists were shuffling out of their seats, following her

Shaw and Kamau joined them

“I assumed the catacombs would be under St Paul’s Church,” Janus said

“No,” David half-shouted over the dying roar of the helicopter behind the that had been built in the seventeenth century atop the cave—now referred to as St Paul’s Grotto—where the apostle had lived so simply

As the group cleared the helicopter’s dying roar, David explained “The catacombs are just ahead For sanitary reasons, the Romans wouldn’t allow their citizens to bury their dead inside the city walls of the capital of Mdina They built an extensive subterranean network of catacombs—burial chambers—here in Rabat, just beyond the city walls” David wanted to add more—the historian in him could hardly resist The catacoan and Jewish bodies, laid side by side, like ious tolerance almost unheard of in Roious leaders

At the saans, Jews, and Christians were laying their loved ones to rest in adjacent subterranean burial chambers in the catacombs of Roman Malta, a man named Saul of Tarsus, a Jew and a Ro the early followers of Jesus Saul had violently tried to destroy the upstart Christian church in its infancy, but later converted to Christianity on his way to Damascus—after Jesus’s death on the cross Saul of Tarsus would become known as the apostle Paul, and the catacombs in Rabat had been renamed in his honor

David focused on the task at hand

They ducked down another alley and he stopped at a stone building The sign read:

MUSEUM DEPARTMENT

S PAUL’S

CATACOMBS

Janus pushed the iron gate open, then the heavy wood door, and the group wandered into the museum’s lobby

The large marble-floored room was quiet, eerily still The walls were adorned with placards, photos, and paintings Glass cases were filled with stone items, and smaller artifacts David couldn’t make out crowded several corridors off the main room Yet all eyes focused on David